“On balance, we didn’t believe that the evidence supported an FTC challenge to this aspect of Google’s business under American law”
see Google's FTC Settlement Is An Epic Fail For Microsoft.
We’ve seen it in comments to this blog. M$ has hired folks and slaves also volunteered to spread FUD about Google’s ethics and business-practices.
“Microsoft has spent the past 10 years missing out on every big new trend — search, social, mobile. Instead of looking inward and trying to fix its own problems, Microsoft has become ever more obsessed with Google.”
Chuckle, for a business M$ scoffed at for having “no business plan”, Google became their worst fear, a company giving away a competing product, Android/Linux, and a company giving away prime real estate on the web, $free web services. M$ probably spent more spreading FUD than Google spent on Android and Google was able to provide the world with popular products and services very cheaply because they are all based on FLOSS (Free/Libre Open Source Software).
At the same time that Google was perfecting its arts, M$ was shipping stuff that BSODed and collected malware like a whale eats krill and restricted users’ ability to use the hardware they owned (restrictions in the EULA) . Now, M$ is telling the world that “8″ is that other OS even though consumers don’t recognize it and are not buying it. M$’s house is on fire and instead of attending to that, M$ is throwing stones at their neighbour’s house.
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He doesn’t post comments here, and probably doesn’t qualify as a MS slave or vollunteer, and yet he said: Microsoft hatred is a disease. Is there any reason not to assume he simply spoke his mind, freely and openly?
Are you really surprised there are lots of hateful comments here? Do you ever read your own blog posts after typing them?
More of the quotation:
“I’m a big believer in “technology over politics”. I don’t care who it comes from, as long as there are solid reasons for the code, and as long as we don’t have to worry about licensing etc issues.
I may make jokes about Microsoft at times, but at the same time, I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease. I believe in open development, and that very much involves not just making the source open, but also not shutting other people and companies out.
There are ‘extremists’ in the free software world, but that’s one major reason why I don’t call what I do ‘free software’ any more. I don’t want to be associated with the people for whom it’s about exclusion and hatred.”"
“I may make jokes about Microsoft at times, but at the same time, I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease.” is his point of view. He was using GNU/Linux long before I did and I guess M$ did not mess up his system repeatedly and with extreme prejudice. He was barely affected by the browser wars and anti-competitive actions. Fair enough. I was. I have good reasons to hate M$. They are out to get us. They have said so many times. Linus can ignore that if he wants.
“that’s one major reason why I don’t call what I do ‘free software’ any more. I don’t want to be associated with the people for whom it’s about exclusion and hatred.” Again, that’s his point of view. I welcome competition in the market place. M$ does not. He’s mistaken in my view. GNU/Linux and FLOSS does not seek monopoly just a fair shake. Linus doesn’t care about market share I presume nor does he care that a billion people send money to M$ they don’t have to. I think that’s sick but he is entitled to his opinion. I don’t have to agree with it.
Linus is well known for dealing directly and precisely with software but not being a great communicator. I do not understand why he can hate “Free Software” while loving M$… That’s bizarre. No matter. In the long run M$ will shrivel from its present mass just as the dinosaurs did and Linus and I will have no difference of opinion. Linus also said choosing GPL was the best thing he ever did, so I am unconvinced that he has real issues with Free Software. He did say FU to Nvidia over much less so I suspect he would have said that or worse about M$ spreading malware, refusing to boot, requiring extra reboots and spreading bloat and excluding GNU/Linux from retail shelves if he was forced to use M$’s stuff.
This “hatred” on “free software” is not actually hatred of the software itself, its just part of the old FSF/Linux rift/rivalry/whatever, the same reason why FSF insists everyone to call linux GNU/Linux. It’s a competition of two ideologies, “open source” vs “free software” – while most people don’t really care too much and just call it FOSS.
I also think that linus quote was taken a bit out of context – it was refering to a very specific situation. I don’t know if his stance on microsoft would be different today – he’s after all sometimes expressed very much opposite views regarding microsoft.
“I do not understand why he can hate “Free Software” while loving M$…”
I don’t think Linus hates FSF and loves MS. The way I read it is, he disagrees with the former, and doesn’t hate the latter.
I am often wrong, but, IMHO, hatred is destructive, poisonous, and most importantly, repulsive. No one wants to listen to a hater, let alone follow one.
I think there are very good reasons to hate Windows and Microsoft, but even more good reasons to despite.
It’s also a shame for mankind that people have so long tolerate crap of Microsoft. Any respectable developer and geek has never admired Windows as a “good operation system”. Never.
Mats Hagglund wrote, “It’s also a shame for mankind that people have so long tolerate crap of Microsoft. Any respectable developer and geek has never admired Windows as a “good operation system”. Never.”
We’ve had a lot of geeks comment here that other OS is/was a good operating system. They blamed me for not being able to keep it running while still doing my day job at my last school. They completely miss the fact that an ordinary user can run GNU/Linux trouble-free for years while that other OS needs periodic service by a geek to update/replace/re-re-re-boot etc. I think they felt threatened that their cause for employment was threatened by GNU/Linux. They felt threatened that they would have to do something else for a living if GNU/Linux replaced M$ on desktops. They actually praised lock-in as a useful “standard”…