Authored by: chaz_paw on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:17 PM EDT

Corrections, if any



---

Proud Linux user since 07/26/04

Registered Linux user #422376



Charles [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: chaz_paw on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:19 PM EDT

News Pick thread



---

Proud Linux user since 07/26/04

Registered Linux user #422376



Charles [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: chaz_paw on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:20 PM EDT

Clickies if you have them.



---

Proud Linux user since 07/26/04

Registered Linux user #422376



Charles [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Stumbles on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:22 PM EDT

I think in this case the baby (patents) is soooo filthy that no amount of bath

water can clean it, so yes I agree with PJ, toss em both.



---

You can tuna piano but you can't tune a fish. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Waterman on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:24 PM EDT

And as if we had a question of who was pulling SCOG's strings. Sounds like them

thru and thru. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:24 PM EDT

in less than two years", all because Red Hat did not co-operate, just like Netscape (now dead and buried) did not co-operate in the illegal market division plan of Microsoft's in 1995, as document in Judge Jackson's Findings of Fact. That is monopoly power and the power to reshape one's legacy, with the benefit of billions, more than the GDP of the government of some countries. Link to Matt Asay's blog Lobby4Linux blog, original 'source' I think things will get even more interesting, soon. Obviously, Microsoft's plan to kill Linux through the Novell patent deal failed, thanks to sites like Groklaw who warned of the dangers. That Novell patent deal lies in the two-year time frame from that 'mysterious meeting' between Steve Ballmer and Red Hat's Matthew Szulik in May 2005. I guess Microsoft just didn't see Ubuntu coming. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: chaz_paw on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:25 PM EDT

SCO and Microsoft both need to "put up or shut up."



---

Proud Linux user since 07/26/04

Registered Linux user #422376



Charles [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:25 PM EDT

This might not have been a smart move for Microsoft. The UK doesn't have patents the same way the U.S. does. Specifically, the U.K. patent office actively discourages software patents. The U.K. does have fairly effective false advertising and libel laws. Depending on what Microsoft said, this lawsuit might not be in the direction that Microsoft is expecting ... [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:28 PM EDT

Software "as such" is not patentable in the UK. So if he was trying to

make a patent threat he picked a particularly silly place to do it. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:31 PM EDT

The big problem is SO many people do not/ will not understand that we've

already danced this whole jig with tSCOG. Put up or shut up, Ballmer. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:31 PM EDT

The reason SCO worked is that the principals didn't care that SCO would be

reduced to a pile of smoking rubble. Presumably, Microsoft wants to continue as

an ongoing business.



Microsoft has already been convicted of anti-trust charges on both sides of the

pond. Presumably, someone in Europe will tell them to put up or shut up. Steve

Ballmer made his statements in the UK. He can't rely on his friends to protect

him over there.



I wonder how far he has to go before he steps over the line into a Lanham Act

violation. Even if he is directly threatening Red Hat, he is threatening IBM by

extension. Once SCO has been reduced to the aforementioned pile of smoking

rubble, I wouldn't be surprised to see IBM training its guns on Microsoft.



BTW Stevie baby, you can have my Linux when you pry it from my cold dead

fingers.

[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: mkc on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:35 PM EDT

Our company has a ban on Microsoft Products.

We have been a pure Linux based company for many years now.

We started with Red hat.

All of our office and production needs were meet with Linux on the desktop for

going on 10 years.

We use Debian now.

I would not give Mr. Steve Ballmer the time of day, much less any money for his

faulty products (Microsoft's Operating System and MS Office) which we abandoned

long ago.

There is nothing in Linux that they can claim, most likely it is the other way

around.

[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:35 PM EDT

slander of title [groklaw.net]

tortuous interference [groklaw.net] IANAL - It looks to me that it is time for MS & Steve Ballmer to 'put up or shut up'. Steve Ballmer states in the vnunet.com article: "Every time an Eolas comes to MSFT and says: 'Pay us,' I expect they eventually would like to go to the open source world [as well]. Getting an intellectual property interoperability framework between the two worlds, I think, is important." Steve seems to forget that Eolas showed MS the offending material. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: bbaston on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:42 PM EDT

Grabbed this report from October 2. So indeed Stevie had the audience available to continue his badmouth Red Hat theme. ---

IMBW, IANAL2, IMHO, IAVO

imaybewrong, iamnotalawyertoo, inmyhumbleopinion, iamveryold [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:52 PM EDT

because that big mouth is what will bring them down. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 09:56 PM EDT

Yeah Uncle Steve, show us the code! All source code for Windows and MS

applications. Show us that MS is not using GPL'd and copyrighted code owned by

others!

[ Reply to This | # ]



Discovery - Authored by: argee on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 10:35 PM EDT Discovery - Authored by: jmc on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 03:52 AM EDT Discovery - Authored by: Holocene Epoch on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 11:06 AM EDT Discovery - Authored by: Darigaaz on Wednesday, October 10 2007 @ 01:09 AM EDT

- Authored by: argee on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 10:35 PM EDT

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 10:03 PM EDT

It's hard to see this as anything more than baiting Red Hat to sue them. I

can't see how they can expect to benefit from this sort of behaviour.



Could it be that they are begging Red Hat to sue them? Does this possibly

constitute a Lanham act violation?



Would Microsoft benefit by being sued? How?



Clearly Microsoft won't be materially harmed by any lawsuit. They've lost

multitudes of lawsuits over the years --- in including hundreds of millions of

dollars to companies like the old Stac electronics, Caldera (successors in

interest to the old DR-DOS product line), etc. Obviously a billion dollars a

year in legal fees, judgement award expenditures, pentalties and fines is no

deterrent to them.



Still it seems odd for them to be ... to all appearances ... deliberately

baiting the competition. What could be their strategy? Could it be as simple

as an executive just being dramatic and controversial for it's own sake? (under

the "No such thing as bad press" theory of PR).



The only two elements of strategy that might be plausible for this would be:



* Goad the enemy into attack. Hope they will go into a beserker rage and

expend their resources on their attack or that their attack will distract them

from your counter offensive.



* Galvanize the opposition to goad them into a counter-strike that injures

one of your "unfriendly allies" more than it harms you.



In the first case perhaps they'd be hoping that Red Hat will sue and that it

will cost RH Inc. so much money and be so distracting to their senior staff that

it hurts their focus on the bottom line (perhaps stalling their sales growth

and/or delays their product development). Perhaps this would be coupled with

some other counter-offensive. It's hard to imagine any counter offensive or

other maneuver which would be at all obscured by these antics, however. (In

warfare and fencing it's relatively easy to see how one maneuver can be a feint

to obscure another. However, such techniques don't translate to games such as

chess nor, so far as I can tell, to economic and legal contests).



The second of these options is, perhaps, a bit more intriguing. It could be

that Microsoft hopes to galvanize the opposition to them and any involvement

they make with Linux companies and communities.



For example there's been much press about the deal between Microsoft and Novell.

I seem to recall some twists to that partnership which turned out to the

detriment of Microsoft (something about those vouchers lacking any sort of

expiration date and being arguably a basis for certain liabilities to

Microsoft).



Could it be that this is a way to stab Novell in the back by proxy? A week

attack on Novell's primary competitor which results in some sacrifices (MS loses

a $100M or so Red Hat, Inc. which RH then uses to cut further into Novell's

market share). Microsoft is cash rich; even a quarter billion dollars lost and

paid out probably wouldn't have any significant effect on their bottom line, nor

on their stock price. But a cash infusion of that sort into Red Hat might

severely hurt Novell. The positive press to RH would hurt its competitors even

more!



Meanwhile Microsoft might try to spin any of the resulting losses as examples of

how the open source and free software contingents are "picking" on

them. They might be vying for a campaign pitching them as an

"underdog" in some markets. (It's particularly hard to imagine them

pulling off such a media twist --- but not hard for me to imagine them

convincing themselves that they are, in fact, the underdogs here --- beset by a

pack of wolves)



[BTW: if anyone objects to the martial analogies I'm using here, keep in mind

that Microsoft is well known to consider business competition to be

"war." They exemplify a "take no prisoners" approach to

their business ... and the routinely sell out their allies in true Machiavellian

tradition].



JimD



[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: schestowitz on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 10:06 PM EDT

Mind the fact that Ballmer talks about intellectual property and not software

patents, which are not the same. He talks in the United Kingdom where software

patents are not legal, so he throws patents into a collective bag that is IP.

This is a very nasty strategy from Microsoft and not the first time it uses it

in Europe.



---

Roy S. Schestowitz, Ph.D. Candidate in Medical Biophysics

http://Schestowitz.com | GNU/Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 10:33 PM EDT

So I have a question for th Groklaw community: How much money would be saved if, as Ballmer fears, patent law were properly reformed to disallow software patents? My feeling is that it would be a truly huge chunk of change in the coming years. C'mon, we're smart people: what's the biggest number if they continue to be allowed (not including total collapse of the US software industry, which will be inevitable)? And what's the likely savings therefore if something more reasonable is decided? J [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 10:34 PM EDT

For those of us that are not legal types there is one and

only one way to put an end to this and that is take

Microsoft's candy away from then.



I urge everybody to support Wine to the fullest. Once Wine

is fully operational there will then be no need for a

Microsoft operating system to run applications developed to

run on one. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: tyche on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 10:34 PM EDT

What I did was to copy the link and put it into VLC through File -> Open

Network Stream. I'm not sure how to actually "grab" the video for

transcoding to oog, nor the legality of providing such. But at least you could

see it.



Craig

Tyche



---

"The Truth shall Make Ye Fret"

"TRUTH", Terry Pratchett [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 10:54 PM EDT



Why would any sane company risk its future with Microsoft's

slapdash software? Or with people of such low character?



Vista is a stunning failure, as was OOXML, both pushed out

the door for marketing purposes. You gotta keep tap dancing,

I guess, just like SCO.



[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: cmc on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 11:21 PM EDT

It's exactly like I expected it to be -- a boring conference where I would literally have fallen asleep. No chair throwing to keep me awake, either (maybe there would have been if somebody had fallen asleep?). Here's a quote from the very beginning of the video:



"I thought I'd take a few minutes to kind of share some thoughts with you on, really in a sense on the evolution of the entire software industry, the entire IT industry, if you will, and really this transition that I think we're all going through to a world of software plus service. And no matter where you're coming from, what your prospective, whether you started out developing websites, whether you start out developing applications, whether you started with Windows, or you started with one of Windows' erstwhile competitors."



erstwhile : adjective

former; of times past: erstwhile friends.



What exactly are Windows' erstwhile competitors? Did Windows have a competitor that went away that I don't know about? MacOS and Linux are becoming stronger and stronger competitors by the day, so they can't (in any sane reality) be considered "erstwhile" competitors. The only erstwhile competitors I can think of would be DOS, Windows 3.1/3.11, and perhaps OS/2.



For what it's worth, the actual video is a .wmv file (did you expect any different?). I didn't listen to all of it, because I would have fallen asleep. But I skimmed through it, advancing at about 10 seconds at a time then listening for a few seconds, and I didn't hear anything mentioned about Red Hat. The video did not include the Q&A session, however. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 11:29 PM EDT

A desperate move at best. Clearly Ballmer feels like he's been backed into a

corner. SCO failed, Novell is not working out. Watch out for more chairs.



[ Reply to This | # ]



No ghost companies left - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 10:43 AM EDT

Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 11:39 PM EDT

Watching this now, Steve wishes all open source development was done on "on

top of Windows".



Here's what is said about RedHat:



"People who use RedHat, at least with respect to our intellectual property,

in a sense have an obligation eventually to compensate us." [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: jhboyd on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 11:40 PM EDT

The question that leads into this topic occurs at 5 minutes into the Q&A

video. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: tknarr on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 11:41 PM EDT

My thought: I'm not obligated to pay Microsoft anything other than for material they own which I'm using. If they want me to feel obliged to pay them, the prerequisite then, logically enough, is that they must tell me what of theirs I'm using. If they don't, then I'm not obligated in any way. And if Microsoft tried to bring me into court to force me to pay without telling me what I'm paying for, I'm pretty sure the judge will agree that my prerequisite's reasonable. And no, an NDA isn't acceptable. If it's in RedHat, then it's already public. Non-disclosure isn't applicable to material that's already been disclosed. And I'm not in any way agreeing not to disclose something without knowing beforehand what it is I'm agreeing to keep confidential so I can decide whether I can legally agree not to disclose it. I may have other conflicting legal obligations, after all, and I can't just go making agreements with no idea whether they'll conflict with my existing obligations. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 08 2007 @ 11:47 PM EDT

They won't reveal which patents. They have been asked on numerous occasions to

inform the community so it can be fixed, if they bring suit now, the laches

affirmative defense would be huge and unstoppable.



This is such a strange and obviously losing strategy.



The first question always asked by anyone when accused of stealing is,

"What did I steal?" [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 01:03 AM EDT

According to Mr. B all development will be done on Windows and will

"execute" on Windows, Mac and Linux. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: lannet on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 01:03 AM EDT

I understand that the law in Germany says that is a patent threat is made there

then it can be called out in a court of law.



---

When you want a computer system that works, just choose Linux.

When you want a computer system that works, just, choose Microsoft. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 01:06 AM EDT

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 01:38 AM EDT

.asp format is non-existent in terms of video formats .. .asp is the language

the HTML page that contained the video was written in, conceptually its no

different to .php



in other words, the .asp ending to the link does not indicate anyting about the

format of the video contained on the page. [ Reply to This | # ]



.asp format? - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 04:08 AM EDT

Authored by: sproggit on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 01:48 AM EDT

Hey Steve,



I do hope that you or one of you many minions get to read this and agree to

follow this plea for help. Simply, I'd like you to ratchet up your claims and

threats against GNU/Linux. Don't hold back please... go for it.



Why am I so keen? Well, Steve, it's really very simple. But let me explain it

for you slowly and carefully, so that even you can understand.



You see Steve, the European Union is presently the world's largest single

economic marketplace. It's bigger than the US and - if only for a short time -

bigger than China. So I think it's wonderful that you want to threaten one of

your largest potential customer bases. Really.



Another reason that your threats are so important to me comes from the business

or employment perspective. You see, even though Microsoft has R&D labs in

Europe and India and China and so on, we all know that your power base is in

Redmond, Washington. We're all completely aware that when Microsoft makes money

[which you do] that the largest beneficiaries are all US based. So your success,

Steve, is killing a large chunk of the software industry in Europe. The more you

threaten the European marketplace, the more you will encourage European software

engineers to turn to GNU/Linux as a platform and FLOSS projects as an

environment.





So please, just for me, keep going, huh?

[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 02:05 AM EDT

Perhaps you dont know how pervasive "One Person Businesses" are in

the USA and Europe. First of the all, in the USA, 78% of all businesses are One

Person Businesses!



The U.S. Census has new statistics out  and they show that the numbers of

single-person businesses are booming. There are now over 20 million such

businesses, based on the most recently available data as of 2005.



To be exact, the United States has 20,392,068 single-person businesses. In the

space of three years, 2.7 million more people became the owner of a business of

one.



These single-person businesses account for 78% of ALL U.S. businesses. You know

those millions of small businesses that everyone is always talking about? Well,

the majority of them fall into this category of single-person business.



http://www.smallbiztrends.com/2007/07/single-person-businesses-booming.html



When it comes to Europe, 60% of all businesses are One Person Businesses!



Around 60% of European businesses are one-person-enterprises (OPEs), i.e.

enterprises that employ no personnel. These 15 million single self-employed

entrepreneurs constitute more than 8% of total employment. They are primarily

active in crafts, personal and business services, trade and transport,

construction and agriculture.



The following facts and figures are results from an analysis conducted by the

European Commission Enterprise and Industry Directorate General, which included

a Eurobarometer survey among 4,000 OPEs in 19 countries and a group of national

experts. The aim was to identify reasons why OPEs do not recruit in order to

come up with recommendations as to how conditions could be improved to make

recruitment easier.



http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/05/202&format=H

TML&aged=0%3Cuage=EN&guiLanguage=en



What the two above quotes means is that there is a potential of 35 MILLION

people/businesses, to switch to FLOSS (plus a percentage of the contractors who

will switch because of "word of mouth"). You likely have heard of the

notion of the 'TIPPING POINT", and it would be interesting to see what

would happen after 35 million USERS switched to FLOSS.



Then there's a zillion school systems and last but not least a gazillion

municipal governments.



All of the above operate on "A Penny Saved Is A Penny Earned"



So what are "we" waiting for? [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 02:08 AM EDT

Mr Ballmer, but what part of GNU/Linux did your company write?



The source code is after all open for inspection by the public, and forgive be

but I can see nothing at all of your company's work in there.



Since GNU/Linux appears to be entirely created external to Microsoft, I am

having enormous difficulty in seeing why on earth I should give you any money

for my use of GNU/Linux, especially considering that you have so much money

already. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: skip on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 02:29 AM EDT

Ballmer seems to have gotten a severe case of megolomania.



If microsoft do start going after Red hat, and by extension, other linux

vendors, it will come under scrutiny that simply did not occur back when they

took out their early competitors.



He's a powerful man within microsoft, and I rather suspect that he has been told

things that reinforce whatever he thinks is true, or his lawyers find a way to

back up his image of the world. They are having problems with linux, he wants

linux to go away, and so he has been told that this can be done.



Microsoft, as with many large corporations in the US, has a culture whereby it

is frowned upon to talk to someone above your own immediate management, let

alone the people at the top. In such a situation information is filtered, and

disagreeable notions, such as 'well, thats a stupid idea', simply don't get

said.



I know someone who worked for a fortune 100 corporation that broke this taboo.

Their manager was utterly horrified, and set to severely reprimand them. Luckily

the email sent actually resulted in the beginning of rapid promotion for my

friend, but it could have been far worse.



I think this is what we have here. Ballmer is being told what he wants to know,

and therefore has failed to grasp the information emerging from the SCO case,

that Linux does not contain anyone elses IP without consent, and that going

after it to make it play by the proprietary worlds rules is doomed to failure.



If microsoft try anyway, we may see the start of an avalanche as their precious

patent collection is revealed as mostly pointless and invalidated either for

obviousness or prior art.



Part of me wants microsoft to go ahead and take this to court. Sure it would be

difficult, but it might also be a good thing for linux to get this out of the

way before the next stage of the information age begins.



A stage which I strongly suspect will see the end of microsofts dominance. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: kawabago on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 02:29 AM EDT

Will the EU be accepting american refugee's from software patents?

[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 02:35 AM EDT

When ever anyone from Microsoft talks about how precious their IP is, one name

always pops into my head...



Stac, Inc. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Winter on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 02:48 AM EDT

I think Balmer wants to use copyright law to sever all links between FOSS and

MS.



The IP is fonts and codecs. Almost all users of OO.o and Linux use MS fonts and

audio/video codecs. The new default fonts of Office07 are all new and

proprietary. The new media formats are closely guarded.



Balmer wants to use copyright law to prevent FOSS users from exchanging any type

of document or movie with users of MS software.



Rob



---

Some say the sun rises in the east, some say it rises in the west; the truth

lies probably somewhere in between. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: DarkPhoenix on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 02:56 AM EDT

God, I love living in a country that doesn't recognize software as a patentable

invention.



As for "IP", Ballmer's doing exactly what RMS says people do with that

term, trying to lump copyrights with patents. Honestly, the ONLY thing

Microsoft has a copyright on in the OS market is Windows. You can't stretch a

copyright like you can a patent...



Oh, and EOLAS? They went after Microsoft because Microsoft, oh, I dunno, STOLE

their software code without compensation? Generally, there are repercussions

for pulling moves like that. I don't see anyone in the FLOSS world stealing

other people's software code, mostly because you couldn't get away with it for

very long, the code is OPEN...



---

Please note that sections in quotes are NOT copied verbatim from articles, but

are my interpretations of the articles. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: TiddlyPom on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 03:09 AM EDT

This sound like time for a two pronged attack - anti-trust legislation (especially in Europe) and the FOSS patent war chest. It is also about time that Novell started to realise what a violent and anti-social (in terms of the rest of the software community) that they have teamed up with.



Yoohoo Microsoft!



Linux is no longer a garage product maintained by a few people. It is a multi-billion dollar industry phenomenon and is quite capable of taking you on as a competitor. In addition it is not constrained (across the world) by USA intellectual property laws especially in countries that have growing IT economies such as India and China. Do you honestly think that this is in your favour?



I will never use another Microsoft operating system (for my own use) as long as I live - especially now that you (Microsoft) have demonstrated to so many people what an unethical company you are.



This is a war you cannot win and I know more and more people (personally and professionally) who have moved to Linux and will never turn back. Whatever patents you have we can find prior art or work around so try and work with us rather than against us or (in the long term) you are a doomed company.



Linux is now too big for you to kill and there are too many large companies that depend on it for us to let you.



---

Open Source Software - Unpicking the Microsoft monopoly piece-by-piece. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: cmc on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 03:12 AM EDT

As I was reading this article and the comments, my randomized playlist ended up

on Ozzy Osbourne's "You're No Different". It seems quite appropriate

if you ask me. I think the best part in relation to Microsoft is:



"Concealing your crimes behind a Grandeur of lies

Tell me where do I begin

If you think you're without sin

Be the first to cast the stone"



[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 03:14 AM EDT

Thank you for this clear exposition of some of the reasons software patents are bad. In a Microsoft-controlled world, it is going to be a tough struggle to get rid of them, but many of us are ready to help in whatever way we can. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 03:19 AM EDT

The joke to me is: Pay the tax on what?



And NO, I'm not expecting any specificity on what we are supposedly paying for,

other than general allegations.



Does anyone expect Steve to be more specific than he's already been in the near

future? Or in any future?



[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Ashtead on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 03:44 AM EDT

Remember the words "convicted monopolist", and also the hefty fine that the EU recently upheld for anti-competitive behavior? This looks like it will fly like a lead balloon when seen against that background. Of course, there will be the question of "IP", but that s going to be specified ere long, if the "ammo" is going to be copyrights or patents (I can't see it being trademarks or trade secrets). Copyrights can be easily traced, and I think after the SCO debacle that the people responsible for the Linux kernel and the GNU utilities surrounding it have got their copyright ducks pretty much all in a row. As for patents, they're not even recognized everywhere, so that seems even more of an uphill battle -- and the potential for retaliation is quite big: how many patents did IBM have, again? and how many of these might MS infringe on? hmm? I for one wouldn't want to try and find that out the hard way... Microsoft is going to have to compete on merit, like everyone else is expected to. If it is good enough it will sell -- their mice and keyboards are quite nice for example, and they don't have a monopoly there. Ashtead [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 03:52 AM EDT

As a German, I have a feeling that I heard similar things in our recent

histwory, when the Communist regime of East Germany repeatedly tried to

intimidate and talk away the iompact of the rising freedom movement in their

country.



Ballmer is a person of the past. History shows that you never ever can fight

sucessfully a technical movement, technical evolution. MS shareholders get

increasingly nervous that he obviously has no strategy to compete on the product

level but needs now to play the legal cards as a last resort.



The situation at MS, the impact of FOSS on their revenue must be much worse than

we and industry analysts currently think.



Please be assured that in the very same moment a MS representative claims such

things in my home country Germany, MS will be taken to court, for a vialation of

competition laws.



I am amazed that it is possible in the US to make such public claims without

proof. In our legislation this is a obvious case of slander against Red Hat. And

it will be pursuit if a MS person would be stupid enough to extend this claim to

Germany. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 04:05 AM EDT

"[I]n any intellectual property regime based on software patents, ... no

one can compete with Microsoft."



To be fair, a few can if they want to: IBM comes to mind. Given that IBM has

invested substantially in Linux as a business model, and that they've been

acting so determinedly against SCO, there is a possibility that they might want

to step in if this goes too far. Let's hope so.



Tim R. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Nick_UK on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 04:11 AM EDT

On the other hand, I'd also tell you the following is true. All... I would love to see all Open Source innovation happen on top of Windows. So we've done a lot to encourage, for example, the team building, PHP, the team building, many of the other Open Source components, I'd love to see those sorts of innovations proceed very successfully on top of Windows.

Basically what he is saying here is that at the moment there in no Open Source innovation at all on MS platforms, but he would _love_ to see it happen. This is worded to make it sound like MS are already a leading force in this (ha!)



Because our battle is not sort of business model to business model. Our battle is product to product, Windows versus Linux, Office versus OpenOffice.

FOSS/OSS - GNU/Linux is not it a battle (and never has been/will be) - this is only MS's perspective.



The only other thing I would say that is probably germane is, we spend a lot of money, the rest of the commercial industry spends a lot of money on R & D. We've spent a lot of money licensing patents, when people come to us and say, "Hey, this commercial piece of software violates our patent, our intellectual propery, we'll either get a court judgment or we'll pay a big check. And we are going to -- I think it is important that the Open Source products also have an obligation to participate in the same way in the intellectual property regime.

This is again cleverly worded. MS's R&D fund is actually litigation money that is put aside for the court cases they know will happen after they have stolen, copied or downright ripped off from competitors and they can easily crush this Companies in court even if they lose - history shows this time and time again with MS.



That's why we've done the deal we have with Novell, where not only are we working on technical interoperability between Linux and Windows but we've also made sure that we could provide the appropriate, for the appropriate fee Novell customers also get essentially the right to use our patented intellectual property. And I think it's great the way Novell stepped up to kind of say intellectual property matters. People use Red hat, at least with respect to *our* intellectual property in a sense have an obligation to eventually compensate us.

Buying out a turncoat doesn't mean what MS says re IP is true - read Lamlaw on the Novell deal. This is one of the first attempts from MS to try to get the GPL scuppered (but as seen it just made it stronger).



There are plenty of other people who may also have intellectual property. And every time an Eolas comes to Microsoft and says, "Pay us," I suspect they also would like to eventually go to the Open Source world.

People sue MS because they steal - so that doesn't mean everybody does, although Balmer tries to make it sound like that (We steal and pilfer code because EVERYBODY does! So why should we be the only ones sued?? he cries) (and FOSS/OSS is clean anyway, as can be proven anytime by looking at the code).



So getting what I call an intellectual property interoperability framework between the two worlds I think is important.

This is the MS threat - do it by OUR rules or ELSE.



Nick [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 04:12 AM EDT

This is not Microsoft making threats - please read the quotes carefully. Microsoft is whining that third parties keep making them spend a lot of money to license IP, but these same third parties don't attack Open Source projects in the same way.



It's a rich kid whining that the bullies who sometimes steal his dinner should pick on the poor kids too - ignoring that the other kids don't have anything to steal - giafly [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 04:16 AM EDT

Authored by: Limulus on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 04:18 AM EDT

> "It is the exact opposite of FOSS"



This reminds me of an incident I once reposted to my local LUG:

http://list.slg.org/200611/11678.html



---

Subject: Meanwhile, in the real world...



In my quest to find an inexpensive old laptop, I made a pit stop at a computer

store across from Home Depot. They had some there, though they cost rather more

than I was willing to pay, but I was looking around at the used computers and

one of the salesmen started to tell me about their special deal this month and

so I politely listened. He read through the specs of the computer and when he

got to the OS (Win XP) I interrupted him and asked if they had any computers

with Linux on them. The reply I got was on the incredulous side with a hint of

annoyance; I was told among other things that Windows was what people used in

the "real world".



Also, they had a used OEM copy of Microsoft Works for Windows 95 and since the

current copies are 'like $100' they were willing to let it go for a mere $25 (or

$20 cash). I politely declined and left; outside their advertising sign loudly

proclaimed that they offered a virus-removal service.



(Its nice to be back in Wonderland ;)

---



> "please don't anyone tell me about the new Microsoft and how they are

moving toward openness. They are moving toward destroying FOSS. That's

it."



Paul Thurrott's description of "the bad, old Microsoft" from

http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/winvista_5308_05.asp would be good to tack

onto this article, and even he admits that its still there...



"This is the Microsoft that ran roughshod over competitors in order to gain

market share at any cost. The Microsoft that forgot about customers in its blind

zeal to harm competitors. The Microsoft, that frankly, all the Linux and Apple

fanatics always imagined was out there, plotting and planning their termination.

The Microsoft that threatens Windows fans with needless legal threats rather

than reaching out and creating constructive relationships with the very people

who prop up the company the most. This Bad Microsoft is not all of Microsoft,

and it's not even all of the Windows Division. But it's there."



Ballmer is of course the embodiment of it; I don't see how there can possibly be

a "new Microsoft" until he is gone. (I mean really; "Ballmer is

currently the longest-serving employee of Microsoft after Gates." according

to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Ballmer :) [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: cybervegan on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 04:47 AM EDT

So this is pure FUD - but unfortunately, it may very well scare PHB's who don't

know this fact.



Man, do they fight dirty!



-cybervegan



---

Software source code is a bit like underwear - you only want to show it off in

public if it's clean and tidy. Refusal could be due to embarrassment or shame... [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 04:53 AM EDT

Oxymoron of the year :- SB:"I would love to see all Open Source innovation happen on top of Windows." Translation :- "Developers are leaving Windows, Vista isn't THAT bad - is it ??" [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: grundy on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 04:58 AM EDT

One of steve's remarks could be interpreted as a claim that they

have a patent on IP. They do act as though they owned it all. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 05:48 AM EDT

The really sad thing is that he actually believes this is a battle. Mr. Ballmer is at war. He thinks in terms of fighting and in incapable of doing otherwise. He may be one of the most wealthy men in the world. But he certainly is one of the poorest, only he does not know it. There is a number of reasons for choosing Linux over Windows, or OpenOffice over MS Office, and many users will consider more than one factor. In our company (60,000 PC's, 5,000 servers) we have switched server-wise to Linux because of technical and commercial reasons. The business model is part of the game, that is for sure. In Germany we have a legal instrument called negative Feststellungsklage. The best translation I could find was negative declaratory relief. I sure hope someday someone will have the balls and funds to assert such a claim against the monopoly. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 05:55 AM EDT

Hi.

My background is a lot of martial arts and having worked as a close protection

services person.

It is interesting for me to note something I have not even seen mentioned in all

the comments.



Steve B is not scared. He's not stupid either.

I wouldn't underestimate him nor Billy G, nor indeed their whole empire.



The war they have on may not be won by them but anyone that thinks these guys

are dead in the water is in for some severe surprises.

Microsoft is going to use every single possible trick, advantage, underhand,

vile, workable unethical technique it can. Their view of this situation is in my

opnion thus: "There is an enemy ---> it is Linux. How do we make them

irrelevant to our profit base? Do it. And keep reserves at the ready. this is

not a quick fight. Things will change and evolve and we will change and evolve

with them but as much as possible we will determine the way and the direction in

which things change and eveolve. And we will orient it to our advantage"



Ultimately game theory says Microsoft's business model will fail. I believe this

too...but these guys are far from toothless. They bite. And they play hard. It

would be a mistake to underestimate them or get complacent. And they may yet

morph the whole playing field so that it threatens what should be a mainstay of

reality (game theory predicts the open source model will eventually take over).



Steve's mannerism is not that of a deluded person nor of one that has the fake

bluster of confidence. This is a guy that is clear on where he wants to go. Even

his voice is monotonously pounding away at your unconscious with a subtext of

"we are more powerful, more knoweledgable and ultimately more successful

than you...join us or perish" It's not posturing. It's a life-style.

In a way he reminds me of a mixture of Emperor Palpatine and Xerxes as presented

in the movie 300.



Watching that video has motivated me to blog a bit about open source. If for no

other reason than (though a paltry substitute for the real thing) it's a fight

that looks to be an interesting one to be in. And I have chose my side long

ago.



I salute you Steve B. Your methods and philosophies are anathema to me, but your

viciousness and conviction alone make you a formidable enemy. To say nothing of

your resources.

G-Man. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 06:12 AM EDT

PJ wrote "So this is the anticompetitive plan, under the guise of everyone

having to play by the same rules."



I'm reminded of something from Anatole France in The Red Lily, 1894

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to

sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread".



Over a century later and fools still assume the fairness of laws which apply

equally regardless of circumstances. Wiser heads, like PJ and M. France,

recognise that some laws are inherently unequal. The modern patent regime

favours the rich, because only the rich can afford to patent every stumbling

step on the road to progress. The poor, unable to pay to protect themselves even

if they wished to, must benefit the rich by their labours.



Note that I'm not arguing against patents per se - there are arguments for and

against. I am simply of the opinion that the current environment

disproportionately favours those with large coffers. I seem to recall that

Richard Dyson, inventor of the cyclone vacuum cleaner and holder of many related

patents, nearly bankrupted himself establishing the validity of those patents.

He had already become a self-made millionaire through his previous inventions

and it still nearly exhausted his resources. What hope for the garage

enthusiast?



-------------------

Nigel Whitley [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Yossarian on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 06:36 AM EDT

There is something the Microsoft missed. Even if he gets his

wish from US courts, and does not end up like SCO, he can't

control the world. The free software server will just move

to another country and the US will lose its edge in software

industry. The US will have be cut from reliable OS and tools

while the rest of the world will have cheap and reliable

tools.



I am sure that Congress, no matter which party will control

it, is crazy enough to go down this road. I am not sure that

the US public will let Congress serve Microsoft by detroying

most of the US software industry. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: FrankH on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 06:56 AM EDT

Dear Mr Ballmer



1. In view of your recent pronouncements about Microsoft intellectual property in Open source software, please find enclosed a cheque for 3 pence [or cents, or whatever the lowest amount is in your currency]. I currently have three computers using Linux and feel that 1 penny is more than enough to compensate for all the Microsoft intellectual property for which you have shown evidence. Please send a receipt.



2. I have shown the same amount of evidence for all of my intellectual property in Microsoft software. I feel that a reciprocal agreement is in order so please include with the receipt a cheque for 1 penny for each copy of Windows sold.



Yours faithfully etc



---

All right now, baby it's all right now. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 07:23 AM EDT

The video linked to here is the wrong one, here's the Q&A with the quote:



http://www.mydeo.com/videorequest.asp?XID=48644&CID=133678 [ Reply to This | # ]



The video - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 07:24 AM EDT

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 07:25 AM EDT

Now I get it. PJ isn't upset about Ballmer claiming he is going to shut down

Redhat and all the other Linux distributions. It's because she just had a bad

experience with her XP partition.



I would like to offer this kind suggestion. Get a Toshiba, and purchase a copy

of XP from Toshiba. (I hope she realizes I'm talking tongue in cheek.)



Toshiba was the only company around still providing an install CD when I bought

this laptop last year.



Regarding Microsoft's threat to shut down Linux. It can't happen. It can just

wreck Linux in the US. Europe, and other countries outside Europe don't have

software patents.



I hope PJ forgives my political note here. The DOJ caved to Microsoft when Bush

became president. Hopefully we can get some recovery in the next four years,

but an horrendous amount of damage has been done. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Limulus on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 08:17 AM EDT

I've just downloaded Ballmer's speech with VLC and noticed something interesting

about Silverlight from 14:22-14:48 which I've transcribed:



"Mark's gonna to show you... is gonna focus some on a couple of these

themes. Is gonna show you a little bit of Silverlight, which talks to some of

the next generation presentation and programming capabilities that we think we

can do in a reach way, that is consistent, runs everywhere on the internet.

It'll be further enhanced... can be further enhanced if you wanna marry yourself

to a... t..to Windows, which will provide a superset of Silverlight."



Curious that; Silverlight is consistent and runs everywhere, but for the full

"superset of Silverlight" you have to "marry yourself" to

Windows.



Haven't I heard something like that before?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish



>"Embrace, extend and extinguish," also known as "Embrace,

extend, and exterminate," is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice

alleged was used internally by Microsoft to describe their strategy for entering

product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards

with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences to disadvantage

its competitors.<



Microsoft use proprietary Windows-only extensions to Silverlight to disadvantage

its competitors? Surely that must just be my imagination, given that this is

the 'new Microsoft' these days ;)



I also note in the Q&A video, the question from 3:22-4:42 about if there

were plans to have Silverlight development tools on OS X or Linux, the answer

was no; you write your apps on *Windows* and have them display everywhere.

There would only be consideration of Linux software if there was demand AND the

demand was for non-free-cost software. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 09:03 AM EDT

From Mr Ballmer himself: ... we spend a lot of money, the rest of the commercial industry spends a lot of money on R & D. We've spent a lot of money licensing patents, when people come to us and say, "Hey, this commercial piece of software violates our patent, our intellectual propery", we'll either get a court judgment or we'll pay a big check. Without even taking the context away, the emphasised text is plainly stating that MS don't innovate, but buy in IP. So what is this MS IP that needs paying for. As an aside to Mr Ballmer himself, I'd like to point out that as a UK resident, if I am ever billed for his "IP" without FULL disclosure of said "IP", he will be in serious trouble. (Buying a pig in a poke voluntarily is a failure on my part, whereas the seller refusing to open said poke when requested is another matter on this side of the pond.) [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: lokikatz on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 09:38 AM EDT

This is the direct link to the video, it's a wmv file. I'm watching it now in VLC. Ballmer droning on [ Reply to This | # ]



Direct video link - Authored by: Limulus on Wednesday, October 10 2007 @ 01:34 PM EDT

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 09:52 AM EDT

Could the "destroy all FOSS" be a social organization rally call.

Typical of large empires that begin failing due to internal reasons,

particularly leadership, is the focus on an external threat to attempt to focus

control and effort.



"Eurasia has always been at war with Oceana"



This movement from Microsoft looks more like a soci-political motivated focus to

avoid looking at any real internal structures and policies as solutions. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 09:59 AM EDT

I have decided that if I have to support any Windows boxes, I would much rather

they be virtual machines. There are some big advantages to going virtual. I see

a few responses below which recommend one laptop manufacturer over another to

solve your problem. IMO, that is not the best answer. The best answer is to go

virtual (VMWare, Xen).



First, buy a laptop which is known to be compatible with GNU/Linux. This is the

top criteria because GNU/Linux will be the primary OS. (My choice for hardware

currently leans toward Dell because it works and because of their recent support

for GNU/Linux.)



Virtualization has some major advantages when supporting Windows (and other

OSs).



1. VM's are consistent on different physical hardware. For example, the virtual

hardware will not blue screen at boot when moved to a new virtual host. This

solves the problem of constantly reinstalling from scratch (for example, when

moving to a newer laptop.)



2. Stable GNU/Linux host platform.



3. Virtual hardware protected by robust firewall on host (iptables) and NAT.



4. The virtual machine is encapsulated as files within a directory. This is very

easy to backup.



5. The virtual machine can be used as a test platform for developers. Using a

virtual machine also showcases cross-platform applications running side-by-side

(on the host and guest platforms.)



6. The virtual machine can be suspended when not in use. This allows the VM to

be used as a crutch for running programs only available on Windows.





7. GNU/Linux host can be setup to run from an encrypted root filesystem. Both

the host and guest are encrypted which protects your data if the computer is

lost or stolen.



You will need to dedicate a Windows license to every Windows box (virtual or

real). Please, read the products EULA to confirm eligibility for use as a

virtual machine. I know you know all about the Windows EULA.



[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 10:05 AM EDT

To a large part this news is a great big no surprise. Everyone aware of this

situation has been expecting Microsoft to try to use software patents to crush

FOSS since what seems like forever. The only questions have been when, and

exactly how.



It's been my guess for years that what's been holding them back is concern about

how this will affect their anti-trust legal problems. For this reason I

expected the move to come from some cat's-paw patent troll. Intellectual

Ventures seemed like a possibility.



But apparently my guess is wrong, since their anti-trust problems are somewhat

worse than they have been, and now they make this move overtly. My big

puzzlement is, why now?



Eliminating software patents would be great, but I would be astonished if

Congress here in the US has the backbone to do it. I suspect a more fruitful

approach in the short term is to point out this anti-competitive behavior to

Microsoft's anti-trust oversight in the US and Europe. Unfortunately, that will

still leave Microsoft the option of using a cat's-paw. This is going to be a

very hard problem to solve. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 10:23 AM EDT

PJ,



It is simply not fair for you to call Mr. Ballmer a coward. other adjectives

come to mind, but when you're playing to win you take whatever advantage you can

get. Cowardice has nothing to do with it, it's about being smart.



Ethics now, that's another question. My point is that name-calling is not only

petty, but is counter-productive. We want rational discussion based on fact.

If we stick to that we win. It's easy to get carried away when rightfully

outraged by Microsoft, but let's not get sidetracked.



Regards,



Karl O. Pinc <kop@meme.com> [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 10:35 AM EDT

Ballmer is simply doing what the Republican Party and the Right Wing Churches in

the USA have been doing since the 70's.



Have something repeated often enough, in all the media, and one's brain actually

becomes FRAMED. Once a phrase is FRAMED into one's brain - it then becomes fact.

It's simply brain washing. And it works:



"Because they've put billions of dollars into it. Over the last 30 years

their think tanks have made a heavy investment in ideas and in language. In

1970, [Supreme Court Justice] Lewis Powell wrote a fateful memo to the National

Chamber of Commerce saying that all of our best students are becoming

anti-business because of the Vietnam War, and that we needed to do something

about it. Powell's agenda included getting wealthy conservatives to set up

professorships, setting up institutes on and off campus where intellectuals

would write books from a conservative business perspective, and setting up think

tanks. He outlined the whole thing in 1970. They set up the Heritage Foundation

in 1973, and the Manhattan Institute after that. [There are many others,

including the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institute at

Stanford, which date from the 1940s.]



And now, as the New York Times Magazine quoted Paul Weyrich, who started the

Heritage Foundation, they have 1,500 conservative radio talk show hosts. They

have a huge, very good operation, and they understand their own moral system.

They understand what unites conservatives, and they understand how to talk about

it, and they are constantly updating their research on how best to express their

ideas."



http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml



As George Lakoff explains the Democratic Party has still not learned that it

needs to play the FRAMING game. And it seems to me; neither has FOSS. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 10:41 AM EDT

When a "software company" buys the copyright from software author they

get the right to resell any number of copies of the software isn't it?



If the above statement is true..... when someone buys software from

"software company" they automatically gets the right to sell any

number of copies as well isn't it?



Same law should apply for SIMILAR TRANSACTIONS isn't it? Go figure it out.......

think......... [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Stevieboy on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 11:30 AM EDT

I think the problem with Microsoft, PJ, is not that they have manipulated their

way to a monopoly (and in such a short period of time and with such a poor

product). Any commercial company would do that if they could get away with it.



The problem is that government and international institutions have, at best,

turned a blind eye to them and at worst, have actively promoted Microsoft to

that position. You can think your most cynical thoughts and still be shocked at

the corruption that has been involved in the latter.



A case in point is the ISO fast track process and OOXML. Anybody with any

intelligence whatsoever (and I'm sure that applies to the members of ISO) must

have quickly realized that OOXML is primarily a spoiler for ODF and secondarily

a method of ensuring there is no interoperability with non Microsoft products.



Despite this, over 50% of the ISO members voted for the fast tracking of OOXML.

Put it another way, and given the above, more than half of ISO members were

willing to be 'persuaded' by Microsoft to allow OOXML as a standard WITHOUT ANY

REAL OBJECTIVE SCRUTINY.



If a recognised international body such as ISO can be so easily subverted, what

hope have smaller national bodies and organizations?



There is a body in Northern Ireland called Invest NI that helps finance small

businesses using public money. Their software technical side, as a matter of

course, recommend Microsoft Small Business Server to its clients (who often have

little understanding of its downsides). We all know the Linux alternative is

cheaper, more stable, less problematic - indeed anybody who is in the IT

consulting business will tell you that.



I asked the guys at Invest NI why they were recommending this Microsoft product

- their reply?



Organisational Policy.



Not a better, more cost effective product (we know we could argue against

this).



I think humanity has now reached a turning point - in Microsoft, we now have a

company that is more powerful than most of the legitimate governments and

national and international bodies in the world in its own sphere of influence -

ie. software.



The good of humanity, in this sphere, is now subborned to the good of the

Microsoft shareholder.



We who care may win small battles but, in the end, there is virtually nothing

anybody outside Microsoft can do about it.



Steve Ballmer talks all this nonsense about his competitors and their customers

'owing' Microsoft money for supposed 'intellectual property' of Microsoft within

Microsoft's competitors' software when there is no proof that he is willing to

show us that this is the case.



Why?



Because he knows this will adversely affect his competitors and because he knows

he can get away with it. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: grouch on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 11:56 AM EDT

Ballmer must not have kept up with the fiaSCO. SCOG is a twitching corpse. Microsoft is next. Looking at Ballmer's fantasy: On the other hand, I'd also tell you the following is true. All... I would love to see all Open Source innovation happen on top of Windows. So we've done a lot to encourage, for example, the team building, PHP, the team building, many of the other Open Source components, I'd love to see those sorts of innovations proceed very successfully on top of Windows. This is a very good illustration of how Microsoft is just about the world's worst innovator; Microsoft never changes its battle plans. In the mid-1990s, their objective was to get the "Win32 API" the default on Apple, using "WLM" (Windows Layer for the Macintosh), on OS/2, on Sun and other UNIX systems. (See, e.g. Effective Evangelism [PDF] and note particularly page 21 of the PDF, "Platform example: Win32", and page 119, "Mind Control"). Because our battle is not sort of business model to business model. Our battle is product to product, Windows versus Linux, Office versus OpenOffice. Such sleight of hand! Who is Ballmer really talking to? It can't be anyone who understands the difference between the enabling power of source code which can be modified and redistributed, such as IBM, Google, PJ or the Rev. Parris, and the crippling power of Microsoft's rental products with their jealously litigated, unmodifiable, DRM encumbered, patent encumbered, secretly attacking code. The only other thing I would say that is probably germane is, we spend a lot of money, the rest of the commercial industry spends a lot of money on R & D. We've spent a lot of money licensing patents, when people come to us and say, "Hey, this commercial piece of software violates our patent, our intellectual propery, we'll either get a court judgment or we'll pay a big check. And we are going to -- I think it is important that the Open Source products also have an obligation to participate in the same way in the intellectual property regime. SCOG also thought that they deserved to tax the world just because they spent a lot of money. Apparently, Ballmer wants Microsoft to be just like SCOG when it grows up. That's why we've done the deal we have with Novell, where not only are we working on technical interoperability between Linux and Windows but we've also made sure that we could provide the appropriate, for the appropriate fee Novell customers also get essentially the right to use our patented intellectual property. And I think it's great the way Novell stepped up to kind of say intellectual property matters. People use Red hat, at least with respect to *our* intellectual property in a sense have an obligation to eventually compensate us. Is Ballmer reading Darl's cue cards? Didn't Darl proclaim to all and sundry that Red Hat would have to pay SCOG someday? It appears SCOG's pie in the sky fell down and went splat. Ballmer wants Microsoft to do the same. Don't lose your sense of humor yet, folks. Remember how long SCOG avoided specificity. Eventually, Microsoft will stand before a judge who asks, "Is this all you've got?" (See First Report from the Hearing - Updated 4Xs - Wells to SCO: "Is This All You've Got?" 2006-04-14) There are plenty of other people who may also have intellectual property. And every time an Eolas comes to Microsoft and says, "Pay us," I suspect they also would like to eventually go to the Open Source world. Plenty of other wrongs do not make you right, Ballmer. There are places in the world which do not suffer the insanity of software patents. The advantages of true innovation in software in such places will eventually be obvious to legislators even through the fog of misinformation and greed pumped up by the likes of Microsoft. So getting what I call an intellectual property interoperability framework between the two worlds I think is important. Ah! Ballmer knows that interoperability among programs is very simple -- all Microsoft would need to do is stop deliberately breaking standards and everyone's software could interoperate -- thus, he simply applies the buzzword to a different area in order to frame the problem in a way that results in him getting paid. All the Microsoft misinformation and FUD now focuses on how to continue the Microsoft tax on business after business has learned that FOSS doesn't tax them. The only way to end the parasitic attacks by Microsoft is to end Microsoft. Thankfully, it appears to be following in the footsteps of its prototype protege, SCOG. It will take a bit longer to bankrupt Microsoft, simply because of the foundation of lock-in which they have established. ---

-- grouch



"People aren't as dumb as Microsoft needs them to be."

--PJ, May 2007

[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 11:58 AM EDT

I really think it's time for folks to take a weekend and read Stallman's

"Free Software, Free Society" book. See what the distinctions are

between patent, copyright, and trademark, and realize that "intellectual

property" is a BS term meant to skew those different concepts (with their

different historical laws) into one bucket.



As long as we keep answering to the "intellectual property" topic, it

will continue to become a "real" topic, and if that day comes, the

historical distinctions between patent law, copyright law, and trademark law

will melt away.



Imagine if auto, motorcycle, and boating laws were lumped into one

"transportion" category. If you agree with a law that makes sense for

boating, do you then implicitly accept it as sensible for a motorcycle? That's

what the term "intellectual property" does. [ Reply to This | # ]



I have that book, too - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 10:10 PM EDT

Authored by: kosmonaut on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 12:30 PM EDT

I commend PJ for her article and the conclussion it leads to.

Now, reading Ballmer`'s words:

<blockquote>I would love to see all Open Source innovation happen on top

of Windows. So we've done a lot to encourage, for example, the team building,

PHP, the team building, many of the other Open Source components, I'd love to

see those sorts of innovations proceed very successfully on top of

Windows.<blockquote>

It could very well mean they are already copying FOSS successful developments

and integrating it into their products (remember that M$ never inoovates, it

just copies, buys or destroys -if it can't do the former two- other products).

Take for example "runas" copy of "sudo" or "switch

user" in XP; morevoer, Vista is proof they aren't capable of launching any

interesting/worthy product anymore, so the only way is to kill any escape way

for their customers.

Will they then sue the FOSS world from which they are taking ideas in the first

instance? [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 12:33 PM EDT

Misusing a monopoly to enforce in continued existence, or forcing a monopoly

into a related market segment, that is a crime.



It is worse than that. Did Ballmer hint that patent settlements with companies

going after Micro$oft will include provisions that they must go after FOSS? [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: KentWA on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 12:41 PM EDT

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 12:43 PM EDT

I was thinking initially that "MS still doesn't get it". The "it" I'm refering to is the fact that it's a community that has been targeted. Not a business. Then I thought: wait a sec, MS refuses to disclose the "IP" that Linux is supposed to infringe. If it was a business, would they be so reticent? Possibly. But considering the cost of hiring the correct experts to be able to prove a patent invalid, MS probably would disclose the IP that is supposed to be infringed. So.... MS' refusal to disclose the patents could very well show an understanding of the effectively unlimited resources of the community. Any patent they disclose in any way has a serious risk of being examined by a few thousand knowledgeable individuals. Experts in various fields that could easily destroy such patents by providing the prior art that MS hopes does not appear. Note: All the above is pure conjecture, but it gives indication that MS does potentially understand they are fighting a community. They are also struggling with how to combat such a "beast" because all their "best tools" have proved ineffective at best and back-firing at worst. RAS [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 12:47 PM EDT

I wouldn't get to exercised about Ballmer's speech  he is just preaching to the

stock holders and independent developers that despite all the bad news lately,

Microsoft is still relevant and in control of its own destiny (read that as

pricing control).



We will probably see sooner or later a series of management shake-ups at

Microsoft like IBM went through, until they find a good fit in an environment

they no longer control. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: rsmith on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 01:03 PM EDT

Microsoft has now oficially joined the ranks of the patent trolls.



They've got a >90% market share, and they still feel the need to try and tilt

the market in their favor. One wonders why they keep getting convicted for

monopoly abuse?



Put up or shut up, MS. Now that SCO is as good as finished we'll demolish your

phony patents with glee!









---

Intellectual Property is an oxymoron. [ Reply to This | # ]



Patent Troll - Authored by: Nick_UK on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 01:54 PM EDT

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 01:36 PM EDT

The worst part about windows isn't even the fact that it's slow, or that it

crashes all the time, or that you often just can't get it to work. The wost part

about it is the fact that Microsoft keeps changing how it works all the time,

never making it better of more intuitive, just different. While it's extremely

profitable for re-sellers and consultants to keep charging money for re-training

people and re-writing existing software, it is precisely for this reason that

people are switching to Linux. The cost of the operating system itself is

completely insignificant when compared to the cost of re-writing working

software / re-training people. So while the Red-hat top end server version of

Linux may be more expensive than Windows, the fact that you don't need to keep

chaning your systems makes it well worth the money.





[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 03:05 PM EDT

It's tough to take someone quoted out of context and try to understand his

meanings properly, but that's what I'm going to try to do here...



Ballmer was reported to say, "The only other thing I would say that is

probably germane is, we spend a lot of money, the rest of the commercial

industry spends a lot of money on R & D. We've spent a lot of money

licensing patents, when people come to us and say, "Hey, this commercial

piece of software violates our patent, our intellectual propery, we'll either

get a court judgment or we'll pay a big check. And we are going to -- I think it

is important that the Open Source products also have an obligation to

participate in the same way in the intellectual property regime."



But in that particular paragraph he's not really talking about IP that belongs

to Microsoft. It seems he chose to emphasize the difficulty that Microsoft has

when trying to compete with an operating system that does not pay for IP that

other companies or individuals (rather tnan Microsoft) charge Microsoft for

using.



So I view this interview with Ballmer as signalling a change of direction in the

battle against Microsoft's competition. Rather than trying to attack other

operating systems directly, he wants to drum up other companies that Microsoft

pays for IP to attack Unix, Linux, MacOS, etc., in court over IP issues. He's

trying to broaden the battle to include all FOSS-type developments that

potentially compete with Microsoft's sales, not merely to include Linux. Then,

eventually, when a series of Microsoft allies have already spent themselves in

fruitless court battles (few deep pockets in FOSS, after all), attacking

numerous FOSS projects, then Microsoft would consider stepping in and starting

their own suits.



This, after all, is what Microsoft did with SCO. Only the opening round...

It's kind of like Germany talking small countries like Panama into attacking the

US or England before the start of World War II. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: darkonc on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 03:50 PM EDT

In chess, the most valuable aspect of any given piece (especially the bigger pieces) is more in the threat of what that piece could do than what it actually does. For example, a queen, in the right place, can protect 3 or 4 pieces from attack and threaten to attack another 3 or 4 enemy pieces. If, however, you actually put the queen into play, Most of those pieces will lose their protection or threat. Balmer knows that the threat of litigation is far more powerful than actual litigation (cf. SCO). If Microsoft actually does sue an OSS project, they could find themselves in a patent war for which there is no clear winner (especially since the FOSS community could plead that MS's patents are invalidated because they are being used in an anti-competitive manner, but MS couldn't plead the contrary). Then again, of course, there's the problem that, once MS's 'infringed' patents are on the table, any that are actually being infringed could quite possibly be worked around. This doesn't obviate the need for tossing software patents, generally, but I think that MS's patent threat against the (FL)OSS community is far from overwhelming. Yes, a MS patent war would be annoying, distracting and expensive, but I doubt that it would actually be overwhelming. (and the thought of MS ultimately having to pay billions of dollars per year to the FLOSS community has a tantalizing taste of irony to it.) ---

Powerful, committed communication. Touching the jewel within each person and bringing it to life.. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: rweiler on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 03:57 PM EDT

Ballmer knows the button to press, and it is 'interoperability'. When the market

is controlled by an abusive monopolist, competitors have no choice but to

implement the file formats and protocols of the monopolist if they want to

penetrate the market. Ballmer is making it clear that anybody that tries to

inter operate with Windows is going to be threatened with a lawsuit for patent

infringement. In the US, he will probably get away with it too since they have

installed their own man as the top guy in the anti-trust department of the

USDOJ. Hopefully the next administration will be more willing to enforce

anti-trust law, but I wouldn't bet on it. Microsoft can give them $60B not to,

and if that's what it takes, that's what they will do. Microsoft makes the mafia

look like two bit thugs.





---

Sometimes the measured use of force is the only thing that keeps the world from

being ruled by force. -- G. W. Bush

[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: darkonc on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 03:59 PM EDT

One definition of "a diplomat": Someone who can tel a tiger 'nice kitty, kitty, kitty' while you're searching for a nice, big rock>/i>. What we simply need to do is immortalize Balmer's comments so that, if Microsoft is ever stupid enough to start a patent war, we can force him to eat his words with pepper-spray sauce. ---

Powerful, committed communication. Touching the jewel within each person and bringing it to life.. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 06:12 PM EDT

"I get why Microsoft wants what it wants. They don't want to die off like

an aged and irrelevant elephant. But I don't want to use their software ever

again as long as I live. I hate it. It doesn't work. It spies on me. It's a

malware magnet. It's slow. It doesn't multitask the way I'm used to. It takes

over my computer in ways I can't prevent, and the worst is, when something goes

wrong, there's nothing you can do about it without worrying about stepping on

some of their stupid IP. It is the exact opposite of FOSS, where none of that

happens."



DSM [ Reply to This | # ]



This bit certainly sums up my feelings - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 06:37 PM EDT

Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 08:46 PM EDT

In an earlier post people thought I was cruel when I said that Microsoft will

kill you and make sure you are dead never to come back. I used to like

Windows,but after fighting with my wife's computer over and over, I hate their

crap. It just doesn't work consistently and they should compensate me for the my

time that I waste fixing bad software (and of course, little bubbles that tell

me how stupid I am). [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 09:11 PM EDT

Yes, and we can clearly see throughout the long, drawn-out Eolas battle how well

Microsoft respected their intellectual property. After pulling every dirty legal

trick in their arsenal to weasel out of it, and finally losing, did they pay

up.



What a sterling example of walking the walk. Yes Ballmer, let's all follows

Microsoft's example. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: CypherOz on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 09:41 PM EDT

Does Ballmer really want to fight IBM over patents? MS will be destroyed!



That is what will happen if MS try and destroy FOSS/Linux using so called IP

law. IBM have put too much into FOSS and have made 'Open Computing' their

mantra.



Linux on Systems x, p, i and z.



---

The GPL is enduring, not viral [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 09:57 PM EDT

Seriously, repeated claims that "Linux" is violating mysterious and

unnamed "IP" are simply trade libel. They haven't named a single

specific piece of IP -- and worse, they've said they won't because if they did

we would know what to avoid!



Because of that, they *cannot* win damages in *any* patent case *ever*. Judges

don't appreciate that sort of abuse of the system. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 10:16 PM EDT

. . .for the appropriate fee Novell customers also get essentially the right to use our patented intellectual property. Finally, the win32 GUI kicks in and I can get the WinSCOSource License - good work Balmer - keep those chairs coming. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: david_koontz on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 10:27 PM EDT

On the other hand, I'd also tell you the following is true. All... I would love to see all Open Source innovation happen on top of Windows. So we've done a lot to encourage, for example, the team building, PHP, the team building, many of the other Open Source components, I'd love to see those sorts of innovations proceed very successfully on top of Windows.

...

There are plenty of other people who may also have intellectual property. And every time an Eolas comes to Microsoft and says, "Pay us," I suspect they also would like to eventually go to the Open Source world. If one were to take these two statements together one could note that Microsoft can afford to pay off an Eolas, while a Sun, Novell, Linspire, etc. might have a harder time. How about changing embrace and extend to embrace and extinguish? "Aw, you can't cover table stakes any more? Too bad, you're out of the game!" Followed by, "What? We tried to interoperate with the competition. How were we to know these guys were going to come out of the wood work with these patents? Too bad {insert Linux company collaborating with Microsoft here} couldn't go the distance financially to stay in business. Tied their cart to this joint venture, and couldn't afford the vig to stay in business." They're big enough not to mind the tar spots on their hide from tangling with the occasional B'rer Tar Baby, where the smaller 'competitor' might expire. We're talking about a company that can afford 1.2 milion a a day for EU fines. Big enough to put the competition out of business by cooperating with them. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: dht on Tuesday, October 09 2007 @ 11:01 PM EDT

Open mouth, insert foot.. Or how to piss off your biggest customers. The ones that already run a mixture of platforms, and have the influence and money to make or break your business. MS is so concerned about "competitors" that they have lost sight of "customers". So they end up threatening customers with possible/potential lawsuits over vague possible/potential undisclosed patent infringements. It's high time they put up or shut up. The extended open source community stands ready to either invalidate or work around any patent that MS, or any other patent holder, will identify in GPL licensed open source code or projects. If MS is so worried about it's "IP", then why not do something about it? They can do it pleasantly by simply identifying them, or unpleasantly by filing a lawsuit. Either way, the community response will be the same. Ballmer states very clearly that they wish to compete on quality of product. If he feels they have valid and supportable patents on concepts that are used in Linux and FLOSS projects, it would be a solid and proper business move to simply identify the patents in question. Let the community scramble to work around them, possibly creating an inferior product as a result. Since MS refuses to explicitly identify such patents, the only conclusion can be that they don't feel confident in the validity of the patents in question. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 10 2007 @ 03:20 AM EDT

Once upon a time there was no Groklaw. Then SCO sued IBM and Groklaw came

into being. And it was assumed Groklaw would outlive its purpose once the

lawsuit against IBM was dismissed.



It's obvious now this is not the case. Groklaw continues and must continue until



Microsoft gets totally demolished. And even after that Groklaw's going to be a

good thing to have around to make sure no other crooks come and try the same

things again.



WTG PJ and Groklaw. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Wesley_Parish on Wednesday, October 10 2007 @ 06:32 AM EDT

Like a train going at full speed off a broken bridge or a trainee pilot doing a loop-the-loop below a thousand feet in a fast military jet on afterburner, it was kind-of foreseeable. Steve Ballmer is much like Darl McBride. It appears that they love to hear themselves speak, much more than the rest of us do. For what it's worth, I'm now a convert to the "unconditional surrender" school of F/LOSS users in relation to Microsoft - I used to think co-existence was possible, and that they and we had approached some sort of detente. Because Microsoft still claims that as a satisfied Linux user, I owe them for the privilege of making use of a project that started out as far from Microsoft as one could get on a PC in the early nineties, and since they won't come clean with any such minor detail as "evidence for their claims", I won't be satisfied with them merely submitting their two vanity licenses to the OSI; nor will I be satisfied with their occasional release of source code under an OSI-approved license. I've had to work with some truly ancient Microsoft products in my time, and they're still out there, still being actively used by the end-user. To help people, as opposed to merely going through the motions, I will expect Microsoft to release such products' source trees, together with their development environments, under the GPL v3. Right up to and including the source trees of the most modern products I have had to try to help people with - MS Windows Vista, etc. (Of course Vista didn't recognize her digital camera - it was a year too early for it! Sheesh!) Of course, there's a lot of people who see Microsoft's "IP claims" in the same light as The SCO Group's similar "IP claims", and predict an earlier death for Microsoft than they had previously imagined. In that case, Microsoft could make a softer landing for themselves than otherwise, by making the sort of source code release I am arguing for - using the GPL's built-in software escrow. It's a no-brainer - which puts Steve Ballmer in a bad light, doesn't it?!? Oh yes, Pan-Am? Pan Am ordered both the [Boeing] 707 and the [Douglas] DC8. Then, in what today could be prosecuted as ruthless competition, Pan Am informed both manufacturers that if they sold jets to Transocean, a California to Hawaii competitor, Pan Am would not buy any more of their airplanes. Transocean's Stratocruisers and Super Constellations were unable to compete with the newer jets, so Transocean folded.

Jetliners, pg. 9

Clinton H. Groves

MBI Publishing Company, 1993

ISBN 0-87938-821-8 Now find me a share market still trading in Pan Am shares. ---

finagement: The Vampire's veins and Pacific torturers stretching back through his own season. Well, cutting like a child on one of these states of view, I duck [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 10 2007 @ 10:29 AM EDT

As I think more about this I've come to the conclusion that

this is no "woops". This was a well planned event and SB

knew what he could say and what he could not say. The

back-pedeling in the PR department was also planned so

M$ would not look stupid. I think that this is a ploy

that has become popular. Get your top dog to do "stupid"

things in public, the top dog knowing full well that this

is the plan of course, then have some part of the

organization make statments that would seem to indicate

that it was caught off guard or something. The public

is then molified by the PR and the scheme proceeds

without the public outrage that might otherwise be met.



[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 10 2007 @ 11:37 AM EDT

I see it like this. If a Kernel modaled after a kernel that existed before

there was Windows (oh, DOS for that matter) is violating a patent from a company

patenting said process from a later work, that patent should never been issued.



Now the GUI, Are they attacking X11, That is funny, it is the real deal, not

modaled (like the Kernel). X11 has been around since before there was an IBM-PC

to run DOS on. How could they be holding a patent that X11 violates.



The rest of the patents, seems to me that FOSS has access to HUGE patent

portfolios too. Lets see, and anyone say Mutual Assured Destruction!!!!!



It is FUD, It will not go anywhere, and neither will the one spewing it. [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: KAKMAN on Wednesday, October 10 2007 @ 12:22 PM EDT

Every Red Hat user - the gauntlet has been thrown - 1)send Steve Ballmer your

name address and phone number and what version of Red Hat you're using,2)OCT 31

2007 - a peaceful but loud demonstration by as many red hat users as possible at

the Microsoft campus - demand an apology from Steve Ballmer in person or he's

has to sue each and every person in the crowd who is indemnified by Red Hat

anyway. this is war. Let's celebrate the anniversary of the Halloween memos -

let's storm the campus - let's demand justice - no more fear -no more

uncertainty - no more doubt! Let's do this now! [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: greeblesnort on Wednesday, October 10 2007 @ 04:44 PM EDT

open up Vista? I mean, if they were to actually release the Vista source, even

under their lame shared source license (minus NDA), and allow developers to

submit patches back to them, what impact would that have on linux uptake?



I suspect that it would put a massive dent in uptake within a couple months as

people actually turned Vista into something worth running.



Barring, of course, the potential for one or more of those smart developer types

finding some sort of F/OSS code improperly used in the Vista code... [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, October 10 2007 @ 08:11 PM EDT

The video is actually in wmv and the protocol mms:



mms://mydeo.wmod.llnwd.net/a584/o1/wmv/133677_1644.wmv?e=1192064962&h=734825

cd284ccedbafcd4f0bb225f409



All the ASP stuff is just for redirection (and probably providing metadata in

the tags -- I've never bother to understand all the asx magic).



MMS can be downloaded by



mplayer -dumpstream

mms://mydeo.wmod.llnwd.net/a584/o1/wmv/133677_1644.wmv?e=1192064962&h=734825

cd284ccedbafcd4f0bb225f409

[ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 12 2007 @ 08:30 AM EDT

See part of the Q&A here:



http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x36tn1_steve-ballmer-threatens-redhat-with_news [ Reply to This | # ]



Authored by: txwikinger on Friday, October 19 2007 @ 04:17 AM EDT