(criminal) truly sickening

I've heard lots of people rave about Bill Gates' charity. I never actually believed that the person himself is evil, only that he is sort of ultra-Ayn-Rand-ist.

But if you really think about it, ultra-Ayn-Rand-ism doesn't really mesh with charity, which meant there was a niggling inconsistency to the whole picture.

Here's what could well be the truth.

BILL GATES: KILLING AFRICANS FOR PROFIT AND P.R. -- MR. BUSH'S BOGUS AIDS OFFER

"Gates says his plan is to reach one million people with medicine by the end of the decade. Another way to read it: he's locking in a trade system that will effectively block the delivery of medicine to over 20 million."

taking a funny stab at creationists

Ovulation versus cretinism

Equal time [rec.humor.funny]

If you know the background you can get the pun in the title, as well as enjoy the actual joke much better.

Background:

(funny,malware) AB-SO-lutely hilarious

I must add this BBSpot site to my regular list :-)

BBspot - Microsoft's AntiSpyware Tool Removes Internet Explorer

(criminal) Don't feed their cash cow!

Technetra : Don't Feed Their Cash Cow!

"Price-slashing" by monopolistic proprietary software companies masks the high costs customers still unwittingly pay. And when this false economy is endorsed by governments and industry leaders, the digital divide can only widen.

Nice rebuttal of the "we'll give you a cut-price Windows with reduced features if cost is a concern" tactics of Microsoft. I wish our policitians would read stuff like this...

(FOSS) Putting their money where their mouth is...

IBM Pledges 500 U.S. Patents To Open Source In Support Of Innovation And Open Standards

They're basically saying "if you sue any open source project, you better be sure you're not violating any of our patents". And for those of you who think this is a shot across SCO's bows, Open Source's favourite paralegal, Paula Jones, says in a well-researched article that analyses comments from the BBC, the Washington Post, Reuters, etc:

"The Windows patent strategy is so over. And the next time Bill Gates tries to call this new kind of software development a kind of modern-day communism, as he did so offensively the other day, people will simply laugh in his face. Thank you, IBM. Thank you."

Excerpt from the PDF linked in the Press Release:

"In order to foster innovation and avoid the possibility that a party will take advantage of this pledge and then assert patents or other intellectual property rights of its own against Open Source Software, thereby limiting the freedom of IBM or any other Open Source Software developer to create innovative software programs, the commitment not to assert any of these 500 U.S. patents and all counterparts of these patents issued in other countries is irrevocable except that IBM reserves the right to terminate this patent pledge and commitment only with regard to any party who files a lawsuit asserting patents or other intellectual property rights against Open Source Software."

make versus Ant

Biased (but frank about it) evaluation of make versus Ant. Music to someone who never managed to like Java, in spite of several attempts :-)

ONLamp.com: make: The Evolution and Alternatives

"In truth, those that have spent more time with Windows and IDEs than Unix and bash prefer Ant. I'll stick with make, but you knew that."