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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'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.
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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"
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!
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.....
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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"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.
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.
"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.
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.
...Microsoft having to write software themselves because the code they would otherwise steal is GPLed.
"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.
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
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
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.
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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."
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?
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.
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...
They do not understand, and do not care about security. They only care about not getting things stolen from them, or being cheated.
Other than keeping them securely, how do you go about preventing getting things stolen from you?
In the real world, who takes care of thievery and fraud? Yes, the police and the government.
But the world would be so much more peaceful if things weren't able to be stolen in the 1st place. It is not the government's place to close the front door of my house when I forget, It is not the government's place to turn off file and print sharing through my modem when I forget, and my ISP shouldn't have to block incoming port 80 - if I wanted nobody to connect to my web server, I'd turn it off. It is, however, corporations' place to provide "Joe Sixpack" with software and services that don't share all his personal details and files with the entire world.
Follow me
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!
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
"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.
And in the end, folks, Britian and the US made peace and became allies.
Well hopefully, that won't happen in this version. Instead (to continue the metaphor), after some competition with the US, Britain's economy collapses. Their citizens try to leave for the US and mainland Europe, but everyone remembers how badly they were treated by the British at the height of their power, they refuse to allow them entry. A few British do manage to get out, but end up in slavery or employed in very demeaning jobs. Then, as the British people are starving and wallowing in misery, remembering how they screwed everyone over and realize they're paying the price now, a massive earthquake rocks the island, and it sinks beneath the sea.
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.