Mandriva's Open Letter To Steve Ballmer 357
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."
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:excuse my stupidity (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:Intel & Microsoft Vs OLPC (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pretty bold. (Score:2, Informative)
Donating the product for free: Donation
Giving the government (not an official) more money than the value of the product, on the condition it is used: Hybrid of both?
Regardless, I think the fanbois will say that MS didn't bribe them, and Nigeria just came to their senses, and realized a better product was available. Never having used either solution, I can't say where I stand. However, reading that open letter tells me why Mandriva is not, and will never be a major player as long as Mr. Whiner is in charge. The tone seemed more of a bitchfest than anything trying to acquire more people in his court, without actually moving for a change. There was recently an article on CNN where a political pundit was talking about how so many people can complain, but so few actually do anything beyond that when something goes wrong. This open letter strikes me as that kind of thing, brought down to 5th grade level.
Re:Get the war drums pounding! (Score:3, Informative)
Er, no, but it does constitute dumping [wikipedia.org].
Re:Missing details (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, you are mistaken. The Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba languages use the Latin alphabet.
Re:could be either (Score:3, Informative)
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: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).