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http://www.searls.com/m+n.html

Note, in particular, Bill Gates' notorious "Pearl Harbor" speech of December 7th 1995, in which he warned of the emerging global threat from Java and Netscape. The author of the page cited above, Doc Searls, seemed to think that all the warlike references were just good clean fun. Gates began his speech as follows:

MR. GATES: Well, good morning. I was realizing this morning that December 7th is kind of a famous day. (Laughter.) Fifty-four years ago or something. And I was trying to think if there were any parallels to what was going on here. And I really couldn't come up with any. The only connection I could think of at all was that probably the most intelligent comment that was made on that day wasn't made on Wall Street, or even by any type of that analyst; it was actually Admiral Yamomoto, who observed that he feared they had awakened a sleeping giant. (Laughter.)

Searls' comment on this? 'I see. The "veiled threat" was Bill's opening laugh line. Even if this was "a veiled threat," it was made in good humor'.

It was news to me at the time (1995), and still is now, that there was anything funny about Pearl Harbor. From what I know of Americans' feelings of patriotism, I would have expected Gates. remarks to raise a storm of protest. But no one said a word.

So it goes.

Microsoft is part of the BSA.

"BSA members include Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Avid, Bentley Systems, Borland, Cadence, Cisco Systems, CNC Software/Mastercam, Dell, Entrust, HP, IBM, Intel, Internet Security Systems, Macromedia, McAfee, Inc., Microsoft, PTC, RSA Security, SAP, SolidWorks, Sybase, Symantec, Synopsys, and UGS Corp."-http://www.bsa.org/

Then there's this:

Ernie Ball went to court and paid a fine; but that didn't end the matter:

"The worst thing was when Microsoft printed a four-color reproduction of that newspaper article on an executive's desk, sent it to every registered Microsoft user, and said "Don't get caught like Ernie Ball -- a fine company that found out just how hard it is to stay compliant. Call us. We'll give you a free audit and sell you software at 20% off." Keep in mind that we had already downloaded the BSA self-auditing software and it didn't work. This was fear-based marketing, with government help."-http://www.searls.com/feb04-lfs-diyit.html/

And this:

Here's how Sterling Ball put it when I interviewed him at Linux World last August:

"A disgruntled ex-employee saw a nail-your-butt opportunity, so he called the BSA. I was sued under federal seal. There was no warning. We were raided at ten o'clock on a Friday. We were shut down and ordered not to touch our computers. There were armed marshals. Our employees were sitting there going 'What's the matter? Is our company criminal? Are we crooks?' Then they sent out press releases... It's coincidental that they always send these out after business is closed."-http://www.searls.com/feb04-lfs-diyit.htm l/

Asside from releasing Microsoft of accountability I agree with your statements. Also I have been unable to discover what exactly the license infringements were; if anyone is so inclined.

Microsoft is part of the BSA.

"BSA members include Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Avid, Bentley Systems, Borland, Cadence, Cisco Systems, CNC Software/Mastercam, Dell, Entrust, HP, IBM, Intel, Internet Security Systems, Macromedia, McAfee, Inc., Microsoft, PTC, RSA Security, SAP, SolidWorks, Sybase, Symantec, Synopsys, and UGS Corp."-http://www.bsa.org/

Then there's this:

Ernie Ball went to court and paid a fine; but that didn't end the matter:

"The worst thing was when Microsoft printed a four-color reproduction of that newspaper article on an executive's desk, sent it to every registered Microsoft user, and said "Don't get caught like Ernie Ball -- a fine company that found out just how hard it is to stay compliant. Call us. We'll give you a free audit and sell you software at 20% off." Keep in mind that we had already downloaded the BSA self-auditing software and it didn't work. This was fear-based marketing, with government help."-http://www.searls.com/feb04-lfs-diyit.html/

And this:

Here's how Sterling Ball put it when I interviewed him at Linux World last August:

"A disgruntled ex-employee saw a nail-your-butt opportunity, so he called the BSA. I was sued under federal seal. There was no warning. We were raided at ten o'clock on a Friday. We were shut down and ordered not to touch our computers. There were armed marshals. Our employees were sitting there going 'What's the matter? Is our company criminal? Are we crooks?' Then they sent out press releases... It's coincidental that they always send these out after business is closed."-http://www.searls.com/feb04-lfs-diyit.htm l/

Asside from releasing Microsoft of accountability I agree with your statements. Also I have been unable to discover what exactly the license infringements were; if anyone is so inclined.

I didn't read anything in the reports of Jobs's remarks that suggested he was claiming more than to have been sensitised to wider design issues by his calligraphy classes and being in a position, chief head kicker for the Mac development project, where he could force a brake through the conceptual bottlenecks which had long separated end user computing and elegance. (emphasis mine)

But while we're talking about "conceptual bottlenecks" to "elegance": power-of-position is clearly not the effective ingredient, or we might have seen more elegance displayed by the dark side. Jobs famously claimed Micro$oft lacks taste*. It is true that Jobs always displayed taste and even humanism (from a distance!) while amassing his billions; conversely Gates' cheap avarice and common-thug mentality were only sharpened. I see from Google that the comparison has been made many times.

the high cost of retooling developers' brains

generation after generation insisting such a revolution was also inevitable

needed Gore's political initiative to break through the final barriers to the commercial Web

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*In the same interview, Jobs refers to proportional fonts: "The only problem with Microsoft is they just have ... absolutely no taste, ... In the sense that they ... don't bring much culture into their product ... - well you know proportionally spaced fonts come from type setting and beautiful books, that's where one gets the idea - if it weren't for the Mac they would never have that in their products..." which is essentially the same claim he made at Stanford, but without saying "and the Mac wouldn't have had them if not for my calligraphy class".

This is an interesting post?

The authors are relatively well-known, and even if you didn't know them, Google and 2 clicks will show you directly to their biograpies.

Personally, I thought most of the points were fairly obvious, but the article'd be very thought-provoking for my friends who aren't as used to thinking about "the Internet" as some sort of entity.

I have to wonder how their laptops get power... from the looks of the photos it wasn't a whole lot of camping in the wilderness.. at least by my standards an extention cord running into your tent doesnt count

I have to wonder how their laptops get power... from the looks of the photos it wasn't a whole lot of camping in the wilderness.. at least by my standards an extention cord running into your tent doesnt count

I have had SBC DSL since they offered it. I was an early adopter and paid for it heavily with downtime and mysterious router issues. Add to that I actually signed up for static IP addresses and bandwidth guarantees and I feel into the black hole when it came to support.

The techs working undercover on Broadband Reports helped me out and since then, two years, I haven't had a single issue.

This raises the interesting prospect of if they weren't available I would have cancelled and taken my business elsewhere. Where I am located there are multiple companies and solutions available, so I am lucky.

99.9% of the techs on the boards do it for their own gratification. I call it the Samaritan Effect. It's what online support used to be back in the days of the BBS and message networks. Personal handholding on issues that others could learn from.

Each time a tech takes the time to answer a question, solve a problem or offer advice it lightens the load on the overworked phone staff.

The techs enjoy it because they find, gasp, satisfaction that they are making a difference in their jobs. Most of those folks are not customer facing getting their orders from ticket systems, etc. It provides them a chance to make a difference.

Yes, there are negative implications on doing this, but for the most part it works. Providers should read the Cluetrain Manifesto for more exposure to what they should be doing.

- and if you're the boss, tell your employees that speaking to the press is voluntary resignation (e.g. nobody does it except you).

You really ought to read the ClueTrain Manifesto. One of the core arguments is that this sort of centralized communication from within companies is ignored by your customers.

Think about it. What gives you the warm and fuzzies? Would you rather an engineer at XYZ Co. tell you that they're having problems with the Linux drivers for their latest video card, or read the press release stating "the platform is currently unsupported."

Your friendly neigborhood devil's advocate...

And they are either ignoring these conversation on purpose or because they are stupid, because they are being spoken loudly and publicly here at slashdot and other places. (My two personal favorites are the interview of Al Gore's webmaster which in turn inspired my partner in crime to write a whitepaper which was dissected on slashdot.)

We should not have to sift and sort through crappy web sites to find where Al stands on napster or where Bush stands on immigration; they should be engaging us on our terms in the online places where we are. (Beats pressing the flesh in Duluth, hunh?)

And they are either ignoring these conversation on purpose or because they are stupid, because they are being spoken loudly and publicly here at slashdot and other places. (My two personal favorites are the interview of Al Gore's webmaster which in turn inspired my partner in crime to write a whitepaper which was dissected on slashdot.)

We should not have to sift and sort through crappy web sites to find where Al stands on napster or where Bush stands on immigration; they should be engaging us on our terms in the online places where we are. (Beats pressing the flesh in Duluth, hunh?)