Showing headlines posted by helios

Microsoft is a well-crafted and well-maintained machine designed to do one thing. Produce profit. If you research the writings of a young Bill Gates, you will see the ruthless intent from the earliest ink. His communications on the message boards and between some now-famous FOSS Folks find him squarely at odds with the FOSS concept and model. Gates built his company...his machine to be the Borg.

I've ask you to come to do more than dig through the closet and dust off the old Birkenstocks. I don't want you to gaze longingly at the old tie-dyed tshirts and bell bottom jeans....the black arm bands. I have no intention of asking you to gently rummage through the old peace signs and Army Field Jackets. No, I ask you to do something more meaningful. I want you to put them back on.

That doesn't bother you? When we have dedicated people begging for nickels and dimes so they can get the hardware they need to test their distros and Microsoft is making millions from the sale of Suse Linux? If there seems to be a different tone or pitch to my writing from here-in, it's because I had to get up and take a shower.

What I didn't get a chance to do is mention specifically some people that truly deserve mentioning. I have received a ton of emails about the show and many of those people thanked me for my efforts with Komputers4Kids. Some have even been inspired to copy the effort and that in itself makes it worth all the hassle. But one of you went a bit too far.

They've been in chains so long that they don't have the frame of reference to guide them into knowing the difference. Oh sure, some do...you are one of them. Chances are, you migrated away from Microsoft Windows into Linux as a full-time deal and haven't looked back. You "get it". They don't, but it's easy enough to get your point across quickly....some of us will get a perverse pleasure from this.

Some would argue this story doesn't belong on a Linux News Site. I may tend to agree with you. The value isn't what you will personally gain from this article...it's who you can pass it on to. We all know one person who might want to take a peek...

Distro developers and development teams are struggling greatly just to find the funding to purchase video cards and cheap scanners so they can test and build drivers for them. I can name three good distros that are on the brink of folding due to lack of money. Meanwhile, Microsoft is raking Linux money in with both hands like some rube on a winning streak at a gambling table.

What kind of crap is that? They are purchasing software so that the software they've already bought will work. You have the answer to that problem right in the palm of your hand. Why haven't you mortgaged the farm to advertise the obvious answer to their problem?

Crashing early was a disappointment to say the least, but that is by no means a metaphor for this project. Only those who opposed this effort or those that had no real stake in it find it a handy bludgeoning tool. Fortunately, it has the same impact as most any other foam rubber prop. Most people have realized the important work was done before the green flag ever dropped.

There has been some strong negativity in some of the articles and more than a few responses lately. With Dell tilting and twirling on the Linux machine line of products and Microsoft playing the ever-present boogie man, there has been much on the minus side of the ledger for us to chew on. At times there seemed little for which to be content. Until Dave talked to me.

So it's hours away from the last days of qualifying, truly a now or never moment. Our car is a heap of scrap metal, our driver is busted up in the hospital and while we have "a car" ready for back up, I don't think it was even out of the cosmoline yet. Just kidding...we don't use cosmoline any more. Darrell Soppe our Crew Chief goes into Super Darrell Mode. With some of the best guys in the business, he sets out to put the pieces together.

We've had screaming allegations of fraud, screaming tires and people as our car slammed into a wall at two hundred miles per hour. (alleged) screams in the small hours of the morning as Chastain crew members battled the clock to put a car back together. Even screams of joy as Robert Moreno amazingly squeezed an additional 4 miles per hour out of a car that had been a doorstop less than 72 hours before.

"The MS guys were hammering at him pretty hard to get it done and it was going to cost him a fortune. We went in there, changed them over to Debian Servers and desktops, spent the day showing them how the it worked and haven't heard a peep out of them since."

When my trusty google alert popped this up, you just know I had to let my fingers do the walking and go take a look. The title itself promised wonderful and special things. I've only been leading this project for a few weeks, but I have learned quickly how to spot a hit piece...I can almost smell them. I am happy to say that my intuition didn't let me down one bit. Let's take a look at these "Pure Facts", shall we. Let's discover this Pulitzer contender together.

With the amount of coverage and dissemination this project received, not one of us thought for a moment it would be ignored by people that profess to be the eyes and ears of the Linux Community. Now that we have an accurate idea of how many people have published it to them and it has still been rejected, tells us what we already assumed. The question as to why they haven't covered this has been asked repeatedly on the various sites and blogs in the past two weeks. Finally, someone came forward with some information about it...it's not good.

Being on the Front page of the Business section of The Indianapolis Star was a big deal for Linux. Not just the story of Tux500...that's not the story that's being told. It's the story of a community working together to accomplish a common goal that is capturing the imagination of Hundreds of Thousands. Now, can we officially make that "millions"?

Getting anything into the mainstream news cycle is tough. The old adage "If it bleeds, it leads", has proven to be an apt proverb in the case of the Tux500.com Project. While the only thing that may be bleeding in this effort are a few egos, that sort of injury isn't enough to get the attention of the big guys in the mainstream press.

The actual email was nothing spectacular. Just no...our budget has already been set for the year...yada, yada, yada. Then yesterday, the entire thing crystalized before our dis-believing eyes. Now I think I understand.

He ooh'ed and ahh'ed over the transparency settings in the window decorations and the multiple desktop possibilities available to him. I didn't think it was a good idea to show him Beryl just yet. There is only so much one can take at a time.

Stephan makes his living by cramming himself into a 4-wheeled rocket and aiming it down the straights at over 200 miles per hour. And you know some of us are wanting to know... Are you out of your mind?