Here's a brief timeline of M$'s GNU/Linux patent extortion, mostly reported in their own words. It should be seen as part of a much larger attack on GNU/Linux that continues to this day. The picture that emerges is a constant drizzle of FUD, behind the scenes strong arming and finally direct and proxy lawsuits. I'll point to major refutations in this list, but the US Supreme Court has declared business method patents invalid and all but invalidated software patents, and victims having their day in court accuse Microsoft of judicial extortion that amounts to anti-trust. Laws have yet to deter Microsoft so their patent, copyright and marketing attacks on software freedom will continue until the company collapses. M$ is forced to this because no one wants their second rate tech[2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and they fail in free markets. Details from the Barns and Noble case prove that the intent was to clearly exclusionary - to saddle free software with higher costs and cripple the feature set relative to Microsoft's own software. Academic studies have shown that software patents are mostly granted to large companies who then extort the majority of people in the industry who neither want nor can afford them.

Microsoft understands that software patents themselves are fraud but has used them against competition since the late 90s and is now an innovator in fraud. Bill Gates ordered the company to start stockpiling patents in 1991 and clearly viewed them as a judicial extortion tool:

If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. I feel certain that some large company will patent some obvious thing related to interface, object orientation, algorithm, application extension or other crucial technique. If we assume this company has no need of any of our patents then the have a 17-year right to take as much of our profits as they want. The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can.

M$ considered patents an anti-competitive weapon against Open Office since 1998 and tried to tax Sun. In 2003 Bill Gates planned to lace metadata and device discovery with patents to exclude Apple. Now, M$ has taken patent fraud a step further by never telling people what patents they violate and threatening end users, much like they paid SCO to do with bogus copyrights. Yes, M$ was responsible for the SCO attack too. Microsoft has launched a loud publicity campaign to shake down companies that have nothing to do with anything owned by M$ as if they were able to charge rent on free software.

The Barns and Noble case is delivering details that prove Microsoft's strategy is to exclude free software from the market by judicial extortion. B&N accuses Microsoft of threatening all Android makers with huge costs to defend against bogus patents if they don't pay licensing fees in excess of those paid for Microsoft's software and also reduce Android's feature set to a point where Microsoft's software is competitive. The feature set reduction goes beyond the scope of the patents used to extort payment. The goal is the same as we've seen in Microsoft's OEM and retail strong arming, to make Microsoft the cheapest and best option in all cases by putting costs and restrictions onto competitors.

Here's nine years of them claiming ownership of all free software and demanding protection money to keep unspecified things from breaking.

2002 - high level planning.

• 9/25 - Jim Alchin at a vendor meeting, "IT WILL be simply, 'Hey, these guys took intellectual property.' And whether the lawsuit comes from Wind River or in X, Y, Z, there's going to be one. Guaranteed"
• 9/27 - Jim Alchin writes, "We need someone to tear down the indemnification offered from RedHat and IBM to customers. We need to understand exactly the risk a customer is under if a patent lawsuit happens and Linux is challenged. ... There MUST be risks to customers that are being passed on. " This email is probably what lead to the whole scam. See also the pdf from Comes vs Microsoft.

Wind River's CEO stated before the US Congress in January of 1994, "My perspective on software patents is simple: stop issuing software patents. Software patents should not exist."

2003 - M$ bankrolls the SCO copyright attack.

2004 - A fraud from day 1, the patent attack is launched.

• 03/12 - Microsoft SCO middleman, Mike Anderer lays out Microsoft's free software patent exclusion strategy, "Microsoft may have 50 or more of these lawsuits in the queue. All of them are not asking for hundreds of millions, but most would be large enough to ruin anything but the largest companies. Red Hat did recently raise several hundred million which certainly gives them more staying power. Ultimately, I do not think any company except a few of the largest companies can offer any reasonable insulation to their customers from these types of judgments. You would need a market cap of more than a couple billion to just survive in the OS space." PJ declares it extortion, using the courts as an aggressive competitive weapon, is a misuse of the legal system. It's a form of blackmail, a leftover artifact from the dot.com bubble days. It can only work for so long before everybody gets sick of it and them and changes the patent laws.
• 04/10 - Microsoft funded bullshitters, Alexis de Toqueville Institution, forecast a patent attack.
• 8/2 - The Public Lie is launched by Dan Lyons on the day OSRI publishes Ravicher's study of patent threats to all software. He boosts patent claims and attacks "Linux zealots" along with Ravicher's reputation. "A report to be released today says Linux may violate nearly 300 patents, including 27 held by Microsoft, and warns that companies using Linux could become targets of multi-million-dollar lawsuits. ... the 12-employee OSRM wants to charge companies $150,000 a year for $5 million in legal coverage that kicks in if they get sued for using open-source programs like Linux. ... [this could scare] customers into dumping Linux and going back to Unix or Microsoft's Windows--products that you don't usually get sued for using. ... The OSRM report represents a new chapter in [the SCO story]." Fellow poison pen author Robert Enderle is quoted saying the same things, making OSRM and the whole story look like a M$ set up from the get go. There are so many lies in this article that it's impossible to tell who's innocent, everyone involved is smeared.
• 11/18 - Threatens government GNU/Linux users, Ballmer told Microsoft's Asian Government Leaders Forum that Linux violates more than 228 patents. ... "Some day," he continued, "for all countries that are entering the WTO [World Trade Organization], somebody will come and look for money owing to the rights for that intellectual property."
• 11/19 - Author repudiates Ballmer's use of his study, "Microsoft is up to its usual FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt]," said Dan Ravicher, author of the study Microsoft cites. "Open source faces no more, if not less, legal risk than proprietary software. The market needs to understand that the study Microsoft is citing actually proves the opposite of what they claim it does."
• unknown - Long after the fact, Microsoft general counsel Smith revealed customer shakedowns. Since the GPL covered only distributors of Linux, nothing stopped Smith from seeking royalties directly from end users - many of which are Fortune 500 companies [and major Microsoft customers]. [he got deals with] "major brand-name companies" in financial services, health care, insurance and information technology. (He says they don't want to be identified, presumably because they fear angering the FOSS community.) [2]

2005 More of the same, tired FUD.

• 7/10 - Ballmer FUDs Microsoft's Worldwide partners, Ballmer - again inaccurately - cited an Open Source Risk Management (OSRM) survey from last summer that highlighted the existence of 287 patents in the Linux kernel. "Rumor is Linux violates 286 patents." Microsoft sees the wider implementation of corporation-friendly IP law that is part of the entry ticket to the WTO as being a weapon that can be used against software rivals.

2006 Novell sells out for $400 million. FUDsters rejoice.

• 3/26 - Steve Ballmer threatens all GNU/Linux in Forbes, there are experts who claim Linux violates our intellectual property. I'm not going to comment. But to the degree that that's the case, of course we owe it to our shareholders to have a strategy
• 11/2 - the M$ Novell Patent deal.
• 11/3 - Dan Lyons casts Novell deal as free software failure and claims the deal dooms both Novell and competitors like Red Hat. On Thursday night, I asked Jeff Jaffe, Novell's chief technology officer, if he could think of a company that had partnered with Microsoft and done really well as a result. ... His response: "I think this partnership is breaking new ground." ... the new ground they're breaking is probably Novell's gravesite. Red Hat grew, Novell shrank.
• 11/3 - More FUD from Steve Ballmer, "If a customer says, Look, do we have liability for the use of your patented work? Essentially, If you're using non-SUSE Linux, then I'd say the answer is yes. They'll think twice about [about downloading GNU/Linux]. There are a lot of Linux distributors now [considering a Novell like deal]. All of the sudden you have got Oracle in the game; you've got Red Hat in the game." Red Hat never caved, nothing happened. Both Ballmer and Novell's Ron Hoverspan both stressed OOXML converters for Open Office, but they admit these translators would never work 100%. I don't think they have gotten 10% "interoperability" yet.
• 11/12 - SAMBA team begs Novell to reconsider their M$ patent deal. Many are upset the FSF was not consulted, "The Samba Team disapproves strongly of the actions taken by Novell on November 2nd. One of the fundamental differences between the proprietary software world and the free software world is that the proprietary software world divides users by forcing them to agree to coercive licensing agreements which restrict their rights to share with each other, whereas the free software world encourages users to unite and share the benefits of the software. The patent agreement struck between Novell and Microsoft is a divisive agreement. ... Using patents as competitive tools in the free software world is not acceptable." - From the Samba team letter. FSF lawyer, , explains, "if [M$] succeeds in getting one distribution to pay royalties for the distribution of free software, other distributions will do so. ... That will then succeed in marching the commercial sector away from the non-commercial sector, and Microsoft then will be able to use its patents to sue to block the development of software in the non-commercial sector without the fear of suing its own customers, which is the force that now constrains them from misbehavior with their patent portfolio." It is a good thing that Red Hat and others did not take the bait and that GPL3 thwarted the deal.
• 11/16 - Steve Ballmer explains Novell/M$ deal where M$ gave Novell $400 million, Microsoft signed the deal because Linux "uses our intellectual property" and it wanted to "get the appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation. Novell pays us some money for the right to tell customers that anybody who uses SUSE Linux is appropriately covered. This is important to us, because we believe every Linux customer basically has an undisclosed balance sheet liability. Only customers that use SUSE have paid properly for intellectual property from Microsoft."
• 11/20 - Roger Levy, vice-president of open platform solutions at Novell, told a Paris press conference, "Customers were afraid they'd get sued if they crossed platforms and this meant that they were hesitating on buying decisions. As part of the deal Microsoft will agree not to sue our customers and we agreed not to sue their customers."
• 11/27 - Dan Lyons reports the M$/Novell deal as failure of free software that dooms Novell and all other GNU/Linux vendors. the move is also tried-and-true Microsoft strategy: embrace, extend--and exterminate. It works like this: Partner with a weak, desperate player. ... Develop new features that help you but hurt others (in this case, Red Hat). Weaken everyone in the market, then move on. Yes, he said the same thing on 11/3.
• 12/21 - SAMBA developer, Jeremy Allison,Resigns from Novell over M$ deal.

2007 - "Respecting IP" means paying M$ for things they don't own. Proxy attacks launched which prove that selling out to M$ provides no peace of mind at all.

• 4/14 - Samsung caves to Microsoft extortion and pays for the use of free software. They will later pay fees for Android.
• 5/7 - Dell Sells Out and promisses to promote SLED. Customers overwhelmingly object to the purchase of M$ SLED coupons. This will cost Dell sales and market share.
• 5/14 - Another Forbes attack. The quotes are amazing but Forbes manages to outdo all of the M$ critters he interviews. "We live in a world where we honor, and support the honoring of, intellectual property," says Ballmer in an interview. FOSS patrons are going to have to "play by the same rules as the rest of the business," he insists. "What's fair is fair." Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith and licensing chief Horacio Gutierrez is quoted. Revealing the precise figure for the first time, they state that FOSS infringes on no fewer than 235 Microsoft patents. [Linux kernel 42, 65 GUI, Open Office 45, E-mail programs 15, 68 unspecified and no patent listed. It turns out these numbers came from a study, which concludes that free software infringes less than non free does and the author repudiates Ballmer's assertions, source.] ... "This is not a case of some accidental, unknowing infringement," Gutierrez asserts. "There is an overwhelming number of patents being infringed." To top things off, all GNU/Linux users are threatened again, would Microsoft sue its customers for royalties, the way the record industry has? "That's not a bridge we've crossed," says CEO Ballmer, "and not a bridge I want to cross today on the phone with you." [2, shilled by Ina Fried before Fortune published it, "Last modified: May 13, 2007"]
• 5/17 - Bill Hilf, general manager of platform strategy, "So we have no plans to litigate. You can never say we'll never do anything in the future, but that's not our strategy. ... This isn't like a trivial invention. There are a couple hundred significant patents here."
• 5/24 - M$ refuses to list patents violated for paperwork reasons and threatens Red Hat, Microsoft patents attorney Jim Markwith told OSBC, "The response of that would be administratively impossible to keep up with." ... Microsoft's director of platform strategy Sam Ramji [said], "As a company that puts $7bn a year into R&D, we have a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders. We have no desire to litigate - we spend $100m a year defending ourselves against patent lawsuits. We continue to offer licensing agreements to distributors of specific pieces of software called out in the [Forbes] article. Red Hat is welcome to come to the table, as is any other distributor."
• 6/4 - Brian Caulfield of Forbes covers the Xandros deal. Microsoft executives are hinting that trouble could be brewing--claiming last month that open-source products are violating 235 of the company's patents. ... Aside from having to endure getting flamed on a few geek-friendly message boards, however, it's hard to see a downside for the 80-employee Xandros. For one downside, read about the destruction of the Ausus EEPC and ponder what the projected $25 million worth of licensing would have done Xandros ($5 x 25 million units, a lowball price estimate).
• 10/4 - Steve Ballmer says Red Hat users owe him money, "I think it's great the way Novell stepped up to kinda say intellectual property matters. When people use Red Hat [shrug], at least with respect to our intellectual property, in a sense, have an obligation to eventually to compensate us."
• 10/21 - M$ proxy Acacia Research launches a patent lawsuit against Red Hat and Novel over a multi-monitor patent. According to Groklaw, this is the first patent lawsuit filed against gnu/linux. Three years later, Acacia loses. Acacia will file more.
• 11/15 - Bill Hilf, general manager of platform strategy, "We would like to strike similar patent deals with all the Linux vendors, but we had to start somewhere."

2008 - lawsuits are good for business

• 02/27 - Garner Group warns the world about the M$ "patent trap.", "Do not use Microsoft's documentation unless you have rigorous processes to keep track of applicable patents. " [quote source]
• 07/31 - Microsoft sues Primax Electronics.
• 10/17 - Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's top imaginary property lawyer threatens Red Hat, "If every effort to license proves not to be fruitful, ultimately we have a responsibility to customers that have licenses and to our shareholders to ensure our intellectual property is respected." Same old stuff, but he has the nerve to point to the Novell deal as a example of how working with a rival can ultimately benefit both companies, "It is truly a business mechanism to start discussions that weren't possible before." Unbelievable cynicism. [damage control], [perspective 1, 2, 3, 4]
• 11/08 - Phone maker LG is forced to pay the Microsoft tax for free software.
• 11/24 - Most people think Biski ruling is the end of software patents.

2009 Unable to compete in mobile devices and mass storage, M$ launches their own lawsuits and more proxy attacks on free software. Biski ruling has ended the game but M$ and other patent holders pretends otherwise.

• 1/23 - Matt Assay guesses their game but mistakenly thinks M$ has become "less strident"
• 1/31 - FUD in a nutshell. This article does a remarkable job of relating all the patent FUD talking points as if as if Bilski never happened.
• 2/06 - Equipment maker Brother signs a Novell like patent deal.
• 2/25 - M$ sues TomTom, over supposed GNU/Linux patent infringement. FAT long names and other BS patents are cited, the bluff has been called and it will end badly for M$, even though they win.
• 3/9 - M$ proxy Acacia Research (aka Software Tree LLC)launches another lawsuit against gnu/linux. This one targets Red Hat, HP, Genuitec and Dell, over an Object Relational Manager. Red Hat later settles and many of the details are kept secret.
• 3/30 - TomTom is partially defeated. It is difficult who lost what without full details.
• 7/15 - GNU/Linux NAS maker is taxed by M$. Once again, the bogus deal is secret.
• 7/23 - Still trying to shake down Red Hat.
• 9/9 - M$ tries to launch proxy attacks but their scheme backfires. They held an invitation only auction to sell patents to trolls but the "winner" turned around and sold them to OIN. M$ makes the best of it all by pretending the sale was a donation and hyping the continued value of patents and FUD.

2010 Software Patent Armagedon and Meltdown. All sorts of Microsoft trolls launch attacks on Google's Android and everyone sues everyone, proving that arsenals of "defensive" patents were only good for ruining the industry.

• 01/21 - Microsoft sues Tivo. The PR is fuzzy but the message is clear, use Microsoft of be sued by Microsoft.
• 10/27 - Austec and Asus claim Microsoft levels "patent royalties" to block their use of Android on tablets.
• 10/20 - PJ declares the Oracle attack on Google SCO II. It is difficult to tell if Microsoft pulled Oracle's strings but they are surely harming their own valuable asset.
• 11/24 - Novell sells themselves to Microsoft and Microsoft proxy AccessMate for a pitiful sum, proving to everyone that cooperation with Microsoft only leads to failure. Microsoft immediately creates as much FUD as possible by withholding details and through their usual disinformation channels [2]. Investors launch lawsuits.
• 12/03 - Microsoft extorts money from HTC over Android smartphones and admits that patent extortion of free software is a planned revenue source in places Microsoft is unable to make competitive software.
• 12/10 - Paul Allen's patent troll lawsuit is thrown out as vague and without factual basis. Allen had sued almost everyone except Microsoft and Amazon. Allen's army of lawyers don't give up and this ridiculous lawsuit is filed again.
• 12/10 - Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures patent troll pyramid scheme launches three patent infringement suits against nine companies. The lawsuits against Windows AV companies are obviously about software patents. To date, IV spent $5 billion on patents and has managed to extort $2 billion in licensing.

2011 - Microsoft Launches More Direct and Proxy Lawsuits Against Free Software. Microsoft becomes more of a patent troll than a software company and other tech "Brands" continue down the path dictated by outsourcing of manufacture and design.

• 01/24 - Microsoft files suit against Tivo and seeks to block import of their set top boxes. Techrights has history and details.
• 02/11 - Microsoft takes over Nokia with a hostile CEO. GNU/Linux is stalled, if not killed, Windows is to be the new platform of choice and both will use patents as a weapon. Elop says, "Microsoft plus Nokia has a remarkably strong IP portfolio, and we will use that appropriately with the context of our ecosystem. ... Ensuring that the value we create with our patents, we can defend from those who may take advantage." It is sad and strange that he thinks that patents are more worth using than Symbian or MeGo and that Nokia is better off as a patent troll and Microsoft supplicant. About a thousand workers disagreed and walked off the job in protest.
• 03/21 - Another direct lawsuit, this time against Android. Microsoft sues Barnes & Noble, Foxconn and Inventec over Android use. Separately, Biski is upheld the way PJ thought it would be.
• 03/25 - Microsoft takes litigation and extortion to a whole new level with a series of vague and insane US State laws against "piracy". The details vary from state to state but the The laws allow Microsoft to block the US company from selling the finished product in the state and compel them to pay damages for what Microsoft says the overseas supplier did.
• 03/30 - Microsoft files anti-trust charges against Google, claiming technical exclusion from Google services. The company has used several proxies, such as TurboHurcules, in the past against free software users and busted Google's rescue of Yahoo and another ad company, but this is the first time they have accused a free software company of Microsoft type API hiding. This is not a patent issue but is mentioned here as a part of Microsoft's long term effort to kill Google and other free software users by regulatory corruption [2].
• 04/02 - Research in Motion pays toll to Nathan Myhrvold. Intellectual Ventures is a Microsoft proxy. RIM money will be used to exclude free software from the market, so the extortion is more than an injustice to a non free software and device maker.
• 04/19 - Microsoft begs New Zealand for software patents and looks for ways to force them on a government that rejected them. Generally, Microsoft uses flunkies for this kind of work.
• 04/26 - Victim Barnes and Noble describes Microsoft patent licensing as anti-competitive extortion. The company presents outrageous details from Microsoft's attempt to quash Android by making it more expensive and less functional that Microsoft's own software. They also point to the Nokia cooperation as evidence of anti-trust violations in support of a coercive monopoly. Perhaps Microsoft's scheme will collapse faster than I expected.
• 05/27 - Microsoft is officially a patent troll. Just one month after "settling" with HTC, it is revealed that Microsoft earns roughly 5x from HTC Android sales as they do from their own OS. Google charges nothing for Android.
• 05/27 - IV affiliate goes after Android developers after making a feint at Apple developers.
• 06/29 - General Dynamics pays the Microsoft extortion. This won't protect them from Microsoft's affiliated trolls, so the money provides no protection at all.

Loose ends and other resources.

After years of warning people, Roy Schestowitz and Boycott Novell can say, "I told you so".

A list of extorted companies.

7/2 - Xandros devoured by M$ [2].

8/9 - Linspire destroyed and sued anyway. more

- Corel destroyed by M$ but their Windows platform use gave M$ a much larger handle than patents.

- The constant litigation that reveals their actual respect for imaginary property and belies public statements about never litigating. They violate other people's patents at will and refuse to pay when they lose in court, but they are quick to make threats against free software, demand money from other companies and to use the courts to get it.

- New patent troll companies, such as Intellectual Ventures, being set up by M$ and M$ employees.

Groklaw's Microsoft Novell deal resource page

Boycott Novell's description of the Microsoft Novell deal

(Also titled, 'Python 3.0: the good, the bad, and the ugly)

Here's my review of the changes in Python 3.0. I've been writing stuff in Python since 2.1 or so, and I tend to like Python's 'new' object system. I hate Lisp and I hate functional programming(*), so that makes me a bit of an oddball in the Python community I guess.

Good: The print statement has been replaced with a print() function, with keyword arguments to replace most of the special syntax of the old print statement (PEP 3105).

Maybe I just spent too many years writing C and Borland Pascal/Delphi code, but when I first started coding in Python, I often made the mistake of writing

print('Hello world')

rather than

print 'Hello world'

Now it's the way it should have been all along. Things are more consistent this way.

Additionally, the sep= keyword argument makes life easier. No longer do you have put the separator repeatedly in your quoted string especially if the separator is not a space!

Bad: The dict methods dict.keys(), dict.items() and dict.values() return "views" instead of lists. For example, this no longer works: k = d.keys(); k.sort(). Use k = sorted(d) instead (this works in Python 2.5 too and is just as efficient).

Why did they change this? I make use of dict.keys() rather a lot. *sniff*

Ugly: range() now behaves like xrange() used to behave, except it works with values of arbitrary size. The latter no longer exists.

It seems like they changed this just to be pedantic. Tell me what the improvement is in making range work like xrange and then removing xrange? Why not just keep both?

Bad: The ordering comparison operators (=, >) raise a TypeError exception when the operands don't have a meaningful natural ordering. Thus, expressions like 1 None or len are no longer valid, and e.g. None raises TypeError instead of returning False. A corollary is that sorting a heterogeneous list no longer makes sense - all the elements must be comparable to each other. Note that this does not apply to the == and != operators: objects of different incomparable types always compare unequal to each other.

Some of my favorite stupid Python tricks rely on the fact 'None' in fact does not raise a TypeError and instead causes an expression to return False. Oh well. Guess I'll be using a ton more exceptions. :-/

Ugly: PEP 0237: Essentially, long renamed to int. That is, there is only one built-in integral type, named int; but it behaves mostly like the old long type.

So if you're going to only have one type, instead of no longer accepting 'long', make 'long' an alias for 'int'. Now that wasn't too hard was it?

Good: PEP 0238: An expression like 1/2 returns a float

About fscking time. Damn, you have no idea how many times I looked at expressions like 1/2 and went "Huh? Whadya mean 0?"

Good, Bad and Ugly: Python 3.0 uses the concepts of text and (binary) data instead of Unicode strings and 8-bit strings. All text is Unicode; however encoded Unicode is represented as binary data. The type used to hold text is str, the type used to hold data is bytes. The biggest difference with the 2.x situation is that any attempt to mix text and data in Python 3.0 raises TypeError, whereas if you were to mix Unicode and 8-bit strings in Python 2.x, it would work if the 8-bit string happened to contain only 7-bit (ASCII) bytes, but you would get UnicodeDecodeError if it contained non-ASCII values. This value-specific behavior has caused numerous sad faces over the years.

I agree, but changing it is going to be a real pain for a WHOLE lot of programs. Specifically 2to3 and -3 isn't able to fix a lot of these differences.

Meh: PEP 3107: Function argument and return value annotations. This provides a standardized way of annotating a function's parameters and return value. There are no semantics attached to such annotations except that they can be introspected at runtime using the __annotations__ attribute. The intent is to encourage experimentation through metaclasses, decorators or frameworks.

Okay, but we're already doing this throw DOC strings. Why change it now?

Good: PEP 3102: Keyword-only arguments. Named parameters occurring after *args in the parameter list must be specified using keyword syntax in the call. You can also use a bare * in the parameter list to indicate that you don't accept a variable-length argument list, but you do have keyword-only arguments.

Okay, this is more consistent with how arguments work...

Meh: PEP 3104: nonlocal statement. Using nonlocal x you can now assign directly to a variable in an outer (but non-global) scope. nonlocal is a new reserved word.

If you're going to explicitly change the scope of a variable, you might as well make it global, huh? Some people are just too pedantical.

Good: PEP 3132: Extended Iterable Unpacking. You can now write things like a, b, *rest = some_sequence. And even *rest, a = stuff. The rest object is always a (possibly empty) list; the right-hand side may be any iterable. Example:

(a, *rest, b) = range(5)

This sets a to 0, b to 4, and *rest to [1, 2, 3].

Oh, goody! No more writing a, b, dummy1, dummy2 = function()

Good: Dictionary comprehensions: {k: v for k, v in stuff} means the same thing as dict(stuff) but is more flexible. (This is PEP 0274 vindicated. :-)

and ...

Set literals, e.g. {1, 2}. Note that {} is an empty dictionary; use set() for an empty set. Set comprehensions are also supported; e.g., {x for x in stuff} means the same thing as set(stuff) but is more flexible.

I always thought there should be a way to do this...

Ugly: New octal literals, e.g. 0o720 (already in 2.6). The old octal literals (0720) are gone.

But the old way was consistent with Unix...

Good: Change from except exc, var to except exc as var. See PEP 3110.

I hated the old way. To me, there isn't a lot of difference between except (exc, exc): and except exc, var: so I was always getting confused.

Ugly: PEP 3113: Tuple parameter unpacking removed. You can no longer write def foo(a, (b, c)): .... Use def foo(a, b_c): b, c = b_c instead.

Why? I mean, I read the PEP and understand the introspection issues, but um, if you don't like it, just don't use it.

This and the rest of the removed syntax: These seem like silly, pedantic political issues.

Bad: Library changes: why change the names of libraries without leaving aliases to the old names? You're just being pedantical again. Stop it.

Ugly: String template changes and the '%' string operator

I never saw anything wrong with the '%' operator.

The Rest

'file' is already an alias for 'open'. Again, why rename something in a destructive way? What's wrong with just leaving the damn alias there?

(*) More accurately, I hate programming purism. I tend to mix and match various techniques and metaphors and 'use what works' rather than get all uppity about things like how a function should never modify a global variable. Sometimes that's just the best way to do it.

Ed is a subtle troll. He often says vague things in support of software freedom but what's below shows that he could care less. Often software freedom arguments are turned against M$ competitors like Google and Apple. This is paradoxical when he's busy supporting things like OOXML, Silverlight and so on. There's no mistaking his smart ass attitude and smug hatred of Slashdot users. With a little bit of digging, the general patern emerges, Love for M$, hate for Slashdot, other M$ enemies and a well hidden hatred of software freedom.

Love for M$

• Moolight booster, wants to waste effort porting to Windows
• Novell/M$ deal defender, real smart ass remark.
• M$ Defender denies obvious M$ coding coherence problems by denying one small inflamatory piece of their problem and insulting the accuser
• Promotes Mono
• Defends Silverlight as less evil than flash.
• Promotes OOXML
• Defends Vista with, "Microsoft is normally very good about keeping backwards compatibility - indeed, the need to stay compatible with old badly-written apps is the cause of much of the cruft in Windows." Vista's incompatibility was infamous at the time.
• Defends Vista, blames problems on security and everyone but M$.
• Defends DRM as "altruistic." Yes he was talking about M$.
• Confusion about non free licenses, you can't sue M$ for flaws and losses.

Hate for Slashdot and Other General Hate.

• Hates Slashdot
• Hates Slashdot
• Ridicules Slashdot
• Groklaw is not trustworthy, November 2008. Amazing.
• Defends offshoring regardless of conditions of programmers.
• The term "closed source" is lame. He's exploiting the differences between free software allies.
• more general heckling

His homepage on 11/23/2008 has has him and other old people beating each other up in cheasy martial arts class. Thanks for sharing, Ed.

Here are some of the stories I submitted that Slashdot thought were worth sharing. I collected them to see how my interests and worries held up over the years.

2010

I put most of my effort into helping Techrights in 2010. I still read Slashdot but don't bother to submit news anymore. The policy of sharing email addresses was a turn off here at Slashdot. I'm keeping the following logs reasonably up to date:

• Microsoft Death Watch.
• Vista Failure Log
• Window 7 Hype log
• Windows 7 Failure Log
• Microsoft Patent Extortion Timeline

Techrights has been more enjoyable and productive. The link sections are what Slashdot once was and Roy's investigative journalism is first rate reporting.

2009

• January 12, How M$ Beats GNU/Linux in Schools.
• January 20, The In-Progress Plot To Kill Google. Mainstream media eventually caught on as M$ became more blatant.
• February 5, Ubuntu Wipes Windows 7 In Benchmarks. [see follow ups 1 and 2]
• June 27, RMS says No to Mono
• July 14, US Postal Service Moves To GNU/Linux. This was not the most important issue I'd submitted lately but it is significant and amusing. The popular press was soon filled with stories about the Post Office being cut back and shut down.
• September 7, Another Lawsuit Claims WGA Is Spyware.

2008 - There's a brief break here, where I did not realize that journal submission was broken and then due to system gaming.

• January 1, Dvorak Looks Back At 'Another Crappy Tech Year'
• January 3, UK Moves to Outlaw 'Hacker Tools'
• January 13, Malware Distribution Through Physical Media a Growing Concern
• January 25, Motley Fool Writes Off Microsoft
• March 03, Dell Documents Reveal Microsoft's Pre-launch Vista Errors
• March 23, University of Penn. Recommends Against Vista SP1
• April 6, UK Banking Law Blames Customers For Insecure OS
• August 18, Grokking SCO's Demise - tag credited to me, officially attributed to another AC story.
• October 16, E17, Slimmed Down For Cell Phones
• October 17, Ballmer Admits Google Apps Are Biting Into MS Office
• November 8, Netbooks Take a Bite Out of Windows Profits
• November 24, Groklaw Says Microsoft Patent Portfolio Now Worthless
• December 1, The Myth of Upgrade Inevitability Is Dead (compare)
• December 26, Technocrat.net Shut Down

2007

• March 23, White House Specifies And Mandates Secure Windows
• June 24, CA Bill Limits Skin Implantation of RFID Chips about insane industry opposition to RFID limits.
• August 8 Federal Journalist Shield Law Advances
• August 14, Increased Linux Use With SCO's Defeat Predicted
• August 18, PC Magazine Editor Slams Vista and Steps Down.
• October 11, Microsoft Flip-Flops On URI Protocol Handing Flaw
• October 12, Airlines Have to Ask Permission to Fly 72 Hours Early
• October 28, Vista Sales Rate Fell Last Quarter
• November 9, AntiPiracy Macrovision Bug is Actually Six Years Old
• December 30, PCWorld Says Firefox is Strong, Vista is Weak

2006

• January 12, Computers Top BBC List of Stress Producers
• January 28, Standby TVs Waste Electricity, How About ACPI?
• March 15, PA Seizes Newspaper's Computers
• April 18, New Blow for Microsoft in EU Row
• June 6, Students Skip College Music Services
• July 29, Microsoft Locking Out Anti-Virus Makers?
• October 16, iPod Users Buy CDs, Shun iTunes
• December 10 The Future of Journalism Online
• December 13, NY Times Tries to Untangle Analysts and Shills

2005

• February 25, Online Trust Failing Overall
• March 25, BBC Writer Tries PC Repair, Finds Poor Software
• April 15, People are More Accepting of Spam
• June 16, Zombie Report By ISP
• November 6, BBC Examines Open Source Business Model

2004

• January 10, Microsoft Soft-Pedals Dialup
• June 8, Infected Windows PCs Now Source Of 80% Of Spam
• June 11, Labor Department Downplays Offshoring
• May 12, Tocqueville Blames U.S. IT Troubles On Free Software

2003

• February 27, Baby Bells Promise Broadband Stagnation
• May 15, Doubting Electronic Voting. Yes, this one was really on target.
• July 11, NYT Reports Porn Spam Hijacking Network

2002

• November 26, BBC says "Avoid Explorer"

1999

• December 14, Surgeon General Says 1/5 of Americans are Nuts

Worth bookmarking and sharing. Half of mono is not free, so the whole thing should be avoided as java was before it was all GPL'd.

The powerful hold M$ has over the minds and wallets of users was put on display at a November 19th shareholder meeting. Karen Robins, a children's book author, had these things to say:

"Twenty years ago, I started my dream to be a children's writer. Bill Gates and Microsoft totally changed my career. I just wanted to thank you. I love Microsoft. I believe in the company. It is my only individual stock still left in my portfolio. I'm still hanging on to Microsoft and the dream. I remember I sat in this very same room several years ago and I believe it was Mr. Steve Ballmer who said the best is yet to come. So, Mr. Ballmer, what year do you predict the best is yet to come?"

After the meeting, Robbins, said that Microsoft's products had made her life as a writer much easier. She no longer had to type letters to publishing houses individually. And she no longer had to retype the entirety of a letter when there was a mistake. "I wanted to always personally thank Bill Gates," she said.

[Despite the lost share value she concluded] "It was worth so much. Where else would I invest? I love the company. It changed my whole career."

This is the core sin of non free software that RMS warns about, that the user is so grateful for what the software does that they will do as the programmer says. These kinds of emotions should never guide investment decisions.

Unable to sell stock to raise money, M$ will sell bonds which will deplete the company of it's cash, in an attempt to raise it's declining stock value.

Microsoft Corp. may sell debt in what would be the world's largest software maker's inaugural bond offering. Microsoft may offer senior unsecured debt securities, according to a regulatory filing today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The shelf registration clears the way for the company to issue debt at any time.

The move comes amid suspicions of hidden weakness and demonstrated threats to it's cash cows Windows and Office. It is part of a previously announced plan to enter debt for $20 billion worth of stock buybacks. M$ had $20.7 in cash left as of September 30th, which was down from a high of $60 billion just a few years ago. At the time of announcement, USB analyst Heather Bellini predicted:

Microsoft to complete the repurchase -- at least five times larger than its average per quarter in the last fiscal year -- over the next three months. ``They won't announce it until it's done,'' Bellini said.

Despite this news, M$FT has hit a 52 week low of $18.00 today and continues to float there, down from peaks of $36 at the start of the year and $56 in 1999. Stock options were once an important mechanism to attract talent to the company.

I just heard on Pacifica's "Democracy Now!" that PC Magazine is calling it quits after nearly 30 years. Kind of a sad day, really. I remember PC Magazine was one of the first publications to have an online presence -- they had their own BBS in the 1980s and by the 1990s they added PCMagNet, their own forum on CompuServe (or CI$ as it was known back then ;).

I used to look forward to PC Magazine for their new utilities every month, their "how to" and "tips and tricks" columns, Alfred Poor's computer fixes column, and, of course, my favorite, 'Abort, Retry, Fail?', which was a humor column that highlighted the funniest typos, goofy ads and PC-related photos from around the country. Even John C. Dvorak had a clue at one time -- when he first encountered Linux in the early 90s, he was flabbergasted that you could get the source code to an entire OS on a CD. And he even predicted that Linux would go places one day. Really. :)

Farewell, PC Mag!

What do you guys remember?

If you ever wondered why Windows never just works, look at the start of Bill Gates computer career.

In the fall of 1968, Computer Center Corporation opened for business in Seattle [and offered computer time to Bill Gate's high school]. It was not long before [Gates and his comrades] started causing problems. They caused the system to crash several times and broke the computers security system. They even altered the files that recorded the amount of computer time they were using. ... the Computer Center Corporation decided to hire the students to find bugs and expose weaknesses in the computer system. In return for the Lakeside Programming Group's help, the Computer Center Corporation would give them unlimited computer time ...

The pattern is apparent, break the system and forever be paid to fix it.

This reaction to computing scarcity should be contrasted with Richard Stallman's. As a graduate student, he railled against locking unused terminals so that everyone could have access to otherwise wasted resources. Decades later we still see M$ abusing its position of trust and Stallman still trying to help his neighbors.

A 100,000 M$FT share holder details his frustrations at M$'s incompetent management.

In these last eight years, I have witnessed an appalling decline in shareholder value of this extraordinary business enterprise. My personal shareholder value has been steadily destroyed both in actual and potential value. It is not unreasonable to expect Microsoft, the world's software leader, enjoying a high-margin monopoly on more than 90 percent of the world's computers, to have annual stock appreciation of 9 percent over this span of eight years. At this compounded rate, MSFT should now be selling at twice the price I originally paid. Instead, it is selling at half the price I paid. The current economic meltdown hasn't materially altered the underlying, long-term price trend of MSFT shares. ... five out of seven of the non-employee directors up for re-election have minimal share ownership (stakes less than mine), and they are impotent as a counterbalance to the two out-of-touch titans.

In this same time frame, my Berkshire-Hathaway shares have tripled. ... Apple, meanwhile has experienced a nine-fold growth in share value during this period. ...

[M$] should not be in the hardware business selling low-margin, low-volume games and devices such as Xbox. ... has no proven skills in the business of advertising, either as a marketer of its own products and services or as an advertising service provider in the Google space. ... How many billions of dollars have been wasted on poor acquisitions? How many billions has Microsoft squandered on losing legal battles (as well as on Pyrrhic victories) that have severely damaged the brand's reputation and credibility around the world? Where are the tangible results of the billions spent on R&D? Where is the accountability for the lateness of the Windows Vista operating system and its poor design and performance?

I am sorry for this man's personal loss and wish that he had listened to free software advocates instead of greed heads. By 2000, there were enough anti-trust lawsuits to convince any reasonable person that M$ was a criminal organization that would abuse all stake holders the same way it abused customers and employees. Non free software is morally bankrupt and those who vend it should not be trusted.

The investor finishes his rant with a proposal to change management, fire Steve and get Gates out of the picture. This, of course, will fail because it treats the symptoms not the cause. M$'s core products, Office and Windows are also failing and no dancing elephant can prevent the rise of free software. M$ has stomped off into low margin businesses like Zune and Xbox because they can't afford to see free software prove itself anywhere without losing their entire monopoly. M$ lost control of developer conversation long ago, the cool new toys and mindshare follow that and market share follows what developers make.

Randall Kennedy, of InfoWorld, has documented an ugly incident where M$ expressed their dissatisfaction with his writing. There are lots of stories about how M$ manipulates the press and punishes people that do not praise the company but this one is worth mentioning because it shows the danger of using M$ Exchange. People should also remember W.E.'s place in the world

Oct. 3, 2008 - I receive an e-mail from Julie McCormick at Waggener Edstrom in which she extends a "special save-the-date" invitation to attend a "unique, invitation-only" event being hosted by the Windows Client team. She labels the subject matter as "confidential" and notes that attendees will be hosted at a special "socializing event" on Saturday night as compensation for flying in a day early. [Kennedy accepts and arranges a flight]

Oct. 8, 2008 - I receive a mysterious "recall" notice in my Outlook Inbox from this same Julie McCormick. Apparently, she's trying to "unsend" the aforementioned invitation e-mail. Fortunately, I don't use Exchange Server (makes it harder for my sources to recant when they get cold feet), so this rather clumsy attempt at "evidence elimination" fails miserably.

October 9 .... it appears that someone high up on the Client Team (Steve?) really doesn't like me. I mean, really, truly loathes me. And it's not just your run-of-the-mill frustration with a journalist who picks on them. This thing is personal, and the executive in question is allowing his or her personal feelings to spill over into the company's handling of formal press relations with InfoWorld.

... The "official" explanation for my blacklisting and subsequent "dis-invitation" is that I somehow "violated the non-disclosure agreement" for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Beta by publishing benchmark results before the update was released. Of course, this argument is entirely specious because a) I haven't signed any NDA with Microsoft in the past decade and b) I've never published any benchmark results for Vista - at least none that originated with me. Furthermore, if there really was some sort of NDA violation in play, it wouldn't be Waggener-Edstrom relaying the message. It would be Microsoft Legal ... in the form of a lawsuit.

I heard that they even considered banning me from PDC outright, so toxic is my presence. However, cooler heads eventually prevailed

The same author later found out that part of the special meeting was a laptop bribe.

Dear Microsoft: I'm writing in regard to your recent FREE LAPTOP COMPUTER giveaway program for members of the industry media/analyst community. It is my understanding that authors and pundits who are "friends" of Microsoft - i.e. those who praise Windows Vista and generally write positive stories about your products and strategies - were eligible to receive their FREE LAPTOP COMPUTER during the super-secret, invite-only workshop that you held on the Sunday just prior to your Professional Developers Conference.

This was later covered by Boycott Novell, which attempted to finger those who took the laptops.

If Indiana is typical, free software can save the US billions when moving to one computer per child programs. In 2001, the state had good networks and about one computer for every four students. Despite that investment, most students got less than an hour per week using the labs. Were talking about more than a million students.

It was then that state officials knew each student needed a computer, and Indiana's one-to-one initiative was launched. But how were they to pay for such a huge project that would have cost $100 million a year in software licensing alone?

Today, more than 100,000 Indiana school kids (in all, 300,000 high schoolers are slated to receive one) have their own $298 computer and monitor with numerous free software applications, and, in turn, schools across the state have secure, reliable, sophisticated server systems thanks to Linux-based open source technology.

Did Indiana children mind? "Who cares?" one student quipped to Michael Huffman, special assistant for technology, as he surveyed the one-to-one program's success across the state. [He] estimates software costs total only $5 per machine annually, "It's the only model we've come up with that is affordable, repeatable, and sustainable. If you look at a lot of other states that have had laptop initiatives, I think there is a real breakdown. And there are a lot of them that aren't continuing. There are schools that have gone out and bought a lot of laptops, but there is no plan for four years down the road. That's why we went with open source."

The current state of Vista/Windows 7 and shrinking budgets made free software all the more attractive. States that have made the move are in much better shape for the current recession than states with a pile of laptops that run XP.

Update 6/22/09

Boycott Novell details M$'s response to these programs, strategic and well advertised dumping.

I just found this site: http://charterforcompassion.com/

The video has people talking about religion, civility, and common sense morality. I say common sense morality because morality is derived from common sense, not religion.

They are talking about getting the world to realize that some moral teachings within religions are the same morality that is among us even without religion. That is to say that it is not borne of religion, but of common sense. The golden rule? Come on now. You do not have to be religious to see the common sense of that.

I'm thinking even Bonobo primates understand this. I won't steal your bananas if you don't steal mine. I won't hit you with a stick if you don't pick on those in my group. It's common sense. No religion required.

Lets think about this for a moment. Yes, there are somewhat militant defenders of atheism, the four horsemen and all that, but they are hardly a physical match for the millions of people who go out to 'witness' to others. They are undefeated warriors of logic in the public arena, but they cannot stop the indoctrination of young children. They cannot stop the spread of hatred that is xenophobia. While religions pretend to be compassionate, accepting, and loving, they seldom manage to be viewed that way. It does not take an atheist to judge them. All other sects judge them already. We have been trying to teach morality via religion for how long now? oh yeah, 2000+ years. It seems that the religious among us are the most intolerant. I think it's about time that we tried something different. This current plan is not and has not been working out very well.

Those Christians among us, ask yourself this: if your god is so loving and powerful, why are there still wars? If your message of love is so important and powerful, why are there still starving children in the world. Why is there still hate? Is your message failing? or is it your theistic beliefs that fail? Yes, of course, everyone has to believe in your god as strongly as you do before change will happen. Why can't we apply common sense to matters of man without bringing in some invisible alien to tell us what to do?

The religious among us want people to accept their beliefs so that the world will be just. I care not for religions, and I still want the world to be just. I want people to do what is fucking common sense.

If you Christians were sitting in front of a wall, bashing your head against it with blood running down your face, I'd try to help you. As things are now, you turn and tell me I'm wrong because I don't bash my head too. I'd be willing to let you bleed out on your own, but you keep coming to my house to invite me to come to your church and bash my head on a wall.

If you are reading this and are somehow offended, you have no reason to be. You didn't have to come here.

Is common sense and critical thinking a substitute for religion? NO. I say that because religion was forced on people, replacing the former. That is to say that real coke is not a substitute for a substitute coke. When you get the real thing, substitutes are not needed any longer. Religion was the substitute.

********** Update/addendum *************

There is a reason that atheists are becoming militant-like. That reason is simple: if atheists do not fight for their rights, they will be washed away in a great movement to create a christian country that destroys anything not in agreement with it.

A story about how American Atheists Inc. sued the state of Kentucky in state court over a 2002 law that stresses God's role in Kentucky's homeland security alongside the military, police agencies and health departments. The group claims the law violates both the state and U.S. constitutions.

Words like this are fantastic as they leave no doubt as to just how wrong this is. I won't quote all the evidence to support separation of church and state as many have already done this. What I want to do is bring to your attention this group, and their work to help atheists everywhere. Not only are they helping atheists, but they are helping Jews, Muslims, agnostics, Buddhists, GLBT groups, and basically anyone who is not accepted by the fundamentalist christian sects. Should the government of any state or all of them become dominated by christian views we are all in trouble. Our only hope then would be god himself, and we know how that will work out.... especially if you are adjudged to be in cahoots with the devil. I'm sure there is some precedence we can draw from the Spanish inquisition, or perhaps the witch trials in this country.

How in the hell is this NOT as bad as Jehovah's Witnesses knocking on your door and teaching you about their religion? Not only that, but can you show me a state who managed safety and security WITH the help of some almighty god? The Jew's (god's chosen people) never managed it. Currently they use nazi tactics to secure 'safety and security' of their state. Just ask the U.N.

Personally, I'd rather have a quote from Heinlein if we are going to put fiction quotes in public buildings, such as this one:

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

There are lots of other quotes too.

And here is a pretty good quote FTA:

Like I said, not even the Jews are trusting god to make it 'all okay' in their state.

Disclosure: I am not a scientist. Hell, I'm not even a college graduate ... yet. I am however what I think of as a reasonable and thinking man. Please, if you are a climate scientist do speak up here. Even if you are a non-climate scientist, please speak up.

I have presented poorly my beliefs on global warming and climate change on several occasions in the past. I have finally found someone that seems to speak in accord with my understandings of the matter. Despite the fact that this has a particular Australian slant, the reasoning behind it applies to any country.

http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2008/451/the-futile-quest-for-climate-control

In this article Robert M. Carter addresses the politics and rumor that permeate almost every discussion of climate change, and of ALL discussions of global warming.

His is a reasoned voice of calm analysis, taking time to note the politics and history of the current 'out of control' debate. He does not delve into the science as I like to, but he does calmly discuss the politics of the discussion. When politics are in the way, science can make no progress as he notes:

emphasis is mine.

The big problem with self confessed experts on climate change that I have is this: If you can tell me when and why of global warming, why can't you tell me the when and why of global cooling? Surely if you understand the Earth's climate mechanism(s) you should be able to tell me both, and consequently why and how much carbon dioxide will affect that balance. (if we choose to call it a balance of warming and cooling)

Clearly, since we have not been able to disprove gravity, the law of gravity stands as has been stated... even if we suspect there are subtle differences between reality and that law due to new information. Clearly, many other scientific laws and theorems have withstood much criticism and testing, and they remain the best explanation that we have. I have yet to see anything that even intimates that it is as strong a proof of global warming as these other things have. That is to say, if there were inarguable proof in abundance about this global warming, we would not still be discussing it. Do you argue with coworkers about whether gravity exists or not? Whether the world is flat or not? We don't yet have that kind of proof, so I think that alarmist attitudes are unnecessary and cause discordant and counterproductive discussion and activities.

I have searched for some time now and have yet to find cogent argument for or against global warming. There is some for climate change, but it is incomplete and often hijacked by global warming alarmists for their own purposes. The ONLY critical thinking that I've seen to date is that of people like Robert M. Carter who advocates a more calm, scientific approach to determining exactly how the Earth's climate mechanisms work before deciding that we are in dire need of making drastic and exorbitantly expensive changes to save the planet. More specifically, he concludes in part with:

emphasis is again mine

Can anyone out there, who happens to have enough spare time to read this journal, explain to me why it is that we should vary from this conclusion and move directly to alarmist reactionary wasteful efforts to change something we have very little real understanding of? While you are explaining things, please also explain how and why what you think we must do today to save this planet from global warming will not cause greater harm in 10 years or some other future date.

Please feel free to agree or disagree, but if you wish to state your belief that global warming is man made or not, please provide some links or cogent argument as to why. I'd rather see something that takes me hours of reading to understand than someone simply telling me that I'm stupid because I don't want to buy into the alarmist ideals of CO2 obviously causing harm because of SUVs etc.

I truly want to understand the global climate mechanism(s), not just your argument of why we need to drive smaller cars or use nuclear power. I'm actively seeking help in understanding the Earth's climate mechanisms.

In the coming days I will be documenting known Microsoft astroturfers, together with evidence that paints them as such. Do what you will with this information. I will try to list only actual astroturfers, not fanboys, but I can't be 100% certain who-is-who. So, I will gladly accept any exceptions/modifications in the comments below. If you are the person in question, don't feel bad if I label you an astroturfer and you are not -- but you will be required to prove that you are not an astroturfer in order to be removed from the list.

Note: this list is hardly complete and will be issued in its entirety about once per week.

Update: thanks to those who have submitted updates and comments!

freddy_dreddy evidence
Defcon79 evidence
ThinkFr33ly evidence
Julie188 evidence (her blog, linked in her sig currently), plus looking at her posting record, only posts in stories that are of interest to Microsoft.
Thaad.Isolas evidence (to this date, this is his ONLY post, and the account is older than that)