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MS Wants To Outlaw Open Source: "Threatens" the "American Way"
EnderWiggnz was one of the people who wrote to us about some interesting quotes from Jim Allchin, main Windows guy at Microsoft. Essentially he argues that Open Source undermines intellectual property (which is true) but that it also stifles innovation and he "...can't imagine something that could be worse then this for the software business and intellectual-property business." My favorite quote:"I'm an American, I believe in the American Way,'' he said. ''I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat." Wow. I know - let's blame Canada! That seems a logical next step!
I just dug this up straight out of the Microsoft archives. click here for something intimidating.
Please remove BOOGERS when sending me eMail. Thankyou...
Sincerely,
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
In order to have communism, all members of society must contribute to society according to their ability to do so. (As in, "from each, according to his means, to each, according to his needs.")
Since the vast majority of the users of Linux, Apache, and other free software products are passive consumers, who do not even so much as bother to submit bug reports, this is clearly not the case.
Open Source development can therefore be considered an act of benevolence or charity... offering to share the fruits of thier labor and knowledge with the world, knowing full-well that most of the world will do nothing for them in exchange.
If the open source movement was about communism, then every farmer who owns a Linux box would be giving their food away.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
America didn't invent the corporation
Well, actually you didnt. But America is responsible for the present state of the Economic World. America has been used by Capitalists as a breading/staging ground on the rest of the planet.
Please read these two links here and here. American Plutocrats have managed to use the natural resources of the unexploited 'America'. They are now starting a campaign of Imperialism this world has never seen through the WTO, World Bank et al.
AMERICANS have got to take control of their Government and bring these groups back to reality... please do it soon... No one likes the direction you're (were) heading.
>Does anybody think workstations running linux
>2.4 were more useful than the ones running linux
>2.2? Or 2.2 instead of 2.0? NO!
Actually, the kernel updates are still making large differences to usefullness. With kernel 2.4, USB is supported, sound support improves, I can play DVDs, AGP is better support, threading on 4 processor machines is more effecient, the ReiserFS, and scores of other things that help make linux more usefull as a workstation. Some of the are just new or improved drivers, but a lot of the changes come from re-architecting the driver sub-systems.
I guess that most people overlook these exciting changes because if they needed them they've been using patched versions of the 2.2 kernal. However, I hate dealing with kernel patches and have been doing without these improvements till the 2.4 kernel shipped.
And frankly, going from gnome 1.0 to 1.2 didn't make much of change for me (sorry, I can't comment on KDE since I don't use it. I like GNOME because it is in C rather than C++).
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
..or intellectual property. Not exactly, and maybe not at all.
Understand that open source, or, to put a finer point on it, GNU and the GPL, is based on the exact principle that others' more proprietary claims are based on: that creators' can say what others may do with their intellectual inventions. Note that open source software is not released into the public domain, where anyone could do anything they want with it, including creating a new version of it and claiming that creation as their intellectual property; there are very important restrictions on the use of GPL'ed intellectual property, of which we're all aware. There is still a license in other words. If you violate that license, in theory, the custodians of the GPL'ed software could sue you in court, just as more proprietary corporations can if you break their licenses.
Of course the GPL is a million times more humanitarian than Microsoft, and their ilk. But there's a reason RMS called it Copyleft, which is that open source software is still copyrighted, but the conditions of its use and distribution are exactly opposite of those of proprietary software, where rights are not to be distributed with the program.
-jhp
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
You right wing freaks simply don't understand something. Reporters aren't stupid, like you. They are train to investigate and interpret facts. The reason major journalism agencies are liberally "biased" isn't because they're biased. It's because they're right. So take your ignorant, selfish or backward ideology and go straight to this imaginary "hell" that all you right wing freaks believe in because you're so ignorant that you are forced to believe one interpretation of what happens after you die, and, on top of that, you try to force these beliefs onto others with you mangling of the political system. Fuck all of you.
-Splat
Don't even get me started on how much they swiped from DEC.
Microsoft only innovated marketing.
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
Well said, Allchin trolled, Hemos bit & flamebaited us.
Isn't anyone getting a little bit bored with this type of post (happens about.5 times a day here)
**Vanuatu or bust**
Because a $10 trillion market cap isn't enough motivation.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
Well, hop over to uhaul.com and get a quote, they email it back to you, the 1 ton of ammonia nitrate (~35-40) and and 1 gal of nitromethane (~10) costs are going to be set by the farm supply and local drag strip respectively and diesel can be found at your neighboorhood truck stop, approx 1.30/gal around here, figure it out from there so assume a one day/cross town move
100 for the truck, with insurance
40 for the fertilizer
10 nitro methane
130 diesel fuel
comes to 280, probably want to budget 500 though
Read my plan to save the Bengals
I think the key to understanding the poster's comment was the word unreasonable...
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Funny you should bring up the GPL to defend IP - I don't think the GPL is right, either. I would go along with the GPL out of politeness, and because I think the source should be free, not because I have to. I wouldn't violate the GPL, but I don't think it should be enforceable.
The GPL does two things I don't like:
1. The GPL tries to spread, forcing its way into other programs. I think viral is a bad word for that, since it is rather offensive to people who like the GPL, but the GPL is a... very reproductive license. This is not in and of itself bad, but it is worrisome.
2. The GPL presumes authors have the right to control what other people do with their creations. RMS talks about free software, but then he said "...if we let them use the code in proprietary software products." in http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-not-lgpl.html
If GPL'd software is so free, why do the users of the GPL think they have the right to not let others use their code in whatever way they want?
This is why I prefer BSD-style or public domain "licenses." I don't think I have the right to tell other people what they can do with my code. This is why, though I admire RMS's motives, I disagree with the GPL, and with IP.
"Why should I spend a bunch of time and energy creating something that isn't going to put money in my pocket or otherwise benefit me?"
But there is a way it otherwise benefits you. There is now a program where there was not. You made it, you can change or customize it in any way you want, and you can do anything you want with it without having to sign your firstborn child away in some EULA. Of course, there is also the respect and admiration of your peers, and another item you can put on your resume. Even if that's not enough benefit for you, it is for me.
"So don't attack IP, because commercial apps are the only way that Linux is going to make it out of the server room."
I fundamentally disagree with you here. All I can say is that I, a guy in my dorm across the hall, and my dad all use Linux on our desktop boxes. My dad has a windows box, but rarely uses it. Kevin and I don't have windows, and have no interest in it. Our desktops work fine with only Linux. No, we aren't the average end user, but I don't mind. It's good enough for me. Way better than Windows, IMHO.
"IP when applied correctly is a benefit to society."
I won't argue with you here, but I don't understand. How can you correctly apply IP without it being a form of content control?
"Blaming IP for all the crap that's been going on with the DMCA, Napster, etc. etc. is exactly like blaming a gun when someone is killed."
Yes, Microsoft, the RIAA, the MPAA, and Amazon are certainly fully to blame for what they did. However, I also disagree with IP because I think it is a bad set of laws. I don't see how IP can exist without content control, and I think content control is evil.
"...not the principle of IP. If it weren't for it, there would be no GPL."
If there was no IP and no GPL, I would not miss either. Yes, I am sure there would be problems, but they would be our own problems, not injustices enforced upon us by big government and big business.
I find it painfully ironic to read your gripe about:
.sig
"Poor RMS...Invokes The Right To Tell Others What They Should Be Doing."
And then read your
Moderators: You should be browsing at -1, (Newest|Oldest) First, Nested, not +2, Highest Scores, Threaded
Consistency Dude!!
ti_dave
Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating-system chief, Jim Allchin, says that freely distributed software code [snip] could stifle innovation and that legislators need to understand the threat.
Hey, Jim! Who drove Netscape to bankruptcy by giving away software that competed directly with their own product?
I think somebody should sue that guy for his affirmations. How is it possible to go out and accuse somebody of doing something you did, with a straight face?
If this is the American Way then... How much is a ticket to Europe?
RMS is just a little bit smarter than the average slashdot poster. As a result, he thinks he has to stick to the ideas that he has (because they are good).
What he has in common with a "seriously demenented nutcase" is that he is following a single strategy - not behaving like a butterfly or a puppy.
Now to get down to some details: Software does not behave like your average commodity. A commodity in the sense I use here is something that may be produced by several producers (maybe after some patent runs out) and is then traded on a free market.
Due to the fact that software is built like a shell, with one layer covering the next, rights of a software company to its works practically never run out, unlike normal copyright.
In addition, it costs practically nothing to copy and distribute the information. Which is why it is economically wrong to carry over to the software market the standard business and market model, which is associated with material goods and time-constrained services.
This leads to overpriced software. In practice unlicensed use of software is what has created a mass market of computer users.
Technically, the software industry so far has been selling software at a low "dumping" price - since a lot of software was multiplied to non-paying customers (see I can talk PC, too).
This means that in the past, what software companies really did was to sell you the software, and the right to copy and distribute the software - this is what they did, even if your contract said otherwise.
In other areas, like when distributing copyrighted works like books and music, you already pay a fee everytime you use that media. Calling it a tax is bad marketing by RMS.
Actually your argument that programmers would go impoverished without companies running the business is bullshit - a big, old software company will eat all profits and the programmers will get what they need for a living.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
What about Livid Emacs, XEmacs, and GNU Emacs...
Or how about FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD..
Happens all the time.
Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Americans have far less leisure time than many 3rd world people. We also have low unemployment, a government that doesn't have civil wars every fifteen years, the ability to vote, and plumbing. I'd have a hell of a lot of leisure time too, if unemployment was at 80%, I couldn't read, hadn't seen a dentist in my entire life and was starving to death. Low unemployment - how much of our economic strength is due to good old elbow grease, and how much is due to a history of western imperialism? I can't give you numbers, but it should be obvious that Western nations in general have a long history or mercantilist behavior.
Civil wars and voting: Yep, not too many civil wars. Nice thing about a well run fake democracy - everyone thinks they can elect a new king every four years. We just witnessed how much your vote counts, too.
Illiteracy: I doubt that you'd be able to read if it weren't for the schooling you received. If public schools - paid for by the taxes from an economy built on the misery of others. If private - even worse.
Why are people killing themselves to get in? Not because we've destroyed their supposedly self sufficient economies. They try to come here because our system works and the one in thier home country does not. If you bust your ass in the USA, you can get ahead. That's not always guaranteed in other countries. Their system doesn't work precisely because their native economy has been RAPED by Western Interests. Western nations have a tendency to buy off leadership in developing countries in order to produce nations of cash-crop producing indentured servants, who previous had no interest in growing tobacco, sugar cane, etc. However, their local leaders were "convinced" by Western interests to convert their agricultural systems. Those leaders aren't the ones starving.
but by the same token they would have difficulty believing the amount of money I get for sitting in front of a keyboard and monitor for 8 hours a day.
They'd be even more surprised at the amount of money you spend on worthless consumer bullshit. They'd probably have a hard time understanding how any person could care about a DVD of "The Matrix" than feeding their fellow man who is starving. Consumer culture has done a lot to ensure that most Americans never really think about whether they're spending their money in a socially responsible sort of way.
The system in the US is far from perfect, but you are trying to make it look far worse than it is, and I think you are doing it in quite a dishonest fashion. I don't think I'm being dishonest at all. I'm not against free enterprise and capitalism. It's a proven system. However, American corporations engage in activities abroad that they are prohibited from engaging in domestically. This is done with the full support of the US government. Case in point: at the same time all the tobabacco hearing were going on in this country, the government was simultaniously using diplomacy to open foriegn markets to US tobacco products. We've also gone to war (as a nation, we have KILLED already poor and disadvantaged people so that we fat americans can pay a few cents less for gas).
For more info, check out Year 501 by Noam Chomsky.
Damn... I wish you could be modded up. This is funny as hell. Why did you post as AC? Who is the talented man behind the AC mask?
What do you think IBM will have to say about Microsoft trying to make their $1.3BN investment irrelevant. Microsoft are too late to try legislative action, their most powerful enemies support Linux. I mean, do you think Scott McNealy will just say 'yes sir Mr Bill sir' when ordered to take down OpenOffice?
Is that the same "American Way" that allows unelected politicians to become president?
"Land of the free" my arse...
Hmm, I think Allchin's point of view is egocentric. He's arguing that Microsoft's "Freedom to Innovate" (TM) is being threated by the very "freedoms" that he is trying to remove from open-source developers.
However, Allchin doesn't realize that:
To me, it sound likes the classic "my rights end where yours start" argument. Unfortunately, Allchin's view is that he can tip the scales in his favor with Microsoft's money and the "Intellectual Property" argument.
Fortunately, that will never work as long as the US Constitution is in law. Unfortunately, it seems that the Constitution is become nothing more than a piece of paper nowadays.
You're shooting yourself in the foot there. Time and again, it has been shown that opportunity is not equal. Theoretically, there are laws that prohibit discrimination. Effectively, there are societal barriers to every kind of opportunity. Look at CEOs of corporations, politcal representation, and follow on down. There are stratifications in place that are very difficult to surmount. Look at the dunderhead we have for president and you'll see that the game is clearly rigged. Do you think there's someone out there more qualified? Did they have the same opportunity?
-----
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
Isn't it Jim (B)all(son)chin?
I know I'll get modded to hell for this, but I couldn't resist.
-------------------------------
Several more points here, though probably not ones you want to hear:
Americans have far less leisure time than many 3rd world people. We also have low unemployment, a government that doesn't have civil wars every fifteen years, the ability to vote, and plumbing. I'd have a hell of a lot of leisure time too, if unemployment was at 80%, I couldn't read, hadn't seen a dentist in my entire life and was starving to death.
Why are people killing themselves to get in? Not because we've destroyed their supposedly self sufficient economies. They try to come here because our system works and the one in thier home country does not. If you bust your ass in the USA, you can get ahead. That's not always guaranteed in other countries.
Say what you want about our financial system, but the simple fact is that it does work, and it works significantly better than any other system we've found so far. If you have a better solution, let's see it implemented.
And the standard of living in the US is certainly not a crock. Many people in the US live with debts people in less developed countries cannot comprehend not because they are stupid corporate sheep - they live with debt because they can, and because it's not really that big of a problem.
Five hundred dollars to me is gift money, perhaps a few days of my time. Five hundred dollars is unbelievable wealth in some countries, more than a resident might make in their entire lifetime. Of course they would have difficulty understanding the concept of a twenty thousand dollar debt - but by the same token they would have difficulty believing the amount of money I get for sitting in front of a keyboard and monitor for 8 hours a day.
Given the chance, do you think they would trade places with me? Do you think I would trade with them? If the standard of living is so low in the US, why are they killing themselves to come here?
The system in the US is far from perfect, but you are trying to make it look far worse than it is, and I think you are doing it in quite a dishonest fashion.
-dennis T
Alter Aeon Multiclass MUD - http://www.alteraeon.com
While I can understand your arguement and the logic you use. How do I say this.....erm last time I looked California was still part of the US. It may be the no 6 wealthiest area on Earth but unless I've missed something on the news, there ain't no civil war going on on the other side of the pond.
'We can build a better product than Linux,'' he said. ''
Then why don't they?
Let's see.. Having the freedom to dispose of your creations as you see fit. To freely exchange source code with those of like mind.. That's "Freedom and the American Way."
The MS way is called Slavery.
What a pile of B.S.
Somebody forgot to close their italic tag ;-D
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
The US is about 'rugged individualism'. The US *used to be* about 'rugged individualism'. Over the last 30 years there has been a creep towards the 'government taking care of you' (this new program is *for the children*). Every now and then the progress is checked (Reagan/Bush) but socialism is creeping in and tax rates are creeping up.
this sig....forget it, nobody cares.
This is a big myth in this country. I buy my own health insurance. A lot of people do. It's not expensive at all. And for the bit that I pay, I can be guaranteed (thanks to healthy competition) that I get some of the best possible health care in the world. Even if I was very poor, I could still walk into an emergency room when I was sick, and get government-funded health care (Medicaid). I have no worries about health-care in the US. I DO worry, however, about health-care in other countries. From what I understand, Canada has government-provided healthcare, and there are often very, very long waiting periods to go to see doctors. I, on the other hand, can call up my local hospital, and generally see a very compentent physician in very little time.
Ya, too bad we didn't completely miss the 70s either! :-)
In other news, Microsoft has decided to change it's name to "McCarthysoft"
Last time I checked, we were one of the last nations to offer health care to everyone. Great standard of living, if you're among the wealthy half of the population.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
MS is blowing smoke. I think they do have an answer (or an attempt) and are trying to make us think they are floundering. Unfortunately, they are not. But, at the same time, I don't see them being able to dominate like they once did. OSX and the new GUI's for the 2.4 kernel on the desktop will see to that, and 2.4 kernel and BSD will take care of MS on the server side (along with other *nix's)
I have no gate key. Fesik, tear his arms off. Oh, you me this gate key.
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
An excellent point... Why is it that there seem to be so many people out there that can't grasp the apparent contradiction in these arguments?
One thing to keep in mind though, is that Microsoft has their own definition of 'innovation'... One which I think can be more correctly termed 'immovation'.
Next they'll be touting that the Department of Justice threatens the "American Way" (or at least M$'s version of it.)
Something I'm wondering: a couple of weeks ago the BSA put a radio ad out along the lines of "The jackbooted thugs are coming to town -- make sure your software licenses are all good to avoid a BSA investigation".
Last time I checked, they aren't a government agency -- say they did come after me. Now collections agents (I know this all too well, being a recovering college student) are empowered only to annoy, not bully. If the BSA comes to my doorstep, am I within my rights to tell them to shove it?
/Brian
You have to love the quote "Open Source is an intellectual property destroyer..." Well three cheers because intellectual property is a ridiculous and untenable concept and it's about time for its "destruction" so that REAL innovation can, for the first time, truly be possible. To Microsoft PR people, execs, and other schleps: Your products have always sucked and still do. You'll be obsolete in a few years or less and it would be less painful for all involved if you'd just go quietly.
I don't usually resort to this sort of thing, but...
Blow it out your ass, M$.
Okay, I feel better now.
Three dits, four dits, two dits, dah!
Radio, radio, rah rah rah!
"We can't innovate, so it must be open-source's fault."
And to keep this post on topic... Damn you Microsoft! Damn you to Hell!
--
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
> MS do not want to outlaw Open Source.
> What they have said, is that the government should not encourage it.
> And this is more fair.
Wft the US govt have to do with what a corporation wants ?
> Let me explain:
> The ultimate goal of Open Source is free software.
> Now this means that you don't pay anything for it.
This is not true. Free software means freedom, not "you don't pay anything"
> If this happens, there is no money to pay programmers
The amount of money that goes to the developer is insignifiant. Really. For a retail price of a product, all programmers maybe get 1%. (Very very good contracts, at the time where programmers could do software all by themselves and hand it to a dsitributor, were just a little higher than 10% royalties. this does not exist anymore, and the concept of 'star' programmer does not exist in software houses anymore).
> As a result, intelligent people such as myself,
No sir. You are a moron. I'll stop commenting, as it is just too funny.
> who could command 6 figure salaries in any profession
In Yens, I beleive.
> will take different career paths.
This would be a good thing for everyone.
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Here I don't think change applies, Fascism is term that was coined by Mussolini himself. Therefore if we want clear picture of Fascism we should take the sum of Mussolini's words and actions. Trotsky's pamphlet does preciscly this.
The actual usage by Brian Behlendorf was incorrect. In essence what he is saying is an all or nothing attitude is fascist. I think something along the lines of "intolerant" would have been correct.
Anyway last message from me on subject, I promise. ;)
World Socialist Web Site
Microsoft has spread FUD tacticts in the industry for a very long time... and always has gotten away with it, that is, until now. When someone starts talking about defending the so-called "American Way" (as if there are no other countries... but that's another story), even people not clued-in on the story start smelling bullshit.
Protecting "innovation" by being patriotic is the best way of showing just how scared they really are. Go for it, Microsoft, keep at it! %-)
shana
You're right but it's still a stereotype. You can't let THESE guys define what the American way is, just because they jump up and down blathering on about it. A lot of americans pursue other ways. I think FDR's "New Deal" was the American Way. I think the Four Freedoms are the American Way. I don't accept that greed and economic destruction of the weak are the American Way. Did you know that one of FDR's Four Freedoms that WWII was fought over was freedom from want? That another was freedom from fear? Compare with the Microsoft Way. You should also read Madison in Federalist #10 about the evils of faction and the need to put pressure on the largest factions so they don't just plain steamroller all the others. THAT is the American Way to me, seeing these problems and deciding to try and improve the situation, even if imperfectly, but to go ahead and make the effort- who cares if you aren't guaranteed success, TRY anyway! That to me is the American Way. That is what I practice, and sometimes it works, and when it works it's great :) when it doesn't, at least I tried...
"community owned product"
By definition, Free software isn't owned. Information should be as free as sunlight.
"everyone takes part in the production process"
Free enterprise hard at work. However, this time, the profits are far more valuble than mere money.
"everyone reaps the benefits of the production process"
This is software we're talking about here. How could it be any other way? Everyone should reap the benefits of a non-scarce resource.
"I'd say we're pretty damn close to Marxism."
I agree with that. A ruling elite in their boardrooms and commitees deciding the fate of all us lowly programmers... some idealistic heros trying to stir us to resist... as the executives and lawyers squeeze their iron fists around us... when comes the famous flip-flop?
The reason educational versions are so cheap is because you're not entitled to support from MS.
-- Steve van Egmond, b.math
1: Attack the business
MS is a little confused because they're used to isolating businesses, and either buying them out or destroying them. Open source takes the "business" approach away.
2: Attack the idea
According to our monopoly friends, MS support is superior and if it costs money, it has to be better. But what people realize is that Windows blows. It crashes, it locks, it clusterflops, etc.
3: Make alliances (even with the Gov't)
What they're trying to do now. Thinking that since republicans are in control of the federal govt, MS is probably looking for a long shot in this one. I don't think there are nearly enough politicians that are totally void of a brain function to vote in favor of MS -- hopefully we'll never see.
4: Where from here? ;)
Maybe, they'll start hiring mercaneries to systematically take care of their little PTK (People To Kill) lists. You know Linus has got to be up there near the top, along with dozens of people at several universities and research centers. To all of you potentials.. watch your six if #3 falls through.
At least his comments tell us one thing: Microsoft's on the run and they don't have a clue about how to deal with open source
Not so fast, the article says:
says that freely distributed software code such as rival Linux could stifle innovation and that legislators need to understand the threat.
''I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat.''
Hold on - I think they know EXACTLY how their going to deal with the Linux threat. The same way the RIAA dealt with MP3s...
we in europe heard all this 20, 40 years ago: :))
"Linux is developed in a <i>so-called</i> open-source environment.." - "the communists live and work in the <i>so-called</i> GDR..."
-PAT-
SEO Test: TIGI und SEBASTIAN - Online Shop - V
Perhaps you missed one of the goals of Open source.... sharing of ideas.... More inovations occur when you share ideas, not when you keep them a secret. Companies can still make a lot of money off of open source... take red hat for example... or any of the major distributors of linux... Open sourcing also forces companies to rely on thier products actual merit, not that products dependance on other products that the company makes... ummm hello Office.... that is why MS won't release office for linux... not because people wouldn't buy it, they are afraid that they would.. and stop buying windows. Its Office and other such programs that force people into buying thier crappy OS. Money to Universities... ha... they do that so the students will be used to working with MS crap and feel they need MS crap or they can't function properly... like say visual C++.... who needs it... no one... use a text editor... and an open source compiler... As far as you not making six figures, perhaps you should go and work for MS. They will always need programmers to keep "Inovating" or stealing ideas to put into thier next OS. They also need more PR people to make the herd of sheep think they need Windows.
It just says that Jim Allchin, the Windows operating-system chief believes that freely distributed source:
When I put those things together, I get the impression that Microsoft wants to outlaw Open Source. YMMV.
Never play leapfrog with a unicorn. Or a juggernaut.
I'm not at all sure I follow your logic.
Our method of farming doesn't work in every enviroment/climate in the world. It also doesn't work if the culture isn't prepared for it.
Ethiopia needs more food. America suggests how they can get more food. Ethiopia is, for whatever reason, unable to implement suggestions, and happens to also continue the long-standing tradition of having as many (or more) children as humanly possible.
Ethiopia was not in the position to need more food before the US came along. And i also don't believe there was a 'long standing tradition' to have as many kids as possible. Just look at what the WTO is doing to India as far as food production goes; basically the same thing is happening.
So obviously, it's America's fault that Ethiopia is starving.
Yes, it was b/c of us that they are in their current state...
Look, the American people are the most generous people on the planet.
What the hell planet do you live on? I doubt many americans give anything, they're so busy just trying to get out of debt. People in the US seem to be the most greedy around. You can even tell it in the way people drive now, they don't give a fuck who they run off the road, as long as THEY get where they are going 5mins faster...
No, I'm not talking about our government, we don't like them any more than you furriners do).
Is that supposed to be foreigner? Nice try dipshit, i'm an American...
I'd like to see a detailed comparison of non-US countries as to where they stand on IP, censorship, network bandwidth, and other important issues.
Territorial distrust is the key concept here. Microsoft does not know how to assimilate this open source territory into their own shop, because it breaks the very foundation of their ideas, beliefs and business models.
Unlike humanity, the software world is not bound to the same "physical" territories that have caused man to consume his way into every culture that has come and gone and been assimilated. We have pushed out those that came before us and rebuild when we destroy... the "territories" as they exist in the virtual realm don't obey these rules. When you take money out of the equation and seperate from the world of Microsoft vs xyz corporation, Microsoft was able to dominate by conversion or persuasion or harrasment.
The OpenSource model breaks this cycle by taking money out of the equation. In effect creating a new territory (although not that new) that has come into a maturity of its own that now provides man with an alternative. Shall he continue flying with MS into a world that will eventually crumble at its own overweight blunders, or will they give a chance to evolution? A chance to experience a new territory?
Who knows? Only if we allow MS to continue their propoganda will they scare the masses away from exploring new territories, and therein lies the danger of Microsoft.. not in stifling the competition, but in stifling the territories we are allowed to play in.
thanks for listening... people have been trying to step all in my territory today... sigh.
This is me... and that is all I can be.
> If you say it enough it becomes true [...]
Soo true. We can expect to hear that little music more and more. Free software will be charged of every possible problem. Thankfully, there will be laws to regulate this.
Babooey to you,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
So by analogy...
We are standing knee deep in warm wet shit. Rather than try to fix it, we should point over there and say "Look, see they are nose deep in warm wet shit...we should just be happy"?
Its been said a million times but "Correlation is not causation".
We have a very different country than any of those places. Our land is rich in natural resources (probably more so than any other single developed area in the world). The largest portion of our countries development did not happen under the tenticles of some other countries imperialism.
(where the standard mode for colonies always seemd to be "Suck em dry for the good of the motherland")
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
How ironic that three hundred years ago, America itself was a colony.
Its actually closer to 200...glad you know your history well.
Or are you intimating that the African people are somehow less able to protect their own interests from foreign powers?
No, i think he meant it was pure luck that the western powers were further technologically.
The insight I get from your comment is not that Allchin used the wrong word, but rather that the words "American" and "Corporate" are in fact completely interchangable.
Apache for one, sendmaill for another. I'll ask you the same. Show me one piece of software that Microsoft didn't buy or copy from someone else.
I'm sorry, but those =have= to violate some human rights convention or other.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Does Netscape Enterprise support apache modules?
I lost my copy of the green golf ball joke can anyone find it for me?
with insurance!!! LMAO!!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I take no responsibility for any spelling mistakes in the above post.
Let's think about UNIX for a moment. Linux and the BSDs are generally considered part of the UNIX family. UNIX was developed at a university in the 60's, long before MS was ever thought of.
That was way before we had this massive information distrubition system we know and love called the Internet. I don't think universities these days will be too impacted by the disappearance of MS.
- Milo Hyson
To add more, the only think I can think of off the top of my head is the bogus TCO arguments. Even if TCO was cheaper when actually buying Windows instead of using an OS OS, when you add applications - like Office/StarOffice, compilers, webservers, etc., the TCO goes through the roof with MS, and they still aren't liable for problems in their software.
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Stupid sexy Flanders.
Ok I will bite on the above flamebait!
No I won't, I will stay on topic:
It looks like MS is running out of FUD topics and getting desperate. Boy they are pathetic.
Oh and before I forget, please leave the word Canada out of any MS FUD story.
He's setting Allchin up....
Open source is a misuse of property, according to your observations, and takes innovation that should benefit the good of the corporate community and destroys it, depriving poor corporations of their right to monopolize them. Only by preventing selfish programmers from carelessly giving their innovations away without going through a corporate party can this community property be protected.
OH! He SLAMS his head into the turnbuckle!...
Only government action, you state, can protect helpless corporations from this destructive action, such as mandatory programmer licenses, outlawing of open source and free software (unless it says Internet Explorer on it and comes from Microsoft), and minimum pricing standards to require a fee for all software.
He take 'em to the mat!.....
With all this said, please help me understand your demands are any different from any other redistributionist thief's views. Help me determine why I should defend your rights any further, instead of regarding you as yet another parasite.
He just gouged Allchin's eye with his thumb! That's going to leave a mark!
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
That's what you get when you cross Microsoft and the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC), 1934-77.
You will recant!
You will confess!
you will use XP!!!!
Heh.
Nope, sorry... I don't buy the Richard Stallman line of bullshit regarding Software Communism.
Microsoft is right, Open Source is a threat to the software industry and as a result to our US Economy.
I don't see how you could deny that, considering that's the admitted point of your revolution. You just don't care what the perimiter consequences are to your bread and butter.
Someone should point out to Allchin that he's free to sell GNU/Linux at whatever price he wants...
"There is a diminishing return on caution."
So what you're saying, basically, is that if I write a piece of software all on my own, and decide to offer the program and the source to anyone who cares to have it, that I shouldn't be allowed to do it? It's my 'intellectual property', I should be able to do whatever the hell I like with it. If I want to give something that's mine away, then it's my desicion to do so.
Personally, I don't think it's right for companies to charge enormous amounts of money for software with thousands upon thousands of known bugs, but I don't try and make it illegal for them to do so because they created it, and they can do what they like with it.
My Boss said it well, "13X's better than pathetic is still not good enough. This is in responce to MS's infamious "Blue Screen of death" ad. Microsoft's products are getting more reliable, due to Open Source competion. I remember seeing credits for Berkely code in Win95, so even Microsoft uses open source code in their products. What'll happen when MS says because DOD uses so many MS products, that their survival is a matter of National Defense Interests. I wonder if it was an application of Microsoft's that didn't see the japanese fishing trawler?
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
In my city there's a guy which owns a Ferrari. Another one owns a Jaguar. Cars in my city are the best in the world.
Wrong
Just because there's a Ferrari and Jaguar in your city doesn't mean all cars are good. All the rest might be "how do they manage to still work", "rusting junk" sort of cars.
Try "average quality of universities" instead of "top 10".
Actually your argument that programmers would go impoverished without companies running the business is bullshit
I made no such argument (although Stallman himself flatly states that programmers will make less money with Free Software, as quoted). I'm well aware of the inefficiencies of proprietary software. I support the practice of writing free software (public domain, in particular), but not the demented Free Software theory of the FSF.
Stallman argues that programmers should put public interest before any self-consideration beyond survival, that they should make Free Software whether they profit from it in any way or not. If you don't believe me, go read the GNU manifesto and other documents at the FSF philosophy page. I didn't make those quotes up.
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Karma casino, place your bets!
M$ just wants to take advantage of every situation that they can, while they are still around. Its hard to blame them for this, in our screw everyone, watch out for youself world of today. What M$ is doing, however, is protecting themselves at the cost of the people, and this is blantly wrong.
Acidic-Intelligence --War is peace-- -Freedom is slavery-- ignorance is strength
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Well, Europe was ravaged many more times and somehow they managed to "catch-up" every time.
Hmm...i don't recall them ever being conquered by another culture (ie, non-Western).
"A *person* is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
"A *person* is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
- 'K' in Men in Black.
See, that sounds a little more reasonable to me. I'd buy that as an explanation of what's his nutz's comments.
This comment points out one of the big areas where corporations like MS, and more notably Apple, have a significant and obvious advantage over Open Source: They _design_ software.
Most Open Source projects are run by programmers, and for programmers. As a result, you get programs which are very satisfying to programmers. But pretty obviously, the vast majority of the population is not made up of programmers. As the poster points out, most Open Source improvements consist in better algorithms, making the program faster, smaller, and better by a variety of programming metrics. If Open Source wants to succeed in getting onto the desktops of grandma's across the world, it needs to get some design - artists, interaction designers, user-interface designers, and the like.
The problem is that most programmers left to their own devices will not listen to a designer. They do what's right for the program, for the machine, and tend to ignore the poor sap who's actually got to use the thing. The advantage that corporations have is that they have been building in the process to get design involved (think Apple), which makes for great design and very loyal customers, who love the product. It's not something that is unique to corporations, and it could get into Open Source movements if they would acknowledge that it's important. But with programmers doing the design for other programmers, it's just not happening. And when my grandma goes to buy a computer, it doesn't matter how amazingly the TCP/IP stack optimizes for X, or how the VM does this kind of awesome pre-paging, or whatever. If it's ugly, or more imporantly, if it's tough to use and makes her feel stupid, she's not going to use it. In her mind, saving $90 is worth a lot less than having to feel like an idiot every time she has to call somebody because some esoteric configuration file got corrupted, or she has has to compile some new software she just got.
So if Open Source wants to really take a shot at the desktop, it needs to see the importance not just of good programming, but also of good design.
IXI's X.Desktop was doing this in 1990, at least. They preferred you use mwm, which made the whole thing look right, but it wasn't required at all. XDesktop had an internal sh-like scripting language that allowed you to define new objects, and new behaviours for objects yourself, and distribute them to your users. Different classes of users got different views of the world, and different object behaviours (e.g. an Admin might get a 'lock account' action for People objects). From what I understand of it, this is a lot like OS/2 Workplace, although I've never used that. It was pretty cool.
They also made a funky virtual mwm, called Panorama.
IXI is now part of SCO, and I believe X.Desktop became part of SCO Open Desktop.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
You're right to disagree. Open Source is not only innocent of any "destruction of property," but it is a great creator of wealth: The key difference is in just who owns the product. The original investment of time & talent do not vary, but it'll either be the propriety of a secretive few, or it will be an empowering item to the many that share it.
Microsoft gave up on empowering users long ago. They're remembered for Windows and DOS, but it was their licensing of MS-BASIC to every brand of microcomputer that made them pioneers. And the innovation wasn't the software, since basic was someone else's brainchild... it was the licensing approach that made them wealthy... Why let people own software, when you can keep ownership and just license its use?
When every IBM machine had BASIC in its ROMs, the clones could not emulate that. But once GW-BASIC provided the alternative and a Windowing platform could supplant their DOS, Microsoft woke up: "Empower the user?!? WHAT WERE WE THINKING?!?!?" Now to get a development tool from them, you'll have to pay for a bloated suite to get it.
Customers and partners are just adversaries waiting to be taken advantantage.
What if they ever put a layer of hardware encryption in the typical pc/pda/whatever that only allows proprietary code to run on it? You could theoretically put it on the CPU I suppose. What would or could we do in these circumstances besides warezing the compilers if reverse engineering proves futile ?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Hear, hear. At most companies, R&D is not something that they like spending a lot of resources on. It's done (I want to say ``tolerated'' but that might be too strong a word) to the extent that it sometimes produces something useful that the rest of the company can build, sell, and make huge profits on. (They'd prefer that product ideas sprang, fully developed, from the brow of Athena.) OSS development is more like pure R&D than most companies actually do in the software area. Of course, not all R&D produces a marketable product and not all open source orojects are wildly successful. If it did, maybe we'd have cured the common cold, cancer, and AIDS and all of our software would have natural language interfaces and be crashproof... and we'd have had them years ago. :-)
Microsoft's and other traditional software houses that crow on endlessly about how much they spend on R&D are just trying to impress you with how much of a sacrifice they've made to the bottom line. I'm thinking that Microsoft's problem is that they are spending a ton-o-bucks on what they call R&D and it's not resulting in the same level of innovation that the OSS folks are producing. That's gotta stick in their craw.
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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
"We can build a better product than Linux,"...we don't to it presently...but we can...honest...just give us another chance...please
These do sound like the words of someone on the run. The desperate result to deperate tactics
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10);'
Hmmm...and now America produces most of the food on the planet, and Ethiopia (and Somalia, and a large fraction of the rest of the African continent) can't feed themselves. So obviously Americans don't know dick about farming. I'm not at all sure I follow your logic.
Ethiopia needs more food. America suggests how they can get more food. Ethiopia is, for whatever reason, unable to implement suggestions, and happens to also continue the long-standing tradition of having as many (or more) children as humanly possible. So obviously, it's America's fault that Ethiopia is starving. Never mind that US aid agencies send uncountable tons of food to needy countries, only to have the foodstuffs impounded by the local governments. It's obviously America's fault.
Look, the American people are the most generous people on the planet. We habitually give away huge amounts of money and food to people in need. (No, I'm not talking about our government, we don't like them any more than you furriners do).
Anyhow, that's my rant.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Sure Internet Explorer is free, if your time is worthless!
"That would just make us look like fanatics"
You are a fanatic.
But WHO will pay them? The people downloading the game for free aren't paying. So who is? And forget about game consoles - I'm talking about PC games, where the user has a PC already.
Look, I'm not advocating MS's position. I think Allchin is a moron. But I still don't see how a company can make money if it gives its product away for free. Charging for support only works if the customer NEEDS support. If the product is good enough that support is not needed, then the customer will not buy the support.
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Not sure what planet you are living on...
But if the software is free, I'm taking my $(x) and buying a new Lexus with it.
The $(x) is never going to be paid to the programmers, support techs, etc. because your giving your product away for free with no strings attached.
People are greedy.
Open Source, like Communism cannot exist in the real world.
I am judging open source by the only measure that makes any sense. It's all about the users plain and simple. When I started using Linux there wasn't any "industry," there was just a bunch of users/hackers who saw some useful code and who felt that it would be easier to adapt Linux to their particular needs than to start completely from scratch.
The funny thing is that it really doesn't take too terribly many people sharing their source code to make the economics of Free Software work. And people that don't share code are at a disadvantage the second a Free Software project becomes useable. Once the project becomes self sustaining it literally sucks the air out of the room for commercial software vendors who want to charge high prices for software "licenses."
I disagree with this as well. It has overwhelmingly been in the best interest of Free Software hackers as individuals to release their source code. For example, what would folks like Linus Torvalds or Miguel de Icaza be doing if they hadn't released their source. I can guarantee you that they wouldn't be in the position they are in today. Even RMS could almost certainly get himself a very well paying job creating Free Software if he were to actually look for one.
From my own experience I have found that not releasing source code can often be a horrible mistake. For example, I once made some "improvements" to the GIFgraph Perl module that I didn't share with the rest of the community. Now I am stuck maintaining legacy code (including having to stick with an ancient version of Perl) simply because I didn't share.
Trust me, it wasn't worth whatever mythical advantage my company has received by not sharing.
Marxism is by its very nature a top down sort of thing. Linux is almost one hundred percent the opposite. And don't let anyone fool you, it's all about the money. Linux gets used because it is economical to do so, and it gets improved because in many cases it is cheaper to adapt Linux to a particular use than to pay for the equivalent functionality from commercial software. Free Software removes the largely artificial barriers that have been keeping software prices so high. Because of this Linux is having great success, but it is success based primarily on very capitalistic economic factors. Linux is inexpensive, and for many projects it is "good enough" (or better).
The good news is that Linux is also a very friendly community. We build mailing lists, and we subscribe to them. We even read the lists and answer questions. The reason that we do this is because we know that eventually we will need some help as well (and because it's fun).
Do you know how furious they are that they can't just lower prices to force Open Source development out of business?
In pure financial terms, they can almost certainly afford to lower prices - their profits show that. From a legal standpoint - does some thing as nebulous as 'the open source movement' count as a competitor that they can't use monopoly-like leverage against?
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
I'm sure we could come up with a list of farm sex sites that the midwestern senators frequent, some s&m sites for the californians....
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
You raise some good points, but if a GPLed OS was to take over the OS market things wouldn't be all doom and gloom...
Imagine 2 closed source OSs; OS-Ernie and OS-Bert. Both, for the sake of argument are pretty comparable feature wise. If, in a pure market place, OS-Bert introduces an amazing new feature, then the OS should gain market share at the expense of OS-Ernie. OS-Bert must now compete by improving it's feature set accordingly or shrink and die. This process is called competition and benefits the consumer.
The argument is that because Linux is not a commercial company, and may become the dominant OS because it's free/open source, noone will be able to compete and innovation will die.
This is an appealing argument but ultimately flawed. Linux and other open source projects will continue to improve (providing there are enough coders working on them) through internal competition based on the technical merit of contributers new code.
Lets take the previous scenario and fast forward it a little to when Linux is the dominant OS. This time Ernie and Bert are 2 kernel hackers, and both are working on, say, process management. If Ernie submits a better solution to a technical problem than Bert does, his code will be adopted into the OS.
Open source mearly competes internally. The consumer will benefit more because the market will choose purely as a result of technical merit, and not because of marketing. After all, once a closed source OS acheives market dominance what reason does it really have to innovate. It has already won. Compare Windows with BeOS.
NickWKG
That's ridiculous. There are lots of educated people who don't type and have no need to. What has typing got to do with being educated?
In the future every high school graduate will have to have some basic programming skills.
Hahahahaha!!! Most high school students don't even have basic math and English skills. Do you really expect every high school student to become a part-time programmer!?!?!? You're insane!! There's no way that's going to happen. 95% of the population just isn't smart enough to understand programming.
Are you going to pay every high school student a six figure salary?
So you're advocating a world where people like me will make significantly less money? It sounds like you're a non-programmer who has a problem with programmers making lots of money
Will programmers get paid less in the future? Some may. But others will get paid more than they do now. Hopefully, you are right to say that some applications will become so advanced they do not require a lot of support. But at the same time there will always be new programs to write. Voice recognition, and image recognition are exciting areas for the desktop right now...
Geez, everyone keeps bringing up the same B.S. but no one can answer my question: if the software is available for free, and it's so good that support is not needed, then where will the money for the programmers come from?
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
I don't know if MS has crippled Interix, but they've priced it *much* cheaper than Softway did. I just followed the link above and found it was now $99 for the base package (no X, no Motif), which is cheap enough to order just to check it out. (Hopefully I won't have to compile basic things like vi!)
Minor twit, but I don't think Interix is considered the "Microsoft POSIX Subsystem" -- the old POSIX POS is still bundled with 2000. Hopefully WinXP will do away with that and just ship Interix in the base product, but that's probably dreaming.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
You're right, Redhat isn't using a great business model. However, it's working for them for now, and I wish them well. But even if Redhat were to close tomorrow, Linux, Open Source, GNU, and Free software would continue.
As for cost of creation vs cost of duplication, free software can pay for itself very quickly if you handle it right. There are people who get paid by corporations to write GPL'd software. That takes care of cost of creation, and cost of duplication is practically zero already. Yes, it costs time and money to create original content, but as long as there are people willing to donate, everyone can benefit greatly. And there *are* people willing to donate their time and money to free software, and I believe there will always be. Cost of duplication approaches zero. Cost of creation is so distributed, it approaches zero, too.
Everything does something else at the cost of something else. When you eat, you're necessarily depriving someone else of the same food. You're exploiting all kinds of resources to get food. People are just like corporations. For the most part, they do what they can to make a profit. Does that make most people 'bad'? No. That's just life. Without corporations, we'd be back in caves, bartering for our food. Companies provide vital services that make our lives better. Not all companies are good, but blanketing all companies as 'bad' doesn't really make any sense.
I am also surprised that the the gov't hasn't appeared to use the threat of using non-Windows alternatives in its antitrust litigation against MS.
While we refer to them as "the government" all the time, it's really just the Department of Justice that is suing Microsoft. I'm sure other departments or branches don't agree with the suit at all. So it's really not possible for "the government" to threaten such a thing against Microsoft since the Department of Justice has no authority or power to cause such action to be taken. (although it's a good idea IMO)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Could also be the Open Office file formats standard getting under way... XML-based standard file formats for OpenOffice being serverd up by every portal in the free world (as well as AOL) seems like a bigger threat than Java - IMHO...
when you code.... I'm on ya...
I want to be alone with the sandwich
Maybe when bill gates starts sleeping in the white house more he can willy up to dubya and get a tax break for all american citizens using microsoft products and if he did a little work with president fox to get the same for the immigrants here the democrats would probably worship it like a liberal golden cow.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I think its time for a little revolution when they take your beer away.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
If Microsoft had invented the electronic calculator machine, intead of Texas Instruments, Microsoft would be lobying now to prevent teachers form teaching math/algebra in the basic schools:
- Teaching math/algebra harms the electronic-calculator industry and causes the loss of many jobs.
- Doing math/algebra calculations manually is a stone-age thing, because the new calculators will do it for you.
- Calculators are much more user friendly than paper and pencil.
- Calcalators and much easier to lern than math/algebra and you don't even have to learn how it works.
- Although doing calculations manualy is free, an electronica calculator provides a better TCO (Total Cost of Ownership), because you don't have to train people in lerning math/algebra.
Restricting that right threatens intellectual property a hell of a lot more than someone who happens not to make money on a piece of software.
In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -Carl Sagan
Aren't Open Source contributors volunteers? Isn't that what's so great about the movement? People are choosing to contribute to the development of the software. In that instance, the basic tenets of Intellectual Property become non-issues! The fantastic, utopian wonder in the Open Source movement is that each developer expects his code to be shared. Isn't that true? So where's the undermining of Intellectual Property rights? No one is laying claim to it!
Otto
>These U.N. polls only reflect limited set of data designed by people with dubious motivations to demonstrate that socalism is better.
If you think government funded health care makes a country socialist, I'd suggest you have a cold heart, to say the least.
>for instance canadian aboriginals enjoy a quality of live that could only be experianced in africa
If you call having everything provided for you a quality of life experienced in Africa, then I suppose so. Most Aboriginals in Canada lack direction in life -- often due to the fact that the Canadian government funds their entire life due to promises made to be at peace with them. This lack of direction appears to be driving aboriginal youth to make some very poor choices in lifestyle -- some choose to sniff gasoline, why, I don't know. Others make different, equally poor choices. But that's their choice, the Government doesn't force them to do that. In fact, Aboriginal Indians in Canada enjoy _more_ rights than your average Canadian.
>the average canadian "enjoys" a salary dollar for dollar ten thousand dollars less
The average American has to pay out the ass for health care. Or die because they can't afford it. Small price to pay to live longer, if you ask me.
>and paying similar and often more expensive prices for goods and services
That's a lie. I'm living in Canada now, and about 10 years ago we stopped cross border shopping to the US due to the higher cost of goods there. There's been more than enough coverage of the monies lost in Northern American towns due to most Canadians doing this.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
He does talk that way.
Is Microsoft The Great Satan? Apparently they're just one unusually large and nasty demon in the horde of Hell-spawned proprietary developers.
This guy is a seriously demented nutcase, as are his followers. I've been saying so for years.
There's a difference between reasonable free software supporters who see advantages in efficiency, education, and security, and Free Software fanatics who see a moral crusade against evil monsters releasing programs without giving away the source code (horrors!).
Various RMS quotes (gathered from the philosophy page at the FSF):
"GNU will remove operating system software from the realm of competition. You will not be able to get an edge in this area"
(Now where would someone see a threat to innovation in such an innocuous remark?)
"If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs."
"it will still be possible for them to get paid for programming; just not paid as much as now."
"All sorts of development can be funded with a Software Tax: Suppose everyone who buys a computer has to pay x percent of the price as a software tax. The government gives this to an agency like the NSF to spend on software development."
(and he claims not to be a communist!)
"[in some utopian future where people work 10 hours per week] There will be no need to be able to make a living from programming."
(there never was a need; any programmer could survive flipping burgers now)
"The economic argument goes like this: ``I want to get rich (usually described inaccurately as `making a living')...''"
He honestly seems to support that programmers should be materially impoverished, not enriched, by their rare and highly useful talents. They should do it "for the good of humanity". To Hell with a new computer every year, high-speed internet, and a comfortable home for your family.
There's every bit as good a reason to argue that people should let any stranger come along and take his car whenever one wants (see how much more use it gets! there's a profit for society!), or farm and give away all the food beyond what they need to survive (how evil to be willing to let it rot if nobody is willing to pay for it!).
But none of those ideas make sense. People want more money than they need to survive; generally the more the better. People can be selfless in emergencies, but on the whole, they look out for themselves first. Telling people that they shouldn't follow their own self-interest may be met with public applause but will be disregarded in action, assuming that they won't serve themselves is just plain wrong.
These economically unsound ideals are exactly why the Free Software movement is so often compared to communism: if you go by the FSF propaganda, it is based on the same wrong assumptions about human nature!
Aside from a few fanatics and students (who make lousy stuff because they're just learning how), people program for some benefit from the final result. Many free software programmers just want the software they're working on. Some want to build up their resumes, others plan to sell documentation, service, or even merchandise. Some hope for donations or sweetheart stock deals.
The reality is generally quite sensible. We're still working out how to properly reward innovation, and there's still a lot of unsound FSF rhetoric infecting most discussions, but when you look at actions rather than words, progress is occuring toward a reliable system of rewards.
While I think RMS tells himself he's being self-sacrificing and noble by not "getting rich by cheating his neighbors", I think he's got some ulterior motive. Namely, I think he wants to be a celebrity. He's a ruthless self-promoter through putting his name on everything GNU and FSF then pushing the GNU name (anyone remember LiGNUx?). Like communist revolutionaries, idealistic rhetoric masks private ambition.
RMS and the FSF are threats to any reasonable economic behavior WRT software, whether free or proprietary. We have to be ready to denounce such lunatics if we don't want to be tarred with the same brush.
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Karma casino, place your bets!
And what are my Senators going to do with a Linux desktop? Look at it? They're certainly not going to use it! You need to read my original post more carefully: I don't expect my elected officials to replace their functioning computers with Red Hat and Star Office. Linux maybe ready for your desktop, but it's certainly not ready for theirs.
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
This is one of the funniest articles I've read in a while. Clearly the guy doesn't have a clue. I like his claim that open source software undermines intellectual property - not really - it may undermine profiting from said property but the copyright still rests with the author - the GPL is a license not a renunciation of copyright. Copyright holders have always been allowed to license their works for free if they want. As for their lobying efforts ... what so now they want to legislate away the rights of an author to license his works as he sees fit - yeah that'll work ....... not !
Ooops! Sorry RedHat, Microsoft just got your business model illegalized. I guess you should have found a different way to bust your ass.
My point is that if things like this can come true, your statement about what makes America great will become false in a hurry. Note that this is a perfect piece of evidence for libertarians faced with the argument that big government benefits the poor.
----
"Here to discuss how the AOL merger will affect consumers is the CEO of AOL."
grep -ri 'should work'
We need to outlaw it fast!
Will code a sig generator for food
For me, however, he makes points which we should attack back, and which are his weak points.
Surely the response to this, and one that the Open Source Movement should be shouting from the rooftops is that this is not in customers best interests. Microsoft has already been shown to stiffle things in the interest of the software business at the expense of customers. Open source actually is a far better way to get code that is stable and bug free because it emulates the scientific method and exposes it to peer review.
I feel that this argument is not used nearly enough. There are often complaints out there that large corporations are worried to switch to Linux because of the belief that it is not backed by a large corporation that guarentees them support. We should make the point that actually getting support for problems is a lot faster because one only has to raise the issue at the right place and almost immediately there are people looking at the problem and coming up with fixes.
This is what is known as a "fork" in Free Software/Open Source terminology.
So?
Look AC, a swede is from SWEDEN. A finn is from Finland. Very simple.
Just what do they teach you in school?
AC is AC
Good point. Although creeping socialism really took off with LBJ's "Fair Deal" in the 60's.
this sig....forget it, nobody cares.
These guys know all about holy wars and how to use your "prophets" in acts of war, should we call them up?
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Download the source for free, but the binaries cost money? Sure, somebody will post the binary somewhere, but a large number of users will simply not find the WAREZ version and pay for the binary version (how many Windows users do you think could compile Quake3?)
The advanced users will download the source and compile it themselves, but I bet a lot of people would pay (a reasonable fee) for the pre-compiled version, especially if you could get it optimized for your processor and operating system.
That's just one way to make money. There are others. The fact that you can't think of any simply shows a lack of imagination, not an indication that there aren't any.
Correct me if I am wrong, but being an relatively outsider to the States (Canada). I thought the American way is to promote freedom of expression, and freedom to do what the hell you want, as long as iot isn't breaking any laws. *shrug* guess not :P
Regardless, in a country whose First Amendment (AKA Prime Directive) is free speech, how in the sweet name of Zaphod can MS even think of making this statement... its downright insanity.
Ya know, I used to like Microsoft (in general). I think their Marketing Dept needs a common-sense enima, and most of the products problems are a result of marketroid hype, but now... screw em.
DOS is dead, and no one cares...
DOS is dead, and no one cares...
If there's a Bourne Shell, I'll see you there
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
The major problem with corporatism, is that those running the corporations have a perceived duty to maximize profit, regardless of morality or ethics. Legality and profit are the only two factors.
If living and caves and bartering for food would reduce the amount of pain and suffering that people on this planet experience, I'd probably burn my house and find a nice cave.
Maybe you wouldn't, but I think refusing to give up luxury so that others can survive is certainly bad, and maybe even 'evil'.
This seems to be a pattern for Allchin. You may recall that he is the one who arranged to have that doctored videotape introduced as evidence in the antitrust trial. He also lied all throughout his testimony in that trial, until David Boies ripped him to pieces in the cross-examination and forced him to admit that he had misrepresented the facts. This man is not just a liar, he should be in jail for perjury.
This link has a little more information.
---------------------------
"The people. Could you patent the sun?"
"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it."
--Henry David Thoreau
Someone in Microsoft saw Aqua and proclaimed "if they have a space-wasting, memory hogging UI with big buttons and a bunch of stupid effects such as shadows, transparency then we must too". Whether the two UIs behave similarly is moot since its clear where MS got the idea from.
When it finally became known that Bush had won the US election, my wife was distraught.
I told her, "Don't worry, the US will continue to be a corporate oligarchy. Nothing will really change."
I'm Canadian, FWIW.
Very well, let's now consider the payment to person Z. When confronted with the alternatives:
- Pay Person Z the ammount $W, no risk for the corporation
- Pay Person Z an ammount < $W, risk R1 for the corporation
- Don't pay Person Z, risk R2 for the corporation
a decision will be taken that balances risk with reward, tipacly following the rules:- If R2 is zero or considered negligible against reward $W, then option 3 will be taken
- Otherwise if R1 is zero or negligible against reward delta-$W the option 2 will be taken.
- Otherwise the option 3 will be taken
Also there are several ways of reducing risks R1 and R2, some more expensive, others less so:- Containement of information - Avoid that Person Z knows he/she is loosing ammount $W
- Disinformation - Feed Person Z with wrong information (for example: by paying experts to produce reports saying that in fact Person Z is not loosing $W)
- Legislative influence - Influence legislative bodies so that you are not oblidged by law to pay Person Z the ammount $W
just to name a fewYes sharing ideas with everyone else is bad. Like that noted Marxist Sir Isaac Newton. He should have patented gravity and charged everyone. Or that pinko commie Albert Einstein.
Sharing with the community is standard scientific practice as it advances the whole area. Why should computer science be anydifferent?
Just as an aside, if the specs for the PC were closed do you think that the market would be anything like as big as it is?
In Marxism everyone reaps equal benefits, but with Free Software the benefits reaped are equal to the ability and work that one puts into it. For example, my father couldn't even get his printer to work when he was using Linux, and yet I can use it to run my business. The difference, of course, is that I have invested more in learning how to put Linux to use than he has.
The situation you describe has nothing to do with open-vs-closed. If printing was hard to set up with Windows, then exactly the same arguments would apply.
You are judging open-source software purely on the basis on it's usefulness to the end-user. While this is an important consideration, I think the communist slant is more obvious when you apply it to the software industry. Everybody can "take" from the shared pool of knowledge & material (code), and it fails if everybody is too selfish (i.e. nobody contributes public code, and everybody goes closed-source).
Therefore, it is in the commmunity's best interests for people to contribute, yet in an individual's best interests to be selfish (go closed-source and get a head-start on the other companies in the industry). Yet, without consideration for the community as a whole, the individuals (and end-users) are much worse off, because the open code is less useful. Of course, in relation to the others in the community, they are no worse off, and this is where it counts when it comes to making money.
I believe this is why it makes sense for IBM and similar companies to contribute to open-source. Their industry (hardware, support) is directly linked to the health of the software industry, and so it makes more sense for these types of companies to contribute than for software companies to contribute.
Well, it's easy to have the most money in the world: Sell one box of software for a truckload of t-shirts, a plane for a ship full of oil...
Lend money... Influence countries to buy from your corporations.
Americans perfected in the 20th century what English did since the 18th.
And, when the Europe was the center of the World, a convenient war sunk it into poverty. And who lend the money? USA. Who sold weapons to the English? USA. What was the only booming economy in the world during the war? USA. And after the war?
Get a clue...
1. First you are a cheap solution
2. Then you decide to implement a massively complex enterprise directory system.
3. Then some other cheap solution comes along.
4. Then you are almost out of business and everyone laughs at you.
As with the post above, we're on #3. (With Novell, it's #4.)
And since when did low tax rates guarantee a good life? What use is really money anyway? Aren't those used exactly for buying a good life?
We could have low taxes as well, it's just to vote for the parties that say they want to lower the taxes. There's nothing in our system preventing it, as soon as such a party get enough votes the taxes will be lowered. But the majority of the population actually votes for parties that are rising the taxes, because they realize that what counts when it comes down to it is quality of life, not the numbers on your bank account.
I'm Norwegian BTW, and I like it. If I were offered access to the US and a really well-payed job, I wouldn't even consider it for a second.
Well... lets see whats on the short list of things that are "against the American Way".
1) terrorism
2) kiddie porn
3) communism
I could go on, but unless you have been living in a cave or are too young to remember the McCarthy Era, everybody understands that "against the American Way" is double speak for "there ought to be a law".
Bad idea. According to an article in the latest Linux Journal, "Installing Debian your first time is, to put it bluntly, sys admin hell." In other words, Debian is very difficult to install for newbies, so it would be a very bad choice. Corel Linux is probably a lot better.
Besides, the whole idea of a Representative switching to Linux in his office is silly. What I'm trying to do is to convince our government as a whole that being open-source is a good thing for any software solution. It needs to be a checkmark on the list of things to have.
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Of a comment that Larry Wall made when talking about Metallica vs. Napster- that Napster users who compared sharing mp3s with Free Software didn't understand the difference between taking (sharing mp3s that are under copyright) and giving (turning your software over to others through Free Software licenses). Microsoft apparently doesn't understand the difference between giving and taking, either. Free Software isn't a legal threat to proprietary IP because Free Software is about giving, not taking. Software become Free when its author decides to give it away, not when other people decide to take it. Anyone can keep their software proprietary so long as they play by the rules and don't incorporate code with a license like the GPL. The only way that Free Software is a threat is the old fashioned way- by producing a better product at a better price.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
$ make xconfig
Oh, that's great- a Linux specific feature. I wouldn't call this an important innovation. X and all its windowmanager goodness
I'll give you partial credit for X- it was heavily tied to closed systems for many years.
ports
If you're talking about the ports system that originated in FreeBSD, that's an implementation of a distribution system- a pretty nice one, mind you, but hardly an innovation for the textbooks. Open source produces much more nice implementations than new innovations- although not to say the latter doesn't occur as well (just not as common as people would think)!
SCSI emulation
Raw access to a drive to send ATAPI commands- hardly something noteworthy.
dual booting
Open Source can't be credited here. Period.
pluggable text editors (emacs &c)
I don't use emacs. Can't elaborate on where this technology originated, because I don't know enough.
desktop systems that can work with multiple WMs
Not the product of open source software.
Innovation is rare. Period. Unfortunately that's just a fact of life.
-bugg
I had to pay $95 to MS to report a bug in MSJDBCODBC.dll, for which I offered a workaround, and detailed documentation. I had to call their "tech support" hotline so that they could realize it was a bug. They then fixed it six months later. Had I not figured out a damn-near idiotic workaround (I was able to determine which DLL was crashing IIS, and copy a different version from REALLY OLD and UNUPDATED win95 boxen), the project would have gone to the toilet, a project which made up 10% of our company's revenue for that year.
Just to be fair, After hours of haggling, the $95 charge was reversed.
And *that* is the last time I got "support" from MS.
---
How? How is Open Source prohibiting a business from producing their product, or owning their intellectual property, or making a sale? If they make a better product, more power to 'em. But some of us don't believe in the corporate welfare state that the USA is coming to be. We don't OWE them a profit - they have to produce something that's worth the money!
Just because you put out a product, doesn't mean we all should kiss your ass and give you all our money.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
I don't think that what Jim says, or any legislator says, make a difference in why i like to code as a hobby. I think what Jim was getting at though is that (as he sees the world) other "big name corporations" are starting to see how they can save BUCKETS of money by using open source solutions. He see's other big names developing open source as part of their business model. Life really sucks when your winning big and all of a sudden the other team scores (how he sees it), but open source and free software don't play in that arena for me. I just like it 'cause it allows me to "see" everything, instead of just trusting in some API. Besides I don't feel bad for breaking any more EULA's ;-) (they were always so easy to justify in my mind)
this sig is deprecated
Seriously, if you don't like inventing things just for the sake of solving the problems that arise, please get out of the way, take your toys and your capital and go home. There is a huge amount that can be done without capital. Most of Linux was done without capital. Gene research etc. is a very small percentage of the total invention and research done in the world...
Next?!? They've been the targets of WMP for at least a year. Probably more like two or three. My big fear (sorry, Kate) is that WMP will become the standard, and all the portable mp3 players will switch over to use a format that I can't. I've already seen a portable WMP player. (Pretty small, stored a couple of hours worth of music, decent quality.)
RealPlayer is, of course, already dead. Streaming mp3s killed it a long time ago.
Later,
Blake.
--
Isn't this off-topic?
Was your comment supposed to be +3 Funny?
CNN and NPR aren't much better. :-)
Humorless sig goes here.
Oh, so the tin pot dictators in Mogadishu are going to impound food, but cash they'll pass right along to the populace? Right.
Famine is not an economic problem. It's not a logistics problem. It's a political problem. Since the "heads of state" of these countries use hunger as a weapon to keep their populace in line, it's silly to lay the blame at America's feet.
I don't disagree with your point, that importing large amounts of food depresses the food market, but if the food market is not feeding the people, it's not doing its job, and people oughtn't have to starve just because the farmers cannot produce enough food at an attractive profit.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Lets drop any arguments about "The American Way (tm)" What you've got here is a representative of the largest software in the company saying that competition from volunteers is bad. Exactly who's interests is he defending? I am baffled that this is even a debatable issue?
...and would that be the group of lawyers who define intelecutal property soley for the purpose of suing over it?
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
I guess it all comes down to whether your pronounce it win-thirty-two-ess or win-thirty-tooz.
---
where there's fish, there's cats
I keep hearing more about corporations wanting to be considered more of an individual or as a citizen entity than as a corporation. would this mean then the "corporate citizen" would then have the right to vote?
I don't know about you but that scares the SHIT out of me.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I take no responsibility for any spelling mistakes in the above post.
The system is meant to work when everybody is motivated by profit. That's how a capitalist system is set up, and the reason that tort law is written the way it is.
/think/ should be a fair price), then you just added value (in the eyes of the customers of the initial and final products).
The entire basic concept is that The Right Thing and The Profitable Thing are one and the same, as long as all harm done to 3rd parties is paid for (via tort law) and consumers make intelligent and fully informed buying decisions. So if you can produce lots of cheap power but pollute a river in the process, and the amount that you profit you generated is more than the cost to clean up the river and fairly compensate everyone was harmed -- the amount by which you improved the world is more than the amount of harm! You just did a Good Thing!
Consider: If your customer, Person X, believes that you produced enough value to pay you $Y, but in doing so you additionally hurt Person Z enough to pay them $W, if Y>W then you did society as a whole good. Also, if Y>W then you turned a profit. Profit == good.
This also holds true in places where nobody's getting hurt. If you buy something which the market values at $A, you put $B into it and sell it at $C, and people willingly pay $C for it (however much you
The only situation where it breaks down is in a monopoly in a high cost-of-entry market -- where you're no longer as strongly motivated to do what the consumer wants because they're dependant on you as a sole provider. In all other cases, however, these greedy profit-driven folks actually do the world good in their quests for personal wealth. That's the point.
The source code for the utilities bc, ci, co, cpio, csplit, dc, diff, diff3, gawk, gzip, gunzip, ident, merge, nl, rcs, rcsdiff, rcsmerge and rlog is made available via CD media. You can order the $20 CD media from eStoreDirect or you can download directly from ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/interix/
see there is money to be made in free software
The subject says it all... you'll never find a completely bias free source of news... slashdot is no exception.
Humorless sig goes here.
The real challenge is, now that Microsoft believes that open intellectual property is dangerous to business, they should eliminate it from their own software. I want to see them stop their support of the TCP/IP, HTTP and HTML protocols, all of which depend on open intellectual property. If Jim Allchin is correct , then avoiding these standards will improve their business and make life better for everyone.
Jim Allchin is in an awkard position. He wants to convince our legislators that someone who creates something and gives it away for free should be stopped. I can just see the amazed look on a senator's face when he makes this absurd claim.
Don't stop now, Penguinistas! Microsoft is in a panic mode!
You know, there is nothing stopping you from going
to Washington yourself and lobbying yourself. If your congresscritter doesn't know about your concerns, how are they supposed to know how you feel?
Perhaps some organization(FSF maybe, or perhaps Software in the Public Interest, maybe they already do lobby though?), should get some people around to lobby in DC for us free software people.
OK... let's see what Allchin's really saying...
During the anti-trust spin-meistering, M$ tries to convince us that Microsoft=Innovation.
In January, Ballmer tells us that Linux threatens Microsoft.
Now, Allchin says that Open Source threatens Innovation.
If you grok the M$ jargon, then you get:
If Linux is Open Source,
and Microsoft is Innovation,
and Linux threatens Microsoft,
then Open Source threatens Innovation!
Nice to see Allchin took freshman year logic...
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
How ironic that three hundred years ago, America itself was a colony. Or are you intimating that the African people are somehow less able to protect their own interests from foreign powers?
And when in human history has it NOT been Man's nature to take what he can from those who can't protect it? I'm not saying it's right, I'm saying it's inevitable.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
May I have a good example of something that has come to help the masses that didn't require capital? Linux isn't a good example. It is hardly helping the masses, and it isn't that good. Capital leads to innovation. There are probably 100,000 examples of this. I am not saying that innovation can't come without capital, I am saying that most innovation comes because of capital.
No offense, but come on! The US has something like 250-300 million people. The world has a bit over 6 billion people. The US only makes up a bit less than 5% of the population of the world, and this is decreasing. China alone has more than 4 times as many people as the US. I guess the US is not too keen on having world democracy anytime soon eh?
Sure, somebody will post the binary somewhere, but a large number of users will simply not find the WAREZ version and pay for the binary version.
I seriously don't think a large number of users will not find the "warez" version. After all, why would it be the warez version? The only way it can be warez if it the source code license prohibits the distribution of binaries, which is absurd. And even if that were the license, anyone could create an "installation package" that included the compiler, and the installation would actually compile the source and copy it to the hard drive. Technically, the binary would not be distributed, but the end-user wouldn't notice. To him, the only difference is that it would take a long time to install.
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
I think you forgot to mention that Microsoft bundles the GNU C Compiler with Interix. I own two copies at home and use one at work. It's great stuff, as far as it goes. The Microsoft POSIX subsystem (the formerly Privately owned product called Interix) is good stuff. It blows Cygwin entirely out of the water, because it's a native Posix subsystem that talks directly to the NT Kernel, not a kludge like Cygwin that just translates to the Win32 subsystem.
Microsoft views Interix as a 'transition' product. In fact, they've crippled it since purchasing it. My Softway Systems copy has stuff like the vi editor built in. Microsoft stripped a lot of stuff like that out and sells it as a separate package.
So what you're saying is that things need to be dumbed down for the lowest common demoninator of our society? Oh thats right, god forbid we educate people on critical thinking skills like logic, cause and effect, context clues etc. So I say, if we want the lowest common demonitator, why not make a "shiny things" interface. No text anywhere, because god forbid people who can't read won't be able to use it. We won't need a keyboard either, as nobody knows how to type. I'm sorry you can have that if you like, but I'll pass on the OS for masses of people requiring thorazine.
Do you remember how to think?
Mr. Allchin's arguments are specious but that is not important. Bloomberg News didn't seek a single quote from someone in the Open Source community. Good objective American journalism. The American way is that if something is repeated by enough newspapers it becomes the truth. Bill Gates started his business career by ending free software. He honestly believes that without monetary incentives there will be less innovation. This will be repeated again and again. Those of you who dismiss this because you believe differently miss the point. This is the beginning of a PR war against Open Source software with the aim of branding it un-American and dangerous to our economy. db
dude! where do you think i got rattler race?
Probably not very many. But I'm sure there are (proportionally) more Linux systems on the Microsoft campus than NT systems at RedHat.
Hint: some things are social constructs that are agreed to by the inhabitants of a country. And until the people act against those constructs, those fictions will remain as real as anything else.
--
I have in my hand a list of 107 known Communists in the Open Source Movement.
:) its been how long has it been since America went on a Witch hunt.. if MP3s are 'like communism' then how long until this *really* happens. McArthy-ism is still very strong in America. You cant even suggest Universal Health Care without being called a Communist... I wouldnt laugh just yet. The whole nation has been traumatized that 'Communism == Evil' and 'Sharing Anything == Communism.'
Dont laugh!
"The greatest enemy of truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived, and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, pervasive, and unrealistic."
-- John F. Kennedy
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Gandhi
Oof. Not that don't think that that plenty of school syestems in the US could use a major overhaul, but seriously, this is hyperbole.
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
I am not now, nor have I ever been, a card-carrying member of the open source movement.
;)
But I can give you lots of names, Senator Gates!
Not America's fault - OK. But America is on the winning side of the colonial coin. Get a few hundred years ahead of another culture technologically, and all of a sudden it's OK to bilk them out of land and kill them.
Throw them a bone or two years later and some idiot calls you "the most generous people on the planet".
Right.
This is completely ludicrous, and even shards of the "Microsoft Executive" desired outcome would never stand a chance to be court issued. Any fool can stand on a soapbox; I guess it scares more people when it's MS talking.
:) or the collective thought and post energy consumed by the slashdot MS V Linux pavalov's dog condition ;)
It perplexes me what is worse; the Microsoft campaign (they will suffer in court, allow that to keep ya cool
mwtr / THIS SIG HAS BEEN PRAYED OVER AND MAY BE USED AS A POINT OF CONTACT (ACTS 19:12)
If Microsoft makes their move too soon, then you may well end up being right. But if they are smart and wait until they get the legislation they need in place, we'll all be well and truly screwed.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Agreed. I see a lot of people are saying that various things that Allchin said implies that Microsoft wants to outlaw open source. But since nowhere does it say that in the article, I think this may constitute as libel on Slashdot's part - something Slashdot should not want.
I doubt they can pass laws against open-source programs . . .
A year ago or so, back when I believed the myth of the anarchistic Internet, I would have agreed. Not any more. There's got to be something that can still shock me, but MS getting a few "stratigic investments" in congress to outlaw Free Software doesn't hit that level.
------
Not a typewriter
Senator, there are exactly 56 card-carrying members of the Democratic Socialists of America in the U.S. House of Representatives.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
I can think of many things worse....
The collaps of the economy...
The power crunch [currently experenced in California..]
Software piracy
The colaps and fold of major chip makers...
[Let's see Microsoft sell Windows when nobody can make PCs]
The end of copyright law (for a piriod of time Microsoft had to live without copyrights)
I think Bill Gates has a far better imagination than this guy.......
I know there are worst threats to the software industry than free software....
Like... the weather....
Free software is purely a busness reality you work with. It allways has been...
I don't actually exist.
Naahh. If they keep smoking whatever they're smoking, and actually try to do anything along these lines, the resulting outcry (and the blinding glare of publicity that the affair would throw on their unimaginably greedy and self-serving strongarm attempt) would do far more to educate the world about the realities of open source software (and about the realities of Microsoft's intentions) than we could ever achieve otherwise.
There's no possible way anyone could try to ban open source software (what a meaningless concept!) that would have any remotely deleterious or stifling efffect on open source software. Any of these attempts would just make Microsoft look like Yosemite Sam to the open source community's Bugs Bunny, with the putative ban the stick-of-dynamite "cigar" that has just blown up in Sam's face.
O.K., so you got me on the democratic republic thing, still, I do not subscribe to your definition of communism necessarily, the one I gave IS a dictionary definition
communism: A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.
"collective ownership of property" that sounds a lot like most of the open source licenses,
"the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members" that certainly sounds like open source developers, and "all members" does not mean everyone in the country/continent/world, it means "all members" of the society, the society in this case being the open source movement.
So, I still stand that open source meets this definition, I agree it does not meet the criteria you set out, but I think your definition is really aimed at Geovernments, not societies.
"Only amateurs attack machines; professionals target people."
Also, I think your farmer using linux, and giving his crops in return, is really more the cornerstone of a bartering society, not communist.
Barter is also good.
"Only amateurs attack machines; professionals target people."
A TRUE AMERICAN VOICE
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called
an idea, which an individual man exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces
itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one
possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself
without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread
from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have
been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening
their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or
exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. --Thomas Jefferson
UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS
Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without
interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
ONCE AGAIN, MICROSOFT IS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR HUMAN RIGHTS
A friend of mine operated an ISP in Brazil, and in 1996, Microsoft entered an agreement with them in which they agreed to distribute Explorer. Weeks before a large marketing launch, Microsoft uped the price from free to not-free, threatening the company with financial ruin....unless, of course, they stopped distributing Netscape Navigator. Finally, GNU/Linux is showing the monsters that a world of giving, not taking, can produce better products for people.
Once again, the friends of humanity up in Redmond are trying to destroy a competitor. Not only are they trying to destroy GNU/Linux, but they are also trying to destroy our rights to give our expressions.
Well FUCK THEM.
-----
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
Well of course, any idiot could tell you that the open source letter should be placed under CVS source control with anonymous read access. Duh. It's unclear how these other letter writing campaigns ever get off the ground without sound change management procedures and full visibility.
Inquisition much....persecution of those with differing belief systems - something which many "religions" are guilty of. And lets not kid ourselves, religious systems ~= corporate systems.....right down to the "bow down to those higher in the establishment".... Belief/Methodology is really where the essential issue seems to lie here.... If anything like that went through any government, then I'd see no hope for anything....not that I see that much anyway.
it's the taking apart that counts
-----
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
I don't agree with _everything_ Julian says, but being allowed (as a little struggling small player in the market) to put out 'loss leaders' is something I won't lightly give up. I can see how important it is to be able to put out open source work and develop a reputation for your free work, too. Well put.
People have been developing software for 40 years, and it isn't any easier now than it was back then. If anything, it's more difficult.
In fact, I don't even know why I'm responding to these absurd posts. Open source is not going to take over the world, so I'm not even worried. Besides, I write device drivers, so hardware sales drive the income of the companies I work for anyway.
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Furthermore, if you ask an economist to tell you why, they will tell you it's due to IT growth.
And not just any economist, but ask Alan Greenspan. He says exactly this in the "Hearing on Fiscal Challenges Facing the Bush Administration", January 25, 2001. (C-SPAN has this hearing in real media on their site, but this is not a direct link. It is somewhere in the Business and Economy category).
-ictatha
"... the advance of civilization is nothing but an exercise in the limiting of privacy" - Janov Pelorat
And the Linux community had better be ready. With the release of Kylix, all the windows shovelware will be ported over to Linux. Tucows and DaveCentral will be pumping tons of binary-only stuff into the channel. We'll see how Linux holds up to the kind of software Windows runs (and crashes becuase of). I predict a reduction by a factor of five or more in the uptime of the average X Server (yeah, we know, you can still ssh into the box and.....)
Might be; though - having worked in Germany as well as in the US - it seems like the work ethics of the German workers as well as their productivity resulting from those are hardly ever reached in the US workplaces I've encountered.
I am judging open source by the only measure that makes any sense. It's all about the users plain and simple.
Yes, but the health of the industry that fills those users' needs is an important factor in the long run.
When I started using Linux there wasn't any "industry,"
There was a large software industry in 1991. Linux is not an industry, it is a piece of software.
The funny thing is that it really doesn't take too terribly many people sharing their source code to make the economics of Free Software work. And people that don't share code are at a disadvantage the second a Free Software project becomes useable. Once the project becomes self sustaining it literally sucks the air out of the room for commercial software vendors who want to charge high prices for software "licenses."
I agree completely. There is no usefulness in trying to sell something when an already free equivelant exists.
I disagree with this as well. It has overwhelmingly been in the best interest of Free Software hackers as individuals to release their source code.
Sorry, I was talking about individuals in the software industry (i.e. businesses trying to sell software). I agree that single developers trying to start a large project have a much better chance of creating what they want when they go open.
Presumably, at some point your improved GIFgraph had advantages over the free software counterpart. Whether or not it paid out in the long term is irrelevent - at some point the closed version was of greater value than the version everybody else had, and you had a monopoly on that piece of software, purely because you acted in your own interests above that of the community (not a flame, honest, just pointing out the facts).
And don't let anyone fool you, it's all about the money. Linux gets used because it is economical to do so, and it gets improved because in many cases it is cheaper to adapt Linux to a particular use than to pay for the equivalent functionality from commercial software.
And what makes these same people contribute source? In some cases, the gpl requires it, but then you are ignoring the contributions to bsd,x,etc licensed projects, and previously closed projects that are relicensed. I don't think there is a sound capitalist argument for doing this, unless you fall back on the fact you are strengthening the community you are selling to, which is beginning to sound familiar.
The good news is that Linux is also a very friendly community. We build mailing lists, and we subscribe to them. We even read the lists and answer questions. The reason that we do this is because we know that eventually we will need some help as well (and because it's fun).
And why will you get the help? Because you have made the mailing list a friendlier place with your contributions, or in some small part, you are responsible for the growth of that mailing list?
Oh, no -- the angry oppressed white male Anonymous Coward lobby is heard from!
Poor guy. Good luck with your "speach" impediment.
This is a Slashdot story in itself. How very like Microsoft to lay the groundwork for exclusion of competitors based on their monopoly, while simultaneously appealing the Justice Department's decision that they have violated the Sherman Anti-trust act.
Tip for y'all: It's time to do something!!!
1) Start giving money to the EFF, the EPIC, the FSF, et al. very fast.
2) There are people who are supposed to condemn these kind of statements - they're called Congress. They're supposed to launch investigations into this kind of shit. If nothing else, they're supposed to know that millions of people will be royally pissed off if they vote for anti-Open Source legistlation. Here are all the email addresses for the Senate Tech Committee:
John McCain john_mccain@mccain.senate.gov
Ted Stevens http://www.senate.gov/~stevens/webform.htm
Conrad Burns conrad_burns@burns.senate.gov
Trent Lott senatorlott@lott.senate.gov
Kay Hutchinson senator@hutchinson.senate.gov
Olympia Snowe olympia@snowe.senate.gov
Same Brownback http://www.senate.gov/~brownback/email.html
Gordon Smith http://www.senate.gov/~gsmith/webform.htm
Peter Fitzgerald senator_fitzgerald@fitzgerald.senate.gov
Frizt Hollings http://www.senate.gov/~hollings/webform.html
Daniel Inoyue http://www.senate.gov/~inouye/abtform.html
Jay Rockefeller senator@rockefeller.senate.gov
John Kerry john_kerry@kerry.senate.gov
John Breaux http://www.senate.gov/~breaux/webform.html
Bryon Dorgan http://dorgan.senate.gov/webmail.html
Ron Wyden http://www.senate.gov/~wyden/mail.htm
Max Cleland http://cleland.senate.gov/~cleland/webform.html
Barbara Boxer http://www.senate.gov/~boxer/contact/webform.html
Jean Carnhan senator_carnahan@carnahan.senate.gov
Hi, my name is Jim Allchin and I am a turnip. In spite of being a common garden tuber, I manage to stick my entire head up my ass. I was right in the middle of this when someone interviewed me about linux and open source software, so it is entirely possible that my answers bear no connection to reality . Sorry about that.
Well Windows XP looks great, I just tried MAC OS X today, I was expecting a lot but it looks like shit. Whistler at least has a Start Menu.
And following what you said I can say the same
OS X boasts a "shell" based on BSD that is a cheap FreeBSD knock-off. Is that the kind of innovation they're talking about?
OR
Linux boasts a "GUI" called KDE based on Windows GUI which is a cheap Win95 knock-off.
But at least I have to congratulate Apple a little bit, after 9 versions of their OS they finally got rid of that cheap monochrome look. So tell me dude, how does taking Xerox's GUI and BSD code make Apple a better innovator than MS? Hell I mean the code is already done for them, the design is already done, what do they actually have to do except some few modifications here and their?
if open source is outlawed
only outlaws will have open source =D
Actually, the USA inherited that idea from the British who stole the idea from the Dutch. It has nothing to do with getting around the US Constitution and everything to do with sharing the financial risk of paying for a manufacturing business. I'm not aware of any country in the world that doesn't have corporations, which is what you describe when you talk about giving a company the legal status of a person. Certainly, all of the North American countries have corporations as do all of the European Common Market countries.
The fact that he made the statement just shows how desperate they are.
-----
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
I strongly doubt the average level of education in the US (everything, not just universities) is the best in the world ... then again after seing the Jerry Springer show once of twice, i kinda got disapointed with american society
I'm living in Holland right now, and the (percieved) average level of education for dutch people seems quite good.
Corporations (specially big ones), have easier access to those tools.
I have NO problems with corporations. In the end they are just well organized (or one hopes so) groups of individuals.
I have problems with a system in which some entities have beter access to information and more influence in setting legislation than others.
Such a system does not balance goods and bads so that the whole comes up beter off. In some cases (for example enviroment), smaller but beter organized groups of people (say the oil lobby) get the good side of the deal while big unorganized groups of people (everybody that has to breath poluted air) get the bad side.
It's not the corporations that have to change - they are just doing what's best for them, like everybody else does - it's the system that has to change.
I am a programmer and my salary is an obscenity (too high). Period.
I am riding a lucky wave, hopefully it will not end, but if it does end I am prepared for that (both phsicolgicaly and profesionaly).
The original point to which I replied was that Open Software was bad, among other things, because it could make programmers poorer. I said that is not a bad thing in itslef and any way, sooner or later programming will be in the scrap yard of forgotten professions.
It is just disgusting to see how a whiz kid without any life or work experience can command much higher salaries than experiencied engineers in this or other fields and to read that they believe they inherently deserve it, to what I say: bollocks!
Programmers in particular, and most IT people in general, are in the right side of the offer-demand equation for the moment, and that is due to historical circumstances, nothing ot their individual own making.
So lets enjoy the ride, lets hope it lasts, something will come that will make our skills less valuable, but for god's sake, lets not believe that getting rich writing Java applets is a god sent right, it is just a very lucky privilege.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Why buy a buggy, nonstable OS when you can get a solid, stable one for free?
Open-Source means free thinking. M$ is afraid, very afraid of this.
"I hate M$" stigma common among the populace.
Do we really HATE M$? No. We dislike their "bully" attitude and want the freedom to create our own futures with our oven operating system.
After all, on April 4, 2000, The United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit rules in the case of Junger v. Daley that source code IS LEGALLY PROTECTED FREE SPEECH. I see the threat to M$ here. Don't you?
Newsflash: Parade Of Penguins Pulverizes Redmond.
---
IMHO, of course.
May the SOURCE be with you.
Seems the labeling of open-source code as "commi-code" is popular these days.
... that would be un-American. Distribution of wealth (or intellectual property in this case) is a noble and altruistic endeavor. Its only the case when the distribution of wealth (or intellectual property) is forced by a governing body that I have a problem with it.
I admit I am a hardcore capitalist, but I don't see the line of reasoning behind "outlawing" open source code. To suggest is it un-American and following a socialistic vein is ridiculous.
Open source software is distributed on a voluntary basis. Its not like there is an authoritative mandate that all software MUST be open source
To create legislation either way violates my perspective of what is "American".
F*** Man, I pissed myself at this one, can I copy it, and paste it all over the web, or are you inovating?
Why doesn't someone put the poor bastard out of his misery? I mean, sooner or later, someone's gonna get pissed and kill him, right?
Too bad that there seems to be no hope for MS pulling their heads out of their rears. I hope no one actually believes that they are trying to protect their rights to innovate - they don't actually have the need for that in the first place, since they rarely, if ever innovate - but are actually trying to protect their rights to plaigariaze. Can you say hypocrytical? That, and they're trying to place a legal roadblock in front of anyone trying to speed up and take away marketshare from them.
MS, when I see you build a better product than Linux, I'll believe it. The only time I can get Linux to crash (I have tried) is by trying to use the beyond-buggy, unsupported, proprietary drivers for my Aureal sound card in Linux (kernel modules) or by doing an intentional local DoS exploit involving the use of too many processes. I can crash Windows 2000, however, using my Aureal-based sound card drivers (actually work usually, but still are unsupported (not just since Aureal went under, same for the Linux ones, btw) and occasionally bluescreen), doing a local DoS, running certain applications, and just plain using the system. I experience two to three crashes a day in Win2K, and NONE in Linux unless I do something really, really, really stupid. I can't even explain most of my Win2K crashes.
"Those that can give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or saftey" BF
That is the original quote, however many people change it to read "Those that can give up liberty to obtain safety deserve neither."
The is a large difference between those two statements.
--
From: Aaron "PooF" Matthews
True, open source isn't the same as free, but this is an interesting read.
-----------------------------------------
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Listen, Microsoft screwed me out of a royalty when I was 26 (twelve years ago). I wrote a DLL that fixed the problems that Windows with Multimedia Extensions was plagued with. It took forever to load a driver, a massive delay in starting to play the file, and popping noises during file play (due to the interrupt latency time to the application) I wrote a sound playback routine that created head and tail pointers that generated interrupts when the ping pong buffers were 30% empty and the routine topped them off. The popping noise was due to all 0000's of FFFF's in the damn buffer or some other problem. Well back when Microsoft had Microsoft Online I submitted my fix under an NDA. I was going to get $.03 cents per copy. They screwed me. It never happened. From that point I wrote code for OS/2, and When Linux emerged I started to write code for that. I didn't believe in suing Microsoft because they'd sue me with thier crooked lawyers. So... I believe what goes around comes around. Now the code I've used and contributed to is starting to put a dent into their market! Good! What goes around comes around, and their is NO WAY they can stop the Open Software Movement. Microsoft has no clue. openSource puts the power back to the great minds who write code and design new solutions. Those of us who can read and understand learn from each others code. Now the Open Source Code is more refined than much of the commercial slop released by microsoft. So.. In your face microsoft! Good enough!! And the Linux Killer Apps are on the way! I hope to release Multifli for Linux soon! Multimedia Editing to Video CD!!! And I use SMTPE time code to synchronize the video and audio! IN YOUR FACE MICROSOFT! Long Live Tux!!!!!!!!!!
I really don't believe that Microsoft's rise and fall really has any impact on the economy
Own any mutual funds?
OK, maybe I should have stated that differently. The existence or non-existence of any particular company or industry really isn't going to save or destroy America (and most other countries). So what if Microsoft's price fluctuations has a noticable price influence on mutual funds. That's not the point. If there is a reasonably satisfiable market demand for a product, there will almost always be a company or group that will go in and try to fill it.
Do you want to give away your work for free? If not, don't create Open Source work. Simple.
But what about 'dumping'? Dumping (selling goods far below cost in order to put one's competitors out of business in the meantime) is illegal under US law. Isn't giving away your source code a similar attempt to drive closed-source businesses out of business?
Read the rest of this comment...
right on. open source is just like publishing a scientific paper. other duplicate your efforts and find ways to improve it. so sad nobody gets rich (at least to the exclusion of others) off of true innovation. it is ridiculous to say the american way is all about innovation or making money. both are important, both part of the american way. but there are checks in place to keep it from going too far in one direction (ie. stopping moopolies).
you probably shouldn't have read this.
All right, I'll bite. The US armed forces took the Philippines from the Spanish and subsequently fought the Philippine-American War (1899-1905), against armed opposition from the natives, who'd been fighting the Spaniards for centuries, and now had to contend with Gatling guns and modern warships.
After the rebels were crushed (or in some cases, paid off) the islands were administered as a colony until it was granted independence in 1946. Several recorded atrocities (including a US Army unit ordered to turn the island of Samar into a "howling wilderness" by marching across it and systematically destroying any villages they came across).
Mark Twain spoke up against US colonial aggression overseas, but it seems much of his work has been conveniently expunged from your schoolbooks (good thing they're still in ours).
Allchin's desperate and disingenuous comments cannot be taken as anything other than Microsoft's benediction that Linux is succeeding and will ultimately win a large part of the market Microsoft already serves. Allchin's comments are good new, for they validate Linux as a creature Microsoft fears. They see the writing on the wall. They must lash out to induce fear in the waning percentage of corporate buyers who think "nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft."
Microsoft is the T Rex of the software market -- with the Linux comet hurtling down on their heads. A comet that will change the environment they live in from one suited to cold-blooded reptiles (Microsoft) to warm-blooded mammals (penguins). And like all small-minded T Rexes, they will go bellowing madly to their extinction.
Windows XP will itself destroy protected audio and video files that do not "authenticate" with the sound and/or video cards.
It doesn't delete them; it simply refuses to play them through any driver that isn't signed by Microsoft. To be signed, the driver must disable all digital outputs (such as waveOut to waveIn (What-U-Hear), writing to file, and connectors on the card) when the Secure Audio Path is open.
I never did upgrade to 2000
Lucky you. My box came bundled with Windows ME.
Get XP at Everything2.comAll your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
What an honour-free asshole Jim Allchin is! I don't know about ``blowing it'' out his ass, but he's unmistakeably talking out of it! The level of chutzpah would be incredible if this were not Microsoft we're dealing with here...
Having failed at competing in the open market (yes, failed, look at W2k sales - and laugh at the thought of MS ever getting 15000 hits a second out of a single P-III-500 by any means), and failed to FUD enough of the public, and failed to fool DOJ, it appears that Microsoft is now embarked on pulling the wool over US Congress eyes... so...
U.S. CITIZENS! WRITE TO YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS AND POLITELY COMPLAIN!
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Hey billy boy , you f***er. I live in europe. I don't car a F*** if you engage in spewing nationalistic s*** over there. Cause, over here you're f***ed anyway. Last survey I saw at netcraft, in germany Linux was in the majority. You can f***'em some of the time but you can't f***'em all of the time, you greedy c***. You've got so much f***en money, you p**** and you still want more. Go FUCK yourself boyo!
Well, they can for a while, but they'd be taking losses. The open source movement gives out free stuff pretty much forever, and has no such timelimit.
M$ can afford to tighten their belts to force a business competitor out of business, but for something decidedly nonmonetary, they have to be free AND compete on merit, and win. And that's far too big of a risk for them to take, because M$ engineers can't write software worth shit, and they know it.
I really miss useable newsgroups.
I guess usenet has outgrown the software. Time to rewrite the software, I think, instead of replacing it with something different (e.g. web forums).
From reading your post, I think you more or less fall into the category of "user", even though you are modifying the software and distributing it. I think I make this distrinction because of the fact that the changes made seem to be highly specialised, instead of a generic alteration. Whether or not this makes a difference to the argument of communist vs. capitalist, I'm not sure :). I'll settle for saying open-source is the best of both worlds :).
With or without the cost of the Love Bug and its successors?
- Contrary to popular belief, you cannot hold vendors of closed-source products "liable" for any problems. You can't sue them, and you can't demand that they fix any bugs or add any features. This is especially true with today's EULAs, especially those inspired by the UCITA.
- Open-source products typically have no per-use licensing fees. If your organization grows, you won't have to pay more money to install the same software on new employee's computers.
- By having the source code, the customer has control over the software he uses. If there are any bugs to fix or features to add, those changes can be made without any third party. How many times have you wished that a particular software you use had a new feature or a bug fix, and you didn't want to wait for the vendor to make the change for you? And in many cases, you have to purchase the upgrade in order to get the bug fix or new feature.
- Because public money is being used to fund any development or deployment of government-created software, unless there are national security reasons against it, the public has the right to expect the source code for that software. If my tax dollars are being used to pay for some software that is being developed, then I expect to be able to obtain that software and the source code for free (since I've already paid for it). If the software is not based on open-source technologies, then it may not be legal for the government programmers to give me that source code.
- If the government is using software for sensitive technologies, like ballot counting, then it must demand access to the source code, and it must allow that source code to be viewable to the public. This allows the government and the public to inspect the source code to make sure that no illegal or unethical code exists. For instance, let's say that some military equipment was designed with software from Boeing, and that software had an error in it that resulted in the death of some Marines who used that equipment? If the government had access to the source code, then the government could audit the code to look for such bugs.
- Tech support for closed-source products is not necessary any better than for open-source products, even if you pay more for that support. See http://www.bmug.org/news/articles/MSvsPF.html for an example.
Any more ideas?--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
Ah. Since Asians do not have colonial urges, please explain China's behaviour in Taiwan and Tibet, and Japan's behaviour up to and including World War II.
Western religions and philosophies largely reject aggressive imperialism and colonialism too, but for some reason the political leaders don't really pay a lot of attention to that stuff. In other words, a culture's political leaders and religious views are often, if not always, diametrically opposed. (The Middle Eastern theocracies are an interesting counterpoint, but I argue that although the political leaders are also the religious leaders, they use their religious power only to enhance their political authority, and not to minister to the spiritual needs of their people.)
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
You are seriously confused.
This isn't an attack on open source as an alternative. If you don't want to buy commercial software, then don't. But don't reap the benefits of someone elses work by stealing it either like Napster.
What Microsoft is making clear is that the Government should not be in the software business. Funding open source software at the expense of the free market is contrary to the public interest of our economy.
You only see this as an attack on open source because you know that it's a failed philosophy. The only way open source will ever work is if the government fund it.
The free market is a much better place for this funding. If someone doesn't make a good product, people will not buy it. Whereas with open source we won't have a choice because our tax dollars fund it.
It's interesting. I'm a Democrat and pretty liberal, but I draw the line on this issue of Software Communism.
The MS people will win if they can control who has access to the internet. Beware restrictions on ISPs, and all forms of censorship.
using closed source framework
Right. Except in America, the colonists kill even more of the existing NATIVE population and populated the continent with Europeans. The African people were about as able to defend their interests as the Native Americans were.
Ballmer said it was Crummy, not Crappy.
I've heard other corporations talk like this. I've heard the CEO of the Detroit auto makers talk like this regarding Japanese cars. They've gone steps further and had tarrifs imposed.
The major TV networks have fought with cable as well, they've certainly fought with satellite. They want their guaranteed local markets.
You are seriously confused. For once Microsoft is acting responsibly. Allchin is correct. The Government should not be funding open source development at the expense of the free market.
HE NEVER ADVOCATED PUTTING PEOPLE IN JAIL FOR CODING FREE SOFTWARE.
Christ. Over the years I've seen multiple people lobbying congress to force the government to only fund open source and never buy commercial software.
That is what Allchin is attacking.
Allchin is right, you are wrong. Deal with it.
And achieved less :-p
Really? How do you figure that? You'd think that if Linus didn't like it in the Bay Area he'd be able to write his ticket just about anywhere else he might want to go be it back to Finland, somewhere else in Europe, Canada or even elsewhere in the US.
And as for Linus' acheivements, he has probably been busy with internal Transmeta stuff that it is would be difficult for someone outside to know about let alone judge. As for Linux kernel development, it isn't reasonable to assume that the pace of development in the early releases could have been sustained forever. The size of the code base, the number of platforms, and the number of collaborating coders has increased immensely over time, making it a much bigger challenge to manage. I think Linus has done a pretty good job of coping all things considered. It also seems like a pretty massive stretch to imply that any perceived slowdown was a direct result of Linus' move to the US. There is no way to think that had he taken a job somewhere in Europe for example that the results of increased demands on his time wouldn't have been the same or even worse.
So the bottom line is, flippant comments aside... How do you propose to judge Linus' achievements, and how to you plan to correlate that with his choice of locale?
Regarding Canada's Medicare system, you understand wrong. The waiting lists here are no longer that those of US hospitals and clinics, but due to lots of funding cuts in the Medicare program by our last few Prime Ministers, we're in real danger of having those kinds of lineups.
Also, do you have real health insurance, or HMO coverage? Not flaming, just curious.
Because I'm an American.
That's why.
The difference is, I don't feel the need to delude myself into thinking such a lifestyle is THE RIGHT THING TO DO.
The way I see it, if any of them install Corel Linux they will look at it for a while, wonder what all the fuss is about and then get pissed off when they try to figure out how to stop it doing all those annoying little things (I worked for Corel Linux Tech Support so don't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about AYE). If they install Debian (note I say install, not try to install) then they will already have learnt a lot about a computer and the relationship it has with its software and they will be far more knowledgable for the result. They will also have access to the entire source code for everything they choose to install (can any other distro boast this? most seem to have an abundance of "extras" from netscape to oss sound drivers via acrobat and realplayer). If they make it as far as a complete installation and if they discover the battle that the IP lawyers have made for Debian to pick through to work with the commercial world (apt-get install xanim-modules and let it download the extra files from somewhere completely different despite the warning it gives you, etc., etc.) we could have a serious advocate on our hands. If however they simply install a toy linux like Corel (hamstrung if you like it like that) they will simply get an impression of how far along the road to desktop competition we are.
Perhaps we should throw in a printed copy of that lovely open licensced Learning Debian GNU/Linux to help them on their way:-) though I really don't think it is all that hard to get Debian up and running once you can understand mbr and partition table, then gnome-apt is your friend to find more. If Linux is for dummies Corel is the LCD, if Linux is for everyone Debian is the LCD.
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
As far as the UN is concerned, that country is Canada. (But for that matter, when was the US ever concerned with the UN?)
Yeah, blame Canada for all your problems!
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
And *that* is the last time I got "support" from MS... Last I heard "real" incidents of MS support are charged $100/$200 or so to get support. My last time was when I found a bug in their C++ library that was causing my program to crash. I told them exactly where in the source the bug was and they wrote back asking for an example. They finally admitted to the bug and assured me that I wouldn't be charged for the incident. Sheesh.
So.. I thought the whole basis of free software, GNU, linux, etc.. was to innovate? If C or C++ hadn't have been openly distributed would windows even be here? Would anything microsoft made be here if the source code for projects was available?
I'm very displeased with their comments. How can we innovate if we don't know how things work? Could windows have been made if they didnt know how other operating systems worked? could internet explorer (this is a great example) have been made if they didnt have a previous frame work to build off of??? For every question the answer is no...
MS do not want to outlaw Open Source.
No, because if they did that they would have to rewrite a major portion of there network code that they took from BSD.
What they have said, is that the government should not encourage it.
In fact they want the government to discourage it.
And this is more fair. Let me explain:
Please do...
The ultimate goal of Open Source is free software. Now this means that you don't pay anything for it.
Bullshit. If you knew anything about Open Source you would have heard of "free speech, not free beer"
If this happens, there is no money to pay programmers. As a result, intelligent people such as myself, who could command 6 figure salaries in any profession will take different career paths.
Bullshit. Redhat pays there programmers. Last I heard, IBM pays there programmers. I think Apple pays there programmers... Cygnus Solutions pays there programmers. And by all means, go ahead and take another career path.
With fewer programmers, the result will be less innovation and worse software.
See above. There will be plenty of programmers as long as the world needs software. Your argument is pure crap.
Furthermore, universities, etc. won't be able to afford to run computing courses, since, as is the stated aim of many OS people, MS will be dead - and MS funds a lot of universities.
HAH HAH HA!!! Computers Science has been taught in universities long before Microsoft, and if Microsoft went bankrupt tomorrow and all employees were fired, Computer Science and the software industry would be just fine... As long as people want computers and software someone will make them.
Furthermore, the evidence is that open source does not tend to produce new innovation. For example, desktops such as KDE are based on older products from Apple and MS. When open source is the only thing remaining, innovation will obviously be reduced.
You can't be serious. KDE is based on older products from Apple and MS which were based on older products from MIT and xerox. This is just laughable. Once again, if Open Source software is of know use then kindly replace the Open Source code from BSD in windows.
Finally, the fact is that nothing is truly free, and nothing costs money.
If you mean "nothing" as in "windows" then yes it costs money. Are you trying to make some kind of feable philosophical statement here? Please.
Let me talk about the economy. You would agree that in the past few years, it's been doing great.
I agree.
Furthermore, if you ask an economist to tell you why, they will tell you it's due to IT growth.
Many will tell you that.
Industry produces wealth - they produce the fact that California is the 6-th wealthiest nation worth, and they help the economy.
OK
Killing this industry will not make everything free, but will rather damage the economy.
I agree so don't kill Open Source software. It is the backbone of the internet.
Without the growth from *purchases* (which business can afford), the economy will not do as well.
Once again you have missed the point. Open Source is not about "free as in beer" it's about "free as in speech". And quite frankly, if people want to give away something that they made with there own hard work, then that is there right.
Right they are smart enough not to do in public in front of the press no less. Just goes to show how incredibly stupid MS executives are.
War is necrophilia.
Actually, the reason that I like newsgroups is that I can use GNUS. Editting responses in Emacs is much nicer than using the textbox widget on an HTML form.
I suppose I hadn't thought of it that way. I don't consider myself a "user" of software. I consider myself to be a coder who is sufficiently lazy to not want to start from scratch every time I start a project. However, I would certainly admit to not having sufficient expertise to recreate most of the tools that I employ. I certainly couldn't create my own Unix-like kernel, nor a database system like PostgreSQL, nor even the Zope application server that I have begun to use.
However, the people that did create these tools have received a lot of help from the community because they were willing to release their source code. I think that it is safe to say that all of these tools would not be viable pieces of software had they been developed commercially. No one wanted another proprietary Unix kernel, or another proprietary database (especially one as bad as Postgres95 was when I first started playing with it), and Zope is based on Python and neither of these technologies would have a developer community if it weren't for the fact that they are inexpensive and come with source.
I would say that Free Software has all of the warmth and fuzziness of theoretical communism, without all of the negatives (like top down centralized planning, and authoritarian rule). It is definitely not based around the communistic idea of equality. There is no question that there are different social and political strata in the Open Source community, and your place in that strata is determined by how talented you are, and how much you are willing to contribute. Fortunately, the community is quite gracious about this fact, and there is plenty of room for any eager volunteer to help out. If you were cynical you could chalk this up to the fact that even inexperienced helpers are better than doing everything yourself, but I personally believe that for the most part the motivations of Open Source developers are far more altruistic than that.
Also OEM installs are often a waste of time for corporate entities... So having something "preloaded" dosn't buy you anything
Because the first thing a corporate IT department has to do in install the software they actually want. Also in the case of OEM Windows remove irrelevent junk, useful only to a dialup home user. Or they simply use some sort of drive imaging software, in which case it dosn't matter if there is anything on the HDD in the first place.
Also Microsoft's new idea of locking Windows to specific machines makes to job of corporate IT harder. They might end up having to have someone manually set up machines. Which pushes up the TCO.
Uh, I don't think I need to say more than that.
And which WMA codec did they test against? I've heard some stuff encoded with a not-yet-released version, and for the songs I heard, there wasn't any pre-echo that was detectable by my admittedly poor ears.
Later,
Blake.
Mr. Anonymous coward, You can commit non-violent offenses and be commiting a crime. Credit fraud is non-violent. So is embezzlement..
It was a joke, Mr. Ad Hominem Attack. I guarantee I can spell better than any four people you can name.
A joke? Sounds to me like you were trying to poke fun at me with that..
As far as you being an American, it sounds like you're part of the problem rather than part of the solution.
A) How am i part of the problem? B) Why do you assume that?
Oh well...just makes my job a bit harder.
What job would that be? In case you're wonder I myself do donate when i can, and even sometimes when i can't. $1.47 everytime i go to the grocery store might not seem like much, but it is if you only have $30 to get food and gas for the next 2 weeks...(i won't have this problem as soon as i get my degree in may..).
No one sells Apache, Perl, or HTML do they? Apache survives because it is an exceptionally good piece of software. Few other open source projects can be compared quality wise to Apache.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Are you sure Wordperfect existed before Word?
I remember using Microsoft Word for DOS version 4.0 back in the era of Wordperfect 4.2. And Wordstar is older than either of them by a long shot.
Excel wasn't Microsoft's first spreadsheet. I can remember running their earlier spreadsheet, Multiplan, on a Microsoft Xenix system (an 8086 system with 512K of RAM that could support five users concurrently on dumb terminals running Microsoft's port of UNIX). Visicalc is older than Multiplan, but I suspect Lotus 123 isn't.
DOS 1.0 was a workalike of CP/M that Microsoft purchased and extended. You've heard of workalikes before, haven't you? Is Linux a 'stolen version of AT&T Unix?
the reaction in Redmond: priceless.
(I suppose "reaction" could be read two different ways. :-) )
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
I hear the "do things as others say you should" bit alot yet I've never seen anyone provide an example of how Microsoft told them to do business. Microsoft doesn't tell you how to run your business, neither does IBM or Sun. If I don't like the software a company provides I will look elsewhere, thousands of companies have had to do this in the past so there is a whole subindustry in the computer biz that merely provides ways of intercommunicating between different software suites and architectures.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
"He honestly seems to support that programmers should be materially impoverished, not enriched, by their rare and highly useful talents."
I think maybe you're on to something here. RMS isn't a programmer: he is an artiste, in the fine tradition of those artistes who hole up in some godforsaken converted garage, with a hotplate for a stove and shit-all to eat because, hey, to be a truly great artist, one must suffer.
He's like some arts college kid who thinks he's the next hot-damn, and looks down his nose at the "sell-outs" like Robert Bateman, who make hundreds of thousands of dollars off the sale of their paintings. Ain't art if it's popular or demands a high price, you know. Ain't art if you can live off it.
Poor RMS. Truth is, he's never grown out of his early twenties. He still Knows Everything About Anything, has The One True Vision, and Invokes The Right To Tell Others What They Should Be Doing.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Don't be stupid. Was America a colony 300 years ago?
Fine, you're measuring from a time they were colonies, i was measuring from the end of that period. I posted that before thinking, and i appologize.
As far as pure luck goes, we won't go into the differences between African and European cultures that made the Europeans more apt to develop technology.
I'm not entirely conviced that non-Western societies would bother pursuing technology. You're assuming all socieities would do that. I'd like to propose that some only did b/c they had no other choice if they wanted to survive. Japan would be a good example of what i'm talking about. They saw how the Imperialist West was carving up (and destorying) China, and they decided the best way to survive would be to become Western and Imperialist.
They were warlike, territorial, and absolutely ferocious to their enemies. Kinda like just about every other culture on the planet.
And you know this how? Your examples, are they more modern in nature? I seem to recall Zulu vs. non-Zulu...but i can't place exactly when.
when comes the famous flip-flop?
Oh, probably about the same time Mir's fate gets decided.
Yeah I know. It crashed last night between 12 am and 3:30 am, and then today between somewhere around 5:30 and at least 7 pm.
I can't believe what a looser I am, looking over that last sentence.
In a word, yes.
Wasn't there an article just yesterday about "Pope" Linus refusing PPC patches?
as a server os, I'd say there are benefits on both sides, with neither being superior.
-Stu
Odd... my support incidents have been the exact opposite. The support engineer assigned to my case took the time to call from home, and was very frank with me. He even went so far as to request some changes in their network config so they could reproduce the exact situation we were seeing. We weren't charged a dime for the whole thing, and he still answers the occasional email question I toss his way.
I have been impressed with MS tech support. I suppose it just depends on who you actually get to talk to and how much of an ass they are (or aren't.)
-
The IHA Forums
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
So maybe this Allchin thing isn't as totally far-fetched when I first incredously read it.
Actually a number of the things that you mention where invented by people working for governments. Or by individuals. Corporations merely handled the refining and marketing.
.sig
Usually I try to be fairly open to understanding Microsoft's position on things and even embracing their products and technologies where they are superior or warrented by the business situation.
But this article is really difficult for me to swallow.
If open source gets adopted more, that means that closed source vendors have to work *harder* to make their products superior. That means more innovation. Which is truly what open source is - another form of competition. Linux's real innovation is beyond technology - it is positioning its source code as a service to customers. Which, to some audiences, is a definite competitive advantage.
What Microsoft is really complaining about is that one would no longer get easy profits from "mass produced things" things like, oh, office suites and operating systems. Whoops.
Saying "we can build a better product than Linux" is one thing, Jim. Doing it is another. Currently, Windows 2000 is a better product as a desktop. As a server also, it definitely shines in certain areas. But if Linux DOES ever beat it, isn't that an example of innovation? Competition at it's finest?
Sure, some advocates of open source are 1960's-era anti-corporatists.
That's unfortunate. But I don't think the mainstream will swallow a stupid pill and embrace those ideals. They'll pick and choose the ideals that they can handle (for better or for worse). And it'll take time.
Napster, open source, etc. will probably not mean the end of intellectual property -- but it will probably mean a transformation of it.
-Stu
The American Way, liberalism, its clear the old fashion economic system is dead and waiting to be burried, we see it everyday even in the us(you have 30 million poor and miserable). The evolution/revolution is inevitable and we have to choose who will take the first step, and the opne source community as developed as it is now is a gran candidate! I say down with the industry, we have a new way of doing things and we want to share information/knowledge openly! Intelectual Proprety!? "Soon we'll have to buy the very air we breathe!" Capitalism Sucks...
'nuff said!
G =G oogle+Search
http://www.google.com/search?q=allchin+fake&btn
The bottom line here is that we DONT KNOW what would happen if all closed-source were abolished. Can services-based development efforts generate the same levels of innovations and revenues that the current closed-source systems do? That is highly in doubt given the recent financial statements from many Linux vendors.
Personally, I say let's revise the copyright laws with a Consumer Bill of Rights, and reform the patent process.
This doesn't have to be an either-or situation; Open source and closed source both have their place, and will continue to co-exist for some time.
-
The IHA Forums
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Is microsoft serious. What would happen if this banning of free source code idea was expanded to other areas such as cooking? Would recipes become illegal?
How does MP3s have anything at all to do with open source?
Microsoft has redefined the word "innovation" to mean "mimicing our competition and driving them out of business".
Microsoft has redefined the word "innovation" to mean "buying our competition's five-year-old technology, slapping a 'Microsoft' sticker over their name, and calling it 'the future of technology'".
By this definition, I guess Linux does stifle "innovation".
The fact that they're trying to hire Linux programmers says so much more than any Microsoft press release ever could.
It is what they want? so funny... Stop people to exchange idea, to philosophy, to build commum and social project is a sea of free minds? Will they stop me build a forteresse of snow with my friends.... Make me laugh...( but THEY are dangerous)
I think you get the point
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
The American Way, liberalism, its clear the old fashion economic system is dead and waiting to be burried, we see it everyday even in the us(you have 30 million poor and miserable). The evolution/revolution is inevitable and we have to choose who will take the first step, and the opne source community as developed as it is now is a gran candidate! I say down with the industry, we have a new way of doing things and we want to share information/knowledge openly! Intelectual Proprety!? "Soon we'll have to buy the very air we breathe!" Capitalism Sucks...
Implies that they haven't yet done so. (Obviously) I love it.
Your problem is that you assume that the situation in 15 years time will be somewhat similar to the one we have today.
History has shown that nothing could be further from the truth.
Most computers today have _no_ development tools. Most high school students do not even have 3 years of computer programming classes. It is still acceptable for people to not own a computer in the home. Right now modems are more common than DSL and t1 lines. Today is still possible to find people who can not type well. In the future people will assume that any educated person can type faster than she can write by hand.
In the future every high school graduate will have to have some basic programming skills. Are you going to pay every high school student a six figure salary?
In the future, we will need high quality software that we can rely on. Not just rely on it in the most primitive sense that it doesn't crash every couple days. But reliable in the sense that it is utterly predictable. That for every question, there is an answer. Close source has no hope of attaining this kind of reliability.
That's problem Microsoft faces. They built a decent operating system in windows 2000. But they still rely on close source drivers that can't be debugged and are inherently unpredictable/unreliable.
Will programmers get paid less in the future? Some may. But others will get paid more than they do now. Hopefully, you are right to say that some applications will become so advanced they do not require a lot of support. But at the same time there will always be new programs to write. Voice recognition, and image recognition are exciting areas for the desktop right now...
jimall@microsoft.com
M$ stock dropped in 1/2 since last year. If you are a MCSE, you will be broke.
See also Mussolini's definition, and Trotsky's pamphlet Fascism, What is and how to fight it.
World Socialist Web Site
the Netscape argument just doesn't hold water anymore. I saw an interview in Wired before IE was even a player in the game and Andressen stated that (paraphrased) "We don't want to sell a shrink wrapped product. We want to package our software with new systems and partner with providers for distribution to the end user" and fairly soon after MS began doing that very thing. Then what happened? NS cried foul. Navigator after all was really a tool to help sell a back end server system software, it was never supposed to be the money maker even if it was the starting product. NS had aspirations of taking the server market and just never quite did anything that hit big. IMO.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
Odd choice of post to label "insightful"!
Let's re-score this one, shall we?
"Standard of living" is hardly a form of moral measurement, and the argument you're addressing is a moral one. Point off.
Even if you were to argue the moral point, you'd be stuck holding up the lifestyles and creature comforts of corporate employees as some sort of defense against their employer's behavior. Not a tenable position. Point off there, too.
You want to argue that the U.S. must be a moral state since people are trying hard to get into it. But since people try hard to get into many things, from bank vaults to discos to prostitutes, the best we can say about evidence of effort is that it is evidence of effort. Point off.
Are they "literally" killing themselves to try, or "figuratively" killing themselves? If you mean people who die in illegal immigration attempts, then at best you can say "dying to get in." People aren't exactly shooting themselves in the head and saying, as they expire, "Perhaps....THIS...will get me into the United St-- uggggggh." Point off.
By my count, you're clocking in at -4.
Moderators, try harder.
*NOBODY* expects the Spanish Inquisition.
.sig drives me so crazy but it does. sry.
No matter what Monty Python says The Knigths Templar did expect it. In fact, they destroyed the Hospitallers (their biggest competition, and in league with The Church to destroy the Knights Templar) b/c they knew what was coming. Most of them fled the countries (including Spain) involved in Inquistioning and became a secret society (more than likely the Freemasons) that did quite well considering the long arm of the Catholic Church. To be honest I don't know why your
---
This
if( Education_of_policy_makers == Outlaw_open_source ) {
jim_allchin_of_microsoft_said = Microsoft_feels_open_source_is_a_threat;
}
The REAL sam_at_caveman_dot_org is user ID 13833.
Interesting idea, but I think you could also make a strong analogy to the effect of Microsoft on software development, variety and innovation.
Lets consider the main applications; before Microsoft gave us Office there were numerous spreadsheets and word processors in widespread use out there. However, because of some Microsoft undocumented Windows functions, they've managed to take over virtually the entire software Wild West and innovation is stifled by the simple fact that MS either buys out, balks or produces a rival product to anything innovative. As examples I give you: "DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run!", Doublespace, IE v Netscape, DR-DOS, and many more.
Innovation does occur in Open Source, and staking a claim as you put it is a very competitive business. Unless you produce top quality innovative code, your co-programmers will clobber your claim area with something more innovative and better.
I think conversely that there is little incentive nowadays to innovate in the MS world, since if your product is really good the 800lb gorilla is going to jump on it one way or the other....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
'I'm an American, I believe in the American Way,'' he said. ''I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat.''
Oh? Well... I'm an American, I believe in the American Way. I worry what will happen if we allow companies to make every product on a subscription payment basis. I can see bills on services (utilities), or things you just can't own yet (house, car.) But your operating system? We already have to pay monthly if you want to pay Ulitma Online, how many software monthly bills are we going to tack on?
When is the original DIVX makers going to come back out? It is starting to seem they just pushed their plan to early...
Just last night I saw a commercial for MS Server software, bragging about how it was so stable, no humans needed to maintain the servers. Hah! In my experience, it's the most fragile and least secure server out there.
And now this. Microsoft has redefined the word "innovation" to mean "mimicing our competition and driving them out of business" -- by "stifling competition," they mean OSS is unstoppable because it's not a business, there's no profit or shareholders to threaten, it's an ideal, a practice. A practice that they can't embrace because it's too foreign to their proprietary mindset.
What's next? Cages with rats attached to our faces?
I can see the fnords!
Microsoft seems a bit like the neurotic who you always knew was a little bit wacky but who suddenly turns out to be absolutely, unequivocally, 100% batshit insane. are you kidding me?? outlaw open source?
I was always a little unsure abt the arguments that source code is "speech" in the sense of the First Amendment's speech protections, but this M$ thing has me a believer. it's a real-life reductio ad absurdum.
this is flat-out the most lunatic argument I've ever seen emerge from the business world, and I own books by Peter Drucker.
According to this article at The Register:m l
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/16933.ht
Windows XP will itself destroy protected audio and video files that do not "authenticate" with the sound and/or video cards.
Take Allchin's statement, alter it to this:
"I'm a Corporatist, I believe in the Corporate Way,'' he said. 'I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat."
Without Free and Open Source Software, there is no counter to the power of the corporations to control the computer the way they now control TV, radio (about to get even tighter in the digital age), newspapers, etc.
Microsoft's attitudes and despotism in forcing `Doze users to accept that level of unrestricted third control over their own property, will only serve to further our cause.
I never did upgrade to 2000, though I do have a dual boot Red Hat/Doze ME machine for gaming. I certainly will never allow Windows XP (XP which seems to stand for "corporate control eXPeriment") anywhere near any of my machines, especially now that I have broadband.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
That aint' funny - that's gotta be the most hilarious thing a MS employee has ever said, it even tops Bill Gate's (in)famous 640kb quote. Damn, I gotta write that down and use it as a signature!
--
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
I'm not so sure that we should be discussing the finer points of what he said here- What's really interesting is that M$ are starting to say these things at all - Now they've officially started the FUD, one can only surmise that they are now *really disturbed* by this global paradigm shift, and feel genuinely threatened. The cracks are starting to show, it's only a matter of time - drip....drip.....drip....drip....drip....
...instead, IBM appears to be able to adjust their business processes to incorporate Linux and other open-source software like Apache, etc. This suggests, to me, that the flaw isn't due to open source software at all, but rather to some element of Microsoft's business model.
--
-Rich (OS/2 Warp 4 and Linux user in Eden Prairie MN)
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
America didn't invent the corporation. But in the 19th century, America went further than any other country in perfecting this glorious instrument of money-extraction. Who else would have thought to give the status of natural personhood to corporations as our Supreme Court did? Who else would have turned the English language into the most imperial language on the earth today, not because of any military conquest (though the US does have plenty) but because of corporate conquest?
Look at your alternative to a country that allows large corporations. You have North Korea (tens of thousands of people starving to death every year), China (you can get killed for saying the wrong thing), or Cuba (one of the aforementioned places that people are dying to escape from). Call me nuts, but I'm pretty happy in the US.
Corporate greed is what got us this far. Next step is the Open Source greed. it goes like this. You make it for free. I'll then package it, market it, and scalp a nice little profit off your work. I think Red hat did something along those lines.
It's sad but Open Source is one of the great free things that you and i can get, but someone else can make a buck off of our work and we'll never see a dime for it.
spambait e-mail
my web site artistcorner.tv hip-hop news
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if you see me, smile and say hello.
Ah, yes. Once again, a Microsoft executive has made me look like a fool-by-association.
The idea that Open Source stifles innovation is patently absurd. Does Jim actually want us to believe that "innovation" can only come from well-funded corporate R&D think tanks? That individuals, or like-minded groups, are incapable of a good idea? Who do you think started those think tanks?
We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead
This sig intentionally left blank.
No, it's not. Open source is a choice the developer makes to explicitly share their intellectual property. The fact that I can write my own software based on yours has nothing to do with Bill's intellectual property. It sounds like Allchin wants the govt to regulate free software, rather than letting the market decide. Now that's un-American!
If this happens, there is no money to pay programmers. As a result, intelligent people such as myself, who could command 6 figure salaries in any profession will take different career paths.
With fewer programmers, the result will be less innovation and worse software.
Furthermore, universities, etc. won't be able to afford to run computing courses,
Hooey, all of it. If indeed you were an intelligent person perhaps you'd have a better grasp of service based economies.
This is really simplifying it, but.
There is $(x) amount in the pool, and a fixed demand. In the current system, where one purchases a software product, there is $(x-y) actually going to the programmers, where y is dictated by the amount of profit the software companies make.
Now in an open model, where the software is free and customizable but there is no support, there is still $(x) and the same number of 'sales', but that $(x) is paid directly to the programmers, support techs, etc, by way of salary. In addition, there is a higher demand for said programmers.
.sig: Now legally binding!
What it doesn't do is harm innovation in software or software quality.
They should tell it like it is. Open Source threatens their business... but it doesn't threaten the overall quality of software available to America's businesses and citizens.
Microsoft's operating-system chief Jim Allchin says that teaching people to fish threatens the American way of life.
"Sell a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. That's the American Way. Teach a man to fish, and you undermine the entire economic system of this great nation. Education is communism, plain and simple."
--
Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
What exactly would Micrsoft be talking to policymakers about? The benefits of C# and
It sounds like they're encouraged by the RIAA's apparent successes in crippling Napster as a competitive threat, and they seem to think that politicians and judges might be willing to give them the same sort of help. It's an awfully brazen thing to pursue, though, right after they demo this vaporware OS that is such an obvious knockoff of OS X. I wonder if they're so intoxicated with the prospect of President Dubya calling off the DOJ that they're back to thinking they control the world.
I'm NOT a congenital MS basher, but their behavior lately is so arrogant and disgusting that it leaves me almost breathless.
mike
Well, for most big corporations, "keeping legislators informed" really means "getting some senators in our pockets so we can get protective legislation enacted". I don't think it's unreasonable to be worried about that sort of thing, especially since Microsoft has never depended on government help (and in fact has been at odds with the government) in the past. This is a big change for them, and they have a lot of influence.
You're not too credible either - you forgot to close your emphasis, and you misspelled "outlawed". Not that Microsoft needs any help with word-twisting...
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
This is obviously why MS doesn't want the government using open source software.
The only alternative is to spend MILLIONS of dollars buying MS software. There's no other choice.
Microsoft was one of those companies, regardless of their other faults, avoided politics in general and lobbying/donations in particular. Their competetors, such as Oracle, did a great deal of lobbying and donating to influence government officials to persue Microsoft through DOJ antitrust proceedings.
Can't fault Microsoft for not learning it's lesson. It is not a level playing field and if they can continue to stay competitive by bribing government officials they will; just like their competetors have done. So now they are looking for, and are going to get, policy against Open Source.
There is something most definately wrong with our society when large corporations are forced to bribe and influence government for their own prosperity.
On another completely unrelated note; there's a rumor that Bill Clinton, the guy who's DOJ persued the world's largest software company, may join the board of directors at Oracle, the world's second largest software company. hrm..
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Allchin says: "that freely distributed software code such as rival Linux could stifle innovation"
Now substitute different words and product names in that fragment instead of "Linux". Use, for example "Internet Explorer" or "Windows Media Player". He (Allchin) starts to sound like some of Microsoft's enemies....:)
[*] offer only applies to corporations. Individuals need not apply.
No.
Text editors, on the other hand, are.
M-x All-hail-Xemacs.
-- "I am disrespectful to dirt. Can you not see that I am serious!"
Yet more FUD tactics from Microsoft. The idiocy behind the denial of the OBVIOUS (perhaps self-evident) benefit of Open Source to innovation is verging on criminal. Microsoft has a number of spokespeople intent on undermining trust of Open Source projects such as Apache and Linux, however all they really accomplish is to further damage the public image of the company. The segment of the population who is offended by such statements are in many cases the same people who are in a position to influence the corporate world away from companies like Microsoft who play dirty, put out inferior products, and fail to adapt the best of what the competition has to offer. Microsoft may very well represent the American way, not the enlightened intelligent aspects of society, but the insulated, xenophobic and intellectually incestuous America that holds the principles of freedom, innovation, and cooperation in check. This is why America is not the leader of innovation in the UNIX world. Individuals and companies within the US make significant contributions, but European and Asian contributions to the advancement of technology are stronger. Linux is from North American, but many enlightened North Americans make a contribution. The last thing the world needs is for the government to step in and stifle the creativity and innovation coming from Open Source projects like Linux, Apache, OpenBSD, etc.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
Jim Allchin, main Windows guy at Microsoft [...] argues that [...] Open Source [...] stifles innovation
I'm inclined to take Microsoft's word on this; they are the world's foremost experts on stifling innovation, aren't they?
It was called Xenix... They then stopped development and sold it to the Santa Cruz Organization. Now, it's really obselete but still somewhat useful in the right circumstances (like driving lots and lots of RS232 connections).
Even Apple is doing more good development at this point that Microsoft, and that's really sad...
"Titanic was 3hr and 17min long. They could have lost 3hr and 17min from that."
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Open source doesn't undermine so-called intellectual property! Just because you let other people copy your work, or modify it, doesn't mean it's not yours any more!
The point of free software or open source is not to turn all copyrighted work into a mass chaotic soup of knowledge, but to explicitly allow the users to do the things that they naturally like to do.
As for the MS guy, well he has his head up Bill Gates' ass, this is just FUD, plain and simple. We just need to keep our eye on them and make sure they don't get themselves some stupid laws that make source code illegal or something.
As an environmental consultant who worked in the late '80s investigating property transfers, I regularly stopped at the local country courthouse to review property records. On one occasion, I was in southern Idaho and during my review I saw literally hundreds of loyalty oaths recorded on microfilm in the archive. Although the people who swore these oaths were not force at gun point to do so, their community would have seen their refusal as equivalent to treason.
Allchin's statement is a sad day for liberty.
He should be shamed for this outrage.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Microsoft says, "Linux Double-plus Ungood"
I believe it was said that originally that phrase was written as 'life, liberty and the pursuit of property' or in other words, wealth. Rather interesting when you look at it in light of the capitalist spin-offs (like Microsoft's strategies, stupid patents, etc) that we've been getting.
--
to be honest I am kind of scared. /.ers give them credit.
Even though MS has problems with the government right now they still have a huge amount of influence. If they seriously want to get some legislation going to hurt open source they can take it much farther than I think most
It seems like they are gearing up for some technological cleansing of some sort. Hell, who do you think the American people would believe if MS started running adds talking about how they were trying to protect the American Way from the evil H4ck3rs!
There was a post earlier that talked about how the US has given corporations so much power. I would have to agree with that. If a corporation like MS wants the government to do something they can make it happen.
I would think this is something the open source movement should keep an eye on. If they don't you may get your box confiscated by the Secret Police because of its OS.
I may sound a little conspiracy theory happy, but I bet there are a lot of people in Europe who thought Hitler was just some psycho who would go away before he did any harm.
I am surprised that I have not heard much about efforts to encourage the gov't to use open source/ open standards in their operations -- does anyone have any good links on this? For example, the gov't could require electronic submissions of documents to it to be made in non-proprietary formats (as it may already do, albeit with simple formats -- I belief that textual materials contained in SEC filings with the EDGAR system have to be made in ASCII). I am also surprised that the the gov't hasn't appeared to use the threat of using non-Windows alternatives in its antitrust litigation against MS.
I think that the Open Source movement is a continuation of the ideas and philosophy written in the United States Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights. The greedy "Hand of Tyranny" that Microsoft has needs to be subdued. All I see behind the pretty icons and friendly colors of Windows XP is Communism!
just my 0.02
this stinks like shit. how retarded. ugh... can't say more... too disgusted...
JDW
So wait. Of course less will be spent on research and development since each business won't need to re-invent the wheel each time someone needs something. And aren't Freedom and Choice supposed to be part of the 'American Way'? And when it all comes down to it, if someone made a program entirely in machine code, would it be considered open source when he/she distributes the program? It's all the same stuff, just compilers are much less daunting. ...glad I live in Canada, but we usually just follow suit...
--------------------
This would be the part where MS realizes that "oh my, maybe we *should* do something to crush this threat to our way of making money". Whatever to do? Well, according to the halloween documents, it was embrace and extend open source protocols (kerberos was an example). This just takes it to another level. Attack Linux and open source in general.
.ca)) will probably think that "hey, they're right! damn those open source people!" I'm surprised they haven't taken it to the supreme court to force legislation against anyone doing any of the evil anti-american stuff.
This falls perfectly in line with this osopinion article about Ballmer's ideas on how to "attack" (not "compete with") linux.
This is an interesting tactic though, using the 'ol american patriotism against open source. The thing is, to "us" (the geeks of the world) this is complete BS and we know it. However, to the average american (I'm guessing (I'm
I wonder if this sort of tactic will work against big companies. Sure, the average geek is ignoring this, but how about the average fortune 500 CEO?
means the world's largest software maker has to do a better job of talking to policymakers
This shows us where the focus of thier business is. They program software. Compition should cause them to do a better job of programming.
"I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat."
I would worry more if government attempts to disrupt compition to a know monopoly. Also maybe if they spent less time 'educating' (AkA paying off) policy makers, maybe they'd have a stable product, and people wouldn't turn to alternatives, free or not.
"We can build a better product than Linux,"
Maybe they can, but I haven't seen it yet, and unless they start focusing on programming instead of talking to and "educating" policy makers, I doubt I ever will.
For a good time call www.sawkie.com
he sais "it's an intelectual property destroyer" ... of course Linux doesn't destroy M$'s IP - they still own what they've always owned .... it just may not be worth as much .... but that's always been the case for a supplier who suddenly finds a low-cost competitor in the market .... it ought to be an incentive for M$ to make better IP more cheaply .... (ie no more M$ cash cow for certain senior M$ executives ....)
But it does suggest a likely way for Microsoft (and others) to attack Linux and other open source alternatives through the US legal system:
Another tack would be to sneak language into various spending bills requiring government IT departments to only acquire software that just happens to be rule out use of open source/linux/... Such regulations exist (Posix certficiation, for example), but don't always get enforced.
Although M$'s record lobbying has been poor, they do eventually get things right. And their logical allies (MPAA, RIAA, ...) **KNOW** how to lobby.
should be interesting....
Didn't Microsoft use Open Source code to bring networking tools like Ping and Telnet to windows? I seem to recall that they were developed by the FreeBSD project for FreeBSD... basically, recompiled and tweaked to run under NT by Microsoft, and with the FreeBSD project's blessing. This saved them millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours in wasted duplication of effort.
Hmm.
Even Microsoft, it seems, benefits from Open Source.
SoupIsGood Food
This is something that is more part of the "American way" than anything Microsoft can come up with.
I think the idea of change is hard for Microsoft, which is also the "American way." We do things different here, and that is what makes this land great. We bow to no kings!
-- James Dornan AKA Tiger Smile
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
...months ago. The next step is to search through every source to find some incident - any incident, anywhere, any time - in which someone was injured or killed in a way that can be blamed on open source software. Then start agitating for laws making programmers utterly responsible for anything they touch, disclaimers notwithstanding, and require that open source software creators still have to carry massive liability insurance. I'm guessing we'll see the first lawsuits within months of the release of the next version of Windows (which wont' sell very well either).
A bit of a stretch, maybe. But as others have replied, talk of "Threatening the American Way" and "communicating with policymakers" certainly implies it.
Also, thie is SLASHDOT. It's not SUPPOSED to be a credible and fair news source. If you want "fair" or "unbiased" reporting, try CNN, or NPR.
well, having a paper about something like this published allows to shoot down a patent on the subject applied for by some random company after the said paper has been published...
Think about it:
- Idiot CEO (crying) : ouinnn, those university students shot my business plan down...
See this recent satire on segfault
Perhaps he's not an american dialect english speaker. I know I'm not (Irish, myself), and I say "whilst" wherever it sounds right...
Choice of masters is not freedom.
I'm not sure how M$ can actually sit there and claim that the Open Source movement threatens innovation. . . esp. with the number of innovations that I'm pretty sure it fostered.
I'm curious now, how many of the following things that I consider pretty cool features of linux or *BSD have been exhibited in a previous non-OSS project:
$ make xconfig
X and all its windowmanager goodness
ports
SCSI emulation
dual booting
pluggable text editors (emacs &c)
desktop systems that can work with multiple WMs
coffee
I really am pretty sure they are just so confused about how to deal with OSS that they can't think of anything other than FUD tactics to protect their corporate interests.
I like this quote:
Microsoft distributes some of its programs without charge to customers
Yeah, and exactly WHEN did it start doing that? Did they distribute any significant software for free before Netscape?
Even the development tools where a pain in the ass to get your hands on before then, like the DDK for which you needed to be an MSDN subscriber to get it.
Breace.
If I want to use commercial software, I must pay with dollars and I'm not guaranteed to get what I paid for, much less additional features or bug fixes I may later need. I have no ability to fix problems make improvements myself.
If I want to use open source software, I use it. If I find a problem, I can fix it myself and contribute the fix, in which case everyone wins,or simply report it and hope someone else fixes it, in which case, I'm no worse off than with commercial software. If I need a feature that isn't there, I can add it myself and contribute the code, in which case everyone wins, or I can make a request to the project developers and hope they add it at some point in the future, and again I'm no worse off than with commercial software.
The only ones who really stand to lose with open source software are those companies who's business model depends on constantly forcing customers to pay for software upgrades and bug fixes. Sound familiar?
There are clearly no laws currently in effect which make open source applications/OSes illegal. Even if some comes into play, those laws can't be applied retroactively. So this really has little bearing on their current legal situation.
The idiocy of the concept of Corporation As Person needs to be exposed more to the average citizen. Few people today realize that it's the root of all our political and social problems. Rights and privileges no longer belong to the individual citizen, because these corporate "persons" have usurped the roles reserved for individual persons by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. And corporations are motivated by one thing, and one thing only: Maximum Profits.
It used to be, in the 17th and 18th century, that in order to acheive corporate status, an organization had to demonstrate that it operated in the public good. And there was no rights to the corporation itself, just a limitation of liability to the officers and exectuives in exchange for their service in the public interest. But somehow this got twisted and tortured into an entity with rights and privileges surpassing that of any entity mentioned in the Consitution. It's wrong and that needs to be exposed.
It's ruining our country. It's ruining the world.
I can see the fnords!
...when I wrote this article Ballmer, Bush Meet, Discuss New Communist Threat at Segfault. I didn't think a fudster from Microsoft would read it and take it literally!
Look, I know this is a troll, but it's always good to have a straw man to crush:
The ultimate goal of Open Source is free software. Now this means that you don't pay anything for it.
This is but one of the freedoms that Free Software (not Open Source) brings. However, many people in this world, myself included, are delighted to pay for software even when it's free. It's called 'morality', and if an author would like a gift in exchange for his dedication, I'm happy to offer one. The greater good in this scenario is not that the individual programmer is richer, but that the whole community is enriched by the new, free software.
If this happens, there is no money to pay programmers. As a result, intelligent people such as myself, who could command 6 figure salaries in any profession will take different career paths.
That's utter tosh. Yes, I know you're a troll. However, innovative companies such as Cygnus Solutions make large profits and employ full time programmers simply to work on free software! The software is costly to initially create and maintain, but once a single copy exists, every other copy is free. Companies like Microsoft are backwards! They charge nothing to their customers for the expense of creation and maintainence, but charge full whack for the part that's completely free - making copies! Why should it cost more to have 1000 licenses of NT workstation than to have 10? It's exactly the same software on each workstation, duplicated at zero cost.
Finally, you might want to look at this essay on motivation. I personally expect to get paid for working on proprietary customer solutions at work, but all the programming I do outside work is for Free, in all senses of the word. By doing that, I'm adding value to the software community. I also think it's fair, given how much I rely on other Free programs.
Furthermore, the evidence is that open source does not tend to produce new innovation. For example, desktops such as KDE are based on older products from Apple and MS. When open source is the only thing remaining, innovation will obviously be reduced.
Yes, I know this is still a troll, but currently with things like GNOME, most of the innovation is in the programming APIs and code implementations - the actual user interface is neglected, programmers are just happy to leave it looking like existing interfaces because they're not UI experts, and they at least want the user to be instantly familiar, even if they do just steal layouts (such as M$ does heavily, eg Start button vs Apple menu). Personally, if I were to come up an innovative compression method, the user would not care. All he would care is that my program had the same user interface as zip, otherwise he'd say "it compresses much better, but it's a bitch to use!"
Does my bum look big in this?
It is true, that programmers will be less likely to take on or complete certain projects if they don't feel they can truly capitalize on their effort, and this could reduce the number of people innovating in any particular area. However, the problem with closed source projects, is that many of the same innovations must be duplicated again and again. Companies have historically had to develop their own algorithms for a lot of the same problems because they don't have access to another companies solution. There is definitely duplication of effort in open source software, but it is often caused by a difficulty in extracting useful parts of one program for insertion into another one. A good example of the re-use of code algorithms is all the cd ripping/encoding gui utilities for Linux/*BSD. They are almost all just wrappers for some command line utilities which have already done a very good job of correcting errors when ripping a cd, and existing mp3 encoders are already well optimized, so the person who wants to write a gui interface for the job can focus on just that. The best part about open source, is that a person can switch back and forth between using whichever persons algorithm they want without worrying about wasting money by licensing yet another companies libraries. A lot of the gui interfaces for common tasks are just wrappers for command line programs, but they have the option of including the source code directly in their program to improve performance or to tailor the code for their needs without starting from scratch.
I just love the fact that the openssl libraries are no longer restricted by the RSA patent anymore. Now practically every program that communicates over TCP is adding encryption. Not only do they have free use of the algorithm since the patent has expired, but there is no need to spend a bunch of time coding and debugging their own libraries for encryption.
Though you lose some developers that might have made innovations in a given field if there was a greater economic demand for something given the absence of free alternatives, open source reduces the number of times something has to be re-innovated, and reinnovation really isn't innovation at all.
Only if one defines "better workstation" to mean a workstation where clicking on the wrong thing can lead to infection. No thanks, I'll pass.
The "cue the foo posts in 3, 2, 1..." posts will commence with no subsequent foo posts in 3, 2, 1...
Really... well why haven't you done it yet?
Notice he says himself they can, not they have. Heh, you screwed up the BS marketing handed you Jim, try again later. Perhaps if you released your source code where the real programmers could get ahold of it and give you some pointers, you would be able to say you have produced a better product than Linux, for now though, it is apparent that the number of people working on and improving Linux, and the skill of those people, is far above that which Microsoft can muster. I'm probably stating the obvious, Jim, but Microsoft is scared of Linux, and the open-source as a whole; you know it, we know it, and we both also know its only a matter of time before the average Joe reallizes what hes missing and abandons your ship, only to swim to ours. Afterall, if you find a leak on our boat, the people who can patch it are everywhere, and not bound together so as to be forced to work on one hole at a time.
"// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"
Makes you wonder which company in the linux business M$ is gonna try to acquire next.
M$: "We have bought your company so stop your linux stuff that we don't want"
VA: "Ok"
horrible...
--- Sigmentation Fault - Comments Dumped
While most of this seems to be a half-assed attempt to spread some FUD, I really like the quote from Allchin at the bottom:
''We can build a better product than Linux,'' he said.
Not "We have built ", but "We can build". I would have expected more self-confidence from the head Windows guy.
Well shucks, any time Microsoft is ready, they should do that thing!
Bullshit. Granting rights and privileges to someone does not take them away from anyone else. Rights and privileges still belong to the individual citizen and to the corporate entities.
And the only liabilities limited are financial liabilities. The officers of a corporation are still responsible for all criminal liability incurred by a corporation as a result of any decisions they make. There's a big fucking difference in the way it is and the way you put it! Corporations can incur debt which the officers are not responsible for - in return for this there is dual taxation. However, if someone caused the corporation to steal or kill or hurt someone, the officer(s) responsible for that would face jail time in exactly the same circumstances as if it were an individual performing the action.
Corporations are a great tool for the creation of wealth - the only advantage they provide their "owners" over individual ownership is the absolvence of personal financial liabilities and the contract protection to their collective ownership.
The legislature and local administrations do often accord extraordinary privileges to corporations - like tax breaks to build new facilities. These are either the legislature offering an incentive in return for their belief that what the corporation does will benefit the community at large by creating jobs etc. (not too different from any contract you authorize the legislature/government to undertake on behalf of the people they represent) or simply corruption where the corporation has bought out the people casting the votes. Don't blame "corporations" in general for corruption - blame the legislators. It's just like it would be stupid to say "all white males are evil because white males like Marc Rich are able to buy pardons from the President!". There are evil corporations and there are good ones. They are evil or good based on the people who control them. Blame those people, don't blame the concept of a corporation in general.
Corporations are easy to blame because they don't have human faces to associate with them. However, that is a highly myopic view. Corporations are run by humans and do as much good or evil as those humans would.
Mmmm.. Donuts
It looks to me like Allchin is using the Napster fallout to try to put OSS and Napster in the same boat: both are free, both are a threat (allegedly) to intellectual property and legitimate business. In other words, their argument is that OSS and Napster are two peas in a pod.
The truth is much different, as we all know: OSS is copyrighted and legally licensed, and the authors are legally exercising their intellectual property rights: there is no law precluding the author from giving his work away for free, especially if there are strings attached (such as the GPL's stipulation that it cannot be sold for profit and that the source must always be made available, etc etc.) I'm no legal expert, but it looks like this is a weak attempt to link OSS to Napster while Napster is reeling. In the long run, I think the facts will outweigh the hype.
----------
Something cleverI find it interesting that this level of paranoia comes just after the release of the 2.4 kernel in Linux. Before, most of the FUD went towards dismissing Linux as a viable obtion. Then came the head-to-head comparisons to "prove" it. This is definitely a shift.
Forget them "having a better understanding of adoption rates". Linux has been growing like gangbusters every year of its existence. My personal opinion is that they have read the kernel source and had to think to themselves "how long have they been doing this? They're this far already! We've been doing this since the 80's! Now they're catching up?!?" In many ways the source that Linux distributes will inevitably be more intimidating than anything else. With each iteration, they can see that a solid competitor is nipping at their heels and they won't be able to compete "fairly" much longer. With Linux's ability to turn features around quicker, Microsoft's gotta be sweating the release AFTER whistler.
''We can build a better product than Linux,'' he said.
Why don't they?
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Therefore Free is Bad(tm)
The freedom to share freely what I create because I want to is Bad.
The freedom to give is bad.
THEREFORE
Slavery is the goal of human happiness, especially when everyone else is the slave.
Outlaw Christmas.
[/sarcasm]
Some people just cannot see the fundamental results of the flaws in their philosophy.
Blindspots like this = justifying the crimes they have commited, that they are planning to commit, or wish they could commit.
feh
The freedom of the world is not dependant on everyone becoming a microserf. But microsoft's wealth is. they must grow, or die. And to heck with who they stomp on to get their way.
I make obscene noises in their general direction
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I remember when I bought Windows 3.11 and Office. Then, it suddenly started hanging when I opened Word. I called the support and they said it was MY problem and they DIDN'T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THAT. So, that's the great support I receive.-
I mean, how the hell does MS argue they support something? It's AS IS software, it's not like a car. If your car has some weird problem you haven't caused, you have the rights to reclaim a fix for free. If you buy Windows, the only thing you can do when it hangs up is to cry loud.
-----------------------------------------------
You think Bill Gates is evil?
--
Well, there is certainly nothing wrong with Capatalism or Corporations per se. Granted, there are a lot of bad, greedy corporations which are out for Money at all costs! But there are also a lot of responsible corporations who have actual ethics. MS is an example of a corporation with no ethics or values. SCREW EM!
F******* LOUDER! I CAN'T HEAR YOU! --Ozzy Osbourne
"We can build a better product than Linux," he said. "There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free."
If Microsoft can build a better product then Linux answer me this...."Why is it that Linux is gaining popularity as something more stable then Windows?" I'm sure you can add in many more reasons why Linux is better then Windows but this is a good start.
Is this the real reason why Microsoft fears open source? They actually have to start producing products that can actually compete with Linux.
Our government is supposed to be a democracy (well really more of a Republic). Our government is suppose to be for us. So anything bought with my money (taxes for the clueless) unless it is in the interest of national security I expect to be able to use, particularly something digital like software. I would strongly urge everyone to write to thier congress person to only buy software that they receive the source code to. And allow any American Citizen to download that software.
If MS is willing to be bound by such a contract, then find we can continue to use that software if it meets our needs. If not, then NO Government Agency from the Oval Office to the local Dog Catcher should purchase products from Microsoft or other vendors that will not give out source.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Microsoft Bob users of the world Unite!
And now for something completely different...a man with three buttocks.
Angered because the open source movement is putting the power back in the hands of the people instead of a minority controlling what everyone can choose from we say "Here take this and do with it what you wish." Isnt the "American way" about democracy and the people's will? There is a fair majority of people who believe in choice, I'd challenge Microsoft that their vision of freedom to innovate is not innovation at all but a fist of control that dominates and squashes competition while open source encourages education and practicality.
Who is John Galt?
Should I blame the USA? Microsoft spawned there, after all.
I can't think of a catchy way of writing a "Blame the USA" song, though..
If the open-source community doesn't strike back for their rights, they won't have ANY rights at all.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Do people ever consider that software might not be such a good business in the long term?
Think about it - anyone, can produce a product. There's no tooling-up, factories, components, or anything else that manufacturing a physical product entails.
The barriers to market entry are very low...you just need smarts, a box, and a 'net connection.
Because of this low barrier, hobbyist programmers can easily compete with (and possibly beat) the commercial players, but the commericial outfits can't buy or otherwise destroy the free outfits.
The best the commercial firms can do is to try and make a BETTER product that's worth paying for.
I see that as a good thing.
Also, the whole software business is based on an artificial scarcity created by copyright laws,
rather than physical constraints.
When these laws are non-existant, or not enforced, the software business model fails.
I'm a programmer, but threats to the business of software don't really scare me.
I'm not afraid of entering another industry
if software were to suddenly become unprofitable -
I might make a bit less money, but I'm sure I could do ok.
--K
You're not addressing his point - there are other countries that allow large companies. They don't necessarily afford them legal status as "people", which is what the american decided to do to get round that pesky constitution thing you folks have.
Choice of masters is not freedom.
I agree that outlawing OSS is a fairly ridiculous idea (First Amendment issues alone should stop this one right-quick). However, this being slashdot, you should expect such exaggerations as a matter of course.
People who only read headlines are just asking to be misinformed anyway.
One solution is just to start calling open source code approaches "freedom software" when this type of argument is advanced. I always wondered why Stallman picked "free" over "freedom" as an adjective, since "freedom" lacks the confusion and properly conveys the right connotations.
"Freedom software" nicely outlines the one advantage Microsoft will never give you (freedom (from lock-in)), and what could be more pro-American than "freedom software"?
--LP
I was laughing along with you until I started to think about how few people around me have even half a clue. When you realize how truly brain-dead most people are, and how they seem to like being brain-dead, well, it isn't nearly so funny.
Some people swallow every word out of corporations like Microsoft because, "if they made that much money they must be really smart." They never consider that there are some things that Microsoft has done that weren't so smart, or that a lot of Microsoft's early success (which has been built on to this day) could be attributed to being in the right place at the right time. And god forbid that anyone question anything they hear out of corporate America!
Sorry, I need to lay off the caffiene. This pisses me off, and my thoughts are a little too scattered to come up with a totally coherent argument. But I really, really look for this to be a big push over the next few years from the big boys of the software only business. The companies that are hardware oriented in some way may come to embrace open-source as a money saving device, and may be some of our best-friends in fighting this type of non-sense (look at Apple and IBM at the moment). The real question is, just how much money, effort, and PR is going to be oriented on discrediting the open source and free software movements as a bunch of criminal and negligent idiots over the next few years? And, probably more importantly, just how much of it will be swallowed by the government officials in charge of the legal systems of the country?
------------
Thats all what Microsoft seems to be doing now. ITs sad, coz they do have the intellectual pool to build something as good as Linux, if not better. But all these jerks seems to be doing is the above three.. convince their customers and their mothers that nothing else works. When that doesnt work, because of both truth and hype about Open Source OS, they choose the second option, ie to Confuse. Corrupt was something that they always did.
:)).
.. accept it.. IF you cant, then you are well dead in the waters.
Jim Allchin is nothing but a MS executive. What else do you expect from these hardnosed jerks ? I am sure, there are thousands of coders and geeks in MS who understand the benefits of Open Source and would love to hate this guy. I am pretty sure Gates wouldnt go on press and say something dumb as this.
Guys, right now a couple of million lines of code is better than 35-60 million that Windows 2000 has. In what terms, is yet to be defined. But the code bloat that Windows has, its well known.
Open Source has its benefits and flaws. There were books written on the concept. Open Source has always been beneficial to the Encryption algorithms and security as a whole. Microsoft wouldnt know anything about it, other than claiming NT complies with C2 Level security (it does, when its locked in a room and has no network card and no floppy drive
I wish these guys would stop complaining and try to work on it as someone with a bit of common sense. Linux is here, Open Source is here
Rapid Nirvana
From the article:
Linux is developed in a so-called open-source environment in which the software code generally isn't owned by any one company. That, as well as programs such as music-sharing software from Napster Inc., means the world's largest software maker has to do a better job of talking to policymakers, he said.
Hmmm... I would think it means that the world's largest software maker has to do a better job of making software.
Competition and free market is what the US system is all about. Can't you just see the fear welling up in Bill Gate's eyes?
When will Windows be ready for the desktop?
They won't pass the Supreme Court. And, with 20 states currently suing Microsoft do you think they can pull lawmaking their way so easily?
The battle is on mindshare. MS does not intend for lawmakers to change the law or something. All it desires is that the government don't use Free Software itself.
1. It is the biggest customer.
2. It sets an example for a lot of organizations.
It is also a part of the FUD tactic that aims for securing potential mindshare. Keyword: MINDSHARE. Marketshare is nothing. With mindshare you'll get from 0% market to almsot 100% in no time.
With this assumption, what are we to do?
Let's make an equally valid argument demonstrating why Free Software IS the American Way and the MS Way is NOT.
Or, that taxmoney should be better spent - namely, elsewhere than to the pockets of MS.
Let their own FUD tactic bury themselves.
I wonder if what Microsoft is objecting to is the fact that, if they took open source software and modified it, they'd have to provide the source code for others to use. Is it possible that they want to develop their own Linux distribution but not provide the source code? The question of MS Linux has been discussed here before, and people have said that if MS developed their own distribution, it wouldn't be a threat because competitors could examine the source and improve upon it. Maybe MS would like to sidestep that obligation. They'll want to argue that if they "innovate", they shouldn't be forced to let everyone else see what they've done. Never mind the fact that they'll be using the work of those who came before them, but that's a minor detail, easily ignored.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
In the News.com Article it says......
''We can build a better product than Linux,'' he said. ''There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free.''
That has got to be one of the funniest things i've ever heard. For a few reasons...
1. "We CAN build a better product" <-- no mention here that they have or will do that...
2. Dictionary.com defines Enamor as:
enamor (-nmr) v.
To inspire with love; captivate: was enamored of the beautiful dancer; were enamored with the charming island.
Great so he is sayin that there is always a love and great charm over getting somthing for free.. and gee... have ya noticed? People do get a stable robust OS for free and do love it and evangelize it and (some) write for it and follow the free principle which in turn creates greater bonds and friendships among ppl and also trust because they are sharin their code that they love. Thats the biggest fear of microsoft... the fear that people LOVE using Linux and free software... who loves using Microsoft?? i've never met one person..
mod this guy up.
He's right. It's an important distinction.
Wasn't Microsoft supposed to split in two?
What ever happened to that? That threatens the "American Way" more than opensource.
I thought America was about CHOICE and FREEDOM for the individuals. NOT large companies striving to own everything in sight and extracting every penny from us. Wasn't that what the Boston Tea incident was all about?
Besides That OS gives me freedom. I write software for a living. I CHOOSE to release source that I write. I also CHOOSE NOT to release some of my source. But in the end I have the choice.
Sure they can say the GPL forces me to release source. But it does NOT force me to use GPL code in my applications. If i do it clean room style I DON'T have to release any source. But I CAN if I want. That's CHOICE and FREEDOM.
The OS movement is NOT forcing Microsoft to release their source code. What MS is really afraid of is that they can't go off and pattent everyting under the sun because OS provides prior art. It also ERASES their IP. Because if an OS developer releases some code clean room that does exactly what MS code does.. they loose that "We have it and no one else does" selling point. So what?
Is MS affraid of some competition?
Moreover. They keep saing how Linux and the whole OS movement isn't worth squat. So why are they coming out and trying to BAN it? This coming from a company that gives away products to force their competitors out of the marketplace. Bunch of hypocrites if u ask me.
Heh, nor should they encourage education about computers and how they work.
If this happens, there is no money to pay programmers. As a result, intelligent people such as myself, who could command 6 figure salaries in any profession will take different career paths. With fewer programmers, the result will be less innovation and worse software.
Ah, ha! But how much software is niche, internal, special purpose? These are the programmers that will ALWAYS obtain 5-6 figure salaries, as open source generally serves the "general" software market (web/mail/ftp servers, OS's like Linux, etc..) The real money is often in support and admin anyway, which Open Source can't solve -- you need man-hours instead.
With fewer programmers, the result will be less innovation and worse software.
Unsubstantiated hubris ;-)
Furthermore, universities, etc. won't be able to afford to run computing courses, since, as is the stated aim of many OS people, MS will be dead - and MS funds a lot of universities.
Like this is something that we should be encouraging anyways. Instead of institutions of free-thinking, we need more MS puppets.
Furthermore, the evidence is that open source does not tend to produce new innovation. For example, desktops such as KDE are based on older products from Apple and MS. When open source is the only thing remaining, innovation will obviously be reduced.
So if MS dies next year, Gnome and KDE will stop trying to out-do each other?
Finally, the fact is that nothing is truly free, and nothing costs money.
Um, uhhh... I'm confused by this one ;P
Furthermore, if you ask an economist to tell you why, they will tell you it's due to IT growth. Industry produces wealth - they produce the fact that California is the 6-th wealthiest nation worth, and they help the economy.
Sure, much of the growth was due to IT. So was the ~50% drop to the NASDAQ in the last 6 months. Some even say the whole "internet boom" was hype driven, hence the sudden fall in stock.
Killing this industry will not make everything free, but will rather damage the economy.
Mais, non! Who said anything about killing the IT industry? I thought it was Microsoft wanting to put and end to Open Source!
--
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
-Possum Lodge Motto
Please allow me to make one small mod to your comment...
Instead of: "Even within the US, people are turning away from expensive software and to free software. It's just cheaper."
I'd like to suggest: "Even within the US, people are turning away from expensive software and to free software. It's just as reliable and it's cheaper."
I think the problem is with Free or Open Source but not free. IE, IIS and ASP are all under a EULA? Do they all have to be run on a MS OS (or if can I get one running under wine without MS code is that OK, never having purchased any MS code?). MS want shut of code that the user is free to be more powerful with. MS do not want power to slip from their grasp. MS will do whatever it takes to stay with the money. Resistance is futile, Death is irrelevant. spamisirrelevant____me@billofb.org
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
You asked: "When did it become acceptable to lie about EVERYTHING ?"
That would have been 20 Jan 1993 when Bill Clinton took office as president of the U.S. Bill's leadership by example had set the tone for the decade of lies.
"To excuse such an atrocity by blaming U.S. government policies is to deny the basic idea of all morality: that individu
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
A friend of mine and I were wondering what the all time record for comments on a slashdot story is.
Does anyone know?
Will this story break that record?
I would have to say that this is probably more of a "Canadian Bacon" situation than "South Park".
First, I feel like you do. This is sick, and dangerous to everyone, not just computer users. But, I think Alchin's statements are being misconstrued a little bit (though his intent is clear and clearly dumb and/or evil).
Methinks Allchin really means, "if people are giving away software for free, then the market won't pay to create software." Gee dickhead, imagine that... if the pay stuff isn't much better than the free stuff (of indeed at all) then only the free stuff will remain standing.
Hopefully, anyone with half a fried braincell remaining will realize this just means that there's a 50/50 chance their next PC will cost about $100 less....
Personally, I worry if the government discourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat... i.e. billg.
Corporations exist to satisfy the share holders. If you invest your money in a corporation that is only attempting to maximize profits, then you are at fault. Instead invest in a corporation that attends to your wishes.
I've worked with corporations that purpose was economic development of a community. The share holders invested money (bought shares) not attempting to maximize profit, but to change to community.
The problem isn't corporations, it's that American can't see through more than one layer of indirection! (We have the same problem with folks complaining about high medical costs, then assuming that "insurance will pay for it", duh...somebody paid for it!)
I think that an organized group should have the ability to own property and express opinions. I also think that Americans should think a little more everytime they encourage some behavior by spending a buck.
Joe
Joe Batt Solid Design
Microsoft is indeed trying to squash another competitor. As many above noted, MS is no longer laughing. They are scared. Before anyone lables me a Linux-zealot, let me announce that I only use Linux once in a while. (I use mostly Mac OS 9, OS X) Apple, however, does not scare Redmond like Linux does. How will MS counter Linux?
Buy it?
What is there to buy
Bribe it?
Who will the bribe, Stallman?
Make Linux incompatible?
A million eyes makes all bugs AND obstacles shallow.
They own size will be used against them. They do not know how to fight a guerilla war. Tet will come soon enough.
Cheers,
Tom
Reality does not happen until you analyze the dots. -Don DeLillo (Underworld)
K
Additionally, the government isn't allowed to copyright or patent anything that it develops, IIRC. Why shouldn't it require the same of any projects that it orders from contractors? That would just be the cost of doing business with the govt. for custom work.
Wouldn't impact off-the-shelf stuff, and the govt. shouldn't necessarily act like a business in a lot of ways either.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Can't you just picture a gun totin' Bill Gates in the Wild West. Cause That's the American way. "Howdy partner, I'm a gonna buy you out."
You can laugh without eating a sandwhich, but you can do both if bring one.
Maybe not "we need to outlaw this", but instead "We need to forbid this in Federal contract requirements".
File this one under "There's no such thing as bad publicity" - I'd expect RedHat's government contracts to double.
Anyway, I'd love to see some congressman from Washington state try to outlaw any piece of IT used by most major corporations. He'd have his attitude adjusted pretty quickly.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
What next? Is someone going to argue that I can't buy a book and get the actual text? I should gouge out my eyes.
Is someone going to argue that the government, or anyone else for that matter, can hire software developpers to write whatever they need and that they can't then give it away?
Is someone going to argue that manufacturers should all have their own measurement scales. What's an inch for then, or a milimeter?
Is someone going to argue that the only "free" speech is found scribbled on bathroom walls.
Is someone going to shrink my world down to what-ever I can defend with my bare hands.
You want to see the result of this kind of abusive restrictive regime?
Look to India before Ghandi. Look to China before Mao. Look to every barbarian who ever terrorized a village and the sorry state the village was in when they were reduced to huddling in fear.
You want to know who's un-American?
It's the Facists who want to restrict anybody's ability to express themselves and share it and/or stomp on my ability to write software to suit my needs and pass it on.
Shakespeare was right: The first thing we do. Kill all the lawyers! This is the kind abjest stupidity that reduces common sense to a lost art and reduces people to slaves.
M$ will die by the law or the lower TCO that created them in the first place.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
This whole open source competition microsoft is recieving is great, never before have I seen ms use such desparate tactics, they're biting and scratching at anything open source, i think they have a feeling they're not going to win this battle so they're using whatever they have left in their inventory, mm.. sweet justice.
Sh, quiet, you'll give the RIAA ideas and then I'll be out of a hobby again (not to mention that the confiscation of my approximately $25,000 in accumulated 'contraband' musical gear would probably throw me into a depression that I would never come out of).
------------
"I don't think we've done enough bribing^H^H^H^H^H^H^Heducation of policy makers to understand the threat."
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
a) He was joking
b) Amish people will build barns for people outside the Amish community, and there is a demand for them, because when the Amish build barns, the build damn good barns.
I seriously doubt that you could command a six figure salary in -any- profession... Public schoolteacher? Firefighter? Paramedic? Cop? Besides, many -very- intelligent people work in professions such as the sciences for far less than six figures - most of the University of California faculty are paid less than this. Also, consider what you mean by the economy 'doing great' - the metrics used to judge the state of the economy only measure certain things. This includes things like real estate (is that 700K home twice as good as the 350K home that it was four years ago?), and does not measure such things as the quality of life (driven much in the Bay Area recently?). The quality of life in the Bay Area has arguably gone to hell in the last few years ...
As for innovation, quantum mechanics and modern
genetics were developed in an 'open source'
environment, where ideas were openly shared...
I don't buy your arguments, I believe that they
are unsupported by the facts...
P.S - Universities had computer science
departments before Microsoft gave them a dollar
and they will have CS departments in the
fortunate event that M$ disappears...
I have a patent on Opened Source and I'm about to get a court injunction to stop the developement of ... oh nevermind.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
Hm.
Well put. I love living in America, but if anti-free-software laws were ever passed, I would be accross the border the next day. We would see the fastest brain-drain of America ever.
He is concluding that Microsoft have no product that is better than linux YET. I am not goingto argue with him over that
by going with Super Goliath, and paying an extra $450,000, Massive Enterprise, Inc. is buying insurance.
:p). And why must R&D be done on something? The Internet is just a network - let the people who run the damn servers do their own damn R&D and provide the services (they think) people want. It's called abstraction of services. It's like applications versus OS.
Umm. What exactly are you trying to say here? Better the devil you know than the one you don't? Bullshit. Or do you really think you're safer with a big company? Read that license agreement once - Microsoft's EULAs disclaim pretty much any form of liability. They allow for 90 days to return for exchange or refund if there's a defect in workmanship - but I believe it's their prerogative, and if they don't admit any fault, how are you going to prove a defect in workmanship, exactly? You can't really disassemble it, like I could my clock radio, for example, and show exactly what the problem is. It's your word against theirs, and without evidence, you have no leverage.
Do you think that Microsoft (Sun, IBM, etc.) would continue to be in the OS business?
I know Sun and IBM wouldn't - for companies like HP, Sun, IBM, etc., the OS is there for one purpose - to leverage their hardware. They are HARDWARE COMPANIES! Duh. They only provide an OS because the customer needs something to run all their software on. IBM in particular, is reaching out somewhat to embrace Linux - and why not? If they could get Linux ported to all their major platforms, that means a lot less code which they have to maintain to have an OS to support their platform.
OS development requires R&D.
That's debatable. The OS is there to support the hardware, and provide a common interface for applications (what users ACTUALLY care about) to access the hardware and do their jobs.
The internet was invented in the last 60's, right?
[D]ARPAnet started sometime in the 70s, I believe. It was the predecessor to what is now known as the Internet (capitalize it - it's a proper noun in this context
And why would Open Source prevent R&D dollars from reaching companies who have a good idea? If they think they can build the proverbial better mousetrap, and they have the proof of concept to prove they have a clue, then by all means, let 'em have it. But Microsoft isn't building a better mousetrap - they're just selling the old one for a wad of dough, and marketing the everliving fuck out of it.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Yes of course before Bill Clinton no body in the entire united states ever lied about anything. No president or politician, no corporate head, no radio talk show host ever lied before Bill Clinton got elected.
How many times do you lie a day? How about to yourself?
War is necrophilia.
Day One:
Kid: Teacher! Timmy won't share the crayons!
Teacher: Timmy! Hand over the crayons and stay after. Share next time.
Day Two:
Kid: Teacher! Timmy's hogging the milk!
Teacher: Timmy! Stay after again!
Day Three:
Kid: Look! Source code!
Teacher: Timmy, is that freely distributed code? Straight to the office, young man!
Well, Europe was ravaged many more times and somehow they managed to "catch-up" every time.
Think about this.
Allchin is advocating putting people in jail for coding free software (yes that's what he means by legislating). Ballmer goes around saying linux is "crappy" and that for some people "crappy is OK".
Have you ever heard any executive from any corporation talk like this? Have you heard the CEO of Ford say that Chevy is a "crappy" car and that for some people "crappy" chevies are OK? have you heard the president of Sony predict that JVC will go under in 5 years? Have you heard president of NBC say that cable ought to be illegal?
So my question to you is just exactly what kind of a corporate culture breeds lying, undethical, spoiled brats? These people are the some of the richest people in the world and run one of the largest companies in the world. Instead of behaving like responsible adults and setting examples for kids they act like tantum throwing two year olds.
So tell me if Microsoft is not an evil corporation why are they headed by people like this?
War is necrophilia.
Hemos: Great Strangelove reference
:)
Agreed
Gentlemen! You can't flame in here! This is Slashdot!
"...can't imagine something that could be worse then this for the software business and intellectual-property business."
And Jim, try not to choke on the P(roperty) word.
Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try,
No hell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people
living for today...
Imagine there's no countries,
It isnt hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...
Imagine no possesions,
I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man,
imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...
You may say Im a dreamer,
but Im not the only one,
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will live as one.
--- oops
Open Source / Free Software is perhaps bad for the intellectual property business, but not for innovation.
I don't see how?
Since 1900, no copywrited material has entered into the public domain, where is to incentive to innovate is all you have to do is write one thing that is really popular then retire.
Why not allow anybody to innovate and add to your idea--I would like to write software for a certain popular platform. (As most of my friends use it). Sadly a certain company is so protective or its intellectual property, that they cost to really develope for it is prohibitivly expensive.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I wouldn't want to be tagged an un-American when the next McCarthy goes through and weeds out Open Source users. After work I'll have to stick around and reformat my linux workstation with Windows 2000.
Why are people "killing themselves to get in"? Laregly because the economies in their native lands have, over the past few centuries, been co-opted by imperialist western corps. Previously self-sufficient economies the world over have been tricked, forced, or manipulated into participating in Euro/Americentric mercantalist frameworks.
I was referring to Cubans, specifically. As far as I can tell Cuba has not been "co-opted by imperialistic western corps", which is precisely the reason WHY people from there are dying to get in here. Look at Cuba. Look at the USSR. Look at North Korea. All of these countries have not allowed major corporations in, or have not allowed major corporations to form within their own countries. Look at what happened there. I'm not saying that all corporations are great for the common good. I'm just saying that saying that all corporations are bad is a bit extreme.
M$ will die by the lower TCO that created tthem in the first place.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Damn straight. Do you know how furious they are that they can't just lower prices to force Open Source development out of business?
Actually, the "gratis" factor of free software will slowly force them out of business -- they may have money, but they can't afford to give stuff away forever, whereas free software can.
The fact that free software developers aren't generally out to make a buck gives them a huge advantage that M$ will never have.
Just letting you know someone caught the reference.
-----
IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
-----
-----
IANASRP- I am not a self-referential phrase
-----
email: proprietary becomes free, org to com
I get angry not
Instead I write good source code
Kills M$ quicker
This seems a little strange to me, you say that your code isn't open because not all code should be. Yet, you remark on the wonderful usefulness of linux; the way you can set up the pieces on the system exactly the way you want.
Databases are becoming critical foundations for many endeavors; I've been searching for over a year for a good object-based database to make a program of mine practical. I found it last night; and it is beautiful and awesome.
Useful tools are useful tools. Commodities are useful tools. There is a cheap commodity OS out right now: linux. 15 years ago, nobody would have dreamed that there would be such a thing. At that time, OS code was so special, nobody would have dreamed it becoming a commodity. Why is your code so special that it would be wrong to turn it into a commodity?
As all software source code IS a tool, what is wrong with tools being usable to all?
He created the copyleft as a way to exploit the unreasonable terms and power that copyright deprived him concerning other software that he had bought.
He used the power of copyright to create an anti-copyright, because he had no other choice and no other power; nothing else could have worked.
(Even now, I'm pretty sure he'd be willing to give up on copyright law completely. True, the GPL would lose it's force, but so would restrictions against redistributing any other software product.)
"The ultimate goal of Open Source is free software"
I don't know if this is true or not but lets say it is.
"Now this means that you don't pay anything for it. "
For the software itself, no.
"If this happens, there is no money to pay programmers."
Depends on what programmers you're talking about.
At my job, we use software that we do not pay for. It's made in house, for our use, not for public distribution.
We spend an awful lot of money on programmers, despite using 'free software' and have used this free software for 3 years now.
Does it matter that this software isn't "open source" and really has no application to anyone outside of the corporation I work with? (though other health care companies may benefit from using a system like we use... that's a different matter altogether though.)
Consider too that rather than wait for Microsoft or some other company to provide bug fixes, upgrades/dates etc. to, say Office, a corporation can hire a programmer or 2 to work with the networking guys to make sure that "Open-Office" works fine & provides the features needed in this environment".
"As a result, intelligent people such as myself, who could command 6 figure salaries in any profession will take different career paths.
With fewer programmers, the result will be less innovation and worse software."
That's assuming that more programmers automatically means more innovation & more software.
What drives innovation & more software is demand demand demand. Which isn't going away regardless of the impact of Open Source. If people don't want a more innovative GUI than what Windows 98SE provides, we're not going to see much success in subsequant revisions of the UI, even though win98se is not open source.
"Furthermore, universities, etc. won't be able to afford to run computing courses, since, as is the stated aim of many OS people, MS will be dead - and MS funds a lot of universities."
If there's no demand for computing courses, prices will decline & offerings dropped from some colleges. That's not necessarily a "bad thing", nor inevitable today.
"Furthermore, the evidence is that open source does not tend to produce new innovation. For example, desktops such as KDE are based on older products from Apple and MS. When open source is the only thing remaining, innovation will obviously be reduced."
It helps to have an environment encourage innovation. I don't think the computer software industry does this very well, regardless of what platform you're talking about or whether you consider Open Source to be sliced bread or stale, moldy bread. When people are reluctant to change their UI because they're used to a specific look & feel (ie the windows interface) you're obviously going to get copycats on platforms that are not MS based, in an attempt to draw such people to the UI."
I have a copy of that paragraph in my PalmPilot. It's that critical. You can apply it to Microsoft, the RIAA, the MPAA, or just about any organization that's trying to take away our rights in the name of bloating their already-bloated purses.
And I will add one more pithy quote that I just came up with today: "When Free Software is outlawed, only outlaws will be truly free."
Eric
--
Be who you are...and be it in style!
The american way is freedom. Freedom is good. Socialism bad. Welfare state bad.
I think any OS has to stand on its own merits and the government should not take sides either way.
Linux has a long way to go on desktops, and even on enterprise level server management.
Yet, open source in my opinion encompasses too much. I think GPL is bad. I may be in the minority here, but it's too marxist for my tastes. I think that the ideal open source license is BSD, and I would never consider writing anything under GPL.
Live free or die. FreeBSD.
"when they're independantly "scratching an itch" (free software). It rarely happens in mainstream software development."
Show me one single innovative piece of software that was created by open source folks.
Can you ?
Interestingly enough, your most valid point is in your .sig:
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin.
What "American Way" does Mr. Allchin refer to? He is quite obviously trying to give up the liberty of what the user can do with the purchased product in order to gain some safety from the competing markets.
I guess Mr. Allchin deserves neither.
What's really frightening about this is the American corporations' increasing ability to spin their opinion into acceptance in the public consciousness (check out "Trust us, We're Experts" by Rampton and Stauber). This about M$'s consistent FUD approach to competition. With enough access to the media -- which M$ undoubtedly has though anti-trust publicity alone, political action committees and outright cash assets aside - almost any corporate entity can spin the most absurd notion into public acceptability. That "education of policy makers" is particularly disconcerting in that it's a clear call to give the policy makers talking points and make them understand that if they oppose position X, a considerable amount of soft and hard money will end up in the coffers of the opponent come the next election. The way to fix this is to open source government. By that I mean make government transparent to interaction by any citizen interested in participating in it. How? Let's start by replacing the "House" in every state and federal level with open participation by registered voters. In this technological age, we don't need "representatives" to express our opinion, we can do that ourselves through public referendum. And just like the House, We the People can be the sole arbiters in introducing legislation. If it doesn't pass muster with the majority of citizens, we won't make it law. The United States is increasingly a Corporate state. Business interests are choking out democracy. Citizens are actually being convinced that the interests of the corporation equal to the interests of the people. "What's good for GM is good for America" has, inappropriately, grown to mean what's good for business is good for people. This flies in the face of the real world, where we see that what's good for manufacturers is low labor costs and a lack of environmental regulation. Now I'm no fascist. Really. But it is absurd to assume that a democratic nation is best served by protecting the ability of corporations to optimize profits.
Ahem. How are things like Linux not free? You can d/l ISOs of the latest Redhat for free. If I'm installing a BSD OS like OpenBSD, I download a floppy, and install over the fat pipe for free. What part of free isn't free again?
My favorite quote for the article, that I think says most of all:
''We can build a better product than Linux,'' he said. ''There is always something enamoring about
thinking you can get something for free.''
He is admitting that Linux is better than Windows, well, go ahead, turn Windows into a decent OS! At least I won't have to help people recover from crashes so much!
Win NT(No Thankyou)
Win XP(Xtra Painful)
Win ME(Monopoly Edition)
Win CE(Crash Everywhere)
Win98 SE(Shutdown Everyday)
Win 2000(2Gay)
I'm not too sure this is correct, but here goes. Let's just say Windows was a free operating system. Everyone that bought a PC would get it at no cost, with no money going to any company. Therefore, everyone that never paid for support or modifications added nothing to the supposedly constant pool.
Also, let's look at it this way. You, as a programmer, are used to getting paid $(x-y). I need some software written, and am used to paying $(x). You offer to provide said software for $(x). However, the programmer down the street, who is also used to being paid $(x-y), would love to get the job. He offers to do it for $(x-y), because fuck it, he's used to working for that much. Now how do you figure I'm going add my $(x) to the pool when I can get the job done for $(x-y)?
My favorite quote: "We can build a better product than Linux." Seems to me that's an admission that they haven't done it yet! Keep trying, guys. Keep trying.
"...Jim Allchin, says that freely distributed software code such as rival Linux could stifle innovation and that legislators need to understand the threat."
"...The result will be the demise of both intellectual property rights and the incentive to spend on research and development, he said yesterday..."
How does one follow from the other, at all?
This is yet another classic example of the sort of double-speak, mis-speak, non-speak that has become so prevalent in politcal discourse lately.
There's no elaboration, no expansion, no explanation.
He says it, and it's true without examination.
Frighteningly, the continuation:
''I'm an American, I believe in the American Way,'' he said. ''I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat.''
Yeah.. educate them in the Micro$oft Way®
Where does Gates want the government to go, today?
We'll find out, and of course ol' Gee Dub Ya is at the helm, and we all know what he thinks (if "thinks" is the right term..) about Micro$oft.
Finally, you heard it here first:
"When source code is outlawed, only outlaws will have source code."
t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
Ethiopia was colonized by western powers for many years. This imperialist behavior disrupted the natural development of their culture and government. When independence came, the governments that were set up were modeled after those that the imperialists had set up. The system was ill-suited to the culture.
Uhh... no.
Ethiopia was one of the few countries not colonized, due largely to its inhospitable and easily defended terrain. The first time it was taken over in recent memory was in 1935, when Mussolini invaded.
You make a very valid point.
I'm sure I'm not the only one here who buys CDs / T-Shirts / Mugs to support the products I use. The attraction to me isn't that it's free (as in beer), but that I am free to play with it and add more functionality as necessary. My Morality dictates that I should pay for things if I can, so Free (beer) is of minimal importance to me at the moment.
On the other hand, when I was a student I couldn't afford to support these products. And I'm sure that I'm not the only person who's been/is in that situation. Free as in beer is important to reach as many people as possible. It also means that I can find out if a product is any good / useful to me / does what is says on the tin without having to pay for it first. Being able to weed out junkware is another important part of free (beer).
There is a sustainable living to be made from writing Linux code. It just depends a lot more on the generosity of those around you. If that ever becomes a problem, then we really are screwed as a species
Sorry, had to say it :)
Yes, WTF is with all of these unchecked lying fuckers these days? Only thing I can think of is we are seeing the beginning of the fall of this wave of civilization. It comes in waves: The Mesopotamians, the Greek Empire, the Roman Empire, and now the American/Capitalist/Evil Empire begins to fall. I'd say we've got 50 to 100 years until we hit the next sinkhole of chaos between waves. People get greedy, stupid, out-of-touch, with no thought for the future, until the whole thing falls apart and crashes to the ground.
In the long long run, this is a very good thing. Just sucks to live in the dark times.
Are you implying that hunger in Ehtiopia is directly related to me being able to afford 5 kg of meat every day?
Actually, it is. America tried forcing its way of food production down the Ehiopians throats, and the best way to run a farm is to have alot of help...hence people had kids to help them on the farm...and now the way of farming failed and there are alot of hungry people there. Its a direct result of American intervention.
Agreed, the Xbox (or whatever it is going to be called) even made it to the Money Programme in the UK (a serious TV programme) and apparantly MS are spending £500m ($750m approx) on marketing. Why oh why couldn't they spend it on developing the bugger. Then it wouldn't need marketing.
Well, this _is_ a troll, isn't it? You can't honestly buy his line of bullshit?
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
If there's a new way
I'll be the first in line
But it better work this time
What dya mean I couldn't be the president
Of the United States of America?
It's still WE...
The PEOPLE...
Right?
(Peace Sells... But Who's Buying?)
That's right Allchin - my wife and I were reading books of kids names, and we saw Allchin - it's traditional - and means "BIG TURD JUST WAITING TO BE FLUSHED AWAY!". I ditched M$ in our organization looooong ago, 'cos it failed and failed and failed. Today, our entire IT group is working from 4pm to 4pm on a single excuse server that blew itself up. They are ready to go to the next step of evolution and dump your shite products in favor of freeware. Do the math Jimbo - one admin for 9 Linux boxes, 5 admins for 4 NT boxes! Ha ha ha - who would have thought - it wasn't the DOJ that killed Microsoft, it was QC!
Swede from Finland but other then that great post. :)
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
I'm not sure that this signifies MS is on the run.
What it DOES signify is:
1) MS views Open Source software as a threat (and rightly so IMHO)
2) MS thinks ONE of the ways to deal with it, is to discredit Open Source software.
They actually may have something there, since their bread and butter are offices. If they can convince enough of them that OSS is bad, they might stave off an OSS invasion. The truth is they may have acted too late though.
IBM HP and SGI are backing Linux
SUN is shipping Gnome as the desktop on the next rev of Solaris, not to mention that OpenOffice is picking up speed
(and I know the same companies mentioned above and others are now investing in the KDE and Gnome organizations)
There is lots of corporate influence out there that is getting in line behind OSS (in general) and Linux (in particular). MS may have ticked off too many people with its arogance, and bugs.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
Open source does nothing to undermine IP rights. A person writing open source code simply chooses not to copyright/patent the code. It's no obstacle to others who wish to copyright or patent their code. Talk about M$ FUD.
No but the fact that you are brain dead is
This scares me. It doesn't matter if we are 100% right and they are 100% wrong and only saying that because it serves their self interest. If they use their lobbiests (who have access to the nation's policy makers) to "educate" those policy makers to the dangers of open source technolgy. We will be fighting an even greater uphill battle than we are now.
I've known several politicians. They really don't understand most of the issues that they are being asked to make decisions about. So they rely on people coming and telling them how to vote on an issue. If the only people that come and share their point of view are Microsoft's lobbiests then the decisions are going to turn against us.
Yah, it pisses off the Americans, but it makes it that much more appealing to the rest of the World. Just watch as us Canucks flock to open-source software now because it isn't American (just like us).
On top of this, it screams "Screw the rest of the world, this isn't the American Way, it's wrong!" Wonder how all of M$'s international customers will feel realizing how highly M$ thinks of them. Can Billy really have hired this many clueless people?
- In hell, treason is the work of angels.
Funny, I'll admit, but did you read the Bloomberg article (reprinted by C|Net, which is what this tread is linked to) ? It's sad, really, that someone with such horrible grammar and research skills can be allowed to write for a major publication! And to actually be published! My god, is there no longer such a thing as an editor?
----
Do you even know anything about perl? -- AC Replying to Tom Christiansen post.
You are going to lose.
After all, with large library of free software who needs so many developers ?
Fascist is an adjective. You gave the definition of the noun fascism (actually, fascist is also a noun, when it refers to a person who supports fascism - however, in context, it was used as an adjective).
It is often used, by english speakers, toapply to anything that promotes "centralization of authority", or supporting the supression of dissenting opinions.
Also remember, dictionaries are not authoritative. They are an attempt to document common usage, they do not define common usage. As such, their definitions tend to lag behind real world usage.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I got a kick out of "There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free." ...I guess Allchin must not consider IE a free product then.
Likewise I suppose giving IE away and/or bundling it with Windows isn't hurting innovation. Sure, try telling that to the guys who used to work for Netscape.
And that's the 500 billion dollar question...
I just have one thing to say to Microsoft and Bill. Dude, calm down. You already made billions of dollars, how many people can say they've done that? You're not gonna be homeless and starving anytime soon so let sleeping dogs lie, man. You don't have to run around and crush everything you see with a sledgehammer. No one's trying to take you down (and I'm sure Microsoft is quite safe from bankruptcy) so why don't you just leave people alone?!! How much more money do you NEED?
"Free sex is a sexual-property destroyer," Allchin said. "I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the sex business and the sexual-property business."
--------
Yeah, I'm a Mac programmer. You got a problem with that?
-- thinkyhead software and media
Welcome to Australia =)
> Polluting the environment ? *bang* there go
:)
> corporate profits of a year.
Hmmmm Yes...fuck em.
A good use for civil assett forfeiture.
Treat them the same way drug dealers (defined as "Anyone that a paid informant points his finger at") are treated...
Money made by committing a crime (polluting)? Forfeit. Was that money mixed with other money? Sorry, the whole pot gets forfeit.
OH? You didn't buy that with funds that were from this illegal activity...well time to prove it. Burden of proof is on you!
At the very least it would create some corperate pressure to get the forfeiture laws changed
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
There is one VERY simple point you are missing, open source targets the OS's and API's, the glue that holds most Enterprise Applications together. Most programming is done and most money is spen/waisted on Enterprise Applications. The only people in the industry that will feel the pressure of open source are the companies that write mediocre API's an OS's. (Not mentioning any names, but pointing with my little finger) M$ have finally brought byle to my throat.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
Why is your code so special that it would be wrong to turn it into a commodity?
We don't make the database software, rather we make the clients that access the data. The clients run on Windows. The database is not our code, we licence it from another company, we would love an open format database if we could use one, but for reasons of backwards compatiblity we cannot do so at this time. (It it is something we are looking into.)
What I mean about not all software being free and open is that if we opened the code we would make less money. Would it be a better product? Probably, (depending on how many people looked at the code, which would not be all that many IMO).
John Carmack Open Source's his code after some time of keeping it closed, he has to release it in a closed format to make money - id Software does not make money on support. (Actually, support on games is usually a loss, not a profit situation.)If everyone were honest, and Quake 3 was fully Open-Source, Carmack and Co. would make money. As it is, Quake 3 must contain a registration code to prevent piracy.
Our main business is selling our software solution, yes we sell support, but we make *FAR* more money on sales. (Indeed, up until we implemented a new system, we were loosing money on support.) As I said Microsoft is not a bad solution - Our stuff runs on NT/2000 and we prefer that our client run on 2000, after all thats what all the programmers use while developing.
It comes down to the fact that Linux is a better solution for us in the server department, because we make more money, and our clients pay less. Technically, Novell is faster and just as stable in this environment (actually, we have been using Novell for longer, and in some situations it is more stable due to coding of the database engine on different platforms.) But Novell is the most expensive solution of the three, and the performance gain (10,000 random requests yields 81 seconds on a Linux server and 78 seconds on Novell) is not enough of at time difference to justify the cost difference. (A similar Novell solution IIRC, costs $3000.00, we have not sold a Novell server in the last 2 years.)
As you said:
As all software source code IS a tool, what is wrong with tools being usable to all?
I think it would be great if our client program was open-sourced. I also think that I would be unemployed too. This is why I think some things can be open-sourced by their nature, and some can't.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Ah, fear -- it's a wonderful motivator. Microsoft is very afraid, and thus very motivated, and thus very dangerous.
I see some of you think Allchin's comments were funny, or even ludicrous. You are making a big mistake.
Microsoft sees a threat to its empire, a threat that cannot be bought out or attacked by conventional business means. So they are taking FUD one step further, by preying on the fears of average folk, presenting Open Source as a threat to "our way of life."
And they're right.
Open Source is not simply a tool for developing software -- it threatens the philosophical basis of a society entrenched in rampant capitalism. The "powers that be" thrive on the status quo, so they prey upon people's fears of change. For the most part, people don't like change; they want life to stay the same, to be comfortable, to be predictable. Even if change is to someone's benefit, they will often resist.
Microsoft is a company based on marketing, a company whose success lies in knowing how to manipulate people's thoughts. They will twist Open Source into a threat against "everything we love and hold dear." They will twist people's words, and they will enlist the aid of other fearful groups -- law enforcement and govenrnment -- to undermine Open Source and Linux.
Am I paranoid? You bet -- because such things have happened before in history, and they will happen again. During the "Red Scare", people were persecuted simply for attending a meeting -- persecuted for curiosity, my friends. "Thinking wrong" was a prosecutable offense; the red scare wasn't about communisim, it was about stopping people from thinking outside the proscribed box.
We must counter Microsoft's campaign now, and we must do so proactively. We need Open Source advocates to stand before Congress; our articles must be in business magazines and newspapers. While we get into silly wars over KDE-vs-Gnome and Debian-vs-Red Hat, we leaving abandon the battlefield to rampant capitalism and its FUD spewers.
--
Scott Robert Ladd
Master of Complexity
Destroyer of Order and Chaos
All about me
A well-recognized tactic of rogues and scoundrels
is to accuse their adversaries of the exact
crime they themselves are guilty of.
Note to BG: review film "Citizen Kane". Rewind,
and watch again.
Remember UCITA?
Since they can not forbid anyone to donate the fruits of their labour to society, here's how I think they plan to put a halt to all those free software spouting competitors: simply outlaw those 'limited liability' claims in the popular free software licences. Almost every free software license contains something in the line of 'no warranty'. If they outlaw those claims, free software writers can be hauled to court on ridiculous claims, and the well will soon run dry. And if I remember correctly, UCITA contains something along these lines.
Remember, you read it here first...
(or on Linux Today, where I also posted this comment)
--frank[at]unternet.org
What can they do? Throw Linus in jail? Someone else will take over kernel development, or it will splinter a bit, but chaos tends to form order, so after a bit of kernel anarchy, it'll all start flowing together again.
What can they do? Start busting into the houses of millions of people with evil source code in their houses?
What can they do? Prohibition didn't work. The drug war is a complete failure. Fighting open source via the legal system is a completely hopeless concept. Just like the current potency of street drugs is many times stronger than it was at the beginning of this foolish drug war, hopefully all this will mean is better quality open source software!
Like Michael Douglas said in the new movie Traffic: "If we are declaring war on drugs, then we are declaring war on members of our own families. And I don't know how to declare war on a loved one"
If we declare war on open source, then we are declaring war on some of our best friends and greatest minds.
When Bill Gates's kids get older, you can KNOW that they'll do some experimentation with illicit open source. You fuckin know it! :)
So in one breath, he's saying Linux stifles innovation, and in the next he's claiming he can build a better OS? What a bleeding idiot. He's blowing hot air out both of his digestive orifices.
I can see the fnords!
Now that Microsoft has told everyone that open source is unAmerican and unpatriotic, it is my duty to follow their orders. Let me just reformat my box right now, I don't want to offend anyone in Redmond. I better go buy myself a copy of another operating system and pay every year for the privilege of having the most American operating system, like the true patriot that I am
"Life's funny sometimes." "And sometimes it isn't." --Cat's Cradle
Yes, why should MS loose out on those million$ when they can give the government proprietory, closed, non-free software. Security audits? Nah, you don't need to do that. If you do though, you can get access to the source code at the special gov't rate of $100,000 a library.
This is especially interesting as there has been interested expressed by gov'ts (china among others) in open source software.
Sure, I can think of a way the Open Source movement threatens the American Way.
Think long and hard about the values of the OSS community. . . community owned product, everyone takes part in the production process, everyone reaps the benefits of the production process.
I'd say we're pretty damn close to Marxism.
First, he spends much time talking about how OSS is going to bring about the end of The American Way, and cause armageddon in the world if it is not stopped.
Then he gives the standard MS dismissive wave-of-the-hand about how Linux poses no threat to Windows whatsoever. So if it isn't a threat, why is he worried?
"I was a geek before it was cool" --Me
I think you are also missing the point that just because you believe in free software doesn't mean that you aren't making money off of it. Free software is great for the small-time consultant, because he is on equal footing with everyone else.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Whistler beta 2 boasts a "skin" called Luna that is a cheap Aqua knock-off. Is that the kind of innovation they're talking about?
... first they shine the bright light of universal healthcare in our eyes, then they slip this in.
[Hey, go back to the rink!]
All of this "greed" and "American Way" stuff is really the aftereffects of the point you bring up about barn raisings threatening contractors. Mr. Allchin is being disingenuous by not using enough words to convey his meaning, and when he says that Free/Open software threatens innovation, he's partly right. What he doesn't mention is that it only threatens innovations based on *particular business models*. It's a territorial matter that has nothing to do with functionality or the ways that people use computers. Look at his language: the only concepts he refers to are ones of IP, business model survival, and lobbying the gov't - traditional Rich White Guy domains. He uses the word "innovation" without clarification, as if the process of programmers' creativity will be forced to a standstill by the shifting borders of commercial enterprise. I heard another cliche'd Napster roundtable on NPR where the RIAA representative said something that really caught my ear as a succint representation of the RIAA's (and by extension to this issue via Microsoft's "threats to innovation" claim) stance on free music: "You can't compete with free." Now, this is really something to hear, and it really communicates the force by which they are committed to the elimination of personal choice and the retention of the commercial flows they've constructed by which they place products in front of our wallets. They've caught themselves in an inflexible position and have turned to prohibition rather than innovate in response to the changes taking place.
When I was a kid, we only had one Darth.
Canada! The only country to invade the United States and burn their capital to the ground. You want we should do it again?
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
A revolution is only illegal if it fails.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
Worst education? Americans are among the most highly educated people in the world. Our colleges and universities ARE the best in the world. Ever hear of Harvard, MIT, Yale, Cal-Tech, Stanford, or University of Chicago, just to name a few? There are good schools in other countries of course, such as Oxford and Cambridge in England, but the majority of the world's best universities are right here in the USA.
I'm assuming you're talking about our primary and secondary schools when you say we have the worst education though. Education is 90% the student and 10% the teacher/institution. Good students are going to learn, bad students are not without outside intervention. If someone is a good student then very little needs to be done other than present the information to them. If someone is a bad student on the other hand, then the teacher charged with their education must work harder to encourage/convince them to learn the material. The problems we have with our schools are not because we have good students who aren't being allowed to learn, its because schools are under-funded and unders-staffed and therefore don't have the resources to deal with the bad students.
There are other issues of course and I'm sure there is much room for improvement in our public schools. Even so I think you should go take a look at the educational system of a place like Zimbabwe or Cambodia before you declare the US system the worst.
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
-henrik
This classic spelling error is Taco's trademark. I'm convinced 100%.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
If things really end up going this way (Micro$oft running everything), I wonder how long it will be until our important documents are finally secured under an M$ trademark.
I can already imagine other countries having to pay liscencing fees to use the concepts of the constitution.
--
"Is the world going to the crapper, or is it just me?"
[on way to a colonic]
--
Oh boy, got a lotta things wrong there...
I have to wonder here, how much do you know about open source, other than MS FUD?
1. Open source is innovation. Instead of being money-and-management driven innovation, its innovation by the people. Innovation != Marketing. Learn that.
2. Worse software? couldnt be further from the truth! Linux is open source, and its great software. GNU tools are open source...and they are used almost daily by almost all IT departments with a *NIX box.
3. Universities cant teach computer courses without MS funds? Wrong again. I work for a university, we get $0 from Microsoft. In fact, we get donations of equipment from HP and Kodak, but that equipment is part of our infrastructure. Our computer courses do not rely on those donations, nor does the courses revolve around ms in any way.
4. Some open source developers, or linux die-hards may wish to see MS dead, but it is not the intent behind open source. On the other hand, MS would like to see Linux and other open source projects go away. After all, linux is their #1 threat now, as Ballmer has publicly stated. How often do you see Torvalds or Alan Cox say "we must get rid of closed source software!" or "MS is our #1 threat".
5. KDE are based on older products from MS and Apple? Maybe some features. I would say that they took some of the bad points, added good points. One thing I can say about each release of KDE I can look forward to new features that make it even better. Windows? Last 6 years have been bug fixes and a handful of features. Oh, and dont forget who had the GUI first, it was not Microsoft, or even Apple. Xerox. And it may even go beyond there. Every company has just built on the previous one. Linux and KDE/Gnome is just the next generation.
6. Remaining innovation will be reduced? Please! Give me one REAL INNOVATION ms has come up with in 6 years? Just one. One that benefits the consumer. Not the retailer. Not MS's bank account. All I have seen MS do in the last 6 years is find ways to get even more money from the consumer. Example: Office & Subscriptions. There just isnt much more MS can do to word, excel, etc. Theyre done. And they know this. Of course, MS could stop selling the product, but they wouldnt make any money from that. So what to do? Subscriptions! That way, MS doesnt have to do a thing to Office, but they will continue to rake in the money each year.
7. *Nothing* is truly free? Such an optimist you are. Guess what? Alot of things are free. True love is free, whether it be from a family member, lover, or friend. Know what else is free? Open Source software. Both of these things requires some commitment, some time, but they really are free. Open source comes from developers with a passion for writing code, not from developers who just must command a six-figure salary. Oh wait, Im a developer. I dont make anywhere near six-figures. Guess what, I love doing what I do. And given extra time, I would gladly write open source code. OH WAIT! I do. Imagine that. And you know, It hasnt cost me a dime.
8. Economy is so great because of growing IT departments? wha? Oh, then you change to industry...ok.. well, dont forget, some companies are in that industry, whos business is built around open source. VA Linux. Redhat. Mandrake. SuSe. Debian. Penguin Computing. Not to mention the numerous Dot-coms and web hosting companies that rely on open-source software to run their business-critical systems. And what about all these massive systems companies getting into open source? Like Compaq, IBM, Sun, HP, SGI? Would these companies really get into the market if there was no money to be made? Dont think so.
9. Anyone who thinks open-source will "kill" the tech industry (which is what helped the economy IMHO) is a fool. What industry are you referring to? Software? Open source couldnt kill the softwar industry. That would be killing itself. Rather, its changing the industry, and someday it may very well kill off those that wish to avoid change. But it would not kill the economy. It simply is transforming to a world of service rather than product. Something MS probably knows nothing about. Thats why they are so afraid of the future.
In closing, I would just like to ask you something.
Have you EVER used open source software?
My $0.02
The idea that they can do no wrong is nothing new within Microsoft. Especially if you consider, that officially, there are no bugs in Microsoft programs, only issues. Even the enormous flop, Microsoft Bob is not officially called a failure, only 'ahead of it's time'. Otherwise, they push and push the product on consumers until it's the standard and no other real alternatives exist. I fear WinAMP and RealPlayer will be the next targets with Windows Media Player 7/8.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
To anyone who says OpenSource is a threat to capitalism, or is a form of socialism: RUBBISH! It is nothing of the sort.
...)", that is NOT CAPITALISM. It's a form of socialism by legislative remote control. A denial of rights, and therefore always unconditionally wrong.
I personally build programs for gain in the form of other programs, recognition, career prospects, and the actual utility of my programs (with whatever improvements others may chose to contribute). I gain enough that I can price my OpenSouce code at $0, and perhaps thereby defeat a competitor who's charging more.
THAT'S CAPITALISM, FOLKS!!
The better competitor wins. But a system where the worse competitor goes to the legislature and then the courts and gets the game rigged in its favor "for (the public good / the prevention of monopolies / the American Way /
It was wrong when Netscape did it to M$.
It would be wrong if M$ did it to OpenSource.
"One thing you have to keep in mind, though was that in the eras you're talking about, people were expected to be "gentlemen" and were more worried about their reputations than they are now. If you "plagairised", or otherwise misrepresented yourself, and got caught, your reputation would be shot and nobody would do business with you."
Are you freaking kidding!!! Off the top of my head, I can think of a dozen times both Chaucer and Shakespeare plagiarized - from Ovid alone. Shakespeare's constantly borrowed from previous and contemporary sources -- and, to completely destroy your point, this was at the time considered completely acceptable. A new slant on the same material was in fact admirable.
...it's a bypass. Bypasses have GOT to be built.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
Post-Napster-decision I think we can all feel a new dynamic afoot. Everybody on the planet that doesn't own a Hollywood studio, Microsft, or a Big 5 record company (or get paid whoring for one) is plainly getting screwed up the ass. Corporate America is feeling newly emboldened to attack the foundations of openness and the very idea of individuals controlling key parts of their communications environment. At the same time, a huge groundswell of anger and energy by the disenfranchised, meaning pathetic saps like Slashdot readers, enraged at being trampled by these clumsy corporate Brontos, is producing a hundred new squash-resistant P2P ideas a minute.
We're all getting a sense of the enormity of what is about to go down. It is going to be ugly. Personally, I think of the huge corporate interests built on American intellectual property laws as the Titanic and the innate human desire for unrestricted communication (in words, songs, movies, stories, pictures, books etc) as the iceberg. While both sides represent enormously powerful forces, the Titanic is going to lose this battle and sink. There is simply no bottom to the iceberg.
Always remember that all of this pain and idiocy proceeds from corporate denial of one simple fact: bits are not atoms. Hollywood, Redmond: Go fuck yourselves, we ain't goin' back. Even if it takes a thousand years to engineer you out of existence you are going down.
Night
GeekGoddess
--- "I'm too slippery for time to grip, get me Sundog?" - Bruce Sterling 'Schismatrix'
You poor MicroWhore. At least if I have an opinion I'll post it with my name, even if it happens to be against this slashdot "conspiracy" you guys believe in. Hell, I gain points, and I lose 'em.. big deal, I can always get another account if I truly get screwed.
Your name is Splat? Dude, smack your parents for me. You bitch because he posts anonymously and then say big deal what people think because you can just change the name that you use on here. Make up your fucking mind. Bloody facist; does my opinion now mean more because I tacked the name "Deosyne" to it? How about if I use my real name, Shawn? Grow up, Slashbot; you'll get a lot from the world by taking people's opinions at face value rather than by disregarding someone's ideas because they don't conform to your standards.
Deosyne
Microsoft is a bunch of communist Fascists.
Actually, Windows is far from the perfect OS for these people. You admitted so yourself when you said that they can't remeber where the powerpoint files were saved.
/dev/3d device). Until then, 3d support is limited to porting mesa to my custom gui.
Of the currently available general computing OSs (meaning that users can control the applications installed, computer to many web set top boxes where only the manufactor can change the software), I'd say that PalmOS is closest to being perfect for the computer illiterate.
Now, if I want to make an OS for computer illiterate users, I can start from scratch (what Palm did), or I can base my new OS off Windows, Linux, or something entirely different. If I base it on windows, most likely my device will never be as easy as I would like (although I don't truly know what can be done with 2000 embeded or CE embeded). If I use BeOS, I can get good results, but I have to spend a lot of money on licensing, and hardware support will be harder to comeby.
However, if I base my new OS on the linux kernel (rember the OS is all the GNU utils, BSD utils, etc, not just the linux kernel, hence all the fuss over GNU/Linux versus just linux), I can ditch X (or maybe use TinyX) but still use hardware accelerated video with cards that the framebuffer console supports. I can have DVD support (although there would be some nasty legal issues), I can have have excelent sound support. And best of all, for the applications I present to the user, I can borrow components from existing applications. Using linux as a starting place, a small team of people with virtually no money could create a new OS that would be far superior to anything else available.
I just wish that the frame buffer console would add 3D support somehow (perhaps through a
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
The point is though that MS would have to buy every single government in the world. They may be able to, but I think the shareholders might have something to say about that. Not to mention the fact that Sun, HP and IBM are not exactly short of money and aren't going to stand idly buy and let MS tell them what to do with the software they spent significant R&D dollars on.
At least it's an admission that MSFT HASN'T... Don't boast -- do it.
Instead of speaking to lawmakers about the "dangers" of Open Source distroying innovation, innovate.
What model produced the Internet revolution? Open Source; Open Standards. Yes, Microsoft has produced a nice browser. Yes, Windows is convenient to use for most people (heck, right now I'm using IE5.5 on Win98SE running via Win4LIn on my SuSe/KDE2 desktop;why? because my development work for the web requires IE5.5...because Windows is ubiquitous). I and many other prefer choice -- sometimes that choice is Microsoft, believe it or not.
Open Source against Intellectual Property?
NO! Open Source is not against Intellectual Property! The GPL enforces the rights of the author -- even though the source is distributed, it must be handled according to the terms of the license -- that is Intellectual Property enforcement. Does not the author maintain the rights to his/her software under the GPL? Yes. The difference between closed source and open source is not intellectual property but full disclosure. What is running on my mission critical servers? -- with MSFT products God knows; with Open Source products, I know (or, at least, disinterested third parties can know, too; call it, peer review). I personally can trust Microsoft (and Lotus, etc) with the secretaries desktop machine. But not my business' servers. I didn't care about this issue until our SCO UNIX servers started having mystery crashes in the early 90's. Then our DEC Alpha servers began having mystery file corruption in 1997 -- and DEC engineers were summoned to fix the problem. Being a software company we had talent in house that could have made use of the source -- but SCO and DEC were closed source. We were at the mercy of their engineers. Then, in 1999, after we had been running Linux servers for 2.5 years for mission critical applications, we ran into a tty limitation. A quick look through the source revealed our problem unambigously -- and the problem was solved in days. That was an invaluable lesson and is the main reason we choose Open Source versus closed source tools.
It seems to me that innovation has continued to exponentiate since Open Source came into its own. Hey, Microsoft, you might even join us. There's room for you, too. Just, don't think you will be able to take over. Once the source is open, so are the choices.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Are you talking about Menwith Hill (NSA base) near Harrogate, in North Yorkshire? Oddly enough it is not restricted airspace. A British satirist flew over it in a hot air balloon a way back. That caused all sorts of mayhem on the ground, I laughed my head off. Menwith Hill is right next a mainroad and looks like a load of golf balls on plinths, with a load of ariels. Plus the obligatory peace protestors.
but then they seemed happy with the situation ...
in their last election
''I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business.''
''I'm an American, I believe in the American Way,"
Sorry America - are you starting to see the light? Do you ever wonder why people hate The American Way(TM)? This is exactly it. This is not a troll - Im serious, this is how people see America...
Free Manning, jail Obama.
I wonder if people 100 years ago felt the same way towards the buggy whip industry when automotives were taking over the world. Try replacing the words "intellectual-property business" with "buggy whip." Does anyone care about the buggy whip industry? Are we here to serve an industry or is the industry here to server our needs? What a greedy, narrow minded, pimple on Bill Gates fat ass this guy is. Somebody pop him.
And, in fact, you can point people to documents showing COMMERCIAL Unix TCO lower than WinNT - so Linux should be lower again. www.unix-vs-nt.org
The threat being:
no IP = no IP lawsuits = no $$$
Just because you can't, doesn't mean you shouldn't.
Mein Fuehrer!
(suppresses right arm...)
- Also Sprach Doktor Merkwurdigliebe
>In a world where the lead developer and figure head of the next greatest software is a Finn from Sweden...
Linus is not a "Finn from Sweden",(He would be pissed if he read that, I certainly am!) nor is he a Sweed from Finland altogh thats much closer. Linus is a Finnishsweed. You should read Eric S. Raymonds Linus FAQ
I'm not making this up. Stranger than fiction...
So when they say they are determined to protect intellectual property, they're not just blowing hot air, but you NEED to do the homework and realise they're saying 'we are going to protect intellectual property by OWNING all of it and being the sole arbitrators and gatekeepers of it by controlling the access methods the music industry people stupidly want. They said they wanted control, and they seem happy to trust US to administer it. *chuckle...*'
I can't consider this unexpected. After all, Microsoft needs to grow geometrically and that's not possible in just computers anymore, so this is what they look like deciding they want to make a strategic move to be the chokehold on all world communications and intellectual property: it will all have to be in a Microsoft format on Microsoft systems running Microsoft-specified hardware, or you'll be unable to communicate. That's the goal, and they're quite right that it's the only way for them to keep growing geometrically with an eye to the future.
Unfortunately they have no sense of how this looks to outsiders, such as governments. Any government- ANY government has to look at this and do a doubletake, thinking 'hey, they're acting like another government! Or one of those 'zaibatsus' in William Gibson novels'. Which of course they are, being the sole controller for information the world over would put them in a position _over_ most governments, and of course another things governments understand is expansionism- they can't stop there, they _must_ continue to expand even past that, to unthinkable levels of control.
In 1996 would you have said, "In 2001 Microsoft will be building stuff into their OS to remotely destroy your data if they decide you are illegally sharing it with others"? And yet they are.
It becomes a political problem, and will be treated as such, to the great shock and confusion of Microsoft, which is pretty psychotic by this point.
I have a huge problem with the idea of using Open Source solutions on government computers as a way of testing the applications. I'd kind of like to have the people who are providing essential services to have computers that work, at least most of the time. Using the IRS folks to debug Linux would be Extreme Not Fun.
/*****/ Remove Pants to email me
I think these arguments are unwarrented. First, the idea that open source is unamerican is ridiculous. I would say that freedom is a higher tenet than intellectual propery. Furthermore, the ability to do what I want with my intellectual property seems fundamental to the whole concept of ip. If I want to take something I create and give it away for free to benefit as many people as possible, that is my decision, and my freedom. To restrict this in any way undermines American freedom as well as the idea of intellectual property. Also, the idea that free software is economically harmful is empirically denied. We have seen huge growth in free and open source software in recent years. Has microsoft gone out of business? Are they going to go out of business any time soon? No and no. It is clear that free software and free markets can co-exist. I think that there is a place for both and eliminating free software stands to hurt society more than the additional profit microsoft would garner would benefit it.
I can do with it what I like. I chose MPL open source licence, you can choose whatever you want.
I am not an American, but AFAIK *that* is the way of the free world.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
This article does an excellent job of explaining why it is dangerous to grant corporations the rights as people.
I don't blame corportions in general, but I do blame the corporations and the lawmakers who push for and allow corporations to manipulate laws in their favor.
Firstly c|net has a real problem with their writing, they tend to take stuff off alt.* and post it as if it were the word of God. Secondly, you're whining again. One thousand one hundred and forty three posts and even the highest scores are people whining or telling Bill Gates to kiss their ass. Fucking weenies. I really wish I could get Linux people to understand the concept behind selling a product for profit. You need to sell a product at a high profit margin in order to make your investors happy because those profits go into their pockets. Retail == commercialism. Giving product away for free is not retail, it's giving your product away for free. I don't think open source software is a threat to my way of life but I don't think that for any reason it ought to be the primary example of software distribution. RMS and the GPL work fine in academic environments where it's nice to see how the next guy solved a problem or gives you the change to fix bugs by exposing the software to many eyes. In business this is bullshit. You can't open up confidential projects to competitors; they'll buy new BMWs while you pass out pink slips and auction your assets. If I want a hobby I'll write GPL software if I want to start a business I'm going to write up a decent EULA and copyright my work.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Cuba is a good example. They are still under an embargo because of their affiliation with the now long-gone USSR.
Communism is bad for corporations, and anyone who represented themselves as remotely socialist was shunned or persecuted in the 20th century.
This is not to say that Cuba would be an economic powerhouse if they had been allowed to trade with the US. Regardless, the interests of western capitalists were certainly behind a lot of the "red scare". Communism is very good at selling itself to the working class. The rich in this country recognized this, and engaged in a lot of propaganda in order to preempt a socialist revolution.
Why is IP such a dirty word to everyone here? IP is what protects products such as Linux. If IP didn't exist the GPL would be unenforceable. The GPL depends on copyright law, which is the cornerstone of IP legislature in the united states.
IP is a good thing because it provides incentive for people and companies to produce and develop new things. Why should I spend a bunch of time and energy creating something that isn't going to put money in my pocket or otherwise benefit me? You may be thinking that open source developers do just that, but the vast majority of them do not.
Linux is here because it benefits its creators. A powerful operating system and development tools are exactly the kinds of things that hackers are going to want to have around. So they created Linux and GCC and Apache and (insert open source product here) because they wanted them for their own use. An open source version of something like quicken on the other hand is not something that programmers are going to have much use for, which is why we don't see such a product. I'm sure there may be some piddly little semi-complete program that someone somewhere can almost use in place of quicken, but I hardly think that qualifies as a solution for the average end user. For programmers to develop a serious version of something like that there has to be money involved. Why? Because it is a hell of a lot of work and we all have bills to pay. High quality end user applications are not what the open source model is good at. It is however what the commercial model is good at. Without these end user applications linux is never going to become an end-user operating system. Being a server OS and a hacker OS is one thing. Being the OS your grandmother uses to check her email with is quite another. As long as M$ controls the desktop they control the developers. As long as they control the developers they've got the industry by the balls. So don't attack IP, because commercial apps are the only way that Linux is going to make it out of the server room.
The problem with IP is when companies decide they want to be greedy. When they want to extend it into a form of content control, which is not what it has ever been up to this point. IP when applied correctly is a benefit to society. When companies and individuals attempt to abuse the principle of IP is when society is hurt.
Blaming IP for all the crap that's been going on with the DMCA, Napster, etc. etc. is exactly like blaming a gun when someone is killed. Blame the person firing the gun, not the gun itself. Blame Microsoft and the RIAA and the MPA and the publishers association that's going after libraries, not the principle of IP. If it weren't for it, there would be no GPL.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Interesting thought but it wouldn't work as you outline. 1. The software could be hosted on servers outside US and any download subject to the licensing of the hosting country. 2. Unless there is a clear intent to defraud. The damages awared has to relate to the money earned. Zero in this case.
Help fight continental drift.
And God bless you, Mr. Scrooge.
"Both have different limitations in software development."
M$ style has limitations as they have to make cash decisions as being 16bit DOS compatible for years and valuing eye candy over stability. This prevents innovation. And there is always an instance to make a decision that may have no clue on the topic.
Open Source Community has limitations as there is nobody really able to make a decision on its own and make hundreds of coders work on that. Everybody works here on what he thinks is important. But if he wants to make a complicated tool interacting with other complicated tools (something like an office application), he has to read a lot of source to make it work. There is no single instance that can force an interface to be standard. It can work out in use as a standard, but often it doesn't. And there is still a lack of money for development. They cannot use money as an instrument of power.
Just because I can imagine doing a hippopotamus, doesn't mean I'd like to do it.
Working for Microsoft would be a good excuse for smoking the drapes, drinking rubbing alchohol and shootin' up laundry detergent all at the same time.
Not that I've done any of that.. . . .
"If I were to ask you a hypothetical question, what would you like it to be about?"
Just because a Microsoft employee says he doesn't like open-source does not mean that Microsoft as a company holds that view.
--
In this article, Jim Alchen is just lying thru his teeth, no shame, nothing. The truth of course is, OS software stimulates competition by competeing with commercial software. It increases inovation in the same fashion. What he should have said is "This looks really bad for my wallet." This rant isn't about god, linux or money, its about being true to oneself. I hear more lies on TV in a day then I've told in the last 10 years. Really, how many times does the average person need to lie in a day / month / year ? How many times does a corporate executive lie in day? a politician?
I'm not talking about lies like, "no honey, y ou haven't gained weight." and I'm not saying I've never lied ... what I am saying is the worship of money has corrupted us -- and the lying in this country disgusts me.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
How is this flamebait? Is it a little too extreme? Have some problem with the facts in the second paragraph? Put down those moderation tools before you hurt somebody, sonny.
However, with closed source software, when it breaks, you wait until they happen to get around to fixing it, which can be a fast as open source, but a faceless corporation is a LOT less likely to take responsiblity for their actions in such a way. Take Ford with the Pinto, and the Chevy Corvair, bad products that their respective companies pushed simply because dealing with the lawsuits of dead drivers' families was cheaper than replacing an $8 part on the offending vehicles. Sure, it may be good business, but its bad practice, and puts the lives of those precious voters at risk.
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
It's not the core functionality that would take the time... But finding new and novel things for the paperclip to do and say DOES take considerable amounts of time.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
This seems to tie in to the claim by MS, and justly so, the Linux is becoming their biggest threat. And now, in typical MS fasion, they are trying to squish it in any way possible. It seems that currently their plan is to try and crush the OpenSource enviroment. Obviously this is sick and wrong. I wonder if it would be possible to send all these comments to MS and see what sort of reaction we get.
Giggles Of Doom
"I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person."
"A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one."
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/trial/exhibits/ jun99/2479/sld001.asp
and, the new threat is china and their embrace of such un-amerikan ways as open-source software.
Linux 3.0? doesn't matter. The kernel development ceased being interesting for approx 4 years ago. The interesting things now, when it comes to workstation use, is the development of X and toolskits such as gnome/kde, and, most importantly, APPLICATIONS. The kernel is already as good as it needs to be / is useful to be.
Does anybody think workstations running linux 2.4 were more useful than the ones running linux 2.2? Or 2.2 instead of 2.0? NO! KDE2 instead of KDE1? YES! Same with Gnome!! XFree86 4.x instead of 3.x makes a huge difference - a new kernel almost just a cosmetic one. Biggest exception would be if the new kernel supports some hardware the old one didn't support - but then the interesting thing is the new driver - NOT the new kernel version.
-- Cure for Cancer instead of SETI! (only w32 yet - mail and beg)
All your base are belong to us!
Actually, VMware is a great argument for the virtues of free software. They still have good sales, because by continually pushing ahead in a focused way, they're outstripping the clone. They've hooked up with big vendors like Dell and government agencies to provide tailored solutions. They don't seem to be doing too bad, and the existence of a free alternative to eat their lunch if they get lazy is keeping them on their toes.
Actually, I have to say as an American myself that that's how I see the majority of the US too. I actually hold to my ideals, so maybe I don't count as a "real" American. :)
Reeve the cat
As long as you do not let ESR drive the submarine. Imagine: Geeks with torpedoes.
--
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010216& mode=classic
| Only if one defines "better workstation" to mean
:-)
| a workstation where clicking on the wrong thing
| can lead to infection. No thanks, I'll pass
You mean the install button?
This has been another useless post from....
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
- Fire
- The Wheel
- Agriculture
- Mathematics
- Schools
- Religion
- TCP/IP
- WWW
And of course, the list goes on and on. Microsoft's strange arguments are because of this invalid.Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you
Unfortunately this is "the dream" for too many people. How many low-paid workers does it take to support one high-paid worker? A LOT. The money comes from somewhere. If you do the math, only a scant percentage of the population can achieve "the dream", while the rest work their asses off to support them. It ends up a vicious fight to get into that small percentage. I plan to be in it, but I can't help but feel sorry for the suckers who will pay my way.
Music speeds up when you yawn, but does not change pitch.
What about a development model like the one Apple's using for OS X? Part of the OS is free and shared and everyone who wants to can contribute and receive improvements to it, part of it is value-added and costs something reasonable which pays for managing the project and paying programmers.
Sounds like a workable compromise to me. Others could also build other value-added stuff on top of Darwin (or whatever) and sell it or sell support...
As for not needing support, show me some software with zero bugs, please. I'll wait, but I won't hold my breath. Besides, bugs aren't the only thing that require support; what about new features? What about customising for users? What about the Next Big Thing that no one's though of yet?
There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased that line. -- Oscar Levant
That OSS would help innovation not stifle it. Well they have thier spin doctors spin away. This is part of MS plan to get rid of linux by the end of the year :) he want to have George Bush say it is illegal. Ah well Bill you will not be able to that so just drop it.
Oh good! I'm glad they're doing well - I'd always felt a bit sorry for those guys.
cheers,
Tim
I'm just a little winey baby. Open source software is dangerous, can you not see this? It means that I can't make a Billion dolars a minuite anymore and worse, there software will probably work better and be more reliable.
-- Jim Allchin, inventor of a Microsoft operating system
''Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.''
-- Samuel Johnson, inventor of the dictionary
--
Keep attacking good things as "communist"
KMSMA (WWBD?)
In Marxism everyone reaps equal benefits, but with Free Software the benefits reaped are equal to the ability and work that one puts into it. For example, my father couldn't even get his printer to work when he was using Linux, and yet I can use it to run my business. The difference, of course, is that I have invested more in learning how to put Linux to use than he has.
People that are even brighter than I am have even been able to turn their passion for Linux into a full-time paid position.
But this is all still classic capitalism. The difference now is that the capital we are dealing with is experience and knowledge, and not material goods. My Linux experience is worth money in much the same way that a Lawyer's knowledge of the law is worth money, or a CPA's knowledge of finance.
The software is just a necessary part of the equation. Without it my knowledge is useless.
the real problem is finding a fair way of compensating the authors for the initial development cost. That's hard.
well, that's the whole point, isn't it? These arguments about 'abundance' never really address this issue.
making everything knowledge or intellect-based a service basically puts all the economic burden on the early adopters. that makes little sense in the long run because it will reduce the incentive to adopt things early.
Making money off of packaging innovations like Redhat does (i.e. make money off the CD, printed manual and box) isn't a great business model considering the bulk of the value is in the software itself. Linux distributors have to (literally) grow the distribution to astronomical sizes (3+ cd's) to dissuade people from downloading it so they can bring in revenue.
What may be more appropriate is a 'subscription' based model, the approach Napster is looking at, and, ironically , is what MS is trying to do with Office.
Music has a lower product cost than software, so subscriptions may work better for this industry than for software. People who buy software usually like being able to pay an all-in-one price vs. a recurring price (I know I do), so it's back to the drawing board.
-Stu
>Then they laugh at you.
>Then they fight you.
>Then you win."
Unless, of course, you are on the losing side, in which case it goes:
"First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Then you lose."
I wish people could do more thinking and less rehashing of worn out old quotes. The only one worse is the one about people who sacrifice liberty for safety not deserving either. Well, we do that every day to get a functioning society, for instance traffic rules.
************************************************ ** *
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
I also thought the American Way was about Liberty. And RMS has always emphasized that, in my impression of his writings. It's also a voluntary thing--you join up in the free software movement.
Allchin seems to have been directing his comments to Congress. (At least, there was a comment in the article: "Microsoft has told U.S. lawmakers of its concern while discussing protection of intellectual property rights.") Why? He wants to leverage the coercive power of government to favor Microsoft! He would like very much for Microsoft to be a government-privileged company again; meaning: the road to Monopoly. This is common for companies: use the government to harm your competition. Of course, you could also say Netscape and Sun do that, too (which they do).
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
They just don't get it: the software industry is increasingly a services business. Commercial software is on its way out. Services -- custom solutions -- will dominate.
But I was most amused by how the article closed: "We can build a better product than Linux." You mean after all that commercial development so far, you haven't yet?
Har har har.
C//
Americans = people in the USA
Mexicans = People in Mexico
Canadians = People in canada
When people say in Italy that they hate americans, do you really think they mean everyone on the continent? people in the USA are called Americans b/c America is in the name of the country. And i don't think we could call ourselves Unitians (what?) or Statians (huh?), do you? Those words are not proper names and so you can't make proper names out of them..
Unfortunately, what you've described is the old American way. Perhaps Jim Allchin is right and Microsoft is the embodiment of the The New American Way(TM) - stand on the shoulders of someone else, strong-arm the competition if you have the monopoly power (or litigate them if you don't) and feed consumers substandard products while spreading FUD to keep them complacent.
-------
We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
James Gosling is Canadian. If Java isn't a threat to Microsoft, I don't know what is.
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
"Wouldn't a non-wasteful, non-pork-barrelling, gubment be great?" has been the mantra of us have-nots ever since representative democracy was invented.
Personally, I don't have a billion dollars just lying around to spend on nothing but bribes and "campaign contributions." Microsoft does. And if Microsoft can say to every senator and every representative, "Here's an enormous campaign contribution. By the way, open source is a threat to the American Way. Also, please notice the check says "Microsoft" right there at the top and we've post-dated it about six months from now, plenty of time to pass a bill or two, wouldn't you say?"
Actually, they'll just give away the Super Secret 800 Number, the one that connects you straight to tier-three support. That's better than a check, because all you're doing is fostering good will, and you can't audit good will, or be required to report it to the GAO. Ghod bless soft money, eh?
--
This is not my sandwich.
Were that so, some socialist country should have one. Canada is a corporate playground with some public education and health services left over, and some provinces are working really hard at fixing that.
Maybe you should blame Canada. Check James Allchin's homepage http://allchin.net/james.html and note the number of canadian references. There's a conspiracy brewing here.
(Lousy page design, BTW. But what did you expect?)
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
How is this bad? Nutritionally? Better to eat fish and chips (Britain), or chicken feet (Taiwan)?
Chicken feet are OK, but I like duck feet better. Get down to Chinatown for some dim sum and try it for yourself before you knock it.
When you eat chicken feet, you're eating skin. It's just like if you like to eat the skin of a chicken breast (although people brought up in the supposedly health conscious 90s may have no experience of skin-on poultry). It's fatty, but people don't eat a lot of them the way Americans will eat a bag of chips, a 32 oz coke, and a half pound burger at one sitting.
The real problem is that Americans now live in a two earner economony with eroding standards of personal time. We don't have time to sit down and prepare three squares a day so we eat prepared junk.
That's the nub of the issue -- not nutrition, but the fact that in our generation we are only significantly better off materially than our parents by being significantly worse off with respect to time. It isn't just preparation time, it's that food is one of the few pleasures that we have to indulge in. We end up addicted to a diet that isn't good for us.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I hate to say it but, it wont matter, to many org,bus,govs, are using free software, they would be breaking their own backs, and starting a war they could never win, if congress decided to outlaw free software.
Just another way the American people have been bullshitted. "We're free, and we're proud." Free? You can't even make a good idea better without getting a dick in your ass.
-----
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
You're telling me the authors are the record companies?
I know that a lot of singers will have no problem sharing their music online, but record companies asks them not to. In fact, they put it in a contract.
They can outlaw Linux by saying that Linux users are pirating DVD's or anything stupid they can find. Don't underestimate the power of stupidity.
fp
props to all dead homiez
> 'We can build a better product than Linux,'' he
:P
> [Allchin] said.
> So... why don't they?
The word "can" says it all. It means "has the capability to". So let's interpret it this way:
"We can build a better product than Linux, but we don't want to do that, and we don't want to see it. But now Linux is becoming better and better everyday. Obviously it is a threat to us. We are the innovation, so Linux is threatening innovations. Stop this!!"
Is anyone else as scared as I am?
-----
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
Interestingly, just before reading the article I'd read another article on CNet claiming that 95% of tech businesses are random organizations that need to develop a habit of earning trust by being more open and KEEPING THEIR PROMISES... I think this may be part of the reason why I literally laughed out loud reading Jim Allchin's remarks. Poor silly fellow... he does not have the public relations leverage he thinks he has. Now, if Microsoft had been telling the truth and being honest with people all these years, it might be different, but who doesn't know they lie and even fake stuff in court, by now?
I'm sure you meant to say "highest cost of living, didn't you?
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
If you can show me an independant, complete, fair and honest evaluation of TCO that shows that NT is less expensive in TCO than UNIX I would be happy to read it.
However, A document written by M$ comparing it's product to any other product can only be rated as maketing propoganda. If for example, you can find something by an oil company, or by foreign military, or something that independantly evalutates it, I would llike to see it.
I have found reports where Win2K wins over unix because they decided (correctly) that one machine on everybody's desk would lead to lower TCO over having a dedicated unix machine on everybody's desk in addition to a windows based PC. This same report did not evaluate PC Unix variants, and did not mention why.
I of course saw MS$ report, which is only marketing propoganda.
I saw some replies to this report, which can only be described as a rave in response to a rant.
A complete TCO comparison would include:
Hardware Costs
Actual Software Licensing Costs
Actual Training Costs
Actual Support Costs
Actual Downtime Costs (Ok I know this is hard to measure)
And not just theories or assumptions. Ideally, the comparison would be done in an engineering type shop, where CAD/CAM/CAE is done instead of just paper pushing. The people who use these engineering type products tend to push the resources hareder, and also tend to be more evenly trained in Unix or Windows. If you go to a paper pushing shop (insurance offices for example). Everybody has been pre-trained in the Microsoft world, therefore training costs would be significantly lower for Windows.
Just my $0.02.
Wasn't trying to whore... plus, I have not seen this quote in a long, long time. I thought it was poignant given the news. oh well.
--
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
- There is something to be said for a guarantee of free speech.. (try going into canada with safer-sex pamphlets targeted at a non-straight audience and enjoy entertaining threats of prosecution for smuggling and obscenity-- whether or not the court has ordered an improvement on this long-standing issue the border-guards still routinely harass and hold-up shipments (and for that matter, visitors) with materials already judged 'not obscene' after being held by the local office of the purolator) (or for that matter, look to censorship in a variety of locales.. not to say that factions in the US of A don't try..)
- Goverment subsidies of some industry (let's say dairy) makes for both an unhealthy industry (insofar as competition with extranationals goes) and a situation where the government is forced to suppress competition from within the state to avoid payment increase (alternative being a collapse of the industry to supportable levels)
- There is the point that media 'bombardment' can go two ways (check out AdBusters for a bit of Canadian infiltration into the American meme-space).. but honestly, it doesn't seem as though non-Québécois Canadians have much of a distinctive culture to 'jam' with. (ok.. it was petty and misleading.. and the Canadian modern/post-modern dance scene is great.. but the 'artifact producing' media definitely seem under-represented.) (let's not debate whether American culture is any better)
Damn it... don't put me in the position of defending capitalism or the USA... It's not as though there aren't serious problems with both.. (not to mention some real upsides to socialist practices implemented (in part or in full) by a state-- hurrah for universal health care and universal education) But for goodness sakes let's not point out Canada as some eu-topia either..Nothing more to be said.
We should probably outlaw people that put together their own sports cars, or build thier own house. Open source just means you can get to the blueprints of the software; no one in their right mind would outlaw blueprints...
Governments that promote charity (through tax deductions, or whatever) are also destructive of the economy! A lawyer who does pro bono work is stealing steak from a starving lawyer who could be making money selling the same services. When I listen to a street corner musician without putting money in his hat, I'm damn well helping that musician to ripoff the RIAA and Ticketron of the money I should be spending with them.
If you give something away, you are depriving someone of their natural right to sell it. And I'm gonna report you the the BSA!
How is this bad? Nutritionally? Better to eat fish and chips (Britain), or chicken feet (Taiwan)? Or do you mean people should eat at traditional restaurants more and forego the convenience of fast food?
mental disorders
The US is not alone in that.
worst education system
Nonsense. The U.S. university system is arguably the best in the world, by almost any measure. The secondary school system is hurt by undermotivated students and selfish parents. For motivated students, the U.S. system works pretty well, generally speaking. The system itself can always improve but there are much worse systems in the world. There's the Japanese examination-based system that boasts high standards and high suicide rates--the world's highest. Which would you rather have?
I can't even go out for a walk in the summer with a beer in my hand
Get active in your local community and rescind that law. That's what democracy is about.
fat, murderous, uneducated, and restricted people
Maybe you need to get out more often. Stop reading the crime section and go join a charitable organization. You will meet a higher class of people and they will set you straight. Americans, by the way, donate more to charities than any other nation, per capita and in total.
The U.S. population has always been a hodge-podge. According to John Gunther in "Inside America", half the men who were called up for military duty in 1945 were considered unfit for service. Divorce and neglected children were major social problems even then. African-Americans, Asians, Jews, and Native peoples were discriminated against, often violently. The U.S. has come a long way since then; give it a little credit.
Americans are consistently underestimated by others. In the 1930s, Mussolini mockingly called the U.S. a "3rd grade democracy" following Orson Welles' 1938 "War of the Worlds" broadcast, which caused mass panic. The U.S. went on to defeat Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese and proceeded to run the world for the next fifty years.
Sorry about wandering so far off topic.
-Terry
--
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
You've done it boys (and girls). You've won! All us old-timer programmers are damn proud of you. Long live cooperation!
I want to be alone with the sandwich
Heaven forbid that corporations and individuals be empowered to make better use of their own machines if so inclined. Not every shinkwrapped program fills the need and not every programmer wants to work for (or even like) M$.
The only companies that truly need to fear open source are companies that either make garbage products or offer poor support.
M$ is just upset because after YEARS of making their income from the toll-booth they placed between the users and their machines, the some of the users got SMART and found ways around the toll.
Intellectual property?? Anyone that programs knows that 90% of the time we stand of the shoulders of others... Nicklaus Wirth, Dijkstra, Alan Kay, Kernigan, Richie, Thompson... individuals whom without access to their "intellectual property", we wouldn't have a science let alone an industry to call home. CAN ANYONE IMAGINE where we would be had AT&T NOT MADE UNIX (their intellectual property) available to the world? Even DOS/Windows uses concepts first explored in Unix including pipes and tree structured directories.
The 'threat' that open source poses is to entities that use monopolies to impose mediocre products on consumers. Innovation?? I only wish that anyone sympathetic to Microsoft could name ONE thing that Microsoft actually innovated... They BOUGHT DOS from a small firm in Seattle, they created Windows after supposedly "developing applications to support the Macintosh", and they usurped the browser market created Netscape. Theirs is a history of aquisition and theft (Stacker vs. Doublespace). When MS Money couldn't outsell Quicken, they tried to BUY Intuit. They'd have been successful if the government had not blocked them. Innovation?
They are right:
Congress does need to be educated about the REAL threat to innovation. If M$ wants to compete let them do so by creating word processors that can't destroy your hard drive because some teen-agers get a malevolent programming itch and operating systems that don't allow users the kind of access that makes it possible.
M$: Don't hate open source, especially when your company has benefitted so much from the "intellectual property" of others... Here's an idea: MAKE BETTER PRODUCTS AND SUPPORT THEM.Own any mutual funds?
To me it sounds like this Microsoft guy is complaining that open source is too anti-competitive.
Hahaha.
''Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer,'' Allchin said. ''I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business.''
If 'software business = Microsoft and alike' and 'intellectual-property business = those fuckers which are abusing patent system with theire primitive software patents' than I'm realy happy that open source is doing something about it and I'm happy even more that open source is doing that quite good (as "they" are calling it "destroyer").
Disclaimer (for those who need it): I'm not saying, that ALL software have to be onpen source and also I'm not saying that ALL intelectual property is bad.
hany
6. Remaining innovation will be reduced? Please! Give me one REAL INNOVATION ms has come up with in 6 years? Just one.
I think it takes longer than 6 years to tell which innovations really count. If you allow a look over the entire history of the company, I'll name three innovative technologies:
(1)ODBC
(2)OLE
(3)VB
Now before I get flamed for VB, let me say it is of course a horrible language, but language features are much more peripheral to programmer productivity than they were twenty years ago. The runtime system is the most important thing, IMO -- the prebuilt objects and functions you have to work with and the methods you have for getting them to interact.
VB, looked at as a whole and combined with ODBC and OLE, has enabled many mediocre programmers to generate very useful products that would utterly have been outside their capability. Since there is a shortage of people who can walk up to a fairly large problem and start coding a full featured solution from a naked main event loop, I'd say these are highly beneficial.
Could each of these technologies have been better? Absolutely. A major reason Microsoft is hated by techies, perhaps more than its predatory tactics, is its tin ear when it comes to organization and architecture. VB had to go through three gnerations of data access technology (DAO, RDO and ADO) before they got one that was decent, an it's still not object oriented. ODBC in its raw API form is a horrible mess. However in the end they work well enough.
We'll see in five or six years whether ".NET" lives up to the hype.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
... when he says: ''Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer,'' Allchin said. ''I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business.'' but i think he confuses the American Way with the Microsoft way. ... you name it) paving the way for other applications. Now Microsoft would rather have it their way: patent efficient string handling algorithms and thus virtually stop all competition for word processing in it's tracks by forbidding them to use those algorithms.
I can't put it better than Jon Gilmore when he says that content protection systems are a way of earning by creating an artifical scarcity. The same holds true for software too, Free Software, by means of providing not only free applications, but also free implementation of key routines (string handling, searching, sorting, indexing
But this is impossible for MS as long as much of the development they do is on grounds already covered by GPLd Software. There it's easy to see who did what first, many protocols are already established and, worst of all, there is no possibility to buy it all to lock it away.
Also, despite MS tries to ridicule it all, the synergy effects working for big corporations against small business (for example reusability of key routines, and a broad pool of talents/wisdom to draw from) works for free software too.
But i think the biggest danger for MS is something else at work: Free Software brings with it a new mindset: people appreciate the fact, that there is no need for artificial scarcity, and that it is easier to achieve something by sharing than by greedily keeping every innovation to oneself. It now becomes apparent, that you even can make a living from this. Well, open source surely limits corporate control over innovation! But that is not a problem of open source, it's a problem of Microsoft.
There is even an easy way for them to take part in it all, they simply can set some programmers to work on an open source project. Only they would have to release the results as open source again, and giving away control is surely not the Microsoft Way.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
I'm glad someone caught the insurance portion, and yes they did get busted by trying to get the deposit back
Read my plan to save the Bengals
Of course that's only if you're right.
Even then, it usually continues:
then you get complacent
then you fuck up
then someone points it out
then you ignore them
...you know the rest.
--
-- What do you need?
-- Gnus. Lots of Gnus.
"Furthermore, the evidence is that open source does not tend to produce new innovation. For example, desktops such as KDE are based on older products from Apple and MS. When open source is the only thing remaining, innovation will obviously be reduced." And those two were based off of a GUI from Zerox, so ha!
"A coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave but one."
Yes, legislators have to understand the threat. But not only this one (this "open source") but also all other threats: Microsoft, global warming, nuclear waste, nature polution, over population, patent system abuse, ...
hany
Odd that one of the most secretive organizations is running it's own hack of linux... I wonder if the government will take this into consideration. One certainly wouldn't want to trust a closed source OS with our deepest national secrets. Even if opensource was outlawed I don't think it would die. And if it is I would say it's time to give the US one hell of a revolution...
Interesting that you would estimate the cost of Linux development at "zero". I estimate it far, far higher. It *is* being dumped onto the market. This is RMS' *exact* strategy for driving the corporations he hates out of .
I always tought that the Templars were screwed big way in aroung 1100 (I can't remeber). By the time of the Inquisition I tought they no longer existed (or were a very small secret society). Maybe I should do some research and get that clear.
Thanks for the info.
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Quick! Call Superman!
Well, consider GIMP. It attempts to mimic some of the things that PhotoShop can do. But, and here is the crucial point, it's not about innovational new features. The new features are produced by the commercial developers, and are then copied.
So when GIMP dominates the market, there is not enough money to be made by commercial developers to continue development, where does the innovation come from?
The same can be said for a multitude of Open Source projects, they're about producing free versions of commercial products, not about producing something new and excitingly different. Harsh, but true.
Okay here's the problem I have with this:
One man (albeit a high ranking one), in an as yet unconfirmed and unknown context, makes an ignorant statement which is then attached to the company that he happens for work for. Guilt by association.
So if I meet a geek/linux advocate/open sourcer/christian/scientologist/amish/doctor/whate ver on the street and they make a moronic statement can I flame the rest of the group and call them losers and evil doers?
It's hard to judge the true meaning of a conversation based on two sentences. The media continually mis-quotes or singles out specific statements in order to get eyeballs. These mis-quotes or semi-facts get spread around and then the conspiracy theorists unite and begin to pick everything apart. Pretty soon it's like this big rumour mill about how since so and so didn't like X that their an active campaign against X by the entire company/government/world.
So lets just attempt to make the assumption that this MS guy is really not evil but just ignorant. In this particular aspect he is undereducated and does not understand the Open Source effort. Possibly he has seen the recent failure of some Open Source business model and made his assumptions on that. Maybe he's listened to all the hate out there and made his mind up based on that. Maybe it's a pride thing "I can do it better".
The other issue is the open endedness of the statement "I'm an American, I believe in the American way". I'm an American, I can't honestly say that I am for the "American way", I can't honestly say what the "American way" is (greed?, selfishness?, theft?, enslavement?, hour long shows where people screw each other over for money, with 30 minutes of commercials and 5 minutes of actual entertainment, what?). I mean to each person it's different especially based on whatever cultural background you happen to have. For many the "American way" is the way that "we've always done it". Some at MS may think that that is indeed the "American Way". Many people use such statements to build the confidence of others to a cause, I think that's what's happening here. This gentleman for whatever reason has created this opinion and seeks further validation and backing and the need for his opinion to be 'popular'.
Just like Linux/Open Source "advocates" think they are doing a service to the 'movement' by flaming and mailbombing during different 'causes', this gentleman might believe he is also helping. Unfortunately companies rarely force their employees to retract statements and very often those retractions that do occur get ignored.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
It seems like Microsoft has made a lot of news in the past two weeks. They announced WindowsXP, their new .NET-bundled platform that'll be sold as a subscription, their recent Java-bashing, which Sun had to respond to, constant .NET-hyping, their new instant messenger project called Hailstorm which they hope will give them instant-messenger dominance over AOL (by making the IM a development platform), and now open-source bashing!
.NET, WindowsXP...
It all seems to be tied to the future of peer-to-peer computing and online appliactions in some way. Instant Messengers,
All this open-source and Java bashing made me think... could they have caught wind of a Sun project to open-source Java that's already underway? This seems like the way Microsoft would respond to such a development. Or, maybe they're just trying block any possibility of Sun succeeding if they did open-source it (which they've been considering doing for some time now).
Of course, you can never be sure of anything when Microsoft's PR-Department is involved. They're completely hypocritical. It's very tough to cut through the FUD, hype, and downright errors they're constantly spewing out. I guess Microsoft's tactic is to confuse the hell out of your competitors while you're crushing them.
At the very least, it's something to think about. Some big shit is gunna be goin' down in the internet software market, and right soon. A bunch of people who want to invent the most killer app since the web-browser are gunna be battling it out. It's gunna be a bloodbath!
---
Epitaph
The 30+ year trade embargo can't have anything to do with this now can it?
I hardly see how this is different from our foreign embassies, or from the embassies on US soil. This sort of thing happens all the time and is a natural result of international politics. Please do not read more into it than there is.
-dennis T
Alter Aeon Multiclass MUD - http://www.alteraeon.com
"Customer Good Will"
It's difficult to quantify, but every accountant that I know manages to put a dollar amount on it.
But, imagine if you will, a computer that doesn't crash, doesn't waste time, doesn't require obscure work-arounds to make everything work ... all those customers will then have a little extra time each day to mkae more money and then to spend it on Microsoft Products!
Far fetched, of course.
Chivalry is not dead, it's just frequently misspelt. - M. Langley
Lets us recap. Mircrosoft is a corporation in a captalist nation. Microsoft does not owe allegiance to you, your boss, their customers, the government. They owe alleginace to their stockholders. As such, they don't give a rat's ass what you think of them. They don't care if every one on the planet thinks they sell bloated crap. As long as everyone buys it, they are happy. Microsoft is trying to take over the world. So is IBM, Oracle, Coca-Cola, Nike, Fisher-price, and others. Open-source has this big problem, its free. Free things imply that less money can be earned from them. (Generally because they are free) Less money flowing in to microsoft limits their ablity to exert world domination. Their stock holders become sad and leave. Microsoft is trying to keep their stockholders happy. This means convincing everyone that open source is bad. If microsoft manges to do so, then they move one step closer to world domination. Go out and ask a random person on the street if he/she/it knows what awk does or what version of Red Hat is best. If they don't deck you on the spot they'll look at you real funny. These are known as common people. Because we are geeks we tend to partake in an elitist movement and forget they exist. Yes, Virgina, there really are people who don't even know where to get linux, let alone what the hell to do with it. Most of these people have never even bothered to install windows. It came with their computer. They paid microsoft for it. Microsoft is happy. They don't give flying platutie what that person thinks of windows. As long as Microsoft remains the easiest OS to obtain and use, they can charge eleven fingers for it, and people will pay. Open source does suck. I can't give most open-source programs to my mom and let her install and use them. It dosen't matter how brillinat you are, the ignorant masses are the ultamite judge of what flies. And they like microsoft. -Antimorphic It is a poor mind that can only envison one way to spell a word.
Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum immane mittam.
Home of the Fee(tm)
Trolls, it must be cool to be that bored.
Not many people listened to the message then either. The jams weren't kicked out.
Future Now!
True - just from a PR perspective, it's unfortunate that there's so much overlap between the open software crowd and the mp3/dvd-swapping crowd. The public and the courts would be more likely to give free software a break if it were clear that the goal was just creation of useful and open software, with no connection to freely swapping content.
Not that I seriously advocate splitting these apart, but I wonder how different things would be right now if they were seen as more separate in the public eye.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
And how many of those jobs aren't minimum-wage with no future raping the world's natural resources to produce stuff nobody really needs, making one or two people very wealthy hyperocephalics who think they can buy everyone's favour (not to mention their homeland...)
however they couldn't devise a crushing strategy against Linux, and in a couple of years it will become a serious threat to MS's business.
No, if you look at IDC's graph for 2000 Server Sales, you see MSFT at 40 percent, still about the same as 1999, and Linux now at 26 percent, much larger than 1999.
We already are a threat to MSFT. They failed with directory services because of us, we're eating away at the appliance side as well, and they're really feeling hemmed in. And they know that IBM and a lot of other players are starting to throw the big bucks our way.
When you start flatlining and your growth from in-house products is less than your earnings from holding company actions, while your opposition seems to wiggle out of the way of all your lawyers and keep transmuting into new forms, you know the bell has tolled.
[caveat - I own MSFT and RHAT shares]
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Well certainly we can argue the semantics of this ad nauseaum.
My point is that language is defined by usage. Meanings of words change over time (check out the OED if you don't believe me).
I think that the dictionary definition, Mussolini's and evern Trotsky's definitions are all old (at least 50 years for either of them). They are NOT current with real world usage.
Your argument would be more valid if we were talking about "Fascism" which can be more accuratly defined in that manner, but this is the adjective "fascist" which is nowhere near so clear.
If I say "Your fascist actions demand retort", then fascist is modifing "actions". I am saying that your actions are in some way related to what a believer in fascism would do. Its a little more nebulous, as it entails my perceptions of your actions, than actually talking about fascism.
-Steve
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Steve Nash would be disappointed to hear you say that.
[Free] has always referred to price. That's what it means. That's all.
That puts an interesting twist on the old phrase `the free-men of Norfolk and Suffolk'!
Of course, anyone who knows anything about the history of this language will know that `free' originally meant `without obligation or binding', a `free-man' being someone who was free to roam and engage in work of their choosing, in contrast to the majority of subjects, who were `tied' to a landlord and/or parish. Compare with rope work; the term `free end' does not refer to the one that does not cost anything.
To me at least, it is clear that when RMS refers to `free' software he is using the word in something like its original sense (except that there is an obligation, which is not to impose further obligations or bindings).
It seems to me like someone at Microsoft realized that Kylix is getting close to release and is desparately afraid that the legions of trained chimpanzees (VB programmers) might decide that as long as they have to learn a new language (VB.NET), they might as well learn something with real cross platform capability (Kylix/Delphi)
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
> Actually, I'm sure the labor unions would be
> all for making barn raisings illegal. Can't
> have people giving away their labor and taking
> job opportunities away from union workers. If
> unions are able to grab a foothold in the
> software industry, are they going to have a
> similar perception of free software?
Naw, you don't ban barn-raising. You just
institute a building code for barns. To ensure
people's *safety*, you understand. It's really
all to protect the children. Sound familiar?
"Well, I'm sorry, Mr. King, but your barn
doesn't meet code. I'm going to have to insist
you tear it down or the county'll do it for you
and bill you for the demolition. Now, if you
like, I can give the numbers of some reliable
contractors who have a good understanding of
building things to code..."
Chris Mattern
Be worried! Why do so few of the comments take this sort of threat seriously? They can do much more than "limit open-source penetration in government, schools, etc." Since volunteers (with few resources) are often major contributors to open-source/free software, it is very easy for minor changes in the law to have major effects on us.
What if the UCITA makes it impossible for anyone to distribute software without using a shrink-wrap license? What if widespread software patents, stiffer IP laws, and prohibitions against reverse engineering make it impossible for people without deep pockets to write programs that interoperate with popular software? Could users of free software be completely left out when the Next Big Killer App for the internet comes along?
Everyone is full of this confidence that, as the morally and technically superior solution, free software not only *should* triumph, but that it *will* triumph, no matter they say at Microsoft. Don't be so sure; the proprietary software houses have much deeper pockets, and a much broader audience, than we do. If big changes in IP policy go through next month, are legislatures going to know (or care) what we think?
Pay attention. Write your congressperson. Join the EFF. Help the League for Programming Freedom get their act together. Just don't sit there and assume everything will work out fine without you.
--Bruce Fields
Outlawing Free Software (or even its basterdized form, Open Source) would be nearly impossible. This is simply because most of the underlieing Internet runs Free Software.
Apache has 60% of the web servers. Sendmail is 90% of mail. And BIND has nearly 100% of DNS. Now go tell congress that a great majority of the top .com's can't run *BSD anymore and see how far you get.
Free Software is everywhere, you just don't see it much. Outlawing it would be nearly impossible.
------
Not a typewriter
"[Free] has always referred to price. That's what it means. That's all."
Ha! I guess we need to go back and correct Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, the ideas of "Freedom of Speech, Religion, Assembly, etc." and of course "Free to Be You and Me." All of them are using the term "free" incorrectly.
Free your mind, your ass will follow.
~Mr. Bad
Evan Prodromou | evan@prodromou.name | http://evan.prodromou.name/
That's assuming that the only job you could ever get in IT was writing commercial software. Which is not the case. Also if there is no money to be made in free software why are the major players in the IT industry (except Microsoft) all committing in some way to OSS. Do you think Telia got their S390 + Linux expertise for free? It is bad for Microsoft, no doubt about it but bad for the sector - pull the other one.
How much do microsoft engineers rely on open source software? How many of their hackers use Linux, emacs, gcc to develop their latest version of windows ce/me/nt? How much of windows design was (poorly) cloned from the freely available designs of UNIX and other well documented systems? Allchin should change his name to Elmer Fud. "Sssh. Be vewy vewy quiet. I'm baiting open source hackers! Heh heh heh."
What would be their incentive to invent if they cannot make money out of it ?
If it's a new thing that advances the state-of-the-art, then they will make money, until a clone is made. Then they will have to carry on inventing. This is good, this is innovation, this is what short-term copyrights do. On the other hand, if they are trying to make money on something that has already been invented, and a free version exists, then why should they make money? It's the equivelant of trying to sell people air.
Linux started in New Jersey under a different name and eventually moved to Berkeley. A clone appeared Holland (under the aegis of an expatriate America) and eventually found its way to Finland.
-Tom Duff
I once was driving home from visiting someone in Chicago. The mid-day news came on and began babbling about Terrorism(TM) and the Middle East(TM). I heard a byline to a story that made my blood boil: "... and we had better decide, because after all, we are the richest and most powerful country in the world."
I dont care to debate weather America(TM) is or is-not the 'richest and most powerful'. What I would like to point out to Americans is that this self-aggrandizing hubris is what confuses many of your neighbours. They hear this kind of crap and really take stock in the American Way(TM) religion the plutocrats have sold you.
Ive recently read this book. In it the author speaks about "how all through time Kings, Priests and Rulers have tried to force slaves to work. But the Slaves always find a way to sabotage the aims of the Ruler. That the more you abuse and oppress your slaves the *POORER* their 'production' towards your goals. And God save us if Any Priest, Ruler or King ever discovered a way to 'violate' this historical pattern". When i read that Ice ran through my veins. I wondered if the gluttonous, myopic, shallow American Way(TM) was this discovery. I see the American Way(TM) like this: "You are the center of the universe. You are the only thing that should be important to you. Everyone else is out to screw you - screw them first. Enjoy/Indulge yourself - you are the height of importance."
I still havnt recovered.
The New International Version of the Bible does not permit unrestricted copying. You can quote up to 50 verses without paying royalty (I think), but not the whole thing. Personally I find this completely unacceptable when we're talking about a holy religious text - not because All Books Should Be Free, but because the NIV people are saying "if you want to have the best interpretation of the word of God, you have to pay us". Which strikes me as a bit of a scam (though that may not be their actual intention).
Of course, feel free to disagree - just thought that snippet might interest some people.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
With the greatest of respect: *bullshit*
--
If the good lord had meant me to live in Los Angeles
I actually have real health insurance. It costs less than $100/month.
A "standard of living" number is hardly an objective measure; it's one of those statistical fuddles that can very easily be reasonably rebalanced to change the order almost any way you'd like. If it weighted the measures of rampant consumerism a little lower, and took higher account of stress, amount of non-work time, access to health care, the outlook of those who can't pay for schooling, the health of the work environment, etc. I don't think the US would rank nearly so high.
One last jab: seems to me the UN's measure has listed Cnada above the US for some years now.
Just last night I saw a commercial for MS Server software, bragging about how it was so stable, no humans needed to maintain the servers.
The commercial doesn't say that no humans were needed to maintain the servers, it says that no humans had been needed to keep the servers up for days. That's right, not years, not months, days.
Didn't everyone else find this as hilarious as I did? I can just imagine the advertising agency handing the original script back to Microsoft, saying "We've convinced people that cigarettes promote a healthy rugged lifestyle, that they just need to purchase a $40,000 SUV before they can go jaunting off to a picnic in the mountains, and that they can become cool by paying a 900 percent markup on sweatshop tennis shoes. But you expect people to believe that a Microsoft server can go weeks without a sysadmin's attention? Change that to hours, or days maybe, then we'll talk about putting it in a commercial. Oh, and try not to do anything publically humiliating like letting your own network go down twice just as we start the ad campaign. You need to meet us halfway here!"
Um, sorry, but I think that socialism in the U.S.A. started with the New Deal back in the 1930s.
It could also be argued that creeping socialism started with the creation of the federal income tax, which, if I recall correctly, was around 1900.
Republicanism: We'll tell you what to do because you're morally weak, but we won't take care of you.
Democratism: We won't tell you what to do, but we'll take care of you anyway because you don't know any better.
Communism: We'll tell you what to do because you're stupid, and we take care of you... minimally. Don't cause problems, though, or we'll have to kill you for the good of society.
Libertarianism: We won't tell you what to do, and we won't take care of you either. You'd better buy a gun to defend yourself.
Take your pick!
It's sad but Open Source is one of the great free things that you and i can get, but someone else can make a buck off of our work and we'll never see a dime for it.
I don't understand.
Do you want to give away your work for free? If not, don't create Open Source work. Simple.
On the other hand, if you want to give away your work for free, then what does it matter that somebody else gets to make a buck/feed their family/have a job doing something they enjoy because of your work?
Suppose you write a popular open source program. Now suppose that somebody pays me money to administer your code on their system. What the hell is the problem with that?
-- Yoz
Microsoft is going to start an allright attack on OSS in media. We are going to satrt seeing very interesting ads soon. This will only hurt Mircosoft because if they give any attention it will only make people more curious.
The utilities bc, ci, co, cpio, csplit, dc, diff, diff3, gawk, gzip, gunzip, ident, merge, nl, rcs, rcsdiff, rcsmerge and rlog are covered under the GNU General Public License, here reproduced.
In accordance with section 3b of this license the source code to those utilities is available from the Interix World Wide Web site, http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu.
I love it. sfu. As in Shut the fuck up, Allchin.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Not really. As a programmer myself I'm less concerned with making something look cool (although that can be fun) as programming something because it's a challenge. That's why hackers hack, and why innovation is so rife in Open Source. What's the challenge programming something that has been done before on the platform? Granted there are different types of program like Vi and Emacs for instance, but they are completely different in form and execution.
Currently quite a lot of projects are for things like browsers, office tools, image manipulation and so forth, but only to fill the gaps currently wide open. Once Linux has the range of programs Windows has I'd be willing to bet a considerable amount that Linux would churn up a lot more unique software.
Even in your quoted version, the key word is "persuit".
These companies can persue profit all they want, but they shouldn't be able to change laws to guarantee a profit.
That goes against a capitalist system in which the consumer decides the fate of a product or service by 'voting' with their dollars.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
Sorry, but for the best place to live (according to the UN) you'll have to take a trip north to Canada. Canada has been #1 on this for many years.
But, as people say, those statistics aren't 100% true indicators of the best place to live. They just give a general idea of it, so please don't take this as a slam against the US (it isn't).
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
"But I find this terrifying.
NOBODY markets like MS"
McDonalds Dude...
And the worst part is, you don't realize just how good they are at it. That's SUCCESSFUL Marketing.
ti_dave
I wouldn't rule out the Celts as far as their influance goes. Isn't that why we have a Christmas tree (those of us that do)? Besides, they are one of the Western cultures. The Germanic tribes were part of that as well. That leaves the Mongols. As far as i know, they never held Western Europe (Eastern maybe..). Then again i could just not know. Care to share more info on that?
:)
Oh, and i agree w/you on the AD/CE bullshit
I don't think anyone said that. I was simplying saying the reason they are in the position they are now is a result of us. We should have let them alone years ago...
But we didn't, so yes i feel we are obligated to help. However, we must give careful consideration how, since our 'help' in the first place is what messed things up...
Andrew Leonard has this to say about Allchin's surreal comments...
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." -- Samuel Johnson.
Oh and thats why the WWW, HTML TCP/IP, Apache. PERL
FreeBsd, Linux etc... are so unsuccesful because people a can examine and improve on the code?
Who cares if Stephen King writes novels? A person who creates will create regardless of whether they profit or not( AS i do i make music). Creativity is part of human nature and profiting from ones creativity is sometimes a pleasant byproduct of creating not the aim of creation. By you definition most of the great works of art literature and science would never have been created and shared because the innovator, discoverer, inventor , creator would not profit and was fearful of plagarism. This premise is as absurd as it sounds.
note quite, but they had to use an awful lot of whitewash (hence, Whitehouse). I don't think they've ever gotten over the habit, either.
but anyway... what the fuck are they gonna outlaw? Volunteering? Charitable donation? (Wait'll Billy Gee hears about that - what's he gonna do to improve his PR then???) How are you actually going to stop people giving their intellectual property away if they want to?
What stifles innovation more: giving away closed-sourced products like M$IE where innovation is essentially limited to skinning (who needs it), or giving away an open source product on which one can tinker and truly improve?
Furthermore, the thing Allchins is really complaining about is the GPL, not open source. He may have some point that there's less motivation to sink R&D money into something you must give away (although IBM et al seem plenty willing), that's not an intrinsic of open source; the BSD license is less restrictive in that regard.
He's just a typical M$ windbag. I just hope the Washington windbags will see reason. But if they don't, well, open source can just move out same as crypto did.
I never said we shouldn't be helping to feed them. I was mearly pointing out that the reason they are starving to begin with is a direct result of our actions. To me, we are even more obligated to helping them then if they were just in a bad spot of thier own design.
As far as India goes, here's how we've been 'helping' India's economy:
http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/apvshiv.htm
7. *Nothing* is truly free?
yes, nothing is truly free. Suppose someone says hey, how about a free lunch? And also suppose you agree and you go and have a nice meal with said person. Now what has that cost you? No money, but what else? Your time, first and foremost. See, there's this thing called opportunity cost. So what ever you decide to do, costs you the second thing you would have done.
Suppose again you have a choice between a date with two women. If you go out with Woman #1, it has cost you the date with Woman #2. So on and so forth.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
That guy is a natzi.
Open Source is far from un-American. It is the essence of classic American political philosophy taken into the information age. The right to sell or not to sell and the right to use what you buy as you see fit. Now the tyrannical business tactics of Micro$oft on the other hand... "Live Free Or Die; Death Is Not The Worst Of Evils." - General John Stark, 1809
If hey can make napster illegal do you really think they won't be able to outlaw Linux? Can you rely on the justice system?
Fortunately MS won't be suing.
NO ONE IS GOING TO CRIMINALIZE OPEN SOURCE!
repeat after me,
NO ONE IS GOING TO CRIMINALIZE OPEN SOURCE!
This may stand for some as the ultimate proof of Microsoft's satanic associations, but it is simply one nutcase in the company mouthing off. Posters have provided enough obvious parallels to non-software things that it should be clear that preventing someone from publishing his OWN work is a fundamental violation of the First Amendment of the USA's Constitution. Any law or movement towards prohibiting such free expression would be attacked and killed by the ACLU in approximately four seconds. That's what they are there for.
A more interesting topic for discussion, now that we have all calmed down a notch, is to ask why a (reasonably) high-level suit at Microsoft would publicly say something so clueless. Any suggestions?
It seems like somebody is always lurking here on Slashdot to say there is some superior os 'and its called windows 2000'
from the consistency in phrasing, seems pretty weird.
some sort of megatroll.
Juln
"Reversed" as in they paid you? Or just "refunded"? (Of course you used up way more than $95 of time getting it back, from the sound of it :p )
While games is not an area where open-source has been very successful yet, it IS possible to open-source your game AND still sell it.
Most of the game discussions along this line tend to fall into the category that the source to the game is available, but the artwork/sounds/levels etc that make the game unique are not, and the user pays for those.
Quake is not the same game as Hexen, Half-Life or Counter-Strike. Releasing the source code to Quake (as John Carmack has done) means people can use that source-code to build their own games, yes, but they have to design their own levels, draw their own textures, build their own models, etc. These things are not open-source, and you can charge for them, while still giving the source to your game away.
Many companies have made money selling level packs using freely available tools. The consumer buys the pre-built levels because it's more convenient than making those levels themselves.
On the other hand, the single most popular game on the Internet right now is Counter-strike and while it's not open-source it IS free (as in beer), and that doesn't seem to be hurting the developer much. Ad hits on his web page, revenue from the box version, etc, seem to be doing pretty good, even from a game you can get for free.
But your point might be right, YOU might not be able to make money by giving your code away, but good programmers clearly can.
Another 'its called Windows 2000' proclaiming person??
Juln
Come to mention it we're ahead on the average quality of our universities as well.
I mean really, where on earth is there a place that has better universities or better universities on average than here? We've got more of them per capita than any other country our size, and in general they are very good.
I hear lots of critism of our public schools and our primary and secondary education systems in general. Never have I ever heard so much as a whisper of criticism of our colleges and universities. Except of course from corporations who want them to be glorified vocational schools and I don't think thier take on them is motivated by a love of learning and knowledge.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
But if you write open source software, you have to let people see your source code. MS may want to use source that is currently available under the GPL without disclosing the modifications they make and releasing the source of the final product. They probably view this as stifling innovation, since anyone could come along and use their "innovations" in competing software. Never mind that they'd be using someone else's work at the outset, but hasn't MS been known for doing that already? It may be that MS is going to build the argument that if they take publicly-available code and make "significant modifications" to it, they should be able to copyright the resulting program and not have to disclose its inner workings or make it freely available.
That light you see at the end of the tunnel might be from an oncoming train.
Someone please mod this up.
Maybe TCO should include the cost of time and data lost through the use of poorly trained MS support people.
;0) Of course they use Windows, on bogstandard PCs for Word and IE and all that sort of thing. They crash, naturally. But they don't let them anywhere near the business end of things, ie controlling multi-million pound equipment, data collection+storage+analysis. Once *that's* done some people shunt it over to Windows to write it up. Some don't (their software house supports HP-UX natch, but also Windows and *linux*. Waytergo).
I just spent the day at Daresbury Laboratories. On a totally Windows system. Before we even arrived our collaborators NT system had gone skywards.
The workstation we worked on had flakiness in displaying data.
Remote working was done with a confusing full screen environment "Which screen am I on again?!" instead of just the window or two you'd need on an X environment.
Network Neighbourhood being unable to locate the machine we wanted. The NN finder crashed, had to be killed off, and then the machine started loading about a dozen apps, for no apparent reason.
Naff "pretty" ftp clients which refused to refresh so we couldn't get the file we wanted to print. (We ended up physically going to the machine, with a floppy, copying it over to another machine that was attached to a printer. Network printing anyone?!)
Writing command macros in *Wordpad* (ok, they weren't very complicated but still, *Wordpad*?!)
Hours of inconvenience and worrying about dataloss, annoying interfaces, little efficient use of networking, zero security.
This in half a day. *Half a day*. How much bother do they have in a year?! Admittedly my own linux cluster is far from perfect but these sorts of bizarre, annoying and needless things happen very rarely indeed.
Compare to the ESRF. Runs mainly on HP/UX. Solid workstations. Much nicer unix-style input. Remote working with X. Ftp that works. Networked printing (from any system). Emacs! (or vi etc before we start on all that
Still, it's not my lab so who am I to go around showing off how much damage Windows is causing on a continual basis. Once you're on Windows it's bloody hard to get off it, particularly if stuck with Windows-only software or services.
I hate windows but it shouldn't have to be that bad. But because of dime-a-dozen MS admins and the assumption that Windows looks after you have left what could easily be better (give me *one* day with some financial support and a copy of SuSE and I'd have it running smooth as silk. Assuming you don't want Windows-only software. How I love that in Physics research centres.) to be the stinking mess that Windows tends to end up as anyway.
Well done, MSCEs. You're cheap but you cost the earth once you're done. If organisations want to waste money on cheap tat that's their own business. IME if you buy cheap tat, you get cheap tat. If you want something to *work* you invest in it, whether that's in money, time or training.
[Physics labs. Full of Windows PCs. What the *fucking hell* happened there?!]
I find it most amusing that you should be using a computer to make this claim.
Who was AT&T exploiting when they spent millions of dollars researching the transistor? That single invention has led to billions, if not trillions, of dollars of real contribution to society. Can you possibly suggest that, in this case, Bell Labs "took more than it gave"?
The same is true for radio, television, automobiles, microwaves, magnetic resonance imaging, and even electrical power and the light bulb. All these things were invented or pioneered by corporations; they made a lot of money, and society was better off for it.
When you view the article (click here), and look at the stock prices on the left side of the browser window, you will notice that MSFT's stock price did not change, yet VA Linux, HP, IBM, and Red Hat all gained in value. I should also mention that WinNT has more security holes in it than a huge chunk of Swiss cheese. IMHO, Micro$oft employees should start talking out of their mouths instead of their asses.
I *like* that we have some of the highest tax rates in the world here in Sweden, since that gives *everyone* free schools, free (or cheap)healthcare and so on. The standard of living also really *is* among the highest in the world. Even education at college level is free, so everyone really can become whatever they want as long as they work for it. This should be compared with many other countries where only people with money can afford education, and thus get higher education, which means that only the people that already are rich can get well-paid jobs. The rich people get richer, and the poor people get poorer, this really isn't equal opportunities IMHO...
Open Source Bible?
How come the Pope refuses to integrate my patches to the Book of Exodus into the main kernel tree? Could it have anything to do with the kernel fork that occurred back in the 16th century? And how does this affect my plans to port the Book of Job to the Therevada Buddhist architecture?
Just curious.
Nothing frustrates me more than an intelligent reply to one of my posts on Slashdot. I would like to go over each of your points, but that is simply too much work.
I really miss useable newsgroups.
My version of GIFgraph had some advantages over the stock version of the time. The principal benefit was that it would easily generate a certain type of graph that I needed. However, this feature didn't give me any particular commercial advantage. It just freed me from paying money for a less desirable, but still workable solution.
For me the only "value" from my software is use value, and the capital that I saved by not having to pay for a commercial counterpart. The graph in question was not a company secret, nor was it the sort of information that would help my competitors.
And that really is the key to Free Software's present growth. It grows because it is useful, and because it is oftentimes less expensive to adapt Free Software to your needs than to pay for commercial software (not to mention the fact that source code allows for much more flexible solutions).
The reason that people then re-release their "patches" to Free Software is that it allows for easier code maintenance. After all, the current maintainers are almost certainly planning on making changes to their software. If you want your patches to be compatible with the next release, you almost have to share. Besides, if you share your source someone else may find a bug in it for you, or they might even base some of their work on your source code and create another feature that you find useful.
In that particular scenario, there aren't any sales involved. There is some money that is saved by not having to purchase commercial software, but no sales.
I have to absolutely confirm what you say regarding the destructiveness of replacing diverse cultivation of food-crops for local markets with the cultivation of cash crops for trade on the health of developing areas. Members of my family (we are from South America) have been involved in public-information and agricultural cooperative efforts to reintroduce diversity and local-focus into agriculture for just this very reason: depending on trade, especially international trade, for basics such as food overlooks the sensitivity to externalities like poor infrastructure, corruption, and the division of interest between large cash-crop agricultural interests and producers for local markets(agribusiness is concerned about making money, and cash-poor local markets don't offer maximum bang-for-the-buck; they take local lands and produce for global markets, and the 'trickle-down' in terms of wages is miniscule). In the areas where we are able, with government help and, frankly, some outright takeovers of agribusiness-owned land, to reintroduce the cultivation of local crops, hunger decreased, local trade blossomed, and the mass migration to the capital city was checked.
Certain places are more dangerous to enter than others, depending on where you live.
It might never have occured to you that a lot of people take great risks while attempting to enter other industrialized democratic countries as well, such as the EU.
In the specific case of the EU, Sweden and Germany have traditionally taken a lot of the responsibility with several other EU states having higher requirements for granting asylum.
I'm away from my history books right now, but if I remember correctly the Mongols had major outposts all the way into Gaul (modern France). The degree to which they "conquered" should be considered relative to the degree to which the areas they ran through had organized government. I know that the Romans (my benchmark for "western" civilization...not necessarily a scholarly distinction, but a useful one) were scared out of their togas both by the Mongols and the Germanic tribes (Visigoths and the Vandals).
The Celts apparently did a reverse Mongol thing, and had substantial power throughout northern Europe and down into Persia and south central Asia (Pakistan region) if I remember correctly.
As far as the "western" culture thing, I don't think that the Celts contributed major notions to what we traditionally think of as western culture. Of course, there were influences, but western culture is largely the product of Roman and Norman influences, because those two peoples were the best organized and most militarily successful. Particularly because of Rome's conscious efforts towards cultural imperialism (ie encouraging soldiers in occupying legions to marry local girls and set up roots in the communities).
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Hey! I may be fat, murderous, and uneducated, but... uh... but at least I'm cool. My mom says so.
True, but why do so many people think that you need to learn how a computer works internally in order to use it? The whole idea behind "consumer electronics" (which includes PCs to a degree) is that the end-user does not NEED to know how the product's technology works.
The majority of computer users I know will NEVER understand how a computer really works. And if you try to get them to figure it out so that they can use the computer, they will NOT use the computer! It's that simple. You're making the assumption that the average computer user will take the time to learn the computer's innards in order to use it, and that, my friend, is a false assumption. Nothing could be further from the truth.
And by the way, the mbr and partition table are concepts that are extremely difficult for a computer illiterate person to understand.
--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
what can I say? Too much /.
Erik
You sure do go a long way in painting all corporations as being evil. I don't think that it's a coincidence that the US, with it's many large corporations also has one of the highest stardards of living on the planet. I don't know too many other countries where people are literally killing themselves to try to get into.
I am a Mexican. 1 out of each 10 Mexicans live in the USA. This is, however, only because of the money - I have a good salary in my country. I get about US$15,000 a year... And I am highly-qualified. If I was a gardener, I would make -tops- about 300 dollars a month - And if I am supposed to feed a family... Going to the USA is very tempting. <I>However</I>, most of the Mexicans that cross the border <I>don't</I> take the families with them. Few people actually want to stay there, most only want to make some money.
I hadn't thought about this for years until FreeBSD 4.0 crashed with the error "page fault while in kernel mode". Surely wrong, page fault whilst in kernel mode sounds right to me.
We are at the place Tux in a pot of boiling water toss in a little red deamon for flavor and let simmer for a few hours while Windows tries to boot stages.
... Sit back and laugh.
It's a case of the meal calling the cook an apetizer
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
Actually, that's got a lot to do with Hollywood propoganda, which is one of our biggest exports. According to Hollywood, everyone in the US is rich, even criminals. The US is exciting, and anyone can make it here if they just try, gosh darn it! The image the rest of the world has of the average American is born from Cosby, Mad About You, Friends, etc., not from reality. Even if they know the facts, their prejudices still cause them to view the US through seriously rose-colored glasses. Add to this the fact that most income statistics look at the average and ignore the median. The problem is that the average statistics are badly skewed due to just how absurdly rich the top half percent of the US is.
Thus, people ignore the actual facts, which are that the US has a lower median standard of living than practically any country in Western Europe or Scandinavia. At least until they get here, and discover that the reason we want them here is that US citizens don't want the job of "migrant farm worker" past about the second generation.
--
There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde
Yeah, I love all that "information" that comes with VC++. I spent three hours trying to figure out how to set the desktop icon for an executable. I finally had to snitch the technique from the TCL sources, bedamned if I'm calling and paying M$ for something that trivial. I think they deliberately rig their docs to be impressive to the purchaser but useless to the developer.
How is Open Source a "failed philosophy"? Because not everyone shares it as their philosophy of choice about how software should be developed and distributed? If that's the only criterion, nothing is ever successful, because the entire world doesn't necessarily agree on everything.
And who said anything about the government being in the software "business"? The government may need to exert certain controls over monopolies gone amok (*cough*Microsoft*cough*), but I for one don't want the government controlling how I can distribute code I write. That's what Microsoft is asking for - for the government to say "Open source is bad, you may not use or develop it". Besides, who's saying the government should fund Open Source development?
Why is Open Source "communism"? No one's forcing it on you. Those of us who _choose_ to contribute and use Open Source/Free Software are perfectly within our rights to do so.
You're the one who seems to be confused. The Open Source/Free Software community may desire to see Open Source/Free Software everywhere, but they can't force you into it. However, Microsoft is trying to force the issue - the other direction.
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
Bull-Fucking-Shit it wasn't! X-D
With the greatest of respect: Prove me wrong.
Simply saying "bullshit" to something you don't agree with does nothing to prove it wrong. Instead why don't you try responding with why you think what I said is incorrect along with the truth of the matter as you see it.
I don't know everything and your understanding of the educational process may in fact be better than mine. You could also be a complete crackpot. Neither I nor anyone else has any way of knowing which one you are if you're not willing to any better than you have.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
When I first saw this article I truly didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. It made me start thingking about the entire concept of intellectual property and how truly un-American it is. I would like to pose several questions not just to Microsoft but to anyone who believes that a thought can be owned. What would this nation be like if the great minds that came together at the dawn of the 19th century had claimed intellectual property rights on their thoughts? Where would we be if Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, the 55 men of the Constitutional Convention and countless others who founded this nation had cried "intellectual property!" instead of sharing their ideas freely? Would we be a more perfect union if they had regulated the trafficing and usage of human thought? So to Mr. Allchin and to all the others who share his opinion (and for the sake of this nation I hope these are few) I state the simple truth with I must share freely with you: our nation is great only because it is free. Free speech is not just free "speech" but the freedom to express yourself in whatever medium you desire, be it music or programming. It is by this mechanism that we initiate and execute change. Our founding fathers knew this fact all too well because they were aware of their imperfections and in the fallacy of the document they created. To be without the freedom to share any and all expression in whatever manner you prefer is to be armless against our own folly. In closing I have only one thing left to say about the American Way as it pertains to the open source movement. Mr Allchin, I ask you what could possibly be more American than a movement by the people and for the people that is perpetuated in no small part by our desire to not pay unreasonable costs? Need I remind you that our own revolution was due in no small part to our reluctance to pay one cent more than we have to for anything? I respectfully submit this piece of my intellectual property. Please do not abuse it, sir.
I want this guy's email so I can ask him why they haven't
LOL
I'll support Allchin's Right to Dissemble, as long
as it doesn't infringe on our Right of Assembly to
promote our Right to Assemble.
Well, apparently, you only have to fool the majority of people for a little while.
As in "Life, liberty, and..."
Profit makes me happy, anyway...
---
Karma casino, place your bets!
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, and that chief among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these Rights, and in particular the last, Commercial Organisations are created to serve the People, deriving their just powers from the consent and free choice and will of the People. That whenever any Form of Commercial Organisation becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Forms of Commercial Organisation, laying their foundation on such principles and organizing their powers in such ways, as to them shall seem most likely to secure their personal autonomy and continued happiness. Successful Commercial Organisations long established should not be changed lightly or for transient reasons; and experience has shown that humankind is more likely to suffer, while burdens are sufferable, than to right the situation by abolishing the commercial forms to which they have grown accustomed..... http://springboard.dyndns.org/FD-IT/freedom/
Micro$oft is right!
Look at the problem open hardware caused: Compaq reverse engineerd the IBM bios... then anybody (in a fiercely competitive market) could make motherboards and adapter boards, leaving Microsoft and Intel to tyranically rule the PC platform, leaving behind closed hardware vendors like Apple and Sun.
We'd hate for the software market to become competitive like that, and leave M$ behind.
;)
When I die, please cast my ashes upon Bill Gates -- for once, make him clean up after me!
eating McDonalds
Ahh, McDonalds, a corporation which really embodies the American Way. Read that article and ask yourself how healthy you think Mickey-D's is.
"the number of people living in real poverty in the us is lower then almost all the other nations"
I wonder where you got this figure -- it is the first time I have heard it and it sounds like you are doing some interesting table-turning on us. Given that the US has so wide economic differences between the top and bottom classes in society it sounds more likely that the US would have a higher portion of poor among other industrialized nations rather than a lower portion. If you have any statistics or facts to back up what you said, we would be interested in seeing them.
As for taxes, they exist for a purpose -- to guarantee everyone in society a reasonable living standard and access to basic services. They tend to be low for those with a low income, and to say that they themselves cause poverty is a bit far-fetched especially when you take into account the services they finance that one would otherwise have to pay for.
And welcome to Ireland, the UK, Germany, France, etc. etc. etc.
Everything you said means one thing. We Americans... WE'RE NUMBER ONE! WOO!WOO!
- thanks to Jon Stewart of 'the daily show' for this quote.
My cube. My friend. My solace. My prison.
How does socialism not work? Some of the strongest economies in the world are socialist (the second strongest, Germany, is strongly socialist in character). Look no further than Scandinavia to see socialism at work in a vibrant and free society. Denmark, Sweden, and Norway have some of the highest standards of living and lowest crime rates anywhere.
~wmaheriv
~wmaheriv
"Shema Yisroel- Adonai Elohenu, Adonai Echad!"
"Free health care is a medical-property destroyer," Allchin said. "I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the health business and the medical-property business."
--------
Yeah, I'm a Mac programmer. You got a problem with that?
-- thinkyhead software and media
If not by outlawing, exactly how? Do you mean the gov't and the gov't-funded should not acquire open technologies and their support services, regardless of how well they may fit the requirements and the budget? That doesn't sound fair to the taxpayer or the project... boohoo if it's unfair to Billy G.
Try the Mongols. Or the Celts. (Yes, the Celts were from the West, but the culture has little to do with Western European culture today.) A good argument could also be made for the Germanic tribes. They didn't conquer and hold anything, but Central Europe was pretty well 0wn3d by them between 600 and 900 AD. (I refuse to say CE...politically correct bullshit)
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
This reminds me o so much of Heinlein's very first published short story, "Life Line", back in 1939, which I read for the first time last night...
In it, a doctor invents a machine which can determine within 1% accuracy one's date of death. He is taken to court by insurance companies, who are told by a judge somethine along the lines "It seems that corporations believe that, regardless of any changes in society, they have a god given right to make a profit, and that it should be the court's duty to stifle said changes for the benefit of the corporations profit margin." If anyone has a copy of said story handy, please post the proper paragraph - my book is at home, and I'm not right now.
Hopefully this won't end like it did in the story, in which one of the insurance companies hired a group of hitmen to kill the doctor and destroy his machine... and then a group of scientists, who were doing a kind of "blind test" of this system, then tore up and burned all evidence of the dates predicted of their own deaths, which were used for evidence in the testing... I can see it now: "Top Open Source proponents murdered - SourceForge and all backups mysteriously destroyed - known developers of open source projects mysteriously disappear"...
Of course, MS wants to kill open source - they don't want any competition.
- MaineCoon
Hunt your preferred prey at Aliens vs Predator MUD. Join the war at avpmud.com port 4000
Things for free? That's communism! If God had wanted things to be free we'd've been born broke, jobless and without a credit card. The American way isn't helping each other out! It's not working together for a better world! It's the lifelong attempt to vacuum the wallets of as many of your fellow human beings as possible.
Bibo Ergo Sum.
Who needs news when you can wrap a non-event in the tortilla of technopolitics and pump up the hit counters.
Advertisers must be "paying money." And I believe that VA Linux investors are "happy about this."
Linux is forking and I don't Care...Linux is forking ...
Don't be stupid. Was America a colony 300 years ago? Just so's you're not confused, that puts us at 1701. My Timetables of History puts the Declaration of Independence at 1776 (July 4...why does THAT date stick in my mind?) and British recognition of US independence some seven years later (Treaty of Paris, 1783).
As far as pure luck goes, we won't go into the differences between African and European cultures that made the Europeans more apt to develop technology. However, luck DOES play a part in human history. If the tables had been reversed, do you really think the Africans would have colonized, say, France with hugs and kisses and brotherly love? If you do, I refer you to accounts of the battles between the Hutus and the Tutsis, or the Zulu and any non-Zulu they encountered. The Africans (much like the native Americans) were not peaceful, pastoral, living on the land close to nature lying down with lions innocents that everybody seems to like to imagine. They were warlike, territorial, and absolutely ferocious to their enemies. Kinda like just about every other culture on the planet. They just happened to come up with the short end of the technological stick.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I need serial number for this...
__
L.
Microsoft's operating system monopoly is what created the open source phenomenon that we see today. Basically, there were two factors made true by the monopoly:
1. Since MS had no realistic competition, they didn't have to create a good product; therefore, their product sucked.
2. No other company could make money off of an operating system.
Since the operating system sucked, but programmers couldn't be paid to write a better one (since companies were no longer interested in pursuing that market), the only answer was for programmers to create a new computing environment for free. When I say "computing environment", I mean the whole enchilada from kernel to Gnome/KDE to office products to server programs.
Clearly, there was open source software before the MS monopoly, but it wasn't popular and it certainly wasn't a major economic force.
So, in essence, MS has it's own greed and lack of concern for the needs of both advanced and normal computer users to blame for the open source phenomenon that we see today; and Windows users have open source programmers to thank for the upcoming improvements in the Windows operating system.
In conclusion, open source is what it is because of MS. If MS wants to stay #1, they need to shut up and actually innovate for once.
>Our method of farming doesn't work in every enviroment/climate in the world. It also doesn't work if the culture isn't prepared for it.Ethiopia was not in the position to need more food before the US came along. And i also don't believe there was a 'long standing tradition' to have as many kids as possible. Just look at what the WTO is doing to India as far as food production goes; basically the same thing is happening.Yes, it was b/c of us that they are in their current state...What the hell planet do you live on? I doubt many americans give anything, they're so busy just trying to get out of debt. People in the US seem to be the most greedy around. You can even tell it in the way people drive now, they don't give a fuck who they run off the road, as long as THEY get where they are going 5mins faster...Is that supposed to be foreigner? Nice try dipshit, i'm an American...
It was a joke, Mr. Ad Hominem Attack. I guarantee I can spell better than any four people you can name. As far as you being an American, it sounds like you're part of the problem rather than part of the solution. Oh well...just makes my job a bit harder.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
All of these are good general arguments for any organization to use open source, but the government deals not with profit, but with life, death, and other matters of global importance. Therefore, it has particular reasons for needing to know exactly what its computers are running:
If computerized ballots catch on, who knows what they are really running? Could there be a "bug" that automatically gives a particular candidate more votes than s/he receives? Easist way to know for sure is to have the program be open source.
Social Security and Welfare software, again, has the potential for coruption. Open Source helps reduce that risk.
The Department of Defense has an inherent interest in knowing that the modeling software it and its suppliers (Lockheed, Boeing, etc.) uses is accurate. For example, the Marines would hate it if Boeing's design software had an error that led to the deaths of, say, a few dozen Osprey passengers and pilots.
I'm sure that any organization, including the government, would love to be able to review, and perhaps modify the programs it uses, if for no other reason, the increase security and accountability.
Agreed. I see a lot of people are saying that various things that Allchin said implies that Microsoft wants to outlaw open source. But since nowhere does it say that in the article
[emphasis mine]
imply (m-pl)
v. tr. implied, implying, implies.
1. To involve by logical necessity; entail: Life implies growth and death.
2. To express or indicate indirectly: His tone implied disapproval. See Synonyms at infer.
3. Obsolete. To entangle.
Note definition #2.
You have managed to define "imply". Congratulations.
Funny story, but not that well thought out.
The problem is that a lot of countries, though they may have good stands on IP internally, have made treaties with the US to basically uphold US law in their countries. This is the case in Canada, and many European countries.
What can we do about that?
--------
Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
The US has higher wages in the software industry than most other places. It also has low taxes for those with a high income. Thus, the US is a good choice for computer people for whom salary is the primary concern. Plus, because of its size and fairly homogenous industrial success, America has an impressive number of companies in the computer business and this can be appealing, too.
It is however very common for people in the industry who work in the US to move back after five years when they want to get settled and perhaps form a family.
The entire American society is based upon increasing the differences between rich and poor further. The system promotes it by powerful lobby groups and corporate interests that finance politicians' campaigns. This excessive division between rich and poor is why salaries can be so high in certain industries -- because the needs of everyone in society are not attended to. In my view, that is not a sustainable system and ultimately harmful to society as a whole. I think the criminality, violence, big prison population and other social problems are a result of this.
Beats out make xconfig and make menuconfig by a few years.
-bugg
You could command a 6 figure salary in any profession? Lets see you do it as a mens room attendent.
I have been making a good living for the past 10 years developing "open source" applications...and for most of that time I have been paid a six figure salary. I develop enterprise business applications - traditionally using Oracle or Progress, but now using other tools like MySQL, Perl, PhP, Appache. My clients pay me for my services, not the software. And that is the way this business has worked since long before I (or M$) came along. The clients own the source code to their enterprise applications, and will change it as they see fit...and thankfully they see fit to change it all the time as their business changes - and that is what keeps programmers gainfully employed, not the licences.
I agree with you wholeheartedly that joe punter wants his computer to be that ever-desirable video recorder where not only is play, stop, rewind, record easy enough for your 6 year old or granny, but that the ones who got that far can all make it to the advanced levels of timed recordings. The fact of the matter is that this is a long way away! Just look at how long it takes Joe Bloggs to get used to the whole point+click unilook interface windows success is built on, my mum has gone from 20 years of typing to wordstar and wordperfect to word97, and I am constantly having to reshow her things that were simply a right click on what she wanted away. But we are not talking about Joe Bloggs here, we are talking about your representative who we would like to have some knowledge of the "information age" that they all want to be associated with (at least they want to be seen to understand it).
Is it too much to ask of our representatives that before they go and exercise the temporary power granted unto them by their constiuents (and the power comes from the people who did and did not vote for them) that they should do some investigation (even if it is reading the executive summary of the civil servants report on the subject)? If we give all the represntatives a copy of a Free operating system (source and all) as I say one may try/succedd in installing it, or may just even ask someone else to tell them what it means (if that happens I hope the person telling them is not a MS jockey, but then again after this outburst maybe a MS VP would be right, or his lord gates himself full arrogance brandished). How many of our represntatives would like the idea of the government they represent co-owning as much of the software it runs as possible? Hell even the simple argument (and I think it should work on people from the Swiss through the Irish to the Chinese) that running a closed source OS is a National Security risk should do (tell me how again you check that X-OS whose source I cannot see has no back-doors for the local secret police). If you are going to go open source at a governmental level it would have to be Free as only insanity leads down the road of governements investing in their own choices of non-Free software to develop work that only people who pay the original authors (or the government if it is their system) can use. Lets just get as much of our tax money going on developing Free solutions as possible and as little as possible feeding the corporate monster.
And finally mbr and partition table aren't hard to explain, you just have to use "lies to children" as explained in the Science of the Discworld (great book). They aren't easy concepts, but a quick gloss a paint over the detail explaining the principle (the Bios man tells the mbr man to take over and he reads his notes and finds the note on the disk that tells him what to do next).
Never underestimate the dark side of the Source
Lars Ulrich of the band Metallica had strong opinions on the subject.
In a similar story, the MPAA has been using lobbying efforts to make the public distribution of free home videos such as weddings, childbirths, public sporting events illegal as all of these events have all been portrayed in major Hollywood films. As such, the MPAA feels these free alternatives have an unfair competitive advantage as there is usually no production overhead involved and film industry unions were not employed in the production of these home videos.
Whether or not the US has a long way to go in "quality of life" is a difficult question. It would probably depend on who you ask -- it is clear that Scandinavia has far less distinct class differences and universally offers basic services, something the US almost uniquely among industrialized nations has chosen not to.
Personally, I firmly believe that the way northern Europe has set up their societies is the better way to go, especially long-term -- the market economy is good but it must not be unregulated, and while economic differences are vital, they can not be allowed to become insanely huge, either. There must be a certain balance or things go out of control and ultimately, individuals suffer.
However, "quality of life" is very difficult to define. It would depend on where you go, what interests you have and what things matter to you -- both practical and philosophical. All countries have their fair share of problems and clearly, neither the US nor the Scandinavian countries are any exceptions.
I do not think any big conclusion can be drawn from the fact that Linux is of Scandinavian origin -- it doesn't really speak in favour of Scandinavia any more than it speaks against it. After all, there are good operating systems of American origin.
(I am in Östersund, Sweden, EU, by the way.)
Pfah. Industries rise and fall, always have, always will. Software will fall one day, replaced by something else. What's really damaging, to the economy and to the industry, is all the H1-B visas.
open source software threatens the American way? what? I have never heard anything more stupid in my life. Is it the American way to develop crappy software? Is it the American way to make anything, including a minor thought process, proprietary and closed. I don't even know what to say. I wouldn't buy a microsoft product if they were selling oxygen. They would proably have a monopoly on that too.
He's twisting IP to mean commercial solutions. ie: vendor A comes out with neat product B. A month later there is a functional open source clone of the program. Also, the natural sharing of information spills over into gray/black areas (mp3s, movies, etc). This is a legitimate point but he'd just as well have the whole OSS philosophy be blackmarked.
Fsck cluebie moderators. I'll say what I want, offtopic or not. And fsck having to qualify every bloody statement just
Well, America was actually built on a bed of fleeing persecution from the all powerful Catholic and other 'national' religions of Europe. Then we gained ground with readily available land ownership to the pioneers. Then manufacturing, and now the technology/information age. Things change my friend, and whether you like it or not, the manufacturing way of life in America is past. Now we're in the Information Age. For Microsoft to be trying to stifle OSS is just a play to keep them from having to change. Not many people like change, but OSS is change and Microsoft cannot stop it, no matter how much they petition the US Congress to do so.
mmm I won't guess who's ahead, but last I looked at KDE and NetBSD (yesterday :-) Europe and Japan were sure holding up their end. (ends?)
national socialist german worker's party, translated. how's that for irony.
They're just like socialists today.
The Nazis gave everyone radios (Volksempfangers, "the Radio of the People", made of cardboard and bakelite, with little swastikas on them), promised everyone a job, a car (Volkswagen ("the Car of the People") Beetle), and a basic standard of living.
When they discovered that the huge tax burden imposed by this still couldn't pull Germany out of the depression, anger could be directed quite easily towards the Jews, the gays, the gypsies, etc.
Socialism is evil, and never works.
Blame Canada, indeed.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Yeah, we needn't bother ourselves at all, things will just work themselves out.
Next step...
Microsoft states that Open Source software is a communist led movement, because of Linux' take-up by the Chinese government.
They're sounding more paranoid and desperate each passing day.
Steve
Hey, don't ask me, man. These other people think that America shouldn't get involved with feeding hungry people. Me, I think we SHOULD help people into the 21st century, but that's just my western modern patriarchal White Man's Burden bigot mentality showing. Maybe we should just let them drown in their own feces instead (see India).
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
There were three programers from Microsoft and three programers
from Apple that met in a train station while getting ready to go to a meeting.
The three programers from Microsoft went up and purchased three
tickets for the train ride. Right behind them the three Apple programers went up to the same ticket window and bought one ticket.
The Microsoft programers asked the Apple programers how they were going to get away with just one ticket. An Apple programer said, "Just watch us."
All six programers got on the train and the three Apple programers went in the bathroom. When the conductor came by, knocked on the bathroom door, and said, "Ticket please," one of the Apple programers handed the conductor one ticket.
On the return trip home the Microsoft programers said that was a neat idea and went up to the ticket agent and bought one ticket. The Apple programers did not purchase any ticket at all. The Microsoft programers asked the Apple programers how they were going to get away with no ticket. They responded, "Just watch."
The Microsoft programers went in the rest room just as the Apple programers had before. One Apple programer then went to the door of the rest room, knocked, and said, "Ticket please."
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Sorry I can't send you a letter now because you might be able to read it.
Too fill the desktop with confusion, that BSOD glow
I got some bad news for ya, primetime
Bill isn't well, he stayed back at the hotel
And they've sent us along as a surrogate brand
We're gonna show users where they really stand
Are there any coders in the market tonight?
Sign em up with the Borg
with the Borg
There's one in the spotlight
He doesn't speak right, you see
Sign him up with the Borg
with the Borg
Open source is foolish
It's spread must end soon
Whoever uses will surely meet doom
Innovation's the point
And freedom of choice is not
If I had my way
I'd have open sourcers shot!
Would you like to see Microsoft rule again
My friend
All you have to do is follow the worms
--
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Never mind that US aid agencies send uncountable tons of food to needy countries, only to have the foodstuffs impounded by the local governments. It's obviously America's fault.
You might want to reconsider this position. Food donations have been found to be one of the worst ways to "help" people in a famin. Indeed, they often worsten and deepen the problem they are supposed to help. (If you find that hard to believe, consider this: Food donations are "free" in the monetary sense. Thus areas receiving them have their food prices artificially lowered, so farmers grow less food, seeing less oportunity for profit and, indeed, sometimes cannot get the startup loans they need becuase of the lowered expected return. This leads directly to another famine after the next harvest.) Famines where there simply isn't enough food in an entire region to feed its people are extremely rare, what's usually missing is the money to make it worthwhile transporting/selling the available stocks. Thus if America really wanted to help famine victims, they would send cash, not food, and would let the free market that they gush over take care of the problem. That, however, wouldn't help US farmers, so the hell with the locals, send them food. It appears to be doing something positive (which it isn't) and gets farmers votes without annoying the city dwellers. Perfect!
There are some people who's voices count more then others. CmdrTaco can be said to speak more "athoritativly" for /. then pretty much anyone else. These comments were apparently made by "Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating-system chief, Jim Allchin" who is most definitly not "Joe Random, Junior MS Developer". If he is a senior executive comments he makes to a journalist should be thought of as having some relationship to MS corporate position.
I'm not sure there is any relevance to this discussion about Americans donating more than anyone else per capita to charity. I doubt that it is even true, but perhaps you have checked it up properly. But since you wanted to bring generosity into the discussion, also remember that the US gives less in foreign aid than any other industrialized country. It was made as low as 0,2 % of the GDP during the Clinton presidency. (Source: Washington Post.)
Given the above, and the fact that universal services are not provided or financed by the US government through taxes, I think a bigger generosity in donating to charity seems only natural and necessary.
As for education, I concur that US universities are probably overall in excellent shape. Whether they are better than elsewhere is difficult to say; after all, courses provided by colleges and universities in the western world are pretty much identical in contents, often even to the point of having the exact same course literature.
With the above in mind, I believe that it is difficult to state with any certainty that US colleges and universities are either substantially better than in other western nations, or substantially worse.
Defensive much? I wasn't trying to poke fun at you. I was poking fun at American attitudes toward foreigners. I didn't at any point assume that you were or were not American. Relax, hombre...nobody's out to get you.
Your reactionary debating style and broad brush painting the American people as selfish and greedy makes you part of the problem. Assumptions like that don't do anybody any good.
My job is to make this planet a bit less unpleasant to live on. I give my time and my money to further this goal. I don't shout and call people names when they disagree with me. Try it...you might get better results.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Right. More powerful cultures/civilizations displace less powerful ones. It's survival of the fittest writ large. Again, I'm not arguing that this is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing, I'm saying it's an Inevitable Thing.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I'm just curious, but how do win2k programs access devices without all the 'virtual' cruft they've been adding over the past few years?
The last time I used win it had virtual-memory, virtual-devices, and virtual-drivers; that virtually never worked well.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
>But he never backs up his assertions with any
>facts or even anecdotes.
Of course not that is the way M$FUD works.
---
Pierre Proudhon said it best over 100 years ago. Property is theft, and property is impossible. Property is trying to get something for nothing. Software is based on code that is based on code, ad infinitum to the /of all code. When you close it all off, you stifle innovation.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
With the financial resources of MS and the ignorant/decietful nature of Bill, yes.
X
It's not perfect, but Windows is worse for sheer bloat. Pure X is worse for usability, but I don't think it's an issue when combined with GNOME/KDE (IMHO, they both look too much like Windows, esepcialy KDE).
non standard package formats
Which is why I switched to Debian. I'll never go back.
distro installers
The eye-candy ones like Red Hat and Mandrake are at least as good as Windows. At a recent installation fest of my local Linux Users Group, the president said he'd rather do a SuSe install then Windows 98.
dizzying array of symlinks, config files and a bloated, needless /dev/ directory
It just takes some getting used to. You'll like all of these things once you get to know them. Better then playing hunt-the-registry-key.
redhat 7.0 distro
Red Hat != GNU/Linux. I wouldn't say that Red Hat is the Microsoft of GNU/Linux, but they do make me nervous sometimes.
------
Not a typewriter
- The creation of new ideas
- The eventual disclosure of those ideas to the public commons
OSS clearly fulfills the second one. As for the first, OSS is still generating new ideas.If anything, OSS is undermining corporations' arguments that there's a need for IP in the first place.
--
ObTagLine: The more you run over the 'possum, the flatter it gets.
Needless to say (or so I thought), the only reasonable way to determine $W is either through mutual agreement (which includes binding arbitration and the like) or via a fair and just court system.
Of course, corporations (or individuals threatened with potential fines) will do what is in their own personal best interests, balancing risk and reward. It's human nature. Get over it. Why in particular you pick on corporations (rather than sole proprieterships, partnerships or other individuals) rather miffs me -- anyone will take these actions, however they organize their businesses (or lives).
While "out-of-bounds" means of avoiding payment do exist, most of them tend to be risky and/or expensive, and as a result fail often enough to make the risk of abuse sufficiently small as to not balance the benefits of having only a tightly constrained government. Perhaps the most risky (to the public good) of the issues you raise is legislative influence. However, even this can be controlled -- the simplest (and likely most effective) means of controlling this is to hamstring the legislature via a narrowly construed and strongly enforced constitution.
In any event, means of control exist for all of these. Experts providing false testimony (and those paying them to do so) may be heavily fined, lose their licenses to practice in their field (if their field is licensed) and be prevented from effectively testifying in court in the future. Confinement of information is in many cases difficult -- people tend to notice when their person or property is damaged, and the media tends to enjoy reporting negative news (as people-oppressed-by-those-with-more-resources tends to be).
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As far as I am aware, there is only one way that giving stuff away could pose problems, and that is if a market player dumps stuff at below cost in order to squeeze out their competitors.
Um, isn't that what MS did with Internet Explorer? Give it away for free while NS was still charging for business/commercial uses.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
But, if there is a Free POS system available, then I can get paid not to re-invent the wheel (POS system), but to customize and/or enhance it.
A Free Software system allows the Software Architects/Designers to work on new building blocks (and get paid for it by people who want these enhancements) while the bulk of programmers can work on customizations, ports, and fixes of the existing systems.
In the Closed Source world, we do the exact same thing. Only the Architects are all scrambling to redesign previously architected works, while the programmers are working on fixes and recoding previously coded systems.
The only argument I currently see is in this thread against Free Software is: "but goes against today's business models"
I agree. Let's stop improving the way we do things an fight liked damned to keep the status quo.
Of course, we'll have to put up some sort of trade barriers against 2nd and 3rd World countries...because they'll eventually lap us using Free Software.
Defensive much? I wasn't trying to poke fun at you. I was poking fun at American attitudes toward foreigners. I didn't at any point assume that you were or were not American. Relax, hombre...nobody's out to get you.
:) At any rate, i don't think i'm assuming anything. Its what i see day in day out. At the grocery store, on the roads, on campus, the mall. There seems to be little if no reguard for others anymore. The guy in the big SUV tailgating you doesn't care about the danger he is forcing upon you, smokers don't seem to care that others may not want breathe in that crap when they enter/leave a building. No one seems to give the slightest consideration to anyone anymore. So i suppose that people don't do that b/c they simply don't care, and are only worrying about themselves and what they want. So having that view may not do any good, but denying that would seem to be even less of a help.
Well the fact taht you said 'you foreigners' (with the odd spelling) did lead me to believe that you thought i was a foreigner and that you were aiming the comment at me. Reread the comment; i think you'll agree its pretty easy to take it that way.
Your reactionary debating style and broad brush painting the American people as selfish and greedy makes you part of the problem. Assumptions like that don't do anybody any good.
Well thats kinda what debating is; i react to what you say, you react to what i say etc. I will admit that i do get carried away sometimes, and i know thats not always appropriate. But somethings i just feel strongly about
I don't shout and call people names when they disagree with me.
Good point, you're right. As i said before, i felt i was under attack, and i feel strongly about the issue...so i reacted by attacking you back. If i misunderstood your attempt a humor, i applogize.
You obviously didn't read (or understand?) him. Let me explain again.
Ethiopia wasn't always hungry. In fact, it was one of the "richest" African countries for most of the middle ages. Ethipians were able to feed themselves using traditional farming technology. Then came the Europeans (beginning of the century) and they saw a fertile country with a pleasant climate which they thought was very well suited for farming certain crops which were in demand back home but which the Ethiopians traditionally did not grow (coffee, strawberries (I kid you not), tea, etc). Besides grabbing large chunks of the most fertile land they also encouraged Ethiopians to forget about their sorghum & millet and start growing coffee and tea, since with the money they made that way they could buy wheat & corn from the west.
Then Ethiopia became independent again and was a very busy part of the cold-war chessgame. Cold-war induced civil war all but destroyed this entire infrastructure, and since the traditional farming methods had been lost, hunger ensued.
I find your attitude smug, self-centered and disgusting.
JdV!!
<Enter any 12-digit prime to continue>
It's not even a right, a right is quite similar to a guarantee. You're only given a CHANCE to profit. How is the right to vote not the same as a guarantee to vote? I don't understand the difference.
I wouldn't say one has the right to make a profit.
I would agree that you have the opportunity to make a profit.
A right makes it a guarantee each and every time
I attempt to make a profit. So long as I exercise
the right, I should get a profit.
Seriously though, over the last 8 years and especially recently we've been shown just what a great country the USA is. For as little as $5000 you can spend the night in the Lincoln bedroom in the Whitehouse. I assume that includes chats with the president, possibly a family dinner with the first family or maybe a state dinner and a breakfast, I'm certain you are given exposure to the various staff members who help run the show and influence policy. On the surface this make our democracy look cheap and false, I think the reality of it is much better though because in my eyes, a dork like me, or any one of us for that matter, could have a slice of the president's time simply by giving him $5,000 - $10,000. I'm an active follower of politics and I have written letters to my congress people, I have called their offices, I even went to a union meeting once where they were trying to unionize IBM so that I could meet my congress person. When there is a bad patent or some kind of liberty threatening bill on the books I write a letter and make a phone call or two and so far I have yet to see any real results from that. For all I know my congress people haven't even read the letters or been given the phone messages. Now if I spend some cash on the president I can rest easy (in the Lincoln bedroom, no less) and be confident that the president of the most powerful country on the planet has heard my issues. I know that nothing may come of them but at least he heard them. Further, it looks like if you spend a little more they will let you drive a nuclear attack sub and do some drills with the crew. That's absolutely amazing, any one of us, for a modest fee, can talk to the president and or drive a nuclear sub and do an "e-blow," regardless of your race, creed, or whatever.
So here is my proposal. We put together a slashdot raffle. Tickets cost $1 a piece and you can buy as many as you'd like to have. With the many thousands of dollars we raise we buy one night at the Whitehouse and one ride on a nuclear sub. We send RMS to the Whitehouse to lobby for us and some lucky slashdotter, picked at random, get's to drive the sub. It sounds like a win-win situation to me and I'm certain we could raise the minimum needed, slashdot has tens of thousands of viewers.
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
Ooooookay. Perhaps we've had enough sun for today, Mr Allchin.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
It'd be really cool if we could come up with a nice, well-written letter...
Only the open-source community would come up with an open-source letter to defend open-source. Why don't we set it up in CVS while we're at it.
The Bible open? You've got to be kidding. The Bible was compiled in the 5th century. Efforts to change or reinterpret the Bible lead to the arguments between Rome and Constantinople that eventually lead to the division of Christianity into Eastern and Western subsects. Much of it was over one little phrase about whether the Holy Spirit descends from the Father and the Son or just from the Father. I'd imagine that some 'Open Source mentality' might have let that slide. Rather it lead centuries of war between Eastern and Western Europe that we're still seeing today.
- Sig this!
Very, very heavily regulate the customer!
Now there's a master plan for laizzes-faire if I ever saw one!
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
That sounds like just what India needs right now. You'd probably be interested in the link i posted in which Shiva discusses the problems of her home land (and how by defining things a certain way we are making the old style of doing things seem much less productive).
I also find it bitterly ironic, since open source represents the most poignant antidote to the Microsoft monopoly. I never understood how breaking the company into two was supposed to stimulate competition. Maybe this works if you're breaking up an oil company. It barely worked in the case of AT&T. And I don't really see how it would serve to constrain the behavior of a software monopoly like MS..
To really displace Windows on the desktop, OSes like Linux need to support the same broad range of desktop business apps that Windows does.. Businesses buy Windows b/c Windows runs Office applications, not b/c its Windows..
Porting Office to Linux would probably be the single strongest way to validate Linux and to stimulate competition with Windows as an OS standard (and THAT, I believe, is the purpose of antitrust? To stimulate competition??)
Just don't expect a port like that w/o active prodding from the gov on the grounds of antitrust, or better yet, anti-trust mandated open-sourcing of Office..
As an added bonus, opening the source to MS applications MIGHT just makes them a little more secure. How many security bugs are discovered in products like IE every week?? If this source were open to public review, it might stand a chance of being a little more stable and secure..
This article puts a point on the current paradigm we live in: This is the *Information* Age. Software is a tool for storing, searching, manipulating, and creating information--not an end, but a means (except games). I think the profit model for the future will be based on content, custom applications, and portable/wireless hardware. The commodity software market (OSs, wordprocessors, web servers, and other ubiquitous applications) will cease to produce profit in the general case given the current quality trends found in the free alternatives. This is the life's blood of the Microsoft empire and this poses a huge threat to them and others like them. Unfortuneately for them, no US Legislation (or anything else) is going to stop this international trend.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way, the software/computer industry is in constant flux as it always has been!
hell
True, under Open Source, he may receive nothing at all, but the point is...he made that choice.
-----
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
Once again I have never ever heard the CEO or vice president of any major corporation call the products of it's competitors "crumm". Never ever. I have also never ever heard the CEO or a vice president any major corporation ever talk like these guys talk. If you have quote anywhere at anytime from any higher up in any large corporation please provide a link.
He is not calling on the government to stop funding open source software because the govt doesn't do that now. He wants government to legislate to stop open source developement. Go re-read the thing.
It's very scary when very rich, very powerful and obviously very disturbed individuals start to attack individual programmers.
War is necrophilia.
''We can build a better product than Linux,'' he (Alchin) said. Then please, do it already. At least he's implying that Linux is already a better product than Windows. ;)
I might have misread - my comprehension isn't what it used to be - but I believe that the point he was making is Linux is a threat to innovation, and a threat to intellectual property right, but not a threat to Microsoft. I think that statement can be true. At this point, in most places, Linux isn't a Microsoft competitor. Linux tries to be something that Windows 2000 doesn't, namely free. Suppose a salesperson for Little Guy software walks into a Massive Enterprise, Inc. and demonstrates a product. That product does everything the Massive Enterprise needs, and the product costs $50,000. Now suppose that a salesperson for Super Goliath software walks into Massive Enterprise, Inc., and demonstrates their product. That product also does everything the Massive Enterprise needs, but because Super Goliath is the market leader, the software costs $500,000. Who do you think wins the contract? Well, almost always it is Super Goliath. Why? Even though Little Guy Software may be cheaper, even though it may do the same thing as Super Goliath's software - hell, it may even be better - by going with Super Goliath, and paying an extra $450,000, Massive Enterprise, Inc. is buying insurance. They are going with a known entity. They may like Little Guy Software, and may hate Super Goliath, and they may know that Super Goliath is charging too much, but because Massive Enterprise, Inc. can't easily quantify the risk assoicated with buying from Little Guy Software, Super Goliath Software wins the contract. It is very hard for business people - simply because they are business people - to understand how something for free from a band of volunteers can be as good an investment as something that costs money from a large, established company. And that is why Linux is not really a competitor to Microsoft at this time. That may change, I don't know, but I believe that Microsoft is somewhat accurate in saying that they don't view Linux as a competitor. Is Microsoft accurate in saying that Linux is a threat to intellectual property rights? I don't know. I think I would need a more persuassive argument, since my initial reaction is that the argument is counter-intuitive. But, lots of things seem counter-intuitive, but are still accurate. Is Microsoft accurate in saying that Linux is a threat to innovation? I think that holds some water. For many people, money is incentive. Many, many innovations come out of people's desire to make money. I know there are many open source projects, but let's consider Linux. Let's say that Linux does one day become the defacto standard operating system, and it is available for free from everywhere. Do you think that Microsoft (Sun, IBM, etc.) would continue to be in the OS business? No. Since those companies are in business to make profits, if OS development wasn't profitable, they would abandon that line of business. It really is that simple. Well, that would leave Linux as an open-source monopoly who's directed, focused R&D ability would be very limited. There are no financial resources to do the types of things that go into building a system as complex as an operating system. No one would be around to do the market research to find out the new features that people/business want/need. If no one is doing the market research, than you can be confident that needs are going unmet. Say what you want about Microsoft / Apple and innovation, but the only reason the internet is such a success is because of their advances in the OS. I know they both stole it from PARC, but the point remains. If it wasn't for them, or some other company in their place, we would all still be using command line OS - because "it works." This is the type of stagnation you have when there is no R&D capital being poured into a project. OS development requires R&D. R&D requires money, money for R&D comes from companies willing to make an investment in order to turn a profit, and I don't believe that a band of volunteers could make up the gapping hole in R&D spending if every for-profit OS maker were to abandon the line of business. As an example, consider The Internet. The internet was invented in the late 60's, right? Over the course of about 25 years, not much about the internet changed, because not much R&D was put into it. It had a purpose (research/communication between academics), and for 25 years it served that purpose well. Because it worked so well, and because it had so little capital, in 25 years there was very little innovation from the original TCP/IP stack. (Obviously I am kicking aside such advances as sendmail, BIND, etc., but I think my point will soon become eveident). But, in 1994 - the year of the internet - business discovered that the internet might be a good investment that would return a profit in the future. So, what happened? Well, in just about 7 years (can you believe it has been that long?), for-profit internet R&D has probably lead to a quantity of innovation that is on the scale of 2 or 3 orders of magnitude over the amount of innovation that occured in the first 25 years of the internet. My thesis is that no opportunity for profit leads to no desire to invest R&D capital, and no R&D capital leads to a stiffling of innovation, and I believe that is what Allchin was saying in his comments about open source being a hinderance to innovation. Flame away.
I am a believer in open source, and find that Linux in no way poses a threat to IP. Napster I admit does, However I can also see the side that says that Napster only serves to excert pressure on the industry.
I think that the Industry has been running rampage for far to long, and has gotten fixed in this rut where they believe that whatever they do is right.
as for government monitoring your every click, take a look at the RPI bill in the UK.
I read today the MS wants to move to a subscription based service. I have problems with that, becuase I do not want to be forced into MS's view of what is right for me. If they do move over to a subscription bassed system, I will drop all of my MS products like a hot potatoe, and probably end up as one of the most viehement anti-MS people around.
I will not give in to the terrorists. I will not become fearful.
So why is it a treat?
''There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free.''
What, like IE? Yea, we knew you just screwed us with that to get rid of netscape. The cost we had to pay as consumers was less choice.
Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer
Open source is based on voluntarily giving up some of your ip rights. So the point is destroying it.
This guy seriously needs to cut down on the crack.
Will code a sig generator for food
Once again the Slashdot Misinformation Machine is hard at work keeping the Free Software Movement(tm) ignorant of reality.
I'm really surprised no one has mentioned this yet here, even after 800 posts. Oh well, here goes...
THAT'S NOT WHAT JIM ALLCHIN OR MICROSOFT SAID!!!
NOWHERE IN THE ARTICLE IS IT CLAIMED THAT MICROSOFT WANTS TO OUTLAW OPEN SOURCE!!!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Proof that slashdot needs a new type of moderation: "witty". Witty and funny are not the same things.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
I really think that Microsoft is running out of time. I can imagine the marketing department:
Well Bill, we've been making these inferior products, which are loaded with bugs for years now. We think there's a fairly new threat to our global domination project. Let's make up a good old Red Scare. We'll send our PR robots out and have them try the 1950's thing. I'm a good old American, this code is developed by many people, it must be bad, it must be run by those commies. We must keep our American Apple Pie values and destroy this new commie threat.
And if that doesn't work, they'll just try something stupider.
--
you are not what you own
it's a sig, wtf?
I've always thought that one of the best things that could happen for Linux and other open-source efforts is if the government, in the name of being better stewards of taxpayers money, moved toward open-source solutions. For one thing, we could have real tests of how Linux does on the desktop on a wide scale. Another benefit would be that government-funded software development could be immediately open-sourced, and developers would get paid (government contracts) to make open-source software.
Microsoft is directly threating to convince lawmakers that open-source is un-American, against business interests, and should not be trusted. I doubt they can pass laws against open-source programs, but they may convince lawmakers to create laws that limit open-source penetration in government, schools, etc.
As we've learned with other battles, Being Right often looses to Having Lots Of Money To Buy The Ears Of Courts And Congress
Yeah, and we have polar bears on our streets too. I live in Sweden (albeit the south of sweden) and I've seen something like 5 days of snow this year. Which sucks because I really like snow. But forty below? Yeah right :) Not until you get to the very north of Scandinavia.
Let's see...Open Source is about the free exchange of information and ideas. The first amendment was written to guarantee freedom of speech.
Yeah those two don't jive at all, do they?
MS is getting really desperate here. Since there is no entity to strike back at in this case, they're trying to do the next best thing. Strike back at the rights and liberties of their very customer base (US citizenry).
What next, a law prohbiting competition against Microsoft?
hey, "all members of society must contribute to society according to their ability to do so" Perhaps that would be an ideal communism, also have you considered that "the vast majority of the users of Linux, Apache" who are "passive consumers" are in fact contributing to the best of there ability simply by using the product? creating a market for these products. This is some lovely reactionary flaming your doing.
"Only amateurs attack machines; professionals target people."
If the US outlaws open source (although I'm having a really hard time thinking how that would hold up in court) development would just shift elsewhere. Open source stuff doesn't have to be written in the US. And if they outlaw USE of open source software in the US, I'm outta here. Canada isn't that cold. Either way, the uproar over the DVD thing would be NOTHING compared to the response if they tried to kill the open source community.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
communism: A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members. sound familiar.
"Only amateurs attack machines; professionals target people."
No, they don't talk about that. They would rather governemnt does not encourage it, which is not a governments job, indeed.
And why is it true? The authors can still hold the copyrights, etc... Look at the SSH for exampe. You can get its source, but it remains an intellectual property of the creator. Same for the stuff under "Netscape license". Is not it?
If I give you my rubber duck to play I don't automaticly abandon my property rights to it.
By saying it is true, Slashdot only helps the efforts of the desperate MS to make the government discourage open source software, which is not a government's business either.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If this happens, there is no money to pay programmers. As a result, intelligent people such as myself, who could command 6 figure salaries in any profession will take different career paths.
Well, if the only reason you're programming is for the money, then good riddance. I would be a coder even if I was only paid $20,000/year. I code because I love to, I don't do it for the money. I bet your coding is inferior to that of people who are passionate coders. I would rethink a career change if I were you, and do something you enjoy.
Home of the Free(tm).
We invented freedom, and we copyrighted it. You may license it for a small (enormous) fee.
--
"Don't trolls get tired?"
If you replace "motivated students" with "rich snobs" then I would agree with you.
I love that quote: "I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat."
Why do I picture an MS executive alone in the office of some commitee chairman, with checkbook in hand, saying "How much education do you think you'll need to outlaw open source software?" To which the Congressman replied, "I think 15 million credit hours will do nicely".
Hemos: Great Strangelove reference.
-B
--
www.scorbett.ca
If the organization were using Windows, you'd have to pay for another 100 Windows licenses. It wouldn't cost you a dime if they were Linux desktops. You'd still be paying the IT staff to install the systems, regardless of the OS.
Also OEM installs are often a waste of time for corporate entities... So having something "preloaded" dosn't buy you anything.
If people knew that they could read books for free nobody would buy books anymore!
Such is the infinite Grace of Popeye.
If you use open source software, when something breaks, it's probably going to break just as bad as the closed source software. But with open source, the developers have a vested interest in making sure that fixes show up quickly, and work the first time.
More to the point anyone, who is suitably competant, can fix it.
However, with closed source software, when it breaks, you wait until they happen to get around to fixing it, which can be a fast as open source, but a faceless corporation is a LOT less likely to take responsiblity for their actions in such a way.
Or they may say "It's a feature not a bug" or you have to buy the next version of the software. Which may or may not solve the problem.
The Department of Defense has an inherent interest in knowing that the modeling software it and its suppliers (Lockheed, Boeing, etc.) uses is accurate
Also not to contain "easter eggs" of the form "IF aircraft sends the following IFF sequence THEN alter its indicated position by enough for AAA and SAMs to miss it"
I doubt it hurts much really. Allchin's FUD is far below Microsoft's usual standard. Now if I were M$, I'd put together a bunchof 'case histories' of companies deploying linux, becoming frustrated by its limitations, and switching to M$.
The media loves telling the story of something that was overhyped and is now debunked. If M$ were really smart, they'd work to sell that story to the media.
The brutal frontal assault that Allchin is using can only make M$ look frightened.
Once again the evil eye of the M$ PR machine has determined that 'Open Source' is a threat. And we all know they never get it right until the third version....
With enough M$ cash in policitian pockets, I can forsee the sad future:
"From whom did you license this software?"
"Nobody. It's Open Source."
"You're under arrest, commie."
Maybe having Linux on your computer would be 'Possesion' while actually hacking code would be 'Possesion with intent to distribute'.
Ok my karma is maxed out. When do I become Enlightened?
Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a Q-Tip. - Homer Simpson
Q: Are you now, or were you ever a member of the FSF?
A: no
Q: Are you now or have you ever written free software?
A: yes, I wrote several apache modules used by the senate's web server.
Q: oh, well, I , er...
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
With morons like this guy at M$, no wonder their products suck ass.
You need glasses then.
As far as owning land goes, only one person or a group of willing people can own a portion of land and do what they like with it. The key is that the land is tangible and they are in agreement.
But with Open Source, the "land" could be concepts or code that overlaps into other areas of interest for many people with similar or different views on what they want from the concept or code, creating relationships between the different camps between hate and admiration. The most important part here is that what they are dealing with is NOT tangible. It is a digital perfect copy of something the creator wishes to give away for freedom for others to enhance for the good of all and possibly even allow the use of for no cost of legal tender. Hell, they usually even allow the charging of legal tender for it by anyone who wishes to do so whilst keeping the code within the same model of sharing.
The point is though, that Open Source allows sharing of concepts and code that does not lessen the value of that code to the original person or group that shared it.
In fact, the sharing makes that concept or code much better due to many others being able to build on it and give back those enhancements to the Open Source community.
Microsoft has a bent view on this, they claim to perceive the concepts and code to be tangible property that once taken, looses value.
It does! It looses value to them if their concepts or code are "stolen".
But Open Source feeds itself. It does not need to steal concepts and code to continue to get better. The way Microsoft has done in the past, with their join us or die practices.
In actual fact, one of the biggest dampeners of software innovation in the World, is Microsoft themselves.
Open Source is the exact opposite and does not need to steal intelectual property from cavemen to succeed. It is on the whole, a pure community of like minded people happily sharing their talents in a completely legal fashion for the good of all.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
That's it, the policy makers haven't been "educated" on the facts. Perhaps MS lobbyists should "educate" the policy makers with more stadium-fuls of money.
First of all, apology accepted. This is not the first or the last time somebody's got their nose out of joint about some poorly-considered humor. 'Sall good.
I think the people you see being inconsiderate were always there. But I think we're being encouraged to be more combative about their presence. It could also be an artifact of population density...we don't have the physical room to be assholes anymore. For each of your examples (the SUV one particularly...I drive a Miata and every fucking one of those nimrods is out to kill me personally) I can think of an example, that's happened to me recently, of a stranger displaying courtesy and good intentions.
I don't live in NYC, though, so maybe I'm just lucky. : )
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
To clarify the quote: Those willing to sacrifice privacy for security deserve neither. This was - and now is - a bold stand the Americans are not taking. That's the problem with an egomaniacal society; you don't act unless it affects you. Then it's usually too late.
Ruling The World, One Moron At A Time(tm)
"As Kosher As A Bacon-Cheeseburger"(tmp)
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
communism != liberalism. Some would insist that the difference is subtle, but liberalism is a different thing. Speaking critically of communism is not reactionary, merely anti-communist... and I was not speaking critically of communism in this case, merely pointing out that the open source movement is also NOT COMMUNISM.
Like I said, if every farmer that uses Linux contributes free food to the community, it's communism. But they don't, so it's not. It's one group of people (programmers) voluntarilly contributing to the good of everybody, like when a rich patron chooses to fund an art museum.
An act of benevolence by one group is not communism. In order to have communism, you need to have a complete economic system built around the lack of private property. Anything else is not communism.
Finally, at no time did I express any disparagement towards communism in my original post. Next time, try reading and comprehending the entire message before getting "pissed off" next time. That would be great, thanks.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Well, wouldn't you agree that just because not everyone in America votes, it's still a democracy? I should think that just because some people in a community don't contribute (and I still think simply using the products is contributing, that doesn't change the fact that it's still a community working for the good of the community, and not necessarily direct personal gain.
Its all a bit pedantic at this level of abstraction though.
"Only amateurs attack machines; professionals target people."
I am glad to see a patriotic organization such as Microsoft finally standing up to the pinko commies who have been trying to take control of the the internet with their free software. Maybe Microsoft can use their windows technology to reanimate McCarthy and we can have a real witchhunt (I mean a return to the good ol days when Americans were 'us', and freewheeling hippie pinkos were 'them')
God Bless America (salute)
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People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
Dude, I think you just converted me. Wait, no...it was just my stomach. You obviously don't understand the concept of Open Source. It's not stealing if the creator gives it away. Microsoft is basically wanting to make giving stuff away illegal.
If you want a clue, you can gladly send me $100.
-----
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
Good use of logic, though. I commend you on your 4th grade thought pattern.
-----
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
and Microsoft is damn scared about it. They are helpless to the opensource environment because company politics are now useless. They surely produce some free products and we apreciate their effort, but I think the real problem over here is not the pricing of the package. OK... Opensource OSes are cool because they come with a $0 +Bandwidth price tag. But ultimately we do not use such an OS cause of that. Its the ability for me to have a say and do something about a piece of software at my own will that empowers me with this opensource OS. I do not have to respond to company orders in developing a product further than it is, and they do not have control over that. THIS maddens them.
Dodge this !! --Trinity, The Matrix
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People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
All these companies have released open source stuff, sometimes with licences as liberal as the GPL.
With all of the MS FUD floating around lately, we know one major thing:
MS is scared.
If MS didn't think that Linux was a threat, they wouldn't even mention it. Do you see MS trashing OS/2 or Netware? Of course not. Why? Because neither of those is a threat.
First of all, America is not a democracy, it's a democratic republic.
Secondly, voting does not need to be mandated in order for the system to be considered a democracy.
Finally, communism is an economic system in which the concept of private property simply does not exist. Some people doing something nice for everybody is not communism.
There's nothing abstract about my argument. My previous statement still holds against everything you said. If a farmer who uses Linux is part of a community in which he is also expected to share the fruits of his labor (the food he grows), then it's a communist society. If he keeps the fruits of his labor, then it's just Free Software, and communism has nothing to do with it. End of story.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
what does he mean by "threat"? open source is also a freedom of speech issue. is this a threat to m$ also?
''There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free.''
Yay, woohoo, go MS.... BARF.....
Yeah. And there's that feeling of crushing your competitor (i.e. - Netscape) with said enamorous free thing... Too bad it didn't work, bozos.
When ya get that better-than-Linux product done, send me a copy as repayment for all the crap I bought from you guys in the past. Oh, and I assume it will be POSIX compliant?
- I am made of meat.
A mix of both? Are they wanting to outlaw ameteurism and hobbies? Oh no! A hobbyist coder at the keyboard! Sheriff, arrest that scoundrel! Coding is something only corporations should do!
Again this shows that some groups believe they are at the center of the universe. I really don't believe that Microsoft's rise and fall really has any impact on the economy or the American way.
Heck, I remember the American Way as doing everything for yourself with your own two hands, even to the point of making your own tools, working in communities in a few projects and not relying on companies for your survival. Of course there is a lot more to it, good and bad, but if they are trying to remove the hobbyist 'hacker' and force them to use commercial products then they really are a monopolistic evil entity. They must get their ideas from the tragedy / satire "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley.
who make more money than they deserve.
:)
You know, he should be right...windows should be better than linux. All that money and power, and look what they put out. Semi-functional bloatware. I don't need to tell everyone here about all the inovation paradoxes in his statement. Too easy of a target
Frankly any product that is free, or at least costs less than what you needed before, gives more power to the individual. That, my friends, is the American spirit. THAT is democracy. The right to profit is NOT. Unfortunatly, most of America has forgotten this.
Comments and articles like this one stem from a fear of having to actually provide a value-add in your software. The market isn't a 'given' anymore, and proprietary giants are either accepting change and moving forward, or crying and screaming in the corner like little baby girlies.
I have yet to find arguments against open source development that actually provide a valid point, or that can't be negated by equal benefits. To say it undermines capitalism is ridiculous. The perceived problem isn't the products, it's in the ability to deliver. Bill just hopes no one else can see that.
1) People who wanted a robust operating system would pay somebody else to build it
2) Other enlightened folks would decide to take the old Linux and continue innovating along a more practical course
3) Other enlightened folks would work on some other system (FreeOpenNetBSD, etc).
So, how can innovation be stifled? At worst, it is increasin people's expectations of what they should get for the money they spend. And ultimately that encoruages better products at lower prices which is increasing efficiency (and that's pretty innovative).
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
innovation? Probably in the same way that publishing a scientific paper stifles the research on the respective subject. How does it undermine IP? In the same way patents are intended to hide the your methods of accomplishing a task so that noone can improve them. I guess some people cannot see past their own wallet and confuse innovation and knowledge with profit and power. Just MHO Marcus
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
If all things that came for free are illegal, think about humanitarians efforts...
Thinking about innovation... Hehe, they're really NOVEL when they get an trap on the Windows 3.1 to STOP when running on Novell-DOS!
And About the traps (oh, no traps, only bugs!) to blow the Netscape Navigator away from Win9X ?
Funny. If I gave clothes away to anyone FREE, can the clothes store sue me?
Basically, if your income comes through intellectual property, then of course comparable products without the intellectual property overhead are worse ... for the software business If you are not in the Software Business, then you have nothing to fear, and can only gain through having alternatives.
I am not American, but I always understood that "The American Way" was to cultivate competition. Microsoft, accourding to the courts is thus a poor American Citizen. What right do they have to use the American Way as a defense?
Enough Ranting.
.. if only.
Essentially he argues that Open Source undermines intellectual property (which is true) but that it also stifles innovation
How can people possibly take this seriously? Scientists have been relying on others' work all along, "standing on the shoulders of giants" in order to make the next innovative step. Having to reinvent the wheel to think up a car is just plain stupid. So why can he get away with claiming that the inverse is true for software?
'Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer,'' Allchin said.
This, again, is rubbish. Perhaps it takes away the ability to make money in specific areas (who would pay for a proprietary 'ls'?), but that it a really good thing for innovation. It means that software companies have to invent new things (oh the horror) if they want to remain profitable, instead of hocking the same old stuff over and over.
Microsoft provides support to change and develop products based on its operating system software that Linux companies don't, he said.
Hmmm. Sounds like the journalist got Windows and Linux confused. It's Linux that is available to modify and base products on.
On a side note, are there any arguments against Free software that are actually more specific than "stifles innovation"?
"Without the growth from *purchases* (which business can afford), the economy will not do as well."
People *purchase* our services to set up web/file/print servers. They save money by only purchasing our services, not our services plus licensing fees.
In the many dotcom crashes over the past year, couldn't more of them have used open source to spend a few hundred thousand less on servers/desktops/etc.? Maybe they wouldn't have had to lay off as many people. They could have PURCHASED more/better labor rather than PURCHASE more MS servers (or other closed-source products).
Money will continue to be spent - make no doubt about it. But if open source continues to grow like it has been, it'll be spent less on closed-source software like MS and more on people to actually do the work that needs to be done.
creation science book
Well, considering all the stereotypes that
;)
float around here in good 'ole Europe, the
USA are the home of the brave and the fortress
of freedom. Strange now, that at least in
Redmond, it has turned into the home of
cowards that cover before marketing people
and of slaves forced to constantly repeat
marketing nonsense.
At least from an old-fashioned european point
of view, there is no better way to innovate
than to have great brainstorming.
Ah well, thank god I'm not redmondian-american.
- Chris
PS: no offense against the non-redmondian part
of the USA
Christian Loth
Project 'Gidayu' at http://gidayu.mud.de
Christian Loth
Project 'Gidayu' at http://gidayu.mud.de
It threatens a business model, nothing more. It threatens the idea that you create software with the intent of keeping it secret and selling executables.
Please don't forget our free software fundamentals. Free software is not about price. In fact, there are costs to free software. Even the GNU philosophy describes what the "Free" in free software really means. It's freedom not price that matters.
The cost of free software is the work it takes to maintain, modify improve and support it. Free software relies on the community to support it and contribute back to it. This is why it is great to see big corporations like IBM paying money to develop and improve it. So everyone who reads this, go out and pick a project you like. Then start learning how to help it. Whether that be develop documentation or write code, it's your choice.
--
Twivel
It is, in short, capitalism and long-term self-interest. That's only the short version of the answer. The longer version is this:
If I have X and want Z, and you have Z but want X, you and I come to some mutually beneficial arrangement for trading them (short of using force, obviously -- that's a separate discussion). Usually that arrangement is made simple through the use of money, a store of value. That is, you and I trade something we value for something else we value. (The "self-interest" part is that we do this not because we want to help the other guy, but because we want the best for ourselves; c.f. Adam Smith and the invisible hand.)
This is the important part: money is not the only thing we value. We may value recognition, satisfaction, helping others, pride of effort, and so on -- all non-monetary values. They may indirectly have monetary value, but not necessarily, and the monetary value may not have motivated us in the first place.
Here's the point: Open Source software people are just ad self-interested as any other group. Their motivations. while not always monetary, are just as capitalistic as anyone else's. They are frequently interested in building "reputation capital," not only financial capital.
Try out Phorecast, open-source email, calendar,
If those fools in Redmond actually did make a better product, there would have been no Open Source Movement to begin with!
Chivalry is not dead, it's just frequently misspelt. - M. Langley
So Microsoft is complaining that free software is nasty, bad, unpatriotic and destroying the economy. Isn't that how they destroyed Netscape, by giving away Internet Explorer for free and eliminating Netscape's main source of revenue? Perhaps the shoe is on the other foot this time around. Hee hee.
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pack
1337
Ah, as a Canadian in anticipation of imminent blame, I feel it necessary to point out the auslander's view that the American Way is supposed to be "do whatever the fuck you want". Gee, where did money factor into the equation?
Nowhere in the linked article does anybody mention that Microsoft wants to outlaw open-source.
--Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Linux is right on par with MY American way.
It's ridiculous to have an openly available standard syntactic construction tool available to anyone. It's clear this will destroy the basis of intellectual property and stifle innovation in virtually all areas of communications. What even a cursory (it deserves no better) read of this article reveals is that it is virtually free of content except a basic Linux=BAD message. Open Source threatens intellectual property - but no explanation of what the threat is. Open Source stifles innovation - but no explanation how. Legislators must be educated about Open Source... With a view towards acheiving what? What the hell do legislators have to say about how hackers choose to write their code? This is just smoke - basic propaganda with no intention other than to make stupid people (particularly investors) fearful of Linux. Look, this guy spends the whole article asserting that Open Source is a threat... and then insists that its recent inroads into business markets poses no threat to Microsoft. Bill Gates ain't the richest man on earth anymore, kids. Who smells fear?
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
The quote is odd. My guess it was some strange off the cuff remark that's not contextualized.
He doesn't make a causal link between the dangers of open source and the demise of intellectual property.
He seems to be implying that a commodity such as an "operating system" loses its "value" (and remember, there's more to value than just a price tag) if it's open and free.
And from this I assume (making an ass of u and me, of course) such a reduction in value means that "intellectual property" is weakened and therefore endangered.
In a sense, this is plausible. I mean, sure, why not? But it seems to me that the whole argument rests on (a) your definition of "intellectual property" and (b) your idea of what constitutes "value".
I mean, let's face it: MS employees (and MS in general) operates on an entirely different world-view than does open source and its advocates. Neither purely exist to promote "goodness" in its pure essence. But I think it's safe to say that MS's priorities are quite different than the priorities of open source advocates. (I'm not saying one is better -- I'm saying that their means and ends are different.)
So the real complaint of this guy -- the MS hotshot who made the quote -- isn't that open source weakens property it's that open source weakens the *value of MS intellectual property.*
But what this guy doesn't understand is that from a non-MS perspective this isn't a bad thing. It means that MS has to compete. It means they can't just walk over the gameboard with their size 14 shoes, kick the pieces across the room, and then go into their bedroom and lock the door.
Basically, when you say "we need to educate policy makers", that's roundaboutspeak for "we need to outlaw this". So no, it doesn't explicitly say it, but it's certainly implied.
Open Source does NOT threaten Intellectual Property (IP), the American Way, or any of it. Open Source only competes with IP. People don't neccessarilly move to Linux and other Open Source because it is Open. People move to Linux and other Open Source because of simple reasons like,
better,
more stable,
faster,
supports more or less expensive hardware,
etc.
The only thing Open Source threatens is Jim Allchin's pocket book because his "Intellectual Property" is arguable not as good as the Open Source alternative.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James
Phred
I would dispute that intellectual property is really being undermined by free software. The code is still owned by one or more persons, and licensing issues seem to be even more closely policed than those of proprietary software. I mean, when was the last time /. had an article about Bruce Perens accusing someone of violating Microsoft's EULA? :)
But seriously, what's being undermined is the notion that intellectual property is only valuable if it's scarce. The open source world is proving that ideas are more valuable in the presence of others, not less, and that people with good ideas are the most valuable resource you can have. Ideas and code are still property and there are still disputes over them, but rather than being zero-sum proprietary "products", the sharing of IP creates a sum that's much greater than its parts. The more you share, the more you get in return. And that's going to be a tough lesson for the elder dragons of the industry - sleeping on a bed of golden ideas all day just doesn't cut it anymore, because the action's all down in the Laketown bazaar.
My apologies if I just paraphrased the collected works of ESR (and J.R.R. Tolkien), but that's how I see it.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Anyone else sick of hearing (l)users touting Linux as being the great saviour to Open Source? These people are going to turn Linux into the same thing as MS, it becomes a holy war of OS's.
Truth is that Open Source existed long before Linux, it just happens that there is media attention on the subject and M$ market share is being threatened. All these linux users are waving there torches around saying 'kill the monster'. I'm not defending M$ but mob mentality is good for nothing, makes people bias. Open Source contributes alot, there are even companies that make money from using it, look at anything with linux (or variant) embeded in it, like tivo. Anyone with half a brain knows Open Source is good for the industry, now you just have to realize what the best product for a task is.. sometimes it isn't Open Source stuff.
If you want to start touting Open source open your eyes and look how much the GNU has contributed.
President Bush has a policy initiative to give "faith-based" organizations more ability to receive federal funding for charitable work, which is something they are forbidden to do now. Apparently, the administration believes that a lot of social good can be achieved by these faith-based groups.
In this spirit, I would think that professional programmers volunteering their time to freely available projects would be encouraged by the administration. Under the new policy initiative, you could actually receive federal funding for your good deeds!
OS's are just religions, right?
Introducing the new Dotslash site on MSN!
Gossip for Geeks. GNUs don't matter.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by us. Comments are owned by us, too. The Rest © 1997-2001 MSN.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
If some of us didn't have the luxury of open source then we would have to resort to using warez. Warez is out there, it's plentiful and they won't be able to stop it - at least not with current demand the plethera of programs out there that have been hacked. This just reaffirms what I think about MS. They are all about the money - screw the user.
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Stupid sexy Flanders.
I know the truth. Taco wrote this story and had Hemos post it to the front page. The proof is overwhelming:
Linux is developed in a so-called open-source environment in which the software code generally isn't owned by any one company. That, as well as programs such as music-sharing software from Napster Inc., means the world's largest software maker has to do a better job of talking to policymakers, he said.
There's only 1 person on earth who writes such painfully incoherent prose and his name is Rob Malda.
Linux is the most widely known open-source product, though other programs including the popular Apache system for Web server computers also are developed the same way.
Read this sentence. Then read it again. Either the author learned english as a second language or his name is CmdrTaco.
Allchin said he's concerned that the open-source business model could stifle initiative in the computer industry.
Anyone who's spent more than 3 minutes listening to a Microsoft employee knows that "innovation" is their favorite word, but here's Jim Allchin apparently saying "initiative" instead. Only Taco could make such an error.
He's also a leader in a project develop an open-source file and printer server program.
Leaving out "to", that's vintage Malda.
Linux is the fastest-growing operating system program for running server computers, according to research firm IDC.
Normal, non-Malda writers would have phrased it as "According to IDG, Linux is the fastest growing server operation system."
Give it up Rob, we're on to your game.
--Kara
--Kara
Before you ask, I already have a boyfriend and he's more of a man than you'll ever be.
Yup, that's right, it does. Evolve or die.
---
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Godwin's Law!
This page accidentally left blank
I don't understand this .. how can open source software hinder development? If anything it provides a common base with which companies can aggregate components to make even better software.
Why is it that open source software is viewed as 'ammature' or 'non-professional' when it's compared to closed-source products? It's almost as if people believe that the only programmers who work on open source projects are somehow of a lesser quality than those who work at large corporations. Well, I've got news for you. I'd argue that open source programmers are usually BETTER than most closed source programmers.
But companies don't view things this way. Rather, they refuse to belive that something which is inherently free to the world can provide any value. After all, once it's 'free', how can you make money on it.
And herin lies the real problem that's facing companies. Open source software limits companies abilities to make money. This is the competition with the 'American Way' that Allchin is talking about. The American Way has come to mean the same thing as 'make a lot of money'. If you can't make a lot of money on a product because there is a free version, then the free product must go against the American Way...
The companies that have made names for themselves by innovating over the last 10 years of the technology boom are nervous. People -- smart people -- are finally figuring out that the software that companies are charging money for really isn't that great. People are figuring out that quality is something that can be just as inherent in an organic software product (one grown from a community of developers) than one that is done in the dimly lit cubicles of a large corporation.
The trick for successful, well-placed companies in the industry today will become to figure out what the 'next big thing' is going to be, and being looking at innovating (read: develop enabling technologies) for that thing. We're at a bit of a stagnant place right now.
On the brink of change, everyone is worried that the forthcoming change will negatively impact them. So companies blame those things which operate in the same space as them.
Imagine the same thing in the manufacturing world. If you could get a house designed and built for you for free, don't you think the architects and construction companies would be a bit worried?
.anacron
Allchin says he isn't concerned about sales competition from the product. Microsoft provides support to change and develop products based on its operating system software that Linux companies don't, he said. Companies that use Linux in their products then must pay someone else for support, he said.
Aren't most Linux companies in the support business? They can't sell you the product, so they sell you the support. I'd much rather work with a company that specializes in support than MS which specializes in . . . Well not support.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
Don't say that, Windows and Linux both have strengths to hang over each other. Windows is easier to use because there most programs use the same way of doing things, like install programs. Linux is a programmers dream, windows is a programmer's nightmare. etc. etc. It should be obvious that Linux is not better in every aspect, so until it is, no one can truly say that it is better.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
How does that force them to be any more or less innovative than open source developers? If anything, one could argue that being free to develop whatever you want, without having to follow the rules set out for you by upper management, could result in more innovation, not less. It's exactly because open source projects don't have anyone to answer to (i.e. management, shareholders, etc) that they can innovate, by trying new things. Traditional management structures in closed-source companies don't like trying new things, they like to stick to older, proven, tried-and-true methods, hence, less innovation.
--
www.scorbett.ca
When I first read the paragraph on Slashdot, I was seriously waiting for the "just kidding" or "early April Fools joke" or SOMETHING. I can't believe those quotes are actually real. I'm just speechless. Too bad that people that are so rich can also be so dumb.
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
Define the best man: The man who's got most money? - this is potentially one definition.
Note that M$ can not fight each Linux advocate separetely, there just too many and there is no ground for a case. However if there was a law prohibiting anything free, like free source for your favorite programs licensed under GNU/GPL then there is clearly a case: M$ vs the People.
You can't handle the truth.
Are M$ deliberately trying to equate open source with GPL software and ignoring the other licences?
Does this mean that they see linux as a threat but not the various flavours of BSD? Could this be because they find the BSD licence useful - is it true that their tcp/ip stack is 'courtesy' of a bsd licence?
Perhaps M$ is only against the GPL because their lawyers say it would hold up in court so they can't use any GPL code, but BSD is OK.
----
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
Anyhow, I don't think I would want to be part of a society that negatively views a movement that promotes intelligence, helpfulness and open sharing and access to knowledge. If this movement really goes against "The American Way", I think I'll be catching to next flight out of town.
Learn the ways of the Penguin >> The Linux Pimp
--It's Pimptastic!--
Statements like: "Jim Allchin, says that freely distributed software code such as rival Linux could stifle innovation and that legislators need to understand the threat." make me laugh. Tell me this, WHO innovates? Big think tanks or small garage workshops? Who developed the airplane? The lightbulb? The toothbrush? Hell, even the "Chip Clip"? Lets look up the word "innovate":
innovate: To begin or introduce (something new) for or as if for the first time. Did M$ introduce the GUI? No. Did they do word
processing? No. What innovations HAVE they done? A little. They steal ideas just like everyone else does, but they dont RELEASE the IDEA, just a product. "Linux is developed in a so-called open-source environment in which the software code generally isn't owned by any one company." And that is a BAD thing? Oh it's MUCH better to be locked into a proprietary, poorly written operating system where the API calls are: misdocumented, undocumented or just don't work. How many NDAs must be signed to get a glimpse of the source code to a M$ product? Oh yea, that's "innovation". "''Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer,'' Allchin said. ''I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business.''" No kidding, so is the patent office. What's new? What REALLY gets me fired up is this, "''I'm an American, I believe in the American Way,'' he said. ''I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat.''" WHAT THREAT? How can having the source hurt the CONSUMER? It sure hurts M$s bottom line. Statements like that make me wake back up and realize we like in a capitalistic society. M$ worried = FUD, FUD, FUD.... We MUST speak up in times like these. Statements like those above DO stifle innovation!
And as always, for a good laugh:
"''We can build a better product than Linux,'' he said." All I can say to that is, DO IT THEN! MAKE A BETTER OPERATION SYSTEM! The past clearly shows otherwise...
Are you or have you ever been a member of the Free Software Foundation?
--
#19845
''We can build a better product than Linux,'' he [Allchin] said.
That's my favorite line from the article. Not we have built, not we will build, but can build. Like maybe, someday in the future, once this Windows thing blows over.
I say good for him. I'm glad he finally recognizes that.
I guess this was anti-fud fud?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
The next dangerous idea here is that the very notion of open source anything will itself come to be construed as a crime against intellectual property. Anybody writing a single line of code in their own home on their own time will be presumed to be maliciously set on violating somebody's (or more accurately some corporation's) rights, since individual human beings have no use for source code. Just like, as Ken Olson explained to us in years past, there remains no market for home computers.
MS et al will lobby for the acceptance of this view, particularly among legislators. There will be a "War on Open Source", with all the wisdom and effectiveness of the War on Drugs. Keep an eye out for relevant legislation.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
Saith the good Lord Allchin:
''There is always something enamoring about
thinking you can get something for free.''
Indeed. There are several things:
1) It didn't cost me anything. Awesome, I can deal with that
2) More importantly, it's freedom, not lack of cost. I'm free to improve this thing I've gotten. I can understand how such a concept is alien to someone from Microsoft, but that's the real attraction.
This is just the worst case of "foot in mouth" disease I've seen in a while. The best response is to laugh this guy out of the room; the FUD must be up to people's knees in that room...
It's a strange world -- let's keep it that way
MS and Nazi Germany? 1) Overtake and snuff out any neighbors (competition). "We have to have room for expansion..." 2) Scorched earth policy - if it won't run Windows exclusivly it won't run anything alse (no install CD w/ PC's, ME's hiding DOS startup, Windows trashing the MBR at every install). 3) Policy of spreading lies and FUD against the enemy. What'll they do now round up all Open Source writers and put them in a concentration camp? WAIT! I guess they recently started to do that - the recruiters letters to Linux/ Open Source advocates. ??? :)
When I see the MSerf's zigheiling Gates I'll be sure.
"I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business."
the obvious thing to point out is that this gentleman cares more about his business than he does about humanity.
check out my comic: Essential Tremors
Miri it is whil Linux ilast...
Correlation is not causation.
Other countries with some of the highest standards of living somehow manage to do it without granting corporations legal personhood.
I think it's rather ironic that some of the people who are loudest supporters of "personal responsibility" don't want that applied to corporate VIPs.
Y'all probably believe that the performance of surgery shouldn't require a license, that any kid up the street with a sharp knife and a how-to book should be allowed to hang a shingle and start cutting up the citizenry. Now, what's the difference between sawboning and network hacking? How is the quality of the latter less important to society than that of the former? Sure, some kids might make great natural neurosurgeons, but isn't it better to block their practice until they get recognized degrees? It's okay if they practice on frogs, or on machines not connected to the Internet, but to allow unlicensed individuals with amateur tools to link their experiments into our infrastructure is as foolish as letting them make mind-altering drugs in their bathtubs, and then letting them sell these alongside the products of respectable pharmeceutical firms in our drugstores. Even a licensed doctor can't prescribe such amateur medicines. If they were allowed they would threaten our pharmeceutical industry in exactly the same way Redmond is threatened by open source.
Also, compare what pretend president George said about Willie's blocking some private uses of public lands: that this amounted to 'takings,' to appropriation by the government of what by right should be private profit opportunities. Well, open source isn't 'takings' by the government - it's takings by a mob. The notion that "You can't fence this land off and call it your own" was defeated along with the Native American tribes that espoused it, and to the victor go the spoils. A lot of these open source folk may look like cowboys, but they've gone native.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Linux is the fastest-growing operating system program for running server computers, according to research firm IDC. It accounted for 27 percent of unit shipments of server operating systems in 2000. Microsoft's Windows was the most popular on that basis, with 41 percent.
Wow, I never really appreciated how much of an impact linux was having... and that's probably just boxed shipments from commercial distributions and pre-installed server units... theres also gotta be uncounted downloads... not to mention the BSD's!
If nobody ever re-invented the wheel, we'd all be pushing around flintstones cars, wouldn't we?
Microsoft is entering extremely shaky ground with comments like this coming from so high up in the executive food chain. They have hereby given notice that they will literally stop at nothing to protect their obscene "business model". They will need very close watching, to see how they intend to "educate policy makers", and to counter when necessary.
So, the iron fist is coming out of the velvet glove, as we all knew it would sooner or later. It seems that Microsoft might be about to earn the "evil" label that people have been using for so long. It is really quite sad.
I disagree. I think OS (or Free Software) and IP are orthogonal issues. OS (Free) software doesn't undermine itellectual property at all. Someone who releases software under the GPL is simply sharing his/her IP with others and stipulates that if you wish to build on that work you must also release those additions under the same rules. In fact, it is Copyright law that gives the GPL its teeth. You can be both pro IP and pro OS.
The Bastard
If you don't have anything nice to say, say it often.
- Ed the Sock
You sure do go a long way in painting all corporations as being evil. I don't think that it's a coincidence that the US, with it's many large corporations also has one of the highest stardards of living on the planet. I don't know too many other countries where people are literally killing themselves to try to get into.
Yea, corps aren't all bad, but I would argue that the US standard of living is pitiful. We have a very high murder rate, 25% of the worlds incarceration, the worst education system, 60% obesity, and a slew of mental disorders. Heck, I can't even go out for a walk in the summer with a beer in my hand where I live.
We have a very high standard of stuff which jives well with the corps. However, I think we could pay a little more attention to life outside of furnishing the house and eating McDonalds, being the fat, murderous, uneducated, and restricted people we are.
The strange thing about all this is that Open Source, (and even moreso the GPL's provisions that changes must also be Open Source) is very firmly based in the concept of copyright law and licensing. If Microsoft favors limiting Open Source's legality, they favor limits upon how a copyright holder can license their code, which seems to be antithetical to what they usually favor.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Get out of the country and go to anwhere in Scandinavia. Then you may realize America has a long way to go to become one of the highest in "quality of life."
I for one find it very telling that Linux started in Finland.
Boy was I wrong!
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
America didn't invent the corporation. But in the 19th century, America went further than any other country in perfecting this glorious instrument of money-extraction. Who else would have thought to give the status of natural personhood to corporations as our Supreme Court did? Who else would have turned the English language into the most imperial language on the earth today, not because of any military conquest (though the US does have plenty) but because of corporate conquest?
You sure do go a long way in painting all corporations as being evil. I don't think that it's a coincidence that the US, with it's many large corporations also has one of the highest stardards of living on the planet. I don't know too many other countries where people are literally killing themselves to try to get into.
''I'm an American, I believe in the American Way,'' he said. ''I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat.''
Is he trying to say that our legislators are stupid, or that thier win98 machines cant stay up long enough for them to learn anything?
I agree...and disagree.
Jim Allchin certainly isn't an idiot. No matter what we may occasionally believe, you don't get that high is that big of a company by being an idiot.
His statements, however, are utterly idiotic. They're stupid, brainless, and paranoid. HOWEVER, by saying the, and repeating them as often as possible, he may well convince the majority of the public and the majority of the government that he's right. In other words, idiotic statements geared towards an audience of idiots, delivered by a smart guy who's ruthlessly interested in nothing more than his own fortunes and power.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
I'm still trying to figure out how some manager at Microsoft can make disparaging comments about Linux, and the press feels that it warrants a story. It doesn't make sense, and this is the second or third time so far this year that it's happened.
The irony of this story is that Microsoft is wanting to lobby the government to do "something" about open source software, hey, I want to do that, too. Only in my case, that "something" is further adoption of OSS, particularly for government projects.
Oh well, Microsoft is once again proving that they see Linux as a threat...
Michael
Do you have ESP?
Imagine what the world would be like if Galileo or Newton had closed taken their discoveries along the M$ path.
How different the world would be if Newton had said: "I see further than others because I'm standing on a taller stack of law books".
Allchin should have is Ph.D. revoked.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Facts about Linux:
1. The majority of kiddie-pr0ners use Linux.
2. The majority of terrorists use Linux.
3. Like Napster, Linux can be used to "steal IP"
</FUD>
Just wait...
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
Even if one accepts your premises, the conclusion is invalid. This sort of market worship uncritically assumes way to many factors. They are forced to do nothing. They have incentives to do things that strengthen their own position relative to their competitors. That could take the form of innovation, but it can also take the form of "better" marketing of an inferior product or slipping $50 into the pockets of some legislator to "act in the American way."
Innovation is a welcome buzzword in most corporations, but only as a buzzword, not as a practice.
Dave
Balmer declared Linux as MS's #1 threat. Linux must really have them running scared to for them launch the massive anti-Linux/anti-Open Source campaign we're starting to see. Count on MS hitting on all fronts: marketing, legal, as well as just spreading FUD in general. They're going to fight any and every way that they can to maintain their current position, and nothing they say or do against Linux will surprise me in the least. This is going to be a tough, under-handed, no-holds-barred fight. It really has come down to Microsoft vs. Linux.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
Microsoft must still be a pretty touchy subject with this place, because that is amazing response. Everybody having something to say, just because MS wants to outlaw opensource? We would also have to outlaw the constitution, because we can all read that right now, and that interferes with outlawing all the other basic rights, like freedom of speech and stuff (oh, and that nasty right to bear arms!). MS should fire him now, because all he did was piss off every opensource person on the planet.
-Spackler
If sourcecode is outlawed, only outlaws will have sourcecode!!!
I'll give you one guess how you can two birds with one stone...Can you say "SPAM"? Think about it!!! ;-)
Blarf.
I have nearly always been in support of Microsoft, but that's a load of crap.
Corporations are run by humans and do as much good or evil as those humans would
I tend to beleive that coporations can greatly facilitate and amplify the evil tendencies of the individual humans that run them. First off, greed is a much higher priority for the average corporation than for the average human. And greed is the primary interest of the shareholders (other altruistic interests of individual shareholders are pursued in other areas of their lives). The corps make a science of greed.
Secondly, corporations foster a "mob mentality" whereby the group engages in ugly behavior that few of the individuals would be comfortable with if they were held directly responsible. This mob mentality insulates the actions of the corporation from the conscience of its individual stock holders. And the corporation insulates the shareholders legally and financially, so there are fewer personal ramifications to unethical behavior. If the corporation is attacked legally and possibly dissolved, then so what - it's just paper money. But if the shareholders were held more responsible and had to worry more about personal financial ruin or imprisonment, then you could bet that the corporation would be on better behavior. Corporations can greatly amplify the power of unethical people as long as they are bringing in money.
The lack of a human face is precisely the problem with corporations. Not saying they are all bad or there is no place for them - only that they are not very similar to natural persons. They're more like mobs of people.
You are right to put some of the blame on the legislature. But corporations are so much more powerful than natural persons, it is easy for them to leverage the goverment to further their own interests. I would be interested in knowing what proportion of new laws are motivated by corportate interests and how many are designed to protect the liberties of natural persons. Does anyone have rough figures on this?
...promoting open source to our elected representatives? Start by offering to help them set up Linux, if only on one PC, so that they know what's going on.
Hell, the least we could do is send them a letter telling them what Open Source is all about, along with a CD of open source software. Why not buy a copy of Red Hat 6.2 for your local Congresscritter?
ObJectBridge (GPL'd Java ODMG) needs volunteers.
Finding God in a Dog
Hmmm. Seems to me that if this putz had his way they would try to ban all opensource so they could compete in the right way. I suppose if it ever came to that it would be up to Canada and the rest of the world to act as a bulwark against oppression. To accept refugees and to preserve freedom in this Hemisphere. Go Canada! Defenders of the Previous "American Way!"
1. Smoke screen/reasons why. MS, as mentioned in the article, is being investigated for their investment in Corel back in October, and Corel's recent decision to drop its Linux brand last month (though, as the article again mentions, it will keep on making Linux apps). From this point of view, Mr. Allchin might just be trying to make smoke with "Linux bad!" to spin attention away from "MS made investment in competitor that later stopped developing for Linux!".
2. Can't purchase Linux. I was talking to one of our company VP's who wanted to understand the Linux thing. Their question involved whether I worried that MS might buy Linux - something that seems obviously impossible to those who read /., but something most "non-tech" users still don't get. They think there's a company called Linux out there selling a rival product. Once I explained Open Source to him and why no company could ever own or sell Linux itself, I saw the lights dawn.
"So Microsoft or any other company just can't buy Linux." He said. He must have sat there for almost 10 seconds before saying, "Wow. Microsoft must hate that."
And that's part of what I think Mr. Allchin is after. MS can't use "embrace, extend, exterminate" on Linux. There's nobody to "partner with", then steal the code (aka Symantec, Citrix, etc). If they did that with Linux, there'd be the potential problem of being under GPL violation, and even the MS lawyers might have a hard time with that one (especially in the public's view). They can't extend Linux to do what they want to do - the second they do so, the Linux community (*a-hem*) uses its own innovation to get around their blocks. Unlike JAVA, where they simply put in code to make certain things run under Windows, the open source version of Linux (and other type OS's) gives programmers the edge.
So that leaves them with their final standby, Exterminate. Exterminate who? Debian? They can't - nobody to buy, and even if they did hire enough programmers away from the Debian project, there would be many who wouldn't do it for their own ethics, and too many to fill the gap. So the only way left now is through the government - a move that will be self defeating as well. Buy out every government? Around the world? Even if they made roads in the US (through a DCMA style piece that made Open Source software uncopyrightable, for example, or even by passing laws saying that schools couldn't use Open Source for some silly reason), there would be too many countries outside that wouldn't take part.
Granted, I use Windows for things (just for games, anymore, and my ATI-TV card). But Mr. Allchin sees the writing on the wall, and sees competition for the first time. And I think it scares him.
Obviously, it scares him stupid.
John "Dark Paladin" Hummel
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
'I think Microsoft is trying to paint the open-source community as being fascist; that all software have has to be free, or none of it can be,' said Behlendorf
But dumping free versions of products to destroy the competition and any competitive innovation is OK?
We have nothing to fear as long as M$ keeps making such assinine statements like this
HPC for Primates. Read Cluster Monkey
I don't expect it to be anywhere close to fair or unbiased. I do expect a better class of journalism to come out of /. than I do the National Enquirer.
It is irresponsible for a journalist that has the eyes of hundreds of thousands of people to make huge assumptions like that. The guy really could have meant that he doesn't want the government to "encourage" open source.
I know, I know, he is a shifty bastard because he works and speaks for M$, but it's not right to say what this article is entitled. Especially if one expects to retain credibiltity in what I consider to be an important debate.
If Microsoft succeeds in outlawing open source (that'll be the day!), then I'll be the first to grab a torch and go burn Redmond to the ground, but until then, don't make them sound like they're going to start a shooting war when they are really only trying to impose economic sanctions.
So are we at the fighting stage or the laughing stage, I can't really tell.
This Wiki Feeds You TV and Anime - vidwiki.org
Or maybe in this case, "The Penguin Scare!!!".
Bahahahah. Are we going to start having senate hearings - "Have you now or have you ever been a member of the open source party?!?"
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
My God! Jim Allchin is the guy who almost singlehandedly wrecked Microsoft's credibility at the antitrust trial by presenting the obviously faked video demonstration of why Internet Explorer couldn't be removed from Windows 98 without destroying the OS. He was also in charge of Windows 2000 development, which took so long that it gave Linux the critical time it needed to be accepted by thousands of commercial customers, many of whom got tired of waiting for Microsoft. Now he's claiming that open source software is "un-American" and he's asking the government to outlaw it. I would have thought that this was an April Fool's joke, but it's six weeks too early...
We all sat around and laughed about the tobacco industry lawyers keeping a straight face when claiming that smoking had no adverse health consequences. Now we have another group of certified liars coming out with rubbish like 'open source stiffles innovation'.
I see this as a positive sign. Now everyone knows that tobacco is harmful, the industry has to pay $250B to settle the lawsuits. Looks to me like M$ is going to be in the same boat in a few years. All that they can do now is lie about their own as well as their competitor's products, the end must be near.
With fewer programmers, the result will be less innovation and worse software.
Bah! I say the end result would be the exact opposite. If money were to leave the industry then the people still programming will be those who love to program and who are passionate about their work. Having the money leave would do a good job of weeding out all of the lousy hacks who write crappy code because they only care about getting their fat paycheck. Fewer crappy programs being churned out means the quality of software in general will rise. The quality of software today sucks and getting rid of a lot of programmers would be one of the best ways to improve this.
Furthermore, universities, etc. won't be able to afford to run computing courses, since, as is the stated aim of many OS people, MS will be dead - and MS funds a lot of universities.
Here's a news flash for you - computer science existed long before Microsoft appeared on the scene. Universities had comp sci departments ages before Microsoft existed (well, I know my alma mater did at least). Microsoft has not been providing significant funding to universities for more than a few years now and universities got along just fine beforehand.
-----
Free P2P Backup, Windows & Linux
Like any revolutionary movement coming to maturity, the open source community needs to continue to distance itself from the radical zealots if it ever hopes to make serious inroads against companies like Microsoft and the mindshare they control.
Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with these two, having them on our side is a liability that must be overcome in order to get people past their political and personal biases against open source.
The only certainty is entropy.
Gotta love that one. Linux isn't a threat in terms of sales competition, but it's somehow powerful enough to "threaten innovation"? What's up with that? No power to compete but power to bring down a market? Eh?
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
They're not even a real country anyway! Usually MS FUD is silly, this is downright idiotic. That's like saying that musicians without a recording contract shouldn't be allowed to play or think up new music. What a joke.
Bob O. Roberts, a senior officer of the largest soda vending machine, announced a major PR initiative to fight "free soda" policies common at many companies, most notably Microsoft.
"These companies claim it is just a cheap HR trick that the inhabitants of the cube farm really suck up", Roberts claimed, "but they overlook that this kills a lot of entry- and mid-level support jobs. With a vending machine, you have the guys working in the factory making the vending machines, you have the guys on their runs stocking the machines, emptying the change box, etc. You have repairmen. You even have a white colar sales force. That's a lot of jobs, many of them some of the few jobs still available to working class 'joes' without a college diplomma, that these companies are wiping out by having an intern run over to Costco to stock up on soda to just GIVE OUT to the employees!"
Roberts continues: "what made America the leading industrial power? Was it white collar workers sipping free drinks in their office? Hell, no, it was INDUSTRY. Henry Ford and his mass production assembly line! Steel mills! Railroad lines stretched from coast to coast! None of those workers got free soda from their boss! They all paid for what they got, supporting additional jobs, and that's what made this country great!"
Microsoft executives refused to comment on this story.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
"Senator, there are exactly 23 card-carrying members of the Communist Party at the FSF."
Allchin: "Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer, I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business."
Translation: "Open source is an Microsoft revenue destroyer, I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for Microsoft business and the Microsoft-property business"
Allchin: "I'm an American, I believe in the American Way. I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat."
Translation: "I'm a Mocrosoft employee, I believe in the Microsoft Way. I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat to Microsoft's revenues."
Allchin: "We can build a better product than Linux. There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free."
Translation: "We can build a better product than Linux. It pisses me off that you can get something better for free."
Execute? [Y/N] _
No way! Someone who has the most to lose from open source proclaiming that it's bad for America! From the makers of "Why Microsoft Is Good For The Industry" and "The Justice Dept. vs. Innovation" comes "Why Open Source Is Bad For America"
Hello, open source is a timely reaction to Microsoft's strangehold over this industry. Of course they're going to denounce it.
The nerve. The government (The Department of Justice, the FCC, 19 State Attorneys General, Janet Reno, President Clinton, Judge Jackson, Senator Orin Hatch, etc) have gone on record to explicitly state just why Microsoft is bad for the industry. What's your proof, Jim?
Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt? You betcha.
Read between the lines. He's talking about the threat Open Source poses to the American Way, and communicating better with lawmakers.
No elected official is going to do support anything that's against the American Way...
"Despite Linux's success in some markets, Allchin says he isn't concerned about sales competition from the product. Microsoft provides support to change and develop products based on its operating system software that Linux companies don't, he said. Companies that use Linux in their products then must pay someone else for support, he said."
When is the last time you got any support from M$?
Not everyone deserves a 320i
Doesn't Microsoft own the patent on buying out any company making a product that's doing well in the marketplace?
This is just sour grapes.
They're just upset that there's no one to buy out...
Allchin has evidently studied the dead nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels' activities. He is defining the "american way" as depriving people of their rights of free expression and freedom of association, among others. microsoft's authoritarian business model is anything but free. Allchin is advocating the negation of the rights to create community property, like open source software is. All more the reason to switch to open source and boycott ms.
Aside from the observation that M$ is just goofy, it seems that the real issue is that they want to talk to Congress to 'educate' them abou the threat of open source software. I know M$ has a presence in DC, but do we? EFF is all I can think of, does anyone know of any other open source lobbies? I have some maney I saved by not buying the latest edition of Windows they could have.
The Bible was not open source by any means, if you mean the King James Version. Technically it carries Cum Privilego, which means that it belongs to the English crown, which authorised and paid for its production. For a hundred years, only the royal printer could print it. That's longer than a modern copyright, even post-copyright extension act.
One thing you have to keep in mind, though was that in the eras you're talking about, people were expected to be "gentlemen" and were more worried about their reputations than they are now. If you "plagairised", or otherwise misrepresented yourself, and got caught, your reputation would be shot and nobody would do business with you. That incentive is gone nowadays. Look at Jim Allchin. He lied in court and he's now still a senior VP at the same company!
Another thing is that in this era, credit was usually not given where credit is now due. For some of the greatest works of art we have no idea who did them, because a rich patron paid a tradesman to make them a statue, just like a plumber would be paid to lay pipes nowadays. We certainly don't want to return to an era where the provenance of artistic works is not known.
There is no doubt a happy medium in here somewhere.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Isn't the point of Intellectual Property to give the owner the power to do what they want with their product? Aren't Open Source programmers entitled to the same rights as MSFT or recording artists? The way I see it, they are just giving away their own property. Since when was it inhibiting Innovation by giving something away? Though, we have already seen MSFT's version of innovation. As long as they make money on it, it's innovative. Other people who make money off it and people who don't aren't capable of innovation? By their reasoning they shouldn't have control of their own source, otherwise someday they mave end up open sourcing some of it...oh, wait, no. Look who we're talking about..
Why is "kinda strange" - its well known there are more lobbiest on capitol hill fighting on the topic of intelectual property than *any other topic*.
Military conquest was made obsolete with the WTO. There is no reason to march in and install a puppet government when you can control the existing one.
Does the Greenham Common US Base, in the UK, which was given =TOTAL= immunity from UK laws (above and beyond any regular diplomatic immunity) count?
Or the NSA base in the UK, allegedly involved with Echelon, Moonpenny, Silkworth, etc, where even the UK Government is forbidden to enter?
Sure, there was some "justification" for these decisions, but that's not the point. The point is that this was land unquestionably outside of the US that was claimed, occupied and controlled by the US, and "defended" vigorously with force of arms.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Don't teach compiler theory in schools. Someone might make an open source compiler.
Don't teach OS theory in schools. Someone might make an open source OS.
Only sell your compiler/development tools to a select few who agree not to develop open source products. After all, if you sell to anyone, who knows what they might do?
Get a fscking clue, Mr. Allchin!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I can understand you liking Windows 2000 more than Linux. I personally feel they are pretty close, it just depends on what you need it for. But come on Windows XP? How about Linux 3.0? We can't really judge it until it's actually out and being used in production level machines. I'm not saying that there is no way it will be good, but it is entirely possible it will be a total bomb.
It's pretty easy to get a lot of Americans pissed off at your opponents. Just call them "Un-American". Just think about the House Unamerican Activities Comission and all of the American lives it ruined in the fifties.
;)
God I'm glad I was born in '78. I missed out on the fifties AND the sixties!
Gentoo Sucks
That is, the American way as defined as the puruit of corporate greed. I'm an American, and it sickens me.
America didn't invent the corporation. But in the 19th century, America went further than any other country in perfecting this glorious instrument of money-extraction. Who else would have thought to give the status of natural personhood to corporations as our Supreme Court did? Who else would have turned the English language into the most imperial language on the earth today, not because of any military conquest (though the US does have plenty) but because of corporate conquest?
Open-source undermines all of that. Third-world countries like El Salvador and India can compile their own operating systems and tools instead of buying them from American corporations like Microsoft. Even within the US, people are turning away from expensive software and to free software. It's just cheaper.
In a world where the lead developer and figure head of the next greatest software is a Finn from Sweden, what hope does the US hegemony have? That's what Microsoft is worrying about here. And they're right.
Read the rest of this comment...
Seriously, all it will take is a segment on CNN about how Osama bin Laden uses Linux to organize his evil terrorist plots and suddenly policymakers will feel an overwhelming need to keep this renegade OS in check. Such a wag-the-dog type scenario would be such a boon to Microsoft that I wouldn't put it past them to spread that kind of FUD, and help in the engineering of such a smear campaign.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Unfortunately, it's difficult to come up with good content for this letter. What we don't want to say is that our government should be dumping closed-source technologies for open-source ones just because they're open-source. That would just make us look like fanatics, and even if they did listen to us, it would make open-source look bad if the migration were to fail. For instance, suggesting that a secretary replace his Windows desktop running Office 2000 with a Linux desktop running Star Office is foolish.
So what we need to do is come up with reasonings that make sense. I think we need to "educate" our government that assuming everything else is equal, an open-source solution is superior to a closed-source one.
So we need to enlighten with truths and (more importantly) debunk myths. Here's a list to get started:
- The idea that you can hold a company responsible in case something goes wrong with your software is a myth. If your Windows server crashes, you'll need to hire someone to fix it. Microsoft won't be any real help, and you'll never get a refund from them any way.
- The licensing fees for closed-source products do nothing but make the product more expense the more you use it. Let's say you hire another 100 employees. If the organization were using Windows, you'd have to pay for another 100 Windows licenses. It wouldn't cost you a dime if they were Linux desktops. You'd still be paying the IT staff to install the systems, regardless of the OS.
- Open-source technologies give the end-user control of his resources. If something breaks, you don't need to rely on an outside party to fix it.
This list is just a start. I'm hoping the--
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
It will be the downfall of civilization (or atleast of some very large multinationals) - and free software is bringing the idea of content freedom to everybody. That's why microsoft, RIAA, MPAA and all the others are fighting with everything they have to suppress the *idea* of free content.
I predict a long, hard fight..
-henrik
You think MS would fix the Address book in Outlook so viruses couldn't attack using it.
The web (browsers, servers) is considered fairly innovative by some.
Several posts (I only read about 200) have mentioned that the real problem w/ Open Source is that it is free and as such can't make any $ and so since MS does make $ Open Source with wither and die.
Why does Open Source need to be free?
If I offer my wife the source to my latest Perl diddy besides looks at it and wonder what it all means (oh, come on you don't document either) what can she do with it? If the product works why would she want to do anything with it? If the product was good and stable why shouldn't she pay for it? (Well b/c she's my wife, but I think you see where I'm going.)
A good product should be paid for (except Diablo 2, it still doesn't have in game saves!) Those of you who write code know it ain't easy.
I certainly appreciate FREE, but I would be willing to pay for things. Even Star Office. No it is not as good as MS Office, but it is good enough. I assume it will get better (God, I hope it does.)
We've all had FREE for a little while now (NS, MSIE, EUDORA, Linux) maybe if we really give such a huge shit about "killing MS" and moving Open Source along we should consider paying for this stuff.
With some old hardware you can set up a fairly kicking e-commerce site using Open Source Software. Say Perl, Perl DBI, MySQL, PHP, Apache, SAMBA, CGI, yadda yadda: Why shouldn't you return some of the $ you make to the people who made this possible in the form of paying for the Open Source software?
For the most part I never need to go poking through source code. I like RPMs too. I paid for Red Hat 6.2 (and 5.2). I love the idea that I COULD "fix" the source but in practice I doubt I will very often. I think that it is very important though that those who can fix the code have access to it. I agree with the Open Source philosophy.
I think we need to get away from this Peter Pan attitude of staying young forever and never paying for anything. It is not a good idea if any of the things I read up here are more than knee jerk reactions to a profitable MS.
---
This
This is obviously part of Microsoft's lame attempts to get more politically savvy. This guy is actually trying to schmooze and cozy up to the Beltway crowd; "Hey, that 'free' stuff, a little pinko, don't you think?" Meanwhile it comes off so badly he'll wish he shut up by the time this is over.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
notice that I posed it as a question, not a statement
and as far as make xconfig is concerned, I was meaning the thing that it gets you to, which is menu-driven reconfiguration of the kernel - if M$ can get away with calling the Start Menu an innovation, I think the OSS community can get away with that.
As far as desktops that work with multiple WM's, I'd like some elaboration on that - as far as I was aware, KDE and Gnome were the first that worked that way, with the "desktop" feature set being built into the interface for most other OSes and other desktops for systems like X being built into the window manager or equivalent.
You obviously have a clue. Public software is a win-win. Just like public (openly published) basic science. The idea is that we create and share building blocks, but we do not stop building! On the contrary, with abundant public software we can concentrate on building bigger and better things. Better to stand on the shoulders of giants than to be kept under foot of a giant.
Bottom line is that if I want to give away
my intellectual property for the greater good,
that's my business. Our constitution mandates
freedom and democracy, not capitalism.
If this FUD-slewing argument becomes a serious (rather than bogus) threat, I think we should just start calling free/open source software "freedom software" instead. That would put the burden back on Mr. Allchin. After all, what could be more American than "freedom software"?
I can see it now: "freedom is an intellectual property destroyer!"
Cynically yours,
--LP
Does that ring a bell to anyone?
I thought that I heard that somewhere.
You'd think that will all of the money they throw at PR, they could at least *hide* their inconsistency and fear a little better. Isn't that what PR is for?
Mucous membranes are the part of your brain that, like, make you think about mucous. --Beavis
That's a troll if I ever heard one, BUT in some ways maybe it's correct. Ok, bear with me here.
.5% of the users have 99.999% of the computer knowledge, and I know a lot of other companies are in a similar situation.
I work in a company where
What would the other 99.5% of the users do with Linux? They don't know how to change their default start page in IE or remember where they saved a powerpoint presentation. Windows is the perfect OS for them (or MacOS maybe). The Linux market is still very niche. Windows is better for the average user, Linux is better for the power user.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Assumption: you mean free as in beer, as the rest of you're post seems to indicate
I'm not sure if I agree with you here. I think its more than that. Sure, that is a bonus to the whole thing, but I think its evolved passed that. I'm not much of a coder, never had been, probably will never write thousands of lines of code. But, I still tinker with it. And guess what, if I write something that somebody else wants, I'll probably give it to them. I've done this before over the 'net with some very simple cgi scripts.
The point is, I think Open Source and free (beer) are by no means synonymous. Open Source is a relization that maybe software can be developed in another way. Maybe that bug is too tough for group A to figure out, but those hackers on the other side of the ocean got it in no time. Is this a bad thing? How would you solve a similar problem in a closed source? Throw money and time at it, possibly release without fixing the bug and release a patch later, or rewrite the entire module.
Open Source is also a security model. The theory is that the more people that can read the code, the more people can discover bugs, and report them. I'm not trying to suggest (or deny) that OS is a better/worse security model, just point out that it is a security model.
Once I started playing with Linux and learning more about it, and open source s/w, I began to realize that it is more than just a free (as in beer) OS. If it was, I'd probably just copy some other OS that plays games better. Instead, I realized that in the Linux community, there is a serious attempt to create stable, secure, and bug free software.
The problem with this is that they are suspect to all the usual forces that affect humans in normal society. In a company, programmers have to follow the dictacts of those above, and 'those above' have to follow the dictacts of the shareholder and the consumer. This forces them to do be innovative.
However, in Open Source, people are subject to a whole gamut of other forces. "what is cool (enlightenment), what is uncool, peer pressure, any of the myriad forces of petty jealousy and human strife, in a chaotic environment.
An open source programmer is like a cowboy in the wild west, trying to stake out his claim to some land. He is not conserned with being innovative in this context, but in stealing land from those already present, be it other cowboys or native americans.
This is the truth as I see it.
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
--Anticipation of a New Lover's Arrival, The
When is the last time you got any support from M$?
About 3 or 4 years ago, when I was playing around with Visual C++ 4 and had a question that wasn't answered in the FAQ, docs, etc. So I call up the support number. They tell me (after a bunch of wading thought phone systems and waiting on hold) that I should call the non-1800 number. OK I figured, why not, a quick call may cost a couple of buck, but it'll answer my question, so why not.
So I waded through more phone systems, and waited on hold some more. When I finally got to talk to a real person, they asked me all sorts of information. Name, address, phone number, zip/postal code, version, place of purchase, etc etc. Finally I got around to telling her my serial number.
"Sir, this serial number is registered to a canadian location."
"Yes" (I had given my location when she asked for it, as "BC Canada", and a Postal code not a zip code.
"... and it also appears to be an educational version"
"Yes" (I had given my place of purchase as University College of the Fraser Valley, and I don't think you can get more educational than that).
"Well, you'll have to call [random non-toll free number] in Ottawa to get support for this product."
By this time I had randomly clicked around and figured the answer to this question, and hung up in discust.
And *that* is the last time I got "support" from MS. I guess you can get support for Linux by paying other people for it, OR you can get support from MS and pay them for it. Last I heard "real" incidents of MS support are charged $100/$200 or so to get support.
Exactly. This is akin to saying that sharing *any* information undermines intellectual property. To make MS happy, apparently we have to keep everything we know a secret. Remind me to stop teaching people how to write shell scripts. There are books out there on shell scripting, and I wouldn't want to "undermine" their intellectual property by giving away some of mine for free...
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Oh, like Amish barn raisings should be declared illegal because they threaten the innovation of contractors across our great land.
At least his comments tell us one thing: Microsoft's on the run and they don't have a clue about how to deal with open source.
Alright, so it's just a few comments from a competitor, competition is good, etc, but...
It's amazing to me that he's blatantly suggesting that MS and other 'closed' companies should buy some legislation. How much anti-competitive spew can one company spit out?
It's also funny that he's suggesting that the American Way is to buy some legislation to keep your business practices in place... I always read in school that the American Way was essentially 'may the best man win'.
/me picks jaw up off floor.
MS do not want to outlaw Open Source.
What they have said, is that the government should not encourage it.
And this is more fair.
Let me explain:
The ultimate goal of Open Source is free software.
Now this means that you don't pay anything for it.
If this happens, there is no money to pay programmers. As a result, intelligent people such as myself, who could command 6 figure salaries in any profession will take different career paths.
With fewer programmers, the result will be less innovation and worse software.
Furthermore, universities, etc. won't be able to afford to run computing courses, since, as is the stated aim of many OS people, MS will be dead - and MS funds a lot of universities.
Furthermore, the evidence is that open source does not tend to produce new innovation. For example, desktops such as KDE are based on older products from Apple and MS. When open source is the only thing remaining, innovation will obviously be reduced.
Finally, the fact is that nothing is truly free, and nothing costs money.
Let me talk about the economy. You would agree that in the past few years, it's been doing great.
Furthermore, if you ask an economist to tell you why, they will tell you it's due to IT growth.
Industry produces wealth - they produce the fact that California is the 6-th wealthiest nation worth, and they help the economy.
Killing this industry will not make everything free, but will rather damage the economy.
Without the growth from *purchases* (which business can afford), the economy will not do as well.
(and so long as you don't try to break the encryption and attempt to make freedom for yourself)
'We can build a better product than Linux,'' he [Allchin] said.
:P
So... why don't they?
Three dits, four dits, two dits, dah!
Radio, radio, rah rah rah!
The American Way -- what way is that? I suppose it's the way nothing works unless someone stands to become stinking rich through market control. The American Way as epitomized by M.S. has little to do with either free markets or competition. Fuck Microsoft. Fuck them, Fuck them, FUCK THEM.
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Ah, ha! But how much software is niche, internal, special purpose? These are the programmers that will ALWAYS obtain 5-6 figure salaries, as open source generally serves the "general" software market (web/mail/ftp servers, OS's like Linux, etc..) The real money is often in support and admin anyway, which Open Source can't solve -- you need man-hours instead.
Don't remember where I read it, but about 85% of software is developed for in-house projects. It doesn't matter if you have IP protection in these cases. Stuff that's useful to everybody will get generated for free. Once you factor in support - from helpdesk to high-priced consultants - only a miniscule fraction of IT wages come from developing closed proprietary projects. The original poster would have you believe that Apache is screwing over all those webserver admins and so forth.
I can't help but be baffled by how obvious it is that Microsoft embodies the Taker form of Mother Culture. We must keep the food under lock and key in order to make the world work for us. If we were to allow diversity in our culture, then we can't survive.... give me a break.
If you haven't, read Ishmael
This is me... and that is all I can be.
First it puts Microsoft in the position of admitting that their products aren't as good as Linux.
More importantly, it undermines their specific message today, which is that Linux threatens innovation. Well, if Linux is already better, who needs Microsoft innovation?
Someone ought to remind Allchin that Microsoft Internet Explorer went out the door for $0.00.
Unamerican?
On the other hand, *that* was used to crush a competitor and destroy a viable marketplace. Maybe that was the "American Way" after all...
While Germany is getting more and more "americanized" (creative destruction of the health insurance system, drastic cut back of most social services, cutting back on sick leave and vacation), it is also another country whose supreme court early on established the status of "juristical personhood" for corporations. As far as turning a language into an imperial tool for military and commercial conquest ... I believe that the German effort under the label of "Reich of a 1000 years" lasted only a considerably shorter period of time.
As far as the Finn from Sweden is concerned, for all that I know, he's working in the US ... luckily not for Microsoft, though.
open source is the markets response to the M$ monopoly.
I don't get it. Say Microsoft makes a piece of intellectual property, for example IIS. And the open source folks make a competing program, Apache. It might be true to say that Apache is destroying IIS's market share. But Apache is not destroying the intellectual property contained in IIS. When the last IIS webserver is retired, Microsoft will still have just as much ownership of IIS as ever.
Open Source may be a threat to Microsoft, but I don't see how it's a threat to the government. So why should policy makers care about the threat. Was the automobile a threat to the carriage industry?
Now I'm even more confused. If Allchin is not concerned about sales competition from 'the product', then what exactly is this threat he's going on about? Maybe he's saying he doesn't fear Linux, he fears (Apache|FreeBSD|something).
Oh, good. I look forward to that. Jim, you might want to check with Bill. A few years ago he said that Windows NT would be a better Unix than Unix. Could you ask him how that project is coming? Since NT is being replaced by W2k (yes I know it's really the same) is it finally time to admit that NT has not lived up to that boast?
They are suggesting that Open Source is communist (which it kind of is), and we all know how much Americans hate communists, so this argument may sway minds. America, where democracy equals facist repression of communism.
"Only amateurs attack machines; professionals target people."
NPR unbiased?
... they're all biased.
what fantasy world do you live in? the NPR that i listen (and contribute financially) to is incredibly "liberal" politically and socially. same thing for CNN, NBC, nytimes.com
this myth of "objectivity" hurts news reporting. nobody is unbiased. it's not possible to lack a point of view. the key to news is understanding the reporting agency's perspective and filter accordingly.
that's how i can listen to rush limbaugh AND subscribe to the nation at the same time.
Mindy: "Well...desserts aren't always right." Homer: "But they're so sweet!"
he "...can't imagine something that could be worse then this for the software business and intellectual-property business."
how about monopolies?
the animal doesnt even have opposable thumbs, focker!
When quoting from a book, one doesn't usually attribute the quote to a character, rather just the title and/or author. Why can't one do the same with a movie?
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
I'm sad to see that they are suggesting that this will undermine IP, which is a *voluntary* system. Intellectual property is protected, as no one can prevent a programmer from learning from the code creation process and applying that experience elsewhere. While the rewards may not be immediately financial, they are certain worth the effort, as thousands of open sourcing programmers will likely attest.
Microsoft is threatening my freedom to innovate!
From this person's statements, it looks like Microsoft is trying yet another way to squash a strong competitor. Oddly enough, nothing about "The American Way" forces you to keep your assets protected and to make money with them. Many people in history have given stuff away for many reasons, to the benefit of all. Perhaps Microsoft needs "a whack up side the head" so that they realize that the open source community spans the entire world. I wonder if things like China's efforts to make Linux their standard OS are hitting Microsoft hard.
But I find this terrifying. NOBODY markets like MS, and they've demonstrated their ability in recent years to apply that marketing power where it can hurt the open source movement the most, in the lawbooks. They are taking aim, and when they're on target, you can be sure they'll fire. This isn't a game. It isn't friendly. It's war. Open source is the biggest threat to Bill and the way he does business. So he's going to be the biggest threat to us.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
Open-source is similar to a home architect giving you the blueprints to the house when you contract him. I mean, just think about it... you could build other houses to the same design. Or worse, you could improve on the design. How terrible. Microsoft is right, this is unamerican! Let us destroy all blueprints!
--
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
As I read this article, there are 349 replies. Just think of the reaction that type of mail flood would get in Seattle. The flood itself would be newsworthy.
Write the editorial board of the Seattle Times and the P-I. Tell them how disgusted you are with Allchin's remarks! The number of letters WILL get a response. And Allchin WILL get wind how of his transgression is being received.
Use the /. effect to your advantage!
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Microspeak: Competition = 'Stagnation' Inovation = 'Undermining' Campaign Donations = 'Educating'
There was a recent Free Telephony Summit held by ostel.com, who do Open Source Telephony work, with participants including openh323.org, the Bayonne.cx project, Pre-Viking, GNUComm, and others. Several of the participants were individuals or small companies that developed open source telephony products funded by major corporations (who were either hiring work out, or had bought the small companies.) This turns out to be a useful variant on the traditional consultant business model - instead of the code you develop for customers becoming their intellectual property as work-for-hire, you still own it and can reuse it for your future customers, because it's Open Source (whether religously correct GPL, BSD-like, Artistic License, Free Beer, or whatever). It's practical for the telephony business, because most of the work involves building complex but relatively standardizable interfaces and then heavily customizing applications on top of them, so the client needs to either pay the consultant to build the Ugly Telephony Standard Toolkit or buy an overpriced commercial version which will still need extensive customization, and open-source developers are good at building toolkits and applications that are easy to customize and at least as well documented as commercial code, plus they can use other open source tools to build them , which may be difficult for Software-Hoarders to do. Additionally, some of the clients are manufacturers of telecom hardware products, such as interface boards, so funding development of open-source tools that support _their_ hardware is a good way to leverage hardware sales - the gamble is that they'll get more money providing free software and selling more hardware than if they sell overpriced development software (especially because any commercial product developer will buy a bunch of boards for their development work, plus you can sell to smaller developers.) It's a good deal for everybody.
A decade and a half ago, when I was interacting with my employer's PBX developers, I would periodically go into a rant about the need for open, standardized, well-documented interfaces to the hardware and software components of their systems. It's not so much that our _customers_ need to develop applications to hack their PBXs (though that's valuable even if a pointy-haired product manager can't see a well-defined revenue stream), but so our own _developers_ could develop products quickly and easily instead of spending three years of formal development cycles to be allowed to get all the pieces they need into the schedule so they can do their six months of work for a feature that might only be a medium-sized win instead of a big win. That's one of the real advantages the IP PBX world has, is that it can chuck out 2/3 of the baggage, though some of it's still around :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Well he's right in a limited way. It wouldn't be good for businesses trying to create and maintain monopolies. And it wouldn't be good for those that like to release buggy code that shouldn't even be beta to the public as a finished product. But for everyone else...
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
The American Way :
Seriously though, this is the most interesting sign that Microsoft feels badly threatened that they've decided to kill off the opposition lika this...
... and today's pet project has
Not all Americans - just New Yorkers, DC's cretins, and those wackos in Cali. The rest of us seem pretty darn normal, and dont lord stuff over other people. 8)
Ahh, and a Diderot quote: "Man will not be free until the last king has been strangled with the entrails of the last priest."
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Check GNUArt : GNUArt.org and GNUArt.net
-- javaDragon is an instance of JavaDragon.
There isn't much difference between open source code and the scientific community. Actually, open source coders ARE part of computer science community.....the applied computer science portion. The submission of code, peer review, and continued use and development of what works are all scientific evolution at work. Come to think of it, an awful lot of this stuff is written by computer science students. As I have posted before, red baiting especially the red baiting of open source advocates should be an immediately losing debate tactic. It is just as inflammatory and as unenlightening as mentioning a certain group of Teutonic goose-steppers. I'll call it the Slashdot Corollary to Godwin's Law.
Come to think of it, just what is wrong with free base of applications and OSes? It seems to me that the bread and butter stuff of computing was figured out a long time ago and that one should have to offer something very compelling to justify charging money for it. At the very least, I envision open source projects defining the minimum criteria of usefulness for software. After all, something you pay money for should work better than the free stuff. Right?
Maybe that is what Microsoft is afraid of. They suspect that their stuff isn't up to snuff considering what they want to charge EVERYBODY (and I DO mean EVERYBODY as in EVERYBODY on the planet) for it.
The discussion in this topic is INCREDIBLY active! In the about eight hours it has been online, it is over 1000 posts already. I noticed over 700 only in the first hour!
And, out of the eight, it was down for about four (why has no one commented on this? From where I sat, the database seemed to be down down down from about 5:00EST till about 9:00EST), due, I imagine, to the infinite monkeys banging away their frustrations against the poor little mysql or whatever...
If this keeps going for just a bit longer (~350 more posts), it will make the Hall of Fame (http://slashdot.org/hof.shtml) in just about five or six hours of active posting! This must be a record!
So, since I was thinking about this, I took a quick look at the HoF, and found that the most active topics were counter-intuitive to the traditional Slashbot/geek/wannabe stereotype, which is good!
Out of the ten most active posts, Five are about politics (three of them about the elections in the US!), one mixed politics with DeCSS/2600, one on religion/education, one about life out of the US, one about Microsoft, and one of a skr1p7 k1dd13 posting garbage to a book review.
Yup. One on MS, One partially related to DeCSS. No gnome vs. kde, no emacs vs. vi, no napster, no GPL, no 3dfx... Interesting.
Goes to show you that the crowd here can actually talk about way more than computers. Good for you!
I also noticed that the one (maybe two, by the time I'm done writing) about MS is because they came looking for it. It is not us going out and attacking them for fanatic close-mindedness, it's them poking us with a cattle-prod - they asked for it, I guess.
When I refer a non-geek friend to read /. I normally attach the following warning. It now rings quite true:
Slashdot is an interesting but wild place - There's quite a bit to be learned and shared, but it's also uncivilized territory. Tread carefully and do not feed the trolls.
I'll go back to lurking now...
--
If you want to live in a country ruled by religion, move to Iran.
Linux and OpenSource do not threaten Intellectual Property. You can not threaten something that doesn't exist. IP is a fiction invented in the late 18th century by the English Crown in order to overthrow the freedom of the press. The greatest works of the English language come from the time where IP wasn't a thought in anyone's mind. Marlowe, Shakespere, Ben Jonson, Chaucer, all before IP. Supposedly the greatest work in any Western language was made with the Open Source mentality, the Bible. So I say it's time to end this fiction and get back to real innovation!
Let me get this straight. Businesses are free to give "campaign donations" (bribes) to candidates. These candidates then use these bribes to buy media exposure telling the American people to vote for them.
When they get elected, they promptly piss on the people who voted them in and spend their time prostituting themselves to anybody with sufficient money and a reason to buy a congressman. They do this confident in the knowledge that the American people have short memories and can be relied upon to vote them in as long as they accumulate enough money to pay for advertising come next election year.
Mike Moore has it right. Congress is a whorehouse.
Microsoft obviously doesn't feel comfortable with Linux. This is completely natural, since Linux is a competitor. Normally, they crush all their competitors before they become big, however they couldn't devise a crushing strategy against Linux, and in a couple of years it will become a serious threat to MS's business.
The reason for Microsoft's inadequate handling of Linux is that Linux is supported by many people whose main occupation is not supporting it. As fair as I've seen so far, most of the contributors to OSS projects (and ./ readers) are sysadmins and CS students who feel anxious to help humanity. Microsoft has difficulty fighting something which is not a corporation.
I think that OSS does provide people with job opportunities. A Linux programmer may do sysadmin jobs, or if he's good enough be hired by some Linux company (which survives through support fees and media sales).
In addition, many major corporations like IBM find using Linux more comfortable than using closed code specifically because of its openness. For instance the updates Sun puts into Linux benefit not only Sun, but also IBM and SGI. The improvements that go into the common source work to all parties' benefit, so the companies are more than content to pay developers for OSS.
As a final note, I'd like to mark that America is famous for its witch hunts. I really hope it's not one of these.
Perhaps someone should write a paper about how the success of slashdot has caused Taco's spelling and grammer to spread to other publications. :o]
Erik
This kind of reminds me of a political election. Where towards the end it's really close and so they candidates start calling each other names. "I'm for the American way! and my opponent is not! plus he eats moldy cheese!" I mean comon, anybody who even has half a clue can see through this kind of FUD. I just think it's kind of funny that microsoft is resorting to this. ''There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free.'' ... I knew something had been bothering me for the past two years! Thanks for cluing me in Jim!
gimme a freakin break
- "Never let a computer tell me shit." - DelTron Zero
I'm from Canada so I don't know much about American law but don't you guys have something in your constitution that allows the people freedom of speech? Freedom of association? Freedom to do what they wish with what is there own? You can't outlaw the freedom to give away your intellectual property because that would suggest that your freedom to share ideas should also be limited. In this fashion you couldn't talk to people about how to keep the coffee maker clean at work, how to build a treehouse, or how to bake a cake.
Intellectual property is both what we can create and what we can think. Limiting one is implicatino to limit the other. It's unconsitutional in your country.
Also, how will U.S. law stop Linus from developing the Kernel if he's Finnish, or from the KDE guys developing KDE, or from someone in Canada developing an Open Source Windows clone. I think the man's afraid that capitalism may not exist the way he use to want it to.
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
I guess I forgot that the American way depends on becoming rich and wealthy. I guess that I forgot that it depends on making everyone pay for my work at amazingly high prices for low quality work. I really am suprised that the American way now means protecting monopolies instead of doing what is good for the people. This is bull shit - the only thing that Microsoft cares about when it comes to IP rights is making money and lots of it. The grossly perverted statement by microsoft saying that Napster and Linux have ANY connection at any level is completely insane. Napster is quite controversial - good arguments can be made from both sides. However with Linux you have nothing even close to that. It is sad that microsoft thinks that the only type of people who make any sort of code have to be paid so damn well ... I'm just going to stop before I start bashing them. All that I have to say is with 80 billion versions of windows out there with each of them having differing incompatibilities and problems it doesn't take long to see WHY open source works so well especially as a server platform...
sad, Microsoft - you STILL don't get it
Oh yea I think this is a great idea, and while we are at it lets get rid of the freedom of speach and the right to bear arms and out "inalienable RIGHT to to life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness" and We definatly need a more powerful govenment cause I dread the day that I have to make my own decition,
<rant> for the love of pete I have enough trouble with "paper? or Plastic?" con you imagine a decision like, is this peice of software intended to violate intelectual property rights or am I just a sap and unable to diferentiate between intent and how I am actually going to use it, like guns, guns are made to KILL THINGS the fact that I don't kill things is different than what the gun was intended for does not make it an improper use of the thing</rant>
sheesh
I only have one thing to say about open source:
Hey, don't knock it till you've tried it man!!!
It's funny how people are so quick to desire the outlawing of something that doesn't fit their way of thinking. What's completely ironic about that, is that for the most part, Open Source (or the fact that no one copyrighted code way back when) is how Bill and Microsoft made their money. Now that they seem to have the world by the balls, they want to outlaw such things that made them rich, famous, and powerful. I guess that's like saying:
Now that I'm president, I'm going to outlaw elections.
What an irony. Of course, this is just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
This is just another example of the corporate smackdown. It comes from lawyers, not administrators, the admins are into anything which develops new, sellable products (and if linux really takes off, there will be a huge market in apps). I just wrote about this corporate-lawyer culture which allows this on my site.
TheGeek
TheGeek
http://www.geekrights.org
Kill the monkey
''We can build a better product than Linux,'' he said. ''There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free.''
So why haven't they? If MS can create a better product than Linux, what's stopping them? It's rather obivous they haven't, or they wouldn't be running scared like that are and it's obivous they fear Linux. Why would they fear Linux if they create a better product? Hrmmmm....
Sounds like more FUD to me. What a surprise.
Khyron
So mr Bill is feeling the pinch eh? It is a sad day when the only choice of product available comes from 1 company. PC operating systems are obsolete Bill - get over it. Windows is DEAD.
So the Monopolist is going to use the Monopolies' cash to buy the politicians to crush free software? Good luck. Best he'll do is put the government computer systems into a tailspin of OSMuck(TM). Making them worse than they are already.
IBM what do you think about this strategy?
SUN?
Army? Navy? Airforce? Marines? NASA? NSA?
NOAA? How's that new linux cluster running? Oh by the way, you have to install NT on that baby now!!! Oh, What? NT doesn't run on the Alpha architecture anymore? Then replace it with and 8 way Compaq server.
What do you mean the Human Genome was sequenced on a machine running OSS with OSS?
Ha. What a Joke!!!!
Dear Bill,
May I suggest HariKari?
It really is the only way out now.
Dearest,
The American Public
Adults are obsolete children. - Dr. Seuss
Every time I read an article like this one, all I can think about is little turds rolling out of Bill Gate's diaper... Linux is pushing Windows around and the folks in Redmond don't know what to do about it. They are literally shitting their pants... They can't stop it so all they can really do is sit back and bad mouth it with no hard facts to support their arguments. They really make themselves look bad. If they want to stop it they need to shut up and accept it and write better code that may actually be able to compete with Linux. Well... that's my 2 cents. :-)
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
Innovation is to steal ideas from others and pretending there are your own.
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
If this is an argument to promote competition and innovation i think the end is near.
Now we know how stupid they think their customer are. This guy is CFO, Chief FUD officer.
You said it, Buzz. I think it's time for the Linux community to remember their unofficial marketing slogan:
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
Whitout open source their operating systems would be junk!
What was the last time MicroShaft actually came out with a product based only on their own idea?
NEVER!
This is somehow un-American?
Funny, I thought that America was a pioneer's dream. The expansion of this country was fueled by a desire to see what's over the next horizon, find somewhere where you can make a place for yourself, live your dreams. I guess that the American Way (TM) is complacency. I'm glad that we're all sheep. It certainly makes the job a lot easier for the corporate powers-that-be to control us through a well balanced diet of Chicken McNuggets (TM), Coke (TM), and Friends.
I think that Jim Allchin's fear is that we'll start to think for ourselves, and when we do, we might decide that we don't particularly care for the way that his corporation does business or the shoddy products that it sells.
Beeru wa doko dess ka?
Most of what he said was wrong or overstated or oversimplified, but Hemos' was no better.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
Of course MS didn't comment on a ridiculous rant like that.
/. more readers were smart, they too would find Allchin's claims today equally without merit, and unworthy of any response. That is, if they want to take it the way /.'s Open Source Propaganda Machine spoon feeds it to them.
If
This is a manual virus. Copy it to your sig and help me spread!
Further, the software they =have= produced for Linux becomes a legal liability, as they'd be an accessory to a crime.
Hmmm... The more I think about this, the more I like it!!! Should Microsoft ever get Open Source declared illegal, Bill Gates and possibly the entire board of directors become wanted criminals.
Go, Microsoft, go! Get that law passed, so we can be rid of you, once and for all! Ritual suicide might not earn you any karma, but it will relieve the industry of a ghastly burden.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Does it really undermine intellectual property or does it just mean that you can borrow it all you want? Say, it is my property, but you can use it all you want, just don't destroy it (which is difficult, since I have 1 copy of it, and so do many other people), you can borrow it as much as you want, but it is still mine.
I interperet the GPL as using copyright law to give rights to the author and ownership to the world at large. It is still intellectual property, but everyone owns it. Are they arguing somehow that it would diminish their own ownership of their code in some way to have other code owned by other people being shared freely?
Why are they trying to tell other people what they can and cannot do with their own property? (I won't start on whether this concept is American or unAmerican... depends on when you are looking at America...)
certron
fair.org counterpunch.com truthout.com indymedia.org salon.com
eff.org guerrilla.net debian.org gentoo.org
...that Micro$oft wants to outlaw open source. I certainly believe they would have a big old party if it were outlawwed, but this is irresponsible journalism.
You are twisting the words of Microsoft to suit your own ends, and it diminishes your credibility.
Maybe the American's should learn something from Canadian's... the American Way seems to be a morally devoid cash-grubbing self-centered existance. Canadian's still have some traces of socialist views (even with being constantly bombarded with American media).
Can some American's explain why the "American Dream" is attractive? I don't understand why you would be proud to find your happiness and "freedom" through money and power. I suppose the Dream has been corrupted by corporate propaganda, but perhaps the dream was flawed to begin with. It's a new century, let's throw out the old dreams, and construct societies that we are proud to be a part of.
~Squiggle
Complexity Happens
but it should really be judged on the effects it has on the software itself, not the business of producing/selling it.
--
Ie:
If M$ throws enough FUD on this subject, they may be able to convince a large proportion of the public (or our public officials) that this is for real!
-MattT *** Not speaking for my employer, or any other sentient beings ***
The thing is that free/open software plays by the rules. There is no stealing of intellectual property and nothing else illegal going on at all. open/free software is even copyrighted and licenced to its users, just like MS' products are. The only difference (from a legal standpoint) is the distribution method (source) and the terms of the licenses (you don't need to pay, but you have to share).
As far as I am aware, there is only one way that giving stuff away could pose problems, and that is if a market player dumps stuff at below cost in order to squeeze out their competitors. This should not apply in our case, as 'free' is the normal price, not a limited offer, and the cost is (close to) zero, as the vast majority writes the stuff as a hobby, on their free time. Even those companies employing programmers to work on open source should be off the hook as they legitimately can say that they are improving the software for internal use, then sharing the improvements as per the license; or that they are in the service business, not the software business.
I get the impression that MS has current, accurate figures about linux adoption and are getting scared. It'll be interesting to see when usage figures are next published...
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
keep in mind that the american way is capatalism. If there ever was a worse way to make money than make something better and give it away as a matter of pride and human evolution, we've done a bang up job. Does this guy make official statements for MS or is this some joe schmo that is just talking to hear himself talk?
It's sad to say, but the U.S. is sitting atop a [now] outdated and decrepid foundation. Without much needed improvements and rework, it will eventually fail.
"Catastrophic failure" (I like that phrase, dunno why)
I love my country. It's the government I loathe.
-----
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
It seems that MS is noq going up against the world. Most major Computing companies are now adopting some sort of Open-Source projects, Apple, HP, IBM, Corel, etc.(well maybe Corel will be dropping out soon). Many other companies/ organizations started because of Open-Sourcing, Red Hat, Apache, Netscape kinda. And how many innovations have come along because of Open-Sourcing? Today's technology would not be where it is right now if it had not been for the developers working for free to make the world better. I thank them for that. How can MS say that it is Bad? Are they just afraid that they are going to lose a couple bucks? Companies, mainly MS, have to start thinking "For the better of the people", than "I want some more money." What if MS doesn't start with Open-Source projects, what if they try to stop other non-profit groups, like that really big non-profit organization that helps people buy food, builds roads, builds houses, sends our mail, you know.. the Government! I think that MS is just trying to get some attention like usual. If they actually believe what they are saying, then they are friggin crazy and must once again be stopped. I really wish that Ross Perot would have bought them when he had the chance. If Corel stops making Linux, they can go to hell too.
Evidently my correspondance with my elected representatives has had the affect of scaring Microsoft. I suggested that, as the people entrusted with our tax dollars, my U.S. senator and representative had the obligation to spend those dollars wisely. Purchasing licenses for proprietary software when perfectly usable free alternatives exist is not a good use of public funds. Perhaps others voiced the same concern, prompting Microsofts intemperate response. If you haven't yet made this suggestion to your public servants, it's not too late!
Time and time again, I'm reminded of Asimov's Galactic Library. And if you aren't familiar with his works, that was a storehouse of all human knowledge stockpiled and hidden in lieu of dark ages that would last for a thousand years.
In a way we have our own Galactic Library. It's composed of every useful idea ever created whose details can be recalled with enough precision to reproduce that idea. These ideas, information, properties;however you want to phrase the concept, are valuable. Good ideas allow things to get done and problems to be solved. Some ideas can chnage the direction of the entire human race. Steam, electricity, semiconductors, transportation, and countless others.
Each technological revolution stands on the shoulders of the last. Each generation building upon the available ideas of their time. We stand on the shoulders of giants as we sit here typing away our impassioned thoughts on slashdot. Many us doing so from an environment that is nearly 100% free in it's origins and implementation and distribution. It feels good to know that one can rely on himself to do certain tasks without having to worry about playing by someone elses rules or having to use someone elses property. To operate in an environment owned by someone else is to lose the ability to work or play without inhibition and inhibition is a mild term considering most proprietary software licenses are over 20 pages now.
Our giants we once assumed made from bedrock, are being chipped away by theives who view the spectrum of long established ideas as some sort of territory that can mapped out and claimed as if the past and unnamed innovators could somehow be erased and forgotten becasue they don't have a piece paper in the patent database.
They know and we know it's all just a bunch of bullshit but they move forward every day, taking a piece here and a piece there.
Tacit admission: we DON'T build a better product than Linux.
LOL
Is it necessary to descend into crass nationalism? What our dear MS exec seems to forget is that most of the world IS NOT AMERICA, and so his little spits about banning OpenSource because it is 'unAmerican' really won't affect most programmers and users of Open Source. More to the point, most of us who are not unfortunate enough to live in the land of rape and honey couldn't give a flying foobar about OpenSource being 'unamerican' - so are we. What of it? Should we have to embrace cultural and corporate imperialism? Is MS the paragon of the American Way(tm)? Lets look at some of its wonderful corporate behaviour: * keeping large amounts of its workforce employed as external contractors so that it escapes all the legal responsibilities it would have toward them if they were employees. * breaking all manner of anti-trust and anti-competition laws * doing its level best to ensure that there is no competition and no innovation in the marketplace by buying out or otherwise disabling companies that could encroach upon its markets. * selling software that they _know_ is hopelessly bug-ridden (Remember the 63000 bugs in Win2k?) and then having the hide to charge customers for bug fixes (oh.. that's right... i mean operating system upgrades) I am sure that we could go on.. Is this the 'American way'? If so, what happened to the notions of justice and democracy that filled the minds of the authors of the Constitution? It is telling when an unethical company who engages in various illegal practices descends into nothing short of crass nationalism to defend its case. All I can see that can come from this is another rehash of McCarthyism... and I am sure that noone here would believe that McCarthy and his whole anti-communist witchhunt was the high point of American culture or politics.
In related news, McDonald's Corporation Executive Vice President Steve Barfly spoke to legislators on Tuesday regarding the escalating numbers of free soup kitchens in inner-city America.
"Soup kitchens are the destroyer of commercial food enterprises," Barfly said. "I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the food industry."
Barfly made his announcements shortly after confirming rumors that the Justice Department would be investigating their planned acquisition of Burger King, another fast food empire. Burger king announced last month that they would be stopping all of their donations to soup kitchens, but claimed that McDonald's was not consulted regarding the decision. Maggie Smith, founder of Charitable Look, said most cities with soup kitchens do retain some number of for-profit restaraunts.
"I think McDonald's is trying to paint the soup-kitchen community as being fascist; that all food has to be free, or none of it can be," said Smith, whose organization assists churches and community groups in setting up their own soup kitchens.
Barfly said he's concerned that the give-food away model could stifle initiative in the food service industry.
"I'm an American, I believe in the American Way," he said. "I worry if the government encourages giving away food, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat."
"We can deliver a tastier product than the soup kitchens," he said. "There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free."
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"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
sed -e 's/open source/openly published scientific research/g' << EOF
"Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer," Allchin said. ''I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business."
EOF
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Polluting the environment ? *bang* there go corporate profits of a year.
Killing people ? *bang* no more company, money goes to state.
I would imagine this would improve corporate morals.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
...from the International Open Source Communist Conspiracy.
--Dr. Strangelove (or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love Microsoft)
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Yep, I think all the intellectual property that comes out of Darpa and American universities should go to Microsoft. Wait, I mean it should go to the taxpayers who support these institutions.
The internet, UNIX, Linux -- These would not exist in their present forms if their inventors had kept them proprietary. Of course, Microsoft would love this. Why surf the web for the information you want when you can buy it on a Microsoft CD? Why run a free and open operating system on your machine when there is Windows?
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
From the article:
Despite Linux's success in some markets, Allchin says he isn't concerned about sales competition from the product. Microsoft provides support to change and develop products based on its operating system software that Linux companies don't, he said. Companies that use Linux in their products then must pay someone else for support, he said.
"We can build a better product than Linux," he said. "There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free."
I work for a software company. No, our code is not open, not everything should be. However, we run database servers, and they will work on Linux, Novell, or NT. What server is selling most often?
Linux.
Why? First, we charge for Linux on the servers (because the GPL allows for that) We charge $600.00 for the software install, this is LESS than the cost of Novell or NT/2000. If you want us to install NT or Novell, we will do it, but at a cost above the licence fee.
Second, the Linux servers are very stable (server won't run on BSD yet), and it costs us nothing to install OpenSSH for, you guessed it, REMOTE SUPPORT.
Linux is easier for us to support as a server, it is more reliable, it costs the customer less, and makes our business MORE profit. So if he believes that "We can build a better product than Linux" Go ahead. I will use anything that works, and benifits our business and our customers the most. Right now that solution for a server is clearly Linux. Still, I strongly doubt that MS can beat the price and power of free.
I apologise for the formatting of this post. The lameness filter would not allow me to post it in its original format.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
Talking about the "American Way" is like comparing somone to being a Nazi: it more or less ends the discussion :) Can't justify your opinion? Just say it's contrary to the mythical American Way, which has been used to justify just about anything you back up with facts
Wood Shavings!
Wood Shavings!
- Godai
I commend Jim Allchin for bringing up a point that a lot of us have been saying for years.
Only we get moderated down as trollbait on slashdot.org. Mr. Allchin on the other hand isn't going to be kept quiet before government discussion.
I think that's a good thing, start putting some of these inflated assumptions to the fire.
"Let's blame Canada"
Don't look now, but here in Canada, we already blame the USA. ;-)
Maybe we all should blame Finland, instead.
"values of beta will give rise to dom!"
Yep.
If the "American Way" is about freedom, then open source qualifies. No one is twisting anyone's arm to write this code. No one is twisting anyone's arm to use it.
Look, if anyone compares open source to collectivism, remind them that the bad part about socialism and communism isn't the sharing, it's the part about being forced to share.
On the other hand, news of the DOJ investigation of the Microsoft - Corel deal is all over the place.
According to Canadian law the Canadian authorities must prove you AREN'T a refugee, not the other way around. So go up there, burn your passport, and say "I am a refugee."
Collect lots of cheques.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Prognosticator to the geeks
If Godzilla did not exist, man would have had to create him.
Of course change doesnt come easily when you're making truckloads of money with the status quo, so it took em a few years to catch on to it.
Look where we are now, okay, maybe all the "e-*" catchphrases are a bit tiresome, but technology has never been better, faster, cheaper, easier to use.
I guess what im trying to say is, within a few years, everything will be different, paradigms will have been altered so radically that we most likely cant venture a guess about what's to come in the next few years. After all, who saw e-commerce becoming a multi billion dollar a year industry?
Response- Yes, open source projects may mean less of a focus on R&D. However, if good percentage of R&D work done consists mainly of reinventing the wheel, then what is the loss, except perhaps the "churn" that comes from paying engineers who then pay taxes, buy stuff, and otherwise add momentum to the economy.
As for threatening intellectual property, well, that's Napster's job (\me donning asbestos suit in preparation for flames). While open source may reduce the *volume* of intellectual property out there (as a result of reduced R&D), I don't see how open source is a threat to established IP (unless perhaps he's thinking about wacky GPL license-infection or something, which is a non-issue now).
Of course, we all know that what he's really doing is trolling the open source community. Good job Allchin! (Now how can we mod him down?)
-- "I am disrespectful to dirt. Can you not see that I am serious!"
Well, then, can you get back to us when you finally do?
- A.P.
--
* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
You're missing the best ad campaign: For the price of a small Taco you can help one life be free of the trauma of bad spelling. Just one more Taco a week can make a difference.
Tacos against Tacoism. Can you make a difference?
I noticed how many of you deride MS employees as being
1) Stupid
2) Incompetent
3) Amoral
My guess is that 95% of you who hold this opinion simply lack the maturity to respect your fellow developers. You lack the maturity to stop thinking of yourself as smarter, more moral, and more competent than those that choose to work for Microsoft.
As you grow up more, you'll find out that there's far more important things to worry about in your career than some silly obsession with hating a large company.
Myself, having come from a pure Unix background, then having worked at Microsoft, I can respect the talent on both sides of the fence, and truly find it sad that many of you would stake your careers on taking sides when none need to be taken.
Allchin has expressed his opinion, and I can understand some resentment over it. However, it's been no secret that many software companies hate the idea of open source. Why would they want you to copy their idea and compete against them using their own hard work? How are they supposed to thrive when you demand both the binaries and source for free?
Would Stephen King write novels if he was required to allow anyone to borrow his plots and characters for their own books? What's the point in writing software if there is nothing to gain except this "kudos" system? How many kudos does it take to buy a gallon of milk for my family? Should I invest my kudos in stock or mutual funds?
Senator: And what are these fears of Open Source you speak of?
MS Whore: Well Sir, last year my company only made $5 billion in profits as a result of our innovations. If open source software is allowed to continue, it won't be worth our while to continue innovating. I've heard rumblings in the office that Bill Gates would fold up the company if it's only making a paltry $1 billion per year. And take his ball^H^H^H^H innovations and go home.
Unfortunately, I doubt many "legistators" read /. Who's going to stand up for Linux and open-source so that open-source doesn't suddenly get "commies" stamped all over it and become the new evil buzzword tossed around on capital hill?
I can see it now. Election 2004.
"Al Gore, are you or have you ever been a member of the Free Software Foundation?"
Amen, brother
I personally didnt take Microsoft's latest brain-fart seriously, but I think the real problem here is that Microsoft and others are seeing the whole battlefield backwards. quote: Linux threatens the "Intellectual Property" business and the "software business". These entities are somehow assumed to be entirely beneficial in themselves and harm to them is thus a bad thing. But how do we measure the worth of a thing? Do the IP business and the Software business not ultimately benefit the paying consumer? If it not, why does it exist?
It seems that both the software and content distribution industries have fallen into the trap of assuming that they are somehow entitled to endless, unchallenged revenue. "We're monopolists dammit, how dare our business models become obselete?"
The root of the matter for microsoft is that their product line is highly priced and of low quality. Even if microsoft considered security and quality to be important, they still dont have as great a resource pool to draw upon as the linux crowd does. On top of this, they have to charge for their crapware or the shareholders go nuts.
Imagine, for a second, that linux has already reached usability and userfriendliness that is indistinguishable from windows. Combine that with a (still imaginary) decently functional version of staroffice for kde/gnome, and a free alternative to Oracle/sqlserver, and what do you have? A nightmare.
Microsoft knows that it is only a matter of time until Linux would be able to compete directly with it at the same price point. To compete with it for free is almost unfair. Microsoft is probably worried that the consumers and businesses will eventually catch on to this and start making informed decisions.
Implicit in the article through Behlendorf's comments is that Microsoft views open source as a fascist idea and ideal. Now, I'm neither a political scientist nor an economist, but the Oxford English dictionary defines Fascism as:
...any system of extreme right-wing or authoritarian views...
Based on this, "fascist" is a term much more suited to the description of Microsoft. One could possibly argue that open source is somewhat communist (or at least socialilst), but fascist? Get real.
It's only software!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
    there are fundimentaly right. open source threatens the way that america does business, becuase (to over simplify it) open source is a form of socialism, which goes tooth and nail against capitalism. however, since it is socialism as directed by the first amendment, and you can't stop people from giving gifts or expressing their beliefs (see bill of rights), and patents are a tact-on, and not even a right, MicroSoft (and the rest of the closedsource community) should releize that we are PROTECTED BY THE FUCKING CONSTITUTION AND THEY ARE NOT!
    if they don't want to do business, they have to pack up shop, they can't slander us to death (cause of them pesky laws), or threaten us, or try to take our market shares (we are our market) and drive us out of business. the only weapon that they have is endoctrination and the weight that they carry with the hardware industry, if we take away the government from them (with quality GPL software) then private businesses will follow. microsoft had a glorious run at the top of the heap, and a long one at that, i think its time to frag them.
there will always be corperate support for the man trying to take out the industrial giants, this is the nature of business
Blame Canada?
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
In the view of this guy, innovation will never occur if people can't make money from it and market it.
.net is innovation, but is it any good and why wouldn't it be any good if it were an open initiative?
If this were true, then UNIX would have never become. I guess everythign that comes out of Bell Labs isn't innovation and will never be used. I guess nobody uses anything based on unix, i guess unix wasn't innovative.
When was the last time MS innovated anyways? I know office is a good suite. I guess
I fail to see how being american makes me a money grubbing pig always seeking the next business opportunity, and not the next advance for the sake of advancement. I guess being an american makes everything have a value in terms of money. How does this guy sleep at night? Windows hasn't innovated since 1995, 98 and ME are basically the same thing with few improvements or innovations.
You don't have to market something to innovate. I guess mapping the human genome was not an innovation. Nope.
This guy shows everything that is wrong with the american view of things. If cnn were to carry this story they would have a view of open source that shows it to be stale and unprofessional and illegal.
Having open source does not inhibit innovation, it simply improves on it. If i innovate i can have 100000 people polish it and look it over as opposed to 10. People can incorporate it into other projects.
I fail to see the undermining of innovation, simply undermining of profit from half-assed innovation.
Given the mess of incompatible systems, architectures, desktop environments, what have you, less innovation can be a good thing because it focuses effort where it's needed. Imagine what Linux would be like if Microsoft put as much money (not code!) into it as they do into Windows.
The only certainty is entropy.
My guess is this is the Joe Macarthy America where anyone who dosn't pass a test or standard of behavure is "un-american" a 1984ish vision where a big brother uses an "inquision" to seperate "enemys" from "good guys"...
I was lissening to a talk show talking about a political issue. I'll refrain from mentionning the issue itself to prevent straying from the topic... I'll just say it's illegal and some people want to make it not illegal.
Ok so the talk hoast was all for keeping it illegal up to the point where the law enforcment offical openly said we should arrest everyone who advocates making it legal. He believes only people allready doing it would want to make it legal.
It's addatudes like this that are in fact un-american... selfish self-rightous and self serving...
We are founded on freedom... capitalism is just part of the whole pacage.
Making it illegal to give away software might as well be saying it is illegal to give gifts..
I don't actually exist.
Pointing this out, preferably in a more public place than this forum, would do far more good for the cause. And as a disclaimer, I run Windows, and just signed up to beta Windows XP, simply because Linux has never worked properly for me, even when installed by hardcore users. However, I believe choice should exist, and Open Source should not be stopped, I merely choose not to make use of it right now.
-----------------------
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
I don't think Jim Allchin is an idiot.. This is just a good example of how differient the perspectives can get in this game.. For Jim, money from software=publishing=copyright=tech boom, which in his case, it totally does.. Open source has more hollistic relationship to 'tech boom', again, Jim's right, more education of policy makers would help, just probably not the way he thinks it would..
lowpass.net
'We can build a better product than Linux,' he said. 'There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free.'
:)
Note he doesn't say they *do* build a better product. He's claiming the "we haven't been trying" defense
Brian Macy
"Despite Linux's success in some markets, Allchin says he isn't concerned about sales competition from the product. Microsoft provides support to change and develop products based on its operating system software that Linux companies don't, he said. Companies that use Linux in their products then must pay someone else for support, he said." - This in principle does not go against corporations, in fact it creates new business opportunities since there is a new market niche for support providers.
"''We can build a better product than Linux,''" - We "CAN" means we did not do it yet? and we'll never do (should have added)
"''There is always something enamoring about thinking you can get something for free.''" - which is obviously too human to be American. You can never get a free lunch. If you give me something I want something back, etc. etc. etc. This is not completely true even for the States.
You can't handle the truth.
If you can't beat it, can't buy it, and can't get rid of it, the only thing to do is either sue it or outlaw it!
Posted from the wireless couch.
The greatest threat to the American Way is free air. We must act quickly before Canada steals it all and Americans are left gasping.
''Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer,'' Allchin said. ''I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business.''
Yup it's bad for business. MS will have a harder time making money. So? Adapt and compete and you will succeed.
But open-source is good for software. At least I'm very happy with it. I wish I could play with the Linux at work more but it so rarely breaks that I spend all my time fixing the NT that so rarely doesn't break.
I find being offended by me offensive.
Open Source definitely has the potential to be better. That's what Microsoft is afraid of.
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People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
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People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
Scarily enough though, the GPL is *not* a law. Congress could pass a law that bans the GPL.
That man is completely right. Every american citizen must join Microsoft and other big companies on their effort to shut down linux and every other free-anything project. Its a real problem to capitalism since free-software model doesnt demand a huge concentration of capital to complete big and expensive projects. Free software, free science, free hardware, etc... will take competitive advantage from americans and in a few years will became a national security problem. And thats why I LOVE IT.
I don't know if MS's Allchin meant to target education as well as just educating lawmakers, but higher education may be the area where Microsoft is least popular. Academia is where the GPL is most popular. I am at Columbia University and despite the donation of a lab of 30 computers with Windows and regular visits to campus and recruitment of students, the CS department HATES Microsoft. I mean they HATE them with a passion. Students like myself are anti-MS, but it is the professors who are really vehement.
Dear Microsoft,
You've got me totally confused. As a supporter of your right to make obscene profits, conquer markets and drive the competitors to their death, I have to admit that I was totally taken aback today when I heard your position on open source.
People, you claim, do not have a right to their property if they choose to give it away. The only appropriate use of property is for the greater good, you say, and in this case, for the greater good of corporate society (which is somehow different than the social society you diametrically oppose in your antitrust litigation).
Open source is a misuse of property, according to your observations, and takes innovation that should benefit the good of the corporate community and destroys it, depriving poor corporations of their right to monopolize them. Only by preventing selfish programmers from carelessly giving their innovations away without going through a corporate party can this community property be protected.
Only government action, you state, can protect helpless corporations from this destructive action, such as mandatory programmer licenses, outlawing of open source and free software (unless it says Internet Explorer on it and comes from Microsoft), and minimum pricing standards to require a fee for all software.
With all this said, please help me understand your demands are any different from any other redistributionist thief's views. Help me determine why I should defend your rights any further, instead of regarding you as yet another parasite.
Sincerely,
Your Former Friend Scoove
... this is the 'we cant beat them with technology, we cant beat them with fud, lets make em anti-american!' ploy. personally, i think this ranks as the most humorous piece microsoft has ever released :)
Made my day anyways.
Shadus
The title says it all...
I remember that in his autobiography, Bill Gates wrote somewhere that he was scared not to know the day when Microsoft will be at the top and start to fall. I think the day has came and he hasn't realize yet. I'm very surprised that Microsoft reacts this way because I think it's the worse way for them to react to Open-Source. Instead, I think they should put all Microsoft products in Open-Source, that would be a revolution and they would become extremely popular for doing that. And I don't see what would be dangerous for them in doing that, they'd just have to accept the idea to gain less money in licences, and more in e-services.
However, my wish is to see Linux succeed so I hope they won't change their attitude :-)
M$ today unleashed their new .FLAMEBAIT platform.
Seriously, this is idiotic.
No one is forced to release software under the GPL. No one's intellectual property has been stolen. If you want to keep your goodies to yourself, no one is stopping you. No one was ever prevented from innovating by anyone in the Open Source movement.
This is the lowest level of attack: empty name-calling and appeals to irrational fears. Next they'll hold up a sheet of paper and say "I have in my hand a list of 107 known Communists in the Open Source Movement."
Please.
Besides, Billy Gates can't tell who the people are running copied versions of windows, how the hell are they going to keep us from going to somewhere like SuSE to d/l the OS, and any other overseas site to d/l what people have been working on abroad.
Take it a step further...what's to keep us from just submitting anything we do to some overseas forum?
Bill, sit down, shut up...enjoy the competition. I'm sorry if it's making you guys work to put out a better OS, but i think THAT's what we really need....
Ok, off the soapbox now...
-Caino
Don't touch my .sig there!
There is a certain tendancy for a cool new piece of software to come out, only to be suddenly followed by some open source projects who decide that there ought to be a free version.
A good example is VMWare - it was an innovative, useful new product, but very soon after it was released the FreeMWare (or whatever it is called now) project started up. Now don't get me wrong - I applaud the FreeMWare folks, but you can see how it doesn't bode well for the VMWare guys who did it first. They may be able to compete on features, but they sure can't compete on price. Without VMWare, FreeMWare probably wouldn't have been started, or at least, it would have appeared much later without as much publicity and developer support.
cheers,
Tim
ms labels opensource as 'unamerican' at the same time they wants to import workers into the country. the whole article was just ridiculous. why should government be involved at all i wonder. maybe he wants government to enforce ms licenses but not the gpl. who knows. the guy just made a bunch of wild accusations, he was probably drunk.
"Allchin said he's concerned that the open-source business model could stifle initiative in the computer industry."
Really, if he wants to talk about stifling initiative in the computer industry, he needs to look internally. All Microsoft has done is try to stifle any and all competition, so that they come out on top in the marketing world.
It looks like they are just stuggling to try to find more ways to put down Open Source, so that they look good. The question is, in whose eyes do they end up looking good?
--Shoot me, I used to be an MCSE
do they use it!!!
Perhaps Microsoft should purge there codebase of all the networking code they have taken from BSD before they make such statements.
You know there is real fear up in Redmond when Microsoft is going to the government (HELLO! Antitrust Investigations left and right) for help... ha hah ha
They can't compete on the technical merits so they want to try and legislate there competitors away!
I've seen this coming for the past 1.5 years, I'm even surprised it took so long. The article means that political lobbies have been started. MS is fighting the battle from multiple sides, they also want to illegalize the reselling of naked PC's. Now they have started the lobby to illegalize Open Source? Everybody thinks 'well, they can't', but they might find a way. I compare this with the Napster case, everything good for Disney's revenue is legal, everything threatening Disney's revenue is illegal. Does this mean I can be charged for not buying certain products in future? I think this is possible within the next 150 years...
Bizar technology?
I don't know about you, but I think Micro$oft needs to be heavily slapped on its wrists and put back in its place. What it is suggesting is that you or I, as a programmer, have no right to distribute software that we write. May I remind MS of the First Amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Code is a form of language and hence speech. What MS is trying to do is remove your first amendment. Good luck M$, your going to need it. You will not silence this movement, but you might find yourself silenced if you continue along these lines. M$, go count your cents and leave the real programmers do what they want. We're coming at you from behind! c0rarc
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People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
The number of talented programmers out there is small. The market allocate resources to them appropriately. Open source does not create zero cost. Opportunity cost is in full effect for developers developing OSS gratis. That's why most full-time open source developers *do* have a cost: a salary, benefits, etc.
Using IP protection is only one means of creating a market. It's doubtful that society will abolish IP rights completely, as I don't think that's what society wants. They do want the current system changed, though.
-Stu
Every revolution in personal computing has been heralded by a killer app, an application that cannot be achieved in any other way. Now that Napster has been accepted as the norm for years by college students across the country, I think that if Windows XP in fact keeps people from playing protected media, young people will flock to free software in droves. The next Napster-style program will necessarily be based on free software, and one will need free software to properly take advantage of the music it provides.
Wow. This is making me all tingly :)
Aren't you dead?
...his native language is swedish.
AC is AC
By innovation do they mean the "innovation" that so utterly characterizes Microsoft products? Then I'm all for it, God please make "Innovation"(trademarked) disappear. That kind of "innovation" no one needs.
he said. ''I worry if the government encourages open source, and I don't think we've done enough education of policy makers to understand the threat."
Sound like he means they have not spent enough on bribes to help the "education" of policy makers. Get Marc Rich in on this, he and his lawyers definately know how to "get things done".
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
I am not a great fan of Microsoft or its products, but I am not, nor have I ever been an implacable enemy of them. I'm sure there are people at MS who read Slashdot, especially when the articles are about them, and it is to them that I write this, although it applies to a boarder audience.
To put my point bluntly, Microsoft was the target of antitrust prosecution precisely because it was an enormously successful company. Regardless of whether you agree with MS's tactics, it has bought out or buried an impressive list of rivals over the past two decades.
When a company stops trying to beat its rivals in the marketplace and seeks legal protection, that is the beginning of the end. Perhaps legislating away competition can protect it in a few markets. But laws are either meaningless, or they limit our freedom, as individuals or corporations. Outlawing open source when so many people are already writing it and using it would clearly fall into the category of limiting freedom. The competition will move out of the jurisdictions in which it is outlawed, but it will not die. And the protected company will grow complacent and weak.
I use both open source and Microsoft products in different settings. I think that at this point in the game both sides are strengthened by the challenge of competition. Each side has an incentive to try to hone its strengths to stave off attacks and to attempt to best the strengths of the other side.
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
Kinda eerie, if you ask me...
--
The dog ate my
When was the last time that microsoft actually innovated or invented a product? To review, Word Perfect existed before Word, Excel wasn't the first spreadsheet (Visicalc, 123), DOS was actually a stolen versino of CPM, they didn't invent basic (just wrote a version for the IBM-PC), and the windowed-interface was invented by Xerox in the 70's. So whats all this about innovation? What they call innovation, i call sticking a microsoft sticker on a recently-bought company.
-MR
-Michael Roy Some people are like Slinkies. Not really useful, but you can't help smiling when you see one tumble down
With closed-source, you get the set, pre-built, and super glued together so that you can't modify it. You may not like the look, but tough shit, you're stuck.
On the other hand, open-source gives you the set, pre-built, but not super glued together. You have the ability to modify to your liking.
In a way, open-source it's a do-it-yourself approach. Some people prefer it that way. Others don't. They'd prefer that someone tell them what's good and what's bad. That's why I think both systems will co-exist for quite some time.
They are alternatives to each other. Not entirely a threat, but money does rule all.
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People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
I was born in the USSR -- the part that later became Ukraine. I've lived there for 10.5 years and then moved to the U.S. I've now lived in the U.S. for almost 9 years, so I have experienced both cultures thoroughly.
In the Soviet Union, as you probably already know, trying to make money was looked down upon. Profits were, essentially, illegal. But there were still people who were, as they say, more equal than others. They were communist to the bone, treasured the ideals of the current government, and were members of the communist party.
When the "communist" (the presence of those quotes deserves its own discussion) government in the Soviet Union started falling apart in the late 80's and early 90's, privatization of just about everything set in. Just about everything was up for sale to make your own, and for dirt-cheap prices.
The same people I mentioned above shed their communist image and ran around buying up everything they could. Today, they are still rich.
Now, the long-awaited moral of the story of my life. There are always people to whom making money is the highest priority. The difference is that in a capitalist economy, they own corporations that provide services and jobs to people. In the other case, they just leech off the government.
Change the words "business", "intellectual-property", "America Way" and similars for "communism", "collective farms", "Revolution" and similars. You see? The expressionism of this M$ executive does not make a difference from a old hard-working Soviet Narkom of the 20's... This guy is only a totalitarian buffon desguised behind values that Americans care as part of their well-being.
It also is curious to see an executive of a multinational corp doing such a nationalistic call as the "American Way". This shows how M$ looks at the world. And how it looks at America itself. While they didn't get burned, it was globalisation and "Government keep out of bizz". Now, when they got real burned, is "Uncle Bill needs you!"