All other developers who MIGHT consider developing their own product (which duplicates the features of yours quite closely) get cold feet.
Is this the effect that such a leak or announcement would have? While it might prevent a commercial company from entering the Linux office-software arena, it would only increase the motivation for companies with existing Linux products to make them better, and increase motivation for free software developers to create an alternative to Office, especially considering the cloud of anti-Microsoft sentiment that shrouds the Linux community.
However, I think the announcement of soon-to-be Office4Linux2000 could make users hesitate before paying money for a commercial version of WordPerfect or some other product. Also, users or IT execs who were thinking about switching to Linux might decide to hold off until Office is available. Then, the ship date slips and slides until Microsoft finally says, "We have decided not to ship our Office4Linux product, because the inferiority of the operating system prevented us from attaining the standards of quality we require from our products. We recommend Windows2000."
If Microsoft did eventually release a version of Office for Linux, I would be surprised, but not bewildered. The "Embrace and Extend" argument is most compelling. Microsoft bid on linux.com; what do you think they would want to put there? Perhaps a link to Microsoft, perhaps a "Best viewed with IE 4.0," perhaps "Linux is a Unix-like operating system created by a Finnish graduate student, Bill Gates." Whatever they would have put there, I can only assume they would try to put their own spin on Linux, to influence--if only slightly--the direction of Linux. Office for Linux would also give Microsoft some influence over the direction that Linux takes--as Linux becomes more popular, the majority of users will be non-idealistic types who would happily let Office mangle their libraries or kernel modules, or even choose the only Linux distribution that Office runs on, MSLinux. Although they couldn't destroy Linux directly, they could strategically damage Linux's long-term mainstream acceptance (like they did with Java). This, in the long run, could be devastating to Linux because having lots of users is our only guaranteed path to having access to hardware.
In the meantime, how would Microsoft protect their OS dominance on the desktop? They could make the cost of Linux with Office greater than the cost of Windows2000 with Office, they could make Office for Linux really slow and unstable, and they could make late releases or even omit releases of some versions. All in all, though, I think Microsoft's best bet is with vaporware.
While his claim is certainly pretentious, I think that it's unfair to discredit him simply because he knows nothing about the technology. As a politician, his role in anything will be political, not technical. I don't know what political role he had in encouraging the Internet; from all the chatter I get the impression that he had something to do with encouraging its growth at some point. Certainly, it's misleading to call that "creating the Internet," but his comments are not as far off the mark as what a lot of his critics say!
Personally, I think it's silly to bicker about this when there are so many more substantial reasons to criticize Gore. In particular, why do he and Clinton have such a hardon for impeding freedom on the Internet? While I have been more pleased with the Clinton administration than Reagan or Bush, I've been really disappointed by their stance against civil liberties on issues like WIPO and encryption.
Incidentally, does anyone know what Ralph Nader's stance on the 2000 election is?
It really is unfortunate that you need to run Word to generate this stuff. Do you think there will ever be a free program that can generate line noise this elegantly?
An interesting thought, but perhaps it's not the army and not even about money. The FBI has been pushing pretty hard against digital privacy lately--they could be orchestrating these "attacks" to promote a sense of insecurity so that more Americans will be sympathetic to the FBI's stance against privacy.
If this compiler "leaves the rest in the dust," many competitors will be able to catch up very quickly if they are willing to sacrifice some software revenue. For example, Digital (should I say Compaq?) makes optimizing compilers for their Alphas, and they might even release a Linux version of their commercial compiler. If forced, they could open source their compiler to gain acceptance in the Linux community. So I don't think that the success of this compiler alone could put any competitors out of business; it might cut their profit margins a bit, but that's generally a win for us.
Of course, the Linux community is not the only market for processors, so companies might be willing to sacrifice some processor revenue from Linux users in exchange for increased revenue from compilers. However, this environment would not allow Intel to raise prices significantly, because even if they could force it out of Linux users--although I don't think they could--they would lose enough sales in other markets to make the price increase unprofitable.
Yes, spam sucks. Yes, it would be nice to find a reasonable way to stop it. However, the fact that spamming costs you money indirectly is, in and of itself, not justification to stop spamming at any cost. The argument that "we have every right to make spam illegal because spam takes up disk space and network bandwidth that I have to pay for" is not very different from the argument that "those protestors shouldn't be allowed to picket Home Depot because it took me 1.5 seconds longer for me to get my plywood, and time is money."
We need to be cautious about the measures that we take to stop spamming, because the decay of constitutional rights almost always comes from very popular causes, like stopping racism, drunk driving, drugs, anything non-Christian, and now spam. In fighting for popular causes, it's easy to get carried away ("DEATH TO SPAMMERS!!!!") and trade away important rights. It's important to remember that all freedoms have a cost--you could prevent a lot of murders by not allowing anyone to leave their house after 7pm, for example.
As for being cautious, how many people read the bill before posting? It is the implementation that the ACLU is opposing; they are not necessarily opposed to the possibility of preventing spam. Also, even if this bill does happen to be good and constitutional, what the ACLU is doing is not wrong; they are just putting the constitutionality of this bill to the test. If the courts decide that the bill is constitutional, so be it.
Slashdot Mirror
All other developers who MIGHT consider developing their own product (which duplicates the features of yours quite closely) get cold feet.
Is this the effect that such a leak or announcement would have? While it might prevent a commercial company from entering the Linux office-software arena, it would only increase the motivation for companies with existing Linux products to make them better, and increase motivation for free software developers to create an alternative to Office, especially considering the cloud of anti-Microsoft sentiment that shrouds the Linux community.
However, I think the announcement of soon-to-be Office4Linux2000 could make users hesitate before paying money for a commercial version of WordPerfect or some other product. Also, users or IT execs who were thinking about switching to Linux might decide to hold off until Office is available. Then, the ship date slips and slides until Microsoft finally says, "We have decided not to ship our Office4Linux product, because the inferiority of the operating system prevented us from attaining the standards of quality we require from our products. We recommend Windows2000."
If Microsoft did eventually release a version of Office for Linux, I would be surprised, but not bewildered. The "Embrace and Extend" argument is most compelling. Microsoft bid on linux.com; what do you think they would want to put there? Perhaps a link to Microsoft, perhaps a "Best viewed with IE 4.0," perhaps "Linux is a Unix-like operating system created by a Finnish graduate student, Bill Gates." Whatever they would have put there, I can only assume they would try to put their own spin on Linux, to influence--if only slightly--the direction of Linux. Office for Linux would also give Microsoft some influence over the direction that Linux takes--as Linux becomes more popular, the majority of users will be non-idealistic types who would happily let Office mangle their libraries or kernel modules, or even choose the only Linux distribution that Office runs on, MSLinux. Although they couldn't destroy Linux directly, they could strategically damage Linux's long-term mainstream acceptance (like they did with Java). This, in the long run, could be devastating to Linux because having lots of users is our only guaranteed path to having access to hardware.
In the meantime, how would Microsoft protect their OS dominance on the desktop? They could make the cost of Linux with Office greater than the cost of Windows2000 with Office, they could make Office for Linux really slow and unstable, and they could make late releases or even omit releases of some versions. All in all, though, I think Microsoft's best bet is with vaporware.
The guy can't even pronounce routers properly.
While his claim is certainly pretentious, I think that it's unfair to discredit him simply because he knows nothing about the technology. As a politician, his role in anything will be political, not technical. I don't know what political role he had in encouraging the Internet; from all the chatter I get the impression that he had something to do with encouraging its growth at some point. Certainly, it's misleading to call that "creating the Internet," but his comments are not as far off the mark as what a lot of his critics say!
Personally, I think it's silly to bicker about this when there are so many more substantial reasons to criticize Gore. In particular, why do he and Clinton have such a hardon for impeding freedom on the Internet? While I have been more pleased with the Clinton administration than Reagan or Bush, I've been really disappointed by their stance against civil liberties on issues like WIPO and encryption.
Incidentally, does anyone know what Ralph Nader's stance on the 2000 election is?
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It really is unfortunate that you need to run Word to generate this stuff. Do you think there will ever be a free program that can generate line noise this elegantly?
The Army is begging for $$$
An interesting thought, but perhaps it's not the army and not even about money. The FBI has been pushing pretty hard against digital privacy lately--they could be orchestrating these "attacks" to promote a sense of insecurity so that more Americans will be sympathetic to the FBI's stance against privacy.
Just a fun guess.
If this compiler "leaves the rest in the dust," many competitors will be able to catch up very quickly if they are willing to sacrifice some software revenue. For example, Digital (should I say Compaq?) makes optimizing compilers for their Alphas, and they might even release a Linux version of their commercial compiler. If forced, they could open source their compiler to gain acceptance in the Linux community. So I don't think that the success of this compiler alone could put any competitors out of business; it might cut their profit margins a bit, but that's generally a win for us.
Of course, the Linux community is not the only market for processors, so companies might be willing to sacrifice some processor revenue from Linux users in exchange for increased revenue from compilers. However, this environment would not allow Intel to raise prices significantly, because even if they could force it out of Linux users--although I don't think they could--they would lose enough sales in other markets to make the price increase unprofitable.
Yes, spam sucks. Yes, it would be nice to find a reasonable way to stop it. However, the fact that spamming costs you money indirectly is, in and of itself, not justification to stop spamming at any cost. The argument that "we have every right to make spam illegal because spam takes up disk space and network bandwidth that I have to pay for" is not very different from the argument that "those protestors shouldn't be allowed to picket Home Depot because it took me 1.5 seconds longer for me to get my plywood, and time is money."
We need to be cautious about the measures that we take to stop spamming, because the decay of constitutional rights almost always comes from very popular causes, like stopping racism, drunk driving, drugs, anything non-Christian, and now spam. In fighting for popular causes, it's easy to get carried away ("DEATH TO SPAMMERS!!!!") and trade away important rights. It's important to remember that all freedoms have a cost--you could prevent a lot of murders by not allowing anyone to leave their house after 7pm, for example.
As for being cautious, how many people read the bill before posting? It is the implementation that the ACLU is opposing; they are not necessarily opposed to the possibility of preventing spam. Also, even if this bill does happen to be good and constitutional, what the ACLU is doing is not wrong; they are just putting the constitutionality of this bill to the test. If the courts decide that the bill is constitutional, so be it.