Hardball or dirty pool?
Among the many cries of injustice that well up on the Web daily, there were two today that rose to notice above the ambient roar. I’ll leave it to you to decide how legitimate the complaints are.
* François Bancilhon of Linux distributor Mandriva took the reliable “open letter” route to rip into Steve Ballmer and Microsoft for some bare-knuckle competition for a deal with the Nigerian government. Mandriva ended up winning the contract to supply 17,000 Linux-equipped machines for use in schools. After the machines were delivered, the Nigerians wrote back to say thanks and by the way, we’ll be wiping all that Linux stuff off the drives and replacing it with Windows.
“Wow! I’m impressed, Steve!” wrote Bancilhon. “What have you done for these guys to change their mind like this? It’s pretty clear to me, and it will be clear to everyone. How do you call what you just did Steve, in the place where you live? … You have the money, the power, and maybe we have a different sense of ethics you and I, but I believe that hard work, good technology and ethics can win too.”
So, what’s your guess — hard ball or dirty pool?
* A fellow who blogs under the name Jon Swift says Facebook has declared war on the blogosphere. His evidence? His account was summarily terminated because, explained Aubrey-the-customer-service-rep, he violated the terms of service by using a pseudonym. Writes Swift: “Now, I will admit that ‘Jon Swift’ is a name I took as a tribute to the brave Swift Boat Veterans (and which I was forced to adopt because of some misunderstandings with creditors), but does that make my name any less real than the name ‘Aubrey from Facebook’? What exactly does ‘real name’ mean? Would Bob Dylan be banned if he didn’t sign up as Robert Zimmerman?” Swift noted that the policy didn’t seem be applied consistently, given, for instance, that “Jesus Christ” has more than 500 profiles.
In this case, the public howl worked. Jerry-the-customer-service-rep let Swift know his account was being reinstated this morning: “Since others on the site seem to know you by this name, and since you don’t appear to be using the name to impersonate or to hide your identity, we have determined that you are not violating these terms.” Still the issues around authenticity, online identity, responsibility and privacy remain. So if Facebook does bump pseudonymous profiles, is it hardball or dirty pool?
MS was playing hardball. But just becasue you can do something, doesn’t mean you should. Ballmer is cementing his place in the pantheon of the clueless. Just because you’re clever doesn’t mean you aren’t clueless down deep. How are the Nigerians going to feel after they see the monkey-boy video?
I agree that Ballmer was playing hardball. Let me say that I am a Linux user and I love the system. However, even though recent distros of Linux have become very user friendly, the OS is definitely for somewhat experienced computer users. Not saying you need a degree from MIT or thereabouts, but you do need to do a bit of work in learning the system. Many of the smaller apps available do by some very strange names that are known to the Linux cognoscenti yet alone school kids starting out with their first computer.
Perhaps if their teachers or whoever is going to oversee them might be helpful, my guess is that those adults probably already know and understand Windows. I would hope that whoever distributed the Linux machines had made a proviso for educating the kids or adults in their use. Perhaps he just dumped them on the school, took his tax write off, and went his merry way.
Great move, Aso Rock! (The Nigerian equivalent of the White House).
Welcome to capitalism, François!
See how competition works in the real world without the regulation of the drones in the EU?
Which little piggie is going to cry whee whee whee all the way home now? Go on, go tell mummy Kroes Bill G. took away your prize.
Good to see that the Nigerian government is looking out for the kids with a view to letting them learn what is used by 90% of the rest of the world.
They are already poor, why saddle them with an OS that furthers their current second-class status?
I’m wondering what the heck Mandriva’s doing over there all alone on that project, instead of being more of a contributing force on the OLPC project - http://laptop.org - for example, where Bill’s taking quite a beating even trying to get a piece of the pie.
Poor school children, stuck using windows…
…until their OLPC XO units arrive next year!
By the way - there’s a buy-two-get-one deal on now - $400 or so gets you an XO by Christmas, if you hurry.
http://laptop.org
Thanks for your support,
-Paul http://Reiber.org
President, http://SVLUG.org
Thanks, Uncle Bill. It’s about time someone scammed the Nigerians back!