[mdlug] Linux promotional opportunity at Micro Center

[Dave Arbogast]

Kristian Erik Hermansen wrote:

>On Jan 28, 2008 8:26 PM, Michael Corral <micorral at comcast.net> wrote:
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>>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...
>
>  
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>>Spending money on that makes it even worse.
>>    
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>
>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...
>  
>
Bad business as usual for M$ - Too bad the D o J was told to back off 
from their court victory 7 years back... It only emboldened them.

-dave