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Steve Ballmer's Thoughts On Free Software
An anonymous reader writes, "Steve Ballmer during a 3-day visit to India was asked about whether Free software is the future of India. And he effectively circumvented the question and answered that in the future, software businesses can look at a number of revenue streams such as subscription fees, lower cost hardware, advertising and of course traditional transaction. What is amusing is that in answering the question, he refuses to use the word 'free' or anything close to it."
I was just in India this year (Spring 2006) for almost a month on a tour of Eastern Europe and Western India. The primary focus of the trip was to see how gold bullion affected areas with poverty and reduced labor. I was shocked at the competitive and relatively free market of India -- I also saw why so many people were gaining wealth and blowing open the tech community -- they were driven versus what I am familiar with in the States.
That being said, I don't think Ballmer was wrong to dance around the question. I think his answer hit the nail, head on!
Background on information and "free": When I ran my first multinode BBS starting in 1987, I saw that the future was something similar to client-server (the Internet never dawned on me at this point). My BBS was a pay-for-play gaming system, and people paid in order to connect and use the software that I 'rented' them via their ANSI terminal application. I saw how huge the future would be if the bandwidth could get beyond 2400 bps. I'm seeing that future today with things as simple as Wordpress and Google Spreadsheet. It blows my mind, and I do see how Microsoft wouldn't care about free software because it isn't on their radar screen. I don't know of much free software that is really competitive because truly free software doesn't have the support that it needs to compete with software that does have support. I'd rather see ad-bloated "free" software like Google Mail than bug-ridden memory-leaking software like Thunderbird. I use Firefox, but it is still a memory leaker that competes well with IE in terms of falling apart over a few hours of work.
The Indians will want nothing to do with it. India has a history of thousands of years of being capitalists -- only recently did we really see socialism take over, and it is starting to be pushed out by the millions who want to better their own lives and try to ignore what is best for "society" when they all know that the rest of society is made of individuals who also want to be better than them. The fact that India is growing in leaps and bounds comes because of the hard-driven individualistic atmosphere that exists in that country and seems to be in their blood (note: I have East Indian blood in me, but I am a mutt).
The Indians are already grasping the idea of advertising-funded online media, so maybe the next step is some sort of "use it for free" software -- but we all have to see that paid software seems to be better supported that truly free software. I love Google Mail, but it isn't free -- the ads displayed on the screen are paying for supporting the application developers. Americans tend to be anti-advertising, but the West Asian part of the world is definitely not -- when I was in India, I saw entire houses painted by a corporation to be their logo and color (the owner of the home was paid nicely for allowing it). I saw taxis driving around with vinyl-cut ads from every sort of retailer, small and large. I saw how heavily the "Bollywood-style" advertisements cluttered the mainstream media there. The Indians aren't afraid of finding a way to make money on everything they can -- in order to better their own lives without a big expense to anyone else.
The entire Indian economy is run in a balanced Statist-Anarchist way. If you buy anything large (car, house, land, business) you pay a small portion of "white" money (that is heavily taxed) and a big portion of "black" money (that is under the table, and often comes in the form of bullion). That's awesome -- people realize what a burden the State is, and they work around it. The same will be true of the "free" software drive there -- people will realize that they can gain without causing other people to lose -- by finding a way to subsidize whatever the future is of the software market.
Some Americans care about Open Source because they're anti-corporation, but that isn't the reason for Open Source, not really. Open Source and free software both come out of supply and demand: there is always a demand for som
The word "free" was not assimilated, as the Borg collective concluded that it was irrelevant.
No too defend him (too much), but from a businesses point of view, there must be a revenue stream somewhere, be it for development, or just support. At some point, people want to get paid. Free works commercially, as long as someone, generally large companies, is willing to pay for guaranteed support.
Ballmer is a businessman, and 'free' isn't a word in a businessman's dictionary. Add that to the fact that Microsoft is fairly entrenched in a business market, i'm not sure what else you'd expect. Even Canonical (Ubuntu's parent) has bills to pay, and these bills have to be paid somehow.
...software businesses can look at a number of revenue streams such as...lower cost hardware...
I'm assuming by this he means that as hardware costs drop, the overall product cost can remain the same or even increase, thereby increasing the percentage of revenue that's attributable to the software.
This guy's the limit!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
He didn't mention F/LOSS anywhere. He just used this as a way to push his own plans on how we (the sheeple) will pay for his software. Nothing to see here. Move along... ...and duck. Incoming chair, with fucking killing power, made by Developers, Developers, Developers.
"I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
"Free Software's thoughts on Steve Ballmer."
you had me at #!
I think Ballmers, and M$'s ideas on free software can be sumed up by the following statement:
" Free software is fine, as long as it isn't really free, and we control it "
Anything more is simply a waste of words.
Cheers
* Carthago Delenda Est *
If we're talking about Free Software as in the FSF's definition, the free refers to freedom, not price. I used to make quite a nice living writing and selling Free Software.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
Balmer is one of the top level executives at a company whose profits are made by selling proprietary software (Making it neither free-as-in-beer, except for all the pirating, nor Free-as-in-speech). If any major market decides to extensively embrace Free Software, his company stands to lose large amounts of future profits.
Asking him what *he* thinks of free software is not a fair question, neither to him (how can he possibly be honest) nor to anyone else that doesnt already understand that (they are likely to not understand that his answer is evasive at best)
Try asking a buggy whip exectuve what they think of the automobile, and internal combustion engines in general.
You might want to brush up on the free beer/freedom thingies again.
I can explain it for you, but I can't understand it for you.
This is a classic tactic. Answer the question you want to answer rather than the one which really was asked of you. Basically Balmer didn't want to discuss free software so he discussed revenue streams (which is all software is about in his mind anyways). Anytime someone does this you can be sure that they're not interested in your interests, just their own.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
I don't know of much free software that is really competitive because truly free software doesn't have the support that it needs to compete with software that does have support.
For most people it's email, office applications, web browser, solitaire. I keep seeing this support argument tossed around and every time I ask myself - honestly, how much support does someone actually need?
I used to do end-user support for a living (think Geek Squad-like work). And 99% of the time, it was getting rid of spyware/viruses. Most people really don't need more than that, in my experience.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I'll learn .NET. I'm more marketable to employers .net skills will not be marketable.
n g_for_unregulated_monopolies (or not)
.Net .net developers chasing fewer .net jobs driving the wages for .net developers down.
Today you will. But tomorrow, economic principals strongly suggest it will be used by fewer and fewer consumers. In a few years, your
Take a look at this graph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Price_setti
A monopoly strongly tends to produce at a lower quantity (Qm) versus a competitive market. (Qc)
For you, and all other developers that translates into:
1. fewer organizations using
2. More
For you and all consumers, that translages into:
1. More expensive hardware. Microsoft is a price maker. They alone set the price for their OS and get to drive the cost of the computer package up accordingly. They will probably provide at Quantity Qm instead of Qc to OEM's like Dell who have no choice but to pass on that cost to you.
2. Fewer employers using Microsoft products. They will only provide their OS at successively higher prices and lower quantity. There is no reason to believe the price they demand will ever go down because the thirst for profit is unquenchable.
3. Lack of innovation on Microsoft's part. Since Microsoft has no competition, there is no reason to innovate. Like most big businesses they borrow or steal from the innovaters. This will drive many customers away as well.
I still feel like I paid for XP & not the Express tools.
1. As my previous comments point out, you already paid too much.
2. You are limiting your future revenue by adopting microsoft tools. There is no path where Microsoft becomes enlightened and lowers their prices to provide the quantity the market demands. History has proven this repeatedly.
3. You would do well to add GPL'd languages that -today- do not command a premium, but will indeed tomorrow because of Microsoft's monopoly position creating demand between points Qm and Qc.
To silence the quickie-mart economists and Microsofties who claim I just "proved" that the developer world is competitive, please note that economic theory also strongly suggests "consumer surplus" is -still- destroyed despite alternatives.
Today's lesson: There is no good that can come from Microsoft any more.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Quite amusing. Yes, I hate Microsoft just as much as you do. Utterly loath and detest those despicable bastards.
As hard as I try not to, I'm starting to hate the FSF just as much, if not more. The self-righteousness, the arrogance, and the brutal insistence on lock-step conformity with their "our way or the highway," thinking...not to mention the juvenile name-calling and vilification (and worse, in the case of Laura Didio) which anyone who opposes them is subjected to. The one way I've heard it described which really resonated with me was, "Free as in do as I say."
The response I'll no doubt get to this is a catalogue of all the terrible things Microsoft either has done in the past or wants to do in the future.
The thing is, I really feel that Stallman/Kuhn with the DRM fearmongering is a lot like how I saw George Bush on the one hand, and Sadaam Hussein and the threat of WMD on the other.
What Microsoft *might* end up doing with DRM is causing me a lot less emotional pain than how Stallman, Kuhn, and their followers *are* treating people because of their fear of it.
The other reason why I've realised that I'm no longer interested in being refuted by advocates of the FSF is because I honestly don't believe they think at all. They're a cult...and as such, me arguing with them is pointless...because nothing I say can argue with mind control, their degree of fear, or their equally irrational degree of worship for Stallman. The degree of fear is the most difficult thing to get through.
Ask yourselves this though, guys...If Stallman is as powerful as you think he is...What are you so afraid of?
Then India will love Linux, because Linux is more pro- free market than Microsoft is. You need to stop thinking of copyrights like a property right, and start thinking of them like a communist regulation that controlls how people use information in the information age.
Let me give an example, at one large data center I worked for they had these NT servers that ran a database application for 1000's of locations. Sure enough the things would crash every day, and sure enough it would cost them over a million dollars per hour of down time. They bought the best x86's that money could buy, they custom re-wrote the tcp/ip stack, but still the computers would crash every single day and still it would cost them over a million dollars per hour. Finally, they flew in experts from all over the planet. The experts came back and said that there was a bug in the OS that was causing it. So my company then went to Microsoft and demanded that they fix it. Microsoft in "business speak" basically said "screw off and FU".
So please tell me that if they had the source, and ownership of that source couldn't be controled. Would they have refused to pay for a fully backed support contract? Would they have said "no were not going pay developers to fix it, because someone else could copy our fixes?" Hell no, that code would have gotten fixed, and every body would have benefited.
In things like software, free riders are not a burden because their copy deosn't deprive me of my copy. But rather, spreads exposure and therefore the chances soneone elses fix will be my fix. So the forces driving Linux forward and pushing Microsoft back are pure unadulterated free market forces and that is that.
They have done terrible things in the past. I've still not quite forgiven them for continuing to ship DOS when the 80386 (the original, not the standard), with its 32-bit, flat-memory, model became available. Just a *touch* of vision, and they could have had a 32-bit Xenix (which they owned) running on those machines, and I could have retired some refrigerator-sized VAXes much sooner. This was in 1987, so years and years before NT became an option. They could have done what NeXT/Apple did, and put a nice graphical shell on top of a Unix underpinning, but instead they put an unstable graphical shell on top of 8-bit, single-tasking DOS, and it took them until around 1991 to do that.
A former boss of mine, who had dealt with the Microsoft of the 80s once said, "the issue is that Bill has a Vision. One vision, and that vision is frozen in the 1970s".
On the other hand, I find that I am less and less interested in the political fights, and more and more interested in getting work done. So, I use a mix of proprietary, but highly-functional, desktop apps under a mostly proprietary, but highly functional, operating system, and rely on Free software (of one sort or the other), for specialized tools, compilers, and things that the Free community has taken a real interest in. (except for the 9-billion IRC clients. One for each name of God.) So, if uSoft cares to offer cross-platform development tools, less annoyingly licensed operating systems, etc, I'll talk to them. Otherwise not, but it's a decision these days made mainly on suitability to the tasks at hand. This being said, all they make that I use is Word, and that's because it interfaces to my reference manager. However, that decision is a technical, not emotional or political decision. Some time spent by the FSF making their software more functional would convert far more people to their side than all of the songs in favor of Software Libre ever will.
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
India first to invent Time Machine!
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Why is it so many people on Slashdot only seem to care about the "free as in beer" definition of free? Business guys LOVE the freedom definition of free. Why do you think they like free trade so much? Freedom gives you flexibility, and business tends to thrive on flexibility since you can easily adapt and aren't stuck in one path. Most businesses would love to be free from the lock-in of proprietary software. Most of them just can't do it though because the headlock is too tight, or there's no open source alternative.
AccountKiller
Assuming he's a subscriber, and had twenty extra minutes, that's enough time to formulate a decent essay on a topic with which he is readily familiar. I say this is much ado about nothing.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
The function of the state is to protect its citizens. Protecting their property is just a nice aftertought.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
This is where we suffer once again from the a ability to conflate gratis with libre. When a journalist says "free software", it's an ambiguous term, so Ballmer gets to pick which frame which is to his best advantage. Of course, he immediately starts talking about the software //business//, which is the context that Microsoft exists entirely within.
//users// do. We would be better off referring more to user freedom (eg "the free user foudation") that to free software.
Libre software only partially exists in the business world, however. Industry can benefit from user freedom the same as everyone else.
It bugs me that "free software" is the term de jour when the gratis/libre confusion is mainly caused by the selection of a thing - software - for the object of the adjective. Things have no use for freedom; as such, it's reasonable to assume that free software means gratis. Software has no use for freedom;