yep, after a bashing for bundling internet explorer the browser with the WIndows OS, it's Microsoft's turn to avenge it's browsers divorce from the OS. The issue sprouted up this afternoon on a MSDN Blog, where Microsoft's chief IE developer Dave Mass recommended that users completely uninstall Netscape as a possible workaround for a bug that Microsoft has discovered in Netscape 8.
AOL spokesman Andrew Weinstein insists the bug only affects "a very small percentage of [IE] users" who visit pages using XML technology.
Netscape 8 is based on the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox code base, which means that security bugs in Firefox are likely to affect Netscape 8 users. So I'd assume that Microsoft would want everybody to uninstall Firefox as well.
With Netscape 8 and Firefox gone, Why should Mozilla be left behind ?
Guess what Microsoft wants is users to have ONLY IE on their desktops.... sinister...
I am really not sure what to make of this, because Ben Goodger, the lead firefox developer has also posted on his weblog that Netscape 8 is unsafe...
This is gonna be a very interesting one to follow...
do it. think it. blog it! ... a twisted world
Thursday May 26, 2005
CDs containing localised versions of OpenOffice, Firefox and other open source applications will be distributed to millions of people by the Indian government
The Indian government is trying to encourage the use of computers across the country by distributing free CDs that contain localised versions of popular open source applications.
The government has started distributing CDs containing Tamil-language versions of various open source applications, including the Firefox browser, the OpenOffice productivity suite and the Columba email client. It plans to freely distribute 3.5 million copies of the CD to Tamil speakers worldwide, according to R.K.V.S. Raman, a researcher at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, an organisation involved in the production of the CD.
Raman told ZDNet UK on Wednesday that the CDs are in considerable demand, following a newspaper and television advertising campaign last month.
"We have had a tremendous response to this [initiative]," he said. "In the first two weeks of the campaign we got about 100,000 hits daily on the Web site offering CDs, and about two to three thousand downloads [of Tamil-language applications]. We have already sent out around 50,000 CDs and have a backlog of 35,000."
Once the requested CDs have been sent out, further copies of the CDs will be distributed with computer magazines and newspapers, according to Raman.
Even the President of India, APJ Abdul Kalam, has taken an interest in the project and met the team involved in the production of the CD earlier this month.
The next stage of the project is to distribute CDs containing applications in Hindi, the national language of India. This stage will be launched on 21 June and is likely to involve more than the 3.5 million CDs earmarked for the current phase, said Raman. Eventually, the government plans to release CDs in all of the 22 official languages of India.
Raman believes open source software brings two main advantages to the Indian population :: cost, and the freedom to modify the software. "We are sometimes not comfortable with Western user interfaces ::€” they don't make sense in our culture, particularly for rural people who haven't had much access to technology. If we want to modify the software we have to have access to the code," he said.
The Indian government's decision to ship free software in this way is likely to be a blow to Microsoft, which plans to release a low cost version of Windows in India soon. Microsoft originally hoped to release its Windows XP Starter Edition — a low-cost, feature-restricted version of Windows XP — by the end of March, but is now aiming for a June release.
SOURCE : news.zdnet.co.uk