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Halloween Document Revisited
GroundBounce writes: "The front page of LWN has an interesting three-year-after analysis of the predictions in the Halloween document, which was "leaked" from Microsoft around Halloween of 1998. It's interesting to see how their predictions have/have not panned out."
Quoting from the Halloween doc : "The biggest roadblock for OSS projects is dealing with exponential growth of management costs as a project is scaled up in terms of rate of innovation and size. This implies a limit to the rate at which an OSS project can innovate." To this, LWN responds in a totally tangentially way that is more commonly used by politicians ducking the question.
Indeed, Microsoft has made a spot on judgment of the management problem in open source : things eventually happen in open source projects, but not at a pace that anyone can control. Indeed, the management techniques that can be applied to closed source projects can allow people to define deadlines - whereas no such deadlines can be imposed (if one is honest) in the open source world.
LWN has attempted to distract one from this fact by throwing in the red herring that closed source project management is not perfect and can have problems meeting deadlines. (1) The Halloween document is not addressing deadlines - just the rate at which a project can be planned to proceed at (2) While I have observed the slippage of deadlines first hand in closed source projects, mostly they arent very serious slippages. Maybe a few days here or there, but hardly the three month delay quoted by LWN ("2.5 will ...").
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
I can't remember where I read it (it might have been slashdot) but somebody recently was comparing Microsoft currently to IBM in it's last years of domination in the industry.
There are a lot of things in this article that support that theory too. Particularly Microsoft's concentration on proprietary protocols. Like the IBM of old Microsoft are trying to suck everything into their evil empire and proprietize (if that's a word) everything they can... including the internet.
Now, if I said to any Slashdot readers (and some preschool picture book readers) that I thought somebody could control the internet for their own benefit, and be truly successful at it you'd probably just point at me and laugh. And that would be quite fair I think. But not Microsoft. They're still trying to tame this internet thing.
You'd think after the success [sarcasm] of Push internet technology (remember active channels) and the microsoft network in it's original incarnation (now reduced to virtually an MS owned webring and AOL ripoff) and, speak of the devil; AOL's attempts to make the internet branded with AOL for anyone that uses it.
After all this has anyone ever come out on top of the internet? No. Of course there have been plenty of successes, but the internet still remains a global brand-name-independant network.
As the internet grows more it's that very size and reach that prevents it from becoming the MICROSOFT-InterNETWORK.
IMHO, this quest for making everything proprietary is just Microsoft going out of their way to piss people off. And much like the IBM keeping everything IBM attitude of past decades they risk screwing themselves royally because of it.
"How much truth can advertising buy?" - iNsuRge - AK47
IMO, Microsoft in itself is the type of thing that drives OSS projects.
I sure hope not! I would much rather use software that was written TO BE something, rather than software that was written NOT TO BE something.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
"Ease of use must be engineered from the ground up. Linux's hacker orientation will never provide the ease-of-use requirements of the average desktop user."
"The desktop projects _are_ being engineered from the ground up. It remains true that ease of use is not always at the top of many hackers' priorities, however."
Sorry folks, but this isn't really true at all. All those flashy new GUIs are doing is putting a prettier, more easily configured face onto X and have a whole bunch of standalone applications that look and feel the same. To engineer "from the ground up", they need a _complete package_ that handles _all aspects_ of using and managing the machine.
For example (with KDE on FreeBSD):
* Where do I partition disks ?
* Where do I mount and unmount things ?
* Where do I set the colour depth and resolution of my display (on the fly is even better) ?
* Where do I load and unload kernel modules ?
* Where do I start and stop runnig daemons ?
* Where do I share things ?
* Where do I reconfigure my network settings ?
* Where can I reconfigure my kernel, compile it, isntall it and reboot all by checking a few boxes and hitting a button ?
* Etc.
You can just put a bunch of pretty pictures in front of a few things and call it "user friendly". The whole thing has to look and feel integrated as a single package. That means I should be able to do pretty much anything a normal person would want to do without ever having to
a) leave the GUI and use a commandline
b) use software with a different GUI (like gtk apps under KDE), or
c) install the software myself.
*That* is what they mean by "engineer from the ground up". Everything has to be doable with "user friendly" tools, not just a few things and not just things to do with the GUI itself.
Projects like KDE and GNOME, for all the good work they've done, still really haven't looked past creating Yet Another Window Manager. They still haven't really delved into the guts of the underlying operating system to try and make them easier to use.
I certainly hope these projects are working towards this sort of "complete product" integration. Until they do, you'll _never_ get the "ease of use" of Windows, MacOS, OS/2 etc because at the end of the day the OS still looks like a patchwork quilt.
CS
Personally, I think that there has been a fundamental change in the marketplace during the last three years that Microsoft didn't anticipate. Three years ago, they were trying to figure out the best way to protect their interests from the likes of Linux and the rest of OSS. However, while they were concentrating on the external enemy, they missed the internal one. With Windows and Office 2K, Microsoft developed a product that is good enough for most people. That, combined with the subsequent major falloff in PC sales that accompanied the tech bust, meant that people had no reason to buy their software in the huge numbers they had previously been buying them in, and they certainly didn't see much need for further updates. Why pay for more software when what you have works. I would argue that OSS software is superior in most ways to CSS, but the simple fact is that most of Microsofts recent sales falloffs have not been attributable to OSS. Rather, we are seeing a general falloff in sales, mostly due to the fact that people don't need to buy more MS software. Thus, we have seen many of the recent (scared sh*tless) tactics that MS has been using. I'm sure Linux is still on Microsofts radar, but their real worry right now is how to get people to pay for something they really don't want or need, because their current business model is unsustainable long term. Therefore, they are making stupid moves that just serve to make people mad (licensing, Passport, copy protection). This is both good and bad news for Linux. It's good news because Linux has an opportunity to move in and usurp the reigning king. On the other hand, it could be very dangerous for OSS in general. There are few things deadlier than a cornered animal, and right now Microsoft has been backed into a pretty tight corner.
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
Although many people think of Linux as a replacement for Windows, the truth is that Amazon used Linux instead of other Unixes.
Oh well, it's still good news.
...ONLY important remedy in the M$-DOJ case is to force open protocols and open data exchange formats. Everything else is just a bonus or bogus
This is the remedy for all companies in the IT industry - not just Microsoft. This would protect consumers, since they would have a choice of tools to use in order to get at thier data. That's really what's at stake here - having some one or some thing get between the user and thier data. Some extract money, some extract code, some extract pain.
With known open standards being enforced by the industry on the industry, we get a level playing field. Then, the company/project/whatever who interacts with the user best and meets thier needs gets the prize, not the one who duped the user into a proprietary format.
(note: The Government may have to enforce this at first since getting the industry to agree on a standard is a daunting task, at best. Having Gates, McNealy and Elliston all in one room at one time may provide enough ego to reach critical mass and create a thermo-nuclear type explosion)
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
I agree with you. I bear no animus toward MS per se, though they've employed some some crummy marketing tactics at times. I don't like their licensing overmuch (in fact, I think it's horrible), nor some of (what I consider to be) their anti-user attitude (everything possible to get rid of MP3s), high prices, ever-shifting file formats, etc, but there's either nothing or little that *I* (speaking for myself, no one else) believe ought to be criminally liable or lead to government interference. However, I feel that way about most things, not just MS ;) I wish well for my friends who work or have worked there, and think MS has some very good aspects.
...") I like to argue for Free SW as being similar to blueprints -- would you want to hire an architect who refused to let you have a copy of the blueprints and other technical documents? If MS didn't exist, the argument remains.
... at a certain level, sure, one system's gain means other systems' loss. But naturally, not that simple -- the market for OSes isn't static, and won't ever be static. I prefer Free software philosophically (and because it's often outstanding, philosophy notwithstanding), but I'd rather people use multiple operating systems anyhow, even if some of them are proprietary. People learn that way, projects are cross pollinated with different ideas. (Also, this enourages universal file formats, my personal small utopian wish.) As you hint, the person computer relationship is complicated, not simple at all, and you can't just start subtracting "them" from "us" to get any meaningful numbers. Them is Us, and sometimes vice versa.
/. readers (80? 75? 85?) are reading with IE on a Windows machine, or [IE,Netscape] on a Mac running Mac OS. Sure, I hope they're at least somewhat intrigued by Free / free SW, but it's just not the case that most readers are MS free. A lot of people feel trapped, and say they "can't" get rid of it, even if they (otherwise) want to, because they have a certain game / piece of hardware / etc. that they want to continue to use. Hard to argue against, but then again, humans are always balancing wishes. If you don't want to use MS, it's still possible to live a relatively productive life, sleep at night etc.
:) That would perhaps make the box worth buying, take advantage of the MS name, etc.
My arguments for non-MS software aren't dependent on Microsoft (if it wasn't them being Microsoft, someone else would be the largest closed-source vvendor, of course), but it does serve as a convenient example sometimes. ("You'd rather have a proprietary WP format from a crash-worthy, bloated program? OK, give me $400
You wrote: "Now for the authors here, I can almost see a reason to want MS to lose market share. Their readership is made almost entirely of linux users and they are operating under the assumption that for there to be more linux users, there will have to be less MS users as if the number of potential computer users were a finite quantity of persons and organizations that will use MS *or* linux."
Well, there are a couple of statements in there
Speaking of which: I dunno current numbers, but I bet way more than 50% of
I'm writing from an iBook which is destined to hold Mandrake 8.1 (when it's ready for PPC) but in the meantime has an OS as proprietary as Windows, depending on who's counting*). Compared to my linux desktops, there are good and bad things -- one of the bad is that I can't just loan the OS to friends so they can, say, use the GIMP, which most people want to do after even a quick demo.
My personal hope, too, is that MS becomes the world's largest Free Software vendor. I can't say there's "no reason" they couldn't be that in 18 months from now (though I have said that on occasion), but it certainly would be posssible. Imagine MS-branded cross-platform free software, with certificates for limited MS support instead of an insane license agreement
Anyhow, just a small rant re: what the authors think (rather, what one of the thinks), and the conflict or imagagined conflict among various OSes and devpt systems. In sum, I like Free but respect closed source software as one way to organize things which is perfectly within the rights of the developers to choose. OTOH, speaking as a taxpayer, for anything the government buys, I think Open sure makes a better investment in the commonweal, encourages pursuit of happiness better, etc, discourages horrible code on teh taxpayer dime, etc.
Cheers,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
One could argue that future features in open source code could be more credible, not less. Features in Microsoft code are hidden from public view until they spring, fully developed, from the head of Bill. Until a product is released, nobody really knows how development is progressing
It should be pointed out that this (MS springing fully developed features on an unsuspecting public) is most likely more due to Microsoft's monopoly (and their own way of doing things) than due to any natural side effect of commercial, proprietary software development in general. Microsoft's monopoly means that they *don't have to give a damn* what customers *really* want, instead, they are free to put into their software whatever is in *their* best interests (a good example is the recent "smart links" fiasco). These features are not there because they are best for customers but because they are best for Microsoft, but the only reason Microsoft can get away with doing this is (1) the public usually doesn't *know* any better, and (2) the public has no alternatives. In a truly competitive environment, software features would probably align more closely to what customers want. Right now the public will simply swallow whatever is dished up onto their plates.
It occurs to me that talking about projects killing each other is assuming the Microsoft paradigm - that there can only be one dominant force in any market. Also, many comments on the KDE/GNOME (or Linux/BSD, or which Linux distribution will "win" or "die next") situation assume that there can only be one "winner."
However, who is to say what is the "natural state" of the OS/software market? Is it a winner-take-all market, as Microsoft would (a) like to be the winner of, and (b) like us to believe is the natural way, or is there room for multiple vendors? When there are open protocols, there is no technical reason limiting the number of clients that use a given protocol. There is also no compelling market force.
Take for comparison word processors vs. web browsers. For word processors, Microsoft Word takes advantage of "network effects" with its closed-format document format. That is, the more people that use that format, the more valuable it becomes. Similarly, a new word processor purchaser deciding between closed formats will surely choose the one with the bigger installed base, or at least the one that most of their clients use - which, at this point, are probably the same. The network effect is why Microsoft wants us to think that the OS/software market is a winner-take all situation - this leads to the decision to buy the latest version of Word, simply because you're afraid to get left behind by everyone else upgrading their version.
On the other hand, web browsers are dealing with an open protocol. Anyone can write a browser - and several parties have - that can render some form of HTML and communicate to http servers. On an open platform such as Linux, there are several to chose from and there's no reason to worry that you've chosen the wrong one. That is, as long as the protocol stays the same, you could just as well write your own browser as pick one of the existing ones.
On Windows, there's strong disincentive against any browser but IE, since it is preinstalled, and you can't really avoid that. However, if you're willing to go through the effort, you can get another browser installed.
Open protocols are why KDE vs. GNOME, Linux vs. BSD, or which Linux distribution to choose is not a big deal - just about any application you could want for either system either runs on the other, or a clone does. Then it's just a question of personal preference, but there's no danger of obsolescence.
When it comes to distributions, there's the danger that your distribution vendor will go under, but then again, so what? Once you've got your kernel, utilities and applications installed, it's pretty simple to keep them up to date.
Microsoft is trying so hard to kill other browsers by making its web server work best with its client. Fortunately they are limited in how much they can extend the protocols by their server customers since a company setting up a web presence doesn't want to shut out any potential customers.
That's all I can think of for now, and sorry I can't summarize or introduce it better, but it's late. I hope there was some nugget of insight for someone out there.
I don't have a link handy, but a while ago I read a very interesting essay where the author made the observation that the government doesn't have to legislate or force standards in order to affect a change. The government is such a large purchaser of computers and software that they could simply use their huge purchasing power to influence the market in the direction of open standards if they wanted to. If the government refused to buy into proprietary standards, many companies would support open standards rather than loose a customer that size.
Oh Jeez! much as I like open standards I really don't want the government enforcing them. That strikes me as a sure way to end up with bad standards and/or to put the corporations in the drivers seat (probably the same thing). Don't believe me? Look at the FDA...
Jack
- -
Are you an SF Fan? Are you a Tru-Fan?
At the risk of sounding pedantic, I suggest that people working on new distributions or new enhancement to Gnome/KDE-like desktop environments look at what Apple has done with the user interface of Mac OS X.
/etc are modifiable through a really nice GUI system (Netinfo Manager).
On top of what is basically BSD, they have created a wonderful system. What looks and feels like a regular old Mac cranked up to 11, with semitransparent windows and buttons, trilinearly-interpolated stuff flying all around, antialiased fonts and lines everywhere, OpenGL and PDF widgets, has all of the UNIX-like underpinnings. I can open up a terminal window, run my zsh, fire up ssh, launch emacs, and compile stuff with gcc. X11 runs seamlessly with the rest of the windows using OroborOSX, and that's just for the geeks. The people like my wife still have GUIs for all of the "other stuff" that people want to deal with: preference settings, launching commonly-used apps, network diagnostics, heck, even the files in
So check it out for inspiration!