Why The U.S. Surrendered To Microsoft

hoggardb writes: "The Nation has an excellent column by Eben Moglen, general counsel of the FSF, on why the U.S. has surrendered to Microsoft: because the big campaign contributors like Hollywood and PC manufacturers now want Microsoft to stay a monopoly." Not everyone will agree about the PC makers, but the Hollywood argument is harder to sidestep. The free-marketeer in me especially likes the last paragraph -- Moglen didn't get to be general counsel of the FSF for nothing.

Comments

Microsoft is not stupid.

[Neck_of_the_Woods]

If anything Microsoft is not stupid. They are never going to make a piece of software that is a "all in one fix". Then they would only sell one thing. They are never going to make something that they can't improve, that would be killing there money stream. As long as there is something to fix, add, or tweak they have a reason to create a "new" os.

Lets make something crystal clear when you put Microsoft vs Open Sorce. They have different goals. Microsoft is to claim the market share and reap the rewards of profit. Open Source is to share, improve, and make better to finish something. Microsoft will never "finish", and I hate to put it to you they make things easy, and in this world that is enough. When the open source movement sees that it is not the features but "ease of use" is when the tides will start to turn. The world does not care about if it can control the software, the OS, or the kernal. They care about sending and e-mail, making a spread sheet, and buying a DVD online without having to learn perl, or reading a book.

Make it easy, and hide the hard stuff. That is how you win, and Microsoft knows it. We as open source, praise the hard stuff. We love it, we bask in it as if it was holly water, and it is our downfall.

Re:Why M$ won't desapear any time soon ...

[TeknoHog]

..the companies , on the other hand, can - and do- tell the "people" what they want, ans that is what MS has always done, in Linux is the otherway around: people think of what they want.
...
... And the minority, who is against the conventions of 'mainstream' will keep on using Linux.

The really sad thing is, that only the minority are thinking. In a democracy, the majority decides, and that's how you get a country where thinking is outlawed.

Re:Because Nader took votes from Gore...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think Gore is "Bush, but to the left"...

No, Gore is "Bush, but towards the middle". Which made him hard to distinquish from Bush, who was "Gore, but towards the middle". Get the idea?

He is also not just the mirror-image of Clinton.

How about a fun-house mirror?

He was constantly in Clinton's shadow during his two terms, but would've been a very different president had he been elected.

Yes, very "true". A president Gore would have been a Clinton, without the sex appeal, without the personality, without the charisma, and without the ability to lie and get away with it.

He's also much more technologically-competant than Clinton, and especially Bush.

Prove it. Bush at least mastered the technology of flying a jet fighter. What has Gore or Clinton ever accomplished, out in the real world (as opposed to government service, law, "journalism", and politics). Gore is not technicly savy: he knows how to read the right books and use catch phrases and fancy jargon. He's not even a technocrat: he's a mere policy wonk.

Although McCain might've won the republican primaries, and made everything completely different. He had lots of ideas about campaign finance reform that I would've liked to see put into action (and I think they might still be...).

Ah, yes, campaign finance "reform", aka, voiding the Bill of Rights in order to bring us The Incumbent Protection Act and the The News Media Protection Act. No little people need apply. Freedom of speach and press are only for those whom the corporate media chose to cover.

the RIAA has said as much

[mj6798]

The RIAA has said as much. I'm paraphrasing from memory from one of their press releases: "We will be working with operating system providers like Microsoft to ensure that their systems contain binary-only systems that are difficult to reverse engineer for protecting our rights". The RIAA (and probably the MPAA) have swallowed fully the idea of security through obscurity and binary-only distribution. The DMCA provides further protection to them, allowing them to go after people even if someone reverse engineers the information. Obviously, there is no room in that world for open source operating systems or open source multimedia formats; in fact, such open efforts may well end up being considered "circumvention devices" in this new world.

I wouldn't mind that much if Hollywood tried to lock up its junk tightly, but the problem is that in such a world of DRM and controlled platforms, independent content producers end up having to go to the software publishers for the privilege of publishing. That's not because the software publishers provide any useful service, or because the software publishers have any particularly great technology, but because they hold the keys that independent publishers need to get access to the multimedia clients and document readers. This gives Microsoft and places like that an unacceptable level of control.

PS: I would try to dig up this information on the RIAA site, but when I try to connect to it, I get the message "ODBC Error Code = 08004 (Data source rejected establishment of connection) [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Unable to connect."

No mention of Macs and lots of slashdot baiting

[gad_zuki!]

I like the Nation but even they get it wrong:

There are now two kinds of computers in the world: Windows computers... and free software computers

Macs anyone? Are Apple's numbers so insignificant next to Linux that they don't deserve a mention?

Best software in the world free? That's more arguable opinion than fact. Both sides have their winners and losers.