[mdlug] Linux promotional opportunity at Micro Center

[Kristian Erik Hermansen]

On Jan 28, 2008 8:26 PM, Michael Corral <micorral at comcast.net> wrote:
> Wow. That's really...sad. Those two guys look like complete losers.

Well, dude, I hope you are not trying to intentionally offend me.  A
private email would have sufficed instead ;-)  Anyway, losing is
relative...

> Spending money on that makes it even worse.

That video doesn't do the event justice.  Ballmer was supposed to fly
in via helicopter.  We were going to run up to him and ask for a
donation to the LUG.  We did this in protest because Microsoft donated
a lab and tech hangout to our school.  The details of the deal (which
included a lot of free PCs/servers) required that the Univeristy
continue to participate in the MSDNAA initiative, which offers all
Microsoft products to students at no cost -- excepting Microsoft
Office.  With a deal like that, everyone continued to pirate other
software on top of their free Windows.  So, argument for using open
source because of the cost was a non-issue.  Effectively, MS knew that
IBM was pushing Linx on campus -- I was working for IBM in the effort
-- and they did not like it.  There was also talk of the Massachusetts
government giving Microsoft the boot and going with OpenOffice.  This
donation to the largest public University in Massachusetts perhaps
secured the political agenda in keeping Microsoft a dominant force in
the state.  The meeting with Steve Ballmer was private, and few were
allowed to participate, further enhancing the speculation that the
Microsoft donation was politically motivated...
-- 
Kristian Erik Hermansen
"Know something about everything and everything about something."