Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Open Letter to Any Company

I wish to recommend to you a very talented individual who would be a great asset to you. You have never tried to hire him, because he has no work experience or practical knowledge whatsoever in the field he claims to be an expert in.

Nonetheless, the person at hand would be a valuable addition to any sanitation department, a bureaucracy that favors quantity over quality, or your "HTML programming" department, as well as to your relationship with developers (assuming you treat them like the Spanish Inquisition treated non-believers). In turn, it would also unburden the Open Source community from the need to explain to him that it does not really stand for personal attacks, insults, half-truths, fabrications, hypocrisy, industrialized spam, or mockery of people who have actually made tangible contributions to the advancement of software freedom.

So please, if you have vacancies left at the moment, especially in the Waste Management area, I urge you to hire a man called Roy "BoycottBoy" Schestowitz. You will regret this, but we don't really give a shit anymore.

Sincerely,

   All of us.

PS — this is not satire or a cheap shot; it's serious and it's possible.  §

 

[BoycottNovell] is now bigger than Groklaw

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Monday, November 16, 2009

Just another day at BoycottNovell

image
Can't sleep, MicroClown will
eat me

Summary: Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft, Mushroom, Mushroom... Snake! Microsoft, Microsoft...

An analysis and visualization of 24 hours (roughly) worth of activity flowing forth from the proprietor of boycottnovell.com. Items are listed in reverse (newer to older) chronological order as they appear in feeds, Google Groups, etc.

...easy/Like Sunday morning...

Blog ¶

I'd assume each of these consume between thirty or forty minutes, on average. The size in bytes was calculated by simply pasting the text into an editor and counting the characters, so it's relevant only in the aggregate sense, I suppose. If the post includes a clever quote by Stallman for example (or an evil one by Bill Gates) it still takes time to select it, paste it, etc. Most posts also have the usual completely unrelated image at the top, so that needs to be selected and so on.

#18 is the daily "links" post [1], and must take a significant amount of time due to the way links are classified. #20 technically does not count as content, obviously, but as parallel time spent on IRC (see further below). #23 is just embedding (although again, everything takes time).

It's possible obviously that some of these were drafted previous to the day they were published, but time is time, regardless of which day it happens to be wasted invested in.

 TitleLink Size (bytes)
1Patents Roundup: More Resources In Re Bilski11/16/bilski-case-resources/News, blogs, and video about the Bilski case3,571
2Microsoft Sued Again for Patent Violation, Settles with Former Softie, as Before11/16/swpat-msft-sued-by-former-employee/Another Microsoft lawsuit starts; another case of Microsoft settling after being sued by former employees for patent violations1,502
3Revisionism from Microsoft's Partner, Likewise11/16/server-room-revisionism/An example of disinformation about history being spread by those to whom open, royalty-free standards are a foe4,377
4Xbox 360 (Live) Users Banned, Buyers Flee11/16/microsoft-customers-permanently-banned/Almost one million customers of Microsoft are permanently banned and sales of Xbox 360 drop considerably4,577
5Windows, Cisco Do Not Support Vista 7 [sic]11/16/microsoft-cisco-vista-7-support/Not just Cisco but Microsoft Windows Mobile too is proving to be problematic for Vista 7 [sic] users1,425
6Microsoft DRM Cracked Within Hours11/16/windows-marketplace-crack/Windows Marketplace has its copy protection mechanism broken almost immediately; future of Windows Mobile seems grim1,538
7Confirmed: Vista 7 [sic] Fails to Sell PCs, Mostly Replaces Vista11/16/most-expensive-service-pack-ever/Vista 7 [sic] turns out to be the most expensive service pack ever; Sales do not proceed as hoped and planned, reveal reports from the mainstream press3,718
8Microsoft Won't Secure Firefox/Chrome Users, Shows More Negligence11/16/microsoft-onecare-activex/ActiveX required by Microsoft's OneCare; investigation into Vista 7 [sic] vulnerabilities a case of "too little, too late" 4,149
9Microsoft's Use of Bribes for Search, Only 4% of Microsoft/Razorfish Clients Used Microsoft Search11/16/microsoft-search-disaster/Microsoft's attempt to just buy market share meets barriers; Highly damaging truths about Razorfish customers are revealed3,160
10GNU/Linux, Google, and Apple Transform Microsoft; Seattle Mayor's Office May Ditch Windows11/16/msft-market-losses-persist/How Microsoft is trying to reinvent itself in the face of new reality; losses persist regardless2,494
11Microsoft Pays comScore More Money, Gets Bogus Endorsements11/16/award-and-outcome-comscore/Award and outcome - new case study courtesy of Microsoft and comScore3,723
12More Marshall Projects (MoU), This Time in China11/16/cht-exclusion-of-competition/The Marshall Law of Microsoft comes to CHT, more attempts at exclusion of competition are noted1,812
13OpenSUSE 11.2 is Open to Microsoft Lawsuits Because of Mono11/16/opensuse-non-ms-ecma-parts/OpenSUSE 11.2 (GNOME) has Mono installed by default, including non-ECMA parts like Winforms932
14Bill, Nathan, Steve, and Other Con Artists11/16/elitist-critique/People's assorted perspectives on Nathan Myhrvold, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs1,616
15Reader's Article: Corporate Media Ownership Shifts11/16/corporate-media-ownership-shifts/Media channels that Microsoft is associated with to get acquired by Microsoft's partner, Comcast3,560
16Why Are Critics of Criminal Activity Portrayed as "Bad Guys"?11/16/love-thy-criminals/Analysis of a culture where those who believe in the law are being discouraged and daemonised3,990
17Survey: Vista 7 [sic] Disliked by Sub-notebooks Buyers, GNU/Linux Emerges as a Winner11/16/customers-reject-vista-7/As expected, customers reject Vista 7 [sic] Starter Edition and Microsoft is restructuring for coming change3,631
18Links 16/11/2009: New HPC Figures, ZevenOS 2.0 Released11/16/new-hpc-figures/ (n/a)
19Power of GNU/Linux in One's Hand (Video)11/16/pyacceleremoter/An accelerometer-based remote controller for mplayer on GNU/Linux machines.(n/a)
20IRC: #boycottnovell @ FreeNode: November 16th, 200911/16/irc-log-16112009/ (n/a)
21What Microsoft Does to GNU/Linux in Russian Schools11/16/russia-linux-retaliation/As Russia prepares to move to GNU/Linux Microsoft is sitting on its veins [6]1,662
22Apple is Too Hot, Microsoft Can Leave the Internet Flat11/16/marvels-of-proprietary-software/A reminder of the marvels of shiny proprietary software and hardware1,105
23Eben Moglen (SFLC) Explains Genesis of Intellectual Monopoly11/16/genesis-of-patents/Eben Moglen gives a talk titled "Patents at a Crossroads: Bilski and Beyond"(n/a)
24Microsoft Exposes .NET Patent Trap to More Potential Copyright Issues11/16/mono-more-vulnerable/.NET leaves Mono vulnerable to more allegations of plagiarism and the patent issues stay standing1,530
25Microsoft Colludes Against Google11/16/microsoft-assured-damage/Microsoft goes for a sort of mutually-assured destruction as a weapon against Google - a tactic which by no means helps anyone but itself (surfers, Google, and authors to suffer from Microsoft bribes for publishers)1,419

[Update] An additional 2 articles were published after I pushed this out at 8:00 PM PST, bringing the grand total to 25. More than 1 full post per hour. Some of the text below has been updated to reflect that.

Usenet ¶

Individual messages posted to COLA. Note these are technically from November 15th, but a 20-40 post volume for a single day is quite common in any case, and the crapflood for the 16th had not started yet when I wrote this.

I figure each of these take about 10 minutes each, on average — including the amount of time needed to actually extract the links and quotes from wherever he gets them. There doesn't seem to be much automation, even considering many of these simply parrot what's posted in the blog.

 TitleLink
1Sub-notebooks Owners Hate Vista 7 [sic]msg/9b4563d6205a17ed
2Microsoft's Advertising So Terrible That Even Microsoft Employees Overwhelmingly Reject Itmsg/35050243c682ae83
3Microsoft 'Resolves' Flaws Using Lawyers, Intimidationmsg/9278204d291b1752
4Microsoft's Patent Troll a "Fool" Masquerading as Something Elsemsg/77ecbf95f97d7811
5NVIDIA on Intel's Crimes, Otellini as a Criminalmsg/b182430186c8d3cc
6Microsoft Windows Possibly Ditched by Seattlemsg/d7c932d5c1281237
7Phones, Cisco Products Do Not Support Vista 7 [sic]msg/ccaf878f523bafe5
8Vista 7 [sic] Disaster: Fails to Sell More PCs — Even Worse Than Vistamsg/0e4431bdcf26ad9d
9Microsoft Lied About Vista 7 [sic] 'Security'msg/60b6fa9bc20938b3
10Microsoft Moves to India, Executive Pay Brokenmsg/7d26ba8c6f3be9a5
11Microsoft Assaults Almost 1 Millions of Its Customersmsg/ee716f7d61d44fe1
12Loads of Bilski Coverage: Software Patents Still at Risk in the USmsg/fe0ce7cb073b31e8
13Microsoft's Xbox Sinks to 4th Place Even in Very Own Home Groundmsg/6c04aae68788aa4d
14Microsoft Sued for Patent Violations Again, Settlesmsg/f5611b2ddbf5592a
15Attacks on Legal Sharing Harms Artistsmsg/ef9689023ab50100
16Google Still Struggles to Resurrect Orphaned Worksmsg/aac24c7ef77debd5
17ACTA Exposed, Now Under Attack by Politiciansmsg/44f5d6fb1e20e091
18Windows Marketplace Crackedmsg/9f9703698ad54c20
19Hope Reborn for Monopoly-Free Media Standardsmsg/4e7523a4e0b3c94b
20Proprietary Software Skype Thrown Out for Being "Garbage"msg/ba46cb41be50ba0f
21Apache's Ethos and How Trolls Are Kept Outmsg/48944ef96095aec6
22Mozilla Thunderbird 3 in (P)review, Firefox 3.6 Got Fastermsg/6a9cdb40e7d4e611
23Openness Grows in Norway and German Authoritiesmsg/c972ae51d49be9c3
24MySQL a Real Threat to Microsoft's with 46% Market Share in Emerging Marketsmsg/36001484124da98e
25OLPC Reaches Decent Numbers with GNU/Linuxmsg/79e170de0fed2e5f
26CrunchPad GNU/Linux Tablet Arriving Soonmsg/477885bdd961b299
27Embedded Market Goes with Linuxmsg/9196b145f117ab9e
28FreeNAS Picks ZFS, OpenBSD Goes "Live"msg/6938c7b59433eab9
29Latest KDE4 for Ubuntu is Already Here, Linux Mint Helena Almost Heremsg/50423bafa24ec390
30Ubuntu GNU/Linux 9.10 Karmic Koala is "Better Than Ever"msg/fd1954f37c253b1e
31Talks Brewing About Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6msg/5ac100179b0a2c36
32Mandriva One 2010 Receives Another Great Reviewmsg/5d56c9ed4cce4799
33A Look at Compiz-Fusion in Gentoo and Puppy Linuxmsg/1ac276c15304e534
34The Power of GwenView and New Concept for Software Management in GNU/Linuxmsg/2ba7a04bd722f5df
35Another Top Game Comes to GNU/Linux, Windows Games Run Fine Alsomsg/eabe46355dcda129
36Cisco Uses GNU/Linux Server to Challenges Titansmsg/0366b290d95d5902
37Smart Man Chooses to Bank with GNU/Linuxmsg/a5c97e4eb74d2d2d
38Wayland Display Server for Linux Examinedmsg/ee0060cc3b218267

Twitter/identi.ca ¶

Individual 'tweets' posted to Twitter and identi.ca. I assume the mirroring of posts is automated to a certain extent, but it still takes time to make the "news" fit into the 140-character limit, so let's give these about 5 minutes each, maybe. Again, there is a lot of repetition here. I've omitted "retweets" and replies from this list, and these are also from November 15th to match the Usenet ones to a certain extent.

 TextLink
1#Microsoft Imitates #Google Revenue Model on the Desktop: Adverts Come to #Vista7 Desktops http://ur1.ca/fta25734352463
2#Microsoft Breaks the #Law , Teaches World That 'Evil' #GPL is 'Viral' http://bit.ly/3DI3qi5734911886
3Smart Man Chooses to Bank with #GNU #Linux http://bit.ly/3rEgde5751324358
4#Wayland Display Server for #Linux Examined http://bit.ly/1e7GUh5751362494
5#Cisco Uses #GNU #Linux Server to Challenges Titans http://ur1.ca/fuil5751393836
6Another Top #Game Comes to #GNU #Linux http://bit.ly/1kanKr5751425140
7New Concept for Software Management in #GNU #Linux http://bit.ly/4l5brH5751468455
8A Look at #CompizFusion in #Gentoo and #Puppy #Linux http://bit.ly/4crTss5751669744
9Talks Brewing About #RedHat Enterprise #Linux 6 http://bit.ly/4njpRl5751728020
10#Mandriva One 2010 Receives Another Great Review http://danlynch.org/blog/2009/11/mandriva/5751760025
11#Ubuntu #GNU #Linux 9.10 #KarmicKoala is "Better Than Ever" http://bit.ly/14R2nG5751836109
12#Linux #Mint Helena Almost Here http://bit.ly/3oDU8e5751897124
13#Embedded Market Goes with #Linux http://ur1.ca/fuke http://ur1.ca/fukf5752258469
14#OLPC Reaches Decent Numbers with #GNU #Linux http://ur1.ca/fukk http://ur1.ca/fukl5752341265
15#CrunchPad #GNU #Linux #Tablet Arriving Soon http://ur1.ca/fukq5752420742
16FreeNAS Picks ZFS, OpenBSD Goes "Live" http://ur1.ca/fuks #bsd http://ur1.ca/fuku5752461200
17#MySQL a Real Threat to Microsoft's with 46% Market Share in Emerging Markets http://ur1.ca/fukw5752507599
18#Mozilla #Thunderbird 3 in (P)review, #Firefox 3.6 Got Faster http://ur1.ca/ful5 http://ur1.ca/ful75752712542
19Openness Grows in #Norway and #German Authorities http://ur1.ca/fula http://ur1.ca/fqlp5752765162
20#Apache's Ethos and How Trolls Are Kept Out http://bit.ly/4maD3w5752783873
21Hope Reborn for Monopoly-Free Media Standards http://ur1.ca/fulf5752825893
22Proprietary Software #Skype Thrown Out for Being "Garbage" http://bit.ly/4Y2mq5752864806
23#ACTA Exposed, Now Under Attack by Politicians http://ur1.ca/fumc http://ur1.ca/fumd5753332362
24#Google Still Struggles to Resurrect Orphaned Works http://ur1.ca/fumg http://ur1.ca/fumh5753369653
25Attacks on Legal Sharing Harms Artists http://ur1.ca/fuml http://ur1.ca/fumm http://ur1.ca/fqip5753420854
26#Microsoft Sued for #Patent Violations Again, Settles http://ur1.ca/fumo http://ur1.ca/fump5753464511
27Survey: #Vista7 Disliked by Sub-notebooks Buyers, #GNU #Linux Emerges as a Winner http://ur1.ca/fvaf5761775475
28Why Are Critics of Criminal Activity Portrayed as 'Bad Guys'? http://bit.ly/NXr1r5762228864
29Reader's Article: Corporate Media Ownership Shifts http://bit.ly/22YQr55762515525
30Bill, Nathan, Steve, and Other Con Artists http://bit.ly/2OZVU75762849692
31#OpenSUSE 11.2 is Open to #Microsoft Lawsuits Because of #Mono http://bit.ly/4nFFy75763106481
32More Marshall Projects (MoU), This Time in China http://bit.ly/zFeip5763610483
33#Microsoft Pays #comScore More Money, Gets Bogus Endorsements http://bit.ly/1aulCI5764037706

IRC ¶

Schestowitz was active on his IRC channel for most of that 24 hour period (almost 17 hours). This is useful only as a measure of time, really. He also has another IRC channel called #boycottnovell-social [5] which uses Freenode resources (evidently) but is apparently used to deal with more private topics that are not supposed to be logged. People other than his inner cadre don't seem to be allowed to use it, so it's impossible to determine how much time was spent there. [4]

He posts comments fairly continuously until 11:59 PM when the log gets cut off. After that, he published five more articles.

The remains of the day ¶

Now, consider all the other stuff one does during the day, like reading email, talking on the phone with your significant other, doing tech support for family members, cleaning up the house, taking a crap, fixing the leaky faucet in the kitchen, raking the leaves in the back yard, chatting with friends online, updating your gothy MySpace page, watching TV, changing the oil on the truck, etc. With the possible exception of taking a crap (which is of the utmost importance), I don't know how much of that I would get done, if any.

The output volume summarized here is a bit high, but it's not far from the median. I'm not exaggerating — simply counting the number of unread items in Google Reader, and only counting posts to BoycottNovell, Schestowitz can literally out-blog the whole of Planet GNOME on any given day. And that does not include Usenet or microblogging.

The level of activity seems to have risen in the past few months, probably because the spamming interaction with social media web sites has tapered off a bit from its previous highs (as of November 2009) during the last three years:

Digg

Dugg:15,962
Comments:13,444
Submitted:6,733

Propeller

Propped:28,356
Comments:648
Submitted:25,112

Twitter

Tweets:8,972

 

image
Sup?

Whether or not other activity can be attributed to Schestowitz — directly or indirectly — that's a lot of time. A veritable crapload of time. One has to wonder just how long a 27-year old's savings [2] last, even considering such profitable ventures as working at Burger King. [3] But that's another issue. He also recently celebrated (if that's the correct term) his 3- year reign of error, as well as his 8,000th post to go along with that. Yay.

And tomorrow? Tomorrow will be exactly the same more or less. Groundhog Day.

So... how was your Sunday?  §

 

Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present.
– Roger W. Babson

Obsessiveness [is] a must

Notes ¶

  1. ^ This is possibly the only truly consistently useful thing on that blog.
  2. ^ IRC Log (2008-09-03)
    «As long as my savings in the bank last and I enjoy this hobby, I intend to continue. I can get around to things like family later on»
  3. ^ (2009-01-25) "Blog entry".
    «I worked at Burger King for a year (as a teenager)»
  4. ^ If someone wants to go into that channel and log it, that would be great. Technically since they're using Freenode they have to follow the organization's guidelines and can't simple exclude people. The only reason someone could be prevented from logging into a registered channel is lack of nick registration, and the only reason for being kicked from one is repeated disruption. We're talking important shit in here doesn't cut it. If that's a problem then I suppose they can host their own IRC server.
  5. ^ (2009-03-23) "What’s New at Boycott Novell | Boycott Novell".
  6. ^ "On its veins"???