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Mandriva's Open Letter To Steve Ballmer
Posted by
kdawson
on Thu Nov 01, 2007 08:58 AM
from the should-have-denied-bill's-visa dept.
from the should-have-denied-bill's-visa dept.
An anonymous reader writes "An entry on the Mandriva Blog, written by Mandriva CEO François Bancilhon, says that the Nigerian government, after ordering thousands of Classmate PCs with Mandriva Linux installed, has suddenly decided that they will instead install Windows. They will pay for the pre-loaded Mandriva Linux on the low-cost computing devices intended for children in the developing world, but immmediately replace the OS. The blog doesn't quite use the 'B' word but does suggest that this was not a decision that the Nigerian government made on its own."
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[+]
News: News On Laptops For Education 121 comments
AdamWill notes a Mandriva press release with the news that the government of Nigeria has selected Intel-powered classmate PCs running Mandriva Linux for educational use in a nationwide pilot. About 17,000 machines will be involved at first. We can only wonder at the maneuvering and negotiations that went on with the OLPC project. The latter had its first announced order for 100,000 XO machines, from Uruguay, with a potential for 400,000 over time. The bigger news out of OLPC is that Microsoft is porting XP to the platform, and chairman Nicholas Negroponte says that's fine with him: "It would be hard for OLPC to say it was 'open' and then be closed to Microsoft. Open means open."
Submission: Mandriva: An open letter to Steve Ballmer by Anonymous Coward
[+]
Microsoft Denies Sabotaging Mandriva Linux PC Deal 161 comments
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has denied sabotaging Mandriva's deal with the Nigerian government to supply Classmate PCs from Intel along with a customized Mandriva Linux operating system. 'From Microsoft's perspective it's a matter of choice. In the statement sent to InternetNews.com, Microsoft said it believes individuals, governments and other organizations should be free to choose the software and other technologies that best meet their needs. "We are seeing strong market demand for Windows on low-cost devices to help governments in the areas of education, local innovation, and jobs and opportunity," the Microsoft spokesperson said in the statement.' The company's denial is in response to Mandriva's CEO Francois Bancilhon expression of disappointment with Microsoft."
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excuse my stupidity (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:excuse my stupidity (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:excuse my stupidity (Score:4, Informative)
(Of course, MS denies that they paid Panasonic anything, but as far as I know the NY Times is sticking to it's story. Maybe it's semantics - say a personal check from Gates is not the same as a payment from Microsoft...)
What version of Windows? If it's XP, well, the jokes on Nigeria. If it's Vista, then that's just cruel and unusual punishment.
Parent
Re:excuse my stupidity (Score:5, Informative)
I skimmed your link but didn't find any reference the NYT story that you say "the NY Times is sticking to". Rather, I saw a bunch of BR fanboys in tears, blaming Microsoft for their troubles. The NYT story to which you refer is Two Studios to Support HD-DVD Over Rival [nytimes.com]
The story cites two unnamed Viacom execs as saying that Paramount received 150 million dollars in financial incentives to dump BR for HD-DVD, but they don't say who the source of the financial incentives is. The same story goes on to *quote* *named* Microsoft VP Amir Majidimehr as denying speculation that Microsoft was the source of any such financial incentives (he said that while it may be that someone paid off Paramount, it wasn't Microsoft). The NYT "sticking to its story" doesn't say much, since the NYT didn't accuse Microsoft of anything. One could just as easily say that the NYT is sticking to its story that Microsoft didn't pay off Paramount, since their story has nobody accusing Microsoft of such and has Microsoft denying speculation of such.
Besides Microsoft VP Amir Majidimehr, Microsoft's Kevin Collins also went on the record saying that Microsoft made no payments to get Paramount to dump BR.
Microsoft Responds to Bill Hunts claims of a buyout [avsforum.com]
Microsoft's version of the story has since been proven correct.
Blu-Ray fanboy Bill Hunt, the primary spreader of the "Microsoft paid off Paramount" story, admitted that he was in the wrong:
Oopsie! Bill Hunt does a mea culpa. Now can the conspiracy theories stop? [avsforum.com]
The idea that Microsoft paid Paramount to dump BR was something that BR fanboys grasped onto (glossing over the fact that Sony did pay off Target to cease stocking HD-DVD players on the shelves).
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
2. "You install Windows or we suddenly stop ignoring how much pirated Microsoft software you're running."
And exactly what is Microsoft going to be able to do to a sovereign Government that pirates their products? Sue them in the United States District Court?
About the only thing I could see happening is they push the US Government to push the WTO to punish them, but this assumes that Nigers economy isn't already in the shitter and that are a member of the WTO (are they?) to begin with.
Re:excuse my stupidity (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:excuse my stupidity (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Legitimate question (Score:3, Insightful)
I do not have mod points but the parent's question is legitimate.
Actually articles that got phrases like "b,c,etc words" should not get to the front page. Besides there being hundreds of words that start with b, it's just bad journalism to write in such a childish way. If you don't want to say the word because it's rude or inappropriate there are most likely synonyms in the English language.
I'm not an english native speaker and i can find a lot of meanings for "b wo
Re: (Score:2)
Re:excuse my stupidity (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:excuse my stupidity (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Nigeria (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nigeria (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
TANSTAAFL (Score:3, Funny)
Pretty bold. (Score:4, Insightful)
Someone with this viewpoint -- please explain this fanboy logic to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Or if a local concrete business lowers their bid by embedding their advertisement in the concrete of a publicly owned road.
Or if a local concr
Re:Pretty bold. (Score:5, Funny)
Please note: the appropriate way to make such a point here is:
Once that's mastered, you can move on to more advanced forms, such as:
Parent
Re:Pretty bold. (Score:5, Insightful)
How can Microsoft undercut something that's already been paid for, apart from giving money per copy of Windows installed?
And when you end up giving money to a government to use something, yes, people do tend to use the word 'bribery' a little.
Parent
Re:Pretty bold. (Score:5, Funny)
Its not hard to win a bid when you're the only bidder..
How can Microsoft undercut something that's already been paid for, apart from giving money per copy of Windows installed?
Perhaps they will charge less and include more support options? Perhaps they'll throw in some licenses for government use?
And when you end up giving money to a government to use something, yes, people do tend to use the word 'bribery' a little.
You don't have any proof that MS gave money for them to ditch Mandriva, do you? Perhaps their offer is better than Mandriva's was, but the government already signed a contract.. so they are paying just to satisfy it.
So, which officals do you think personally received money from MS, and why? Where's your proof? Certainly offering the government a cheaper price or a service package is not bribery, or the simple process of bidding for government contracts would be bribery.
Parent
Re:Pretty bold. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Pretty bold. (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And if part of the 'bribe' is ifnorming Nigeria about all the software that -won't- run on Mandriva but will run on Windows? Maybe they've already GOT some of that software, and they don't want to have to spend money replacing it as well.
One of the unexpected bennies of going all Linux at our household was discovering that a bunch of Windows 3.1 and Dos software that no longer runs on modern Windows (games and educational) suddenly works again. The kids are delighted. JETPACK.EXE might not have 3D graphics, but the gameplay is great. For modern Windows software, I think you'll find that Virtual Box [virtualbox.org] will run any XP software that wine doesn't handle. Or buy VMware and run just about anything that doesn't require high-performance video.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pretty bold. (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess one of the reasons that so many people here are so readily suspicious of bribery (other than Microsoft's dubious business history, or course), is that to many of us here, we don't think it is in Nigeria's interests to replace Linux on these laptops. A very good case can be made that children will learn IT skills more successfully on the Linux system due to a number of factors, but the configurability and openess of the platform being a major part of it, along with a massive existing resource detailing how it works, a supportive (even evangelical) community and not to mention the way a Linux box segues so naturally into a development platform with the wide range of easily available and installable languages, compilers, web-servers, et al. Fostering a native IT community / business is one of the goals of the OLPC program after all. And these same qualities, though not taken advantage of by all, mean that those who do take advantage of it can share the benefits with the rest of their community. This is particularly important when adapting a system to a new culture and / or language. In the long term, we can also all see that the interests of a country are better served by a free and self-maintainable software basis, than a closed proprietary one which, we should remember, gets superseded every few years.
There is also the issue of networking, as one of the in-built features of the existing configuration is that the laptops should very, very easily configure themselves as a mesh network which is hugely useful in an environment where bandwidth is scarce or erratic or both. The idea is that one person gets the driver / package / whatever and then it can quickly be shared around the community or with others. I think we all have an idea how fiddly this could get with XP (or Vista). Which reminds me - the user restrictions are another advantage in Linux which will have a greater effect in this sort of environment where the laptops are more likely passed around and frequently meddled with by people who have yet to learn the do's and don'ts. I've said enough to make my point, but I can't stop thinking of advantages. The lack of all the serial numbers and authentication will likewise be a big plus where people may often want to just stick in a standard install disc and get an "as new" system.
Most of us agree, even if we prefer Windows, that Linux is a serious competitor technically to Windows and that the main thing preventing it having a big market share is that it doesn't already have a big market share (I'm sure you understand what I mean). So the question arises for us, in an environment where it could suddenly have that big market share and eliminate its biggest weakness, and in an environment where it has some large advantages over its rival, would the government of Nigeria suddenly declare they wanted to spend a large amount of money on replacing it with something else?
It doesn't have to be bribery and corruption, but I think you can see why many people who understand the relative merits of the two systems, it seems a very probably explanation.
(And tangentially, to forestall those who think bribery is no different to marketing, it is bribery because it is directing gain to a few decision makers to create a worse deal for the many, many others who will be affected by that decision).
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Wait,,, (Score:5, Funny)
Intel & Microsoft Vs OLPC (Score:5, Interesting)
What's really strange is I can't find anything on this from Microsoft or Intel. You're providing 150,000 laptops at only $200 each to a developing nation for the purposes of education and you don't have a press release outside of that country? Maybe they're just being humble? Or maybe someone was leveraging their ex-boss's many donations to African medicine & development [gatesfoundation.org] to convince the Libyan government to take a different route?
You know, it's great that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is donating all that money to research and aide but if word gets out that they're using that to influence who those countries do business with, I don't think anyone's going to be impressed anymore. There's something fishy going on here, I'll bet you start to see many more countries make the switch to Classmate PCs over OLPCs
Re: (Score:2)
They've been doing it subtly for years. They never make it a condition of the donations but its made clear that gratitude is expected, and that a Christmas card probably won't cut it.
TWW
Re:Intel & Microsoft Vs OLPC (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Someone is going to say it, I'll say it first (Score:5, Funny)
ATTENTION: THE PRESIDENT/DICTATOR
DEAR SIR,
CONFIDENTIAL BUSINESS PROPOSAL
HAVING CONSULTED WITH MY COLLEAGUES AND BASED ON THE INFORMATION GATHERED FROM THE MICROSOFTIAN CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY, I HAVE THE PRIVILEGE TO REQUEST FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE TO TRANSFER THE SUM OF $47,500,000.00 (FORTY SEVEN MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS) INTO YOUR ACCOUNTS. IF YOU ARE ABLE TO REPLACE THE LINNEX SOFTWARES ON THE PC COMPUTER LAPTOPS YOU HAVE PURCHASED WITH WINDOWS, WE WILL BE ABLE TO GIVE YOU A KICKBA--CONSULTING FEE FOR YOUR TROUBLED ASSISTANCE.
YOURS IN MAMMON,
WILLIAM (BILL) GATES.CX
frickin' lameness filter, that's what the scams look like, how else am I supposed to write them? Don't mess with my joke. Defeat the filter, clog the filter, replace the filter with genuine GM parts....
Get the war drums pounding! (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure Microsoft had something to do with their decision, but *maybe* it simply came down to convincing Nigeria that its product was better. It sounds like they are giving Windows out for free, that may have impressed the Nigerian government, and does not constitute bribery.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Er, no, but it does constitute dumping [wikipedia.org].
Why does it have to be a bribe? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why does it have to be a bribe? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
You're right -- it could be all honest. (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what has he gotta do? He's gotta make some money on the side. But how? Well, he figures, he'll get a "commission" on what his department pays. He doesn't know much about IT, he doesn't care much about his department. But he knows how much his expenses are. So, he makes a calculation. He needs X. His commission rate is Y. The total budget he needs is Z = X/Y or thereabouts. Then, he goes shopping.
What does shopping look like? He has some people he trusts, very few. They make some calls, private. They talk about lotsa things, but one thing is repeated. "We have budget Z, and we need an offer". The people being called of course know what Y is, so they figure out they got Z-Y. They make some offers. The minister picks his candidates. Then real work begins.
The suppliers can only be chosen by winning a bid. So, the already agreed offer is then carefully drafted into the conditions for the bidding, in such way that only the chosen can win. Then, after all preparations, the bid is announced, applications are gathered by all -- suckers and winners, and, after a procedure, a winner is announced.
Sometimes suckers try hard. Real hard. They do a lot of work (including some trash-digging and what you not), and even manage to win. But they win the public auction. They never win the one the minister has set up, because they have never had the minister's offer -- it is not for everyone. So, if they win, the minister loses.
That is why even if they win, they never win. There is always a change afterwards, and they kicked out. On a technicality, or a new rule, or just on a whim -- it doesn't matter. They can't win, because they don't even compete. That's how it could work on one side.
Consider the other side now. A big software company is determined not to let go of the market in that country. But what is the market there? First of all, there are the home installs. These are all pirated, and collection is not possible. So, the software vendor scratches them out. For now. There is the business sector. They are also kinda semi-legal, and need to be squeezed, but for that the vendor needs the helping hand from the government. So, the vendor scratches em out
So, the vendor invests a (small) amount in an office, hires some very shrewd local staff. Pays big salary, taxis, etc. All they need to do is get the government deal. So they do. The vendor doesn't want to know how, of course. So they play the "we're so blind" game. Somehow someone in the vendor's office gets the call. Then they are on it. They give the offer. They win.
Then the fun begins. The vendor's formula is usually setup so that from the first (Z - Y) they get enough to finance their operations in that country for a decade. Then another deal comes. And another. The more, the merrier. Until the budget is used up, it is all Z - Y. Relations improve. Then, the government starts to squeeze on the businesses. Then on the home users. And the vendor keeps profiting. The relationship can expand publicly -- and it could be "free" sometimes. Like, all government employees receive "free" licenses for home use. Or some schools get "free" licenses. Or some instiutions. There maybe some protests from other interested parties.
But, whatever happens on the surface, the game is the same. There is always the Z - Y equation in the background. Those who don't compete in that auction never win. Even when they do. And so it goes.
Parent
Welcome to the 21st century. (Score:3, Insightful)
Most of what you say stopped being true in the late 90s.
If MS came by later and offered free, or heavily discounted copies of Windows, I could see how Nigeria would accept it.
For it to even start to break even, M$ is going to have to pay to have it installed as well as providing all of the required software free of charge. Note that M$ does not own all of the software required, like Adobe Reader, Flash and countless other must have software packages.
[Windows] vastly increases the range of application
They have to do the evolution also (Score:4, Funny)
begin troll: ... windows NT, 95, 98, me, xp, with some linuxes, redhat, slackware, etc in the middle and then i finished my OS evolution in Mandrake, that latter became Mandriva.
So I began in DOS 3.3, then i upgraded to 5.0 , 6.0 windows 3.1
I paid for all the hardware/software from my pocket in between all those evolutions. And now those ugly, poor, ignorant, future scammers africans kids will get a free laptop that would come with the best OS i found until today for free ?!?!? NO WAY !!!! Make them known that evolution doesn't come for free ! GIVE THEM VISTA !!! Make them know that evolution has a path and a price ! Leave them to suffer with Vista light with DRM and crippleware, don't forget to install norton antivirus and WGA. After that when they think that they can live well without computers offer them slackware linux, them give them gentoo, and when they understand the evolution of the OS finally let them install Mandriva. :end troll
So march the Developers of war (Score:3, Interesting)
We should stop waiting around for others to do our work for us and stand on our own merits. Let me give an example.
We are closer to an Exchange solution than everyone thinks. If eGroupware and Kontact supported Kerberos over XML-RPC, Exchange would be finished. eGroupware and Kontact replicate all the features of Exchange and has a technologically superior advantage of funneling everything over HTTP. But it doesn't support Kerberos so it becomes a total nuisense to configure. The fact that Evolution does not support XMLRPC at all is just insane.
On the Open Office Front. Continue to support ODF, if changes need to be made to ODF to support more features, extend the features. Create versions of ODF backward and foreward compatible. And do whatever it takes to reverse engineer OOXML so that OO.org can read them, and resave them as ODF. Lets start really getting serious and making the bastards pay.
I Don't Get It (Score:4, Insightful)
When everyone asks for the same deal ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Further businesses too will realize their negotiating power with MSFT will increase if they could bluff that they are switching to Linux. Again if MSFT calls their bluff and they could not switch, then they would be a deeper hole. So at least a few businesses would realize that the best way to negotiate a deal with MSFT is to reduce their switching cost to Linux as low as possible. Those companies will eschew deep ties and multiple levels of dependency on MSFT tools. This is how monopolies crack in free markets. Illegal acts by the monopolists can prolong, sometime by very long time, the cracks. But if the monopoly the Church had over the affairs of Europe for 1000 years cracked, why not MSFT's control over businesses for just 2 decades?
Offshoring (Score:3, Interesting)
Nigeria is one of the few countries in Africa where the economy is not a complete basket case. These countries (particularly South Africa, Botswana, Egypt, Kenya and Nigeria) are currently setting up call centres and have stated long term goals to become off-shoring destinations. While there is some off-shoring in the open source world there is a huge market for off-shoring in the Microsoft world. Perhaps the government of Nigeria is looking at that market and thinking that they could take a chunk of India's off-shoring revenue in a few years. If so, training their people to use Windows machines instead of Linux could be considered an investment in the future.
Okay, I've read the letter. (Score:3, Interesting)
Good thing François didn't actually call names because that would have been slander (please excuse my English Legalese if I used the wrong term).
Now if I would be Steve, and almost be called names based on nothing but assumptions after winning a round fairly, I don't think I would care much. The taste of victory would just be too strong.
If I *would* have bribed someone, I'd probably care even less. The letter doesn't tell me anything I don't already know.
If I would be Steve, had bribed someone and someone could prove it- Now that might make make me throw around a chair or two.
Cultural Context / FCPA (Score:3, Insightful)
Bribery and corruption is just a fact of life in most of the world. I have been living in a developing nation for over a year now, and I can say from experience that most Slashdotters who are writing from the U.S. or Europe have no idea how endemic, and even accepted, corruption is outside the West. If the allegation were true, it would not be the least bit surprising to the average Nigerian.
Microsoft would not bribe the Nigerian government. They would bribe a few well-placed officials, then charge the Nigerian government enough to cover both their costs and their bribes and earn a tidy profit.
Supposing the alleged allegation is true, the winners would Microsoft and a few Nigerian decision-makers. The losers would be the Nigerian taxpayers and/or, if costs were passed on to the schools that use the computers, the children.
However, if a bribe were given, under the FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act), someone at Microsoft would be criminally liable. U.S. citizens who bribe overseas government officials are subject to prosecution at home.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
He'd even get bonus points for getting round the EULA by hinting heavily enough that it really ought to be illegal under Nigerian law.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, you are mistaken. The Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba languages use the Latin alphabet.
Re:What was the purpose of the OLPC project again (Score:3, Insightful)
It certainly wasn't to promote MS Windows to the developing world or to lock them into proprietary standards. Plus, I think, a certain amount of thought went into tailoring the Linux distro and user interface for the target market.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Neither, the point of OLPC was to provide hardware, software, and content support for a particular model of education around which the XO's hardware and software and associated content have been developed. Openness, in the OSS sense, supports both flexibility for the user of the system and the model of education that the OLPC is centered around (though it is neither strictly necessary to nor sufficient for tha