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

Crime and Corruption at Microsoft GitHub Cannot be Covered Up by SLAPPs in Another Continent
We'll write about this for a long time to come
Slop Videos Are Disappointing Garbage, Nothing New, Just Brute Force up on Display or a Pedestal of Slop
Slop videos aren't a new thing
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Linuxsecurity, and Google News Getting Even Worse (More Slopfarms Added Which Attack Linux With Bruce-Force SPAM)
Google News is part of the same problem
GNU/Linux is Replacing Microsoft Windows. But We Need to Eradicate Microsoft, It's a Hub of Crime.
I have been writing about Microsoft since the 1990s when I was in school
 
Weeks After Microsoft Bankruptcy in Russia the Company Shuts Down in Pakistan, Too
Last month Windows' share in Pakistan fell to an all-time low
Rob Musial's June 2025 Additions of Malware in Proprietary Software
Via the GNU Web site this week
Links 04/07/2025: Microsoft's H-1B Visa Applications Show Another Crisis Unfolding, Many More Deep Cuts and Shutdowns Revealed, Complete Microsoft Exits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 04/07/2025: A Day To Remember and "Stop Killing Games"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, July 03, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, July 03, 2025
The War on Local Storage (People Hosting Their Files Locally and Privately)
There's nothing wrong with controlling one's computing
What Digital Independence Means
Independence in the digital realms means abandoning platforms like GitHub, not just rejecting proprietary software
NVidia is a Bubble
they temporarily see fortunes and wrongly assume perpetuity thereof
Fedora Does Not Care About Diversity and Inclusion, It's About Optics (Corporate Image)
any notion of inclusion is superficial and misleading
Don't Buy the Excuses for Microsoft's Mass Layoffs
Back in the 90s, Microsoft bought a lot of companies to get and stay ahead
Happy Independence Day to Our American Readers
Maybe tomorrow will be a good opportunity to explain to American people - in terms of concepts, not brands - which tools respect their independence
Links 03/07/2025: More Cuts and Cancellations at Microsoft Revealed
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: Favourite Child and Launching WikiGem
Links for the day
Mystery Surrounding the PCLinuxOS Sites and PCLinuxOS Magazine
Let's hope this isn't something major
People and Companies Do Learn Some Lessons From Their Mistakes (Stubborn Ones Don't)
Brett Wilson LLP is an example of one that would rather drown in mistakes
Links 03/07/2025: 'Hey Hi' Slop Ridiculed Some More and Microsoft's Layoffs Tally for 2025 Reaches About 29,000 in Just 6 Months (Almost 5,000 Per Month)
Links for the day
Microsoft Staff Harassing Women, Strangling Women, Telling Women to Kill Themselves and Worse? Not a Problem!
Two women have left Brett Wilson LLP
The Slopfarms Are Losing the Plot (and Google is Propping Up Rogue Sites)
Google is part of the attack on the Web, on information, and on technology
New BetaNews Realises There's No Potential or Future in Slopfarms, Prior Editor Wayne Williams is Back
They realise that slop (so-called "AI") cannot replace humans
Claims That Microsoft Looks for Staff That Works More and Gets Paid Less (or Can Only Code by Grabbing Other People's Code, Under the Guise of "AI")
People can form their own opinion
Richard Stallman Was Right About Reasons Not to Use Microsoft
last updated 2017
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 02, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 02, 2025
Gemini Links 03/07/2025: No to Cloudflare and Small Web July
Links for the day
Links 02/07/2025: Deep Microsoft Cuts, Macron Speaks to Putin
Links for the day
Confirmed: Microsoft Shutdowns Today, Not Only Mass Layoffs
"The Initiative is the only studio closure planned today, although some other teams have seen cuts of varying degrees."
Microsoft Windows Nosedives in Switzerland While GNU/Linux Leaps Above 6%
sooner or later they might have to make the move anyway
Anxiety at Microsoft: Many Workers (Maybe Over 10,000) Still Don't Know They're Being Laid Off Just Before US Independence Day
"Has anyone gotten the notification yet?"
Microsoft "Declined to Say How Many People Would be Laid Off," According to Associated Press
Some other prominent publications said they reached out for comment from Microsoft and received none
The X War is Over and the "Wayland People" Lost
People will gravitate towards what works for them
20 Years Since My Thesis
It's still online
GNU/Linux is Replacing Windows in Laptops/Desktops
The world will move on while Windows and Microsoft shrink
Now Comes the Expected Webspam, Framing Microsoft Layoffs as "Hey Hi" Success Story (False Marketing That's Piggybacking the Layoffs)
falsely marketed as "intelligence"
Hungary: Microsoft Windows Sinks to 17% "Market Share"
In many nations in Europe it seems like the era of Windows is coming to an end
Microsoft Media Operatives and Bill Epsteingate-Funded Sites Said Microsoft Lays Off 9,000, But Other Sites Say More (Including 2,300 in Redmond Alone)
We might never know the real number/s (Microsoft will keep the cards close to its chest) until there are leakers or unless there are whistleblowers with hard proof
Microsoft Layoffs in Spain, Portugal Record for GNU/Linux
in Portugal we see GNU/Linux at record levels
GNU/Linux Reaches All-Time High in the United States of America
Windows is trending down
Yes, Microsoft is Again Using Its Favourite Liars (Stenographers) to Seed Fake Layoff Numbers, Much Lower Than What's Really Happening
It is Jordan Novet again, just as we predicted
Will Microsoft Once Again Choose Its Favourite Liar to Spread Lies About Today's Layoffs, Quickly to be Replicated and Spread by Slopfarms?
What lies is Microsoft briefing its media moles to tell today?
"OSS Fetishism" Wins After Ferenc Zsolt Szabó Ousted (Microsoft Mole From Capgemini)
Many people said 2025 would be the "year of Linux on the desktop"
There is Nothing That LLMs Can Offer Honest People
LLMs are a passing fad; they're expensive and offer poor "value" for energy; they usually offer no value at all unless you are a cheater, spammer, and liar
What statCounter Shows Today Helps Explain Microsoft's Helplessness, Mass Layoffs
Since many US journalists are already away on holiday almost nobody will dare ask the difficult questions or give a voice to whistleblowers
Microsoft Gets the Chop in South America
The notion of digital sovereignty gained a lot of popularity
Europe Has an 'Exit'
Let's see what happens the rest of this year
El Presidente Talks, Canada Walks (Away From Windows)
GNU/Linux rising
Cities in France and Germany Move to GNU/Linux and statCounter Detects Big Differences
Will governments lead by example?
Microsoft Lost Its Foothold in Africa
How many of these are "old" Windows machines converted to GNU/Linux? Probably a lot.
Led by Europe, GNU/Linux Makes Big Gains This Month
statCounter started showing new/fresh stats
Links 02/07/2025: Massive Microsoft Layoffs About to Commence, "Tesla's Robotaxi Program Is Failing"
Links for the day
Why the Microsoft People Who Started SLAPPs Against Techrights Could Very Well be Sent Back to Prison
White-collar crime is also a crime
The Company Run by Former (and Last Proper) Red Hat CEO, Promoting Microsoft Mono, Faces Shock as Senior Partner Jailed for 33 Sexual Offenses Including Pedophilia
"As reported by The Oxford Mail in April 2025, the offenses include rape, sexual assault, engaging in non-penetrative activity with a child, and more."
Microsoft Lost 29% of Windows Users, Based on Microsoft, Now Come Massive Layoffs
Microsoft collapse is today
Slopwatch: Google Serves to People Linux Slop and Linux FUD (Made by Bots)
"Slopwatch" finds it difficult to ignore Google's role in encouraging LLM slop
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 01, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 01, 2025
"Wayland People" Behave Like the Googles and Microsofts of This World
Published yesterday by Igor Ljubuncic
Gemini Links 02/07/2025: Arch Linux and Fulfillment in Gemini
Links for the day