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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!
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.
..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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.)
> 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.
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...
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...
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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!
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
See, that sounds a little more reasonable to me. I'd buy that as an explanation of what's his nutz's comments.
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.
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
Sure Internet Explorer is free, if your time is worthless!
"That would just make us look like fanatics"
You are a fanatic.
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).
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
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.
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!
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.
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"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.
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... 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".
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.
---
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...
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.
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!
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.
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"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
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.
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 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.
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?
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
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.
"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
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...
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).
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
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 :).
- 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
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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.
--
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
when comes the famous flip-flop?
Oh, probably about the same time Mir's fate gets decided.
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.)
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The IHA Forums
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
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.
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The IHA Forums
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
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
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...
*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
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This
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
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!
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...
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 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
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!
[*] offer only applies to corporations. Individuals need not apply.
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?
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.
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?
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$'s record lobbying has been poor, they do eventually get things right. And their logical allies (MPAA, RIAA, ...) **KNOW** how to lobby.
should be interesting....
Didn't Microsoft use Open Source code to bring networking tools like Ping and Telnet to windows? I seem to recall that they were developed by the FreeBSD project for FreeBSD... basically, recompiled and tweaked to run under NT by Microsoft, and with the FreeBSD project's blessing. This saved them millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours in wasted duplication of effort.
Hmm.
Even Microsoft, it seems, benefits from Open Source.
SoupIsGood Food
See this recent satire on segfault
I'm not sure how M$ 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.
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!
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?
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
I 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"
--
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
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
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.
mod this guy up.
He's right. It's an important distinction.
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
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
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
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.
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).
------------
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.
Hm.
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.
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.
"...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
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.
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.
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.)
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!
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.
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?
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.
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?)
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.
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.
And that's the 500 billion dollar question...
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
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!
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.
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?
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
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
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.
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.
''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...
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.
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.
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!
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20010216& mode=classic
- 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
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.
>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
"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.
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.
It was called Xenix...
And they didn't really even build that... Xenix was just a port of AT&T Research Version 7 UNIX with some horrible proprietary bastardizations and the rather poor Lattice C compiler.
Even Apple is doing more good development at this point that Microsoft, and that's really sad...
Apple has spent a lot of time resting on laurels, although OS X looks at least interesting. Microsoft hasn't really ever done anything that I'd consider very innovative development. They like to immitate and then claim to have invented it in the first place. 'Immovation' is what I like to call it. Apple has done some of the same things, but they are a little less blatant about it.
For what it's worth, few Open Source projects are really super 'innovative' either in terms of development, it has been the innovation in methods of development that has been more important. That is probably why Open Source scares Microsoft so much. It is changing the rules in ways that they can't control as closely as they are used to.
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?
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.
Own any mutual funds?
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
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.
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
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"
> 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
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
Also there are other artists (like Metallica) that don't want to give their stuff for free. But people don't repsect that, they just say screw Metallica's rights I'm going to download it anyhow.
Linux or Open Source on a whole isn't doing that. There is DVD and that's just about it. On a whole Open Source is about me giving you my code and you taking it. Napster is the equivalent of WareZ, whereby I would be giving you someone else's code, whether they wanted you to have it or not.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Beats out make xconfig and make menuconfig by a few years.
-bugg
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
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
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
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!
Those are two totally different things, napster is used primarily to share copyrighted material without the author's permission. Linux is the exact opposite, it's sharing copyrighted material WITH the authors permission.
- 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.
--
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
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.
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..
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!
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
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
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?"
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
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 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.
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
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.
All these companies have released open source stuff, sometimes with licences as liberal as the GPL.
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.
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
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
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
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.
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
----------
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.
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
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.
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!--
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
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
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.
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 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
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.
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
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
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
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
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"
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
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.
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.
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});
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.
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...
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
'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!
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 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?
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!
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.
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
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
Check GNUArt : GNUArt.org and GNUArt.net
-- javaDragon is an instance of JavaDragon.
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!
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.
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 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
Innovation is to steal ideas from others and pretending there are your own.
Je t'aime Stéphanie
Well, compared to slashdot...
But who am I to argue with the godfather of soul.
Well, compared to slashdot...
But who am I to argue with the godfather of soul.
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?
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)
...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.
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.
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
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."
-----
"You owe me a case of beer. Sucka'."
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!
"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!"
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
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?"
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.
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.
Actually, from all accounts Win2K seems to be the first decent piece of software MS produced. One thing to be careful of when doing line counts is that usually they compare the MS distribution to the Linux kernel. This is not a fair comparison. Now, Win2K does have problems of its own, but lets be fair - its pretty for a desktop/server combination.
Now, having said that, I prefer Linux for both the desktop and server.
About the article, it seemed like Allchin was doing a "halfspeak". What it sounded like he said and what he actually said were two different things. That way, he could give everyone the impression that Open Source should be banned, without actually having said that, so later he can say, "well, I never said _that_"
Engineering and the Ultimate
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
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.
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.
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
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!"