Links 21/02/2008: Lots on Open Source, Lots of Trouble at Redmond, WA
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2008-02-21 15:12:17 UTC
- Modified: 2008-02-21 15:16:19 UTC
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Richard Stallman's Talk at Georgia Tech is Just 2 Days Away
- We're still curious to see how malicious people (or trolls) in social control media will try to slant his talk as "bad"
- The "Alicante Mafia" - Part VII - The Industrial Actions Began Yesterday, Here's Why
- The "Alicante Mafia" might not last much longer
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- Google News Still a Feeder of Slop About "Linux", Which Became Rarer in 2026
- Our main concern these days is what happened to Linuxiac. Bobby Borisov became a chatbots addict.
- Links 21/01/2026: "Snap Settles Lawsuit on Social Media Addiction" and Attempts in the US to Revive Software Patents
- Links for the day
- Links 21/01/2026: Microsoft 'Open' 'Hey Hi' in More Trouble, US Has "Brown Shirts" Problem
- Links for the day
- Yesterday Afternoon The Register MS Published Paid Microsoft SPAM Disguised as an Article About "AI PCs"
- The Register MS cannot help itself, can it? [...] Follow the money.
- Microsoft's XBox is in Effect Dead Already, Now It's a Streaming and Advertising Platform
- Expect many layoffs soon
- EPO's Web Site Misused for Propaganda About Illegal Kangaroo Courts to Distract From EPO Scandals and Judicial Crisis in Europe
- UPC is illegal and unconstitutional
- Gemini Links 21/01/2026: Edible Circuits and "Sayonara HTTP"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, January 20, 2026
- IRC logs for Tuesday, January 20, 2026
- IBM Hides Its Own Destruction (and Red Hat's)
- It's like scenes out of '1984', which is what a now-famous advertisement from Apple compared IBM to
- LLM Slop Not Dead Yet, Examples of Slop About "Linux"
- We wish to see the totals down to zero
- Links 20/01/2026: Cheeto Blackmails France Into 'Peace' While Looking to Annex EU, Mass Layoffs in Capgemini (Microsoft Reseller/Promoter) in France
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 20/01/2026: Boxing and "Inbox Zero" Success
- Links for the day
- Windows and Slop Declining While Microsoft Silences Critics
- Microsoft tries to suppress facts while faking 'demand' by imposing slop on everybody, everywhere
- openai.com Traffic Said to Have Fallen 50% in the Past Three Months, Reports Say It Nearly Ran Out of Money to Borrow
- After the slop frenzy all we'll have left is environmental destruction
- IBM Kills OzLabs, Signalling An Attack on Free Software (a Sign for Red Hat)
- ibiblio also appears to have died (or experiences critical issues)
- Red Hat Vice President Leaving After Nearly Two Decades
- IBM's culture of secrecy is not compatible with Free software
- Links 20/01/2026: "ChatGPT Health" (Latest Distraction From Being Insolvent) Flops and Raises Concerns, "The U.S. Military Faces a Reckoning on Greenland"
- Links for the day
- Rudeness and Vulgarity Won't Stop Journalism About Free Software
- we seem to be on the right path
- Readers Pleased With Layout Changes
- Two days ago we began improving clarity and accessibility in the site
- IBM Plans for Layoffs Becoming Clearer With "Employee Reviews"
- Of course this impacts Red Hat as well
- IBM is Outsourcing Red Hat's Fedora to Slop to 'Save Money'
- If IBM cared about quality rather than alleged "cost savings" (cutting corners), it would assign more IBM staff to Fedora, but instead the exact opposite happened, with the likes of Cotton and Miller removed from the project
- European Patent Office (EPO) Industrial Actions Formally Start in Two Hours
- As per the latest (revised) action plan, today workers will slow down their work and limit patent grants
- Microsoft Under Fresh Investigation by the Italian Competition Authority
- In 2025 we kept a running tally of 30,000+ Microsoft layoffs, so 40k this year would not be unthinkable
- The "Alicante Mafia" - Part VI - More Strikes Planned at the EPO, Starting This Month
- Yesterday we said that friends of Berenguer or inside Berenguer's circle may have left
- Gemini Links 20/01/2026: New Tea, Using a Roku at a Hotel, and "Voltage-Based Power Management for Any Raspberry Pi"
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, January 19, 2026
- IRC logs for Monday, January 19, 2026
Comments
CoolGuy
2008-02-21 16:45:45
steve got pwned by larry.
seriously i think M$ is loosing out and steve has lost control over what he is doing. this is a guy who has zero technical knowledge, has never written a single line of code, cant make out any difference between a asp or php code...lol. i dont know if any m$ executive has advised steve over the technical hurdles of moving yahoo to m$ technology.
rofl.i think no one will dare to go near the chair throwing ninja.
entire blame of M$ doom will be on steve and bill has side stepped out of this mess really easy.
by doing a hostile take over - this is really going to blow out of proportion. everyone is making fun of m$ so openly, they have become a joke of what m$ used to be a decade back.
look at the action figures / toys stuff m$ is doing lately. everyone is laughing at them. they are trying so hard to be like google. haha.
just cant stop laughing.
CoolGuy
2008-02-21 16:49:00
BoomBoom
2008-02-21 18:28:35
- A BB for a brain in an empty head. Shake him and hear him rattle! - A pile of stolen patents for things someone else invented! - Extra sweat! - Awesome monkeydance action! - Developers developers developers developers! - Buggy software that doesn't work! - Buggy patches for buggy software that *still* doesn't work! - A fake sense of security! (along with thousands of exploits and weaknesses) - An EULA written by the Ghost of Stalin and the RIAA! - MONO! (Both the poisonware and the disease) - Office chair grenades! - FUD machinegun! - Arrogance out the wazoo! - Megalomaniac world domination plans! - And not a snowball's chance in Hell of ever having a clue.
:P
Roy Schestowitz
2008-02-21 22:39:12
This VNUnet article dovetails nicely with the recent piece on Groklaw[1]
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2210121/microsoft-engages-proxy-fight
I wonder if a deep-cutting summary or analysis can be written to Slashdot without using the M-word.
The plan seems to be to lobby and intrigue behind the scenes to replace the board with a more obedient set. Before that happens, Yahoo should re-license Zimbra as GPL. Also, how big a contributer is Yahoo to open source development in general and BSD in particular? That could be one of the main motivations for hostile take over.
I also notice that the astroturfers have returned to slashdot in droves since about Monday or so and, probably related, there is article after article of advertising.
[1] http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071023002351958
Also, about the last attempts to save the cash cow :
Houston, we have a problem ... ... when trying to paint a nice face before the BRM ...
Google News Alert for: (OpenDocument OR ODF) AND ("Ecma 376" OR OXML OR OOXML OR "office open xml" OR "open XML")
Microsoft pledges not to sue over open source CNet News.com Blog - USA The company does not natively support the alternative Open Document Format, or ODF, standard in Office 2007. Although it does not mention ODF specifically ... See all stories on this topic
MS to publish free APIs for Windows, Office Electronista - Santa Clara,CA,USA Office 2007 has been a particular subject of investigation and has been criticized for its switch to the Microsoft-made Office Open XML (OOXML) standard, ... See all stories on this topic
Microsoft Promises Interoperability Digitaltrends.com - Lake Oswego,OR,USA Microsoft also says it won't sue open source developers who build or distribute non-commercial implementations of its protocols, although developers who ... See all stories on this topic
Microsoft is fighting. Don't give it too much room for manipulation.