You can be sure that china and the rest of the newly industrialised asian countries will make an awful fuss if the US come after them for not using their products. I am not sure that western government won't back down in the face of what there is to gain (licensing revenue for a few companies) and what there is to loose (major trade crisis with one of the most dynamic economic region in the world)

I'd like to think so, but I'm pessimistic in the extreme--it appears to me that MS has the US government in its pocket. Found in violation of the law, MS got off with a slap on the wrist--if that.

I hope foreign governments will prevail against this corrupt Goliath, but they'll probably get no help from our (U. S.'s) "leaders."

I concur with Jon...

When we hear of Microsoft getting fines of 583 million dollars in Europe for monopolizing media player... We think.. wow.. that's a lot of money...but in reality... it's not to them.... It's about he same as your average citizen getting a traffic ticker for speeding, and unregistered plates... sure it sucks... and you have to spend about a 50% of your weekly income to get the fines taken care of... So for the next month or two... you're gonna be really careful.. and after that... you forget about the fines... 500 million isn't going to break the bank for Microsoft... not unless Europe, India, China, and the US all fine them at the same time... (the US fine M$??? heh.. now I'm being facetious..)

Anyways...I would love to see anything *NIX based really cut into M$ profits... Then let M$ get hit with a big fine(s) and let them drop down to a reasonable economic standpoint... give 'em a taste of reality... I don't see it happening anytime soon though...

You are correct, sir. In reality I don't think anybody is listening to this jibba-jabba-jibb-jabbrin, even Windows users... I think Mircosoft is wasting their time.

" Linux violates more than 228 patents, according to a recent report from a research group, Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said at the company's Asian Government Leaders Forum in Singapore."

Could someone list these 228 violations?

Too bad Microsoft's software isn't Open Source--then somebody could discover how many patents IT allegedly violates.

Well, here in India 47% of governmental administration work has been shifted onto Linux. Microsoft did come come out against this changeover,but the state govt. told them that if they want to continue operations in the country,they'd better not meddle with the government's internal affairs.I'm sure that MS is very unlikely to press any further on the argument.

thats cool

do u have some material on that??


regards

Microsoft is one a downhill journey whichever whay you look at it. They are fast losing their reputation even in their strong markets and their fear is driving them to crazy heights of ridiculous nonsense.

As many reservations as I have about the U. S. "Office of Homeland Security" (not the least of which is the commonly objected to sound of the name, reminiscent of Nazi nomenclature...), I was delighted when Homeland Security officials urged U. S. citizens to switch from Internet Explorer to another browser because of the horrific security gaps in the MS browser.

I applaud the Indian government's stance--I, too, would like to read more about this if a link can be furnished.

Yeah,more governments are switching over to Linux having experienced its obvious and not so obvious benefits.
Try this:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...artid=24598339

In fact the government is bringing Linux to educational institutions by making it the standard OS for such purposes.Also, with more than 20 major languages being spoken in the country, the govt. has released the regional language versions of Linux.This will be a mighty boost for the pen source movement,what with 150 million students in the country.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...ow?msid=185058

As for the Microsoft threat report,I learned that from my father who works in the Ministry for Commerce.

Thank you, corbis_demon, for those links. They are the most satisfying stories I've read in several days. Encouraging news indeed!

Microsoft is a company which believes in Money,BSD[blue screen of death]
and F****r Gates.Somebody might have thrown some shit on his face rather putting cake!!
HAIL LINUX!!!!! not any more!!!

"The secret to Linux is that it permits no secrets"

Microsoft, OTOH, stays in business by ensuring that what goes on behind the GUI remains a secret known only to them. IMHO, M$ is the primary reason Johnny can't program. M$ takes great pains to insulate little Johnny from his big, scary, mean old computer. If little Johnny tries to find out just exactly what the heck his computer is doing, M$ has a terrible ogre name EULA to scare Johnny out of his knickers and chase him back into the sunny land where computers are abstracted to pretty pictures, cheerful sounds, and wonderful blue screens of post-life experience.

Current Windows code is mostly undocumented spaghetti dating back to the early days of NT4. If you doubt that, just check their own security advisories to see how many of the patches they issue affect every version of Windows back to NT4 SP0. Their new releases never FIX anything, they just pile tons of new crap onto the same old pile. It's kind of like that big pile of horse manure over at the local horse race track. It just keeps getting bigger and smellier as time passes.

Of course, they would rather threaten everyone on the planet with lawsuits rather than shovel out that pile of manure. Hopefully, enough of the rest of us will refuse to have anything to do with them that they will suffer the consequences of their hubris. Pulling the software patent gun on the Asian community reminds me of the scene in Blazing Saddles where Sheriff Bart (Cleavon Little) pulls his six-shooter and holds it to his own head, yelling to the mob preparing to do him great bodily harm : "Don't move, or the Sheriff gets it!". (I think he means it. We'd better back off. NOT!)

If Linux has violated 228 patents, M$ has violated 228 ^ 2 patents. I believe British Telecom owns the patent to the mouse click. I wonder how many of those M$ owes royalties on by now? Maybe we could click billg onto the welfare rolls.

So here's the strategy: If they come after Linux with all their $666/hr lawyers blazing, switch to BSD for a while. Pretty much everything compiles and runs there. If it doesn't, fix it. If they then go after BSD, switch to Apple OS/X. They can't touch Apple. It's the only company left to keep them out of prison. Don't work for them or with them. Don't buy their products, unless you'd like to build the world's largest Beowulf cluster running on Xbox's. That would cost them dearly. ( I wonder how much they lose on each unit?...) In short, ignore them. Make them irrelevant.

Here is Microsoft's big secret: most of the really smart people called in rich 5 years ago. They are trying to coast on the reputations and abilities of people who are now sunning themselves on their own private islands or shooting rockets to the fringes of space. In short, they are a hollow , bloated shell of the company that produced that wonderful NT 3.51 product. Their current product line consists mainly of obscenely bloated piles of overpriced garbage. They can be beaten, I know that for a fact. The vast majority of their employees know only how to pass the MSCE. If you put them in front of a keyboard and give them a real-world task, they are helpless. If you challenge them technically, they fold. Most have very narrow skill sets.

M$ seems to be trying to find out if it is possible to aggregate enough mediocre employees to create a few virtual geniuses. It doesn't seem to be working, but I invite them to keep trying. Maybe they could cluster them. Oh, I forgot, you can only cluster four M$ hosts.

Can you say "boycott"? I can.

<s>

John Galt

I'm sure Bill Joy would be offended to see BSD referred to as the blue screen of death (i.e. BSOD).