For Some...Don't Waste Your Time
,----[ Quote ]
| You are perilously close to being on my "despise" list ol' buddy...and if I
| can...I am going to help do what it takes to loosen your grip...and you know
| what? There are millions behind me should I tire and fail. You should hope to
| stick with fighting me Mr. Gates...I know some of the people that will fill
| my space when it inevitably becomes vacant...
`----
http://blog.lobby4linux.com/index.php?/archives/349-For-Some...Dont-Waste-Your-Time.html
Related:
A Call To Accountability
,----[ Quote ]
| Not only do you have Teachers and Administrators who are protecting Microsoft
| (isn't money wonderful?), you have System Administrators and Network
| Technicians that lock their heels on any movement to change the system to
| FOSS. Between job security, laziness and politics, Microsoft has fairly well
| assured itself a solid and substantial place in the United States educational
| system.
|
| [...]
|
| It's your money. You've paid dearly for our public school system and you have
| the right to know how many millions the schools are putting into the pockets
| of Bill Gates. Wouldn't that money be better used to educate our kids?
`----
http://blog.lobby4linux.com/index.php?/archives/347-A-Call-To-Accountability.html
[Microsoft-funded] Survey says: Microsoft ecosystem is biggest
,----[ Quote ]
| The IDC study--which Microsoft has been commissioning in different forms for
| the past five years--also forecasts positive growth for the IT industry and
| workers, with developing countries leading the way.
`----
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9799264-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Microsoft admits Swedish employee promised incentives for Open XML support
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft Corp. admitted Wednesday that an employee at its Swedish subsidiary
| offered monetary compensation to partners for voting in favor of the Office
| Open XML document format's approval as an ISO standard.
`----
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9033701
Microsoft-backed study sees Vista creating U.S. jobs
,----[ Quote ]
| A Microsoft-commissioned study estimates that Windows Vista could
| create 100,000 new IT-related jobs in the United States.
`----
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6142111.html
IDC pronounces Linux unimportant to European economy
,----[ Quote ]
| A recent IDC white paper on the economic impact of Microsoft's super
| soaraway new Vista operating system seems to be lacking one crucial
| ingredient -- other operating systems.
`---- ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=34542
A new Microsoft-commissioned anti-Linux study debuts
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft seemingly has backed off from trumpeting its "Get the
| Facts" studies, as of late. But that doesn't mean the company has
| ceased commissioning research outfits to perform its anti-Linux dirty
| work.
|
| On September 25, Mercer Management Consulting released a new
| Microsoft-backed study. The study is entitled "Driving Lower TCO and
| Rapid ROI through UNIX Migrations." The synopsis: "Microsoft Windows
| the preferred choice for UNIX migration when IT organizations migrate
| servers as part of a focused effort to improve business processes,
| deploy critical applications or restructure their IT architecture."
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/index.php?p=12
Leaked letter warns of open source 'threat to eco-system'
,----[ Quote ]
| leaked letter to the European Commission has revealed the extent of
| lobbying by proprietary software groups to prevent the widespread
| adoption of open-source software.
|
| Sent in response to a recent report on the role of open-source
| software in the European economy, Microsoft-funded pressure
| group, the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC) warned of
| potentially dire effects if too much encouragement was given
| to open source software development.
`----
http://www.techworld.com/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=7109
Macs on the network: Time to panic?
,----[ Quote ]
| The facts reveal a coming resurgence. Apple sold 36% more Macs in the second
| quarter than the same quarter last year.
|
| [...]
|
| or the most part, connecting a Mac to a corporate LAN doesn't have a
| world-shattering effect on performance or support. According to William
| Green, director of networking at the University of Texas in Austin, the Mac
| has had a minimal impact on the school's infrastructure.
| "All OSs behave differently; if you have a multivendor environment, you have
| to deal with the differences," said Green. "There have not been any special
| problems related to Macs."
`----
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9035318&intsrc=hm_ts_head
,----[ Quote ]
| The Scary World of Linux Computers.
|
| Dunkelberger likely wasn't intending to suggest that the iPhone was
| running Linux, but instead that it is a full computing environment
| with multiple vectors for potential exploits to attack. It is
| interesting that he brought up Linux however, because it is a scary
| subject for IT staff beholden to Microsoft.
|
| The majority of Microsoft oriented corporate IT staff I've worked with
| have a sort of reverential fear of Linux. They like to talk about it
| in a respectful sort of way, but they are often afraid to actually use
| it. Deploying a Linux server without an outside support agreement is a
| very scary task to users who have felt safe for years in their
| codependent relationship with Microsoft.
|
| After investing tens of thousands of dollars into their troubled
| relationship, after spending sleepless nights nursing NT servers back
| to health after they fall off the wagon to binge on worms and the
| other malware they have a genetic propensity to be addicted to, after
| growing dependent upon calling up the Redmond Father's TechNet for
| advice on how to deal with the regular schizoid mania and subsequent
| crashing of Windows, it's difficult to start over with something
| entirely new.
|
| IT managers are a whipped bunch. Linux is an allure associated with
| danger, like a pretty girl on the bus who smiles at the haggard,
| middle aged family man. She's just being friendly, not inviting him
| into a blissful world. He knows he has to think about his commitments
| to Microsoft, all of the fighting that would have been for nothing,
| all of the holding back of hair that he's already dealt with and wants
| to use as credit toward an established relationship. It's too much
| starting over, too late in the game.
|
| Today's adherents of Microsoft are like the COBOL programmers in the
| 90s: too old to learn new tricks, and too tired to even want to try.
| They are dinosaurs, dependent upon resisting change to maintain their
| proprietary world.
|
| Change isn't resisted successfully for long, but holdout adherents can
| oppose progress and tenaciously hold things up for longer periods of
| time than one might imagine possible.
|
| Is Linux Really a Problem?
| Of course, there are lots of phones that run Linux already--far more
| than run Windows Mobile--and they are not plagued by security
| problems.
|
| There are also tens of millions of embedded routers and phone systems
| running Linux or its BSD cousin, and none have suffered a scourge of
| security rashes anything remotely like Microsoft's Windows. Perhaps
| security isn't just a product of being powerful or having market
| share.
|
| Why would the iPhone's closed BSD environment be a special security
| risk? Hackers working on the iPhone have to build and install their
| own shell before they can even control it in ideal settings in a lab.
|
| If iPhone enthusiasts can't hack their own phones without first
| manually installing their own root access and shell environment, why
| are pundits distributing scary stories about the potential for iPhones
| to turn on their human masters and form a rebellion mechanical army of
| robot terrorists?
|
| Why didn't these flacks ever tell us about their brainstorming efforts
| to imagine security problems for Windows Mobile devices?
`----
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q3.07/8E67109A-41FD-4CB1-B92A-4B038428FAA2.html
|
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