Bonum Certa Men Certa

Vista 7 Campaign Starts Tomorrow

Vista 7 starts now



Summary: Awareness campaign about the sins of Vista 7 is about to launch

WE AT Boycott Novell have spent the past year exposing the reality behind Vista 7. Knowing how similar it is to the process which preceded the release of Windows Vista, it seemed important to inform people before -- not after -- Vista 7 fails to gain traction in the market.



Adding to the list of failures, here is another item from the news. It reminds us yet again why Vista 7 is not suitable for sub-notebooks.

Windows 7 cuts almost a third off the battery life of some netbooks shipping today with Windows XP, several recent reviews and user reports say.

Laptop magazine reported in its blog on Monday that during a recent test, a Toshiba netbook lost 2.5 hours of battery life when running Windows 7 instead of XP, or about 30% (6:53 for Windows 7, versus 9:24 for XP).


Compare that to ARM-based sub-notebooks which can run GNU/Linux for an entire day. Windows does not even support ARM.

Come tomorrow, the FSF will unveil the Vista 7 "Sins" campaign. There is a spoiler out there already.

From the info-member list:

This Wednesday, August 26 at 11am, the Free Software Foundation will be launching its Windows7sins.org public awareness campaign, drawing attention to the threats posed by the adoption of Microsoft's proprietary operating system. We have a launch event here in Boston on the Boston Commons from noon until 3pm, and we need everyone in the area to come along and help out and join in the ceremony as we conduct a ceremonial trashing of proprietary software.

**We'll be launching our Windows 7 campaign with pomp and fanfare, with a giant 12 foot trashcan being filled with boxes of proprietary software.**

The event promises to be lots of fun, and with thousands of people passing through the Boston Commons every day we hope you will help us connect with the public by handing out information and explaining the benefits of free software. There will be camera crews and photographers capturing the event and we will be getting these images up online as soon as possible on the day.

Let us know you're coming and bring along your friends and work colleagues - mail campaigns@fsf.org if you have time to help us set up, or just turn up at the Boston Commons near the entrance to the Public Gardens from noon.

If you're not in the Boston area, there will be plenty for you to do to help us launch the campaign and get the message out. Stay tuned for upcoming instructions...



No doubt the Microsoft-sympathetic Web sites will use this as an opportunity to mock the FSF. They did the same thing when the FSF launched the "Bad Vista" campaign -- a campaign which by all means was a great success.

Here is an E-mail which the FSF will distribute (a draft from last week):

RE: Important notice regarding impending lack of privacy, freedom and security from Microsoft Corporation.

As a decision maker within your organization, you undoubtedly strive to make choices that seek to improve the working lives of your employees, enhance the relationship you have with your customers and potential customers and secure the independence and freedom for your organization to operate.

For many years, companies like yours have relied on Microsoft and the Windows operating system. With the release of Windows 7 in October, Microsoft is selling the new version on a combination of fear and threats. They threaten to stop supporting older versions of Windows in the long-term, and because their system is proprietary, you are dependent on them to provide regular security updates and fixes. With the threat to withdraw their support, they try to strong-arm you into adopting new versions of their software even when you don't need them and may have a negative consequence to your ability to operate, once again abusing its monopoly position, explicitly inducing vendor lock-in.

Like its plans to include DRM restrictions with Windows Vista, Microsoft's continued attacks against the security, privacy and freedom of your organization, are no mistake. Microsoft has manipulated computer manufacturers to pre-install its products onto the computers you purchase. With its most recent actions, it further threatens computing standards by polluting and perverting the OpenDocument standard with its own XML-based file format. Today, many decision makers in America are now wholly dependent on Microsoft operating systems, such as Windows 7 for their business computing.

*The root cause of this dependency is proprietary software and with the release of Windows7, you have an opportunity to break your organizations dependency on it*

Free software, such as the GNU/Linux operating system and the office productivity tools set OpenOffice, provide all of the freedoms Microsoft tries to deny, and is therefore better in all areas: security, accountability and monetary cost. Microsoft agrees, and has recently reported as much in their corporate filings:
"The OpenOffice.org project provides a freely downloadable cross-platform application that also has been adapted by various commercial software vendors to sell under their brands, including IBM, Novell, Red Hat, and Sun Microsystems."

"[Free software] vendors are devoting considerable efforts to developing software that mimics the features and functionality of our products, in some cases on the basis of technical specifications for Microsoft technologies that we make available at little or no cost."
Free software is more secure because you and the wider community are independently able to read the source code of and customize any program you use in your infrastructure. It saves you from relying on a secretive third party, and the public availability of free software code means that many qualified eyeballs, the security experts and researchers around the world, are continually studying and reporting on its integrity. Replacing all your desktop systems with GNU/Linux will give you independence, access to thousands of free software applications and help break the social ill of proprietary software. Thousands of organizations have already moved to free software. What's your organizational plan?

*Investing in Microsoft's Windows 7 will only get you more stuck and more dependent on them.*

Take the next step -- evaluate your organizations opportunity to use free software -- and sign-up for regular announcements on making the move away from Windows and to receive information about the work of the Free Software Foundation.

[omitted]

A message from the Free Software Foundation, Boston, Mass.


The above is just a draft.

For those who characterise the FSF as "anti-Microsoft", it is important to remember that the FSF offers no-one special treatment. Apple too is harshly criticised by the FSF (especially over DRM). Earlier today, Popey (Ubuntu enthusiast from the UK) wrote: "Apple blocking anything but quicktime from viewing trailers?"

It seems like a pattern of bad behaviour from Apple.

Following that iPod explosion in the UK, the UK-based Register shares the following new video. [via]



No product is perfect and neither are Apple's. Yet it is better to criticise Apple for trying to gag those who experienced/witnessed burning Apple products because Apple essentially puts the lives of more people at risk, purely for financial reasons.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft Bankruptcy
"Microsoft unit in Russia to file for bankruptcy, database shows"
Techrights Does Not Compete With LLM Slop, It Exposes the Bastards, Plagiarists and Scammers Who Do That
People like Scam Altman, still facing a lawsuit from his own sister for sexual abuse against her
Links 31/05/2025: Microsoft-Connected Builder.ai is a Fraud and US is Purging Students Based on Race/Nationality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Limmat, Doomscrollers, and Arguments Parsing
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 30, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 30, 2025
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble Already Popped, But It's Not an Overnight Collapse
where Microsoft put its money
No More Steven Astorino at IBM, Chatter About Weekly/Nonstop Layoffs at IBM
What happened? Good luck guessing.
Looking at Corruption in Europe, Going Beyond the EPO
Expect a new series to kick off very soon
Slopwatch: Security SPAM and LLM Slop for SEO and FUD Purposes, Perpetually Tarnishing the Perception of Linux and (Open)SSH Security
A lot of this Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) comes from Microsoft and its LLMs
Links 30/05/2025: Google's LLM Slop Pushers Are Killing Journalism and Shira Perlmutter Fails to Stop Bribed Regime From Legalising Plagiarism (in "AI" Clothing)
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2025: Offline Arts and "Threshold of Patience"
Links for the day
Signing Off Serious Lies With a Statement of Truth is No Joking Matter
It's not hard to see what's happening here
Links 30/05/2025: LLM Slop Already Ingests and Vomits Its Own Garbage, Facebook Exec Admits Copyrights a Concern Too
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Result in More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
Microsoft's predatory pricing is further
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu Became LLM Slop and Some People Fail to See the Immorality of Plagiarism
it lessens the incentive for people to publish real articles
EPO Poll: 68% Dissatisfied With Quality of Slop (Wrongly Framed as "AI") for Patent Classification
Slop does not work, it's just falsely advertised with extra hype (funded by slop pushers that sponsor the major media)
Big Crowds Gather to Learn About Software Freedom From the Man Who Started GNU/Linux in 1983
"It was a great success"
Microsoft Layoffs Again in Bay Area
Microsoft relies on people's false belief that being "in LinkedIn" will get you a job; well, seems like even working inside LinkedIn really sucks and you lose the job
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Fighting Against the Bad News, and Slop is Dehumanisation Disguised as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025
Links 29/05/2025: Chinese Cracking Against EU Institutions (Prague), More Assaults on Media and Its Funding Sources
Links for the day
EPO Workers Caution That the Officials Are Still Illegally Trying to Replace Staff With Slop (to Lower Quality and Validity of European Patents)
Nobody in Europe voted for any of this
Links 29/05/2025: US Health Deficit and Malware Disguised as Slop Generator
Links for the day
Links 29/05/2025: Turtle Roadkill, Modern 'Tech' as a Sting
Links for the day
Thanks for All the Fish, Linux Format
people who once wrote for it (or for other magazines) comment on the importance of this news
People's Understanding of the History of GNU/Linux is Changing
RMS is not a radical, he's just clever enough to see and foresee what's going on
Microsofters Were Scheming to Take Over This Entire Web Site (in Their Own Words!)
Money gets spent censoring/deplatforming people who speak about real issues; no money gets spent actually tackling those underlying issues
Bicycles for the Minds and the Story Harrison Bergeron
"The goal of having people in charge of the tools they use and that the tools should amplify ability" has long been abandoned
Links 29/05/2025: YouTube Problem and Giant Privacy Hole in Microsoft OneDrive
Links for the day
[Video] Cory Doctorow Explains DMCA: DRM in the Browser (or Webapp) Will "Make It a Felony to Protect Your Privacy While You Use It."
Pycon US Keynote Speaker Cory Doctorow
United States Courts With Sworn Testimonies Are on Our Side, We'll Present the Same Here
Chronicling what happened is a moral imperative
Serial Sloppers Ruin and Lessen the Incentive to Cover "Linux"
The Serial Sloppers (SSs) ought to be named and shamed, but almost nobody does this
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 28, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 28, 2025