openAdmin
07-17-2009, 03:51 AM
Check out this piece in VenezuelaAnalysis.com . It seems that Microsoft MSN (Spain) featured a montage photo of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, wearing king's crowns, accompanied by the title, "When power corrupts: Striving to be kings." As MSN is Internet Explorer’s default home page, the author of the article, “Microsoft Verses Venezuela”, Tamara Pearson suspects some demonic plot. She claims that since the Venezuelan Government is in the midst of spearheading a massive open source migration, Microsoft has taken upon itself to taint Chavez’s image. Also featured on MSN homepage was a slide show of Latin American and East Asian leaders who were deemed undemocratic and power hungry. Tamara infers that the motivation behind this is racism and Microsoft’s frustration at not being able to fully break the open source movement in these parts, mainly due to government leniency towards Open Source.
You may read the full article here (http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4633). I personally could not find the MSN montage. The fact that half the page was in Spanish didn’t help me either. But just from reading Tamara Pearson’s argument, no matter what political viewpoint you may hold, it seems a bit overt and presumptuous to say that Microsoft is on some kind of vendetta to crucify these leaders due to open source threat. Don’t get me wrong. This is an open source community and we all love us some open source but come on! I can't buy that Steve Ballmer or even Bill Gates( who is mentioned in the article) have the slightest knowledge or interest in MSN's journalistic decisions or would consider using it as a weapon :confused: Of course we always welcome different opinions and healthy discussions...
You may read the full article here (http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4633). I personally could not find the MSN montage. The fact that half the page was in Spanish didn’t help me either. But just from reading Tamara Pearson’s argument, no matter what political viewpoint you may hold, it seems a bit overt and presumptuous to say that Microsoft is on some kind of vendetta to crucify these leaders due to open source threat. Don’t get me wrong. This is an open source community and we all love us some open source but come on! I can't buy that Steve Ballmer or even Bill Gates( who is mentioned in the article) have the slightest knowledge or interest in MSN's journalistic decisions or would consider using it as a weapon :confused: Of course we always welcome different opinions and healthy discussions...