01.23.10
IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: January 23rd, 2010
To use your own IRC client, join channel #boycottnovell in FreeNode.
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Richard Stallman: Freedom Campaigner
[via]
Who are you, and what do you do?
I‘m Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Movement. I campaign for computer users’ freedom — for instance, your freedom to control the software you use, to redistribute the software to others. Software that respects the user’s freedom is what we call free software.
In 1983 I announced the plan to develop a complete free operating system called GNU. The system that millions of people use, and often refer to as “Linux”, is a variant of the GNU system.
What hardware are you using?
I am using a Lemote Yeelong, a netbook with a Loongson chip and a 9-inch display. This is my only computer, and I use it all the time. I chose it because I can run it with 100% free software even at the BIOS level.
And what software?
To initialize the machine and boot, it uses PMON. Above that, it uses gNewSense, one of the totally free GNU/Linux distros.
I spend most of my time using Emacs. I run it on a text console, so that I don’t have to worry about accidentally touching the mouse-pad and moving the pointer, which would be a nuisance. I read and send mail with Emacs (mail is what I do most of the time).
I switch to the X console when I need to do something graphical, such as look at an image or a PDF file.
Most of the time I do not have an Internet connection. Once or twice or maybe three times a day I connect and transfer mail in and out. Before sending mail, I always review and revise the outgoing messages. That gives me a chance to catch mistakes and faux pas.
What would be your dream setup?
I would ideally like to have a machine with the speed and memory of a laptop, and the display size of a laptop too, combined with the same freedom that I have now on the Yeelong.
Until I can have them both, freedom is my priority. I’ve campaigned for freedom since 1983, and I am not going to surrender that freedom for the sake of a more convenient computer.
I do hope to switch soon to a newer model of Yeelong with a 10-inch display. █
This interview is available under the Attribution No Derivatives license.
Microsoft Takes a Hit at Linux with More FAT Patents; John Ward, John Olivo, and McKool Assist Some More Patent Trolling
Urgent need to put an end to Microsoft and the trolls
Summary: Microsoft’s software patent war on Linux carries on, albeit very quietly; a patent troll represented by McKool Smith and Ward & Olivo strikes (quite massively too)
UBUNTU has been mostly apathetic when it comes to Mono and Moonlight problems, so it is good to see that Canonical’s technical chief gets a lecturing from Dr. Tridgell, whose warnings about software patents we have already mentioned (right after his talk at LCA 2010).
Matt Zimmerman writes
Andrew Tridgell: Patent defence for free software
I missed the start of this talk, but when I arrived, Andrew was explaining how to read and interpret patent claims. This is even less obvious than one might suppose. He offered advice on which parts to read first, and which could be disregarded or referred to only as needed.
Invalidating a patent entirely is difficult, but because patents are interpreted very narrowly, inventions can often be shown to be “different enough” from the patented one.
Where “workarounds” are found, which enable free software to interoperate or solve a problem in a different way than described in a patent, Andrew says it is important to publish them far and wide. This helps to discourage patent holders from attacking free software, because the discovery and publication of a workaround could lead to them losing all of their revenue from the patent (as their licensees could adopt that instead and stop paying for licenses).
Tridgell’s colleague, Jeremy Allison, has just warned about this as well (also at LCA 2010). He previously advised Ubuntu to move Mono and Mono-based applications to the ‘restricted’ repositories [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. His take on OOXML was seen as noteworthy and some would say prophetic.
Dana Blankenhorn wrote about Allison’s talk as follows:
Open source evangelist Jeremy Allison was in New Zealand yesterday, where he issued dire warnings of Microsoft launching a patent attack against open source to win back mobile market share. (Picture from Wikipedia.)
Allison, who famously quit Novell after it announced its patent pact with Microsoft, told a Linux conference in Wellington that Microsoft has to go to court or Windows Mobile is dead. He called a patent fight its “nuclear option.”
Allison is in the business of having no choice but to mimic or comply with a Microsoft protocol. The European Commission is on his side thanks to an exclusive resolution which came after a decade of fighting against Microsoft (which must now comply with the law or heavy pay fines, so it’s not a case of playing nice with Samba).
Let’s remind ourselves that Microsoft sued TomTom over filesystems in Linux. Andrew Tridgell personally suffered from this (he eventually posted a patch enabling Linux to work around the VFAT patents) and the FAT crusade continues as Microsoft signed a patent deal with Funai (for exFAT) a few days ago. Novell’s deal with Microsoft is mentioned in this new article about Funai:
Microsoft inks patent deal with LCD builder
[...]
Microsoft has a long history of signing high-profile patent sharing deals. The company’s landmark 2006 deal with Novell sent shockwaves through the open source industry, and the firm has signed similar deals with Brother, Kyocera and Nikon.
See our posts about Tuxera in order to understand Microsoft’s plan to tax GNU/Linux through filesystems (to begin with). It all started with Novell, which came to Microsoft looking for a deal.
A few days ago Microsoft sued TiVo. Asay (formerly of Novell) writes:
As Red Hat evangelist Jan Wildeboer suggests,
The 6,008,803 patent…looks very broad. Might affect all kinds of media center [software]. So also Linux apps. The real question is, “Which Linux media center app infringes on Tivo patents?
In other words, we’re not out of the woods yet, though it does appear that Microsoft’s interest is in supporting the largest customer of its Mediaroom software, not in undermining Linux. Not this time, anyway.
Microsoft appears to have lied about its interests though. Moreover, as we explained the other day, any attack on TiVo — whether it targets Linux or not — can lessen the usage of Linux by weakening TiVo.
From the comments on this: “More reason to detest Microsoft, just wonderful…. Microsoft needs to be dismantled.”
In other patent news, watch what McKool and Ward are up to:
McKool’s promotional material doesn’t emphasize its work for FotoMedia, a patent-holding company whose only apparent business is filing infringement lawsuits. As part of its litigation campaign, FotoMedia has been demanding royalty payments from more than 60 companies with photo-sharing websites. The McKool lawyer in charge of the FotoMedia cases was not available for interviews on Friday, and FotoMedia has not responded to TPA interview requests in the past. FotoMedia is also represented by John Ward & Olivo, a firm out of New York that frequently represents patent-holding companies.
[...]
FotoMedia is a patent-holding company that claims just about every photo-sharing website you can imagine infringes its three patents. Its lawsuits, covered by TPA last May and June, are notable not just for the audacity of the claims they make, but also because they target dozens of small- and medium-sized software companies that provide various types of photo-sharing services over the Internet.
Disgusting. Patent trolls and parasites, including FotoMedia which we mentioned here before. Their site lists not a single product and their job openings are just “for an experienced candidate to join the licensing team of FotoMedia’s parent company, Scenera Research, as a Patent Analyst/Engineer.”
Got that? It says “licensing team… Patent Analyst/Engineer.”
A “licensing team” is basically a bunch of racketeers like Sisvel [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12] and Microsoft. What the hell is a Patent Engineer? A fancy terminology for a lawyer?
We wrote about McKool Smith in [1, 2, 3]. As for Ward, he is working for patent trolls and suing critics (and their employers [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]). According to this, he’s also pumping money into politics (assuming it’s him). These people should not be allowed in this business if innovation is the real goal. They are leeches and Ray Niro is probably the nastiest of all of them [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. █
Arianna Huffington and the Gates Family Make a Killing
Summary: People are angered not only by the fact that companies are allowed to subvert politics as much as they wish thanks to new legislation but also by the fact that the Huffington Post helps the whitewashing of criminal activities
Readers of ours are rightly concerned about the role of the media in politics, the role of corporations in the media, and the role of corporations in the government. The skepticism seems justified as lobbying is becoming a way of life and Microsoft’s influence in the United States government keep growing, which in turn gives Microsoft government contracts and other policies that benefit Microsoft and exclude/illegitimise Microsoft’s competitors. This is very relevant to Free software.
Those who do not mind the role of corporations (man-made, artificial entities that are nowadays treated like organisms with feelings and rights) should read “We The People”. This state of affairs led to great backlash in the United States about a century ago when it was made a controversial norm and if the recent financial meltdown (paralleling the Great Depression) did not teach anyone a lesson, then hope (or Hope©) has its clear boundaries.
One reader has told us anonymously:
US Corporations can now spend all of their money buying US politicians and laws. There are no longer limitations on how much money any group can spend on political advertising.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story…
/*************** the money shot **************
We find no basis for the proposition that, in the context of political speech, the government may impose restrictions on certain disfavored speakers,” Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. “The court has recognized that First Amendment protection extends to corporations.
************* end money shot ***********/
It is incredible that constitutional rights are now extended to non persons while the same are treated cynically when applied to citizens. Public corporations, established for business purposes, should not be allowed to spend any money on politics. This imposes no burden on their members who are as free as the rest of us to say anything they like.
Expect very bad things to come from this.
Since NPR is cited above, it is worth reminding readers that NPR is given money from the Gates Foundation (which in turn receives good coverage from the NPR reporters, as we showed a few times before). To cite a trusted source about the news, here is Democracy Now (direct link, alternatives to Flash available), which previously helped expose the evil side of the Gates Foundation.
Influence on the elected government through bribes is a deplorable issue which must not stand. We previously showed how the Gates Foundation intervenes in education and makes Bill Gates a de facto education minister that no-one can elect or impeach. Posts on the subject include:
- Bill Gates Puts in a Million to Ratify His Role as Education Minister
- How the Gates Foundation is Used to Ensure Children Become Microsoft Clients
- More Dubious Practices from the Gates Foundation
- Microsoft Builds Coalitions of NGOs, Makes Political and Educational Changes
- Microsoft’s EDGI in India: Fighting GNU/Linux in Education
- Microsoft’s Gates Seeks More Monopolies
- Gates Foundation Funds Blogs to Promote Its Party Line
- Microsoft Bribes to Make Education Microsoft-based
- Lobbyists Dodge the Law; Bill Gates Lobbies the US Education System with Another $10 Million
- Gates Investments in Education Criticised; Monsanto (Gates-Backed) Corruption Revisited
- Latest Vista 7 Failures and Microsoft Dumping
WhatWillWeUse, a GNU/Linux advocacy Web site, has just published this:
She proudly told me that her home has been Microsoft-free for years. When I showed her this blog, she asked me what I thought of the Bill and Melinda Foundation’s recent contribution to Pittsburgh Public Schools. I thought about it and replied that IF this is an attempt to get more Microsoft in front of children, then $40 million in 2010 is too little too late.
The word “contribution”, as opposed to “donation”, is probably right to use here; it is “contribution” is the same sense that money is given from companies to government officials and their campaigns, later to pay off when they make concessions and return favours. A better word to use here is “investment” or maybe just “bribe” (there are strings attached); the latter is too crass, even if it’s practically true most of the time, only to be perfumed and replaced by euphemisms.
“Gates is laundering his reputation with the help of papers, many of which he owns or gives a lot of money to.”As many readers are probably aware, Microsoft employs external PR agencies that work around Twitter to incentivise pro-Microsoft tweets, suppress criticism, and report activity based on a sort of profiling of people (Microsoft McCarthyism).
Well, guess who joins this ‘PR orgy’? This week there is a new and highly-hyped addition, as Bill Gates appears in Twitter, reappears in Facebook, and creates a new personal site, which he obviously does not run. It’s just what Gates repeatedly calls “evangelization” in his internal memos (see Comes vs Microsoft exhibits). Gates is laundering his reputation with the help of papers, many of which he owns or gives a lot of money to. One of those papers that help the Gates family whitewash its crimes is the Huffington Post, which last year gave a platform to Bill Gates' dad. He used this as an opportunity to whitewash himself and his son. A few days ago it happened again, but this time it was Gates Junior who got a special spot at the Huffington Post. Our reader TheMadHatter was annoyed by this. He hastily wrote to us (the conversation starts around here):
FYI, Gill Bates has damned good connections with Arianna Huffington. She posts his wife’s stuff. She posts his Dad’s stuff. She posts Steve Ballmer’s stuff. Now she’s posting Billg’s stuff.
Bill Gates: Why We Need Innovation, Not Insulation
Which is pretty disgusting. No, it’s totally disgusting. I used to think Arianna was pretty smart, but this makes me think that she’s totally out to lunch, and that you cannot trust anything from the Huffington post anymore.
I mean, why, would anyone, allow a businessman who ran an organization that operated in a criminal manner, to use their publication that way?
A person with conscience wouldn’t, and it looks like Arianna doesn’t have a conscience.
Oh, and Bill is totally wrong. The article is about greenhouse gas reductions, and Bill is arguing that we need 80% by 2050. Unfortunately he’s totally out to lunch as us
as usual, and we really need 80% by 2030. What he is arguing is that he should be allowed to pollute for 20 years more.
Which is probably good for Microsoft’s bottom line, but is going to kill increasing numbers of their customers are storms caused by Climate Change do more damage. Of course that isn’t Bills concern. Only his profits are.
Sorry for the rant. I used to work in the emissions control industry. Whenever I see someone lying through their teeth about the consequences of not cutting emissions, I rant. Someday, someone might even listen.
Good Night.
Note that Gates is spreading the “innovation” meme. A few days ago we gave another new example where the Huffington Post gave Steve Ballmer a platform to spread the “innovation” propaganda for patents (Ballmer was co-author).
The part about Gates’ attitude towards the environment is not too shocking because Gates does not care about Global Warming. We already knew that. Is it acceptable to let these people educate the public and influence education?
The response above was actually not quite so crude. Another reader of ours, who goes by the name FurnaceBoy, tweeted about this more angrily:
• “@0r3z re HuffPost. Dead to me now that @AriannaHuff is allowing @BillGates to disseminate his criminal tripe there”
• “And finally even @AriannaHuff bought his bullshit.”
• “@joanwalsh What’s yr reaction to HuffPost giving a platform to übercriminal Gates? Gonna try & outdo them by syndicating Thomas Friedman?”
• “Imagine the ecological footprint of being @BillGates. All the planes, boats, cars, houses, staff. Probably equivalent to a small city.”
• “Imagine that: @BillGates, lifelong advocate of waste and embodiment of greed, wants us to “innovate” to preserve his obscene lifestyle.”
• “The best thing @BillGates can do for the planet right now is crash his plane into a mountain. He has nothing to tell us about sustainability”
• “Paying attention to @BillGates on energy and climate change is like waiting for the Kray twins to produce a cure for cancer.”
• “I should give @BillGates more credit. He *did* innovate effectively in scale & efficiency of organised crime, not to mention getting away it”
• “His company has served its purpose and will implode in a few yrs. Their business model is buried and the mastermind quit at the right moment”
“I tend to agree,” wrote Cubezzz in IRC, “it’s just that if you are the richest person on the planet people give more credence to your ideas… generally people want more of everything… Gates is merely an extreme example… what makes people happy? A lot of the time they will say “more money”.”
FurnaceBoy responds to Cubezzz by saying that “it’s worse than that. there’s nothing innocent about Gates’ trajectory. At some point you stop caring what his motivations are and start looking for ways to limit the damage he does. I couldn’t give a frack whether he likes money or 12 year old Russian hookers, but he’s one of the most destructive, cynical forces alive today (along with most of his peers).”
And on it goes:
| cubezzz | I’d still rather know what he’s up to | Jan 22 15:10 |
|---|---|---|
| cubezzz | not sure what I can do to limit his influence except talk up GNU/Linux and Wikipedia | Jan 22 15:10 |
| FurnaceBoy | right, i’m not sure either, but we need to find ways | Jan 22 15:10 |
| FurnaceBoy | i’m still stunned that HuffPo would give him a platform. it beggars belief | Jan 22 15:11 |
| FurnaceBoy | it’s as if they accept the whole package – Foundation, reputation laundering, everything. | Jan 22 15:11 |
| FurnaceBoy | ignoring that he’s on the wrong side of almost every issue, that his whole career has been about waste, theft and crippling innovation, etc | Jan 22 15:11 |
| FurnaceBoy | that his Foundation is doing far more harm than good | Jan 22 15:12 |
| FurnaceBoy | (deliberately) | Jan 22 15:12 |
| FurnaceBoy | cubezzz: I think he’s as afraid as anybody else of what happens when oil runs out. But he will always be part of the problem, not any solution. He could have started working on that 30 years ago instead of building a criminal organization | Jan 22 15:13 |
| FurnaceBoy | it’s not like nobody saw it coming | Jan 22 15:13 |
| FurnaceBoy | he never lifted a finger to improve the world, only exploit it | Jan 22 15:14 |
| cubezzz | there was that shortage in the 70′s actually | Jan 22 15:14 |
| FurnaceBoy | certainly there was. | Jan 22 15:14 |
| FurnaceBoy | but even without that, it’s just simple common sense. | Jan 22 15:14 |
| cubezzz | well Samsung is going something big in Ontario soon | Jan 22 15:14 |
| FurnaceBoy | i am not sure which part of “finite and non-renewable ppl don’t get’ | Jan 22 15:14 |
| FurnaceBoy | same as COAL | Jan 22 15:14 |
| cubezzz | with wind power | Jan 22 15:14 |
| FurnaceBoy | Gates has better information about how screwed we are. | Jan 22 15:15 |
| FurnaceBoy | that’s the subtext | Jan 22 15:15 |
| FurnaceBoy | and he’s scared | Jan 22 15:15 |
| FurnaceBoy | because, like everyone else, he stands to lose “everything” | Jan 22 15:15 |
| cubezzz | he probably has his own private oil distillery or something | Jan 22 15:15 |
| FurnaceBoy | his “everything” is just more than yours or mine | Jan 22 15:15 |
| *rofrol () has joined #boycottnovell | Jan 22 15:15 | |
| FurnaceBoy | cubezzz: no doubt he bought a pile of cheap oil. | Jan 22 15:15 |
| FurnaceBoy | cubezzz: but it won’t save him from total systemic failure | Jan 22 15:16 |
| FurnaceBoy | cubezzz: well he’ll reap what he sowed. | Jan 22 15:16 |
| FurnaceBoy | cubezzz: he did his best to break it | Jan 22 15:16 |
| FurnaceBoy | cubezzz: imagine how much fuel gates and entourage use. back of the envelope says as much as a small city | Jan 22 15:17 |
| FurnaceBoy | cubezzz: not to mention energy | Jan 22 15:17 |
| cubezzz | well since he’s so smart, wouldn’t he have done something with wind or solar power? | Jan 22 15:18 |
| cubezzz | not that I’ve heard anything | Jan 22 15:19 |
A lot more of this conversation can be seen in the full log. █
Licensing Woes and Bullying: the Sad Reality of Proprietary Software
Summary: Two new items which shed light on the pains of proprietary software, which is as rigid as a microchip
• Licensing Woes of Proprietary Software
Don’t get me wrong, migrating away from any proprietary application can be very time consuming and costly. However, in the big picture, migrating to open source software will save in the long run. The migration is a one-time move, after that move is done no more upgrades and licenses need to be purchased ever again. There are also many many other bonuses to using open source software that will add up over time. Open source software is free as in freedom, and is developed by the community, not a single entity behind closed doors.
• The Likely Victims of This Year’s BSA raid: Internet Cafe’s and Other Computer Rental Businesses
Do you run a business that involves any form of computer rental such as internet cafe, for-profit computer training center, and/or hotel that provides computers for the convenience of the guests? Do you live in a country like Taiwan where BSA (Business Software Alliance) does yearly raid to small and medium businesses with the help of your government because they are pressured by, or have some inconvenient relationship with BSA? My guess is that BSA will target this new group of software “pirates” — yes even if they have already paid for the first layer of the Microsoft taxes. But there is a way — maybe even a much more profitable way — out if you are willing to try diskless computers + mother tongue bootable usb keys.
We have also written about Microsoft’s actions against GNU/Linux in Internet cafés under [1, 2].
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Messages from the Thought Police (Microsoft/Novell)
Summary: The Microsoft boosters spread GNU/Linux FUD even upon the release of Firefox 3.6 while Novell and Microsoft groom another journalist for coverage of their joint products and glorification of their patent deal
WE GENERALLY avoid Microsoft’s talking head Preston Gralla, but sometimes we do provide examples to show/remind readers that his real masters are at Redmond [1, 2, 3, 4]. He hardly hides this and he probably would not deny it, either. For those who are not yet familiar with his repertoire, Carla from Linux Today provides another fine example (she did this before), noting that IDG is publishing Gralla FUD several times with different GNU/Linux-hostile headlines. Her personal comment is:
Goofy Anti-Linux Story Repurposed With Scarier Title
[...]
With all the wonderful, cool advances in high tech, just how devoid of curiosity, imagination, and knowledge does a person have to be to publish silly crud like this? Is it really that hard to find something interesting, true, and useful to write about? Something of actual substance and value? And to think I was feeling happy about PC World publishing more Linux stories–ed
In the comments we find: “FUD. Pure propagandist FUD. Preston Gralla would make a great politician.” Speaking of which, politicians are indeed the same. “Here’s cool stuff from a US politician,” says a reader of ours who read Hillary Clinton’s speech that we mentioned in the daily links (twice even). Quoting from her speech he writes:
“new technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress, but the United States does. We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. And we recognize that the world’s information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it. Now, this challenge may be new, but our responsibility to help ensure the free exchange of ideas goes back to the birth of our republic.”
Good words, I wonder if she means it. Well, no, she does not:
“we must also grapple with the issue of anonymous speech. Those who use the internet to recruit terrorists or distribute stolen intellectual property cannot divorce their online actions from their real world identities.”
“Intellectual property” is a confusion invented by people at odds with freedom and we should not expect freedom from people who talk about it. Mentioning in the same breath terrorists and people who would share their libraries is a terrible injustice. Anonymous speech is recognized by US jurisprudence as a precondition for real freedom of speech and anonymity is something that only the most tyrannical of police states can eliminate, especially on the Internet. The equipment and manpower needed to defeat people’s ability to share is beyond the plans and dreams of the former Soviet dictators mentioned.
In other news, David Worthington sets himself to be indoctrinated with lies about the Microsoft/Novell deal (spin and marketing nonsense). He is hopefully not gullible this time around because previously he was promoting Novell and Novell’s Mono after speaking to DiDio and other Microsoft employees [1, 2, 3] (not just the known Mirosoft agents that work from outside the company).
Here is the prelude:
I spent the day touring Microsoft’s Cambridge office to learn more about the nature of its relationship with Novell. In the coming days I’ll be writing about a new project that the companies have jointly developed, and will examine how they work together in their interoperability labs. Expect a few surprises.
It seems like Microsoft/Novell successfully ‘recruited’ someone to tell their lies to the public, just as Novell did in London two months ago [1, 2, 3], only to be slammed for the lies it had journalists put in print. These are merciless companies whose business model relies on lying at a massive scale; they call it “PR”, which is just a euphemism for "propaganda".
Worthington will hopefully not repeat — or shall we say “parrot” — the lies from Microsoft and Novell, which they might as well truly believe in when they speak to him*. If Worthington is unsure about something or does not know the ‘antispin’, then he can pop in and ask. We are mostly a polite bunch, contrary to what Novell and Microsoft have people think. █
_____
* For the sake of morale they live in a parallel universe and that’s just the nature of indoctrination, which readers of ours who have friends at Microsoft have witnessed a lot of. We also have regulars in the IRC channel who are Microsoft employees and they are out of touch with reality (distortion of facts).
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Internet Explorer Vulnerable a Day After the Critical Patch, Firefox Keeps Gaining, But China Remains Stuck
Summary: Microsoft’s Web browser is still Swiss cheese, Firefox is gaining, but over in China, the Internet’s largest population, Microsoft has managed to create a lock-in that prevents Firefox migrations
Internet Explorer (IE) received a lot of floggings this month [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9] because Microsoft is extremely negligent when it comes to security [1, 2, 3] and it lies about the security of rival products.
Microsoft claims to have patched IE, but this was short lived as a new IE vulnerability surfaced just one day after the patch:
Expert finds vulnerabilities in Microsoft browser
A security research firm said it discovered another set of vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer, a day after Microsoft Corp patched the Web browser following a high-profile cyber attack on Google in China.
As a joke, someone has just published: “IE is so secure we just had to build an OS out of it.” [satire]
Microsofts new Gazelle concept is the greatest thing to hit Linux or the computer industry as a whole ever. According to Microsoft, Gazelle is a secure web browser constructed as a multi-principal OS. I never thought I would live to see the day that Microsoft announces its own suicide.
I also never imagined that you could become a top executive and yet be so absolutely clueless as to sell an idea to the board that will mark their own demise and yet be so blinded by greed that the obvious has become a non issuing factor.
Firefox 3.6 has just been released and Mozilla continues making gains (because or IE flaws for the most part.)
Firefox, Opera downloads surge after IE security scare
Internet browsers Firefox and Opera have experienced a massive surge in downloads since the security flaw in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) was exposed.
Firefox owner Mozilla claims it has experienced more than 300,000 extra downloads over a four-day period in Germany that started last Friday. Opera downloads in Germany amounted to over 18,000 in a day over last weekend.
Opera is proprietary software, so we can only endorse Firefox and some GNU/Linux-specific browsers. The Chrome EULA gives reasons to stick with Mozilla and with Firefox.
This brings us back to China, whose confrontation with Google is the event which kick-started this whole massive debate about Internet Explorer.
Microsoft had created a monoculture in Web browsers and then infected the Web with IE-only features that causes a lot of trouble in Korea [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] (ActiveX is mostly to blame). Well, it turns out that in China too Microsoft created such a problem. Here is a new post about the subject:
China’s Strange Fixation on IE6
[...]
The scene in China is markedly different. Tons of websites, including commonly used ones, have been constructed and tested to work with IE6 only, without consideration of web standard (W3C), non-IE browsers (Firefox), or non-Windows platforms (Linux). This proliferation of non-standard websites is partly the result of ignorance. Remember the recent Green Dam fiasco? Green Dam was designed to block undesirable websites, but it only works if you access the web with IE. If you use Firefox, Green Dam has no effect.
From Microsoft’s point of view, this is not a coincidence; It’s by design. █
“In one piece of mail people were suggesting that Office had to work equally well with all browsers and that we shouldn’t force Office users to use our browser. This Is wrong and I wanted to correct this.
“Another suggestion In this mail was that we can’t make our own unilateral extensions to HTML I was going to say this was wrong and correct this also.”
–Bill Gates [PDF]
Another Microsoft Vice President Abandons the Company
Any more corporate vice presidents left to jump ship?
Summary: Enrique Rodriguez is the latest corporate vice president to leave Microsoft ”to pursue other interests” and Microsoft is already spinning the news, having previously hidden it
THE GREAT exodus of Microsoft managers continues in its destructive path that breeds disarray. Microsoft still announces these departures secretly (or lets them be known a long time after the actual departures, usually upon questioning). It is essentially hiding or sweeping bad news under the rug using those classic and shameless euphemisms like “reorganisation”, which is what Microsoft and Novell typically call it when there is an en masse departure (exodus) leaving a management vacuum. The departure of Rodriguez is almost impossible to find, but it was bundled and lumped onto another blog post.
Earlier this week, Microsoft reorg’d the TV, Video and Media (TVM) group, which was headed by Corporate Vice President Enrique Rodriguez. Rodriquez has left the company (”decided to pursue other interests”).
Wow. Why didn’t Microsoft announce this? At first it was unknown what would happen to Rodriguez, but Microsoft watcher Joseph Tartakoff eventually confirmed that he was leaving.
According to Tartakoff, “Last February, Microsoft split the Zune team along hardware and software lines, putting Zune software—like the ZunePass music subscription service—under Rodriguez, while placing the Zune hardware business under the auspices of a Windows Mobile executive.”
“I don’t think Microsoft can differentiate between truth and lie now…”
–GoblinIt seems like Windows Mobile is indeed due to appear only next year [1, 2], as some recent rumours suggested. This is disastrous to Windows as Linux is already making huge gains. Microsoft responds to this by throwing FUD at mobile Linux (leading to backlash) because it's the only strategy Microsoft understands.
Microsoft basically chooses the Linux FUD that “choice is detrimental”, which is a myth that has been debunked a lot, more recently even by Nokia (which champions Symbian and dominates the mobile market). We also found a couple of UK-based journalists who are typically hostile towards Linux (Kelly Fiveash is one of them) spreading the myth that only people are are paid to code will ever write Free software like Linux. It is important to watch how (and respond to) the Microsoft boosters try to spin good news about developers being paid to write GPL-licensed code as something that’s bad news for Linux. It is rather amazing how dishonest one can be given the convictions and sometimes the incentives from Microsoft. The recipe for spinning good news as bad news (and vice versa) can also be seen above, as a departure of a vice president gets described as something positive, a “reorganisation”.
“I think Microsoft has become so caught up in its own PR it actually believes everything it says,” said our reader Goblin last night, adding: “I don’t think Microsoft can differentiate between truth and lie now [...] and those MS employee’s that know the truth, won’t dare say it because they’ll lose their jobs. [...] there was a chap who was left behind in WW1 and believed the war was still going on…..that’s a little how Ballmer is, he is told what he wants to hear and the wibbly wobbly world he lives in is not the one everyone else is….that explains his bizarre behavior.”
Our reader FurnaceBoy shrewdly said that “truth is sunlight to the Microsoft vampire” and Goblin then found this gem from the news:
Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg said in a recent interview:
We never intended to ever mislead people. [...]
Right. Of course. █
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