Linux Users Owe Microsoft
by britbrian
Plea for Help
The PCLinuxOS Hardware Database project needs your help. For those who may not know, this database is being developed to make it easier for PCLOS users to determine in advance how well a piece of hardware works with PCLOS. It takes a lot of work to sort through all the possible hardware and develop such a wealth of information into usable form.
Jmiahman posted recently that he was not receiving much information from the community. Please take a moment and visit the site and provide what information you can regarding your hardware. We all will benefit in the long run.
Thank you.
Place - IT Planning room at: Newham Council, Munich City, Bristol City, Madrid City, Seoul City, etc.
Chairman - Well committee, thanks for the members' input and a big thank you to the OSS feasibility study group.
OSS study group - Our pleasure chairman.
Chairman - So your conclusion is, to migrate all of our departmental servers except the Windows Exchange server to Linux; migrate non technical staff desktops to ubumdo & Openoffice and migrate everyone's email from Outlook to Evolution.
OSS study group - Umh that's Ubunto
Chairman - Ubunto OK, and this migration will be staged over 16 months, correct?
OSS study group - Yes, first the IT staff will migrate so they will be able to train the staff, then the least technical staff moving on toward more specialized staff.
Chairman - What are training costs?
OSS study group - Actually about the same as when moving to MS's newest products every 3 years or so, but Linux desktop & OpenOffice training is a one time event.
Door flings open
Ballmer - Excuse me, let me catch my breath, hhh... hhh, hhhhh, here just got off the plane, OK?
Chairman - You are ?
Ballmer - Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft
Chairman - Welcome to our fair city Mr. Ballmer; we weren't expecting you, please take a seat.
Ballmer - Well I've been flying a lot lately, haven't had time to formalize visits. Anyway, surprise!!
Chairman - Do you have something to contribute?
Ballmer - Well yes, we at Microsoft have come to accept the importance of interoperability between Windows and Linux, so we have accepted a wonderful opportunity from Novell to work together. We would like to offer you vouchers for Novell Suse desktops for a very fair...
Chairman - Excuse me, Mr Ballmer, but we have a very good recommendation to use Abundo, what is Sooz?
Ballmer - Suse is a LEGAL Linux that respects our IP, i.e., our INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY where as Unbundo steals our IP and robs us of our hard work and innovations.
Chairman - Thats very interesting, so Sooz can do everything that Abundo can do?
Ballmer - Absolutely, it can legally exchange documents with the STANDARD Office doc format; it can legally play multimedia using Microsoft media formats - legally.
Chairman - You said legally twice
Ballmer - Oh yes, well WE own the INTELLECTUAL PROPERTIES in those other Linux ones.
Chairman - Specifically?
Ballmer - Well there's too many to mention, but just to get started, we invented the 3 button mouse, so all desktop menus using the middle & right button violate our IP and all Linux's do copy our mouse innovations.
OSS study group - Hmm, Mr Ballmer is confusing the Linux kernel with the Desktop Environment?
Chairman - Wait a minute, I'm talking to Mr Ballmer. So Linux has mouse IP violations?
Ballmer - Yes and that's just the beginning. You see we invented everything to do with Windows, and Linux simply copied it all. The developers and distributors haven't paid us for our IP. So we have generously agreed to help Novell out of this legal difficulty by promoting their Suse distribution that THEY FULLY OWN. We propose for five years not to sue Suse users, but we are open to other distributors joining our generous offer. Otherwise we will be obliged to our shareholders to seek financial remedy from all the commercial distributions STEALING OUR IP.
OSS study group - Uhmm Mr Chairman, Microsoft is trying to...
Chairman - So Mr Ballmer, Suse is what you recommend?
Ballmer - Yes, then you will have full interoperability with Windows that just works.
Chairman - OK, we will accept your recommendation and use Suse.
Ballmer - Then in five years, the agreement will end and you will be able to upgrade to Vista and Office 12 that just works.
Chairman - Would we save money by staying with Windows?
Ballmer - Of course, let's talk details privately.
Chairman - Meeting is adjourned, the city of ....... thanks the OSS study group and all those who have contributed to this productive meeting. We will upgrade to Windows Vista.