DebConf is the periodic meeting of people interested in contributing to Debian GNU/Linux.
This year DebConf was in Banja Luka, Bosnia/Herzegovina. The head organizer, Adnan Hodzic, had some very interesting comments in the aftermath, among them, this:
“I could write a whole novel about this, but to keep it as short as possible, for last two years as a side project I was working on an idea of Government or some of its institutions migrating to Linux. At first I was somewhat loud about it, then after Microsoft heard about it and after they tried stopping the idea by trying to scare me by trying to interfere with my private life; as that didn’t work its lobbyist came even near of obstructing the whole conference within the Government. For the sake of the conference, I convinced the Government that by supporting DebConf it doesn’t mean they need to move to Linux and publicly stopped talking about it. I also convinced them that our only goal was to have successful conference and promote alternative options and open ideas. I wasn’t lying as I saw this as new opportunity of them concluding on their own why they should or shouldn’t not move, the better conference was the more chances of success we had.
That’s why I tried pushing as many representatives from various companies as in this case we would use reverse psychology where basically no one or few know what Linux or Debian for that matter is, but everybody knows who Google is, so if you have participants from i.e: Google or Austrian E-Health care system talking about how they are using your technology is better way to explain what’s it all about really. Eventually Microsoft even had their first ever conference in Bosnia/Herzegovina and you wanna take a wild guess where it was held? 
”
So, how scared is M$ that they bother to hold a conference to distract from a conference by a bunch of developers for Debian GNU/Linux, one of the least “commercial” distros you will ever find? Maybe it was the grandiose announcement put out by the government:
“Republika Srpska hosts Linux World Conference
Banja Luka, capital of the Republika Srpska, will host the Linux World Conference “DebConf11″ from 24 to 30 July. The most eminent experts from all over the world who develop open source Linux operating system for personal computers will take part in the Conference. Mr. Mark Shuttleworth, a Linux titan, one of the developers of the Debian operating system and the founder of Ubuntu along with the other famous people from the global companies such as Google, HP and Intel will be present. Banja Luka will certainly be the center of the world in this field during these days.”
Well, it’s all good. Adnan Hpdzic and Mark Shuttleworth went to chat with the President anyway.
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Better get your tinfoil hat ready too!
Thanks for dropping to ad hominem, Moxy, but any long term reader will know the score. We’ve all seen the Microsoft Munchkins at work, Slogging critics and competitors, as described in Microsoft’s own training manuals.
Mr. Pogson is the subject of regular, personal abuse in his own comments. There was some really awful stuff in the comments to the story about Steve Job’s actual contributions to personal computing.
You wreak of bitter old man who failed in life and is living in the skids …
“Jobs was a somebody while you will die in obscurity like the pathetic nobody you are today. Good-bye and good riddance.”
“Perhaps you losers who so deeply resent Microsoft’s success think that way…”
There’s more, of course, every day and it’s probably a mark of success. It’s like the regular trolls have nothing better to do with their day but give Pogson a hard time. One of the nyms that pretends to behave manages towards Pogson has no such reservation for myself and pours his usual bile my way.
“Mr. Pogson is the subject of regular, personal abuse in his own comments.”
reality check: Bob posts crazy, unsubstantiated, and often hypocritical opinion pieces about linux, Microsoft, Google, and whatever else tickles his fancy, people disagree. If that disagreement counts as abuse in your book than oldman is correct about you.
Except that pogson and his comments are not crazy at all.
What is crazy is that people have dedicated years of their life to harassing Pogson. Day in and day out, they sit here and spew Microsoft talking points. I understand what Pogson writes. It’s well researched, insightful and often worth sharing. I can’t fathom what motivates the trolls, other than a paycheck.
Pogson, you are not crazy, indeed, and that’s the whole reason me and a bunch of other people of a different opinion drop by for a chatter.
However, a few others like Ohio only add garbage to 95% of the discussions he gets into. I chose to ignore these. No use to agrue with an idiot, an old proverb in my country has it.
This is similar to Murdoch’s News international recent spying on the phone hacking lawyers…
I have also noticed a recent pattern on social networking sites where is anything negative about Microsoft you will have a wave of attacks back (almost like people were being paid to say positive comments….)
I don ‘t normally comment just to link my own site, but when I see comments like Morgan’s above:
“I have also noticed a recent pattern on social networking sites where is anything negative about Microsoft you will have a wave of attacks back (almost like people were being paid to say positive comments….)”
…I’m just about ready to cry in frustration at how SLOW people are to realize this.
My three-part series on astroturf in social media begins here:
http://penguinpetes.com/b2evo/index.php?title=what_part_of_social_linking_sites_are_ri&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
It never ends… Blogs, news, linking sites, social web, it’s PREDOMINANTLY astroturf. Big businesses are doing this right out in the open. It’s cloaked behind vague terms like “online reputation management” and “buzz marketing”, but it’s astroturf regardless. It all boils down to companies (or organizations) hiring people to snow the blogosphere with false, biased, paid opinions.
Well kKudos to the government of the Serb Republic for not succumbing to pressure.
Disagreement is not abuse. Competition is not sabotage. Microsoft leverages their position which is their legitimate right that derives from their previous success.
Their monopoly was granted by IBM and M$ used illegal means to strengthen the monopoly. As far as I know, M$ has never succeeded at any technology. They always used the monopoly to lock users in to their junk. I left the fold because M$’s OS would not operate trouble free even for a day back in 2000.
Calling people delusional etc. is abuse.
I don’t know whether these guys are in the pay of M$ or not but they sure act like it.
It’s a sad commentary on any business that has the resources of M$ that they feel the need to cheat. It must be feelings of inadequacy in their leadership. They overcompensate.
I have no doubt that is the case. M$ has shown repeatedly that they will do anything to preserve or strengthen the monopoly. It is clear to me they should be banned from doing business anywhere on the planet but so far that is not widely accepted. In Canada, The Competition Bureau won’t receive complaints from consumers claiming they want a complaint from M$’s partners. That isn’t going to happen.
“I can’t fathom what motivates the trolls, other than a paycheck.”
“almost like people were being paid to say positive comments…”
“hiring people to snow the blogosphere with false, biased, paid opinions.”
“I don’t know whether these guys are in the pay of M$ or not but they sure act like it.”
Yeah uh, you’re all delusional. Conspiracy theory much? In that same vein, how much is Debian paying you for this site? You are clearly a paid Debian shill. This blog proves it according to all the trolling points you made.
Debian doesn’t even pay its developers let alone an old man on the web.
Read Plamondon’s Technological Evangelism. M$ includes that kind of behaviour in every campaign and it’s paid work. I expect some fools do it for free as I do but they have their own reasons. Drink the Koolaid if you wish. Refuse to believe what M$ writes on internal memos but it’s real.
We’re just here to help developersWe are here to help Microsoft” … – “ISVs are just pawns“I assume any praise of M$ or M$’s products I find on the web is coloured this way unless I find objective evidence otherwise. I assume trolls who come to this blog to praise M$ and criticize FLOSS and GNU/Linux are one way or another partners of M$. It’s not delusional, just common sense. I believe what M$ has written and what appears in exhibits presented by litigants. I don’t assume falsified evidence in court.
Quoting a leaked marketing memo from 2000? You must be running out of ammo, Robert.
It’s a very funny piece, if you’re inclined to the ironic view of life. I loved the unintentional Monty Python reference: “Our chief weapons are fear and surprise … and fanatical devotion to Bill Gates.”
Seriously, you’d have to be pretty po-faced not to see this as a particularly abject piece of self-promoting twaddle designed to boost some inadequate marketroid’s view of himself. Not only is it no evidence of a conspiracy (or covert attack-dog organisation, or however you like to paint it); it’s exactly the same “It’s a war, boys, and we’re gonna go to the mat with those bastards!” tosh that every other IT company comes out with, all the time.
Sit back, relax, and enjoy it. Don’t try to make it something it isn’t.
The same people who approved that memo are still running M$. A leopard cannot change its spots.