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badcomputer.org

April 24, 2007

Indy 500 race already begun...

You may or may not of heard of Tux 500, a community effort to raise money to sponser a car/team in the Indianapolis 500. The lofty goal of $350000 for full team sponsership (ie: "Team Linux") is not likely at this point, however, even $25000 (which is likely) will get decals on the car. In my mind, this is a cute, if not overly optomistic way to get Linux some recognition and exposure to the world at large, and is highly indicative of the community we Linux/OSS folks are known for. Here's one of their banners:

The real reason I am even bringing this up though, is that I came across this infantile copycat site, presumably created by some MicroSerf. I say 'presumably' because the fellow who made the page didn't see fit to leave a name or contact anywhere. Here are some choice quotes from the page:

As you may know, the Linux guys over at tux500.com think they can actually raise enough money to sponsor an entire car in the Indianapolis 500. I don't think their "community" can do it.

Dig the condescending way this guy puts 'community' in quotations.

Hopefully this will give Microsoft just enough time to get things in order before the Linux team can get their funding, sponsorship, team and all that in place! A major announcement by Microsoft just before the other guys should steal their thunder nicely!

This is the really telling line. It demonstrates that the Vista 500 effort's sole purpose is to upstage and undermine the Linux effort in a childish display of oneupmanship. Truly sad. The author of the site (correctly) points out that the MS supporters don't even have to raise any money, all they have to do is sign a petition to show support to the PHBs at Microsoft.

Does anyone recognise this pattern? Taking someone elses idea and using Microsoft's vast coffers to usurp it? Seen it before I think. Yes, it seems the Microsoft monoculture cannot stand competition even if it has nothing to do with computers.

That is all.

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