Links 19/05/2008: Important Windows Refund Precedence, Unbundling Near?
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2008-05-19 14:23:27 UTC
- Modified: 2008-05-19 14:23:27 UTC
GNU/Linux
- French court orders Windows refund [Not the first time]
In France, it is illegal to bundle software and to refuse to reimburse the customer for unwanted licences, under Article L.122-1 of the French Consumer Code. The Tribunal de Grande Instance ruled that offering an expensive refund option was tantamount to offering no refund option at all, hence finding for the consumer and requiring that Asus stump up.
- Uxi, a Cuban magazine dedicated to Free Software and Open Codes by the University of Information Sciences
- University of Havana Finally Switches to Free Software
- Avnet Electronics Marketing launches complete MicroBlaze Processor Linux Design Solution
- LM_Sensors 3.0.2 Released
- I swear, this is not another Unixfication post
Is Sun talking with Linus about moving ZFS to GPLv2, with the objective of fast tracking ZFS into a native Linux kernel implementation of the file system driver? Or is Linus considering moving the kernel to GPLv3, with Sun doing the same for OpenSolaris? Is Linux and Solaris DNA going to swap much quicker than previously thought?
- AMD FireGL V8600 On Linux
If we would have looked at the FireGL performance under Windows and Linux a year ago, the results would have been vastly different -- Linux would have lagged far behind the Windows driver. With the new OpenGL driver, however, these results are rather pleasing. In 3DS Max and UGS NX tests from SPECViewPerf, the Windows driver had a small performance lead over the Linux driver. However, in the CATIA, Maya, and Pro/Engineer tests, the Linux driver wound up on top.
- Mandriva 2008.1 KDE hits a sweet spot
Ubuntu
- Hate Ubuntu? It's normal!
The fact that many people dislike the top distribution is not really a problem. The problem is that many of these folks are extremely vocal on the Internet to express their opinions. While no intelligent reader will ever take them seriously, they do give the Linux community a bad name and discourage potential Linux users from joining us.
- [Ubuntu] Weekly Newsletter #91
F/OSS
User Security vs. Vendor 'Security'
- Microsoft confirms Windows adheres to broadcast flag
News that the world's largest software maker has voluntarily agreed to help broadcasters control the recording of their shows is bound to outrage enthusiasts of digital video recorders, as it represents the biggest threat to the practice known as time shifting since the FCC's attempt to require flag adherence.
- Microsoft Stockholder? Take Stock in This...
While we are passing along the subject of anti-virus and spyware, let me ask you this. While MS does offer a somewhat crippled product to protect Windows, they push me toward a subscription purchase to get the full monty. Why am I being cornered into purchasing a "fix" for a problem Microsoft created? Shouldn't the full application be offered as part of Windows? Let me ask you this as well. Why should I purchase and use a product that necessitates I purchase and use another product in order for the first product to work the way it is supposed to?
- Hackers compromise Red Cross earthquake relief site
- Spain arrests 'prolific' hackers
Law and Crime
Leftovers
Recent Techrights' Posts
- Longtime Red Hat Staff: Maybe Just Disable 'Secure Boot'
- A refreshing take from Adam Williamson
- A Dozen Observations About "UEFI 9/11" Deflections
- What we are expected to see, tentatively
- The World's Richest Ponzi Scheme (Faking Value Using Net Waste)
- The higher they go the harder they fall
- We Could Dual-Boot Back in the 1990s, Why Has This Become So Difficult?
- And prone to breakage
- Slopwatch: Google News is Still Promoting Many Fake Articles About "Linux", in Effect Rewarding Misinformation and Plagiarism
- things continue to deteriorate
- They Say That People Are Afraid of or Worried About "Hey Hi", But the Worriers Should be the Fools Who Invested in It
- At the end of the day nobody should worry more than those who invested their money in this bubble
-
- Culture of silence: Ubisoft harassment convictions, Mozilla, Sylvestre Ledru & Debian make no comment
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Disable 'Secure Boot' (If It Lets You)
- it doesn't put you in control
- Links 11/09/2025: "Hey Hi" Ponzi Schemes at Oracle (Unpaid Contracts) and Cindy Cohn is Leaving the EFF
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 11/09/2025: Playdate Console, Dichotomy between the Real and the Digital
- Links for the day
- The Microsoft AstroTurfing and Microsoft-Led Blame-Shifting Tactics Are Ahead of Us
- Of course it has nothing to do with security, it's about control, i.e. them controlling everything
- Celebrating Assassination is Bad Because It Legitimises Assassination of the People You Like, Too
- Condoning or even celebrating political assassinations is bad optics (and taste)
- Being Conditioned to Accept Unreliable Computer Systems That Fail With Black Screen of Death (BSoD)
- Welcome to 2025
- New Series: The Coup Against GNU/Linux Has Begun
- today, this year in particular, we shall also focus on Secure Boot, which is sold based on a lie and tortures many computer user
- New Paper on "BYOVD, but in firmware. Signed UEFI shells, vulnerable modules offer new paths for Secure Boot bypasses."
- One might say digital "security theatre"
- Links 11/09/2025: Oracle Layoffs, Drunk Pilots in Japan Airlines, US-Korea Tensions Grow
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 10, 2025
- IRC logs for Wednesday, September 10, 2025
- Xubuntu Site Compromised
- Let's hope it is not a security breach
- Links 10/09/2025: Retaliation at Facebook and Microsoft Reveals Almost 100 Security Holes
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 10/09/2025: Annihilation of Self, The Future Eaters, and Leaving Academia
- Links for the day
- Harassment evidence: franceinfo's Clara Lainé report on Ubisoft prosecution
- Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
- Links 10/09/2025: Microsoft Layoffs in "RTO" Clothing and Windows TCO, GitHub TCO
- Links for the day
- Blaming Everything on China
- TikTok works for China. GAFAM works for fascists.
- People Get Tired of "Hey Hi" (AI), Unlike the Subservient Money-Obsessed Media That Gets Paid to Pretend This Bubble Still Matters
- "crash will be way bigger than dot.com burst in 90s. and that was Internet, actually transformative technology, not this expensive AI toy with direct dependency on the energy input which is not scalable"
- Brett Wilson LLP Accepts That the Serial Strangler From Microsoft Filed a Case That Also Implicates My Wife (Everything is Connected)
- They used to pretend that there were two separate cases
- 10 Reasons to Disable (or Enable) UEFI Secure Boot
- Tomorrow the "trusted corporation" Microsoft will see a certificate expire
- Gemini Links 10/09/2025: Hospital and Large Feeds
- Links for the day
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 09, 2025
- IRC logs for Tuesday, September 09, 2025
- The Bluewashing of Red Hat is Being Completed, Many Staff Understand They'll be Made Redundant
- Jim AllowHurst (Whitehurst) is meanwhile promoting Microsoft's agenda from within other companies
- Throwing Away "Old" Computers (Mozilla and Other Climate Deniers)
- Mozilla is not leftist
- statCounter Sees GNU/Linux Exceeding 10% in Bulgaria This Month
- What can Microsoft still do to stop GNU/Linux?
- Dark Patterns
- Microsoft saying "security" is like a Convicted Felon in the White House saying "law and order".
- It's Almost Fall (Autumn)
- To "Facebook prison" you are bound
- Bruce Schneier About "Secure Boot"
- Bruce Schneier isn't a fan of "Secure Boot"
- Links 09/09/2025: Microsoft Mass Layoffs Again and "RTO" (Timed Like It Serves as a Distraction From the Mass Layoffs)
- Links for the day
- RMS Told Microsoft to Stop 'Secure Boot' (He Even Went There to Say That), But They Didn't Listen
- Dr. Stallman (RMS) assumed that speaking to sociopaths would work
- What Richard Stallman Told Me About 'Secure' Boot in 2012
- "if the user doesn't control the keys, then it's a kind of shackle"
- Those Who Helped Microsoft Weaponise "Secure Boot" Against GNU/Linux and BSDs Are Fleeing
- Microsofters doing what they do best: they evade accountability
- Simple is Better, Simplicity is Power
- That is "the advantage of having commodity GNU/Linux systems," an associate notes
- Much Ado About Nonsense
- Microsoft Lunduke is still all dramatisation and sensationalism
- Current Events in France
- It needs to dump Microsoft and other GAFAM (US) giants, move to Free software
- Further Media Cut-downs
- media reporting about the media being cut
- Links 09/09/2025: US-Korea Tensions and Meta Whistleblowers
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 09/09/2025: Moon Eclipse and ROOPHLOCH Reports
- Links for the day
- Links 09/09/2025: “Torrents of Hate” and Political Crisis in France
- Links for the day
- Gemini Links 09/09/2025: "Dedigitizing" and Forgejo on FreeBSD
- Links for the day
- Google News (Not Just Google Search) Lets Itself by Gamed by One Slopfarm - to the Point Almost Half of "Linux" News is Bot-Produced Plagiarism (LLM Slop With Slop Images)
- That says a lot about what Google thinks of quality, even in Google News
- Bill Gates-Funded Media Inadvertently Refutes the Microsoft Lie That in 2025 Microsoft Had Just Two Waves of Layoffs
- There were about 12 rounds of layoffs so far in 2025
- Official SUSE Blog Still Uses LLM Slop (Bots) to Make Fake Articles (Marketing)
- The company is all about sound bites
- Companies Realise That Slop Doesn't Work as Advertised, Accordingly Dump It
- "Hype dims as a country-wide survey of US corporations shows a sudden drop-off in AI use among firms with more than 250 employees."
- Microsoft-Funded Lawsuits Against Critics of UEFI 'Secure Boot'
- Remember that no company (or law firm) ever survives collaborations with Microsoft
- From theregister.co.uk to theregister.com (US) to The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives) and theregister.ai
- The best way to break this racket (or cycle of hype and harm) is to break the chains of funding
- Open Source Initiative (OSI) Culture of Censorship Necessitates More Speech
- The OSI bans dissent or people who merely point out that the OSI is abusive
- How to Reach Us Discreetly (Other Than Encrypted E-mail)
- We're still managing to maintain a 100% source protection record. We soon turn 19.
- LLMs Are Vastly Worse Than a Waste of Energy and the Externalities Are Huge
- Worse than just higher power bills for everybody
- LLMs Versus Search (Not Replacing Search But Engaging in DDoS Attacks Against Web Sites That Permit Searching)
- The state of the Web isn't just bad; it's utterly terrible
- Over at Tux Machines...
- GNU/Linux news for the past day
- IRC Proceedings: Monday, September 08, 2025
- IRC logs for Monday, September 08, 2025
- It's Only the Second Week of September and Already Two Waves of Layoffs at Microsoft, Slopfarms and Microsoft-Funded Sites Spin It as "AI Investments" Rather Than Commercial Failure
- A very large third one expected next week
- The UEFI 9/11 - Part IX - Shunning Old Computers (in 2023 the Certificate Was Updated/Overridden, Underlying Aim May Be Herding/Forcing People to Get TPM and Other 'Novel' Restrictions)
- the "upgrade treadmill"
Comments
fruit of the loon
2008-05-19 23:02:34
Roy Schestowitz
2008-05-19 23:09:41
So Fia lore Inn
2008-05-19 23:19:25
It should be argued, at least for PC gaming, they have a monopoly on the desktop with gaming, as most people need to use DirectX properly in order for the games to work. Sure Wine, Cedega, and other projects are making some progress and some games may work, and believe me I try every few weeks to see how it is coming along, but again Microsoft still continues its dirty deeds. They lie about Linux and Windows interoperability, "They said it couldn't be done!" Novell agreement bullshit just like the Corel agreement in 2000 or 2001, where Corel Linux was promptly spun off and money/support from Corel to Wine apparantly dried up. Time and time again they come in and either buy out or pollute the environment with thier proprietary crap, and we read another dismal Microsoft article after article every few weeks or more.
If Microsoft is so devoted to bringing Linux and Windows together, I don't see anything on their vast labrynth of shit at Microsoft.com indicating this. Where is the repository of interoperability Linux and Windows software on Microsoft.com? Oh, but you can still get their bullshit "Facts" on Windows and Linux, and that's about it. At least Google has a repository you can add to your Linux install for software from them. In my opinion, don't think Moonlight ("Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight? I ask that of all my friends") will last much longer or work well for Linux users should Silverblight (Silverlight) suddenly become popular through payoffs and slight of hand corporate tricks.
If you ever want to have Microsoft come clean, no, I don't believe it would ever happen unless the DOJ finally came down hard and raided their offices, took their hardware and software and forced them to release the code and all of the various undiscovered backdoors waiting to be found, it just won't happen. IMO, Microsoft has demonstrated time and time again it will fight tooth and nail against any punishment against them.
We will all be cleansed if true justice were ever to prevail, but in the "United States of Advertising", most of the people in power are paid off, with big pharma and other corporate overlords always padding the handshakes and votes. It is a lost cause, you know it, I know it, but you'll still piss away your vote to one of the two parties who bend over for big pharma to slide in the money and the overpriced medications pop out the other end as we all struggle under the yoke of this dismal fucking world.
Come clean? Microsoft? The whole system is mired in filth.
Good luck.
We now return you to your normal life, ostrich head in the sand, millions of tokers/beer drinkers who raise their fist while watching Fight Club and return to their soap opera pitiful lives of slavery as the credits roll.
Vote for Wesley Snipes for President in 2008, neither one of the big parties will get anything done, they are a part of the problem.