CD Duplicator Refuses Linux Job, Citing MS Contract

Jonathon writes "Seems a Microsoft imposed restraint of trade agreement and concerns about the SCO suit have prevented a New Zealand company duplicating 500 CDs for our upcoming installfest. The installfest was mentioned on /. just days ago."

Act like you have a pair

[TitanBL]

Later, he said Microsoft's lawyers' advice was: "It's conjecture. It depends on who, what, when, the technology, and a whole bunch of things and the Herald is not a good place to get into a legal discussion." He went on to explain: Have you ever been pussy whipped by your girfriend? Well, if you have, you would understand our relationship with microsoft.

The company's name

[McAddress]

The name Yesterday Technology certainly describes the company perfectly, choosing Windows over Linux, that is so 1995.

Re:The company's name

[calyxa]

but from where I sit, it's 5 hours ago tomorrow in NZ. when the programmers there put together a new build for me to test, I get 'software from the future'!

-calyxa

Re:Not so surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

leaving the world without a reliable and secure OS

Uh. It's not as if *BSD is dying or something. ;)

Next /. headline in company's future.

[mikeophile]

Linux Community Refuses to Give Business to CD Duplicator, Citing Questionable Ethics

The dumb company in question...

[Anonymous Coward]

Give them the slashdot treatment! [swimages.co.nz]
hehe

Re:When is the Fall of MicroSoft Scheduled anyway?

[BiggerIsBetter]

No empire lasts forever, are the masses at the gates of the castle yet?

No, but the masses have surrounded the castle of Gates!

I need to keep quiet ...

[Alain Williams]

and not tell my electricity supply company that I use Linux at home, just in case they decide that because some of my neighbours run M$ boxes, that they can't supply me with power any more.

CD mass duplication

[phalse phace]

The problem can easily be solved by picking up a few of these CD burners [slashdot.org]. 500 CDs? No problem!

Why not break into the RIAA storehouse?

[teamhasnoi]

With all those 436x burners that they've had seized, the Linux guys could have 500 cds in the blink of an eye!

An eye punctured with shards of flying CD, of course. Hillary can oversee the whole operation! But only for a minute...AHHH!

>;C MY EYES!

I have a vision.....

[pair-a-noyd]

Of angry villagers, marching up the road with pitchforks and torches in hand.

Er, what's the name of that street in Redmond??

No no no

[Anonymous Coward]

You are going about it all wrong. Here's how it works:

I was checking out their web page [swimages.co.nz] and it's pretty slick. Each time you go to it, they feed you a graphic of a different person up top. Presumably employees, although they could be models. Anyway, I reloaded the page (shift-reload in moz) a few times checking to see how many different ones they had, and imagine my surprise when, after about six hundred reloads, up popped Natalie Portman, nude and petrified!!!!! [swimages.co.nz]

I guess it's an easter egg, pretty well hidden too, not like the managers are going to sit there and shift-reload over and over again, no-one but the horny nerd that did the page for him and maybe some of his friends, and all the horny nerds here at slashdot now that I discovered it. Yipeee! Make sure and save the image once it comes up, otherwise you have to do the whole thing from scratch to see it again. [swimages.co.nz]

Re:Not so surprising

[jkrise]

"says a lot about how Microsoft treat their suppliers."

And OTOH, they reward their loyal clients with Palladium, LookOut, spam, Subscription (dis)Advantage, BSA audits etc. Being an MS loyalist is tricky business!!

Re:The company's name

[TheRaven64]

Well, if they won't let people copy Linux CDs because of MS, send an XP cd and ask for 500 copies...

LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

[~]% telnet linuxforums.co.nz 80
Trying 202.49.94.189...
Connected to linuxforums.co.nz.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET / HTTP/1.0

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Microsoft-IIS/5.0
Content-Location: http://192.168.0.1/index.html
Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2003 09:37:07 GMT
Content-Type: text/html
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Last-Modified: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 21:40:04 GMT
ETag: "86a02fd94f34c31:927"
Content-Length: 2220

Ha!

[TheDredd]

I bet if I walked in there with a copy of UT 2003 and asked for 500 copies of it they would say: "No problem, mr Smith"

Re:Next time you wanna make Linux CDs, call Malays

[mirko]

rejection rate of less than 0.5 %
So, that means in doubt they should burn 3 more CDs to have the 500 required.
Will this help them benefit from the 501-1000-unit batch cheaper than the 1-500-unit one ?

Re:Ha!

[MadJo]

No, I think they would refuse it. Because it is not a Microsoft product.

Re:The Installfest

[TopShelf]

As one of the helpers for the installfest, I can say that this is pretty much only going to help our cause. We couldn't ask for better advertising (both the NZ Herald, and Slashdot).

I'm sure the Society told these guys, "if you turn us down, we'll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine..."

Re:Not so surprising

[Anonymous Coward]

STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL
My Dear Friend IBM,

I am highly compelled upon strict recommendation, to write you this very
urgent and confidential letter.I do hope my letter will not embarrass you
since I had no previous correspondence with you.I hope this mail will not
come to you as a surprise.I am sending this proposal with due sense of
humanity, responsibility and with few awareness that you will give it a
sympathetic attention. I regret to the inconvenience it may cause you base on
the condition that we have not met before.

I wish to use this opportunity to introduce myself to you, I am Mr. Darl
McBride,the CEO of the former proprietor of Unixware in my home city of
Lindon, Utah, My Vice President Christopher Sontag had a synflood shot by the
GNU rebels on his way travelling to White Plains, a city after New York, your
headquarters along with my daughter, My daughter died on the spot while the
HP-UX team rescued my Vice President, he was taken to hospital for medical
treatment which he later died about three months now.

Fortunately, My Company has Ten million and Five hundred thousand United
States Dollars(US$10.5 million) cash, which he intended to use for investment
purposes overseas. This money is kept with private security company in Europe
since two years ago. It is only my son and myself that know where the money
is kept and has the documents for it.

Due to the current situation in the market concerning GNU's vendettas towards
my family, we seek your assistance to transfer the ownership of this fund to
you so that you can asisst us to claim it and used for the purpose of
investment as intended by my Vice President.

My family is currently being probed by this present GNU for alleged
involvement in misappropriation of GPL code during his regime.

Towards this effect, an embargo restricting my family members from traveling
or carrying out financial transactions without their express permission is in
force. Right now, my son and myself have concluded plans and decided to take
immediate claim of this fund so that we can use it to better our lives and
alliviate our present suffering hence this contact.

However, I have an arrangement on how you can help us to recieve this money
after receiving some assurances from you. The money personally belongs to my
Vice President and he intended that it still be used for investment. No
record ever existed concerning this money, neither is the money traceable by
the GNU rebels because there is no documentation concerning the funds in the
SEC reports. Bearing in mind that your assistance is needed to transfer this
fund, we propose a commission of 20% (Twenty Percent) of the total sum to you
for the expected services and assistance. While 5% is mapped out for
miscellaneous expenses.

On your positive consent, I shall expect you to contact me urgently to enable
us discuss about this.Your urgent response is highly needed. I must use this
opportunity to implore you to exercise utmost indulgence to keep this matter
extraordinarily confidential, while I await your prompt response.

Best regards,

MR. DARL MCBRIDE, SCO LINDON UTAH

The Sheriff of Nottingham

[mousse-man]

Looks like we need a new Robin Hood who shoots the Sheriff of Nottingham and gives software to the poor.

You CAN pirate Gnu/Linux - 2 ways

[abe ferlman]

1. Offer the binaries without a corresponding offer for the source code.

2. Hijack the ship coming from Malaysia with all the linux cd's. Equipment you'll need: eyepatch, parrot, pegleg, makeshift plank for the crew to walk, silly accent. Say "Yarrrrrr!" a lot and complain about scurvy.

Re:Next time you wanna make Linux CDs, call Malays

[carambola5]

-Hi, Malaysia? Is this Malaysia?
-Yes sir. You have reached the tourist center for Malaysia. How may I help you?
-I need 500 CDs burned fast!
-Excuse me sir?
-Like I said, I need 500 CDs burned and shipped before Saturday. I read about your country's amazing capabilities to do something like this on Slashdot and I figured I'd give it a shot.
-I'm sorry sir, this is a tourist hotline.
-Don't get smart with me, buddy. I know for a FACT that all you guys up in Malaysia are in the CD pirating business. Don't make me turn you in.
-I'd be happy to refer you to our Business Bureau.
-You don't get it! I don't want a bureau. I want some CDs. Legal CDs! Linux CDs! And you guys have to make them.
-I'm sorry sir, but I just can't help you.
-Sheesh. What do I need to do to get your country to make some CDs for me? Do I need to bribe you?
-Sir, you'll have to contact someone else for your needs. I can't help you.
-Sure you can. You're from Malaysia, and Malaysia makes CDs. Now what's it gonna take? Twenty dollars? A few shiny trinkets? You Malaysians go for that kind of stuff, right?
-<click>

FUD & GAMES

[MountainLogic]

My favorite expansion is FUD & GAMES

FUD = Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
GAMES = God Always Makes Engineers Suffer

Re:Helping the cause

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice I don't play it during the week because I am one of those types of people who has a job and does that instead of worring about what games my computer can play.

So, instead, at 10am on a weekday, you're posting on slashdot about what games you play?

Re:Helping the cause

[OrangeTide]

Ouch.

Re:Helping the cause

[Anonymous Coward]

RTFM ya lame newbie!

Just helping to ease your transition :D

Re:What are we trying to achive??

[Anonymous Coward]

All of this bunch belong in JAIL!!! The SCO Bunch for attempting to "pump 'n' dump" their stock at Linux's expense And Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer for TREASON for displaying their source code to COMMUNIST CHINA and having as their second largest businass partner a company from the national homeland of AL QUIDA, All of this in order to continue to prop up their TREASONOUS ONE WORLD "Global Corperation" MONOPOLY!!!