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The Empire Strikes Back...In Nigeria?

Nov 01, 2007  By Justin Ryan

A recent Linux victory has turned into a blow from Big Evil. It wasn't that long ago that Mandriva won a contract to provide the Nigerian government with 17,000 Intel PC's for local schools — complete with the latest version of Mandriva Linux. The deal was hailed as a triumph for open source over evil.

Little did anyone know that Microsoft was still hard at work. Just as the systems were delivered, the Nigerians announced they would be replacing the pre-installed Linux with Windows. François Bancilhon, Mandriva's CEO, is feeling the blow particularly hard, and is letting his feelings be known in an open letter addressed to the Prince of Darkness himself, Steve Ballmer.

"How do you feel looking at yourself in the mirror in the morning?" he writes, among a laundry list of charges against the Microsoft CEO. The full text is available on Mandriva's blog.

Now that we've seen the Empire's latest move, there is only one question the true geek can ask: "What will the Jedi do now?"

Read more.

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Justin Ryan is a Contributing Editor for Linux Journal.

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The "Empire" is very scared indeed

Sum Yung Gai's picture
Submitted by Sum Yung Gai (not verified) on Sun, 11/04/2007 - 18:52.

Microsoft doesn't want *anyone* actually getting a successful GNU/Linux deployment of any size going, especially a national government. They're still smarting from Munich, Extremadura, and Largo, Florida. They're deathly afraid that if a national government actually goes for it--at a national level--it might inspire others. They've already lost Venezuela. They're in the process of losing Ecuador.

Yes, MS executives are very, very afraid.

--SYG