Just to be sure, I’ve asked: “Does [Vista 7] RTM still say [Windows] 6.1?”
“Windows 2000 was NT 5.0, XP was 5.1.” –RyanThe answer was: “I’ve been using the RTM since June 24th, and yes 6.1.7600.” Indeed, this can be confirmed by querying the system.
“Windows 2000 was NT 5.0, XP was 5.1,” adds our reader Ryan, who was once a Microsoft MVP.
6.1 sounds like an appropriate version number for the “Mojave experiment”. Perhaps that was an experiment for Microsoft to learn if it could get away with sort of rebadging Windows Vista SP3 and marketing it very aggressively (using gentle bribes even) as a new and separate operating system, departing completely from the “Vista” brand it had spent so much money building.
What does Vista 7 offer that Vista does not already have? Almost nothing of substance.
Took away Ultimate Extras, changed the control panel, moved simple stuff like printers around, changed the start menu and forcing the new start menu on people, and all the dumb things like UAC are still dumb.
Its Vista Service Pack 3, with forced changes (no Classic start menu), it will piss of IT organizations again, it really didn’t add anything new, in fact, it took things away.
This is more or less another big disappointment. Its money for an effective service pack. It makes forced changes to appeal to the 10-15% of people who aren’t using windows and gleefully risking pissing everyone else off (the long term Windows users).
Moving things around also makes support harder. And, just to make sure where I am on this, Ribbon stinks, and real applications like Illustrator and Photoshop don’t screw with the interface because what is there works for people who actually DO WORK.
I think the biggest leap in innovation was from 3.1 -> NT 4.0, it was huge. It was cutler bringing NT kernel in and making real changes. Things have been incremental till Windows 2003, which in my mind, is the Windows operating system’s peak.
Now its a sad boring death, and it isn’t even that exciting to watch anymore.
I have administrated highly heterogeneous networks and IT systems, I use Windows every day, I game occasionally, but I also use FreeBSD, Linux and Solaris every day as well.
Windows XP did everything I need Windows Vista and Windows 7 today, save support more modern wireless encryption with ease (and that could be fixed in XP if MSFT wanted to).
Also, with Windows 7 XP mode, IT will really hate it, now they have to buy 2 seats of antivirus and junk like that for every workstation.
Windows 7 should have at least included a real Antivirus, like DOS 6 used to have it (MSAV). But no, in the age of taking stuff away and calling it new, Windows 7 fits right in I guess.
64-bit support still remains “hacky” as well, seems we are stuck with system32, wow64, and (x86) bs in certain directories.
In a word: Fail. Vista SP3. NEXT. Its worth using simply to get bug fixes but offers nothing new and isn’t worth the money.
Here is another post which is titled “Things to Know About Windows 7.”
* Cannot “upgrade” from Windows XP– only from Vista. XP users will have to do a full-package clean install
* To upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 with XP-compatibility will cost users $299
* Significant incompatibility with Windows XP
* Only the pricier versions offer an XP-compatible mode
* Twelve confusing releases to choose from, with hidden “gotchas” in eight of them
* Doesn’t really bring anything new to the table, nor give users a reason for upgrading from Windows XP– especially at a $299 price tag
We’re not quite over with Vista 7, not just yet anyway. The launch was a relative failure and truths are beginning to trickle in. Vista 7 is a wonderful example of how vicious, deceptive, and even criminal Microsoft still is. █
Summary: The “Ow” starts now because Vista 7 fails miserably to install on many people’s computers and those who install it are instantly left exposed
THE reality behind Vista 7 is a lot worse than anyone in the press dares to admit. Almost no-one, except Gizmodo perhaps, actually wrote about Microsoft’s own admission that Vista 7 Student Edition is messed up.
Apparently Microsoft decided to release the upgrade as an installer instead of an ISO file, and it’s causing all kinds of headaches. Users are reporting that after the installer goes through the “Unloading the BOx” step, an error occurs and the installation fails.
Wow. So Vista 7 is not so perfect after all. Who would have guessed?
In more important news, installing Vista 7 would leave the user/s exposed to hijackers immediately after the installation is complete. Yes, that’s right. We wrote about this before [1, 2] and there is new coverage of that in IDG News Service, e.g.:
Microsoft’s massive security update last week included patches for nine Windows 7 vulnerabilities, far fewer than were issued for Windows Vista and Windows XP.
Microsoft proved to be a party pooper even before its Windows 7 launch parties took place. A few days in advance of the parties, the company said it had patched 9 vulnerabilities, including five critical ones.
One-third of Security Essentials users infected: Microsoft
Almost a third of the customers who have installed Microsoft’s free Security Essentials software have been found to be suffering from major malware infections.
Security experts have discovered a massive spam campaign going on this week, attempting to distribute the password-stealing Zeus Trojan application across the internet.
The Trojan has reportedly afflicting a large number of PCs across the globe and has created a massive botnet of zombie machines for circulating malicious spam attacks.
From the country where Microsoft’s lock-in is most accentuated [1, 2, 3] we now learn that 777 “power bloggers” (meaning more/most influential ones) are being rewarded by Microsoft for Vista 7 boosting.
777 Korean power bloggers are invited by Microsoft Korea and 777 should come from Windows 7¡¯s ¡°Seven¡±. I¡¯ve been many bloggers events which held in Korea but this is biggest blogger event that I¡¯ve ever seen. MS prepared light dinner meal and Windows 7 Ultimate (Eng Ver.) for all the attendances.
More Twitter Love From Microsoft As It Sets Up @MicrosoftHelps
[...]
According to Perez, the company even talked to Best Buy to learn more about what it could do on Twitter.
That would be the same Best Buy that turned against GNU/Linux [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] after Microsoft supplied the staff with highly deceptive material. For those who believe that shops are seeing a surge in sales due to Vista 7 (as in, copies flying off the shelves), see evidence on the ground, not paid-for hype from Microsoft. Here is a message from Saturday.
From: Rex Ballard <rex.ballard@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Windows 7 prices already crashing
Date: Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:26:35 -0700 (PDT)
On Oct 25, 12:56 am, Nomen Nescio <nob…@dizum.com> wrote:
> http://blogs.zdnet.com/perlow/?p=11433&tag=content;col1
> They simply renamed it (and changed a few icons and splash screens)!!
Actually, once you close the Windows 7 “Let me show you my features” application, it’s very difficult to tell the difference between Windows Vista and Windows 7. The color schemes are so similar, the menu layouts are similar, and the backgrounds are almost identical.
> Windows 7, I HATE IT ALREADY!!!!
Appearantly, you aren’t alone. When I pulled into the Staples parking lot in Piscataway, the parking lot was completely full. I expected to go into the store and see people waiting in line to take Windows 7 for a “test drive”. I expected to see every register with carts full of laptops and PCs. Well, it turned out that the parking lot was packed with people going to the Party City store to get their Halloween costumes.
In the staples store, there was one young man, about 14-15 years old, and he was trying to figure out which laptops were running Windows 7 and which ones were running Vista. What was particularly disconcerting was that there was a Vista machine on final clearance for $379, and a nearly identically configured Windows 7 machine around the corner for $429. Both featured 4 gig RAM, 250 gigabyte drive on Vista, 500 gig on Windows 7, and similar speed dual core pentium processors. The Vista machine was the last Compaq on the shelf. Is HP shutting down the Compaq line?
So, less than 5 days after the release of Windows 7, it looks like Laptops will be sold at a loss already. And it looks like prices will be crashing from there. It looks like Windows 7 is being perceived by the public as Vista 2, and a bad remake at that. Kind of like so many movies where the original wasn’t that great, and the sequal is no where near as good.
I also noticed that the shelves were still nice and full of Windows 7 upgrade packages, and even at the sale price of $119, it looked like only 2-3 copies had been sold.
Maybe Microsoft should just go back to Windows XP, and offer that as the $90 upgrade to Windows 7. At least it keep them on the desktop, even if it’s just as a virtualized Linux application.
As I was leaving the store, I asked the manager if they had been selling any Windows 7, and they said “2 or 3 copies a day”. I remember when Windows 2000 came out and these stores were selling 20-30 copies of Windows 2000 upgrade kits per day, at $200 each. I remember when people paid $2000 per laptop for Windows XP.
Microsoft has spent almost a billion dollars not developing Vista 7 but marketing it aggressively as if it’s a genuinely new operating system, as opposed to a twist on Vista. By no means do we encourage buying a Mac, but here is a good new Apple ad which is telling.
More Vista 7 posts are coming. We’ve only just started. █
______
“On the same day that CA blasted SCO, Open Source evangelist Eric Raymond revealed a leaked email from SCO’s strategic consultant Mike Anderer to their management. The email details how, surprise surprise, Microsoft has arranged virtually all of SCO’s financing, hiding behind intermediaries like Baystar Capital.”
According to a Salt Lake Tribune report, Cahn told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kevin Gross that “SCO’s claims against IBM and Novell ‘should be pursued aggressively.’”
You’ve got to be kidding me. I predicted that Cahn would want to continue the Novell lawsuit. After all, as it is, no one knows who really owns Unix’s intellectual property. Unix’s ownership is a big deal. If Novell owns it, then SCO has nothing left of any real value. But IBM? Come on!
We’ve known, not suspected, known for years that SCO’s core copyright claims about IBM copying parts of Unix into Linux aren’t true. No one who has read over any of the publicly available evidence thinks otherwise, except for SCO loyalists.
I can only presume that Cahn hasn’t really looked at the case. He seems to believe that underneath all of SCO’s copyright smoke there had to be some fire. Sorry, there’s not even a spark.
At Groklaw, Pamela Jones insists that this is by no means news. From her notes on the bankruptcy hearing:
According to the Salt Lake Tribune’s account, Cahn told the judge he’ll pursue the Novell and IBM litigation, but that’s not really news. He announced as much the other day, and again in the motion regarding the AutoZone proposed settlement, it was hinted at, and what choice does he have at this point? Boies Schiller are paid, and what basis would he have to say it isn’t worth even trying, when copyrights are in the balance? The jury trial would naturally seem worthwhile to pursue, since what costs a lot in litigation is discovery, and that’s over and done. If he didn’t pursue that, he would surely open himself up to litigation by the shareholders McBride claims to be leading. And that costs money to pursue also, so all in all, it’s the course of caution to pursue things at this point, or at least to talk like you plan to.
As SCO has neither a legal case nor a business case (it has virtually no business left), this is nothing to be worried about. But still, it’s a pain in the butt. Is Microsoft still rewarding SCO? █
“[Microsoft's] Mr. Emerson and I discussed a variety of investment structures wherein Microsoft would ‘backstop,’ or guarantee in some way, BayStar’s investment…. Microsoft assured me that it would in some way guarantee BayStar’s investment in SCO.”
The latest charge involves BGN 20 M which the new government must find to pay Microsoft for the replacement of the old Windows system in offices of the State administration. The contact with Microsoft has been signed by the former cabinet, but according to the PM, they “forgot” to slate money for the deal in the State budget.
The references below [1-7] (reverse chronological) ought to add context. Free software is already growing rapidly in this country [1], the government’s use of Free software is said to be “inevitable” [3], the deal with Microsoft is under fire [2], the president is open to change [7], and moves are already being taken towards it [4-6]. There is at least one Bulgarian GNU/Linux distribution which is notable. █
_______
[1] Mozilla Firefox Catches up with Internet Explorer in Bulgaria
According to the Novinite website , In terms of market share, Mozilla Firefox is a lot more popular in Bulgaria than it is globally, and appears to be catching with Internet Explorer.
Bulgarian prosecutors have launched a probe into the contract Bulgaria has signed with US software giant Microsoft for the acquisition of software for the needs of the state administration, Dnevnik daily reported on July 1.
The investigation will seek to determine whether any state administration employee has committed any malfeasance, which carries a maximum prison sentence of five years, Sofia city prosecution spokesperson Steliana Kozhouharova told the daily.
The Bulgarian government will turn more and more to Open Source software, predicts Krasimir Panayotov, coordinator of the GNU/Linux User Group in the city of Rousse, the country’s fifth-largest city.
The Bulgarian government organised a meeting with Open Source companies and developers on 21 March in Sofia. Nikolay Vassilev, the minister for State Administration, told the representatives of software companies, IT services companies and Open Source developers that the government is about to review the state’s IT system and that it wants to get a better understanding of Open Source software. The minister admitted he had once worked with Apple Macintosh, but had in the last thirteen years only experienced Microsoft applications. He told the Open Source advocates he would listen to their views on IT: “We have an open mind and will accept reasonable propositions.”
In France, government agency ATICA has supported the use of open software in the French public sector. In a special report to the French prime minister, the agency provided an action plan and the requirements for open standards. One of the six priorities was the use of open software in the public administration. Denmark installed StarOffice in its education system, and in addition the program was installed in the homes of students. In Spain, the senate, the council for nuclear security, the interior ministry and the justice ministry have used server applications with open code. These examples, however, are only about separate public structures.
Professor Ivan Evgueniev at the Technical University of Sofia presented the FP6 Open Trusted Computing project, professor Vencislav Trifonov also at the Technical University of Sofia presented their e-learning system, Mircho Mirev elaborated the activities of the Bulgarian free and open source software community through the Linux for Bulgarians portal with over 5.000 hits per day.
Topics include a presentation on how to configure a thin client
infrastructure using the Linux Terminal Server Project, an outline on FreeBSD
and its new network and transport protocols and a discussion on the uses of
the Cluster File system.
Perhaps most exciting of all is that our two articles tackle the comparison from two quite different angles. Linux vs Windows 7 goes through the competition blow-by-blow, breaking things down into categories and showing how the two operating systems match up feature by feature.
On the other hand, Benchmarked: Ubuntu vs Vista vs Windows 7 is all about numbers, showing in easy-to-read graph form just how efficient Linux is compared to Microsoft’s latest efforts.
One of the key reasons why our pages are appearing so high on these search terms is because you folks, our readers, very kindly linked to our articles in your blogs, your Twitter feeds, your IRC chats and more, and Google picks up on all those links and ranks our pages higher.
As a result, all that linkage has turned into an incredible opportunity for Linux evangelism: people who hadn’t even considered Linux before are reading about some of the cool things it can do for their computer. And you can bet that if Windows 7 doesn’t turn out to be the perfect OS that Microsoft is promising, those same users will at least consider giving Linux a try. Thanks for the links – every one counts.
How is GNU/Linux different? A GNU/Linux desktop system is designed from the ground up along the Unix model of multiple tasks with multiple users among multiple computers on a network. I will call this a many-many-many design. As such the basic design also includes consideration for securing the operating system and data on same when many users may have access to the same system simultaneously. Therefore, when a GNU/Linux computer is taken out of the box for the first time it already has a higher security capability. This is because of the many-many-many design that included consideration for security from the beginning.
Here at TuxRadar, and in the magazine behind the website, Linux Format, we get a lot of really basic questions from new users. We’ve taken the most common questions and printed them verbatim below, providing Plain English answers along the way, trying to simplify technical information as much as we can. We didn’t write the questions, so more experienced users might look at them and think “wow, that’s a stupid question,” but if you’re a newbie asking Linux questions or if you have friends asking you questions that you don’t have time to answer, we hope this information will prove useful.
The first point relates to what I said earlier, that there’s no connection between the use of Linux on servers and devices versus its use on desktop computers. The usefulness of Linux on servers and devices is firmly recognised in many sectors.
I just compiled Chromium, and it rocks. The download manager is better than Firefox, the design is cleaner, the JavaScript performance is a 4 times better, and overall it just seems more solid. The web works better in it. My only complaints so far are some weird font rendering issues and a lack of extensions (adblock, customize google, gmail notifier, live http headers, modify headers, open in browser, right-click-link, skipscreen, useragent switcher…). I’ll stick with Firefox until there is good extension support for Chromium.
Wondering how on earth to create a quick greeting card or postcard without having to go through using Scribus or some other software? I grew up in the 80s so I was used to Print Master. In Print Master, all my greeting card needs and banner needs were easily remedied. Each of them would have some kind of template and wizard and the images where easily chosen because they came with the application.
The Gnome project’s latest release, comes just in time to be bolted on to Karmic Koala. But with KDE making big strides forward with each point release of KDE 4, are the Gnome team doing enough to keep up? Only just… read on to find out more!
We were lucky this summer in that not only did we have a bunch of our own great Google Summer of Code students, but we got one more for “free”: a student working with another mentor organization that has a strong working relationship with KDE completed their assigned project rather quickly, and so we inherited them, and another half-project, for the second half of the summer. They worked on animations using the new QtKinetic framework that appears in Qt 4.6 and over the last couple of weeks a number of Plasma hackers descended up on that work. We cleared out some of the lose ends, cleaned up the code, added a bunch more functionality and merged it into trunk this past week.
I don’t know what’s going on, but I didn’t want Akonadi to miss the party. At the recent Akonadi sprint, I decided to spend some time putting together a proof of concept for a web client for Akonadi. Here’s a screencast of the result:
Ogg link.
The video shows web pages in multiple web browsers showing the same data as KMail, KAddressBook and the proof of concept gtk applications I wrote about before, with everything kept in sync. They share the same data. I could edit the same data in the web pages too if I had taken the time to write the javascript code to handle it.
Today marks the 6 year anniversary of the PCLInuxOS distribution. PCLinuxOS was originally founded October 24th 2003 by Texstar of Houston TX, USA. You’ve come along way baby.
As promised, here are some pics from FDC09! Michele Tameni, Fabio Erculiani (me), Vincenzo Di Massa and Yusef Maali (new, “honoris causa” Sabayon developer) on these.
DEFT was recovers ext3/4 file systems during the boot process and this modifies the data on suspect media including at least one important file system timestamp. This bug is fixed thanks to user “forensics” in DEFT Forum support. There isn’t problem with system using ext3/4 where the computer was shutdown using the default procedures.
A little later than originally planned, we now have the pleasure to announce the immediate availability of the first preview for sidux 2009-03 “Μώμος”, shipping with kernel 2.6.31 and KDE 4.3.2…
With the latest version, Ubuntu will give you integration with cloud computing and net-books. The ability to deploy applications in the cloud much easier than before is one of Canonical’s goal for 9.10 using Amazon’s EC2 platform. Canonical is also trying to beat the 25-second booting time when using Ubuntu 9.04 on net-books.
Of course this over-view is merely scratching the surface of all of the improvements, refinements and changes present in Ubuntu 9.10; a hell of a lot of work has gone on under the hood, too.
Upstart is the ‘new’ event-based sysvinit replacement by Canonical, that has been widely adopted in the linux world ever since it first appeared in late 2006. The idea is centred around causality, that is, defining relationships that are not loosely defined by some measure of time, but by the presence (at runtime that is) of processes that a service depends upon. For example, if you need service X to run after service Y, you shouldn’t have to ‘wait’ for Y to start before starting X, but, instead, you should be able to specify that X depends on Y in some canonical form and the system would try to start X as soon as Y was up and running. In other words as a user/administrator of a machine you shouldn’t have to go through all that S?? and K?? silliness from SysV.
Linutop OS 3.0 is small, secure, powerful and maintenance free:
Perfect for professional use public Internet access, digital signage in industrial environments and displays.
Motorola posted and then removed specs for its Verizon-destined, Android-based “Droid” phone, says eWEEK. Meanwhile, Motorola “Calgary” and “Zeppelin” Android phones have been tipped, T-Mobile launched Huawei’s Android-based “Pulse” phone in the UK, an HTC Desire photo has appeared, and HTC released source code for the Hero, say various reports.
This is all good stuff. The only thing that leaves me perplexed is the fact that all this openness is happening inside a company that is one of the most vocal and powerful supporters of software patents in Europe. That’s paradoxical because software patents are the antithesis of open source and its methodology. If SAP gets its way on software patents, it will be pointless for others in the company to set up software forges, since the legal issues surrounding open, collaborative development will make that prohibitively complex and expensive to police.
When people first think of getting audiobooks online, they probably think of Audible. But, Audible has one really big problem: DRM (Digital Rights Management). I.e. every book you buy from Audible is encrypted so that you can only listen to it using a very limited number of applications and media devices. There is no application for Linux to play Audible audiobooks, and Android devices don’t support playing Audible files (yet anyway) either. Quite frankly, when you purchase a book from Audible, you are not buying it, you are only renting it. Even if you have a player that is compatible now, in 5 years when you get the urge to listen again, it is likely that your new device or computer will no longer be able decrypt the file. If you are lucky, Audible may pull an Apple and offer to remove the DRM from the file for additional cash out of your pocket; so you can finally own the book you thought you already bought. However, there is no guarantee of even that…
This is quite significant for GNU GRUB as it’s the first time it’s ported to a mipsel platform. In addition, it is planned to support the Yeeloong both as a “disk bootloader” (i.e. the way it is normally used on x86/PC) and as a “firmware bootloader”, thereby offering a more flexible alternative to PMON2000 (the preinstalled firmware).
One of the key figures in the open government in Australia – and indeed globally, given the paucity of such people – is Kate Lundy. She’s been speaking at the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial Conference 2009. Understandably, her talk was mostly about geospatial data, but there was also this nice section:
FOSS is like a living blueprint – a map if you will – for trust, sustainability and interoperability in the implementation of Gov 2.0 principles.
But for your open source software to be successful, you need to provide the full source code every time you make a release. This expectation is built into the GNU General Public License, but it is also a key to building a successful community. Making the source code available to your users allows for the cooperative development and rapid code improvement that fosters “mind share”. Not provide the source code – such as making a “testing-only release” or a “preview version” – means your users will not be able to see how your code works. More importantly, your users will not be able to help you fix bugs. Without a way to contribute, developers tend to lose interest in a project, and find something else to do.
The cloud you use today may not be the cloud you want or can afford to use later. The information you store in one cloud may need to be extracted and moved to one or more clouds by other providers. You may decide to convert from a public cloud to a private or private-public hybrid. Do you want to rewrite your cloud applications completely to use completely different APIs? Creating and using open standards is one of the best ways of getting interoperability.
Looking back over all these materials in the last few days, I came to a realization: when you sort for broad patterns, people in the Mozilla world use ‘open web’ in two very different ways:
1. The first is to describe the open web as a set of technologies. It’s HTML, CSS, JavaScript and so on. The list of technologies grows over time, but all pass the test of being developed in the open, letting you create and innovate without asking permission. This is Atul’s ‘magic ink’.
2. The second broad category is open web as place or condition.
We’ve been thinking about the beta Data.gov.uk repository, and wanted to explore putting some of the information contained within into people’s hands in a form that is accessible, timely, and relevant.
The German Ministry of Food, Agriculture & Consumer Protection (BMELV) today announced that it has agreed to host the influenza gene sequence database of the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID), putting its future on a more solid footing as the world enters the second wave of the H1N1 flu pandemic.
This is an utter scandal on so many levels, but above all because the UK government is continuing to foist this intrusive, disproportionate, racist and morally repugnant approach upon us when it’s *own figures* demonstrate that it is failing more and more each year.
What is it about the name Goldman Sachs that makes otherwise sensible people foam at the mouth? Over the past few days it has become mandatory for any public figure to fulminate about Goldman’s announcement that it would be paying billions in bonuses to its 5,000 London-based employees. Alistair Darling declared that this was a grievous mistake and that no bank “would be standing here today if the taxpayer had not put their hand into their pocket”.
Lord Mandelson spoke darkly of an “unacceptable return” to past practices. Lord Myners, the minister responsible for the financial sector, lambasted people “being grossly over-rewarded for their contribution to the value added”. Even Boris Johnson, as London mayor the City’s stoutest defender, wrote that Goldman’s decision was “unbelievable … what Asperger’s afflicts them?”.
Here’s how naked short-selling works: Imagine you travel to a small foreign island on vacation. Instead of going to an exchange office in your hotel to turn your dollars into Island Rubles, the country instead gives you a small printing press and makes you a deal: Print as many Island Rubles as you like, then on the way out of the country you can settle your account. So you take your printing press, print out gigantic quantities of Rubles and start buying goods and services. Before long, the cash you’ve churned out floods the market, and the currency’s value plummets. Do this long enough and you’ll crack the currency entirely; the loaf of bread that cost the equivalent of one American dollar the day you arrived now costs less than a cent.
With prices completely depressed, you keep printing money and buy everything of value — homes, cars, priceless works of art. You then load it all into a cargo ship and head home. On the way out of the country, you have to settle your account with the currency office. But the Island Rubles you printed are now worthless, so it takes just a handful of U.S. dollars to settle your debt. Arriving home with your cargo ship, you sell all the island riches you bought at a discount and make a fortune.
In a unanimous vote, the five SEC commissioners proposed measures to give investors a clearer view of dark pools – private trading systems that allow participants to make trades without displaying quotations to the public.
If you wanted proof that the UK government is still an enemy of transparency, try this:
The Government is grateful to the Public Administration Select Committee for its examination of lobbying in the UK, which is the first Parliamentary inquiry on the subject since 1991.
[...]
What this conveniently glosses over is the difference between “making representations to government on issues of concern” – which is what you and I as citizens do all the time, mostly by sending emails to MPs and ministers – and *lobbying*, which is now an entire industry of people employed to use every trick in the book, from the most to least subtle, to get what their clients want.
The first – making representations – is just what it seems: someone expressing their view and/or asking for action. Lobbying, by contrast, is your typical iceberg, with most of its intent invisible below the surface. That is why a lobbyists’ register is needed – so that others can work out the iceberg. The UK government’s refusal to countenance this – and the pathetic excuse it offers for doing so – are yet another blot on this administration’s record as far as openness is concerned.
Section 209 of HLOGA requires the Secretary of the Senate to make all documents filed under the LDA, as amended, available to the public over the Internet. The information and documents may be accessed in two ways. A researcher with a specific query in mind may use the query system, which has been expanded from that available prior to January 1, 2008. A researcher who is interested in downloading the Secretary’s lobbying documents database may do so by clicking below.
There is an extra point here. When Ms. Meyer says she can’t continue with the book, she is giving honest information to her fans: certain acts (i.e., unauthorized copying and distribution of her work) upset her. In fact, they upset her enough that she will not finish the work in question.
Wikinews interviewed US free speech lawyer Marc Randazza, on his defense of a parody website which satirizes American political commentator Glenn Beck. Florida resident Isaac Eiland-Hall created the website in September, and it asserts Beck uses questionable tactics “to spread lies and misinformation”.
The case Beck v. Eiland-Hall is currently before the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland. Wikinews previously reported on the case, in an article earlier this month, “US free speech lawyer defends satire of Glenn Beck”.
Shepard Fairey may have hoped to teach something new about art and copyright with his iconic “Hope” poster of Barack Obama. Instead, he is accused of lying about which Associated Press photo he used. (He says he made a mistake.) But if Fairey’s lying has probably made a hash of his case and lost him a lawyer, it has also raised that pesky question yet again: Just what is fair use? Was it legal for Fairey to take an AP photo and turn it into this piece of artwork?
[...]
Here’s a second example: This is the Economist’s use of the infamous Abu Ghraib photos, taken by American military personnel, which TV, newspapers, and magazines repurposed without hesitation. What we have here is fair use in news reporting. The photographs in the Abu Ghraib scandal were the story; what might have otherwise been an infringement of copyright is permitted so that the news can be reported. From this, we understand why fair use bears a close relationship to the freedom of the press. Again, the use is considered “fair” because there is some good reason, or many, for it.
The Performing Rights Society don’t like bad press. Today, the BBC are reporting that the PRS have backed down after threatening 56 year old Sandra Burt of the A&T Food store in Clackmannanshire, Scotland with a fine of “thousands of pounds” for the serious crime of singing to herself while stacking shelves without purchasing a licence.
Summary: Microsoft’s “OEM watch list” is out in textual form, with interpretation
TODAY’s Comes vs Microsoft exhibit is Exhibit px04275[PDF], which we conveniently describe as the “OEM hit list”. Wallclimber has helped us clean it up, reconstruct tables, and she has also extracted all the text from it. The exhibit can be found appended to this post, but here are some interesting bits worth paying attention to.
What is the “Dumbo Plan”?
Dumbo Opportunity: Dumbo Plan was presented to Minolta, who is interested in this project and will have a presentation to MSKK to prove that they can do mass-production.
“Microsoft marketing and sales jargon is truly mind-numbing stuff,” argues Wallclimber.
Watch the resistance from Dell. The ultra-aggressive [1, 2] Joachim Kempin steps in.
Dell continues to reject our WFW proposals on the basis that our offer is a financial mis-fit with their “Build-to-order” marketing model and our per copy pricing is too high. Executive discussion between JoachimK and Joel Kocher yielded no progress.
Having looked at this exhibit, one regular reader of ours wrote: “It’s Microsoft’s “watch list” of OEMs and ISVs, so they can target those who stray from Windows, with their usual racketeering methods. The goal is 100% market saturation of pre-installed systems, and the method is intimidation and blackmail, specifically – the threat of revoking their right to distribute Windows systems if they support anything other than Windows (via secret MoU signed under NDA). Since the DOJ judgement, the new threat is a reduction of volume discounts on licenses, which then reduces the OEMs competitiveness. New method, same racketeering.”
As the items at the beginning of this document show, Microsoft pressures the already-impoverished companies in the East. “Interesting that the Far East OEMs were feeling the pain of deep price cuts while Microsoft’s revenue was exceeding their budget in most areas of the Far East,” alleges one person. █
Appendix: Comes vs. Microsoft – exhibit px04275, as text
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Roy is a Software Engineer, interdisciplinary researcher, and an advocate of fair competition. He holds a doctoral degree in Medical Biophysics. Contact us (encrypted/PGP)
Content is available under CC-BY-SA