Linux.com

Just how was it missed? That's unbelievable.

It just goes to show that this Peruvian guy really knows his stuff, he deserves major respect.

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I think from the North American perspective, there were other events going on that seemed more important at the time... (two weeks after the "remodelling" of New York's skyline)

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Good point, I can't believe that didn't cross my mind.

Is it me or does it seem like 9/11 was much longer ago that it actually was?

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This is just a matter of digging and mining ;)
We, the dwarves[1] that gave some of our time to support Dr. Villanueva-Nunez project, are somewhat obsessive in getting objective evidence of all data cited in the (now famous) reply

[1] Yes, i know that the correct plural is dwarfs, but for ethimological reasons it must be dwarves. And since we are devoted to mining, we felt that the dwarf analogy is a good one.

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Actually, I'm alternating my time reading this and working on my final exam paper for a Political Science class in Star Office, and its spell-checker allows "dwarves".

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'Nuff said?

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I think Free Software should be adopted because it's better, not because it's Free Software. There are applications that have no Free Software altenatives, or if there is, it wouldn't be good enough.

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I think the point of the Peruvian Bill is that for the context of public information, Free Software is better because it's Free.

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Obviously you didn't read the reply he sent to MS Peru. His definition and that in the bill for free software is similar to RMS's. It is software that allows you full access to the source code and the right to modify it at you pleasure. In short open source.

He made the comment that free as in price was not and is not considered in the bill. More importantly is the TCO (total cost of Ownership), and in the long run open source with its more technological advancements and stability is much better than the MS brand.

He also mentioned open standards as a main selling point.

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In case you were responding to my response and not the parent of this thread...I was using free in RMS's sense of the word. This does bring up a point, however.

With Open Source/Free Software, there are almost always no-cost software implementations of whatever open data formats the community comes up with. On the other hand, no-cost implentations of proprietary data formats are usually non-existant. (Depending, of course, the companies attitude toward it's customers and the communities desire to do the reverse-engineering.)

All this adds up to a double benefit for the use of Open Source for the public sector. In addition to the technological benefits, Open Source lowers the barriers to entry for those wishing to interface with public systems.

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Obviously you didn't read the reply he sent to MS Peru.

He quite clearly stated that the major draw back was that propietry, closed-source software left the operation of government in indirect dependence of a corporation whose best interests would not be the country of Peru.

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you obviously have no business experience

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Sure.
Just define "better", please.
It can be "better" because it performs faster, or is more stable, or requires less resources or is easier to control.
But it can also be "better" because it satisfies a different (and more satisfactory to some) social, ethical or political idea.

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So, they're attacking John Q. Public for giving copies of Windows to his friends, and all the while they've been _selling_ copies of other peoples' stuff?

Does the parable of the prodigal son come to anyone else's mind? You know, the part about removing the beam from your own eye first?

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You moron, go read the Bible. Those are two separate stories.

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It's just a fairytail. Get over it.

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Does that mean I'm correct if I start talking about Little Red Riding Hood and the Seven Dwarves?

He was correcting a reference. Get over it.

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No, they aren't. It was the prodigal son's brother that was told that.

And anyway, as long as it's in the Bible at all, what does it matter whether it's in the parable of the prodigal son or not?

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I find this really strange that this story didn't make it to slashdot. Microsoft should of been fined 10 times the ammount, 422,000 is something like 50 cents to Microsoft. This just proves the monopoly at all costs attitude..

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Somebody has to submit it to Slashdot before they'll pick it up.

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I do not find unusual at all that it did showed up in the US. Unfortunately, there is a whole lot of things that happen outside the US, direct consequence of acts by american government, people or companies, that are never discussed in the US, not only slashdot. Bankrupt of a french company by the (legal or not) actions of an american company is easier to read about in mexican nwespapers than in any american discussion forum.

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the average person, let's say, has $10,000 in cash reserves. Microsoft has 40 billion. That means that this 422,000 is equivalent to 10.5 cents for joe schmoe. I'm sure M$ is really concerned about this.

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Last I heard (a couple of years ago) the average savings in america is $-0.10! lol

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Not only is it a trivial amount of money, but MS also managed to keep this a secret from the general public well enough, another example of media payoffs and general manipulation.

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This looks like SoftImage was cleaning up some old biz and failed then passed the bomb on to M$ to deal with, and in typical M$ fashion it was screwed up and the lucky part was the general media missed the whole thing.

Its bad but not really a sign of a monolopy abusing its power.

I have been trying to look up the story of how M$ got IE. Nothing is too clear or detailed but it looks like M$ offered a number of companies a small sum for the honour of becoming IE. Kind of like "Sell us your code cheap or die." Can anyone point to a link on this?

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Seems simple enough to do. Open Help / About, and you see this:

Based on NCSA Mosaic. NCSA Mosaic(TM); was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Distributed under a licensing agreement with Spyglass, Inc.

By the way, this is like very old news...

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Up front, I don't know the specific history of IE. However, it's a pretty safe bet that all or almost all modern graphical browsers are based on NCSA Mosaic. I know for a fact that Netscape is, in at least the 4.7x series and earlier. Marc Andreesen, former CEO of Netscape, was one of the developers of Mosaic. Mosaic and the WWW developed pretty well hand in hand, as I remember. Spyglass, I don't remember much about.

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Netscape is NOT basied on Mosaic. It was written from scratch by many of the original programmers who wrote Mosaic. There were all sorts of legal problems, but Netscape finally proved that it was not based on Mosaic. Read the book "Netscape Time" by Jim Clark (Netscape CEO) to find out about the whole story.

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I still remember the days of the internet when your only choice really at the time was netscape or mosaic, and I preferred mosaic then cos of the ease at which you could disable loading images.. in netscape it was tricky and for some reason on our machine they kept on coming back. heh

had a 2400 baud set up sharing a connection.. LOL set up I beleive using windows for workgroups or something...

but I can attest that the two browsers have always been seperate that I can remember...

have a good one all:)

--gimP

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From what I understand IE started out as Spyglass. M$ offered Spyglass the opportunity of including their browser in Win95 with a cut of the money made from each sale. Spyglass fell for it only to find that M$ was declaring IE a "free" bundled item.
A cut of 0 is 0 and hence Spyglass received nothing for it's trouble.
No matter how many tales there are of people signing contracts with the devil only to be tricked out their soul some people will never learn.

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Microsoft did a deal with SpyGlass Systems in which SpyGlass's version of NCSA Mosaic (BSD style licence) became Internet Exploder. The deal included royalties AS A PERCENTAGE OF SALES. Almost immediately after releaseing IE, Microsoft made it FREE OF CHARGE. SpyGlass's royalties, in consequence, were pitiful. SpyGlass eventually sued, and after a long drawn-out battle won something like $4M (IIRC they didn't even get costs on top).

Now, if they'd got even $5 for each copy of IE shipped, how much do you think they'd have in their coffers by now?

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The funny thing is that now Microsoft are claiming that IE is an integral part of XP - and they sell XP - so that should means royalties to SpyGlass..... yes?

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Hmmmm.... sounds logical to me.... but, say, didnt they claim it was integral, and couldnt be removed w/o performance penalty since the first release of Win98???? Hmmm.... following along... Spyglass should have tons of ca$h out of the deal.

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from what i have read Microsoft made a deal with a small company to allow them to use the explorer browser and pay the developers a percentage of the sales of the browser, then gave the browser away and there fore used their monoply and money to destroy another company, as well as a weapon to use against netscape in the atempt to destroy them, and dnow people still have the audacity to defend microsofts dealings as JUST good business, i guess these same people say al capone was just a poor misunderstood businessman to.

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It seems for me that many U.S. based entities (including every indivisual) don't want to know what's really going on outside the U.S. I guess,
M$, the U.S. government, enron (used to be), and other powerful com/org are all trying to control public opinion s.t. they never publish whatever inconvenient for them... such including Time, Washington Post, Wallstreet Journal (jews mostly), etc etc. People in the U.S. should care more about outside of the U.S. as the influence of US is very strong (much more greater than you guys thought). Another example of "missed" issue is BinLaden deal. Did you know that Laden family and Bush family jointly own a stock company which owns major military industry? - carlyle or something ... off memory, but should be a similar name. Well, if you think who is making money by doing something, you'll know who's behind. Watch out!

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Athough I agree to the the idea that US entities are not sufficiently open to non-US stuff, the general tone of your comment is a mix of paranoia and antisemitism.
You are perhaps a partisan of Jose Bove, and at least as dumb as he his.

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Wonderful, another southern inbread KKK member who's
learned to type.

Do us all a favor and crawl back into your trailor
park & above all DON'T BREED!!

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Perhaps you'd prefer to refute his arguments rather than dismiss him using your own preferred set of stereotypes?

No, you wouldn't. That would be too hard.

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Prove how he is wrong instead of making believe what he says is not true....

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He's right:
http://www.americanfreedomnews.com/afn_articles/bu shsecrets.htm

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Do you actually believe in the filth that you write. I've noticed a common thread among you wackos, it's always the fault of the Jews or the Evil Americans. How does Bin Laden figure into your rant about "US based entities"? How many Hate courses did you sign-up for at Arab U.? Was that your undergraduate major Hate with a minor in disinformation?

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Let me clarify some things for you. The association between Bush and bin Laden is technically an investment organization called "<A HREF="http://www.thecarlylegroup.com/">The Carlyle Group</a thecarlylegroup.com>." You were very close, however you are exagerating the depth of the relationship. To quote the company profile:

"We have developed the largest, most diversified investor base of any private equity firm, with more than 435 investors from 55 countries. And we now employ over 500 people in 24 offices in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Japan, Russia and the Middle East."

I admit that this relationship is certainly worth examination.

I agree with you that _many_ Americans do not seem to understand the global impact of their country's decisions. I want you all to be aware (if you weren't already) that the US (and much of the world) is controlled by FEW media corporations. In other words, ONE company often times owns all media that people have access to such as newspapers, magazines, tv and radio stations, etc etc. Check <A HREF="http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020107&s=mcchesney">here</a thenation.com> for some insight; a nice juicy part is the last paragraph on page one. Supposedly there are laws to ensure competition in the media marketplace however with all the major mergers and acquisitions going on, the government has not been able to keep up. And that assumes they have not been PAID to take it slow. We already know that Oracle mucho bucks to California Gov Gray Davis. Oracle is just a baby when it comes to longtime media-powerhouses like GM, Hearst and others.

Basically what I am getting at is that its not _ALL_ Americans that are blind; only the (many) who choose not to ACTIVELY pursue other news providers. Unfortunately there aren't any independent cable or broadcast TV stations build around the same premise as Internet sites like poliglut.com, projectcensored.org, and the many others. And as you know there still is not a "computer in every home."

The major problem in the United States is the continued deregulation of ALL industries. We are turning into a nation full of HUGE corporations and are straying from our "ma-and-pa store" type heritage. Money is getting concentrated in fewer places. By purchasing goods from these large companies, we only make them larger. In turn, they lobby against us, getting Laws like the DMCA passed and FORCING right management on everyone assume that EVERYONE steals software, music, etc. It used to be better. Perhaps we can get there once again.

-Bob

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Unfortunately, the rot has only begun to set in and it's us, the public, that is feeding the process.
In nearly all the major democracies voting rates have been falling.
The main causes behind this are a complex set of forces that are could potentially produce an alarmingly depressing future. I believe they are as follows:

1)It is now a commonly held belief that happiness in a country comes from a strong economy based mainly around the sale of consumer goods.

2) In order to maintain tha You will always find the highest election turn outs in countries

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If there're more people like you, then things had been better (but I think that way by seeing something bad today, so without that experience, I'd never say such). As you said, _many_ Americans... is probably true, and I agree that not _all_ are blind. However, considering how the U.S. is functioning, _many_ is more than enough; more than harf of votes which justifies everything in democratic systems. Moreover, who actually decides in the congress? Politicians. So, in short, if you could convince more than half of them to vote for you, you'll be the winner. I've heard rumores about large cooperates are buying those politicians. Regarding bush's background, he'll do everything for oil business and militery industries.

Making clear enemies is one of the easiest way to get popularity; at least bush was successful to faint ppl's attention from bad economy and political problems to the religeous conflicts.
This time, bush's popularity remains high unlike his father's term (w/ gulf war). He learned how to control mobs... the scary part is, we never notice it's a propaganda. We see some examples in the posts above. If, just because there's no evidence is available, such propaganda is ok, how could they ever accuse Natzi? We can say Natzi was bad just because Allies won the war (winner is always right).

One more a bit tangent line: one guy above Bob's post was mat about using Jews. I know some jews, and they're nice. What I don't like is some other jews who controls (and possibly controlled by) money. Jews are good in financial gaming because they were the only ones who had been allowed to lease money and make profit (i.e. interest). Other religeons, all of them, prohibited such activities. As the trading expand, jew's role in financial support became essential to many European nations (and to Africa/MidEastern/India). Even though Christian society (european nations) looked down jewish ppl, the role of jews become too important to ignore. They got political power as well as wealth by 16-17th century. On the other hands, jews in isramic nations never suffer any religeous conflicts or segregation... until the end of WW-II. Israel initiated war after the WW as many of you know. Americans and Europeans supported Israel, so naturally isramic ppl were unhappy not only to Jews but Americans/Europeans.
Why Americans supported Israel who obviously initiated war? One reason is robbyist activities including bribes. Another reason was oil.

This is over-simplified, but I believe it describes the outline of the history. Please note that I am not a racist (although somebody want to make me one of such). I just compiled what I know. and... by supporting U.S. it automatically means opposing isramic nations as U.S. is Israel's side. Some israel keep using Nazi holocaust to justify their activities. Others just playing games (mostly money games). Shanon is using the conflict to maintain his popularity (from my point of view) possibly by "producing" the suicide bombings. I don't dispute everything, but some informed me that some bomings were made by israel(mosad) so that atack of Parestina would be justified. (hmm, maybe they learned from natzi holocaust). Of course we should not forget that some Isramic relegeous leaders use the religeon to control ppl (i.e. suicide bombing).

But but but! Now think again before Israel was made. Jews and Persians were living together (not completely mixed, but much like blacks and white in the U.S.) peacefully... until just about 50 years ago. Shouldn't we review why the war caused? who supported which side? why? who made profit? who planted the seeds of hate? Then we can possibly find a way to achieve piece. Of course there are powerful org/gov/com who want to continue wares, so this won't be easy. How do you think?

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That previous post was so poorly written, it must be a troll. No one can possibly spell that horribly by accident, right?

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I'm guessing that English, American or otherwise ;-), isn't his primary language. I muddled through it enough to reply and start this minor thread. I just wanted to help the fellow understand that not ALL Americans are morons when it comes to globalization. -Bob

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This was very educational. :)
I didn't know there were so many
Persians in Palestine... It's not
really a laughing matter though.
I don't think the spelling was nearly
as bad as the factual and logical errors
though.

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not all US are uninformed about the rest of the world. US citizens are devided on who controls the world and who doesn't. People who controls the world knows the world. But they have signed more restricting documents than just NDA. The res f US citizens just participate in the process fo distribution of money (result of the world power) and of course they don't want to know the source of such money.

As a result, for eaxmple, you can find in Russian officialy published reports that the amount of attempts to illiegally transfer drugs from Afganistan to Europe is increased after the recent US operation. But you will not find such reports publicly reprinted in US.

It is sad.

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By goll gee wilakers I done did not clean know that! Hoooooweeee that's a shocker. Hey MA! Bin Laden and Bush are in the kahooots together!

Whose the moron? You.

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How are things in Red China? I applaud your discerning wisdom re: every U.S. individual. Wow!

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Hey, leave China out of it. We just joined the WTO. We are all going to get gloriously rich - they prommised!

Oh, what?

Sorry, forget I spoke!

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Good example of a US citizen clueless to what is going on outside their little country. Makes me ashamed of my own passport. If you get a big pair of binoculars and look West you may see the place (you may need a few orbital mirrors). I can see it out the window next to my monitor. I've lived here for three years and am still scratching my head wondering where all the communists went. The answer is they all got cushy well paid jobs and are driving around in 4WDs blasting their horns at the cyclists (like me). If china is guilty of anything it is of salivating after the American corporate dream. But at least they treat their corrupt politicians more appropriately. Our last mayor and his deputy are currently spending a stint on death row. I think it was an Al Capone job - they couldn't get him for being the boss of the local mafia so they put him away for having several million $US unaccountable for.

From the world's 13th most polluted city (down from number one five years ago thanks to the NEW city government).

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Yes, we all know it's all controlled by the Priory de Scion

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ahahahaha! well anyone that doesnt know what a bastard the US is... well to say it in the words of one of the authors of the bill of rights "the most important thing is the protection of private property not of lesser peoples rights"(of memory... not precise quote but same meaning)a policy that the US keeps to this day. If u want something bad to say about USA you just study the facts that are in fact there... hm... sounds weird... anyway... to regard what people write here as "baseless conspiration theories" is just not seeing the facts in front of their eyes... if they would actually look into the matter they would probably find that their well-being is build upon the murdered bodies of million to be dramatic... not something you are happy to find... as thus you dont look... well now i got all off track and this had nothing to do with microsoft... but anyway

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Great job, Tina!
The original story is still up on Le Monde Informatique
See:
http://www.weblmi.com/daily/2001/1129/condamnation . tm
See also:
http://www.weblmi.com/SEMAINE/2001/918_8_logicielm icrosof00.htm
My Quebec friends tell me it was posted in a version of Montreal's Le Devoir and in Jack Kapica's colume in Toronto's Globe & Mail. Contact jkapica@globeandmail.ca He's stunned that the case hasn't received wider publicity.

Jack Bryar

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http://www.heise.de/newsticker/result.xhtml?url=/n ewsticker/data/ku-28.12.01-003/default.shtml&words =Softimage

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Well, a quick search of weblmi.com using google for the term "Character" shows only one page. Considering that it was not a widely publicised case, and not much of even the french media gave it coverage, it is unsurprising that it never made it to the international media in much force.

Well, here is the original article, if any french speakers too lazy to google for it themselves want to take a look : http://www.weblmi.com/daily/2001/1129/condamnation . tm

I'm surprised the newsforge posting didn't mention the original site at all...

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We did mention the original site. Le Monde Informatique. You obviously didn't read the story, but that's ok. :)

Tina

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Hi All,



I'm not sure how many of you remember the
early 90s STACK vs MS case
but you will find an article about it at

http://www.base.com/software-patents/articles/stac . tml



It made big headlines back then when LINUX FANS weren't making BIG NOISES.



Best Regards,

ANJAN. B

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Yes, I remember the Stac vs MS case. There seemed to be very little interest in the fact that MS clearly copied op-code for op-code sections of Stac version 1 into DoubleSpace. The main issue was that a company could see a law suit to successful complettion without going bankrupped. Syn'X has join the ranks of such companies as the Chicago ISP that held the trademark on Internet Explorer of going under to make less than $1 million in damages. People are accepting that MicroSoft uses every method available to put companies out of business. If a company that no longer actually exists makes less than a million US dollars and MicroSoft get fine for less than they make in a day then MicroSoft comes out looking like the winners. People just aren't interested in a MicroSoft actually wins when the "lose" story. It just isn't news.

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Another Interesting note.

IBM and Micro$oft joined forces at the initial beginning of OS/2... interestingly enough, M$ started Windows approximately the same time..... OS/2 sucked, and M$ kicked.... Hmmm... and of course AFTER M$ left the deal, IBM came out with Warp (OS/2 3.x)... it finally kicked, BUT the damage was already done. Things that make you go Hmmm. could this be another case of "borrow" the code, and sabatage the competition????

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I would like to get a copy of the txt of the Peruvian bill in English or Spanish. Perhaps something similar would be of interest at the state level in the US.

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You can find it at www.gnu.org.pe ... specifically <A HREF="http://www.gnu.org.pe/preyres.html">here</a gnu.org.pe>.

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http://www.pimientolinux.com/peru2ms/

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In this page you can read, the compleate story of the Peruvian Government/Microsoft

http://www.pimientolinux.com/peru2ms/

Sorry for my english

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than it would be that this peruvian guy knows what being a people's representative is all about. Getting informed thoroughly (sp?) and then act. VERY good. Hail to this guy.

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Somebody else mentioned STAC, but nobody's mentioned Wang yet. IIRC, Wang put down the foundations for OLE; there was another one of those infamous abortive Microsoft partnership deals, etc., and it took a court to get Microsoft to pay royalties and put Wang's copyright back into the appropriate Windows DLLs.

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Yes, Microsoft's that famous "Pearly" Gates, "Em"Balmer deal. But have you got any urls, and suchlike? It would be helpful.

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<TT>

The article reads "[t]hat [the] letter was deemed necessary by Microsoft

        because of a Peruvian bill that if passed would require its government to buy and use only Free Software. " This is totally inaccurate. The Bill would require the disclosure of the source code of any system implemented in Public Administrations. In other words, the article should read "OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE" rather than "Free Software."

</TT>

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<TT>

The article reads that "[the] letter was deemed necessary by Microsoft because of a Peruvian bill that if passed would require its government to buy and use only Free Software. " This is inaccurate. The bill would require the disclosure of the source code of any system implemented in Public Administrations. In other words, the article should read "OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE" rather than "Free Software."

</TT>

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The reason it was missed was because it was less than a week after septemper 11....

pretty simple really.

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Like the old saying goes, "if you can't beat em, join em."

LMAO

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This incident lends credence to a recent suggestion that Microsoft may have incorporated code from Mozilla, in Internet Explorer.

The suspicion comes from the fact that they both exhibit the same bug:

http://sec.greymagic.com/adv/gm001-ns/

> On 15 Dec 2001 "Jelmer" published an advisory titled "MSIE6 can read local files", which demonstrated how Microsoft's XMLHTTP component allows reading of local files by blindly following server-side redirections (patched by MS02-008).

> It appears that Mozilla's version of XMLHTTP, the XMLHttpRequest object, is vulnerable to the exact same attack.

XML support was a recent addition to Mozilla, and represented a jump over the abilities of Internet Explorer. Microsoft needed to provide the same feature, and do it fast (i.e. not on the 3rd attempt), so it wouldn't surprise me if they just copied the code.

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For some time now, I have been able to accuse Microsoft of fraud, sabotage, and extortion, and back it up with evidence from various court cases.

Now I can add theft to the list.

Accusing Microsoft of monopoly tactics, and going after them with the antitrust laws, was far too good for them.

Microsoft is a criminal organization. The justice department should be going after them with the RICO (anti-racketeering) laws.

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You could become a District Attourney and RICO their criminal asses yourself :-)

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this was missed because the decision came only two weeks after September 11th, which definitely took most of the press at the time.

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Once again, Americans will go as far as Peru to prove a Microsoft conspiracy without checking Canadian sources. I wrote a column about it for GlobeandMail.com, called The Pirates of Redmond. But I guess you were too busy looking elsewhere.

Pardon my pique, but I do resent it when you lump me in with all the others you think are covering up for Microsoft.

Jack Kapica
GlobeTechnology.com

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Jack Bryar alerted me to this after reading my article.

I never said anyone is/was covering up for Microsoft.

If I'd seen any inkling of your column during my search for coverage of this incident, I'd have included a mention of it. So don't jump to conspiracy conclusions - there are no secret schemes to exclude you.

Tina

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You mean the US press failed to notice and report an event that occurred outside the USA? Surely not! How could this possibly happen? (WARNING: sarcasm safety limit reached!)

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Now, now... if it had happened in Israel, you can bet that CNN and the BBC would've been all over it.

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See <A HREF="http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/ku-28.12.01-003/">http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/ku-28.12.01-00 3/</a heise.de> (in german)

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I read the reply by Peruvian congressman and it should be used as template for law school and for general public as how consumers and law makers can be deceived by large corporations in direct and subliminel way. I hope DOJ and States not settling the suit should read it along with the Judge before deciding the verdict.

I now know that this congressman knows more about the working of the software industry than DOJ and states combined.

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not surprising as this isnt the only matter that sometimes fall into obscurity or has its facts twisted by the press.
look at palestine and what the jewish propaganda machine has done to the lives of thousands of innocent families due to some freedom fighters.
and these "terrorists" do anybody know who they are? they are ppl who have lost all hope of ever having a homeland, who's fathers, brothers, male kin all have been killed or imprisoned, who live in a society where the female looks after the home and the male brings home the daily bread.
whose homes have been destroyed in an attempt to displace the palestinians from their lands so the israelis can build settlements and claim the land as their own

check out www.electronicinftifada.com for more info

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It just goes to show the power Microsoft has in clamping the media down!! This monopoly has to be stopped

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The US media is mostlly controlled by a few big corporations. One of these coporations, NBC is so totally controlled by Microsoft, that thier cable channels' names have builtin ads (MSNBC, NBCe). Microsoft also owns other cable properties.

What I'm wonderong is how they manage to controll thier competion, the other media outlets. Probally the usually US-centrism of the US media coupled with the nearness to September 11th, explains this one; However, M$ has managed similar media stunts before, how do they do it?

The obviouse answer is money, but I can't see a company who'd except money in exchange for helping out the parent company of one of their biggest compeditors. If that did happen, the stockholders whould flip (sic).

-Levi

P.S. I'm not anonymous, I just don't really want another stupid account to remeber.

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"So, they're attacking John Q. Public for giving copies of Windows to his friends, and all the while they've been _selling_ copies of other peoples' stuff?"

What this is something new for Microsoft? They've been accused of doing this for several years now. Most of the time they manage to bury the information on it rather effectiveley. What really needs to happen is to have this information in the mainstream technology and business media in the U.S. Given that the MS trial is on the last phase of testimony and the Judge will have to get down to sifting through all this information vs disinformation to render a decision. I think that I would help put things into perspective, for both the IT and public sector in the U.S. to have this out in the open. I mean many have suspected this behavior for some time but the Redmond marketing department is very good at spin doctoring. And in the case of these events it's in their best interest to play dumb and wait until it's forgotten. Well, I can think of no better time to air this then now. I'd like to see the MS spin doctors try to deal with this. Especially if the prosecuting states find it relevant.

Just MHO, Not so anonymous Curtis Rey

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I just wish people would stop using the lame acronym M$ instaed of MS. It just shows ignorance and lowers the validity of any argument you may state except maybe for other anti-MS sympathisers.

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