Linux.com

Please kill me now. Mundrake has just become a poria Linux distribution.

Dear God,

Smite them with plegues and pestilience.

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This is a very annoying trend online these days. Mangling company names just to degrade their name (supposedly). With names like M$, Microsucks, MicroSCOff, Mundrake, etc. I'm all for finding & reporting the horrible business practices of some of these and other companies, but grow up and use their real names!

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And there is lots of it on this site. I think that they're making the point that advertisement on a Linux distro is a poor way to go, even if the company is short on revenue. Note how the subject mentioned is "humor" and there is not a single linked article from any other creditable site like news articles usually have.

I can't believe you actually believed this. This had me for all of two seconds before I figured that it had to be a joke.

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This is the kind of thing that would be up micrsofts street. Its like giving change to a homeless person only to take their house.(if that makes sense).

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Well if you not sure of whether this is real or not, you could just look at the top of the article. Its clearly marked as HUMOR.

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I agree, better to point out the real downsides of microsoft and others, instead of showing off your own problems with growing up.

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I promise to make a serious attempt to "grow up" as soon as Steve Ballmer does.

This "grown up" thing is vastly overrated. Anybody who thinks that "grown" men live by different rules from little boys on the playground either has very little experience of life or has experienced it sleepwalking.

If you think otherwise, please explain the amount of time that "grown" men spend talking about college and professional sports and pay special attention to the use of metaphors drawn from sports at the next business meeting you attend (if, indeed, you attend business meetings).

The ways that men show aggression, struggle for power, neutralize competitors by marginalizing them and further other personal goals are not, believe me, learned from reading Machiavelli, and men who make erudite references to The Art of War are just backfilling.

Microsoft in particular has a long history of childish and destructively selfish behavior, and meeting it on its own terms by referring to it as M$ seems fairly benign. On the other hand, some of the manglings don't seem particularly clever, but that's an entirely different issue.

RM

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<A HREF="http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php3?date=2002-07-22&res=l" TITLE="penny-arcade.com">penny arcade on "M$"</a penny-arcade.com>

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This kind of commentary is prone to lawsuit when coporate trademarks are involved. Have you been living in a hole or something? I like MicroSnuff as much as the next guy but I'm not going to use their trademark without a contract.

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I can't believe it, it's a bogus or a bad dream...<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:(((

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mandrakesoft has got to make some money how else will 10.0 come out?
so long mdk sticks to what they claim as "non-intusive advertising" what could be wrong about that?

besides... if u dont like something, hit the company where it hurts the most<nobr> <wbr></nobr>.. at the wallet. furthermore, u dont HAVE to use mdk!

marafa
cairo, egypt

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Your are right I do not have to use Mandrake. I'am switching to Debian.

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Microsoft Supports Reading of linux partions and gives up access to NTFS. This is just fair play.

Microsoft programs stop requiring a MS only boot manager to work find.

And installs of Microsoft Windows Don't call linux blank space(yep how to destoy data in one quick step).

Let be fair if they fix this I would not have a problem with them advertising as a competion.(note clearly marked as competion)

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geez people didn't you see the topic stated as humour. lmao!!!

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If I punch you in the mouth and then say, "Don't be mad, I was just being funny," does that make it so?

Ridiculing a company that has tried to do business by appealing to a sense of community and fairness is not funny, it's sick. Like torturing cats or tauting the unemployed with "Get a job!" is sick.

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I just told my cat to get a job.

She scratched me. Go figure.

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I was lmao at the people who took this article as truth. Isn't it something how people respond without looking thoroughly at some of these "news" articles. I always go by the rule of never believing everything I hear or see without further investigation.

I agree it was in bad taste and was a bit upset at first as I'm a mdk user and beta tester but I'm not surprised at some of the articles at any news site.

Linux...giving choice to the neX(windows)t generation.

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Humour? It's the most bland attempt at comedy journalism I've ever read. Hah. Hah. Hah.

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This is really the cheapest shot imaginable. Robin, you should be ashamed to publish such a troll.

An impassioned argument that Mandrake is betraying their developers and beta-testers would be OK (wrong, but OK), but this is just juvenile nastiness from someone who has no argument, who is disappointed that the freebies are running out.

If you don't want the ads, BUY THE FRIGGIN' BOX. That makes sense to everyone but freeloaders.

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We have no problem with Mandrake running some ads in the install screens -- as Gael D. pointed out they've done before without complaint -- and sponsored default home pages, links, and icons have been common in all operating systems for many years (e.g. Earthlink as default ISP the last time I installed Mac 9.x).

You just saw a satire of Microsoft's increasing tendency to advertise "to the Linux community" wherever and whenever. Note the MS ads on many Linux-oriented Web sites, including this one (and note that editorial people have no say in advertising at most companies, just as ad people are supposed to have no say in editorial matters).

On the whole, NewsForge editors like Mandrake and Mandrakesoft a great deal. Now and then they do things we question, but their hearts are in the right place, and they were the first to make Linux truly easy for non-technical users to install and run.

- R


 

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If that's a satire, I don't want to see one of your parodies.

That was truly awful Roblimo, and you should be ashamed. Really, it wouldn't have been out of place in the Daily Sport (A UK newspaper).

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>If you don't want the ads, BUY THE FRIGGIN' BOX. That makes sense to everyone but freeloaders.

Not to me. I have a personal policy against giving money to spammers, makers of web-popups/popunders and especially against paying extortion fees to adware/spyware companies to avoid seeing their ads or loading their spyware.

BTW, I have paid for Mandrake box sets in the past, but I never will again unless the decision to make the distribution into adware/spyware is reversed.

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Whoa... get your terms right buddy.

Adware = Software on your machine that popups ads or other annoying banners onto your screen.

Spyware = Software that tracks your online behavior and sells it.

All 'drake is doing is adding a few sponsored links... easily removed in 5 minutes. I think it's an *excellent* idea.

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I've got my terms right.

Adware = Ad-sponsored software.

Spyware = what all adware is supect of being and will likeluy turn into even if it doesn't start that way.

Me = one who will never use any adware product not give any money to any adware/spyware company.

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I think this article is in very bad taste, especially considering the Windows 2003 Server ad right in the middle.

Newsforge publishes an article which is critical of a company gaining additional revenue from *their partners* (thus ads would be linux-related), while they are taking the same route to gain revenue *from Microsoft*.

Sorry, but this article doesn't even rate as humour, and if this is the kind of article I can expect to see in the future, I won't consider it worthwhile subjecting myself to the MS ads this place throws in my face.

At least, if I don't pay for Mandrake (like I normally do), *I* get something of value for seeing the ads unlike here where I just get lame attempts at humour at the expense of a company who supports free software more than any of the other commercial distros.

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I agree... mandrake is at the 'bottom of the horses ass' when it comes to enterprise software (right up under that whole unitedlinux crap), but I wouldn't stoop so low as to say microsucks would actually advertise on it. Poor taste in humor.

echodots...TINK!

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Hey!
Good joke<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;-). But, I bealieve that sooner or later somebody will make Mandrake 9.2 download edition unofficial ISO images without these anoying advertisments. Everybody have access to sources (that's open source<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;-)) and can make their own versions. However, if MandrakeSoft earn some money... erm... that's great for them<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)

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That add of yours is a m$ add. And mandrake intends to get adds from partners like sun or ibm. So I don't really understand why you think this is so funny.

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Who the hell is the intelligent one who wrote this crap ?

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Along with the advertising. MicroSCOff is including a free trial version of it's Digital Rights Management Client. It can never be removed but you can hide the Icon.

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There are a few that find this funny, but I don't. Newsforge, you have to use better judgement than this. Keep up with these crappy humor pieces, especially in such an important juncture as we are, and your going to loose a major part of your readership.

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Ludicrous and diffamatory, using the name of the Mandrake CEO.

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You should be ashamed to publish this with a real Microsoft ad in the middle of this crappy story. Shame on Newsforge.

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You SEE the ads?

I blocked banner adds YEARS AGO...

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I think Rob is right that people in the community do not have enough sense of humor these days! Incidently, I was curious about some of the references thrown in, to see if they also were somehow humorous or made up; it terms out that there is a "Mark Yambot" minus the "i" who is a marketting manager for Microsoft; in the phillipines. Google knows all! A humourous article with some interesting "easter egg" names or references thrown in would have been perfect.

Furthermore, in my opinion, I see nothing wrong with marketting the splash screen/install pages that are used already for filler during install, default bookmarks, or even default screen saver. I don't see why they should restrict themselves to the download version for this, though. I am not against unobtrusive advertising (anything better than the boring stuff they flip through now during an install would be an improvement!) or things that are easy and obvious to disable (like a default screen saver).

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Damn straight people don't have enough of a sense of humour these days....but...this isn't humourous. Or Ironic, smart, funny or witty. It's retarded. I made better jokes than this in grade school. And, as pointed out by others, the microsoft ad in the middle of all newsforge articles doesn't make it any funnier. Better luck next time.

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The irony of this story is that Newsforge pays its bills by really advertising Microsoft...

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I was thinking the exact same thing.

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the pot and the kettle.

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They're letting MS advertise on how to remove Linux and use W2k3 instead and Windows update, this is the exact opposite of what it should be! How are these ads related!

It's like buying a Honda and than having a page in the manual giving you instructions on how to throw the car off a cliff and get a toyota!

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Have you noticed the section ?

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He's talking about Microsoft ads running on NewsForge for real. The image is in the center or the article and some form of Microsoft advertising runs on all OSDN sites constently.

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"It's like buying a Honda and than having a page in the manual giving you instructions on how to throw the car off a cliff and get a toyota!"

Yup, just bought a honda, threw it off a cliff and bought a toyota! YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Duh! get with the humor dude! Like are u really gonna click one of those micro$oft adds? Me neither, all that happens is that they are helping a linux/open source site<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:D

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This is counterintuitive!

Are we a community or are we warring tribes? This crap is getting out of hand. Whenever I talk about Linux to people, their first concern (after I can't run my programs) is "Wait, where's the money in that?!" I tell them it's in other places - support, training, and the like.

Now if we lambast every company that tries to make a dollar doing what they can (RedHat with a VERY nice update system, Mandrake with non-intrusive ads) then isn't that defeating the purpose of people like me, trying to convert people to Linux?

And good god...do we need any more division between the distributions? It's getting out of hand. Things are rough enough (<A HREF="http://www.atai.org/softwarewar.png" TITLE="atai.org">http://www.atai.org/softwarewar.png</a atai.org>) as it is, with SCO, Microsoft, Sun going back and forth, manufacturers providing half-assed drivers...We need to be more united (not as in UnitedLinux), I mean we need to be more civil about others' choices...

*sigh*

ahh, feels better...:-)

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I suppose you only talk to software companies about Linux? "Where's the money in that" is only a comment you'd get from people who write software. The USERS know where the value of Linux is....

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NOT Users who have never used Linux...e.g. the people on whose machines I've installed Linux...e.g. home users. It isn't just a concern. It's also a simple question - how could companies that distribute free software make a dime? I need some sort of rebuttal...should I say "Well hmm, I guess they can't"?

Maybe you've gotten that only from companies, and everyone else you've spoken to has been completely, 100% receptive to change...but I think real-world results are what we need here. We can't assume that there's no friction because we don't learn about it in Introductory Physics...likewise, people DO ask where the money is.

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I know, it is not funny...

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How was I ever stupid enough to fall for that!

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I got so worked up over this I sent it to PCLINUXONLINE never realizing this was a joke! Desperate times call for depserate measures so this might not be far off from the truth<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;p

I still can't believe I didn't catch the hints along the way! GOod joke... and yet so sick<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;p

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That is just sooo nasty of you making fun of MS just because they have all the money, and nobody else does. (And much like Potter-world I don't mention their *real* name, for fear of lawyer-dementors!).

I think MS should include a *free* SCO license in every copy of Linux. That way it becomes the new proprietary licence standard, people will have to write to that licence, and no other licence stands a chance!

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I think this is pretty lame, even for a humor piece.

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Mandrake's only accepting ads from its partners, so the basic premise of the "joke" is wrong.

  "I go to the hospital, I see insulin there! What's that about? Who is THAT for?"

  Leave the comedy to skilled comedians, please.

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why does anyone even choose Mandrake in the first place? It still suffers from the same RPM hell Redhat and SuSE do, and they are both much more refinished. Personally, I like Debian, and am more interested in how Xandros is coming along... Last time I tried it, it was very refinished, and users don't run as root by default (LindowsOS). Also, it was very easy to migrate because it had an ntfs resizing utility, and their file manager, letting you do samba and nfs shares with a simple right click was very promising. All of this, not even touching Crossover Office being integrated into it... I think if any company has a future in the desktop market, it's Xandros. The old version I have, I actually had a Windows User ask me if it's a beta of the new version of Windows coming out... They especially loved the multiple screens to play with.
disasm

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It still suffers from the same RPM hell

You have bot tried urpmi, have you ? It is like apt-get in Debian and solves the dependencies. Check your facts.

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There's a simple solution to this issue, don't use Mandrake distros. I won't.

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Section : Humor. Does that ring a bell ?

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There's a slighty more complex solution, but its one that would fix a lot more issues: get a brain.

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Good point.

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I believe in the basic human right of free speech. But there is the line of good taste and bad taste. Such as yelling fire, and yelling fire in a crowded theater.

Mandrake got a lot of guff in the last few days for anouncing they were going to do imbedded advertising, but in reality, it isn't intrusive.

However, I feel that the author may misrepresent what Mandrake is doing by associating them with SCO. It's not a fair comparison, and in my opinion, is just plain mean to Mandrake.

For linux, normally the distro that is best is the distro that you learned to use. None are really all that better than the other, each has it's ups and downs. I, myself, have decided to move from MS to linux only about 4 months ago, trying Gentoo, Debian, Red Hat, Turbo (POS IMO), Red Hat with Ximian, Lycosis (definitely the best absolute newbie distro), a priated copy of Xandros (grossly overrated), and Mandrake 9.1.

Mandrake 9.1 has captured my favor. I think it by far is the best with urpmi and it's more focused attempt to put configuration in intuitive places. And it's pretty. I'll hear the arguments that KDE is KDE, whether it's on RH or MDK, but side by side, Mandrake looks better. And if you know where to look, you can get a who butt-load of rpms for MDK 9.1, and many rpms that makes it almost as capable as WindowsXP in the media realm.

But back to the point, don't associate something good with something bad, especially if it's a clumsy attempt at humor.

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Where do you get those RPMs at?

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Start with Mplayer and Xine. You can search for RPMs on Freshmeat and rpmseek. Search for PLF (Penguin Liberation Front). They're mandrake friendly.

Right now, there isn't a file that I can't play with Mplayer, Xine, Xmms, Realplayer. You can get the codecs from Realplayer One and play them in Realplayer 8 without the intrusivness of One player. Windows XP makes media a _little_ more seamless, but Linux isn't all that far behind.

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Better yet, use the Easy URPMI tool at Penguin Liberation Front's webpage to set up URPMI sources for contrib, texstar, and plf.

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It's a spoof.

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People! Getting worked up over "MicroSCOff" and a little tounge-in-cheek humor... Come on! Give the author a break.

Admit it! He had you going! (He certainly had me going).

I think the real problem is you guys take yourselves way too seriously. The author doesn't need to grow up. You do! MandrakeSoft and Microsoft aren't harmed by this stuff. You are!

A sense of humor is the best sign of a healthy brain.

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>>I think the real problem is you guys take yourselves way too seriously. The author doesn't need to grow up. You do! MandrakeSoft and Microsoft aren't harmed by this stuff. You are!

Amen. The cure for those who don't find this piece humorous is not to laugh at it and move on. You don't have to don an Eeyore suit and make everyone else feel as miserable as you do.

Joe Barr

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> People! Getting worked up over "MicroSCOff" and a little tounge-in-cheek humor... Come on! Give the author a break.

Nah. Calling a distro microscoff because they do something you disagree with is lame.

> Admit it! He had you going! (He certainly had me going).

No I wont. I wasn't insulted. I wasn't amused. I only thought it was stupid.

> I think the real problem is you guys take yourselves way too seriously. The author doesn't need to grow up. You do! MandrakeSoft and Microsoft aren't harmed by this stuff. You are!

Speak for yourself.

> A sense of humor is the best sign of a healthy brain.

I have a lot of fun and I see a lot of humour in life. This wasn't funny. This was pathetic.

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Who makes Mundrake? This must be a hoax.

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I can't understand how anyone could take this article seriously, Just reading the headline reveals its a joke.
More perplexing is how anyone could get upset by it. I didn't get big laughs reading it but come on lighten up you might live longer.

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I can't understand how anyone could take the article seriously either (except the people who support Microsoft, they usually believe anything that Microsoft says).

It goes to show that some people read things on the Web and take them as gospel, and maybe we should be throwing out a lot more articles coming against Microsoft's FUD.

But,I feel this article was written in the kind of way a six year old kid would make up a dumb joke or story in the playground, then he and his friends would start laughing and run off in a state of childish excitement, pretending to be airplanes, telling other kids that they smell as the go past.

It would have been better if it had been posted stating how Microsoft could buy up advertising space and do such a thing, I probably would have laughed at it.

Does the Open Source community want to be compared with six year old kids? It's nothing to get angry about, but it is embarassing.

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Is it SCO or Microsoft?

Maybe it's just a corrupted download. Stupid CopattbiteleportOL internet!

Dumbasses...

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I can't believe Newsforge is helping spread FUD about one of the highest quality Linux distributions out there. Sure, its humor and just kidding around, but at least half the replies to this story are taking it very seriously.

That was the most bad-taste story I've ever seen on newsforge. Complete crap.

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M$ saw linux beatin' 'em. So what did they do? see!

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Reading the (real) M$ articles, it is amazing that there apprently is no fdisk in Windows XP?! They tell someone to start with the linux install disk and use its fdisk.
M$ is so fscking cheap!

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Quite Deep.

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You completely missed April Fools by months...

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truly you jest this some type of sick linux fools joke

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meh. ill just stick with micro$oftopoly!

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Pretty funny article when you see NewsForge has already sold out to Microsoft. Mandrake has it's problems, but even after bankruptcy they aren't retarded enough to put MS server ads on their linux products...

http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/freetrial/

Would be funny, as I said, if Newsforge wasn't so pathetic.

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What is the fuss about? This very site (NewsForge.com) advertises M$ products. I can see M$ Small Business Server 2003 ad right now.

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This is not funny at all. Also, the name distorssions are a bad idea.

Probably you enjoy throwing cow manure at a fan.

I don't.

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I dunno, like it had been said... the editors of this site don't have any say in what ads that get put up.

Though, I look at it in a different light... MS ads aren't going to be generating much business on this site, so all MS is doing is throwing money at an open-source advocating website.

Don't you at least see the humour in microsoft helping to fund this place?

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What did someone need to up the hits on NewsForge? That would be the only reason for a troll article. Course the quality of NewsForge articles is pretty weak anyhow...

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C'mon folks, get a life. It's HUMOR! I thought it was a riot. If you can't have a sense of humor, then you need a vacation.

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Call them capitalists or greedy or extorters whatever, that would be fun. But don't call them the worst of the worst. That's unethical.
You don't call someone a slave of Sauron just because he suggests another route.

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I agree. Although I think the article was not funny, I know that its intent was to be funny. The response generated from the community was the typical 'get angry and make a lot of crude comments' from some, while others are commenting because they don't understand the article. If you look back at all of the articles that were supposed to be funny and caused controversy, it seems like the same comments are written every time, prob. by the same people. I thought the Open Office vs. MS Office satire was hysterical and I think this one is dry, but I am sure that there was no harm intended in writing this article. So in short "Have a sense of humor!"

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Oh wait...

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You will have to click on the MS ad to generate a credit for NewForge. Do so now.

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Hilarious! I thought that the use of the names was very funny, and quite timely. Combined the SCO thing with the Mandrake thing. Very funny. I think that some of the other readers didn't notice the SCO initials in the name of MicroSCOff. It's a funny piece, but it is also very telling. MS will do everything it can to try to derail the FLOSS train. Sure, Mandrake needs money, as do many FLOSS enterprises. We've gotta support FLOSS businesses so that they can be as independent as possible from investor dollars from the devil. MS includes lots of trojans in its software, and same for its business practices. Sure, Newsforge had to accept money from Microsquash to meet its budget. No one lives a pure life. We all must dance with the devil a bit every day. The key is learning to keep as much distance during the dance as possible, and then run to the bathroom to wash up after the dance.

If we don't poke fun at Mandrake for having to have its particular little dance with the advertising demon, Mandrake might dance a little too much, and get a little too close. It's all a question of balance, and there is no easy solution. Bottom line: poke fun at those of us who have to dance with the devil, but help them recover after the dance, so they don't have to dance as much. IMHO.

Christian J. Einfeldt
Law Offices of Christian J. Einfeldt
580 California Street, Suite 1600
San Francisco, CA 94104
415 351 1300
einfeldt@earthlink.net

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MandrakeSoft clearly announced their ads would be Linux-related. Take a look at:

<A HREF="http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/mdkads.php3" TITLE="mandrakelinux.com">http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/mdkads.php3</a mandrakelinux.com>

It sais: "Our advertizing plan is only offered to MandrakeSoft partners - we select only ads that make sense as complementary Linux solutions."

And everybody knows that any Linux distro making ads of M$ would lose nearly all its users. Doing that would be like digging their own grave. So this can't be more than FUD.

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Won't this be FUD thrown away by M$? This new can hurt Mandrake even if it's false, and isn't this just what M$ wants? (hurt Linux) Imagine an IT magazine with the new "MandrakeSoft agreed to add M$ advertisings to Mandrake Linux 9.2". This would discredit Mandrake and so Linux too.

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