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Don't Be a Sharecropper
An anonymous reader writes "Tim Bray, best known as an XML Heavy, has an
entertaining rant about why you should be developing for *n*x, OSS, or (especially) the Web. Because if you're on a proprietary platform, you're a "sharecropper"."
A farmer who works a farm owned by someone else. The owner provides the land, seed, and tools exchange for part of the crops and goods produced on the farm.
Unfortunately there is little land left to start you rown business (read: software company). Perhaps you'll get a garden sooner or later, but in the end the chances are against becoming the next Microsoft plantation.
Damn, need to find some better metaphors here!
--------
Free your mind.
Since I haven't paid for a Microsoft license since Windows 95, I consider myself a squatter.
OK I have to ask. What the heck is this?
I was willing to tolerate *nix, since it might, however remote and esoteric, be an attempt to gather all Unixes under a single label. But *n*x?
I sure hope it does not deteriorate to a four-letter-word-like ***x. Or maybe *x or x^ ?
I support open source 100% but the analysis in the article is very flawed.
If I have an application for any os, I have the same set of worries no matter what. If its windows yes I do have to worry about microsoft developing their own and giving it away. However how many times has microsoft decided to give away stuff ? If its linux I have to worry about someone reverse engineering my product and making an open source knockoff. In the linux case if their is damage to my IP rights, who am I going to sue college kids with no money ?
His scenario is further destroyed by the fact that almost no one is upgrading with every release anymore. Theres alot of people that run win95 still even more that run win98 and a heck of alot running win2k. So if microsoft decides to include your product as a giveaway it could be a very long time before it harms your sales.
The only thing that comes close to sharecropping in the software industry is working for large software companies where you don't have a stake or a say in the management. In that case the platform doesn't matter, youre still screwed.
Controlled
Slave
Element
I can hear the squealing begin. Must be cutting too close to the bone...
Then what does developing the cygwin libraries make you? A serf? A blockbuster?
Also, an inaccuracy in the article:
"Are You a Sharecropper? If you're developing software for the Windows platform, yes. Or for the Apple platform, or the Oracle platform, or the SAP platform, or, well, any platform that is owned and operated by a company. They own the ground you're building on, and if they decide they don't like you, or they can do something better with the ground, you're toast."
This doesn't even make sense to me. The analogy doesn't work. If I code a game made to work in windows 98, Microsoft can not (at this point) block your game from being run at the OS level (aka "taking away land") but really only through suing you to stop the game from being distributed.
Do I have this wrong? This doesn't sound like being a sharecropper, but living next door to a cranky neighbour who might sue you for keeping your lawn unkempt and lowering neighbouring property values.
What it comes down to is this: if you want to develop software, you can build for the Web and/or Unix and/or OSS platforms; or alternatively, you can be a sharecropper.
Your choice, but I think it's an easy one.
Especially since the users out there want you to do the right thing.
What Robb actually said, in a conversation about Mac software outputs like Ranchero and Watson and his own Spring, was that building for the Apple OS feels like being a sharecropper.
What's a Sharecropper?
I found a good definition at InterAction Design:
It's a lousy position to be in, because you're never going to make much, and if the land's owner finds something better to do with the land, you're history.
A practical example of this is Watson, the product mentioned above, which did very nicely, thank you, on the Macintosh, until the owner of the land brought out Sherlock, a very nice program that did many of the same things.
Are You a Sharecropper?
If you're developing software for the Windows platform, yes.
Or for the Apple platform, or the Oracle platform, or the SAP platform, or, well, any platform that is owned and operated by a company.
They own the ground you're building on, and if they decide they don't like you, or they can do something better with the ground, you're toast.
They can ship their own product and give it away till you go bust, then start charging for it; and use secret APIs you can't see; and they can break the published APIs you use.
All of these things have historically been done by platform vendors.
How Not to be a Sharecropper
If you develop server-side software that runs on Unix (by which I mean any platform that runs bash and creates processes with fork(), which includes GNU/Linux, Solaris, AIX, and many others), you're not a sharecropper.
They're not 100% compatible, but they're enough alike that you can move around and nobody really owns the turf.
You're not a sharecropper if you're building around the Apache webserver and the increasingly-large suite of associated software.
Nobody owns it, and it runs on anything; nuff said.
You're not a sharecropper, especially not a sharecropper, if you're building on the Web platform.
If you can define your value-add as a series of interactions via a browser, or an interchange of XML messages, nobody can whip the land out from under you.
Good For the Customers, Too
It's pretty obvious that it's healthier not to be a sharecropper vendor. But a little thought shows that it's better not to be a customer on a sharecropper's platform.
When something good and new comes along, the chances are less that it'll be scooped and monopolized by the landlord, and greater that it'll develop into a healthy ecosystem.
But it's especially good for the customers to be on the Web platform.
The notion of routing everything through the browser (with one significant exception, which I'll discuss below) is incredibly user-centric, user-friendly, and user-empowering.
Because once they know how to use the "Back" button, to click on highlighted text, and to fill out a form, then they don't need much training in how to use your application.
Reactionaries
But there are those who want to break out of the browser mold and go back in
sharecroppers.
He gives the story of Watson vs Sherlock. But what if sherlock was someone's open source/free project. What is the difference from the viewpoint of the "sharecropper" between having the rug pulled out from under you by a new piece of software that gets added to windows and a free version that someone develops. To the end user, they both look free (as in beer of course.)
Rise programming proletariat, rise and be free!
All computer applications fall into one of three baskets: information retrieval, database interaction, and content creation...
Huh. So, when I'm fragging bad guys in Quake, is that "database interaction" or "content creation?"
Browsers are more usable because they're less flexible.
"Gosh, this ball and chain is great! I don't have to run anywhere near as fast as I used to in order to get the same amount of exercise!"
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.
Like many high profile OSS ranters, he's ignoring the fact that if most workers try to challenge their company's existing model (the sharecropping model) they are likely to be firebranded in their jobs or worse. Fine if you work for yourself or whatever, not fine if you have bills to pay and a status quo to keep.
We'd all love to get paid to do interesting stuff on exciting platforms (I'm an RHCE, but in my current job we don't even have a Linux box in the building). Unfortunately, boring stuff on Windows keeps the rest of us (and our numbers are dwindling) in jobs.
I might be modded a troll, but then some mods have more time and more idealism, others are pragmatic.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
How about a small pulpit icon, to represent that the following story contains religious views regarding open source software?
While there are many of us who enjoy contributing to open source (myself included), the fact remains that the majority of people who program for a living are constrained to do so on proprietary platforms of one form or another, even if they are working on proprietary applications built on top of open source software.
Articles (and topics) such as these, while nice trollbait and conversation fodder, nonetheless constitute a view that is basically a religious viewpoint - the position that giving up your evil proprietary platforms and converting to one of the true open source ways will save you, while somehow not causing you and your family (and bandwidth hungry habits) to starve to death, is as much a position based on blind faith as any other I've ever heard.
Until the people put Microsoft back into it's place (OS Development only) and also break the DirectX sharecropping the whole point is moot.
But look at who's gotten sharecropped.
Winzip
Realplayer/MusicMatch
Netscape
I can go on..
It's true anytime someone comes up with a good idea MS goes ahead and builds it into their OS. Look at what they did to Java when it came out you had Sun Java and MS said nope.. lets make MS Java and make it work better with windows than Sun Java..
They took HTML and did the same thing.. Now many people have to program for IE and then the Other browsers as time permits.
Basically the inability of the US courts to stop Microsoft from doing what they continue to do is the same as the south winning the civil war.
This is a very poor article, which makes a very poor analogy.
While I agree with the author that developing code for closed source platforms may be helping out a company, I hardly think that makes you a "sharecropper." Just because you write a program for Windows, doesn't mean it becomes Bill Gates' personal property now.
Really, it's worse than this, because the author appears to be trying to incite some kind of revolt in the programming community against all kinds of closed-source development. Uh, hello? If nobody writes these programs, how are the companies that sell software going to make any money? We live in a profit-driven world, and if there's no profit, nobody's going to do it! I think that's fairly obvious by now, just by looking at the operating systems out there. Good profits result in good software, it's just that simple.
Finally, I think the author does an even greater disservice, and exposes his bias, by referring to sharecroppers in a derogatory manner. Those who work the land should never be mocked, because if it weren't for the vast sharecropping industry in the united states, there wouldn't be any food on your plate. Sorry, you can't eat your AOL start-up disk, bucko. Also, it's a historical fact that most sharecroppers were African American, and I think the authors negative reference to them may be a veiled form of racism. I think this reflects badly on the open source software movement, and I don't think Linux Torvulds would approve. Might as well have titled the aticle, "Don't Write Software for Windows, or You're A Coon!" Pathetic.
Consensual sex is boring.
It's an idealistic rant, and as with most idealistic rants you should listen, remember a few points, and then go back to what you were doing. If you get all nutty and won't touch anything but Linux, for example, then you're just hurting yourself. Look at it this way, over 50% of homes in the United States (don't know about other countries) now have PCs, and 95+ percent of them are running Windows. That's a big, big, big market. Getting all high and mighty doesn't make that go away.
It was so wonderful when the browser interfaces came on; the vendors had to discard all those stupid sliders and cascaded menus and eight-way toggles, and only leave the stuff that mattered.
There are badly designed GUI apps, but there are also badly designed web pages, and badly designed web interfaces. I teach at a school that uses a browser-based system for entering grades, scheduling classes, etc. The interface sucks, because it's slow and unresponsive, and you have to click through many web pages in a row in order to get where you want.
There's also a problem with saying web==open. A lot of web applications use proprietary extensions, like Flash. Actually, one of the coolest web apps I've seen recently is a Flash video game on a Harry Potter web site.
Find free books.
This doesn't even make sense to me. The analogy doesn't work. If I code a game made to work in windows 98, Microsoft can not (at this point) block your game from being run at the OS level (aka "taking away land") but really only through suing you to stop the game from being distributed
You can only say that after March of next year. As long as patches get released (for 98 or IE on 98, or DX), you can't say they aren't going to block you technically.
I can't say I agree completely with this definition of ShareCropper.
Are You really a Sharecropper if you're developing software using well established standard API's implemented on Windows? Is it really Sharecropping to use the standard TCP/IP stack implementation on Windows? As long as the platform which you are developing for adheres to non proprietary standards, and if you're using platform specific implementations of well established standards, you are still fine. Since you have stuck by the standards, you are screwed only if the standards change, or if the the company owning the implementation decides not to stand by the standards.
So you would be a ShareCropper if you're developing software for any proprietary standard that is owned by a company.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
At work, you are pretty much a sharecropper anyway. Often they provide the operating environment, hardware, software, and everything else while you just do the work. Should they decide to reorganize or just make bad decisions they can terminate you at will. Even worse, often many here at their jobs are Sharecropper^2.
.NET, etc.), Oracle, SAP, etc. mostly out of convenience so they are also a sharecropepr as per the article.
:)
1. They are sharecroppers at their job as said (sharecropper) 2. Their place of employment has chosen Microsoft(SQL Server 2000,
So many of us have no choice but to be sharecropper^2 to feed our families and to survive. The system is flawed!
Even in the Database world: SQL Server 2000, SAP, Sybase, and Oracle are the leaders and the "expert" level database techs are sharecroppers. MySQL or Postgres is laughed at by many employers, I remember one interview "but do you know any real database packages".
So I ask you, are you a Sharecropper^2? But then when you think about it we are like Sharecroppers on the planet earth making some of us Sharecropper^3 even. I wonder who can come up with the highest power of sharecropping?
Result? Worse conditions for sharecroppers than in a world with a multitude of landowners.
This article has the fundamental flaw of completely ignoring the market place. While it's great that there are folks out there who can make a living creating applications for *nix platforms the bottom line is that that just isn't true for all of us. Look, for example, at the games industry: despite how much we want people to make games for, say, Linux there just isn't the market to support Linux only (or even *nix only) game development right now. If studios want to make their money back on big budget titles (which is what the consuers want to play) then they need to sell a _lot_. That's just not going to happen, as I think Loki amply demonstrated - they did a great job, but even without the costs of initial development (they only did ports) they couldn't keep it together long enough to avoid going out of business. The market just isn't there.
The article ignores this idea completely, to it's detriment.
Behold the Power of Cheese!
How many times has MS given something away????
Let's see... should we start at the beginning?
Imbedded Tiny Basic into MS DOS - removing all language competitors
Included primitive Games with windows
Included Disk Compression, virtually putting Stacker out of business.
Included Lan management software into the operating system, causing pain to 3com, Novell, and others.
Gave away the browser, causing serious financial strain to Netscape
Bought Hotmail (free email), and gave away browser-based email.
Included a bazillion features into the office suite, eliminating lots of specialized software applications.
Gave away SQL for small apps, in the form of MSDE.
Microsoft has made a practice of eliminating competition by giving away software! Where have you been?
If you're doing something I don't approve off (ie; developing software for a closed system) you're dumb and I'll use a whole page on this here interweb to tell everyone.
Okay. so he has one or two points, the first is that the corp that owns the OS can develop their own software and give it away to push you out of business. Funny, I can't say I see that MS Paint or even Adobe PhotoShop (btw, by his logic, Adobe are sharecroppers) have prevented PaintShopPro from becoming successfull... I don't see how the inclussion of CD-burner functionality in the latest OS from the softwaregiant we love to hate has slowed down the sale of for instance Nero... and despite the fact that a certain company bundles a browser with their OS, Opera and other alternative browsers seems to be gathering followers by the minute.
His second point is more strained; that the one controlling the OS is the one in controll of all sotware that runs on it. This is, as even I can see, stupid at best and FUD at worst. If this held even remoptly true, each and every firm that makes any sort of software, be it wordprossessors, MP3-rippers or graphicsmanipulators, would provide their own underlying OS to stop others from using it to something else... No one can controll what people run on their computers, no matter what OS.
There will always be a marked for second- and thirdparty developers on all operatingsystems, both closed and open source. The difference is, if you develop for closed source, it's more accepted to actually ask for some money to compensate for the time you too to write the code.
So in the end, I'll say he is plain wrong. There are a number of good reasons to develop for OSS, but this is not one of them.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
I think this addition to the definition of terms just reinforces Bray's thesis. Using the "detested" Microsoft as the "farmer," we find that the free tools & stuff usually come with high-priced training attached. None of the Microsoft "standards" remain unmolested very long. Of course, the next version of the tools (which can handle the ever-evolving "standards") is often not free. And oh yeah, forget backwards compatibility -- just go look at the history of WinCE, PPC, whatever-they-call-the-Microsoft-handheld-OS-du-jo ur...
In the final analysis, I agree with Bray about the web platform ... to an extent. But go out & view source on websites & you're going to find that a distressing number are written with proprietary tags for MSIE. Those of us who care about web "standards" should be evangelizing for Mozilla or just for "validatable code" in general instead of spending so many hours b*tching about it on /.
As far as *nix or OSS, I'll have to defer to those more experienced with those thank I. My employer chose many moons ago to become a Microsoft shop, because the IT director loves getting paid in proprietary paper :-(
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
What they can do is put out a service pack (or in the probable case of Longhorn, an entire OS release) that breaks your game. Ideally, you release a patch; the problem is the worst case, where you (the developer) have to go out and get an entire new toolchain (new copy of Visual Studio, etc). Even though update prices are usually modest, you may not want to keep lots of VMWare images on your hard drive, multiple toolchains, etc.
So far, the effect has been minimal: people knew from the start that NT4 wasn't W9x, and things acted differently. However their latest moves are much more bold - Longhorn may be radically different from what we see today.
Unix is as much a collection of behaviors as it is lines of code. Moving from a.out to ELF meant patching and recompiling, sure, but the only investment is time, and in many cases you could do it at your leisure. Commercial software can get EOL'd and you have no choice but to plan your migration (witness the many companies happy with NT4, who are now forced to migrate to W2k or XP).
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
I just had a conversation about this topic with one of my co-workers: Seems Microsoft just lets new software markets run until a clear victor is decided by the end users, then they completely redo it and destroy the competition taking the valuable ideas from the previous victor.
One way to go is to cross-platform develop. Most of the development I do is for games and as such I use allegro:
http://www.allegro.cc/
If you go to the site you'll see plenty of mediocre games, but once you realize the power and dev-friendliness behind the allegro library you'll be hooked.
One could create an OpenGL accelerated game (using AllegGL) without changing a line of code! Realistically, you would want to change some code anyway, but everyone interested in game development should check it out.
The only thing it's missing is a bonified network library. It has some out there, just none that I would consider complete or complete & useful.
Can't wait to finish the game and then release it for DOS, Windows 98, ME, 2K, XP, Linux -- possibly Mac and even BeOS! (stability issues with the last two, I believe.)
As much as I would enjoy not building MS-centric apps, tools, etc, it pays a lot more than building free stuff. Building only free stuff would be okay if you're independently wealthy and have no life.
Here's an analogy. Say you live on an island of vegetarians. You do happen to have your own land, and decide to raise pigs. That's fine and dandy, until you need to sell your pigs to pay the bills.
Redundant, perhaps, but hey, I get tired of this you-suck-if-you-support-MS ranting. Really, we all do what it takes to pay the bills. Maybe rather than sitting around ranting anti-MS, people could try doing something like making actually useful, easy-to-use-and-configure-for-the-bonehead-masses stuff.
Hmph.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
VB6 is a good example where sharecropping can lead to. Not very much of a programming language anyway, any skills or sources in VB6 are becoming useless rapidly. How much money is being lost now? By all the sharecroppers who used to work on VB6-land?
And puhlease don't tell me you are going to port all of it to C#. You'll be just sharecropping again.
This analogy is also lost in inhouse development. In this case, no matter what OS platform you develop on, you're still a sharecropper and can't do ANYTHING about it.
You must write for your company's environment. You must follow company specifications. You must use certain driver versions, DLL's, etc. You must use company network drives and directories (that can change on a whim).
Unless you're a solo developer, you're gonna be a sharecropper; you have to do whatever your company tells you to and use their foundation.
I my case, it's "all about the Benjamins." I love coding, don't get me wrong. I started doing it years ago (since middle school) and have continnued doing it only because I love writing code. But I need to get paid, and if it means being a sharecropper, so be it. If it means writing for windows, so be it. If it means writing for *nix, so be it. So long as I get to code in a language I enjoy and do meaningful work, I'm up for anything.
And many minions will flock to its being, and would be cast therein.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
Where the land shall belong to the farmer
adapted from Rabindranath Tagore's GeetanjaliWhere the system software is transparent
Where the programmer can develop without fear (of the owner)
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake
There are two kinds of egotists: 1) Those who admit it 2) The rest of us
Bray jumps from the Watson/Sherlock experience to branding everyone who uses proprietary tools as a sharecropper. His argument would be more convincing if he cited more than this single case of a big company pulling the rug out from a little company. (Yes, they exist, but they are few compared with the number of working developers.)
In any case, what Bray is really saying is that if you develop for open source and/or the web, then no one is going to come along with a new product that mimics or competes with yours.
Of course, that's wrong. Competition exists. In fact, a case could be made that opportunities for competition in the open source arena is greater than in the proprietary arena because the cost of entry, development and distribution are much lower. (E.g., see Gnome vs KDE)
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
They can make a press release like this: Windows Version 1000000 will no longer support DirectX in favor of something better, our new super gamer's library. Directx will no longer install on the windows platform. Then...You have to rewrite the game if it is made for their DirectX library (I only use it as an example because many write games in Directx).
But what's that you say, you wrote it for SDL? Microsoft in a daring move announced a brand new hardware interface to the graphic card totally invalidating all the traditional methods of graphics programming. However you are in much better shape because you can take your game to another platform easily.
But you wrote the game in Java you say?
In the most daring move ever Microsoft has totally rewritten the Windows APIs and refused to release the documentation leaving sun unable to write a JVM for Windows XP 6 Alpha (MS's release quality is Alpha software).
The point is if you write your game only for windows, you depend on Microsoft's platform. Since it is their platform they can do what they want. They can change whatever they want. They could render whatever libraries you used inoperable. They are like the game wizards for Windows.
If you're developing software for the Windows platform, then you might be a sharecropper.
Or for the Apple platform, or the Oracle platform, or the SAP platform, or, well, any platform that is owned and operated by a company, then you might be a sharecropper.
I think it's Psalm 35: "Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cryeth!" so err, both of 'em.
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
No, but sticking to one's principles does. Imagine all the things down through history (including OSS) that would have never happened, if they had all said: "The majority is too powerful, let's give up"?
But we're essentially talking about _operating systems_, something that geeks get all hot about but no one else cares. And it isn't even all that easy to explain to someone--even a technical someone--why Linux is "superior" to Windows. Many, many intelligent programmers use Windows for software development, not because they have to, but because they prefer it. So what it all comes down to is that "principles" in this case are pretty thin, like "Which is better, Buffy or X-Files?"
Most people don't care what operating system they're using. They care that they can edit photos or play games or write books or whatever.
All computer applications fall into one of three baskets: information retrieval, database interaction, and content creation. History shows that the Web browser, or something like it, is the right way to do the first two.
I disagree with his pigeonholes but that's not the issue. Every app I write would fall into the second category, and there is one universal truth: Web applications take longer to develop. End of story. Who knows, maybe it will be different later on. For now, the same application will take less time to develop for Winforms or VB6 than for a web platform. GUI development is just more mature and more adapted to PC-based apps. History doesn't show anything - users are perfectly happy with a 'database interaction' app running in a browser, or one running on a PC. They care about if it works, not what platform it's on. Managers care about how much it will cost, and PC-based apps have historically, and continue to, cost less. I don't know if this guy has some kind of open-source standards-based XML wet dream, but he's pretty much wrong.
I'm not a software developer, but I read the article and (I think) followed the reasoning. The analogy is probably a good one, but part of what is good about it is that you can extend the analogy to explain the major weak spot in the argument. If you develop for Windows, etc., you are a sharecropper---but you get access to a huge farmer's market where only sharecroppers get to sell their produce (products) and where lots and lots of customers come to buy. If not, then you're relegated to a roadside stand on a highway that may potentially get tons of traffic, but isn't seeing that much yet.
This post is dedicated to all of those
I don't think he's talking about the gaming as much as the business-related programs. He's saying that they can take whatever you put out, edit the OS a bit, and then just give it away for free until you go out of business. Theoretically they could do this with games as well, but I think I'll have a stroke the day an OS comes bundled with something more than solitaire.
I like how he tells us that users have rejected traditional UIs for the web right after mentioning the success of Watson/Sherlock 3, which wrap web services in a traditional GUI. People don't use web services because they're intuitive, they use them because they're available anywhere with a web browser. Just because they're successful doesn't mean they're not a kludge.
I Agree With This Post.
The best thing for large scale adoption of Free Software is for this and other RMS/ESR sort of religious, philosophical propaganda to be buried where corporate manager types can't find it. The thing that these people don't understand is that, although the average bearded crypto-communist zealot may begrudge Microsoft et al. for being profit minded, other corporations don't.
If the arguments for Free Software revolve around price vs. performance, and how it will increase your corporations profit, then corporate managers are willing to tune in. I can't see this conversation happening in a board meeting: "We should convert all our major systems from Microsoft to Free alternatives because I just read on the Web the other day that 'we're nothing but sharecroppers!'"
I have been in a similar situation.
I do a lot of computer-technician stuff on the side, like fixing servers, installing software, repairing computers.
What I really like to do is work on server programming and linux system configuration, but I generally do not get too much call for that. Most of the money I make on the side is usually gained from fixing whatever crappy software incompatiblity problem introduced in the latest version of Internet Explorer or windows.
In specialized industries (read Apartment Management as one) companies tend to have VERY expensive software that only runs well on one version of windows or on one version of Internet Explorer. When the companies who wrote this software went web based they tried to use ActiveX controls to give them the exact same power over user interfaces that they had when they were developing their stuff in Visual Basic or C.
99% of the support calls I get is to go out and return IE to version 5.5 after it breaks compatibility with some overengineered web based application (that depends heavily on ActiveX for cute menus and the like).
To add insult to injury, software companies in these specialized markets tend to like to keep their customer's data close so they cant switch providers. Usually this means that the web based software is hosted on some machine far far away, that no one but them will ever have a chance at debugging.
People try to use their existing models far after they are outdated, and it only hurts the customer. Just ask anyone in the Appartment Management industry how many times they have been burned by vendors.
-Jonathan
The Ro Factor - Jeep/Linux Weblog
it says: "If you develop server-side software that runs on Unix (by which I mean any platform that runs bash ..."
Huh? What about csh, ksh, even others? bash is FSF/GNU stuff. Is that why we have to use it? And gmake, too? All of xfree86 can be build without bash or gmake. Mozilla can be built without bash but requires gmake. bash and gmake are awfully bloated, in my opinion -- don't mind losing karma for stating the truth.
A practical example of this is Watson, the product mentioned above, which did very nicely, thank you, on the Macintosh, until the owner of the land brought out Sherlock, a very nice program that did many of the same things.
Going with that analogy in a competitive environment, if you make a useful widget and someone else makes an improved version...your version has to change or it is history. The Linux and open source worlds are also impacted by this -- Example: The current switch to ALSA from OSS. Part of the OSS to ALSA switch is philosophical, though ALSA does have some damn nice features.
The main difference in the non-competitive and competitive worlds is that since the 'land' is not owned the best widget can be chosen -- though not necessarily. Either way, the results can be similar; new app comes along and old app turns into worm food.
That said, the effects are quite different in a non-competitive world; I used to work for a company that was hit heavily when Microsoft bundled an acceptable replacement of my old company's utility. Sure, if MS didn't do it then someone else could have done it later...though the new commer would have to compete. Microsoft didn't have to...so the company went from ~100 down to ~25 in the space of a year. I've heard it's a 2 person group now providing another set of tools.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
No body cares, but I feel it is my job to enlighten them and make them care.
I am what you would call Microsoft worst nightmare simply because I show people the alternative which often impresses them.
Just the other day I bought my aunt a PC prepackaged with Lindows and she was pretty excited about it. Showed here the basics and she was off and running.
The world doesn't change overnight...it changes once person at a time.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
Many of his arguments apply to open source OSs also. You're still writing software that supports the "land" owned by someone else (since open source is still owned, unless we're talking public domain operating systems). Open source OSs are often distributed by companies who have a lot of influence - so you're still helping those companies make money, and if those companies choose to supply an alternative program as standard with the distribution which does what yours does, then you're in the same situation as the Watson author. APIs can be broken too.
If you're building for the "Web platform", then you're in trouble if something isn't supported properly by the browser that's used by the vast majority of people; certain companies still unfortunately wield power over web development.
There are some valid points in there (eg, secret APIs), but imo the "sharecropper" analogy applies to everyone except those who wrote the OS they develop for themselves.
Software | Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday July 13, @07:17PM
from the stuff-to-read dept.
Disk Drives Explained
Data Storage | Posted by CowboyNeal on Sunday July 13, @03:07PM
from the stuff-to-read dept.
Never seen that kind of thing happen before, though. Must have been a wild party last night or something :7
Hell is not other people; it is yourself. - Ludwig Wittgenstein
Try:
* Browser
* Disk Defragmenting
* Disk Diagnostics
* Media Player
* Remote Desktop Access
* TCP Stack
* Terminal Emulator
* Accessibility Extensions
* Zip file utility
* I'm sure there are more, that's just from the top of my head...
Each of these *was* a viable community of third party software. Now they are just assumed into the OS. Some still have product out there, because of entrenchment. Microsoft says this is good for the consumer, and frankly I have to agree in most cases. But don't say "how many times", because the OS encloses more space on every revision.
Sig under construction since 1998.
If they are coming over, why would they still be wearing covers (blanket?)? even if they were, you wouldn't be looking "under" the covers, would you?
This is my
If you're stuff is popular/ubiquitous it is going to be reverse engineered no matter what the native platform is. For small timers, "IP rights" are a lose/lose situation. As you say, college kids have no money and you will not win against the likes of MS or IBM.
If you need 40 acres for your ass, then you should consider losing weight (assuming that's an American ass, not a British ass. If it's a British ass then it's eating too much).
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
First... sharecropper? No. When I buy a Windows product, its mine. They can't "take it back" or "decide they have a better use for it".
The best you can get away with is there are 2 plots of land available. One is free, the other costs money. Both will become obsolete in a couple of years and you'll have to buy new land. They're both in opposite parts of the country, so if you pay for a piece of land, but want your next one to be free, it'll be expensive to carry all your equipment across the country.
However, when buying land, people don't look at just the initial cost. People want to see how much they'll get from the crops, how much it'll cost to maintain the crops, etc. Many companies, when looking at the total cost of ownership, choose Windows, because they believe it to be cheaper.
Also, working for *n*x*?* (don't worry - I added that last bit myself - I have no idea what it means) most likely means you're a slave. Working for someone else, and not getting paid (yes, there are some jobs out there for Unix-types, and maybe even some more for *n*x-types, but certainly not enough to support every employee in the industry).
I prefer sharecropping to slavery.
Wile I strongly believe in making your code as well cross platform as possible, but this cannot always be the case. For Different OS's even among Unix and Unix like OS (Like LInux) make it difficult for always making true platform independent OS. But even if you make software for one platform only it is not sharecropping it is still your code not the OS Makers, you will still reap the profits from the code, not the OS Maker, (The only good example I would think an OS Maker reaps the profit from a 3rd party developer is Apple with Adobe).
Developing tools for one platform is a risking thing to do, but its not sharecropping
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Ok, I don't like WebForms and I don't think .NET is upto much but come on! Web interfaces SUCK if you are wanting to create a rich environment for data input. I just spent 6 months doing a project to convert a crappy set of JSPs to Delphi because users hated the browser. GUIs offer hotkeys, popup menus, custom controls, datetime calendar controls, etc. etc. (BTW, does that make me a sharecropper? I develop free software for free platforms in my spare time, but I'm paid to write software in whatever the fuck my employer tells me to on *their* time)
Web applications generally take longer to develop as well. So what's wrong with GUIs?
Right tool for the right job.
The disqualification of Apple by Tim Bray from the 'commons' suggests that his argument for open platforms (which he unfortunately defines purely as Unix) has been erroneously conflated with an argument to force OS vendors to only write operating systems (which, the law of unintended consequences would suggest lead to more functionality bundled into the OS, not less).
"You know you want me baby!" - Crow T Robot
Other posters have done an excellent job of dissecting flawed analogies in this piece (which is a nice bit of idealism, but impractical)... but there's one other thing that I personally find amusing.
I'm a programmer by trade -- OSS doesn't feed me. My job does. (Actually, I'm laid off, so someone, please, hire me, because my OSS work still isn't feeding me.) And when I'm programming off the job, I'm going to do it in a way that I enjoy, on the platform that I enjoy working with most, because I'm doing it for me.
To this end, I'm pasting the following rant, which was originally written by Webb of geeknews.net before it went lame. I can't find it on Google anymore, so that's all the attribution I've got.
---
I have to admit: I'm one of those overly stereotypical males when it comes to directions. Never asked for 'em, probably never will. Sure, I realize I could probably get to my destination quicker if I did; but my joy is in the journey, rather than the destination. I apply the same logic when I choose what I code for. I could take Linux, for example, and have the huge, detailed, everything-available road map. Or Windows, let's say; the closed, mysterious unknown. Which would give me more satisfaction in accomplishing something? Windows. Because I, quite simply, am not sure how it does what it does. It's the thrill of the unknown. It's like the long courtship. Again, I'll draw an analogy: What's more fun, the woman who "gives it up" the night of the first date, or the woman who takes a month or two of playing hard to get? I suppose for some of the teenage readers, the first would sound good; hey, I'd agree if I were a few years younger. But for me, it's the long, slow, feeling out period. Getting to know my surroundings, having to work for what I end up with. That's why, as many people have questioned, I code for Windows.
Now, some of you may say: "But why support x y z that Microsoft does? It's 'so bad.'" To which I would reply, frankly, "Thbbbpt." I don't care what Microsoft does. They make software. It's almost like a game that I play with them, now, they make it, I find out what it does. It's fun. I enjoy it. With Linux, there is no hunt, there's no secrets. There's just code, no fun. "Wait a second, did he just call Windows FUN?" Yes, I did, as a matter of fact. It's fun like ripping open the box that your barbecue came in, and putting it together without the instructions, with 2 bolts and 3 nuts left over, and the damn thing still works admirably. It's the ultimate in do-it-yourself. It's this mass of stuff, that comes with a great set of tools (Win32 API), that you get to screw around with, dissect, and try to make something with it. Linux is simply the set of tools. Again, no secrets, nothing hidden, what you see is what you get. Yawn. Where's the prestige in fixing other people's mistakes? Where's the secrecy in having everyone else see the marvels that you've accomplished? I don't buy this rubbish about having your ego stroked; I have a girlfriend, writing code doesn't even compare. Not even close.
One of the other big things about Linux that doesn't interest me is the fact that it's so community-based. It's akin to bringing along your friends on the journey to destination X. So not only do you have the map, but you have a group of hangers-on that you have to bring with you! Why, exactly, should I care what Citizen Y has to say about my code? I don't get that in the Windows journey. I just have my car, my tools, and my secret bits. If other people want to come along; that's fine. But they stay out of your way. They bring their own car, and search for their own secret bits. They don't try to ride in your car, sleep in your tent, or eat your food. They understand that you're doing this for yourself, and they're doing it for themselves, and all is good. They're also a lot more flexible than the Linux community. They understand that there is more than one way to get a job done. There's no all-or-nothing mentality to Windows people. For some things, Open Source is
However, my Java code is portable. Same goes for LispWorks Common LISP: build once and deploy on all of the OS platforms that I am interested in. Python code is portable.
So, Bray's argument should be don't use proprietary APIs.
I do agree that writing web services avoids lockin problems. I hardly ever write standalone GUI apps anymore - everything is either a web service (SOAP, XML-RPC, or XML over HTTP) or has a web based front end.
-Mark
If you're developing software for the Windows platform, yes. Or for the Apple platform"
"How Not to be a Sharecropper
If you develop server-side software that runs on Unix (by which I mean any platform that runs bash and creates processes with fork()"
What about Apple's OS X, which runs on BSD-based Darwin? (An open source operating system.)
What about Safari, the browser created by Apple from the Konqueror Open Source project? They took open source code and made it better. Anyone could have done it, not just those holding the keys to the OS.
It's obvious that the author is not as informed as he'd lead you to believe. Either that, or he doesn't care about leaving out evidence which refutes his argument.
People who include licensed software in their products (i.e. Value Added Retailers) might be sharecroppers. But when the code is open sourced and owned by the community, then the developer is at best a squatter. They are working land owned by the state.
The good folks who move from business to business, and make their living installing Linux systems could be called migrant farm workers.
Boy, this is a fun game, we can insult white collar workers by comparing them to different types of farmers.
He kind of misses the fact that there is a market out there, and that, well, growing carrots on your own farm doesn't really help if there is NO MARKET for carrots.
Saying "Do not develop for proprietary platforms" is absurd, that's where the money is, that's what everyone uses at the moment.
In a good software product, the core elements will be portable, and moving to a new platform, if need be, will not be a problem...
it's analogous to a sharecropper using his own techniques to grow food, which are only known to him, and also having his own, smaller farm on the side, as well as having a few leads on new land where people are encouraging him to come over and develop. His big sharecrop might not be great, but he has options.
Saying it is about OSS is rediculous.. if Linux for some reason ceases to be a desirable platform for people, your software business is in the same boat... your farm up and left.
There are many rasons to develop for OSS.. but this isn't one of them. Developing for Apple, or Microsoft, or anyone, yes, you have to worrk if that one vendor stops supporting development.. but to stop supporting developers on your OS is suicide.
The authors use of 'sharecropper' as a metaphor is a blatant appeal to the elitism and class consciousness of those who wish to call themselves 'geeks'.
'OH NOES! THE WINDOW$ WILL MAKE ME TEH SERVANT OF THE WHITE DEVIL SLAVEHOLDERS!!!!1
Sorry, but the same thing happens in Linux, or BSD, or anything else.
If you want to run NT4, by all means, go ahead.. yes, it's EOL... then again, so is Linux kernel 1.0.
Okay, there might be a software availability issue.. but that was something that companies could sort out license wise long before the EOL date.
You mean like how if anyone has a good piece of software out there, the linux world makes one for free and it ends up in a major linux distribution?
Every *nix I have used has had quite a few more games then Solitare bundled.
If I'm a sharecropper with windows does that mean that working on Linux is the equivalent of Stalin's russia? (With Linus as Stalin of course, and the GNU people acting as the KGB) What about SCO? If I work with SCO is that the equivalent of being a citizen of a banana republic? Is working on a Mac the equivalent of being in a hippie commune? Is working on BSD the equivalent of being a citizen of sealand?
(This post is not for the humor or ritalin impared)
"Freedom of speech has always been the abstract red-headed stepchild of the Constitution"
-Suck
I seem to remember that Apple came out with Sherlock, then Karelia decided to do Sherlock one better (thus the name Watson -- Sherlock Holmes sidekick). Gee, guess what? Apple did the _obvious_ enhancement of Sherlock that looks a lot like Watson. Then the Karelia folks whined about Apple doing to Karelia what Karelia tried to do to Apple. Pot = Kettle = Black it seems to me.
Yeah, it isn't any fun when the big guys move into your niche, but you can survive. It does require you to be at the top of your game, however, and to meet the needs of your customers better than the big guys. That isn't easy, but it can be done. Not whining about the situation and focusing on your products would be a better idea to me.
"All the darkness in the world can not quench the light of one small candle."
sharecropper
n.
A tenant farmer who gives a share of the crops raised to the landlord in lieu of rent.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
I believe you are wrong, there is new land to sow (read: open market for software applications) in the form of the web and a new software foundation with a better licensing scheme (read: OSS, GPL, BSD, etc.).
If your objective is to build a plantation (read: monopoly) then yes you are doomed to failure. You will not be allowed to own the land (read: internet, software applications) upon which all other farmers (read: developers) are also working.
The metaphor fits perfectly, its just that you are stuck in the old ideology and its barren and infertile soil (read: the MS monopoly upon which many devlopers are dependant and susceptible to the whim of their master).
Just my opinion
burnin
MS may not prevent your game from running on their OS, but what they may do is develop their own game that directly competes with yours and use their marketing prowess and monopoly skills to take over enough of your market share to run you out of business. Hence you are forced off their land.
burnin
I make my meagre living doing content creation. I don't see how there will ever be a useful web-based video editing program. It don't woik dat way.
info retrieval and DB work is just one slice of the pie, and, from my perspective, one that will through natural selection winnow itself into an ever narrower slice of the technology pie. Things that are cheap/free and extremely robust AND EASY TO USE will win and dominate, and over time become increasingly ubiquitous. Just take those three dimensions of cost, power, and ease of use and manipulate them into whatever levels you want and you arrive at the available platforms.
Because the parameters of IT are known and mechanical, it will tend to drive down in cost, and reduce its need in manpower over time.
However: while people live and work in such an Aristotlean world, they dream and party in a neoplatonic world of myth and shadows. Hence: there will always be a need for content creation, and the more people there are, the greater the need for more content. Therefore, proprietary platforms will strengthen their grip over content creation, and, unfortunately, that means Microsoft will, as usual, dominate our lives for no really good reason.
Example: all the movies theatres are going digital, and the Windows Media format is the file type they are using. Not QuickTime. Apple TOTALLY dropped the ball on that, and if the high end is all Windows (not Linux or even Macintosh), the others stand precious little chance of getting anywhere, because of the reduced cost of vertical integration of platform standards.
So, everyone can be snippy and chirpy about Linux / OSS / etc. but that pie is shrinking in proportion, and the media pie is growing, and it's all proprietary and increasingly owned by a monopolist...
Unfortunately.
HW
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
On my desktop I use mozilla for browsing the web, zoom player for videos, winamp for music, irfanview for pictures and flash movies, mozilla (again) for mail, Agent and powergrab for newsgroups, and PGP disk to keep it all together and organized (rather than use "partitions" for organizing data I use encrypted "containers" - also known as "files.")
So... what? If MS comes out next week with WM10 and IE7 it'll mean nothing to me; I still have IE5.0 on this box and the only reason I would upgrade to 5.5 is perhaps to install the IBM ecmascript engine, which requires some networking components from 5.5.
MS can come out with Windows-x-b-allodocious if they like - so what? Won't prevent me from using win2k with zoom player, agent, powergrab, pgpdisk and mozilla. Nor will it prevent these old Vectras stacked in the corner from running win2k, or win98, or even DOS (for which there are still plenty of uses).
Sharecropping? I think not. There is a world of "obsolete" and discarded technology out there, and each of us can command our own little heap of it. To quote Fred G. Sanford: "Never underestimate the power of junk."
This involves sizable legal fees and tough negotiations, but I make considerable money that way.
Browsers are good because they provide a reasonably useful least common denominator.
Browsers are bad for the same reason.
Most web based apps are about as user friendly as an IBM 3270 block mode terminal of the 1970s.
We should be doing better. We have the tools and can always rely on Microsoft to show us the route to avoid.
While this article does a nice job of illustrating some of the problems in today's computing environment, it does a poor job of explaining how to get us to stop being sharecroppers.
It's pretty obvious that it's healthier not to be a sharecropper vendor. But a little thought shows that it's better not to be a customer on a sharecropper's platform. When something good and new comes along, the chances are less that it'll be scooped and monopolized by the landlord, and greater that it'll develop into a healthy ecosystem.This is a generalization, and I'm not really sure if he's advising shareware developers, custom app/consultant developers, or everyone under the sun that working with a sharecropper's platform is bad for them. In some cases, moving to OSS makes sense and is viable. It is not, however, always good for the customer or the developer. The purpose of writing 'shareware' was always to make money, so moving to a free platform would seem to be more risky than trying to sell an app on a sharecropper's platform. How much money could Watson have made on Linux/OSS? Wouldn't an OSS alternative pop up if people liked it? Plus, people don't want to buy tons of third-party software for their apps unless they have to, and many shareware apps are cool but not necessary, so I imagine most of them do not experience massive sales and profits. The shareware market will always be a tough one, and it's not just (or even primarily) because of the 'landlord'.
As for custom app developers and end users, they just have to decide which helps them be most productive and is cost efficient. Linux/OSS is actually quite a good alternative in the enterprise, but in small business/home the do-it-yourself tech support and higher learning curve make Linux not an OS for the timid.
That's why the phrase quoted above, about flexibility and usability, is so completely 100% wrong. Browsers are more usable because they're less flexible.BZZZTTT! Wrong! (To quote the article. =) No, browsers are more usable because programmers are less able to *abuse* the interface and do *poor*, not rich, interface design. Traditional apps are not an inherently poor choice for interface design, it's just that interface design is often not given the time and resources it needs. I'm not saying browser-based doesn't/can't work under some situations (and in fact, it can be ideal in any number of situations), but let's not generalize that browser-based is clearly superior to application interfaces, as a well-designed interface can supercede browser-based in functionality and simplicity. I personally like the idea of having a web-based interface when online, and a traditional app to work with data when offline.
All computer applications fall into one of three baskets: information retrieval, database interaction, and content creation. History shows that the Web browser, or something like it, is the right way to do the first two. Which leaves content creation.More generalizations here... The web browser is *one way* to do all three, and whether or not to use it depends on what data and needs you are dealing with, not the operation (input/manipulation/output, really) you are performing. That's like saying 'history has shown that cars are the best way to get between two places'. Makes sense until you want to go from New York to London, or to your neighbor's house.
The article should really speak to a more clearly defined audience, and maybe get a little more specific about *how* to implement some of these ideas. As it stands, I don't really see much of interest in this article, except for yet another proclamation of the superiority of OSS.
My two cents is that we will see more web apps exposing APIs (ala amazon and google) and that these APIs will be used from both traditional and web apps. In other words, the border between browser-based and traditional apps will be blurred, not made more distinct! There's more than one way to skin a cat, and that's a good thing. Apps written in different languages will talk to each other, and which technology to use will become more a matter of preference than necessity.
I've read some of the comments and have found so many that I disagree with that I decided to not respond to any of them. IMHO this is a very good artical and he makes an excellent point which I think developers need to heed.
In many cases the OS is not what will lock you in. It depends on the software you are developing. Nevertheless SOMETHING will end up locking the software in unless the developers take special care to avoid this.
I've probably got more experiance than most people in slashdot for a couple reasons: (1) I've lived longer than most who read slashdot and (2) I've been an independant developer and consultant for more than 20 years.
As such I have witnessed many systems that end up integrated so badly into the OS and system tools that there is just no practical way to get them free.
Many of my clients have ended up paying through the nose for years for outdated hardware simply because of this. Of course, the vendors love it and that is why they create the trap. To compound this, many mangers are so technically inept that they can't recognise a trap even after they have fallen into one.
I recomend to anyone who thinks this is NOT the case to re-read the artical and then do a straw poll of the systems they know of. One problem with this however is that when I read some of the comments that were posted, it appears the individuals involved have not seen many systems that have been in place for more than 15 years and which were developed by the businesses who use them.
I'm not talking about the *nix world of course. And the author points out that the *nix world is not a "sharecropper's world". One has to look at the mainframe and mini world to really see this. One of the reasons for this is that companies have often not done serious development in the PC world - tending to use commercial software and general purpose tools whereas in the mini and mainframe world often it was roll your own systems or go without.
At this point in time however, the PC has grown up and Microsoft is very definately trying to lock in developers any way they can. IMHO, things like the windows API, VB, Visual C++ foundation classes and so forth should be avoided like the plague.
There are good cross platform development enviroments out there. Glibc is one tool kit that is safe, and for a full development environment for instance wxWindows can be used (C++, Python, etc.)
I can't comment on Java since I don't use interpreted languages (we have our reasons) so I cannot comment on the potential for platform dependant lock ins. Used properly however, I am sure Java applications can be quite portable.
Now musicians, on the other hand... Up until the Internet, the only way for a band to get national coverage was to buy into the RIAA's sharecropping scheme. Now you can put your band's MP3s on your web site, but chances are that (among other things) the RIAA will see that you're hosting a bunch of MP3s and have your ISP shut you down. Music is a much closer analogy to sharecropping than programming is.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
<>
Actually, I have my parents living in the depth of MY basement.
Point is, I have minions at my command and those minions are very obedient since they don't even know what the hell a desktop is.
-----
One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
I develop software for a living. You know... so I can eat. And if someone offers me more money than I'm making now to develop something that isn't proprietary then fine. But right now I make software that makes corporate america work. When we figure out a software solution to world hunger or war... I'll sign up for that. Until then ...$$$$$$
~foooo
Hate to say this, but this is exactly I like the Windows OS. While I'm completely familiar and happy with command-line work, I dislike *nix simply because to get a desktop system running to my standards of happiness, I have to look all around the web to find the right apps to install. And not just applications like media players or graphics software, but even (what I consider) low-level stuff like the windowing system, the fonts (for crissake!), the pre-emptive kernel patch so it doesn't lock important operations, the right drivers for all the hardware, etc. ad. infinitem.
It's like DOS all over again. Gotta install the right drivers for the hardware, then manually configure it, then install my Windows system, then install Adobe Font Manager, etc., etc. This is a big reason Windows 95 was so popular -- it finally offered a cohesive system that did all this stuff for you. Admittedly, it took them a few iterations to get it right, but at least they were striving for it. I know KDE and Gnome are doing their part, but until a lot of this stuff becomes a kernel priority, it will lead to different standards and more confusion among end-users.
This is a terrible article, one that doesn't stand up to even the mildest level of scruitiny. For example:
So... confused! Brain... melting!
Worse than this obvious contradiction, though, is the underlying premise of the article. Bray implies that there's no point in doing any work on any proprietary system because the owners can always break compatibility with your products. Nevermind similar rows which have broken out between, say, Red Hat & the KDE project. Nevermind that if you're developing under the GPL, there's nothing that prevents someone from forking your project and including it as part of some random desktop environment you've never heard of.
If you're Tim Bray, I can only assume that you also believe that manufacturers of after market car equipment are morons too. After all, they don't own the systems for which they're producing, and there's no telling when a car maker will suddenly decide to make their products obsolete by changing their vehicle design, or unnecessary by selling their cars pre-tricked out. That's just one of the risks of doing busyiness.
OK, so that was a bit of trolling, but the point is that the analogy is a very poor one indeed. The level of analysis in the article is incorrect anyway. Most OSS developers develop a specific solution to a specific problem. And if afterwards someone else could benefit from the intellectual effort already expended, then make it available (as one can witness anytime someone suggests OSS developers *should* do something like improving interfaces; the reaction on Slashdot is often rather belligerent in reply). Fine. However, this model of software production is totally unrelated to platform upon which the software runs. Even if we just consider commercial exploitation, the analogy is senseless. There are enough packages becoming standard in the OSS world (e.g., GIMP & Mozilla) that it makes it pointless to try and roll your own competitor unless you have something very special. And I don't see what stops a better project/contractor team coming down the pike and blowing your efforts out of the ground whatever model of software development you have used and whatever platform you develop for. Sure, writing software for windows my help MS sell my copies of their OS. But I fail to see how this differs from anything else we do without blinking in the real world. I post a chicken recipe on Usenet, am I sharecropper because my labour has supported a not entirely ethical poultry farmer? Where does it end this side of capitalism?
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
Okay, this is a stupid analysis. Why? Because the 'owner' can't take away your land?
First of all we need to define what we mean when we say 'land'. It's obvious that the author means 'marketshare'. But this is a strange observation. People don't own market share at all. Could you imagine if they did? How would you, as a consumer, feel being someone's 'property' to be bought and sold? (actually people do buy and sell customers, for ISPs for example, or web traffic. But the people selling them don't 'own' them, they just sort of 'have' them.)
No one owns marketshare, and no one should. Sure some people might have better access too it, by integration but that's beside the point. IE never had any market share over Netscape until they were feature by feature competitive. In fact The reason Netscape really lost their market share to IE4 was because IE 4 was simply better. it didn't crash, it's CSS engine wasn't fucked to hell and back. It loaded quickly. If Netscape's programmers had been on their toes, and management let them do what they needed to do, they could have maintained their dominant position.
The apple situation is a bit different, because people who use apple products are obsessed with the company, and use anything made by them.
and in OSS the grasp on market share is even more tenuous, because of the lack of IP ownership. If I write a great browser on Windows and keep it closed source, Microsoft has to spend the time and money to write something that's as good. OTOH, if I write a great GPL'd browser for Linux and redhat decides to compete with me, all they have to do is take my source code, change a few icons and strings and sell it again.
Really, this metaphor is almost totally worthless and insulting.
If anything, it's more like playing against someone on their 'home field'. They might have an advantage if they decide to play against you. But if they don't, and their field is bigger then... well... honestly the analogy pretty much breaks down. Which is why I really hate arguments from analogy and metaphor in the first place. Just because you can make an analogy doesn't mean that it's proof of anything.
I seriously doubt most people who code on windows are in danger of Microsoft moving in on their turf and kicking their asses. Which is the only thing that actually matters here.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I prefer /[^microsoft]/.
Does not seem reasonable...true. But impossible? No. The point is that Microsoft OWNS the platform, they can do whatever they want to it. Then windows would vanish and where would his game that was written for windows be? It would be obsolete. They don't need to rewrite the total API, just key parts to render the program inoperable.
When it comes to java I would have liked Windows to implement a standard JDK / JRE and play nice with none MS products. Instead it does not. I'm not sure if it is because MS does its best to make sure that its stuff works, or that noone else can program for that platform but them or what the problem is. I'd like to be able to program cross platform and Windows doesn't let me do that easily.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
Hey, I cashed in on it. Open Text got to be a successful vendor of content management software largely because we were the first to do it all through the browser, with no client software. Our stuff didn't do all that much more, but given a choice between client and browser, the people wanted the browser.
People want the browser not for the fact it makes for a simpler application in a GUI sense but for the fact you do not have to install and run it from a desktop. We do nothing but web apps in my company now and the reason is we have 18 different branches and no one wants to push an application out to that many individuals each time there is a fix. A thriving industry has been created by the need to install applications locally on desktops and insure the correct licensing of that software. As a consumer of software, I don't want to pay for those things. In addition, users don't want to have install an application on their desktop when they can go to a website and do the same thing.
The reason this trade-off between functionality and universal access has occurred is that people find more value in server-centric management and universal access today for those simple applications where I am entering some information or retrieving it. I think we will see the rise of "richer" web applications over the next few years because there is a need for better controls if for no other reason then productivity and efficiency gains. Working with large blocks of information on a web page can be very cumbersome to the user. Client-Server computing (VB, Delphi, insert your favorite GUI-centric language here), GUIs became much more functional in what they could do over time, the browser-based application will follow the same path, but now with the added convenience of server-based management and fixes, and universal access for all users. The user, the administrator, and the developer all get what they want. Of course as the author has pointed out we may start seeing web-based GUIs become more unusuable, but that is a design flaw of the developer and can occur on any platform.
Let me see
quickbooks Pro speaks access ? No
Peachtree speaks access ? no (doesnt even speak peachtree)
MASS 90 speaks access ? no
I don't wan't to belittle your problems but great plains was cleaning the markets clock before it got bought.
Tim Bray might be an "XML Heavy," but he's obviously never set foot on a farm. He throws around the word "sharecropper" as if there's a stigma attached to it, when in reality sharecropping is a way of life for some people, just the same as working an assembly line or in the mines is a way of life for others.
My wife's family owns a 600-acre farm in southern Illinois. We have a sharecropping family that has farmed the land for over three generations. They have lived rent-free, all utilities and taxes paid, during this entire time. They are paid a fair wage in addition to bonuses from the farm's profits. College, if they choose to attend, is paid for. Their income, once the fringe benefits are added back, is probably greater than the average income for all professions in the St. Louis area. I can say for a fact their income is higher than most unemployed IT workers, and there has never been a layoff since the early 1800's.
I believe Mr. Bray was trying to be politically correct by using the term "sharecropper" when he really meant "indentured servant." Let's face it: Anybody who works for somebody is an indentured servant, especially if you are tied to said employer for necessities in life such as health insurance. Unless you have the good fortune to be in perfect health and can secure your own health insurance, you are, in fact, indentured to your employer if you depend on their group status for insurance.
This argument is both ignorant AND offensive.
There are market realities to deal with; for example, it's not profitable to sell games on any platform except closed consoles, and PCs running Microsoft Windows. To say, then, that writing games for Windows makes you a 'sharecropper' is just offensive.
first off, Red Hat can add a program to their distribution that is better than a 3rd party's version just as easily as MS or Apple can, so the whole argument is mis-directed towards Microsoft (which is typical of many people here), but to specifically answer your list of 'victims':
Winzip: Winzip is still used by anyone that wants features that are worth paying for (password protection, etc), but most people don't pay for it anyway. Those who do pay need those features and Windows XP's Compressed Folder is not an acceptable replacement.
Real Player/Music Match: this is still installed by default on many (most?) pre-built Windows systems (Dell, Compaq, etc) and is the first thing I remove when my friends buy computers and have me help them set it up. Damn I hate Music Match Jukebox. Realplayer is free and worth every penny: it is worthless. RealOne player, on the other hand, is pretty good and I am a paid subscriber.
Netscape: This is a good example. Internet Explorer replaced Netscape because of MS' heavy-handed bundling. I guess you could say that Opera was sharecropped by Mozilla on some Linux distros, too.
The truth doesn't care what I think.
And it was not a racial thing, although you seem to think that "sharecropper = black" and that's bad - when, in fact, this wasn't mentioned at all in the article you are criticising (probably because the author had better sense about this matter than you). The fact (again) is "po' white trash" in the south ranked (ranks) below "black folk." Poor white laborers were generally paid less than freed slaves, and "white trash" were generally made unwelcome even in communities of freed slaves. Of course this was all set up decades before as a means for the white landowners to protect their possessions from the intrusions of the only "white folk" (ie free americans) who might actually sympathize with - and therefore might be prone to help - the slaves.
In short, you're being politically correct - which, as usual, only serves to reveal your own (ignorant) racist notions.
Get over it, bud.
But nobody cares, because the gamers upgrade to the latest and greatest. Hence, your game may work on Win98, but if you expect it to be sold, it HAS to work on newer systems (ie. 2k, XP, etc.). And Microsoft just has to break the APIs your game uses in the future versions of the OS, and then the article's argument still stands.
Unless, of course, you expect everyone to keep a copy of Win98 just to play your game, which will stop being feasible as soon as there are no drivers for Win98 that utilize the current hardware out there (video, sound, etc).
The author is telling Software Sharecroppers that they do not deserve to be treated the way they are - they are not Microsoft's/Apple's/whoever's n-----s. And there is not a damn thing racist about it, either. Unless you agree with the idea that there are some people who just deserve second-class citizen status structly on the basis of ethnicity. Discussing the fact that people are racists is not racist.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
What a thinly veiled attempt at a troll.
The RIAA isn't going to shut your own band's site down because you're hosting your own MP3s of original songs. Get real, buddy.
They're in the business of protecting their members, not offensively eliminating non-members. Their tactics are questionable.
Although the RIAA:mafia analogy extends to a certain threshold, the RIAA isn't *actually* the mafia.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
The point is that most companies don't care what is on the backend, so the money isn't only on the proprietary platforms. That is why he pushes using all browser based software, it makes the platform irrelevant.
Yes, Linux could cease to be used in all of industry. Which is more likely though, a single vendor disappearing or yanking support, or a widespread product that can be supported or picked up by anyone disappearing? It is the same old story, if the entire OSS community just dropped Linux/Apache/whatever, you could still just form a co-op with other businesses to hire some programmers to make the changes you need. If a proprietary product is dropped, you can do _nothing_, you have no options because everything is in the hands of one entity.
I don't agree with his entire "sharecropping" analogy, but he hits an important point about depending on your vendor. History is littered with products built on great widgets, only to die when the widget vendor goes bankrupt or drops support because they don't want to port to Win32/64 bit Unix/whatever.
Well I'm the doctor and I say you're dead, so shut up and take it like a man!
Actually, that's exactly what they're doing with the-features-previously-known-as-palladium (now just a part of longhorn?).
.Net interactions avail. with MSOffice.
You know that little message you get when you download the latest drivers for deviceX but manufacturerX doesn't want to spend $X to get another digital signature from M$? The one that strongly discourages installing unsigned drivers?
Well, that's gonna happen with ALL software on longhorn. Except, it may be worse. You may have to go into the control panel into some dark corner while logged in as Administrator in order to enable allowing unsigned-by-microsoft software to even be attempted to be installed.
Also, from a few articles i've read, Microsofts next version of windows will be 2 sided, "Trusted" and "UnTrusted". Now, i'm just guessing, but I bet that if i made unsigned programY, and MSOffice ran on the "Trusted" side of the DRM curtain (where my unsigned app would be on the "UnTrusted" side, IF it was even able to be installed), then I seriously doubt that my programY will be able to take advantage of any of the "cool"
In effect, the next generation of Windows (plus, god-forbid, hardware enabled DRM) will turn the PC platform into an XBox (although i'm sure somebody will find a hack, still, it's a pain in the ass).
DONT PANIC
Unreal Tournament 2003 does this, and it worked nicely. For publishers, the great thing is that you don't have to worry about putting your "other" version of the game on the shelves, as it's built right into your "regular" product.
I think that's the only viable way of putting "Linux games" on the shelves. Trying to publish Linux-only versions just ain't gonna work.
another indirect method to complain about Micro$oft and even Apple, and heck, anyone who doesn't directly promote Linux. Can we get a new gripe here on /. or what?
1337
The main danger, claims the author, is that a sw developer developing for a proprietary OS could be forced out of the market by the OS maker providng that software for free as in beer (gives Sherlock example). Isn't that same danger even more prevalent with OSS? Last time I checked, OSS was trying to replace just about every useful program with a free as in beer version (Linux, open office, gimp, etc.). Anybody trying to make money writing software needs to be as concerned about a free version coming out of the OSS community as they are with a proprietary vendor making the same software and forcing them out of the market.
Vote for Pedro
Such upgrades are very costly both in employee time wasted while the upgrade takes place and while the resulting problems are resolved, and in system adminitsrator time.
Wasting 2-4 hours of employee time for every desktop PC that needs to have a piece of software upgraded is rather common. And the least you can expect is to have to reboot your machine and waste one hour while it reboots, the upgrades are performed by the startup script, and you resume your work afterwards.
When something turns bad during upgrading, peoples desktop PCs can be more or less out of order for several days, which is massively expensive for the company.
Imagine the cost of doing this in an organisation with several thousand PC's. If you do upgrades once a month to some program and two out of these twelve yearly upgrades screws up somehow (these are common figures in the M$ companies I have experience with), then you have wasted 10x2+2*8=36 work hours for each employee per year. That is roughly a full work week wasted per year per employee because your company choose to use windows desktop "productivity software".
When you know that upgrading the windows software in your organisation carries a one out of five risc. of making the entire organisation unable to work for a day or more, then you start being reluctant to do upgrades, and you start to try to bundle them together in vacation times etc. to lower the cost to the organisation. This means that your employees has to wait longer for bug fixes and much needed new functionality, than if you could upgrade as soon as these are available.
So being able to install and upgrade for every user by upgrading on a single server, looks extremely attractive from the business side of the fence. Even if an upgrade on the server goes bad, roll back to the previous version only takes a couple of minutes, where you restore the content of a few directories from a zip with the previous version.
You can also go all fancy and have several servers, each power full enough to handle the entire workload, then perform upgrades on an off-line server and swap this for the currently online server after you have tested the upgrade. Then you can even swap back to the previous version in case of unforseen trouble, by simply substituting the old server, that you have kept around just in case, for the new one.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
People have demanded for a long time that Microsoft improve security and reliability. Adding AV to the OS certainly helps with that, at the price of hurting the existing providers.
The business of Microsoft "lock-in" with IE is nonsense. The only sites where I have troubles with Mozilla, Opera, or even older versions of Netscape is those run by Microsoft's own server products. I have yet to run into a website powered by Apache, Cold Fusion, Tomcat, J2EE implementations, or any of a hundred other products that serve up HTML streams.
Which sites are a problem? The occasional game site run by people who only review windows games. The occasional bank or other online provider, who usually fixes the problem within three months of realizing that people outside their company actually use other browsers, and are serious about taking their business elsewhere if it's not fixed.
I do think IE sucks at standards compliance, and that things would be a whole lot easier if everyone just follows standards. I think the courts should have pimp-slapped Microsoft from one coast to the other for their behavior over the years. But I'm not so naive as to think IE has been anywhere near as successful at locking out other players as Microsoft would like.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
No sharecropping for me luv! I'll be off to the basement now. See you in about 10 years.
Because i read the aticle and I saw no mention of "thieving sharecropper" anything. After you said this I actually read it again and still didn't find anything of the sort. In fact I searched on the frag "thiev" and mozilla didn't even find that sequence of letters on the page. Are you sure you're not reading the article through dark glasses?
If Tux phux, then we'll have little tuxes running around!
Wow, imagine a Beowulf cluster of those.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
As long as the Open Source and Free Software options are available, then sharecropper is an apt metaphor.
If, however, these options should cease to exist, then developers on propietary platforms will cease to be sharecroppers.
They will be serfs.
Read, L
As per California Real Estate law, adverse possession is not as simple:
1. You must have paid taxes and expenses on the property exclusively for one full year. (Well, there's no equivalent for this one, despite service packs, and "subscriptions".)
2. You must haved lived on the property deliberately and openly. (All your neighbors must be able to visually identify you have been using the property. Suddenly "network neighborhood" would take on a new meaning.)
3. The owner of the property must have full knowledge of your utilization of the property, and not have taken advantage of ample opportunity to bring legal action against you. (Since MS doesn't know you've been pirating their software, and they^h BSA sues all whom they catch, no such opportunity was ever present.)
However, these laws are only applicable to Real Estate, and the law considers software as Property Chattel. Then again, even that is changing, if commercial software manufacturers have their way...
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
oh brave new world, that has such people in it!
Here's another epithet for us *NIX snobs to hurl at Windows* developers.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Thanks for giving us all such a great example of that thing I said earlier... you know, about ignorance and bigotry knowing no color?
any time they want, because they would break every game in existence, their own older titles included. Use your head for christsake!
What they can do is put out a service pack (or in the probable case of Longhorn, an entire OS release) that breaks your game. Ideally, you release a patch; the problem is the worst case, where you (the developer) have to go out and get an entire new toolchain (new copy of Visual Studio, etc). Even though update prices are usually modest, you may not want to keep lots of VMWare images on your hard drive, multiple toolchains, etc.
FUD, FUD, FUD. If you develop your software correctly for Windows, there's little they can do to single out your application for breakage in a Service Pack or OS upgrade without incredible amounts of colateral damage with anything short of single-application detection (like they did with DR-DOS, but haven't been credibly accused of doing since).
The rest of your post is just as thick in the FUD department. Microsoft isn't "forcing" upgrades from NT4; they're simply not supporting NT4. You can still get support from a third party, and you can still purchase NT4 licenses by downgrading an XP license. Hell you can even still buy MS-DOS licenses.
NO CARRIER
Outside of the price of the operating system, Microsoft (or Apple or any other company that develops os's) does not collect part of the revenue the product from the product. This is inherent in the definition of a sharecropper-- "A tenant farmer who gives a share of the crops raised to the landlord in lieu of rent."
How can a 3rd party fix kernel problems? If they, the owners of the source, no longer support it, and no one else can support kernel-level bugs, and I have to buy the new OS, then I hardly see how it's simple for me.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
is that, by chance - "client-server" model?
... hi bingo
------------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
So, um... if you find anything fitting that description in the software industry, please let me know. The search has been difficult and fruitless.
Either way. I'll start worrying about commies when the IT industry begins to run out of jobs, and I'll start worrying about capitalist pig-dogs when I see folks thrown in jail for giving away code.
And they require a joystick. No Alt-Meta-# here. No keyboard.
And most adults will struggle to use the user interface. I've seen adults struggle with even the simplest games, like Mario Kart 64.
The browser has been chosen by "millions of people" for two reasons:
1. because the people using services on the web are not willing to download software to their PC. They are afraid of viruses. They dont know how. So developers must develop software that runs in a browser, or lose the customer.
2. because web applications have to work for the lowest common denominator. If you are selling to everyone (e.g. Amazon), then the user interface must be usable by someone who may not even know how to turn on a computer.
On the other hand, try to sell to me a piece of version control software that runs on a browser, or a developer IDE. Sorry Mr Linux Hacker, we've replaced Emacs with a Mozilla text box. Heck, if you were to ask my dad if he could use Excel for his financial spreadsheets without using any of the hotkeys, I think your users would be few and far between.
So develop for your audience.
Most fundamentally useful free software is developed by people who are paid to do it. Could Linus continue to develop the kernel if he wasnt paid by companies willing to pay him to sit around working on it? He left Transmeta because the work he was doing for them was cutting in to his linux time. Would GNU/Linux be so far developed without large companies like IBM and Redhat paying for programmers to work on it? Sure there would be something if no one was paid, but it would be woefully inadequate. Just keeping up with new hardware and new science takes boat loads of programmers. Most are paid a salary or contract fee to do it.
So it is developing free software that is share cropping. You, the programmer, work on God's freely created earth, creating a crop that large Farm Owners take, package, and sell (or sell "support for", or sell "hardware for") at the market. You take away a small amount of money, with which you have to go the market and buy food, and housing, and gas and pay your taxes, until you have nothing left.
With proprietary software, the programmer has an opportunity to own the farm. Sure a much bigger farmer may come along and force him to sell up, but frankly the $50,000 that Microsoft bought DOS for was the price of a house back then.
I'll work on Free Software when real farmers work on Free Food, and Ferrari works on Free Cars.
M$ will be beaten by its own game.
Neil Stephenson, a true visionair IMHO, made an
excellent analysis of the OS situation. Please
read
"In the beginning, there was the command line"
It sums up as:
"But it is the fate of operating systems to become free."
This will end M$ windows domination as we know it.
Bram
Bram Stolk http://stolk.org/tlctc/
There is one company I can think of that has a LONG history of successful partnership with Microsoft.
Arcada->Seagate->Veritas.
They wrote the backup applet that shipped with 95, and some of the other disk utilities bundled with NT/2000, etc. When Veritas (primarily a Unix company) bought the Seagate unit (primarily a Windows company) a few years back - suprisingly, all these years have gone by, and Microsoft STILL has not pulled their rug out from under them. And Veritas continues to sell into both the Unix and MS markets. And they're basicaly THE main player in the backup market. Microsoft could SO easily beat them up and steal their lunch money. . . but has just left them alone.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Don't know if anyone pointed this out yet, but has anyone told this guy that Darwin is Open Source? Sure Aqua is closed, but putting all of OSX and Windows in the same category just seems wrong.
Of course this whole argument is pretty twisted, but I'll leave that up to each person's interrupretation.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Here's another epithet for us *NIX snobs to hurl at Windows* developers.
Why hurl anything at a windows developer? Don't you kinda feel sorry for them?
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
...open source is collectivised farming, with no private ownership of land. And look where that got the Rooskies.....
His analogy is crap. Second rate journalist hacking something out for a paycheck.
There are a number of ways they can (and do) 'take back the land'.
One fun way is to break the os with a service patch or a whole os release.
Netscape clamed Microsoft broke network support on purpous by creating a whole diffrent networking API for Win 95.
This gave IE an edge as Netscape had to be modified for 95 and IE was updated as part of the 95 dev cycle.
Microsoft can sneak FUD into the disk, os, website and news letters about your product.
IBM learned Microsoft was feeding it's users FUD matereal by means of a text file in Windows. This way the FUD came from the users and not some offical 'talking head'.
If the FUD looks like it originated from a third party then it's unlikely to be called into doupt.
Or they can include a Microsoft counterpart in Windows or office.
They can buy slanted test results.
They can even call your product "alternitive" suggesting most don't like it.
The nabor anolog works but if you really want the proper anolog...
Your nabor is the tyrent emperer.
I don't actually exist.