CD Duplicator Refuses Linux Job, Citing MS Contract 491
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."
Re:weird.. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a private company (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know about NZ, but where I live there (and it ain't silicon valley) there must be a dozen or more businesses in very easy distance which do CD mass duplication. So here's a tip: just ask somebody else.
YRO (Score:5, Insightful)
Since this is under YRO, I figured I'd ask: whose rights are being violated here? (I can't see any rights violations)
This seems more like a story about how evil Microsoft is. And evil they are, which is why I neither purchase nor support their software.
Don't you just love non-compete clauses? (Score:4, Insightful)
And as long as they mentioned SCO, I would love to see them driven into the ground for what they're doing.
Re:Not so surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, I don't think it'll go down like that. I mean, sure, Software Images didn't get the contract for 500 CDs, but someone else (like Stebbing Recording Ltd?) did and they probably made a buck out of it. I think it is Bill that needs to watch his back, lest the a flock of hungry penguins eat all the herring while he's busy throwing FUD into the media.
Silly little companies like SI need to go out of business. It sounds like they're being MS-NZ's little bitch, and while that's good for the moment (if you like biting the pillow, that is), I don't expect they'll get any OSS business in the future. Is that a big thing? Yes, because that's the direction the market is moving and they've just blown themselves out of that game.
Re:Not so surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
Let them know how you feel ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's a private company (Score:5, Insightful)
This is more or less what happens with monopolies. They tell people who do good business with them that they can't do business with their competitors.
Now, I'm not saying that this is right or wrong (monopolies have to do something to stay in business, since they're so big and normal practices stop working), but it's something worth discussing.
Now what... (Score:5, Insightful)
what i wanted to say is, companies like IBM, SUN, Oracle, Redhat, Suse and others are losing money, credability, business, and are instead gaining lots of headache, questions, bla bla bla...
Why the fuck dont they just group, put an end to it. They already spent billions in investments on Linux, espically IBM and Oracle(who supported Linux clustering), if they care for their business and investments, they should act, and FAST, before this thing really grows and starts to actually draw back customers who had linux on their considered solution list, knowing that Linux opened new business grounds for them, and they cant deny it, they owe linux exactly s much as linux owed them...
Re:This could be a good thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
The trouble is Who will do the suing?
IBM? Redhat? Knoppix??? certainly not Knoppix.
Lets face it, even though this is in NZ, it sets a very nasty precedent internationally.
And although IBM have been playing it cool, as they should, with the rabid SCO flinging mud everywhere the concerning thing is that some of that mud might stick.
Feature for feature, tech for tech and even on usability grounds Linux is beginning to really become a desktop option with mountains more flexibility than Windows - any flavour of windows.
MS have played very very dirty in the past, and it would not surprise me in the slightest if it's their intention to do so again, and this case is testing the waters. Anyone remember Stacker?
However this is a delicate time for Linux in the hearts and minds of the general uninformed masses.
For the criminally insane at SCO to get some of their allegations to stick is a significant blow in Linux Marketing in the short term.
It would help significantly if IBM made an big, loud, international, and official statement about the Damage SCO is doing to their market and reputation, and threaten serious legal action.
A response form IBM like this would strengthen, not damage the reputation of Linux and Open Source software.
Rusty, Tridge, Martin, have you fellows had smoco with some IBM lawyers recently?
Re:It's a private company (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually; no. There are usually rules (don't know about New Zealand, but a lot of other countries have them), stating that a company can not discriminate people. I.e. they can not choose not to sell their product(s) to a specific segment of the population based on social status or ethnic background.
I have no idea what kind of laws and regulations you are referring to.
Then again, YLLMV (Your Local Laws May Vary).
Re:Not so surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
Finally (Score:4, Insightful)
My few cents. (Score:3, Insightful)
a) The Open Source community used to be a nice one, the philosophy of it was valued high in the first couple of years but meanwhile the entire situation has changed. Companies are trying to protect their IP, other companies don't work fair with the Open Source company by not backporting their changes in the original sources and so on.
b) The audience changed totally, you need to deal with more and more complaining and ranting people every day. People that are always dis-satisfied regardless what you do. Even I as Programmer need to deal with these people. I spent my time writing the programms, fixing bugs, answering technical emails, pay for the Webspace, offer the software and yet you need to deal with dis-satisfied people all overwhere which leads into demotivation of doing something better.
c) Many people wandered off from Linux and Open Source by using alternative Systems (preferabely MacOSX) thus they have a working, aesthetical, nice, round and standardized desktop environment with all tested tools. They can get their work done and don't care for Linux and it's Open Source that much anymore as they initially did. A lot of people started to work a lot less on Open Source because they don't see the need to do this anymore because they get all the software with better quality offered on their alternative System.
Here an example: A lot of GNOME developer moved away working on MacOSX these days and don't look back, while they still help with various fixes, coding etc. they still do this as funjob, they don't see the need to work as hard to make a good Desktop because they have a Microsoft independant OS (MacOSX) which offers them everything and more than GNOME for example. Of course they also see the points written by me here with all the ranting people, no fair play of companies and the general demotivation.
Face it, we all like to be honoured for our work, we all like to hear 'thank you' from the people outside that we spent our time working our ass off on the tools we offer. But the reality is that we deal more with complaining people rather than people who said 'thank you'. We all like to earn some money with what we do. Look, we sit down the entire day, weeks, months working on the Tool, we pay for Webspace and more and we don't even get the money back for the Webspace we pay once per year.
Open Source is indeed a nice thing but the times has heavily changed, complaining users, demotivation, dirty play with companies, sueing of people who wrote Open Source applications like the freecraft person. A very nice game and now it's not available anymore because he got is ass sued off.
Think about it, is it really worth the trouble ? We should concentrate back to the old roots and try making some bucks with our work, getting the webspace paid, stop the insanity with open source. it's a good idea but the license is only a hype. Like everyone can fork the code and release his own version of the software which only ends in 20 derivates which each of them still doesn't do the work it was aimed for. Not to mention that we all are individual people who work for fame, for money for being someone in the community. You work on the software because you love it because you never think about someone comming up forking it and then one day you see a derivate of your work floating around in the community and you get heavily pissed off and stop working on it and feel disappointed and have thoughts in your head saying 'what did i do wrong, why did this person fork my software' and so on. Please don't understand me wrong, think back the time when emacs got forked to xemacs. Or think back when KDE Desktop got heavily trashed by RedHat. You are itching at the egos of people with this. It's really better to start thinking about new and better ways and search for an alternative work on an alternative System.
Re:I need to keep quiet ... (Score:2, Insightful)
This reminds me of my ISP - they only support Windows. If there's a cable fault, then to prove it I have to take my Linux firewall down, power off, shove my Windows 98 caddy into the machine, reboot, and go through fscking winipcfg with them until I can convince the idiot behind the helpdesk that it's their fscking problem
[/rant]
Point being - give someone a Microsoft course and you teach them to be a parrot. Teach them Linux and they may start thinking independantly.
Keep quiet ? Yes I love being patronised by idiots who think I said 'My firewall is knackered' when I said 'My firewall is NATted'
I'll just keep quiet and let parrots take over the world.
The last thing Linux needs... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Let them know how you feel ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's act like grown-ups here and realise that although the company's attitude may be somewhat lacking, they are within their legal right to do what they're doing whether others like it or not.
Remember, they're not the only supplier in town and if they won't do the job, there will be others who will.
Mind you, as has been stated, it's rather nice of them to turn an otherwise unnoteworthy transaction into an item of important news. Sure beats paying for advertising and you've got to admire those who use smart (spam-free) marketing tactics!
Re:YRO (Score:4, Insightful)
Heh (Score:3, Insightful)
So they're in bed with MS, that's why they don't want to promote Linux. The SCO FUD is just an excuse; they just don't want to upset MS.
Still, we all know what happens to companies that get in bed with MS. Eventually MS f**ks them.
Its not about the SCO lawsuit ! (Score:2, Insightful)
Software images just has a non-competement agreement with Microsoft.
The whole SCO issue could backfire... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Microsoft made a big mistake with the whole SCO thing. The more people are aware of licenses and the more people understand the GPL, the worse Microsoft looks in comparison.
The SCO case does hurt Linux in the short term, that's for sure. But in the long term, it will be just a confirmation of what many already know: That users of GPLed software are much safer from legal problems than users of commercial software.
With the millions of shares Microsoft executives sell constantly, maybe they don't care about the long term...
What are we trying to achive?? (Score:5, Insightful)
By moving the CD copying to Malaysia, it's sort of implied that there's some pirating going on here! Newbies to Linux don't need this FUD - it could deter a few of them from joining the fest.
Yesterday's interview, McBride stated that the case is entering a 'discovery' phase - this clearly indicates that SCO is only interested in FUD, and not a quick court action. It would help if more countries follow the example of Germany, Poland and others in exposing SCO's conduct, and seek penalties for future instances of FUD.
Re:Let them know how you feel ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Legally true, but acting like "grown-ups" is clearly more than just letting laws trample all over you, as is becoming more and more evident every day. As an open-source, anarchic "sector", we have no great recourse to legal funding, so we need other channels to influence people to the same extent as those that do. One of these is peer pressure.
While "lunatic fringe" e-mails to the guy may certainly not help anything, if we can encourage people to send concerned, inquisitive, polite, but most importantly, a lot of e-mails to him, then it starts to become a bit more of a force than a bunch of people whinging about it on a discussion board.
I'm going to mail him and ask for more details, express my disappointment, et al. The more the better, I say.
It's not about laws, it's about whoever has the loudest voice.
Re:Next time you wanna make Linux CDs, call Malays (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This could be a good thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh.. why not some "Association for Open Source in New Zealand", like Linux Tag in Germany? After all, the Duplicator does mention the SCO case as a ground for refusal to honor a contract.
"Lets face it, even though this is in NZ, it sets a very nasty precedent internationally."
True, but when LinuxTag successfully asked SCO to shut up, and even got a penalty of 1000s of Marks if SCO spoke rotten things, did that not set an international precedent? In the US, the so called protests ended as a farce. Poland and Australia, I believe, have got restraint orders against SCO as well.
Let New Zealanders show which side they are on: The SCO-MS FUD GNUterrorists, or against. This is a good opportunity for them.
Re:Let them know how you feel ... (Score:2, Insightful)
Dear Mr Hill
You are probably receiving a lot of grief generated by a discussion on Slashdot (www.slashdot.org). As you will see if you view the discussion some of the community have taken issue with the news report that you are refusing to support alternative software to Microsoft. That's a pity and it's probably going to bring you a lot of hassle.
I've had an idea that might resolve this for all parties. If you were to offer copy the disks for free you would not be breaking your MS agreement while supporting the communities of programmers out there and thus creating a more positive image than your company is currently getting.
Let the group know on Slashdot and hopefully it will bring you peace.
Just trying to help.
Good luck with your business.
Kind regards,
R.
Non-compete: fuzzy is a good thing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Shouldn't legal contracts be clear? Or is eaving plenty of weasel-room a tactic by lawyers to leave room for the FUD to spread.
In this case bad publicity is good (Score:4, Insightful)
However, they'll need to be careful, dealing with Microsoft is not something I would envy - I met someone once who used to work with them, and he told me that ".. the only time M$ wouldn't piss all over you is if you were on fire."
Jolyon
Re:Not so surprising (Score:2, Insightful)
If he's so smart, then why can't he make a profit on anything besides his illegal monopolies?
Re:Next time you wanna make Linux CDs, call Malays (Score:2, Insightful)
How do you think MS even got popular? Back in 1995-96 I hardly knew anyone with a legit copy of Win95, their computers all came with 3.1 and they borrowed 95 from a friend.
Coke/Pepsi (Score:2, Insightful)
"It's very much a Coke/Pepsi situation. If you are an ad agency dealing with Pepsi you don't pick up business with Coke."
This seems like a legitimate reason to refuse a Linux job. In the current climate it's clear to most that Linux is strong competition to Microsoft. I'm suspect that there exists at least one other company offering similar services, which isn't doing business with Microsoft directly, and can see the value in becoming a provider for the Linux community.
We need to do something about this issue. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Next time you wanna make Linux CDs, call Malays (Score:5, Insightful)
>It's ironic that people will go to illegal channels as the most efficient way to get that which is free and legal anyway
No, it's ironic that most people, including the justice department that brought the action against them, still use products from a company convicted of illegally leveraging a monopoly.
Re:Helping the cause (Score:4, Insightful)
Plenty of shiny new hardware breaks Windows -- in fact, so does a lot of old hardware.
I play Quake, Unreal Tournament, America's Army, etc. on Linux. Can't think of any better games that I'd want to play on Linux -- nor any that I can't.
Are you just a lttle behind the times? Fear is usually fought with fear; There's nothing more fearful, at times, than change.
Re:Not so surprising (Score:5, Insightful)
This is +5 insightful??!
Microsoft started in a college dorm room. Within twenty-five years, Bill Gates turned it into an empire. In the competitive market for software in the 80s and early 90s, Microsoft swept over the competition, thanks largely to Bill Gates's ability to move MS into the right place at the right time, signing the right contracts with the right companies.
Now, he's reaping the benefits -- they've got $40 billion in cash, a 90%+ marketshare, and, yes, a monopoly. Bill Gates would eat you for breakfast in a "non-monopoly situation." Lord knows, he's done it to enough other companies.
Now, I'm sure Bill's still got a few tricks up his sleeve. If he were forced to compete in a free market, he'd probably still be doing pretty damn good for Microsoft. But why would he want to exert himself like that, if he can spend less effort maintaining the status quo, where not only does Microsoft make a profit, but they exceed the GDP of several small countries?
I'm certainly not an MS fanboy, but wisecracks like the parent post's are just ignorant. Monopolies don't come out of thin air -- you get to be the monopoly by being the best at the market (even, or probably especially, if that means being ruthless).
Don't be dumb, child (Score:4, Insightful)
Coke and Pepsi (Score:3, Insightful)
BS. This is more like telling some local kids with a lemonade stand that you can't help them because Pepsi doesn't like the competition.
Re:What are we trying to achive?? (Score:4, Insightful)
So how would one prove to a skeptic that one has a right to use the intellectual property contained in a Knoppix distro? That's a lot of code, and I doubt its covered by just one license!
SCO sounds like the poor little rich kid... (Score:4, Insightful)
A new family has just moved into the neighborhood. They're a hippie bunch, they all work different jobs, and even the kids work around the house to help out. Mommy says they're kinda low-class.
The primary purpose of the GNU organization is to create free software based on valuable commercial software.
Translation: "Mommy, that new kid wants my spot on the team. He's picking on me."
As long as the Linux development process remained uncoordinated and random, it posed little or no threat to SCO...
Translation: "Hee Hee The new kid sucks."
IBM initiated a course of conduct with the purpose and effect of using Linux to unfairly compete in the enterprise market.
Translation: "That new kid's kicking my ass. Cheater!!!"
It is not possible for Linux to rapidly reach UNIX performance standards for complete enterprise functionality without the misappropriation of UNIX code, methods or concepts to achieve such performance, and coordination by a larger developer, such as IBM.
Translation: "My mommy bought me a whole home gym and personal trainer. That new kid must be using steroids."
And, finally, this quote from IBM with which SCO takes issue in their complaint: ?IBM will put US $1 billion this year into Linux, the free operating system.
Translation: "Hey! That new kid just got recruited by State!"
Which makes the summary of the whole suit:
"Mommy! Waaaa!!!"
MS-DOS 6 was hardly best in the market. (Score:3, Insightful)
The billions that Microsoft has earned, which have come at the cost of true innovation in our industry, emerged when Microsoft generated substandard copies of Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, etc. (Eudora?) and packaged these absolutely inferior, substandard applications with integration that would have been impossible to achieve without control of the OS.
I can't explain the reasoning behind Lotus' preference of OS/2 for 1-2-3 versus Windows (which helped kill them). I can't explain why WordPerfect stayed in the DOS world a little too long.
One thing that I can say is that, if we had wanted the proprietary software market to survive, the antitrust trial should have happened in the late 80s, at about the same time that Microsoft started knifing DR-DOS in the back.
Now, Microsoft has destroyed all the other major proprietary players on the desktop, and the industry has banned together behind GPL software in an effort to stop them.
In the end, Microsoft is doomed. You can only charge for something that is free for so long.
Perhaps the pity of it is that all of the other proprietary players will eventually go down as well. Eventually, all OS and major application software will be free. The GPL and BSD licenses will someday walk over Microsoft's grave. It is only a matter of time.
Re:Not so surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
BillG was in the almost unique position of being able to structure the industry around Microsoft, rather than the more conventional case of fitting into an existing market. ie, the market that MS has a monopoly in was largely created by MS itself. Now, undoubtably if MS did not create the market, someone else would have. Overall, I think MS's contribution to the computer industry (the parts that might have turned out different if MS did not exist) are overwhelmingly negative. But, it cannot be denied that MS has had a huge influence on the computer industry, to the extent of essentially dominating most areas.
I agree that BillG is clearly very good at what he does (good at marketing, thuggery, knifing people in the back, whatever you want to call it). But he was incredibly lucky to be born at exactly the time he was, or he would not have been able to do it.
Re:Bullocks. (Score:2, Insightful)
Compete? I call bullshit (Score:3, Insightful)
You know this to be true. Everybody does. Any argument that Microsoft competed on the quality of their products is absolute bunk. Any quality is due to them hiring good people, but guess what, the alternative monopoly would have hired those same people!