[These are now news, but they circulate around the Web now, and they are
*extremely* vital to be aware of]
Moonlight: Silverlight Goes Mono
,----[ Quote ]
| Under the hood, Silverlight 1.1 is an extended subset of the .NET 2.0
| framework.
`----
http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2007/08/23/moonlight-silverlight-goes-mono.html
Could SharePoint Be Microsoft’s New Mode of Lock-In?
,----[ Quote ]
| This could be a tough one for IT leaders. Business users are comfortable with
| Microsoft. They know how to use the Office interface, and apparently like it
| to the point users will create their own mini-BI tools from Excel and opt out
| of the corporate system. But, if Asay’s right, vendor lock-in could cause
| unforeseen problems or major costs down the road.
|
| After reading Asay’s column and the interview with Nicholls, at least you’ll
| know which questions to ask before investing in either SharePoint or an
| alternative solution.
`----
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/blogs/mia/?p=198
Here in the UK, Gordon Brown and other Microsoft sympathisers (e.g. BBC) are
poisoning businesses with tomorrow's lock-ins. These technologies
(DRM/XAML/OOXML/SharePoint/more) must be shunned. Giants like IBM have
approaches the EU asking to make Vista illegal because of these.
Related:
BBC's iPlayer's Prospects Looking Bleak
,----[ Quote ]
| "The future of iPlayer, the BBC's new online on-demand system for delivering
| content, is continuing to look bleaker. With ISPs threatening to throttle the
| content delivered through the iPlayer, consumers petitioning the UK
| government and the BBC to drop the DRM and Microsoft-only technology, and
| threatened legal action from the OSC, the last thing the BBC wanted to see
| today was street protests at their office and at the BBC Media Complex
| accompanied by a report issued by DefectiveByDesign about their association
| with Microsoft."
`----
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/15/1721229&from=rss
Anti-DRM Protesters call on the BBC to eliminate DRM from the iPlayer
,----[ Quote ]
| London and Manchester, England – Two weeks after the BBC officially launched
| the iPlayer, protesters wearing bright yellow Hazmat suits gathered outside
| BBC Television Center in London and BBC headquarters in Manchester to demand
| that Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) be eliminated from the BBC.
|
| The BBC have developed the "iPlayer" at a cost to the BBC license fee payer
| of £130 Million and rising.
|
| [...]
|
| FSF Executive Director attending the protest spoke about the corrupting
| influence of Microsoft, "BBC values have been corrupted because BBC
| Executives are too closely associated with Microsoft. BBC values have been
| corrupted because the iPlayer uses proprietary software and standards made
| under an exclusive deal with Microsoft. BBC values have been corrupted
| because license fee payers must now own a Microsoft operating system to
| download BBC programming. BBC values have been corrupted because license fee
| payers must accept DRM technologies that spy and monitor on the digital files
| held on their computers. We are here today to help BBC Director General Mark
| Thompson, clean up this DRM mess, and to encourage the BBC Trust to reverse
| course and eliminate DRM from the BBC iPlayer"
`----
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/news/general/11186/anti-drm-protesters-call-bbc-eliminate-drm-iplayer
ECIS Accuses Microsoft of Plotting HTML Hijack
,----[ Quote ]
| An industry coalition that has represented competitors of Microsoft
| in European markets before the European Commission stepped up its
| public relations offensive this morning, this time accusing
| Microsoft of scheming to upset HTML's place in the fabric of
| the Internet with XAML, an XML-based layout lexicon forn
| etwork applications.
`----
http://www.betanews.com/article/ECIS_Accuses_Microsoft_of_Plotting_HTML_Hijack/1169824569
Software rivals say Microsoft's Vista illegal in Europe (at CNNMoney.com)
,----[ Excerpt ]
| Software manufacturers, citing 2004 European Commission finding,
| contend the operating system violates server laws in Europe.
|
| [...]
|
| "Vista is the first step of Microsoft's strategy to extend its market
| dominance to the Internet," the ECIS statement said.
|
| It said Microsoft's XAML markup language was "positioned to replace HTML,"
| the industry standard for publishing documents on the Internet.
|
| Microsoft's own language would be dependent on Windows, and discriminatory
| against rival systems such as Linux, the group says.
|
| They said a so-called "open XML" platform file format, known as OOXML, is
| designed to run seamlessly only on the Microsoft Office platform.
`----
http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/26/news/international/bc.vista.microsoft.eu.reut/index.htm?source=yahoo_quote
|
|
