● 12.05.08
●● Down with Microsoft… in India (Updated)
Posted in Action, Asia, Microsoft at 7:25 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Children take it to the streets and protest against Microsoft
JUST over a week ago we wrote about the Indian university which decided to 'sell' its students to an abusive monopolist from another country. Well, protests have just taken place and there are lots of photos too. There are some Boycott Novell graphics on these banners/posters, so we feel very privileged.
We will hopefully be able to include some blog posts about these protests pretty soon.
Microsoft’s B.A.D. is a global problem [1, 2]. The struggling company from Redmond is trying to cause as much damage as possible to young people, with the assistance of corruptible supervisors who permit this to happen. They really should be named and shamed (or at least be educated about the harms they bring). Here is another new example, this time from UAE:
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Microsoft GulfMicrosoft GulfLoading… today announced the launch of the Microsoft DreamSpark Student Program in the UAE. Under the program, all high school and university students in the UAE will gain access to the latest Microsoft developer designer and gaming tools at no charge to unlock their creative potential and set them on the path to academic and career success. In its first phase, Microsoft DreamSpark is being piloted in partnership with Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT). This broad range of professional level software will be available online on http://www.dreamspark.com/ and students will also have the option of going through HCTHCTLoading…’s website to access DreamSpark.
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What is this “Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT)”? It sounds like a very unethical relationship that turns young people into digital servants of Microsoft. This is appalling.
Going back to India, Microsoft is once again invading Free/open source events, as the evidence in its Fort 25 [sic] blog suggests. This embrace, extend and extinguish plan needs to be resisted [1, 2, 3]. From Microsoft:
A New Appreciation for Open Source in India – and Our Role in it.
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As I stated in my last blog, I am attending the premier Indian Open Source conference, FOSS.IN, in Bangalore.
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Someone should tell Microsoft that until its stops threatening to sue Free software, they deserve no role in FOSS.IN, which is described as “one of the world’s largest Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) events, held annually in India.” Microsoft is playing a game there, but it does not seem like an active participant, for a change. They add insult to injury using their ‘buddies’ (from a distance) in order to discourage adoption of Free software.
Microsoft is no friend of Free software [1, 2, 3, 4]. It ‘embraces’ it in order to change and ruin it, just like it ruined ISO (along with international software standards). This destruction is a self-serving routine. █
“Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer [...] I can’t imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business. I’m an American; I believe in the American way, I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don’t think we’ve done enough education of policymakers to understand the threat.”
–Jim Allchin, President of Platforms & Services Division at Microsoft
Update: here is a short report about the protest.
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I guess it was a good programme yesterday for free software …we have to concentrate on the long term aspects…please do write on what we could do better..please make this a community report on what you thought is good and bad..
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We had many people saying “NO TO M$-VTU” Lock In. the nice thing was we were able to have some new people From colleges : both lecturers and students ..a good representation from all sections of civil socitey
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