Blog @ MoreWhat.com

The Darth Vader of information technology has been very active this year. Precisely when the United States is in the midst of a national debate on critical issues, Bill Gates stands as the poster boy for what is wrong with corporate America. While spewing pleasant sounding descriptions on his version of American history mixed with less than subtle promotion of his corporate agenda, Gates again used the influence of his obscene wealth to ‘encourage’ Congress to do as he says. Here is the first excerpt from his testimony before a Senate hearing in March of this year.

Unfortunately, America’s immigration policies are driving away the world’s best and brightest precisely when we need them most. I appreciate the vital national security goals that motivate many of these policies. I am convinced, however, that we can protect our national security in ways that do less damage to our competitiveness and prosperity.

Moreover, the terrible shortfall in our visa supply for the highly skilled stems not from security concerns, but from visa policies that have not been updated in over a decade and a half. We live in a different economy now. Simply put: It makes no sense to tell well-trained, highly skilled individuals – many of whom are educated at our top colleges and
universities – that the United States does not welcome or value them.

Are you convinced that Bill Gates only has our best interests at heart? You will notice he did not mention why he prefers imported labor rather than the home grown variety. This early in the testimony Mr Gates declined to insult Americans about their abilities to compete for jobs in the tech sector. Later he expresses a ‘concern’ that Americans educated in American schools are 2nd rate but has just stated foreign-born individuals taught at the same schools are the best and the brightest. This is the less than subtle promotion Mr. Gates uses to express his desire for cheaper, more obedient and submissive foreign talent over American candidates.

You are encouraged to read the entire testimony at the link provided. Mr Gates lobbies for American business to be able to educate all the world in our schools and immediately allow the rest of the world to live and work here or else, as he warns, American business will continue to sidestep their responsibility by moving jobs offshore. Here is the most recent evidence of his lack of patience and intent to use whatever means necessary to reach his objective.

Toronto Mayor and Microsoft Canada open digital arts and technology skills centre in Jamestown, Rexdale

Rexdale Pro Tech Media Centre to offer community members skills
development through access to technology and education

MISSISSAUGA, ON, July 3 /CNW/ - Together with Toronto Mayor David Miller,
Microsoft Canada today launched the Rexdale Pro Tech Media Centre in Jamestown
- one of 13 priority neighbourhood areas identified by the City of Toronto for
focused support and investment. The Centre will provide free access to
state-of-the-art technology including digital arts and Microsoft curricula to
introduce Jamestown and Rexdale youth to potential careers in new media while
providing computer literacy skills. The Centre was made possible through joint
collaboration with community partners and by a Microsoft Community Technology
Skills (CTS) grant which includes a cash donation, software, hardware and
technical support valued at over $400,000 CDN.

The story above is one of many examples of Bill Gates and Microsoft bribing officials and communities who are quite willing to accept a deal with the devil to achieve their goals, right or wrong. The country where Gates amassed his wealth receives no ‘give back’ sentiment from the world’s wealthiest individual. His apparent true philosophy is what have you done for me lately.

Canada’s cities shortchanged and tapped out

Don Cayo, Vancouver Sun
Published: Friday, July 06, 2007
If big cities are to fulfil their potential as the principal drivers of Canada’s economy, they must go far beyond their original role as simple providers of property-related services such as street-building and repair, police and fire services, garbage collection, water and sewer services.

They also need to make themselves attractive to the new generation of knowledge-based revenue generators — those highly skilled people who can live anywhere they choose.

Thursday’s announcement that Microsoft’s first Canadian software development centre will be located in Vancouver underlines the importance of civic amenities that tip the balance when a company can locate wherever it wants.

That’s right. Cave to the power and influence of corporate greed. Nothing helps sustain the repeated use of unethical business practices more than public officials willing to abandon principle to achieve short term gains. Engaging in long term alliances that will require continued disregard for proper public policy runs counter to good government.

The latest indication of Microsoft/Bill Gates’ disinterest in the public good is featured in news related to the GPLv3 licensing and the software giant’s entrance into matters of open source. Currently this blog has no opinion on MS’s responsibility under law, if any, on matters of open source. The only point to be made is whether anyone sincerely expected Microsoft to be truly concerned about advancing the promise of open source? Offering the swamp land in Florida or the Brooklyn Bridge for sale to those who believe that is another scam that would succeed with that mentality.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Microsoft tries evading new GPL grasp

By Stephen Shankland
Fri Jul 06, 2007
Microsoft on Thursday took steps to avoid entanglement with a new version of the General Public License, the most widely used license in the free and open-source software domain.

Microsoft: ‘Your Puny GPLv3 Can’t Hold Us!’

By Terrence Russell
July 06, 2007 | 2:00:52 PM
Steve_ballmer Strange things are afoot over in Redmond. With the release of the GPLv3 last week, it’s already been suspiciously quiet over at Microsoft. Even more perplexing was the software giant’s statement yesterday regarding the GPLv3:

Linux official lines up with Microsoft against GPLv3

‘Too many owners of Linux’ to change basis of free software license
By Paul Krill
The new GNU General Public License (GPL) version 3 is not a fit for Linux because switching would require permission from the kernel’s thousands of de-facto owners, a maintainer of the SCSI portion of the kernel said on Thursday.

At the same time Microsoft released a statement that the company has no obligations under GPLv3.

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson’s Website, The Virtuous Republic, Rosemary’s Thoughts, DeMediacratic Nation, Big Dog’s Weblog, Webloggin, Stuck On Stupid, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Cao’s Blog, Conservative Thoughts, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, third world county, Planck’s Constant, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, and Public Eye, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

CAGW Disputes Sen. Dorgan’s Remarks on Net Neutrality

WASHINGTON, April 27 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Citizens Against
Government Waste (CAGW) today challenged Sen. Byron Dorgan’s (D-N.D.)
comments on the issue of net neutrality and warned against enacting any
type of legislation that would hurt growth and the free market on the
Internet.
Sen. Dorgan held a conference call with reporters on April 26, the
occasion of pro-net neutrality group SavetheInternet.com’s one year
anniversary. Sen. Dorgan said, “The Internet became a robust engine of
economic development by enabling anyone with a good idea to connect to
consumers and compete on a level playing field. The marketplace picked
winners and losers, not some central gatekeeper. That freedom — the very
core of what makes the Internet what it is today — must be preserved.”
“If net neutrality is enacted, Congress itself will become the
gatekeeper by imposing restrictive and unnecessary controls. Any attempt to
regulate the Internet would create an unneeded layer of government
bureaucracy on a technology that has thrived precisely because regulations
have been absent,” said CAGW President Tom Schatz.
In January, Sen. Dorgan reintroduced the misnamed Internet Freedom
Preservation Act (S. 215) in the Senate. Net neutrality would mandate that
Internet service providers carry every single piece of content and every
service available, regardless of cost or need. Content providers have
expressed concern that the ISPs would either block content or create
different tiers of online services. Such differential pricing occurs in
virtually all forms of commerce, such as charging more for faster delivery
of packages by UPS or Federal Express. Should net neutrality become law and
traffic on the Internet continue to skyrocket, the delivery of important
content, such as medical information, will receive the same treatment as
spam.
Editorial voices on op-ed pages as diverse as those of the New York
Times and Wall Street Journal have criticized net neutrality as a false
issue. Last June, the Washington Post editorialized, “The weakest aspect of
the neutrality case is that the dangers it alleges are speculative. It
seems unlikely that broadband providers will degrade Web services that
people want and far more likely that they will use non-neutrality to charge
for upgrading services that depend on fast and reliable delivery, such as
streaming high-definition video or relaying data from heart monitors.”
“Net neutrality is nothing but a solution looking for a problem. This
kind of aggressive law-making would violate the principles of both the free
market and common sense. Stepping in now could adversely affect taxpayers
and consumers by stifling the development of the high-speed Internet
services America needs to keep its economy growing and nation competitive,”
concluded Schatz.
Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit
organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and
mismanagement in government.

SOURCE Citizens Against Government Waste

Internet Freedom Coalition Responds to Moveon.org’s Resurrected ‘Net Neutrality’ Agenda

WASHINGTON, April 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Jason Wright, co-founder of the Internet Freedom Coalition, today released the following statement in response to Moveon.org and their “Save The Internet” 1st anniversary conference call with reporters:

“The inappropriately named ‘Save the Internet’ coalition is back at it, celebrating their first year of existence - a year that only has served to threaten innovation. Today’s call with reporters was more of the same. Their goal is to cripple innovation and saddle the world’s freest market - the Internet - with government regulation. Why has this group failed to get their agenda passed? Because they have dreamt up the perfect regulation in search of a complaint. They offer a solution to what is only a hypothetical problem.

“Look at their track record. They lost the federal fight to install network neutrality in 2006. Backers of net neutrality legislation in Maryland this year reversed their support and voted the bill down. The bill in California was pulled over public outcry against this onerous, unproductive call for fixing a problem that doesn’t exist.

“Consumers are winning. Access to broadband in America continues to grow as competition in the marketplace has driven prices down, making high speed broadband more affordable to a cross section of America. The number of applications utilizing these information networks has thrived: online education, telemedicine and shopping from the comfort of your own home - to name only a few. All without government meddling or intervention. If Moveon.org succeeds in regulating the Internet, it will have the effect of creating real problems - like freezing innovation in time - while ’solving’ a non-existent one.”

ABOUT IFC:

The Internet Freedom Coalition is a group of more than 30 like-minded free-market, limited government non-profit associations, individuals and think-tanks including: Americans for Prosperity, Americans for Tax Reform, Black America’s Political Action Committee, Catholic Citizenship, Center for Freedom and Prosperity, Center for Individual Freedom, Citizen Outreach, Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Cornerstone Policy Research, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Ethan Allen Institute, Frontiers of Freedom, Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, Illinois Policy Institute, Independent Women’s Forum, Institute for Liberty, Iowa Association of Scholars, Kansas Taxpayers Network, Media Freedom Project, National Taxpayers Union, Ohio Taxpayers Association & OTA Foundation, Public Interest Institute, Reason Foundation, RightMarch.com, TechPolicyWatch.com, The Maine Heritage Policy Center, Tennessee Center for Policy Research

CAGW Tells Congress to Keep Their Hands off the Internet

WASHINGTON, April 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — Citizens Against
Government Waste (CAGW) today urged Congress to say no to a national
broadband policy and government intrusion of the Internet. After the
release of a world-wide broadband usage report, Senate and House Committees
held hearings today to examine the need for further government involvement
in broadband service in light of other countries’ policies.
“The Internet has thrived in America precisely because it has been free
from government interference. The implementation of burdensome regulations,
wasteful subsidies, and complicated tax breaks that other countries are
imposing will only stifle growth and innovation,” said CAGW President Tom
Schatz. “Competition and the free market must be allowed to continue to
work.”
The Organization for Economic Co-Operation & Development (OECD)
Broadband Statistics to December 2006 report was released on April 23.
While finding that the U.S. has the most total broadband subscribers of the
30 studied countries, it ranked the United States 15th in
broadband-deployment penetration. The survey does not disclose how it
obtained its numbers and does not take into account population density or
supply and demand.
The Rural Utilities Service (RUS) is an example of an ineffective
government program charged with increasing broadband access. Besides the
more than $30 million in broadband loans that have gone into default, the
program has lost its focus on serving rural America. The RUS has been
subsidizing private companies to provide broadband in suburban
neighborhoods that would have received service anyway. Instead of allowing
the free market to work, efficient private sector forces are crowded out by
government subsidies.
According to a September 2005 audit by the USDA Inspector General (IG),
“RUS has not exclusively served those rural communities most requiring
Federal assistance to obtain access to broadband technologies. Because RUS’
definition of ‘rural area’ is too broad to distinguish usefully between
suburban and rural communities, the agency has issued over $103.4 million
in grants and loans (nearly 12 percent of $895 million in total program
funds) to communities near metropolitan areas.” The IG report noted “one of
the more highly publicized cases, [where] RUS issued loans to a company
providing broadband access to affluent suburban communities a few miles
outside of Houston, Texas.”
“Instead of increasing government control, Congress should remove
barriers to the further flourishing of Internet usage and access by
rejecting net neutrality, continuing the Internet tax ban, and protecting
intellectual property,” concluded Schatz.
Citizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit
organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and
mismanagement in government.

SOURCE Citizens Against Government Waste

Try as I do, apparently I’m not getting through to you clones. (apologies to Jim Rome). It feels like a one man campaign against the onslaught of mindless acceptance to the path of least resistance. It confirms the proposition that most human beings are incapable of making choices for themselves and if the options available require more than a modicum of effort they will be ignored for the easiest answer. This happens throughout the business world and the sellers of inferior solutions couldn’t be happier. The effect of consumers making poor choices results in companies continuing business as usual as long as the public accepts it as reflected in the news story below.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Microsoft shares gain as earnings surge

MarketWatch
By John Letzing, MarketWatch. SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Microsoft Corp. shares jumped more than 3% on Friday, a day after the company posted a 65% surge in fiscal third-quarter profit thanks to sales of new products such as the Vista operating …

Microsoft cannot get it right even when it is someone else’s product.
(MoreWhat.com staff)

Microsoft ordered to pay Alcatel-Lucent $1.5 bln in patent case
SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — A federal jury in San Diego on Thursday ordered Microsoft Corp. to pay a $1.52 billion judgment for infringing on digital-music patents owned by Alcatel-Lucent.

The Dems favor net neutrality and the GOP does not. This sounds a little more like traditional stands of party politics. If the internet, and more specifically the blogosphere, continues to exert influence on issues at the current rate, the face of politics may evolve as an entirely new animal. Or it may only reflect a shift in the tools of the trade.

Not unlike big business, politics requires establishing a rigid structure to limit interference from outsiders. Power and influence dictates the agenda and often the outcome. This restricts innovation and impedes the flow of ideas. Innovation is generally the domain of startups and small entities unencumbered by the desire to crush competition. The internet among other things is an environment that fosters innovation. It is possible that the opponents of equal access for all are only interested in protecting their kingdoms. However, some who claim to be in favor of innovation may only support it as a mechanism to regain the power and influence. Distinguishing the two is problematic.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Neutrality On the Net Gets High ‘08 Profile

Bloggers and other Internet activists made their marks in the past two presidential elections chiefly by building networks of political enthusiasts and raising money for candidates. Now, they are pushing aggressively into policymaking — and not just over high-profile issues such as Iraq.

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Vista system’s full of glitches

Now Toronto, Canada
You can tell by the latest Apple ads featuring Mac personified mocking Mr. PC because Vista’s security systems are more trouble than they’re worth. ..

We would stop posting these unflattering reports on Microsoft and the great and powerful OZ, but we simply cannot HELP ourselves.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

It would be in the interest of everyone in the open source community
and equally beneficial for the remainder of the world to shun Novell
and SUSE Linux lest they and Microsoft become successful as the
new Axis of Evil on the planet.

Microsoft has played the IT version of Star Wars’ Darth Vader for
many years and their deal with Novell is one more step to complete
the cast of the Empire Strikes Back. Only JEDI warrior Red Hat is
helping the Skywalker Fedora attempt commercial and open source
alliances that should be one path to the future. An alliance like all
the ones that work due to benefit to both sides of the equation.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

Novell Sells Out

Thursday, November 02 2006 @ 05:55 PM EST

You can read the press release for yourself. Novell is paying
Microsoft for its patents, and will pay royalties ongoing. Microsoft
in turn promises not to sue individual non-commercial coders or
paid coders who contribute to SUSE:

Under the patent agreement, both companies will make up-front
payments in exchange for a release from any potential liability
for use of each others patented intellectual property, with a net
balancing payment from Microsoft to Novell reflecting the larger
applicable volume of Microsoft’s product shipments. Novell will
also make running royalty payments based on a percentage of its
revenues from open source products.

Industry Reactions Mixed About Novell/Microsoft
eWeek, NY -
The Nov. 2 announcement of a mutual-assistance contract
between Microsoft and Novell has been greeted by others
with reactions ranging from modest hopes for …