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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?"
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"
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.
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.....
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.
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.
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.
But we already have paper.
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 we have done with PCs so far is not natural"
Couldn't agree with you more, Craig.
"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!
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.
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.
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?
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.
...Microsoft having to write software themselves because the code they would otherwise steal is GPLed.
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.
>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
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.
"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
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.
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
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
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.
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.
It's not the same if _I_ do it. jeez.
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
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...
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
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
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.
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?
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?"
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
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
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.
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!
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!
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.
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...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.
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?
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
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
"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.
Here's a news flash to Mundie: If you want to commercialize software, write it yourself. This is no different from if you see cool features in another commercial product and want to copy it in your software, but then Microsoft would have no qualms about stealing that software *cough*Stacker*cough* too. GPL software is given away for free because the authors choose to do so. If he wants to take other people's code for free and use it in his own commercial software, I'm sure he'd find the BSD license more attractive.
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.
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
"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 :)
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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.
Best part of the story is the prominent "IBM/Lotus" add half-way down the page.
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); }
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.
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.
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.
...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.
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.
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).