• As you probably know, Gates predicted that SPAM will have reached final demise by 2006. The vast majority of it is delivered from compromised Windows PCs and the prediction was made back in 2004. Bill Gates has been publicly whining about SPAM (again, sent from Windows zombies) which he receives himself, even though he has staff to do the filtering for him. It is like a country using nukes against a neighboring nation and then complaining about radiation that drifts across the border. To Gates, never mind the hundreds of millions that suffer from vulnerabilities—those that extract spam from Gates’ own creation.
• Windows is an alternative operating system, which some claim can actually replace Linux. Of course, it is unstable, prone to breakage or hijackers, and it will not run some of your favourite applications. This last statement is especially true when you come to consider its most recent version. I cannot envision Vista regaining any market share for Microsoft. Au contraire: it already drives many people away. Even aggressive lockin attempts lead to backlash nowadays, owing to the openness of the Web.
• Linux can import and export individual windows and treat them in a flexible way, owing to the way X server functions. Windows, on the other hand, is not modular, so remote connections are flawed from the get-go. Linux could (and can) mimic the same approach which is grabbing an entire desktop environment to be redrawn. This instantiates a whole new animal on the server and sips resources though.
• Prebundling remains a major concern as Microsoft now prepares to ‘pull a Netscape’ against VMWare et al. It happens endlessly. For example, by bundling a proprietary formats-biased media player in Windows, not only monoculture is encouraged. Web users who do not use Windows will face more encoded files that cannot be opened. It leads to a danger and circularity trap — a self-sustaining monopoly.
• Microsoft was wise enough to name their operating system in a way that makes them seem like inventors whose work is copied. Just describing this paradigm would involve uttering the word ‘windows’.
• Microsoft pays people to write Windows praises on the Internet. It’s a proven fact. One day everyone will look with contempts at pro-Windows ‘Internet trolls’ that advocated a dinosaur O/S and carry on bashing rivals. I had people fake my identity and do some nasty things under my name. I digitally sign my E-mail messages because of this. Me and my electronic accounts/sites are otherwise sensitive to social engineering. I had a couple of imposters in the past, but it’s more of a nuisance than a compliment. Being described as a transgendered person is no joy and the forgers have stooped pretty low in order to fuel slander. Subtly rude and ambiguous phrases like “artichokes on banana” are sometimes used. It’s just one that crossed my mind some time ago (just replace Arty with a girl’s name, please).

Macs and iPods — different company, same problems

uestion: You say that “you can bet your business on Free Software”; how do you back up that statement?

Answer: How can you bet your business on proprietary software? If a company is bought, goes bankrupt or merges or decides to delete a product line you have no choice but to go with whatever product or path they desire. How can you plan when the company keeps changing its licensing terms, and you have no real alternatives? What do you do when the company that makes your software puts its own profits and its values ahead of yours, the customer? When the software company holds back on releasing the latest bug fix so it fits its “release schedule?” When you can’t get that one little feature added that would allow you to streamline your business, save a lot of money and beat your competition to market?

What happens if that company (no matter where it is) is embargoed?

                       — Jon “Maddog” Hall

My desktop still serves me well

Guess who is rejecting Windows Vista? A role model to many Windows users — Chris Pirillo. If he is upset with Microsoft, perhaps everyone should be.

Vista backlash grows; key advocate moves back to XP

Chris Pirillo just broke up with Windows Vista, saying, “The shipping version of this OS is late beta, at best.”

Jason Busch did the same: “It’s an absolute travesty that Microsoft would have released such a half-baked product.”

An Open Letter To Jim Allchin (from Chris Pirillo)

Jim,

Congratulations! Seriously. I’m glad that you finally got Windows Vista out the door, but I’m equally as thrilled to know that you’re working on releasing SP1 by the end of this year.

Who is next? Paul? Jim? Maybe even Scoble? Scoble is acting a bit like an elitist at time, yelling out at developers for not implementing RSS support (which he believes he’s some sort of Guru of). Chris Pirillo, on the other hand, I get along with pretty well because he’s kind (and certainly gentler than Robert Scoble). Good move, Chris! Show us the way to go.

THE idea of free culture is centred around democratic values. It changes a few economical status quos (e.g. compartments, pyramid schemes), so no wonder it faces so much resistance and sheer opposition from various authorities. All in all, it involves millions of people getting exposure and becoming contributers rather than having a few ‘stars’ reaching millions who get glued to a couch and dream of being superstars. The former is a case of decentralisation of influence, if not of wealth as well.

That is why I continue to urge everyone to made a gradual migration to software which shifts control back to its rightful owner. Do it for, if you ask me — which you might do — the Free software movement, but mainly for your own benefit. Only when computer use is restricted to a point of end-user suffocation will people wake up. As it stands, with DRM, even personal information is set to expire and become no longer accessible. All the advancements made by sharing are suppressed, which once again leads to stifling of scientific and cultural progress. And it’s very sad. It is in a company’s interest to keep us naive and obedient to anything.

Apple’s Open Source licences are geared towards transparency, but nothing scientific for the betterment and extension through sharing (giving and taking). I find great hope in Linux, unless BSD matures to become as easy to set up. OpenSolaris remains a package that is controlled by a company, so it is too early to consider it.

Click image for full size

ENNY, pictured above, has been with us since I was about 8 or 9. I have just received some terrible news. Due to her degrading condition, including poor sight and sense of hearing, she will put put to sleep within a couple of days. I will sorely miss her. My memories of her go as far back as I can remember. Like all golden retrievers, she was calm, obedient, and affectionate. Jenny was family.

Related: Jenny, The Family Dog

Bill Gates arrested in his younger days (photo in public domain)

would like to divert the readers’ attention to to my most recent post in another blog. Many of Microsoft’s dirty tricks are finally out for public viewing, indefinitely. I intended to put all of them on my external hard-drive, but gave up due to the enormous volume. Therefore, I’m glad they are online, saving me the storage burden. Which reminds me of a little joke:

[sarcasm]
500 GB. Now that’s a lot of space to accommodate with pr0n.

Files under /brunettes/2006/dec/29/3/volvume10/issue2/

Got to keep tidy!
[/sarcasm]

OME time ago I was asked about my working habits in Netscape.com. My reply no appears in a friend’s blog. As I wrote my response in a rush, I have since then decided to tidy up the text a little bit. The slightly expanded explanation lies below.

In a nutshell, by concentrating on one topic at Netscape I know much better what was already submitted and I also know which bits in articles can connect, what gets repeated, and what’s considered major news. I used to be more diverse and I sometimes tried to break the news, but it was harder to keep track of. A lot of items were virtually ‘blocked’ because of duplicates, which I always try to avoid. I chose to be working on Open Source and Linux, for which I have real passion. This increases morale and motivation throughout work. It is merely a case of being amused while compensated, owing to formal role (and accompanying duties) of a Navigator.

I work in ‘batch made’, so over the course of the day I accumulate a list containing a title, a short description and a link. I assemble these in a simple text file. Because I don’t submit stuff immediately, however, it’s unlikely that I will be able to get the major news in. Duplicates are just out of the question. 2 or 3 times a day I just open many submit-type pages, allocating them to separate browser tabs, and then do the data entry from the text file I prepared. One monitor contains the Web browser and another contains the text file. As I scroll down the list I also separate some item which I wish to E-mail for use at Groklaw.

As for articles that I collect, I go through many hundreds of titles in the RSS feeds and follow about half the links. I try to extract the text that’s most eye-catching out of articles/blog items. Choice of RSS feeds is important because some tend to repeat the news (Slashdot, CNN, BBC), serving as slow and careful-to-corrobate-with-sources middlemen, whereas sites like Digg and C|Net have a lot of early scoops.