The Twitter Firehose Gaming Index

The ratio of twitter items to items by others in a given user's personal firehose.

My submissions are buried almost immediately but a good 14% of them are published anyway, so I'm sure that the system is being gamed and the firehose supports this. My submissions get more than their fair share of attention from usual suspects. No experiment is complete without verification, so I have to admit I've done some of this myself but efforts were quickly overwhelmed by the pros who use botnets. Slashdot editors are in a better position to spot this kind of activity and should take action to protect the site.

So, what should normal firehose numbers look like? Slashdot runs about 25 stories a day. That stacks up to about 750 a month and 9,000 each year. For each story there are hundreds of submissions. I average about 10 front page stories per year, around 0.1% of Slashdot. My submissions make an even smaller proportion of the overall firehose because I'm nowhere near a hall of famer and of the constant bombardment by ACs and troll accounts. Different people have different interests, so I'd expect those who's interest match mine to represent me a little better but order of magnitude differences are suspicious. That sets a rather low barrier of 1%. While that's not hard to find in the small samples easily available, hit ratios of 2, 5 or 20% are obvious gaming.

Different people also have different ways of using the firehose. Some ignore it and their personal firehose contains nothing but their own comments. Others only have front page stories in their personal firehose. Because I was only interested in submission gaming, I ignored comment posts and concentrated on submissions, journals and mainpage stories.

Here's what I found:

• Keith Russell 84 checked 12/09/2008 to 12/2005, 36 his own posts (mostly sports), 40 others (mostly M$ stuff), 8 twitter 8/48= 17%
• JWilcox154 has 6 twitter and 125 others. in 2008, 8 and 192 total to 7/21/2007. almost all others nod/nixed are front page stories. 6/131 = 5%
• Macthrope has 2 of 48 back to 3/12/2007 almost all are his own comments. 2/50 = 4%
• Dedazo 134 total, almost all of his own stuff. 5 twitter and 19 others, 5/24 = 21%
• Renegadesx 49 total, 1 twitter, 19 others. 1/20=5%

The sum of these accounts is more damning than each individual because the statistics add up. It is good evidence of general gaming.

It is stunning that people doing this kind of thing would leave such obvious traces. They should know that Slashdot's editors could check for this kind of activity even if ordinary users could not and could have easily hidden the activity with their multiple accounts. For instance, a person with 100 accounts can separate the few accounts used to heckle from those used to bury. Bury activity can be partially disguised with rotations and time shifting. Other M$ promotion can be distributed through all of the accounts to statistically disguise specific activity like this. That kind of thoroughness must be too much work for the hacks sent to ruin Slashdot.

Update:

I see that three trolls have come to comment. I've exposed these people's behavior before, Keith Russel, Macthorpe and dedazo [2], [3, self exposure]. These three accounts are probably the work of a single person, they all have the same things to say in the same way and the same place.

Letters from the Vista Capable lawsuit show just how out of touch with reality M$ was about Vista. Ron Enderle confronted them about the problem of versioning and was abused and punished for his efforts. Enderle is a long time M$ booster and the emails show that he's willing to turn away news business and lie for M$'s sake. In hindsight, we know that Vista was a dissaster that tainted everyone who tried to push it and did indeed freeze the entire market. The released email tells this small part of the story best. Here are a few excepts Todd Bishop thought captured the moment.

"Anyway, you'll do what you do," [Enderle] wrote to Microsoft's Barry Goffe. "Dell will go along; they are just trying to miss a bullet that they, and I, know you can't even see. Let's hope we can mitigate the damage otherwise the industry is really screwed."

"Honestly, in all my years of dealing with analysts, I have never been quite so flummoxed. He is just dug in and is not willing to acknowledge reality." [Microsoft's Barry Goffe wrote to others at M$].

[the next day Enderle wrote Steve Ballmer], "We had an advisory meeting with Dell where they (made) a huge stink about your plan for Vista SKUs and asked the analysts and reporters to intervene (we were under NDA so the information was contained). So I attempted to do so and spoke with Barry Goffe who was very nice but seemed surprised that Dell had a problem (I've since spoken with the CEO of another OEM who concurred with Dell) and so went back to Dell and got the attached response. Sitting on the OEM typically is not effective at making a problem like this go away. Dell was never going to publicly roll against you they were just trying to prevent a mistake ... "

At some point I'd love to learn how to help you folks without either getting shot myself or getting someone who also depends on me shot. I figure that would be a great survival skill.

Dell left him hanging and threatened him, saying "Any assessments you make are best supported/couched in terms of your own analysis and opinion rather than communicated on Dell's behalf," and threatened, "Any conversation outside the spirit of this forum [Dell GAC discussions] are in violation of the NDA. (page 29)"

Looking again at the email, you can see why people at M$ would be angry, especially now that it's leaked out to the public. It starts on page 17 and is worth quoting because he correctly predicted the whole Vista Capable fiasco. Parts where he promises to sell out his readers are emphasized.

From: Barry Goffe
Sent: August 29, 2005 11:14 PM
To: Neil hamey; Shanen Boettcher; Brad Goldberg; Debbie Anderson
CC: Lisa Worthington (Waggener Edstrom)
Subject: FW: glass vr. non-glass

I really need your help. Lisa and I did a call this morning with Rob Enderle to go through the SKU plan. Apparently Dell leaked our SKU plan (while under NDA of course) to Rob and a bunch of other analysts and press - under the guise of an 'Advisory Council' In the process Dell did its damndest to poison Rob's thinking - and they were rather successful.

Rob's Logic is:

a.) we have been showing off this great thing called Vista
b.) it has all kind of great stuff in it, like Glass.
c.) since we have not yet talked about SKUs, all customers are expecting that all the features that we have discussed will be in the mainstream SKUs - the equivalent of XP Home today on the consumer side
d.) We are going to ship this thing called Home Basic which we are going to price the same as XP Home
e.) some of the features that we have been showing, namely glass (because I can't get Rob to come up with any other feature) will not be in the Home Basic SKU
f.) customers will perceive that we are taking stuff away from Home Basic andthat it will be looked upon as a price increase
g.) this perceived price increase will freeze the entire market.

.... Rob is quite passionate as you can see from the string below. Honestly, in all my years of dealing with analysts, I have never been quite so flummoxed. He is dug in and not willing to acknowledge reality.

From: Rob Enderle
Sent: Monday August 29, 2005 11:06 PM
To: Barry Goffe
CC: Lisa Worthington (Waggener Edstrom)
Subject: RE: glass vs. non-glass

Well this is what happens when you set expectation high then pull features out. .... Microsoft is already being lambasted for crippled Vista. If you don't know what a glass looks like full anything in it looks good, but if you know what you are missing you tent to focus on what is missing, unfortunately that is where we are now. I get to do a lot of columns these days, could guarantee each of these titles [that Vista is a rip off] not only would get published they would make the front page or pull amazing numbers. ... you are convinced the customer is getting a great deal, you are the vendor, vendors always think that ... the customer often votes their feelings with their pocketbook. One thing has changed since '85 we have blogs now. .... The press was taken through the product and every time a feature is dropped the calls come in with the take that Vista is just smoke and mirrors now, I can turn some of these but there are limitations to what I can do. ...

Anyway, you'll do what you'll do. Dell will go along, they are just trying to miss a bullet that they, and I, know you can't even see. Let's hope we can mitigate the damage otherwise the industry is really screwed.

From: Barry Goffe
Sent Monday August 29, 2005 8:29 PM
To: Rob Enderle
CC: Lisa Worthington (Waggener Edstrom)
Subject RE: glass vs. non-glass

Rob,

Thanks for taking the time to think this through some more. I really appreciate your feedback.

Please see detailed comments in line below ...

From: Rob Enderle
Sent: Monday, August 29, 2005 3:56 PM
To: Barry Goffe
CC: Lisa Worthington

There will be a lot of attention spent on the UI because that is the visual change and this is often where the Apple vs. Microsoft pieces focus. I expect we'll have a number of Linux vs. Windows pieces as well but still think most of those will focus on what you get and how much you pay ... but UI is possible.

Natuarl Headlines:

Microsoft Charges More for Less: Text focuses on what fell out of Longhorn and the price increases for the premium offering.
Buy Tablet and Media Center or Else: Text focuses on the fact that to get the good stuff you have to take other things.
If You Doubted Microsoft was a Monopoly: Rant on perceived price increases.
Microsoft Raises Tax: Avoidance Advice: Price increases with recommendation you buy either Linux or Apple (or simply not buy)
Windows Consumers get 4 Choices Business gets Screwed: Focus on disparity between consumer and business lines
Windows Vista - 7 Reasons to Switch: Focuses on complexity of offering and perceived price increases.

... What I heard was there was 4 SKUs ....

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

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.

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.

Update 2/3/2010. There were 7 points of hype, I'm going to look into which ones I got right and which ones they hype was right about. So far, I count: Hype 1, Twitter 6. Windows 7 sucks. It came "on time" if you think it was "ready". Battery life, security, sharing, netbook function, performance, and compatibility were all BS. More links will follow.

Update 10/22/2010 - The technical points remain valid after a year on the market. There are no tablets, mobile devices or anything resembling the "connected world" launch hype. Security is an obvious failure. Microsoft boosters brag about sales, just like they did for Vista, but business does not really want then new OS and it is stuck in single digit land. In fact, GNU/Linux is winning the race because 36% of businesses are using GNU/Linux on the desktop.

2010, Now we start to see the dust settle I'll post confirmation of failure as it arrives.

• 11/18 - Preston Gralla admits Vista 7 is too fat for tablets and netbooks, "[Steve Ballmer] Ballmer was being a bit disingenuous when he said that [tablets would run Windows 7]" Compare this to his previous "Linux killer" gloating.

The Hype Log as written.

Windows 7 is being pushed by all the usual suspects as the "cure" for what ails Vista. It's the same talking points and hype that surrounds any "upgrade" but the M$ and friends are hysterical given the technical and public relations nighmare that Vista was. "This one will be secure, fast and better than competing software that you could have bought years ago," they always say but Windows remains Windows because non free software development does not work. People who make a living with M$ really, really want to see Windows continue as the dominant OS. A little bribery here and there (list) and punishment for objectors makes friendly press coverage too but these represent the tip of M$'s manipulation. It's one thing for M$ to make this stuff up, it's another for it all be reported so uncritically by a press corps that's been lied to repeatedly. This kind of stuff has destroyed the reputation of the Wintel press. Vista should have been their last hurrah, but they are at it again. In fact, the worst offenders have already started to promote Windows 8 because Windows 7 in on track to fail.

Here's what they promise and how it's unlikely. The most obvious reason Windows 7 is unlikely to be better than Vista is that it's sill Vista. They were not able to get right in six years of development, it's doubtful they will fix things in two years of light use. The failures are cataloged separately as they happen. Anyone inclined to believe the promisses should revisit this 2002 video promotion for Vista and the launch of XP. Windows 7 hype is reaching new extremes of shameless lying as M$ itself fails. Benchmarks show that the average user is better off with Ubuntu and other Debian based distributions are likely to give similar results.

It will be ready for Christmas 2009. Trying to freeze the market. Even as they promise the date, most of the people below admit that it's prudent to add months or years to M$ release dates.

• James Bannan, APC, said this January 22 of 2008!
• The Register
• Mary Jo Foley, "When anyone asks me whether they should buy a new PC now or wait, I tell them I'm banking on getting a new Windows 7 PC next fall." [2], "early 2010. I still believe that's a worst-case date and we'll see Windows 7 by the second half of 2009."
• Ed Bott, June (said 9/25/08), then 2nd half 0f 2009 (10/21), then July (1/10/09). The phrase, "In five minutes" from a SNL spoof comes to mind. . June passed and we now have a Vista Capable (fiasco) style "upgrade for less" on Vista computers that might happen by the end of July.
• Paul Thurrott
• Alexander Wolfe, "Microsoft isn't going to launch what might be its best OS ever in the midst of a PC-upgrade-killing recession. I'm betting that the Redmond brain trust is hoping things will ease up in time for next December's Christmas shopping season, where Windows 7 could spark the kind of computer buying spree Microsoft dreamed of for Vista." Sickening.
• InternetNews.com quotes Windows 7 blogger Brandon LeBlanc and estimates general availability for late October, and notes that this is not meeting the company's earlier promises to deliver in June. This is the usual lie, it's always less than six months away.
• PCWorld publishes the latest lie from a "leaked" Best Buy memo. M$ will start selling "upgrade rights" at the end of June - promissed to be available in October. This is the Vista Capable fiasco all over again.

Score: they pushed something out the door in late October.

You can share it with your family - M$ generously charges for something people used to take for granted and GNU/Linux will always provide.

• Todd Bishop of Tech Flash, without knowing any real details, uncritically promotes the deal, "a Family Pack would start to look very economical for people who need to install Windows 7 on multiple computers." Shame on him.
• Ed Bott, of course.

Score: of course Windows 7 is not free software and can not really be shared. In fact, users of the "family pack" will not even be able to share their own media because of built in restrictions.

Will run on Netbooks. They can't get XP to do that, but this claim is critical to their ability to compete with GNU/Linux which can. M$ all but concedes that this is a lie with their SKU scheme which has nothing but "starter" versions for netbooks. You won't be able to chose ARM, MIPS and other frugal chipsets that you can get with GNU/Linux and OSX. At RTM, Vista 7 Netbooks are still Science Fiction.

• CIO Magazine [2, shows some scepticism by different author]
• Mary Jo Foley, "Sinofsky spent a considerable amount of his keynote demonstrating that a full implementation of Windows 7 will be able to run on netbook, even as stripped down as an Asus Eee PC with 1 GB of RAM."
• Joanna Stern tells us Windows 7 already runs well on an upspeced EEE 1000H, but "well" does not mean to me what it means to her. 58 second boot, 720P has playback glitches, 485MB of the RAM was in use with no applications. The few things that worked were free software applications, GIMP and Filezilla and a network manager that works better than Vista or a sharp stick in the eye.
• Preston Galla of ComputerWorld takes the last story and transmorgifies Windows 7 into a "Linux Killer". Garbage in, garbage out.
• Andre Da Costa
• Todd Bishop
• Jack Schofield is an innovative liar, "[Windows 7] uses far less memory than Vista, and runs well on today's netbooks. [but you will never see it because Microsoft wants to protect notebook sales with Vista 7 starter edition which is intentionally limited]."

Score: Windows 7 will make any computer perfrom like a netbook. Only the very foolish will try to actually run it on a netbook. I bought a netbook with Vista 7 and saw Debian Lenny run rings around it.

Security They claim it's just as good as Vista. That's true, but Vista is just as bad as any other Windows release which have all been failures. Exploits have already been demonstrated. Now comes news that Windows 7 will run XP in a VM. This is being done in such a way that all of XP's flaws will become Windows 7 flaws too.. Windows 7 may be the least secure version of Windows ever.

• Andre Da Costa

Score: of course Windows 7 is a mess.

Fast Boots, Better Performance. GNU/Linux on Netbooks shows this is possible, but not for Windows. Performance is that of Vista now, change is unlikely. Now we see, leave it to M$ to cheat with hibernation and lie about it. They promise what others deliver honestly:

• Eric Traut of M$ promisses MinWin, aka Windows 7, will be small and stable like GNU/Linux.
• Mary Jo Foley, March 20, 2008, says Windows 7 will be modular to combat bloat. Ars Technia thinks it's paradoxically about more lock-in.
• Mary Jo Foley "Microsoft execs hinted that Windows 7 might boot up in under 15 seconds, but didn't officially commit to that number."
• Andre Da Costa
• Adrian Kingsley-Hughes Better than Vista, XP even. Oh please.
• Ben Hardwidge, Custom PC Graphics will work on your CPU if not on your GPU. This is transparent Vista Capable damage control. Given M$'s OEM lock, GPUs will always work with Windows unless M$ wants to punish a chipmaker like Intel for releasing free software.

Score: it's not even faster than Vista.

It's a major release and it's a minor upgrade It seems to depend on what is being talked about. For compatibility, they claim minor. For Vista reputation damage control, they might as well claim it's a ground up rewrite.

• Paul Thurrott, "I'm going to give Microsoft a pass on this one. Windows 7, in many ways, is indeed a major Windows release."

Improved battery life. This one conflicts with speed improvements and DRM. If M$ really cared about power consumption, they would spend their money porting to ARM instead of false advertising claims. Windows 7 probably has the worst battery life of any Windows yet.

• Mary Jo Foley
• Andre Da Costa
• Todd Bishop. Blinded by jargon and details he misses the obvious.

Score: Windows 7 is a battery wrecker.

It won't break your old software and hardware. This lie happens every upsell. This time, it has already been exposed by Randal Kennedy but people are still passing it around. Now comes news that Windows 7 will run XP in a VM. You can get that kind of compatibility now with GNU/Linux, and better with Wine which runs DX9 games. Finally, Walt Mossberg breaks the bad news that Vista 7 is the least compatible version of Windows ever, requiring users to reinstall all of their software or start from scratch.

• Paul Thurrott, "customers, partners, and developers won't face the same tortuous incompatibilities that dogged them with Vista"
• Paul Thurrott again, " It is feature complete, it is reasonably stable, and it is highly compatible with the software and hardware I use on a regular basis."

Score: it won't even work with software for Vista. Here's Microsoft executive telling people they should be like Boeing and only use the 7,000 of their 11,000 applications that work with Windows 7.

08/01/2009 - RTM and the hype goes into overdrive. Various "reviews" repeat all of the above. The list of shame includes:

• Seth Rosenblatt CNET, Windows 7 is more than just spin. It's stable, smooth, and highly polished, introducing new graphical features, a new taskbar that can compete handily with the Mac OS X dock, and device management and security enhancements that make it both easier to use and safer. Importantly, it won't require the hardware upgrades that Vista demanded ... .
• Brooke Crothers, CNett, Windows 7 will be more than just a better interface. Under-the-hood changes will allow chips from Intel, Nvidia, and Advanced Micro Devices to ratchet up Windows 7 performance above previous Microsoft operating systems.
• Brian X. Chen, Wired Magazine, makes the "Microsof's Best OS Yet," automotive analogy and many other cliches. a clean, modern look that competes with Apple's finely designed Mac OS X Leopard. ... Windows 7 feels a lot faster than its predecessors, and that's because memory management has been smartly re-engineered. Shameless and quickly touted by Seattle PI and just as quickly crushed in comments, "This is akin to saying that the last Yugo that was manufactured was the best yet."
• Windows 7 is better than Mac in every way claims from Mitchell Ashley of Network World and Randall C. Kennedy of [dis]InfoWorld. Apple is just as vicious an enemy of software freedom as M$, but their software works a lot better.
• Windows 7 is just as good as Mac, claims Samara Lynn, of ChannelWeb. Windows 7 is a desktop operating system as performance-nimble, aesthetically pleasing and, dare we say it, as potentially secure as Apple has delivered with OS X.
• M$ themselves try to teach Best Buy employees to lie about Windows 7, and are called on it in public.
• Jennifer Bosavage, of Channel Web, hits all the lies in a compact space with, "Five Things That Separate Windows 7 From Vista." Meanwhile, David Coursey of PC World has the nerve to say, "If you've lived with Vista this long and installed the Service Packs, you now have an OS that actually works pretty well.".

Sooner or later, most of these people will be apologizing the same way everyone who praised Vista did. Where I find them, I'll quote the Hall of Shame Winner's previous Vista quotes.

• David Coursey, "At First Glance, Vista Looks Like a Winner" Beta 1 of Microsoft's next OS has a sleek interface to rival Apple's Tiger, and its search capabilities look promising. ... Vista Beta 1 doesnt do a very good job of showing much of this goodness. Nevertheless, I find myself quite enchanted.
• Jennifer Bosavage, "Time's A-Wastin" "There's an easy fix for Windows 2K and XP [daylight savings problems]; Vista is ready with the new updates already,"

Roughly Drafted predicts Windows 7's failure even if it's technically perfect because OEM's are tired of paying the Windows Tax for the pleasure of competing in a fierce low margin commodity market.

The real problem with Vista is that nobody wants to pay Microsofts Windows Tax. Not even a hypothetical, brilliantly flawless new version of Windows can solve that problem. ... PC makers are desperately jealous of Apple, which not only doesnt pay Microsoft the Windows Tax, but also is so strongly differentiated by its unique software that it can charge sustainable prices for its products in a market that has PC rivals diving into a shallow margin of water with no hope of floating. ... big PC makers from HP to Dell to Acer to Sony are all investigating Linux or their own software that can be used in place of Windows. Once Microsoft loses their business, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to ever get it back.

The author gleefully points out the massive failure of Vista and reminds the readers of their correct prediction that failure. The article mentions how "downgrade to XP" has been used to pull more money than ever out of customers for seven year old software that sucks a little less than Vista, and how OEMs realize that XP is the only way to sell their computers. The previous article predicted Vista failure from a lack of demand for what Vista had to offer, overpricing, a more competitive Apple and everyone else in the world ("IBM to Oracle") having invested in GNU/Linux. No one could have imagined the Vista compatible dissaster, spill over of internal email calling the product shit or even just how shit Vista's insane DRM and spyware anti-features would make the OS. Some of that technical failure is pointed out in the previous article because M$ has yet to deliver on it's early 1990's feature promisses.

Firehose submission, of FT article about hackers breaching White House email. Previous stories are linked showing M$ systems are used and is at fault, if the non free Lotus Notes system is not. Irony of enemy being better informed than US citizens is pointed out. A previous break in to expose corruption is pointed to and hoped for.