An anonymous user has an interesting Vista conspiracy theory:

I think Microsoft has given up on Vista behind the scenes. I’m sending this via email because well, I know it sounds like tinfoil hat time, but I think there’s some validity to it.

Microsoft realized with XP that the NT kernel’s days were numbered, which is why they talked of the complete rewrite that was to be Longhorn / Vista (and be wonderful and ship in 2003, etc). Well with all of the efforts that went into that, and Vista basically becoming what would’ve happened to Apple if it truly had shipped Copland, Microsoft finds itself in a bind. Obviously they need to support the product they shipped, which is where SP1 and its successors come in. However, I think we’ll see some behind the scenes action regarding their fight against OSF and the Linux folks and we’ll see how this evolves into the next version of Windows.

It’s been long suspected (and pretty much a given at least circumstantially) that Microsoft as well as others have propped up the SCO group in their varied and sundry attempts to milk IBM / RedHat / Novell / AutoZone / the average Linux user, etc. out of an excessive amount of money based on code they thought they owned. Obviously in the last few months, it has come out that indeed SCO did not own said code, that indeed Novell owned it, was owed money by SCO, and we see where that went.

Coincidentally, at that time, Microsoft paid for their “license” and apparently immediately set out on a cross licensing agreement with various Linux manufacturers over some IP they claim to have patents for, but won’t show the code (the SCO maneuver). Oddly enough, one of those vendors who they are working with on cross licensing is *Novell* who owns SUSE Linux and the UNIX source code. Now Microsoft has worked directly with two companies who at the very least claim to hold the UNIX code. Microsoft has also been known to throw money about on a whim when it suits them (read original Xbox and Zune… sometimes they even make some money from it). Microsoft also has need of a much more stable Code Base for the next major iteration of Windows.

Do these tie together? Only time will tell – but it does seem quite interesting.

Anyway, sorry to hear you’re having the Vista woes. Myself I’m waiting for Leopard and FreeBSD 7 for the servers. I’m pretty happy with Feisty Fawn running on the workstation.

• So, I’m the Conspiracy Theorist, eh?

Even when evidence is planted directly beneath your nose from a well-known (albeit, heavily unbalanced) resource, you still want to believe that such a thing could never have happened in the first place. Certainly, prominent Americans would never have supported Hitler – right? I guess the Associated Press article titled Bush’s Grandfather Directed Bank Tied to Man Who Funded Hitler is a total fabrication, even with documents supporting the assertion that some of us have been asserting for some time now?

Prescott Bush was one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp., a New York investment bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family, according to recently declassified National Archives documents reviewed by The Associated Press. Fritz Thyssen was an early financial supporter of Hitler, whose Nazi party Thyssen believed was preferable to communism. The documents do not show any evidence Bush directly aided that effort. His position with Union Banking never was a political issue for Bush, who was elected to the Senate from Connecticut in 1952.

Does it matter if he DIRECTLY did anything, though? Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists – right? Why isn’t the money trail important? Why would government-appointed commission after commission sweep facts like these aside as though they were… inconsequential? He traded evil for evil, for selfish motives – not for the good of his country.

No charges were brought against Union Banking’s American directors. The federal government was too busy trying to fight the war, said Donald Goldstein, a professor of public and international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.

Right, because we had to make more money to give to a bank we have absolutely no control over. The world is filled with conspiracy theories. Sadly, however, most of them are accepted as gospel truth.

• A Microsoft Windows / Linux Conspiracy Theory