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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?"
I think it's a good thing that some guys back in the 1700s decided the world needed an alternative.
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.
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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"
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.
The gov't still gets its cut.
It gets it from all the companies that have higher profits because they aren't paying the Microsoft tax.
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.
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Because the general public expect such things from what is essentially a marketting droid. Granted he has a technical title, and can speak the speak, so he *must* know what he's talking about? Dah?
And the general public also expects someone just as zealously over the top to say similarly ludicrous things about Microsoft. They will offset one another, and in the end, people don't care. They just want to have fun, and get what they want when they want it.
They'd like the internet to be nice and easy, and they do not want to enter passwords to things. They do not understand, and do not care about security. They only care about not getting things stolen from them, or being cheated.
In the real world, who takes care of thievery and fraud? Yes, the police and the government. So why can't the police and the government *do their jobs* and keep the normal people safe and secure online too?
Well, sure you and I know why, because we generally know how things work. Normal people do not. And they don't care.
But we already have paper.
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.
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.
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.
>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!
>
>
But Mickysoft doesn't pay taxes to begin with.....
"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.
>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
Are you saying that objections to Mundie's statements are purely the expression of bias? What a great way to disagree with someone without presenting any arguments to support yourself.
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.
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.
"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.
(hand raised)
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.
(hmmm. hand STILL raised)
See, the vast majority of code written is not resold. It's written INTERNALLY to support an business or other organization that usually has nothing to do with software sales.
The point is - 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.
So, if you work for a commercial software house, ask yourself that question. If the answer troubles you, you're company's in the wrong line of business.
Sorry to be so blunt, but them's the facts. If your company is writing commodity software, you're in trouble. Too bad. Next product idea. Move on. If you can't adapt, you die. Sorry.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
We really should take MS to task over not providing the source code to their products - after all, when IBM first started shipping software for their mainframes, the source code came with it so that the user could customize it to their needs. Where does MS get off thinking it should be any different?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
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.
C'mon, corporations don't pay taxes, they simply pass on those charges to consumers.
Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. -- Aldous Huxley
Did you tell him that Microsoft will soon be out of business because they hire salesmen that insult their customers? Did you ask him if his boss knew that he insulted customers by telling them they will be out of business.
Good salesmen are helpful people that can help you solve a problem. Salesmen that just try to sell you something are idiots.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
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
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.
Fair enough, but the argument about secondary contributions is so frequently overstated it's nauseating, and usually in the service of public dollars being spent on private moneymaking, like stadiums, corporate relocations, etc.
A partly rhetorical question:
And another one:
To my mind, the obligations on companies, like people go above and beyond the balance sheet of what they consume (raw resources, human resources, physical, social, legal, educational infrastructure) - they are part of society, and have a duty to help others in society, as do the rest of us. So the current climate of heaping accolades on companies because one of the things they happen to need is people to work jobs drives me nuts, as it suggests that having made jobs, companies are off the hook for any more helping out.
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
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
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.
My company already does offer our product as open source. That doesn't mean it has to be a free download, though. The GPL under no obligates folks to release their derivative works; rather, it forces them to provide source to whomever they do release such derivative works. Hence, we can sell a GPLed product to our (corporate) customers -- we just can't prevent them from redistributing it, and have to give them the source when they ask. The resale thing isn't a problem at all -- the value to our software isn't the software itself, but us -- and neither is the source; heck, it helps them support themselves (in those cases where they find it more conveniant to do 5 minutes of debugging for themselves rather than spend 50 minutes on the phone with us).
The GPL is not nearly so "extreme" as most take it to be. The FSF doesn't necessarily want all software to be free; rather, they want all software to be Free. The two are worlds apart.
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.
"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.
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).