Slashdot Mirror
More Mayhem From MSFT's Mundie
Cally writes "Further embarrasingly lame FUD from Craig Mundie of Microsoft. This time, he claims the GPL is at odds with 'commercialization' of software, without which the government gets a smaller tax take. Looks like he's really talking to legislators there ... He also knocks the Sun-led Liberty Alliance Passport SSO service as 'this notion that the world should be offered an alternative.' An alternative?"
you use the GPL, you support free software, and thats another commercial product you didn't buy from a compny who's taxes would go to the government and that means less money to fight the axis of evil. dont you see? you're letting the terrorists win!
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
I think it's a good thing that some guys back in the 1700s decided the world needed an alternative.
I can't believe that this guy keeps creating these preposterous statements. In the academic community he'd be shot down and discredited so fast that his head would spin. Why can't the rest of the population see him the same way?
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
I'm not sure if I'm right on this or not, but Mundie reminds me of the classic "misdirection" ploy.
Woot w00t w007.
If GPL is as bad as Microsoft says it is, why do they keep drawing attention to it?
I mean, come on, when you continue to talk about something, the idea survives, where as if you ignore it, most of the time, it will just go away.
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
>" [it seems silly that the world] [sic] ... should be offered an alternative"
What kind of twisted capitalism is Mundie cheerleading here?!
"Old man yells at systemd"
Cygnus.
-siri
*this text here to defeat the mean old lameness filter*
*please disregard this text*
Red Hat.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Redhat.
uum.. RedHat? They distribute a Linux distro that contains mostly GPL'd code, and they turned a profit last quarter, IIRC.
Slow Down Cowboy!
...and to make sure you slow down, we'll make sure the back button also eats your comment.
Anyway, Red Hat. $19B market cap, and a couple of recent profitable quarters as well.
In 2001, MS payed *no* income tax because they were able to deduct the value of employee stock options and 401k plans.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
At the moment he may actually have a point. I can't think of any open source companies making billions of dollars, and I can't really foresee it in the near future.
However, this is likely to change as open source alternatives become real, viable alternatives, and develop solid reputations. At that point, the tables may turn, and company representatives will say "software companies that don't allow user modification of their software and who require far more R&D can't possibly survive."
While Microsoft is currently the dominant paradigm, there is no reason to suspect that they will remain that way forever. As in all cases in the capitalist model, their success has been determined by equal parts skill and luck, and they will eventually sink into the background again.
Remember, though most Slashdotters use GPL software for "freedom" reasons, there are legitimate business reasons to use free software that will only continue to grow as the software base matures.
visit the hwky website for a lyrical genius infusion.
Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative," Mundie said.
Someone should get this into evidence in the antitrust hearings, showing that MS doesn't believe in allowing any competition.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
But the majority of that is support, and boxed versions. That's different. I said on the software itself. I mean yea free software, but to quote Douglas Adams, "It doesn't exactly buy lunch"
TODO: Something witty here...
I agree. GPL = no money You could argue that companies that allow free source code to be compiled take advantage of not having to pay to develop software, but that's a real stretch.
-------------------------------------------
Saving baby carrots around the globe.
Mandrake
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
I am an IT manager at a technical services company. I just had a call this morning from Microsoft-Great Plains (the 4th one in a week) wanting to come in and demo their product. I told them no, we don't use Microsoft software. The salesman laughed as if he didn't believe me and made a remark to the effect that our company would soon be out of business due to the software we run (or do not).
Alternative software save our company money, time (money) and offers us tremendous flexibility with our workflow. Why do I want to pay Microsoft $2,000 a seat for licensing when I can get the equivalent performance for approx $400 a seat?
Rhetorical question, I know.....
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
Why doesn't Sun and the unix community, say that C# is bad, and it's MS trying to make comercilism where none is needed.
"The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows." -Aristotle Onassis
Question is, why is it he makes these stupid remarks to an Australian audience? Wait, the Australian government is a little crazy on the subject of technology to begin with.
I guess, he tries it there, to see how it goes, then if he isn't shot down too badly, he can try it in the USA.
Must be part of the "a little fascism is good for the soul" crowd
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
But the majority of that is support, and boxed versions. That's different. I said on the software itself. I mean yea free software, but to quote Douglas Adams, "It doesn't exactly buy lunch"
Really? Can you only buy food with money that comes directly from selling the software itself?
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
Buy M$ so that everybody can pay more tax.
Just the thing people want to hear during March/April isn't it?
Let's face it, so long as Mundie's got a job with ZDNet he's going to keep putting out this crap. All of our complaining about him or sending him emails or whatnot won't count for anything.
What we need is a concerted effort to get ZDNet to deal with him. This means making incessant (but reasonable) complaints to ZDNet's editorial and PR department. It also means going to advertisers and asking them why they choose to sponsor his sort of crap. It even means going to the competitors of ZDNet and thanking them for not pushing the sort of crap that Mundie and ZDNet does -- that sort of positive reinforcement might lead to them using their editorial heft to present counter-arguments, which can't be dismissed so easily.
Mundie's the worst sort of columnist. He'll present dumb opinions and then trash the responses that quite rightly correct him. The backlash he might face over the GPL he'll dismiss as Linux zealoutry. So forget about him. Start going to his boss.
The article is pretty short, and I can't help but wondering if any of his statements were taken at all out of context. For example, the "should be offered an alternative" statement seems pretty silly for MS to take - after all the monopoly allegation problems, why complain that there is a movement to have a Passport alternative? One would think that the presence of other central authentication database standards would allow them to continue to tout the "we are not dominating" stance.
It's especially disengenuous for MS to complain as Passport is/will be included with every MS OS, whereas the Liberty Alliance one will have a hard time making it in the Windows world.
GPL knock is classic MS though - "free software cannot make money" is their normal approach and is almost hardly newsworthy.
Please subscribe to see the more insightful version of th
"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative," Mundie said.
Ohmygod! Choice! We can't have that now, can we? If users have a choice, we couldn't engage in anti-compet- ^H^H^H^H^H...
I mean standards! That's the ticket... standards... yeah...
This guy seems to think the world revolves around Microsoft. Suffice it to say, the government suffers more when a dropout president cuts its revenue stream than when an American corporation pays a little less in taxes because it can't compete (fairly) in an open market.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Through accounting loopholes MSFT only pays 0$ in taxes anyway. What do they care if .gov gets less $$?
Slashdot is an anagram for Has Dolts, and I am Dolt number 468543
Actually, I bet many have (outside of the usual Redhat/Cygnus/etc group). See by USING (not selling), they save money, which in economic terms, is pretty much the same as making money (since it reduces costs, the net income is greater). If company A switches to all GPL open source software, while still developing their own code in a proprietary manner, they can save bundles of cash, which means they net more.
"Of all days, the day on which one has not laughed is the most surely the one wasted." -Sebastian Roch Nicol
Money makes the world go 'round. That is all that he is saying. Is he wrong? Prove it.
For one, he even calls the GPL the "general public license," which isn't too far off, I guess... then he goes on about not working with Microsoft to use what work has already been done... Hello? Aren't they the ones rewriting everything?
In any case, since this is aimed at legislators, they'll probably take it hook, line and sinker. The gall of Microsoft in saying things like the comment on alternatives is really getting to me. This guy needs to get a life.
Then again, if he's paid to say this stuff, I guess this is his life...
- Free tabletop fantasy gaming! Grey Lotus
After all, they just take tax money away from the government.
Perhaps he was just encouraging sales of the MS Natural Keyboard line?
Please subscribe to see the more insightful version of th
Does he really want to go there? Isn't msft one of the companies that has paid zero federal tax?
Just add water! I can't think of what else might have happened, since Microsoft is dictating what is and isn't 'American', what our government must use on computers.. That the idea that people have freedom of choice (Capitalism is somewhat about that, eh?).. is a silly 'notion'.
Howsabout y'all round up th'good ol' boys, and we drive down t'Redmond and have our own lil revolution?
C'mon, we're assured victory. We've more prophets (RMS, ESR, etc.), but more importantly, we've the sense to ignore them for the most part! And what with the arms of sable, a penguin rampant, the morale of our armies will be unmatched.
Plus, I think Linus would look good in a stillsuit, or some other cool geek-military-wear.
*cough* Long live the developers!
(This post brought to you by me waking up, seeing another, "What the fsck?! Don't people KNOW that they have to use Microsoft(tm) products!! EXECUTE THEM! OFF WITH THEIR HEADS!" article from, where else? Microsoft.. And, well, the rest..)
But we already have paper.
It's quite disingenous for Mundie to state that government tax revenues would fall since Microsoft doesn't pay any taxes!. Since I personally do more to support the government tax coffers than all of Microsoft, he can just sit down and shut up.
I wonder if Craig Mundie personally pays any income tax? Or if he is able to find enough loopholes to skip out on his obligations just like his employer.
is not so much that Mundie is saying such self-serving things, FUD that everyone reading /. recognizes for what it is.
The Real News is that somehow he is able to say these things to legislators, while other opinions are not given the same kind of venue.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
What is with the desire to use Tablet-PCs? I cannot figure out who the target-market is for this. If we wanted to write on paper, or a surface with handwriting recognition, we'd write on a damn pad of paper like normal people. If I want notes in my computer, I type them. How many of you out there write faster than you type?
Confused...
"What we have done with PCs so far is not natural"
Couldn't agree with you more, Craig.
like sue Microsoft?;)
"If there is not commercialization there, a company can only exist based on ancillary manufacturing or services."
:P
Please raise your hand if you develop software for a living; that is, you support yourself and/or your family by developing software.
Now, keep your hand raised if you believe that your company could offer the same software that you helped to create as a free, open-source download and still keep you employed.
Folks, there is room for both free software and commercial software in this world, made obvious by the point that a lot of us (including myself) work on commercial software during the day and work on our own interesting free products on our off-hours.
Those who create free software often do so to fulfill a personal need. Those who create commercial software do so to fulfill not only that person's needs, but other people's. Not all software needs to be commercialized (Eric S. Raymond's point of view), and not all software needs to be free (Craig Mundie's point of view.)
They are both right to some degree. What you have to figure out is where you lie in this continuum. Do you want all software to be free (thereby putting yourself in the awkward position of having to find some other way to support yourself), or do you want more software to be commercial? Most of us are probably somewhere in the middle, and I don't think we need to hear anything more from Mundie or Raymond on this -- we just need to make up our own minds. We gain nothing from flaming the extremists.
Thank you, drive through.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
It's not really for free. People 'give away' 'free' software and in exchange expect to receive 'free' software. But there's no 'free' and 'giving away' really. It's a kind of barter economy. Just because a cash value in $$$ isn't noted down in an accountant's book it doesn't mean real value hasn't changed hands. And those $$$ can't be taxed. So people who exchange free software are tax evaders - pure and simple. That's a lot of money taken out of the economy. Imagine these principles were extended to other domains - like paying for gas or food. It would be much clearer that what's going on is tax evasion. It's much harder to see that this is also tax evasion - but it definitely is.
From the article:
"If there is not commercialization there, a company can only exist based on ancillary manufacturing or services. If commercialization was cut down, investors would not support research and development in the IT sector, less projects would be developed, less taxes paid and the government would have less money to run universities, and all the other things that governments do," said Mundie.
The less taxes part is laughable. What about the billions in licensing fees that would be saved if open source (especially something truly competitive with Microsoft Office) truly flourished? This would result in greater profits and thus more tax revenue. Mundie obviously didn't point that out.
I am not a GPL advocate. I like the GPL and also believe that open source and closed source commercial software can co-exist. Let the better solution for a given problem win. Mundie is however spreading some serious FUD.
Oh, and before everyone trots out Red Hat, Mandrake, et al, remember I said GPL software not support of GPL software.
TODO: Something witty here...
Mundie's new title at MS should be CET (Chief Executive Troll). This is classic old school trolling at its best. Geez, didn't you people read Usenet before 1993?
Toddlers are the stormtroopers of the Lord of Entropy.
GPLed code helps my company's bottom line, but we sell "ancillary services", in our case, mutual funds. If you only wanted to count software license vendors, shoulda said so in your question.
While I suppose we should listen to this Mungbean, it's only so we can clues as to where he is trying to get us NOT to look. He strikes me as a conscienceless corporate whore; after all, If you can't dazzle with brilliance, baffle with bullshit.
"..Apocalyptic" got that one straight. Apocalyptic for who? Therein lies your answer.
"Increasingly we'll use computers to write just like we write on paper." and I need $3000 equipment to do what a $4 worth of pen and pad will do? When Mr. Gates 'wrote' the 'Vision Ahead' or some such he must have been talking about the rearview mirror.
Of course there will be less money for the government. I mean, right now any and all businesses only have to pay the MS tax. And MS is so kind and generous to pay the tax and then pay the 'contribution' tax on behalf of every business. If these businesses had more money by not having to pay the MS tax they would surely NOT pay taxes on that additional 'income'. Talk about a big brother.
I guess the days of news organizations attempting to report both sides of a story are long gone. How can an organization, attempting to be reputable, basically "report" exactly what Microsoft is spewing? Come on "reporters", do some legwork and cover the other side of the story!!
It won't come to that, though, because I'll spend the money that I saved avoiding expensive software on something else. The government will get just as much money. I'll have the software I need and whatever other nice things I bought with my saved money.
The only party that doesn't win in this scenario is the world's richest man.
'"Increasingly we will be writing on our computers like we write on paper," he said.'
No way! Welcome to the 3500 BC!
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
OMG my handwriting sucks. No matter HOW good the computer is, it won't be able to decipher it! (unless it's some type of graphitti, but then I wouldn't be writing on it like it was paper)
I'm sure that I'm not the only one in this boat.
But they still have a log way to go before they "Make any money" THey'll need YEARS of hugely profitable margins to make back what they've lost so far. Not to mention the fact that had I contributed any software to such a cause that started making millions, i'd be a bit put out knowing that they were just another organisation that has directly ripped me off.
Course I'd have to realise that I was the one stupid enough to have GPLed my hard work in the first place...
From my seat it doesn't matter. My company buys software to run our business. The cheaper and more hassle free (licencing issues), the better.
One possible future would involve companies using and releasing software with the GPL that they use to do their business. Things central to the business couldn't be released that way (i.e. manufacutring systems) but other things could (office applications, accounting apps.). The software "middleman" would effectively be avoided for these businesses and they would have software more specifically directed to and addressing their needs.
Service organizations and consultants could sell into this market and not have the overhead cost of the software for their solutions, allowing them to have larger margins, and lower operating budgets.
Businesses don't need commercial software to run their business, it just happens to be the only thing available in some cases, but that is changing.
It's funny how a company that fiddles its income statements so it pays no taxes (read: "stock options") complains about other software standards reducing tax-based government income.
Not so blatantly illegal, but didn't someone run a story about how MS ends up not paying any taxes due to accounting holes regarding stock options and aquisition etc ? If I remember correctly, for the year of 2000, MS owed $3 billion in taxes, bean counters counted some stuff and ended up with the Govt owing MS some money.. I could be wrong.. but I think the gist of it was similar.
Redhat and Mandrake do sell GPL software along with support for that software. Who do you think Alan Cox works for?
...Microsoft having to write software themselves because the code they would otherwise steal is GPLed.
The GPL is too restrictive and not really free
source. For the original unperverted definition
of free source, see the widely popular 4.2BSD
release of true Unix(tm), not the wannabe Unix(tm)
clone derived from Minix, a fine toy operating
system.
Funny how there IS only one. And of course they have actually not made any money at all. They have lost a thousand times what they've made...
For foreign governments,
By Not paying MS for software, foreign companies do not get a tax deductible expense for license fees, so they pay more tax, or spend the money on other in country expenses that will result in tax revenue.
For US Government,
By Not paying MS for software, US companies do not get a tax deductible expense for license fees, so they pay more tax.
When they do pay MS for software, the Government gets less tax because MS never pays income tax (or hasnt in a long time).
Mundie is a conscienceless corporate whore.
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
"If commercialization was cut down, investors would not support research and development in the IT sector, less projects would be developed, less taxes paid and the government would have less money to run universities, and all the other things that governments do,"
The idea that open-source software would stop innovation and development is ridiculous.
Right now there is both commercial and open-source software. There are all sorts of liscenses. There is innovation on all fronts.
Different teams for both closed and open source projects are hard at work. I don't get how if more people start developing for open-source software that development would stop. Open source developers do not need investor support on the same level as commercial/closed source teams. People code open source because they want to.
And respect is a big commodity on the internet (as discussed here on slashdot), especially in open-source circles. If Red Hat, Mandrake, SuSE, or any other distro pay employees to code for Linux, they win a lot of respect from users of open-source. Even Sun has figured this out and pays people to work on open-source projects. In press announcements, these companies seem proud of open-source support; they don't seem like they are trying to hide it.
I think Mundie's comments might apply to the scope of Microsoft losing out, but not software development in general.
you probably shouldn't have read this.
I trust that there will be people in the US who will forward this wuote on to the local representative and urge them to continue to fight Microsofts monopoly, or to choose whether they want to join the other states in fighting them. I am in the UK, so I cannot do that.
embarrassing is spelling embarrassing incorrectly.
>It gets it from all the companies that have higher profits
>because they aren't paying the Microsoft tax.
Actually, you're making a lot of sense. If my company has $100, it could either keep it as profits, in which case the government gets (say) $30, or it could spend it on Microsoft stuff. Not all of the money that goes to microsoft is taxable, say only 30% (I recently estimated MS has a 29% margin). So the government gets only 30% x $30 = $9.
In other words, if you are in The Land Of Microsoft, where the government gets revenue ONLY from Microsoft corporation, and no other corporation exists, he's right. In the real world, it's the exact opposite of the truth.
So who's getting fooled by this hogwash?
Marketing-driven companies end up over-marketing their products. Engineering-driven companies end up over-engineering
Ok, is anyone else noticing that posts are showing up in the wrong topics? For example, I appreciate the Ludacris lyrics as much as the next guy, but I don't think it was intended to show up in the Microsoft Mundie topic--where I found it. Netscape 4.x seems to be crapping out on me more than usual, too. What gives?
Sorry, comparing political philosophy to software licenses isn't really fair or quantifiable. Microsoft can't do much other than get businesses more concerned with IP than community. Unfortunately they are really the only company making money from operating systems, but they want to convince that their model works for everyone. If the latter were to catch, companies would do less open development.
I remember how much time it took me to learn how to write.. and how much time it took me to learn to type. They were about equal. However, right now I can't write very well and I can type a lot faster.. so which one is more natural?
Now I'm no MS Basher. I'll take them to task when it needs to be done, but I'll also praise them when they deserve it. Still, with quotes like the following, it's getting harder and harder to find something to praise about them:
"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative," Mundie said.
Oh no!!!! An alternative! How horrible that consumers be offered a choice!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Your troll has been rejected from being included in the troll library because you are a fucking lame nigger. Please kill yourself. Thanks.
"If there is not commercialization there, a company can only exist based on ancillary manufacturing or services. If commercialization was cut down, investors would not support research and development in the IT sector, less projects would be developed, less taxes paid and the government would have less money to run universities, and all the other things that governments do," said Mundie. IMO its more like this: "If there is not commercialization there, our company will cease to exist.", because MS cant squash Linux otherwise. So far their only answer is their marketing bs which is slowly starting to become as transperent as a lightly tinted window for most joe bloggs.
"Increasingly we will be writing on our computers like we write on paper"
I don't know about the rest of you, but I rather like using a keyboard. Why? Because it's much faster than I could ever possibly write by hand. If you've noticed the trend, most small devices are tending towards finding better ways to integrate keyboards, rather than using handwriting based entry.
I do work with some tablet PC's, and the lack of a usable keyboard makes them, in my mind, completely worthless. It's got a virtual keyboard you can pull up but it's incredibly slow to type by clicking on the screen with a stylus. This device is ideal if all you do is click links, but if you do any sort of real interaction it's a pain.
Even if they absolutely perfected handwriting recognition such that even the average doctor could write on them flawlessly it still wouldn't be as good as a keyboard.
What we have done with PCs so far is not natural
Microsoft exec admits to unnatural act with computer. Police hold goatse guy for questioning.
--
E_NOSIG
Suddenly it all make sense... This article made me understand why Microsoft products are that expencive. Microsoft do not overprice their software to increase their own profit. They do it so the government get more money from taxes to run universities, and all the other things that governments do.
GNU and other OSS software has the cost of development already covered many times over; it's part of the high tuition many of you pay (which goes into systems research, etc.). And all those defense dollars that led to the Internet. When people and businesses pay for software, they're probably paying twice..once for when it was originally developed in academia, and again for no particular reason to get it from a commercial vendor. This is a waste of scarce resources (operating cash for a business) which has a real "opportunity cost" as economists call it. The consequence is a less efficient and less robust economy...and ultimately lower tax revenues for the central government.
The real question (which you're avoiding) is whether GPL'd software can be a successful component of a profit-oriented system, and the answer is hell yes. Not only for Red Hat, Mandrake, et al, but for a very large number of companies who use it, and countless programmers like me who use it (together with proprietary stuff) as part of the solutions we deliver.
Microsoft can't compete with free. They don't sell the hardware! So they have to do what they can to slam free software in the minds of the decision-makers at enterprise customers.
What better way than to slam it as 'socialistic'... No big enterprises in the USA like 'socialistic'..
"On a hilltop in Italy we assembled young people from all over the world To bring you this message from Coca-Cola Bottlers all over the world
It's the real thing - Coke."
AND THEY SANG:
I'd like to buy the world a home
And furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees
And snow white turtle doves
(CHORUS)
I'd like to teach the world to sing
Sing with me (background)
In perfect harmony
I'd like to buy the world a Coke
And keep it company
That's the real thing
(REPEAT CHORUS)
(CHORUS 2)
What the world wants today
Coca-Cola (background)
Is the real thing
(REPEAT CHORUS 2)
That wasn't a Promis, it was a threat.
People buy a service, not software.
The day when people saw software as a "product" are gone. Except for niche products, software is mostly a service. You pay for the convenience, you pay for the support, and so on.
Chances are that no matter what you are doing, your customers are not paying to own a license, they pay because the want you to meet a need.
People don't want to own a word processor, they want to "word process". People don't want to buy a media player, they want to listen to music. People don't want to buy a browser, they want to browser the web.
*Owning* software is out of fashion. It simply doesn't make sense. It is an obselete idea in a digital world.
so, let's get it clear that
The problem with general public license advocates is that they don't understand that people need the opportunity to commercialize software
isn't aimed at end users, nor slashdot weenies. it's aimed at those developers who are thinking "should i license my program under GPL or the BSD license". it's also aimed at politicians who are thinking "should i support linux in high schools". it's aimed at school teachers who are thinking "should i take the trouble to base my programming class on gcc or just use visual studio".
it's a much bigger game than you seem to think, and geeks are a lot smaller players than they seem to think.
Interested in learning Chinese or Japanese? check out Chinese/Japanese-English Dictiona
I think his analogy was the Revolutionary War, not the occupation of North America. As such, it was a good one.
Virg
How can they be any more anti-competitive than saying remaks like this:
"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative."
Of course there should be an alternative... that's what makes market economies work! As if people should just be happy that MS is there to do things for them... how dare they even think of having alternatives to MS technologies!
-nate
personally i would like my slashdot login to follow me around, so people at ebay can see my 50 karma and trust me.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
"and to make sure you slow down, we'll make sure the back button also eats your comment. "
Soon enough you will learn how to ctrl-a ctrl-c before hitting submit. Or other things for X.
graspee
Quite frankly, I love .NET, Win2K is the most stable workstation I've ever used (with OS X right on it's heals), and I really love the XBox. However, people like Craig Mundie need to leave MS, because they are overshadowing MS's innovations with these rediculous public statements. For those of us who actually appreciate a lot of what MS is done, he is making our job of convincing others quite difficult.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Did anyone catch this - Microsoft may play hardball by threatening to pull its OS's off the market
Microsoft Outlines Next Move In AntiTrust Case
No doubt that Microsoft is beginning to feel the heat coming from linux or more specifically open source.
Microsoft would like nothing better than to require all competing products to pay the high R&D expenses necessary to completely replace everything they can bundle up.
On that basis, Microsoft is free from any chance of competition.
And, that is the main reason why unbundling windows is so important. Developers should not have to abandon the windows platform just to avoid ongoing illegal activity from Microsoft. Developers (large and small) have a right to develop a media player or browser and compete openly and fairly in the market for sales.
Of course, Microsoft wants to force anyone with such intentions to also develop an entire operating system and browser (or media player) as well. And, of course, try to penetrate those two monopolies as well. And, do without Word too.
That is why Microsoft will try again to convince the court that IE can not be separated from their OS notwithstanding the appellate court already having decided commingling code was illegal.
NexuSys - Linux support by the best
Press Release: The Corporation today unveiled their newest product: CrayTablet! Using a sharpened stick, called a stylus, users will be able to etch writings into the CrayTablet and retreive them later using an encryption algorithm known as "R-E-A-D-I-N-G" (which The Corporation will sell at a once-per-use license of $2000). READING operates under the "shared source" license and is only known to a few select individuals inside The Corporation since learning the READING algorithm would violate the DMCA (may Gates bless it). The Corporation reps said "using the CrayTablet will enable users to experience a more natural interface". The CrayTablet is made of secret reddish brown material found on the ocean floor and in quarries.
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
My hand's still raised. I don't charge my clients for the right to use what I build. I charge them for my time spent building it, and for support and integration costs.
Selling software is a loser's game, as far as I'm concerned.
I do pretty well (especially in this climate) and every time I start a new project, I can bring that much more ROI to my customer, and save myself that much more hassle. If you want to create or support a monolithic software company, then yes - you do need commercial software, with all of it's dirty secrets.
If, on the other hand, you want to create software that solves the client's problems and charge them a reasonable price, the Free Software model is hard to beat.
Billion-dollar software houses are going to get a rude awakening when this model really catches on. Who's going to thrive? Independant consultants. About the only problems I have now are a) the cost of educating a new client about FS, and b) getting them over the "but I need to own it, so my investors see value in my Intellectual Property" philosophy. Both which can be overcome by a reasonably intelligent client. And the dumb ones? Who wants them anyway? There's another client around the corner.
This is a quote that really needs to be publicized heavily; even better would be video of it that could be run as often as Dukakis in a tank.
I see GPL'ed software as a great way for companies/individuals to access good software/code that may be outside their specific domain (i.e. not their business focus)
The most succcessful GPL'ed projects are mostly infrastructure/tools (OS, compilers, editors, servers, etc...). Many, many companies use these tools, but do not sell them. If they can acquire them for free, or at a low cost (i.e. cost of adding a required feature) then they have made themselves more competitive. Using/contributing to GPL'ed software is a way to reduce costs and enjoy the benefits of group contributions).
MSFT's stance is that infrastructure (OS, servers, compilers, etc..) shouldn't be free because it reduces companies' who build these products ability to compete.
MSFT tactics are the same as those employed by Dictators/Unions/Music Industry/other groups who are threatened by progress (social and/or technological).
I'm amazed MS let him give that speech in light of the pending antitrust lawsuit against them. Specifically, if his comments (as I am interpreting them from the snippets in the articles) are accurate, he's insinuating that everyone should buy commercial OSs and use passport. Does he not realize that there are already commercial Linux OSs? They're certainly not the traditional companies, but RedHat turned a profit (finally). The coming of age for commercialized Linux OSs and applications is finally here. Deal with it. And about passport... if his comments aren't blatantly screaming "MS RULES PASSPORT," then I don't know what does. We don't need an alternative? Ever heard of a monopoly? Oh, wait.. I guess you have...
taco
"Corrupting our youth one mind at a time"
How is this offtopic? I was directly responding to a post. If you have issues with my response then RESPOND.
I thought most big companies used tricks to get out of paying taxes anyway. Also, if somebody buys a system with software installed, they're still paying sales tax, regardless of whether it's free or commercial software.
Since when does the existence of the GPL and software licensed underneath it threaten anyone's attempts to commercialize software?
You merely cannot hijack someone else's software and commercialize it.
How many times did he have to slam his head off a brick wall to come up with THIS pointless rant?
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
1) Mundie says that the lack of those taxes means the government can't send that money into education. However, if said software was free then universities and the such wouldn't have to spend millions of dollars to keep software updated. Thus ends Mundie's Myth #1.
2) Mundie says companies won't be able to fund research because they won't be getting revenue from the software. However, that's the beauty of the whole GPL thang - people outside of a given company will help R&D for the entire open source community. Thus ends Mundie's Myth #2.
I seriously wonder how much though Mundie puts into the things he says, because they're coming across rather lamebrained from this angle...
Oh my god, CmdrTaco. This is total flamebait. Free software developers not providing any tax revenue?
Neither does Microsoft.
Really, they don't pay a dime!
--CmdrTaco, I'm going to block the ads but I will mail you a $5 bill each year. Is that okay?
But everyone knows MS doesn't pay taxes, with the current US tax system they can easily evade paying... lots of large companies don't. Of course there's some tax income from the salaries they pay to domestic employees (who in turn pay income tax).
+1 AND non anon... there goes three points. oh well.
Does this strike anyone besides me as rather silly? I am a slower-than-average typist for being computer-oriented, and I challenge anyone to write as quickly as I type. Microsoft's entire UI scheme seems to be headed for a terrible shock, as they learn that there is no such thing as a natural interface. Certainly some are easier and some are harder, but there is no natural one. Why we would want to relegate our interaction with computers to a model first implemented on clay tablets is beyond me.
FreeBSD - the power to serve.
I'm not sure how socialism enters this. Mundie states, in effect, that the world should have joined with Microsoft instead of developing independent alternatives, and that developing open source software is bad for the commercialization of software. "Marx Mrvelous" states that in academia this notion would have been torpedoed as ludicrous, and Mundie would (and should) lose his credibility for making such statements. Now, since both of Mundie's statements are not supported by any real world evidence, and since everything Mundie says has been more or less a Microsoft advertisement even when it's been proven inaccurate, I agree that he'd be laughed out of academia. Socialism has less to do with it than his simply being wrong.
Virg
So if a corporation uses free software to reduce cost and increase profit just how does this reduce the government's tax take???
And, having already accused open-source as being anti-capitalist he attacks choice - the cornerstone of competition.
Oh. Sorry. M$ doesn't want any competition. I forgot.
Why stop with the GPL? Do you realize that the soup kitchen down the street is giving away soup? I bet the homeless aren't paying sales tax on it. The volunteers behind the counter are probably a bunch of scurvy tax pirates just donating their time. They won't be paying income tax on their labor. Scum. All of them are scum.
The government also benefits from the GPL. They may not get taxes from the revenues, but they don't have to pay huge fees to MS or others to use the software. They also get the stuff FREE too. I bet they get a better deal-- especially given how corporations use the tax law to avoid paying taxes.
Enron paid hardly any taxes over the last five years. It skipped taxes all together in several of those years. I wonder how much MS pays in taxes a year? They've got better lawyers and better lobbyists than Enron. I wonder how many copies of Windows it would take to recover the lost revenues? Mundie may be a fool to open up the question of taxes given the rampant loopholes available to big corporations.
No, the government dosen't get that money because the companies hide the money they save in shady offshore partnerships. On the other hand we all know that Microsoft is a trustworthy and upstanding corporate citizen who pays all the taxes they are supposed to. Kudos to Mundie for his valid point.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
In a recent speech at the World Technology Foods conference (WTF) Mr. Crave Munchie (a senior vice president at Megolithic Supermarkets) had this to say:
"By providing food free to anyone who asks, the so called 'Good Samaritans' are destroying the food market. The biggest danger is that posed by the Give People Lunch program. The GPL is just the worst. Under the terms of the GPL, people are asked to help other's in need. Where does it end? Imagine if the spirit of cooperation spread everywhere? How would you like to live in a society where all your basic needs where given away for free? How could anybody make money?
First restaurants would go out of business, then fast food chains and finally supermarkets. Most of these businesses are owned by politically correct minorities. Pushing them out of business is UN-American. What's wrong with these people, do they think food grows on trees? If the food service industry went out of business, healthy nutritious food like Twinkies Ho-Ho's and Ding Dongs would be gone."
Not exactly... the bounce message is generated by YOUR SMTP server, not Hotmail's. if you telnet to mx04.hotmail.com on port 25 and use SMTP commands to fake sending a message, all you get is:
;).
550 Requested action not taken:
mailbox unavailable
I only have linux boxes, but I bet if you used an exchange SMTP server, you'd get a different bounce message back. Note who the bounce message was sent from... it was NOT from mailer-daemon@hotmail.com in my test - after using telnet I tested using pine
My server
When I buy stuff, I pay sales tax. The merchant who sold me the stuff has to pay income tax on the profit on the sale.
Just because somebody downstream in the revenue stream pays tax does not mean that the guys upstream don't have to.
This is the old, false and ethically bankrupt argument used by the wealthy all over to avoid paying taxes, at the same time making sure that the "common herd" does. (After all, we have to make sure that we have tanks and cops to protect our SUVs and enforce the DMCA, don't we?)
Magnus.
Still my favorite Mundi'ism from this speech:
"What we have done with PCs so far is not natural."
It makes you pause and think about what he does with the ol' keyboard and mouse in the privacy of his own office.
I also find the complaint about a group offering an alternative being a bad thing. Oh well, I guess that's why he gets paid the big bucks.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Sounds like Sun's excercising their freedom to innovate. How truely unamerican!
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
As a developer, I want to get paid for code I write, especially in the case of a proprietary application. For example, say you write an application that.. oh I dunno.. figures out car payments based on a number of different variables. You should be able to close that source code and sell your application to people, since you put in the effort to write it. I don't think any developers in slashdot will disagree, we all have families to feed.
However, there has to be a difference between the Operating System and Applications for that OS. Making the OS GPL'd makes sense - it evens the playing field for all developers, and forces there to be competition among applications. Let the best apps win. Competition, of course, leads to better products for consumers. Unfortunately, Mundie's NOT talking about applications, he's talking about Windows, an Operating System. And the scary thing to remember is that Microsoft takes applications, and ties them to the OS and claims that the application is part of the OS. (Internet Explorer being a famous example). If Windows "loses" to Linux, as I think it inevitably will, then Microsoft's applications such as Office, etc, have to compete with products such as KOffice and StarOffice and MS's market share will go down.
"If there is not commercialization there, a company can only exist based on ancillary manufacturing or services. If commercialization was cut down, investors would not support research and development in the IT sector, less projects would be developed, less taxes paid and the government would have less money to run universities, and all the other things that governments do,"
Not really. Instead of writing Windows Apps a lot of companies would just write Linux Apps. If no one ran Windows, would it stop Blizzard from writing, say, Starcraft 2 for Linux? No, of course not. The only thing this effects is companies that develop Operating Systems, and more specifically, Microsoft. Keep in mind Microsoft tries to blur the distinction between OS and Application. If you can't sell an OS, you have to sell support. Application Development is a whole different world. You're not selling a system, you are selling a tool for a system, whether it's a browser, text editor, IDE, or a game.
"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative"
Yeah that's capitalism, Mundie. Competition always breeds the best products for consumers. Or would you like it if everyone still drove a Ford Model T because there was no competition? Of course, we already know you want everyone to only run Windows and Microsoft Applications on windows. Or perhaps, Mundie isn't so sure about the superiority of his product?
True. However, we don't have paper that can automagically transfer your input to a database to perform specific actions now do we? Although I did find the logic of your comment funny.
RHAT broke even one quarter. As a previous poster said, it would take years of massively profitable quarters to recoup their losses. Not bloody likely.
Also, for MS products like Netscape, Lotus-1-2-3 were just tools to 'utilize' their 'product'. They figured in their infinite wisdom that by not licensing the tools, they could sell their product for a better margin. Well, we learn from the best. In order to sell our product for a better margin, we need to lower our licensing. MS - out you go. Did I say we don't sell software for a living?
This dork is making it sound like Linux and the rest of Open Source don't stand a chance because they are not commercial (e.g., closed source) and therefore cannot mature and develop.
But wait!!
How is it that Linux and the rest of Open Source have gained so much ground in so little time? Mundie claims it can't happen, but the truth is that it already has. Open Source development has outpaced closed source, not in theory, but in fact. Mundie can make all the claims and suppositions he wants to, the truth of what is actually happening is showing a different story.
On the other hand, I say that Open Source needs Microsoft. The new XP licensing scheme has generated more business than I can handle; meaning I am going to have to hire someone to keep up. And I need Microsoft for comparison and contrast, but mostly for comic relief; every time someone like Mundie makes an ominous announcement or poorly thought out invective declaration against Open Source, my customers get a jolly laugh (laughing relieves stress, you know) because they have all been dragged down the NT road of promises before switching to Open Source and they know the truth from experience.
"Look at the funny clown mommy. Why is the clown so angry?"
"As senior vice president, chief technical officer of advanced strategies and policy, Craig Mundie reports to
Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates..."
Oh my God.
I suffer from a severe case of Engineer's or Doctor's handwriting. I can scarcely write out checks legible enough for the bank to cash.
My father, a retired ChemE, has bad handwriting, my mother, a onetime teacher, has impeccable handwriting. I suspect it's genetic. We'd need a telethon and research grants to find a cure for it before we could use Mundie's technology. Thanks for the prediction of a gloomy future, Craig.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Open source software leads to lower taxes! Microsoft against lower taxes! Choose lower taxes use GPL software.
Absolutely right. It's not fair that everyone has free access to air, water, sunshine and all sorts of other stuff. Think about all the money that the government is losing in potential tax dollars. I propose that we give Microsoft a monopoly on all these things so the governments gets more tax money to run universities, and all the other things that governments do. :)
Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think. --Niels Bohr
You are correct that the bigger the company, the less it seems to pay tax, so certainly there would be more tax dollars with opensource software. (by reducing the size of the Beast)
However, try to give your car to a friend, and watch the Government demand you pay taxes on this 'free' transaction. They dont believe anything is free and they think you are just trying to get out of paying taxes. So from that standpoint, he is correct. But of course with the GPL you can always CERTIFY that it is received free of charge...
I tend to disagree with him in summary. And further its just as heinous and misleading and blatant against the consumer as some of the congressmen comparing other congressmen to Sadam Hussein.
What if Congress could some how interpret writing GPL code as a taxable activity? As in: open source code is in effect a massive, distributed barter transaction? That could have a devastating effect on GPL'd code just from the book-keeping overhead alone.
I know it's a perverse argument, but viewed through the prism of massive political campaign contributions, you can just make out the outlines of it.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
They have a choice. They can use a GPL product for free and play by the rules, they can pay for a commercial implementation, or they can pay their own development staff to re-invent the wheel and make their own implementation.
In a macro-economic sense, wealth and prosperity are created by increases in productivity in an economic unit. Re-use of code is an example of how to increase productivity.
For those of you who don't have the dubious privilege of paying taxes on your business, let me provide a slightly oversimplified explanation. Unlike personal income taxes, businesses pay taxes on their profits, not on the income that ended up going into operating expenses and equipment purchases. (The big exception is payroll, but that's not germane here.) If I use "free" software instead of M$ software, there's nothing for me to deduct. Instead, I have to either invest the money in something else (thereby stimulating the economy, and passing the tax burden to my vendors) or pay taxes on it.
So do your patriotic duty and use free software!
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
If there is not commercialization there, a company can only exist based on ancillary manufacturing or services
In other words, it removes a very substantial reason for Microsoft's existence.
If commercialization was cut down, investors would not support research and development in the IT sector, less projects would be developed,
And let's see here... investors now support most open source projects how exactly? He seems to be suggesting that the only real development is that which occurs when investors are involved. This guy needs a clue. Seriously.
"Grr growl grr GPL bad, bad bad BAD! Grr growl Linux == Communism grr grr grr!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
You forgot that Microsoft does not pay any federal income taxes:8 52.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13
So the federal government has a choice of $30 or $0 for corporate income tax.
Of course there are other multipliers like personal income tax paid by employees, etc...
This man is obviously the cloned son of Jack Valenti. Even when the technical bugs are handled and human cloning is perfectly safe and there is no real danger of side effects - there is still the problem of really obnoxious source material. Down with reproductive cloning!
This is just like the somewhat subtler argument that Valenti used in explaining why copyright pirates are really stealling tax money from the government. Every one of those 350 thousand illegally downloaded movies represents about 3 bucks in taxes that the government is being cheated out of. (Assume that each download is a ten dollar movie ticket / concession sale and a thirty per cent tax rate) That is over a million tax dollars per day - and of course when broadband really arrives figure that those numbers will increase by at least a factor of ten.
Of course, Mundie doesn't have nearly as good an argument as his sire. The moviegoing public is paying for their tickets with after tax dollars, whereas businesses buy software with pretax dollars (as others have pointed out). But politicians don't care of it makes sense. it just has to sound faintly plausible so they can vote for it.
Mandrake Soft, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems (Star Office) Microsoft ( :) ) Gnucleus, Computers that work (a friend of mine's store that sells linux solutions to small/medium size busineses) and that's what I can name in thirty seconds. They are out there and they do make money, just because va sold out (well except for slashdot who still stands strong), and a bunch of other stupidly designed startups failed (bloatware manufacturer eazel) does not mean people with intelligent business strategies don't make money.
you asked me to name one, I've named many and explained why the others didn't work
a bit more about me http://www.advogato.org/person/trelane/ or my private page http://trelane.net
Mundie says, "The problem with general public license advocates is that they don't understand that people need the opportunity to commercialize software." What I don't think he understands is that some people don't want to sell their office software for $800 a pop, or their OS, or whatever. He doesn't understand that some people want to give things away so that people can learn and benefit from their work. He also doesn't understand that open-source more often than not is not in direct competition with commercial software, and that it often helps, by providing expanded uses for commercial software.
It seems that working at MS really does corrupt not just your hard drive, but your mind.
My other sig is funny!
"Developers need to commercialize" is so lame. I personally think that "Linux causes acne" would sound so much more cool and original.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
I guess the argument of decreased revenue is at odds with the several stories posted on Slashdot concerning local governments who are looking to save money by using free/PD/GPL software, to reduce license fees from software vendors. The US federal government is a big IT consumer; how much could be *saved* by using GPL software? Will the politicians even consider this notion, or only listen to lobbyists?
I'd have a personalized plate on my car, but "toxic bachelor" won't fit into 7 letters.
To use Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar point of view as well as Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning... , as well), Windows has less and less sale value, while operating systems (including Linux and Windows) have tremendous, and ever-growing use value.
Microsoft depends on the sale value of its operating system to generate the revenue necessary to fund its continued research and development. Linux depends on its use value for futher adoption and enhancement from the community that uses and supports it.
If all goes according to ESR's and SN's predictions, operating systems will be free, unless some provide compelling value, above and beyond the capability of other free operating systems. My point is, there will probably be no room for commercial operating systems in the near future.
I think you're right. There will be room for both free and commercial software. Microsoft will just need to focus on software that can still be productized and sold for profit. Windows will likely soon not meet that burden as Linux continues to make progress.
My car gets 40 rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!
Just think of all of the taxes that would have been generated by companies no longer in business due to MS anti-competative practices.
Apple would have more than 5% Market (and more staff as a result)
IBM OS2/Warp would have Market (and more staff as a result)
Be Probably wouldn't have made it but if they had (and more staff as a result)
Can anyone think of any Applications that fit this description? (hint WordPerfect, Star Office,)
What about the taxes generated by service professionals? If linux had 20% of the market(just to pick a number) how many Consultants and support firms would there be, all with taxable income.
Barring the dumbth (excuse the sniglett like term) of the statement that taxes would dry up as a reason to stop competition with MS, it is just plain wrong.
The money is still there it, just goes somewhere else. Either way, the government still gets its due.
The reason why most people use the GPL is because they don't want to make money on it. they ENJOY coding, even Linus says it's fun. but we also don't want redmond stealing our code.
so yeah it's not easy to make money selling GPL code. although I as the author can sell my GPL program for AS MUCH AS I LIKE, providing I give you the source code with it.
craig, please take a day off, paid and read the gpl, then feel free to hop on #openprojects, we can talk. (expect to be flamed into your next life.)
a bit more about me http://www.advogato.org/person/trelane/ or my private page http://trelane.net
Craig Mundie: The perfect example of a guy perfectly willing to be a public bozo for the sake more $$$.
I don't know about you but when I shell out money for a piece of software I consider it to be mine to do with as I please. I pay to own, not to rent. EULA's be damned.
...they want to "word process". ...they want to listen to music. ...they want to browser the web.
....*restrains himself*....
And those are the exact reasons why I want to own a word processor, own a media player, and own a web browser. When I want to fufill a need I seek to aquire that which will let me fufill my need with the intent to own that which lets me fufill my need. If I don't own it, I might as well not have it.
*Owning* software is out of fashion. It simply doesn't make sense. It is an obselete idea in a digital world.
We're going to make information free Mr. Anderson, whether you like it, or not.
You're screaming into the void, unfortunately. Trust me, I've tried. It sucks and it's unfair, but most likely no one will help you or fix it. People will mod you down more on the complaining post, which I suspect will happen to this one I'm responding to. Good luck.
>"The problem with general public license advocates is that they
...
>don't understand that people need the opportunity to
>commercialize software," Mundie said, attacking the notion of
>open-source software.
Translation: God dammit, the BSD people let us rip off their VM code so we could rightfully make billions off of it, but this GPL stuff, we can't do anything with it! Who are these assholes!?!?!? Why won't they let us rip off their code?
>"If there is not commercialization there, a company can only
>exist based on ancillary manufacturing or services. "
He's trying to get back to reality... to a certain extent what he says is true: often OSS does not provide a revenue stream, so an alternative revenue stream is needed. (All liars need to touch back to reality to shore up their credibility.)
>"If
>commercialization was cut down, investors would not support
>research and development in the IT sector,
If there was no revenue stream from software development (directly or indirectly), investors would not support R&D. He's already tossed out the "ancillary manufacturing or services".
side note: ms doesn't do r&d, they do slash and burn.
>...less projects would
>be developed, less taxes paid and the government would have less
>money to run universities, and all the other things that
>governments do," said Mundie.
Translation: if you don't do it our way, communist pinko fag islamic terrorists would take over Mom and Apple Pie. (OOPS don't say apple!! aaak!!)
In reality, OSS brings cheaper, better products to the greater market. Everybody wins except microsoft. That's what he's pissed at.
Marketing-driven companies end up over-marketing their products. Engineering-driven companies end up over-engineering
Boy this sounds familar. -- See GM circa pre 1981.
I guess she turned you down, eh?
This guy has balls of titanium to say something like that here.
I wonder if there is ever a legitimate reason to not release the source code to a piece of software. I'm not saying you necessarily provide the software under a Free license. But I can think of no reason why any piece of software shouldn't include source code for the end user.
Certainly it is well within your right to keep your product closed but why do it? If I come along and pirate your source code you can certainly take me to court for violating copyright laws. I can see that some people wouldn't want their software to be under the GPL because there's limitied possibility for consulting or training business. But providing the source code just seems like the right thing to do and I can't think of a reason why this should be a problem.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I wonder if MS's excessivly agressive stance on letting their sources go, even for perusal by state lawyers is because they have some GPL code in there, and they are likely to be sued to kingdom come if it ever got out?
This post has been modded as "Interesting".
You asses, Mundie is an Exec. VP at Microsoft, not a columnist at ZDNET. I hope the moderators and posters are reading the original article in question. Or is that too much to ask for?
Now we know why and how FUD works. Most people don't check their basic facts and dress up their banal observations as profundities.
Shame on you!
How about a FUD topic where comments from Sun, IBM, MSFT, Oracle, etc. are kept? Add a user moderation/voting system to allow readers to rank comments by a set of criteria, perhaps judging effectiveness of forum, rhetorical effect, arguments and tactics, effectivness as sound-bite, and relationship to verifiable facts. And then have Slashdot seek comment from the vendor's representatives regarding the FUD and Slashdot appraisal?
Bad sportsmanship. A ruthless minority of people seems to have forgotten good old-fashioned virtues. They just can't stand seeing the other fellow win. If these people would just play the game...
- Brazil (the movie)
"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative," Mundie said.....
Such is the nature of capitalism.... in EVERY business.
First thing you should understand is that Microsoft does not pay tax's, it is employ's and the people who buy their product who pay's the tax's.
When a company makes product or service the first thing they figure in is how much it will cost them to produce and sell it. Then they decide how much money they want to make on each item sold. Then they take that price and increase it enough to cover the amount of tax that will be put on it. As the tax on them increases the price to you and I will also.
The same for Bill Gates and other CEO's, they know how much money they want to keep after tax's. That is why CEO's salaries are so high, every time the tax increases on them they just get more money to cover the tax!!!!
Wise men speak because they have something to say, Fools because they have to say something!!!!
This is the sort of article I won't dignify with a response. Oh wait...
I am officially gone from
Just went to the site to read the article straight from the horse's Ar... Mouth, Imagine my pleasure when greeted with a Sybase ad in the center of the page proclaiming "Don't Believe the Lies" Nice job kudos to the appropriate positioning of that ad...
I find your troll even more impressive than the one it's responding to. Congratulations, fucker.
Mundie's real function is to make asinine comments that whip OSSies into a rabid frenzy, keep them posting to slashdot all day instead of working on OS software. Bugs remain unfixed, utilities don't get developed. Meanwhile, the Evil Empire's minions code away in their cubicles.
sounds like someone's got a case of the mundies...
Ok so now Mundie is claiming that GPL stops companies from developing proprietary/closed source programs? The GPL means that if you want a closed source version you have to write it and you can't rip it off or buy it and put the source under lock and key.
Nowhere in the GPL does it say that nobody can use the ideas in the software --- GPL is about COPYRIGHT not patent.
If a company thinks it can make money re-selling services for GPL'd works then let them try -- if
it's as bad as Mundie says then they will fail. So if he really believes his rhetoric why does feel the need to spread it? Just let the free market competition Gates claims to champion work its magic.
...a product.
Here's the clincher: most people in IT do not sell their code to 3rd parties at all. Instead, they code to solve business problems within industries.
None of this code will ever see shrinkwrap. This is the code that works out production schedules at automakers, calculates the values of accounts at banks, tracks inventory at warehouses, and so on and so forth.
The people who sell code as product are in a distinct minority. Most of IT uses code as a TOOL to get things done.
For those of us in the service industry, selling code is widely looked upon as an abberation; we share our code as a matter of course (and nothing attracts ire like a clueless manager who buys into someone's marketing pitch and dumps shrinkwrap on us that is supposed to be integrated into our processes - that fails over and over and over again, and does nothing but waste money)
While nobody here actively wishes harm on those who sell code as product (rather than use code as service) the general feeling amongst my peers is that y'all in the sell-code world have backed the wrong business model and will wind up reaping what you sow. The bottom fell out of the pet rock and buggy whip markets too.
Sorry, but that's the way it is. Selling bits!? Who'd've thunk it? What were they _thinking_?
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
And that is why MS is transitioning from an OS company to an application/network services company. They know that the OS is becoming a non-issue which is why they are trying to get way ahead of the curve in those aspects (the .NET platform/service being the major factor).
.NET for their application's authentication/profile component. (Yeah, hooking your app into .NET/Passport is free (cheap?) now... but wait for versions 2 or 3 when they substantially change everything and charge application providers through the nose)
The talk about commercial vs. free sofware, on the OS level is a feint. The important comments surround their reaction to Liberty Alliance which is a direct threat to their future revenue stream. Their future OS will only serve as a convenient gateway to where the real money will be made: brokering "identities" to developers using
-- kwashiorkor --
Leaps in Logic
should not be confused with
Jumping to Conclusions.
Does that mean that Microsoft want to make charitable contributions illegal?
M.
convicted monopolist?
Sounds like someone at Micros~1 has been reading The Fountainhead. Since I've bought my last MS product, this wouldn't affect me greatly, but I'd love to see them do this just to see what the effect would be.
I think what he's saying is that GPL projects should not be tax funded, as the intellectual property derived from said projects cannot be used to spur on commercial development.
Personally, I agree. But I'm open-minded. Anyone have good reasons why taxpayer funded projects should be GPL'd?
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
This may be off-topic, but I notice that there are a lot of comments in this discussion that question the value of slamming Mundie's statements.
/. may be like preaching to the converted, there is still value in doing so, IMHO.
:-)
While denouncing Microsoft-spawned FUD in
The goal of FUD (Fear/Uncertainty/Doubt) is to spin information, or create disinformation, to influence people who don't know better. Thus, it is important that people who *do* know better to not let FUD become fact in the minds of the masses. And discussing it, even in a forum like slashdot, helps us be better FUD fighters, I think.
Speaking for myself, reading through discussions like this lets me know that I'm not the only one who thinks that something is FUD. It can also provide insight and information that I didn't have already. In turn, these things help me to be more confident and better informed when discussing the issue with people who believe the FUD.
And sites like slashdot are good places for these discussions because there are a lot of intelligent people ready to call bulls**t on anyone who tries to fight FUD with more FUD.
So, please, keep on posting, and keep on arguing. Borrowing a slogan used in the fight against AIDS, "Silence is Deadly."
But then, that's just my opinion... or maybe it's all part of an elaborate scheme to help me rule the universe!
-- D.
"Laugh while you can, monkey-boy!" Dr. Lizardo
What, those billions in campaign contributions don't count?
I develop software for a living, and get a nice living out of it. Like almost all of the other people developing software for a living, the people who pay me doesn't consider the software for a product. They pay me to develop software that solves problems they have in their otherwise not-software related businesses. They therefore have absolutely no problem with me putting it to ftp under an open source license, which I therefore do.
/. tend to be students, whose experience with software is shrink-wrap products. They therefore conclude that is how most software is produced. Which leads to totally bogus conclusions like that productization is necessary for programmers to be paid.
People reading
When you leave school, you will discover (thos of you who become programmers), that very few of you or your fellow students get work for writing the kind of shrink-wrap you know. Most of you will write software for in-house use. A lot of you will not be allowed to disclose the software at all under any license, but that is another issue.
Wait, less tax income? That doesn't even make sense.
Look at it this way, a company decides to go the free software way and not pay for anything Microsoft. Lets say they save $2000 doing this, well lets go further and say they use that $2000 to pay thier employees more. That income is of course taxed.
Now lets look at it from the other side. The company spend $2000 on Microsoft products and support. Well, *scratch* that $2000 is going to be written off on thier taxes as a business expense and the government gets NO money from that except the relatively small amount from sales tax. This assuming the company didn't say, order it off the internet, thereby paying NO sales tax at all.
Oh well, just more MS FUD to clean out of my ears
I found the large ad that I had while viewing the article to be quite amusing. It was from Sybase. At the top it said in big letters, "Don't Accept the Lies" and in the middle was a nondiscript person in a suit holding a sign that said "It's Our Way or the Highway"
Rather ironic IMHO.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
when a girl walks in with a itty bitty waist
In a related press release, John M. Trani, CEO of Stanley Tools, attacked the current prolification of so-called "tool-less" ATX cases, stating that current ATX case designers "don't understand that people need the opportunity to commercialize tools".
"If there is not commercialization there, a company can only exist based on ancillary toolmaking services. If commercialization was cut down, investors would not support screwdriver research and development in the hardware sector, less wrenches would be developed, less taxes paid and the government would have less money to buy more hammers" said Trani.
I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
If you code as poorly as you write we can only pray you never release any of your "work".
I just wish that we had the original version of the speech. The one said "If there is not commercialization there, I will not be able to afford my new porsche,house and sugar baby girlfriend. Come on' guys, have a heart!"
Actually, if you go with the theory that Linux admins are more expensive than Microsoft admins, you could end up paying the same amount but more money going to the government than in the original arrangement. If payroll is taxed, then increasing your payroll would increase the taxes you pay. While this doesn't effect your bottom line, because of the offsetting cost savings, it does mean more money in the government coffers.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
If someone's insane do they KNOW they are insane?
Do they wake up and go...God I'm F*'n NUTS!
-- it would be a very strange argument.
Is Mundie in favor of higher taxes all 'round? ()
Does Mundie believe that the State spends tax dollars wisely, and should be given more?
Does Mundie believe that government spending is preferable to directed spending my individual citizens acting in their own perceived best interests?
All very strange. It's like the Wizard of Oz, somehow, only with a transparent curtain.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Just because Microsoft rules the market, they get more sales so they help the government. Honestly, I belive that if Microsoft dissapeared, Computer sales wouldn't faulter for long. The credit goes to the american public who are willing to buy computers, not to Microsoft.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
Usually, when a publication is going to print a (largely) baseless attack, it also publishes comments from dissenters. I'm surprised ZDNet did try to interview *someone* that disagreed with Mundie's assertions.
Or you would realize that we have horrible traffic, shitty roads, and no right-of-way mass transit system. I wouldn't say Microsoft's teeming hordes of progenating perma-grinning yuppies "contribute nothing to society." On the contrary, they've contributed air pollution from wasteful SUVs, a few nails in the coffin of freshwater salmon, and the worst traffic in the nation...
Not that they're bad people. But Microsoft should acknowledge that their success is why 520 is clogged every day, and why real estate has skyrocketed in King County (taxing a few unfortunate old folks right out of their homes). Microsoft the company, not the employees, should pay for infrastrucure improvements. Their unbridled success has outstripped community resources.
The problem with the trickle down theory is that the trickle doesn't reach all the places that need watering. (Okay, so my analogy is a problem too.) From where I work, I can see about a half a dozen construction cranes at work on new office towers. That's not to mention a few new office buildings that just opened. Have any of these construction projects paid for traffic improvement? What can even be done, aside from some sort of railed conveyance, to increase capacity thru downtown Seattle? It's not like they can build more lanes on I-5 under the convention center. Likewise, 45th Ave. in the U-District can't possibly get much wider, yet there's plenty of new buildings in the works.
MAKE MICROSOFT PAY FOR (part of) A FREAKIN' RAIL TRANSIT SYSTEM! SEATTLE TRAFFIC AND AFFLUENCE IS (largely) THEIR DOING, AND THEY'RE SITTING ON $$$ BILLIONS.
Perhaps if companies like Microsoft paid a corporate tax, to account for the huge resource drain that their affluent employees incur, we'd have more federal funding for road improvements or even (gasp) light rail/monorail. Because just giving your employees more money and saying that their income tax is a proxy-tax on the Company doesn't cut it. Why have a corporate tax at all? By your logic we should have none, since the employees pay the tax for the company via income tax and sales tax.
Go ahead, mod me down because I'm not a libertarian.
So if the money isn't used to buy taxed software, it just evaporates, right?
A penny saved is a penny earned, an a penny earned is a penny taxed. And usually at a higher rate.
"What we have done with PCs so far is not natural..." --Craig Mundie
---
The article is pretty short, and I can't help but wondering if any of his statements were taken at all out of context. For example, the "should be offered an alternative" statement seems pretty silly for MS to take - after all the monopoly allegation problems, why complain that there is a movement to have a Passport alternative? One would think that the presence of other central authentication database standards would allow them to continue to tout the "we are not dominating" stance.
While this makes sense, and I'd be quick to agree if it were anyone else, I'd point out two things:
First, this is Craig Mundie we're talking about, a man that's spent a lot of time writing documents that manage to actually reduce the intelligence of people who listen to him with each new article. I'm continuously amazed that Craig Mundie is allowed to represent Microsoft in the apparent manner that he does, given the calibur of his "arguments".
And second, to echo another comment, Microsoft has passed the point of worrying about any significant punishment from the government. The whole matter has been effectively shut down by the current administration, and MS knows, just as everyone else does, that they're securely out of danger from any sort of federal action.
The lead in to this article is yet another example of Slashdot's bias and ever present editorialization of their articles. Granted, the /. editors didn't write the lead in, but they certainly didn't stop it from being posted.
The reader only gets a semi-equal view if they look at the article's comments.
By that same logic, we should increase the minimum wage to $100/hour, because then the government would take in much more in income taxes!
A few more like this and he'll have his name turned into a verb...
Mundie (verb) To be designated by your employer to face the wrath of your employer's enemies, most often done in the context of public speaking opportunities. Example: Joe was assigned to give a speech at DEFcon explaining the uncrackable security in M$ Passport -- he sure got Mundied.
Have you ever actually configured IIS? The interface, though graphical, is actually completely aweful. Apache is actually simple and easy to configure with a text file, especially by comparison. And when you have to administer more than one, a text file is a significant advantage.
The reason people believe IIS is easier is that there is pointing and clicking involved. However, there are graphical configuration tools for Apache. Any one of these would be easier to use than IIS. Don't believe the hype.
Mundie almost reminds me of Osama bin Laden, preaching complete bullshit to his little "choir". ;-)
It's a shame the US Government doesn't treat Microsoft like they did the Taliban.
The government will be getting less money from sales taxes, but they will have to spend far less money in
Microsoft products.
Also companies and individuals will have to spend less money in software and they will be able to use this saved money as they please.
Finally, keep your hand raised if you think that being a developer actually gives you enough insight into the business practices of the company you work for that your belief in the viability of open-sourcing your product would actually be valid.
And now, raise your hand if you think being a troll on slashdot gives you enough insight into the business practices of companies you don't work for and have never heard of that your belief in the non-viability of open-sourcing their product would actually valid. Arrogant snobbery is a sword with two edges, as it turns out.
So if Microsoft sales decrease, federal tax income will decrease as well?
Yes, in the sense that taxes from Microsoft will decrease. But because every other company in the world will stop paying Microsoft for software, saving themselves bundles of money, each of those companies will pay more taxes. Overall, the tax gain from these companies will be greater than the loss from Microsoft alone.
In other words, if people stop having to pay Microsoft for their software, the economy will become more efficient. If the economy becomes more efficient, there will be more "wealth" in circulation. With more "wealth" out there, the government gets to collect more taxes. A win-win situation for everyone... outside Redmond.
And then starts charging for it or some service or software dependent on it?
Give me a break!!!!
.... Microsoft paid any taxes. Now, as another poster noted, free software actually allows bussinesses to have more profits and thus more taxable revenue.
I agree. The GPL is too restrictive, and should give way to the LPGL, or freeBSD-type licenses. I had no idea that Mundie felt the same way! What a surprise!
Free unix account: freeshell.org
Don't buy any hardware that doesn't come with design specs either, so you can modify it yourself in your private lab.
"Increasingly we will be writing on our computers like we write on paper," he said.
Who wants to write on their computer? How old is this guy? The keyboard is a powerful tool, much more efficient than handwriting. Maybe Mundie can get me a slide rule to replace the calculator on my computer. Most five year olds could practically fly a fighter jet with the Playstation joystick and we're supposed to use a mono-functional plastic stylus. Current and future generations don't need a digital replacement for the past. Hey Mundie have a kid, borrow a grandchild or clone a niece because the future has passed you by my friend and it ain't the stylus.
I thought my sarcasm was somewhat more obvious than it was I guess :)
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Can't remember who posted this first, and I don't remember the exact phrasing, but Gandhi's four steps to victory are as follows:
First, they ignore you.
Then, they laugh at you.
Then, they fight you.
Then, you win.
Looks like open-source has made it to step three. Come on, Gandhi, don't fail us now.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
I mean, I already pay this Microsoft tax with every new PC I buy even though I don't run Windows on most of them. It seems only fair that the government gets a larger cut from it.
when it gets so hard to determine if a person is acting like an idiot or is one, it's most likely the later. the words "if I only had a brain" must echoe in his little skull.
.. trying to easy my curiosity finding out how far down the comment list someone would acknowledge Mundie's mentioning "general public license". The first comment should have been titled: "Who?".
JeR
"The problem with general public license advocates is that they don't understand that people need the opportunity to commercialize software,"
No the problem is two-faced capitalists who try to rewrite one of the basic laws of capitalism over and over again. I'm referring to the law of supply and demand. The law of supply and demand is pretty simple; if demand is high (or supply is low) then the price goes up. If demand is low (or supply is high) the price goes down. Trying to artificially inflate the value of an OS that's inferior in some (but not all) ways to a free OS is wrong and stupid. This is exactly what Mundie is trying to do. As the Linux/UnixX desktop becomes more polished the demand for Windows will decrease. This is a fact and it's a fact that Microslough needs to learn and move on if they want to compete in the future.
I'm all for making a buck and I'm all for commercial software. I'm not for commercial software companies who whine when they're getting their butts kicked. I've seen a number of posts from professional developers saying "yeah mundie is stupid, at the OS level it should be free, but not on the application level." Well they're just as wrong as Mundie. If a bunch of free software developers develop a Diablo 3 or 4 play-alike then should Blizzard try to compete? They're certainly free to try but I doubt they'll fare very well.
If I write a time/material/billing app and keep it closed and don't keep up with the quality of open source alternatives should I expect to get $10,000 a crack? I think not, in fact I'd be better off throwing my code and skills in the open source version and charging $500 to install it for my clients. Now if my closed version kicks the open source version's ass then I might be able to get away with it, but sooner or later I'll fall behind or both apps will achieve such a level of perfection that they'll be indistinguishable from each other. Taking this a step further: If the open source version gets the ultimate installer that even a windows user could operate, then I can't even charge the $500 for installing it. We're all literally working ourselves out of a job. I for one am happy to do that.
Surely his comment about the "alternative" was taken out of context... no one could be that stupid/arrogant could they?
G
Best part of the story is the prominent "IBM/Lotus" add half-way down the page.
wanna pull up tough
[LOOKS AT JUST-FILLED-OUT TAX FORM]
Cool! I've just become an open-source zealot!
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
Arguing that gpl'ed software has no commercial value seems to tie in pretty well with the proposed antitrust settlement -- microsoft only has to show its source or its api's (sorry, i forget which) to companies with "viable business models"
Apple has more or less given us proof that both gpl'ed (aka "free") and closed source software CAN and DO work well together, in fact, they can work so well together to such an extent that whole operating systems are built on the idea.
except that Mac OS X is not GPL'd. Not even the Darwin kernel is GPL'd. Refer to Apple's Apple Public Source License (APSL).
cpeterso
What's he griping about? Nobody is against commercial software - Msft can try to sell all the licenses for mysterious code they want - if people want to GPL their work and let others extend it and it happens to encroach on Msft profits, so be it. Let the market decide Mundie, damn it. It's not like your competitors are slaves forced to work against their will or anything. Or is it that time in the business cycle for all the Ayn Rand club to go whining to their big daddy warbucks Govt for relief from all the widdle lilliputians??
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative," Mundie said.
Is it true that you and Bill had "666" tattooed on your butts?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
> if your company's existence depends on selling
> software that a bunch of volunteers can cobble
> together themselves, just what the FUCK is your
> justification for existence? You're a leech on
> the ass of society.
I get so tired of this line of argument. I've been writing software since the 70's and worked on the first versions of much of the software you use every day. My existence is easily justified by the vast improvements in people's lives that have resulted from my efforts. While you may be able to copy what I and many others have created, and while you may be able to implement dozens of marginal improvements to what we've created, the fact that we did create these things cannot be diminished simply because we were paid to do so.
I have been terribly disppointed with the the Open Source effort in that it has simply not met the promise that many of us originally hoped it would. Most of the Open Source work I've seen has been derivative. i.e. copies of or extensions to ideas that originated in commerical efforts. There have been precious few really new and groundbreaking bits of software that came from Open Source. The result is that Open Source has become, at least for me, a bit distasteful. The movement smells of theft and of an effort to diminish the people and companies who make the real contributions in our industry.
Frankly, I'm puzzled by this. It seems to me that the Open Source effort should be able to free people up to think out of the box and try risky ventures that commercial groups wouldn't take on. The result should be an outpouring of original contributions, not just in implementation, but also in conception. But, this is not what has happened. Can it be that people are really only motivated to excel when presented with the prospect of financial gain? Is this a fundamental flaw in the philosophy behind Open Source?
>You're a leech on the ass of society.
I am no leech. If anything, society leeches off people like me. We create, for money, the things society needs and we provide those things at costs far below the benefits that are received from their use.
bob wyman
But that's quite a stretch. It's not really barter unless you trade value for value. In dollar terms, the common production of Open Source (or Free Software) is value for nothing--excluding some cases, such as when you are paid to write Free Software and are already taxed for it.
Income tax can't even be calculated without a transaction of some kind, even if it's a barter. But where's the transaction when you contribute a device driver to Linus's kernel or fix a bug on Sourceforge?
I know The Man uses words to mean what he wants them to mean, but taxing free software development as "barter" would be extreme even for The Man.
This time, he claims the GPL is at odds with 'commercialization' of software, without which the government gets a smaller tax take.
And in a related story, he also claims that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, that water is wet, and that fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly.
His claim is correct; the question is whether it's RELEVANT, not whether it's ACCURATE.
All I can see that he's saying is that the GPL doesn't allow folks to effectively profit off what they wrote. Has this site become so anti-Microsoft-at-all-costs that when they're actually right they get dismissed out-of-hand?
I've actually done some work where we refused to use what otherwise would have been a simple solution simply because it would have fallen under the GPL. That was because I've got a family to feed.
That's why Ballmer jumps around like that. Something about one of those old CD trays with the sharp metal sliding parts....
Why does Mundie appeal to the government's willingness to increase the tax base? Why is it that the government cares more about increasing the tax base than doing what is best for the citizens of this country.
We are living in sick times, when our leaders don't care enough to do what's right for the people over padding their wallets. Be angry! Speak out!
Software houses have been awfully busy for the past 30 years or so, and free software hasn't stood still either. If you need some package it's already out there. I would say software has become commoditized, but that's not really true, because even commodities have a manufacturing cost.
It's very rare nowadays that I come across a problem that hasn't already been solved somewhere, sometime, by someone. Writing more software seems wasteful to me.
What I do find useful is new ways to combine and use old software... sometimes that means new code, but usually it means modifying code... and BTW open source really helps there.
My customers have never asked me to write software, they ask everyday for solutions, because they don't have the expertise to use what they already own. Don't underestimate the potential of the service market there. It's not about a subscription model. Think of me as the Maytag man... when somebody has a need or problem they call. They're free to use the systems they own until eternity. The more complex the system, the more they call... and boy oh boy is software complex these days.
The shrinkwrapped market is almost gone... mostly games left, that I can see.
I wrote to the conference organizer, looking for a copy of the speech so that I could see things in context -- I can't believe that even Mundie could state things that baldly.
Remarkably, I got a reply back quite quickly from Ian Williams saying that the speech was not made available in advance, but it is begin transcribed from a recording and will be posted on the web site in a few days. He requests that we check http://www.worldcongress2002.org in the media section in a few days.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Mr Mundie is telling the truth; the GPL makes it impossible for anyone to monopolise software and derivatives. From the point of view of a company, this is a bad thing because it reduces the power that you have over your consumers. Where software is distributed under the GPL, the price of the software must fall to zero or close on zero because the supply is infinite regardless of the demand. That's because *anyone* can re-distribute GPLed software, and in fact is required to. So, it is quite true that it is probably impossible to make extremely high margins on GPLed software. It is also true that if those margins are not available then there is very little incentive (as a software company) to spend large amounts of money when there is no way for them to protect that investment, and reoup it together with profits.
The companies like IBM who may be spending money on GPLed software are doing it because they are making money on hardware.
It's interesting to see Mundie declare that the GPL reduces taxes paid to the government when Microsoft itself doesn't pay taxes. Thats right, Microsoft didn't pay a single dime in taxes for the year 2000.
Besides, the software industry would shift from almost a pure vendor based structure to more of a services based structure. Lou Gerstner helped change IBM that way, and Red Hat is doing that very well, finding customers everywhere. Wait, both of those companies are both strong supporters of Linux. Fascinating.
Mundie's argument is baseless and merely trying to throw more hot air to prop up the Microsoft sanctioned FUD\Propaganda which is rapidly deflating, which is necessary to save their deteriorating server market share.
Quoting the article, which quotes Mundie:
"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative," Mundie said.
Now, I have two qualms with this:
1: Well, well, well. We sure do love that Columbus had the ALTERNATIVE to sitting on his butt for his life, ne?
2: I think he doesn't realize how stupid that comment was. In fact, he can shove it where the sun don't shine, because we all know that he uses alternatives. Bacon or Sausage, Mr Mundie?
A computer is a box of wires. Add software and you get a very useful tool. You can use that tool to create value. You can transfer that value for cash. You have to use some of that cash to maintain your tools. Cheaper tools that can create the same value enhance profits. Profits are good.
... well, lets not go there shall we?
GPL software = cheap tools = more profits = more taxes =
Mr Mundie misses two interesting counter-points when he says that Open Source software will mean less taxes paid to government.
;-]
Firstly, whilst less money may be gather from taxes on software, this money will most likely be spent elsewhere. The product on which taxes are collected may be different, but the money will still be spent and taxes will still be collected.
More importantly, Mundie fails to consider the enormous sums of money governments would save if they do not have to pay for software. Whilst I don't have any figures to support my claims, it's not hard to imagine the the savings goverments could make from not having to pay for software could well and truly make up a huge percentage of the total lost in taxes.
Combine these savings with the fact that most of the money saved by other organisations and businesses would be spent elsewhere i think you might find that the government could actually be better off.
And this of course ignores the advantages of actually having the source code to use too
OK, down with evil comercial software. It is evil and stupid to make people rework everyting every two years so you can sell them a new word processor. It is evil and stupid to intentionally obsolete older equipment for the same reasons. Money spent on waste is a drain to the economy as it should be spent on more important things like education, roads and all those other things that bring people joy and make the world better. The new Intelectual Property Service Economy is supposed to eliminate waste, not create it.
Microsoft's notions stand most of the above thought on their head, and it looks like they are going for regulated monopoly status. Why else would this blithering idiot be shouting stuff about the death of this view of comercial software in terms that he hopes legislators will pick up on? He's hoping that dumb laws like SSSCA will save his outmoded and failing company from extinction. I'll quote him for fun:
If there is not commercialization there, a company can only exist based on ancillary manufacturing or services. If commercialization was cut down, investors would not support research and development in the IT sector, less projects would be developed, less taxes paid and the government would have less money to run universities, and all the other things that governments do.
I'm sorry, that's got to be the dumbest thing I've read all year. Like the US government will die, Universities will shut down and all IT will shutter to a halt if MicroShaft can't make money.
Now back to you:
Having said that: Any company that touches GPLd code with a 20 foot pole needs to ferret out the zealots in their midst.
Thanks for inviting a witch hunt, but I think it's going the other way. As M$ grasps more control, as the BSA breaks more people, as it all costs more and does less, M$ IT is taking a well deserved beating. The simple fact is that Microsoft is no longer competitive, has never been innovative, and is now too risky (both viruses and BSA hastles) to be tollerated. People who advocate Microsoft "solutions" to problems are going to be seen as stuck in the past, clueless or bribed. You would do well to start learning software that works rather than contincuing to work software that sucks. You will not be able to blame others for your failure as the choices on M$ platforms goes to zero. As the next wave of viruses, expoits and auto updates wracks your company, you will be held accountable.
Don't confuse my advice about software choices you should make with the forced extortion Microsoft plans. If you are dumb enough to continue your relationship with Microsoft, so be it. Choice is good. Latter I can say, "I'm so happy you failed," as you are so obviously malicious. Microsoft however would like to eliminate all choice by law.
How many Slashdot stories have their been now crusading against some GPL violation or another?
Name one company or person that has been ruined. There are many software comapnies that have been ruined unfairly by MicroShaft. Since judgement was rendered, it's a matter of public record. Many more smaller companies have been ruined by the BSA, individuals have been ruined, even public school systems have had hundreds of thousands of dollars extorted from them by a company that has obviously not been harmed. Ask yourself why a company with $9 billion would have to steal $250,000 from imporvereshed schools systems like Los Angles and Philidelphia. I don't have to hide my copy of NVI and that's one of the reasons I use it.
For all of the talk about the GPL and commercial software being compatible/I>
They are not compatible. Comercial software restricts your rights. Free software seeks to replace comercial software. No one is going to force you to do anything, but you might feel stupid running expensive, insecure, privacy violating software, when technically superior free alternatives are available. In that way, the makers of restrictive software are doomed.
...you try this trick, but your head collapses because there is nothing inside.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Mundie succeeds in jamming his foot into his mouth every time he speaks. This is the "Chief Technical Officer" of MS? The only buzz this guy is part of is that of the vibrator stuck up his arse. Almost EVERYTHING he's quoted as saying here is wrong on its face.
"The problem with general public license advocates is that they don't understand that people need the opportunity to commercialize software," Mundie said, attacking the notion of open-source software.
*in my best McNeil voice* WRONG! It is MS that feels that need, but they shouldn't include all of us in their desires. The GPL is just one of millions of licences that allows the creator(s) to control the future use of their creation. If MS gets to license its works on whatevere terms they wish, why not Torvalds & Stallman? Do they have less rights to regulate their products through a license simply because they are not a public company and choose to work for the good of their community rather than for profit? Nobody is forced to release software under the GPL who hasn't already decided to incorporate GPLed products into their own works. The Linux kernel is a creation, initially at least, of Linus Torvalds. Apparently he felt no need to commercialize his software, or he would not have utilized the GPL.
"If there is not commercialization there, a company can only exist based on ancillary manufacturing or services. If commercialization was cut down, investors would not support research and development in the IT sector, less projects would be developed, less taxes paid and the government would have less money to run universities, and all the other things that governments do," said Mundie.
Again, Craig, the GPL is voluntary. If you don't like the restraints it places on commercializing someone else's work, then don't use their work, man! I know, I know, you're not talking to anyone who reads Slashdot. You're a smart cookie. You're talking to governments, mostly conservative folks, trying to make the GPL sound like the technological equivalent of a hippie colony. But it's not. It's just another license. If you don't like the GPL, don't use it and don't incorporate software that exists under it in your products. All your words begin to sound more and more like your complaining about how a certain license is preventing you from "embracing & extending" Apache/Linux/Samba/KDE. Again, if you don't like the license all our stuff is released under, then go & WRITE YOUR OWN SOFTWARE, instead of complaining about how you can't take ours & make money off it.
And that last comment about taxes is cheap and manipulative and any elected official worth his salt should be insulted by it. The last consideration of any decent government in deciding whether people have rights to control the uses of the things they create should be whether or not it fills the government coffers.
"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative," Mundie said.
Heh heh. Thanks Craig, but we've known for quite a while how Microsoft feels about alternatives.
"What we have done with PCs so far is not natural. In the future we will be moving towards technologies which allow us to capture the things we do in our lives," Mundie said, forecasting a wider dissemination of stylus-based computing equipment.
"Increasingly we will be writing on our computers like we write on paper," he said.
And, in the anthropological sense, writing is somehow "more natural" than pointing & clicking with a mouse? I know we all can't go back & ask the first person who grabbed a stick, dipped it in the latest kill's blood & started making marks on the wall, but considering the years needed to teach people how to read & write and comparing that to the hour or two it takes for a person to learn to use a keyboard & mouse to do the same thing with a PC, this statement just looks like more advertising. I wonder how many words per minute Mr. Mundie can write on his tablet? I can do about 90 on a keyboard myself. Scads of people have come out with tablets before -- what makes you think you're going to change the world with yours?
The only tool you've got against psychosis is experience.
That's the nature of ideas - they build on previous ideas, and evolve, rather than revolutionise things.
/everyone/: point me at a truly new and innovative idea that's come up in any form of software in the last two years, five years, and ten years, and then consider where it came from, and what it was based on. I'd bet you can't show that there are more coming from commercial development than from open source development - in fact, I'd be surprised if most of them /didn't/ come from academia originally.
It's not just the open source/free software world that's derivative, it's
Companies don't have a monopoly on innovation, they just have the money to put their ideas out into the world. Open source is an alternative way to do that - the source of the ideas is mostly irrelevant.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yes, I ramble a bit here. Bear with me, please -- I'll tie it together at the bottom.
For example, say you write an application that.. oh I dunno.. figures out car payments based on a number of different variables.
One of my clients is a car dealership. One of the things they want to be able to do is find the best bank to provide financing for any sale or lease. There are several companies in this business; they have their own databases (updated daily -- they have huge data-entry warehouses keeping tabs on the rates offered by different banks) and software to collect the needed data from the customer or salesman (as what banks will offer frequently depends on the customer's credit and quite a number of other factors).
We (the dealership) have our own internal software for doing sales or leases; all we need is access to the database. However, they won't sell access to the database unless we buy their software too, and the license terms are such that they won't let us access the database directly (won't provide an API, won't even export the data collected from the customer during the process much less the results). We don't care about their software. We don't want their software. We want their service -- providing the database. Ask their salespeople (ie the saleswoman who was just over on Thursday) and their "value add", the thing they sell, is the database. So why do they prevent their customers from accessing it except through their own software? I was providing the technical input on whether to buy their service (which, needless to say, isn't cheap) and I would have given it a thumbs-up to subscribing if they'd given some means to get at the data other than through their software, which provided no means of export whatsoever.
To pull this back on topic, the software to figure out car payments can be as open source as you like -- hell, it can be downloadable for free (though I don't see why). Unless the user pays for access to the data (the service element), it's not going to do them much use. (With the GPL specifically, you could sell your software indepentantly to as many customers as you like -- what car dealership, even if they purchased the rights to do so, is going to give away the thing they just paid $$$$ for? Similarly, why not let the dealers' internal IT departments do some of your debugging and enhancements for you?) Does this work in all business settings? Of course not. Does it work in quite a few? Yes, it does.
Mundie, Gates & Microsoft would know all about what diminishes the government's ability to collect taxes. There's Microsoft, essentially skirting $Billions in taxes by paying employees with stock and by setting aside vastly unreasonable amounts of cash reserves, litterally several tens of $Billions, without paying any taxes on it, either. Normally you can only set aside a certain amount of money - you have to pay tax on the rest as income or declare it as dividends, neither of which Microsoft has ever done. This ploy has cost the US government billions in taxes. Help me I feel like throwing up in the midst of such arrogant hypocricy.
to be more accurate.
thus spake Fud-Meister Mundie.
--"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative," Mundie said" --
I think all those black helicopter , world government conspiracisy theorists have been
barking up the wrong tree.
Rather than be come a vassal to the Empire
some people want to pursue alternatives.
Wonder why ?
Go figure.
Microsoft paid US$ 36 Billions in taxes since 1975 and that money helped to build hospitals, schools and roads. FUD is "Open Source = good choice for our society" ...
Great timing, this speech from Mundie. The New York Times online" (free registration, blah blah) has an ARTICLE today talking about how IT services are booming.
Two excerpts:
1. "These services include just about everything computer-related except the hardware and software products themselves. Services include maintenance, installation, help-desk support and training, as well as consultation on how to use the technology."
2. "Last year, for the first time, companies worldwide spent more on computer services than on hardware, according to International Data Corporation, part of the International Data Group."
Seems like the people using free tools are going to be seeing the value Mundie and co. don't.
...scares the sheep in Redmond, that with all their money and power, they can't control Open Source Software. Yet.
Give me a moment to adjust my tinfoil hat, but I seem to read in your final "yet" that there's a way to control open sourced software. Well, tell me, aside from brainwashing every person capable of programming, how do you expect for that to be done?
No, what scares Microsoft (and everyone else in the BSA, if I read their actions right) is that the Internet and Open Source gives anyone with enough gumption to earn a high school diploma the ability to write quality software. So I'll agree with you- sans that final 'yet'. Managing one Open Source project's development is like herding cats-- so I don't see any way to control the whole beast at once.
Do you like Japanese imports?
So, what's this now?
Are we now being led to believe that because Free Software allows the sharing of ideas and code, then nobody'll invest in research & development of new technologies?
And, moreover, that by releasing gov't sponsored code as GPL, it will somehow cost the government more?
There is a point that the government wouldn't pull in as much tax revenue from MicroSuck as a result.
Boo hoo. Taxpayers come out better without MicroSuck charging them a second time for research they've already paid for.
Moreover - the argument is that nobody will invest in MicroSuck's R&D. This may be very true. I certainly can think of better places to invest R&D money than in MicroSuck. If the market doesn't see value in investing in MicroSuck's R&D, then it should die. It's basic supply and demand. If there is a demand, people will invest in it.
As I recall, Pharmaceutical companies can no longer recieve US Government research money, as the US Congress has deemed it 'corporate welfare' to allow these companies to be given funding for research, and then hold the rights to all the research and its deliverables. So, as a result, the pharmaceutical industry has been on its own for R&D. Interestingly enough, my own observation is that private investment still works, and the drug companies are able to adequately fund their R&D.
So if keeping all rights to and profiting from government research is not acceptable to the pharmaceutical industry, then how does MicroSuck justify it for themselves?
I can see MicroSuck's argument that they should be able to use the research; even in a non-GPL commercial environment. But who honestly believes that it would actually add anything to the price? The IP is free; let any company use it how they want to. There will be a GPL'd version, as well as (several) $0.00 solutions.
If MicroSuck makes it easier to setup, configure, etc. - then sure, they can add a value-added profit to it. But I honestly don't think the inclusion of the technology would raise the final product price significantly. MicroSuck charges what it can get away with -- not a fair price for what their products are worth. It would be like a fattened-up blue whale. Who cares that it's fat? It's still huge.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative," Mundie said.
I think that this quote says it all. Mundie talks like Microsoft IS the computer industry.
"If there is not commercialization there, a company can only exist based on ancillary manufacturing or services. If commercialization was cut down, investors would not support research and development in the IT sector, less projects would be developed, less taxes paid and the government would have less money to run universities, and all the other things that governments do," said Mundie.
1. They're moving towards services anyway.
2. Less money for Micro$oft to steal from the government and the universities and put into their money circle. They pay taxes which go to the governments and universities to pay for licensing Windows.
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
Just how desperate is Microsoft to get your attention? Look and see.
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
NO TEXT
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
Mundie completely misses the point -- the purpose of copyleft is essentially the protection of the IP involved in creating something. Of course, the goal of this "protection" is rather different, but that's what it amounts to.
The GPL is also a better license to use if someone wants to release something that they also want to commercialize. Releasing something under a free non-copyleft license means that one's competition can pick it up and run with it, without giving anything back; GPL'ing it retains the practical option of selling a version under a commercial license. This option isn't theoretical; Ghostscript and Qt are both prime examples of it.
Mundie's real objection -- and surely he's smart enough to understand the real situation -- is that anything released under the GPL can't be commercialized by third parties in the traditional proprietary fashion without the permission of the author. But that's exactly the idea, of course. It's not too different, at some level, from Microsoft's aim -- they wouldn't be too happy if someone else decided to start selling a knockoff of VB using their code without giving Microsoft a cut. Whether there's an explicitly commercial angle to using the GPL (e. g. Ghostscript or Qt) or not (the Linux kernel, GNU) isn't particularly relevant, unless you believe that there's something inherently more moral about making money such that pursuit of that entitles you to trample over someone else.
Mundie may or may not believe that personally, but he's certainly smart enough to understand what the GPL is really about, and he's also smart enough to realize that to come right out and say that Microsoft believes it should have the right to "annex" anything that it pleases wouldn't be too popular. It would also weaken Microsoft's anti-piracy message for him to say that it believes it should have the right to "pirate" code that somebody else has written, ergo this subterfuge.
This fscker talks about tax revenue? How much taxes has MS paid over the years, considering their employee stock option scam?? Can somone look it up and post it here???
What if Congress could some how interpret writing GPL code as a taxable activity?
The exact opposite seems more likely: it should be considered a tax-deductible activity. Imagine if you could put a dollar value on the work that you contribute to Open/Free software projects and claim that as a charitable contribution on what is now my new favorite IRS document -- your Schedule A. (*) Think: why do we call it "contributing"? Because you're giving the fruits of your labor to society (or more concretely, depending on the project, donating your time to some non-profit organization).
Okay, but it's a nice fantasy, right?
Actually, I know I'm not the first to think of it. I don't know what the reality might be, but the idea has come up before. It would also be a nice incentive for companies to contribute development resources, or maybe even to open-source existing (or at least old "abandonware") products.
(*) Itemized deductions. 2001 was my first full year as a mortgage payer and the amount that that takes out of your taxable income was a pleasant shock.
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
Premise 1: Microsoft makes money from their software (mostly though they do dabble in hardware and also make money off financial tricks).
Premise 2: As the courts agreed on 8 separate counts, they leverage their existing software to ensure further software success.
Premise 3: They will protect their ability to "own" and leverage their software. This is obvious but must be stated.
Microsoft's problem 1: If they don't either stop GPL/OSS or themselves go OSS/GPL ultimately they will suffer because GPL/OSS software is so much more useful. Microsoft could publish Microsoft Excel, but how long would it be before there was a "better" Excel out there? Sure, the improvements would be marginal at best - but still! The improved Excel might work best on Linux not Windows. How could they charge for Excel then? Their cash cow is threatened - the GPL/OSS must be discredited.
Microsoft's problem 2: This is so often overlooked, it makes me crazy. I thought maybe I should make it item 1, but oh well. Microsoft needs to discredit the GPL in particular. Why? Patents. They have been funding universities increasingly all around the world. But universities are pre-disposed to making their discoveries GPL because of their academic environment. Pre-GPL this was no problem for MS who had no compulsion to post resulting improvements as free stuff. But now, universities are saying "here's our latest stuff and it's GPL" which means that *everything* downstream from that MUST be GPL. Where does that leave Microsoft? Think about it.
Microsoft's problem 3: Governments like the idea of GPL as well. So of course they are pre-disposed to making all government software GPL/OSS (like European and South American governments have done). How is Microsoft trying to counter this? Microsoft wants to fund Microsoft computers for the school system and they are trying to create a "govtalk" system for government communications - using Microsoft software.
Why Intel/IBM/APPLE/SUN do not have a problem with GPL/OSS! Here's the fun bit. This is the rub for Microsoft. IBM sells soooo muh hardware that if Linux/GPL/OSS takes off on the AS/400 they still win! If Star Office decimates the Microsoft Office cash cow, IBM will also win. What can IBM lose? Warp/OS2 is already dead. All their other Os' are so far behind the curve - only 5 years ago did some of their stuff get "windowing" (in response to the Java JVM requirement). And Apple? They don't mind their OS being hurt, because they make money off ultra-cool hardware anyway! How long before Apple ships Linux on their hardware? Intel is the same.
It's the people with their fingers in the hardware business who love the idea of OSS/GPL. They are the ones crying with glee "yes software should be free, spend your money on hardware!". In the end, GPL and OSS will prevail. Microsoft's attempts to portray it as uncool, dangerous, hippie, un-secure, un-American and all the rest - it must fail. Microsoft will then be the "specialist" (we do the best X/Y/Z) - much like Apple is now - but for broad mass appeal Lindows will win (or something like Lindows anyway).
I write software that people buy. My code is not free because I need to get paid so I can feed my family. End of story.
I like things that are sweet and not things that are lame. --
... Has nothing to do with any of the derivative works: office productivity software, GUI shells, whatever. That market is sewn up, and it's not going anywhere. It has everything to do with the innovations being made right now.
.NET, a service that even they don't really understand. And expect Congress to get involved. They usually do.
MS is well aware that it is a poor innovator, but excellent at creating easier to use (albeit often dumbed-down) versions of existing applications. However, with open-source developers creating high-quality GUI interfaces to go on top of GPL'd/AL'd/etc. apps, Microsoft is seeing its future revenues continue to stagnate, and then plummet.
Terrifying.
So, expect more salvos against GPL, against Linux, and Sun, and whoever else gets in their sights. Expect more salesdrones in your office, trying to sell you
-Baka! Baka NI!
Can we get an updated definition of 'is'.
Sorry, did you get the impression I was beating around the Bush?
My day for bad puns, I guess.
Interesting line of thought from MSFT, it can in fact be applied to any market:
Less competition, higher prices, more government income.
Hey, what if the government OWNED all the corporations too, then they also would receive the profits!
Now, we're talking....
Let's see:
(1) The government doesn't get taxes from open source.
(2) The government buys software.
If the government uses open source software, instead of paying billions to software companies, won't they save more money than they would make in taxes? (A penny saved is a penny earned.)
My guess is mass adoption of GLP will allow employers to hire more people while spending the same if not less then M$. If they (M$) really want to go there, the Govt. wins twice by helping improve the employment rate and getting the income taxe those employed people generate. Sounds like another GPL win/win to me.
Ingenious! Extend the concept of "Everything must be taxed" to include the corollary that "Untaxable is Illegal". Will it come to my using my Second Amendment rights to protect my First Amendment rights? Will both be assigned exclusively to groups and not individuals?
This is really amusing, given that the software tha companies buy is an expense item which not taxed. On the other hand, the income Ms gains from it also appears to be taxed minimally thanks to the numerous dodges the company manages.