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When Think Tanks Attack
x1048576 writes "The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution is only one of a dozen different think tanks that have attacked Open Source. Why are all these think tanks so down on Open Source? Well, the Small Business Survival Committee is concerned that using open source will expose small business to the risk of lawsuits. Citizens Against Government Waste is concerned that the government might waste money on Open Source. Defenders of Property Rights is concerned that Open Source might be a threat to intellectual property rights. However, I was able to detect a common theme to all their criticism. They all seem to be funded by Microsoft."
They have to get their funding from somewhere... and I think that the large majority of it isn't coming from Open Source. That kind of lobbying costs money you know!
~/words_by_grainfed.txt
Turkeys don't vote for Christmas.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Wasting money on Open Source? Evidently they haven't looked at the Wired article. The one that says that an average Malaysian worker has to work 1,100 (yes, eleven hundred) hours to buy a licensed copy of Windows XP.
Then again, think who these people are funded by.
Being attacked by a think tank? Sounds like we need to get Marvin to go and talk to it into submission.
("What a depressingly stupid tank.")
(Spudley Strikes Again!)
really needs a sanity check and anything they say really should be taken with a grain of salt. They praised Reagan for helping to keep the budget deficit in check.....Now THATS what I call revisionist history!
as opposed to what? Smartly shifting the taxpayer's money to the bank account of the world's richest man?
Someone was bound to think of slashdotting as an appropriate vengeance against the think tanks.
...is some Free Software using Institutes to come out against Windows and proprietary software.
I'm sure funding for this could be had from IBM, HP, Red Hat, etc...
Join the Free Software Foundation
I for one think that the public criticism of the Open Source developer community is healthy. While we never like being ridiculed or having our flaws pointed out, it does have one advantage: increased introspection.
M$ is playing the same card every corporation and goverment has done in history: taking advantage of people's fears of what they don't understand.
Which is nice.
That if Microsoft has that much money to spend on think tanks and spin doctors, if they spent that much money on improving their products instead of spreading FUD where would they be today!
Microsoft are by many considered the driving force behind the BSA, who seems to have co-authored the software patents directive of the European Commission.
the good text is at the bottom, imho. start here:
They have a word in Washington for the corporate-sponsored outcry, the grassroots movement that isn't: AstroTurf. By far the most comical example of this is to be found at the Freedom to Innovate Network (Fin), a "non-partisan, grassroots network of citizens and businesses who have a stake in the success of Microsoft and the high-tech industry". Fin doesn't try particularly hard to appear independent--its website, after all, is housed on Microsoft's own--but it has as its online centrepiece a lengthy collection of testimonials from activist groups with vaguely alarming names: the Centre for the Moral Defence of Capitalism, Frontiers of Freedom, Defenders of Property Rights. Their comments appear unsolicited and independent: it certainly looks like there is a groundswell of support for the beleaguered computer giant.
In the spirit of fair use, visit the website for the full story. It's interesting but don't take it as a rallying cry. Just remember to wonder why you see a think tank write a paper next time. In fact remember to wonder why the next person you see says something, in general.
...levels that one of MS's approaches to fighting open source would be to bring up the spectre of lawsuits. Considering the last few years, one would think that Redmond would have a healthy aversion to courtrooms and wouldn't wish that on anyone.
But then, I guess I'm not being a realist. What disappoints me, regardless of history, is that MS is not willing to compete against open source in the marketplace without trying to stack the deck. Have they no confidence in their product? If not, why not? And if not, then why aren't they working to make it better? And if they are, then where are the results?
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
Just curious...
When old IBMs, Apples, and even Commodore 64s were in the offices of the 80s... was the risk of lawsuits, wasted money on computers, and digital property rights really an issue?
If not,... why now?
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
When think tank, funded by MS, attacks, it's more dangerous than ususal think tank, because it's unpredictable like monkey with a bomb.
I am wondering here, is there no point where all this FUD turns illegal?
Can a company sponsor a dozen institutions to spread lies without running any risk of prosecution?
Is a misleading name... they're just lobby groups that are trying to give themselves some credibility.
I can't think of anything witty right now
The more of this they do the more they look like morons. The sad thing is not so much that there actually are people out there who believe this dribble. It is that some of them get elected to high political positions. I wonder how long it is before some bunch of corporate arse-kissing politicians and/or lobbyists decalare OSS to be the most evil thing since computer viruses and more likely to bring about the collapse of Western civilization and the American way of life than Al Quaeda?
Oops my bad! they already have...
I wonder is somebody is developing special medication for this crowd? It is a growing market...
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Think tanks have turned innovation, insight and thinking into a source of income, and they're seeking to commoditise it.
Put simply, free-thinking outside of a think tank is seen as a threat to their own jobs. In their opinion, open source development should be best left to companies that develop software, in the same way that opinions and insight should come from them, and them only.
Their biggest threat here isn't open source software, it's open source thinking.
Don't worry about them as it only gives them credibility.
Particularly if they are a small software house. I think its a common misconception here that OS threatens the big players most. It doesnt. They may start using OS tools but will keep getting the big enterprise contracts. If I am a small or niche vendor though and a viable free as in beer OS solution then I can pretty much kiss my business goodbye and find something else to do. I think there is a significant risk of OS polarizing the market into 'pure' OS and the big corporate vendors and taking out all the middle players.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
"They all seem to be funded by Microsoft."
/. representing speculation as fact to feed the group think?
I RTFA. I saw lots of speculation that Microsoft funded all of them. I saw lots of examples of previous funding. I saw almost no proof though or in most instances even a strong case (they hired a consultant who had worked for Microsoft? Big deal). Another case of
Read reviews of shopping cart software
And I haven't received almost any funding from Microsoft.
This isn't going to come as any surprise but he's *not* the brightest bulb on the tree. However he's far from alone in that, more's the pity.
Brown sees MS as a *miracle*, like many he looks at the phenomenal financial success, adds the fact that it's nominally 'technology' sector and draws his conclusions.
Now the place I'm working for (which has posted market performance in the same range as MS) just did a celebration of thier 25th anniversary. The founders of the company are both very well off and pretty damned bright guys. One jokingly referred to his early talks with Wall street where he said "we're in the business of being a profitable philanthropy". The other mentioned that "we're in the business of doing the right thing" (does this sound like Google's founders?).
Shortly after, the chief financial officer got up and (predictably -- he's a fan) compared us to Microsoft. The reason is he's a money guy and all he can see is the money / financial success.
In fact if we acted in our markets the way MS does, our clients would show us the door. As it is they respect our engineering, and even our sales force, which is trained very hard to serve the *clients* needs.
Iff OSS follows that model, all the ADTI's in the world won't matter. The fact is that some oss projects (see the recent article linked on /. about why users are 'wrong' in not likeing the new Nautilus 'spatial' design) *don't* think this way, and more's the pity.
Fortunately, those are the exceptions.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
Open discussion of both sides of a story promotes greater understanding, so people can make up their own minds. You should only feel threatened by this if you think Open Source has something to hide...
Many thoughts hurt the eco systems because they are alien to the environment or may attract the wild life to intake them as food. At first it is hard to detect, but they accumulate and when measureable it might already be too late.
The park ranger will happily receive the wrong thoughts and put them away in think tanks where they are isolated from the wild nature. It is very important to prevent them from contact with the real world.
This message is sponsored by Microsoft, who actively supports all collection of thoughts into tanks
:-) = I am happy
:^) = I am happy with my big nose
C:\> = I am happy with my OS
In the name of Eris, some of those "think tanks" really are full of shit. For example, here's a nice article from the "Small Business Survival Committee" against the recent anti-SUV feelings among several key US people. Their motivation is to be doubted in the first place; why would a think tank that aligns itself with SMALL businesses care about SUV? Non "mom-n-pop" shop/small business will ever produce a SUV. Besides, look at some of their reasoning:
Brilliant. Fucking brilliant. That's an ammount of misinformation that would make many a discordianist proud. I love that logic, how many people died in M1A2 Abrams tanks lately? Probably less then that. So clearly, everyone in the US should drive a M1A2 Abrams MBT. Also, more people die each year by drowning in water then by drowning in hydrochloric acid. Therefore, hydrochloric acid is safer to swim in then water. I'm not even going tom start on their anti-"EC penalty vs MS" article. Since when does MS count as a small business, anyways, to attract their concern?
Hate me!
However, I have yet to speak to anyone who *likes* Microsoft the company, apart from a few people I've crossed paths with who "used to work there".
Therefore, based on the fact that very few people *seem* to like of trust Microsoft, why do Microsoft believe that funding pro-MS think tanks is going to sway public opinion away from Open Source?
To me, Microsoft just seems to be acting like a "spoilt child" these days. No longer is it getting everything it wants when it wants it and so has now gone into a "tantrum" mode and just lashing out to the world.
I'm no business guru but it strikes me that if you head up a company that no-one particularly likes, then you spend some resource improving your reputation in the eyes of the public - try to convince everyone that you care about your image in their eyes, that you want to be seen as a corporation that listens and that you change some of your business processes based upon what people tell you is wrong with the way you do things.
I don't actually care about what these think-tanks say about Open Source because I don't trust Microsoft to tell the truth, let alone the quangos they fund. Why should the rest of the world care about what these think tanks say?
Sometimes, I really get the impression that Gates and his cronies have absolutely no perception of customer perceptions and relaitonships...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Has it occured to anyone that these people may genuinely believe that Open Source software is a bad thing?
If you think the report is rubbish, attack the report. Claiming Microsoft is to blame makes the whole community look like paranoid idiots.
Companies going with Open Source really don't give a damn about the license. They really (as always) care about functionality, security, and FLEXIBILITY. The whole GPL-is-a-borg-virus thing never really enters into the equation.
Asian and EU governments are sick of bending over and taking it in the *** from Microsoft, period. Proprietary software vs. open source (again) has nothing to do with it. Linux just so happens to be the best hope at sticking it to them right now.
Lawyers and small businessmen, in the end, are not the decision-makers. The ones who know what they are doing focus on business issues, and leave the IT stuff to their IT guy (CTO for big biz, the sysadmin for small biz). The IT guys are jumping over to OSS, no matter how many FUD white papers from "think tanks" get passed around.
MS is chasing the wrong fox here. The problem (for them) is that it's the only one they know how to chase.
davejenkins.com |
The question is did MS fund them to be anti-OSS? Or does MS go looking for anti-OSS organizations to fund?
If you have a web page, make a link to thes /tanks.html
page where the names of all these `institutes'
and their common funding appears:
http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/blog/computer
If enough of us do this, the page above might outgoogle the very frontpages of their sites.
~ish.
Due to the very nature of open source, eventually, the best (general) programs will be open source programs. Period.
Its just a matter of time.
Everyone whose looked into "the business" of open source knows this. Revision after revision after revision. You can think of it like evolution. With the code out there, the only constraints are time and people. With enough time, there will be enough people to revise and continue working on the code.
They _will_ lose marketshare when open source gets popular. Firefox being the example of the first "big one." And boy, is it a doozy. Everyone I know who has tried firefox has stuck with it over IE. Including my mom, who now suggests it to other mom-types that are having computer problems. And thats a lot of moms.
Open source could be considered anti-competative, because the domineering open source program will be so good (in theory) that no competitor will be able to enter the market to compete. It could also be considered "communist" (propaganda-sense) because the work of the few massively benifits the many. Did I mention its free? So they cant compete with price? Not very capitalistic, is it?
Open source is pretty altruistic, at least compared to modern business practices. (then again, not urinating on people could be considered altruistic compared to modern business practices.)
but i digress.
Will this hurt their marketshare? You bet. Will this hurt the marketshare of the entire nation? Maybe, eventually.
no
...but remember, companies are companies. IBM isn't in business to fund HP or Red Hat, they will each want to push their own products. Ultimately, I think numbers will work better than trying to beat Microsoft at their own game.
If anything, one should try to expose it as a coordinated smear campaign. Try to argue that what is really is speaking is but one hydra with many heads. It's very hard to argue that hundreds if not thousands of OSS companies are cooperating to do the same.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Linux most important problem is that people don't know about it and that people don't know that it can solve their problem at all.
Microsoft is now solving both problems for us.
Yes, I know that PHBs are in general pretty dumb, but instead of not even considering OpenSource, hundreds of TCO-studies about Linux and Windows will make sure they will:
I personally thank Microsoft for that free advertizing and see it as an act of desperation.
That would be a very serious concern, but for that "viable free as in beer OS solution" bit. Generally speaking, the OSS projects that have succeeded are those that bring in the mass support necessary for OSS's advantages in rapid development and maintenance to shine through: Linux, Mozilla, OpenOffice, Internet tools, CD rippers, etc. In those mass-market application areas, there are viable OSS alternatives.
However, for the smaller, niche vendors that you mention, I'm not sure I see the opposition. I can't think of a single OSS product that successfully dominates a small-scale niche. By definition, that market is unlikely to attract a wide base of volunteer support, and without that, OSS has no selling points.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
For example, the Open Source, Open Questions piece says - and I paraphrase...
I'm an economist and I worry about the sustainability of a model which depends on people doing things for free. Call me onld and stodgy, but that's my concern. That said, it's for the market place to decide: if people prefer to use open source, it will win.
That's hardly some kind of anti-OSS rant. Rather it's a concern that would be shared by my outside "the community".
Maybe, instead of bashing these people for being Micrsoft's attack dogs (The Small Business Survival Council actually made some interesting submissions re the MSFT settlement), we should listen to what they have to say and give them reasoned responses.
--- My dad's political betting
While I still urge you to actually read the actual article, the most appropriate paragraph is (emphasis added)
Some of the points made inside the article are utter tripe. I would argue against the points made therein, but CAGW's stance I would agree with.
Remember, the world we live in is sometimes not so great, and doing the world a favor is not always repaid in kind. The GPL won't change that.
Think Tanks generally serve political organizations in the role that "industry analysts" fill in the technology industry. Their opinions are hardly ever independent, they are dependent on support from the very institutions they analyze and they are woefully inaccurate. Think tanks create and idealogue that is often used by political parties, special interest groups and PACs to sell their ideas to the public to get support for a candidate, a vote in congress or buy in on an unpopular judicial decision. It's no different than Gartner, IDC or Meta saying that a linux based software package isn't ready for prime time or isn't in the "magic quadrant."
We should be happy that Linux and open source in general is now being taken on in a political arena... because the oposition is asking people to pay more money. Like it or not, tax cuts, handouts, cost reductions and the like get votes -- and those fighting open source will find themselves on the wrong side of coin in the world of fiscal politics...
-- $G
Of course. Giving the wealthy even more wealth is the epitome of fiscal common sense these days, and in fact it has always been the undercurrent assumption of economic health. Look at GWB's recent tax cuts; they were gift-wrapped in the usual trickle-down rhetoric.
Monopolies and ultra-wealthy are returning to favor; the legions of stockholders are stamping their feet for those things, due to the stock bribes they've taken in the last 12 years. I don't expect much from elitist think tanks therefore. The only bright ray in this is that Linux isn't free, it's free-as-in-no-license-cost, and that's very compelling in this new age of artificial scarcity.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
To me, no. However it angers me that FUD can be spread like this to a large degree, and people just soak it up.
Just reading through some of the 'comments' on OSS. Raymond Keating calls OSS 'the borg'! What the hell? Microsoft is more the borg than OSS. Since when did freedom become a restriction?
Sonia Arrison suggests that OSS is just full of a lot of pimply teenagers is so far from the truth, I just don't get it. Searching for the 'online' comment she mentions in google comes up with nothing, (that may mean nothing though).
Wayne T. Brough mentions that there are more incompatibilities with OSS than commercial software. When are these people going to get it, that most of the people who write OSS are the same people who write for commercial companies!
There are so many more statments like this. Grrrrrr. I don't think we should just ignore it like this. This is the problem. People actually listen to FUD. The more FUD people get, the more brainwashed they get. You'll be amazed at what people can believe once they are brainwashed.
-- main(s){printf(s="main(s){printf(s=%c%s%c,34,s,34
My taxes went down considerably, and I am not super rich.
The real problem that no one addresses is that even with high rates for rich taxpayers, the super-rich are often also liberal (and conservative as well) elites and the tax code has been set up by both parties to have huge loopholes for the super rich, regardless of the rates.
I'd guess there's been some serious cash kickbacks over the years to some big companies (individuals in companies) to get them to stick with microsoft. I can't think of another reason why they would keep using their stuff. I've read all the legit reasons,OK, I can see a few of them, but I bet the REAL main reason is from massive and ongoing kickbacks, and because it's so profitable for *some* people to have very well paying "busy work" fix it daily and forever jobs.
Anyway, it will change. I know it will. Bound to happen. Several years ago now I noticed the young geeks all using linux. Not someone's nephew who can play video games so he's the family computer "specialist", nope, I mean the geeks. The young people in any industry determine the trends of the industry, sooner or later, because thats where the innovation comes from, and also that's where the next generation of decision making bosses comes from.
Microsoft is hosed now, ain't nuthin they can do other than try and get legislation passed to save them. I'm serious on that. they are right at the exact point they need protection, even though they are still raking in billions, it's coming, they know it, that's why you are seeing this sort of stuff. Part of that is to have "concerned consumers" lobby for them. What a crock. IF they do that they will struggle along making billions for a lot more years, but if they *fail to get legislation passed that protects them and their business model of no warranty and mediocre product but maximum profits*, they are hosed. It might take some time, but they will crash and burn right along the opposite side of the curve of their rise to success. That is my prediction.
Unbelievably, any person with a PC and an Internet connection can now logon to the NSA's website and print out the blueprint for NSA s Security Enhanced Linux software.
So we'd rather have the non-NSA approved Windows running on our computers? If the NSA believes it is secure enough to keep their sensitive information from being breached, I would think it would be secure enough for my porn.
Just because the NSA partially developed it, it doesn't mean there's NSA secrets and threats to our national security.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
From the article:
"As unlikely as this might seem to the skeptic, the National Security Agency (NSA), that coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to protect U.S. information systems and produce foreign intelligence information, made the folly of developing GPL-licensed code to improve the Linux operating system. After reading the terms of the Linux GPL, the NSA realized they needed to post this enhancement to the Internet in source code form for the world to see. Unbelievably, any person with a PC and an Internet connection can now logon to the NSA?s website and print out the blueprint for NSA s Security Enhanced Linux software."
This is just wrong. NSA had no requirement to distribute the source since they were using it all in house. But since the people who work at these places are on the mission of creating disinformation, they obviously would ignore this:
From http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/info/faq.cfm:
"Does NSA favor open source software?
NSA initiatives in enhancing software security cover both proprietary and open source software, and we have successfully used both proprietary and open source models in our research activities. NSA's work to enhance the security of software is motivated by one simple consideration: Use our resources as efficiently as possible to give NSA's customers the best possible security options in the most widely employed products. The objective of the NSA research program is to develop technologic advances that can be shared with the software development community through a variety of transfer mechanisms. NSA does not favor or promote any specific software product or business model. Rather, NSA is promoting enhanced security."
It seems to me that NSA's intentions and reasons can be inferred from that above statement quite easily. But if these think tanks are being used solely for propaganda then I'm not all that surprised.
There's nothing like coming in to work in the morning and reading "When Tanks Think and Attack"
the realy funny thing here is that what the GPL uses to work is their holy intelectual property laws.
there is one thing selling something and claiming that its yours when its not. its something else to shrinkwrap what other people have created along with a nice manual or 5 that you have made and selling the package. there in is the point, your sales price is there to cover the expences in packageing and so on. not a one time rental sum for allowing me to use your code.
i dont know who twists the intelectual property laws more, the companys that licence out stuff for use or the GPL. but i get a better feeling from thinking about how the GPL works.
allso, there was one think tank listed on the page (i dont bother to read the quotes from them all, it was just to mutch sewage at ones) that commented that after the NSA had created the changes that went into the NSA secure linux project they had to release it to public use. this is totaly wrong, the only time you have to relase code changes is when you give away or sell the object version of the changed code to a third party. for internal use you are free to do whatever you want. so the NSA didnt have to release the code changes as long as it was only used within the organisation.
there is allso the talk about linking, if you link to a library that is under the gpl but its contained in its own binary files then you dont have to release your source. its only if you compile it into the resulting binary directly that you have to release the code as then it becomes part of the same product rather then a product that works on top of a diffrent product.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
It is sooooo fashionable to believe that tax systems are weighted towards the wealthy, and benefits to the poor. In other words, the down-trodden middle classes are bearing the burden of the rich and the poor.
Unfortunately, it is almost completely untrue. I am British, and most Americans would regard me as so kind of communist or socialist as I support some limited redistributive policies.
But I think you believe far more in rhetoric than facts if you believe that the rich and corporates are sucking up all your wealth.
Truth be told: the middle classes (who actually vote) and the elderly get almost all the tax breaks. There aren't enough of the rich to matter, and the poor don't vote. Result, budgets like the recent US one, which is so full of special interest and pork, that it's a disgrace. The real benificiaries, the middle classes who administer all this crap.
And another thing: all wealth ultimately goes to people. There is no such thing as a "rich company"; companies are owned by stock holders.
You know these poor middle classes; all these stock bribes and the like were perfectly well documented. And what did you do? You put more money in your Fidelity mutual fund, in the hope that some of the money would come your way too. Did you protest? No, you hoped to benefit too.
Sorry: I'm ranting. But I get so angry with perception when reality is so different.
The middle clases, who have borrowed on their credit cards to buy pets.com stock. Fuck 'em. They deserve to lose their money.
The middle classes, who think that adjustable rate mortgages, 7x income multiples, and $500k for a two bedroom apartment are sensible. Fuck 'em. Why should I pay for their financial naiviety? (Or more accurately, their unwillingness to take responsibility for their actions.)
The middle classes are the problem in the US. Give the money to the rich, at least they spend it on Space Ship One rather than over-priced real estate and ooooh oooh another SUV.
Sorry. Rant over.
--- My dad's political betting
Of course we're speculating based on whatever evidence we have to go on. They don't publish their sources of funding. If they took this basic step of declaring their interests we wouldn't have to speculate about what was really motivating them.
The guy even asked several of the organisations about whether they were funded by Microsoft and received no reply. A reply would have put an end to this speculation.
As it is, this may be poor evidence but it's the best we can do. And given how ridiculous some of the cases they try to make against open-source are, it's not unreasonable to wonder whether they're motivated by something other than a spirit of honest inquiry.
Xenu loves you!
This is a poorly framed question: using ``attack`` has overloaded connotations of negativity. Some of these think tanks and organisations are offering constructive criticism (not all of them, I give you) as they evaluation how open source works for their constituency.
For example, it is true that Linux is not entirely free. If you, as an organisation, use Linux, you still have to pay someone (whether your own staff, or external support) to help with problems and support: this costs time and money.
Now, as soon as a I make statement, I expect to attract lot of flame, and suggest that I'm ''attacking'' Linux: but I'm not, I'm just laying the reality out on the table.
Last thing you want as a techie is upper management thinking that Linux is free, because then they'll just ratchet your budget claiming that now that you're on a free OS, it shouldn't cost anything: yet as the techie, suddenly you have 2x as much work because you have to take care of things you could have previously lobbed back onto the vendor. The point is, that in this case, Linux is _low cost_, not _free_. Therefore, it's good that small business associations (and otherwise) raise these points, to make sure people have the right expectations.
Equally, now that we're talking about small business associations: it's true that when you buy PC hardware, it _always_ supports Windows by way of drivers, vendor support, etc; but it doesn't always support Linux/BSD/etc - now whether this is a poor reflection of vendors or whatever doesn't matter, because the commercial reality is that if you're a small business owner, you may find that if you go down the Linux route, that you lock yourself out of some hardware possibilities. And I tell you, small business owners don't care about Linux v Windows: they want a business that works, and they want _low risk_, therefore, as much as Windows may have some costs and suckiness about it, the reality is that it largely works with just about any hardware you can buy off the shelf.
These aren't ``attacks``, these are realities.
Starting to understand now how those loopholes come into effect? Even worse, think about what happens when a loophole that's being widely exploited is shut down. It works out to the same thing as a tax increase, and you know how Americans feel about those. Which is why so many genuinely accidental loopholes become permanent parts of the tax code. And the loopholes work both ways, like the now-gone "marriage penalty" (where a married couple pay more in taxes than they would filing separately). Those loopholes tend to last forever too, because tax reform - even tax reform that reduces the overall tax burden on a popular demographic - never plays as well as tax cuts. And if there's one thing politicians love, it's spending my money.
Get some facts before ranting to the extent you did.
... thanks for asking, Ace.
The pro-wealthy weighting of America's tax system isn't fashion, it's fact. The tax system in America is so Byzantine that the wealthy and corporate take monstrous advantage of it time and time again. This is opposed to the wage-earner who is assaulted by a mandatory system he can't afford to escape through the hiring of a tax accountant. For instance, can YOU (British even so) park your assets offshore while parking your expenses onshore, escaping taxation while also piling deductions under your tax system? Can YOU pay a relative 1% fee to a tax accountant to draft an opinion letter outlining how all that asset movement is legal? Can YOU move compensation from tax-deferred instrument to tax-free account, eventually escaping all taxation on it? Can YOU escape taxation by being so diversely embodied that you simply end up paying yourself?
Enron (an egregious example, certainly) managed to use the tax system so well -- creating almost 900 partnerships for tax-dodging purposes -- that for the last 5 years of its existence, it had no yearly tax liability for 4 of them.
Just because a middle-class person can rack up enormous debts and play a little with his income tax return, doesn't mean that the wealthy and corporate aren't escaping away with billions.
As a Brit, you may find the book dreadfully dull due to its American focus, but go out right now and obtain:
"Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich--and Cheat Everybody Else" by David Cay Johnston
As far as I'm concerned, exposees like Johnston's only illustrate that the American tax system is arranged for the collapse of the American Empire. The complexity, and lack of enforcement in fixing it, are fatal wounds. When tax frauds can happen much, much faster than they can be stopped, then tax frauds will become the usual. When tax dodges can happen for the wealthy equivalent of pocket change, and the very mentality of fraud settles in, then eventually the wealthy will pay no taxes.
P.S. I own no stock and voluntarily participate in no benefits program (a la 401(k)) of any kind
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Too obscure maybe, but the MS funding, and the quality of some of the research, would suggest they be called "thunk" tanks instead of think tanks.
There was an interesting exchange between the Competitive Enterprise Institute which claims Linux is unsuitable for government, business use and Julian Sanchez from the Cato Institute, who thinks government should consider OSS if it fits their needs.
I wonder if we could pull a mega prank by creating one of these things. What would it take besides an official looking web site and a fax number? How far could we push our own FUD?
It would be nice to see the Wall Street Journal quote the "Institute for Proprietary Software" recognizing that Linux is cheaper /better /safer than Windows after all...
os trabalhos e os dias: http://zmoreira.net
Ernie Ball.
This sig no verb.
But the fact is that the "peer-review" nature of Open Source means that code from "hobby-projects" is considered good or bad very quickly - whereupon it is improved upon, accepted or just thrown away.
It might equally be argued that a paid programmer just doing it "for the money", with little or no say in the appearance of the finished product, might be less inclined to produce good code than an enthusiastic hobbyist with a great idea and the time and devotion to turn that idea into reality.
2. ... You have people talking about how more eyes find more bugs, when in reality hardly anyone really understands the source to something like gcc, and this only applies in a significant way to fundamental applications that many people use as a basis for further development. ...
Code is code whether it's Open Source or commercial. Programmers move in and out of commercial projects as much as in Open Source projects.
The understanding of any code comes from good formatting, commenting and version control - that's the same the world over.
3. "Making the source freely available" is turning out to be more valid than "open source development."
What's your point here?
I don't personally C program (particularly well) but I will take "freely available source" and try to compile it. If it doesn't compile, I'll do some trawling round the web/Usenet for an answer and if it's still a problem, let the source writers know - they, in turn, might develop the code further.
I don't see it matters where programmers are located, whether they are paid or not, etc. etc. It's simply a case of whether or not their output is open to or closed from public view.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
the link quotes Citizens Against Government Waste as saying: "Yet while the software itself is free, the cost to maintain and upgrade it can become very expensive. Acquisition costs commonly represent only a small percentage of the total cost of ownership. Maintenance, training and support are often more expensive with open source than proprietary software.
Imagine the state DMV being responsible for programming the software that runs its computers. Every little problem would require an outside consultant, racking up fees and slowing down services."
Every little problem already does require an outside consultant. I work for a large government agency, and, quite frankly, there are consultants galore needed to support Windows 2000 and Windows XP. The Exchange servers go down with frequency, as does web access which is controlled through a SQL powered proxy server(which crashes), not to mention IIS, which gets kicked in the nuts every time a new virus comes out. Not only is an army of permanent government employees needed to maintain this very unstable network, but they hire literally hundreds of consultants to provide tech support for every department, and even more to ensure wider network stability.
When I need something done for my computer, I don't call the regular tech support, but the consultant working on location, because he/she is always more knowledgable and competent. And we're talking about an agency that only uses Linux when someone illegally installs it to test LAMP.
If you find a group like this that thinks Open Souce is great how much do you want to bet there is some IBM money behind it. I bet if you read it you would not even try to find out who funded it and if you did find out that it was IBM or Red Hat you would tend to think "Wow it is so great they they spent money to get the truth out" Companies paying for to get there point of view out is common. Let me give you all a hint. If you think a news source is unbiased the truth is they are most likley telling you what you want to hear. You think it is the truth so it is unbiased. You can see it all the time on slashdot. Someone disagrees with someone else so they are closed minded.
The best way I have found to seek the truth is to look for news sources that you think are totaly biased. It is the best way to slay your own bias.
I do have to admit that the idea that the NSA was did not know "dangers" of releasesing their secureity upgrades to Linux very funny.
My favorite line from the bible is "What is truth? Is my truth the same as yours?"
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Half the organizations or more listed are all tarred by one article I couldn't find, with no other references to check. The magazine apparently referenced also says the press favors the bush administration ( despite the fact that only 7% of press voted for Bush ) .
Clearly not the most objective journalistic source.
I'm certain that Microsoft does fund a considerable amount of FUD, but I don't think they're alone here. It makes me wonder who funded the research upon which the article was based. Transparency ought to go both ways, not none.
For example, the Citizens Against Government Waste says this about Massachusetts' Freeware Initiative:
As for the argument that open source is better and cheaper, such software has its advantages and should be considered an option. That being said, all but the most die hard Linux fans will admit that some functions are better performed with proprietary software. There is simply no reason to slam the door on proprietary vendors at any level of government. If Massachusetts chose one proprietary vendor as the state's only software provider and excluded open source, CAGW would also object to that.
As one example cited by the author, it turns out that it doesn't look like any kind of passionate pro-M$ screed. If that's what M$ got for their money, M$ would be better off using that money to fix IE.
#-#
Ad Astra Per Aspera
A rough road leads to the stars
I went through the linked article and I couldn't find much hard evidence of how much these think tanks get from MS, and what percentage of their total income MS donations make. There are few dollar figures to verify independently; the only one I noticed was about $10k MS sent to the Pacific Research Institute. Of course, if one follows the link, one sees that the total contributions from ALL corporations makes up only 10% of their revenue; I wish there were more data elsewhere.
This piece seems to be a classic conspiracy theorist bash that takes a few sparse facts and uses them to paint a complete picture that coincides with the author's ethical/political alignment. It doesn't logically follow that a think tank received a payment from such companies is "in their pocket" or propagandizing as a quid pro quo. Nevertheless, the author uses it as evidence that big, nasty companies are trying to influence your view through thoughtful argumentation, a fact, while true, is morally neutral. Would we as thoughtful people prefer a reasoned argument, though wrong, or plain and simple advertising?
The author certainly doesn't care; anything done by companies he dislikes is automagically "evil" and ignorant of the facts stated above. The whole "funded by big tobacco" slant is ignorant of the fact that tobacco companies and their subservient foundations, like many companies, spread their wealth around to many different sources.
Should we complain that our schools are funded by the sweatshop-using Nike Corp. when they are donating money for new playgrounds in inner city schools, and creating new fields, parks and open spaces there?
I haven't read the articles written against Open Source that this author cites, but it strikes me that attacking a group's financial backing is a a red herring, a disingenuous tactic that plainly ignores the content of the articles. Who cares who funds them if the ideas therein are sound? Should we reject the teaching of evolution as opposed to creationism, simply because some think tanks which promote it are funded by companies we dislike?
B
"I'm payin' taxes, but what am I buyin'?" -- James Brown
You, and most slashdottians, are missing the point of think tanks. They are there to push a position. That means taking sides. Not being independant. These are not news organizations. They may be paid, but if their argeuments don't hold up, then the idea fails. That is debate. In debate, no one stands around and says, "I don't have an opinion, I just do what works." In debate, you take a side and defend it vigorously. Just like the majority does here for linux.
The real benificiaries, the middle classes who administer all this crap.
And yet, as a percentage of the population the middle class is smaller than at any other time in the last century, and getting smaller by the year. So if us greedy bastards in the middle are the ones making out like bandits, how come record numbers of us are dropping out of the middle class and into the ranks of the poor?
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
I don't think that anyone is missing the point of think tanks. The organizations themselves (think tanks and those they work with) attempt to portray an air of authority and an "outsiders" perspective on political, economic and social issues. Think tank employees are often quoted in the media, used as talk/debate show guests, etc. Quotes and statistics published by these think tanks are used to back arguments and support viewpoints - some of which influence public policy.
I can't help but compare the Corporate funded think tanks to the Political ones.
...etc.), and how they put out reports on terrorism, foreign policy, international affairs, ...etc.
For example, this article is about how big entrenched businesses (Microsoft is the one here) find shills to lobby its cause with the decision makers in business (IT) and government, in order to protect its interests.
Compare that to the neo-con think tanks (Project for New American Century, Rand Corp,
A dangerous alliance.
The difference I see is that in the political scene, it is the tanks that drive the administration, while in the software/IT scene, it is corporations who drive the think tanks. Also, the danger of the political scene is far more reaching across the world and the future of civilization as we know it.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Interestingly, the ACLU runs Windows and *only* Windows. My boss (an executive director of one regional office) told me of another regional office that got a grant from national HQ to do some IT upgrades and experimentation. They planned to use a Linux server for their office, but national stipulated that they *must* run Windows on their server to get the grant.
Of course, the "agreed" to these terms and ran Linux anyway. The regional offices from what I hear aren't thrilled with national's IT policy. Apparently, MS gives the ACLU quite the deal on their products. My office, of course, runs Linux exclusively.
I'm a writer and editor at Heritage (look it up). I've never seen anyone get pressured about anything w/r/t Microsoft here. A few months ago, someone sent around an email touting Mozilla--no pushback from anyone at all.
I can't speak for any of these other places, but there is no Microsoft influence at Heritage.
For what it's worth, Heritage has long been suspicious of antitrust law. Perhaps this encouraged some MS funding, but that didn't change any positions here one iota.
This is all covered in the excellent book Trust Us, We're Experts. Basically, think tanks, "citizen groups", and many research centers are just another pr tool a company can use - the appearance of unbiased opinions to bolster what the company wants to do.
I highly recommend this book.
I'm not being paid money to write this. My payment is a freer, richer, more just society, built under the only system that can provide those ends: capitalism.
Two years ago, I bought a shirt from Microsoft (the "Freedom to Innovate" shirt), which I wear proudly on occasion.
I'm not a Microsoft employee, nor have I ever been one. The limit of my association with them is that I buy and use their software. Articles such as these attempt to minimize actual grassroots people like me. But I exist!
And what right do they have to attack people for this funding friendly groups, anyway? Other corporations are not attacked when they give money to the Sierra Club, SaveOurEnvironment.org, and "Rock The Vote", or to thousands of other politically-tainted groups. It's only "astroturfing" when the author of the article disagrees with the viewpoint being promoted.
Microsoft should fund the Ayn Rand Institute. They have the philosophy that could properly defend them, but I think Microsoft is afraid of appearing too radical or offensive to some people. And that, I think, is going to hurt them in the long run.
It's just that a paper from the "Tocqueville Business Lobby" doesn't sound as impressive...
Here's a Very cool site which uncovers the connection between corporate donations and think tanks. It would be really interesting to see a similar graphical map of Microsoft's influence. The designer of this site came up with an innovative way to visualize special interest connections.
I've read the article called "Is open source a threat to the future of intellectual property rights".
Although the article itself it pretty biased (mostly based on extreme circumstances), I wanted to comment on a paragraph where the article talks about the NSA and selinux.
The first part of the paragraph says that by open-sourcing the DoD and FAA would make a big mistake because the code would be there for anyone to examine and look for weaknesses.
It would probably not be a good idea to open source certain kinds of software, but the security of those software systems should not be compromised by the availability of the source code, like the key/lock analogy used when reviewing commercial crypto.
Another thing they are saying in that paragraph is that the NSA was forced to release their selinux code. That is complete false. The idea was that they wanted to show an example of mandatory access controls, because they think that current discretionary access control systems are not secure enough. They deliberately chose linux because its code was widely available, and because of its popularity (after all, a closed source SE-NT would be of no help because nobody would be able to use it as an example on making a MAC enabled system). There are even some BSD variants that are using ideas from selinux related papers (I think trusted BSD wanted to implement the FLASK architecture, the one used in selinux).
Anyone that decided to check would be able to dismiss these two points as soon as they checked the documentation on the website (you can 'log on the NSA's website and print out the blueprints' if you want!). Check the FAQ, questions 9 and 10.
The sad thing is that most of the readers of this crap will just jump to the conclusions instead of checking the source (no pun intended).
GPG 0x1B479C78
They strong armed box vendors, and released apps that on purpose broke other peoples apps. This is true, correct? Part of a pattern of generic skunky behavior leading to establishment of a monopoly they couldn't have completely gotten based on actual true productivity and pricing and being ethical. I mean they did get convicted of a few things, and there's some good evidence of other unethical behavior as well.
I also think they probably used a lot of under the table cash in the right hands, but I can't prove it, I'm just guessing, but I'll keep repeating it anyway, because I think I'm right..and I think there's people out there who know that too, buit don't want to get caught up in any federal lawsuits over it, but eventually they'll get busted just like enron or worldcom. I bet it happens, someone is gonna spill the beans one day, and a lot of folks who know about it probably got the records squirreled away in case they have to use them for plea bargaining. Insurance.
Just a guess though, but I hope they are getting nervous about it, especially ole bill hisself.
I know not everyone at any corporation, including microsoft, is evil or a criminal, and I know they have some talented people who've worked hard over the years. I am also of the opinion that at upper management level they are predators and skunks, and sought to maximise profits rather than spend the money on making more stable and more secure products. I think they maximised profits to the detriment of their own workers and employees, let alone other people affected by the use and "trying to use" their stuff.
Plus they been milking that no warranty deal for a long time. Let's see em compete if they have to offer a normal suitability for purpose warranty, same as any other product has to have. Software in general been getting a skate on that juicy plum for a long time now, either it's a brand new industry that needs cuddling and handholding and their teddy bears when there's loud noises outside,and they admit they are incompetent to offer a warranty on their products they have made hundreds of billions on, or they can step up to the plate like any other company/industry,and accept adult responsibility for their work. I think it's way past time to require warranties for professional for-profit software. If you take money for it, I think you should have to back it up with a warranty of some kind.
As to courting developers-ehh, people will go work where they get the best experience and get to do the job they want to do. Part of that is money, but money isn't everything.
And for people who think it is, I feel sorry for them.
Look at it this way: This is just further proof that in a free and open capitalistic society, even "the truth" has economic value, and control over it can be purchased. Of course, that price can be prohibitively large, but once your economy starts going Pareto (and it inevitably will), you get things like this. The solution is either bloody revolution every 20 years, or fascism. At least in our current model, the upper and middle classes get to experience the metaphoric convenience of the trains arriving on time.
-Hentai [in vita non pacem est]
"Stupid" is a bit too reactionary. "Ignorant" is certainly accurate, but calls for the reason behind the ignorance.
I think in this case, both "Dupe" and "Conned" would describe the poster well, but fail to describe the actual post itself, which is the prime objective of moderation labels.
You almost need to drop into compound descriptives. Like, "Willfully Ignorant" or even whole sentences such as; "This Dupe has been Successfully Programmed by the Dark Side into believing that Greed is Not A Disease."
In any case, I don't envy the task of the Slashdot programming staff!
-FL
Everybody knows, Conspiracies Do Not Exist! After all, it is "Impossible to Keep a Secret". And anyway, "They Just Wouldn't Do That."
And, of course, everybody knows that only wackos believe in conspiracies!
You're not a wacko, are you? If you are suspected of such, we'll all laugh at you. We'll try to make you feel small and ashamed! Your self-esteem must hurt! --Because despite the obvious, nobody at all has any desire to control your behavior through such basic and easily manipulated emotions! Drink more! Watch more TV! You want to be cool and get laid? Take Ecstasy. Quit worrying so much. Take Anti-Depressants. ALL the cool kids are doing it. You want to be cool, don't you?
Despite all logic and evidence you may have to share, you will be condemned to a thorough pestering by thousands of Taco Bell-loving citizens auto-reacting with 'Tin-Foil' jokes and lead walls made of all the clever 'knowledge' they have accumulated from watching 'documentaries' on their televisions.
Get with the times, man! Thinking and pointing out discrepancies between reality and the sham being projected by Big Money, Big Government and Big Military is simply not cool! It clearly says so in all their literature.
--Ask any Think Tank, and they'll tell you.
-FL
A double - talk : Microsoft Corp. says it is looking to turn over more of its programs to open-source software developers, playing a greater role (then why open source bashing?)in a process that the Redmond company has criticized strongly at times in the past.
Earlier Microsoft had a policy : If you cannot convince, confuse. Now they are following : if you cannot beat them, join them.