Slashdot Mirror
What is Bill Gates Learning From Open Source?
christian.einfeldt writes "In the world of Free Open Source Software communities, Microsoft is often viewed as the very epitome of the Cathedral-style model of software production. But is Bill Gates learning from the software development phenomenon that he once compared loosely to communism? In commenting on the results of a Microsoft-commissioned survey of approximately 500 board-level executives about the importance of interpersonal skills versus raw IT coding skills, Gates starts to sound a bit more like a member of the Apache Foundation than the take-no-prisoners king of cut-throat competition: 'Software innovation, like almost every other kind of innovation, requires the ability to collaborate and share ideas with other people, and to sit down and talk with customers and get their feedback and understand their needs.'."
what is Gates/Ms learning from OpenSource?
the lesson is easy: clean up your act or we will do it for you
there was a presentation on CyberCrime on NPR this morning: full 30 minutes.
the presentation focused mostly on the note that hacking software is for sale to kids these days and CyberCrime is a growing problem
what the report DID NOT focus on properly was that while CyberCrime is perceived as a minor nuisance and "just a cost of doing business" by the commercial industry ( loss rates about 15 or 20 cents per $100 ) -- a serious attack to an individual can ruin your life for a while
and so now we must consider how we will respond
Bruce Schneier is very insightful in his comments noting that those who have the ability to respond must be made liable for the consequences of not responding before any meaningful change will occur
Merchants, banks, ISPs, and software developers represents "those who have the capacity to respond"
but do they have the interest?
without liability for damages: no
but a customer who goes into BestBuy and picks out a new 500 dollar computer has every right to expect a computer that lets her surf the net and read eMail and put the knitting club labels out using Excel. She has every right to expect that computer to perform as advertised for a reasonable life span ( not topic today )
so when her new computer is plugged up with so much ad ware that it won't run anymore that is a product failure and the mfr is responsible
same thing if she logs onto her credit union and some Russian hackers steal her money. she had a right to expect where the computer advertised a secure connection that that connection was in fact secure and not served up as a RAT feast
this is a change in thinking for IT people who for too long have got away with transferring all responsibility for use to the end user
it's time for the industry to grow up and take responsibility for product quality.
I don't think that IT will willingly swallow this particular medicine. And so it will have to come in the form of an FTC rule
the report on NPR, where it trace the "how" of various attacks -- noted that "virus codes were injected" into victim computers
this is the first aspect that has to end. no running of un-authorized programs
this means all executables will have to be signed with a PGP signature authorized by a Certificate Authority.
it may mean we will have to acquire special devices for keeping our PGP secret keys. it certainly doesn't help to have your secret key on a workstation infected with RATS of various types. protecting those secret keys is mandatory if PGP is to be used to put a stop to un-authorized programming.
I think we will need a separate device for this, at least initially.
Its funny that, because the needs of nearly all your customers is that your operating system is reliable and user friendly and runs fast, and every OS that's released from Microsoft is worse is most of those categories compared with the previous version.
To me the best example is Office 2007. While they apparently spoke with focus groups who were new to the system and decided what would be the best thing for them to use in Office, they apparently did not do quite as much with previous users of the software. While I have spouted off before about how I dislike Office 2007's UI I was shredded because of people who claimed I did not use it long enough to learn to appreciate the ease of use, etc.
Well, today I sit here using Office 2007 (even at home) after having been forced into using it at work several months ago. While I'm trying my absolute hardest to learn to appreciate it, the only thing I can do is learn to hate it more and more with every day.
My productivity is down, my stress level is up, and I sit there cursing 50% of these new designs because it's nothing like what it used to be. Yes, there are ways to go back to the old but I'm stubborn and I will learn to use the new one but I seriously fear that another new UI design will appear from Microsoft before that happens.
My biggest complaint? Access doesn't seem to have a program setting that enables the left pane to show all groups, sort by name ASC, and keep it that way for every database. If I've overlooked something, and I hope I have in my scramble to get all my old databases setup again, please do let me know so I can have at least one less thing to stress over every time I open a file I haven't used in 6 months.
As for Bill learning something about Open Source? When he starts releasing future versions of Windows with the full source and an open license, then I will agree that he's learned something. Until then, not so much.