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Last Word on ADTI Document
kris writes "Linux and Main's Anthony Awtrey put together a very nice analysis of the ADTI "Opening the Open Source Debate" paper before and after the temporary retraction. He came up with some interesting research of just why the paper adressed specific examples such as the FAA and exposes the FUD behind the FUD in the paper."
I think it's ATI, and I start reading expecting something about video cards... and I'm always disappointed.
original report
-- john
Ya think we might, one day, get a non-inflammatory response to the ADTI paper? This latest one is as bad as all the others - filled with deprecating comments written as if the audience was part of the "in-crowd." If you really care about the accuracy of the debate, why waste your time writing a rebuttal article for the linux audience? The ADTI article was not aimed at the linux audience but rather at the suits who don't know the details of the either the politics or the tecnology. A rebuttal written for that target audience is worth more to the forward progress of linux than a hundred of these "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" rebuttals that can only sound like the squabbling of an infant to an outside party.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The ADTI report is written to be read by politicians; the rebuttals I've seen are written to be read by techies. I do hope that anybody who's sending one of these rebuttals to their congresscritter does an editing pass first, though.
It's a post ripped from the last thread where there were rebuttals to the AdTI report.
Liberty.
I am unclear on the context. Where was the article he is commenting on, and who was the intended audience?
Other than me not being clear on that, it was a good article once I got through some rough parts at the beginning. I think this guy should write his own paper on the topic, since he seems to know it and took quite a bit of effort to comment on someone else's.
Can someone clue me in to the context? Should I know the names of the people involved? I don't.
Must be a slow Sunday.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Actually, if you had dared to read the documents, the AdTI paper (at least the first incarnation -- I just read the comments on the changes a few days ago, but I didn't read the new incarnation) reeks of bad phrasing, factual mistakes, etc.
It even happens to say (matching word by word) what Microsoft spokespersons have already said... so even though the tone of the rebuttal was not the best one (to learn, read the rebuttal of Microsofts letter to Dr. Edgar Villanueva) it was good enough for the shamefull piece of crap that the AdTI paper was (in both incarnations).
i put a link to the original paper here.
link here
The author of this rebuttal made an excellent point: software in the Open Source is becoming "mature", not only for server applications but also on the desktop. It does not matter that these products will likely never measure up to the level of proprietary versions of software: once the software is "good enough", it will be adopted by more and more people because it is unencumbered by restrictive and expensive licencing.
It may take awhile longer, but it will happen. Of course, the goal of the proponents of the FUD are hoping to head off this inevitability by legislating Open Source software out of legal existance. To be honest, I think that this really is the only course available to them: Microsoft is going to be in huge trouble (sooner than one may think) if they don't stem the Open Source tide.
Look at the tomato! Isn't it sad? He can't dance! Poor tomato!
If a software developer makes an application for a customer that contains GPLed code is it considered "distribution" when he delivers the finished product to the customer?
The Article says:
It seems to me that the statement from the article about would conflict Section 3b of the GPL that says if the act of delivering the finished product to the customer constitutes "distribution."
Could someone more knowledgeable about the GPL please enlighten me sbout this?
"reverse engineering harbors very close to IP infringement because and has staggering economic implications."
That is utterly bogus. I spent the first 5 years of my career reverse engineering IBM's PCs (back in the days when IBM was the "bad guy" and Microsoft supplied a fun little OS that freed users from sysadmin tyranny). Due to the efforts of hundreds of engineers like myself at PC "clone" manufacurers, we now enjoy a utopia of cheap, fast, interchangeable PCs supplied by numerous competitors in the marketplace.
Decades of continued reverse engineering between manufacturers as they added improvements has maintained compatibility as the architecture has scaled in performance by over 1000X. The affordable computing power made possible by reverse engineering has provided immeasurably huge benefits to the world's economy.
Unfortunately, the software market has not seen nearly as much reverse engineering and cloning as the hardware market. If it did, we'd all get to keep more of our money to spend as we wish, and we'd have fewer headaches managing and sharing our data.
Sending your money to someone just because they've erected a barrier of obscurity and secrets around the tools you need to use your data does not help the economy or spur innovation. It's more like being taxed to pay for an entitlement program.
A temporary retraction? That's like this:
"Hey! You! You are a jerk!"
"Ouch! That hurts!"
"Oh, I'm sorry, I was just kidding around."
"Thanks"
"NEVERMIND! YOU ARE A JERK!"
It's a crappy tactic.
"Oh no, 3 horny women and only 2 condoms...Thank god I read slashdot"
I have yet to read the newly revised version of the ADTI document, but looking at the original doesn't fill me with anger, or the need to go change the world.
It just depresses me. That there are people out there who find nothing better to do with their time and money than to tear other people down.
We have Microsoft machines at my Day Job. And MS SQL servers. And an AS 400. And a Macintosh (granted, only me, but hey, it's a start). And several Novell servers (I love the new licensing scheme.) And a Nokia IPSO box.
They all do a job, they all work together, and when I need to do something new, I look it over, and choose what I need. More often than not, it's Open Source, and everything else is slowly being pushed out (well, except for the Netware boxes - NDS rocks). I don't care about philosphy. I care about cost, performance, and how easy/difficult it is for me to use.
I might read the new version of the ADTI just for the heck of it. Odds are, I won't. It doesn't nothing but tear down, and I have a hard enough time building things to worry about what I should be taking out.
Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
Last word, my ass. The AdTI paper is so freaking biased and badly written, that we'll be ripping it apart for weeks to come. Unfortunately, it'll do little good until a) a serious and polite rebuttal, aimed at the same kind of people the original paper is aimed at, gets written, and b) it gets diffusion equal or superior to that of the AdTI document. The much maligned, "inflammatory" rebuttals that have been written and published in mostly-linux weblogs are little more than preaching to the choir.
Perhaps some of the big Open Source organizations can help? someone from the Free Software camp? the FSF perhaps?
I say that Microsoft should get it's money back for this report...it is just a re-hash of things that have already been said...
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
There's one more thing about the GPL that most people miss. It is directed to a licensee, not the author. Note from section 7: "Many people have made generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice."
ADTI... biggest, baddest TROLLS in the whole damned world. Thus, YHBT. YHL. HAND!
-- Linus Torvalds
Prediction:
Open Source dominates infrastructure,
Closed Source handles specific markets, where economies of scale are scarce or specific requirements (e.g. performance) dominate.
Our beloved polar opposites, BillyG and RMS, remain the stuff of fond
Maybe Open Source development turns into a journeyman scene,
where you have to pay some dues and contribute to the general welfare prior
to being hired by a 'serious' company with that fat salary. Such an ecosystem might lead to more useful software. Or not.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I want a document that has the 10-20 most often heard arguments representing the FUD companies try to spread about Open Source in general and the GPL in particular, and a clear, concise, relevant, non-inflammatory rebuttal to each.
The author's language, such as "the market is a tough bitch" and "hell yes!" will not fly if I ever want to supply a rebuttal to these kinds of arguments.
Take the original paper's example of "a piece of software an engineer writes that represents 5000 hours worth of work, but uses a GPL component that represents 100 hours of effort. Is the GPL'ed component's requirement to release the original work under the GPL 'fair'?"
The proper rebuttal to this is:
Imagine that an engineer writes a piece of software representing 5000 hours worth of work, but uses a PROPRIETARY component that represents 100 hours worth of effort. That proprietary component has a license that says 'the engineer will pay $10,000, plus some percercentage of revenue the original work generates". There are PLENTY of proprietary products like that. Is that fair?
It is up to the engineer to decide. If his time-to-market is so critical that those 100 hours are worth $10,000 plus a percentage, then that engineer will do it... otherwise, they will just write it. It is a business decision, like any other.
In both cases, the person who wrote the 100 hour effort component OWN THAT WORK, and get to say what the costs of its use will be. The person using it has to decide what costs they are willing to pay.
In GPL, the cost is not financial (at least, not directly). The 'cost' is to release the 'new' product under the same license. Many other licenses (both Open and Proprietary) put 'costs' on that have nothing to do with monetary value.
I want to see 10-20 arguments like this made. they are clear, concise, NON-INFLAMMATORY, and make a point.
No, they won't be in trouble and they have no desire to stop the Open Source movement. Software proprietors love the Open Source movement and Microsoft has never complained about that movement's goals (giving gifts of code to business) or its means (advocating use of non-copylefted Free Software licenses like the X11 and new BSD licenses instead of licenses that preserve software freedom). Microsoft and AdTI complain most about one movement and its chief license: the Free Software movement and the GNU GPL. The GNU GPL is properly recognized as a Free Software license, not an Open Source license.
Also Microsoft has decided to join 'em rather than beat 'em. The most recent AdTI revision is remarkably poorly timed. It would have had some weight if it had been published before Microsoft decided to become a turncoat.
Digital Citizen
This is the paper about Open Source put out by that Microsoft funded (among other) thinktank a little while ago.
Now it all makes sense. Took me the longest time to figure out the connections.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
Michael, if you want this dead horse to die, you can start by not posting it to the front page. From the paucity of comments it's clear that hardly anyone cares about this except you.
If you follow the two links in that post you will note that it is a very subtle troll. Too subtle, in fact, since most people do not realize it's a troll. I'll give it a (+1, Funny) and then two (-1, Overrated).
- http://www.adti.net/html_files/technology/ander
s on ad_techtrends020501.html - http://www.adti.net/html_files/technology/purps
q ui rrel_familiarity0201.html - http://www.adti.net/html_files/technology/Westo
n _c ounty_gazette_041901.html - http://www.adti.net/html_files/technology/Stand
a rd _examiner_techtrends041001.html
And so on... Just click through the stories that are ALL pro-Microsoft, anti-Antitrust. Holy Cow. Western Civilization depends on an unfettered Microsoft to lead the technology charge!-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
There is a lot more strangeness tucked away in that document than ever men dreamed of. For example, it was produced from a Microsoft Word document named `sullivan' - who is Sullivan?
Now that it is for sale (!), if anyone wants to see the very last free revision (with some fixed figures etc) with a view to mirroring and linking from here, please email me and ask.
Within a few days (work commitments), an updated and more detailed version of this analysis will be up, including commentary on the diffs. A word-by-word diff is most enlightening. An incomplete summary of the diffs is up here for the curious-but-lazy.
It does look very much like AdTI simply ran the controversy up in order to raise hits, which they are now converting into sales.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Just so you know, Microsoft has had versions of Services for Unix (SFU) to go with every version of NT since the beginning. This isn't new.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Why? If you work with non-expert mainstream users, as I do on a daily basis, you'll find out that they care not one iota about the OS. They are completely invested in their stored data and their time investment in learning how to use their current set of apps. If you want them to move to a different OS it has to have not a set of virtually identical apps, but the ability to use all of their existing docs in a truly seamless fashion. And even that's not enough to get them to switch. Non-expert mainstreamers, almost without exception, hate PC's, and consider them too hard to use. Asking them to undertake the task of relearning a lot of stuff for what they'll see as no net gain in functionality or convenience is a non-starter.
Until Linux can overcome all those hurdles, it's a Windows world. I hate it every bit as much as does anyone else on /. reading this, but that's the way it is.
what a pathetic way Microsoft is using in defending its pathetic products. if it can't win my "quality" or "innovation", they spread black propaganda. What a bunch of fucknuts...
Thanks, Open Source Community, for helping us improve our document. Please keep sending us patches for it, we will certainly consider them.
(As you know, not many managers read Slashdot, or have much respect for the "Slashdot crowd". No one will listen to your shrill cries of "This is just FUD!" [In fact, I would hazard a guess that there is a fair number of managers who don't even know what the acronym "FUD" stands for.])
Several years ago, IBM introduced the OS/2
operating system. It was supposed to be so
stable that it cannot crash. Microsoft
destroyed that notion via a simple
expedient: a team of MS programmers worked
a whole day and night and created a terminator
disk: a disk which contains software that
crashes OS/2. It was a simple and effective
counterfoil. With a single stroke, Microsoft
demolished the claims IBM made about the
stability of OS/2
Now Microsoft, through ADTI, has made a claim
that the very nature of open source makes
it vulnerable to cracking. Microsoft had
at least since 2000 to make good on that
claim. So you experts from ADTI, answer me
this: Where is the terminator software?
Where is this software or technique that allows
you to crack any and all open-source
software?
One has to think that with all the propaganda
and FUD MS is spreading about open source
security, they should at least have
some proof. Microsoft, a company that
has recruited some of the best programmers
out there is unable to crack Linux.
How could they? MS is in a catch-22 situation
here. If they do find an exploit, they
would have to publish it, and publishing it
effectively allows the OS community
to patch and improve the system.
They will always lose whatever they
do. That's why they are doing this
FUD tactics.
...and the Open Source community in general. Yep, a regular "sweatin' to the oldies" casting call.
What you described are staggering economic consequences.
you infered bad, which may have been implied, but definatly not stated in the quote you gave. Too many people assume too much about the meanings of words.
For instance, the word passion, which most people would read in a favorable light, is ambiguous as to whether it is good or bad. As my one Enlish professor was fond of saying, "I hate it with a passion."
I wrote a comment on the AdTI paper, trying to outline, paragraph by paragraph, what I think is wrong with the assumptions and claims made, and offering counter examples and alternate visions on the claims made and the truth of the open source movement.
Maybe you think it't worth a read.
I am available for criticism and comment, and will produce a revised version if enough people show interest and provide constructive criticism.
free the mallocs!
To paraphrase the article:
1) I work 5000 man hours working around NT/2000 problems
2) I spend 100 man hours building a solution
Conclusion: My whole work should now belong to M$, because their product represents the majority of work!
:)
In one place, ADTI claimed I said something I didn't say, and in others ADTI intentionally carefully quotes only part of what I said.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
You were quite an effective thief, my friend.
Now'll I have to pour hot grits over my petrified Natalie Portman before having goatse.cx
but the domain leon.brooks.fdns.net doesnt appear to exsist. email me :)
-- john
When I looked at that site, and followed the link to the material on Putnam, and his analysis of civic associations, this quote just about blew me away given the current context:
Now if that doesn't embody the Open Source community, I don't know what does. And here's an organization named after de Tocqueville that seems clueless as to what he valued!
You can rant about "right-wingers" if you wish, but some of us on the "Right" place value on conserving more enduring values such as those de Tocqueville celebrated, and not in "Country Club" Big Business-centric loyalties of politicians of both parties (see how much money Democrats get from big business, which prudently plays both sides of the fence ;-). Many of us on the Right value the human right of free enterprise (and association), in contrast with big enterprise. See also Eric Raymond's "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", with respect to his notion of the "Gift Culture". And, as I recall, he would consider himself to be more of the Right (libertarian variety?), than of the Left.
ROC
The report may originally have been intended for GA Sullivan, who are quite obviously lovestruck with Microsoft at the moment, or initiated by Greg Sullivan, an MS product manager wishing hard that XP had been more successful.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing