I use Afterstep 1.0 still because I have all the common window functions programmed onto function keys. F1=maximize, F2=fg, alt-F2=bg, F3=move, alt-F3=resize, F4=iconize, alt-F4=close, F5=refresh, alt-F5=restart, F6 and on launch applications (eg: F6 launch xterm, F7 launch xterm on server,... F12 launch netscape).
Between these and the existing keybindings I can do almost everything without the mouse.. except for one thing: Netscape.
There is no way to traverse the links in netscape without a mouse. Or not that I know of anyway.
You could probably program the above keybindings on any modern WM, I just can't be bothered to redo it, since what I have already works.
Hah. I didn't even notice all the Natalie Portman spam because I always read with at least a minimal level of filtering based on score.
That must drive the CO$ weenies crazy. I remember when they successfully ruined alt.religion.scientology by spamming the group with so many messages that any real discussion was lost.
Scientology is an evil organization that is willing to go to any lengths to further its greedy interests. I'm not talking about protesting, or organizing church dinners here--death threats against "enemy" newspaper reporters, collecting damaging information about their own members for use as blackmail in the event that they testify against the cult, attempting to shut down, harass, and bankrupt critics... the list goes on.
I don't blame the German govt. for not wanting to run any software written by Scientology. Given their thug like behavior in every other area, why would you trust their code? They probably did build some backdoors into it.
I'd love to have a portable MP3 player that runs Linux. That would rock. I'd be able to have total control over whatever it does--imagine being able to control the device at that level.
I'm not suggesting that Linux adopt OpenBSD's development model. I'm suggesting that Linux pick up some of the attitude. Namely, a driving belief in correctness, and an attention to details that might impact security.
You can ignore these sorts of issues only at your peril--if you take security for granted, and assume it will all come out in the wash, you'll find a few things in your wash that aren't pleasant.
Then again perhaps Linux is moving toward being a desktop OS. The emphasis lately seems to have been on support for any and all hardware, plus easier configuration, plus more support for userland applications.
Perhaps Linux is destined to be the desktop Unix, whereas the *BSDs will wind up being servers.
In the short term that's unlikely to be the way it goes--Linux will make more and more inroads into servers. But in the end, you either deal with security in a comprehensive and systematic way, or you get out of the server business.
Linux should take a long hard look at OpenBSD and learn. The OpenBSD people have done a fantastic job of dealing with security, and have settled a lot of important issues through hard work and careful thought.
Going forward, it's going to be important for Linux to adopt many of these ideas, but especially this kind of attitude.
PCS is just a buzzword meaning digital phone. I live in North America and have a PCS phone using GSM technology. Microcell in Canada. There are a variety of US GSM providers as well. Not as common as TDMA/CDMA but I figure with 700 million Europeans advancing the standard GSM is going to carry the day in the end.
For server side stuff, and for embedded stuff, Java is the way of the future. I'm glad to see movement in this direction--personal Java for Be has some real potential. Java is the only credible threat to WinCE in the long run. (Much as I like the palm pilot, it's internal memory model and APIs just don't give developers enough to work with.)
However, I have to say that I don't see much good in the future for Java as a GUI platform. Be is definately a GUI platform, so it seems to me the first step is to get that stuff working, at the technolgoy level. Maybe the Be developers can return the favour and help make Java an effective GUI platform.
Realistically, the competition is shockwave--it's fast, slick, and definately well on its way to being a class one killer app.
Java just isn't competing here--it's still slow, clunky, and cumbersome. It's pretty obvious that Sun spent 10 years perfecting Java for embedded and server applications, making a damn fine product. But then they hacked a bunch of GUI stuff onto that in a few short months and called it a "web applicaton". Applets are an outright disaster, and GUI applications don't fare much better.
Which is a shame, since it's such a good idea. Shockwave is going to kill Java unless something is done to speed up the raw GUI performance.
Don't take me as a Java hater, I'm not--I love Java on the server, and even have a big free software project devoted to making life easier there (webmacro). I just don't like the Java GUI.
In some countries now you can pay for things using wireless technology. Usually a PCS phone or something: a note comes up asking whether you accept a charge, you say yes or not, and it appears on your next phonebill.
Some places let you buy stuff from vending machines, and you can order pizzas, pay for stuff in stores... merchants just assume that everyone has some kind of intelligent wireless device.
This stuff is going to reach a critical mass soon, and it's going to be big. It's great to see that Linux/Debian/GNU is breaking ground here--it's the way of the future.
I don't think you people realize just how much money Microsoft has. When you have that much money, then the rumors of your demise are sure to be greatly exaggerated.
Let's suppose that MSFT is forced to stop using it's Win32 monopoly as an unfair advantage. What would they do? If I were MSFT, I'd work hard to create a brand new monopoly. Perhaps my low flying sattelites would give me a wireless bandwidth monopoly. Perhaps my WinCE platform would give me a monopoly on embedded systems. Or perhaps I'd finish kicking the pants off Netscape and build myself a healthy browser monopoly.
Think they would need the unfair advantage of a Win32 monopoly to do this? Wrong. When you're sitting on the worlds biggest pile of money, you can buy your way into just about anything you like. MSFT could afford to give all these things away for years and years and years, until there was nobody else left, just on the basis of the money they have.
But, even if they failed to do that, would we then be living in a post Microsoft era?
Nope. The first thing they'd do is release Office-2013 for Linux. It would be a hugely successful product, and they'd take home pots of money from selling it. Corel/StarOffice/Applix would still get crushed by the huge Microsoft marketting machine, able to bring more resources (ie: Money) to the battle than everyone else combined.
Also notice that I said Office-2013--let's be realistic, that's about how long it's going to take for this decision to have ANY practical effect. It will be 2010 before this thing gets out of appeals, and Microsoft will be given a couple of years to implement the decision at that point.
We won't be living in the post Microsoft era until that enormous fortune is somewhat diminished.
It's very important that netscape/mozilla hold on to a significant chunk of the market--say half or so. Otherwise, if IE is really the only browser, then it's only a matter of time before visual basic crap will start sneaking into the average website, locking everyone into the Win32 platform.
A lot of people have a lot of hope invested in communicator. However, Netscape has consistently put effort into adding features, when most of us would just be happy to see it run all day without crashing.
I think we would all put up with a few less features, if the features that we had worked reliably. I suspect that it's not just geeks who feel this way.
Whatever happened to software quality? In order to beat Microsoft, Netscape appears to be playing the same dangerous game of releasing unreliable software. Dangerous for Netscape, because nobody plays this game better than MSFT.
So I know the mozilla people are reading this: Mike, get with it, fix some more bugs. Get people off of features and onto stability.
Over the last while there have been a huge number of reports of commercial software packages being released for Linux. I wonder if people are soon going to forget about all the free software that is avialable too.
Sooner or later someone is going to figure out a way to overlay a commercial API on top of Linux, and everyone is going to need to buy that package in order to run their favorite applications.
Maybe Microsoft will do it--they could make a commercial Win32 available for Linux and make us all pay for explorer (after grinding WINE and Netscape into the dust, of course).
If you examine all of the things that Microsoft is able to do with its monopoly, you will notice that none of them really affect free software developers.
Microsoft is a very effective hierarchy--it is able to wage war against other hierarchies and win. Free software developers are not hierarchies, we are networks of co-operating individuals. We are largely immune to Microsoft's tactics. I will explain this further as I go.
Microsoft uses its monopoly power in a variety of ways to harm its competitors, and prevent them from bringing interesting new products to the market, or at least prevents them from profiting by doing so.
First, it uses its large cash base to buy out people who threaten to create important new businesses. Rather than let a small company grow into a big competitor, Microsoft buys the small company. But this tactic fails against free software: You can buy the cow, but the milk is licensed to the public for free for all time.
Second, it uses its marketing power to force competitors out of business: exclusive license deals which deny competitors access to important distribution channels, and making software available for free to deny competitors access to much needed revenue. But again this doesn't apply to free software developers: The problem is there is nobody to target. The developer of the software doesn't pay for distribution--they stick their code up on some public servers and other people do the work of putting it on a CDROM. You could target one of those distributors, and force them out of business, but someone else would just take over. The problem for Microsoft is that the distribution expense is spread out over a huge network of people, each paying a little bit of the cost. There is really nobody to force into bankrupcy by these tactics--the free software project continues anyway.
Third, Microsoft uses its huge legal resources and patent claims to harass and sue competitors into submission. Again this doesn't work against free software developers: who do you sue? You could force me to abandon my project, but no doubt tommorow someone else would pick it up. So you sue them, but then they would drop it too, and someone else would pick it up. Free software developers, as networks of co-operating individuals, can just back away whenever someone threatens them. Though some important individuals may leave, the project survives since anyone in the world has the right to pick it up and continue.
Fourth, Microsoft uses its distributed base of code to create unfair advantages for its products on its own platform. In the past, Microsoft has made use of secret API calls to give Word a speed boost over WordPerfect, and so forth. While this is an effective tactic, it only works against commercial developers. Since a commercial developer relies on revenue from product sales, it is important for them to gain market share on the Win32 architecture--where the money is. Free software developers, however, don't rely on revenue. They just write code, usually because they need it, or someone who did need it paid for the development, or perhaps because they think it would be cool. In any case, free software developers are content to create killer applications for less popular platforms--the lack of revenue doesn't kill their project, as it does with a commercial developer.
So in all cases we see that the kinds of devious things Microsoft has done with its monopoly are not really effective against free software developers.
We are networks of co-operating people, not strict hierarchical organizations. Microsoft can attack a hierarchy--break it down, causing it to collapse into bankrupcy and ruin. But as networks of people, we are not such easy targets--the kinds of predatory tactics Microsoft has been using don't work against us.
So... this is yet another reason why we shouldn't care about this ruling. At best it will prevent Microsoft from doing things that don't hurt US anyway.
This ruling represents a potential reorganization of power within the ranks of proprietary software developers. It's about what one proprietary software developer (Microsoft) is allowed to do to others (Sun, AOL, Oracle, Lotus, IBM, etc.)
If it succeeds in putting a dent in the Win32 monopoly it may result in a few more *commercial* applications for Linux--a natural consequence of platform diversification is that more applications will be ported to more places. However, these will be proprietary applications such as Microsoft Word, Corel Draw, Excel, commercial games, etc., no doubt a slight gain to people who run Linux systems.
But since these will be commercial applications, this is a meaningless event for the free software movement. It doesn't help create any additional free software--it may even lead to making the Linux platform less free than it currently is.
It doesn't even offer anything from the perspective of the opensource movement: these commercial applications which will arrive on the Linux platform will not come with source code. At least, not just because of this ruling.
So if you are a callous person who doesn't give a damn that the Linux platform was brought to you out of the ideology and actions of the free software and the opensource software movements, you may think this is a good thing.
But if you truly care about free software, or at least about opensource software, then you will ignore this ruling and get back to work writing killer apps under your favorite free or open license.
Why are the cybermen and the borg always the bad guys on TV? Obviously there's something seductive about evolving the human race via technology. I think we all secretly wish we were cybermen and borgs.
Let's start by implanting PCS cellphones into our heads so we can be in constant touch with the collective consciousness.
Stallman has been sticking to the exact same message, consistently, for a decade or so. He makes intelligent, clear points, and sticks to the same issues.
Despite numerous attempts to get him to waiver or dilute his position, he's sticking to it.
I have a small earpiece for my phone with a microphone that clips to my collar. It makes me look like a secret service guy. At any rate, it keeps the cellphone away from my brain.
Cellphones aren't going away, so we need to find solutions.
Corel has some serious organizational problems to solve, problems that dwarf the issues surrounding Michael Cowpland. It's bad that he is in trouble because it means potential chaos for Corel's management--however, this problem is small in the big picture.
The big picture is that Corel is in for a major rethinking of the way they make money, a major restructuring, a lot of confusion, and if they screw any of it up, death.
As a proprietary software vendor Corel's organization is wholly unsuitable for the kind of business they are proposing to move to. The company is set up to create and sell high margin software, and they're losing that market no matter what happens.
Their core business, wordprocessors and drawing packages, is rapidly becoming a commodity market. There are many competitors, and some of them are free. This will never be a high margin business again.
Their new business, creating and selling a Linux distribution, will also never be a high margin business. The cost to enter this market is near zero, there are many existing competitors, and any John Q. Public has all the resources and money needed to set up a new one. Put it this way: Debbie and Ian did it, so can anyone else.
Free software projects are mean and lean. They include just as many people as the project can support financially--each involved only to the extent that the project can support them. People who make a living developing free software rarely back a single project--they get involved in anything and everything, widening their area of expertise so that they can earn a reasonable living as a consultant.
In other words, the free software world is a network of co-operating individuals, each motivated by shared interests, and shared needs. Groups come together and then vapourize as needed, to complete whatever work needs to be done.
A proprietary software company is very different, it's a strict hierarchy with managers at the top telling the employees at the bottom what to do. Employees rarely move from one project to another. When such companies adopt more "open" office policies, the result is still immensely structured compared to the reality of a typical free software project.
Companies like Mozilla, Red Hat, etc., are not structured like a traditional company. They have developers out in the field, working on all sorts of things. They try really hard to be like a free software project--and even still it isn't clear whether it can work.
Corel is so very far from that way of doing business that they are in for some huge turbulence in the next while. There is a good chance they might not survive.
Cowplands troubles are, by comparason, totally irrelevant. They should not distract anyone from the fact that Corel is a business built around one business model, now trying to switch and work around a different model.
Free software is a contradiction of proprietary software, and any company that makes a switch from one way of doing business to the other has to resolve that contradiction.
BTW, the analysis that opensource and free software projects are networks that enjoy natural advantages in competition with corporate hierarchives was inspired by this article:
It doesn't talk about opensource projects, but it talks about how networks of people can wage a special kind of war against hierarchies wherein the network concentrates a massive pulse attack against the hierarchy--concentrating efforts of people all over the globe on the target all at once, like a giant swarm of bees with a million little stings--and then melts away so that counter-attack is not feasible.
The article is a RAND Corp. analysis of how the Zapitista Rebels in Mexico were essentially a node in a global network that swarmed all over the Mexican hierarchy and forced it to the bargaining table (at least in the beginning) when by all rights they should have been crushed in a matter of days by the more structured, bigger, more powerful Mexican government hierarchy.
I think opensource projects are networks capable of waging "social netwar" against corporate hierarchies, to use the jargon of this excellent article.
I think the OSS/free software movement will turn out to be a patent killer.
First, I am not a lawyer, and am posting this to try and get some opinions from someone who is.
Here is why I think open/free software is going to wind up killing most patents:
(1) Opensource groups are borg-like: individuals don't matter, the project is actually a loose network of people randomly co-operating with one another due to shared views and shared needs. If you sued me for patent infringement over one of my free projects, I would drop it. Someone else would pick it up, and you would have to sue them, they'd drop it, and someone else would pick it up.
Patents are designed to help hierarchies fight one another over turf. Networks of people don't need turf, if you attack them they melt away, but reform elsewhere.
(2) All free software is published all the time, by definition. If it exists, it has been published. Nobody will accidentally forget to publish their free software project.
(3) Everyone has a license to use everything in any existing free software publication--explicit permission from the author in the form of a free software or open software license.
(4) Someone said prior use of a patented idea is a valid defense, providing the prior use was published.
I think this puts patent holders in a rough position. They are going to have to try and fight an enemy that doesn't really exist--the individuals involved can melt away and comply with any order you bring against them, yet the project survives and continues. But if you don't go after them, then you are aware that your patent has been infringed, and seen to be doing nothing about it--doesn't this grant everyone an implicit license to use the patent? Otherwise you are being unfair and going after only people you don't like.
And if you go after anyone at all, they will simply find some OSS/free software code that does what you claim infringes, and include it in their product instead of their own code. They will now be the continuation of a publishing tradition that predates your patent, so they will probably win.
As a patent holder you now face the prospect of waging an expensive battle against enemies that vapourize whenever you go after them, and very little hope of winning other patent battles unless you do, and face a very big risk of losing your patent due to the OSS/free software tradition of publishing.
Now I repeat that I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me with what little I do, that OSS/free software might already inherently be a toxic venom perfectly designed to poisen patents.
It says clearly, right at the top, that it is "informational only" and "does not specify an Internet standard of any kind". You cannot violate a non-binding RFC.
RFC's are just requests for comments. They are not necessarily standards. Some of them wind up getting approved through the standardization process, but apparently this is not one of them.
It's interesting that they have the gop.gov domain, but it's not interesting that they violated a non-binding, non-standard RFC.
I especially liked the person who thought shoplifting a candy bar was a worse crime than pirating software.
People seem to have a natural expectation that software is free. Maybe this is just more evidence that proprietary software vendors are dinosaurs.
(With a suitable exemption for those progressive companies that create someone that nobody else ever has--I think there's room for that in the market.)
Is it front page/. news every time some proprietary software company forgets to release their software under the GPL? This is not the first time in history that someone has released non-free software, and it won't be the last.
This guy has no history with the free software movement, and apparently not much insight into how it works either.
Slashdot Mirror
I use Afterstep 1.0 still because I have all the common window functions programmed onto function keys. F1=maximize, F2=fg, alt-F2=bg, F3=move, alt-F3=resize, F4=iconize, alt-F4=close, F5=refresh, alt-F5=restart, F6 and on launch applications (eg: F6 launch xterm, F7 launch xterm on server, ... F12 launch netscape).
Between these and the existing keybindings I can do almost everything without the mouse.. except for one thing: Netscape.
There is no way to traverse the links in netscape without a mouse. Or not that I know of anyway.
You could probably program the above keybindings on any modern WM, I just can't be bothered to redo it, since what I have already works.
Hah. I didn't even notice all the Natalie Portman spam because I always read with at least a minimal level of filtering based on score.
That must drive the CO$ weenies crazy. I remember when they successfully ruined alt.religion.scientology by spamming the group with so many messages that any real discussion was lost.
Scientology is an evil organization that is willing to go to any lengths to further its greedy interests. I'm not talking about protesting, or organizing church dinners here--death threats against "enemy" newspaper reporters, collecting damaging information about their own members for use as blackmail in the event that they testify against the cult, attempting to shut down, harass, and bankrupt critics... the list goes on.
I don't blame the German govt. for not wanting to run any software written by Scientology. Given their thug like behavior in every other area, why would you trust their code? They probably did build some backdoors into it.
I'd love to have a portable MP3 player that runs Linux. That would rock. I'd be able to have total control over whatever it does--imagine being able to control the device at that level.
I'm not suggesting that Linux adopt OpenBSD's development model. I'm suggesting that Linux pick up some of the attitude. Namely, a driving belief in correctness, and an attention to details that might impact security.
You can ignore these sorts of issues only at your peril--if you take security for granted, and assume it will all come out in the wash, you'll find a few things in your wash that aren't pleasant.
Then again perhaps Linux is moving toward being a desktop OS. The emphasis lately seems to have been on support for any and all hardware, plus easier configuration, plus more support for userland applications.
Perhaps Linux is destined to be the desktop Unix, whereas the *BSDs will wind up being servers.
In the short term that's unlikely to be the way it goes--Linux will make more and more inroads into servers. But in the end, you either deal with security in a comprehensive and systematic way, or you get out of the server business.
Linux should take a long hard look at OpenBSD and learn. The OpenBSD people have done a fantastic job of dealing with security, and have settled a lot of important issues through hard work and careful thought.
Going forward, it's going to be important for Linux to adopt many of these ideas, but especially this kind of attitude.
PCS is just a buzzword meaning digital phone. I live in North America and have a PCS phone using GSM technology. Microcell in Canada. There are a variety of US GSM providers as well. Not as common as TDMA/CDMA but I figure with 700 million Europeans advancing the standard GSM is going to carry the day in the end.
For server side stuff, and for embedded stuff, Java is the way of the future. I'm glad to see movement in this direction--personal Java for Be has some real potential. Java is the only credible threat to WinCE in the long run. (Much as I like the palm pilot, it's internal memory model and APIs just don't give developers enough to work with.)
However, I have to say that I don't see much good in the future for Java as a GUI platform. Be is definately a GUI platform, so it seems to me the first step is to get that stuff working, at the technolgoy level. Maybe the Be developers can return the favour and help make Java an effective GUI platform.
Realistically, the competition is shockwave--it's fast, slick, and definately well on its way to being a class one killer app.
Java just isn't competing here--it's still slow, clunky, and cumbersome. It's pretty obvious that Sun spent 10 years perfecting Java for embedded and server applications, making a damn fine product. But then they hacked a bunch of GUI stuff onto that in a few short months and called it a "web applicaton". Applets are an outright disaster, and GUI applications don't fare much better.
Which is a shame, since it's such a good idea. Shockwave is going to kill Java unless something is done to speed up the raw GUI performance.
Don't take me as a Java hater, I'm not--I love Java on the server, and even have a big free software project devoted to making life easier there (webmacro). I just don't like the Java GUI.
In some countries now you can pay for things using wireless technology. Usually a PCS phone or something: a note comes up asking whether you accept a charge, you say yes or not, and it appears on your next phonebill.
Some places let you buy stuff from vending machines, and you can order pizzas, pay for stuff in stores... merchants just assume that everyone has some kind of intelligent wireless device.
This stuff is going to reach a critical mass soon, and it's going to be big. It's great to see that Linux/Debian/GNU is breaking ground here--it's the way of the future.
POST-microsoft era? What a laugh.
I don't think you people realize just how much money Microsoft has. When you have that much money, then the rumors of your demise are sure to be greatly exaggerated.
Let's suppose that MSFT is forced to stop using it's Win32 monopoly as an unfair advantage. What would they do? If I were MSFT, I'd work hard to create a brand new monopoly. Perhaps my low flying sattelites would give me a wireless bandwidth monopoly. Perhaps my WinCE platform would give me a monopoly on embedded systems. Or perhaps I'd finish kicking the pants off Netscape and build myself a healthy browser monopoly.
Think they would need the unfair advantage of a Win32 monopoly to do this? Wrong. When you're sitting on the worlds biggest pile of money, you can buy your way into just about anything you like. MSFT could afford to give all these things away for years and years and years, until there was nobody else left, just on the basis of the money they have.
But, even if they failed to do that, would we then be living in a post Microsoft era?
Nope. The first thing they'd do is release Office-2013 for Linux. It would be a hugely successful product, and they'd take home pots of money from selling it. Corel/StarOffice/Applix would still get crushed by the huge Microsoft marketting machine, able to bring more resources (ie: Money) to the battle than everyone else combined.
Also notice that I said Office-2013--let's be realistic, that's about how long it's going to take for this decision to have ANY practical effect. It will be 2010 before this thing gets out of appeals, and Microsoft will be given a couple of years to implement the decision at that point.
We won't be living in the post Microsoft era until that enormous fortune is somewhat diminished.
It's very important that netscape/mozilla hold on to a significant chunk of the market--say half or so. Otherwise, if IE is really the only browser, then it's only a matter of time before visual basic crap will start sneaking into the average website, locking everyone into the Win32 platform.
A lot of people have a lot of hope invested in communicator. However, Netscape has consistently put effort into adding features, when most of us would just be happy to see it run all day without crashing.
I think we would all put up with a few less features, if the features that we had worked reliably. I suspect that it's not just geeks who feel this way.
Whatever happened to software quality? In order to beat Microsoft, Netscape appears to be playing the same dangerous game of releasing unreliable software. Dangerous for Netscape, because nobody plays this game better than MSFT.
So I know the mozilla people are reading this: Mike, get with it, fix some more bugs. Get people off of features and onto stability.
Over the last while there have been a huge number of reports of commercial software packages being released for Linux. I wonder if people are soon going to forget about all the free software that is avialable too.
Sooner or later someone is going to figure out a way to overlay a commercial API on top of Linux, and everyone is going to need to buy that package in order to run their favorite applications.
Maybe Microsoft will do it--they could make a commercial Win32 available for Linux and make us all pay for explorer (after grinding WINE and Netscape into the dust, of course).
If you examine all of the things that Microsoft is able to do with its monopoly, you will notice that none of them really affect free software developers.
Microsoft is a very effective hierarchy--it is able to wage war against other hierarchies and win. Free software developers are not hierarchies, we are networks of co-operating individuals. We are largely immune to Microsoft's tactics. I will explain this further as I go.
Microsoft uses its monopoly power in a variety of ways to harm its competitors, and prevent them from bringing interesting new products to the market, or at least prevents them from profiting by doing so.
First, it uses its large cash base to buy out people who threaten to create important new businesses. Rather than let a small company grow into a big competitor, Microsoft buys the small company. But this tactic fails against free software: You can buy the cow, but the milk is licensed to the public for free for all time.
Second, it uses its marketing power to force competitors out of business: exclusive license deals which deny competitors access to important distribution channels, and making software available for free to deny competitors access to much needed revenue. But again this doesn't apply to free software developers: The problem is there is nobody to target. The developer of the software doesn't pay for distribution--they stick their code up on some public servers and other people do the work of putting it on a CDROM. You could target one of those distributors, and force them out of business, but someone else would just take over. The problem for Microsoft is that the distribution expense is spread out over a huge network of people, each paying a little bit of the cost. There is really nobody to force into bankrupcy by these tactics--the free software project continues anyway.
Third, Microsoft uses its huge legal resources and patent claims to harass and sue competitors into submission. Again this doesn't work against free software developers: who do you sue? You could force me to abandon my project, but no doubt tommorow someone else would pick it up. So you sue them, but then they would drop it too, and someone else would pick it up. Free software developers, as networks of co-operating individuals, can just back away whenever someone threatens them. Though some important individuals may leave, the project survives since anyone in the world has the right to pick it up and continue.
Fourth, Microsoft uses its distributed base of code to create unfair advantages for its products on its own platform. In the past, Microsoft has made use of secret API calls to give Word a speed boost over WordPerfect, and so forth. While this is an effective tactic, it only works against commercial developers. Since a commercial developer relies on revenue from product sales, it is important for them to gain market share on the Win32 architecture--where the money is. Free software developers, however, don't rely on revenue. They just write code, usually because they need it, or someone who did need it paid for the development, or perhaps because they think it would be cool. In any case, free software developers are content to create killer applications for less popular platforms--the lack of revenue doesn't kill their project, as it does with a commercial developer.
So in all cases we see that the kinds of devious things Microsoft has done with its monopoly are not really effective against free software developers.
We are networks of co-operating people, not strict hierarchical organizations. Microsoft can attack a hierarchy--break it down, causing it to collapse into bankrupcy and ruin. But as networks of people, we are not such easy targets--the kinds of predatory tactics Microsoft has been using don't work against us.
So... this is yet another reason why we shouldn't care about this ruling. At best it will prevent Microsoft from doing things that don't hurt US anyway.
This ruling represents a potential reorganization of power within the ranks of proprietary software developers. It's about what one proprietary software developer (Microsoft) is allowed to do to others (Sun, AOL, Oracle, Lotus, IBM, etc.)
If it succeeds in putting a dent in the Win32 monopoly it may result in a few more *commercial* applications for Linux--a natural consequence of platform diversification is that more applications will be ported to more places. However, these will be proprietary applications such as Microsoft Word, Corel Draw, Excel, commercial games, etc., no doubt a slight gain to people who run Linux systems.
But since these will be commercial applications, this is a meaningless event for the free software movement. It doesn't help create any additional free software--it may even lead to making the Linux platform less free than it currently is.
It doesn't even offer anything from the perspective of the opensource movement: these commercial applications which will arrive on the Linux platform will not come with source code. At least, not just because of this ruling.
So if you are a callous person who doesn't give a damn that the Linux platform was brought to you out of the ideology and actions of the free software and the opensource software movements, you may think this is a good thing.
But if you truly care about free software, or at least about opensource software, then you will ignore this ruling and get back to work writing killer apps under your favorite free or open license.
Why are the cybermen and the borg always the bad guys on TV? Obviously there's something seductive about evolving the human race via technology. I think we all secretly wish we were cybermen and borgs.
Let's start by implanting PCS cellphones into our heads so we can be in constant touch with the collective consciousness.
Resistance is futile.
Stallman has been sticking to the exact same message, consistently, for a decade or so. He makes intelligent, clear points, and sticks to the same issues.
Despite numerous attempts to get him to waiver or dilute his position, he's sticking to it.
That makes him a good advocate.
Stallman's vocal critics are always insisting that the GPL is an inferior license which prevents people from using the software covered by it.
...
There's only one good answer to this nonsense: Linux, GCC, bash, emacs, gimp, gzip, gnome,
Clearly nobody uses these things.
I have a small earpiece for my phone with a microphone that clips to my collar. It makes me look like a secret service guy. At any rate, it keeps the cellphone away from my brain.
Cellphones aren't going away, so we need to find solutions.
Corel has some serious organizational problems to solve, problems that dwarf the issues surrounding Michael Cowpland. It's bad that he is in trouble because it means potential chaos for Corel's management--however, this problem is small in the big picture.
The big picture is that Corel is in for a major rethinking of the way they make money, a major restructuring, a lot of confusion, and if they screw any of it up, death.
As a proprietary software vendor Corel's organization is wholly unsuitable for the kind of business they are proposing to move to. The company is set up to create and sell high margin software, and they're losing that market no matter what happens.
Their core business, wordprocessors and drawing packages, is rapidly becoming a commodity market. There are many competitors, and some of them are free. This will never be a high margin business again.
Their new business, creating and selling a Linux distribution, will also never be a high margin business. The cost to enter this market is near zero, there are many existing competitors, and any John Q. Public has all the resources and money needed to set up a new one. Put it this way: Debbie and Ian did it, so can anyone else.
Free software projects are mean and lean. They include just as many people as the project can support financially--each involved only to the extent that the project can support them. People who make a living developing free software rarely back a single project--they get involved in anything and everything, widening their area of expertise so that they can earn a reasonable living as a consultant.
In other words, the free software world is a network of co-operating individuals, each motivated by shared interests, and shared needs. Groups come together and then vapourize as needed, to complete whatever work needs to be done.
A proprietary software company is very different, it's a strict hierarchy with managers at the top telling the employees at the bottom what to do. Employees rarely move from one project to another. When such companies adopt more "open" office policies, the result is still immensely structured compared to the reality of a typical free software project.
Companies like Mozilla, Red Hat, etc., are not structured like a traditional company. They have developers out in the field, working on all sorts of things. They try really hard to be like a free software project--and even still it isn't clear whether it can work.
Corel is so very far from that way of doing business that they are in for some huge turbulence in the next while. There is a good chance they might not survive.
Cowplands troubles are, by comparason, totally irrelevant. They should not distract anyone from the fact that Corel is a business built around one business model, now trying to switch and work around a different model.
Free software is a contradiction of proprietary software, and any company that makes a switch from one way of doing business to the other has to resolve that contradiction.
BTW, the analysis that opensource and free software projects are networks that enjoy natural advantages in competition with corporate hierarchives was inspired by this article:
Social Netwar (RAND Corp. Analysis)
It doesn't talk about opensource projects, but it talks about how networks of people can wage a special kind of war against hierarchies wherein the network concentrates a massive pulse attack against the hierarchy--concentrating efforts of people all over the globe on the target all at once, like a giant swarm of bees with a million little stings--and then melts away so that counter-attack is not feasible.
The article is a RAND Corp. analysis of how the Zapitista Rebels in Mexico were essentially a node in a global network that swarmed all over the Mexican hierarchy and forced it to the bargaining table (at least in the beginning) when by all rights they should have been crushed in a matter of days by the more structured, bigger, more powerful Mexican government hierarchy.
I think opensource projects are networks capable of waging "social netwar" against corporate hierarchies, to use the jargon of this excellent article.
I think the OSS/free software movement will turn out to be a patent killer.
First, I am not a lawyer, and am posting this to try and get some opinions from someone who is.
Here is why I think open/free software is going to wind up killing most patents:
(1) Opensource groups are borg-like: individuals don't matter, the project is actually a loose network of people randomly co-operating with one another due to shared views and shared needs. If you sued me for patent infringement over one of my free projects, I would drop it. Someone else would pick it up, and you would have to sue them, they'd drop it, and someone else would pick it up.
Patents are designed to help hierarchies fight one another over turf. Networks of people don't need turf, if you attack them they melt away, but reform elsewhere.
(2) All free software is published all the time, by definition. If it exists, it has been published. Nobody will accidentally forget to publish their free software project.
(3) Everyone has a license to use everything in any existing free software publication--explicit permission from the author in the form of a free software or open software license.
(4) Someone said prior use of a patented idea is a valid defense, providing the prior use was published.
I think this puts patent holders in a rough position. They are going to have to try and fight an enemy that doesn't really exist--the individuals involved can melt away and comply with any order you bring against them, yet the project survives and continues. But if you don't go after them, then you are aware that your patent has been infringed, and seen to be doing nothing about it--doesn't this grant everyone an implicit license to use the patent? Otherwise you are being unfair and going after only people you don't like.
And if you go after anyone at all, they will simply find some OSS/free software code that does what you claim infringes, and include it in their product instead of their own code. They will now be the continuation of a publishing tradition that predates your patent, so they will probably win.
As a patent holder you now face the prospect of waging an expensive battle against enemies that vapourize whenever you go after them, and very little hope of winning other patent battles unless you do, and face a very big risk of losing your patent due to the OSS/free software tradition of publishing.
Now I repeat that I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me with what little I do, that OSS/free software might already inherently be a toxic venom perfectly designed to poisen patents.
It says clearly, right at the top, that it is "informational only" and "does not specify an Internet standard of any kind". You cannot violate a non-binding RFC.
RFC's are just requests for comments. They are not necessarily standards. Some of them wind up getting approved through the standardization process, but apparently this is not one of them.
It's interesting that they have the gop.gov domain, but it's not interesting that they violated a non-binding, non-standard RFC.
I especially liked the person who thought shoplifting a candy bar was a worse crime than pirating software.
People seem to have a natural expectation that software is free. Maybe this is just more evidence that proprietary software vendors are dinosaurs.
(With a suitable exemption for those progressive companies that create someone that nobody else ever has--I think there's room for that in the market.)
Is it front page /. news every time some proprietary software company forgets to release their software under the GPL? This is not the first time in history that someone has released non-free software, and it won't be the last.
This guy has no history with the free software movement, and apparently not much insight into how it works either.
Why do we care what he thinks?
Looks like it was an honest mistake, honestly corrected. Those of you who were calling Corel names a few weeks ago ought to be ashamed now.