Buried in this previous post, which contained an antitrust exhibits [PDF] as text, the following diagram from Microsoft (“HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL”) was seen:
Click on the figure for a large-sized version of it. What’s that thing at the top-left? Is that related to the AstroTurfing which we’ve exposed recently [1, 2, 3]? This is material that circulates around Steve Ballmer and other seniors. █
Finally — solid proof of targeted Microsoft dumping against GNU/Linux and Free software
Microsoft turns against the people of Kerala again
ANIVAR Aravind, who led friendly protests in favour of Free software in India, told us last night that “Kerala is moving to Non Free Way again [...] 2 major supporters for Free Software in Govt is Removed by The Govt. (Leaded by Communist Party of India (Marxist).”
This sounded familiar because Microsoft has a track record of tossing people out of their jobs if they don’t serve Microsoft’s agenda [1, 2, 3] and diplomats are not particularly impressed by this behaviour. “Chief Ministers IT advisor and Arun M (Special Officer, ICFOSS & FSF India Secretary) is removed,” tells Anivar.
Anivar also says that “there is a move to Change IT Policy of the state.” They have been trying this for a long time, even with the help of celebrities whom they attempted to hire [1, 2, 3, 4].
People like Anivar are rightly — or leftly — pissed off. “Also see new Reports like this“, he adds.
Anybody visited the www.keralataxes.in[1] for VAT e-filing ? From 1st
of Jan 2009 onwards e-filing of VAT returns is compulsory for all the
dealers in Kerala. Please go through the site and see the
documentation and procedures for e-flining.. Site is developed for
and by the Microsoft Community. Govt has arranged e-filing from
Akshaya Centers for dealers who have no internet facility at “Free Of
Cost” (Thanks to “Microsoft Unlimited Potential Programme”)
This specifically mentions “Microsoft Unlimited Potential Programme” which, to put it simply, is Microsoft’s anti-Linux programme [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. For education, Microsoft has a particular programme called “Education and Government Incentives program” (EDGI) for blocking GNU/Linux adoption. It may be related to those kickback entanglements and the BECTA situation. From the latest antitrust case [PDF], which Microsoft settled very quickly in hopes of hiding new evidence of crime:
From: David Driftmier
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2002 2:46 PM
To: Anna Aubry; Candace Grisdale
Cc: Christine Bomstead; Kurt Kolb
Subject: RE: “EDGI” Marketing funds
Importance: HighEDGI is a customer-focused program that is for circumstances (like the one you reference) where an education and/or government customer is going to purchase naked PC’S or PC’S w/Linux. IF we do everything possible it still comes down to price differential between the Windows PC’s and Linux PC’s, then we can invest some/all of the royalty revenue from the deal back to the customer in the form of training, services, or even rebates. For more detail see that attached and let me know if you want to chat before your call. Note: This is not a partner program and is MS-internal only.
[...]
…. Original Message ….
From: Candace Grisdale
Sent: Tuesday, August 06, 2002 11:20 AM
To: Anna Aubry; Christine Bomstead
Subject: “EDGI” Marketing funds
Importance: HighOkay I have a strange request…There is a situation in Indonesia where one of our OEMs is planning to ship Linux into the channel on some desktops. Do you know about the EDGI program (I think that’s how you spell it) and if an initiative like this one (likely to be government and education accounts receiving the offer)? Sorry if this is totally random but we’ve got an urgency at the executive level within the company about pulling together a Windows marketing program offer. NOTE: there’s a call at 3:30 today so I need to get to the right folks by 2pm today. Any advice I’d welcome.
[...]
From: David Driftmier
Sent: Thursday, August 01,2002 4:27 PM
To: Mark East; Yasushi Iwao; Rafael Perez-Colon; Prasanna Meduri; George Kyriakis
Cc: EDGI HQ Team; Tit Meng Ang; Kurt Kolb; Ed Marcheselli; Sherri Bealkowski; David Driftmier
Subject: EDGI
Importance: High
Attachments: *Microsoft Confidential* : Education and Government Incentives programShortly before MGB, Orlando sent a mail to the GM’s to let them know about an exciting new program to equip the field with a new tool to ensure that we never lose to Linux – the Education and Government Incentives [EDGI] program. We now need to make sure our people in the field understand how and when to leverage this program. Please use the attachments included in the original Orlando email and the into below to communicate with the education people in your region. I am sending this to the regional leads instead of to the broader alias so that you may modify with any regional processes as necessary. Please distribute as quickly as possible, though.
Below is a quick Q&A:
What is EDGI? EDGI (pronounced ‘edgy’) is both a process for responding to large competitive threats and a large source of funding to level the playing field between Windows and Linux when a deal involves the purchase of new PC’s.
Did you say ’funding’?! How much? EDGI does not have a set limit for funding, but is instead limited on a per-deal basis. The maximum amount of funding that can be approved for an individual deal is the total amount of OEM revenue that Microsoft will recognize from the OEM/COEM from which new legal Windows PC’s are purchased.
Readers are smart enough to see what is happening here. The full document is 28 pages long and the text is particularly enlightening, so we append the full text below (OCRed and edited with some typographical errors).
Here is Microsoft talking about “Linux infestation” [PDF] and how to fight this “infestation”. It’s related to the one above (see full text at the bottom for details about CompHot).
From: Peter Wise
Sent: Monday, October 07, 2002 9:43 AM
To: Server Platform Leadership Team
Subject: CompHot Escalation Team Summary – Month of September 2002CompHot Escalation Team Summary – Month of September 2002
Microsoft Confidential
[...]
Observations and Issues
* Linux infestations are being uncovered in many of our large accounts as part of the escalation engagements. People on the escalation team have gone into AXA, Ford, WalMart, the US Army, and other large enterprises, where they’ve helped block one Linux threat, only to have it pop up in other parts of the businesses. At General Electric alone, at least five major pilots have been identified, as well as a new “Center of Excellence for Linux” at GE Capitol.
* Linux on the mainframe continues to be the most common escalation scenario largely because the mainframe is unfamiliar to most of our sales team. Paul Morse of CATM has had a success at AXA, PNC Financial, the State of Pennsylvania and elsewhere in blocking this threat.
[...]
* We have a couple of questions about the 100 $50,000 prizes that will be awarded as part of the MGB Linux contest.
For a company whose "technical evangelists" love to claims that “Linux” is just some insignificant market factor, well… they sure seem pretty terrified of it. Microsoft’s Gerri Elliott, who fought Free software using a hat in government (mentioned in [1, 2, 3]), appears in the correspondence as well. So are Steve Ballmer and Orlando Ayala, who fought GNU/Linux on OLPC and wrote the main document. In emphasis, he writes: “It is essential, therefore, that we use this in only in deals we would lose otherwise” (i.e. when GNU/Linux or Star/OpenOffice win). Later on, with underlined bold face he writes: “under NO circumstances lose against Linux.”
Scroll down to the bottom and see that Kerala is among those which EDGI targeted. █
Update (04/01/2009): We have received additional information about the happenings in Kerala. The CPIM State committee has decided to ask for the resignation of Joseph Mathew, the IT advisor to the Chief Minister (the Party and Joseph are highlighting different reasons for this). But there is also a move against Arun, who had been appointed the special Officer of ICFOSS a few months earlier. He was asked to resign just after Joseph’s resignation, and that is troubling. Arun was the main Organiser of the Free Software Free Society Conference which took place in December.
Some more details appear in in the FSF-Friends mailing list:
http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2009-January/006019.html
http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2009-January/006021.html
Arun’s E-mail:
http://mm.gnu.org.in/pipermail/fsf-friends/2009-January/006097.html
Friends inside the Party told Anivar that in the party meeting there was criticism against Joseph for a Novell boycott campaign [1, 2, 3, 4] in the Kochi conference (Organised by CPIM Sympathisers), but he does not have any role in it. Neither have us.
“Pearly Gates and Em-Ballmer
One promises you heaven and the other prepares you for the grave.”
–Ray Noorda, Novell
NOVELL’S INFATUATION WITH .NET is a truly bizarre thing. Why would a company that was repeatedly betrayed (back-stabbed or illegally abused even) by Microsoft suddenly just follow its footsteps? As blunter authors would possibly ask, “what is Novell smokin’?” It’s almost paradoxical.
To call Microsoft “a success” is to confuse ubiquity with technical merits. Among the many reasons that Microsoft ‘succeeds’, one must account for the illegal deeds and political manipulation.
4 days ago, a person who is cautious not to be seen as Microsoft hostile (which he is not) said with high confidence that “Microsoft is just not ready for the enterprise.”
In my last post I had made some comments about the Microsoft Windows not being capable of enterprise high performance computing. In the comments (upon request) I had posted some details on the SCSI subsystem of the Operating System, talking of the scatter gather lists when sequential SCSI commands are being coalesced just prior to being sent to the SCSI-based media. I wanted to continue on that topic and focus specifically on the NTFS file system and why it too is not intended for enterprise class usage.
[...]
With these limitations well known, then why do we still try to deploy Microsoft Windows in environments it was not suited for? The answer is familiarity. Microsoft for the most part owns the client/end-user market and with that the end-user has gotten too familiar and too comfortable with its platform. In turn what was built for home (and to an extent small business) use has leaked into an environment where it is not ready for. Please understand that I am not trying to preach against Microsoft and attack them. As many others in the high performing server/storage industry I have come to understand where certain problems originate from and that includes the limitations of the Windows platform. If you, the reader, feel something different with Microsoft and their role in enterprise class computing please feel free to comment. I know that I may not always be correct in my viewpoints and if you can shed any additional light I would very grateful.
Also, based on this bit of news from CMSWire, Microsoft’s current agenda is all too clear. It wants to become a necessary part — or the stack rather — of an already-successful but lesser advertised technology.
Despite the efforts Microsoft has made, there is still a high degree of animosity amongst those involved in open source projects towards the software company. For example, Microsoft has a no-charge version of SQL Server available, but it’s rarely used in the open source world. This edition of SQL Server isn’t fully open source — perhaps, this is part of the issue.
Microsoft hopes to sway LAMP-based developers to use parts of the Windows web application platform for certain uses. LAMP developers are known to utilize particular technologies for different needs. For instance, sometimes a developer will use Perl for one application and PHP for another. Will a typical open source developer look Microsoft’s way? Not until Microsoft establishes some credibility and trust within open source circles. Until this happens, most open source advocates are nervous, now knowing what Microsoft’s true motives are.
Bearing all of this in mind, Novell’s continues to just imitate Microsoft with Mono and other Microsoft-inspired technologies, turning a leading platform into ‘cheap Windows’. Why is Novell doing this (if not just to empower its new ally, Microsoft, just like its strategy requires)?
We continues to be concerned whenever Mono tries to creep into KDE. In this 143rd issue of KDE commit digest from Danny Allen (it’s the latest one), C# makes yet another appearance:
Support for on-the-fly compilation of Plasma data engines with the C# language bindings.
The person who pushes Mono 2.0 into Ubuntu is also doing this to Debian GNU/Linux. DevX has this new article which even promotes it.
The Mono 2.0 Offerings for Debian GNU/Linux
Find out how much of the Mono 2.0 (and beyond) platform is available for Debian users who want up-to-date .NET compatibility.
Mono is not about better development; it’s about turning GNU/Linux into “Windows for poor developers” (and users). There are many other issues. █
“There is a substantive effort in open source to bring such an implementation of .Net to market, known as Mono and being driven by Novell, and one of the attributes of the agreement we made with Novell is that the intellectual property associated with that is available to Novell customers.”
–Bob Muglia, Microsoft Senior Vice President
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Linux will continue its soaring success in 2009. Yes, Linux is free and free is good but what about its other advantages over commercial Unix flavors and Windows? Here are the top seven reasons why Linux will continue to smash the competition in the face of the economy, the Cloud, and the smart administrator.
Over the holiday break, I’ve been working on a small project. I’m trying to collect up quotes from Microsoft on Linux, Free Software, and Open Source.
Chris Mason, the founder of the Btrfs file-system, had previously stated he hoped to merge the first bits of this much-improved Linux file-system into the Linux 2.6.29 kernel. With the 2.6.29 merge window still open, earlier this week he started a new thread entitled Btrfs for mainline.
The person who aids this movement, away from Windows, has to be patient, its a slow transition, a learning process, don’t sing the praises of linux, its a voyage of discovery, and everyone finds things hard to start with.. they will not read the forums, because they won’t know they are there, they will ask you.. be patient, smile, bcause it will pay off.. and 6moths, a year later, you’ll have your own little tribe of converts, who are not complaining because linux isn’t like Windows, however, are telling everyone else, about thier new discovery…
Happy New Year to all our readers, we hope you had a good one! We thought we would start off this year by including an article written by Blair Mathis – one of the chaps over at LaptopLogic.com, your premier source for best gaming laptops.
At one time, asking if Linux could play games elicited laughter and disappointment. Games were basic and lacked the graphics and game play that Windows offered. However this is starting to change and dozens of high quality games have been released to run on Linux platforms.
In the past, Linux was not overly blessed with decent budgeting software, and installing GnuCash was regarded by many as the epitome of a descent into dependency hell.
Thankfully, things have since changed, and anyone using a modern distribution could now have the software ready to go in just a few minutes.
In a world where keeping track of your financial information can be a hectic task, now you can thank someone for dreaming up and putting into use this innovative solution: My Money. My Money is a modern way for common individuals or businesses to manage their online banking statements with a simple few clicks! All this seemingly complex yet simple system does is download your transactions from the bank web site and automatically insert into your My Money software.
We are pleased to announce yet another Ubuntu-based Linux distribution, this time… with “super powers,” called Super Ubuntu. The “super powers” of Super Ubuntu can be translated into the inclusion of applications, tools and technologies that are missing from a standard Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) installation. Among the applications included in Super Ubuntu 2008.11 we can notice the powerful and ever-popular OpenOffice.org 3.0 open source office suite with support for Microsoft’s Office 2007 file formats; MPlayer, the number one video player for Linux systems, which includes support for DVD playback and most of today’s video and audio formats; Wine and Wine-Doors, two amazing apps that allow users to use Microsoft Windows applications in a Linux environment; support for portable applications with the SFS technology and Zero Install.
The minimal configuration is great if you have an older machine you would like to revive. And unlike other mini distributions, it comes shipped with a ton of software so chances are you won’t have to go searching for too many packages once installed. With the GIMP, Inkscape, PiTiVi, Kino, recordMyDesktop and Audacity they already have a lot of tools for creative types. If you find anything missing you can find it quickly using the large Ubuntu repositories. What I like most about this distribution is that it showcases the combination of Conky and OpenBox, two projects that look really good together.
From a technical point of view, this capability exceeds anything Dad has ever had before. He can now run on the latest, fastest hardware, and has far more control over the results. He now also has Linux support. It is not that I did not support him on MS Windows. It is just that for me MS Windows is just another computer platform and I often have to sit a mess with it to figure out why it is broken, whereas Linux is something I know fairly well.
So, when everything is said and done, I was able to achieve all my stated goals. The only outstanding issue that I haven’t yet figured out yet centers on automatic logins; for both AFP and SMB/CIFS, I get prompted for a password when connecting, even though I keep my password synchronized (manually) between my Mac and the Ubuntu server. Any tips on how to resolve that would certainly be appreciated.
German Linux integrator Millenux is launching a series of monthly workshops for Linux developers and IT managers on open-source Linux topics including high availablity (HA), Debian, and kernel development. The initial January 7 event in Munich will address “mobile computing,” plus NoMachine’s “NX” Xhosting technology.
This laptop belongs to a good friend and she loved it when I told her that we can give a new life to her laptop using GNU/Linux. This is an Toshiba Satellite Sro 435CDS built around 12 years ago. Specs? Pentium 120, 32 MB ram, 4 GB Hard. Yes this laptop has been upgrade a few years ago to highest supported specs.
MANY people who still want to have a computer opt to buy a cheaper model to save on cost and perhaps leave some more for other items to buy. Red Fox is now one of the cheaper brand names in the desktop and notebook PC market that can appeal to a wider range of buyers.
However, its first foray in the “netbook” business through its AMD Geode-powered Wizbook was a difficult one, especially when it left out certain features that would normally be found in other models, especially a webcam.
Sylvania’s G Netbook Meso offers a nice-looking screen and plenty of ports — you get three USBs as well as a VGA. The keyboard is just too cramped for reviewer Jack Germain’s liking, though that’s a problem found on just about any tiny netbook computer. The available Ubuntu Netbook Remix OS will give you the option to effortless switch between two GUI
If Google gets this right, the possibilities are tremendous. Currently Google plans to use 30% of the revenue generated from sales of Android applications to pay carriers and billing settlement fees. Think about it though — that 30% only makes sense if we’re talking about mobile devices on a wireless network. I’d suspect that the 30% rake will still exist when Android makes its way into netbooks — and in that case, Google would be the sole recipient of the money. Imagine if Google was able to make 30% on all software sold for their operating system — that should make investors happy.
The last thing I want to see is Linux, thanks in part to the OEM’s, devolve into the same mind numbing bloatware nonsense that currently plagues Windows.
In particular, the acquiring companies need to consider carefully the effect on the open source companies employees and their community when modifying the business model. As more open source companies are acquired by traditional software companies, these issues will take on increasing importance. Both sides need to understand that such an integration will require flexibility.
This year brought many exciting new developments for open source software, but there are many more that we can look forward to in 2009. Intel’s intriguing new Linux-based Moblin platform is finally arriving on devices and will make major inroads in 2009 as the platform gains broader acceptance. The ACCESS Linux Platform and other emerging LiMo-compatible platforms could also debut on devices in the coming year and bring the open source operating system to more handsets.
Netbook growth will likely continue to surge, creating many new challenges and opportunities for Linux. Netbook-centric development initiatives, such as Ubuntu’s Netbook remix and ARM port will continue to advance. We also expect to see community-driven distros gaining some enterprise traction as companies look for more ways to cut support costs.
If you’re like most computer users, you probably have a digital camera and scanner. So, you’re saving a lot of images and photos on your computer. In addition, there are probably some bits and pieces of photos that you store in an image library so you can incorporate it into a new design or other image.
When I was using Windows, the graphics app I used had a built in image library. I could drag and drop images and clippings into the library for future use. The problem was, when I upgraded to a new computer and reinstalled the software, I had to move a specific folder within the Windows file system. And the folder was always buried away some place. It took hours and a visit to the web to ask other users in order to locate it. Worse still was if I ever reinstalled the program. The reinstallation routine would overwrite the entire library. If I didn’t back it up, all those images were lost!
Either way, I can definitely see OpenSolaris becoming part of my desktop/server set up in some shape or form. Not least for Dtrace, which I’ve yet to have a proper play with.
Anyway, OpenSolaris 08.11 is definitely well worth a look if you’re a serial OS installer.
Today is a fairly momentous day in the history of Ruby web frameworks. You will probably find the news I’m about to share with you fairly shocking, but I will attempt to explain the situation.
Before talking tech, and even going into the details of the announcement, I want to assure everyone that the incredible members of the thriving Merb community are top priority, and that this could not have been possible without every one of them.
Merb is an open, ever-changing project, and some its best ideas have come from not-core regular-Joe community members. It’s gotten where it has because of the community, and the community will get us even further in the future. Your ideas, feedback and even complaints will be 100% welcome in the future, just as they have been in the past. I believe in the tremendous value an open community and just generally open attitude bring to the table, and am counting on those things to continue ushering in the future of Ruby.
Wikimania is an annual conference for users, developers and other people involved in the wiki projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is held yearly since 2005. The first conference was held in Frankfurt, Germany, on August 4-8, 2005. The second one was held in Boston, USA (on August 4-6, 2006), the third one was held in Taipei, Taiwan (on August 3-5, 2007), the fourth Wikimania was held in Alexandria, Egypt (on July 17-19, 2008) and Wikimania 2009 will be held in Buenos Aires.
Digital Tipping Point: Marcelo Marques, visionary security networks entrepreneur 07 (2004)
Digital Tipping Point is a Free software-like project where the raw videos are code. You can assist by participating.
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More than 1 in 3 disapprove Novell’s CEO
A new survey has just been published.
-Glassdoor.com®, a career and workplace community bringing greater transparency to company cultures and compensation, today released its first annual Employees’ Choice Awards¹, listing the top 50 “Best Places to Work” based on surveys² collected from employees at more than 11,000 companies operating in the United States. General Mills had the highest rating from its employees, followed closely by Bain & Company, Netflix, Adobe, and Northwestern Mutual, which round out the top five companies on Glassdoor’s inaugural list.
Novell is not ranked particularly well and its CEO did not receive an impressive approval rating, perhaps due to the poor decisions that he makes with Microsoft. For those in Novell who are not popular, there is always the possibility of corrupting Wikipedia. From the news:
On top of it all, some critics are still jaded over incidents that surfaced earlier this year in relation to Wikipedia and Jimmy wales. Former Novell scientist and Wikipedia donor Jeff Merkey issued a statement earlier this year essentially accusing Wales of extortion—he claims Wales offered him “special protection” for his Wikipedia entry “in exchange for a substantial donation and other financial support of the Wikimedia Foundation projects.”
Novell is also rewriting history for Microsoft's gain. █
“Our partnership with Microsoft continues to expand.”
–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO
Investment portfolios worth a closer look (may contain governments)
THE Obama administration already receives personal contributions from executives of Microsoft, along with their families. The Microsoft-Abramoff story was startling enough to demonstrate the dangers of political influence and Microsoft is now approaching Democrats, even going one-on-one with the next president. They prepare themselves for ‘Change’.
It’s rather fascinating to see how Microsoft swings. It puts its money right where this investment is likely to bear the most fruit. Several years ago it invested mostly in Republicans (they were in power) and suddenly Microsoft puts a significant majority of its money in the Democrats’ basket.
As for Microsoft’s political tendencies, they have not always leaned Democrat as the below chart shows. In 2002, 60 percent of Microsoft money went to Republicans, compared to just 40 percent for Democrats.
In other financial news, Microsoft’s co-founder is losing a lot of money.
Paul Allen’s big investment in Charter looks tenuous
The likelihood of financial distress, such as bankruptcy, at Charter Communications Inc. in the next year has increased from 20 percent to 75 percent, a Citigroup analyst said.
Billionaire Paul Allen, Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) co-founder and owner of the Portland Trail Blazers, is one of the largest owners of the St. Louis-based cable TV company, owning more than 28 million shares of stock.
Citi analyst David Hamburger also downgraded Charter from buy to sell and reduced the price target from $1 to 5 cents.
So the price target was suddenly cut by 95%. It is impossible to trust what companies say about their financial welfare and we wrote about that yesterday in reference to Microsoft, which is poised to fire many employees. █
“Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.”
–Albert Einstein
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