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The Twelve Top Myths of Free/Open Source Software
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| By now, you'd think that anyone who owns a computer knows about free and open
| source software (FOSS). However, once you move beyond techie circles, you'll
| find that, for many people, the concept is unknown. Even worse, when people
| have heard of it, they have alarming -- and rather discouraging --
| misconceptions of what it involves.
|
| Here are the twelve most common misconceptions of FOSS, and why they're
| distorted, exaggerated, outdated, or just plain wrong...
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http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/6597/1/
Recent:
The Six Kinds of Anti-FOSS Trolls
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| The Stockholder - This is very sad, because we have Joe Sixpack and Susie
| Soccermom out there with their 401-K being 50% tech stocks in proprietary
| software companies. And they then assume that all competing software
| companies are their mortal enemy. Look for lots of bad-mouthing
| the "competition" and boosting a well-known publicly-traded company, without
| much evidence of any technical knowledge.
|
| The Ugh-meri-kin - This neanderthal attacks GNU/Linux (it's always GNU/Linux)
| based on the nasty allegation that FOSS is communist, anti-capitalist, or
| anti-American. That goes 100% anti-logic. If anything, GNU/Linux is software
| as the signers of the Constitution would have had it. Democratic computing
| for Democratic people. It belongs to everyone, and is designed with the
| individual's maximum freedom always as its number-one cause. But then, not
| too much logic ever went into neanderthal philosophy.
|
| The Vandal - The most dangerous troll of all. Capable of literally destroying
| FOSS projects just by flaming them online. The vandal always takes the tactic
| of attacking the interface. It's almost always a graphics program, too.
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http://penguinpetes.com/b2evo/index.php?title=the_six_kinds_of_anti_foss_trolls&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Now Hiring - Astroturfer, apply at Microsoft
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| Evidently, a "Senior Marketing Manager" has the responsibility of:
|
| * "assisting in defining and driving core marketing initiatives – most
| specifically online & offline community-building"
| * "further the dialogue on the value of the Microsoft platform to open
| source audiences"
| * "be a cornerstone for a global thought leadership website and will be
| regularly featured in industry press around the world"
| * "act as a visible external evangelist for Microsoft"
|
| Wow! That's all direct quotes from the job description. It is so blatant, I'm
| beginning to wonder if it's some kind of joke. Particularly the 'evangelist'
| line.
|
| Kind of like the famous Halloween documents, this posting really tips
| Microsoft's hand and shows us exactly what they're thinking. After all the
| smoke and mirrors over the deals with Linux distros Suse, Linspire, Xandross,
| and Turbo Linux, this shows that those distros were in fact acquired in order
| to be killed. It's not Linux that Microsoft wants, it's the customers.
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http://penguinpetes.com/b2evo/index.php?title=now_hiring_astroturfer_apply_at_microsof&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Related:
Microsoft Pays $200 for Mentioning Its Tools
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| If you're a professor and you mention Microsoft programming tools in a
| scholarly presentation -- in fact, even if you just use the tools --
| Microsoft will send you a check for $200.
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http://chronicle.com/data/articles.dir/art-44.dir/issue-33.dir/33a03001.htm
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