AboutWelcome to Free Software Daily (FSD). FSD is a hub for news and articles by and for the free and open source community. FSD is a community driven site where members of the community submit and vote for the stories that they think are important and interesting to them. Click the "About" link to read more...
Remember Brett Winterford? The guy whom Microsoft gave a free journey to Redmond (he lives far away in Australia)? The guy who writes for the already-Microsoft-biased ZDNet and soon after his visit to Redmond unleashed some outrageous articles echoing Microsoft’s accusations against IBM and ODF?
"We have shifted towards Linux because of Microsoft,"[...]"Microsoft has a lot of power and it is going to be difficult, but we will be working hard to develop the Linux market."
In the last several days Microsoft has shown that despite claims of acquiring a newly found respect for open principles and technology, developers should be cautious in believing promises made by this “new” Microsoft.
Microsoft employees may end up holding their noses a bit while surfing the Web on the company's new bus system. The mobile wireless routers on board the company's "Connector" employee bus system, made by Seattle-based Junxion Inc., use the open-source Linux operating system -- which Microsoft has identified as one of its biggest competitive threats.
A YEAR ago, ASUS told the press that it was "closely tied up with Microsoft.” This happened just months after ASUS had expressed its future commitment to the GNU/Linux platform and recently we learned that Microsoft probably offered kickbacks to ASUS. It is almost confirmed now. The effect on ASUS appears to be devastating as liaising with Microsoft did not really pay off.
Microsoft's partnership with Novell got a lot of people in the open-source community fired up. Since then, Microsoft's Linux deals with Linspire and Xandros have just thrown gasoline on the fire. Now, it appears that Red Hat, the leading Linux company and the most vocal opponent to Microsoft wheeling and dealing, tried to make its own deal with Microsoft before the Novell one was released.
The Linux community is splitting -- right down the middle, at this point -- over Microsoft's controversial claims that the open source operating system infringes on patents it holds. On June 19, Paris-based Mandriva became the third Linux vendor within five days to say it isn't interested in signing a licensing deal with Microsoft to avoid possible infringement claims.
With the further recent action taken against Microsoft by the EU antitrust investigators - who Microsoft "supporters" denounce as "scum", for having the audacity to enforce the law against these gangsters, it seems the nature of Microsoft's unethical business practises needs to be spelled out in the simplest terms, so that these "supporters" might finally understand the "problem".