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GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - RMS on Alex Jones

Submitted by
antisocialbutterfly
antisocialbutterfly writes: "Stallman discusses Net Neutrality & Internet 2 with Alex Jones... video description:

"Richard Stallman is the founder of the Gnu Project, launched in 1984 to develop the free operating system GNU (an acronym for "GNU's Not Unix"), and thereby give computer users the freedom that most of them have lost. GNU is free software: everyone is free to copy it and redistribute it, as well as to make changes either large or small. He is the principal or initial author of GNU Emacs, the GNU C Compiler, the GNU Debugger GDB and parts of other packages. He is also president of the Free Software Foundation (FSF)."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZWKXNo_vA0"
Microsoft

Submission + - 'Bridge to Microsoft' Gets Federal Stimulus Funds 2

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "Among the first to benefit from the investment in roads and bridges through Obama's stimulus plan is Microsoft, which has $20B in the bank. Local planners have allotted $11M to help pay for a highway overpass to connect one part of Microsoft's wooded campus with another. Microsoft will contribute almost half of the $36.5M cost; other federal and local money will pay the rest. 'Steve Ballmer or Bill Gates could finance this out of pocket change,' griped Steve Ellis of the Taxpayers for Common Sense. 'Subsidizing an overpass to one of the richest companies in the country certainly isn't going to be the best use of our precious dollars.' Ellis called the project 'a bridge to Microsoft,' alluding to Alaska's infamous 'Bridge to Nowhere'."
Math

Submission + - Data Mining Moves to Human Resources

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "Just when you thought annual reviews couldn't get worse, BusinessWeek reports that HR departments at companies like Microsoft and IBM are starting to use mathematical analysis to determine the value of each employee. At an undisclosed Internet company, analysis of (non-verbal) communications was used to produce a circle to represent each employee — those determined to generate or pass along valuable info were portrayed as large and dark-colored circles ("thought leaders" and "networked curators"), while those with small and pale circles were written off as not adding a hell of a lot. "You have to bring the same rigor you bring to operations and finance to the analysis of people," explains Microsoft's Rupert Bader. Hey, who could argue with what Quants did for finance?"
Windows

Submission + - Dvorak Ditches Windows. (slashdot.org) 1

Submitted by
twitter
twitter writes: "The man who once said, "there is no way that Vista will be a flop" and then hated Vista so much he promissed to switch to Linux if M$ did not scuttle Vista, has become a GNU user of Ubuntu. He's full of praises for hardware recognition, performance, applications and many other practical issues. Welcome to freedom John, I know you will be a happy user. If you think Ubuntu's live CD is cool, you should see Knoppix or Ubuntu."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Shoots Own Foot in Iceland (yaxic.org) 1

Submitted by
David Gerard
David Gerard writes: "The Microsoft Certified Partner model is: an MCP buys contracts from Microsoft and sells them to businesses as a three-year timed contract, payable in annual instalments. Iceland's economy has collapsed, so 1500 businesses have gone bankrupt so aren't paying the fees any more. But Microsoft has told the MCPs: "Our deal was with you, not them. Pay up." The MCPs that don't go bankrupt in turn are moving headlong to Free Software. Taking most of the country with them. (Warning: link contains salty language and vivid imagery.)"
Microsoft

Submission + - Cascading Failure of M$ Licensing Revenue?

Submitted by
twitter
twitter writes: "Iceland has been hit harder by the economic downturn than most countries and Microsoft MVPs are in particular distress. They broker long term licenses to business and collect revenue on an annual basis. When things are fine, this protects M$ from the failure of one or two businesses. When things are bad the MVP goes under, making it difficult for M$ to collect revenue from surviving businesses. Is this a systemic weakness in M$'s business model that we will see elswhere?"
Microsoft

Submission + - UAC whitelist hole in Windows 7

Submitted by
David Gerard
David Gerard writes: "Microsoft tried to make Vista secure with User Access Control (UAC). They relaxed it a bit in Windows 7 because it was such a pain in the backside. Unfortunately, one way they did this (the third way so far found around UAC in Windows 7) was to give certain Microsoft files the power to just ... bypass UAC. Even more unfortunately, one of the DLLs they whitelisted was RUNDLL32.EXE. The exploit is simply to copy (or inject) part of its own code into the memory of another running processes and then telling that target process to run the code, using standard, non-privileged APIs such as WriteProcessMemory and CreateRemoteThread. Ars Technica writes up the issue, proclaiming Windows 7 UAC "a broken mess; mend it or end it.""
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Skull-fucks Iceland's Economy, Contracts (yaxic.org)

Submitted by
hesa
hesa writes: "Microsoft has made a business out of selling licenses to run software that can be copied at no marginal cost, this everybody knows. Essentially, they manufacture software, but their product isn't computer code, it's legal code. Contracts."
Patents

Submission + - European Open Source Software Strategy leaked (wikileaks.org)

Submitted by
Elektroschock
Elektroschock writes: "A working draft of the European Union Open Source Software Strategy was published by Wikileaks. According to Wikileaks meta information it was co-authored by Jonathan Zuck from the Association for Competitive Technology (ACT), a lobby hitman for Microsoft; The European Commission lets ACT and CompTIA participate in all working groups of the European Open Source Strategy which defines Europe's future open source approach. A blue editor questions the objectives: 'Regarding the "Europe Digital Independence" our [working] group thinks it is, in general, not an issue.' "European digital independence" is a phrase coined by EU-Commissioner V.Reding, that is what her European Software Strategy (ESS) was supposed to be about. She didn't reveal that lobbyists or vendors with vested interests would write the strategy for the Commission. The leaked document's language on patent licensing sounds a bit odd and controversial to me given the recent frontal patent assaults on the European automative business by Microsoft."
Microsoft

Submission + - M$ Ignoring Windows 7 Beta Tester Feedback. (pcworld.com)

Submitted by
twitter
twitter writes: "Windows 7 beta testers don't think M$ is interested in their feeedback.

Windows 7 is being rushed to market without adequate testing or even acknowledgement of beta user feedback. ... Microsoft isn't taking their feedback seriously, even when filed through their private beta tester feedback channels. Development team responses like "won't fix" or "by design" seem to be the the norm for even serious issues, leading many testers to conclude that the product was feature complete (i.e. no longer subject to significant modification based on tester input) long before they received their first code drop.

I feel sorry for those brave technical beta testers, many of whom have invested a good portion of their personal and professional lives helping Microsoft to assess the readiness of each new Windows version. Wake up, folks. It's all been a big lie.

This is more evidence that Windows 7 is just another pretty face on Vista. "Feedback" for non free software has always been a poor substitute for software freedom but freedom is not compatible with DRM and other parts of M$'s business model."
Windows

Submission + - Draconian DRM revealed in Windows 7 4

Submitted by
TechForensics
TechForensics writes: "A few days' testing of Windows 7 has already disclosed some draconian DRM, some unrelated to media files. A legitimate copy of Photoshop CS4 stopped functioning after we clobberred a nagging registration screen by replacing a .dll with a hacked version. That's not so much a surprise, but what WAS a surprise: Noting that Win7 allows programs like Photoshop to stealthily insert themselves in your firewall exception list. Further, that the OS is crippled towards allowing large software vendors to penetrate your machine. Even further, that that crippling is responsible for disabling of a program based on a modified .dll. Remote attestation, anyone? And then finding that the OS even after reboot has locked you out of your own Local Settings folder; has denied you permission to move or delete the modified DLL; and refuses to allow the replacement of the Local Settings folder after it is unlocked with Unlocker to move it to the Desktop for examination (where it also denies you entry to your own folder). Setting permissions to "allow everyone" was disabled! Re media files, the days of capturing an audio program on your PC are gone if the program originated on your PC. The inputs of your sound card are severely degraded in software if the card is also playing an audio program (tested here with Grooveshark). Under XP you could select "Stereo Mix" or similar under audio recording inputs and nicely capture any program then playing. Microsoft appears to be pandering to Big Music for its own reasons unrelated to consumer satisfaction. This may be the tip of the iceberg. Something *really nasty* is lurking under the surface of Win7. Being in bed with the RIAA is bad enough, but locking your own files away from you is a device so outrageous it may kill the OS for many persons. Many users will not want to experimenting with a second sound card or computer just to record from online sources, or boot up under a Linux that supports ntfs-3g just to control their files. (You never seem to know in Windows 7 when the "Access Denied" message is going to strike.) It is certainly beginning to be crystal clear why the coming WinFS will not be a good thing for userland, and a Very Good Thing for Microsoft and its partners."
Censorship

Submission + - You Own Your Event Video After All. (eff.org)

Submitted by
twitter
twitter writes: "The EFF has won a case on behalf of animal rights activists that has huge implications for customer event recording.

The EFF, in its continuing effort to push back on bogus DMCA takedown notices has successfully convinced the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association to settle a lawsuit that the EFF filed on behalf of some animal rights activists. They had been attending rodeos and filming things they believed represented cruelty towards the animals — and then posting those videos on YouTube. The PRCA issued DMCA takedown notices, apparently not realizing that they don't actually own the copyright on those videos (whoever shot them does), and thus they were violating the DCMA ... It's quite common for sporting events or other events to believe they own the copyright on any photographs or video shot during the events, but hopefully settlements like this will give them a quick lesson in how copyright law works.

The Activists were awarded $25,000 for their troubles.

I don't see this opening the floodgates of free culture but it does give people the right to record events and create new works of value from the result. Videos that are simply recordings of live performances will probably still get the smack down, but there may now be nothing to keep you from recording such things for criticism and other fair use. Sooner or later, people will allow non commercial sharing of such works. Camera technology will make it impossible to stop but canned performances will never replace live events. When networks are free, we will be able to share our recordings with our friends who were unable to attend. Keep up the good work EFF, every step in the right direction is good news."
Patents

Submission + - M$ Extorts Patent Deals from Google, Dell, Others (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
twitter
twitter writes: "It has been difficult to ignore M$'s continued patent attack on free software and the whole of IT. M$ is putting as positive a spin as they can on Google acquiring two way sync for Exchange, with their friendly press amplifying the chest thumping of senior M$ lawyers. How pathetic it is that anyone would need a patent to sync the way PDAs have for more than a decade. In other news M$ has snared Dell in East Texas and people are starting to complain about the 500 or so deals M$ has managed to extort from companies in secret."

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