The MS trojan horse in Linux Asia 2007

This year Linux Asia in delhi have different flavours.Linux-asia is a rendezvous for Foss but Microsoft is also their.I’m covering this hot topic & views of linux users.

Is there any way a Linux company can participate in an
Microsoft promoting event and talk about the virtues of Linux?

observe the different  views of  Linux geeks…  & do submit your also…

Sandip Bhattacharya say’s:-

In the Economic Times (at Bangalore) today, there is an article on page
6 titled “MS takes linux world by storm”

“”"
When asked about its participation in Linux Asia, Microsoft said that
the company will try to educate clients and communicate about its new
stance towards open source. Mr Radhesh Balakrishnan, director, platform
strategy, Microsoft, told ET, “Open source software is turning
commercial and commercial software is becoming more open to open source.
We believe that interoperability between the two is the way to the
future. People have created a myth in the minds of clients that the
world can work only either on open source. Rather than being carried
over by rhetoric, clients should rather look at lowering TCO (total cost
of ownership). According to a Frost & Sullivan study, Windows offers
15.9% lower TCO than Linux on the server side.’’
“”"

It is quite obvious what their point of participating in the event is
about. I don’t understand how a company which doesn’t contribute to
Linux is any positive/constructive way, can be allowed to participate in
such an event. What is the criteria for participating in this apparently
Linux event?

Conversely, is there any way a Linux company can participate in an
Microsoft promoting event and talk about the virtues of Linux?

RESPONSES OF OTHER’s:-

*That amongst others is why ILUG-D stayed away from the event.

Let us find out by proposing such a participation at next MS event andif they refuse try to highlight it in press. Unfortunately most of themain stream press does not know or care.

We can ask them to send a email of protest to LA organisers. Or put up this
in Hall of Shame?
Count starts from me and if there are twenty / thirty people for it
then we spread the message. People like FN/Niyam may be able to reach
much larger user base.

-by Sandip Bhattacharya.

 

*well, on chennai list they have given a guarantee that sponsorship by

micorosoft will not be allowed to harm the OSS movement in India -
they have not specified how. -Kenneth Gonsalves

 

*Without anything from M$ in writing there is no guarantee. And how
they will not harm?

I think this needs much more serious response and qucik one too…..
1. any one can blog on this and then post it on something like slashdot?
2. I am willing to write to all speakers on the LA site and make them
aware of the fact. All of OSS supporters need to get on this….how to
get their contacts? As per LA site the following speaker are invited:

Adriane Knopper
Aingaran Pillai
Aruna Sundararajan
Ashutosh Kulshreshtha
B. C. Sekar
Bill Maimone
Brian Behlendorf
C Umashankar
Charles Rose
Dibya Prakash
Dr. Anthony Wasserman
Dr. Bala Thangaraju
Dr. Deepak Phatak
Dr. T.R. Madan Mohan
John Smedley
Klaus Knopper
Louis Suárez-Potts
M Sasikumar
M. T. Raghunath
Manpreet Singh Nehra
Nicholas Negroponte
Paul Kangro
Philip Tellis
Prof. C. N. Krishnan
Ravi Sankar
Robert Adkins
Sanjay Sha
Shubham Nagar
Vineet Gupta
Zaheda Bhorat -Sudev Barar.

 

* all of them are aware of it, and I see practically no one from the
indian foss community among the speakers anyway – afaik phillip
tellis has dropped out-Kenneth Gonsalves.

 

*While they may be aare they need to be made aware of community
dis-approval of such event names being used and associating such
sponsors with them. Silence to reflect our protest will not get us
anywhere.

Far feched but KG perhaps NRC-FOSS can do it’s bit??

Can other contribute too?-Sudev Barar.

 

*

NRC-FOSS participation was decided when we thought ilugd was running
the show in collaboration with LFY. The microsoft news came too late
in the day for changing plans (we *are* a govt thingie and not too
much into protesting). However our participation is far less than it
would have been had ilugd been part of the show. I personally have
been making a noise, but there are a lot of oss people who are
neutral to microsoft – and even target the microsoft platform. In
fact, a large number of foss applications spend more of their time
finetuning the microsoft ports of their applications than the linux
ports. Each to his own poison.-Kenneth Gonsalves.

 

*If it is OSS there is less of an issue but LinuxAsia – and Microsoft
really do not sit together in my mind. I am not averse to attending
but averse to show that is targetted at Linux but sponsored by M$ with
their own longer term agenda.-Sudev Barar.

 

*I might be the lone voice out here but think you guys are
over-reacting. Microsoft has/had a presence in just about every big
FLOSS event I’ve been to, either by participating or sponsoring or
having a stall put up. Heck they even have a stall at ze LinuxWorld.
(Ironic that the LinuxWorld site runs .asp methinks)

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1782776,00.asp
http://www.linuxworldexpo.com/live/12/

I went to LA yesterday and I really think it was a *good* thing
Microsoft was there. It didn’t reduce the sly comments directed
against Microsoft from just about every one of the speakers and their
whole “wow with Vista” stall drew just about as few visitors as the
rest of them. Vista was really pathetic when I used it there too, and
the girls/guys at the stall were dumbos.
I agree however that a try should be made to introduce FOSS into a
Microsoft conference. That’d be fun -Vishnu Gopal.

 

* past avatars of foss.in have had microsoft speakers – nothing wrong
there. But accepting microsoft sponsorship is a different kettle of
fish altogether-Kenneth Gonsalves.

 

*We are not talking about disrupting the event, but just
making the speakers aware that the event is being sponsored by MS
. Check out this article
<http://samba.org/samba/news/articles/low_point/column11.html> by Samba
hacker Jeremy Allison. Specifically this quote
The only sparks that flew where when Microsoft made it abundantly clear
that they would use their patent portfolio to prevent the spread of GPL
software.Given their past behavior, I find it hard to believe that MS will not
use the stall to counter the free software message. Given their deep
pockets, they *can* force you to alter your agenda. Consider this case
- LUG-delhi dropped out of LA since one of their concerns was the
presence of MS. Quite a few of us did not submit talks since LUG-Delhi
had dropped out.Maybe if the LA organizers are aware of the negative impact of involving
MS they would think about it harder the next time around. -Raj Shekhar .

 

So what you think?Is Ms doing Right Or our way of thinking is different for Ms?

plz do reply if only you concern about.