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Linus Responds To Mundie
Thanks to Dan Gillmor for pointing out Linus' reply to the comments that Mundie from Microsoft made this week. The response is vintage Linus - but the points he raises regarding openness vis a vis science & learning and open source is very cogent.
Windows embraced TCP/IP simply because the trend was already in place. First they mocked it, then they fought it (MSN, the proprietary dial-up version), then they embraced it and convinced idiots that it was their idea all along to do so.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Every OS I can think of that wasn't Microsoft had a TCP/IP stack by default. The problem is I don't know what you would consider as a "mainstream OS". If you define "mainstream" narrowly enough, then only Windows would qaulify, and your statement would become a useless tautology. If, on the other hand, you define "mainstream" to include anything not from MS, like the Mac, or OS/2, or the wide array of Unixen, then your statement is false. So you've got two choices - your statement is false or if it is true it's only because it's a useless tautology.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Well, Thomas Edison was rather a sharp fellow, in particular as far as money was involved. However, he would probably have developed the light bulb nevertheless. Moreover, this is a typical innovation that was in the air at that time - Edison was by no means the only one to work on it, nor even the first one to get a working model. He was just the first to make it to the patent office - ironic, isn't it?
And early PCs have been build witout any patent protection for the machine. Even today, patented components, like IBMs microchannel architecture, do not play a major role in PC design.
Consider e.g. Intel. They have a lot of patents, but their real advantages are name recognition and first-mover status. Without patent protection, they would be forced to move even faster.
And in the field of software, the free software movement is a fine example of people creating "consumer goods for the love of discovery" (or at least without serios financial expectations).
Stephan
They dont make the best products, they dont make them first, and they dont make them cheapest or free-est. But despite that, they are the dominant software company. And despite everything, the mainstreamed computers.
True, they managed to make enormous profits despite the fact that they did nothing better than someone else, and they made very few innovations themselves, instead buying out the companies that were innovating. I think their success is attributable to a few things. Number one, IBM didn't realize what it was creating when it began distributing DOS on all it's PCs. Number two, customers didn't really have expectations when it came to computer software. Bugs, crashes? They were considered normal. Number three, Microsoft had absolutely no compunctions about using any method they could, legal or illegal, to destroy their competitors. This is evident from the internal email and documents that were revealed during their anti-trust trials.
Is this a good thing? I don't think so. Had they not used those sort of practices and beat down their competitors, the innovations would still have been made (since MS wasn't the one innovating really) and consumers probably would have gotten more for their money. Without one monolithic corporation controlling 90%+ of the desktop OS market, there would have been more choices and more focus by individual companies to make sure that they adhere to standards so that their software interoperates with others. Instead, we have MS, which gives us the minimum amount of interoperability that they can get away with. All in all, I think that the mainstreaming of computing was inevitable, and it would be better for all of us if Microsoft didn't dominate it.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Just so long as we understand:
significant != positive
Just because they were the ones that were dominating and profiting the most from the mainstreaming doesn't mean that that's a good thing or that what they did was really good for consumers or the industry in general.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Oh, maybe somewhere between 1940 and 1970?
you've also gutted corporate research spending in the process . . .
hawk
I don't think RMS usualy sounds like a total loon, However Linus is much better at puting the same argument into words that are easer to understand by someone who is not a computer person. RMS tends to say Free software for free software sake and leave it there. I like Linus's comment about Sir Issac Newton etc. It puts a nice spin on the argument and puts in a broader context.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
GO Linus, GO!
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Another point is, many many of the scientists of the classic age WERE aristocrats.
Today's aristocrats are busy buying the next big SUV, snorting coke off of a stripper's tits, or getting that nose job.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The same is partly true for commercial middleware. Working on RDBMS, I don't see that feature wall coming for many years yet - there are many requests made by customers for features and enough things we want to get done internally to last another quarter-century at least.
Read up on Disruptive Technologies http://www.zena.net/htdocs/FAQ/DisTech.shtml
Your high-end RDBMS product is exactly the kind of thing that's vulnerable to disruptive technologies, when for many "small-fry" potential customers, something like PostgreSQL or even MySQL is sufficient and far cheaper.
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Actually, most toys get developed first, and then a company is formed around the toy to market it.
The PC is a perfect example of this trend. It wasn't the corporations that created the PC, it was folks working in their garages. Once they had designed their gizmos they formed (or united with) corporations to sell their work.
Corporations aren't bad, but they certainly aren't necessary for the creation of new technologies. This is especially true in the realm of software development where the barrier for entry is so low. A punk kid with $500 can buy all the equipment he needs to start developing software.
Other industries (say pharmaceuticals) require far more expensive research tools, and therefore incur much higher costs. But even these industries have lately been abusing the patent system to a degree where one has to wonder if there is a net gain for the populace. It is very easy to say that without strong intellectual property rights that no research would be done, in the business world this is a truth that they hold to be "self evident." But Free Software currently proves that this is not the case, at least for software. Plenty of interesting advances are being made every day in the Free Software world, and many free software projects are at least as innovative as anything Microsoft has ever done.
In the long run it almost doesn't matter what Mr. Mundie and Mr. Torvalds say. Software is becoming a commodity, despite whatever Microsoft will try to do. The days when you could charge money for something as basic as an operating system (or even an office suite) are coming to a close. Microsoft can drag it's feet all it wants, but if they make things too difficult for their customers their software will be replaced.
There are Open Source "forks" but they generally are due to personality problems. The BSD splits and the Emacs/XEmacs fork are good examples.
The other major difference is that the different Open Source forks generally are highly compatible between themselves, and foster the type of "good" competition that makes both projects better. The Samba/Samba TNG and the former gcc/egcs forks are good examples of forks that have been very healthy for the long term viability of the software in question. All in all I would take a Free Software project fork over the differences in the various versions of Windows any day of the week, but that's just me.
Mundie, on the other hand, is almost certainly referring to the Unix wars. His audience will likewise remember them well. The primary reason that the entire world doesn't run everything on Unix right now is that the various and sundry Unix vendors took the original BSD code and turned it into a pile of incompatible vendor specific versions. If Mundie can get his audience to believe that the same thing will happen to Linux, then he will definitely scare some of them away from Linux.
Personally, I don't see it working very well. Especially since anyone with a brain can see that Linux is actually consolidating the Unix field. Two years from now Linux emulation is going to be a major feature of every commercial Unix.
Sadly, this stuff has been going on for years. Philips bought up the patent on an everlasting lightbulb, for example, but you don't see it for sale, because it would hurt sales of their traditional bulbs. There are numerous other examples that are happening right now. Heinlein wrote about this in one of his books (Expanded Universe, I think).
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
both essentially came up with calculus at the same time
2000 years after Archimedes did.
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
I don't think there are enough people who have all three of - 1) a day job, 2) significant expertise in a certain area, 3) the desire to use the expertise without financial reward - to provide us with the consumer goods we desire to enhance our standard of living.
Well, if you want to ignore the government-imposed financial class structure here in the states, there are some people who conceivably *could* fit this bill.
The children of the excessively wealthy.
You're right in the fact that holding down a day job, and trying to do research "on the side" is just unrealistic - people who are holding down a day job to make ends meet aren't going to have the time nor the drive to do that kind of research. They're going to be much more concerned with paying rent, and keeping food on the table.
Once those things are easily afforded, the person in question becomes "middle class", where the government wants a MUCH bigger piece of his/her earnings - making it tougher to put aside money and time to research, or even into investments, where the return on small investments is almost nil.
The excessively wealthy don't have this problem. The legal/financial atmosphere here in the states caters to them, with tax shelters and loopholes and such, which keep their money in their pockets - and the stock market, which keeps their money growing (the return on very large investments is quite good).
The children of the excessively wealthy generally don't have to "put in their time" working as a bagger in a grocery store, or as sales staff on a retail outlet while they are young. Granted, they're quite often sent to boarding schools - but they have so few worries that it's not inconceivable a few brilliant minds could be polished.
They don't have to worry about keeping the family fortune growing -- they hire people to do that.
Conceivably, once they finish their education, they could use some of that money to better humankind, by doing research themselves, or even by using a small portion of their vast fortunes to fund other scientists and/or universities to research things which MAY NOT produce a direct benefit, but which may raise our collective level of scientific understanding and lead to other, side benefits.
Of course, this will never happen. Our society here is so firmly entrenched in greed and personal gain that I doubt those of high financial standing even care about advancing the species. They're too busy advancing their own wallets.
Although I'm sure Linus knew that /.ers would read his reply, it definitely was not written in technical terms.
Who wouldn't acknowledge that DaVinci, Newton, Einsten, etc... were fundamental to our current understanding of science? I don't think even the marketers would go so far as to scorn their achievements.
Who hadn't heard that quote from Newton before (even if it was WAY back in grade school) - I'd imagine even many business majors would remember that one. It's powerful, and VERY relevant.
Linus' reply was VERY well-written, and I doubt that even the stuffed shirts will disagree with the points that he makes. He may not have responded in financial terms - but the terms he did respond in should be fairly universal.
Even my fiancee, who isn't technically minded, said "wow - he's good" when I read Linus' response to her. I'd say that's a pretty good indicator. =)
So you are telling me the Plymoth Prowler style car would have never come around with out a Chrysler? I thought they were imitating home built style hot rods. I thought hot rods were almost always built at a loss from scratch. ;-|
What about the home kit that morphed into the early Apples?
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
Really? I have never heard this one. Got a reference?
In any case, while a lot of actions and behaviour in science is selfish, it works on the openess principle. If you want people to believe you, you have to tell them how you did it. These methods can then be verified and refined, much like how we want to see open source work. I think the analogy is quite valid.
Lars
__
Reality or nothing.
Economic analysis of open source (such as this one and this one) come to the conclusion that open source software is often a loss-leader for individuals to advance their careers, or for corporations to sell support, hardware (e.g. VA Linux), hard copies (Red Hat), or books.
I think that we do also need to keep in mind that by significantly reducing the price-of-entry of computers and servers, open source expands the number of people and companies using computers and the Internet, which itself is often a return on the time investment, and drives plenty of for-profit business.
Open Source may be - Free Software certainly is not. Actually, this may be the most accurate way to describe the difference between the two terms in one short sentence.
I think what it is, is a demonstration that Linus doesn't give two shits for what Microsoft has to say. In other words, Linus has no respect whatsoever for Mundie. The man isn't worth the effort it would take to write a respectful rebuttal.
As a minor aside, the opposite of love is not hate. Both hate and love are strong emotions: flipsides of the very same coin. Love and hate both indicate that you really, strongly care.
The opposite of love, and of hate, is apathy. It's not caring, in the least.
What I see in most messages is that everyone cares enough about Microsoft to hate them...
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Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Not necessarily. The idea that his quote was an insult never appeared in any print at the time. That is, there is no response from Hooke claiming insult or no further nasty letters from either side. The idea that it was an insult first surfaced in "Portrait of Isaac Newton" published in 1968... nearly 300 years after the fact!
That doesn't mean that it wasn't an insult.. it's just not as obvious as you make it sound.
The two main arguments that it was an honest compliment go like so:
- The letters, read in their entirety, are not insulting or defamatory at all. They spend most of their time praising what the other has done
- Newton wasn't one for "beating around the bush". When he insulted people (which he did frequently), he was crystal clear in doing so. Insulting by sarcasm was possible, but quite out of character for him
This essay summarizes all the arguments far better than I could ever:http://www.newton.org.uk/essays/Giants.html
Kurt Granroth
> that it's not generally possible to design
> aircraft or cars for the joy of it.
Okay, I'll bite. How much DID Orville and Wilbur Wright get paid? How rich did Chuck Yaeger and Verner Vohn Braun get?
Rob
It's not a troll if you sincerely believe what you've posted. It's not a troll if you want to start a discussion.
A troll is posted only to get an argument started. Flamebait and troll are really just synonyms.
Fact is, large corporations do often stand in the way of true progress. Take a good look at history.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Who says we *NEED* money? Imagine what I said going on in a world without money. I'm not talking about the world you've been told you live in. I'm talking about a world that doesn't exist, but could exist. All it takes is a different perspective.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Would reading Das Kapital count? :-) You're right, though, I am agreeing with the common view of Marxism, particluarly as it has played out in recent political climates.
I much prefer Kropotkin's view of the world over that of Herr Marx.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Linus wasn't talking about Mundie's body odor. He was talking about the psychological halitosis coming from Mundie's mouth.
Work is for people who lack the imagination to play.
Um, I believe they made quite a bit of money actually. The wright's were aware of the value of their inventiveness and marketted the wright flyer to the military. I don't know numbers but I don't think they died poor.
Davo -- Free speech, free software, AND free beer.
Sure they do. It costs about $15 a bulb and folks don't want to front that kind of money for a lightbulb when you can get 8 bulbs in a package for $3. I live in an old house where the circuitry means I get about 4 weeks on average before any bulb goes out...Its a chore just running around changing these things. I found one of these with a buy one get one free sale a year or two back and picked them up. They are the only bulbs in the house that haven't burned out.
Will I buy any more? Probably not, because I'm cheaper than I am lazy. I'm sure if they were the same price as standard bulbs, I'd buy them in a heart beat but they ain't
clif
Oh Hogwash. Companies in technology industries compete very much on the quality of their idea, not just on the quality of the finished product (the finished product ultimately derived from those idea(s)). If you kill IP, you may see lots of people competing on better manufacturing existing products, but there would be no incentive in the vast majority of cases to actually create new ideas/innovations. Although it may sound better if you can get the idea AND have competition in developing the idea, this ignores the fact that if they originator of the idea is competing on equal footing, they by definition have achieved no competitive advantage. In addition, contrary slashdot's belief, mere posession of a patent or two does not mean you no longer need to worry about quality. Take, for instance, the car industry. They own patents, but that does not mean they have no competition. They may have no competition on that ONE innovation, but there are thousands of others out there to draw the consumer with. To compete in most industries, competetive markets, you need idea AND quality.
In your totally unfleshed out world, WHY spend money on R&D? So why innovate at all if it costs you and you get no (or nominal) advantage? If competitors and/or consumers can easily and legally copy your innovation, then your efforts are wasted doing R&D. Make no mistake about it, if you kill IP, you kill technological innovation with it, for all intents and purposes. Although there may be some rare and notable exceptions, these are but a drop in the bucket.
Also, their notations were different. Newton used what we call summation notation and limits. Liebniz used his "Characteristic Triangle" with legs dx & dy and hypotenuse an infinitesimal segment of the curve y=f(x)
Since your follow-ups seem to indicate that you don't think people are getting your message quite right, I'm going to try to be particular about this reply...
The internet is cool stuff. but really, how useful or widespread would it be if not for MS?
No less than it is now, and possilbly more. Seriously. I recall using the net *Way* before MS got interested in supporting it, and in those days it was significantly easier to find what you wanted. A higher signal-to-noise ratio, if you will. I believe that qualifies as being more useful than it is now.
As for widespread, well I don't believe the utter bullshit myth that MS brought computing to the masses. MS didn't bring us innovations or ease of use, they stopped anyone else from doing it. PC users from back in the day will tell you about MS superior competitors: Geoworks, DR-DOS, OS/2. Guess what? MS's monopoly is universally attributed with the death of hundreds or thousands of good products. Now, you may notice that over the years every part of the PC has decreased in cost except for the OS/software, which has increased, largly because it's MS and no alternatives are left. In most cases, the software bundle included in a PC is the most expensive component: more expensive than the CPU, more expensive than even the monitor. Expensive enough that a lot of people who can't afford a computer now could afford one if not for the cost of software. I suggest that you consider that MS has actually hindered the spread of home computing, not helped it, and that widespread computer access and use is a reality despite MS, not because of them.
The ability for average non-technical persons to use a personal computer... With only the flavors of Unix, early Linux distro's, and other non-friendly OS's, Internet access would have been rare
Now, the post to which you were replying was counting the *contributions* of MS vs. Open IP, so you *are* suggesting that MS is responsible for this here. I don't believe that MS really is responsible for or contributed to the ease of use of computer systems. As a matter of opinion, MS has always been behind its competition in terms of ease of use. Always. It still is. Maybe it's true that with only UNIX, Linux or unfriendly OS's internet access wouldn't be as widespread, but that wasn't all that there was. As mentioned before, MS out-marketed most of those competitors that stood to really bring ease of use and widespread computing to everyone.
The inclusion of web-browsers
I hate to repeat arguments, but... again, what leads you to believe that this was a contribution? It was being done before MS did it. Netscape was available with new computers before IE was, but MS killed that because it was allowing customers to grow at a pace and along a course that MS could neither keep up with nor control.
Like it or not, MS filled a serious demand in the computer world. They broke lots of laws, squashed lots people, and did it the closed way, but...
I'm not going to argue that MS filled that demand, but the point that has to be made is that the demand would have been filled by someone else if not for MS. Squashing competitors, killing products, and stiffling the growth of an industry isn't something that MS should be lauded for just because they ended up with a lot of cash and customers. And, they may have made more money than any other company, but if their prospertity came at the cost of the jobs and businesses of thousands (easily tens of thousands) of competing developers, so they've cost us as Americans more than they've made us.
Writing MS off because we don't like they way they do business isn't "a serious mistake", it's the responsible course of action.
Newton was, in fact, responding sarcastically to claims that he had stolen ideas from either Leibnitz or Hooke (I forget which).
:-) )
That would probably be Leibnitz; if I remember my Maths classes correctly, they both essentially came up with calculus at the same time, but it was Newton's "version" that ended up being adopted.
(Of course, I am dredging long-term memory now, so I may be way off
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
In your reply, you are assuming that COBOL/MVS, the writer of the original comment, is of english origin. I am a foreigner and I too misunderstood that last sentence from Linus. I thank you for clarifying it but I find it disturbing that you assume everyone here is from english speaking origin.
"When I was a little kid my mother told me not to stare into the sun...
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"
I'm sorry. Someone speaking publicly on an issue saying outright FUD to the public IS speaking to everyone, and FUD should be called as FUD.
Those who knowingly spread FUD should be called for what they are. Mundie said a bunch of misleading bullshit, so why shouldn't linux call it as he sees it? Mundie is responsible for what he says.
Ok, stop driving on public roads, stop calling the police, don't use a hospital. Don't use anything invented by/during the space program (basically, any modern plastics, or alloys). Don't consider getting any modern prosthetics, or artificial organs. The list goes on. Don't read any books, they were all written by authors who went to public schools or used other publicly funded infrastructure.
These things are publicly funded because we're much better off with them, the number of people who could afford these things on their own is very small (could even Bill Gates have funded all the research that NASA did?) And those who could afford these things are that rich through theft (ie. hereditary rulers, offspring of the 'rober barons', etc.)
If you want to cough up the bill for your share of all the publicly funded works, throughout the ages, that you rely on to be where you are, we'll let you out of paying any taxes.
I seem to remember that he was a bit of a 'closed source' kinda guy. He basically (iirc) sat on a lot of his discoveries and did not share them. This is why he is listed as the co-discover of Calculus, because it was unpublished for so long.
Mind you, I could have this mixed up or just plain wrong ... anyone care to back me up, or refute this ??
Your right - I may have overstated my point (or not been clear enough). As a personal aside; I am generally polite and respectfull of strangers. I am not rude in public - i dont swear at waitersses/waiters. I didnt really mean to suggest otherwise.
I expect that you fell into the same trap that Linus did -- it's easy to drop into brain-dump mode when you're typing on a computer and say things you'd never say in public to somebody's face.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Respect is earned, not just given out of hand, and the statements that Mundie is making certainly don't give me any reason to grant him respect.
Some forms of respect are earned; others are not "given out of hand" but are every human being's due. If you don't believe this, then at the very least consider that the way you treat others reflects on you. Social psychologists have found that when you talk about somebody else's shortcomings, people tend to attribute the same shortcomings to you.
You should also consider the effect that the way you treat somebody has on how people process your position. Abe Lincoln was a very effective lawyer, whose favorite tactic was to concede everything he new to be irrelevant so that he could make a bigger impression using his strongest argument. Following this tactic, there's absolutely no reason to personally attack somebody from a position of strength -- it just distracts from your strongest position. Linus's response is a perfect example of this. Many people coming into this argument from the outside and reading superficially through it will be most struck by the "stinking the place up" rhetoric, which is the weakest link in the whole piece.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
That's one of my favorite quotes, and coming from anyone else I would applaud it...but not from Linus. Why not? Because Linus has one of the worst "my farts smell better" attitudes I've ever seen. It's well known that one of the *worst* ways to get an idea incorporated into the Linux kernel is to say that it's been tried and found successful in some other OS. Linus, and the other senior Linux developers, seem to loathe the idea that someone else thought of something before they did, or - heaven forbid! - better than they did. The spiffy new Linux way of doing things - union mounts, kiobufs - is always assumed to be better than anyone else's way of doing the same things just because it cam from Linux people.
Getting back to the topic, people need to read some of the exchanges between Linus and Andrew S Tanenbaum of MINIX fame. Does that look like proper acknowledgement of a debt owed to another for inspiration or ideas? No, Linus has one of the worst records out there of failing to thank the giants on whose shoulders he stands. For him of all people to throw that quote in someone else's face is the very height of hypocrisy.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
Scientists don't create consumer goods. They discover the science which lets Engineers design consumer goods.
Except, didn't get the patent on the lightbulb because the prior art showed that he didn't do sufficent innovating. At that time, the Patent office was doing it's job, and ensuring that only things which are patantable were actually patanted. Comparision with the current US Patent office is left to the reader.
But there ARE people who design & build planes & cars just for the fun of it. John Denver was killed in such an experiemental aircraft.
The truth is that you can't fight it with language on the same level; blunt words are needed.
You can't say "Lasting innovation in computing has more often been acheived by solidifying the gains of public research institutions into a lingua franca via the appropriate standards bodies than it has via proprietary extensions enshrined in the standard forms of intellectual property; patents, copyright, and trade secrets protected by non-disclosure agreements." The PHBs at whom Mundie directs his fear-mongering have fallen asleep. You can say "Mundie is a lunatic. Open Source created the Internet and E-mail, which I hear even Bill Gates uses. Microsoft didn't even invent windows. Mundie doesn't wear a funny hat and stick his hand between his jacket buttons, does he?"
Allchin sounds like a genius next to Mundie. I guess with Ballmer kicked upstairs, Microsoft is still looking to fill the position of Loudmouth Attack Dog.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
The 'Total loon' comment reflects how the 'interested public' would percieve Stallmans (and RMS's!) comments on this sort of issue.
Mundie was not speaking to us (people who are experienced in a technical sense), he was speaking to investors, legislators, CEO's etc.. not stupid, but lacking full exposure to all the arguments.
Linus was speaking to exactly the same audience, in language and concepts they understand and are familiar with. He made a bloody good job of it too.
I severely doubt if either ESR or RMS could have written anything so accessible to the same audience
EZ
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
it has that paper clip thiong to help you get more confused!
--Nuintari
slashdot : where an opinion can be wrong.
The U.S. Intellectual Property protections were designed to be a compromise, by giving inventors (not discoverers) limited protection for their inventions. This was done in order to harness the profit motive for the common good. Unfortunately, Congress has extended patent and copyright protections far beyond what they were originally.
- - - - -
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
The problem here is not capitalism, but the large range of options to create monopolies. A few of the most obvious:
1. Software patents that are so broad they encompass an entire type of application software (one-click shopping springs to mind). Especially large companies can prevent any newcomer to enter the field.
2. Legislation that prohibits use of information (DMCA), combined with limited availability of software: you buoght the DVD, but you are not allowed to view it, because you have linux.
3. Using copyrights and closed formats (Word vs. WordPerfect)
The problem here is information: it is a scarce resource by law; not by nature. However, capitalism also works if ideas and other information is not thus restricted. After all, if I get/take an idea from you, you still have the idea. Only the concept of "intellectual property" makes it theft. If "intellectual property" doesn't exist, new business models should be used to make money of information. Some examples:
Artists may want to make free demo's, and only distribute their work if they've been paid by the interested part of the public.
Software companies can make more money by providing service for a good product, than by making&releasing bugfixes.
Medicines will still be developed, because the development of those medicines is already (partially) funded by the public. Examples of successfull medicine development without intellectual property rights can be found in Cuba.
As an additional bonus, right after development medicines can also be bought by the poorest customers, which will help preventing mutations in virusses/bacteria that will render the medicine useless.
All these solutions have one thing in common: providing information is not the same as providing a product, but is providing a service. Services of course, also have to be paid for. The biggest problem here is that it requires a drastically different business model.
Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things. -- Robert Heinlein
Is anybody bothering to think about what Linus said?
:-)
He is basically comparing open source to the open sharing of scientific ideas. How you can compare these two things, in the context of commerce, is beyond me.
Science is NOT a product. Pure science is the search for truth. Software IS A PRODUCT.
What the MS guy was saying (well, I think what he tried to say) is that the primary purpose of creating software, in the business context, is to make money, and there are no examples of OSS being successful in this endeavor despite many failed attempts, so it must be bad. Is that a valid conclusion? Not really... but there are no examples to counter act it, so for now, it's true.
The primary goal of science (when done as it should be, like how Bohr, Einstein, Netwon, etc. did it) is to discover truth. The sharing of that science openly can facilitate that discovery because more minds = more ideas.
For making money via OSS, that's not true. You HAVE to make money to survive as a business. Duu. You DON'T have to make money to survive as a scientist... or rather, for your research to survive.
There is no money involved in the pursuit of pure science. (I know... funding, blah blah, technology, blah blah... you miss my point.) Newton, as much of an asshole as he was, was not out to make money from mathematically proving the inverse square force represents gravity acuratly, nor was he in it for the buck he could make off calculus. (Good book: Newton: The Last Sorcerer, by White.)
Linus implying that he is somehow anywhere in the ballpark of being as important as Newton, Bohr, Einstein, or any of the other great minds of the past 400 years, is about as arrogant as it gets. (And don't start saying that wasn't his intention. Linus knew exactly what he was saying.)
Yes, the MS guy had a lot of claims that have little data to support them. (Or, rather, HE had little data to support them.) But Linus oozes arrogance and egotism in that "reply."
Gimme a break people. The fact few of you saw this confirms my belief that Linux users are just as, if not more so, brainwashed as they claim Windows users are. They are just brainwashed by different people.
Sorry, I meant to post the above comment as myself, not as AC.
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
> The only viable system is to take away between 25% and 75% of every person's income and redistribute it.
Two words: ponzi scehme
When I exchange MY TIME for a commodity item, it is NOT the government's to steal back from me.
Thank god the system is based on voluntary compliance.
One of the great plays Bernard Shaw wrote in his old age, the Apple Cart, deals with this very issue. Alas, few people seem to have read it -- and it is rarely staged (the Canadian Shaw Festival did it last year, however). A synopsis follows:
5 .h tm
******quoting*******
The Apple Cart (1929), set in a mythical kingdom of the future, typically (for the extravaganza) rationally follows out an irrational proposition--what would happen if a popular constitutional monarch should abdicate out of frustration with his powerlessness and run for office? King Magnus uses the probability that he would be elected as a threat to force the politicians and bureaucrats to govern more wisely. But ultimately, as Shaw wrote in the preface, "the conflict is not really between royalty and democracy. It is between both and plutocracy, which, having destroyed the royal power by frank force under democratic pretexts, has bought and swallowed democracy."28 Capitalism in the form of a corporation called Breakages Limited runs everything for its own ends, to make money, and cares not what social wreckage it creates in the process, wreckage being as profitable as any business, if not more.
****end quoting*****
extracted from:
From British Drama 1890-1950: A Critical History,
by R. F. Dietrich
http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/britishdrama
Credo quia impossibilis -- Tertullian
[
He sees OSS as some sort of business model. It is in no way any kind of business model. It is a way to get great software that is stable and fully featured for a great price (free as in beer) and be able to do ANYTHING you want with that software. Money has nothing to do with it. There are some people out there that are not greedy, then there is Microsoft.
Linus brings up an interesting problem with society, although he doesn't go into length about it. That problem is the reliance of capitalism in our society for intellectual advancement.
Unfortunately, scientists still have to pay the rent, and buy food. Science has never been free. Even when people are doing it just for the love of it, someone still has to support the scientist. You must remember that the scientists of the classical age had patrons, usually aristocrats, that paid for their research, supported in much the same way that artists were. Capitalism has changed the patron from an individual to a corporation, and unfortunately, corporations have stockholders that insist on a return on their money.
We've gotten pretty far away from the patron/scientist model of scientific research, in part because there is little prestige in supporting a scientist, and also because science has gotten so complex and expensive. To do much serious scientific research, you have to have many specialists with complex equipment that is often very, very expensive (the machinists that make the stuff need to feed their families too!). Open source is similar to, but not equal to scientific inquiry. It has been proven many times over the past decade that a single person with an idea can make a big difference. You can start working on open source with a minimum amount of expense- what it takes is a desire to create. Now you can do your coding on your own, without a big corporation to back you. In 300 years, this may not be the case, but by then, we should have other technologies to hack.
Competition is supposed to push better products to the fore. If that worked, we'd have light bulbs that laster for 30 years, cars you bought for a lifetime, and software for life.
We would have all those things right now, if it were not for the people that are unwilling to spend $100 on a light-bulb, $200,000 on a car, and $500,000 for a word processor. One way or another, things have to be paid for, otherwise there will be no incentive to produce more. Yeah, capitalism sucks in a lot of ways, but so do all the other -isms. Capitalism has been very successful in inspiring people to create, because by creating they can make a better life for themselves and their progeny.
Until we can divorce the pursuit of capital from advances in science, we are doomed to have any advance kepted restained by the barriers of the a accumulation of that wealth. If at any point, an advancement is deemed to be a money killer, it will be abandoned.
This is not the fault of capitalism, it is the failing of an oligarchy- where the rich have the political power. At that point it is in the best interest of the rich to keep around the mechanisms that keep them rich. The recent attacks on technologies haven't been counter-attacked on the technology front, they have been attacked on the legislative front. Don't try to tear down capitalism, try to build a democracy that isn't financed by the rich, for the rich.
From Mirriam-Webster's online dictionary for 'stink':
1 : to emit a strong offensive odor
2 : to be offensive; also : to be in bad repute
3 : to possess something to an offensive degree
4 : to be extremely bad in quality
And for 'stink up':
Main Entry: stink up
Function: transitive verb
Date: 1941
: to cause to stink or be filled with a stench
I think it's safe to say that the intended meaning was 'to cause to stink,' where stink is the second meaning, or the third or fourth with an implied 'something' (either the something in 3, or the quality that is bad in 4) that is not a personal attack.
Andrew.
Yeah, maybe not personal attacks against Linus, but they sure do make personal attacks against us as a whole, calling us hippies and stuff.
Besides, who are you to be disappointed with Linus? Let him speak his mind, he's entitled to it. MS has done nothing but spread FUD about all the work that he's done, I think that deserves some personal attacks.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
On the contrary. Linus doesn't say anything about IP rights being used for private enterprise. Rather, he makes the point that IP in the public domain is Good Thing. There is room for both ideas in a sane world. Microsoft would like to spin the open-source movement as anti-business, anti-private property, anti-capitalist and anti-motherhood and apple pie.
"If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants".
I've seen this quote modified somewhat to poke fun at computer science, to the effect of "scientists rise higher by standing on each other's shoulders, but computer scientists stand on each other's feet". ;~)
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
In a way, these are examples of the open source model in action.
Newton experimented. Edison experimented. Tesla experimented. Most experiments were failures. Most experiments ARE failures. But without risk of failure, there is no chance of success either.
Da Vinci paid the bills with a day job. Most people do. While there are some programmers paid to work on open source projects, a good many more do proprietary work to pay the bills and do open source work as a hobby.
So Linus experimented. And one of the experiments, at least, appears to be successful. Linus has a day job to pay the bills. And still works with Linux. It looks like he's in common and good company - just, like a few, more well known for one of his successes.
I am curious about this 'machine to talk with the dead' though. I recall reading that when asked what he doing once, a sly Edison replied he was working on a machine that would let you hear the voices of the dead. The phonograph appeared not much later.
I don't subscribe to RMS's GNUtopian vision.
Back when Windows 3.1 came out it was billed as "The best game of Solitaire $90 could buy."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The more you attack something, the more irrevocably you become attached to it. That works both ways. Expect to see MS release the source to Windows in the next couple of years....
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Hopefully, the Open Source movement won't stoop to such levels.
/. that claims Linus called BSD developers 'childish whiners' (never seen the actual source of it)
Too late.
You have Joe Barr creating press that makes it look like Linus said 'FreeBSD is the work of a small group of programmers'. Linus said no such thing.
Richard Stallman calling himself 'chief architect of GNU/Linux' (letter to The Reg)
A sig here on
Some clown who posts for 2 years 'bsd is dying'
GNU/linux vs calling it Linux
Comments about TdR (OpenBSD fame) by others
And on and on and on.
To date there have been no known suicides or murders over open source...but give it the same number of years as science has been around, and there will be a body count.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
where drug research is hideously expensive
Did you know that drug companies spend more on marketing than in research... Besides that, there's a large part of research (no idea of percentage, though) that's publicly funded and that happens in universities and hospitals (at least in countries, like Canada, where hospitals are public)...
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
I agree. Unfortunately, those "mafiosi" have teeth.... You might note that my remark two levels up from here was moderated down. Why? It wasn't a troll and expressed a valid opinion. The reason, of course, is that people have been blinded by religion -- to the extent that they'll moderate down comments which violate the "religious" tenets of the FSF. --Brett Glass
While Linus can often be starcastic and a bastard (his word not mine)
but this time he was being sincere.
When he says: "Gee, what a surprise." He meant that he was honestly surprised at Mundie's insights into the situation and how well he understood open source. I must confess that I also was impressed by Mundie's forthright honesty and hometown goodness.
"I wonder if Mundie has ever heard of Sir Isaac Newton?" This could be interpretted as childish sarcasm, I guess, but I wouldn't. Instead Linus is wonderring about whether Mundie has heard of Isaac Newton. I mean what if he hadn't? It seems like almost everyone has heard of Isaac Newton these days but what if they didn't learn about those kind of things in MicroSoft? That would be pretty darn wierd if you ask me.
"I'd rather listen to Newton than to Mundie. He may have been dead for almost three hundred years, but despite that he stinks up the room less." This is a reference to that one show on SciFi where the guy talks to dead people. Personally, I never got into that show. The idea of talking to dead people gives me creeps. I'd rather listen to Mundie over some dead physics guy. Heck! Most live physics guys scare me. More than anything though, I'd prefer to watch the show where the chick has a bar code on her neck and kicks butt! She's hotter than Mundie and Newton put together!
On the other hand I'm a little bit confused by your comment: "Please, set aside for a moment the fact that Linus is god and M$ is the devil." Obviously, Linus is not the supreme deity are you being metaphorical? I'm almost tempted to accuse you of using sarcasm yourself, but I know that you are too wise and mature.
--error27
ps...
(I've had the same slashdot sig since I started reading. I'm too lazy and not witty enough to find/think of a new one)
Discoveries often lead to products in the end.
It's like what Alan Cox was saying about baked beans.
No one ones the rights to baked beans.
In fact I would say that, if open source programmers rejected proprietary food substances like coke and snickers and only ate healthful, public domain foods like baked beans then we'd be a lot better off.
What do you slashdoties think?
Why can't Linux users just let Windows users use Windows, and Windows users just let Linux users use Linux? /. users hate Windows or think Microsoft is out to get them!
People have the right to choose their OS!
All of this hatred and "I'm not wrong, you're wrong" type stuff does nothing for either side.
____________________
Remember, not all
Prevent linux based DDOS's!
http://linux.denialofservice.org/
is that more or less of a personal attack then mundie bashing free software with arguments he surely dosen't believe -- to benifit (sp?) himself ??
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Interesting argument... not quite unlike religious zeal. Which is my problem. It's the only thing Linux has going for it in the business market. And, frankly, it's pathetic.
What's 'qualified' anyway? Being Linus or Stallman is qualified? This is the world of academics only, there is no place for the common developer who actually has to do the dirty work.
I've done my fair share for the GPL community... I've released some applications under the GPL myself. I've been working under un*x for about 10 years now. Mostly systems programming. For the past year only I have done Microsoft programming.
PS: I don't live in the 'states' or Europe, but from my un-media-bombarded perspective Europe is better, but that's only because I am impartial.
Sigh. I wish things were different, but that's just reality.
I am a Director and owner of a small IT company, and my main fields are unix TCPIP/RPC/Sytem programming. I use vi (even in Windows). I have sponsored the development of many open source products, as well as some with other related licenses. For the best of my company though I have to sumit to the M$ way, or else none of these products would have existed.
I think Microsoft have done a lot of good things for the software industry, although it messed up many other companies in the process... (Like what happened to Stac Technologies' Intellectual Property Rights for instance? Hmm...) I have a foot in both coffins, I guess. I actively use Linux to develop one product, and adhere to the GPL etc..., and with the other hand(foot?) I write COM+ for a commercial Bank. To add to Linus' examples of famous people, I'd like to add 'van Gogh' and 'Ramanujan' who (in my opinion) was a greater mathematician than the ill-tempered Newton. These people also did Science/Art in the name of Art, and was rewarded by dying poor and sickly (mentally and physically). For any 'normal' person out there who does not want to die in this way, they may have to resort to some way of preotecting investments. It's not always easy if you are not Stallman/Linus/Newton to protect your interests, and make profit out of it in some other value added service way.... Forgive my impurtenance (and spelling?) for this article... I hope someone may find it informative at the very least. :)
Perhaps differ may be too stong a word... His reputation is a bit daunting.
:)
I think Microsoft have done a lot of good things for the software industry, although it messed up many other companies in the process... (Like what happened to Stac Technologies' Intellectual Property Rights for instance? Hmm...)
I have a foot in both coffins, I guess. I actively use Linux to develop one product, and adhere to the GPL etc..., and with the other hand(foot?) I write COM+ for a commercial Bank.
To add to Linus' examples of famous people, I'd like to add 'van Gogh' and 'Ramanujan' who (in my opinion) was a greater mathematician than the ill-tempered Newton. These people also did Science/Art in the name of Art, and was rewarded by dying poor and sickly (mentally and physically).
For any 'normal' person out there who does not want to die in this way, they may have to resort to some way of preotecting investments.
It's not always easy if you are not Stallman/Linus/Newton to protect your interests, and make profit out of it in some other value added service way....
Forgive my impurtenance (and spelling?) for this article... I hope someone may find it informative at the very least.
And had you been around at the time, you would have found that everyone was anti-Semetic. That's not to say that his views were justified, but to say that they weren't necessarily out of line with everyone else. Remember, people's opinions are shaped by the society around them.
Look how far anti-Semitism carried in history. Even in 1939 at the beginning of the second world war there were still many, many anti-Semites - even in the United States! That he was an anti-Semite is a non-issue. Had you been born then, you would most likely have been one too.
And that he was anti-Catholic? Not surprising either. Look at Ireland: Protestants and Catholics are fighting each other. Why (well, originally)? Because they have (and had) different beliefs. It's also quite understanding that a relatively new faction that split off from the Church at the time hated where it came from. After all, isn't that why it split in the first place? Protestants are just that: protesting Catholocism, thereby being anti-Catholic. They differ on fundamental Christian doctrines.
I don't in any way subscribe to anti-Catholocism (except that maybe because I'm Protestant, and even then not in a bigoted manner) or anti-Semitism. It's just that at the time of Newton, such things were commonplace, and so really have no bearing on whether or not he is "a stink" in the room or not. Actually taking a look at the historical surroundings of famous figures sheds light onto their beliefs. It just forces us to realize that these men were extraordinary in their discoveries, not their convictions.
KyleI refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person.
What intellectual property is about in the software arena is maintaining a high barrier to entry (remember that fun little phrase from Penfield Jackson's FoF?). Otherwise, MS and others are vulnerable to sheer market force. Prices go down as supply goes up. And if the barriers keeping people from supplying the market become lower due to wider dissemination of skills and tools, companies who have gotten fat because it was hard to enter the market suddenly realize that they can't run as fast as they have to to compete.
Microsoft may have been more agile than its competitors in the proprietary arena, but it simply cannot keep up with an army of people armed with skills and a PC who crank out code to deal with their own needs and then release the solutions for free. That is the threat they're facing, and that's why they're trying so hard to keep the sheep in line. Once people's expectations for software quality are raised, they won't be satisfied with the pitiful drek that MS pushes on them. And they know that they can't (for whatever reasons) provide that quality.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
Sorry, but the implication is just plain bad logic.
The difference is that Linus, Stallman, and Eric S Raymond are all playing on the same side, so they do give each other the respect that's of a different sort, compared to the one accorded to Mundie.
If you rely entirely on selling software, open source could be viewed as a threat. If your product fails to perform as well as the equivalent open source package, its time to find another market because you have effectively lost this one.
However, not every part of the software map is likely to be covered open source software immediately, or even the medium or long term. The key components that most people use every day are the ones that are likely to have good quality, completely functional open source packages - so this includes the core OS, mail and browser, office suite as these are used by pretty much everyone. That this fairly squarely knocks a huge chunk out of Microsoft's product line is a problem for Microsoft.
Software companies who depend on less mainstream products, such as graphic suites, music creation suites, 3D design suites are in less immediate danger - the number of people who use each of these packages is only a third or less of those who use, say, an email package and consequently the number of open source developers who might want to build their own software is less. So niche players have a smaller problem - they just have to keep ahead in providing a better package than the open source equivalent.
Eventually though, most desktop software packages hit a feature wall - beyond the wall, only minor or incremental improvements are possible. Look at the number of key features added to, say MS Word between Word 7 and Word XP - how much of that 'innovation' actually affects your ability to write a letter? So even niche market software players have a problem - they can't keep adding features forever to stay ahead of the open source solution. That said, this doesn't automatically mean the end of the road for that software maker - they are still likely to have a considerable user base for a while.
The same is partly true for commercial middleware. Working on RDBMS, I don't see that feature wall coming for many years yet - there are many requests made by customers for features and enough things we want to get done internally to last another quarter-century at least. And the commercial databases vendors also sell service terms along with the database to ensure that the customer isn't left without support. But I feel that on the lower end, we will see more companies deploying open source database solutions for less critical tasks. It is at the high end, high availability, high transaction end of life that will give database vendors most room to breathe for quite a while yet. Even when postgresql or sapdb or whatever reach the feature wall along with the rest of us, there will still be room to sell services bound around each product, and support requires a high level of knowledge about the software in detail at many levels.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
A couple of quotes... watch me use my fair use rights - haha!
The article goes on to say that the Hailstorm services that are part of the .NET strategy will do the same thing as IE did, by being packaged into Windows XP, they will automatically have every XP user on the planet hooked up. By funnelling all their MSN and Hotmail subscribers into it, they could very soon have an unassailable customer base that would make supporting Java alternatives a complete waste of time for most companies, as 90% of their customers will be Microsoft compliant once again.
The final paragraph reads ... "In short, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that, if Microsoft has changed at all, it has done so only superficially. Inside the software industry's 800-pound gorilla, the heard of an incorrigible monopolist beats still".
The article is on page 77 of the April 28th to May 4th Economist.
Salocin.com
Yes, and look what you get. Starships that can go faster than light, but there are no seatbelts in them so whenever they crash on some planet people get injured or even killed by simple impact injuries.
Then there's the holodecks. Every other episode some program goes wild and they can't control it. It seems like kill -9 wasn't maintained in Starfleet OS. A lot of good Open Source did them.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
One thing about Linus's argument is that not all of science is done according to open-source ideals. Many of the greatest scientific developments of the past 50 years have come out of industry because there are certain things only industry can do. I work in biological research and my examples will reflect that, but take things like the development of viagra, for example. Most of the work figuring out the pathways of nitric oxide in penile erection, etc. was done in basic science labs in universities. But there reached a certain point where the large-scale high throughput screens for interacting molecules had to be done in industry because they've got the money to throw at a problem like that (this is kind of a poor example, I guess, since viagra had already been developed as a blood pressure medication prior to people figuring out the erection thing). In any case, even discoveries made with public funds lead to patenting of genes and that kind of thing. While I personally agree with Linus's argument, I don't find it entirely convincing. Open source may make better software, but I'm not sure it makes more money, and that's microsoft's goal.
As you say yourself: commercialization is very different from discovery. And as the constitution says clearly, patent protection may be awarded only for the second. So while profit incentive may be necessary for commercialization, it will have to be found without the help of patents. Fortunately, as the history of capitalizm has amply demonstrated, entrepreneurs and businesses have many other means of making profits. (I think that's a good thing, on balance.)
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
Anyone know if they have violated the Perl artistic licence or not?
Do you think the Samba team violated the Windows license? Why is it alright for Open Source developers to reimplement Closed Source stuff, but if Closed Source developers reimplement Open Source stuff, it's bad?
NO CARRIER
I agree with you on that one, but also think that linus
..."
missed a few more important points in relation to the
original article.
For instance, Mundie presents arguments against the
business model followed by many internet startups during
what ms (gates, actually) calles the "internet gold rush".
However, it was Microsoft who bought (and at a very
high price, indeed) Hotmail, a company that provided
their service for free. The most important fact about
this contradiction is, i think, that Mundie admits that
Microsofts endorses said business model if is used
on a company which might be useful for MS.
Another important issue that i found on the article
is the remark about OSS being the cause for
"incompatible versions of programs, weakened interoperability,
product instability ,
I may be wrong, but i think that issues have
nothing to do with a software being Open Source.
I think that the success of a software projects
depends on a good development group, a good
management (things such as a properly administered
CVS tree, for example), a good relationship with
the customer and proper gathering of requirements
(be it business customers or the user base of an
open source and free operating system) ; but not
on the software being open source or propietary.
Anyway, that's my view, sorry for the long rant.
Call it spin if you want...
I don't know if I'd call Linus' comment at the end a personal attack, actually. Given that he's focused solely on what Mundie said, seems to me his intent is strictly to criticize the statement. Not tactfully, mind you.
/Brian
Your last two sentences sum up the middle-of-the-road argument, and I mostly agree with you. The only problem with the charging-for-IP issue is that IP, being trivially duplicable, is fundamentally different from physical property. My tendency is to believe that once the cat is out of the bag on an algorithm or something similar there should be a legal precedent that says, "Poor baby. Oh, well, time to adapt or die!"
That is of course why people are against software patents in the first place, and the one thing that the entertainment industry is unwilling to deal with...
/Brian
MS goads open source competitors into reacting.
Competition reacts.
MS pleads 'please stop beating us! You're just mean and stifle innovation -- you're just anti-american comunists! Thieves!'
Competition gufaws -- 'innovation? Communist? Theives? If it's war you want, it's war!'
Meanwhile: DOJ is deciding fate of MS anti-trust trial. Feels justified that 'real competition' exists...and can publically decide in MS's favor.
End of 2001: MS, in ernest, gets back to incompatability efforts, and runs more 'Works well with others' adds hoping that nobody with $$$ notices and considers non-MS software as only supported by flaky radicals.
Now, I do think that open source is real competition to propriatory file formats, protocols, and operating systems. Most software is really a commodity and abundant. Custimization and expert support is where the main efforts are needed. Because of that, MS is riding a false profit bubble currently based on a propriatory one-user licence model.
In the current environment with high-quality software available with little or no restrictions, a truely competitive market would have both OS and application software distributed and 'sold' following something like RedHat's business plan.
The only items that can be sold with substantial margins or on a per-copy basis are ones that are custom projects, software that is heavy on specific content (games and nitch products), or have service tie-ins making it too painful or simply not worth it to switch to a competitor.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
including the Cotex
Ehrm, that would be Codex. Cotex is a brand of sanitary towels, at least in my country...;-)Granted, but the funding of what was to be the biggest accelerator (LEP???) was cancelled; it's was getting a bit too expensive.
Yep, it all makes sense now, every time my system bluescreens, I'm swearing: "Bloody Windows..."
A patent-free world would not necessarily be a Star Trek utopia. The strongest argument for patents is the incentive to publish an invention that would otherwise be a trade secret. That said, I believe that trade secrets are less evil than patents. Rare is the invention that is twenty years ahead of its time. Rarer still one that no one else could reinvent in that time.
You're talking about things that can't be readily shared. Why would I design any of those things? Neither Boeing, Ford, nor Apple need my charity. On the other hand, hobbyists frequently share plans for things that are easier to make--furniture, flight-sim cockpits, automobile "mods", etc.
Software is easy to share. Some of the free software people have created is the software equivalent of a consumer good. Many here have pointed out the folly of Eazel spending all of its venture capital to develop, in essence, a file manager.
get a grip man, the comment was a euphemism.
Mundie is spewing bullshit therefore he is stinking up the room.
I don't think linus gives a flying fuck what brand of deodorant mundie does or doesn't use.
- Toby
So, you believe that the troubles in the world are all due to concentration of wealth rather than evil human beings?
No. I believe that most of the troubles in the world are due to extremism. Boolean thought works well for processing data, but not so well in the real world - very, very rarely is anything "true" or "false".
Consider this question: "True or False: A government should skim heavily from the rich to give the poor a better quality of life and a chance to succeed."
In my mind, the answer is simple. The answer is that there are intelligent minds that would say "true", and there are intelligent minds that would say "false", and so, chances are, they both have valid points, and therefore the answer lies somewhere in the middle.
Bleeding-heart liberals ignore the fact that productivity requires incentive - that if someone feels that all the fruits of his labor will go to others, he usually won't perform the labor in the first place.
Yet, backwards conservatives ignore the fact that it takes an investment in a person to allow him to produce - no one can develop into an educated, free-thinking, happy, productive individual if his entire life is an uphill battle to survive.
And, finally, most world governments seem to be "getting it" - acknowledging that both financial rewards and social programs are a necessity.
What actually makes it work, though, somewhat saddens me. Very few congressmen come out and admit this - they preach either black or white, and then they push so hard against each other that we end up with gray.
I saw an article on American economic progress yesterday. People were polled on the issue: "Who is better for the economy, the Republicans or Democrats?" Very few picked the answer that was actually correct: neither. The American economy has historically grown three times as fast in periods of gridlock than in periods where a party controlled the entire government.
Right now, with our Republican-controlled presidency, senate, house, and supreme court, I am very worried. But no more so worried than if they were all controlled by Democrats. There are so few free-thinking politicians out there that we literally require conflict and compromise to come to the right answer.
"Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master."
The origin of this phrase is discussed at http://www.newton.org.uk/essays/Giants.html by Andrew McNab.
Some people believe the phrase (which originated much earlier, as McNab notes) was used by Newton as an insult to the dwarflike Hooke, a scientific rival.
But McNab argues well for the idea that Newton did not intend it as an insult. Indeed, the surviving correspondence is quite pertinent to our understanding of how science should be carried on.
Significantly, Newton and Hooke agreed not to argue in public, but to carry on their research via private letters--the normal way to publish such information without copyright. It was important to get confirmation from other scientists; it was important to get credit for and defend one's discoveries. (Contrast that to Microsoft's outright theft--without credit--of such technologies as DCE.)
Linus is carrying on in the tradition of his namesake, the brilliant scientist Linus Pauling. Privatizing the public domain of science and technology as Microsoft tries to do, or as Craig Venter tries to do with the human genome, will only lead to disaster for us all, not just the GPL backers. In this age of rampant state-supported capitalism this will be a long battle, but we are off to a good start here.
To me he just seems like an advocate (zealot?) of the movement. I personally think both open and closed source software has its place.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
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have light bulbs that laster for 30 years,
Ever heard of compact flourescent lights? Might more efficient, and last around 5 times longer.
cars you bought for a lifetime,
Cars last probably 3 times longer than they did 30 years ago, and get twice the mileage. I guess the Oil Company monopoly wasn't able to suppress the technology.
software for life
You do have software for life. No one is forcing you to upgrade. It's absurd to say that only file formats have changed. If you think Word/2000 has nothing that Word 5.1 had, you obviously haven't used both of them.
Until we can divorce the pursuit of capital from advances in science, we are doomed to have any advance kepted restained by the barriers of the a accumulation of that wealth.
You know, you're right. The government should pick which technologies are the best using a panel of experts, and then finance the winner. That would be much more efficient than having all these competing companies duplicating effort. Then the workers could just do their best work without having to worry about bosses looking over their shoulders and worrying about the "bottom line". Hey, it worked for the Soviet Union! Well, it would have worked, if those pesky capitalists hadn't destroyed the Soviet Union before it could really get started.
from what I've read on Slashdot, I'm not the only one thinking about them.
I know, it's pretty frightening. But don't worry; that's primarily a symptom of the youth of Slashdot. When you get older, usually these thoughts die in the realm of reality.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Newton spent more time working on alchemy than on what we'd consider science, including dosing himself with a variety of substances in search of knowledge and insights. Can Linus be serious that _this_ should be the exemplar? The guy didn't care about profits because he was a druggie with an inheritance.
Meanwhile daVinci was engaged in expensive defense boondogles involving diversion of rivers and fantastical weapons. Monies from this allowed him to do a few paintings on the side. Now _there_ is a model for the modern technologist!
Edison spent years trying to build a machine to talk to the dead, while Tesla, who has a lot more to do with modern electrical use than Edison, was suckered by the profit motive into getting totally screwed and impoverished by the corporations who commercialized his inventions.
And then we have Linus. 'nough said.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Could it be that information monopolies retard technological advancement by sequestering knowledge?
Yes - Welcome to The Economic Domination of Everything(TM).
It's all very well comparing open source achievements to the advances made by Newton, Einstein et al. The trouble is there is a lot of patented and/or copyrighted work based on the initial development done by those great scientists.
/., do both. I write proprietray (sp?) code that will probably never be seen outside the company I work for and I contribute to open source projects (and manage at least 3). The former I do to earn money to buy the latest Athalon or P IV based systems (and beer, which is never free <G>), the later I do for my own personal enjoyment and gratification. There is room for both.
The difference is technology/theory vs application of the technology/theory.
If you use previously well known and well developed theories (eg - the existence of black holes as an example), to develop a device that uses minature black holes to generate energy - in a format that can be mass produced and used in any home or business - don't you deserve income from that?
A far fetched example, true. A better example may be using the theory of public key cryptography to come up with an easily installable and usable PKC system for the most common mail systems - why can anyone complain that you are asking money for it?
The problem with the patent system IMHO is that patents are awarded on too general a basis. Perhaps the whole patent system is now outmoded?
I always thought the original idea of patents was to make the information publicly available (to encourage others to build on the ideas) but to prevent people from generating income from others hard work.
If you develop a revolutionary new idea or method for doing something you always have the option of NOT making it publicly available (via patent or any other method) but run the risk of other people coming up with the same solution independantly.
Todays economic model and environment encourages information hiding and locking up so-called intellectual property in order to make a profit on it. Hell, companies are obligated to do this. If Microsoft did not do it's best to make money (and gave away the source code for Windows for example) they would be swamped with lawsuits (and not just from Ma & Pa shareholders - but the numerous retirement, investment and superannuation funds out there). I own Microsoft shares, if they did not do their best to make money (and pay me a dividend) I'd put my money somewhere else.
Companies that try and work in the same economic model as Microsoft/IBM/Sun et-al and say they are giving away their primary product for free under the GPL aren't asking for an investment, they're asking for a donation. When I donate money it goes to cancer or AID's research rather than software development - that's more important in my eyes.
Don't focus on individual companies here - what needs to change is the economic model. And think carefully about the side effects before you decide. Are you willing to give up currency, capitalism etc just for the sake of having every piece of software released under the GPL? Do you think that's going to happen tomorrow, next year, next century?
This may sound like the Open Source == Communism argument but it's not. People should be free to reap the rewards of their efforts (by charging for their software or other works) and should still be free to give them away if they choose to do so. I, and I think most other developers who read
To some extent maybe. Newton seemed to take hatrid to an extreme even for the time.
"Even in 1939 at the beginning of the second world war there were still many, many anti-Semites"
There still are now I would imagine.
"Look at Ireland: Protestants and Catholics are fighting each other. Why (well, originally)? "
Because the two sections thought that they came from different class backgrounds. The protestants moved to Ireland many years ago (before the US was founded certainly), and at the time considered themselves somewhat above the Catholic population.
"After all, isn't that why it split in the first place?"
Not really. Henry VIII needed a divorce because his wife appeared to be barren. As the catholic church did not allow divorce the easiest solution was to invent a new religion. He certainly had no ideological reason for doing so. Indeed as far as we can tell he was a "devout" catholic, which was why he was awarded the "FD" title by the pope (It translates as Defender of the Faith and is still in use today).
"They differ on fundamental Christian doctrines."
The Christian doctrine is really a minor issue in Northern Ireland. Its more about tribalism. Its for this reason that you can't be an atheist in NI. You have to be either a protestant atheist, or a catholic atheist.
I am sure you are aware of similar examples. As a much milder example for instance, I am sure that you know many people who are either a democrat or a republican for reasons which appear totally divorced from politics.
"so really have no bearing on whether or not he is "a stink" in the room or not. "
Well I did give other examples. The "dwarf" crack was not terribly nice either.
My key point is that even at this distance in time, I would rather Newton not be turned from a person into an icon. In Newtons case he rather benefits from this treatment to be honest. In the case of some other great scientists, such as for instance Jacques Monod, it hides the great people behind the great science.
Phil
I'll agree that MS contributed, but saying thier contributions were even on par with Newton would be bordering on heresy in my book.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
(Please see the parent to this... It's currently modded 0 as was posted by an AC)
Why is that a problem? The GPL is a Good Thing(TM). Every piece of code that I've written for the past four years I have GPL'd... including programs I've done for school. My university claims ownership of anything I write while attending, so I make sure they can't profit off my hard work without granting others' freedom.
You make it sound like the viral nature of the GPL is accidental... it's not! It's 100% intentional. Every developer knows what the GPL means when they start a GPL'd product. They want to make sure that NO fork of thier code can be used in non-free (as in speech) software.
If you don't like the concept of GPL'd software, then don't develop for it. Period. There are plenty of other open-source liscence alternatives. Or you can ask MS for the source code to *thier* products and see how they will feel about you commercially distributing a patch to thier code.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
As for all of your blathering about Linux, Linux was never mentioned in the Mundie speech, Linus' response, or my post. But while we're on the subject, maybe this article will relieve your hallucinations about how Linus Torvalds doesn't care about the success of Linux in the business world. Wake up.
Agreed! Interesting that Linus quotes Newton and cites Da Vinci and Einstein while Mundie quotes Gates and cites the NASDAQ. ;) Hmm...which of these views sounds more interesting and balanced? I know who I'd rather listen to and it's not Mundie...~sabine
hmmm arent they selling the Xbox at a loss and making up the lost revenues with software licenses?
Yet microsoft slams opensource and other forms of business models because it isn't a traditional method of 'cost + profit'. How is selling an X box at a loss any different than a .com company depending on add revenues?
Yet Microsoft slams this as an unworkable business strategy... hmmm seems to have worked for Sony Playstation.
This is just another F.U.D. campaign by microsoft. Theyve actually found something they just can't buy up. Makes it tough to sell expensive, restrictive bloated bugware vs Free, reliable software... and thats the bottom line.
Inconnux
FreeBSD is to Linux, as Linux is to Windows
Could it be that information monopolies retard technological advancement by sequestering knowledge?
I think you have to differentiate different industries by the comparative costs of R&D and production. For example, an automobile has far more production overhead than a CD of software.
In the biotech industry, for example, the cost of actually producing GMO's, pharmaceuticals, etc. go well beyond the R&D costs themselves creating a cost-based barrier to entry. Just because I can find molecular diagrams of some designer antibiotic does not mean that I can easily and safely synthesize it in my kitchen.
Here companies hope to recoup not only R&D but also production costs with patents. This industry is fundamentally different than the software industry in this regard. I am not saying that I agree with many trends in the Biotech industry (I particularly disagree with the proprietization of commodities that GMO-related crops bring up).
However, even there, most of the theoretical work that has been done has been done at universities, etc. This information is free (as in BSD). However some tangents then are proprietary.
However, regarding Mundie, I seriously can't understand what Microsoft is thinking here. The industry is moving towards software as a commodity and/or service. If Microsoft is serious about moving toward software as a service, then why not embrace OSS? I think that they are simply afraid.
I also think that this may be further evidence that the various lawsuits may be having an effect on the management... I don't think that now is a good time to invest in MSFT.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
How then can a university be exempt from labor laws, and claim ownership of any potentially valueble code written by a student without paying for it?
In private enterprise, your employer owns your code because it's a WORK FOR HIRE, they are paying you. You pay to go to a college. And how is it that a college can allow a professor to use college PC's, recourses, etc, to write papers, books, et all and not claim ownership of THAT IP?
The answer, of course, is that any college that treated faculty like that would find themselves without their most talented faculty members. Thye can get away with doing this to students because students can't afford to fight them. Same reasoning behind the MPAA/RIAA jack boots harassing college students trading MP3's...
Apparently, in 2001 America, might makes right...
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Gates controls a company named Corbis (sp?) that charges a fee to access digital versions of a range of Da Vinci works. But before Gates bought out Corbis (what, 5 years ago now?) they were public domain.
This is not correct. Corbis was a company that Gates founded specifically to acquire the rights to digitally reproduce a wide range of artwork, photographs, paintings, etc. I am not sure if those deals were for exclusive rights or not. The reason (at least the one stated at the time) was because he didn't have digital rights to the artwork that he wanted to display in his house.
For those who don't recall, Bill's house is supposed to have LCD screens on certain internal walls that would randomly cycle through various works of art, etc.
Exactly right. Check the Corbis web site for all the art you thought was in the public domain, but you now have to pay for. And although the site says that Corbis is a privately owned comapny, nowhere does it say that Gates owns it. Dennis Miller was right, "Bill Gates is a monocle and a persian cat away from being a Bond villian."
That's OK. Wanna hear something really scary? Gates is also heavily invested in Biotechnology. I'm not aware of any firms that he owns outright, but he owns large chunks of several of them. He's slowly but surely acquiring ownership of the future of mankind.
"If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants".
Linus never ceases to amaze.
Perfect quote from Isaac Newton to counter all that Microsoft has been saying.
Great reply
I think that you have missed the point ... A lot of things that were done in the early (pre - 90's) computer era were free, and microsft used them to get where it is today. So to attack the very culture and community that it climbed on top of to get where it is today is insane. Where would they be if not for the GUI, the command prompt, ASCII, machine language, the mouse interface, animated web sites, email, the tree file structure, and all of the other 'concepts', and 'intellectual property' that others freely shared, or at least did not sue ms for. Ms believes that they are now invincible, and can attack that which brought them into existence. Imagine if someone had patented the command prompt. Heh.
-CrackElf
"Blake is an idealist, Jenna. He cannot afford to think." - Kerr Avon, Star One, Blakes 7
Did you mean here
-CrackElf
"Blake is an idealist, Jenna. He cannot afford to think." - Kerr Avon, Star One, Blakes 7
The inclusion of web-browsers and a tcp-ip stack as "standard equipment" in an OS
How about rewriting that as:
preventing the inclusion of web-browsers and a tcp-ip stack as "standard equipment" on a computer
In my mind, one of the more evil things Microsoft has ever done is to use their OS monopoly to deny the OEM sales channel to Netscape.
--
Yes, the nick is flamebait
I thought Star Trek was about the USS Enterprise always managing to break the 'Prime Directive' by the end of each program, Captain Kirk getting laid, and the people in the red shirts in the landing party always getting killed.
Silly me.
I'll admit that Microsoft has brought the personal computer to where it's at today. Because of them the PC is now a "standard" household item. But let's remember that they did it for money. They're not heroes, they did it for cold hard cash. Yes, it was a "good" thing in the end, but they squashed and trampled others all the way up the ladder.
I'd like to make a (silly) analogy. Have you seen BattleField Earth? (can't blame you if you haven't...it was one of those 'renters' that I had to see at least once! :) ) Anyway, here are all these uneducated humans and Travolta's just walking all over them (don't remember the character's name). He decides to educate one, and eventually that one person knows enough to think for himself. Soon that person is searching for a better life and he is smart enough to find a way to escape Travolta's control. (this is the abridged version)
In the same way Microsoft has 'educated' the masses...brought even the computer illiterate to the table and showed us the wonders of computing. But there are those of us who don't like being controlled by Microsoft anymore. I'll be danged if I'm going to ask MS for permission to reinstall my OS (a la WinXP). Those of us who are tired of it are looking for alternatives.
I don't blame MS for trying to tell people that everything that doesn't come from Redmond is evil...or stupid. They're just trying to stay in business. But I don't owe MS anything. Now that I know enough to understand what's happening (I'm no expert, mind you) I am free to choose my own path.
They'll tell you that OSS is a product of hell and is the opposite of innovation...but it's up to us to create our opinions. Just because some guy from MS who's making 7 digits a year tells you something, doesn't mean you have to believe it.
My personal opinion is that you've got to pay the bills, so you need to charge for your work...but like it's been said before - if you make a good product, people will buy it. Case in point: I like Mandrake Linux. I want to buy it. I want to support the company so that they can come up with cool new versions that I will like. Sure, I can (and did) download it (or a bijillion other Linux distros) for free, but I choose to pay for it. I don't see any moral issues with charging for something that you've created that's worth buying. Even if the source is free.
I just get irritated when someone's opinion (especially one that's as commercially biased as this one) gets so much attention.
In closing (hehe) I'll say that while the business theory presented has placed Microsoft in the position they are at now, that doesn't mean that it's the right way forever. It worked to bring computers into nearly every home, but the population wants more now. More freedom and more choices, and we're being fed this "alternatives are evil" crap to lull us into believing that big corporations have all the answers. Thank you, and good day.
Mundie is basically putting a new spin on Microsoft's effort to preserve the status quo (sorry for the redundancy, but bear with me for a min)
/. is pro-OSS) have the ethical highground, but if your true goal is the spread of OSS, being elitist and derisive of those less knowledgeable is only hurting your cause. Consider this, I believe that Gandhi had every right to be pissed off at Britain for occupying India, but would he have accomplished his goals as effectively if he formed a radical terrorist group instead of practicing truly civil disobedience? I don't think so.
What most people don't realize is the true power that the status quo holds over our society (and esp our legislators). I've read a lot of posts re: the 30 yr lightbulb and everlasting car. These and many similar things are already invented, and can often be produced at lower cost than what is currently in the market. Some people have posted that strong IPP laws are necessary in industries where development costs are high. Strong IPP laws, however, often work to preserve the status quo against change. In many industries, the incumbent businesses are able to (legally) massively raise financial entrance barriers to start-ups. This often makes selling the IPR's to an idea many times more profitable than bringing a product based on that idea to market. The automotive industry is a good example. there have been many advancements in using ceramic materials for engines (they are guaranteed to last for life, run cleaner and more efficient than metal, and are not prone to warping/cracking due to heat). So why doesn't anybody manufacture those tomorrow? Because the inventors that actually got patents on the engines sold them out to the big auto manufacturers, who, utilizing the strong IPP laws, are able to effectively all but "erase" the technology. Auto manufacturers would LOSE bigtime if they manufactured those engines themselves because even if they had a monopoly on the ceramic engine market, they would make less than they are currently making because they would sell far less engines. From the business model viewpoint, it's stupid for the respective industry leaders to actually sell 30 yr lightbulbs and everlasting cars because they would put themselves out of business. Big businesses, while not necessarily philosophical powerhouses, are not stupid, esp when it comes to making money. Microsoft, I am quite sure, does "get it" (re OSS) but why the hell should they implement a real pseudo OSS system if it will shrink their revenue significantly by virtue of the way OSS works? Their products will be way cooler and may actually work as intended half the time, but they would still make less money than they are making now. What most people here don't get is that Microsoft is out there to make money, not better software. It is in their interest to preserve the status quo, not because they are afraid of a change destroying their company (which it may) or that they don't "get it," but because if they were to go along with it, they would be deliberately destroying a large ammount of their revenue-generating power. Can anyone here seriously expect ANY company out there (let alone a publicly traded one!) to switch to a business model that is GUARANTEED to negatively affect their revenue?
better software does not equal more money, and Microsoft knows it.
In my personal opinion, OSS will eventually beat out Microsoft's business model, but unless Microsoft is taken over by some complete and utter idiot, the company itself will adapt to the change. Before that happens, however, I think the OSS community really needs to consider what they're trying to accomplish. I agree that you all (I'm assuming all
Gandhi said:
1. They ignore you
2. They laugh at you
3. They fight you
4. You win
What I find most disturbing is that the above saying applies to both the OSS community and Microsoft. Linux users used to generally dismiss Microsoft, Microsoft never used to give a crap about Linux users. Then Linux users laughed at Microslough and Internet exploder, Microsoft laughed at OSS idiots who were giving away their IPR's. Now the OSS community and Microsoft will, for the first time, engage in serious direct head to head. It remains to be seen who will win.
...
string* plamenessFilter =
*plamenessFilter = "Flaming Death!!";
Ok, here's the deal with open source. The concept is very simple. If you don't know how to do something, ask someone else. Call them up, or look at the source code. I've been doing web design for about 5 years now (finally in industry) and I must say without the "view source" option, I wouldn't be HALF as successful. Open source is not a controversy, it is a necessity. Is it just me or is Microsoft the kid in kidnergarten that wouldn't let anyone have any toys? Guess what? The pc industry is everyone's. You can't buy everything and most importantly -- and we (linux users) are slowly learning everyday -- you can't buy us and you never will.
In the future, everything will be instant, but the DMV will still take like 9 seconds
Large corporations, national gov'ts, what's the difference?
:-) Take some time to look at the world from a different perspective. Stop thinking about what you want, and focus on what you need, on what we all need. Greedy capitalism is responsible for creating the world we live in today, and are you proud of that world?
The entrenched institutions and stone age ideologies greatly inhibit freedom when they tell you that your options are more limited than they are.
The first step to achieving anything is to visualize that which you wish to achieve. I ask you to imagine a world without gov'ts, religions or other entrenched interests. I ask you to take the Free Software ethic, which is at it's core the socialist ethic of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need," and extend it to every facet of life. Consider it a mental exercise if nothing else. Do it as a favor to your Nintendo-addled brain.
The capitalist system of exchange is predicated on a world of scarcity. No matter what the corps tell you, we DO NOT live in a world of scarcity. There is plenty of food, plenty of land, and plenty of power (a practically unlimited supply of energy hits us on the head every day and we don't utilize the smallest fraction of it efficiently) for everyone. The scarcities that do exist today are artificial ones, created and maintained by the greedy systems of power spawned the very real scarcity of the past.
We now face a very critical juncture in history. We can make choices now that no society on this planet has ever been able to make. We can obliterate ourselves in a heartbeat. We can slowly use up the non-renewable resources on this rock and starve ourselves into oblivion. We can choose to the follow the path of our ancestors, or we can choose to use and to share the world's resources wisely and improve the life of the entire planet, until the Sun goes red giant and swallows us whole.
You can laugh and joke and call me a hippie, a communist, a crackpot, any name you like. (I prefer Anarchist, myself.
Don't point to the Soviet Union and try to tell me communism failed. First, I am not a communist, and second, anyone who has actually read Marx knows that the Soviet Union never even came close to "real" communism. Anyway, Marx is fundamentally flawed because he talks of replacing one tyranny with another. I am for the abolition of all tyranny.
I'll leave you with one last quip: "Free your mind, and your ass will follow."
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Yes and no. Not all research is done for The Benefit of Mankind. Some is done for commercial reasons, and this stuff is sometimes of very high value. The purpose of IP law giving monopolies to creators, is to let them recoup development cost. In the case of software, that cost is usually very small. In the case of Mr. Fusion and CancerBeGone, that cost may be very high.
What is really needed, is for the extra profit given by the legal monopoly (which is likely to be some function of the monopoly's duration) to be equal to the development cost. When the monopoly is too long, technological advancement is retarded. When the monopoly is too short, technological advancement is also retarded.
If you want to optimize the function, then the fixed duration (e.g. 17 years, 70 years, etc) of the monopolies should be abolished. When one submits a patent, an accounting of the development cost (and maybe a marketing study to predict sales?) should be submitted as part of the application. Then the patent duration could be set to whatever appropriate.
The concepts for copyrights are identical.
Sounds like a lot of overhead and a pain in the ass, though. Optimization of advancement would not come without a real cost.
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Here is why Microsoft and/or Mundie won't sue Linus...
If they did, it would be a huge PR disaster for them.
For one, it would be publically acknowledging that such a simple statement, flippant though it might be, could piss them off. It certainly wouldn't make them look like the kind of mature and rational company they want the heads of large businesses to think they are.
Secondly, it would give Linus and Linux a huge amount of free publicity, and while their 'declaration of war' already is doing that, an actual lawsuit in a court of law is more difficult to control than the court of public opinion. Microsoft can afford to spend billions on astroturf campaigns and use advertising dollars to strongarm the media, but judges have this damned independant streak that make them unpredictable. Microsoft has maybe learned a little about that recently, and I think they might not want to go there if they don't have to.
Thirdly, if Microsoft thinks they are too often the target of the ill will of the technical community now, attacking a well respected figure like Linus would certainly worsen that situation.
Mundie is really just a talking head - paid for his white teeth and quick wit - why should some dishonest puppet be given respect?
How about because some form of respect should be the default attitude grown ups take towards other human beings?
Respect means lots of things. Some of them have to be earned: respect for business or technical acumen. Other forms should be extended to everyone, such as the respect of basic courtesy; the respect of being heard with an open mind.
By the way I agree with you about PR-speak, but for a reason that also covers schoolyard taunting: it is speech that is designed purely to achieve an effect, not to communicate the truth.
I'm not that disappointed in Linus though. E-mails are regarded by most normal folks as informal and not for the record. Linus is usually more circumspect in formal interviews or speeches. You have to be more careful with journalists. Journalists deal in the same speech-as-blunt-instrument practices as PR people, except they are more interested in the magnitude than the direction of the response.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
- A better product is not an advantage if others are also permitted to make a better product.To which i reply; bullshit. Keep a few things as trade secrets, and it's likely you've got a five year lead on anyone trying to copy you. Any invention worth promoting with a monopoly tends to be a hot market in the end, which means that your product is beginning to slide into obsolescence in 5 years.
- Corporations go head to head and win market share with competetive excellence. This is also bullshit and there's a PhD in economics to the first person to demonstrate this well. Sprint builds a good wireless network in NYC, AT&T sucks there and builds well in LA. They are AVOIDING competition, by dividing markets qualitatively. Companies find specialties and niches, and reign in those niches. Look in most economic markets, and you'll see one dominant player, one minor player, and a host of smaller players who get assimilated or crushed.
- Companies in strong competition use substantive technological advances to compete with each other Not usually. A really nasty fight involves distribution channels, price wars, threats, advertising, and underhanded tactics that will work QUICKLY enough to matter. On the other end of the scale, look at how much research and how many patents came out of Bell Labs. They weren't competing with anyone. Somewhere in the middle, you have IBM, which isn't really competing with anyone in particular on some of their wilder research stuff. They are just ensuring their seat at the table next hand, not playing a patent trump card.
There are exceptions to these observations; I would say biotech is the only sphere that really shows why we have patents. They invest in ideas and compete for big payoffs that patents make possible. On the other hand, they haven't produced all that much compared to research divisions in old-line companies. So it's early to say that patents are really useful here. Don't even bring up (medical) drugs in general, because it's pretty clear that the biggest cost is advertising, second is the FDA, and research is last. Patents don't prevent - and may even contribute to - the orphan drug phenomenon.In a world without patents, corporate research would be on a shorter leash, but the longer leash typically benefits basic research, much of which is done at universities anyway. You might argue that corporations would be more profitable, since the distance to a manufacturable product would be less.
From a different angle, if it takes your competitors five minutes to copy what you did, it's clever, but not enough of an invention to be worth a patent. Like those little cardboard things Starbuck uses to insulate your hand against the heat. They have a patent pending mark on them. 100,000 years of humans using tools, and no one ever thought of angling the cut against the grain to make a strong, cone-like shape? Bullshit. If that impresses you, you are feeble minded indeed.
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
And ,from the Times, this story. Favorite quote, on the "threat" of the GPL:"an I.B.M. vice president, said, "If we thought this was a trap, we wouldn't be doing it, and as you know, we have a lot of lawyers.""
Best Slashdot Co
But that's what Linus basically did, when comparing Mundie's body odor to that of a 300 year old cadaver...
Could it be that information monopolies retard technological advancement by sequestering knowledge?
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Defending Bill Gates on /. does seem foolish, but I have some spare karma. here goes
Bill bought the Codex Leicester from noted ego-maniac and proven liar Armand Hammer. Dr. Hammer had renamed the book "Codex Hammer" and not allowed public viewing.
Since acquisition, Bill has loaned it out for public display and now keeps in a museum in Seattle.
Yes, Bill, through his solely ownded Corbis, did buy the Betteman Archive and Corbis does charge for access.
BUT, the Archive was in private hands, was (literally) falling apart, was in a building the NY Times deems a "fire risk," (on old warehouse), and only a teeny portion of it was digitized.
Corbis has given the archive a proper physical home and moved much of the archive online. No one else was willing and able to invest these kinds of millions
Bill is stil an evil, rotten bastard -- even Nero did some good public works
"one treats others with courtesy not because they are gentlemen or gentlewomen, but because you are" --G. Henrichs
Yep, nowadays science is more and more driven by what there is to gain. Science per se is out of the question; those projects / studies will unlikely get the necessary fundings. All too often people will ask for the direct benefits of some research, thereby disregarding the fact that most great discoveries are mere side effects of some other research (and all too often you don't exactly know where research will lead you).
Call a spade a spade. I prefer the direct honesty to a roundabout attack, not mentioning names, but implying snidely without coming right out and saying what you feel.
Skivvy Niner? Email me!
HEY! Look left just ONE MORE TIME!
They have so closely copied the Perl regular expressions, that there is nearly no difference. I've even tried undocumented things like matching underscore characters which, although not documented, work in the MS implementation.
So, it appears to me they have taken the Perl source code to implement regular expressions in their scripting languages. Yet, they haven't even bothered to credit the original author, much less provide source code to their implementation.
Anyone know if they have violated the Perl artistic licence or not?
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
"If I have been able to see further, it was only because I was surrounded by dwarves."
--
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
One one hand he seems to be eschewing patents and protection of intellectual property. On the other hand, he is collecting a big fat paycheque from, and probably owns a stake in, a company which I assume has oodles of patents on its code-morphing technology and almost certainly plans to defend them vigorously. I am not necessarily taking a stand one side or another, but is it too much to expect some consistency on the part of advocates ??
What has the "copyright/patent/intellectual property" world contributed to networking? NETBEUI? Appletalk? IPX? Where are they now? Could the Microsofts of the world ever "innovate" anything like TCP/IP without endless copyright/patent litigation and an IRS-like licensing scheme?
If Microsoft's approach was so great, they would simply ignore open source, much as they ignore Corel. Instead, you see them treating open source like it's a five-alarm fire.
To me, it looks like Microsoft's "respect for intellectual property" begins and ends with THEIR intellectual property, not the intellectual property of others, even though it is the basis for everything Microsoft does.
"My university claims ownership of anything I write while attending, so I make sure they can't profit off my hard work without granting others' freedom."
How can they legally do that? Are you on scholarship? Do you PAY them to attend? Does this university "claim" ownership of books and papers the professors are constantly writing and having published? (usually leaving graduate students to actually do their "inconvienient" teaching duties? Professors also use the school's facilities/computers to do these papers/books) Do they also claim "ownership" of anything you write on your own machine?
I have a real problem with most of academia these days. I find it ironic that the Jesuit teaching philosophy at my Catholic High School was FAR more open, particulary in the way they teach you how to THINK for yourself, than any college I attended.
College educations these days are becoming steadily less and less valueable in the real world simply BECAUSE academia refuses to allow the real world in. Colleges are the LEAST likely place these days where you will find freedom of speech or any academic freedom.
If they claim to own all your works irregardless of where and how you create it, but not all works of their professors, I'd think that their blanket claim to own ANYTHING you write isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
But then again, we have a totally fucked up court system that has little to do with justice and more with awarding judgment to those with the deepest pockets.
The point being, if the university's claim to own all your code is valid, then you cannot license it under the GPL without their permission. Otherwise, you could simply release under the BSD license, then download your own source code and, whammo, you own it again, and could then license it as modified under the GPL with you as the owner.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Capitalism is the system that actually seems to balance both out over time. Applied science -- production of product (see Microsoft or Edison). Theory -- this is the foundation structure (see Newton or Einstein). Without the theory it is difficult if not impossible to make true advances -- incremental only. Without the application you will never be able to drive theory to any next level -- application refines theory and allows you to start building "products" and refining them over time -- the bedrock that a lot of new theory rests on.
Some theory goes off on a tangent and then you get real breakthroughs. This is rarely it seems the realm of the corporation although many times it is funded by the corporation either directly or indirectly (university and government are both indirectly funded by the tax base of the capitalist country -- which is either the corporation directly or employees of the corporation). Think food chain.
Implication: if a corporation can apply theory and make money they will have either a direct (funded research) or indirect (food chain) effect on making theory better over time. Without application you have less opportunity for more theory. Without application you have no economy. Without application you have stagnation.
MS is relatively good at iterative application. Some other companies excel at it as well. MS also has thinkers (both direct and indirect [ps: Linus is an indirect thinker that MS uses as a resource -- as is the entire industry and if Linus is smart MS is the same for him]) who it strives to use to improve theory. It is not a company so married to it's own interpetation that it will not adopt outside interpetations or models when MS sees the benefit for the application.
Do not understimate a company ready, willing and able to re-interpet itself based on a changing world scene and the concept that over time and releases it will prevail.
What Linus said makes interesting food for thought... he uses Einstein (a German), Rutherford (a New Zealander), Newton (a Englishman) and himself Finnish... Then think about Turing, Church, Hilbert, von Neumann etc etc all pivotal in the creation of the modern computer... all not American yet America has gained so much. What if all that "IP" had been locked up? Would there be a Microsoft? It seems the "American economy" has been profiting from the IP of "other nations" for a long time now itself... Would America be where it is today without the free flow of ideas and information from people like those mentioned above? I dont think so. Add to that America itself (and corporates that are part of the USA) profits the ideas of its people on a grand scale. Hell the internet itself was publicly funded from the begining, even the digital computer was invented pretty much exclusivly using public funds. Now Microsoft tells us that the only way to survive is by covetting knowledge for profit? Sounds awfully anti-democratic to me! There is no one correct "model" but any idea which promotes the free flow of learning and knowledge transfer has my vote any day of the week... I'm all for making a good crust, but monetary profit isnt the only sort of profit in this world...Linus is right... some people just dont "get" it.
Linus brings up an interesting problem with society, although he doesn't go into length about it. That problem is the reliance of capitalism in our society for intellectual advancement.
Attempting to equate success with having capital (and hence property) has created some obvious paradoxes. Take the example of designed obsolescence. Because corporations only live if they can sustain an income, products are created that will fail to function in a timely manner. This creates a revenue stream and keeps the corporation "alive". However, the products that are created are not the best possible products.
Competition is supposed to push better products to the fore. If that worked, we'd have light bulbs that laster for 30 years, cars you bought for a lifetime, and software for life. Ask yourself this question: How much better is Word 2000 from Word 5.1? We upgrade because it is forced upon us by file protocals, not because there's any innovation in word processing.
Until we can divorce the pursuit of capital from advances in science, we are doomed to have any advance kepted restained by the barriers of the a accumulation of that wealth. If at any point, an advancement is deemed to be a money killer, it will be abandoned. [Napster being a slightly trollish example]
I don't have the answers to these problems, but from what I've read on Slashdot, I'm not the only one thinking about them.
Torvalds certainly has a very readable writing style. Stallman tends to be more thoughtful, and that may make his writing less accessible to the casual reader, but he never sounds like a "total loon". The fact that you think so says more about you than about RMS.
Many, if not most, people here on Slashdot seem to prefer ESR-style 'Open Source' over RMS-style 'Free Software'. That's fine, I like to think we can "agree to disagree" about the details.
But please, show each other some respect. Calling RMS a 'total loon' (or, like ESR, making vicious remarks about his personal hygiene) is way out of line, IMHO.
At the risk of being a bit trollish myself, let me just say from deep personal experience that anyone who thinks Win9X is usable by unassisted non-technical people has never given their parents a computer.
On the other hand, it's important to note that when Linus points out the great discoveries made by the men that he listed, he's making a list of individuals whose work was done primarily with public institutions...schools, foundations or institutions. Even men like da Vinci, who did work privately, worked with the goal of simply publishing his (scientific) work.
Fast forward a few hundred years...
If a private company dumps a load of money into research and development, they deserve the opportunity to get something back for it. Patents are a way for them to recover their expenses, try to make some money (because in a capitalist society, they have that right) and give us the opportunity to use their ideas.
In fact, I would submit that good old fashioned science is still being done for the public good in those very places that science has always been done: colleges and universities and in national laboratories. The IP patents that we complain so bitterly about are really only incremental improvements in existing technology, rarely breakthrough developments.
It is good for the economy to charge, not only for intellectual property, but for any property. Trade is how the economy grows. The Microsoft comment is flawed in that it assumes that if charging for IP is good then not charging for it is bad. I'd say it's pretty clear that that is an unsupportable position. But the other extreme, that everything should be free isn't much more supportable either.
-h-
Perhaps there would be less people using the web, but you ignore Apple, Amiga, and all the other companies that would have been here had MS not. You assume that MS exists in a vacumm. Computers would be no less than two years behind where they are now. Commodity hardware is nice, but Apple had allowed clones before, stopping only when they were losing money. If their apps sold to more people they'd probably have gotten out of the hardware market, controlling it only through 'Apple Approved' programs, like MS through their 'Made for Windows' program.
Similarly, Apple was the leader in usability and had they had more of a market share, they would doubtlessly have kept improving. If not, some other company could have done it.
How great would the web be if only geeks were on it? That's not just theoretical. Many of us here remember how great it was. No banners, no 'free registration', no spam bots, free information easily arranged to be shared with other academics. I doubt begrude anyone the right to be on the net, but the crass commercialization of it sucks. Mainly thanks to big companies like MS making sure that any idiot could connect. (Though I realize that had MS and AOL not done this, others would have.)
Finally, for your idea that MS should be forgiven all their illegal acts, putting other companies out of business, and forming a monopoly to the detriment of the consumer. What? Are you mad? Should we start forgiving crimes simply because it's been a while and the victim isn't around to complain anymore?
MS and their upgrade-itis (the refusal to patch products, only release a new version) have cost the public *much* more than it has helped them.
I'm all for not bashing big companies just because they're big but MS really is a scum lord, they really did compete only through illegal actions.
Linus doesn't have anything against intellectual property. If you paid more attention to him you'd know that. He respects people's work and respects copyright. But he also believes that collaboration and sharing knowledge is the best way to promote progress, but that doesn't mean that he thinks patents and such are never appropriate.
Please get a clue before you go calling someone a hypocrite.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
If all intellectual properties were taken away from a company so that anyone could use the product that was previously protected, then the company will go out of business and no one will sell that product. Right? No not really... Someone is still going to create the product that was previously protected. Just because a company can not monopolize the product does not mean they will not make any money off of it. Just look at cars. No one has a monopoly on car engines or bodies or airbags. You can get most features in any car in any other car. Yet when you look at the road, there are 100's of different types of cars from so many different manufactures.
If IP rights were taken away from all companies, I don't see it as the Doom of the information age, I see companies having to compete for quality products. IP rights only cover an idea, companies then have to implement that idea into a product. Companies can then compete on the quality of their product, not just the one little idea the product holds. And for companies that fear people stealing their code if they open source it, you can't cut and paste quality out of a product.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Mundie shot himself in the foot numerous times in that speech. It can be torn apart. An example:
The OSS development model leads to a strong possibility of unhealthy "forking" of a code base, resulting in the development of multiple incompatible versions of programs, weakened interoperability, product instability, and hindering businesses' ability to strategically plan for the future. Furthermore, it has inherent security risks and can force intellectual property into the public domain.
In a word. kerberos. MS took instead of PUBLIC standard, 'forked' it (so to speak, but modifying it and making the change any but part of the original open standard). This lead to 'incompatible versions of programs', 'product instability' of other products, and 'hindering businesses' ability to strategically plan for the future'...all but their own of course, the public/and therefore the customers/be damned. Did it also not come out that in the trial that there were times code was changed to intentionally 'break' competitor software (applications)? Again, see above. If anything, I feel this actually supports the breakup of MS. They use the proprietary standards to thwart competition in the app area. It's good from the OS/app vertical market, of which they are the monopoly. And that's just one paragraph. What they've done is NOT good for the software market (EXCEPT for MS itself) in the applications area, which is 99.99 percent of the software companies. Hell, and that's only one paragraph. Of course he mentioned the bad business model of 'free expecting to be paid later' hmm...Explorer comes to mind. What his speech does day, if one reads between the lines, is that MS must thing Linux is ready for prime time. That's quite an endorsement. It's a little like announcing vaporware a year before you have a product because someone announces a product you think is a good idea. You keep the competitor at bay while you write it or buy it (never having thought about it in the first place).
My feeling of the positive aspect of the open source model is it means applications will compete on MERIT, not be shoved down your throat. If an app vendor enahnces/corrects an OS under GPL, then every vendor, once that's included, will have the same benefit for their application products. (And applications can remain proprietary, if they like. But they'll have to be good. no BSOD every other keystroke and service/support, knowing a customer DOES have the option of going elsewhere.) It's all about control... MS wants it 100%. OSS give the control back to the customer/consumer/business client... the place it belongs. Even those that are strictly the profit driven software houses, it's sill a BIG plus for them IF they have a product that people want to purchase and IF someone doesn't invent a better mousetrap and put it under GPL, at which point they probably failed on that innovation, research, or service that MS seems to speak of so frequently.
Steve Wozniak - Apple 1 and ][
// It had been Fat's delusion for years that he could help people. --Philip K. Dick, Valis
But I'm glad Linus beat him to the punch. I'm very grateful for Stallman's contribution to the software field, but in speaking and writing he often sounds like a total loon. Linus' writings are always so relaxed, eloquent, and poingent, even when he's basically calling someone an idiot.
Lex orandi, lex credendi.
[As a quick note, this is not a troll or flamebait, though it will likely be modded as such.]
Please, set aside for a moment the fact that Linus is god and M$ is the devil. Linus makes some very astute observations in his message, but for a reader who is not already sold on the gospel of Lin, it comes off as childish, snotty, and rude. A few examples:
- Gee, what a surprise.
- I wonder if Mundie has ever heard of Sir Isaac Newton?
- I'd rather listen to Newton than to Mundie. He may have been dead for almost three hundred years, but despite that he stinks up the room less.
Valid points, yes, but this kind of attitude is not what OSS needs to get respect in the business world. And, yes, ultimately what OSS needs to succeed is respect by the general, non-Slashdot population.Damn he's good. That last line about stinking up the room is one of the harshest direct responses I've seen in a couple of years. I just hope M$ doesn't sick the lawyers on him for libel against Mundie. Illegal we do immediately. Unconstitutional takes a little longer.
"Secrecy is the Beginning of Tyranny" "No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law" -Robert Heinlein
Interesting that you mention Thomas Eedison. Although Edison was a prolific inventer, he (or his companies) was rather ruthless iun defending his patents.
As I recall, he attempted to leverage his invention, patent, and resulting monopoly on the movie projector into a monopoly on film production.
Many (if not all) of his projectors were licensed, not sold, with the stipulation that they only be used to project films distributed by Edison controlled companies.
Not necessarily. Look at it this way - if companies weren't able to abuse the patent system, I think they'd put even more money into R&D, because they would have no artificial means of suppressing competitors.
For example, there's a brand of vacuum cleaner available in the UK that has a TV commercial trumpeting the fact that their latest model has 136 patents on various parts of it, so "If you want a Dyson, it's going to have to be a Dyson." This is unbelievable - they're actually proud of the fact that consumers can't obtain a similar cleaner from any other source, because they've got it locked up so tight with patents that no other company could reasonably produce a similar model.
Once upon a time, patents were given on entire devices, not little bits of such devices. If Dyson had only one patent, their IP would be protected, while other companies could make improvements on that design. But no, Dyson have 136 patents, so any improvement is likely to be obstructed by at least one of them. And then they have the gall to say that you can't get one from anywhere else, because they've got it stitched up tight.
Now, consider the case of software patents - in many cases, the patent is on an algorithm that can't be implemented any other way, because it's based on fundamental mathematical calculations that can't be done any other way (such as multiplication and division). What does that do for R&D at other companies? Kills it dead, that's what.
If someone has more info on this please post it...I just remember seeing the announcement in one of the Adobe Photodisc type thingies and don't have much else.
clif
Actually, Alan Cox responded before either of them. I think he does a better job of refuting Mundie in general; Linus focuses on a specific part of what Mundie said and is [IMHO] more inflammatory.
Shame the PHBs won't've heard of Alan Cox cos I think he often has things to say which are worth listening to.
perl -e 'fork||print for split//,"hahahaha"'
Open Intellectual Property ("open source", "free software", whatever)
- The Internet
- The World Wide Web, including HTML
- Linux
Microsoft:Wow, I'm so impressed with MS's contribution.
--
"that's not encryption - it's a new perl script that I'm working on..." - from some Matrix parody
If Microsoft has not got further, it must be beacuse of all the giants standing on its shoulders: DoJ, Linux, IBM, Gnu, Netscape, Word Perfect, Lotus, Borlans, Apple, Corel,
In Murphy We Turst
But there are very few examples of scientists creating consumer goods for the love of discovery. One or two perhaps - I'm not sure what the intention behind invention of the lightbulb was.
But nobody creates a passenger aircraft, or an automobile, or a new, nicer design of personal computer for pure creative self-actualising joy.
I think that whilst the great discoveries of our time and times gone by will more often be found by scientists and visionaries of the academic kind, it takes a profit incentive to push discovery into the final phases of development, manufacture, distribution and sale.
So I think that governments should be extremely careful when they give patents away, and the more general the patent, the more value it ties up by preventing the development of those ideas by third parties.
But where discoveries require significant investment to bring them to a consumer-ready stage, compensation must be guaranteed for that investment, otherwise there is no incentive other than charity to undertake the work, and the most intelligent minds may not have the funds to obtain the necessary equipment and assistance to leverage their genius - they will need to leverage a future asset to borrow those funds in the present.
Salocin.com
Linus was using the phrase in a to make a rather mild joke. How it is that Linus, a foreigner, has a better command of English idiom than you, well... it's just one example so there is no conclusion to be drawn.
This is a rather personal attack...but the last remark was at best childish. Stick with the issues. I don't believe Mundie/Microsoft made any such direct remarks about Linus...
I completely disagree. Humanity has cloaked itself in a thick layer of Bullshit and PR speak. This is cased by the palm-pusher corporate types who seek to maintain a fine 'artificially constructed' reality that is suitable to their Marketing Plan(TM).
I say fuck it all - if Mundie is a jackass - I say we openly SAY IT! This is reality - not a fucking Game Show.
Mundie is really just a talking head - paid for his white teeth and quick wit - why should some dishonest puppet be given respect? Because of his Job Title? I would assert that Mr. Mundie has done nothing to earn our respect (in spite of his impressive jobtitle - which i say is irrelevant). Mr. Mundie is a blatant liar and a despicable person, his very character is soiled by this display of shallowness and greed.
The people cited in Linus' email are people deserving of respect - they have made contributions to humanity, and by most accounts did so with passion and vigour. Mr. Mundie is a lap-dog, deserving of only ire and loathing.
This is not flaimbait. I am suggesting that people start re-evaluating who is regarded well in public - lets re-asses how we choose our 'leaders' - and most certainly; lets call a spade a spade.
Doing my best Bob Newhart, I imagine that a conversation over the phone between Einstein and PhysicsX Inc product managers:
Ah, good morning Albert - how are the wife, the kids? Did you catch the game last night?
Oh - you don't watch football - well, that's just swell there. Say, we here in Product Management want to talk to you about that project you've been working on.
Uhuh - yeah - that whole grand unification project and all that. Yeah, we need to know if we can patent any of this stuff?
Oh - it's really prior art then eh? Okay - listen, we've put a lot of money your way and Susan from Marketing would like to know what would people get from moving near the speed of light...
More mass, length shortened? Wow - listen Al, we've got idea down - we'd just like you to downplay the more mass thing. We're kind of looking towards changing some of the text such as shortened length to "slimming".
I can see how you're upset about this one Al, I'd be too, but heck, they're just words, and we are trying to sell this stuff...
Okay I'll talk to Susan about that. Listen, packaging is wondering how we could fit this whole Theory of Relativity thing for home use...
Ah - yes Al, I did get that memo about impossibility of approaching the speed of light. Listen, I've got Frank from Advertising here - he's concerned that your paper has too much math - could you trim it back?
Al? Al? Funny - I seemed to have been disconnected.
Just off the top of my head, I agree - the business model of running r&d has proven itself to be a pain and a dinosaur. What we need to do is present an environment where more people would express what they know and come up with new discoveries. And these discoveries don't really have to come from scientists or researchers.
Have you ever had one of those neighbours who could fix anything? Go spend some time with them and see their workshop - inspiration beyond belief! No corporate sponsership, a true love of whatever it is they are working on.
I donate all spillover Karma to the charity of my choice... Ada was still a babe despite what people may say...
I mean, where would we all be without minesweeper. lost...
"God is dead." - Nietszche
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Newton gave particular credit to Kepler, another "open science" advocate. In Max Caspar's bio of Kepler, when told that Galileo was in Italy presenting Kepler's discoveries as his own, Kepler basically said that this was OK, since the truth spread by anyone was still the truth, and that the world would be richer for it. How could he possibly give up his 'property' like that? Becuase he did not think of knowledge as his.
Galileo, on the other hand, was persecuted by the Catholic Church (an intellectual property monopoly), and lost his right to even present his findings in public.
Many of the scientific conclusions Kepler and Galileo reached are incorrect, but science is nearly as much about seeing thought processes at work as it is about finding the truth. According to Mundie's speech, this process has no value to Microsoft, unless it is paid for by the governement and then given to them to use as their own.
I like to think of OS and GPL in terms of the US legal system; when a lawyer does 'pro bono' work, it does not mean "for free," it means "for the public good." Refusing payment is one characteristic of pro bono work, but the term also means that you put yourself on the line for something you believe in, something that will otherwise be ignored or left undone. Can you imagine the trial system if a lawyer says "Your honor, I bring to your attention Brown vs. the Board of Education" and a lawyer in the audience says, "Wait! Part of that decision is my intellectual property! You must pay me before you can use that in your client's defense!" So how does anyone make money if legal work is in the public domain? Lawyers pay for their law books, and they pay for Lexis-Nexis access to legal research. And so, lawyers charge a high hourly or contingency fee for most of their work, and if they do good research and make good arguments, they deserve it.
In the same way, I am permitted under the GPL to sell my improvements in the form of binaries on CD-ROM, but I need to make the source available as well. I can charge $100 to access my online archive of source. If it is a great archive that is kept up-to-date, people, companies, and universities may pay, and there is nothing in the GPL that prevents this. I cannot stop you from redistributing it, though, just as Lexis-Nexis cannot stop a law researcher from teaching his students the public info found in their database. In fact, my reading of the GPL says that I can refuse to release my changes without payment. If anyone wants to pay me, they can. In fact, a lot of my consulting work is based on this, and I get paid well because I do a good job.
Computing began as a government/university venture, including Bill Gates' first major programming project, an implementation of BASIC on a Harvard-owned, government funded machine. The field has been taken over by rich private interests. The GPL is one attempt to restore some balance in favor of research, and based on the progress the Linux kernel has made in just 8 years, it's succeeding.