Roy Schestowitz wrote:
[copied from my blog post]
“You’re right. Some of the evangelism practices that I taught
and executed at Microsoft in the 1990’s were unethical. I
didn’t think so at the time — I thought that they were just
hyper-competitive — but I agree now.”
–James Plamondon, former Microsoft ’shills chief’
LAST WEEK we showed solid proof that Microsoft was paying
people for what’s known as “AstroTurfing”. It’s part of the
company’s strategy and policy — always has been. The men at
the very top — those who are responsible for this — are
Marshall Goldberg and James Plamondon.
Some people remember “Steve Barkto”, who was exposed by a
newspaper for being a Microsoft agent [1, 2, 3, 4]. Gary M.
Stewart may be another such agent, who has posted under
literally hundreds of names in mediums that include USENET,
Digg, Slashdot, even Netscape/ Propeller, where he libeled,
embarrassed, threatened, gave fake testimonies, stole
identities and — above all — viciously attacked everything and
everyone that competes with Microsoft. This has gone on for
over a decade, and that’s just one person (there are more).
[snip]
From: "Gary M. Stewart" <gmstewart1953@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Another user loves Ubuntu
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2009 21:01:48 -0500
Message-ID: <gjjshp$bmi$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
X-No-Archive: YES
[...] Don Zeigler wrote:
How I Wasted My Life Trolling COLA
by Gary Stewart, aka flatfish and about 600 other nyms
It’s made me A LOT of money…. A Best Seller you might say……
Roy, it is obvious no matter how much the Wintrolls will deny it.
There is active astroturfing going on, through the likes of the
posts from Gary M. Stewart, DFS, Erik Funkenbusch, Tim Smith,
amicus_curious, clogwog and nyms (Rick Mather), Hadron Quark and
a few lesser trolls. It is obvious that they communicate and
coordinate.
EU has made strides for fairness in competition; there, such
activity is considered illegal. However, most of those trolls
including clogwog live outside the EU and are not subject to EU
law (as Marti found out regarding clogwog).
Regarding Snit AKA Rhino Plastee and a few other nyms (Michael
Glasser), it is possible too, although currently he seems to be
nothing more than a nut case.
Linux is considerably more stable, inherently less viral prone
than Microsoft Windows. Apple OSX based on BSD Unix variant also
follows suite, why some able to afford prefer it.
In spite of all the nasty FUD these astroturfers toss up, Linux
is gaining. Because windows has dominated the microcomputer
desktop environment (and perpetuated for a time due to
uncompetitive monopoly maintenance), it has been an initial slow
climb for Linux.
For example, look at all the lawsuits with Microsoft as defendant:
http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2005/07/14/microsofts-law...
or http://tinyurl.com/59wley
[quote]
Microsoft's lawsuit payouts amount to around $9 billion
Updated Twice the GDP of Cambodia
By Désiré Athow: Thursday, 14 July 2005, 2:35 PM
* UPDATE Additional material at the end of this article.
MICROSOFT HAS had a long, a very long history of litigation,
court orders, patent infringements and antitrust lawsuits against
it since the very beginning of its history. We;ve managed to draw
up a partial list of these.
The surprising thing is not only the number of those lawsuits
against Microsoft - at one time, it had more than 130 pending -
but more importantly, the sheer amount of money it represents.
The Redmond giant has been ordered to pay nearly $9 billion, a
figure which is set to rise with some lawsuits still to be ruled on.
[.... Table below rearranged according to award amount, header added]
Award Amount Plaintiff
-------------- ------------------
$1,950,000,000 Sun
$1,100,000,000 California
$850,000,000 IBM
$750,000,000 AOL
$613,000,000 EU
$536,000,000 Novell
$521,000,000 Eolas
$500,000,000 DR DOS/Caldera
$440,000,000 Intertrust
$250,000,000 Apple
$240,000,000 Minnesota
$202,000,000 Florida
$150,000,000 Gateway
$104,600,000 Arizona
$96,000,000 Perma Temps
$89,000,000 North Carolina
$83,000,000 Stac
$64,000,000 Tennessee
$62,000,000 SPX
$60,000,000 Burst
$35,000,000 Immersion
$34,000,000 Massachusett
$32,000,000 Kansas
$23,250,000 Be
$22,600,000 Nebraska state
$12,300,000 Montana
$10,500,000 Maryland
$10,500,000 Private (5)
$9,700,000 Vermont
$9,330,000 South Dakota
$9,000,000 Employee fired (3)
$9,000,000 North Dakota
$8,960,000 Carlos Armando (1)
$8,600,000 Daum (4)
$6,200,000 Columbia
$4,100,000 Bristol
$3,150,000 New Mexico
$2,000,000 Iowa
Undisclosed Alacritech
Undisclosed AT&T
Undisclosed Sendo
Still in court? Discrimation Suit (2)
Still in court E-data
Still in court Forgent
Still in court Go
Still in court Mythic
Still in court Wordperfect suit
Still in court Real
[...] * UPDATE Thanks to Groklaw and Mr. Jaffar for their
assistance. Ten more cases have now been added and the total in
the coffer now exceeds the $9 billion mark:
Time Line Settled, undisclosed
Ticketmaster Settled, undisclosed
Priceline Still in court?
Goldtouch technology Settled, undisclosed
Syn'x $ 250,000
eLeaders Settled, undisclosed
e-Pass Still in court
Roger Avary (6) Still in court
Arendi Holdings Still in court?
Borland $100,000,000
[/quote]
The lawsuits continue:
http://www.linux-magazine.com/online/news/new_case_against_microsoft_brought_to_european_commission
or http://tinyurl.com/6k7j6d
[quote]
New Case Against Microsoft Brought To European Commission
Dec 01, 2008
The Dutch software dealer HW Trading has proffered a complaint
concerning Microsoft's marketing practices to the European Trade
Commission. The reason: Microsoft has for years been selling its
products at a higher price in Europe than it does in America.
[/quote]
Going back to Linux succeeding, if you think about it, outside
US, the educational and business sectors are more Linux friendly
than US. Even in US, Linux deployments do not often make
mainline news because of the lack of paid for advertising, which
Linux does not need. Following are news leaks:
Regarding Kerala, India's 12,500 high schools now embracing Linux
and FOSS:
http://www.networkgulf.com/newngit/index.php/Industry-News/kerala-
high-schools-complete-the-migration-to-linux-and-open-source
or http://tinyurl.com/7jkcuo
[quote]
Kerala high schools complete the migration to Linux and Open source
Indian Express - Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Kerala is all set to become the first state in India to
completely banish Microsoft and allow only GNU/Linux free
software to be used in the mandatory IT test at the state SSLC
examinations that half a million students will appear for from
next week. Till last year, they could take the exam using either
free software or the Microsoft platform. Not anymore.
A few weeks ago, the Government formally ordered that only free
Linux-based software should be used for IT education in high
schools, using new the Linux text books developed by State
Council for Educational Research and Training and the Free
Software Foundation of India.
The state government's anti-proprietary planks apart, another
major plus of abandoning Microsoft, claim state IT Mission
officials, is plainly the cost factor. “Going for a massive
Windows-based infrastructure cost a lot. Linux can bundle all
applications with the operating system facilitating a single
installation kit”.
[/quote]
http://piacentini.livejournal.com/7871.html
[quote]
ProInfo and Linux Educacional - KDE in Public Schools in Brazil
* Apr. 23rd, 2008 at 6:09 PM
One of the highlights of fisl9.0 for me was getting to know
better the work that is being done by Brazil's Ministry of
Education (MEC). They have just unveiled the numbers for the
ongoing ProInfo project. What is interesting about this project
is that it not only provides infrastructure (computers and net
connectivity) but also open content to students in public schools.
The software installed on these systems is "Linux Educacional
2.0", a very clean Debian-based distribution, with KDE 3.5,
KDE-Edu, KDE-Games, and some tools developed by the project.
[...]
As this first slide shows, until the end of this year there will
be already 29,000 labs deployed, serving approximately 36 million
students. This number grows to more than 53,000 by the end of
2009, and at that time 52 million students will have access to
them. You can also see in the slide a solution that is being
developed for classrooms: a single hardware unit with integrated
projector, cpu, bundled content and DVD player. With it, digital
content will no longer be restricted to the info lab, and will be
usable by teachers in the traditional classrooms as well.
[/quote]
http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7386/469
[quote]
EU: Schools increase use of Open Source
Open Source News - 26 February 2008 - EU and Europe-wide - General
Schools using GNU/Linux or other Open Source systems for desktop
PCs are no longer rare, though in many countries their numbers
are very low. Not so in India, Macedonia, the Philippines, Russia
and Turkey, where hundreds of thousands of pupils are becoming
familiar with Open Source.
This type of software will become more prominent in education,
expects Datamonitor, a research firm. In a report published last
month it predicts that spending on Open Source software,
including maintenance and services, by the education sector
globally will reach $489.9 million by 2012, compared to $286.2
million today.
[....]
However popular these laptops may become, the number of Western
European classrooms were Open Source software is being used
daily, is dwarfed by those in countries like Macedonia, Turkey
and Russia.
In Macedonia, a 180.000 PCs running the GNU/Linux distribution
Ubuntu are being deployed in schools across the country. In
Turkey all students aged 11 and 12 will find Open Source on their
schools PCs as an option next to Microsoft Windows. And in
Russia, the government last year decided to migrate all schools
to GNU/Linux, a move that should be completed by 2009.
[/quote]
Such a threat to the Microsoft Corporation it is, that Chairman
Gates with his little Redmond book made the following statement:
[quote]
The increasing popularity of Open Source is one possible reason
for Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' recent announcement in Davos
to increase the companies' activities in the education market.
"Over the next three years we want to double the number of
students we get to and the number of teachers we get to, to
address the opportunity there."
[/quote]
Imagine that, 180,000 PC's, all with Linux installed. This is
just one country, but then there are others.
No wonder why Venezuela's Banco Mercantil and Northern California
Windsor School District have decided on Linux and Open Source,
along with all these (Linux deployment sampler, incomplete):
20,000 Singapore Ministry of Defence
3,500,000 India
80,000 Extremadura, Spain
80,000 Générale des Impôts, France
62,000 Ministry of Equipment, France
1,154 Parliament, France
4,000 Federal Public Justice Service, Belgium
600 Central Bank, Turkey
300 Scientific and Technological Research Council, Turkey
1,000 Ministry of Water Resources, Turkey
300 Istanbul City Health Directorate, Turkey
12,000 Lower Saxony Tax Authority, Germany
150 Ministry of Finance, Macedonia
10,000 Department of Justice, Finland
1,500 Metropolitan Court, Budapest, Hungary
58,000 Berlin, Germany
400 Largo City Offices, Florida
14,000 Post Office, Brazil
32,000 Government, Brazil
464,000 Brazil schools (848K by 2009)
2,205 North West Province Schools, South Africa
15,000 Ministry of Education, Portugal
20,000 Indianna Department of Education, US
100,000 Macedonia Schools (estimated, 180K by 2009)
Here is something said of Windsor:
http://searchenterpriselinux.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid...
or http://tinyurl.com/5p5x5o
[quote]
The new setup also allows for better remote management. "[With
Windows] we had spent half our time driving around; we had to
touch every machine," Carver said. In a school system like
Windsor, all that driving was costing an already strapped IT
department too many resources.
Carver said it cost the district about $2,500 per school to
migrate to Linux, compared with the estimated $100,000 it would
have cost to upgrade their Windows infrastructure. In addition,
buying more Microsoft Office licenses would have cost the
district $100 per license, she said, whereas OpenOffice was free.
Linux as a learning tool
Ultimately, moving to Linux has enabled the Windsor School
District to build out technology capabilities that wouldn't have
been possible with Windows.
"[The students] are able to do more because Linux cost less,"
Carver said. "Our new computer lab [at Brooks] was set to cost
$35,000 and ended up costing us $16,000 with Linux [on thin
clients]."
And the kids love it too. "The kids think Linux is cool because
it's new, but what they're really doing is stepping into the 21st
century," Carver said.
[/quote]
$2,500 per school to migrate to Linux versus $100,000 per school
to upgrade Windows. It is not hard to do the math. OpenOffice
or commercial variant StarOffice meets most office automation
needs. It reads Office 2003 files and imports them. No one
wants Office 2007 formats, since they are even incompatible with
earlier Office variants.
Yes, due to the convicted's monopoly maintenance, Windows has
dominated for a long time. However, what we are seeing is a
developing synergy with Linux, as Governments, school systems and
private companies embrace Linux.
This ramping will increase exponentially. The common FUD by
Wintrolls will slowly die out, as commercial application delivery
shifts to Linux.
We live in exciting times.
--
HPT
Quando omni flunkus moritati
(If all else fails, play dead)
- "Red" Green
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