@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org I have to say, this sounds much worse than our stuff at work. (We don’t use any Microsoft services, at least not for core tools.)
I hear you, @movq@www.uninformativ.de! :‘-(
At work, too. For a few weeks now when I try to log into this horrible Outlook web intershit (Because why would they fix the Evolution integration?! It’s cactus for well over a year now. Probably more like two.), it forwards me to the corporate weblogin, I enter my credentials, even do the bloody MFA crap and get redirected back to Outlook. “Loading mailbox…” “Please wait for us to log you out, do not close this window while this process is underway.” Fuck you! I have to delete the cookies for this damn domain each and every fucking time. Otherwise, this goes in circles forever. I tried the game for 15 minutes, no joke.
But wait, there’s more! Why just fuck it up only a little bit? This week I get logged out at the middle of the day. Every. Single. Day. Not even close to eight hours since I started, no. What the hell!? I reckon I just don’t even bother reauthenticating anymore in the arvo. No more e-mails for Lyse after lunch. Fuck it. It’s just distraction, anyway, right?!
@movq@www.uninformativ.de Yes, flat UIs are broken! I’m used to that by now, but it’s still more work to recognize than when there are borders around buttons, etc.
These are lists in your Inkscape example, right? (I’m too lazy to start Inkscape myself and look at it. And writing this took longer than just seeing for myself, but here we are. I met up with one of my best schoolmate this morning and it’s fucking hot already. So I blame the heat.) Nested tabs are probably an own death sin in itself. I know, I know, the upper ones can be made into windows and dragged around, but still.
[47°09′32″S, 126°43′17″W] Storm recedes – back to normal work
They’re all talks, not real hands-on trainings like you did.
I love listening to good, well-structured talks. Problem is, not everybody is a good speaker and many screw it up. 🥴 I’m certainly not a great speaker, which is why I gravitate more towards “workshops”, in the hopes that people ask questions and discussions arise. Doesn’t always work out. 🤣 At the very least, I almost always have some other person connect to the projector/beamer/screenshare and then they do the stuff – this avoids me being wwwwaaaaaaaaayyyy too fast.
We are usually drowned in stress and tight deadlines, hence events like today are super rare … We used to do it more often until ~10 years ago.
Once a year the security guys organize a really great hacking event, though.
Oh dear, I’d love to participate in that. 🤯 That sounds like a lot of fun. (Why don’t we do this?!)
I did a “lecture”/“workshop” about this at work today. 16-bit DOS, real mode. 💾 Pretty cool and the audience (devs and sysadmins) seemed quite interested. 🥳
- People used the Intel docs to figure out the instruction encodings.
- Then they wrote a little DOS program that exits with a return code and they used uhex in DOSBox to do that. Yes, we wrote a COM file manually, no Assembler involved. (Many of them had never used DOS before.)
- DEBUG from FreeDOS was used to single-step through the program, showing what it does.
- This gets tedious rather quickly, so we switched to SVED from SvarDOS for writing the rest of the program in Assembly language. nasm worked great for us.
- At the end, we switched to BIOS calls instead of DOS syscalls to demonstrate that the same binary COM file works on another OS. Also a good opportunity to talk about bootloaders a little bit.
- (I think they even understood the basics of segmentation in the end.)
The 8086 / 16-bit real-mode DOS is a great platform to explain a lot of the fundamentals without having to deal with OS semantics or executable file formats.
Now that was a lot of fun. 🥳 It’s very rare that we do something like this, sadly. I love doing this kind of low-level stuff.
** Of fairies, compost, and computers **
Lately I’ve buried myself in reading fiction. Stand outs from among the crowd are, of course, Middlemarch but also a lot of sort of scholarly fairy fiction; works that follow the scholastic adventures of studious professorial types in vaugely magical settings. Namely Emily Wilde’s Encyclopedia of Faeries’, Heather Fawcett and The Ten Thousand Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow.
I’ve also been working on a handful of personal utility programs. I … ⌘ Read more
@kat@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz I guess that qualifies as an “Arch moment”, albeit the first one I encountered. I’m running this since 2008 and it’s usually very smooth sailing. 😅
@lyse@lyse.isobeef.org Yeah, YMMV. Some games work(ed) great in Wine, others not at all. I just use it because it’s easier than firing up my WinXP box. (I don’t use Wine for regular applications, just games.)
@movq@www.uninformativ.de i’m grateful that this works at least!
@kat@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz UPDATE: getting it to run natively through a VM and other means all failed! so i did the cursed thing and tried the windows installer in wine…..
[47°09′58″S, 126°43′17″W] Storm recedes – back to normal work
@bmallred@staystrong.run Ahhh this is an agent I’m tryining to play the game of Connect3. It uses a library written in Go I’ve been working on that supports Neuroevolution using Genetic Algorithms. Some features include: Mutation, Speciation, Lamarckian Evolution/Inheritence.
[47°09′09″S, 126°43′17″W] Storm recedes – back to normal work
fn sub(foo: &String) {
println!("We got this string: [{}]", foo);
}
fn main() {
// "Hello", 0x00, 0x00, "!"
let buf: [u8; 8] = [0x48, 0x65, 0x6C, 0x6C, 0x6F, 0x00, 0x00, 0x21];
// Create a string from the byte array above, interpret as UTF-8, ignore decoding errors.
let lossy_unicode = String::from_utf8_lossy(&buf).to_string();
sub(&lossy_unicode);
}
Create a string from a byte array, but the result isn’t a string, it’s a cow 🐮, so you need another to_string() to convert your “string” into a string.
- https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/string/struct.String.html#method.from_utf8_lossy
- https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/borrow/enum.Cow.html
I still have a lot to learn.
(into_owned() instead of to_string() also works and makes more sense to me, it’s just that the compiler suggested to_string() first, which led to this funny example.)
[47°09′55″S, 126°43′06″W] Working impossible due to blizzard
@movq@www.uninformativ.de Me too 😅 – Speaking of which i know you’ve lost a bit of “mojo” or “energy” (so have i of late), rest assured, I want to keep the status quo here with what we’ve built, keep it simple and change very little. What we’ve built has worked very well for 5+ years and we have at least 3 very strong clients (maybe 4 or 5?).
@kat@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz Oh, ah, I didn’t even know they sold boxes. 🤯 I hope it still works!
@bender@twtxt.net Both Gopher and Mastodon are a way for me to “babble”. 😅 I basically shut down Gopher in favor of Mastodon/Fedi last year. But the Fediverse doesn’t really work for me. It’s too focused on people (I prefer topics) and I dislike the addictive nature of likes and boosts (I’m not disciplined enough to ignore them). Self-hosting some Fedi thing is also out of the question (the minimalistic daemons don’t really support following hashtags, which is a must-have for me).
I’ll probably keep reading Fedi stuff, I just won’t post that much, I think.
Of Pointlessware and CEOs
Had a moment, to check up on some of the companies, I stopped following, get to The Browser Company and see their newest product - it’s just Chrome, with an AI chat window pop-up and that’s it. Something Canary Chrome, come with already.
I see Theo from T3.gg, making fun of it on YouTube and promoting “his” product - an AI chat app, where you can choose from multiple models, by all the popular AI companies. Something I already have a worse version of, at work and I don’t even use it.
There’s also an interview, about the future of virtual keyboards, surely this is at least actually a real thing and not more pointless horse shit. I check the website of the keyboard SDK, and it’s around 20 identical apps, that just copy the same keyboard SDK/api and slap chatgpt features on top - in the App Store, these are surrounded by chatgpt clones, that just feed the users prompts, into the real thing and put ads, next to the answers.
10 Movie Characters Who Make Us Laugh at Unemployment
For one reason or another, most people have been between jobs at some point and experienced the frustration, uncertainty, and various problems that come with unemployment. That’s why movies that deal with being out of work in a lighthearted way can be so appealing. Humorous depictions of what is normally such a stressful time may […]
The post [10 Movie Characters Who Make Us Laugh at Unemployment](https://listverse.com/2025/ … ⌘ Read more
This filmmaker couldn’t say he was coming to Sydney until he was on the plane
This world-renowned Iranian director was barred from making films in his own country. Now, he has come to Sydney under a veil of secrecy to promote his latest work, which is based on his interrogations in prison. ⌘ Read more
Radxa UFS/eMMC Module Reader and Storage Solution Enables Fast Flashing and Scalable Embedded Storage
Radxa’s UFS/eMMC Module Reader is a compact USB 3.0 adapter for flashing OS images, accessing firmware, and transferring large files. It supports both eMMC v5.0 and UFS 2.1 modules with speeds up to 5 Gbps The adapter is compatible with eMMC and UFS modules from Radxa, and also works with modules from platforms like PINE64 and […] ⌘ Read more
watchOS 26 Features New Gesture to Dismiss Notifications
Apple in watchOS 26 has added a new one-handed wrist-flick gesture to easily dismiss notifications, but the gesture only works on newer Apple Watch models.
When you raise your wrist to check a notification but aren’t ready to respond, you can now simply flick your wrist – turn it over and back – to dismiss it. The quick gesture lets you dism … ⌘ Read more
Paternity leave is outdated and unequal, MPs say
A report says dads should be paid 80% of earnings and allowed six weeks off work when they have a child. ⌘ Read more
Out of despair come $1m: Lost Rodin ‘copy’ turns out to be authentic
A marble sculpture thought to be a copy of an Auguste Rodin work turned out to be the real thing. ⌘ Read more
The XMPP Standards Foundation: The XMPP Newsletter May 2025
XMPP Newsletter Banner
Welcome to the XMPP Newsletter, great to have you here again!
This issue covers the month of May 2025.
Like this newsletter, many projects and their efforts in the XMPP community are a result of people’s voluntary work. If you are happy with the services and software you may be using, please consider saying thanks or help these projects! Int … ⌘ Read more
Why walking through this artist’s home is an unforgettable experience
Jungle could once paint around 100 works in one sitting. Today he might be a little slower, but his joyful expression on canvas hasn’t diminished a bit. ⌘ Read more
Judge dismisses Justin Baldoni’s $400m defamation lawsuit against Blake Lively
They had been locked in a legal battle since Lively sued Baldoni in December after they worked together on It Ends With Us film. ⌘ Read more
FreeBSD laptop support update
The FreeBSD Foundation
has announced
a report
for work completed in April to improve FreeBSD support for
laptops. This includes installer updates, improved suspend/resume
behavior, as well as progress on [a\
port of Linux 6.7 and 6.8 graphics drivers](https://github.com/FreeBSDFoundation/pro … ⌘ Read more
My working shoes are stolen by this cute little devil. 🤣🤣🤣 ⌘ Read more
Raducanu ‘wary’ when out after being targeted by stalker
Emma Raducanu speaks to BBC Sport’s Isa Guha about the importance of working with a team she trusts as she looks ahead to the grasscourt season. ⌘ Read more
‘Legend forever’: Spurs skipper pens emotional tribute to sacked Postecoglou
In the wake of Ange Postecoglou’s sacking, Tottenham Hotspur captain Son Heung-min describes working with the Australian as an “incredible privilege”. ⌘ Read more
Hey cat lovers, here’s a pastel portrait I made of a beloved cat I poured my heart into this drawing, trying my best to bring her spirit back to life. Over 20 hours of work — I hope you feel the love in it. ⌘ Read more
[47°09′13″S, 126°43′11″W] Storm recedes – back to normal work
Just as a little courtesy call (is that the right term?): 2025 continues to be annoying and exhausting, and I won’t really have the energy to work on twtxt/Yarn or texudus. Other than the occasional retrocomputing thingy (which gives a nice boost of nostalgia), I’m not doing much of anything lately.
Outpouring of grief as police find remains in search for Pheobe Bishop
Floral tributes line the street as a community in mourning plans a candlelit vigil for 17-year-old Pheobe Bishop, as police work to identify remains found in dense bushland. ⌘ Read more
SuSE Linux 6.4 and Arachne on DOS also work (with Windows 2000 as a call target):
Assigning and completing issues with coding agent in GitHub Copilot
Have you tried the new coding agent in GitHub Copilot? Here’s how developers are using it to work more efficiently.
The post Assigning and completing issues with coding agent in GitHub Copilot appeared first on The GitHub Blog. ⌘ Read more
[$] Slowing the flow of core-dump-related CVEs
The 6.16 kernel will include a number of changes to how the kernel handles
the processing of core dumps for crashed processes. Christian Brauner explained
his reasons for doing this work as: “Because I’m a clown and also I had
it with all the CVEs because we provide a **** API for userspace”. The
handling of core dumps has indeed been a constant source of
vulnerabilities; with luck, the 6.16 work will result in rather fewer of
th … ⌘ Read more
What success has taught Chloé Hayden about priorities
The Heartbreak High actor and disability advocate shares how she is learning to rest and make room for what she loves beyond work. ⌘ Read more
Sunwater directed to start work on $4.4 billion Paradise Dam rebuild
Farmers in Queensland’s Bundaberg region are cautiously optimistic after the government ordered Sunwater to start early works rebuilding a beleaguered water source. ⌘ Read more
Queensland College of Wine Tourism rescued from closure
Business leaders will work to ensure the Queensland College of Wine Tourism will thrive after months of uncertainty about its future. ⌘ Read more
Queensland College of Wine Tourism rescued from closure
Business leaders will work to ensure the Queensland College of Wine Tourism will thrive after months of uncertainty about its future. ⌘ Read more
Kamasi Washington collaborates with his 4yo daughter and an anime master
Ahead of his latest Australian tour, the jazz maestro explains how anime and his four-year-old daughter have inspired his latest work. ⌘ Read more
Man jailed for four years over stabbing of ‘good Samaritan’ former reality TV contestant
A man who “savagely” attacked and stabbed former Bachelorette contestant Paddy Colliar, who was working as a topless waiter at a 60th birthday party, has been jailed for at least four years. ⌘ Read more
Gippsland residents fear erosion measures no match for rising tides
The Victorian government spent more than $500,000 earlier this year on protective works that have already failed to stop erosion in a coastal community. ⌘ Read more
How to Adjust Font Smoothing in macOS Sequoia & macOS Sonoma
Font Smoothing is a longstanding feature in MacOS that aims to make rendered screen text more legible, and it works by subtly blending the edges of display fonts with the background by using anti-aliasing. The idea is to reduce the jaggedness of screen text, but in practice nowadays it basically makes screen fonts on the … [Read More](https://osxdaily.com/2025/06/04/how-adjust-font-smoothing-macos-sequoia-sonoma-v … ⌘ Read more
Biggest 3D tapestry in Australia took 10,000 hours to make
One clear, bold vision and thousands of hours of specialised, meticulous work have resulted in Welcome to Country, a groundbreaking tapestry soon to go on show in Melbourne’s west. ⌘ Read more
How Reladiff Works - A Journey Through the Challenges and Techniques of Data Engineering with SQL
Comments ⌘ Read more
Strategy 2028 update (Fedora Community Blog)
Outgoing Fedora Project Leader Matthew Miller has posted an update
on Fedora’s high-level plan through 2028:
[Fedora] Council members identified potential Initiatives that we
believe are important to work on next. We came up with a list of
thirteen — which is way more than we can handle at once. We previously
set a limit of four Initiatives at a time. We decided to keep to that
… ⌘ Read more
New Bangarra dance work is a ‘glowing bridge between worlds’
Mirning choreographer Frances Rings and Goolarrgon Bard artist Darrell Sibosado collaborate on Bangarra Dance Theatre’s new production. ⌘ Read more
Breaking: Adelaide man faces court over multiple child sex abuse offences
A man who worked closely with South Australia’s Department for Child Protection to house First Nations children has pleaded not guilty to more than 40 charges of sexual offending against minors. ⌘ Read more
Sooo many new spam feeds to mute in the twtxt.net discovery view. :-( The RSS/Atom to Twtxt feed bridge was a mistake, I believe. I guess I just have to abandon that altogether and rely on my subscriptions to interact with new feeds in order to discover legitimate new ones. Not sure if that works, sounds like a chicken-‘n’-egg problem.
[$] Safety certification for open-source systems
This year’s
Linaro Connect in Lisbon, Portugal featured a number of talks about the use of
open-source components in safety-critical systems. Kate Stewart gave a keynote on the topic
on the first day of the conference. In it, she highlighted several projects that
have been working to pursue safety certification and spoke about the importance of
being able to trace software’s origins to safety. In a talk on the second day, Roberto
Bagnara shared his ex … ⌘ Read more
Paid CFA firefighters start work bans after failed pay negotiations
Firefighting operations will be disrupted across regional Victoria as CFA union members take industrial action after six months of stalled pay talks. ⌘ Read more
Hundreds of kilos of drugs, millions of illegal cigarettes seized in police bust
Several men have been charged by police after a multi-agency taskforce working for almost two years busted a huge drug ring. ⌘ Read more
Breaking: Minimum and award wages to rise 3.5 per cent from July
Millions of Australian workers will get a 3.5 per cent pay rise from July 1, following the Fair Work Commission’s annual review of the minimum wage and award agreements. Inflation is currently at 2.4 per cent annually. ⌘ Read more
As of version 9.1 vim is supposed to support XDG specification. The below config works correctly on 9.1.1230 but not on 9.1.83. Anybody know why? ⌘ Read more
Less TODO, more done: The difference between coding agent and agent mode in GitHub Copilot
We’ll decode these two tools—and show you how to use them both to work more efficiently.
The post Less TODO, more done: The difference between coding agent and agent mode in GitHub Copilot appeared first on [Th … ⌘ Read more
@kat@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz A blast from the past! 😅 And all of it still works, that’s quite the surprise. I mean, I’m making real phone calls here and let the modems talk over that connection … Almost like in the 90ies. 😅
She always makes sure I’m not working alone ⌘ Read more
Canberra woman charged with grooming boy she worked with granted bail
Police allege the woman tried to keep the relationship secret and continued with it despite knowing it was illegal. ⌘ Read more
Drivers slam ‘astronomical delay’ of WA road duplication project
Work on a 17 kilometre stretch of road in Western Australia’s South West is still going, five years after it began. ⌘ Read more
vim-saveroot: Change the current working directory in Vim9script ⌘ Read more
Segway’s latest is the best commuter e-scooter out there
Combining performance and beginner-friendliness, the MAX G3 is a great option for first-timers looking for a car-or bus-free way to get to work. ⌘ Read more
@starletvania@yarn.girlonthemoon.xyz OH SHIT IT’S WORKING
Apple Working on Haptic Buttons for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch
Apple is actively exploring stolid-state buttons with haptic feedback, not just for the iPhone, but also for future iPad and Apple Watch models, claims a rumor out of China.
Back in 2022, several reports suggested that … ⌘ Read more
On QRs, as long as they work (and they are quite resilient), it doesn’t matter. Their design, and colours, will be based on theme in which they are included. They are getting used more now in the US. They are king on East Asia. They are awesome.
[47°09′43″S, 126°43′30″W] Working impossible due to heavy rain
Two fantastic weeks in Scotland
I am back from Scotland, and my first days back at work are behind me. Let me tell you about my awesome vacation! ⌘ Read more
Two fantastic weeks in Scotland
I am back from Scotland, and my first days back at work are behind me. Let me tell you about my awesome vacation! ⌘ Read more
Two fantastic weeks in Scotland
I am back from Scotland, and my first days back at work are behind me. Let me tell you about my awesome vacation! ⌘ Read more
[47°09′01″S, 126°43′15″W] Storm recedes – back to normal work
[$] Allowing BPF programs more access to the network
Mahé Tardy led two sessions about some of the challenges that he, Kornilios Kourtis,
and John Fastabend have run into in their work on
Tetragon (Apache-licensed BPF-based security monitoring software)
at the Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit. The session
prompted discussion about the feasibility of letting BPF programs
send data over the network, as well as potential new kfuncs to let BPF firewalls
send TCP reset packets. Tardy pre … ⌘ Read more
@prologic@twtxt.net Mosaic (2.7) works fine, I maintain that package in the AUR and test my website regularly. 😅
Apple Working on Studio Display 2: Here’s What the Latest Rumors Say
Apple released the Studio Display in March 2022, alongside the first Mac Studio, and it has not received any hardware upgrades since.
The current Studio Display features a 27-inch LCD screen with a 5K resolution, a 60Hz refresh rate, up to 600 nits brightness, a built-in camera and speakers, one Thunderbolt 3 port, and three USB-C ports. In the U.S … ⌘ Read more
Erlang Solutions: The Importance of Digital Wallet Security
Digital wallets have transformed how people pay and how businesses get paid. With more consumers choosing contactless and mobile transactions, offering these payment options is part of staying relevant.
That’s why your business needs to understand digital wallet security– how it works, where the risks lie, and what it takes to protect customer data and payment information.
In this guide, we’ll walk through how digital wall … ⌘ Read more
[47°09′32″S, 126°43′53″W] Working impossible due to blizzard
@movq@www.uninformativ.de yes, I think:
<!--[if !IE]><!-->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="../simplicity.css”>
<!--<![endif]-->
Should work, but I haven’t tested it.
… but as it turned out, this was a bug in my CSS. It works now. 🥳
hosted opengist because i got bored. works with authelia
Maybe you’ll enjoy this as well:
I still have one of my first modems, a Creatix LC 144 VF:
I think this was the modem that I used when I first connected to the internet, but I’m not sure.
I plugged it in again and it still works:
The firmware appears to be from 1994, which sounds about right. I don’t think we had internet access before that. We certainly did use local mailboxes, though. (Or BBS’s, as you might call them.)
I now want to actually use that modem again. For the moment, I can only use a phone to dial into it, I lack a second modem to actually establish a connection. Here’s a video:
Not spectacular, but the modem does answer after me entering ATA.
I bought another cheap old modem on eBay and am now waiting for it to arrive. Once it’s here, I want to simulate an actual dial-up session, hopefully from OS/2 or Windows 3.x.
Cat: Oh! You are working? Cute. Watch this yawn ⌘ Read more
@bender@twtxt.net Well it’s really just for other fellow humans that might not know better and what Microsoft does with your hard™ work 🤣
@prologic@twtxt.net yeah, that will work perfectly. Because you are using “please”—which we all know is a magic talisman word of obedience—all uploads of your code to Github will be automatically paused, until such magic word is removed. 😂
@prologic@twtxt.net I SAW THIS SHIT I WAS LAUGHING SOOO HARD omg you couldn’t pay me enough to babysit a fucking bot to do shit work
Hardkernel Introduces Low-Cost Amlogic S905X5M SBC with 4K@60Hz HDMI Output
The ODROID-C5 is a compact single-board computer designed for developers and hobbyists working with Linux or Android platforms. It features improved performance, reduced power consumption, and enhanced memory and storage interfaces over its predecessor, the ODROID-C4. The board is powered by the Amlogic S905X5M processor, which combines a quad-core Arm Cortex-A55 CPU running at 2.5GHz […] ⌘ Read more
10 Games Milked for All Their Worth
Sticking with what works is nothing new, especially in gaming. New stories, characters, and mechanics are increasingly rare. Long development times and ballooning budgets only compound the issue, as studios must take a larger gamble with every project. Why take that risk when going with a guaranteed success is safer? That mindset prompts developers to […]
The post [10 Games Milked for All Their Worth](https://listverse.com/2025/05/25/10-games-milked-for-all-th … ⌘ Read more
[$] Formally verifying the BPF verifier
The BPF verifier is an increasingly complex and security-critical piece of code.
When the kinds of people who are apt to work on BPF see a situation like that,
they naturally question whether it’s possible to use formal verification to
ensure that the implementation of the code in question is correct. Santosh
Nagarakatte led the first of two extra-long sessions in the BPF track
of the 2025 Linux Storage, Filesystem, Memory Management, and BPF Summit
about his team’s work formally verifying the … ⌘ Read more
fit 1 $ spin (saw 0.1 * sign fxy) $ rect 0 1 - rect 0 0.99 >> add;
#punctual #livecoding #creativecoding #videoart
@sorenpeter@darch.dk Also not very readable. Quite cryptic really 😅 I have no idea how this works 🤦♂️
My vision with this newsletter is to have a slower medium for communicating about my art as well as ideas and projects I’m working on regarding how we can use digital technology to our own benefits instead of being exploited by big tech.
Twtxt not sloe enough for you? 🤣
New (February 2025) paper, https://cms.mgt.tum.de/fileadmin/mgt.tum.de/faculty_and_research/mppe/39_Nora_von_Ingersleben-Seip_How_the_European_Union_Fell_Out_Of_Love_With_Open-Source_Software.pdf , describes “How the European Union Fell Out of Love with Open-Source Software”:
“A coalition of determined open-source software (OSS) advocates and a handful of technology experts working in the European Commission set out in 2004 to end Microsoft’s monopoly. They almost succeeded. This article reveals how they managed to change the EU’s software policies, made Microsoft lobbyists work overtime - and in the end, and despite their best efforts, could not withstand the power of proprietary companies’ lobbying campaigns.
Drawing on the Multiple Streams Framework, the article explains the European Commission’s decision to promote OSS and open standards in 2004, and its puzzling decision to reverse course just a few years later, in 2010, despite its unchanged rhetoric about the benefits of openness. The analysis reveals three key factors that drove the changes in the EU’s policies.
In 2004, OSS advocates managed to frame the EU’s dependency on proprietary software as a problem – and the promotion of OSS and open standards as the solution.
In 2010, #Microsoft and other proprietary companies used their existing connections in Brussels to sow doubt about the maturity and cost of #OSS among #EU policymakers.”
25 years later we’re where we started.