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MS Rails On Open Source, Appeals To Gov't Greed
Bill Harper writes "Open source software is a 'waste of money,' a Microsoft executive has said. He goes on to say that governments planning to use it will damage their own economies and that giving away source code is shooting yourself in the foot. What's interesting though is that this is just the latest in a series of nonsense arguments put forward by MS in Asia because it's scared of Linux stealing the market. An early one was that open-source software is anti-competitive!" Funny thing is, the MS executive (Chris Sharp) used to work for Red Hat.
"Funny thing is, the MS executive (Chris Sharp) used to work for Red Hat."
Funny? It's scary more than anything, as it'll just make what he says seem more 'credible'. Of course, he's just some greedy bastard, and it's good to see him not working for an OSS company anymore, but it doesn't help Linux much in this propaganda campaign.
the painful lesson that they will have to transform from a company that create standards to being one that contributes to them.
They honestly believe that having tons of cash will buy them anything but open standards and architecture eventually win out. They always have, they always will. They are just throwing up their arms in exaperation because they just don't get it. They will,..soon enough
Doesn't Microsoft also claim that their software shouldn't be used in mission-critical systems? Wouldn't you think that government systems quality (usually) as mission-critical?
Hooray for hypocracy.
Funny thing is, the MS executive (Chris Sharp) used to work for Red Hat.
The only thing Chris Sharp works for is Chris Sharp.
If you don't have any ideals at all, you probably won't work well in Open Source.
Of course, I really shouldn't speak for Chris Sharp.
governments planning to use it will damage their own economies
...And governments using MS products aren't damaging their own economies by exposing themselves to 31337 h4x0rz, virii, spyware, seineewerasreenigneepacsten style backdoors, and other closed source, proprietary crap that only Microsoft can spoonfeed to us?
*rubs index finger and thumb together* This is the worlds smallest violin, playing a sad, sad song for you, Microsoft.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Seriously, talking to someone like sharp is like talking to a dollar bill-or a stock market. The only thing you can count on them to do is to say things in an attempt to enrich themselves. The thing that is scary: Sharp may actually believe his own material. He really may have believed what he said when he was at Red Hat--and changed those beliefs/judgements when he went to Micro$oft.
The "waste of money" argument does not hold water. Instead of the government earning X% on the profits of closed-source companies, every dollar spent by anyone on OSS development is potentially a dollar the government doesn't need to spend, and that the community does not need to duplicate by spending said dollar.
From the government's point of view, the ROI on OSS is orders of magnitude greater than that of closed-source software.
It's a vastly more efficient utilisation of resources.
'"If you are compelled to give back to the community, then you don't have the opportunity to benefit from that knowledge,"'
-Chris Sharp
translated:
f**ck you all. We're only here for the money.
Sharp, who used to work for Red Hat before joining Microsoft, said building open-source software is a "waste of money" and that a company was in effect giving away its intellectual property, preventing it from getting future benefits. "If you are compelled to give back to the community, then you don't have the opportunity to benefit from that knowledge," he stressed.
Because, of course, Microsoft is sooo concerned about it's potential competitors in the Asian market. "We'd just hate for our competitors to lose profit and stagnate"Give a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day, but set him on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Microsoft lies again in an attempt to protect their monopoly and resulting profit stream.
Film at 11.
And if you want to start a company in this world and make money while giving away source code, go right ahead. Lots of companies are doing just fine that way. It's only the proprietary, lock-em-up, IP theft is a crime!, sign this NDA! crowd that will fall further and further back.
Given that there are the reports of high percentages of windows installations in Asia are pirated (not govt installations you would have to hope though), going from a situation where the end user pays nothing (or next to nothing in the markets for their Windows OS CD) to having to pay something for a legit OS is not gonig to be popular.
This should be a great selling point for the Asian markets for OSS - pay the same price as you've always paid for your software, but get legitimate software.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World" 1 John 4:14
MS sounds like tired old prostitute complaining about women that give it away.
Open source is a good source of business revenues if you're in a country with cheap labor where you can more or less limitlessly hire support people.
If you're in a country where the labor is more or less expensive, and moreover if your employees are not support people but software engineers, then the financial outlook is questionable. For people and companies not wanting to move into cheap support, but stay in higher-paid research and software development going into open source does not make a whole lot of sense.
The government should care little about the source. They should mandate open standards. If you decide that your document standard will be the OpenOffice Writer XML-based standard, documented and open, then you can use either OpenOffice Writer for that (free) or any closed source utility that will save to desired format, but perhaps offer some other advantages.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
After reading this article, it sounds like Microsoft, atleast in the Asia-Pacific region, does not have any advantage in the market over OSS.
Perhaps its about time for Microsoft to realize the playing field has changed and it should figure out (like IBM, Novell, etc..) how to utilize OSS instead of trying to fight it.
It depends on what you spend your money on. When you install a copy of Linux, what's your support agreement? The government has to be able to support the software they use, and if they don't have a Linux support agreement then they'll have to pay additional staff to handle those duties. I'm not saying that Microsoft's right in their claims, but you can't just point at the XP=$300, Linux=$0 as evidence that OSS is cheaper or has a higher ROI. It's just not as simple as that.
You can, however, point to hidden costs like the expenses of in-house/outsourced Linux support vs. Microsoft support (those MCSEs bills are expensive!), savings from your enhanced security (the what virus? I guess I didn't get it), and the fact that Microsoft doesn't always produce the best product in a given industry - so you're not tied down to them.
Microsoft, on the other hand, can point to the negative effects on the economy of losing major employers like itself, of removing gov't income (there's no sales tax on free software), and their longevity and reliability (they've been around, and aren't going anywhere soon).
There are two sides... the people with the money will need to examine them both carefully (and hopefully make the right choice).
Actually, I think that certain products, like software, are helper technologies that increase overall productivity. To make a distinction, if you could get, say, a coffee table for free, then maybe you're hurting the coffee table industry, but if you can get software for free, and people use the software to be more productive, then having a wider spread use of the software because it's free is a good thing.
Coffee tables, on the other hand, tend not to increase anybody's productivity.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
When you install a copy of Linux, what's your support agreement?
Have you ever actually tried to get Microsoft to support their product as part of the purchase price?
He's being paid to publicly bend the truth to the very border of deceit. If that doesn't make him a "greedy bastard", I don't know what does.
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you, (we are here)
then you win.
-- Mahatma Ghandi
ps: I don't claim originality to this post. I've read it previously in slashdot. But it is appropriate to this story, and that's why I'm posting it anonimously.
In my part of SE Asia, piracy must be a very powerful ally of M$. People have grown so accustomed to M$ products and proggies running on windows 'cos they know where they can get them - and they've all been so "trained" in them cos of their "availability". And I would think that much of the general comp literacy in the region is due to this ally - I wouldn't be surprised if M$ sees this region as rather "safe" since Linux is kind of a "hardcore" "server" "alternative" solution.
oh yes i must also mention that after all those years of "free education", M$ started "cleaning up" several years back. Talk about traitors.
No. What is this? They are trying to save Governments from themselves, yet at the same time, collect a profit? I mean, really, what place does MS have, WHY would MS care what the Chinese government does, unless it's effecting Microsoft's business? MS is not some independant party. They aren't stupid. I can see the blank Chinese faces right now, just sort of staring at Sharp and waiting for him to leave.
...they just don't get it.
They don't get it? Hell, I'm the one that doesn't get it! What is it beyond the 50 billion(not that this money actually exists) in the bank that they want?? This is all very psychotic to me. Dudes, cash out, hit the Riviera, French, Mexican, Mayan, whatever. They must be doing this for a good laugh, watching us wetting our pants everytime they speak. There's just no other reason. Maybe it's some "wag the dog" thing. What are they distracting us from?
What?
One minor quibble. Microsoft doesn't create standards, they impose them.
At least it's good for the US's economy. M$ is basically funnelling money from around the world back into the US, which has a lot to do with why the rest of the world (at least EU, Latin America and Asia) are so hyped about an alternative. Especially nowadays with Bush increasing anti-American sentiment like never before seen.
In that sense if a non-programmer wants to help the FOSS movement then translating a how-to, a man page or something else is a great way.
You are completely fucking delusional.
Of course free software is attractive to governments in Asia, South America, Africa, etc, etc, etc. Every dollar saved on the cost of a desktop OS or database server is a dollar that can be spent on health care, education, etc. You know - those pesky issues that ordinary people care about more than "How much richer is Bill today?".
Microsoft seems to be operating under the delusion that the only thing a government should care about is growing a local software industry. Heaven forbid that they have other priorities.
A good question is whether or not it is actually bending the truth. Think for a moment, what is better for you ( universal you ) the paid programmer frightened of outsourcing or what-not, commercial or free software? closed or opened? There is a interesting if not valid point hidden in the propaganda, you just need to deal with that point.
What is it beyond the 50 billion(not that this money actually exists) in the bank that they want?? This is all very psychotic to me. Dudes, cash out, hit the Riviera, French, Mexican, Mayan, whatever. They must be doing this for a good laugh, watching us wetting our pants everytime they speak. There's just no other reason. Maybe it's some "wag the dog" thing. What are they distracting us from?
It's about power. Maybe a little about accomplishment. Doubtful that the customer is as important as a person as as a worshipper.
"You'd eat shit,
and say it tasted good,
If there was some money in it for ya."
-- Dirt
There aren't as many resources for Linux? There are MANY, MANY resources for linux. You do have to have a slight idea of what you're doing, but once you have that, you can find anything you want. Google works VERY well, as does HOW-TO's on www.tlpd.org . If you go to a project's homepage, you can often find support there, or a mailing list. There are PLENTY of resources for linux, saying otherwise means you don't know what you're talking about.
Sending money to Redmond, Washington, United States does not help your economy, unless you are in Redmond, or to a lesser degree in Washington State.
It's good for the economy when things like steel and coal and fabric gets cheaper, because it means a better standard of living for consumers. Businesses also become more efficient; when their raw material costs go down, they either make more money or drop prices, both of which are good for the local economy.
So if cheaper steel is good, why on earth is cheaper software bad?
But Microsoft is trying to assert that if you wnt any chance of growing your own Microsoft, you need a strong IP regime.
But the simple fact is that there will be no new Microsofts. The existing one will make very sure of that. Only people who completely change the rules and play a different game entirely can hope to succeed against a compaany with half the money in the world.
If your local economy actually DID 'hit gold' and come up with a wonderful new software idea, it's virtually certain that Microsoft would simply subsume it into Windows. This has happened many times over the last twenty years; Microsoft has put company after company out of business by leveraging Windows. (Stacker, Quarterdeck, Lotus 1-2-3, Netscape... the list goes on and on.) The Windows software ecosystem has very little diversity; there are a few big companies and a lot of small ones, but very very few midsize ones. The sharks eat them instead and get bigger.
In other words, with Microsoft already existing in the world, the chance of creating your own local Microsoft is ZERO. The creation of the closed source software industry was a very special event that will only happen once; it will not be repeated.
There can still be small software niches, of course, ones that are too small for Microsoft to bother with. But if you grant that you most likely can't make huge piles of money, why not give away the code for free and sell services and support instead?
As a government, why not encourage consulting-type technology businesses like this? Service businesses can make very comfortable amounts of money. While they don't have the huge potential upside of being able to sell, over and over again, a product that costs them nothing to duplicate, they don't really have that upside ANYWAY because of Microsoft. The open-source industry is still forming, and there's lots and lots of room for new companies.
If you REALLY want to help your economy out, get behind open source and PUSH. Your local government spending $5,000/year for local companies to support and fix their Linux servers is a HELL of a lot better for your economy than is sending a check to Microsoft. Money that goes to Redmond is gone; money that is spent locally stays in your local economy.
Now, if Microsoft offered solutions that were wildly better than their open-source counterparts, it might make financial and economic sense to buy Windows. If you can be twice as productive, say, on a Windows box, and the total cost of Windows is less than twice that of Linux, then it's an overall win to buy Windows. I'm setting aside control and forced upgrade issues, along with many others, but economics is ultimately about cost, and you can abstract all those factors into cost of ownership.
But if, as I believe, Windows' overall advantage over Linux is slim at best, then it's just wasteful to send money to Redmond when you can spend it locally instead.
There's one other scenario, too... you may be so technically savvy you that you don't NEED support. In that case, you you can drop your computing cost to ZERO. This is STILL better for the local economy, because that $200 you don't send to Redmond is money you can spend at the county fair.
In a world with free alternatives, paying for Windows is very much like a tax. Taxes are always harmful (at least directly) to an economy, because it's wasted money...profit that didn't get reinvested.
I've lost track, was that the study Microsoft did, or the one they paid for or both?
Uhm, actually no. Mozilla IS netscape, just a few genereations and a name change later, with much more added to it. And the relationship between Open Office and Star Office is mostly the same.
The exception being the one about Unix. Wich is not to good a point as Linux is a POSIX compliant os same as Unix.
Of course you are almost certainly a 3rd rate troll, or just possibly a employee of a comercial company threatened by OSS who failed to do his/her research and is now sitting there with egg on his face.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
Seriously, selling products for less in other countries encourages businesses to leave the united states.
I can't blame a company who outsources work to another country because its less expensive.
I can BLAME an American company who intentionally lowers prices in other countries and rapes us here in the states.
If I stop sending my money to redmond, will it grow mold and get stale?
No Bill, I'll find somewhere else to spend it. Perhaps down town at the restaurant, Maybe a tread mill from Dick's Sports. I could get my lawn treated. I could spend money on my local economy supporting jobs just like mine. Everyone wins but you bill.
The government which is strong enough to protect you from everything is strong enough to take everything from you.
that makes it difficult to use another plumber or add fixtures from another comapny, is pure evil, and plain greedy. A plumber who does good work for a fair price, using agreed standards so the next plumber can easily find his way around the job, and so that off the shelf fixtures bolt right on, is worth his service fee.
I remember the uncomfortably look I got in a hotel meetingroom in Bloomington, Minnesota back in about 1997 when the 'Red Hat' representatives showed up for a presentation. They were all uncomfortably suited folks, and we were the unwashed hacker masses.
I further remember the uncomfortable look I got when I asked the pantsuited sales lady if it was okay if I made copies of my Red Hat 5.0 CDs to share with friends.
resigned
So What? I have heard open-source advocates contradict themselves much worse, and even resort to spouting misinformed opinions when it suits their needs. It isn't that Open Source or Microsoft are inherently good or evil. Both worlds are full of unselfish and selfish people. You have to take everything with a grain of salt.
Make sure your government KNOWS that you want YOUR tax dollars to support things that are not only cheap, but good quality and create a job market by creating support and development jobs with all that money they save by NOT buying MS software!
If my government makes something with MY money, it should be open/free for at least the people who payed for it.... Not pay a 3rd party who is funding campaigns so they can get an exclusive deal.
It would be cheaper to simply hire some inhouse IT people to support and develop software than it is to pay outside...and multiple cities and governments can collaborate.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I'm trying to argue both sides here - but Microsoft does offer free support and such free, comprehensive Linux support doesn't exist.
I call bullshit.
Microsoft's knowledge base is nice, yes, but honestly, it's there out of strict necessity. And it's not as good as Google anyway. For both Linux and Windows, Google is the way to go.
If you have a real problem with Windows, it won't be on support.microsoft.com, it'll be on Google. Probably Google Groups. And probably with a bunch of people with titles like "Microsoft MVP" chiming in with their two pence, all wrong and clueless. Guess why? Because nobody knows how the software works. And these real problems don't get solved.
How do you solve the problems? By calling up Microsoft. They'll charge you hundreds of dollars, to be refunded if they decide it's a bug in their software. You will be on hold for hours on end, and their support is far from helpful.
I spent over six months with Microsoft support on a single issue a few years ago; I still see the problem today, so their solution obviously didn't work, but we just learn to live with the problem.
More recently we experienced a bug with Windows 2000 Server SP4; it just kept rebooting randomly. Turns out this stems from a fix of a vulnerability in SP3 and below. Microsoft support was useless and to my knowledge they haven't actually fixed the new bug. Google Groups, on the other hand, helped us find the problem (we just use SP3 now, vulnerability and all).
I've set up GNU/Linux in mission-critical situations. When problems come up, IRC or Google or Google Groups has always had the answer. The three have a combined 100% track record. Why? Because the developers listen, and if not, you can always look at the source code. (You'd be surprised how easy it is to find the problem in the source code going by nothing more than an error message.)
In my experience, GNU/Linux support costs all of $0. But if I had a scary manager who wanted support, I could always recommend one of the zillions of companies selling Linux support. I doubt any would be as good as newsgroups, but they can't hurt. They'd certainly be more helpful than Microsoft, since in my experience Microsoft support is nothing more than a waste of time and patience.
Plus your time. What does that cost your employer?
I'd largely agree with your post, but your employer pays you for your expertise. If that costs, say, $50k pa, then that's part of the cost of supporting Linux.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
Personally, I raised (via my employer's support team) one bug with MS, in 1994, and I can't even remember what it was, just that the answer was "tough - that's how it is". For history's sake, I wish I'd made a note.
Support is a really strange thing - on one hand, you've got the users who say "fsck support, it works!" and on the other, you've got people who say "I don't care if it 'just works', I want someone to cover my ass if it doesn't work!"
For those people, support is worth megabucks.
These people who will pay megabucks for support will also live without functionality (eg, SATA drive support, WiFI, etc) for supportability.
I heard recently of a Gov't who nearly went back on a known-working cluster config because one of the (3+) vendors involved didn't explicitly support it (they'd not got around to testing it, although the other 2 vendors had tested it).
Support is a strange creature, which must be endured, but also understood.
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
I thought I read fairly recently that custom software development for specific businesses was still the largest paying sector in the IT world in the US. Open standards mean more jobs for us slashdot nerds! Case in point: I wrote the first version of the Quality Assurance database at my work in VB because I already knew it, and it was fast and easy. I got promoted (largely because of my badass database!) and got my own desk and everything! Guess what, that desk had it's own computer, I wouldn't want to piss off the BSA, and I certainly didn't want to buy another copy of VB (one of the techs was making nicer UI's for the DB so I couldn't just uninstall) so I went python(I friggin love that lang BTW) and now I am writing version 3.0(don't ask) entirely in Python and it will friggin rock. I could confidently say that open source software has not only provided me with the tools to be incredibly productive, but given my employer a productivity boost to go along with it.(we used to write the test data on paper and have the night tech enter it into an Access DB which took at least an hour a night) Not to mention that it will ensure that some python kiddie gets a job when I leave. How could this possibly be a bad thing???
Uhhh... The MS version costs in my time as well. I sit on phone waiting for help, listening to elevator music, while my employer is paying me X per hour to do absolutely nothing. On the other hand, I could be browsing the web looking for answers and clues, get support from IRC or USEnet, and learn in the process.
Point is that one version costs $X per hour, the other version costs $X per hour plus the $100+ to talk to MS support. I suppose it is rather subjective and variable to the situation which will result in a better outcome, but I tend to think the employer gets more out of it when I teach myself how to fix the problem.
Second point...how long are you on hold with MS support? Could it be that searching google turns up the answer in 1/2 the time it takes to even talk to an MS employee? With that in mind, the cost to talk to MS support is $2X + 100+.
So, I could sit there and hum for 2 hours while my employer pays me and MS to do basically nothing or I could hunt down the answer on the web in 1 hour and learn shit in the mean time.
I can also multitask better when waiting for a responce from the web. I post to usenet and move on to other problems only to check back later and get my answer. I can't multitask as well while waiting for someone to take me off hold...my attention is taken too much.
Hmmm...I know which way _I_ would go as an employer. I think 2X is too conservative an estimate.
NR
governments that standardise on open-source software are hurting their local software vendors as they can't make the money needed to invest in their own software products.
You'd expect a government to buy direct. The only "local" software vendor here is Microsoft.
building open-source software is a "waste of money" and that a company was in effect giving away its intellectual property, preventing it from getting future benefits. "If you are compelled to give back to the community, then you don't have the opportunity to benefit from that knowledge,"
Their benefits are (1) The free use of software that they CAN imrove on, (2) The use of those improvements in their own line of business (If you need a new feature or bugfix in a commercial product, your options are limited, as in your only option is to wait and see), and (3) The use of improvements made by businesses who are using the software because of your improvements. Etc.
even companies that support open source are just as motivated by commercial interests as any other commercial software vendor.
Yeah, what's wrong with expecting a little well earned profit?
Intellectual property rights fuel sustained innovation
Need is a pretty big motivation to innovate. Some call it the root of all invention. You keep your IP rights, enough to relicense and enforce against commercial pirates. And open source won't prohibit you from making commercial software, on your own, and seeing how far those IP rights get you when nobody wants to pay to use your software because you're competing with Microsoft. And how was 15 years of DOS, an OS that was a decade outdated when it was created, defended heavily by litigation and anti-competitive tactics, and based entirely on the works of others any without credit or compensation, a shining example of innovation fueled by IP rights? Quite the opposite.
Or what about the fear of patent litigation if I invent something that someone else invented independently? Non-innovators need not worry about such things.
With open source, there is no way to make more software
??? With FUD, there is no way to make more sense?
And this has what to do with my rights?
Open Source has NO interest in MS except with regard to APIs and protocols to enable OSS to talk with proprietary MS protocols. Other than that, OSS does not care that MS exists or not, it has no interest in defeating MS is some kind of software war and is here to stay whether MS like it or not.
MS should now accept this, just like they had to finally accept that TCP/IP became the globally accepted way of networking computers together about 10 - 15 years ago.
A rational adult company would recognise that it now has some serious competition for market share and would begin to take positive steps to secure its userbase - for starters, spending some of those huge cash reserves to improve the products that are out there already, make them better and more secure and, yes, lower their prices to make them more value for money.
Additionally, an adult company would accept that it's products have to work with competitors products and take action to ensure that (some of) its APIs are open or that it adopts more open standards within its products.
The problem is that at the moment, the only damage MS is doing is to itself. This "spoilt brat" behaviour is lowering its public image even more and giving some of its customers another excuse to adopt OSS in favour of its own products.
My personal belief is that MS are very close to having to adopt a major tactic change (for the better) in order to stay in business in the future (and they know it). I'm sure that very soon we'll see the patent litigations start against the likes of SAMBA and those that built FAT/NTFS support into the kernel but I really don't see how backwards engineering will be seen as infringing a patent when tested in court - I also suspect (and hope) that one or more of the big Linux players (IBM?) will step forward with the money for OSS to fight these litigations - if not, then I believe the community itself will find ways of raising money to fight them. After all the court cases are done, MS will just be perceived as inflexible and (more) arrogant and lose more customers as a result.
The article just indicates how desperate MS are getting (in terms of trying to stop OSS) and very soon they'll realise that they just have to accept it and work with it or give up with software completely.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The micro-economic argument would go like this:
The cost to produce one additional unit of software (marginal cost) is very near zero. Furthermore, the average cost per unit at higher levels of production is always decreasing. The fixed costs of development are spread over ever increasing copies of software, which each have negligible cost to produce.
Software development is a contestable market. That means that new companies can enter and exit the market at an insignificant cost. (Anyone can write software at home and distribute copies over the Internet.) In a contestable market, if the average cost curve has negative slope where it crosses market demand (guaranteed for digital copies, since the slope is negative everywhere), there is a "natural monopoly". The "natural contestable monopoly" firm must set output and price at the point where their average cost curve crosses market demand, where profits equal zero. At a lower price, the firm takes losses, and at a higher price, it invites competition. Even then, a firm that can incur lower fixed costs (zero for open source) can outcompete the others. The price would tend to move to where marginal cost (near zero) meets demand.
Essentially, profit-seeking companies must innovate first, before a zero-development-cost solution becomes available. They must continue to innovate, and always ensure that the consumers are willing to pay more for higher quality and additional features, otherwise they sell fewer copies.So open-source won't kill the industry. It is the heel-nipping dog that will drive the industry towards more innovation and greater consumer satisfaction. Unfortunately, there is not much room for either profit or error, unless your company has just invented something totally new. In that case, a patent can provide breathing room, though piracy still puts limits on pricing.
Also, though 100 families may become unemployed when an open source project is completed, 100 million can now become more productive at near-zero cost. The hundred can now move on to a new project with no competitors.
"This quote is a product of the Frobozz Magic Quote Company."
I don't buy it. That's the same argument that a farmer using manual laborers would use against the automation (and associated massive efficiency increases -- we now produce far more food per worker) of farming.
Industries always improve efficiency. As a matter of fact, that's one of the key reasons for having free markets. As part of this process, people get put out of their jobs and forced to find new work. Perhaps reimplementing word processors isn't a viable job any more, and programmers will be forced to work on, say, font creation software.
Until that day when there isn't a thing in the world that computers could potentially be made to do that they can't do, there will be jobs for every software developer in the world.
Also note that there are more people working on custom code and vertical-market code than horizontal-market code. Horizontal-market code derives the most benefit from open-sourcing -- if you're doing up a custom forum system, *some* of the work may be done for you if you start with an existing base, but it's unlikely that everything is complete.
I think that you should be more concerned about improvements in ease of programming. If everyone had to code in assembly, it would take many more man-hours to write a package. High level languages like Java, SQL, and perl allow people to produce software much more quickly. This *does* affect vertical-market and custom development.
May we never see th
MS is just pissed off because OSS looks like piracy but unfortunately for MS, it isn't.
In days of yore when someone started doing things like OSS, it was easy for groups like MS because all they had to do was declare OSS a bunch of copyright pirates and take them apart with the help of every legal mechanism available.
But when the "pirates" use the same language as the "privateers" (see GPL using the language of copyright back against MS, and everyone else) then it's on for everyone. Good luck to MS with the rhetoric, because that is, in reality (and unsubstantiated SCO totally aside) all they've got to use.
I further remember the uncomfortable look I got when I asked the pantsuited sales lady if it was okay if I made copies of my Red Hat 5.0 CDs to share with friends.
Meh, 'sokay. As long as Red Hat's actual content producers are those unwashed hackers and don't start ignoring unwashed hackers like me, I'll be happy.
To be honest, I don't envy those Red Hat business types. They are quite literally forging new ground and having to produce and test new business models for a changed market, all while fighting one of the largest companies in the world. This is not a position that implies survival -- usually it's companies that *follow* companies like these and can tread on the dead bodies of the companies that made mistakes before them that end up making it big.
The Red Hat hackers, on the other hand, get dream jobs. They get paid to hack on OSS.
May we never see th
Support is a really strange thing - on one hand, you've got the users who say "fsck support, it works!" and on the other, you've got people who say "I don't care if it 'just works', I want someone to cover my ass if it doesn't work!"
This is a huge, huge, huge deal.
In many cases, much of business lies in separating the interests of an exec at a client from the interests of the business he works at. That may take the form of something as simple as wining and dining them. It may be because vendors can take advantage of imperfect reward systems at companies -- execs generally recieve little or no reward for doing something slightly better than expected (Windows works, Linux works better, the exec isn't getting a bonus for going to Linux) and tremendous punishment for anything going wrong when a finger can be pointed at them. Official support is rarely worth the money it costs (especially if you are a large company with a skilled in-house IT staff) unless you are working with some very specialized software. However, if something goes wrong and a support contract is present, the exec can just say "I did my job". He won't get nailed if it's widely known that this software has caused problems before, but he *will* get nailed if something goes wrong and there is no support contract in place.
"Cover my ass" is one of the inefficiencies in business, and something that businesses should (hard as it is) work to eliminate.
May we never see th
A corporate employee -- in MARKETING no less -- whose motivations are monetary, not belief-based!! We must stamp this out before it becomes socially acceptable!! Thank goodness there's only one of them. I'm pretty sure every other executive in the world is still going to work each day out of a sense of belief, but if this 'monetary motivation' thing catches on, we could be looking at people going into business to make money, or, worse yet, going to work in order to get a paycheck! *splutter*
Seriously, guys, listen to yourselves.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
What's the bets that RedHat might have some juicy comments of his from times past, in email or whatever, singing the complete opposite to what he's chanting now?
:)
Now would be the time to reveal these publicly and really make him look a fool
Taxes tend to have a negative effect on the growth of the economy. You have to have some taxes or you can't run a government at all, and there are certainly important programs that must be funded, but governements should try to save money wherever possible. If I'm not giving my money to the governement, I'll spend it myself, and I'll spend it on things that will drive the economy towards making more goods that I want to purchase.
I'm no economist, but I believe that when governments decide where the money gets spent, you create artificial economies that can collapse when political tides change. There are buying fads as well, but I believe they have less of a deterimental effect on the economy.
By investing in Open Source solutions for software, governments help create a body of software that can be used by all other governments. Keeping it open gives us a way to directly help governments in smaller countries by making top quality software available for them. This is all done without any extra cost. It's sort of foriegn aid as a by-product of smart shoping on our governments part. Since most governments face similar organizational problems, there is bound to be tremendous overlap in the software requirements they all have.
Open Source software is more secure, in general, than commercial softare because it is open to public scrutiny and analysis. I think it's frightening to imagine viruses taking over government computers and opening them up to manipulation by criminals. It seems that creates all sorts of potential problems that are best avoided.
In summary, I think that the best decision any government can make is to use Open Source Software whenever it meets the requirements of the situation. It's the best thing for the economy and for the taxpayers.
-All that is gold does not glitter - Tolkien
www.ra
Look, the argument about ROI is completely facile. OSS will always win. Take a step back from the issue and think for a minute. Itemise all the tasks that need to be done wrt to software. Does, buying proprietary software make those tasks disappear? Of course not. There is probably a strong case to say that proprietary software has more tasks associated with it. Even in a world where you take the Keynsian view on government expenditure, the economic utility from spending one more dollar on a platform that is standards based and universally available is a dollar better spent than if it were spent on something proprietary and that is even before one takes the margin out of the sale and repatriates the profit to the jusridiction of the vendor. That's before thinking about the fact that every dollar spent improving a piece of free software is a dollar that does not need to be respent by another department, or another government. Leaving all those extra dollars to improve other software or decrease the marginal cost of government, all of which improves net social utility.
So without even considering the actual cost of the software, the economics of the public sector make free software make sense. I would go further and say that we must _demand_ that public institutions use free software since to do otherwise is fiscally irresponsible.
Any proprietary organisation can pull as many TCO surveys out of their ass as they like, the issue issue, in my view, is not one of economic rationalism (well at least not short term economic rationalism becuase I think my argument is economically rational in the long term at least) but one of public policy. It is contrary to good public policy to pay for proprietary software. Once the problems that a public institution has to solve have been solved, those solutions (the software, and that is not the only example) should be available to everyone to increase the net benefit to society as a whole. That is what public institutions are for!
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
McDonald's has been known to advertise "America's favorite fries". I don't think there's any doubt that they sell more fries than anyone else, but I doubt that many fry eaters as individuals would list McD's as their preference.
Frito-Lay (sorry to dwell on fried foods) does the same with crunchy snacks. Even more than McDonald's, and much like Microsoft, they achieve marketplace dominance by driving their competitors' products off the shelf, rather than by actually competing for preference.
There's even a B-school concept of "hyper-competition" about how to own a marketplace. Basically by bullying the middlemen: highway planners, groceries, OEMs.
The word "prefer" carries no meaning if there's a conclusion that I prefer McDonald's food when my choices have been limited to McDonald's and Wendy's. My choices have already been constrained. I *prefer* a competent local business to McDonald's, but non-chain budget restaurants are too marginal to afford both a location visible to non-locals and competence.
I prefer corn chips that taste like corn rather than like construction debris, but most convenience stores don't carry them.
Similarly, I have to go out of my way if I want to avoid Microsoft.
My preference in a meaningful sense is only revealed when I accept some inconvenience to avoid the near-monopolist. Someone driving a half-mile out of their way to get some decent food reveals a preference. Someone not doing so just reveals that they are burned out and hassled, and lack the information to make a more satisfactory choice. In other words, the hypercompetition strategy (make everybody's life systematically worse and call it "great") is working.
How many times have you used a Microsoft product and said to yourself "gee, I'd certainly prefer to be using X..." for some value of X?
mt
Why do people keep implying that the quality of the free and open source software alternatives is equivalent to the mainstream commercial applications? With a few exceptions, it simply isn't true for any of the big name apps that matter. (Not coincidentally, those exceptions are the ones making serious inroads into the marketplace.)
Although, this is a completely domain specific topic, I'll go out on a limb and say in most cases open source software is at least up to par with closed source alternatives. People often tout missing features in open source software while ignoring the converse. Also, just because something isn't done in exactly the same way doesn't mean that a feature is missing. Open source isn't about emulating closed source, its about providing a viable niche filler with minimal investment.
In terms of usability -- and please understand that usability is everything outside of GeekWorld(TM) -- free software isn't even on the planet where Microsoft, Apple et al live. This was exemplified right here on Slashdot a few days ago, when an article slammed the GIMP for its non-standard interface amongst other things, and a zillion slashbots collectively put their heads in the sand and missed the point.
The GIMP bashing was a case of, "I learned photoshop and now I don't want to learn another new interface" crybaby syndrome. Most people that learn photoshop make a living off using photoshop and showing others how to use photoshop. They feel threatened when they see this new interface (because they are no longer experts with it), and naturally try to discredit it. A case in point: I was showing a couple of my creations to one of our guys that just so happens to be a "Photoshop expert", and as soon as I said that I used a free photoshop alternatve, he immediately got offended and said, "There is no free photoshop alternative." And he stuck with that rather adamently. He is not the only I talked to with this opinion. He is just the most recent one I remember. So given this common disposition, I completely understand every non-GIMP users disdain towards the "non-standard interface" (whatever thats supposed to mean anyways). I, personally, started with Photoshop, and I find the GIMP's interface to be far more natural, that is after you understand the extremely complex concept of right clicking.
The Mozilla project's continued stubborn insistence that W3C standards are more important than being compatible with the browser used by 90+% of surfers, to the extent that their product does not work with a significant number of major web sites, is another fine example.
Well, I use Mozilla and have found that the number of websites that I cannot use, are far and few between. I have actually found more instances of Microsoft's browser not rendering pages correctly. Furthermore, the usage of non-standards compliant web-sites would only put more control in to the hands of the competition, because you would be letting them dictate the spec. Not a very good idea.
As my previous posts will tell you, I'm no apologist for megacorps, but you have to keep these things in perspective. $300 to an individual is a lot of money. $300 to a business is merely the cost of employing somebody useful for a few hours, and the associated overheads. If an alternative software product with poor usability or a missing feature cost those few hours, you've already justified buying the $300 product instead. If the freebie wastes that time twice, it just became a liability.
Ah, the accounting argument. This one I find most realistic. But people always fail to take into account the fact that sooner rather than later, you're going to have to purchase an upgrade or continue your support license. Most software upgrades, both open and closed source, take negligible time (with exceptions in both cases of course) to tweak the configuratios for an updated version. Is it really worth it to keep paying that $300, every year or so, even when you
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF