[Old] Microsoft's Attempt to Rewrite History, Forum Shills

Did Bill Gates Invent Linux and Has He Erased the Evidence?

,----[ Quote ]
| On October 1, 2004, at an appearance at the Computer History Museum in
| northern California, someone asked Bill Gates about a possible threat from
| Linux and Gates replied: "Microsoft has had competitors in the past. It's a
| good thing we have museums to document this stuff."
|
| But during the frantic days of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v.
| MICROSOFT CORPORATION, Defendant, Mr. Gate's employees at Microsoft
| corporation put together an argument for the court that made a tiny group of
| companies look like a threat - even a competitor.
|
| [...]
|
| Linux advocates believe Microsoft employees and contractors disrupt forums
| and discussion groups. They believe that Microsoft advocates use fictitious
| names to post unfavorable comments about Linux. They refer to people who may
| do that as "astroturfers".
|
| [...]
|
| Lord Acton, a British historian of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
| centuries made an observation that a person’s sense of morality lessens as
| his or her power increases. He's quoted as saying, "Power tends to corrupt;
| absolute power corrupts absolutely." Is that a true statement for all people
| or does it tend to generalize? I don't really know the answer. It somehow
| feels right.
|
| I have a lack of trust in our current Administration's ability to regulate
| Microsoft. In fact, I'm concerned that a lack of motivation and/or interest
| exists to protect us from Microsoft's monopolistic grip. I don't know from
| where the resources would come to investigate them in the civil sector.
| Microsoft just doesn't appear as a priority in the administration's agenda.
|
| I believe that the US has slipped technologically in the last five years as
| investment in start-ups has slowed and our technologist have migrated to
| other professions. I lay the blame on our government's inability to show the
| fortitude to stop monopolies from thwarting innovation. Hopefully this
| article will provide some incentive for someone to take a look at how one
| company could change the internal landscape of the Internet and distort
| history.
`----

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/45935/index.html

Microsoft has already done some job wiping evidence of OOXML crimes, so
everything is possible.

Related:

,----[ Quote ]
| "Ideally, use of the competing technology becomes associated with mental
| deficiency, as in, "he believes in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and OS/2."
| Just keep rubbing it in, via the press, analysts, newsgroups, whatever. Make
| the complete failure of the competition's technology part of the mythology of
| the computer industry. We want to place selection pressure on those companies
| and individuals that show a genetic weakness for competitors' technologies,
| to make the industry increasingly resistant to such unhealthy strains, over
| time."      
`----

--- Microsoft, internal document
http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/Comes-3096.pdf
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More:

Microsoft's fierce competitive nature has alienated everybody in the
industry to the point where voluntary supporters are virtually
nonexistent. For quite some time Microsoft has resorted to buying
public endorsements and there have been documented incidents of
Microsoft employees posing as normal software users in public
settings without revealing their true identities. And these are just
the incidents that the public has found out about - who knows how
many cases have never been exposed for the false endorsements that
they actually are? So when you see that rare instance of Microsoft
support you need to seriously question whether it is genuine.

Microsoft's recent "astroturf" campaign fortunately blew up in its
face. The astroturf campaign was Microsoft's attempt to create a
grassroots movement in its legal battle against the DOJ by paying
people to show public support. It was referred to as astroturf rather
than grassroots because the support was completely fake.

Side note from the funny guy at RoughlyDrafted:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/05/12/from-vista-to-zune-why-microsoft-cant-sell-to-consumers/

After establishing its brand name among consumers as a synonym for
failure and the butt of many jokes, Microsoft retreated to more
familiar territory in attempting to establish the product through
business deals rather than effectively selling it to individuals.

Just as with its previous PlaysForSure failure, that meant lining up
egregious DRM deals that promised music labels the opportunity to
round up consumers and lock them up in a policed corral to be milked
of their money.

Microsoft's main differentiation over iTunes and the iPod has
been more restrictions on content use and a greater willingness to
follow the RIAA rather than to challenge it as Apple has.

--
Gary Kildall was one of the original pioneers of the PC revolution. He was a
very creative computer scientist who did excellent work. Although we were
competitors, I always had tremendous respect for his contributions to the PC
industry. His untimely death was very unfortunate and he and his work will
be missed.
-- Bill Gates, The Computer Chronicles. "Special Edition: Gary Kildall." 1995

____/ Linonut on Monday 12 May 2008 17:17 : \____

If Apple alienates the MPAA/RIAA, then it misses out a vector of lobbying.
Microsoft sidles with the same exploiters who can later on be used to promote
Microsoft's agenda, e.g. discriminating against GNU/Linux users. There's also
the push for changes in law that they can both collaborate on.

Microsoft participates (public knowledge) in groups that involve the MPAA/RIAA
and conspire against consumers in a variety of ways. Vista's DRM cage is just
one among several examples.

- --
~~ Best of wishes

Roy S. Schestowitz | make install -not war
http://Schestowitz.com | RHAT GNU/Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
run-level 2 2008-04-15 01:48 last=
http://iuron.com - help build a non-profit search engine

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