Summary: HIV/AIDS and avian influenza a back-door Trojan for a computer deal with Microsoft deal written all over it

USING malaria to attack GNU/Linux is not uncommon. Gates loves using “health” as an excuse to lobby politicians and then have them commit to Microsoft Windows at the same time. It’s a clever trick. If someone berates Gates for suppressing GNU/Linux adoption, then his PR people will accuse the critics of leading to deaths of people.

In what initially seems like another Cablegate cable about AIDS (see these two cables), there is actually a part which says that “The Ambassador requested a meeting with Bakrie after learning of his proposed February 5 visit to the Gates Foundation through a Microsoft contact.”

Notice how the Gates Foundation and Microsoft remain inseparable. Then it says: “Bakrie hopes that Microsoft can help Indonesia expand access to computers in schools and throughout the country. [...] software for one million computers. Bakrie also hopes Microsoft will use its contacts to help persuade other information technology companies to provide hardware. The Ambassador noted that Nicholas Negroponte leads One Laptop per Child and offered to help make contact.”

Well, we all know what Microsoft did to OLPC.

Here is the cable from 2008:

VZCZCXRO7588
RR RUEHCHI RUEHCN RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHJA #0126/01 0220921
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 220921Z JAN 08
FM AMEMBASSY JAKARTA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 7703
RUEHPH/CDC ATLANTA GA
INFO RUEAUSA/DEPT OF HHS WASHINGTON DC
RUEHRC/USDA FAS WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS
RHHMUNA/HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RHHMUNA/CDR USPACOM HONOLULU HI//J07/CATMED/CAT//
RUEHBK/AMEMBASSY BANGKOK 8296
RUEHBY/AMEMBASSY CANBERRA 1899
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 1075
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 7717
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 JAKARTA 000126 

SIPDIS 

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS 

DEPT FOR EAP/MTS, G/AIAG AND OES
USAID FOR ANE/CLEMENTS AND GH/CARROLL
DEPT ALSO PASS TO HHS/WSTEIGER/ABHAT/MSTLOUIS AND HHS/NIH
GENEVA FOR WHO/HOHMAN 

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: TBIO, AMED, CASC, EAGR, AMGT, PGOV, ID,
SUBJECT: BAKRIE DESCRIBES GATES FOUNDATION AGENDA 

REF: Jakarta 68 

1.(SBU) Summary. Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Aburizal
Bakrie told the Ambassador on January 21 that a five-member
delegation planned to visit the Gates Foundation in Seattle on
February 5 to discuss health concerns and Indonesia's interest in
expanding access to computers.  Bakrie noted that the Indonesian
delegation would make presentations to the Foundation's Global
Health Program on HIV/AIDS and avian influenza and may also discuss
tuberculosis.  The Ambassador described growing concerns about
Indonesia's handling of avian influenza, noting that the Foundation
may be more receptive to other health collaboration.  Bakrie
expressed interest in joining the delegation if the Foundation could
change the date. End Summary. 

Proposed Visit to Gates Foundation
---------------------------------- 

2. (SBU) The Ambassador requested a meeting with Bakrie after
learning of his proposed February 5 visit to the Gates Foundation
through a Microsoft contact.  Bakrie told the Ambassador that the
Indonesia government had exchanged letters with Dr. Tadataka Yamada,
President of Global Health Program, and planned to send a
five-member delegation to visit the Foundation on February 5.
Bakrie explained that Indonesia is seeking programmatic support from
both Microsoft and the Gates Foundation on computer and health
concerns. 

Increasing Access to Computers
------------------------------ 

3. (SBU) Bakrie hopes that Microsoft can help Indonesia expand
access to computers in schools and throughout the country.
Indonesia currently has one computer for every 1,000 people.  With a
goal of providing one computer for every 20 people, Indonesia will
seek Microsoft assistance in providing software for one million
computers.  Bakrie also hopes Microsoft will use its contacts to
help persuade other information technology companies to provide
hardware.  The Ambassador noted that Nicholas Negroponte leads One
Laptop per Child and offered to help make contact. 

Health Challenges of AI, HIV/AIDS, and Tuberculosis
--------------------------------------------- ------ 

4. (SBU) Bakrie described Indonesia's planned presentations to the
Foundation on both avian influenza and HIV/AIDS.  The Ambassador
noted that Indonesia and the Gates Foundation could benefit from a
friendly but frank discussion of health issues. The Ambassador
cautioned that the Gates Foundation may not be receptive to proposed
collaboration on AI, noting growing international concerns about
Indonesia's continued refusal to share samples while its avian
influenza fatality rate is increasing and cases continue to occur in
Tangerang, the district adjacent to the international airport.
Bakrie noted that sample sharing would need to be worked out in
accordance with Geneva talks and dismissed the severity of the AI
problem, stating that tuberculosis is really the bigger crisis that
continues to be ignored.  The Ambassador encouraged Bakrie to raise
tuberculosis concerns with the Foundation. 

Delegation Members
------------------ 

5. (SBU) Bakrie expressed interest in joining the GOI delegation if
the Foundation could change the date.  Current members of the
delegation include: 

-- Dr. Nafsiah Mboi, Secretary to the National AIDS Commission 

-- Dr. Broto Wasisto, Head of the Ministry of Health Committee on
Drug Control 

-- Tantri Yuliandini, National AIDS Resource Center Coordinator 

-- Bayu Krisnamurthi, Executive Secretary, National Committee on
Avian Influenza Control and Pandemic Preparedness 

JAKARTA 00000126  002 OF 002 

-- Dr. Heru Setijanto, Secretary, National Committee on Avian
Influenza Control and Pandemic Preparedness. 

HUME 

Notice how Microsoft and AIDS somehow make it into the same cable. Is it about helping people or just corporations with patents (including those who sell very expensive drugs, not just Windows)? █

Update: Also see the following cable from around the same time. The subject is “Bill Gates Visits Indonesia for Global Leadership Forum”.

VZCZCXRO1698
PP RUEHCHI RUEHCN RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHJA #0927 1330653
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 120653Z MAY 08 ZFR
FM AMEMBASSY JAKARTA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8966
RUEHPH/CDC ATLANTA GA
INFO RUEAUSA/DEPT OF HHS WASHINGTON DC
RUEAWJB/DOJ WASHDC
RUEHRC/USDA FAS WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 7778
UNCLAS JAKARTA 000927 

SIPDIS
SENSITIVE 

DEPT FOR EAP/MTS, G/AIAG, L/DL, EAP/EX, EB/CIP AND OES/IHA
USAID FOR ANE/CLEMENTS AND GH/CARROLL
DEPT ALSO PASS TO HHS/WSTEIGER/MSTLOUIS AND HHS/NIH
GENEVA FOR WHO/HOHMAN
USDA/FAS/OSTA BRANT, ROSENBLUM
USDA/APHIS ANNELLI 

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: TBIO, EAGR, KFLU, ECPS, AMGT, PGOV, ID
SUBJECT: Bill Gates Visits Indonesia for Global Leadership Forum 

//////////////////ZFR/////////////ZFR//////// /ZFR
PLEASE ZFR THE ABOVE JAKARTA MRN 927 IMI PLEASE ZFR THE ABOVE JAKARTA
MRN 927 AND BLANK ALL ASSOCIATED MCN'S. MESSAGE WAS CANCELLED PER
DRAFTER. MESSAGE WAS SENT IN ERROR. WE ZOB.
//////////ZFR////////////////ZFR//////////ZFR 

HEFFERN 

Here is another cable of interest. “Government Leaders Forum Asia” includes Bill Gates, even though he is not a government leader (or maybe he is a de facto one). Once again we see how HIV/AIDS and avian influenza are being used to help Microsoft.

VZCZCXRO1610
PP RUEHCHI RUEHCN RUEHDT RUEHHM
DE RUEHJA #0932 1330854
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 120854Z MAY 08
FM AMEMBASSY JAKARTA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8969
RUEHPH/CDC ATLANTA GA
INFO RUEAUSA/DEPT OF HHS WASHINGTON DC
RUEAWJB/DOJ WASHDC
RUEHRC/USDA FAS WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RUEHZS/ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 7779
UNCLAS JAKARTA 000932 

SIPDIS
SENSITIVE 

DEPT FOR EAP/MTS, G/AIAG, L/DL, EAP/EX, EB/CIP AND OES/IHA
USAID FOR ANE/CLEMENTS AND GH/CARROLL
DEPT ALSO PASS TO HHS/WSTEIGER/MSTLOUIS AND HHS/NIH
GENEVA FOR WHO/HOHMAN
USDA/FAS/OSTA BRANT, ROSENBLUM
USDA/APHIS ANNELLI 

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: TBIO, EAGR, KFLU, ECPS, AMGT, PGOV, ID
SUBJECT: Bill Gates Attends Government Leaders Forum Asia 

1. (U) During the May 8-9 Microsoft Government Leaders Forum (GLF)
in Jakarta, Bill Gates praised President Yudhoyono for personally
leading Indonesia's national committee on information technology and
for setting ambitious goals.  Gates said that while not all of
Indonesia's goals in information technology will likely be
achievable in current timeframes, having lofty goals in itself is a
best practice as it serves as a driver towards achievement.
Yudhoyono highlighted the USAID/MCC-supported E-Procurement system
as an example of Indonesia's effort to promote electronic governance
in order to streamline processes and improve transparency. Over 200
government leaders and private sector participants from other Asian
countries attended the forum that focused on education, health and
economic development. 

2. (SBU) During the forum, Microsoft President Director for
Indonesia Tony Chen told Embassy staff that hosting the GLF
Conference in Jakarta was a boon to both Microsoft Indonesia and to
the Indonesian government.  He thanked Embassy staff for assistance,
emphasizing the important role Ambassador Hume played in allaying
Microsoft leadership's security concerns. Hume's trip to Redmond,
Washington was one of the important factors in Microsoft's decision
to hold the forum in Jakarta. 

3.(SBU) On the sides of the forum, a Gates Foundation official
queried Embassy staff on latest developments in avian influenza
sample sharing and on recent Ministry of Health actions barring
NAMRU-2 from receiving samples.  He noted that Indonesian media had
mischaracterized the Gates Foundation's interest in avian influenza
assistance to Indonesia.  The Gates Foundation was interested in
working on new vaccine development technologies that would
ultimately eliminate chronic global vaccine shortages years from
now.  The Foundation was not planning on specific assistance to
Indonesia to develop an avian influenza vaccine. 

4. (SBU)  On May 9, Bill Gates spoke to 2,000 assembled government
officials and students at a Presidential Lecture organized by the
Kadin Secretariat.  During the event, Gates recognized a student
group from Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) as the national of a
Microsoft sponsored innovation competition and also announced that
Universitas Pelita Harapan has been named the fifth Indonesian
university that will host a Microsoft innovation center. 

HEFFERN 

Summary: Convicted monopolist Intel joins the Microsoft-style lobby of advocating monopolies on mathematical ideas such as algorithms

ONE THING THAT INTEL and Microsoft have in common is that both are committing crimes to gain and to protect their monopolies and when legal action is brought against them they just pay a bribe to have the evidence destroyed and for the legal cases to go away. Both Microsoft and Intel were found guilty in multiple continents and they had colluded for many years (recent example [1, 2]) as they rubbed each others’ back and forced smaller competitors out of the market.

“Intel submits that if New Zealand chooses to provide restrictions on the patentability of software, those who will suffer the most include citizens of the country, and particularly those who develop software.”
      –David Simon, IntelIntel’s pretense (PR lies) is a subject we wrote about before. Do not believe what Intel says. It wants the world to perceive it as a GNU/Linux friend so that its hardware gets bought by people with a clue in computing. It’s a PR exercise. Intel paid SCO and attacked OLPC (which was Linux-based), then covered it up. Moreover, notes the FFII’s president upon this release of submissions regarding software patents in New Zealand, that “Intel says [PDF] you cannot distinguish hardware from software, very shocking from the number manufacturer of hardware” (does Intel ‘own’ the transistor yet?)

We have looked at the said submission and were appalled. There is also a very shameful lie there from David Simon (on behalf of Intel). He said that “Intel submits that if New Zealand chooses to provide restrictions on the patentability of software, those who will suffer the most include citizens of the country, and particularly those who develop software.” The very opposite is true, but don’t let facts gets in Intel’s way. Shame on Intel.

Glyn Moody notes that “#Microsoft fights desperately for #swpats” in there, but we already knew that. Microsoft and its front groups in New Zealand are a subject we explored quite thoroughly before (see this wiki page for details). The FFII’s president adds that the “European Commission DG Trade commenting on software patents guidelines in New Zealand, while EPC is not even EU law” (in New Zealand they try to legitimise software patents in the same way they do in Europe, by painting software as hardware or “device”). Mr Vassilis Koutsiouris from the intellectual property unit is deceiving New Zealand [PDF]. Is this what European taxpayers pay for? To harm themselves and empower monopolies whose billionaires have no qualm about lying? █

[Disclosure: Posted from an AMD box]

Direct link

Note: Pixel Qi can be used with other operating systems too, but there is GNU/Linux bias because of the OLPC origins.

“If this unethical behaviour by Microsoft was not sufficiently despicable, they did the unthinkable by involving politics in what should have been a technical evaluation of the standard by writing to the head of the Malaysian standards organization and getting its business partners to engage in a negative letter writing campaign to indicate lack of support of ODF in the Malaysian market. Every single negative letter on ODF received by the Malaysian standards organization was written either by Microsoft, or a Microsoft business partner or a Microsoft affiliated organization (Initiative for Software Choice and IASA).“

Open Malaysia

Summary: Microsoft’s attempt to conquer Malaysia, one of the countries where Free software and ODF adoption is incredibly high, takes a new route

Despite Malaysia choosing OpenDocument Format (ODF), Microsoft fought people who promote Free software and continues to do so. Moreover, based on three news reports that are written in English [1, 2, 3], Microsoft Malaysia is fighting back by recruiting developers (maybe incentivising or bribing them, as usual). From the Daily Express we have:

Software maker, Microsoft (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, is optimistic 50 per cent of the estimated 60,000 technology developers in the country will become its customers in two years.

And also:

General Manager for Local Software Innovation Azli Jamil said here Monday that Microsoft Malaysia was confident of doubling the penetration rate as the company was aggressively promoting its activities.

Promoting “aggressively”, eh? Given what Microsoft Malaysia has done so far (see quote at the top), there is hardly an ethical boundary stopping this company from attaining the goal of infinite control and wealth.

Watch what Microsoft is doing in Limkokwing University, based on this new article.

STUDENTS at Limkokwing University of Creative Technology (LUCT) now have the chance to download Microsoft Windows 7 for free, in an attempt by the software giant to combat piracy among students.

“Combat piracy,” eh? Were there any casualties?

Microsoft is doing this in many universities (maybe in all of them, to a greater or lesser degree) so that the students serve Microsoft and make the company stronger. Microsoft executives even brag about this strategy and admit the crocodile tears.

We have just found a rather disturbing piece of an apologist from Malaysia, describing a company that committed crimes as “successful and productive”.

This latest clash between Microsoft and the EU represents a continuation of the saga of persecution and injustice against one of the most spectacularly successful and productive companies in the history of business.

Already, there are signs that the harassment will go on…

The judges who attempt to penalise a criminal are engaging in “harassment” now, eh? This whole article seems to have come from a parallel universe or from the Kool-Aid fountains at Redmond. At the bottom it states: “The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.” It’s a good thing that The Malaysian Insider distances itself from such a rubbish article that recommends pardoning criminals and punishing or at least mocking the law enforcers. This whole piece is just noise, but why can this material percolate into the press? It even contains the obligatory, utterly blind Bill Gates worship and praise of “free markets”, which obviously did not work in Microsoft’s case (they worked well for Microsoft, which did not obey any market rules and felt “free” to behave as it pleased, even by sabotaging competitors’ products). The author is belittling the issues that are well recorded and documented (e.g. in Comes vs Microsoft). There is no excuse for that. He also writes: “The common theme running through all these cases is that Microsoft is too large; that by dominating the market, it has “abused” its “monopoly” power to compete in an “unfair” manner.”

“Those who believe that Microsoft is “micro” and “soft” needn’t look further than how OLPC was sabotaged by Microsoft and Intel.”Well, obviously the author has not done his homework. The quotes around “abused” and “monopoly” (apparently intended to be scare quotes, depending on one’s conventions) really give away the bias, don’t they? It is not as though Microsoft apologists never roam the press [1, 2], selling the illusion that Microsoft is a lovable, huggable company that’s being run over by those “ugly”, “vicious” truly “horrible” regulators (who are just doing their important job).

Those who believe that Microsoft is “micro” and “soft” needn’t look further than how OLPC was sabotaged by Microsoft and Intel. Yes, they even attacked a charity, as revealed by internal E-mails (from Comes vs Microsoft for example). Here is part of a new article from the New York Times:

Among the infrastructure problems that the Microsoft research team saw in rural India was unreliable electrical power. It spurred another Microsoft research project that provided farmers in one district with cellphones that supplied the same information via text messaging that the farmers had obtained from PC centers.

[...]

“We jokingly call it ‘One Mouse Per Child,’ ” said Kentaro Toyama, who led the project while he spent five years in the Technology for Emerging Markets group at Microsoft Research India.

Microsoft has been trying to replace rather than embrace OLPC, which insisted on giving children Free software that they can control. But to Microsoft, children are customers. There’s no money to be made from giving them real education and control. █

“Patent defence for free software by Andrew Tridgell”
Dr. Andrew Tridgell’s talk from the LCA 2010 conference

Summary: Microsoft’s top “IP” bullies commend Apple’s legal action and Microsoft owes VirnetX $105.75 million for patent violation

BACK in January we wrote about Tridgell’s talk, which is finally available for the public to watch (FFII made a copy). We covered his talk in a post about "Apple's Patent Threat to Linux". We partly predicted Apple’s lawsuit against GNU/Linux, using software patents in fact [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Now we know that experts allege that Microsoft may have played role in Apple's lawsuit. Microsoft endorses this action publicly (in a Smith's talk) and now Microsoft endorses this in its lobbying blog too. One of Microsoft’s chief racketeers, Horacio Gutierrez, wrote: “Apple v. HTC: A Step Along the Path of Addressing IP Rights in Smartphones”

One of our readers quotes the following portions: “There is a long history of IP litigation in the mobile phone market, and innovation has continued apace [...] as the IP situation settles in this space and licensing takes off, we will see the patent royalties applicable to the smartphone software stack settle at a level that reflects the increasing importance software has as a portion of the overall value of the device.”

“Is this Microsoft-codespeak for, we expect people to start paying us a hardware tax.”
      –Anonymous readerThe simple translation is that Microsoft wants tax on Linux phones. Microsoft wants us to pretend that mobile Linux too is Microsoft’s own property (the software layer). Our reader says: “Is this Microsoft-codespeak for, we expect people to start paying us a hardware tax. Something like they suggested to the OLPC developers? It’s in the Comes documents, in references to either ‘investing’ in the OLPC or getting them to stump up a Linux tax, can’t remember the exact words.”

With Apple’s lawsuit against GNU/Linux (via HTC/Android), the impact of Microsoft becomes increasingly suspect. Did Microsoft speak to Apple prior to this action? Either way, Apple is clearly a foe of software freedom and GNU/Linux users should cease viewing Apple as benign just because it competes against (or with) Microsoft.

Apple is clearly having a hard time competing against GNU/Linux. The iPad seems like a train wreck that even former Apple executives are negative about [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]. It appears as though the iPad’s target market is dyed-in-the-wool Apple followers. And surely enough, according to the following numbers, just fans are eventually buying it. [via Glyn Moody]

Orders for the Apple iPad fell sharply over the weekend, indicating that most of the real obsessives bought one on Friday.

As Ghabuntu reminds us this week, iPad is just a “toy” (Apple is irrelevant in places like Africa).

I just keep asking myself, what is it that makes Apple toys so special even if they come at a *huge* cost, both economically and philosophically?

SJVN writes about the iPad and resorts to discussing tablets that are better and run GNU/Linux.

After that, why not a wearable Mac or Linux PC? We’ve already had wearable Linux and Windows PCs, but those early models had all the problems I listed earlier. In 2010, it’s a different story. We may not have flying cars, but we can certainly have wearable computers.

We already know that Asus is looking into running Google’s Linux-based Chrome OS on wearable PCs. Who knows: in 2020, we may look back and see that iPads and tablet computers were only a brief rest stop on the way to wearable entertainment devices and computers.

Dell too is planning to release tablets that run Linux (maybe with GNU). Many of the ARM-based tablets look exceptionally promising.

The myth says that GNU/Linux is trying to catch up with the “Mac” and the “PC”, but when it comes to devices, the very opposite is true. Apple and Microsoft are just taking legal actions (intimidation or rackets) to tax devices such as the Kindle for example [1, 2, 3], which leads to articles like this new one from South Africa (where software patents are illegal but Microsoft vainly breaks the patent law):

Microsoft licensing Linux

[..]

Proprietary giant is licensing open source to its partners. What is going on?

Over the past few weeks Microsoft has been licensing Linux to a number of its partners, most notably Amazon. Although the idea of Microsoft, a company steeped in proprietary software, licensing open source software is ludicrous it’s not completely unexpected. It’s also not the first time Microsoft has played the Linux patent game and we can expect to see more deals in the future. So what’s going on?

[...]

Then in February Microsoft announced a deal with Amazon which it described as covering a “broad range” of products, including Amazon’s Kindle and Amazon’s use of Linux-based servers. Effectively Microsoft is licensing Linux to Amazon on the understanding that it won’t sue the company for infringing on its alleged Linux-related patents.

This is not unlike the agreement struck between Novell and Microsoft in 2006 in which Microsoft agreed to indemnify Suse Linux users against potential patent suits. That deal too attracted significant ire from the open source community.

The most recent Linux patent deal from Microsoft is a deal with Japanese hardware maker I-O Data. Although the specifics of the agreement are not known the two companies said that the the deal “will provide I-O Data’s customers with patent coverage for their use of I-O Data’s products running Linux and other related open source software.” Again, Microsoft is providing an assurance that it won’t file a patent suit against I-O Data for its use of Linux.

This is not the first time that a company has tried to claim Linux patent ownership and used that against other businesses. SCO is the most obvious example and they even went so far as claim that they owned Unix. SCO, fortunately, was never that successful at winning its claim over Linux and Unix. Microsoft on the other hand is a potentially different case.

[...]

Suing a Linux vendor directly over patent claims would be a shortcut to ending up in court. And being hauled into court would force Microsoft to open its books and explain what it is that it claims to own.

For now Microsoft is prepared to rely on compliant partners to create uncertainty around Linux ownership.

It’s a clever strategy by Microsoft and one hard to counteract.

It’s not a “clever strategy”, it’s racketeering and it’s illegal [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. It should be reported by vendors like Red Hat as it probably violates laws introduced with the RICO Act. The racketeering from Gates and Jobs goes quite a long way back. It’s just another SCO-like strategy, going back to around the same time as the SCO lawsuit (2003).

Speaking of SCO, a few days ago it turned out that SCO itself was behind the attacks on Groklaw. SCO was using Sys-Con as its attack dog and Sys-Con is now spreading lies about an important Free software project, leading to this reaction:

O’Gara Cloud Computing Article Off Base

[...]

This is just about the most naïve explanation for whether a product will or will not be stable that I’ve ever read. If Maureen had bothered to email or call any one of the core Drizzle developers, they’d have been happy to tell her what is and is not stable about Drizzle, and why. Drizzle has not changed the underlying storage engines, so the InnoDB storage engine in Drizzle is the same plugin as available in MySQL (version 1.0.6).

Watch the first comment which says: “There’s no reason to be nice to MoG. She’s the same hitwoman who wrote a bunch of pro SCO, anti GPL FUD during that whole trial (while being paid by them, while claiming to be impartial), including publishing a bunch of personal info about the previously anonymous blogger behind Groklaw.”

Few more comments like this follow, but a lot more about the SCO/Sys-Con attack on Groklaw can be found in this new Slashdot discussion.

In other important news, the Virnetx case is over and Microsoft lost. We previously covered this in [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8] and here is the news from Microsoft Nick:

A Texas jury has sided with VirnetX in its patent-infringement lawsuit against Microsoft, recommending an award of $105.75 million.

TechDirt already responds with some witty remarks:

In the last few years, Microsoft has become a bigger and bigger supporter of patents, which is a bit ironic, given that Bill Gates once pointed out that the software industry never would have developed if there had been software patents back in the early days. But, proving that new companies innovate, while older companies litigate, Microsoft has become a big patent hoarder in recent years. But, to date, while it’s used those patents to threaten lots of companies, it seems like Microsoft’s decision to live by patents, is actually costing it quite a bit of money.

Sadly, Microsoft uses patent trolls like Virnetx only to justify its own patent attacks against rivals. Microsoft’s #1 rival is Free software of course (although its embodiment can be companies like Google, IBM, Red Hat, and so on). █

“I’d put the Linux phenomenon really as threat No. 1.”

–Steve Ballmer, 2001

Summary: More Microsoft dirty secrets (anti-GNU/Linux evidence), courtesy of Comes; book about Gates Watcher retrieved, for its scoops to be shared more widely

A YEAR and a half ago we wrote about an HP smoking gun or at least a deja vu that can help connect Microsoft and SCO. Groklaw has just found an interesting Comes vs Microsoft exhibit which shows how Microsoft responded to HP’s embrace of Linux. From the introduction:

I have another Comes v. Microsoft exhibit to share with you, Exhibit 9542 [PDF], a November 22, 2002 email to Jim Allchin and Orlando Ayala from Mike Oldham. It has to do with a planned meeting on the 25th between the two companies, on their “Better Together” theme. I think it will explain some things we’ve sometimes wondered about. One thing is clear. Microsoft was seriously concerned about Linux. And HP? Somewhat flexible, I’d say. Note the part about “the HP plan of record” to “bring a new Linux powered device into the mid-range marketplace” regarding NAS devices (network attached storage devices) and how Microsoft was able to convince them not to do that.

Microsoft and HP recently renewed their vows.

From the exhibit we have : “Based on HP’s server shipments, HP reports Windows share is up one point to 73%, Linux is also up one to two points to 12-13%. This represents approx. 200K Linux servers in the next year. HP believes that a substantial part of the Linux growth is due to the declining share for Novell. However they believe there is a growing Linux threat in the enterprise space – especially financial accounts….”

“Microsoft recently used similar tactics against i4i and against OLPC.”That was in 2002. Interesting. We have more Comes material queued for posting, but not enough time to work on it. One exhibit [PDF] (full text here) that was shown to us by a reader is what Groklaw describes as: “Letter from Bill Gates to Robert Carr, GO Corporation, December 4, 1987 (“It is too bad that you never got a chance to make Framework into the mainstream product it deserved to be. In the objects we are building for the object oriented versions of our languages we will have a concept very similar to your frame.”)”

It “looks like useful work,” said our reader, who helped us see a similarity to Mono, .NET, and Java (former Java developers sometimes join Microsoft). “My point is to update the blank files on GR with brief relevant quotes,” said our reader, “And, for instance in relation to GO, to create a narrative from the texts. In this case, billg [Bill Gates] gets a looksee at GO technology, then after sabotaging GO, incorporates it [into] Microsoft product and later on offers the GO CEO a job at Microsoft.”

We have already gathered “GO” + Microsoft references, extracted the relevant quotes, and put them in chronological order, then inserted links to relevant original Comes exhibits. It’s quite blatant. Microsoft recently used similar tactics against i4i and against OLPC.

Our reader also mentioned the movie “Inside Man”.

He wrote: “Near the end there is a voiceover quote referring to the villain (Arthur Case), something like “he sold his integrity for money and spend the rest of his life trying to get it back”. Just then the scene switches to a picture of a billboard, of Microsoft. Get the movie [trailer] and check it out.

“No shot in a movie is by accident, is this an accident or not?”

Another reader has sent us some articles on Microsoft — old articles taken from different Web sites. “I’m sure you already probably know all this information,” he said, but actually, no, there is a lot of material there which we will organise quite soon. “If Boycott Novell website could offer a download it all as archive version that is html based, it can be translated very eas[ily],” this reader added.

This reader also sent us parts of a book from a revealing account of the daughter of Pam Edstrom (of Waggener Edstrom). Steve Ballmer’s wife comes from there and a lot of dirty secrets about the inner culture at Microsoft are being told there. Expect some interesting posts soon. This book is titled “Barbarians Led by Bill Gates”. █

Summary: More information about the two abusive monopolies and how GNU/Linux fits their puzzle

GROKLAW has begun publishing more Comes vs Microsoft exhibits, including some that we shared here before (some of these posts of ours made the front page of Slashdot, Digg, and even the mainstream press). This series from Groklaw began some weeks ago and we think it’s wonderful that Groklaw brings the material to a broader audience, using some of the transcripts which we worked on in the past (there is reuse going on). It’s a truly wonderful case of community collaboration for the sake of justice.

Some days ago, Groklaw published its own interpretation of the Intel exhibits, adding to them Groklaw’s expertise on SCO matters:

This exhibit, for example, is from early 2002, and if you recall Darl McBride joined Caldera, now calling itself SCO, in the summer of 2002, and at the end of the year, it was gearing up to attack Linux. That is the context. Microsoft by 2002, after losing to Linux in 1999, was still not able to persuade Intel developers to come back to Windows.

As you read the exhibit, then, please imagine you are Microsoft when Darl McBride comes calling with a plan to litigate Linux into the ground, force Linux to remove code SCOfolk thought Linux couldn’t function without in the enterprise, or place a SCO tax on every Linux server, all of which would make it easier for Microsoft to compete against an operating system that was preferred already at Intel. Imagine you are not the type to stay awake nights, worrying about business ethics or fine points like that.

Microsoft asked Intel what it should do. Some suggestions from Intel: improve interoperability between Windows and Linux/UNIX, improve “stability of environment, OS, shell environment, scripts, etc.”, find “a unique value prop that will convince EDA ISVs about the advantage of supporting Windows & .NET.” Intel reportedly offered to help Microsoft with developing that, “since they’re familiar with the terrain.” In short, if Microsoft could improve in interoperability, it would enable Intel to switch from Linux to Windows and .NET.

So all you folks helping Microsoft become more interoperable, are you working with a “new” Microsoft that has now seen the light? Or, are you enabling Microsoft to replace Linux, after you help them write the code and share with them the way to fix their stupid software? What are you thinking? You are doing their coding for them with a goal on their part you won’t enjoy. In short, the conclusion I reach after reading this exhibit is that if Microsoft can’t interoperate well with Linux, it will decline faster.

We have covered this before. See the following:

• Bill Gates: “Where Are We on This Jihad?” (Against Linux at Intel)
• Microsoft on Intel’s Anti-Linux: “Please Keep Confidential. This is a Nightmare”
• Bill Gates on Linux@Intel: “This Huge Driver Group Scares Me.”
• Steve Ballmer: “We cannot let intel do chip design on Linux ever”
• Bill Gates et al Lean on Other Companies to Derail GNU/Linux as “Main Stream Operating System”
• Microsoft: Intel Ain’t Done Until Windows Can Run?
• Bill Gates: “Intel should not just treat us as one of many”

More Intel exhibits are to be covered in the future (we haven’t the time to do that yet). We also have some alarming exhibits that show Microsoft giving hints of the SCO lawsuit (or similar). See for example:

• Jim Allchin (2002): “There’s Going to Be a Patent Lawsuit on Linux” (Analysts Cartel Part V)
• Microsoft Studies How to Use Intellectual Property Against GNU/Linux
• What Was Microsoft’s “Big Bet” Post Novell-SCO (2002)?

Here is a good comment from Groklaw:

These applications touch the heart of corporate innovation – the core designs and concepts that will drive a company forward for a decade or more. They’re more than just marketing numbers and advertising strategies that might affect their bottom line for a few quarters or two years at most. They’re important.
Given that Windows-only users are just the sort who take their work home on their laptops to connect directly to their home Internet connection without so much as a NAT router to protect them – and then click on any old flash game or link they find on Facebook – and then bring the same laptop back to connect to the intranet, is any consideration at all given to security? Do corporations just accept that their most precious intellectual property is flying out the door at an aggregate 1000Gbps? Or do they consider these issues and decide that the value add of Windows environments is worth more than keeping their secrets? If so, how? How do you sit at the table where supposedly savvy and responsible people decide such things and advocate that without being walked directly to the door by security staff?

We hope that more people will help Groklaw assemble what we have from Comes. It’s a fountain of knowledge and a peephole into Microsoft’s corporate crime. In Groklaw’s latest exhibit, Bill Gates is shown referring to his completion as “Jihad”; he has done that more than once (on other occasions), so it’s not just a slip of the tongue.

Earlier this month Microsoft and Intel entered a collaboration around the spying on users and profiling of their habits, having previously attacked OLPC more or less jointly. We will hopefully have time to cover this later today. █

Summary: Former Microsoft AstroTurfer attacks OLPC, calling a Free software success story “tragedy”

MICROSOFT’S attacks on OLPC typically come not directly from Microsoft but from unofficial Microsoft spokespeople like Rob Enderle (yes, he did that too). Those attacks have not ended.

Therefore, it was not particularly surprising to find former Microsoft AstroTurfer Michael Gartenberg (sometimes on the company’s payroll), who is currently serving Microsoft from outside the company [1, 2, 3, 4], throwing some more mud at OLPC.

In The Tragedy of One Laptop Per Child, Michael Gartenberg at Slashgear just called a million and a half computers in the hands of children, radically transforming education and social structures in dozens of countries, a tragedy. With another million on order.

Microsoft’s actions speak for themselves. James H. Clark, the former Netscape Chairman, once said: “Microsoft is, I think, fundamentally an evil company.” Microsoft is constantly attacking not just education [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9] but the developing world too. It’s all about money to them. 2 days ago we wrote about Microsoft's alleged “scare campaign” to derail existing migrations to OpenOffice.org and here is an interesting new comment on the subject (one among many):

First off,
- how many students complained about OOo? They don’t say
- Did the students or their representatives discuss the issues with the administration or the IT group of this municipality before sending the letter to the mayor? If they did, why didn’t they say anything about it in the letter? Sounds fishy to me.
- Did the blogger do any investigative reporting or just published a sensational article? There is a note about MS complaining but no mention of any administration comments about the subject. It looks like sensationalism at large to me
- Training is very important. Is the administration/IT of this municipality that dumb to roll out a new application before offering adequate training? I don’t think so. May be they did offer, but was not enough for some and may be students just chose not to attend.
It seems to me that some one is behind this with ulterior motives, especially when the reasons given are the same old ones we constantly hear from MS

It’s just like with OLPC. Microsoft exaggerates the issues and hopes that by declaring something “dead”, dead it will become. █

“Ideally, use of the competing technology becomes associated with mental deficiency, as in, “he believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and OS/2.” Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make the complete failure of the competition’s technology part of the mythology of the computer industry. We want to place selection pressure on those companies and individuals that show a genetic weakness for competitors’ technologies, to make the industry increasingly resistant to such unhealthy strains, over time.”

–Microsoft, internal document on “the Slog” [PDF]

Summary: Slime continues to be thrown at OLPC, thanks in part to Intel and Microsoft, the outlaw companies whose role in fighting OLPC was confirmed before

LAST week we shared some revealing information about OLPC (see the OLPC index). A few days ago we showed that OLPC was coming up with a new design whose architecture probably excludes Windows (ARM/MIPS). OLPC News opines that Windows got its way, but see the comments on this post (GNU/Linux was never a problem for OLPC). Evidence has actually been suggesting that OLPC lost interest in Microsoft and Microsoft lost interest in OLPC, which was never valuable to its shareholders in the first place.

For Microsoft, getting involved in OLPC was about derailing Google and GNU/Linux, as revealed by internal documents [1, 2]. It was not about children or education.

“The main perpetrators were Intel and Microsoft, which systematically dealt blows to this charity.”Over at Groklaw, there is a pointer to the article “Skeptics Question OLPC’s Focus With $75 Tablet”

“Because they always do,” adds Pamela Jones, “Perhaps some monopolies need to stop trying to make it an unachievable goal? That is, from my perspective, what happened to the first XO. So it’s a bit rich to accuse OLPC of not reaching a goal that certain monopolies tried to crush so as to make it not achievable. Shame on them, and go OLPC! I love the new design, which once again shows what vendors could give us if they only wanted to. It’s unrealistic only if you define realistic as making a huge profit on each device, n’est-ce pas?”

OLPC was a good case study in corporate corruption. The main perpetrators were Intel and Microsoft, which systematically dealt blows to this charity. Last year the London Times launched an investigation and published an exposé about it. Its verdict was that Intel and Microsoft indeed attacked the project. They harmed its reputation, too. █

“Ideally, use of the competing technology becomes associated with mental deficiency, as in, “he believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and OS/2.” Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make the complete failure of the competition’s technology part of the mythology of the computer industry. We want to place selection pressure on those companies and individuals that show a genetic weakness for competitors’ technologies, to make the industry increasingly resistant to such unhealthy strains, over time.”

–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]

IN OUR OLPC Wiki page we have accumulated some required background information. It ought to shed light on Intel’s attacks on OLPC, using a high volume of evidence. We won’t be repeating old information, but sceptics who are not aware of what Intel did to OLPC will still have access to information from independent, respected journals that verified the facts.

It was only a few days ago that we wrote about Intel’s crimes, for which it is being sued in the United States at the moment. A lot of attention is paid to all sorts of abusive monopolies, but Intel’s PR must be very effective because the company does not get much flak (not from the general public anyway) for crimes that it commits very systematically, then destroying evidence of these crimes.

“The lawsuits alleged that Microsoft not only engaged in collusion with Intel but that it also shipped a product which it knew was defective.”Microsoft was sued for colluding with Intel in order to sell “junk PCs” with Windows Vista [1, 2, 3]. It was a class action and there was more than one lawsuit.

The lawsuits alleged that Microsoft not only engaged in collusion with Intel but that it also shipped a product which it knew was defective. For Intel, the aspiration was to make money from spare hardware which it saw as obsolete. It’s the equivalent of a butcher selling an animal’s head as though it was chops or a shopkeeper selling bad carrots with a lot of condiments on them, in order to hide the fact that they are rotten.

We have just found videos that are only days old. We were particularly interested in Walter Bender’s wonderful talk (keynote). He is the benevolent master behind Sugar and his principles have earned him both fame and notoriety (among Microsoft apologists for the most part). Mr. Bender makes reference to the “Free software” community, which he admires (he doesn’t say “open source”) and in the following first video we found something particularly interesting that suggests Intel was pulling the “junk PCs” trick about 2 years ago, maybe in order to harm OLPC. Older evidence does seem to suggest that this was Intel’s intention. OLPC used AMD chips at the time, but it is moving to ARM now.

Skip to somewhere around the fourth minute (starting 4:15) and listen to what the man says. To quote:

They figured out, “OK, this might be a little bit too slow for our needs, and that Intel still had a couple of Celeron N CPUs on stock that they needed to get rid of, so ASUS stepped in and made the first EEE PC, which became a huge success after they announced it…”

Sounds familiar, eh?

Here are these new videos (in full).

Part I

Part II

Part III

As an important reminder, Mr. Bender insisted on the freedom of children in the face of pressure and abuse from Microsoft, which perceives kids — as well as developing nations and OLPC — as just a bunch of competitive tools to make money from (or otherwise bury). That’s their commercial goal and methods, which they carry out on behalf of shareholders.

To quote Bill Gates, regarding OLPC:

“Geez, get a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you’re not sitting there cranking the thing while you’re trying to type.”

This clearly shows how Microsoft has been viewing OLPC because it didn’t run Windows. OLPC rejected Windows, so Mr. Gates decided to publicly mock OLPC. Very mature.

Associated Press recently said that Gates is considered by some observers the man who pays enough money to hijack the educational systems around the world. We have provided a lot more evidence to support this allegation and here is the latest complaint which is just days old.

Since when was this country’s educational system run by Bill Gates and his foundation? When exactly did he and those he’s hired become the top educational experts in the country?

As far as I can tell this (like much else) has to do with who has enough money to boss other people around. There are supposed to be other values in a democracy.

And the irony of the man who was sued by the federal government for a monopoly now endorsing competition in public education hasn’t escaped me, either.

Let us never forget what Bill Gates does for his Monsanto venture that he invests billions of dollars in. Fewa has shared with us the following essay, titled “Culture Wars Between Farmers”

We are all well aware of the no-man’s land of cultural difference between farmers and non-farmers. Visualize on the one hand a high rise apartment dweller in Manhattan burning more carbon than any human ever did before in history just to maintain his luxurious lifestyle while fretting about the evils of global warming. Hold that picture while, on the other hand, visualizing the farmer out in his barn on a frigid December morning shivering and quivering while losing money on every pint of milk he produces and wishing that global warming would hurry up and get here.

But there is another cultural divide coming to the fore in our society, this one between farmer and farmer. The best current example of this phenomenon is the flare up of opposition to Michael Pollan’s books criticizing industrial grain farms and animal factories. Agribusiness has suddenly realized it can no longer just ignore the opposition. A large scale corn and soybean farmer, Blake Hurst, went online with something he called the “Omnivore’s Delusion” to blast Pollan’s “Ominivore’s Dillema.” The crap really hit the fan. Industrial farm supporters and pastoral farm supporters went at each other on the Internet like a couple of tomcats, the former labeled sneeringly as factory food producers and the latter called, even more sneeringly, “agri-intellectuals.” Fast farming vs. fake farming.

For readers’ convenience, we add references about Gates and Monsanto below. By fostering tomorrow’s agricultural monopolies, Gates is causing damage that most people don’t understand, yet. █

More about Monsanto:

1. With Microsoft Monopoly in Check, Bill Gates Proceeds to Creating More Monopolies
2. Gates-Backed Company Accused of Monopoly Abuse and Investigated
3. How the Gates Foundation Privatises Africa
4. Reader’s Article: The Gates Foundation and Genetically-Modified Foods
5. Monsanto: The Microsoft of Food
6. Seeds of Doubt in Bill Gates Investments
7. Gates Foundation Accused of Faking/Fabricating Data to Advance Political Goals
8. More Dubious Practices from the Gates Foundation
9. Video Transcript of Vandana Shiva on Insane Patents
10. Explanation of What Bill Gates’ Patent Investments Do to Developing World
11. Black Friday Film: What the Bill Gates-Backed Monsanto Does to Animals, Farmers, Food, and Patent Systems
12. Gates Foundation Looking to Destroy Kenya with Intellectual Monopolies
13. Young Napoleon Comes to Africa and Told Off
14. Bill Gates Takes His GMO Patent Investments/Experiments to India
15. Gates/Microsoft Tax Dodge and Agriculture Monopoly Revisited
16. Gates Foundation Funds Literature Supportive of Its Objectives
17. Bill Gates Tightens Information/Agriculture Grip on Africa by Funding African Journalists, Expanding to India
18. Beyond the ‘Public Relations’
19. UK Intellectual Monopoly Office (UK-IPO) May be Breaking the Law
20. “Boycott Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in China”

Microsoft’s principal booster in CNET has indeliberately posted newer details about a revealing conflict of interests. It is a conflict not just because Microsoft's Will Poole participated in sabotaging OLPC but also because he joined an OLPC rival after doing similar work for Microsoft. We wrote about this in:

• William Poole of NComputing (Formerly Microsoft) Blamed in the Big Collusion
• Is Microsoft ‘Hijacking’ NComputing in Order to Tap Children?
• Hiring Corporate Poison
• Moles Watch: Will Poole, Sprint Nextel, Wipro, Slate

Poole joined NComputing just after he had been leading the EDGI group. From a de facto Microsoft PR outlet:

The [Microsoft] approach is similar to one taken by NComputing, a start-up run by former e-Machines CEO Stephen Dukker. Will Poole, the former Windows executive who also led Microsoft’s emerging markets efforts for a time, serves as NComputing’s co-chairman. NComputing sells Windows and Linux-based systems to both schools and businesses.

[...]

The product shares a name–but is separate–from an existing MultiPoint product that allows students to each have their own mouse and work off a single display. (Note that the story I link to has Poole–then at Microsoft–talking about the MultiPoint mouse.)

So, he came to NComputing after he had promoted a similar Windows product inside Microsoft. How suitable. As we stressed before, this cannot be beneficial to GNU/Linux at NComputing. Who can ever forget what Microsoft did to OLPC? They should bury their heads in shame. █

Picture from Wikipedia

Summary: One person’s thoughts about the change dynamics which can help GNU/Linux

Brooke Crothers sees the Windows ARMageddon coming next year. He recognizes Microsoft’s inability or refusal to run on ARM and other mobile platforms as a detriment to Microsoft, not ARM. He also thinks that Intel is having a hard time competing without Microsoft desktop monopoly help and that the mobile revolution is undermining the once “outrageously successful” Wintel combination. While he understands that competition can squeeze Windows out of the market, he does not consider the global consequences of Microsoft’s criminal collusion to prop their margins up.

Windows Mobile is losing the last vestiges of its mojo–if it really had any to begin with–as the Droid and other phones based on the Android 2.0 operating system push the buzz meter needle into the red zone.. .. [many think that] Windows Mobile has now been relegated resolutely to has-been status. [Many quotes and a market survey showing Windows Mobile at less than 4% of the world market follow.]

Intel is chasing a fast-moving target. TI, and all the other ARM-based chip suppliers cited above, are slated to bring out dual-core designs that can hit speeds as high as 2GHz (think next-generation tablets and media pads).

Droid may not be the iPhone killer but rather the Windows Mobile slayer. Microsoft, of course, will always have the unassailable PC franchise. But, wait, isn’t Android coming to Netbooks next year? Maybe the real battle royal for Microsoft is yet to come.

Windows profits are already down by 50% but it’s going to get worse as margins collapse. TI and other companies have little to lose as the price of laptops and desktops falls to $100 because they were excluded from the high margin market by Wintel long ago. Today, their chips make picture frames and other gadgets that could be PDAs and tablet PCs with a small change in software and a touch screen. Because those computers can do everything users want, they will have little need for boxy desktops with Microsoft Windows. Windows won’t survive the transition as is because non free software can not survive in a world of computers that are cheap and just work. Their ecosystem requires periodic “refresh cycles,” planned obsolescence of high margin equipment and minimally modified software. Only the cooperative efforts of free software developers have a chance of providing complex and high quality software at PDA or calculator price points. A market move to free software on commodity hardware is long overdue and everyone but Microsoft and Intel will benefit.

“Instead of helping they conspired to destroy the OLPC project and foist intellectual monopoly treaties on everyone.”Collusion between Microsoft, Intel and others to thwart competition is really a story of global injustice. The rest of the world has much to gain from cheap computing, especially people in the developing world who have been unable to afford libraries, journals and other information vital to industry and the arts. Companies like Intel and Microsoft, that have brain drained the rest of the world for decades, know better than others what kind of talent is lost to knowledge barriers. Instead of helping they conspired to destroy the OLPC project and foist intellectual monopoly treaties on everyone. This preserved their margins for about five years but it delayed the era of universal access to knowledge and global sharing. Developed world money now wasted on refresh cycles should go to remaining competitive and the specific tasks that people want their computers to do. People in the developed world should also demand the freedom to share. Proper history will censor short sighted and greedy efforts to dominate a crucial part of cultural infrastructure and culture itself. █

Written by anonymous

Summary: NY Attorney General targets Intel for its crimes that even Europe and Korea exposed this year; but why does Microsoft get a free pass for similar tactics, including with Intel?

Andrew Cuomo, the Attorney General whom we criticised for his totalitarian stance on USENET, has just launched a belated US lawsuit against a criminal company called “Intel”. [via]

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against microprocessor maker Intel, alleging that the company engaged in a “systematic campaign” of illegal conduct to protect a monopoly.

Intel has already been found guilty in two continents this year [1, 2] (all those which actually investigated Intel). But Intel’s behaviour is not much different than Microsoft’s. On Intel-Microsoft collusion, as well as kickbacks with OEMs, we previously wrote in:

• It’s Unofficial: Microsoft Pays ASUS (Kickbacks) to Block GNU/Linux. Will EU Commission Step in?
• Collusion Against GNU/Linux and Sub-notebooks: Part II
• Intel-Microsoft Collusion in Sub-notebooks: A Smoking Gun
• Russia’s Antimonopoly Service Targets ASUS, Toshiba, H-P, Samsung and Dell for Potentially Colluding with Microsoft

There are many more posts about this subject and they go into great detail, typically showing how Microsoft and Intel engaged in illegal activities to control prices, to control inventories, to prevent consumer choice, and even to kill charitable projects like OLPC. There is abundant evidence to show this, but evidence is not always enough to get regulators eager enough to react. With billions of dollars at stake, companies like Intel and Microsoft surround regulators by lobbyists.

“[P]unishment for Intel may mean that Microsoft is next and a conviction is likely easy to achieve.”Some months ago we saw a front group of Microsoft (ACT) defending Intel in Europe because of the implications for Microsoft. As we explained back then, punishment for Intel may mean that Microsoft is next and a conviction is likely easy to achieve. Microsoft is still under investigation in Europe.

“Kickbacks” is the word one of our readers uses to describe what Intel relied on. “Intel gave Dell $6 billion dollars in kickbacks over five years,” he adds. “Sometimes the kickbacks were the largest source of profit to Dell, accounting for more than 1/3 of their earnings in some quarters. IBM and HP were also paid off and all but AMD reaped the rewards of high margins through collusion. Vendors who offered AMD chips would be denied hundreds of millions of dollars in “rebate” money.”

The links he gives are:

• Wall Street Journal: Dell Got $6B Via Secret Intel Pact

• BusinessWeek: Intel-Dell Dealings Under Fire

• CNET: N.Y. lawsuit details Intel’s ‘largesse’ toward Dell

Those Dell kickbacks are not news by the way. Boycott Novell wrote about them over two years ago.

“Dell also locked in a lot of private and government monopolies in the same years,” our reader says. “State governments, for example, signed exclusive deals with Dell, barring all other vendors from consideration. [University] Researchers had to prove special needs to buy anything else.”

Does that sound familiar?

“Barring all other vendors from consideration…”

Well, Microsoft engages in the same tactics, which are illegal. One country which is affected by it is Hungary. For some background:

• Can the United Kingdom and Hungary Still be Sued for Excluding Free Software?
• Has Microsoft Just ‘Pulled a Hungary’ on OOXML Voting in Poland? (Updated)
• OOXML Watch: Poland and Hungary Allegedly Influenced by the Microsoft Money
• Quick Mention: Hungary and “Microsoft Corruption”
• Latest Microsoft Procurement Scandals: Hungary, Quebec, UAE
• Reminder to Hungary: Novell is a Mixed Source Company
• Eggs Thrown at Steve Ballmer (New Video)

eWeek Europe has a report from Hungary this week. It’s going under the headline “Ditch Microsoft, Save £269m Says Hungarian Open Source Group”

Despite a struggling economy and public debt, the Hungarian government continues to spend millions on Microsoft licences when cheaper alternatives exist, say open source groups

With governments across Europe including the UK looking to slash public spending to tackle budget deficits resulting from bank bail-outs and other effects of the recession, open source could be an important way to cut IT costs, according to free software advocates.

Bulgaria and Latvia are stuck in a similar type of absurdity, as we showed just over a week ago. █

Summary: Another look at what antitrust exhibits reveal about Microsoft’s abuse of OLPC

OVER the years we have written extensively about OLPC because Microsoft was involved in sabotaging this project. The project committed the ‘sin’ of choosing GNU/Linux (the AMD component is another story), so Microsoft ‘pulled a Best Buy’ on it [1, 2, 3, 4] (or ‘pulled a Wal-Mart’ [1, 2]).

The invaluable repository which is Comes vs Microsoft has provided us with copies of confidential E-mails from Microsoft -- ones that show how it schemed to strangle OLPC. We have the entire shebang as plain text. A regular reader of ours has taken a second, closer look at the exhibits and the facts as they are known today. He shared the following thoughts with us.

“Take note of the times the emails were sent,” he writes, “it produces an interesting narrative.”

Highlighted in red are Microsoft’s own words. Quoting Microsoft, the reader shows the following: “We should see how we can “target” the funds for the specific research”

His translation of this is: “We should bend the research away from Open Source.”

More from Microsoft: “I think we should name our new open source license and romance its creation. “Education Open Source”"

“No comment necessary,” says our reader. Interestingly, Microsoft is still using the same tactics against OSI and the FSF.

Microsoft then says: “we need to manage the billg messaging carefully”

“Join ‘whatever’, then tie it up in processes until it’s a shadow of its former self. Then withdraw and implement your own version.”
      –AnonymousThere we can see the involvement of the ‘charitable’ Mr. Gates as well.

Microsoft views the truly charitable project as follows: “Clearly we don’t want a world where we’re flat footed as Google figures out how to give states or countries $x in hardware subsidy based on the devices being somehow locked to google search”

“Yet more Microsoft projection and paranoia,” calls it our reader. “This is *precisely* what Microsoft would do/is doing. How many times have they been caught leaning on the OEMs to give their stuff pre-eminence on the desktop, to keep the other fellas stuff off the desktop, including Dell and Intel – on their own hardware.”

Here is an example from Dell and several from Intel:

• Bill Gates: “Where Are We on This Jihad?” (Against Linux at Intel)
• Microsoft on Intel’s Anti-Linux: “Please Keep Confidential. This is a Nightmare”
• Bill Gates on Linux@Intel: “This Huge Driver Group Scares Me.”
• Steve Ballmer: “We cannot let intel do chip design on Linux ever”

The E-mails from Microsoft were sent (at least in one case) “from Windows Vista Beta-2 CTP”

“If they hadn’t expended so much effort in sabotaging the OLPC,” says our reader, “then Vista might have worked.”

“This is the mother lode,” claims out reader, further calling it “the money shot.”

“Presenting a clear and unambiguous depiction of the Microsoft Strategy,” he argues, would be valuable for future reference.

Our reader described the strategy as follows: “Join ‘whatever’, then tie it up in processes until it’s a shadow of its former self. Then withdraw and implement your own version. Oh, and they do get a look-see at the OLPC from the inside.”

Further quoting from Microsoft’s own mouth (Craig Mundie[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]): “Remember that a key part of our strategy is to create a situation where even if Nick [Negroponte] rejects us for philosophical reasons there is a long and visible history of our attempts to work with them and then we have to ask to get a license for the “open source hardware” and we will make our own offering on the commercial side.”

Our reader’s translation of this is as follows: “Remember that a key part of our strategy is to create the illusion that we are attempting to work with them and it was they who rejected our strategy and therefore we ask *them* for an “open source hardware” license.”

“This is interesting as in how recent it is,” concludes our reader (it is from October 2005). “It’s same-ole-same-ole Microsoft shuffle.” █

“Fat operating systems spend most of their energy supporting their own fat.”

–Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media Lab, rediff.com, Apr 2006

–Bill Gates

Summary: Project founder Nicholas Negroponte explains what is really harming the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative

THE former engineers of the OLPC project deny that GNU/Linux and Sugar were ever at fault. Instead, the real story has already been told in many posts and Nicholas Negroponte tells it like it is, also refuting a previous allegation that Sugar was to blame. He writes in response to a scathing piece:

I do not normally answer press and blogs, because we would spend all our time with words, not actions in the field But you are on a UN site and the UN is our partner. Check out Kofi Annan’s words — they have been fulfilled. Has it been harder than I expected? Yes. But do you know why? It is not due to what I had anticipated, things like corruption and logistics. It has been due to commercial interests and press, stories like yours.

As a small non-profit, humanitarian organization, it is hard to battle giants who view children as a market, not a mission, and have other agendas.

This is why the likes of Microsoft and proprietary software in general (even Adobe) need to be kept out of education [1, 2, 3]. They poison education by leveraging the system to make themselves young clients. Watch how Microsoft approached the OLPC project (confidential memo from Comes vs Microsoft litigation).

In other news about OLPC, some more units are being distributed right now.

Under this program, 1,250 laptop computers will be distributed to students in 13 schools.

Here is another new report from OLPC News. █

Summary: FUD from Nicholas Negroponte is being challenged

IN our many writings about OLPC, we’ve covered a lot of ground and explained why companies like Microsoft and Intel sabotaged this good project. The FSF may deliver a formal message on the subject later this month.

But what pretty much escaped everyone’s attention is the following post from Ivan Krstić, who is refuting Nicholas Negroponte. Bender went through the rebuttal to verify or maybe even endorse. The technical peril, claims Krstić, was the hardware, not the software.

Nicholas, evidently, still remains blissfully unaware of any of this. As is plain to see from his own words, what he considers to be the biggest mistake of the project has nothing to do with Sugar the GUI, and everything to do with the gross, hairy, complicated systems development work that OLPC was doing to support the XO’s special hardware features.

So there. He said it. He was among the key technical people inside the project.

We have just created a new page that presents the OLPC story in a more logical, chronological fashion. █

–Bill Gates

Summary: Microsoft drone Syncfusion uses ‘donation’ to spread .NET

SOME MONTHS ago we showed a Comes vs Microsoft exhibit where Microsoft's true feelings about OLPC are expressed. The company from Redmond only perceives it as an opportunity to profit some more. Moreover, if the project gets ‘infected’ by Microsoft (staffing and software), then it may turn off goodwill and GNU/Linux grassroots efforts. Surely a win-win for Microsoft, even if it abandons the project, just as it's abandoning sub-notebooks at the moment. Microsoft has a monopoly, so a techno-medieval status quo is wonderful to it. Microsoft is not interested in disruptive trends; it is interested in squashing/destroying them, sometimes by momentarily dumping to get into them and then decommissioning them from the inside. As Robert X. Cringely put it, “They [Microsoft] have the deepest of pockets, unlimited ambition, and they are willing to lose money for years and years just to make sure that you don’t make any money, either. And they are mean, REALLY mean.”

Now we find a company called Syncfusion. The company is about .NET, Silverlight and other Microsoft lock-in, based on its Web site. It has just issued this press release to show that it donates “addiction” (see Gates quote at the top), but it’s not even a donation per se. It’s just licences for binaries and the same illusion of “donation” Microsoft makes extensive use of when it puts a price on mere copies of binary files (or licences to run them rather).

ASP.NET MVC developers will be able to order the new Syncfusion Essential Studio ASP.NET MVC binary edition for only $5 and receive thirty days of subscription service. All proceeds from the one-day sale will be donated to the non-profit organization One Laptop per Child (OLPC). In addition, Syncfusion will match every dollar donated, up to $1,000.

OLPC should reject this ‘gift’. Other attempts were seemingly made against LiMo and Novell did this to Android. Based on internal Microsoft correspondence (antitrust exhibits) we already know why Microsoft wants to put .NET/Mono in devices.

“They are pretending to be a friend when in fact they were GPL violators who are suing Linux companies for using Linux.”Is it not funny how Microsoft — often through its partners — always invades FOSS mailing lists, habitually injects Microsoft content into FOSS conferences, and forcibly pushes its wares into university departments, etc.? Even our IRC channel gets populated by them; they pretend to be friends while trying to shoot down the true FOSS people or at least shoot down their goals [1, 2, 3, 4].

Right now, for instance, IDG is ‘marketing’ Microsoft as a friend of Open Source for resolving a GPL violation [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. Yes, those 14,100 lines of Microsoft code are used by Microsoft for PR purposes. They are pretending to be a friend when in fact they were GPL violators who are suing Linux companies for using Linux.

And in other news about .NET, watch what Novell staff is working on at the moment. MonoDevelop helps windows, but that’s OK with Novell. Another Novell employee is using Mono to help iPhone.

We have reached feature completion status for our MonoTouch project and we are looking for some adventurous iPhone developers that might be interested in trying out Mono for the iPhone and the MonoTouch APIs (A C# API for building Cocoa applications).

Novell’s Mono Web site already raves about it and Heise gave it some coverage.

The Mono developers have announced a limited beta and September release of MonoTouch, an edition of Mono for the Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch devices. The open source .NET implementation has had some hurdles to overcome to be able to work within Apple’s technical and legal requirements.

For those who think that complaining about Mono is “unproductive”, read the following new post from Mono-Nono.com.

Anytime someone squeezes out a discredited pro-Mono argument, anyone who has bothered to read this blog knows that person is ignorant. Anytime someone tries to pretend that every single Mono critic is a frothing-at-mouth irrational zealot, anyone who has bothered to read this blog knows that person is ignorant. And so on. So I’m thinking that I’m meeting my goals and being productive just fine, thankyouverymuch.

It’s easy to make the other side look like a failure if you redefine thier goal, methods and motivations.

Opposition to Mono is a matter of advancing GNU/Linux. Mono is helping Windows, not GNU/Linux [1, 2, 3]. Mono is also helping Novell. █

Summary: ASUS has made some questionable moves and people explain why

IN TWO posts that were issued earlier in the week [1, 2], it was hopefully demonstrated (and laid out sufficiently clearly) why Microsoft is behind the attack on sub-notebooks which run GNU/Linux. The following long post makes extensive use of evidence that we offered and shows that Microsoft is up to no good because it is most afraid of GNU/Linux, as ever.

Lately I have noticed a pattern. Maybe it’s in my head, but it is mystery that keeps getting deeper and darker as I go along. It started with getting very tired of seeing “Windows only”, or “Windows and Mac Only,” or “Windows and Mac for now but Linux Support Coming Soon.” These annoying statements seem to be showing up in more blog posts, and more download pages lately. For a while there I thought the tide was turning, but something seems to have happened. I know these are probably not all related to some grand paranoid scheme from Microsoft to sabotage Linux, but sometimes I wonder. For instance, what made Asus, the makers of the Gnu/Linux eee-pc morph into Asus the “better with Windows eee-pc maker? Something big happened. Some type of deal, that is very shady and almost certainly anti-competitive. And before that there were the linux pc’s on sale at Walmart- that suddenly stopped being for sale, even though they were making money for Walmart. So I know Microsoft is scared.

To present a clearer picture, Glyn Moody has composed this sort of mashup of evidence. Therein, Moody shows that ASUS is simply faking it.

And just to insult our intelligences a little further:

When asked about rumors that Asustek faced pressure from Microsoft and Intel over the use of Android and Snapdragon in the Eee PC, Tsang said “no, pressure, none.”

Riiiiiiiiight: no, pressure, none – perhaps he should have read his Hamlet (Act III, Scene II) a little more closely. If there was no pressure, why on earth did he apologise, making himself and his company look awkward? – it just doesn’t make sense.

Moody also drew attention to the fact that Microsoft is trying to move goalposts.

Microsoft to use a new term for netbook

[...]

Microsoft declined to comment on the speculation, saying Guggenheimer would provide more details of the strategy while delivering a keynote speech at the company’s Computex forum on June 3.

Microsoft’s strategy is very simple: pay whatever price is necessary (even negative pricing) to expel GNU/Linux from sub-notebook, persuade OEMs to ‘beef up’ their machines so as to accommodate a heavy operating system like Windows, elevate the cost whilst GNU/Linux is absent, commission a persistent Slog against GNU/Linux (attribute imaginary, inherent flaws in GNU/Linux leading to a planned “failure”), and finally hope that the problem simply goes away. It was almost precisely the same with OLPC.

Microsoft embraced sub-nobeooks in order to ‘extend’ them (make them more crippled and more expensive). Now it wants them extinguished. How is this beneficial to consumers? █

“Since when has the world of computer software design been about what people want? This is a simple question of evolution. The day is quickly coming when every knee will bow down to a silicon fist, and you will all beg your binary gods for mercy.”

–Bill Gates

Summary: European Commission fines allegedly returned to Microsoft via Romania

Microsoft’s OOXML ballots were a scandal in Romania [1, 2] (direct links), just like in the rest of the world.

There is active adoption of GNU/Linux in Romania (Ubuntu for example), but Microsoft fights back. A *buntu presentation, for example, got foiled/derailed by Microsoft employees in Romania last year.

It turns out that a lot more is happening in Romania. According to this post from yesterday, there may be an EU-wide Microsoft scam.

In what is perhaps a sign of desperation, Microsoft is really pushing governments around the world to sign up to el cheapo mega-deals that they think they can’t refuse. The FSFE’s Georg Greve points out to me in an email that there’s an interesting angle to this story in Romania:

It seems ironic that the European Commission has to fine Microsoft repeatedly over sustained monopoly abuse, then transfers part of that money to Romania, which enjoyed the highest level of financial support ever granted to a candidate country in the history of the European Union, and the Romanian government then decides to return part of that money to Microsoft with close to no tangible benefit for Romania.

The post then links to the following story:

The Romanian government is about to spend millions of euro on proprietary software, drawing flak from the country’s budding open source movement. “This government is out of touch with reality.”

The Romanian government announced its renewal of a framework software licence with Microsoft in the middle of May. The framework licence deal is worth 100 million euro in software licences to be used by government agencies between 2010 and 2012. Romania will also pay the software giant another 58 million euro this fall, as the final payment for the 2004 – 2009 framework licence agreement that expired last month.

We wrote about the relationship between the Romanian government and Microsoft quite a long time ago. With Bill Gates visiting and the defunct 2007 talks about OLPC it became clear that Romania’s government was a proud prisoner of Redmond. Rather than thank and promote Free software it just took pride in illegal copying that Microsoft permitted in Romania because, as Bill Gates put it a couple of years ago, “It’s easier for our software to compete with Linux when there’s piracy than when there’s not.” █

“How many crimes are committed simply because their authors could not endure being wrong.”

–Albert Camus

–Bill Gates

Summary: Spain is being taken over by foreign agenda and corporations, according to an unnamed source

Microsoft hopes to do in Spain what Bill Gates did in France and in Finland over a year ago (and in Portugal less than a year ago). Microsoft is losing ground to Free software. It routinely sends the über-lobbyist [1, 2, 3, 4] Bill Gates to bypass technical decision-makers and strike predatory deals which do not account for the desire and welfare of the affected population (victims).

Here is a report that was sent to us from a reader in Spain this morning.

This is a big and long one. Let me introduce some economic background:
As you know, Spain is being hit especially hard by the current economic crash. Due to the country’s reliance on the building and real estate businesses and due to rampant speculation, there has been created an enormous speculative/corruption bubble that has just burst, leading to the highest rate of unemployment in the EU.

Prime minister Zapatero has been trying to implement urgent measures and to boost public expenditure in order to alleviate the effects of this crisis. He announced plans to change the economic growth model from real estate and speculation (“the economy of the brick,” as we’ll call it here) to one of R&D, IT business, etc. One of his proposals was just announced a couple of weeks ago and it is to bring “a laptop per child” (kind of) to the Spanish school students, subsidising a laptop for each child of the fifth grade (12 years old) (a total of 400,000 or 500,000 units).

There is a document describing most these behind-the-scenes deals and the characteristics of this operation. The situation seems dismal.

http://devolucion.org/educacion20
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=es&ie=UTF-8&u=…

It will provide Microsoft Windows pre-loaded HP mini-laptops manufactured in Portugal by a big OEM (Same as the Magalhaes program of the Intel OLPC rival) and these will be serviced by the computing division of “El Corte Ingles” (The Spanish equivalent to Harrod’s — very expensive department stores), leading to an unnecessary and very, very high expenditure, none of which will benefit the local economies (El Corte Ingles is one of the largest enterprises in the country, with a labor policy similar to that of Walmart, i.e. it harasses labor unions, and never gets criticised in the mainstream press for fear of losing the expensive ad campaigns the enterprise inserts constantly in all the major Newspapers, Magazines and Radio and TV channels).

The educational contents (with DRM!!!) would be awarded to Grupo Santillana, the biggest educational books publisher, and part of the corporation Prisa Group, which is the owner of the biggest newspaper in the country “El Pais”, as well as many editorials and several of the country’s biggest Radio (Ser, 40) and TV (Canal+, Cuatro) channels.

It all reminds me of the recent Chilean-Microsoft debacle.

http://eldiabloenlosdetalles.net/acuerdo-marco-de-colabora…
http://www.elfrancotirador.cl/2007/07/23/el-dia-que-chile-se-v…
http://sss.cl/noalacuerdoM-G/

This measure has immediately been contested for its lack of planning and lack of any public tender by many consumer associations, retail vendor associations, teacher associations, and FLOSS associations around the country.

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2009/05/19/valencia/1242740973.html
http://www.apimadrid.org/2009/05/14/manifiesto-de-apimadrid-sobre-prop…
https://www.facua.org/es/noticia.php?Id=4146
http://www.apicv.es/?q=node/608

As you know there have already been several very successful educational projects involving FLOSS and GNU/Linux in many regions of the country (Madrid, Extremadura, Andalucia, Catalonia, Valencia, Canary Islands), involving specially-tailored GNU/Linux distributions prepared for education and for different regional languages (Spanish, Catalonian, Valencian), most of which are varieties of Debian or (Edu)Buntu:

http://lliurex.net/home/en
http://www.juntadeandalucia.es/averroes/curso-guada…
http://www.educarex.es/linexcolegios/
http://www.educa.madrid.org/web/madrid_linux/archivos/cara…
http://www.educa.madrid.org/web/madrid_linux/archivos/pro…
http://linkat.xtec.cat/portal/index.php
http://www.gobiernodecanarias.org/medusa/contenidos…
http://lula.unex.es/index.php?seccion=participantes

Now, guess what? Mrs. and Mr. Gates will be meeting with Spanish prime minister tomorrow (Tuesday, May 25^th)

http://www.adn.es/politica/20090522/NWS-2387-Zapatero-Gates-Bill-proxi…

Supposedly in order to talk about development projects in Africa jointly with the B&M Gates Foundation, but I’m sure, he will be there to make sure the Linux projects get abandoned and instead the Spanish students get addicted to Microsoft’s (and its partners’) products, thus securing not only the calculated 50 million euros in software licences it will cost the government, but a whole new generation of captive customers (along with the teachers and the educational system nationwide, and associated support/software contracts with MCPs and ISVs). At the same time it eliminates one of the “rotten apples” that could serve of example for other European countries willing to empower their educational systems with GNU/Linux and FLOSS.
Speculation: Top it maybe with some tax exemptions following the Irish (Microsoft’s European Tax Heaven) model, so MSFT can help Zapatero (being a total technological and computer illiterate, and ill-advised by lobbyists as most of politicians) with the “growth model change”???

And in exchange for what? Well, Joe Biden, who is leading a crusade to defend US media and entertainment industry and to obtain legislation similar to the French HADOPI, met recently with Zapatero and there has been an attempt to pass an EU-wide law that would allow national governments to impose their own “HADOPIs” with the typical excuse for the angered citizens “…we have no choice: the EU commands that we do this”.

Also, the US secretary of transport Ray Lahood will be visiting Zapatero next Saturday in order to look at high-speed trains and infrastructure: Many construction enterprises that are rapidly getting into deadline to pay their billionaire debts with the big banks (Santander Bank, BBVA and others would lose millions in their balance, should these deadlines expire and they would have to re-structure their balances, publicly acknowledging loses and losing many good ratings in the international stock markets) and are badly needing new contracts are expecting to be awarded contracts to build the railway infrastructures in the US (these are very big fishes of the Spanish stock exchange IBEX35 index, that many people suspect financed the political parties and campaigns in exchange for public works and building concessions by the governments: Ferrovial, ACS, Sacyr, Acciona…) and also there is the train builder Talgo…

As you always say: Follow the money…

More answers might come tomorrow. █