josephdrivein - Slashdot User

Submission + - Samba Receives Microsoft Protocol Documentation (samba.org)

Submitted by a happy Samba user on Friday December 21, 2007 @04:25AM

a happy Samba user writes: The Protocol Freedom Information Foundation (PFIF), a non-profit organization created by the Software Freedom Law Center, signed an agreement with Microsoft to receive the protocol documentation needed to fully interoperate with the Microsoft Windows workgroup server products and to make them available to Free Software projects such as Samba. Microsoft was required to make this information available to competitors as part of the European Commission March 24th 2004 Decision in the antitrust lawsuit, after losing their appeal against that decision on September 17th 2007.

Open Source Economics and Why IBM Is Winning 146

Posted by kdawson on Friday April 13, 2007 @08:18AM from the committed dept.

driehle writes "In an article published in IEEE Computer magazine I recently looked at the economics of open source. I argue that large system integrators will do best and that open source startups will keep struggling. For developers, open source creates independence and new career paths as committers, while non-committers will fall on hard times. The race is on!"

Submission + - D-Link potential customers BEWARE!

Submitted by

Panos Petropoulos

on Friday April 13, 2007 @07:48AM

Panos Petropoulos writes: "Hello,

in short, potential D-Link customers BEWARE of D-Link's "support".
This is my last email I sent to D-Link USA. Needless to say that nobody bothered to reply.
You can read my full D-Link DNS-323 odyssey story here: http://forum.dsmg600.info/t415-Firmware-103-destro yed-DNS323-Please-help.html

04-13-2007
"
Hello,
as told before I am located in Athens-Greece and the DNS-323 was purchased from an on-line German shop via Ebay.
Although I have desperately asked for assistance from you (written technical advise and answers to my questions via e-mail and NO RMA)
you have refused. After spending an excess amount of time on domestic and abroad phone calls this morning and afternoon
I have come to this conclusion:

1) D-Link USA doesn't provide assistance to customers outside the United States.
2) D-Link Greece won't support me because my product was purchased from Germany
3) D-Link Germany charges a ridiculous amount of money per minute for phone support and when someone bothered to answer
I found out they can't support me because no one speaks English; hence no support!
3) Next logical assumption is to call an other European D-Link office (like one of your colleagues advised); the UK for example.
But guess what: D-Link UK won't support me because it's a German product! (that's what the guy told me anyway) and I must
contact D-Link Germany directly. When I cried that nobody speaks English in D-Link Germany HQ I was told "then learn German" (!).

So, it all comes to this:
I will never ever buy a D-Link product in my life and as an IT manager I will make sure I will let my friends, colleagues and customers know
about your products and support. I will also make sure I will post my D-Link/DNS-323 adventure in as many sites possible, for I wish to
hurt your reputation as much as you have hurt my patience, nerves and wallet.
Finally, I hope you have at least the decency to show this email to one of your supervisors.

Thank you very much and have a nice day.""

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