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Proudly Serving My Corporate Masters
Barr worked as a low-level developer at Microsoft and his account in Proudly Serving My Corporate Masters, built around his firsthand experience, offers a perspective on the company "from the ranks". This is combined with more general commentary on recent computing issues, with reflections on evangelism, community, and open source. The result has something for a range of people: those curious about Microsoft, involved in debates about the merits of open source, responsible for recruitment and management of programmers, or just interested in computing history.
Barr begins by describing how he came to work for Microsoft. This is the start of four chapters on Microsoft's recruitment system, covering both the initial selection on campus, the interview system, and the overall effectiveness. There is also an introduction to how work is structured at Microsoft, in particular the division between developers, program managers, and testers. Three chapters then describe Barr's time at SoftImage, a Microsoft acquisition producing digital editing software. Here we are introduced to the different types of "demos" (from carefully scripted sessions presented by special "demo artists" to genuine "hands-on" demos) and the complexities of dealing with third-party hardware suppliers.
Three chapters then present a potted history of computing over the last twenty years or so, beginning with an account Barr wrote as a teenager back in 1982, after visiting ComDex. Barr focuses on evangelism - on the factors that contribute to one platform or operating system winning out over others - and in particular why IBM PC hardware became ubiquitous, why MSDOS beat CP/M-86, and why Windows beat OS/2. None of this is particularly novel, but it's a nice lively account.
This leads naturally to more recent conflicts and debates which pit (as flagship icons) Microsoft against Linux. Again, there is nothing spectacular here, but Barr offers an intelligent, informed, and balanced perspective, coming up with some points that were new to me. Of the claim that it will be difficult to find programmers to do the "unsexy" work with Linux, for example, he writes
"Microsoft, being a company with salaries and a supervisory hierarchy, has the ability to order someone to work on something he or she doesn't want to work on, but I never recall this happening. People worked on things that interested them and projects still got complete coverage. There is no reason that the same should not be true of Linux, especially given the size of the Linux community."Two chapters evaluate attacks against Microsoft, the first addressing popular criticisms and the second the various legal attacks. Here Barr is level-headed, calmly rebutting some of the sillier attacks while accepting valid criticisms.
A major weakness of this material is that Barr only ever talks about "open source" (a development methodology) and never about "free software" (a much broader movement). One major reason for techs ranting at Microsoft is their unhappiness with loss of choice, freedom, and control - and this has been articulated as an ethical and political position by the Free Software Foundation and others. But Barr never considers this argument against Microsoft at all.
A chapter on online community is really a digression. The final two chapters then consider the future of Microsoft. Barr argues that Microsoft should stick to its core PC business and not get distracted by ventures such as the XBox. He ends where he started, arguing that the key to Microsoft's future lies in its handling of employees, in its ability to attract, recruit, and retain good people.
Proudly Serving is nicely laid out and has obviously been carefully edited. Barr avoids most technical details (an exception is some discussion of buses and video hardware in the chapters on SoftImage) and offers separate digressions on Code, APIs, and Middleware. A minor complaint is that the workings of Microsoft stock options are only explained in the last chapter, by which point the reader will either have worked it out for themselves or decided they don't care.
Purchase this book from FatBrain. Visit the author's web site or check out Danny Yee's five hundred other book reviews.
I work for MontaVista Software. We put together a comprehensive, tested cross-platform embedded systems development environment for Linux (much harder than it sounds -- but many of the test boards make great toys ). We sell support contracts and "professional services" -- and we're doing just fine. We have customers -- real customers, genuine big names who've signed large contracts, including many who've come back for renewals. Let me assure you, I get paid. So does everyone else here.
And let me assure you, a great many of the folks here do have "REAL" talent; indeed, I would indeed describe a great many of my programmers as top-tier. Embedded systems may not strike everyone as a sexy field (our cross-development kit is never going to be sold at K-Mart) but there's one helluvalot of money here for folks doing Linux.
As for pushing my personal agenda... that's quite normal in book reviews, and I probably do less of it than most reviewers.
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
Liberated software sounds like a euphemism for warez.
.02$
So let's call it Liberty Software . I think that has a better ring to it anyway. It sounds like the "Liberty Ships" of World War II. And of course, in the US it has that strong connection with the Founding Fathers, etc.
I have to say that I strongly agree with the original poster on the liberty sub-thread here. I find the whole whole Free==(beer|speech) thing can get confusing even though I wholeheartedly believe, support, and evangelize the free speech side of it. It seems to me that we can't realistically expect people who aren't "in the loop" to regularly differenciate between the two. Liberty Software spells it all out, leaving not much room for doubt.
Most people do just associate the word free with no money/cost.
Just my
I haven't applied the label 'horrible' to Mozilla since 0.8, and 0.9.1 is actually pretty good. Aside from all the stupid media and Flash support in IE, I actually prefer Mozilla to IE now.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Personally, I prefer to use the term "Legally Free Software", which pretty much covers both the fact that "it's not stealing even though you don't have to pay anybody" and "you can make copies for other people without getting arrested".
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Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
An even better motivator, I think.
As far as I know, the Wright brothers built their airplane because they wanted to fly, not because some rich guy was paying them to do it...
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Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I also recommend looking at the MicroSoft Press book called "MicroSoft Inside Out" published last year on their 25th incorporation anniversary. It is like a student yearbook with several hundred short stories by current and former employees. Most of these talk about the product's they've worked on, but others talk about MS culture, and geek life.
The collection is loosely organized in historical sections with propaganda pieces by the executives. It is not as coherent as a single-author book, but has its sweet spots.
I have. Now if I could only get a link off the /. front page, I could finally leave this code-monkey crap behind.
I know. It used to render fine, then freeservers changed something and Ive never bothered to find a new (free) host. The site is very simple except for the freeservers stuff.
Yeah but the best mechanics in the world are working on an F1 track in Monaco, or a FIA WRC event in Sweden, or a NASCAR Winston cup event in North Carolina.
A number of companies already employ professional programmers to work on Free Software projects (I won't bore you with a list, you all know the names).
Besides which, do not be fooled into thinking that all professional programmers are automatically better than amateurs; I have worked with some shockingly bad pros in my (relatively short) time.
Also, do not be fooled into thinking that just because someone is being paid to do something, they will do a better job of it. Plenty of professional programmers do their 9-5(ish...) job, go home, and spend an hour or two working on some OS project or other.
Just because there's no-one paying for it, doesn't necessarily mean it isn't being worked on by profesisonals.
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
It's called work because they have to pay you to do it. If it wasn't so boring, then you might do it for free.
cpeterso
"Microsoft, being a company with salaries and a supervisory hierarchy, has the ability to order someone to work on something he or she doesn't want to work on, but I never recall this happening. People worked on things that interested them and projects still got complete coverage. There is no reason that the same should not be true of Linux, especially given the size of the Linux community."
Wierd. I was just talking to a collegue about this... see, in a company filled with primadonna engineers (myself included, unfortunately), it is impossible to get a project finished on time if the engineer working on it HATES it. Management has to be absolutely sure that the engineers they just assigned to a task actually find it interesting. If there is the odd "unsexy" task that nobody wants to tackle, management already knows it is going to take 3-4x as long to finish, and assign as best they can.
However, I didn't see the connection between this effect and the "unsexy-jobs never get done in OSS" meme.
It turns out that there are VERY few engineering tasks that EVERYBODY finds unsexy. Interesting...
Microsoft and the Free Software Movement are about as opposite as you can get. It didn't take an astrologer to figure out the friction between them heating up. The problem is that they are both expanding and are finding there isn't enough room for the both of them.
Not to sound overly dramatic but I think there is a like a war brewing. Whose side are you on?
And that is why Open Source Movement is so popular. Its fundamentally flawed but it allows people who care an escape. It allows people to remain neutral and not have to decide what their beliefs are. Its accomidating and allows people to say "I beleive in the Open Source Movement" when really that statement doesn't mean anything.
Let me give you a broader perspective than the one we usually have. Many works of science fiction talk about computers controlling people. Without source code, the machine controlls the man. And indirectly the publisher of the software controlls the man. Proprietary software is a statement of control. The issue of controll is why we talk about freedom.
Yea, but the problem is, you just named 6 people... Microsoft employs 30,000 very talented people in different fields. Plus, they don't just hire programmers... they have lawyers, managers, marketing people, etc. And on top of that, for every department where Linux has one or zero people working for it, MS has a team of very bright people making it work.
If Linux had that entire staff working for them, Microsoft would almost certainly be out of business. But if you do that, I assure you those 30,000 people are going to other jobs, and probably few to none of them will work on free software. So, give some credit to MS for paying those people to contribute to the world of software, when those people otherwise probably wouldn't have.
Now curse out Microsoft for all those bugs in their software... including the one in Freecell that allows me to CTRL-ALT-DEL close it avoid a loss!!!
Liberated software sounds like a euphemism for warez.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
of how the largest and supposedly 'best' software company in the world, with legions of paid developers, only managed to delay SoftImage's next-gen product (Sumatra/XSI) for so long that everyone who really needed it was forced to go and buy Maya. I'm sure this wasn't entirely M$'s fault - but the acquisition of SI by M$ hardly induced a revolution in the devlopment of the product, did it? Just because lots pf people get paid to do something doesn't make it good. McDonalds pays a whole lot of people a whole lot of money, but their food is still only fit for pigs. What would Linux be like if there was some system for everyone who contributes to be compensated? Well, it'd be like Windows, and then we'd all have to go and hack on something else.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
A major weakness of this material is that Barr only ever talks about "open source" (a development methodology) and never about "free software" (a much broader movement). One major reason for techs ranting at Microsoft is their unhappiness with loss of choice, freedom, and control - and this has been articulated as an ethical and political position by the Free Software Foundation and others. But Barr never considers this argument against Microsoft at all.
A major weakness of this review is that you're using it to push your own personal agenda by eveluating the authors compliiance with your own views, and stating your own personal opinions as fact.
Personally, I'd say the majority of Linux users (and pretty much all newcomers) do indeed use the platform not because they see proprietary software as unethical, but because they think its very good, and having source code avaliable under an effort snowballing license such as those under the OSD is the basis for this quality.
Choice freedom and control aren't specific to the FSFs concepts. The belief that Free Software is the only ethical choice is. And this is (IMO experiences) a very rarely held view.
Free as in speech NOT as in beer.
Free in this context means freedom, software which is free from monopoly control and which creates users who are free from that control AND free from being locked into the software they use. That is a significant threat to M$.
There were no buttons. The walls were inlaid with strange runes and glyphs. Once we'd entered the doors closed quickly behind, and we began our decent. The air seemed to quiver, and I felt a great uneasiness. My Controller's face was unmoved. He still wore his dark glasses despite the relatively dim lighting.
We came to slow halt, and the doors opened. What images then came into view are so horrific that the very thought of them puts me into a terrible panic.
A vast hall stretched forth lined with arches the likes my eyes had never seen. Arrayed in a great grid were hundreds of people strapped into black chairs which seemed to envelope their bodies. My God. It was them. All of those ex-Mac developers. So, here is where they'd all gone. Their bodies shaved and naked were bristling with wires and tubes anchoring them into some kind of demonic machine beneath the floor. I could feel the dark energies churning beneath my feet and imagined huge gears grinding in an alien orchestra devised for some purpose beyond comprehension.
Two Controllers approached from the far side of the hall. In their hands were strange surgical tools. But, these warped, metallic devices were for no humane medical operations, but for some preverted task of which I wanted no part. I tried to run, but my Controller grapped my arm with a cold grip of uncanny strength. Then I remembered what the crazy old man had told me in the town...
Someone you trust is one of us.
Actually, it's entirely possible that he's good at it, and wants no part of the management or software-design chain. I'm in a similar position; I am autistic, and have zero chance of effectively managing other people, and have refused promotions explaining my disabilities in interpersonal interaction.
Yes, it does reduce the number of jobs available to me, because 10 years of experience without promotion within company (just side-shifting jobs when one company wants says "take promotion or be fired") but the jobs I get are much more satisfying to me.
I _do_ end up as a technical resource consulted by everyone from bottom to top of company, and have good market and product research skills, my strategic abilities on the _software_ and _hardware_ end make up for my lack of in-company promotion.
In some sense, it's just as logical for experienced engineers to write free software as it is for students. Imagine spending a year writing a novel... and then burning the manuscript. Now do this a few more times. Would it help if someone were paying you to do this?
People starting out often think they and their company are going to change the world. But usually, a company's management, marketing, competitors, and general economic environment have a lot more influence on success than the software (or hardware) developers. The last place I worked ran out of money about a month after I left. The previous sold my group to another company that already had the same product that I was working on.
Meanwhile, the GPL'd game project I started got over 10,000 downloads in the last three months.
Free Software has already brought huge productivity benefits to this (majority) sector of programmers. We don't have to reinvent the wheel.
In this respect we are like medical doctors, who all benefit from combined medical knowledge. Sure there might be a doctor here or there that makes money by withholding medical knowledge and charging for it (the shrinkware approach) but generally they make money by applying their diagnostic and curative expertise.
I notice that the smokers you hung out with seem to have a pretty high opinion of themselves. Perhaps it's justified. Perhaps, though, it's a function of being a big fish in a small pond. People who work in the Unix/Web/Database world become humble because we move from shop to shop and see gifted individuals of different stripes. Also I think we are more attuned to the Internet, which has enough smart people to provide some perspective on one's own accomplishments.
I make this guess because the Microsoft coders I've met (not MS employees, just users) seem to have this parochial and boastful attitude.
Funny enough I was just reading about the author and some of his columns: here's some links
columns
home page
comments posted at kur5shin.org
stories posted to kuro5hin.org. one i like is where he talked about NT's TCP/IP stack history and why it's not from BSD
He's no MS shrill he was the one a while back proposed that we use the XBox as a cheap web farm
anyway interesting stuff.
-Jon
this is my sig.
I know few of these kiddies that are woking on Linux kernel. 3 of them as a team won an ACM programming contest 3 years ago, beating guys from MIT, Berkeley and Stanford. One wrote a web search engine (commercially used now) as a one semester work. I am not sure about these real programmers, but I had also chance to see how it looks in commercial software development and I wish like hell to have some of these kiddies as my co-workers.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
But I guess I'll have to go read the book. :)
I did a summer internship as a Software Design Engineer in Test at MS a few years ago. I found it kinda weak. The interview process was really rigorous, they make you jump through all sorts of hoops, solve programming and logic problems etc. But the work itself I found held little of the excitement of the interviews. It didn't have the challenge I wanted, I felt overqualified for the work. I felt like they were trying to sucker me into to working there with all kinds of benefits, free bike, free sodas, subsidized car and apartment, gym membership, etc, but really the work was not fulfilling.
Structured data. Structured searching. The Enzyme Project
I'm curious to hear what this guy has to say about softimage. Softimage development was in Montreal, and Redmond didn't have that much involvement.
First of all, if everyone who contributed were paid cash (somehow), there would be a lot of people doing this just for the money. There would be less "itch-scratching" and more writing whatever would bring in the most cash. Probably lots more "marketing", too -- pushing to get your code included in whatever just because it means more cash for you.
Second, and more importantly, everyone who contributes does get compensated, just not (usually) in money. The compensation is in the form of: (a) having a huge and powerful system of software that you can use for Free, and that works well; (b) having people improve upon your code (and typically giving the improvements back to you, regardless of what license you used); and (c) the satisfaction that other people are finding your code as useful you did (or more!).
-Erf C.
-Erf C.
Cthulu always calls collect...
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
Ok, Mr. I won't read the article before posting, even if I don't have to follow a link. The quoted passage actually says that this doesn't happen at Microsoft. It says that nobody is cracking the whip to get the dirty jobs done. In a healthy team environment, people naturally balance what they're interested in, with what has to be done for the project to be successful. No coersion necessary.
This is great news for free software. Actually, it shouldn't be news, because we've already seen it. People have always said that "free software can't produce X, because it's no fun for programmers". And in fact it has always been true that you could find things that free software didn't produce--at a given moment. But time and again, we have seen that when the a need grows strong enough in the community, or when the right leader arrives, people become motivated to produce X, and it gets done. Consider beginner-friently graphical interfaces, business software, quality control. All are receiving increasing attention, and getting done.
Yes, the free software community is often slow to catch on to the importance of a new area. But this is not an inherent property of that area or of our community. It's not because it's dirty work that volunteers won't do. It just means that it's not important to us yet--but when it is, look out!
(Yes, I wish there were some way to made the free software community catch on to new ideas faster. But I'm not optimistic. In many ways we are a very conservative bunch--being highly technical, it's easy for us to meet out needs with fairly basic software, and complacency follows.)
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
Maybe we should call it liberated software, so people will understand what we mean. Free is more often used to mean without cost, rather than with liberty, and people assume the most common meaning.
Software that is given away, but not open source, we should refer to as zero-cost software.
Saying liberated software versus zero-cost software makes everything completely unambigous.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
slashdot strikes again...
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
yes, the book is still there. sorry for the false alert.
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"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Barr worked as a low-level developer at Microsoft and [...]
I'd rather not sound so suspicious without knowing more about the book, but if he worked for ten years as a low-level developer he must not be a very exceptional person. And if that's true, then that brings the whole reasoning behind this book into question. I mean, anyone who works for 10 years without getting a promotion can't have that much insight into their industry, can they?
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
for those that don't want to shell out for the book, you can read it here. That's certainly what I've been doing.
They're now owned by Avid.
3D Printing Tips and Tricks at Zheng3.com
How many of the 6 major figure heads mentioned at the top of this thread branch are starving and penniless? Linus created Linux NOT because of a "noble goal" but because he wanted to do things that he couldn't do previously.
There are noble goals in the world, but opensource is not one of them. There are far greater things in the world than the pathetic microscopic world of open vs. closed source.
I think it's a *great* motivator and really spurs creativity (not bad in anyway); but again that's completely different than a "noble goal".
I'd like to believe that if asked to name a noble goal, that it generally wouldn't be; "to distributed computer source code, so those who could afford to have a computer could use it in other ways".
Another good book around which focusses on Silicon Valley culture (although it's starting to look a little dated now, since it was written before the dot.com crash) is Po Bronson's The Nudist on the Late Shift.
Now that I think about it, it may no longer do such a good job of describing SV culture anymore, since most of the people in the book seemed to be rolling in millions of $$$ in a relatively short period of time. Ahh the good 'ol days.
in other words: it's copy protected.
sulli
RTFJ.
Until I read this, I had no idea that Microsoft was evil.
If we can't get the government to split them up, we must find a way to keep consumers from making computer/OS buying decisions that fit their needs.
There must be a way.
Apparently, these guys do not volunteer at homeless shelters, help someone with a flat tire, or drop their change into the little red buckets next to the person ringing the bell. Otherwise, they'd know the answer -
The compensation is in giving of themselves - the satisfaction of contributing to a greater good and asking for nothing in return.
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We want some answers and all that we get
Some kind of shit about a terrorist threat
- Ministry
I'm curious as to which level of detail he's talking about when he says that. I can believe that once devs are assigned to a project someone is always willing to take on a needed task but somebody still created the project and hired people to work on it. It's not like a bunch of developers all had to sit around and decide to write a home finance package or spreadsheet bond pricing functions, the way it needs to work with free software.
Plus, I bet qualified people don't just offer to do documentation and tech support, just like there's a severe shortage of voluntary documenters in Linux.
A major weakness of this material is that Barr only ever talks about "open source" (a development methodology) and never about "free software" (a much broader movement). One major reason for techs ranting at Microsoft is their unhappiness with loss of choice, freedom, and control - and this has been articulated as an ethical and political position by the Free Software Foundation and others. But Barr never considers this argument against Microsoft at all.
This is only a "major weakness" if you primarily think of software development in those terms. It sounds like this book focuses on the practical realities of development and I imagine most of its readers would do the same.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
-- .sig are belong to us!
All your
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Free != Gratis
"'Proudly Serving My Corporate Masters'... it's a cookbook! Nooooo!"
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"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
information is immaterial
If you're only into Linux for the "fame and fortune," I think you'll probably be let down. There are only a few "famous" programmers in the field of free software, and lots of famous names. We can't all be Richard Stallman or CmdrTaco.
However, the peer recognition of Linux isn't strictly glory -- it's dialectic. One meets with another on a topic, they strive for a solution. In the process, the need for human contact among two misunderstood specialists is releived. Isn't that why we post on slashdot?
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Well, the best modellers in the world don't necesarily design for Revell, and the best mechanics aren't necessarily down at your local BF Goodrich. Programming is a skill, to be sure, but you don't have to put your skills to work for you, or necesarily charge people when you use them. I'm sure we all have skills or know people who do that are of a professional level, perhaps even a superb level, but don't have that particular job. How many of us slashdotters are accountants with hardware and networking skills, doctors with oratorial dictation skills, and so forth?
I may program now, and program well, for money. But I don't always want to be a snooty wage slave working for the corporate world, turning coding tricks for people richer than me. Someday, I want to teach (academia being a relatively level field)...but when I do turn in my ASP in a Nutshell book and swipe card, I'm sure as sin not turning in my programming skills. I'll probably just move them into another arena: freelance, shareware, open source free software. "Top tier engineers" aren't necesarily what free software needs -- an engineer once told me that you only have 8 years of programming time in the industry until you're technically just a product manager, telling younger programmers what to PEEK and where to POKE. Linux succeeds because the people who do the boring work(printer drivers, TCP/IP interfaces, and so on) are the ones who need it done...the incentive to do the work isn't "i need to get paid," but rather "i need to print something. It's survival-response programming, patch-the-inner-tube programming, and it's why Linux is often very terse in its interfaces...but still very efficient.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
what would Linux be like today if it could attract top-tier engineers?
Yes, and what would the Earth be like if it circled a yellow star?
And what would the Pacific Ocean be like if it were really deep?
And what would man be like if he had a network of interconnected neurons at his disposal?
Oh wait, I'm sorry. I lost you on that last one, didn't I?
Nope, no sig
Microserfs by Douglas Coupland was a great book for the theme as well.
Liberty is an inherently offensive lifestyle. Living in a free society guarantees that each one of us will see our most
I worked for MS as in intern a few summers ago, and I hung out with some the real high-level programmers (the ones who get to make REAL decisions) during my smoke breaks. They had an interesting perspective on free software.
Their most convincing argument is that programming is a job. It's work, and it can be hard work at times. But if all software is free, then who pays the programmers? It's pretty clear by this time that selling support contracts don't work. If a company can't pay its programmers, then who would work for them.
They were continually amazed at the amount of work that is poured into free software, and they wondered what Linux or *BSD would be like if there were some system for everyone who contributes to be compensated. I can recall one of the engineers saying something like, "We [MS] wouldn't have a chance if people with REAL talent [professional programmers] were contributing to the free software movement. Thank god the only people who really contribute are kiddies."
Now, I don't think everyone who contributes to free software is a kiddie, but it does bring up an interesting point: what would Linux be like today if it could attract top-tier engineers?
For mor info on the whole thing, read Richard Stallman's definition of free software, or even better, look at the whole GNU philosophy.
43rd Law of Computing: