11.25.08
Activists Battle Microsoft Fascism in Italy
“People everywhere love Windows.”
–Bill Gates
Illegal tenders that blindly favour Microsoft and all sorts of other secret deals with Microsoft were mentioned here before [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]. And yes, it’s considered illegal. Some angry observers took it all the way up to the top (court of law) by essentially suing their government. This happened in Quebec. More stories, however, can be found in the links, so repeating them would prove wasteful.
The following new story was found in the blog of Glyn Moody where he called it (in the headline) “Microsoft in the Land of the Mafia,” referring quite humorously to the nature of the act.
The Italian open source advocacy group Associazione per il Software Libero is protesting two memoranda of understanding (MOU) signed this summer by the Italian government and Microsoft. The group last week published a public protest letter.
The association explains that over the past three months it has in vain tried to raise the issue with the minister of public administration and innovation, Renato Brunetta. “We now publish this letter to get his attention on the benefits of open source software.”
The advocacy group writes is it worried about a three-year memorandum of understanding signed by Minister Brunetta with Microsoft to develop software solutions for schools. It also expresses doubts over a similar agreement with Microsoft for the modernisation of public administration document management systems.
If Microsoft engages with countries as though it’s the Secret Services and then refuses to tell what was signed, perhaps it’s time to call the Secret Services and have them crack down on crooked politicians and the company/ies they engage with behind closed doors. Microsoft is just threatening democracy again and it’s taking Italy back in time. █
Redacting corruptible governments and companies
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.