AS vital background to this rant, be sure to have read previous posts about Microsoft casting Silverlight as “open source <something>” [1, 2]. It’s a distasteful attempt to market Silverlight to developers under a false premise. It’s a game of words. It’s dishonesty at its very finest.
Courtesy of Gavin from The Register, herein you can find more of that old spin about Silverlight/XAML and “open source.”
Microsoft wants open-source recruits for new model army
[...]
The company has released M, its new programming language for building textual domain-specific languages (DSLs) and software models using Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) under its Open Specification Promise (OSP).
Once again it’s Gavin Clarke who helps them manufacture these headlines (it is his pattern [1, 2, 3]). It’s not to be overlooked. Headlines matter a great deal because they enjoy a wide circulation and they make first impressions. It is rather laughable that even an infamous OSP makes its appearance again (for background, see [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]).
To make matters worse, later comes another article from Gavin Clarke and the the headline contains the phrase “Open-source Silverlight.”
Moonlight has also benefited from Microsoft’s engineering input and media work as a result of the relationship between Microsoft and Novell – the chief sponsor of Mono and Moonlight.
Thank you, Novell. Thanks for nothing. Some of the comments are worth seeing too. █
WE SHALL try to keep this short and polite. It’s supposed to be constructive criticism, not a complaint, and it’s needed because Dell is doing something which angers some GNU/Linux enthusiasts. It’s seen as a bit of a insult, which should be trivial to correct.
While working on my personal blog site, which happens to have Google Adsense ads running on it, I was surprised to find Google ads for Linux-powered Dell desktops showing up.
It’s one small step for Dell and consumer Linux — and one giant leap for Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux efforts. Specifically, Dell is spending advertising dollars to promote PCs with Ubuntu Linux preinstalled. The move has significant implications for the business world as well. Here’s why.
First, some details about the advertisement. Many many U.S. newspapers on Sunday, October 12, included a multi-page Dell flier. Among the many products advertised was the Dell Inspiron Mini 9, a low-cost sub-notebook designed for email and Web browsing.
Early in the year Dell produced some viral videos and more professional commercials even made it into television, as shown here last week.
If this an Dell / Enfatico spot– we take back all the slams we had to the advertising agency prior… It’s about Linux! Whoo hoo!!
We’ve produced an Ogg version of this video, as some readers prefer it that way.
This is good. Dell is showing GNU/Linux in the mainstream.
But Why Make a Mess on the Carpet?
Over at the blog of Ken (of Lobby4Linux fame), it’s shown that Dell’s paper advertisements for GNU/Linux-based sub-notebooks are ‘decorated’ with a prominent reminder that Dell recommends Windows. What’s that about? If you advertise Coke (as in Coca Cola), you don’t attach a label to it saying that Pepsi is the better choice. It makes no sense. Are they trying to actually sell what they advertise? Watch the image in Ken’s blog and pay attention to the cynical remarks.
Dell screwed up. No wait…they didn’t screw anything up. They fully intended to do what they did. Now tell me they are not under the thumb of Microsoft. Why was this statement necessary? Let the customer decide. So tell me Dell is a friend of Linux or that they are not complete quislings for the Redmond Empire. Oh please…I do so want to hear you tell me this. It will be an Academy Award performance. It will have to be to explain away this.
You can’t advertise Linux because Microsoft has threatened you with exorbitant licensing fees and other sanctions if you do. That would be my guess. In fact, If I were to guess further, I would hazard a guess that those top-secret vendor agreements Microsoft demanded you sign actually states that you cannot actively advertise or promote Linux. I could be wrong…but if I am I’m not far off.
For what it’s worth, we remain suspicious — based on actual evidence — that Dell pays Microsoft quite handsomely for sales of GNU/Linux-based computers. We don’t exactly recommend Dell, and that’s putting it gently.
Why? Because, according to the Morning Herald, both the Beijing Olympics committee and Lenovo, a major backer of the games, had deliberately chosen to run XP operating system on the games’ PC because they didn’t trust Vista. Turns out they shouldn’t have trusted XP either, but they should have known that. Best of all, Lenovo chairman, Yang Yuanqing, said Lenovo had chosen not to use Vista because, “If it’s not stable, it could have some problems.”
So, next time you go to an online PC sales Web site and you see that line about “We recommend Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium,” just remember: They’re lying.
it’s all part of a silly scheme that was never intended to assist customers. Shouldn’t the likes of the ASA step in?
An Illusions of Choice
A reader of ours from Australia sent a gentle alert about Dell’s Web site in his country. “The Dell website fails,” he writes.
“I went there yesterday just to check things out, did a search for “Ubuntu” to see what search results I’d get. The first system that came up was a Vostro notebook with Ubuntu, so naturally I clicked the link [but] it comes with Vista. And there is no option to choose Ubuntu.”
To summarise, says the reader: “It was rubbish, you get a Vostro notebook put in front of you like “hey we got these with Ubuntu”, then when you click the link its, “you can have Vista or umm Vista”.”
Maybe it’s an innocent mistake. Hopefully it is. █
“We should whack them [Dell over GNU/Linux dealings], we should make sure they understand our value.”
“Our partnership with Microsoft continues to expand.”
–Ron Hovsepian, Novell CEO
ON MICROSOFT’S BEHALF, Novell has already caused so much to harm the Free software community. It turned its back on the GNU GPL, leading to a domino effect that has had Turbolinux and Xandros sell out and Linspire close shop. This also fueled FUD attacks on GNU/Linux, appeased regulators for no good reasons, enabled Microsoft to exclude competitors from virtualisation [1, 2, 3] and so forth.
What has Microsoft done for Novell recently? Well, other than those payments that perpetuate exclusion and enable further harm such as OOXML, how does Microsoft repay? Standing out in the news this week was the following report about Brighton Council tossing Novell out. In whose favour? Microsoft.
Brighton & Hove City Council is moving its IT infrastructure onto a single network that will provide Microsoft software for all its 4,500 staff.
The council previously had a number of disparate servers and IT systems including a Lotus Notes email system and Novell networking technology.
It appeared in several on-line magazines in the UK.
Novell’s special partner is also publishing whitepapers that directly compare (and dismiss) Novell’s products. Here is the latest example from 4 days ago. It’s a case study.
The company was using a Novell-based networking and e-mail system, which it found increasingly challenging to integrate with its business and IT applications from other vendors. As a result, the company decided to standardize on Microsoft technologies, migrating to Active Directory®, Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007, and the 2007 Microsoft Office system.
When will Novell realise that its no-compete-like clause/agreement with Microsoft is an abomination? Microsoft asks Novell to take a nap while its ‘robbing’ its core business, which accounts for about 80% of Novell’s revenue.
“In the face of strong competition, Evangelism’s focus may shift immediately to the next version of the same technology, however. Indeed, Phase 1 (Evangelism Starts) for version x+1 may start as soon as this Final Release of version X.”
Microsoft appears to have given up after unsuccessful ad campaigns and a lukewarm response. It moves on to 'vapourware mode' once again, after 5+ years of vapourware mode for Windows Vista (2001-2006). Here are some supportive new references:
Otherwise, despite the fact that Windows’s toughest challengers – Linux and Apple Inc. – remain bit players in the operating system game, Microsoft risks suffering in the arena of public perception, again.
It is a commonly known truth that since Vista was launched, alternative operating systems from the likes of Apple and Linux are doing better than ever.
Make no mistake: Microsoft has moved beyond Windows Vista, which will become all too apparent during this week’s Professional Developer Conference. Windows 7 is the future, and in many ways it’s the present, too.
AS MICROSOFT goes into this week’s Professional Developer Conference, it is hard to find anyone keen to talk about Vista. True, it is a developer’s forum, so you would expect a fair slice of the talk to focus on Windows 7, but it seems that no one wants to mention the V word, according to Microsoft Watch.
Almost 2 years after the RTM milestone of Vista, Apple and Vista still don’t get along, proving that maturity and compatibility may still be far off.
iTunes 8 to Vista: Give Me a B, an S, an OD
[...]
Apple says the problem can have more than one cause, and the company hasn’t yet promised a patch. But if you’re suffering from this unhappy pairing,
Vista 7 Already Open to Hijackers
Yes, only a short time after reaching the hands of testers, Vista 7 [sic] is open to attacks, just like the rest of those versions of Windows.
“A security issue has been identified that could allow an authenticated remote attacker to compromise your Microsoft Windows-based system and gain control over it,” the security update says.
The more than 6,000 attendees who will be walking away from the sold-out event with the Windows 7 operating system software in hand could have been vulnerable to an attacker exploiting the security hole.
My initial evaluation of Windows 7 shows that it’s really just Vista with a fresh coat of paint
This says that Vista 7 is just as slow as Vista.
More on Security
Pseudonym Bob X Cringely has published the article “Windows: Unsafe at Any Speed,” which reached the New York Times and provoked to then receive a lot of reactions. Here’s a reflection:
I like the convenience-store analogy. But when a 7-Eleven gets robbed, everyone who shops there doesn’t end up getting his wallet lifted. When there’s a critical Windows flaw like the one they patched last week, everyone is vulnerable. We need more than security cameras here, bub.
“I see kids of 11 and 12 sharing credit card details and asking for hacks,” said Chris Boyd, director of malware research at FaceTime Security.
Many teenagers got into low level crime by looking for exploits and cracks for their favourite computer games.
To those dare to exploit trivial loopholes receive severe punishment, but shouldn’t the vulnerable system deserve at least some of the blame?
Student charged after alerting principal to server hack
[...]
A 15-year-old high school student in New York State has been charged with three felonies after he allegedly accessed personnel records on his school’s poorly configured computer network and then notified his principal of the security weakness.
The unnamed student of Shenendehowa Central School was charged Thursday with computer trespass, unlawful possession of a personal identification information and identity theft, according to news reports. He has been suspended from school and ordered to stand charges in family court in Saratoga County.
“State and local officials are investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally accessed when they were tapped for personal information about “Joe the Plumber.”
Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher became part of the national political lexicon Oct. 15 when Republican presidential candidate John McCain mentioned him frequently during his final debate with Democrat Barack Obama.
The critical flaw which affects virtually every version of Windows and enables almost any machine to be hijacked without user intervention is actively being exploited already.
A public exploit has been circulated for the recent RPC hole in Windows. When the vulnerability was publicised last Wednesday, Microsoft still said in its security bulletin that although there were targeted attacks, the actual attack code wasn’t publicly available – but the company did warn that the the hole was a potential target for worms. It now seems that this prediction has come true, as a program called “Gimmiv.A” has reportedly been sighted in the wild. Gimmiv.A infiltrates vulnerable computers and sends information back to base. Some virus scanners and intrusion detection systems already offer signatures to recognise these attacks.
Azure Means Giving Microsoft Your Computer, Too
It has been said for months that cloud computing has the danger which is lock-in. Mike reminds his readers of that.
There was a ton of press coverage today over Microsoft’s not-particularly-surprising announcement of Microsoft Azure, its attempt to get into the cloud computing business, competing with the likes of Amazon, Google’s AppEngine and (now) Rackspace, among others. Microsoft entering this space isn’t a surprise at all, so it’s a bit disappointing to see the sheer lack of details surrounding the announcement. Amazon has succeeded in the space because of two main things: incredibly cheap prices and ridiculous ease-of-use.
The troubling thing is that Microsoft’s platform is merely lock-in 2.0.
First of all, Microsoft doesn’t have the greatest track record on the Internet, and it’s not clear that developers will jump onto the Windows Azure bandwagon. Will businesses be willing to commit to a proprietary platform and lock their cloud applications to Microsoft’s datacenters?
“When you hit the quota…it’s possible we will block access to your site,” Microsoft’s Manuvir Das told PDC after a session, Lap Around Windows Azure. Das did try to reassure potential developers blocking was not guaranteed, but noted: “We have the capability to do that and may have to do that.”
A supposedly ‘Elite’ system which I had to purchase last year the DAY after Halo 3 was released since I got the Rings of Death?
This is very bad for the Microsoft brand. Between the Line sums it up well by writing that “Fear of Microsoft Fades.”
[I]t’s exactly 10 years ago this week, that a live audience of Microsoft watchers was trying to crowd into Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson’s court room in Washington, D.C., so grab a glimpse of Chairman Bill Gates’ video deposition on whether Microsoft had used the monopoly power of its operating system to drive Netscape and its Navigator browser out of business.
For those that decry the constant prediction of the “year of the Linux desktop” I am happy to say that next year Linux may actually ship on more desktops than Windows or the Mac. That is right, I said next year. What is driving this? Two words: fast boot.
We aren’t even half way through the week yet and Microsoft is either getting battered or following technical trends already blazed by Linux. In contrast, Linux is having a great week.
I read an article on Yahoo Tech yesterday that I have to share with you. The title is “Microsoft says next Windows won’t be as annoying”. It’s funny that Microsoft realizes, and admits, that Windows Vista is a tremendous blunder. They don’t say it as strongly as I just did but they should. Like Windows Me, Vista is a terrible mistake.
Just because we’re gearing up to release 4.6.0, it doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten the 4.4 branch. A bunch of bug fixes had accumulated since 4.4.2, so we have a new release for you.
Given the fact that this is a young distro, plus the tested version was only the Release Candidate, I foresee a great future ahead. Dreamlinux is going to be a superb operating system, it just has to rough some of those beginners’ edges.
Evermore attributes the increased consumer interest in its office productivity offering to a backlash against Microsoft’s aggressive “black screen” anti-piracy feature that the company launched on October 21st.
Mr. von Tetzchner said that Opera’s engineers have developed a version of Opera Mini that can run on an Apple iPhone, but Apple won’t let the company release it because it competes with Apple’s own Safari browser.
Digital Tipping Point: Clip of the Day
Dan Gillmor, creator of the phrase, “Distributed Journalism” 06 (2005)
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