Microsoft, Linux and Patents

AP Lawrence ^ | 04/05/2006 | AP Lawrence?

[DemosCrash]

I think he's just sick and tired of GE lowering the quality of every thread she posts to.

I disagree. It's pretty obvious from reading the various posts that Golden Eagle is simply ideologically opposed to many of you around here -- and some of you don't like differing points of view.

Frankly, I'd like to see GE banned from this site, as would many others that have posted to me privately when I've previously commented on it. She's a troll and contributes nothing to the site.

Not surprisingly, it's easier to ban somebody than engage them. Personally, I think that banning somebody is pathetic.

[stainlessbanner]

2007 is new vista shipping date. That means it will be 2008. Which means folks will be using Windows systems that are 7-8 years old.

IBM, Novell, EMC, and others are focusing on open source systems and development. Innovation, it's a buzzword, but open source is where innovation is done.

[DemosCrash]

Why do you think software patents are even needed?

Because they primarily protect the little guy. Look at most patent infringement lawsuits being filed today. They're not being filed by M$ or IBM or some other big company. They're filed by little guys (like Sky Technology against IBM; Eolas against M$; etc). If patent protections weren't granted, these big companies would be able to completely bulldoze the little guy. Patents level the playing field.

[stainlessbanner]

What's your other FR handle?

[Proud_texan]

"I'm not a fan of Gates or his products but this just doesn't look right.

Probably a reasonably take.

"In 1998, it was revealed that Cringely had falsely claimed a Ph.D. from Stanford University. When confronted with these charges, Cringely told a reporter: "A new fact has now become painfully clear to me: you don't say you have the Ph.D unless you REALLY have the Ph.D."" (Source here.)

Add to that the PBS connection and well, it figures.

[Golden Eagle]

What are you, some kind of Golden Eagle stalker? Geezus... what a whackjob...

Obviously! First couple of times I met him he was quoting that radical leftist Stallman's website, trying to twist and hide the fact that the Chinese/Russians/Iranians/Cubans etc all use "the copyleft principle" to make free copies of this open source software to run their government on.

Now he's been reduced to spinning like a top trying to cover up his lies with more lies. Typical leftist, let him rant, even the other Stallmanites are starting to realize he's hurting them more than helping!

[Golden Eagle]

I'd like to see GE banned from this site

I bet you would, since I blow holes in your BS constantly. Get a load of this manure you were shoveling the other day LOL. Could you have been ANY more wrong? LMAO I don't think so! And of course it was nothing out of the ordinary either.

IBM will not use Windows Vista - but will move to Linux desktops

[Golden Eagle]

Why do you think software patents are even needed? Its seems like current copyright law should be sufficient.

Because ideas need to be protected, that is the purpose of patents. With software, it's just too easy to slightly modify a few things like variable names or loop sizes and possibly get away with an almost direct copy. Many patents are invalidated anyway, when they are legally analyzed, but if you have a unique idea, that will take time to fully develop, you should be able to legally protect it.

[DemosCrash]

Huh?

[DemosCrash]

Did you really think that IBM wouldn't run Vista?

[dennisw]

Thanks!

[zeugma]

Did you really think that IBM wouldn't run Vista?

Uh no. Where did I say that? If I did, it certainly wasn't intended. 

[zeugma]

I see now what you are referring to. I generally don't look very closely at our resident troll's ranting. In my previous post, I thought you might have been referring to my comment about the beefy hardware requirements "vista" is going to require. Instead, I see that you're responding because of crap posted by our resident troll.

In the linked article that it referred to, you'll see the opening... 

During a presentation on IBM's involvement with Open Source, Andreas Pleschek from IBM in Stuttgart, Germany, who heads open source and Linux technical sales across North East Europe for IBM made a very interesting statement... "Andreas Pleschek also told that IBM has cancelled their contract with Microsoft as of October this year. That means that IBM will not use Windows Vista for their desktops. Beginning from July, IBM employees will begin using IBM Workplace on their new, Red Hat-based platform. Not all at once - some will keep using their present Windows versions for a while. But none will upgrade to Vista." The question is, does this only apply to IBM in Germany, or IBM world wide?

It would indeed appear that IBM is still making efforts to wean itself from the necessity of paying license fees to Microsoft. They may very well not succeed in completely eliminating it, but they are making the effort to do so where it makes sense. Sounds like a smart move from an IT budgetary perspective. They actually have a couple of initiatives going on in relation to this and they are apparently at various stages of progress. This is not something that  is done quickly in any organization, and in one as large as IBM, it's a pretty massive undertaking. Hell, it would take a couple of years at the company I work for if they'd ever realize how much money they could save by doing so.

If you look at the posting history of our resident troll, you'll see certain patterns. One of these appears to be an almost viceral hatred of IBM. I don't know why. Maybe she was fired by them for being a jerkette or something some years ago.

Again, if you take a look at the threads here, you'll see that her tactic is to pull everyone off of any actual discussions that may be topical to the thread into side issues. Note, how in this case, the subject of the thread is "Microsoft, Linux, and Patents"  and he's trying to drag the conversation into something completely different. I'm not playing her stupid game.

Take a look at threads here that haven't been infected by the troll, and you'll see that they are much more pleasant.

[dennisw]

It would indeed appear that IBM is still making efforts to wean itself from the necessity of paying license fees to Microsoft.

Perhaps that's why they sold the personal computer division to Lenovo. No more dealing with Windows and Office licenses

[zeugma]

Have you spent any significant time on these tech threads? Have you seen the difference in threads between threads when GE is trolling, and when she isn't here? Have seen the degeneration that occurs when someone does trying "engaging" this troll?

There are people here that I strongly disagree with on a wide variety of topics and I'd never suggest they be banned. There is a big difference between someone who contributes to threads and someone who's only goal is to make them useless to try to have discussions in.

[Golden Eagle]

LMAO, fifteen (15) posts into the story, IBM itself was denying it all. Here's the link from that post.

http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=179628&cid=14875534

It's not like we hadn't already heard the exact same BS before, either.

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22move+to+a+Linux+based+desktop+before+the+end+of+2005.%22&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&x=wrt

Linux lies, repeated constantly.

[Golden Eagle]

someone who contributes to threads and someone who's only goal is to make them useless

These threads are useless until all these lies are cleared up. So cleaning them up is the definition of usefulness.

[Golden Eagle]

From the last two months, alone.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1607069/posts - Lies claiming Windows only has 40% market share and VMWare kernel is linux based

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1608956/posts - Lies that Windows systems need to be rebuilt after compromise but not linux ones

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1605189/posts - Lies that the Kapital program in linux has nothing to do with Karl Marx's "Das Kapital"

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1604720/posts - Lies that Osama Bin Laden doesn't get a free copy of linux if he wants, and that stallman isn't a central figure in the OSS community, and that I work for Microsoft

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1601565/posts - Lies that Beowulf clusters couldn't exist without free software, and that American citizens can't have access to free software unless the chinese, cubans, russians, iranians, etc do too

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1527747/posts - Lies that open source was designed to co-exist with proprietary software, that I don't support companies that use some open source in their proprietary operating systems like Apple and Sun, that stallman doesn't oppose patents, that Microsoft shared source has the same dangers as open source, and ridiculous claims that I'm the one that whines to the moderator around here

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1602047/posts - Lies that *nix can't get viruses spyware or trojans, that it's easier to setup and run linux than windows, etc

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1592292/posts - Follow up lies to the original threads that Dell is offereing linux on their desktop models when they aren't, that stallman's following is small, and of course the flamer denying he ever posts on the linux lie threads

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1592494/posts - Lies that IBM is not going to ever use Microsoft Vista but only linux

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1591595/posts - Lies that it's easy to deploy linux even though IBM can't do it themselves

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1590132/posts - Lies that most open source zealots don't approve of stallman, that our government should always use the lowest cost option even if it came from foreigners

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1591021/posts - Lies that a fully patched Windows box can be hacked by anyone in minutes

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1585665/posts - Lies that Dell is going to announce linux on home desktop computers, that I'm the one that always whines to the moderators, that the original article wasn't retracted by the author, that other articles don't indicate it's almost impossible to get a Dell desktop with linux, etc

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1584107/posts - Lies that open source doesn't equal open borders, that "copyleft" has nothing to do with politics, that open source is more capitalistic than proprietary software LOL, that n3wbi3 cared that 75% of all open source uses stallman's license, about how large linux's market share is, that the free software foundation didn't confiscate code from its users, that stallman isn't anti-capitalist and the leader of the open source movement, that Torvalds didn't do a 180 when confronted by Stallman on GPL3, etc

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1578925/posts - Lies by some foreign rag that linux is easier to manage than windows, that it's safe to go to hacker sites for your security updates, that microsoft.com doesn't almost always have longer uptime than linux companies, etc

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1573697/posts - Lies that Red Flag is based on Asianux and not Red Hat LOL, that no one in china is a communist at all which is amazing

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1573397/posts - Lies that Teddy Kennedy's various sites run on Microsoft IIS and not linux (several whoppers), about linux's market share size, etc

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1571222/posts - Lies that n3wbi3's "open source" ping list was actually open source, that free software for russia is no more dangerous than free software for germany, that it's somehow worse to sell technology to adversaries than to just give it to them for free, etc

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1568785/posts - Lies that you have to upgrade Office for legal protection, that linux and other open source provides equal legal protection to proprietary software LMAO that was funny

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1568067/posts - Lies that good eyes verses bad eyes can ever be quantified,

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1568848/posts - Lie that Google is releasing a linux operating system, that Microsoft is hurting and not recording record profits, that quality of open source exceeds that of proprietary software, that Google Earth is compatible with linux, that I referred to the Cert vulnerability database as "linux" problems, that these guys don't live their lives by stallman's principles, etc

[rzeznikj at stout]

Cui prodest, scelus is fecit.

These threads would be more useful to people who want to read them if some other posters wouldn't intentionally try to incite flame wars.

Of course, if those who pollute the threads would kindly refrain from inciting said flame wars, the problem would be solved.

[Golden Eagle]

flame wars

Flame wars?

FLAMING DEATH is your guy, not mine. But he makes a damn fine example of how pitiful you boys are, doesn't he.

those who pollute the threads

The lies are what polllute the threads. And they're designed to protect leftists as well.