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Re: What does Donald Knuth and Microsoft have in common?


Verily I say unto thee, that Greg Cox spake thusly:
> In article <1245799.bFTa6HHdk7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, 
> newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx says...
>> ____/ Greg Cox on Sunday 01 February 2009 02:57 : \____

>>> So what you're actually seeing is some number of Microsoft
>>> employees donating to gnu.org and getting their donation matched
>>> by Microsoft Corp.
>> 
>> They could be trying to shut him up. It's hard to criticise one who
>> puts money on your table.
> 
> They who?  Microsoft?  Do you honestly think Microsoft is encouraging
> their employees to donate money to gnu.org so they they have to
> match the donation?  And they expect that this will somehow give them
> influence over the business decisions made by gnu.org?

Microsoft has an extremely well documented history of attempting to
"influence" (i.e. bribe) others with money (the only real asset they
actually have):

[quote]
Mba-Uzoukwu wrote that Microsoft is still negotiating an agreement that
would give TSC US$400,000 (£190,323) for marketing activities around the
Classmate PCs when those computers are converted to Windows.
[/quote]

http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/government-law/public-sector/news/index.cfm?newsid=6124&pn=2


[quote]
Microsoft Sweden was later found to have offered extra "marketing
contributions" to its business partners to encourage them to vote for
OOXML, according to e-mails seen by Computer Sweden.
[/quote]

http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/08/31/Sweden-OOXML-vote-invalid_1.html


[quote]
According to at least six bloggers, Microsoft has been sending out free
top-of-the-line laptops pre-loaded with Vista as a 'no strings attached
gifts'. This 'reward' for their hard work on covering tech in general is
coincidentally right before the launch of Vista to consumers. To be
clear, these weren't loans, they were gifts, and they were
top-of-the-line Acer Ferrari laptops. Microsoft blogger Long Zheng broke
the silence over the source of the freebies.
[/quote]

http://slashdot.org/articles/06/12/27/1423234.shtml


[quote]
A ROW IS BREWING between a bunch of bloggers who took cash from
Microsoft marketing outfit and stodgy old media types who take their
bribes in less obvious ways.

The row started on Friday when the ValleyWag revealed how some "star
boggers" had taken some cash from Federated Media to repeat some
Microsoft sloganeering in copy on their websites.

Michael Arrington tells all how his Techcrunch site became
"people-ready". Gigaom's Om Malik talks about when a business becomes
"people ready". Others named and shamed include Paul Kedrosky and Matt
Marshall of Venture Beat, as well as Fred Wilson, the blogger-investor.
Ads with the Volish motto appear on the blogger's site.
[/quote]

http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2007/06/25/boggers-embroiled-in-volish-bribery-kerfuffle


[quote]
Mercury News writers Mike Antonucci and Dean Takahashi demo and review
the new Halo 3, Microsoft’s much anticipated new gaming title. Nooch
calls it “one of the biggest days in videogame history.” And the duo
discuss the approximately $800 press kit that showed up in the mail for
Dean - a giant, personalized duffel bag filled with Halo 3 schwag.
[/quote]

http://blogs.mercurynews.com/aei/2007/09/24/video_dean_and_nooch_demo_halo_3/


[quote]
Microsoft sharpshooter Joachim Kempin, who was convicted of illegally
shooting antelope in Montana in 1998, has been turning his guns on a
more familiar target: Microsoft's own OEM customers.

The States' remedy hearing opened in DC yesterday, and States attorney
Steven Kuney produced a devastating memo from Kempin, then in charge of
Microsoft's OEM business, written after Judge Jackson had ordered his
break-up of the company. Kempin raises the possibility of threatening
Dell and other PC builders which promote Linux.

"I'm thinking of hitting the OEMs harder than in the past with
anti-Linux. ... they should do a delicate dance," Kempin wrote to
Ballmer, in what is sure to be a memorable addition to the phrases
("knife the baby", "cut off the air supply") with which Microsoft
enriched the English language in the first trial. Unlike those two, this
is not contested.
[/quote]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/03/19/microsoft_killed_dell_linux_states/

> Even worse, do you honestly think gnu.org is willing to sell
> themselves to Microsoft

No, but I'm sure that won't stop the Redmond gangsters from trying anyway.

> for 30 pieces of silver, uh, a donation between $1000 and $4999?

You're right, I don't see this as a serious attempt to bribe gnu.org, I
see this as Sweaty Ballmer extending a greasy palm with one hand, whilst
concealing a crowbar behind his back with the other, in the vain and
desperate hope of having some degree of influence.

> You make gnu.org sound like a stereotypical politician.  Is that how
> you really see them?

No, but I'm sure that's how Microsoft see pretty much everyone else.

>> You should know, Greg. You used to work for Microsoft and now you
>> attend a Linux newsgroup where you defend Microsoft.
>> 
> 
> Yes, I did work for Microsoft.  I was there eighteen years.  And I
> left almost ten years ago.  So what?  Oh, now I understand.  I stated
> accurate facts that don't mesh with your view of the world 100% so I
> must be defending Microsoft.  That's really sad that your world is 
> limited to just "them" and "us".

In this long running series of battles, involving many different parties
at various times (both profit and non-profit), there is an antagonist
who attacks unilaterally, and a protagonist who defends reciprocally.

Can you guess which one Microsoft is?

Here's some research material to help you decide:

http://www.grokdoc.net/index.php/Dirty_Tricks_history
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=2005010107100653
http://boycottnovell.com/microsoft-critique-resources/
http://www.vanwensveen.nl/rants/microsoft/IhateMS.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft#Criticism
http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/index.html
http://boycottnovell.com/2008/01/30/evangelism-is-war-memo/
http://www.catb.org/~esr/halloween/
http://boycottnovell.com/2009/01/10/edgi-continued-dumping-vs-gnu/
http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms_findings.htm
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/03/19/microsoft_killed_dell_linux_states/
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/300590_software22.html
http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/government-law/public-sector/news/index.cfm?newsid=6124&pn=2
http://www.os2world.com/content/view/14871/2/
http://news.softpedia.com/news/One-Laptop-Per-Child-Sabotaged-by-Microsoft-and-Intel-71941.shtml
http://slated.org/microsoft_kills_baby
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/12/16/xbox_scratched_discs_updated/
http://thepopulist.wordpress.com/2003/10/10/the-trials-of-microsoft/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Microsoft_antitrust_case

-- 
K.
http://slated.org

.----
| "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It
|  is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." ~ William
|  Pitt the Younger
`----

Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.25.11-60.fc8
 20:26:11 up 88 days,  4:09,  5 users,  load average: 0.01, 0.07, 0.04

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