Quoting Ernie Schroder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > As far as the paranoia, yes, you are correct. For the most part, > Microsoft does come at Linux directly and overtly, but, they do employ > people, or "sponsor" in their words, "studies" that tend to find > security flaws in various Linux apps, in an attempt to make it look > like closed source is better.
They also send their representatives out to businesses to quiz managers on "what does this computer do, what is it running" in an effort to get system and network administrators into trouble if they happen to have deployed a Linux solution without clearing it with management first (a very common occurance, as usually management will say "get me a webserver/firewall/mailserver ASAP" and not ask questions, yet somewhere, in some ream of corporate policy, may be an old and outdated note to the effect of "we have standardized on Windows 3.11", which policy Linux is clearly violating ... as are all newer windows versions, of course, but Microsoft reps aren't likely to point *that* out). It has been documented numerous times that Microsft pays for web access for its employees and encourages them to go to free software sites (as slashdot once was, before it was overrun with Microsoft representatives in various forms), and has even hired teams of people, to go to free software fora and "poison the waters." Just because Microsoft takes the direct support (FUD, Pantenting obvious processes, licenses that exclude the GPL by name for otherwise "open" standards ... take the word open with the requisite mountain of salt, of course, lobbying government against using free software, and so on) doesn't mean they aren't using every underhanded and subtle technique they can to poison the well for free software users and developers as well. I would advise anyone reading this not to be so dismissive of the sorts of statements this person replied to. It is very chic, and somehow perceived as very insightful, to dismiss allegations or assertions of others with the notion that "you're being paranoid," and one sees this behavior time and time again in areas outside of software, where the so-called paranoid have historially been vindicated (McCarthy anyone. FBI files on Martin Luthar King, Jr., the famouse incident where the FBI deliberately framed an innocent man for murder to protectan informant, etc.). Although those who dismissed the people trying to bring such things to light were erroneously percieved as "level headed and insightful" in their ad homonem attacks, much as is happening here (with admittedly far less drastic allegations being made and dismissed), history has shown that it was they who were wrong, short sighted, and at best living in a state of denial, versus those whome they so effectively demonized as paranoid kooks and who were, in later years, proven to have been absolutely correct in their observations and their assertions. I have personal experience with some of Microsoft's more "subtle" tactics (and their is plenty of real world documentation of other, similar tactics being used against others, up to and including intimidation of customers to standardize of Microsoft and not a competitor...IE vs. Netscape comes to mind), so the observations and concerns being dismissed as "paranoia," while sometimes perhaps appearing to be over the top, are mostly based on a great deal of real word experience, much of it very well documented. This isn't to say that there aren't paranoid kooks out there, but they are few and far between, as much in free software and Linux circles as anywhere else. Assuming one fairly mild observation of Microsoft's documented and well recorded behavior and rhetoric is an example of such paranoid "kookism" is in my experience a very erroneous assumption to make. In most cases, it reflects a reasonable approximation of reality, human capacity for living in denial nothwithstanding. Jean. -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
