[humorix] 2002: Year In Preview

[James Baughn <jbaughn@ldd.net>]

2002: Year In Preview
Bernhard Rosenkraenzer, bero@redhat.de
December 31, 2001

Other news sites are busy posting summaries of 2001 along
with "predictions" for 2002 that are nothing more than long
wishlists of things they would like to see happen but that
almost certainly won't. (Does anybody really believe that
Microsoft will go bankrupt in 2002?)  

At Humorix, we've decided to take the other route and
instead post a summary of events in 2002 that are more
likely to _actually_ happen.

* January

The Microsoft antitrust case comes to an end. To the
surprise of many, the proposed settlement is rejected.
Microsoft is ruled guilty of illegally exploiting its
monopoly to expand into other  markets.

In terms of remedies, Microsoft is therefore forced to make
sure everyone has fair access to their monopolist
software.  They are required to allow every person buying a
new computer to receive a pre-loaded copy of Windows XP,
Microsoft Office XP and Microsoft Bob for Windows. (In
negotiations, the DOJ later agreed that Microsoft may
charge OEMs a small US$500 "distribution fee" per product
to cover expenses.)

Furthermore, Microsoft's janitor is authorized by the court
to tell Bill Gates that he's an asshole whenever he thinks
management tries to take further illegal steps to dominate
the market.

* February

Iraq defeats the US team in the soccer world championship.
In response to this act of terror (you should have seen the
look of terror on the faces of all US supporters!), Dubya
Bush decides to bomb Iraq along with the country hosting
the game for harboring the terrorist players. Governments
across the world applaud Bush for his continuing success in
making the world a safer place.

* March

Microsoft, Sun, AFMM (Association of Fast Money Makers) and
illegal.teenpr0n.com jointly announce a revision of
internet mail standards.

Since the debugging information provided in "Received: "
headers is no longer needed now that the Internet has left
beta phase, it is obsoleted. Furthermore, the new protocol
is optimized for sending the same message to thousands of
recipients at once, and allows for mail compression (for
example, "$S" will automatically be expanded to "This is
NOT spam. This message is sent in compliance with some bill
that was never passed. You are receiving this message
because you signed up for it at
http://www.nonexistant.site/").  This scheme is expected to
reduce mail traffic by 95.4%.

SMTP (Spam Mail Transmission Protocol) is born.

* April

Dmitry Sklyarov gives a speech at Linux World Expo in the
US. On the way back, he is arrested yet again, this time
for wasting the valuable time of US courts with his former
case.

* May

Microsoft reveals the successor to Windows XP will be
called Windows RC.

After the announcement, tech journalists discover that the
Windows naming scheme is logical after all:

NT   = Needs Testing, alpha version
2000 = interim release for marketing purposes only, doesn't
       count
XP   = eXPerimental, beta version
RC   = Release Candidate

Analysts expect to see Windows 1.0 in 2050, and recommend
users to treat any .0 release with caution.

* June

Linux 2.6.0 is released.  New features include running a
386 at the speed of a 64-way SMP Pentium IV running Windows
RC, scalability up to 1024 CPUs, and drivers for WinRAM
(RAM in Winmodem style).

* July

Intel's first ia64 (Itanic) machines hit the market. The
Linux community is not very pleased with its
Windows-XP-ROM-as-BIOS feature. AMD runs out of inventory
of its competing Athlon LX processors.

* August

Microsoft releases its first Linux product. 
Microsoft Backdoor XP for Linux is on the shelves for $900.

* September

Yet another remote root exploit in Windows XP is
discovered: telnetting to port 1234 of any Windows XP
machine and typing "I am the CIA" gives anyone instant
access to the machine. Furthermore, Microsoft firewalls
don't block port 1234 even if told to.

The exploit was not discovered earlier because the leak was
tied in to a timer. "We expected security experts to test
Windows XP shortly after the release, so activating a
backdoor a year later seemed like a safe and good idea", a
former Microsoft manager and current head of the DOJ's
antitrust department explains.

Intel is forced to recall all Itanic systems.

* October

KDE 4.0 is released, and makes Linux easier to use than
Windows or MacOS.

Microsoft issues a warning that you can still access "that
cryptic command line" in KDE 4.0, and therefore, Linux is
still for experts only. And even they should use Windows XP
of course.

* November

The DOJ launches an antitrust case against Open Source, for
its monopoly on software that actually works.

The case is resolved quickly (Open Source is found guilty),
and in response the DMCA (Digital Millennium Closedsource
Act), forbidding  any sort of Open Source software to be
used or developed, is passed.

The loophole allowing Free Software to be used and
developed is closed shortly after.

* December

Fed up with the year's happenings, Richard Stallman decides
to plant a bomb in Microsoft's headquarters as a last
resort. Bush decides to call it an act of terror, and
consequently bombs the US to the ground for harboring this
terrorist ever since he was born.

--
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