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Ballmer Calls Linux "A Cancer"
davidebsmith writes: "In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says that Linux and the open source movement is "good competition" because it will "force [Microsoft] to be innovative," but calls Linux "a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." He also says that the inclusion of IE in Windows has been "great ... for innovation in the software industry" (except for Netscape) and that MS's new copy protections are just "bumps in the road" to "help customers understand when they are crossing the line . . . so they can't do the wrong thing." And he says a few more amusing things, also."
To Moderators: This moderation you use...(+1, Funny)...I do not think it means what you think it means.
It's simple, actually. If I write some code to sell and I only need ( read: want ) a tiny bit from, let's say, a GPL'ed library, well then, I should just go ahead and write that little bit myself. End of problem.
On the other hand, if I want to use a large amount of GPL'ed code and add my little bit and sell it as mine, well, it's not really mine at all. Hence I shouldn't be allowed to sell it. If there were a way to buy the code, then doing this would be OK. But there isn't.
And that's it. Q.D.E.
-JD
Now look at RMS's three freedoms: the freedom to read the source code; the freedom to modify the source code; and the freedom to share the sources and binaries with others (yeah I know that's not exactly it, but I like the read-modify-share acronym).
So, whereas closed-source software has limits on its reproduction, open-source software is explicitly designed to reproduce without limit, just like a cancer.
Of course, unlike a cancer, open-source software helps your system live longer!
in-no-vate (IN no vait) vt. - to take an idea from another company (cf. Apple)
You're kidding right?
There's plenty that's "free" about the GPL just not what some people want to be free (i.e. free to exploit).
You are free to read the source code.
You are free to wall-paper your house with the source code.
You are free to recite the source code.
You are free to compile the source code.
You are free to copy to source code to another media.
You are free to give a copy of the source code as a Christmas present.
You are free to modify the source code.
You are free to learn from the source code.
You are free to tinker with the source code.
You are free to charge a fee for transfering the source code. Now this of course does not mean that you are free to do these things in anyway whatsoever. (i.e. you may not be allowed to recite the source code over an illegal FM transmitter. Nor are you violate the terms of the GPL). Nonetheless, only a shabby miscrosoft-like absence of logic would allow the conclusion that there is nothing free about the GPL'ed software.
What's funny is that the napster-kid mentality and the anti-GPL mentality seem to be essentially the same. "I deserve to be able to profit from someone else's work."
I think Ballmer made an interesting comment about `pirating' of software in homes when he said that artists and organizations like newspapers need to get paid. However, I don't know of any household that gets more than one copy of a newspaper..
--
I'm hungry. I think I'll go innovate a sandwich.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Q: The new Windows XP software, I've seen a trial version, contains a number of free products--media player, a CD burner, an Internet firewall. Could that bundling hurt smaller competitors who make stand-alone software? Isn't this kind of bundling that you offered with Windows and Internet Explorer?
... for innovation in the software industry. Whether it was great for Netscape is a different question.
A: Just as with Internet Explorer, our job is to offer customers what they want. We are trying to provide more functionality at the same or better prices every day. [A]ll the new capabilities of Windows XP are open to software developers to add onto, to build value around. I think Windows XP ought to be a real boon to the kinds of innovations that come from smaller companies. The inclusion of Internet Explorer with Windows has been absolutely great
I realize that it's not illegal or anything, but isn't what Ballmer's saying here really "our customers were going to other companies for their software, so we decided to bundle it so they don't have to go elsewhere"?
This is of course perfectly legal (I think). If I had a company that made widgets and I could get more clients by adding feature X to my widget, I probably would. However, combine this with complete dominance of the widget market (or close to it, a monopoly however you look at it), this means that widget manufacturures who survive by making feature X are being squashed.
At any rate, Ballmer is psychotic. I don't see how his perceptions jibe with the real world at all. It's basically a 'nyah nyah I'm not listening' reaction. I believe he's totally sincere when he doesn't attempt to identify ANY area Microsoft doesn't plan to control, and I believe he's equally sincere when he says they're acting just as they always have: which we have a very clear picture of, thanks to the DoJ.
The only remaining question to my mind is, at what point does government (ANY government) begin to realise Microsoft wants all of THEIR turf as well? They really are going for direct control. They really are. What else would they be doing around about now?
No, he means 'available to everybody' in the sense of the IE-only British Government website recently in the news. Everybody has to have IE and Windows. Government should not fund anything unless it makes people have IE and Windows :)
I wonder how these "bumps in the road" will be received. Most of the people in my company still use NT4.0 with service pack 6. We haven't deployed Windows 2000 yet, although a few developers run it. It's going to be expensive to upgrade. Think home users are going to go for that? If your home machine needs to have it's OS reloaded, it's going to be a big hassle. I suspect these "bumps in the road" will translate into gouges in the eye.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Chances are, it's a quote taken out of context or a wholesale fabrication by a reporter. Microsoft didn't get where it is today by putting its collective foot in its mouth like that, so when you hear a quote as absurd as "Linux is a Cancer" (which Microsoft itself knows to be a falsehood), take it with a grain of salt.
FUD is your enemy, but don't compound the problem by restorting tooFUD yourself. Microsoft still deserves the benefit of the doubt, and we should always take a careful investigatory approach whenever we wish to report news that may be damaging to the reputation of either party. That's the approach Microsoft has historically used (see mindcraft and others), and it's the least we can do too.
Hey, Steven. It's called Research!
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Microsoft's point is that the situation is far worse on Unix. And, you know what? No matter how many windows service releases you can list, they are right.
It's not really any worse. Hell, at least you can get open and honest documentation for most open source software. Often you can even get help from the creators if you can't find the answer you're looking for. Microsoft will offer you something similar, if you're willing to sign NDAs, give them all your money, and let billg make you his bitch.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
but guess what? If you are developing for a Microsoft system you don't need them.
Not everyone develops for MS OSes. I use MSDN quite a bit since I have to use MS products at work. I know what they have there. Sure, as long as you're just developing solutions for MS products with MS products, you're fine. You don't really need to know how the stuff works, just that it does. But if you're trying to say... import a Word document into an app you're writing, then you're pretty much screwed. They don't give you everything you need to know. They don't want people to have that info. That's what I'm talking about.
Now, when it comes to Linux, you don't have a central repository like MSDN, but it's still pretty easy to find answers (MSDN isn't exactly simple sometimes either depending on what you're looking for). If I can't find info in the docs, there are several good websites with tons of info on just about every aspect of Linux. Additionally there are message boards, usenet groups and irc channels where you can usually find answers as well.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Thanks to the spirit of consumer advocation, Microsoft has provided the public with some very unsettling news. Open source is bad for businesses! Luckily, through a complete coincidence, Mr. Ballmer works at a company that can save you from open source! That's right, if you buy Microsoft products instead, you can totally avoid the cancer!
It's through selfless efforts like this that makes Microsoft such a great company. Thanks Microsoft! Where would the world be without you?
Really people. What did you expect him to say? Yeah, that's right. Linux is totally superior to our software in every way. If you switch to open source today, why, you're no longer our bitch! You can totally stop putting up with our crap like constant bluescreens, ridiculous licensing schemes, forced upgrades, and no source code. In fact, you'd have to be crazy to put up with us. What's wrong with you people?
This could be sort of justified if a reputable consumer advocate group said "avoid open source for the following reasons". But it's not.
I also don't mind requiring code developed under those circumstances to be distributed in the public domain. However, that's a red herring. There's no problem at all (in my view) with the NSA distributing their Linux mods; they can distribute them in the public domain, since that can be incorporated freely into GPL'ed code.
The GPL only requires that you distribute a derived work (containing previously GPL'ed code and your code, which you still hold the copyright to) under the GPL. You can still distribute the code that's purely your own under any additional licenses you please, when that code is distributed by itself. It's only when it's distributed in combination -- as a single work -- that it must be distributed under the GPL. That's why there's no problem with incorporating BSD licensed code into GPL code. The BSD code can still be distributed as it was before; the GPL only applies to the instance that was incorporated into the GPL'ed software. The thing you don't want to do is put GPL'ed code (that's covered only by the GPL) into something else, if you're not prepared to distribute the combination under the GPL.
The potentially thorniest issue that I see is what happens if you use macro, constant, and variable names from GPL'ed header files. Use of the macros per se isn't an issue; they could be rewritten (the header files just describe an interface; that description can be rewritten). However, if the names themselves are considered to be subject to copyright there could be an issue.
IANAL, so take it for what it's worth (i. e. nothing).
His point was that when the government funds it, it isn't *your* code, but public code. You really don't need to be pro-microsoft to see that . .
I see that just fine. It's just that since I helped pay for it, I would rather that it remain free (via GPL) rather than get snapped up, modified a bit, and sold (rather licensed or rented) to me.
The reason (in theory) that government funds code is for the public good. If GPL will cause more code to be contributed to the public good, then the tax money will provide greater returns.
His point was that when the government funds it, it isn't *your* code, but public code. You really don't need to be pro-microsoft to see that . . .
I don'[t find myself agreeing with microsoft a lot, but he's right about this one. If the government is paying for it, it should be public domain, or at least under a free license, not encumbered with te GPL. Under the GPL, you really do have a government subsidy competing with private business.
hawk, who has never (to the best of his knowledge) been called pro-microsoft by anyone of reasonable intelligence
I don't believe in being able to own knowledge. In the past it was the kings and emperors owned all knowedge (see the story of where copyright came about). Now since we got republics, we sort of started wondering who to give information to, so we just pick the rich and ruling class apparently.
How come we all can agree that things like schools, military, and zero gravity toilets are neccessary for public good and are all willing to pay the government to support it. But we can't agree that software is for public good and it must be a viable product (thus we need to make up the notion of ownership of knowledge) for us to use/buy/do it.
Note I have only one thing against miscrosoft and it's products, the fact that they're proprietary. And thus I cannot use them, and I will not use them because I don't like giving up my rights and I don't like giving up the community's rights in order to be able to change the font in an easier way.
Let's see ...
I believe the lawyers have a word for what happens when someone knowingly makes a maliciously false statement in print. I believe that word is libel.
Thus spake Steve Ballmer:
"Linux is a cancer on intellectual property, and we (Microsoft) are...hey Bill, what cures cancer?"
Ever notice that Ballmer looks like Frankenstien's monster?
The average Joe isn't going to think Office XP is cool because it will be the first version of Office that he has to pay full price for. Most MS Office users "borrow" copies of the software from work. They figure (incorrectly) that since they use the software for "work" that it is all right to do this. Heck, some MIS managers even think that the license actually allows this.
Microsoft is turning the screws up on everyone big businesses and small businesses alike. Microsoft now owns the office suite market, they have driven out Corel and Lotus, and now everyone is going to pay.
Microsoft is not going to try to contest the GPL in court. Microsoft is an intellectual property company. Attacking the GPL would weaken copyright, and copyright is what allows them to make big fat piles of money. However, Microsoft is going to trot out all of their top executives and have them say things like "Linux is un-American" or "Open Source software is a cancer."
I think that Balmer has a point when he states that Microsoft is simply making it clear what is and what is not legal. Microsoft's licensing is quite complicated, and I for one will be glad when their software gives me a better idea as to whether or not I am in compliance.
It is Microsoft's prerogative to enforce their license as they see fit. Just because I happen to like Free Software does not mean that I want to steal someone else's copyrighted work.
I even think that this will be good for Linux. Consumers hate being treated like criminals, and they dislike jumping through hoops to use something that the have paid for even more. Linux's lack of licensing fees will look especially attractive once Microsoft starts enforcing their licenses.
OpenBSD can't use GPL code, because you can't do what you want with it, and that is against Theo's belief.
Apache can't use GPL code, because that would require GPLing the whole thing.
The problem with Ballmer's statement (and with yours) is that he doesn't explain what he means by "use", and he seems to strongly imply that he means what a normal computer user means -- for example, when I "use" gcc, I type a command line and execute a program that compiles some code. When I "use" Linux, I browse the web and play games and code and so on. Of course, the OpenBSD and Apache people can (and do) "use" GPL'd code in this sense all the time. They can even go a step further and hack and and modify and "use" the code in a programmer's sense, as long as they don't make proprietary modifications.
Most people here know better -- you obviously understand the implications of the GPL vs. less restrictive licenses / public domain, and that's a legitimate point -- but it goes right over the head of the vast majority of people to whom Ballmer is speaking. To them, the message is: "If you use open source software, everything you do will be forced to be open source. Linux will destroy your intellectual property!"
Ballmer's not an idiot -- of course he knows all this. It isn't a "mistake" he's making by accident -- it's a calculated move.
If you accept the incorrect usage of "open source" to mean "GPL'd code" then this statement makes perfect sense.
I'm afraid it still doesn't. Or rather, it makes sense but just isn't true. Anybody -- Microsoft, OpenBSD, whoever -- can use and modify GPL'd code to their heart's content, and it won't "infect" their other code at all. Ballmer claims that if a company uses any open source [GPL'd] code, that company has to make all of their IP available. That's simply not the case.
That said, I agree that it's good that all goverment products are in the public domain. That's a great way to do this -- it just isn't a reason for the goverment (or any company) to not use open source / Free software.
Hmm, seems to me that if you have both Windows 2000 and Linux crashing on your box... you may just have a hardware problem.
Remember the good old days when a magazine or newspaper would say something remotely negative about the Amiga? Or OS/2?
And how the zealots would flame them to death in a letter writing campaign.
It got to a point where journalists would either refuse to say anything about the products, or do it as a joke to see how much of a response they would get.
When I first got into computing there was no GPL, there was no Shareware...
There was commercial software and there was public domain software. Commercial software was Microsoft BASIC, Infocom's Zork, Turbo Pascal. Public domain consisted of things such as Modem7, Hunt the Wumpus, etc.
You can't make public domain software disappear. Microsoft or Sun or any other "evil" corporation can't make the software vanish from the face of the earth by looking at it.
What they can do is take it, improve upon it, modify it, enhance it, and sell that new version.
They are not charging you for the original software, they are charging you solely for their enhancements.
God I am getting so sick of having to explain this point to mental midgets.
"Do you believe that Microsoft, et all, have some RIGHT to code that they had no part in writing? "
If it was funded by tax payer dollars...
The answer is YES.
This is what Ballmer said in the article we're discussing.
However, a point that no one has yet made, that I think deserves to be made, is that source code for closed source programs like Microsoft Windows is not allowed to be used in other programs AT ALL. What right does Mr. Ballmer have to complain about GPL restrictions, when his own software carries far worse restrictions?
Why is there a double standard, whereby Mr. Ballmer may choose any restrictions he wants on Windows code, but any licensing restrictions on Linux code is automatically considered "a cancer"?
After meeting with "industry representatives", President Bush signs an executive order banning the use of taxpayer funds for open-source software projects; justifies it as defending America's software industry and its right to innovate.
So GPL is "free" if I'm willing to accept a creative redefinition of the word "free". And I can "use" GPL'd code as long as I'm willing to accept a creative limitation of the word "use".
Gee, what a deal.
You can play with these verbal gymnastics all day long and it won't conceal the fact that GPL'd code is inaccessable to developers unwilling or unable to GPL their own code. Whether this is a feature or a liability is the only difference that your personal perspective makes on the situation.
I'm content to let you appear in this discussion as the clever pundit if you'll let me continue being the one who is being correct.
Cheers.
Well, at least you're honest.
Kerberos work ok within a standard Kerberos environment? No?
And here's why you're clearly not an expert. The answer to your faux rhetorical question is "yes". Microsoft's Kerb5 implementation in Win2K interoperates with MIT Kerberos quite beautifully. Moreover, the additions which Microsoft made to the Kerb protocol were compliant with the protocol. Additionally, the changes made only serve to make Kerberos more useful in a windows environment. If you aren't running windows they offer no benefit so there's no incentive for non-windows shops to move away from the MIT (or other vendor's) kerberos implementation.
A key component of "embrace and extend" is that you have to encourage users to migrate to your implementation. None of the extensions Microsoft made to Kerberos do anything to encourage migration.
Why don't you leave the pontificating about Microsoft's use of Kerberos to those of us who actually use Kerberos in a mixed-platform environment?
Contrary to popular opinion, you *can* get paid money to write GPL'd software. Nothing prohibits a company from selling GPL'd software, as long as the source is available to those who buy the binary distribution.
Granted, the company I work for makes their money from support services, rather than directly from the software - but that doesn't change the fact that there are a good number of people who work here, getting paid to write GPL'd software =)
Granted, the farther away from the OS you get the less distasteful it is, but the issue still stands that public funds have payed for substantial development which is inaccessable to much of the public.
Hmm...How exactly is GPL'd code inaccessible to much of the public? Anyone can get their hands on the code. Anyone can tinker with it. Anyone can use it. The only real catch is that if you modify it, that you release those modifications under the GPL as well. I fail to see how requiring that additions/modifications be released in such a way that the code remains publically accessible limits the public's rights to *access* the code.
I'd argue that the code is still *accessible* to them - they have the right to access it and use it, but can't incorporate it into their own, non-GPL'd project.
;) )
They could still learn, quite freely, from the GPL'd code, as long as they didn't use it within their project.
That's one area where the lines get blurry, however - what exactly is the line between "learning from" and "using"? If I don't quite know how to parse a mbox-formatted mail file, and I look at some GPL'd code that does, and I see that they're splitting it at the From_ line - is it then "using" if I make my own project split at the From_ line, as long as I wrote the actual code myself, rather than copying it? (RFC's aside - yes, I know the proper process - I was grabbing for an example to use
The line gets a little blurry there. Some would say that my reading of the GPL'd code may have influenced my actions in such a way as to require my work to be considered a "derivitive" and thus covered by the GPL -- the other school would say that since the code in question was written by me, and not copied verbatim, that it's *my* code, and I can do as I damn well please with it - regardless of what I used as a reference to learn from.
The latter is what I personally believe, although I would probably release it GPL'd anyway - but as the concepts and processes involved become more and more complex (mine was a VERY simple example) so does the decision as to whether "learning from" becomes "using"...
Oh heck - it's Friday afternoon - time to call it a week and take off for home - this is way too deep a discussion for 5pm on a Friday =)
ROTFL!
Someone blessed with modpoints mod this one (+1 Funny) for me =)
A good laugh on a Friday afternoon!
Unlike you, some people who argue against the GPL are actually intelligent, and things like this greatly diminish any respect they can get, here or anywhere!
Sometimes, it is better not to respond to posts like that. It was just a little statement that the guy knew many people would find amusing, not a statement of fact. Congrats on your mom getting better though! :)
This post is not intended to offend those who actually like butt sex 8P
If you take things like this too seriously consider killing yourself, life is way to harsh.
For once fuck karma...
I saw a picture of the BSD demon doing Tux up the butt. It kinda pissed me off but then I though about it.
If the BSD demon does tux up the butt: Biggest complaints from BSD folks about linux are lack of general leetness, security and VM issues.
Then Bill Gates is doing the Demon up the butt: He rips off their code every day, and now trashes their licence in return.
And then Tux is doing Bill Gates up the butt: Because he can't use their code. If he did and got caught he would be sued into oblivion.
So who is BSD's hero now?
Stunning image isn't it?
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
In a way, it still needs that protection. Take RMS's example of X. It was released under BSDish license. However, the end users got no such freedom, because of the licensing of the UNIX vendors. Even though the code started free, the freedom stopped before it reached the users. This effectively makes it non-free for the user.
Engineering and the Ultimate
In addition, you are also allowed to study the code to write your own implementation. So, I can use the GPL code as a reference for my own implementation.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Whoa! Are you making the accusation that Netscape used code from the Mosaic project? Care to substantiate that any? As I recall, when Netscape was founded, they were *very* careful not to use a single line of code from the Mosaic project.
--Be human.
The slipery slope comes when you are talking about research at state universities. Should a grad student be able to release his/her research software under GPL, or should they be forced to use a BSD-style license? Of course, the stipends and cost of computer time for a few CS grad students doesn't add up to much in the grand scheme of things..
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Hold on a second.
/. stories) but when there is a compelling public interest to be served by government spending, the loss of a corporation's ability or even a private individual's ability to make a profit in that arena is just too bad. Ideally, a compromise is reached wherein the public interest is served AND a sufficient profit can be made privately that the interest is served inexpensively by the most economically efficient body which competes to provide the interest.
I assume you're speaking of the US government. Among the things that government is tasked with is to promote the general welfare and to secure the blessings of liberty. That means that they have a legitimate role to play in the creation of public goods. Public roads, public health, and now, public computing infrastructure. There's nothing wrong with private companies making money doing things _for_ the government, but when the work is done, the results belong to everyone. If that means that the opportunity for a person or a corporation to make money providing something which serves a public interest is lost, then so be it.
The legal fiction that corporations are "people" who pay taxes and merit governmental protection is nice and it's one which has served the economy well in the past (discussions about its present state are deferred to other
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that the kind of software that I'd expect the government to fund is critical infrastructure: BIND, TCP/IP, and so forth. And that kind of software should be made available at no cost, either under a free license or by release directly into the public domain. I wouldn't expect the government to gut Intuit by releasing a free Quicken knockoff.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
The fallacy of this argument is that it implies that incorporating public code into a commercial product somehow makes the original code no longer free. Public domain code remains free no matter what gets done with it. The GPL doesn't do at all what you claim. What the GPL does is require that new code written by others be released as GPL code. It does nothing to protect the original code, since that code needs no such protection.
What if I wanted to take a 20 line function out of that piece of government-funded code and utilize it inside my two million lines of closed-source application?
The reality is that no company could build a successful business by making minor changes to GPL'd applications and trying to sell that as a closed-source product? The amount of money you can charge for changes to an open source codebase are directly proportional to the value added by your changes.
It's unfair to try to depict commercial use of open source code in this light. The reality of the situation is that most commercial use of public domain or similarly open source code resembles Microsoft's use of the BSD TCP/IP code, or Apple's use of FreeBSD's userland. Rather than cosmetic changes to a full product it's the utilization of a shared toolbox of lower-level routines and libraries.
Because both apache and openbsd are released under licenses which are less-restrictive and incompatible with the GPL.
For either of these two projects to incorporate GPL'd code into their code they would have to change the licensing on their entire projects to the more restrictive GPL license.
Funny how you assume everyone shares your definition of "everyone". In your world, apparantly the set "everyone" consists solely of "people releasing their code under the GPL". GPL'd code is available and can be used by people who are willing to also use the GPL for the code they produce. BSD licensed code or public domain code is available and can be used by everyone. Surely you can see the huge difference in those two scenarios.
Code covered by the GPL isn't "in the public domain" since it has restrictions placed on its use.
The GPL does not say "GPL code should be freely available always, even when it is being used by the private sector." -- what it actually says is "If you wish to use this code to your benefit, you must also use this same license for your code." Do you see the difference there?
Ballmer's point is that the GPL is not a "free" license in this sense. What if the government-funded TCP/IP development had been released under a license which prevented its use in any product which wasn't released as GPL'd code?
The GPL restricts how code can be used, and government code should be provided without restrictions.
This has nothing to do with "corporations" or their legal status. Let's not blur the issue. This is about how everyone's money is being used to develop code that not everyone can use.
If we're all going to pay for it, we should all be able to use it.
The problem here is that the "it" you're talking about no longer exists at that second generation. If a developer takes public domain code and uses it as a foundation of or a component of their own work then I don't understand how you can expect to have a claim to free access to the work they did. Any value that a developer is able to add to or extract from a piece of public domain code should be theirs to license as they see fit. He who does the work (or funds the work) should have the freedom to set the license. The GPL eliminates this freedom by requiring GPL on both derivative works and work which incorporate even small portions of GPL'd code into their codebase.
Public domain is, and always remains public domain and "freely available to all". There's no way to remove something from the public domain.
I want publicly funded software to remain publicly available and free to all. I don't want Microsoft or any other corporate entity to swallow it and never let it see the light of day again.
Please explain how using code makes it unavailable.
I do not believe that we, the people, our government, should be obliged to give anything for free to corporations.
I have no idea what your mini-rant on coporations has to do with this. GPL code is equally inaccessable to anyone who wishes to do non-GPL development. That can mean a multi-billion dollar corporation and it can also mean me in my bedroom trying to develop software as a sole proprietorship. Hell, it can even refer to a non-profit organization or an open source developer like the Apache Foundation.
I think your distaste for corporations is clouding your judgement on this issue.
If you accept the incorrect usage of "open source" to mean "GPL'd code" then this statement makes perfect sense.
I presume that what Ballmer meant to say was "The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds GPL'd work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody."
This is an understandable viewpoint. GPL'd code is not accessable to everybody. It is only accessable to developers who are willing to release their code under the GPL license which excludes large portions of the community. Government-funded GPL code is inaccessable to the Apache Foundation, it's inaccessable to the OpenBSD developers, and it's inaccessable to any commercial developers who are working on closed-source products.
If tax dollars are funding a project, then the results of that development should be available to everyone and not just people who use one particular license. This is the rationale behind the laws which prevent the government from enjoying a copyright on the data it produces.
Government code should be public domain, not placed under a restrictive license like the GPL.
Microsoft has Linux in its target sights. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Above all else, remember that Microsoft is not addressing you. They're addressing your boss, who by definition is almost certainly not capable of completely understanding the complexity of the situation and by default doesn't even want to try thinking about it.
Microsoft can and will convince the people who make the decisions to avoid Linux like the plague.
The only chance there is to avoid this assured outcome is to gain control of the bosses' minds.
You must couch your persuasive arguments in simple terms, as soundbite-compatible as possible. You need to implant memes that paint Microsoft with a tarry, black brush; and make Linux look like a glowing angel.
"Linux is a cancer" is the perfect meme. It's memorable, and it's nasty.
You much create countermemes -- and you must be able to get them publicised to the same extent that Microsoft can. And that, I suspect, is impossible. It may be impossible to win the war, simply because Microsoft owns the territory, the media, and the minds of your bosses.
--
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
The licensing could be a bitch, but check out their cure!
http://bbspot.com/News/2000/12/ms_cancer.html
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
I only post comments when someone on the internet is wrong.
Not that I blame you; after all, if the person who invented cheesecake could get a royalty check any time anyone else made one, I'm sure that chefs would also be big advocates of intellectual property law.
I heard you can't get catch cancer from computers unless you have Microsoft Outlook installed.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Microsoft is lying about Linux in particular and GPLed software in general, and the FSF ought to haul them into court over the issue. Sure, the GPL is viral, but simply writing software to run under Linux does not compromise your IP rights unless you use GPLed code to do it, which is certainly not necessary.
The other thing that strikes me, as it usually does when the GPL comes up, is how distributors of closed software are quite insistent that you must respect the terms of their licenses, but bitch like spoiled children when an open developer insists that they respect the terms of his. Closed source developers need to clue into the fact that they can't have it both ways. If you want to protect your own intellectual property, you must refrain from stealing others. It's like arguing that because some women are prostitutes, it's okay to treat all women like prostitutes, and it reflects pretty much the same personality type.
Nuff said.
--
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
A: I think there is a lot of great stuff going on in Chicago. There are a lot of innovative users in the Chicago area, which is exciting. We have a lot of great partners. I'll be on stage with a company called Genesis [Consulting], which I'm very excited about. We have a local partner named Calypso [Systems]. We literally have dozens of partners doing very innovative work with customers here.
Why is it that every time I read an interview with someone from MS, I get the word 'innovate' thrown in my face in every other sentence? I remember a column in the Economist by Bill Gates, and naughty little Bill used the word no less than eleven times! I think MS is suffering from a serious inferiority complex. =)
I guess that was Spyglass's exit strategy. Just like all the other Microsloth "partners". When you take money from Microsloth, your door will be closing soon. IMHO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Oh, believe me I do love to see them pushing out new buzz words/strategies each month. Screwing companies out of the IP like the attempted with Spyglass shouldn't be accepted no matter how big the monopoly is.
By the way, Mosaic wasn't obsolete when they licensed it. You colored the facts just like a true Microsoft lemming.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Are you kidding? Do you know how much money I've saved by not using Microsoft junk? As a software developer ( computer savy ) all my friends keep asking me to help them fix their Windows machines so I'm not without some of the head aches. I'm refusing most requests these days because it hurts so much. I do offer to freely install Linux on any of their computers though.
:)
Yes, I could have made a lot of money fixing Microsoft products but that is like Hell where you keep doing the same things over and over and over again.
If using OS/2 was "hurting" then all I can say is "thank you sir may I please have another?".
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
My respect for this individual is heading deeper and deeper into negative territory.
FUD works with whispers and subtle calimnies.
This guy is going at it hammer and tongs and starting to look like his grip on reality is slipping.
They will try to keep the world on the x86 long past the point where it can be demonstrated that security on that platform is lousy because they are too inept to move off of it and the alternative it oblivion for M$.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
[magnanimous with Battle Hymn of the Republic swelling in the background] Linux is a Cancer of Liberty, and a Plague of Innovation. It is a blight on the harvest of the proprietary dicatatorship that has held the World under it's soiled foot with dirty tricks and corporate power plays. Steve Ballmer will be the first guy against the wall when the revoloution comes...(well maybe not that last part ^_^)[/magnanimous]
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
And people start to believe it.
This propoganda tactic was in use before World War II, and apparently, it still works.
Even in politics, say the same lie often enough and it gets believed. President George Bush (Sr.) would dismiss civil rights legislation as a "quota bill." Now, President Junior does the same thing, saying that his "Lets Give Lots Of Money To The Rich Guys" tax policy as "favoring the poor."
In the high-tech area, we're hearing Allchin, Mundie, and now Ballmer repeating that "open source is not available to commercial companies."
This is a lot of horseshit. It's available to anybody and everybody. However, if you don't want to use it, then don't.
The GPL license (which the GNU folks will repeat over and over is NOT OPEN SOURCE), is a license to use a piece of software. It is no different than the license in which a person runs Windows, Office, or any other Microsoft product. One can say that using the same reasoning, Microsoft software is not available to commercial companies. Of course, that is, commercial companies that do not wish to abide by Microsoft's licenses, which is much more stringent with regard what you can and can not do than any interpretation that I've ever heard of the GPL.
If you don't like the license, don't use it. Microsoft has that right with regard to the GPL. However, Microsoft is not every commercial company. There are many companies, including IBM, Sun, RedHat, and others, that are only too happy to abide by the GPL.
But you have to give the Microsoft flaks du jour credit for continuing to play the "most so-called journalists are so f*cking stupid that they don't know the GPL from TNT" card.
--
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
On the other hand, one could make the argument that the specific changes made by the NSA are public domain, but the combination of those changes with the Linux kernel results in a work that is only distributable under the GPL.
"The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works."
Dear Mr. Ballmer,
The Linux license is not the be-all, end-all for open source licenses. Using one large brush to paint all open source as "cancer" is just more Microsoft FUD
You have some BSD code in some of your products and gladly adhere to the BSD license, don't you?
grub
Trolling is a art,
Hey, I'm about to order an Inspiron 8000 for myself (my company is picking up the bill). I've been trying to decide between the 32mb ATI card and the GeForce2. How well does the GeForce2 really perform on them? All our 8000s are running ATIs, but hey, for an extra 100 dollars.....
I presume that what Ballmer meant to say was "The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds GPL'd work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody."
Well, maybe in an ideal world government money would only be spent on projects available to everybody (BSD licence/public domain). But there are numerous examples of the government paying for work, and then the researchers patenting it, and making a commercial product out of it. Now, I don't know about you, but GPLed code is a lot better than unreleased, patented, proprietary code.
The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works
Open source is not available to commercial companies. Hmm. Linux is Open Source right? I use Linux here at work - for a commercial company.
The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source. Maybe I read the GPL incorrectly, but, um... Isn't that the point? (On another note, our company uses Linux, but releases closed-source binarys of our primary product. No problems with that!)
Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. Again, thats rather the point, but it does not "attach" itself to everything it touches, Q3A is not GPL'ed but it runs on Linux just fine.
But then who am I kidding right? This is Slashdot. We all know this (Apart from the newbies and trolls). I am just preaching to the Choir. What I am interested in is the exact gist of these comments. What is Balmer trying to accomplish here?
We know he mentions competition (to keep the Justice Dept. off of his back) and Microsoft is consistantly trying to poison the GPL, but not Linux... I think MS is more afraid of the GPL than anything else, if they can disparage the GPL, they can (they believe) damage the free software movement. I don't think that they will be sucessful, but they will through this strategy keep Linux off of the desktop (but not servers) for some time to come. (At this stage, IMO Linux is not ready for the mainstream desktop user, and maybe it never will be, thats not a bad thing though.)
Anyone else have a take on what they think Microsoft is up to?
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
While smart people don't feed trolls, the general public does.
Does your point proove that if Kerberos' reference implementation was GPL'd instead of BSD Microsoft could not have embraced and extended it?
Wether Microsoft used existing BSD code or not is irrelevant anyway.
Oh, please... they could have "embraced and extended" Kerberos even if it was GPL. There is no indication that they used any code from available BSD licensed implementations, and there's every indication that they have competent enough developers to read the bloody specs and roll their own.
Please don't spoil an otherwise good post with FUD like that.
You might look at some of Joan Baez's song copyrights, however, if you want to see just how little a change is needed. And then you can claim that everyone is derivitive from you instead of from the original. And then it becomes a question of who pays how much for lawyers, etc. (And how often are you willing to go to Redmond to defend yourself in court?)
Caution: Now approaching the (technological) singularity.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
What if the government-funded TCP/IP development had been released under a license which prevented its use in any product which wasn't released as GPL'd code?
Reverse engineering for interoperability is still very legal.
But you've also managed to confuse the issue by applying a software license (the GPL) to a technology (which might be patented rather than licensed under copyright laws). So, yes, a reference implementation might be licensed under the GPL, but that dosn't stop anyone from developing a compatable implementation from scratch.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
And considering that the US Government can not under law copyright anything, anything they do really is PD. But that dosn't mean that if the US GOvernment contributes to a GPL project that the entire work becomes PD. Only the government contribution.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
You know, other than NSA Linux, I can't think of a single open source project funded by the governement. And I don't know that NSA Linux really counts: after all, it seems to me they just found something useful and are modifying it to fit their needs.
So I'm curious to know what the government is funding....
(And, theoretically, if the NSA didn't distribute it at all, they wouldn't even have to make their changes available, right?)
--
Tweet, tweet.
I take issue with several sophisms that Steve Ballmer attempted to promulgate during his interview with the Sun-Times, printed on June 1st.
Ballmer claims that "Open Source is not available to commercial companies. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source." This is an out-and-out mistatement of what open source licenses do. In order to keep Sun-Times readers well-informed, perhaps an examination of the essentials of the two most popular open source licenses would be in order.
The BSD license, originally created to cover software released by UC Berkeley, essentially requires only that you retain a notice attributing the original source of the software. Thus software under the BSD license is very close to the public domain -- all you have to do to use it in any way you wish is to appropriately credit the original author. You don't even have to post this credit in a prominent place (like the about box or documentation of a program). It only has to go in the code, and users might even remain unaware that a program uses BSD licensed software.
One good example of this can be found in Microsoft's own Windows NT and Windows 2000. The IP stack -- an essential portion of the networking code -- is actually taken from code released under the BSD license. Microsoft has thus taken open source software and succesfully incorporated it into one of their flagship products -- all without resulting in any loss of intellectual property on Microsoft's part.
The GNU Public license, originally created at the Free Software Foundation, is stricter in its requirements than the BSD license, but nowhere near as restrictive as Ballmer suggests. It is true that if you take code from
a piece of GPL'd software and release a derivitave work based on that code, then you must release that derivitave work, with source code, under the GPL.
The GPL makes this requirement in order to ensure people will always be able to freely use, inspect, and modify software released under the GPL. Software released under the GPL cannot be made proprietary.
However, there is NO provision in the GPL that states you must release ALL your software under the GPL. Non-derivative works may be released under any license the copyright owner please. Thus, a company such as Corel can distribute their own version of the popular GPL'd operating system Linux and simultaneously sell their Word Perfect Office Suite in the traditional proprietary manner. They are not required to open source all of their products -- not even their version of Word Perfect that runs on Linux -- because these products are not derived from GPL'd software. This example neatly refutes Ballmer's assertion that "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." The GPL applies to and affects only software that is derived from other GPL'd software, allowing companies handle the distribution and licensing of their proprietary software in any way they see fit.
It's worth noting that Corel and Microsoft itself are only two of many corporations and small businesses who are succesfully incorporating open source software into their operations. AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Sun have long used similar strategies. AOL, EBay, Red Hat, VA Linux, and others are among the growing powerhouses that have learned to harness and profit from the increasing popularity of open source. Far from being a cancer that is unfit for business use, open source has proved to be a boon for those who understand it.
The verity of these points is obvious to anyone who has spent suffecient time familiarizing themselves with the essential facts about various types of open source software. Either Ballmer is simply uninformed about his competitors, or he is taking advantage of his opportunities in public forums such as the Sun-Times to intentionally mislead people about software which is competing (quite effectively) with Microsoft's own products. Given Microsoft's history, which do you beleive?
Sincerely,
--
Tweet, tweet.
For those not inclined to read the actual article:
So he did say "Yeah" to "threat" :-)
The GPL affects a company like Microsoft that wants to not release the source of its own changes in a way similar to the proprietary code of a commercial competitor: they can't use that source. What Microsoft is probably most upset about is that unlike a commercial competitor, they most likely will not be able to do what they usually do with such a commercial entity: buy the license or buy out the whole company.
He does point out that when the government (read: tax payer money) funds development that ends up being GPL licensed (as opposed to perhaps LGPL or BSD) that not everyone gets to freely use it the way they want. His point is that the government should be taking a neutral position on software development, and whatever it does fund should be essentially in the public domain, allowing anyone to use it anyway they see fit (as long as it's legal). I happen to agree with him in this regard. By allowing the funded developer to choose a licensing strategy such as GPL, the government is not taking a neutral position.
Steve Ballmer's error is attaching the "cancer" label to Linux. Instead it should be attached to GPL and all GPL software. That may be good or bad depending on your preferences for licensing, and whether you want to allow a commercial entity like Microsoft to use it without obligations.
This does tell me that Microsoft might be interested in using some of the GPL'd software out there. I'm not sure if that would be Linux, but it could be. Linux XP anyone?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I'm switching from GPL to another (perhaps BSD) licensing for my code. I'm not even federally funded, so doing this is strictly my own choice. But releasing my software under BSD would allow Microsoft to integrate some or all of it into their stuff w/o having to release their own source code. Doing this in no way inhibits anyone from using my original source code. Whether Microsoft chose to use my code or not, you'd have just as much access and rights to my code. Such a choice by Microsoft would not in any way diminish the value my code would have for open public use.
The issue comes down to whether or not taxpayer funded development should be allowed to require a commercial software vendor to release their own code in source form just to be able to take advantage of that taxpayer funded development. You know by now what my opinion is.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
While the term 'cancer' is overblown, why should the government be funding projects that eliminate the opportunity for companies to sell their products? That's not fair. The companies pay taxes, too.
Not that those products shouldn't exist. Just that the government that represents those companies shouldn't be undermining them.
Just raise the taxes on crack.
MS liscensed Spyglass Mosaic with the terms that Spyglass get a percentage of the profits of selling IE.
MS gave away IE for free.
Profits to Spyglass? $0.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Let's take a look at Mr. B's statements on open source piece by piece:
Yeah. It's good competition. It will force us to be innovative. It will force us to justify the prices and value that we deliver. And that's only healthy.
TRANSLATION: We can use it to say there's competition. Note how we say we like competition but are engaged in monopolistic practices. This ought to keep the government off our backs!
The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work.
TRANSLATION: We're really afraid the government will get interested in open source.
Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody.
TRANSLATION: Unless the government funds our work, then you're SOL. Well, our products are available to everybody if you just sign this contract and fork over the money and don't worry about the bugs . . .
Open source is not available to commercial companies.
TRANSLATION: I'm either too stupid to read up on Open Source, or I'd better begin to spin FUD so fast it's centrifugal force could be used as artificial gravity.
The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source.
TRANSLATION: I'd better start that FUD. I'll lie, forgettng to note that OS code requires you only to reveal code based on/using it. Also, since intellectual property is a big area of concern today, this ought to scare people.
If the government wants to put something in the public domain, it should. Linux is not in the public domain.
TRANSLATION: If I state the obvious it may scare people.
Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works.
TRANSLATION: I'll use the cancer metaphor, that always works! Of course it trashes the start of this paragraph when I was all civil and stuff, but I'm on a roll. And yeah, I invoke intellectual property that'll really scare people! I just hope no one actually reads the Linux liscenses . . .
FINAL ANALYSIS: Stupidity and greed are more like a cancer than Linux.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
No.
You are simply not permitted to modify and distribute GPL'd code unless the resulting product is also under the GPL.
That is not cancer. Try to use a piece of MS code some day; see how crazy their license is.
The site www.suntimes.com is running Netscape-Enterprise/3.6 on Solaris
Check for yourself here
49 20 68 61 76 65 20 74 6F 6F 20 6D 75 63 68 20 66 72 65 65 20 74 69 6D 65 2E
Not only that, but many cancers look and act somewhat similarly, but are functionally unique, and operate on quite different principals. ie Win95 and WinCE and WinXP.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
I recently read an interview with Mr. Steve Ballmer of MicroSoft (http://www.suntimes.com/output/tech/cst-fin-micro 01.html) in which he and the interviewer make several unchallenged statements that should be clarified.
First the interviewer claims that Microsoft has never been in as strong a position financially. That is not true. Microsoft is down considerably from their highest stock price of less than 24 months ago, and their cash reserves are lower. Sales of Windows 2000 are much lower than predicted, forcing a slightly early rollout of Windows XP.
Mr. Ballmer defends recent changes in their licensing policy on the claims that it will be easier and possibly cheaper to consumers. This is not true, at least in my cases, professionally and personally. Under the current software I have under license, I can place and use one and only one copy of that software on any computer that I choose. I can define what a computer is, and I have that license in perpetuity. In addition, should I require a reinstall of software on an existing machine, I am in no way limited.
Under the new plan conceived of by Microsoft, I will be unable to transfer my license to a new machine; I will be forced to purchase a new license for that machine, whether or not I continue to use the old license on the old machine. Microsoft has a legitimate concern about this happening, but in any instance where my company has moved a license from one machine to another, the old machine has either been: stripped for parts, donated to a non-profit or employee AFTER the operating system has been removed, or it has had a version of Linux, BeOS, or BSD installed on it. In no way have I either violated the license, nor have I deprived Microsoft of income. Yet under the new scheme, I am to be considered a criminal, and not to be trusted to manage a simple license myself.
Another problem with the new licensing scheme is the time-limited feature. Currently, I run Windows 98 and Windows NT. Many of the 50 licenses (personal and business) that I manage are older than three years. Purchasing the hardware at the end of our leases provides perfectly functional machines for as long as the hardware holds up. The new functionality that Microsoft periodically develops may be of interest to some consumers, but rarely has it been of interest to my company.
As a taxpayer, I agree with Mr. Ballmer concerning government expenditures for software development. Any government developed software should be licensed under the public domain (which actually qualifies as no license). Unfortunately, I doubt that Mr. Ballmer shares my opinion. I believe that he would prefer that the government help fund software that is in no way open to the public. I can certainly understand his opinion, but I do not agree with it.
Similarly, I do not think that Mr. Ballmer has an accurate grasp of the nature of open source software. Through comments made by him and Messrs. Allchin and Mundie, they seem to have grouped all Open Source Software under the GPL license. While this is a very popular license, it is not the only license that most people would consider open source. IBM, Netscape, and Apple all have open source licenses of their own that are friendly to hobbyists, scientists, professors, and the companies themselves. There exists the LGPL which allows a company to use open source components in closed source projects. Of most interest is the BSD license. Several versions of Unix are released under this license, as are many programs, utilities, and drivers. In this instance, Microsoft has taken code released under the BSD license and used it in their own products. Specifically, I refer to the TCP/IP stack used in Windows 95, 98, and NT. Despite using open source code, Microsoft did not have to open source their operating system.
I would hope that in the future, you perform more hard hitting interviews, and that the interviewer be more aversed with the subject material he is discussing. I must say that I am impressed that the Linux question was raised, but the lack of a quality follow-up shows either editorial mis-discretion in shortening the story, or a basic misunderstanding (shared by Messrs. Ballmer, Allchin, and Mundie) of what exactly is open source (or Open Source, or Free Software).
I can appreciate some of Mr. Ballmer's points, and can even agree with them. Despite using a mixture of many computer products, I do not immediately villify Microsoft. However, I do feel that the arguments that they are trying to make would find more support by others in my situation were they not quite so intellectually bankrupt.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
If you are correct that M$ is bashing the GPL and not Linux (which they are, but the question is are they attacking GPL directly, or only using it to indirectly attack Linux?) then it is quite interesting.
M$ has many lawyers. Why would they attack the GPL unless it looked rigorous enough to hold up? Possibly the only attacks would also destroy the validity of their own licenses. No matter, it means that even though there has not been a legal challenge of the GPL, Microsoft is afraid to be the first.
In a nutshell, that's a damned good thing. If even M$ is afraid to attack the GPL on legalistic grounds, nobody should, and that means that that particular argument (no legal test yet) is now pointless (if it ever had weight to begin with).
BTW, anybody have any idea which projects M$ is specifically bitching about the US (presumably) gov't funding that they can't use? Sure, there is SELinux, but what about the Navy development of that automated ship? I certainly can't use that. IBM can't. But anyone can use SELinux.
I know. It's typical M$PR. Anybody have Ballmer's phone number? Or how about the phone number's of some major investment houses? I mean, how can you put mutual fund money into a company heading by someone who is either: a) an idiot or b) morally bankrupt?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
The whole ideal with linux is like an old Fairy tail where there is a ruler, and the real ruler. For example, the king might rule the kingdom, but he is merely a puppet to the evil wizard behind his throne.
I see system administrators , the people who are doing the real work, as these 'evil' wizards. (Please take it evil with all effection).
Most companies I have worked at, the CTO seems to be very geeky (And your lucky if you have one like that), but the CIO and IT admins tend to listen to the second tier admin/techs/engineers. If that tier (the most expensive one) isn't happy.. the organization isn't happy.. end the end it's this second tier that seems to make the decisions in the long run.
They can rage a compaign on general public against the name of linux, but if the underlings (peasants if you will) don't buy it, nothing is going to fly.
IBM & Apple didn't quite understand that, but seems that both organizations are targeting that group very aggresively if you think about it.
:) Hoorah from the peasants !
--------------------
Would you like a Python based alternative to PHP/ASP/JSP?
Leaders, as in, the people who have followers, aren't boring people, so I guess I should amend my statements. (Where's the edit function on old comments here?). Leaders rant a bit, they are quirky, they get in trouble, they make mistakes, they say things they shouldn't have, and on and on. But they're usually pretty interesting, and entertaining, to pay attention to.
No one wants to follow a boring person. Charisma is optional (mcnealy).
We're all excitement junkies, and we seek out interesting people to be with.
Google search for Steve Jobs and elevator
For those not willing to click, rumour out of Apple is that Jobs has fired several people for riding the elevator with him. There's more to it than that. The MacWorld.com link is probably best (in the search results).
Let's take a look around at the other big companies. Oracle has an egomaniac for a CEO. Apple, yeah, ditto for their CEO (or whaver Jobs' title is these days), whom it's apparently not safe to be with in an elevator.
The companies that have the biggest following of loyalist fans also have these sort of banana-republic dictator personalities running the company. In order to gain new territory, you sometimes have to rally the troops (employees) and your allies (investors) by making bold, outrageous statements. Usually it's limited to something like, "we're going to make a lot of money this year," or "our new product is The Next Big Thing."
CEO's are really politicians. And like everyone in power, they know a little secret: the masses don't want to hear the truth. People enjoy being lied to, and deluded, and misled. There's so much evil, selfishness, and contempt in the world that the masses don't want to hear it. An investor doesn't want to hear that another stock they own is going to tank. They want to hear that their stocks have all gone bullish. Customers don't want to know that they've purchased another mediocre product. They want to beleive that it will actually work as advertised, and cure the common cold.
Repeat after me. It's propoganda. It's not the truth.
Linux shifts the economy from product-based to service based (since the product is free + your time). IBM sells services, and they like Linux. Microsoft sells products, and feels their bottom line is being threatened. They have a right to make a product, and people have a right to buy, or not to buy, their product.
You can't steal something you yourself create. Those who went on to found Netscape Communications (Marc Andreeson and friends) are the very people who created Mosaic at UIUC.
--
--
My comments and opinions completely reflect those of anyone and anything I am remotely associated with.
Mind you, this is not an absolute. There are Linux User Groups all over the area, and the two Chicago area offices I've worked at, had Solaris servers installed.
Shadowhawk
My mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it is gone.
A cancer is a malformation of growing cells within a body. If it is its own organism, it isn't a cancer; at worst it's probably blue-green algae.
So if Linux is a cancer, what is the body?
When I read the interview, they imply that the body is corporate software companies, specifically what we often call "closed source".
We don't think that Linux is in that body.
My guess is that M$'s problem is that Linux is eating at the body of possible code to write. That noosphere of possible code looks limitless to some; to Microsoft, it looks quite limited. And they want to own nothing less than the entire noosphere. Other companies are writing code; that's alright, M$ will buy them out sooner or later. When the faceless horde of OSS makes software, they are the cancer that eats away at the limited noosphere. OSS is stealing code and locking it away from Microsoft, who has manifest destiny over the entire noosphere.
Heaven help us all.
--The basis of all love is respect
Someone writes a nice program, then makes it available to you, along with the source, and all people do is bitch about the restrictions of the GPL. Get over it! Don't want restrictions? Then WRITE IT YOURSELF. Get off the box, people. That goes especially for you, Ballmer.
You don't seem to get it. If the government funded the development, then that person DID write it themselves, and should be able to do whatever they like with it.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
That's funny. I thought the main point of the GPL was to ensure that the code - in this case the Government code that you refer to above - would continue to be in the public domain, in perpetuity. By being less restrictive, the BSD license allows Government code to be taken out of the public domain. It sounds like you are saying "government code should be freely available to begin with, then it should be co-opted by the private sector and made proprietary". What the GPL generally says is "GPL code should be freely availble always, even when it is being used by the private sector". Do you see the difference here?
No, once it's in the public domain, it can never be taken out -- the GPL doesn't 'ensure that it continues to be in the public domain in perpetuity' AT ALL. GPL'ing it only affects people who use that source code as a basis for further development.
Nice fallacious argument though. Do them often?
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Not sure I follow you: if the government funds it, then it's the government that gets to decide how it's released. Just like working for a 'real' company. The coder's been paid for it already, and his/her having lost something in exchange isn't exactly unheard-of.
No, the Government doesn't get to choose - Title 17, U.S.C. Chapter 1 explicitly prohibits the Govt. from holding any copyrights.
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
The difference is with the GPL you can't corner the market. Your code can be forked, incorporated, enhanced or whatever by anyone as long as they make the code available to anyone who needs it.
Revoke the Bayh-Dole act first and then we can talk about no funds for GPLd software.
I don't want knowledge. I want certainty. - Law, David Bowie
No cure for cancer.
--
Gonzo Granzeau
Gonzo Granzeau
"Nothing the god of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.." -Roy Batty
Linus Torvalds called Windows a "festering crock of shit"
Bill Gates called Alan Cox a "long haired communist"
and,
Richard Stallman called Steve Ballmer a "capitalist toadie".
More news tomorrow.
That's right, because they don't read /. They may take M$ seriously. I'm going to write mine. Tell them not to beleive the lies. That Linux relies on intellectual property rights to remain free. Corporations only believe in IP to protect their own rights, never the rights of the little guy. And while your at it, write in a word about McCain-Fiengold so that the corporate bribes can be reduced. If M$ can't give $100K to Senator Joe Blow, then he may be less inclined to listen to them.
We have a big dream about what XML (a markup language for documents containing structured information, such as words and graphics) can do for the world.
;-)
So, now everyone should throw this quote back at every MS source they can find (forums, service reps, sales droids, etc) and ask one question: "so, when is MS Word going to save to XML?"
See? Microsoft can make the world a better place. They just choose not to.
--
Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
Actually, what Ballmer is saying (in an inflamatory, and overly-broad way) is that the US government should not modify or contract modifications to GPL (or other GPL-like) licensed work, and I agree.
Woah up there, folks. First off, I write a fair amount of GPLed code, so don't assume that I'm an anti-GPL person.
I do, however feel that the government should not be allowed copyright to its works (which has always been upheld in this country).
Since the basis of the GPL is the control that copyright law allows, I don't see how the government can be allowed to distribute their modifications to GPLed programs any more than they could distribute their modified version of Harry Potter. In the Harry Potter case, they are given no permission to do so. In the GPL case, they are, but only under a provision of law that does not extend to them.
Now, why is Ballmer WRONG? Because there's plenty of BSD-licensed and public domain code out there. BSD is clearly and open source license, and honestly I think Ballmer has chosen Linux as a target because he doesn't want BSD in his sights. There are several reasons for this: 1) he knows that the BSD camp is much more conservative and it would be harder to make wild half-truth claims about them 2) he is not technical and the word on the street (let's not fight over this, kids) is that BSD is faster and more stable than Linux; he likely believes this, right or wrong 3) if the debate is between Linux and Microsoft in government roles, BSD may never gain much more ground than it has now in that sector, and given the licensing, this is in MS' favor.
The only counter-argument I see to the government/GPL case is if the government can contract to an external company to make changes to copyrighted works, and have the original copyright hold. I'm not even remotely a lawyer, so someone else will have to speak to that one.
Either way, it's a cheap shot to just jam this into an interview as a sound-bite, and while I'm not losing any respect for him over it, that's only because there was none there to begin with.
--
Aaron Sherman (ajs@ajs.com)
MS: Linux will fork.
Linux: Win95, Win98, WinNT, Win2000, WinXP...
Missed out WinME also there are 3 versions of 95, 2 versions of 98, several NT's, etc.
Although it is true that multiple versions of Windows exist, the incompatibilities between them are minute compared to all the Linux versions.
It only takes a single change to break something anyway.
Because Windows is distributed by only one entity certain guarantees can be made (APIs/browsers/utilities). This makes the development of complex projects easier. In fact, it makes it possible.
Unfortunatly quite a bit of the Windows API is spread through libraries which applications can overwrite easily, with no decent versioning system.
Things arn't helped by many app writers assuming that they should have total freedom to do what they want with the machine.
If I take a piece of public-domain software and modify it, I can claim the modified version as my own and refuse to make it available to everyone. My modifications have no effect whatsoever on the status of the original public-domain release of the software.
If you don't make very big changes and get your proprietary version better known than the PD version, then you might be able to block other peoples' use of the PD material. Simply by claiming that they are "pirating" your work...
My opinion: the US government, and for that matter any other .gov, should want to work on GPLed/OSS projects because they want control over their own infrastructure, something that is denied to them if they run closed-source, restricted source, and licensed binaries on their own computers.
There are quite a few areas of government where they definitly should be controling their own infrastructure. i.e. with computer software the magic words "national security" for things such as the control of warships. (This also means that the likes of "easter eggs" are right out.)
I think the nice people at M$ are having trouble understanding the difference between using open source software and using the code from open course software. While this could be pure M$ cluelessness and refusial to understand concepts that are forgen to them, I wonder how many other people aviod open sourse and free software because of simler concerns.
There's an excellent reason to GPL goverment-funded
work: some researchers don't want to do the work otherwise. That's why the PITAC report endorsed
giving individual PIs the power to decide what license to use.
Funny how you assume everyone shares your
definition of "make their code available" and
"be able to use it".
GPLed code is available and can be used. BSD
code is available and can be used.
You must have been asleep for all those years
that people were arguing about "Free Software"
and "Open Source".
Nope, I didn't assume that.
Yes, I see that "available" has multiple definitions. That was my point. Thank you
for agreeing.
Now for the word "use": You can "use" GPLed code without GPLing your code. For example, you can use gcc to compile a commercial program.
Keep it up, you'll eventually get it!
You can be obnoxious ("verbal gymnastics", how polite) or you can hold a conversation. I see you've made your choice. But I would strongly disagree with your claim that this is a "discussion".
Have a bad day.
Well, I guess except for the funny part, maybe Ballmer is a John Madden.
The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds open-source work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies.
Uh... Riiiight. So, er, that's why we need to fund closed source work that's not available to anyone? Or else, you mean that you support government funding for the BSDs?
Seriously, the two-install thing is going to be a MAJOR hassle for a lot of folks. Sure rules out XP for scientists in Antarctica. "What do you mean you don't have a phone? Can't you go over to your friend's house?" As well as for students, people testing it, etc, etc, etc. Nice way to shoot yourselves in the foot, losers. I can't wait to answer the calls from relatives looking for computer support. "You can't? Twice? That's because they FUCKED you! What can you do? Throw it out."
Boss of nothin. Big deal.
Son, go get daddy's hard plastic eyes.
Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
GPL'd code is not accessable to everybody. It is only accessable to developers who are willing to release their code under the GPL license which excludes large portions of the community.
National parks are not accessable to everybody. They are only accessable to people who are willing to share them with everyone else. National parks are inaccesable to logging companies, real estate agents, and construction companies.
Government land should be in the public domain, not placed under restrictive rules that require you to share.
--
"I presume that what Ballmer meant to say was "The only thing we have a problem with is when the government funds GPL'd work. Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody."
Hey I have an idea. Why presume what he meant. Why not actually listen to what he said. Either is is a moron and is unable to express what he means or he said exactly what he meant.
He said no such thing. He does not need people like you to spin his words for him. His words speak for him not you. He has paid minions if he wants to retreat or backtrack.
War is necrophilia.
Haven't we learned not to feed trolls? I hope that the Free Software luminaries give this guy the response he deserves this time: none at all.
By stooping to his level, we're playing their game.
If nobody responds to Microsoft's PR, then Microsoft's PR will define the terms of engagement. No, you don't want Free Software luminaries frothing at the mouth, but I think it is perfectly fair to say that the term, "cancerous" is probably more correctly applied to Microsoft's acknowledged policy of, "embrace and extend." Just say it calmly, rationally, and with decent grammar.
If you say, "now I'll be modded down because of X", I'll happily oblige.
You can either argue that neither Linux or Windows has forked, or you can argue that both have forked. I personally see a fork as something where two separate codebases exist and no syncronization is done between them. This is not the case in any of the Windows or Linux lines.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Actually, have you every used MSDN? The documentation there is a hell of a lot better than you'll find for any version of Linux - even with the source code provided on Linux.
I've yet to find any vendor that provides as good developer documentation as Microsoft does. Access to the source code does NOT mean you have the best possible documentation. There is a massive difference.
Granted, some raw protocols or file formats are not disclosed, but guess what? If you are developing for a Microsoft system you don't need them. If you want to access a Word file you just use the COM interfaces provided by Word itself. If you want to talk SMB then you use the whole swag of WNet APIs. Comparing the source code to proper documentation is stupid - a properly documented interface would win every time.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Umm... and Unix doesn't?
Any argument of forking is going to end up with Microsoft coming out above Unix whichever way you go, especially now they are retiring the Win9x line and going with the single NT kernel for everything.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Where do people get this idea you need "billions in the bank" to get a response from MS? For my part (and I assure you I don't have billions in the bank), I've had timely responses from Microsoft on a number of developer issues including a few bugs I've found in the OS here and there.
Of course, who am I to dispel people's beliefs that MS is an evil company and never listens to developers...
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Win95, Win98, WinNT, Win2000, WinXP are forks? I don't think so. This is pretty much the same as saying:
FreeBSD 3.0, FreeBSD 4.0, Linux 2.0, Linux 2.2 and Linux 2.4 are forks. If you are going to respond to him then you could at least get YOUR facts straight!!
Win9x has never been a fork on the NT project. While the FreeBSD analogy above is a little out, Win9x is really a version of Win3.0 with a whole stack of 32 bit junk tacked in wherever possible. You'd be much closer calling Warp and NT forks of each other, or even OpenVMS and NT forks. Hell, even Linux+Wine is probably closer to NT/2000/XP than Win9x is!!!
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
That's pretty much what Mundie said. Seems that that's the Company Line. And I think RMS, O'Reilly, et. al. addressed that pretty well.
Best Slashdot Co
Clever set up. First he complains that people don't respect Intellectual property enough and need reminding. Then he whinges about his (totally false) lie that open source makes all other software open source due to Intellectual property issues.
Nice example of telling a bare faced lie for spin purposes though, pretending that he does not understand there are -different- types of open source licence. Almost makes me believe he realli -is- stupid.
EZ
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
Don't call Microsoft "Microsloth". It just makes you look biased and unreliable. (Yes, I hate Microsoft too, but if you want people to agree with you, you have to look respectable.)
------
I wasn't talking about not responding, but about taking the high road. There is no reason that when taunted, you have to respond in kind--it is playing into the bully's hands.
Play a different game. Change the rules. React unexpectedly and they will spend more time meta-analyzing the motivations behind the response and less time pursuing the game plan. The last thing you want to do when put in a defensive position by an opponant is respond defensively. Take the offense and make them react.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Playing the "I'm not going to dignify that with a response" game will NEVER get you a win in the court of public opinion,
Microsoft had exactly that response the first time the Free Software Gang got together to respond to the FUD. "That was [so and so's] goal, to encourage debate." and that was their only direct response. Then they rang the bell and started round two.
Rather than responding defensively to Microsoft's offensive PR moves, the people who hold Free Software dear should find an offensive move of their own, and set Mcrosoft on the defensive. As it is, it's challenge-response PR, and the challenger looks like the winner because they look like they're in control, the responders lose because they're defensive.
The PR battle is fought as much on the direct as the meta playing fields. If Microsoft wanted to suddenly lash out at car manufacturers in a similar, irrational way, they would still sound like winners because they're on the offensive.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Haven't we learned not to feed trolls? I hope that the Free Software luminaries give this guy the response he deserves this time: none at all.
By stooping to his level, we're playing their game. It is obvious to me, at least, that when you play Microsoft's game, they win. Instead, the good team should be pondering a way to force Microsoft to play a different PR game--probably one that starts off with "we don't think his ideas merit a response. He is clearly another empty mind pursuing another of Microsoft's intense PR campaigns that sound newsworthy but don't move forward the debate over intellectual property in this country one iota. We'll let our software do the talking."
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
I'm rubber, your're glue, whatever you say bounces off of me and stick to you.
--
microsoft, it's what's for dinner
bq--3b7y4vyll6xi5x2rnrj7q.com
it's a sig, wtf?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The fact is, all code used in government should be GPL'd by the freedom of information act. I, for one, feel that the software that processes the info that is kept on me should be available for my perusal.
No, the point is that all code written by the government should enter into the public domain. It should not be GPL'd, BSDL'd, or anything else. Those all require retension of copyright, and government produced documents should be owned by us all (public domain).
If the government extends an existing product, however, that doesn't suddenly mean that that government is allowed to violate that product's license - if it's commercial software, they must pay like everyone else. If it's GPL'd software, they must GPL their changes like everybody else. If it's BSDL'd software, they can do whatever they wish with their changes - my recommendation would be submitting them to the maintainer of the project, in accordance with the spirit of Open Source software development, but they don't need to.
Trees can't go dancing
So do them a big favor
Pretend dancing stinks!
In my opinion, the real cancer is intellectual property. It's a cancer to society because it forces people to compete against one another for selfish motives as opposed to bringing them together. It forces us to constantly reinvent the wheel, so as to get around someone else's IP. It's an immense waste and duplication of effort.
In my opinion, the only property worthy of the name is tangible property. If you can't lock it up or build a fence around it, it does not belong to you. Once you release something like music, ideas, software, novels, etc..., you cannot prevent people from copying it and using it for their own benefit. An example is Brazil where patented aids drugs are copied to save lives. Tens of millions of copies of Windows are being used free around the world. There is not a damn thing MS can do about it.
The wonderful promise of GPL is not that it's a cancer for IP owners, it is the cure for the cancer that is intellectual property. Software and other ideas should be a way to increase the value of tangible property.
The wealth of the earth is the earth and what it contains. The only way to ensure that people get a fair share is to make sure that everybody is guaranteed possesion of a piece of the earth, an estate if you please. Then it should be up to us to increase the value of our piece as we see fit, either through cooperation with others or not. This would bring freedom and eliminate exploitation. Any other system is slavery.
No, really, you actually did say this. To quote you:
But many things are quite useful, even though no one can make money off of them. This part of your argument is false. Open source code is quite useful to a large number of people. It just isn't useful to Microsoft, or other companies that would like to use the hard work of open source programmers for the companies' good.
I also found the last part of your argument interesting:
Is one of the stated goals of open source software to improve professionally developed applications? Should that be the goal of open source projects?
I think what we have here, and what your argument points out, is two differences in philosophy. Apparently, you believe that the purpose of software development is to make money. A lot of people share your view. But a lot of people don't.
--- Biffster.org
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
...that corporations have some type of right to modify someone else's software and then sell the results. I still don't understand the argument. "Well, I want to be able to use your code, but then sell what I've created." Why not just start from scratch?
--- Biffster.org
"Bite my shiny metal ass."
Because these two projects don't use the GPL to release their work. The Apache foundation uses the ASL which discourages forking in ways that wouldn't quite jive with adding in GPL code and OpenBSD uses the BSDLicense which allows code to be incorporated into non-free programs in ways that don't work with the GPL (though the FSF terms it as a compatable license these days). Basically, the differences aren't all that big of a deal unless you like picking fights with RMS. The little obscure differences between these different licenses are avaliable here if you actually had any interest in learning about these issues.
________________________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
What is the Chicago Sun Times Web site running?
Here is the answer:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: Netscape-Enterprise/3.6
Date: Fri, 01 Jun 2001 17:05:09 GMT
Content-type: text/html
Connection: close
Seems like Mr Ballmer & M$ still have a little work to do... =)
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
It's time for a geek march on Redmond - bald headed 'cancer survivors' picketting the gates of The M$ campus - proclaiming their personhood in the face of the suffering inflicted by the evile emperor
You have to understand this quote from a "Captain of Industry" perspective. The relationship between the government and industry in terms of new technology has traditionally been that the government serves as a "free" R&D shop for industry. New technologies developed by the government make it into the public domain by being licensed/given to industry to then sell to the public (see the National Technology Transfer Center's site). What Ballmer is saying is that if the government releases new technology under some sort of open-licensing scheme, then anyone can use this technology, and any future enhancements will have to remain in the public domain. So from his perspective, this quote makes sense. If the government releases work under and open-licensing model, then the work of government scientists will not be available to people who wish to exclusively license the rights to someone else's research and then profit from selling this other person's work to the world.
All in all it's a funny system. You the taxpayer pay government scientists to do research and develop technology X. The government then licenses technology X to company Y. Company Y then packages technology X as product Z. Company Y then sells you and the government product Z (the product you already paid to the government to develop).
I know at least the guys in Microsoft's Legal department read /., so I'm going to give this a shot.
Why are you letting him spout off like this? He looks like an idiot, and makes the rest of Microsoft look the same.
How is this good for your stock price? Let alone when he gets going about Sun again, and Scott has to call in the sharks again. How is increasing your expenditure because of Ballmer good for the shareholders?
.sig: Now legally binding!
Replace "cells" with "code" and this metaphor seems much more applicable to Windows than Linux. Especially considering that no one's quite sure HOW cancer works on the inside, just that it keeps getting bigger and badder.
---
His beef is with keeping the government out of software development and I find myself cringing that I actually agree with him. I suspect that some of our motivations are different however.
Open Source is a wonderful endeavor and it has provided a "utility" value to society. I view open source projects to be similar to the common domain. Anybody can publish the contents of the English Dictionary, and heck the dictionary is pretty damn useful!
However, I am a capitalist, and I believe that entranapuners are heroes too. Open Source (on its own) will never threaten the capital markets. Open Source (on its own) will not discourage proprietary investment in software technologies. Clearly there are those within the open source community who would dispense with proprietary research and development in software. While I sympathize with this perspective, I must honestly disagree. I believe our capital system ultimately will drive Open Source to further successes, and by using Open Source to dissuade the capital system will be self destructive.
Encouraging open source development with tax incentives and direct research grants from the Government would be a terrible mistake.
With direct grants, the government would be the arbitrator of funding. This is socialism. We don't want the government picking our software for us for the same reason we don't want the government choosing our luncheon meats.
Tax incentives provide a blind, softer level of government involvement. While the government should support scientific research, I believe a line (albeit gray) should be drawn between research and software development. If the government actively displays a bias for open source development they are implicitly discouraging closed source development.
I vehemently disagree with discouraging closed source development of software. I believe in intellectual property rights and I believe in the capital markets. I believe that open source fits extremely well in the capital market model. I strongly disagree with Balmer that the GPL is some kind of cancer that prevents companies from developing proprietary software for GPL platforms. That is simply not true. Plenty of proprietary software runs on Linux.
Linux, the GPL and other open source forms have performed extremely well over the past few years (and scared the shit out of people like Balmer!) Let's not upset the balance, and leave the government out of software.
Someone you trust is one of us.
That's not the point. The point is that MS has multiple platforms with many incompatibilities.
That is all...
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source.
I thought that wasn't a requirement under the LGPL.
Probably after a debate about some unimportant VM kernel programming detail, or whether to incorporate a different boot logo into the kernel, or something.
Only that won't hinder the movement. Please don't start another discussion about "what if Linus's plane crashes". There are at least 100 people who could and would take his place if he should become "unavailable" one way or another (which I certainly don't hope).
That's the advantage of believing in an idea, not (primarily) a person.
Home Page
Microsoft CEO's Warning: studies indicate that this product may cause increased security, greater stability, and may contribute to competition. System Administrators who wish to remain insane are suggested to avoid using this product.
Should look like this instead?
From: Joe Barr [joe@pjprimer.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 14, 1999 8:02 AM
To: sales@mindcraft.com
Subject: Industry Scum
Hey, Mindcraft
I am writing an article about asslicking whores in the industry.
You know the sort, they bend over for folks like Bill Gates by
producing totally false "benchmarks" based on liess, mistests,
biased hardware and software, and scores of other unethical,
deceiptful, dishonest, duplicitous means.
Like your reviews of NT vs Novell and Linux. Classic cases of
professional prostitution.
Cock sucking the geeks in Redmond.
The question for you maggots, whores, whatever you prefer to be
called, is: how much does it cost to buy one of your benchmarks?
tHANKS,
Joe Barr The Dweebspeak Primer
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
What the GPL DOES do is prevent a closed source company from taking your code, using it for their own purpose, then not allowing YOU to benefit from what they added to your code.
Wrong. A company CAN take the code and do whatever the hell they want to it.
Now, someone has to catch the company with the GPLed code. THEN someone who owns the copyrite on the code has to be willing to bring the issue in front of a judge, and have the judge inforce the contract.
Given how little was done to the Boundless web player (virginconnect's box) when it was in violation, most of the people who write GPL code don't have the guts or balls to do what they have to do to make the GPL work as you have proposed.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
We all know Gandhi's old line: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." Now it seems that MS has gotten to the point where they are just playing hard dirty: calling Linux a "cancer" based on incorrect assumptions about the workings of the GPL (although we all know full well that MS, and Ballmer, know that neither Linux nor the GPL do any such thing as Ballmer describes -- it is pure FUD, they know it, we know they know, they know we know they know, etc.).
MS &c. MUST know that anyone like "us" (open source advocates) will know that Ballmer is full of crap. So presumably this article is intended for people who don't know any better: perhaps MS's 500 corporate customers in the tri-state area, some of whom might have been thinking about alternatives to MS... "Hey, Bob, did you hear? Linux gives you cancer!"
But my point is that I don't think MS would be resorting to obviously desperate tactics like this if they weren't in stage 3: fighting. The problem is that there are only two ways that Microsoft can "defeat" Linux in any real sense:
1) Destroy all copies of Linux
2) Make Linux (or the GPL) illegal
#1 is obviously unfeasible. Therefore I can only conclude that MS will, eventually, attempt #2: try to buy laws that make Open/Free Software illegal in some way.
Determining implications of the Orwellian future implied above is left as an exercise to the reader.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
It's strange, but I've been writing software for over a couple decades, and I've yet to hear of anyone or any company getting in trouble by mistakenly using bits of GPL'd code. Unless you blatenly paste in tracts of code including text messages, how would anyone be able to tell?
I guess that makes Windows HIV. After all, it leaves your PC vulnerable to infection
ChodaBoy
ChodaBoy
- The preceding statement is the product of a deranged mind and the sole property of the voices in my head.
Big time.
They've enjoyed the fruits of a monopoly market dominance for so long that what has built up is this: an incredibly large disparity between what they charge customers and what the true value-added really is.
How many corporate IT departments have shelled out exhorbitant site license fees for Office year after year after year and for what kind of really useful improvements since Word 6?
The existing market is not stable. Buyers would jump at an exit door, if only they could find one that isn't blocked by MS proprietary lock-ins. If your workplace is like mine, all your personnel are trained to use and to produce .doc, .xls and .ppt files. There is not another option. The pressure builds.
If I were as scared as Ballmer is about damming up millions of users with my locks, I'd make outrageous troll statements, too. I'd even eat a worm! Even if Ballmer's statements are patently ridiculous, he can create enough confusion to buy time. That time is valuable, probably worth millions of dollars per day in revenue gained or lost. Not to mention the added satisfaction of effectively slashdotting slashdot as righteous indignant programmers fume and vent on each other.
On a different note, aside from all this political posturing to the general media, who are generally clueless, I've always been amused by MS' spin towards the developer demographics in those glossy magazine ads. Recall that developer mindshare is an important ingredient to MS long term success and, having shafted many of the older "partners" (by making them offers they can't refuse) they have to recruit new members.
You know the ads I'm talking about, the ones that intimate that, as a Visual <argv> Developer, you are the He-Man Goto Guru Code Jock that everyone respects in your company, that gets paid well, that groupies swoon for, ....
There ain't no substitute for the power and control of Source Code. Well do both MS and Richard Stallman know that. They fear a GPL that dictates the public shall own the Source evermore. And that public Source base has been growing ominously large of late.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
--
Free Mac Mini
Linux:Cancer as Windows:Germ Warfare
Linus has,in fact,grown,and explosively-JonKatz
If the intent is to have all government funded work be available to anybody, then I could accept the premise -- This would, of course mean that the government should NOT fund any closed source either. If this means that they should be dumping all of their MS-Windows software out the, uhhm, window. and go to BSD, then don't wait for me to cry.
The GPL is designed to ensure that future versions of a piece of software are available to the public, not just current versions. The L-GPL does this as well, while being somewhat less viral. The BSD and some other 'open source' licenses do not.
Microsoft's real meaning of 'available to the public', really means 'able to be absconded and made unavailable to the public. Microsoft's approach it this is actually brings into the open what has been whispered about them many times in the past -- Microsoft's most common method of 'innovation' is to appropriate somebody else's code, call it their own, and work from that base. GPL code is available to Microsoft. It's just not available for Microsoft to steal.
---
For me, the idea of paying taxes for government-funded work that I end up being forced to pay to just use is far more galling than paying taxes for government-funded work that I'm not allowed to appropriate because it's got a GPL protecting it's public nature.
--
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
It's hard to find a computer that doesn't run a Microsoft product, particularly in Chicago. Microsoft's Chicago-based Midwest district office, which covers Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin...
Then, a little later the interviewer uses this statement in a question:
in Chicago we do seem to have an inferiority complex about our place in the tech world. Rankings frequently put us toward the bottom among major cities in terms of our tech presence.
draw your own conclusions. :-)
--
andy j.
Stupid Cheap Guitars
Taco, the moderator pool needs more chlorine.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
If the code's in the public domain, what's to stop you from grabbing the tarball, making a couple of changes, and building a multi-million dollar business? What's stopping you from doing it even if a corporation already did the same thing? Surely they can't yell "copyright violation!!!" and have it stick... Public domain means you have the same access that the corp does. If you've got the right to it, so do they.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
I don't buy it. The "freedom" of software under BSD licenses has nothing to do with software being free of charge. Rather, it's the freedom to do whatever you want with the code and not have to worry about being blindsided by lawyers or license nazis.
This freedom represents a very tangible benefit to anyone who is a software contractor and as such is definitely worth paying money for. How much would you pay for a word processor equivalent to Word that gave you the right to freely modify it for any of your clients and never have to forward an additional cent to its writer or have to worry about producing licenses for yourself or your customers?
I don't know about you, but I don't think twice about laying down a wad of cash for such software since it's giving me two very real benefits. One, I can make money from offering customized versions to those who don't have the skills to customize it themselves. Two, I can sleep at night and never worry about my business being destroyed by software lawyers. That's freedom, in my opinion, not a license which says you can do anything with a given piece of software except actually make money with it.
GPL -is- an invasive biotech weapon, on purpose; that's the point. It's fair for the government to consciously decide whether to play that game rather than letting it be a willy-nilly decision by individual projects.
-dB
"It if was easy to do, we'd find someone cheaper than you to do it."
Government code should be public domain, not placed under a restrictive license like the GPL.
That's funny. I thought the main point of the GPL was to ensure that the code - in this case the Government code that you refer to above - would continue to be in the public domain, in perpetuity. By being less restrictive, the BSD license allows Government code to be taken out of the public domain. It sounds like you are saying "government code should be freely available to begin with, then it should be co-opted by the private sector and made proprietary". What the GPL generally says is "GPL code should be freely availble always, even when it is being used by the private sector". Do you see the difference here?
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
You're telling me that a Microsoft executive doesn't like open source software, particularly linux? My God, what is the world coming to? I mean, come on, did Ballmer really say anything surprising here? We'll never convince the Microsofties that they should abandon themselves, we should convince the world to abandon the Microsofties. If Ballmer chooses not to listen to RMS etc. and their explanations of the GNU GPL, so be it.
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
Yes, it encourages others to benefit from the freedom it provides. There is no difference between theory and practice.
Making money off of hard work isn't nearly as evil as most GPL supporters try to make it sound.
I've yet to find a GPL supporter claiming there's anything wrong with earning money. I'll bet 99.999999% of all GPL supporters would really like to earn more money themselves, whether it'd be from their GPL'd product, or otherwise. In particular, RMS and the FSF has never said anything negative about getting your income from software development.
Feel free to think that MS tries to "embrace and extend" open-source technology. The reality of the situation is that Microsoft did nothing of the sort; they merely took advantage of open-ended parts of the Kerberos architecture so it could fit in with the Microsoft authentication/security model better.
Whatever. I am no expert on the Microsoft security model, and don't particulary care. But I would like to ask one simple question? Does MS Kerberos work ok within a standard Kerberos environment? No? What do you think the reason is? Incompetence? Embrace-and-extend? Internal security model? Only a rabid MS-supporter would choose the last one. It could of course be true, but that would also imply grave incompetence, and when it comes to integrating technologies Microsoft is usually very competent, so I think embrace-and-extend is much more probable.
Besides, what's so bad about being called "cancer". Most of us are already proud of using two well-known "viruses". Unix is known as one of the most succesful computer viruses ever, taking over virtually all micro's and mini's in the 70's and 80's, and now, with Linux, also a large percentage of PC's in the 90's and onward. And the GPL is also a very effective virus which has infected the brainfunctions of millions of programmers worldwide.
If Steve Ballmer chooses to call the open source movement "cancer", you should all be proud, dammit!
Government funding should be for work that is available to everybody. Open source is not available to commercial companies.
So, which is closer to "work that is available to everybody"?
1) Windows and MS software
2) Linux and Free Software
MS certainly can choose to use GPLed software in every product they make - they've got that right. Can I start shipping Windows with my new apps too? Thanks for letting me know, Steve, I'll start today!
I have read the GPL described as a cancer months ago, and I have to agree. It really is designed to take over projects, and spread throughout the internet. The GPL is designed to destroy the concept of intellectual property. If you use a piece of GPL code, it takes over, and now your whole project is GPL'd and open to the public. Its a very good idea, but its designed to force itself onto others.
I release open source code under the LGPL (library or lesser, it was changed) which allows people to use my source code in a program, provided that they provide access to source of just my part of it. This enables me to provide open source libraries which can be used in commercial products, but mainly because I don't want to force people to have to relase their code under GPL. They may still GPL their code, but I think they should be able to decide.
On /., someone says shit like this, and it goes down to -1 Flamebait (sometimes after going up to +5 insightful). But when someone from MS says it AGAIN (MS has been calling GPL evil for some time now, no?), it gets /. front page.
Why? What's the point of posting this? Sure, he's wrong, we all know that-- so we can post the same old pro-Open Source and/or GPL stuff we've been posting for years. Great, we all agree, and MS is still evil. This isn't news!
If you insist on posting this, could you at least make a category called "pointless, trivial crap that no one cares about" so we can all filter it out?
The Cancer Eating OS?
So does this mean if you cut off Linus' head he can grow back a new one?
Al Qaeda has ninjas!
When I worked at MS ('94-'95) I was told in a bathroom in a whisper not to drink the free house coffee. Otherwise I'd wind up like Steve Ballmer: a babbling, brain damaged moron! Nasty stuff!!
--- WWSD? What Would Strider Do?
Yeah, Microsoft has so many resources, and because they're not interested in a profit they don't care how much money it would take to develop something that complex from scratch.
Hell, I'll bet they even rolled their own browser. Hmmm... Let's see...
Start Internet Explorer (even the most latest version).
Click on "Help|About"
Oh my!!! What's this??? Based on NCSA Mosaic???
Now why do you think they would need to base IE on Mosaic hmm?
Your argument is just plain crap. M$ will ALWAYS look for the cheapest way to do things. They are a company concerned with bottom lines. So, if that means ripping off some code to make the profit margin better, then they'll do it.
This isn't to say Microsoft doesn't have competent programmers or that IE hasn't advanced a LOOONG way since Mosaic. But, look in the mirror to find the FUD bud!
F U NE X N M? Son: "Dad... How do you spell 'hourly'?" Dad: "0 * * * *"
(smack) Ballmer is deliberately blurring the lines, just like Craig Mundie did. He knows this; he's trying to convince the rest of the world that there is no difference.
I have to say, though. I find it a bit hard to believe anyone could be taking tactics like this seriously -- MS is starting to sound like a bunch of whiners. If he was talking about another company like this on the record, I strongly suspect Microsoft's stock would be in trouble.
/Brian
If I'm interested at all, it's in what they do, not what they say.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Nice... the typical slashdot kiddie repsonse. Guess what, kid, you're not going to be able to moderate down the real world after mommy and daddy kick you out of the house when ya hit 18. Grow up and act like you have some cojones.
In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Linux inventor Linus Torvalds says that Microsoft and closed source software companies are "good competition" because it will "force Linux to be innovative," but calls Microsoft "a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches." He also says that the inclusion of IE in windows has been "not great ... for innovation in the software industry" (especially for Netscape) and that MS's new copy protections are just "bumps in the road" to "help customers understand when they are crossing the line . . . so they can't do the wrong thing." And he says a few more amusing things, also.
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"If anyone had doubts that MS is taking Linux seriously, let him now reconsider.
Bill Gates is intensely aware of the media attention MS commands, and he uses it with great care. He knows that anything an MS spokesman talks about publicly will get a lot of attention very fast; accordingly, he doesn't dignify anything that doesn't threaten him with criticism. It's when he's worried about competition, or maneuvering to take possession of a market niche, that we see the response typified by Ballmer and Mundie's recent outings: careful, meticulous repetition of catchy buzz phrases developed by MS marketing and public relations personnel.
Even this /. story, and my response to it, serves Big Bill's purpose. He's got the community buzzing, and what the media (and end users, and management) hears is "Linux...cancer...destroys intellectual property...."
I suppose the Linux community should feel honored to be elevated to the exalted status of Oracle, Apple, Stak Electronics and all the other entities MS has found worrisome enough to target with custom FUD.
-- He's fantastic, made of plastic....
Here's a test... Do a search on the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper for "GPL". Number of results: 0.
The sad thing is, the journalists have no idea what the difference between Open Source and Free Software, no idea that GPL is only one aspect of "open source", and they are certainly in no position to inform their reader about the difference.
The moron that interviewed Balmer obviously had no idea what open source -- no caps -- is, just that the words had been used negatively by Microsoft flacks. So, he asks a fluffy question for his fluff-piece interview and Balmer gets a chance to spread some FUD to the uninformed masses.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Other than gnashing your teeth, and giving slashdot a lot of hits, what does this accomplish? What are people going to do? There are discussions that educate, that add info. The posts I've read all talk about how balmer is wrong. Of course he is (hell MS ftp is from BSD sources, hows that work into him saying open source means no commercial distribution) but unless you actually change something, it's just venting.
Actually, IBM is either the or one of the worlds largest software companies. They may sell hardware on paper, but maintenance software and server software are a huge revenue stream for them. (For example, if you want a text editor on the AS/400, it's extra $$!)
So, Linux is a caculated risk for IBM. If Linux cannibalizes AIX or OS/400 sales, it's not good and they'll drop Linux like a hot rock. However, IBM feels that certain Linux hardware bundles (x86 servers and S/390 clusters) can help them steal market from Sun in particular.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
That doesn't matter in the long run because we aren't fighting in the right places.
So why was Microsoft fighting in the right places when they grassrooted the OS/2 people in the forums many moons ago? My answer is that they weren't, but the subsequent reaction certainly didn't help OS/2, both market-wise and product-wise (because it created an ideological group of advocates surrounding a product that was sorta lame. OS/2 always had more abusers than users.)
Now, shock trooping developers against IBM certainly wasn't hard. Microsoft happily spams developers with free copies of everything, while if you wanted anything out of IBM in the old days, you had to have your account number ready, your FRU number ready, and a pliers to ready to pull some teeth with. It was all such a fantasic clusterfuck on IBM's part that it's almost hard to give MS any credit at all.
But that's not to say that MS doesn't partake in some very nasty tactics. Work at a large MS site, and somewhere you'll find a guy who Microsoft pays to sit there and whisper anything from standard marketing crap to outright lies in people's ears. Show up at any MS conference or anywhere supposedly full of 'freindlies' and you'll here the same kind of stuff.
The key thing to realize here is that MS is playing right out of the Slashdot playbook. How do you attack a product that's free? Attack it ideologically. Where do you get ideological arguments? Slashdot has the same argument over "Free Software" every day. Just twist and release as marketing, and Boom! The impotant little flamebots on Slashdot suddenly sound like the OS/2 Windows-hating loony fringe from so many years ago. People listen to the flamebots and it becomes a self-reinforcing trenchwar loop where the product never changes direction towards broader acceptance.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
So this is why Ballmer's got 50 Large in the bank? Even though I don't have an MBA (or even a subscription to Forbes), I would know better than to give the opposing team a newspaper clipping to tape to the locker-room wall. However, it is true that in an unintended way, Ballmer and his fellow droogs ARE driving software innovation. Ballmer's condescending comments are exactly what keep blood and caffeine coursing through the veins of programmers at two in the morning for the glory of the cause.
where we bitch and moan all day about every fucking thing MS says instead of getting our shit together to really be able to compete.
Maybe instead of ACing instead you should show us what you're doing to help the cause.
Microwindows, QT Eand XFree86 do have their shit together and w're kicking CEs ass all over the embedded space.
Where are YOU programming today?
Do you have Linux and a DotPal? Click here now!
More and more often little thoughts come into my mind, things like MS is to the Net (not .NET) as Ebola is to a Human. With the rising security issues raised by Gibson of GRC Research, this is starting to become realistic.
Ms is becoming the thing they say they are not. Because MS has adopted the position a that anyone else's freedom is evil. That is the voice of a fascist.
Maybe not using the words of a fascist, but certainly, in the heart.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Isn't this admitting that they had no innovation before?
sort of a fruedian slip there, accidently admit something that they wish to deny.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Let's call Linux a tumor in the IT world (actually he once again confuses the GPL with Linux, but what the hell; let it stand for the sake of the analogy). Sure as hell it's a rotten bad tumor from the evil empires' perspective.
Personally I actually believe it's a benevolent tumor. At least, since I use it as my primary OS, my computer pains are more or less gone.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Linux: Ho!ho!ho!
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Companies can use Open-Source models; however, most (not all, remember Red Hat is a company after all) decide not to because they've decided that it's not in their interests to do so.
Companies like M$ don't take the public's interests into account here. Unless, that is, a concern over the public's interest in paying for software counts.
Look at it this way: Would the opposite of what Ballmer said be true? If government gave funding to private companies to develop closed-source software, would *that* software be available to all?
If you're shrewd enough, you could say, "Sure closed source software available to all. You just have to be willing/able to pay for it. And not want access to anything more than just the binaries."
If you're really shrewd, you'll say that if good software is available for free to everyone, it'll undermine capitalism and disrupt the economy, putting professional programmers out of work. But what's the correct answer to that problem? Are we to expect the government to prop up a software industry that is not able to come up with a viable business model without stomping all over open-source/non-commercial business models? I guess they should continue to subsidize the buggy whip industry, too.
So then, let's recap, which benefits the people the most?
I think the answer to that is pretty obvious. It'd be downright WRONG for the government to fund ANYTHING BUT open source software. With the possible exception of code that is classified as a military secret for national security reasons.
If the government is funding some project, then it doesn't have to make a profit in order to continue to improve. Because, duh, profits aren't fueling the development -- the government funding is.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I'm pretty sure I got the point...
If I pay someone to develop some piece of code for me, and we consider that a work-for-hire, then I shouldn't have to pay for that code again, ever. I *own* that code. If I'm a real swell guy, I don't care if he gives that code away to other people. I'm magnanimous, but not stupid, so I tell the guy, look, you can only give this source code away if you make everyone you give it to promise that they will keep the code free. Now, if the people who take this free software and then try to sell it back to me, I'm going to take offense. If they want to sell me stuff that they developed at their own expense, that's their business. But if they want to use what I paid to develop, then they have to let me in on whatever improvements they add to it. Because, after all, I'm being nice and letting them use my source for free. I expect turnaround to be fair play.
If I pay taxes, and that tax money goes to pay for the development of some piece of code, then all taxpayers should never have to pay for that code again, ever. If someone develops Open/Free code using federal funds, I (and every other taxpayer) owns the code. It's a lot like all the public school teachers, the police, fire department, army, and whoever else's salary is paid for by my tax dollars.
In a non-commodity, non-commercial development model, the benefit that the software gives you is not your ability to reap profits from the masses by repackaging and selling that software, but rather your ability to use that software to do something useful.
Software is designed to do something useful. What useful thing the software is designed to do is subtly, but crucially, different in a closed-source/commercial model as opposed to an open/free model.
In other words, StarOffice (as an example) is a piece of software designed to allow you to produce word processing documents. By contrast Micro$oft Office is a piece of software designed to earn Microsoft lots of money, but as an afterthought or side-effect of that, it allows people who pay Microsoft for the privilege to use it to create word processing documents. Microsoft says there's no point to making Office if it doesn't make them money. The people who hack for StarOffice say that the point to StarOffice is to increase office productivity, and there is still a point for them to work on this project even if it doesn't earn money.
If tax dollars are being spent to fund the development of software, that benefit should be freely accessible to all who use it. Or at the very least, all who use it and pay taxes. But extending this benefit to those who don't pay taxes doesn't cost any more than the cost of a download and some blank media.
Let's see how this analogy grabs you: if I went to one of our National Parks and saw that some company had set up an admission booth just outside the entrance, and was charging people to get in at this particular entrance. Maybe you could still get in to the park through another entrance. And maybe the pay entrance entitled you to special services or additional products that the company offers you. But if all the company is selling is admission to a free park, and nothing more than that, then it's wrong. And it's extra wrong if they try to work out some arrangement whereby people who don't pay to get in at their entrance can't use the free entrances, either.
Or, maybe it's like this: I landscape my house, then I set up a toll booth on the road in front of my house, which was paved with public money, and then I charge everyone who drives by, to pay for the landscaping because everyone who drives by my house "benefits" from seeing my pretty terraces and flowers and shrubs.
And while I'm at it, since the neighbor's property values go up too, why the hell shouldn't I charge them a "living near me" fee?
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Ballmer justifies this belief by saying that "open source software is not available to companies." The hell it isn't! They can look at the source (and even use it!) just like anyone else can! They just can't take GPL'd code and add their own stuff to it without sharing those additions.
What a bunch of bull.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I really do not appreciate Microsoft making sure I know where the line and making sure I don't cross it. I believe that everyone has the right to make their own mistakes and learn from them. If that mistake is software piracy, and a jail term is what it takes to learn from a mistake then so be it, but I don't appreciate being preemptively spanked.
If Microsoft becomes humanities moral compass, and then I would be worried about which direction it's pointing.
As for the cancer comments, that is a little bit of an over simplification of the license as I am sure most of the community is aware. If you develop a piece of software FROM open source code, then yes the license does 'infect' your product, but just because you are developing for the big bad "Linux" doesn't sell your intellectual soul to the devil (and he works in Redmond.)
Geoffrey Cameron Peart
McMaster Software Engineering
Geoffrey Cameron Peart
McMaster Software Engineering
Monkies? I like Monkies
A week ago I got another letter from my Mom, just like I do every month. She knows I'm a software developer, and so she keeps her eyes out for interesting software type news. Eventually, months to years after something happens and makes it to the main-stream and gets in the Saskatchewan daily newspapers, she hears about it.
So you can imagine my suprise to have her ask me in that latest letter: "What problem does Microsoft have with 'free' software?".
Microsoft has done such a public job of attacking Free software that even my Mom has heard about it already, even though she's never heard of "Free Software" nor did she know what 'Free' software Microsoft was talking about.
Now let's be clear. The Gates foundation bought a $2000 computer and loaded it with '$3000' of free software and gave it to my small home-town's library early this year, so now my Mom can see my homepage and browse the web.
And yet, all I had to do was say "Microsoft is just doing what big monopolistic money-grubbing corporations are always trying to do: screw us."
She immediately understood.
Since when has cancer been better than the original ??? :-)
Maybe we should tell our doctors to leave the cancer and cut away the rest instead
Today it's the judges, technology managers, and legislators that Microsoft is focusing on. Linux geeks don't "get it" when it comes to legal, or managerial matters. This is a war, make no mistake about it. Microsoft, even if they're smart enough to not out and out say "Linux is a cancer" they most certainly think it and will attempt to persuade others to think that as well. When one person fights and the other just stands there taking punches, well, the person taking punches may be more "honorable" but that doesn't mean they'll win. Like it or not, Ghandi died without accomplishing his goals(even though he did win India's independence from Britan, his real goal was religious tolerance between Hindus and Muslims).
Now, weather or not we should stoop to that level in our own retaliations is another issue. But we can't afford to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt in everything they do. They have proven, time and again, that they will use any methods they feel will be effective. Up until now they have been very effective, let's not forget that.
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
Now given the nature of the GPL people working for the US government have little choice when they work on the GPL software than to write more of it. It seems clear to me that M$ is going to push hard to prevent university staff from using or contributing to the GPL code base. I think that if they succeeded they would essentially cripple large parts of the computer using research sector in the US.
Of course in the end both US and other research sectors have benefitted from the GPL. It makes collaboration a lot easier, because the GPL is irrevocable. You know that collaborators can not later withdraw data or source code on you. In the days of NDA's this is a welcome relief.
There is also a fascinating manifesto from one researcher explaining why he choose to release his software under GPL. Well worth reading.
Phil
If you think Internet Explorer's the best then you should really try Konqueror. It's faster at rendering than MSIE, and more feature compliant. It also doesn't add new 'features' which are specific to it.
Of course, Netscape were doing this little trick right from the start, so if you want to point fingers for HTML incompatibility problems Netscape is where I'd lay them.
How quickly people forget though..
--
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
I'll keep posting this until someone more important than me points it out in print somewhere :) The GPL is not a virus, it is more like a vaccine. It prevents the worst abuses of the intellectual property regime, like people being jailed for copying, modifying or misusing microsoft windows or other products. This disease metaphor is obviously a very well thought out public relations strategy on the part of microsoft, but if the free software corner can fight back with a more convincing rhetoric (vaccine not virus), it will backfire miserably on Redmond.
Bryguy
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Ballmer: Ever hear of Stallman? de Icaza? TORVALDS?
Dread Pirate Roberts: yes.
Ballmer: Morons.
Bryguy
"I've been slowly building up an immunity to proprietary software for the past 5 years"
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Well, he doesn't develop software for them. He develops hardware solutions for certain problems. [All I'm saying. I know he has a clearance.] But he already holds a patent from when he worked for NASA/MSFC. He can license it to whomever he wants if NASA doesn't make it a part of some project on which they need its use.
-- Geof F. Morris
It's really interesting to watch how Microsoft higher-ups use words. It's almost as much as watching politicians of any stripe, but specifically American politicians in the two major parties, snipe at each other with shadings of words.
Examplia gratis:
Note: The ellipsis used is directly from the original article; I'm curious to know what was left out!
If I could completely ignore the ellipsis--though I can't--you'd get to thinking that "innovation in the software industry" == "whatever improves M$FT's bottom line". The comments about competition are similar--they like competition that they can beat the snot out of, not that pushes a better product.
The use of the cancer thing is interesting...M$FT is shifting its attack from the license to the OS, while noting that the OS is licensed in a matter that makes it "a cancer". It's a carefully crafted use of hyperbole, and it'll hit home.
But I think it'll end up being a boomerang strike. I continue to expect back-end systems to merge to modern *nix systems, including Linux and the *BSD's. I think that's good from an overall push-the-ends-of-the-free/open-movements, and probably good for business in the long run, too.
-- Geof F. Morris
Hundreds of Slashdot readers were dissolusioned today when Slashdot posted it's 1000th troll, entitled "Ballmer Calls Linux 'A Cancer'". The more gullable breed of Slashbot fed the troll by posting the same old rhetoric: "MS sucks, Linux rools dude". More sensible users flocked like lemmings to kuro5hin where an intelligent discussion or five is taking place right now.
Man I'm getting cynical. I need to spend less time here.
Well, your fingers weave quick minarets; Speak in secret alphabets;
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
I'll bet he wished he could suck that last sentence back in as soon as he said it.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
While we're all here preaching to the choir and bitching about what Mr. Ballmer said, how about instead directing some of that energy towards CORRECTING him? I'm sure the Sun-Times would be happy to print a rebuttal. Failure for us to do anything except talk to eachother about it means that Microsoft has won this battle and that those who are not in-the-know will take the statements made in the interview as facts.
http://www.suntimes.com/geninfo/feedback.html and
http://www.suntimes.com/geninfo/email.html have contact info. I couldn't find the contact info for the interviewer or info on snail-mail (always the BEST way to make your comments), but perhaps someone with access to the physical paper rather than the website can post those.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Although I agree with mikethegeek's general sentiments, there are several points that need correction:
Disparaging a competing product? Boy, it's a good thing we never get any of that around here. (If you can even describe the product used by 80% of Slashdot readers as "competing.") Honestly, I've read far too many "The KDE developers are CRIMINALS! They should be in JAIL!!" comments around here to get too excited about a little noise from Microsoft.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
Wrong.
According to RMS, linking through any means is still making a derivitive work. He hasn't specifically made statements that i'm aware of about CORBA, but he's basically implied that this includes CORBA objects as well.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
Probably what scares them the most is realizing the free ride of stealing other's ideas and calling them "Innovation" is over. Activists in the Open Source and GPL camps will be all over them ever single time they try to sell something without giving due recognition to those who actually created the work in the first place.
When was the last time anyone mentioned VisiCorp? I wonder if M$ pays any licensing fees for that or if they .. uh hum .. feel that sort of innovation no longer requires recognition of the inventor.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Tell that to Apple, Mr. Balmer.
This is nothing more than RMS flamebait and he knows it. Not only that, there are so many things that is just utter bullshit. Does he really think people wanted to use a web browser to look at thier Hard Disk? (I doubt it) The main problem of IE and Windows integration is that there will eventually be only ONE provider of Internet APIs (known to the world as .NET) and possibily one provider of internet "services". No competition. No motivation for improvement. Nothing. In a perfect work, companies like Sony, HP, and IBM would be able to choose what kind of internet services they provide to their customers. They would complete, which would benifit the consumer. Now we are limited to three views of Internet Services: .NET, Apple's iTools, and AOL. Though I'm a big fan of iTools, its market share is relativly low, which leaves AOL vs. .NET. Not much of a choice.
Now that I ranted and got side tracked, I come back to the whole flamebait issue. This is a brilliant idea and works in politics all the time. One side of a debate says something calmly and off the hand that is abusurd to anyone who knows what they are talking about, but to the uneducated masses seems plausible. They then wait for the other side to respond quickly and pointedly and then claim they are being "attacked" or call the response "unreasonable". If people aren't paying attention, and trust me they won't be, they will accept it. We already know whats going to happen, RMS is going to issue a press release or say something in public, because no matter what he can't let anyone mix up Open Source, GPL, and intellectual property. We all know how much tact RMS has.
Brilliant, Mr. Ballmer, just brilliant.
Burn Hollywood Burn
Huh? What are you (previous poster) saying? Under that logic ig I were to write a plugin for Photoshop, and release it under the GPL, then I would cause Adobe to suddeny be in violation of the GPL (through no action of their own)? I think you mis-understood my earlier suggestion, because the interpretation of the GPL presented by the previous poster makes absoluitly no sense.
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
Steve Ballmer doesn't know his epidemiology. In fact, Microsoft is a cancer. Any program which includes Microsoft componants suddenly starts growing out of control until it becomes bloated and unusable.
In all fairness however, I can see how he might make the mistake of thinking the the GPL is Visus-like (not cancer-like however) in that it does attach itself to the IP it touches, but with properly written code, you can include functionality based on GPL'd source, as a plugin to your main application. This preserves the treditional IP state of your product, if you're so short sighted as to choose not to GPL your entire product.
--CTH
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
I'd mod you up if I had points to use. I agree that the FSF isn't exactly the group I want fighting Redmond, since they too are rather extreme in their views. Both groups seem to forget the middle ground.
Virg
Something just hit me with all this talk of IP...MS and free software are fighting the same IP battle it two totally different ways. Stick with me here for a second...
Say I create a nifty library. Something everybody needs. Something everybody wants. But I worked very hard on it, and I want compensation for my hard work. The compensation I'm asking for: the source to any software using my library must be made available in the same fashion my source code is available. If that's asking too much, write your own library. You don't have to compinsate me until you finish the project.
Now say Microsoft creates a nifty librars. Something everybody wants. Something everybody needs. But some of their staff worked very hard on it, and the company wants compensations. So they wrap it into developer kits, MFC's, etc. Now that they've been compinsated, you can start work on your project.
Linux isn't the cancer. No no, it's the users who don't really understand what Linux, the GPL, FSF, monoplies, profits, IP, etc. are.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
Microsoft did a buyout from Spyglass back in 96/96 for about $20Mil. That's hardly nothing...
What do you know I wrote a novel
No it isnt ..
..
If Linux is cancer then Microsoft is Herpes
Just a reminder to all :
"Linux spreads like cancer, killing proprietary software" sounds catchy. The same way they say on CNN "people download music from Napster" or "DeCSS allows to make illegal copies of DVD's". It is not true, but after being repeated million times, it becomes the "public opinion".
I know I am responding to a troll, but I think that there is an interesting point to be made here. I don't think Linux would be where it is now if it was not originally released under the BSD license-- it would have been stolen into oblivion.
The current time, though, is a different story-- BSD license does not doom one to failure in the OSS market, it just makes it harder to succeed. Once critical mass is reached, this is all academic (see Apache). How many proprietary Apache's have tried to compete with the OSS versions? Note that none fo them were successful.
I don't think that it would be the death of Linux to move away from the GPL, as long as it remained open source. But I don't think it would be here today if it was not for the GPL.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
While Balmer is using FUD in his carefully chosen phrasing that implies, but does not state, that Linux is a cancer in terms of the GPL enforcement, he has reason to do so.
The main problem right now is the entire business world isn't buying MSFT spin on why they should buy Office XP. Most are being forced to "upgrade" to Office 2000 and Windows 2000, or lose product support, but the move to Office XP and Windows XP locks them into a never-ending product "upgrade" cycle dictated by MSFT.
So Balmer is faced with a product launch that's already fizzled. You could tell, just by talking to people in line at the Seattle International Film Fest who had helped with tech and promo at the product launch in NYC - the business public isn't buying it.
Why? Because they don't need to. Part of this is that we've shot them down on why you need Windows XP for servers, when a Linux box will do the job at half the price, and more reliably, with better TPC for your database or file ops.
[caveat - I own both MSFT and RHAT shares]
Their server growth is dead; the xBox is doomed to be a third runner in a tech world where first place wins the big bucks, second place wins some bucks, and anything lower than that loses its shirt. All they have is the PC franchise, and people just aren't buying the latest and greatest.
And why aren't we buying new PCs? Because what we have works, and we care more about other things. The market has matured and Intel can't even sell its P4 chips at the upper end, cause the consumer doesn't care. Nor does business.
--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?
Ballmer, I don't know who you are trying to impress with this train of thought. As a purchaser of every version of your OS from 3.0 to 98, and Office suite from 4.3 on, I am truly offended.
Your products are simply maintenance intensive. Non-trivial use of them requires occasional rebuilds from bare metal, as the poorly documented file structure and applications overwhelm even the power user. Some of the Gnomes of Redmond might survive within the two installation limit, but I'm uncertain I could.
Wasn't Frank Zappa prescient in the Joe's Garage libretto:
Suggestion: blow MS right off. Just say NO!
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
andrew@INEGO
$ grep -ir "regent" *
grep: Profiles/Administrator: Permission denied
grep: system32/config/AppEvent.Evt: Permission denied
grep: system32/config/SecEvent.Evt: Permission denied
grep: system32/config/SysEvent.Evt: Permission denied
Binary file system32/FINGER.EXE matches
Binary file system32/FTP.EXE matches
Binary file system32/NSLOOKUP.EXE matches
Binary file system32/RCP.EXE matches
Binary file system32/RSH.EXE matches
Sure enough, it's:
Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
All rights reserved.
Great, so NT is open source! Can I start burning it onto CD and selling them, then? Steve Ballmer says I can...
--
"I'm not downloaded, I'm just loaded and down"
"If Linux is cancer then Microsoft is Herpes"
Actually, if we're talking diseases here, Microsoft is AIDS. Why? Once you contract AIDS there is nothing for it but expensive treatements (upgrades), while it inevitably destroys your immune system (erodes security) until you (your data) eventually die.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
" What if my business hasn't "given" the binaries to our client but merely LEASES equipment and software to them? We still own it, so it's never truly left our possession. On what basis must we give out source code? Do we have to give it out at all?"
I don't think that would fly under the GPL. My understanding isn't perfect, but I'd think letting the code leave your hands at ALL constitutes distribution. The GPL supersedes any "EULA" you may craft with your "software leasee", as your only right to modify and distribute the code at ALL comes from the GPL.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
"The challenge is that he's right. There's nothing "free" about the GPL if you're a developer that doesn't have the same views as RMS and the rest of the free software movement.
I'd love to see someone on slashdot actually prove his statement wrong."
Why? Do you believe that Microsoft, et all, have some RIGHT to code that they had no part in writing? And have no obligation to allow the original authors the same right to MS code?
The GPL does NOTHING to prevent Microsoft or any other closed-source company from developing anything they want. For that matter, MS if completely free to reverse-engineer and release their own *NIX variant if they so wish.
It's MICROSOFT here who is playing the role of a whiner wanting more and more "handouts", not the GPL backers.
What the GPL DOES do is prevent a closed source company from taking your code, using it for their own purpose, then not allowing YOU to benefit from what they added to your code. It says "here, use what you want, the only catch is you have to give the next guy the same freedom YOU had".
Microsoft fears the GPL because it prevents them from taking code, and extending it in proprietary ways so as to break compatibility, then deny even the original author access to these changes. Had Keberos been GPL instead of BSD, MS coudld never have pulled their "embrace and extend" rape of what was a universal open standard when they used it in `Doze 2000.
True, the BSD license gives you absolute freedom to do with the code as you wish, in any way you wish. In and ideal world, the BSD license would be the best one. However, the GPL is more pragmatic and practical, it FORCES people to behave in an ethical manner, whereas the BSD license relies on morals and ethics of each and every user.
Microsoft fears the GPL because they cannot use GPL code without being assimilated by it. The GPL is merely a sling that is the weapon that allows David to defeat Goliath.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
(We fade in on GATES and BALLMER, GATES only a shadow to us in a long robe (much like CATS), and BALLMER smoking a cigarette. They are in a dark room, surrounded by rack mount servers.)
::pinky to mouth:: Does Windows XP have the .. required .. amount of bugs? How about that innovative thing you call a .. software .. firewall .. ? Mmm, I like how that sounds. It will look good on TV. "Windows XP has integrated sec..."
GATES: So gentlemen, all is going perfectly to plan...
BALLMER: Yes, master. We have even trolled Slashdot.
GATES: Excellent!
GEEK1: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
(GATES spots a RedHat 6.2 CD in GEEK1's hands.)
GATES: CANCER!
(Two guards fire at the RH CD together. We see it shatter into a thousand pieces.)
GATES: Resistance is futile, young one. Mwhahahaha...
BALLMER: Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of trolls?
GATES: I am one, drone.
Do you like German cars?
And I'll bet that 20% is the big business customer's (where all the money is really made by M$), and they'll be forking out 80% of the profits M$ makes on .NET. So average Joe will say, wow!, look at what great savings this is WinXP/OfficeXP is while the business customer's are forced to waste even more money on software. That's not innovative, that's extortionist.
Then Microsoft is Biological Warfare.
--Blair
Linux is a cancer that is eating away at M$ profit margins.
MS execs try to create a general attitude about Free Software, Open Source, and/or Linux that is negative. This is obvious because of things like Ballmer's comments and other recent MS exec's comments.
. html) in the last paragraph, you will see that a very "intelligent" Microsoft strategy is being birthed. Where the .Net platform locks Internet-based services into Microsoft technology and logic. Hence, PAYing customers will have to use/continue using Microsoft products to get these services.
The interesting thing is not what that attitude means right now, but rather, what it will enable in the future. This is like a chess game. Here is what I mean. If you read this article from Jakob Nielsen (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000625_hailstorm
This duplicates Microsoft's current usefulness to any company developing for a software platform. If a little company makes their product/service available through Microsoft's technologies the little company instantly has access to the largest pool of potential customers. That probably makes sense if you want to make a lot of money.
The thing is, how does Microsoft get such a huge base of people using and implementing (critical mass?) its payment (and other) services first? That is the challenge for Microsoft. They *need* to get businesses and the public feeling generally negative toward free and open source types of philosophies. Hence the inappropriate "cancer" and "intellectual property" notions MS execs spout. With that kind of feeling in the business environment, MS gains an important advantage in convincing everyone to deploy MS technology. Thus, MS locks businesses, organizations, governements, individuals, etc. into a new era of MS monopoly through the Internet and in the form of MS-based payment systems/intellectual property bottleneckers, etc.
While I agree with what you say for the most part (especially about MS making non-standard implementations of standards), Mr. Ballmer makes an interesting point about the US Government paying to have GPL'ed code written. Is it valid for the US Government to spend taxpayer money on GPL'ed code. I would suspect that it is a good use of taxpayer money as the code is returned to everyone. As someone else stated anyone can learn from it, and the lessons learned can be applied to anything (open or closed source).
I have no sig, does anyone have one to spare?
I don't see any problem with one of the conditions of goverement grants being that the software must be released under a particular licence. If I want to release code under GPL, LGPL, BSD, Apache, ... that is my choice, but if I am receiving funds, the funder has a right to specify conditions including licencing.
All work done with federal grant dollars are released under the FFSL (federal free software licence) which is somewhere between the GPL and BSD. You can use the code in your work without your work becoming a derivative work, but any changes in the code itself must be released under the FFSL. Ballmer's biggest b*tch is solved. Now he can use the code, only embrace and extend is not as easy so I am happy.
The most dangerous pattern in these attacks is that M$ is trying to play the political game. They are making the free software community out to be a bunch of free loaders getting goverment pork! This has the potential to swing public opinion (I don't want my tax dollars going to the those free software commies).
This, as we all know is completly false. Free software is by and large a way developers give freely to the community (and in fact alot, possibly even a majority of the big user apps are from out of the states). It ammazes me how selfless many of the developers in the FS world are. I am very proud of this. We have done what many groups in history have failed to do.
However, the average Joe is clueless. If the population at large starts to buy this CR*P then the FS developers in the US could find themselves legislated into oblivion (Extra, Extra: FCC now controls all software releases! - as stupid as it sounds it would not surprise me).
It's a bit late to add a comment here and hope anyone will read it, but I have to.
... without the incentive of making money, most of the software innovations that exist today would have never been born.
That 's garbage. It's clear by now that there are a plethora of individuals interested in writing software for the sake of coding, or to create a tool that will get work done more quickly, or for recognition, or any of a number of reasons besides lining their pockets.
I thought the source for Windows began as someone's pet project. If you look around you'll find that most of the real innovations in software development have been the result of University researchers and hobbyists. People looking to get rich too often develop shoddy products which don't work the way they are supposed to, and cater to the masses at the expense of creativity and true innovation.
Software development is no different than any other field, the people who enjoy it the most are also likely to be the best at it, and those people would probably be willing to do it for free. I'd rather go to a doctor that had chosen the medical profession because they were interested in it and liked treating people than because they wanted to get rich.
If anything, the cancer on our society is one which has apparantly infected Mr, Ballmer and yourself, of greed and materialism, believing that money is more important than all else.
To Microsoft: This word you use...Innovative...I do not think it means what you think it means.
If linux is a cancer, it must be some sort of weird "reverse-cancer". I'll be the first to admit to being a linux-newbie, but in the course of setting up my own Linux web server, I've already noticed many of linux's reverse-cancerous attributes:
:: Linux reverse-eats money from my bank account. Over $3000 is still in there that otherwise might have been spent on 2K disAdvanced server. It frightens me to think that Linux can somehow infect my bank account in this manner.
:: Linux reverse-spreads to my memory and hard drive like the cancer that it is. All sorts of free memory and drive space are present in the system compared to the *ahem*copy*ahem* of 2K server on the box next to it. I've been meaning to get this looked into by someone with more experience than I, but just haven't had the time. I hope it isn't contagious; I spent good money on 512MB of RAM to power that 2K server and would hate to see it suddenly able to get by on much less.
:: Linux's reverse-cancer infects Windows, which in turn reverse-infects my mind. Every time I power up my Windows workstation, I have an uncontrollable urge to replace it with Linux.
After careful analysis and consideration of the facts presented herein, I must come to the upsetting conclusion that this Linux thing is incredibly dangerous. I advise everyone to immediately forward a copy of this fact-sheet to their congressional representatives and demand that Linux be classified as a level 4 pathogen and steps be taken to ensure it's immediate eradication from existence.
-Ryan, with the unoriginal sig
Oh no, that means my entire computer has become Open Source! Since I dual-boot doesn't that mean that my installed Windows 98 SE has become open source as well?
I mean I have had Linux "touch" some Windows files... Hmm... Does anyone know how to perform Chemotherapy on a hard drive?
------------
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
This is the big lie that conservatives keep repeating, desperately hoping to convince the poor and middle class that the government isn't screwing them over at the behest of the rich. The petitioner follows the so-called "liberal" media in repeating unchallenged the White House's deceptive numbers, which deliberately omit the effect of the proposed estate tax repeal that disproportionately benefits the rich. When the entire tax proposal is considered, the richest one percent, who pay 20 percent of all federal taxes, will receive at least 36 percent of the tax cuts -- some estimates put it as high as 43 percent.
--
#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;
sed 's/In Soviet Russia/In NSA America/g' < yakov-smirnoff-jokes.txt
I am really not surprised that MS is resorting to bullying CTO's and technical buyers with PR like this because they lose on straight techinical merit.
For example, my Linux web servers run for many months on end with no problems. My home windows 98 box p3 866 from Dell with 384 Megs of RAM needs to be rebooted every 3 days. Its amazing how often I get this kind of message.
"System resources are low. Some programs may not run. Windows has a limited number of system resources available. When you have many programs open, or you open a program that uses many system resources, Windows may run more slowly and some programs may not run properly. Quit some programs to free up system resources, or restart your computer. "
Imagine.. This never happens on my Linux Servers...
What is worse is that closing programs does not free up system resources.
Now.. If only the games I played were on linux...