06.14.07
Posted in Action, Deals, Free/Libre Software, Linspire, Microsoft, Ubuntu at 8:42 pm by Shane Coyle
Upon hearing about the Microsoft-Linspire deal ("MicroSpire" to keep our catchy merged-name theme going…) I was immediately reminded of the summation of the account on Helios’ blog when the Xandrosoft deal was announced, since E.S.R. just so happens to sit on Freespire’s board.
Yes, I brought this up in a comment earlier, but I think it needs some additional discussion, and apparently so do others.
Raymond has been an implacable foe of Microsoft; one incident which is touted as proof of this is an encounter with Microsoft’s Craig Mundie in an elevator. When Mundie asked him who he was, Raymond is reported to have said: “I am your worst nightmare.”
Given his background, I’d like to pose a query to Raymond: Now that Linspire has genuflected to the people in Redmond, will you do the honourable thing and quit the board of Freespire?
As does Sam, I wondered what Linspire’s capitulation will do to their chumminess with Canonical/Ubuntu going forward. Let’s watch for Mark Shuttleworth and Eric S Raymond’s official reactions in the coming days.
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Posted in Action, Deals, FUD, GNU/Linux, Kernel, Linspire, Microsoft, OpenOffice, Patents, Samba, SueMe at 9:23 am by Shane Coyle
It’s like "Sue Me First, Microsoft", but you get a Word Processor too.
Well, as I had quipped earlier, my ruthless attempt to be the Microsoft of tech boycotts has continued thanks to the spineless acts of Linspire: so, please welcome BoycottLinspire.com to the fold.
In preparing to create a new EDU-Nix Dual Mode CD for the upcoming school year, I’ve been playing around with the latest generation of the Linux-Live scripts, and decided that our SueMe Linux distribution would be a fun diversion for testing with. What I want to do is include many of the Free Software projects that Microsoft has been disparaging with patent infringement allegations, along with as much anti-FUD information as possible.
One of the running jokes within SueMe will be "disclosing your balance sheet liabilities", and I want to maintain a table on the SueMe homepage that indicates exactly what vague and intimidating allegations Microsoft has made against various components of SueMe:
| Included Software |
Alleged MS Patents Infringed |
| Linux Kernel |
42 |
| K Desktop Environment (GUI) |
65 |
| OpenOffice.org |
45 |
| Email |
15 |
| Wine, Samba, Others |
68 |
What we need are suggestions and submissions for articles and artwork in order to make SueMe the Anti-FUD distro, as well as any other suggestions or improvements that we can think of. There is a barely functional alpha version of the CD available now, and the sources and such are FTP-ing up to the site now, all in the download folder.
So, feel free to grab it all and hack away. And, if you want, feel Free to make a donation to the FSF or EFF in lieu of an interoperability tax. Hopefully, we can convince Microsoft to either abandon their FUD campaign or finally state with specificity the alleged infringements so that we may assess and address them on a case-by-case basis.
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Posted in FUD, Linspire, Microsoft, Patents, Xandros at 2:50 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
As we mentioned a couple of times in the past, not only does Microsoft collect royalties from Linux sales, but it also secretly extracts money from companies that use Free software.
I have just been told by a reliable source that one thing which had escaped the media is the fact that Microsoft quietly threatens with lawsuits. Could this explain the spineless (and self contradictory) acts of Linspire and Xandros? I am still looking for a reliable concrete reference that I can cite, but to anonymous quote the message which I received:
The one thing that is blindingly obvious to me about the Microsoft threats of patent lawsuits has gone all but unnoticed in the main stream media.
If is it true that Microsoft holds patents on the Linux OS that it can use to force compliance from Linux distros, then wouldn’t that mean that Microsoft is truly a monopoly where operating systems are concerned?
If it is truly a monopoly, we should again look into breaking up the company like the government wanted to do back in the 90′s.
I will update this entry if/when I have more information.
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