Not only that, but imagine this. The hackers (in the real sense, not the TV-movie sense) who write the real low-level stuff that makes various OS's work - for example in Linux people like Alan Cox, Linus, RMS, ESR, davem, and the other regular kernel contributors submit a lot of code. Well, those people dont necessarily but a lot of code is in the kernel.
Can anyone tell me for 100% certain that between GCC, the kernel, and various compile chain tools there isn't a subtle backdoor that creates an overrun, or a weak key, or anything like that somewhere along the line? Maybe what looks like an innocent bug or flaw or even stylistic change in one source combines with a similiar item in another source to create an exploit or a weak scheme.
These people - real hackers - are so clever (I mean serously, writing and maintain an OS for fun puts these programmers in the top 1% of all advanced systems programmers) that what is to say that they couldn't dupe everyone even with the source available to all?
I can imagine a situation where a corrupted/corruptable individual works hard to gain legitimate comitt access to certian tools that are widespread. GCC, the kernel, a shell or two, OpenSSL. That person starts making small changes that when aggregated expose a large exploit but when examined piece-mail are completely benign, or even benficical.
Does anyone doubt that its technically possible? How could any automated system or person ever discover this? I am a fairly competent programmer in some areas and there have been numerous times that I've had to dissect large pieces of code painstakingly over the course of days or weeks to trace back a nasty bug. Can anyone say that its not possible that this is *already* happening in the OSS world today?
I really do not understand all the talk that Linux is not ready for the desktop
I'll give you a great example.
I gave my parents a nice little digital camera that runs from USB. I have a similiar (but higher-end model myself). Under my Linux box, it is non-trivial to get this working. Between myself and a friend who is even geekier than me and more in tune with Linux it was several hours of work. On his box it was probably 2 hrs of tweaking, compiling, testing and trouble. With me it was probably double.
On my parents XP box, it was easy. Open the camera, plug in the battery. Take a few photos. Plug the cable in the camera, plug the other end in the front of the PC. Windows displayed a please wait message, and then 30 seconds later a ballon on the taskbar saying "New hardware ready: HP Photosmart XXX". Then a window appeared which said "Windows has deteced a new camera. Would you like to" with opens to copy all images to thier My Pictures folder, to print selected images, to e-mail selected images, or to do nothing.
That's a perfect example. In Linux its a crap shoot. It may or may not work. In Windows XP, it is detected, configured, and integrated into the Windows shell within 30 seconds. Friends bring their digital camera to my parents house and print it with their printer.
So, frankly: If your core point is that OSS "is rarely good business", I've got to flat-out contradict that point. It's very good business, as long as it's appropriately used.
The point you have missed: in the cases you pointed out, including your own, the business isn't software. Most uses of OSS are not in the software business. You said yourself you were in the "related services and support" business. The software was OSS.
I'll give you an example. In my home state town and city governments can interface with the state system for vehicle registration as a service to their citizens. This software requires strict compliance to the state spec, and must be updated on the whim of legislators. By law if the town offers registration it cannot be denied to a citizen - even if a computer is broke or a bug is present. That means highly-available support. Additionally it means that software fixes frequently must be implemented within 36 or 72 hours. The state must approve the "inputs" and "outputs" of the software.
The software is expensive - usually about $5k upfront and a few grand a year. Best yet there only about 30-50 potential clients. And its completetly different in each of the 49 other states.
This market will never be touched by OSS. The software is proprietary by nature. It requires expensive support contracts. It requires a hardware support contract.
OSS in this market would be bad business.
By and large this is how most software in terms of dollars is sold in the US. Most software is for vertical markets - like vehicle registration. OSS has proven to virtually useless except as comoditized bits - databases, server platforms, etc. As far as the *core* application goes, it is not a major factor. The only thing it is doing is increasing profit margins for the software vendors because they often can use free or cheap tools and free or cheap bits instead of expensive bits from closed vendors.
This vendor going OSS would be stupid business. And it's impossible. There is no group of programmers would volunteer to take over this project - maybe perhaps one or two at any time (I live in a small state) someday, however, no town would use their software without a guarantee of service levels.
Back to you and your two day project. It was cheaper for you to write the software, but that doesnt mean its always that way. In most cases most companies who use software *don't have a programmer on staff*. Hiring someone to modify that code is usually more expensive then buying the software commerically. This is why to this day commerical software is a HUGE business and OSS is a niche. A company without a programmer hiring a consultant to modify or make use of an OSS product would be making a very bad business decision. It'd be far more expensive in virtually all circumstances.
Sometimes a company gets lucky and finds *exactly* what they want in *exactly* a good usuable form with *exactly* enough documentation. Those percentages will increase over time. A company used to using pcAnywhere may be able to drop in VNC (or maybe not, depending on what features they require). Those cases would be a good time for OSS to shine. However, at this point, that is a rare case - which is evidenced in the real world by the fact that Symantec has sold 8 million copies of pcAnywhere since 2000.
Finally, about OSS and the support model. By and large most OSS projects are spearheaded by one or two individuals. They are small. Even complex projects have a few core motivators. The Really Big Projects have a few core submitters and dozens or hundreds of submitters. The projects that try to make money work on either (a) donations, (b) sale of support or services and (c) corporate sponorship. That's the only way OSS is making money. (A) is not a reliable business model. This is why most people who rely on this are in it just for the fun. Donations are extra. It is rare to hear of an OSS person making a living from donation
I am not discounting the idea of OSS. I am just saying that OSS is not a viable industry. You have pointed out correctly that a lot of free software is written not for the sake of it, but, rather, as a by product of a specific business or widget making venture. That is true.
Now, the thing of it is, my point was and is, that its not going to last in its current form.
Whats happening now - and in your case with the ticketing system you mentioned - is that people who are not fully utilized are spending free time, work time, and other time writing OSS. That's great. But you were only able to do that because your company (1) had you, and (2) decided that thier money - your pay - is used wisely in writing this piece of software. Giving it away - well, thats just bonus and it pays back a little in the form of karma, contributions, improvements etc.
But lets imagine this. Lets imagine the software you wrote was available commerically for a few hundred bucks, and it did exactly what your company wanted. Would they still have spent money to have you write it?
OSS has a place, and that place is to commoditize software that can be made a commodity. That is my point. Companies founded on making OSS software and giving it away - as you seem to agree - aren't going to do well in terms of traditional software organizations. Only a very few will be long term viable, and those that are will focus on selling support and consulting.
Selling support and consulting as a living is a bad thing for OSS. That will guide OSS development. Whereas commerical companies see support as a cost burden OSS companies will see it as revenue. Commerical software will continue to focus on ways to make it so that support is rare and painless. OSS will continue to become more archane, more complex, and less likely to be self-managing. This is only going to turn people away. Whats the good of OSS software if it is so complex or costly in support or unwieldy. You might as well buy OSS.
On top of that, most companies care not for the source. It is a minor footnote really. The fact is that if a few developers drop from your typical OSS project that project stagnates and eventually dies. Yah, sure, some random XYZ company could hire a programmer if they really need that code, but in all likely hood they'll just migrate to something commerically available.
In terms of OSS on the edges, this will continue. Tools like compilers, browsers, simple document editors, server components, etc are well suited for OSS - they are commodities. Software that controls printing presses, machines, vertical business functions, etc are going to stay and remain proprietary forever.
So I guess that I don't see whats going on and why you felt the need to follow-up. I didnt claim OSS was bad, or useless, or anything. I never said it had no place in business. I am just saying its very rarely good business. It worked out good for your company because it was cheaper for you to write the software than to buy it commerically.
The point is that the original authors didnt receive anything of the money you received based on the value created in part by their effort.
Right now OSS is in its main stream infancy. It's all roses and love and happiness.
The test will be to see what happens when the current generation of products starts to mature. What happens next is the key.
The key essence of your jobs wan't that the software used was free. The same thing - by the admission - could have been done with proprietary software. And right now the proprietary stuff employs a multitude of people more than you.
The fact remains that writing software and giving it away has yet to be proven as a longtime viable industry. From a business standpoint the OSS projects that are profitable make moeny from support, bugfixes, and donations.
Time will tell how it works out, but, by far the largest number of OSS involved people do not profit from the software they right. On top of that, many work for proprietary software companies and moonlight in the OSS world. Time will tell how that works - what happens to those developers when the proprietary software market is devasted (assuming it is).
The Mac business unit is profitable, but not one of the most profitable. In terms of investment/return, its amoung the best if not the best. But don't be silly: the MBU is a very, very small chunk of MS's profits.
1. Many districts and jurisdictions have mandatory recounts if the margin is small. That helps.
2. Random checking of voting places to ensure that paper + electronic trail is perfectly in balance will help.
3. With each vote recorded electronically a unique number could be generated which could be printed on the paper ballot. This would provide an additional really great level of non-refutability.
4. Voting places where there is a discrepancy should be scruntized etc etc. Problems could be eliminated.
Essentially, this system would be amazingly trustworthy.
MS was aking IM people for an open standard for communications, and AOL declined.
Big suprise now that MS is going to do it themselves.
I am exactly saying the thing with the AT&T market, except building a new telephone system would cost billons if not trillions of dollars. Building a new IM market costs virtually nothing. Additionally, any company can follow a myraid of exisiting standards like Jabber and have a ready to go solution for no upfront cost.
The fact is that MS has gone out of their to be friendly with IM products. You can make competition to MSN, give it away for free, and integrate it into Windows without cost. Asking MS to incurr costs on thier end, to allow 3rd parties to use their servers, their technology, and their staff because they have a monopoly in an *unrelated* market is absurdity gone wild.
Re:This nothing more than BeOS filesystem
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You are melodramatic.
First, BeFS is neato and all, but its not what MS is talking about. Thats point one.
Second, innovation is the process of bringing a technology or improvement to the masses. Lots of inventions end up in the bit bucket, not the market because the inventors aren't good innovators. It looks clear that MS *is* going to bring WinFS to the market. How many users did Be ever have? I was one, I had one friend and then of course. So at least two or three. But not many more. I loved Be, but lets be clear it was an infant.
Third, even if it were a direct re-implementation of BeFS, this wouldn't be "stealing technology". That would be like MS taking ext3 and compiling it for Windows and selling it as WinFS. "Stealing" is mis-appropriating goods and sometimes ideas. The concepts behind BeFS are well known and been done before. As an academic matter, BeFS is a good implementation of well established principles. Can't remember his name, but the author of BeFS actually worked from a book called approximately "Practical Filesystem Design".
Bottom line is that you sit down and shut up. You clearly dont know whats going on here. What MS is talking about is putting a whole new level of sophistication in data storage on the desktop of 100 million users. It's a big deal, and definately newsworthy.
That doesnt not mean they have a monopoly in anthing else. MS closing its network off to 3rd party clients DOES NOT PREVENT THOSE OTHER PEOPLE FROM CREATING THEIR OWN IM NETWORK. Additionally, MS publishes a public API for integrating IM products into Windows just like Windows Messenger.
Additionally, MS is NOT CHARGING FOR IT. They could, but they aren't.
Is it normal that Microsoft controls whether I can talk with my family or not ?
Shut the fuck up. There are dozens and dozens of alternatives. DOZENS. MS does not control whether you talk to your family or not. They are FREE TO USE ANYTHING THEY WANT - ANY OF THE COMPETITION. JUST AS YOU ARE.
On top of that MS makes it easy to swap out Windows Messenger for an alternative - the latest version of AIM for example will integrate into Windows directly and be accessible just like MSN using a standard published MS API.
Proprietary stuff restricts the user.
Yes. Luckily there are alternatives.
Having people relying on proprietary programs and protocol is dangerous and soon problematic.
Its not dangerous you over-reactionary zealot. Use something else. Jabber. AIM. IRC. Whatever. Just quit your whinning. MS doesnt rule the world. It's not the be-all end all of the world. Get it?
MS designed a product. They wrote some software for it. The distribute it under terms and conditions. They changed the terms. Period. There are no exceptions, no circumstances which justifies people complaining about this. Like it, or leave it.
If I can access your home PC because you designed the security or use bad unpatched software does that mean it is okay for me to take over your PC and use against your will?
Exactly how does it cost MS more money if you connect to them using trillian instead of msn messenger?
IT doesn't. However, it does cost them money. They provide the capital, and therefore, they can set terms and conditions as they see fit.
The reality is that MSN is a free network, with public access
MS says there is no public access. Those are there terms and conditions. That's the whole point. Let me give you a though experiment. If I can gain access to your home network, and I allowed to use its resources? I mean, sure its not documented and you dont want people using it, but its fairly straight forward to take control of the network. I mean, if I can write software that makes it possible isn't that the end of the issue?
If Amazon and MS made a deal for exclusive access, that'd be of course fine. IE is not a monopoly by any means. There are more and growing alternative browsers. On top of that, Amazon is not a monopoly in web retailing. Asking that question is like asking if myself and Joe Bob's Hardware store are allowed to create an exclusive contract. Of course we are. Just because MS has a monopoly on *desktop* OS's (which has slipped since the ruling, of course) and Amazon is popular doesnt make that contract null. Same for ebay - there are plenty of competitors to ebay. Same for CNN, google, and other. Just because its popular doesn't mean it is "core" or "a public service". These are private businesses. They are allowed to make agreements they want.
So yes, in regards to exclusive access, discounts, or anything.. yes.. so long as they are not *the provider* of that service they have the widest latitude in deciding how to run their business...
People should pay for the products they use - no more, no less.
Well then.. I guess you are against free software and non-commerical software, since everyone has to pay...
This is not abuse in any way. This a competeting product - there are numerous alternatives out there. Additionally, MS has created mechanisms so that their service can be integrated into 3rd party products (but still using the core MS libraries to perform the communications, logins, etc).
Again, how you can call them abusive on this is just beyond the pale...
Lock users into your service.. then force them to use your product exclusively ??
How can you blame them? MS provides the hardware, the bandwidth, and the assumes the risk of operating this chat network. I like my 3rd party client, but you know what? I leach from MS by using it. They have every right to restrict who can use their network and how. If they want to use technological measures to limit who can access the network, than fine, so be it. I'll use their product or a competeting protocol.
The main difference between this an Mono and inference is that letting 3rd party clients onto the MSN network costs MS real cash dollars each time a message is sent or received.
As long as IM service is free but centrlised, providers will try to lock out non-offical clients through whatever means are necessary.
In the Office space though, there isn't anything I cna see that MS has done that they couldnt do without OS code. They have a habit of testing thier latest new shiny UI elements in Office and then putting them into Windows, but thats not so much what we are talking about.
MS does have a history of squashing products with their OS to a degree. It is arguable on a case by case basis, but as a whole a pattern does seem to emerge.
However, as you point, OO is pretty good that some people ditch Office for it. The point is though they are competition, MS advantage or not.
As it stands, Office has features that lots of people want that OO or other products simply cannot offer.
He was. I would tell that to his family. That type of thing doesn't happen every day. Period.
That, really, this doesn't happen much.
It doesn't. I'd tell them that. It is a rare occurance. Something similiar hasn't happened since.
Maybe tell them that he deserved it, that he made the choice of being gay, or for telling people he was gay
I wouldn't tell that, it's not true. However, let's be clear. He did have a hand in his own death. He was in a bar late at night. He left the bar on his will to get into the truck of two men he didnt know on the premise that they'd be involved in anonymous group sex. He didnt deserve to die, but people who act recklessly with their own life - gay, straight, woman, man, all stripes, often end up dead. Getting into a truck with two people you dont know, have no intention of knowing, and no absolutely nothing about is not a good idea.
I don't see how you can so blind to issues like these.
Two cases do not create a pattern. There is no pattern of murder against gay men in this country. There is no pattern of murder against blacks in this country. It simply doesn't exisit. The cases you bring up are exactly what you mentioned: stastical rarities. They deserve to be studied, reflected on, and then forgotten to all but family and criminiologists.
You are *not* free to say whatever you want, and not expect bodily harm.
Brandon Teena ("Boy's don't cry")
Yes, Criminals get killed all the time all over the place. However, the simple fact remains that there are very few violent hate crimes in the US, and even less of the type you mention.
Last weeks issue of Time had a huge spread on being Gay in the midwest of the US - Wymoning specifically. The consensus is it's no big deal.
More past that, in this country, you can find a place to fit in, no matter your beliefs or lifestyle. What more can one ask for? If you are a person who does not value diversity, who wishes to be around people who are white and protestant, you can move to that type of an area. If you want to live with a monoculture of Chineese, or Italian, or African-American or Irish Americans you can do that, and people do.
Look up the stastics however, in the worst of the places in the US there are only rare cases of violent hate crime against gays or minorities.
ROFLOL! I dare you to walk in to a bar in a small town in say Kansas State and shout out loud, "I'm gay and I'm proud!".
The good thing about the US is that if you want to live amoung people who think homosexuality is a nasty vile thing, you can do that. Likewise, if you want to reveal in the homosexual hedonism that many extremists do, then you also can. If you want to live an unassuming life you can do that as well.
Its all up to the citizen. That's a really nice thing: choice.
Now, about your specific implication: that walking into Kanasas and shouting "I'm gay" would somehow cause you grevious harm. I won't. There are gay pride style marches all over the place including the "heartland" and other places.
The US is fine for just about anyone. Hell, in this country you can live with just about any disorder, affliction, or lifestyle choice you want and find a place to "fit in". Its not a true statement elsewhere.
To the Chinese I say well done and congratulations on your achievement. May we work together in space as a united species forever, free from earthly politics and prejudices, to go further and faster than we ever have before, for the greater good of mankind.
To suggest that this move by the Chinnese has anything to with the greater good of anything is a stretch - unless that good is the Communist party of China. The space program in China is a stunning piece of national and international propaganda, designed to move Chineese politics to the mainstream. Nothing more. The 60's space race was a test of the power of respective governments to marshall resources towards a goal - aka - "look what we can do" attitudes prevailed.
This is a neat accomplishment, for sure. But it is clearly designed to boost the image of the government of China.
One of the greatest things about US culture is that it produces a media that is massively diverse. Regardless of what you think of recent consolidation the fact remains that the US press and media is amoung the most, if not clearly the most, diverse media in the world. Thanks to the culture and politics of the US there are more opinions, more views, and more ideas presented here than anywhere in the world. And best yet thanks to our society and how it is setup, we have access to the entire catalog of American media, as well as any number of international sources.
All this means that virtually every US citizen has access to dozens, hundreds, if not thousands of perspectives on news, events, politics, religion, arts, culture, sports and everything else under the sun. In other nations, this is simply untrue. Best yet, the US exports these values and through its own ingeniuty people the world over benefit from our core values of information interchange and diversity.
This hasn't always been the case. This hasn't been the default situation of the world. Most of the world doesn't enjoy even the side effects of our culture of interchange. Most have a single source of information. Most have monocultural data feed to them without chance for analysis or differentation.
The US media isn't perfect by a longshot, but it is pretty close to ideal. Suppression of information is impossible. It is immune against total geo-political influence. It is ultimately beholden only to the people who consume the content, and it is infinitely diverse.
You tell us to think about the news. Thanks for the advice, but thats been part of the American cultural psyche since this country was conceived.
Yeah, you are exactly correct. The next (not 2003, the next next) version of Office is already going to be.NET-ified according to rumor. That means if MS wants they can release Office for any platform that Mono will compile to (aka, Linux, *BSD, MacOSX probably).
More-over, as they port their main backend products - SQL Server, Exchange, etc they can really decide to ditch the expense of Windows and still keep the cash cow app software.
.NET is MS reading the writing on the wall: namely, that Windows is a dying brand, that will not be relevant in the long-term future as a major cash cow.
"Little" OS's chipping at Windows: Linux, MacOS, etc will eventually force desktop OS's to be commoditized, and MS knows this, and realized it a long time ago.
.NET is a 10-year hedge against that. Thanks to.NET, MS has the ability to ditch Windows in the future. As Windows fades, MS can be assured that its other cash cows - MS Office, the backend products, etc are still viable and dont need rapid porting to a new platform.
Look at it this way:.NET ensures MS's relevance even if Windows fails. Virtually all of the Windows software developed in the next decade will be developed with varying degress of support for.NET. Even now its starting to trickle into the marketplace. Desktop software, server-side software, everything. Even games will soon be enginered with maanged C# code. MS has started using it for their internal development of various products. As hardware adapts and as performance is tweaked and improved, everything MS writes will be done with.NET. At that point - 5 years, 10 years, etc - in the future MS will have successfully allowed themselves to be #1 regardless of hardware vendor, architecture, operating system, and even written language!
Sun is virtually a solved problem: they are sick company who cannot continue to compete with MS in the fashion it has been. COntinued massive losses pile up to spending cuts and focusing only on profitable products. McNealey already is having to focus on profitable businesses at the expense of "long-term vision". Shareholders won't tolerate the types of losses that Sun has posted recently for very long. As it is Sun isn't even profiting from Sun as much as other major players: that's a bad thing from a business perspective.
It all boils down to this: keeping.NET around, healthy, and adopted for alot of software development is currently in MS's best interests. It means that even if they are directly profiting they will be relevant no matter what happens in the industry.
In another decade moving to.NET now will be seen by analysts as MS's most brillant move. Windows decline has begun in ernest. Linux is on the rise. Apple is on the (modest) rise. But yet MS will continue to thrive. And be poised to be viciously competitive regardless of what the "next big thing" is.
None of that matters.. this isn't a USPTO matter anymore, hasn't the patent been upheld in court? Its an issue of law, not of procedure at this point as far as I can see..
Slashdot Mirror
Not only that, but imagine this. The hackers (in the real sense, not the TV-movie sense) who write the real low-level stuff that makes various OS's work - for example in Linux people like Alan Cox, Linus, RMS, ESR, davem, and the other regular kernel contributors submit a lot of code. Well, those people dont necessarily but a lot of code is in the kernel.
Can anyone tell me for 100% certain that between GCC, the kernel, and various compile chain tools there isn't a subtle backdoor that creates an overrun, or a weak key, or anything like that somewhere along the line? Maybe what looks like an innocent bug or flaw or even stylistic change in one source combines with a similiar item in another source to create an exploit or a weak scheme.
These people - real hackers - are so clever (I mean serously, writing and maintain an OS for fun puts these programmers in the top 1% of all advanced systems programmers) that what is to say that they couldn't dupe everyone even with the source available to all?
I can imagine a situation where a corrupted/corruptable individual works hard to gain legitimate comitt access to certian tools that are widespread. GCC, the kernel, a shell or two, OpenSSL. That person starts making small changes that when aggregated expose a large exploit but when examined piece-mail are completely benign, or even benficical.
Does anyone doubt that its technically possible? How could any automated system or person ever discover this? I am a fairly competent programmer in some areas and there have been numerous times that I've had to dissect large pieces of code painstakingly over the course of days or weeks to trace back a nasty bug. Can anyone say that its not possible that this is *already* happening in the OSS world today?
I really do not understand all the talk that Linux is not ready for the desktop
I'll give you a great example.
I gave my parents a nice little digital camera that runs from USB. I have a similiar (but higher-end model myself). Under my Linux box, it is non-trivial to get this working. Between myself and a friend who is even geekier than me and more in tune with Linux it was several hours of work. On his box it was probably 2 hrs of tweaking, compiling, testing and trouble. With me it was probably double.
On my parents XP box, it was easy. Open the camera, plug in the battery. Take a few photos. Plug the cable in the camera, plug the other end in the front of the PC. Windows displayed a please wait message, and then 30 seconds later a ballon on the taskbar saying "New hardware ready: HP Photosmart XXX". Then a window appeared which said "Windows has deteced a new camera. Would you like to" with opens to copy all images to thier My Pictures folder, to print selected images, to e-mail selected images, or to do nothing.
That's a perfect example. In Linux its a crap shoot. It may or may not work. In Windows XP, it is detected, configured, and integrated into the Windows shell within 30 seconds. Friends bring their digital camera to my parents house and print it with their printer.
So, frankly: If your core point is that OSS "is rarely good business", I've got to flat-out contradict that point. It's very good business, as long as it's appropriately used.
The point you have missed: in the cases you pointed out, including your own, the business isn't software. Most uses of OSS are not in the software business. You said yourself you were in the "related services and support" business. The software was OSS.
I'll give you an example. In my home state town and city governments can interface with the state system for vehicle registration as a service to their citizens. This software requires strict compliance to the state spec, and must be updated on the whim of legislators. By law if the town offers registration it cannot be denied to a citizen - even if a computer is broke or a bug is present. That means highly-available support. Additionally it means that software fixes frequently must be implemented within 36 or 72 hours. The state must approve the "inputs" and "outputs" of the software.
The software is expensive - usually about $5k upfront and a few grand a year. Best yet there only about 30-50 potential clients. And its completetly different in each of the 49 other states.
This market will never be touched by OSS. The software is proprietary by nature. It requires expensive support contracts. It requires a hardware support contract.
OSS in this market would be bad business.
By and large this is how most software in terms of dollars is sold in the US. Most software is for vertical markets - like vehicle registration. OSS has proven to virtually useless except as comoditized bits - databases, server platforms, etc. As far as the *core* application goes, it is not a major factor. The only thing it is doing is increasing profit margins for the software vendors because they often can use free or cheap tools and free or cheap bits instead of expensive bits from closed vendors.
This vendor going OSS would be stupid business. And it's impossible. There is no group of programmers would volunteer to take over this project - maybe perhaps one or two at any time (I live in a small state) someday, however, no town would use their software without a guarantee of service levels.
Back to you and your two day project. It was cheaper for you to write the software, but that doesnt mean its always that way. In most cases most companies who use software *don't have a programmer on staff*. Hiring someone to modify that code is usually more expensive then buying the software commerically. This is why to this day commerical software is a HUGE business and OSS is a niche. A company without a programmer hiring a consultant to modify or make use of an OSS product would be making a very bad business decision. It'd be far more expensive in virtually all circumstances.
Sometimes a company gets lucky and finds *exactly* what they want in *exactly* a good usuable form with *exactly* enough documentation. Those percentages will increase over time. A company used to using pcAnywhere may be able to drop in VNC (or maybe not, depending on what features they require). Those cases would be a good time for OSS to shine. However, at this point, that is a rare case - which is evidenced in the real world by the fact that Symantec has sold 8 million copies of pcAnywhere since 2000.
Finally, about OSS and the support model. By and large most OSS projects are spearheaded by one or two individuals. They are small. Even complex projects have a few core motivators. The Really Big Projects have a few core submitters and dozens or hundreds of submitters. The projects that try to make money work on either (a) donations, (b) sale of support or services and (c) corporate sponorship. That's the only way OSS is making money. (A) is not a reliable business model. This is why most people who rely on this are in it just for the fun. Donations are extra. It is rare to hear of an OSS person making a living from donation
I am not discounting the idea of OSS. I am just saying that OSS is not a viable industry. You have pointed out correctly that a lot of free software is written not for the sake of it, but, rather, as a by product of a specific business or widget making venture. That is true.
Now, the thing of it is, my point was and is, that its not going to last in its current form.
Whats happening now - and in your case with the ticketing system you mentioned - is that people who are not fully utilized are spending free time, work time, and other time writing OSS. That's great. But you were only able to do that because your company (1) had you, and (2) decided that thier money - your pay - is used wisely in writing this piece of software. Giving it away - well, thats just bonus and it pays back a little in the form of karma, contributions, improvements etc.
But lets imagine this. Lets imagine the software you wrote was available commerically for a few hundred bucks, and it did exactly what your company wanted. Would they still have spent money to have you write it?
OSS has a place, and that place is to commoditize software that can be made a commodity. That is my point. Companies founded on making OSS software and giving it away - as you seem to agree - aren't going to do well in terms of traditional software organizations. Only a very few will be long term viable, and those that are will focus on selling support and consulting.
Selling support and consulting as a living is a bad thing for OSS. That will guide OSS development. Whereas commerical companies see support as a cost burden OSS companies will see it as revenue. Commerical software will continue to focus on ways to make it so that support is rare and painless. OSS will continue to become more archane, more complex, and less likely to be self-managing. This is only going to turn people away. Whats the good of OSS software if it is so complex or costly in support or unwieldy. You might as well buy OSS.
On top of that, most companies care not for the source. It is a minor footnote really. The fact is that if a few developers drop from your typical OSS project that project stagnates and eventually dies. Yah, sure, some random XYZ company could hire a programmer if they really need that code, but in all likely hood they'll just migrate to something commerically available.
In terms of OSS on the edges, this will continue. Tools like compilers, browsers, simple document editors, server components, etc are well suited for OSS - they are commodities. Software that controls printing presses, machines, vertical business functions, etc are going to stay and remain proprietary forever.
So I guess that I don't see whats going on and why you felt the need to follow-up. I didnt claim OSS was bad, or useless, or anything. I never said it had no place in business. I am just saying its very rarely good business. It worked out good for your company because it was cheaper for you to write the software than to buy it commerically.
The point is that the original authors didnt receive anything of the money you received based on the value created in part by their effort.
Right now OSS is in its main stream infancy. It's all roses and love and happiness.
The test will be to see what happens when the current generation of products starts to mature. What happens next is the key.
The key essence of your jobs wan't that the software used was free. The same thing - by the admission - could have been done with proprietary software. And right now the proprietary stuff employs a multitude of people more than you.
The fact remains that writing software and giving it away has yet to be proven as a longtime viable industry. From a business standpoint the OSS projects that are profitable make moeny from support, bugfixes, and donations.
Time will tell how it works out, but, by far the largest number of OSS involved people do not profit from the software they right. On top of that, many work for proprietary software companies and moonlight in the OSS world. Time will tell how that works - what happens to those developers when the proprietary software market is devasted (assuming it is).
The Mac business unit is profitable, but not one of the most profitable. In terms of investment/return, its amoung the best if not the best. But don't be silly: the MBU is a very, very small chunk of MS's profits.
Very small.
1. Many districts and jurisdictions have mandatory recounts if the margin is small. That helps.
2. Random checking of voting places to ensure that paper + electronic trail is perfectly in balance will help.
3. With each vote recorded electronically a unique number could be generated which could be printed on the paper ballot. This would provide an additional really great level of non-refutability.
4. Voting places where there is a discrepancy should be scruntized etc etc. Problems could be eliminated.
Essentially, this system would be amazingly trustworthy.
MS was aking IM people for an open standard for communications, and AOL declined.
Big suprise now that MS is going to do it themselves.
I am exactly saying the thing with the AT&T market, except building a new telephone system would cost billons if not trillions of dollars. Building a new IM market costs virtually nothing. Additionally, any company can follow a myraid of exisiting standards like Jabber and have a ready to go solution for no upfront cost.
The fact is that MS has gone out of their to be friendly with IM products. You can make competition to MSN, give it away for free, and integrate it into Windows without cost. Asking MS to incurr costs on thier end, to allow 3rd parties to use their servers, their technology, and their staff because they have a monopoly in an *unrelated* market is absurdity gone wild.
You are melodramatic.
First, BeFS is neato and all, but its not what MS is talking about. Thats point one.
Second, innovation is the process of bringing a technology or improvement to the masses. Lots of inventions end up in the bit bucket, not the market because the inventors aren't good innovators. It looks clear that MS *is* going to bring WinFS to the market. How many users did Be ever have? I was one, I had one friend and then of course. So at least two or three. But not many more. I loved Be, but lets be clear it was an infant.
Third, even if it were a direct re-implementation of BeFS, this wouldn't be "stealing technology". That would be like MS taking ext3 and compiling it for Windows and selling it as WinFS. "Stealing" is mis-appropriating goods and sometimes ideas. The concepts behind BeFS are well known and been done before. As an academic matter, BeFS is a good implementation of well established principles. Can't remember his name, but the author of BeFS actually worked from a book called approximately "Practical Filesystem Design".
Bottom line is that you sit down and shut up. You clearly dont know whats going on here. What MS is talking about is putting a whole new level of sophistication in data storage on the desktop of 100 million users. It's a big deal, and definately newsworthy.
For the 6732th time:
MS HAS A MONOPOLY ON DESKTOP OPERATING SYSTEMS
That doesnt not mean they have a monopoly in anthing else. MS closing its network off to 3rd party clients DOES NOT PREVENT THOSE OTHER PEOPLE FROM CREATING THEIR OWN IM NETWORK. Additionally, MS publishes a public API for integrating IM products into Windows just like Windows Messenger.
Additionally, MS is NOT CHARGING FOR IT. They could, but they aren't.
Is it normal that Microsoft controls whether I can talk with my family or not ?
Shut the fuck up. There are dozens and dozens of alternatives. DOZENS. MS does not control whether you talk to your family or not. They are FREE TO USE ANYTHING THEY WANT - ANY OF THE COMPETITION. JUST AS YOU ARE.
On top of that MS makes it easy to swap out Windows Messenger for an alternative - the latest version of AIM for example will integrate into Windows directly and be accessible just like MSN using a standard published MS API.
Proprietary stuff restricts the user.
Yes. Luckily there are alternatives.
Having people relying on proprietary programs and protocol is dangerous and soon problematic.
Its not dangerous you over-reactionary zealot. Use something else. Jabber. AIM. IRC. Whatever. Just quit your whinning. MS doesnt rule the world. It's not the be-all end all of the world. Get it?
MS designed a product. They wrote some software for it. The distribute it under terms and conditions. They changed the terms. Period. There are no exceptions, no circumstances which justifies people complaining about this. Like it, or leave it.
If I can access your home PC because you designed the security or use bad unpatched software does that mean it is okay for me to take over your PC and use against your will?
Exactly how does it cost MS more money if you connect to them using trillian instead of msn messenger?
IT doesn't. However, it does cost them money. They provide the capital, and therefore, they can set terms and conditions as they see fit.
The reality is that MSN is a free network, with public access
MS says there is no public access. Those are there terms and conditions. That's the whole point. Let me give you a though experiment. If I can gain access to your home network, and I allowed to use its resources? I mean, sure its not documented and you dont want people using it, but its fairly straight forward to take control of the network. I mean, if I can write software that makes it possible isn't that the end of the issue?
If Amazon and MS made a deal for exclusive access, that'd be of course fine. IE is not a monopoly by any means. There are more and growing alternative browsers. On top of that, Amazon is not a monopoly in web retailing. Asking that question is like asking if myself and Joe Bob's Hardware store are allowed to create an exclusive contract. Of course we are. Just because MS has a monopoly on *desktop* OS's (which has slipped since the ruling, of course) and Amazon is popular doesnt make that contract null. Same for ebay - there are plenty of competitors to ebay. Same for CNN, google, and other. Just because its popular doesn't mean it is "core" or "a public service". These are private businesses. They are allowed to make agreements they want.
So yes, in regards to exclusive access, discounts, or anything.. yes.. so long as they are not *the provider* of that service they have the widest latitude in deciding how to run their business...
People should pay for the products they use - no more, no less.
Well then.. I guess you are against free software and non-commerical software, since everyone has to pay...
This is not abuse in any way. This a competeting product - there are numerous alternatives out there. Additionally, MS has created mechanisms so that their service can be integrated into 3rd party products (but still using the core MS libraries to perform the communications, logins, etc).
Again, how you can call them abusive on this is just beyond the pale...
force you into paying for a service
Woah.. who is forcing anyone to pay for using MSN Messenger/Windows Messenger?
No one. It is included with office. Okay. Great. Hoow does that force you to use it?
Lock users into your service .. then force them to use your product exclusively ??
How can you blame them? MS provides the hardware, the bandwidth, and the assumes the risk of operating this chat network. I like my 3rd party client, but you know what? I leach from MS by using it. They have every right to restrict who can use their network and how. If they want to use technological measures to limit who can access the network, than fine, so be it. I'll use their product or a competeting protocol.
The main difference between this an Mono and inference is that letting 3rd party clients onto the MSN network costs MS real cash dollars each time a message is sent or received.
As long as IM service is free but centrlised, providers will try to lock out non-offical clients through whatever means are necessary.
In the Office space though, there isn't anything I cna see that MS has done that they couldnt do without OS code. They have a habit of testing thier latest new shiny UI elements in Office and then putting them into Windows, but thats not so much what we are talking about.
MS does have a history of squashing products with their OS to a degree. It is arguable on a case by case basis, but as a whole a pattern does seem to emerge.
However, as you point, OO is pretty good that some people ditch Office for it. The point is though they are competition, MS advantage or not.
As it stands, Office has features that lots of people want that OO or other products simply cannot offer.
Just FYI, OpenOffice and Office compete, and have on Windows, for a long time.. and MS still sells a lot of copies of Office...
Tell him that he was a statistical anomaly
He was. I would tell that to his family. That type of thing doesn't happen every day. Period.
That, really, this doesn't happen much.
It doesn't. I'd tell them that. It is a rare occurance. Something similiar hasn't happened since.
Maybe tell them that he deserved it, that he made the choice of being gay, or for telling people he was gay
I wouldn't tell that, it's not true. However, let's be clear. He did have a hand in his own death. He was in a bar late at night. He left the bar on his will to get into the truck of two men he didnt know on the premise that they'd be involved in anonymous group sex. He didnt deserve to die, but people who act recklessly with their own life - gay, straight, woman, man, all stripes, often end up dead. Getting into a truck with two people you dont know, have no intention of knowing, and no absolutely nothing about is not a good idea.
I don't see how you can so blind to issues like these.
Two cases do not create a pattern. There is no pattern of murder against gay men in this country. There is no pattern of murder against blacks in this country. It simply doesn't exisit. The cases you bring up are exactly what you mentioned: stastical rarities. They deserve to be studied, reflected on, and then forgotten to all but family and criminiologists.
You are *not* free to say whatever you want, and not expect bodily harm.
In the United States you are.
Brandon Teena ("Boy's don't cry")
Yes, Criminals get killed all the time all over the place. However, the simple fact remains that there are very few violent hate crimes in the US, and even less of the type you mention.
Last weeks issue of Time had a huge spread on being Gay in the midwest of the US - Wymoning specifically. The consensus is it's no big deal.
More past that, in this country, you can find a place to fit in, no matter your beliefs or lifestyle. What more can one ask for? If you are a person who does not value diversity, who wishes to be around people who are white and protestant, you can move to that type of an area. If you want to live with a monoculture of Chineese, or Italian, or African-American or Irish Americans you can do that, and people do.
Look up the stastics however, in the worst of the places in the US there are only rare cases of violent hate crime against gays or minorities.
ROFLOL! I dare you to walk in to a bar in a small town in say Kansas State and shout out loud, "I'm gay and I'm proud!".
The good thing about the US is that if you want to live amoung people who think homosexuality is a nasty vile thing, you can do that. Likewise, if you want to reveal in the homosexual hedonism that many extremists do, then you also can. If you want to live an unassuming life you can do that as well.
Its all up to the citizen. That's a really nice thing: choice.
Now, about your specific implication: that walking into Kanasas and shouting "I'm gay" would somehow cause you grevious harm. I won't. There are gay pride style marches all over the place including the "heartland" and other places.
The US is fine for just about anyone. Hell, in this country you can live with just about any disorder, affliction, or lifestyle choice you want and find a place to "fit in". Its not a true statement elsewhere.
To the Chinese I say well done and congratulations on your achievement. May we work together in space as a united species forever, free from earthly politics and prejudices, to go further and faster than we ever have before, for the greater good of mankind.
To suggest that this move by the Chinnese has anything to with the greater good of anything is a stretch - unless that good is the Communist party of China. The space program in China is a stunning piece of national and international propaganda, designed to move Chineese politics to the mainstream. Nothing more. The 60's space race was a test of the power of respective governments to marshall resources towards a goal - aka - "look what we can do" attitudes prevailed.
This is a neat accomplishment, for sure. But it is clearly designed to boost the image of the government of China.
One of the greatest things about US culture is that it produces a media that is massively diverse. Regardless of what you think of recent consolidation the fact remains that the US press and media is amoung the most, if not clearly the most, diverse media in the world. Thanks to the culture and politics of the US there are more opinions, more views, and more ideas presented here than anywhere in the world. And best yet thanks to our society and how it is setup, we have access to the entire catalog of American media, as well as any number of international sources.
All this means that virtually every US citizen has access to dozens, hundreds, if not thousands of perspectives on news, events, politics, religion, arts, culture, sports and everything else under the sun. In other nations, this is simply untrue. Best yet, the US exports these values and through its own ingeniuty people the world over benefit from our core values of information interchange and diversity.
This hasn't always been the case. This hasn't been the default situation of the world. Most of the world doesn't enjoy even the side effects of our culture of interchange. Most have a single source of information. Most have monocultural data feed to them without chance for analysis or differentation.
The US media isn't perfect by a longshot, but it is pretty close to ideal. Suppression of information is impossible. It is immune against total geo-political influence. It is ultimately beholden only to the people who consume the content, and it is infinitely diverse.
You tell us to think about the news. Thanks for the advice, but thats been part of the American cultural psyche since this country was conceived.
Yeah, you are exactly correct. The next (not 2003, the next next) version of Office is already going to be .NET-ified according to rumor. That means if MS wants they can release Office for any platform that Mono will compile to (aka, Linux, *BSD, MacOSX probably).
More-over, as they port their main backend products - SQL Server, Exchange, etc they can really decide to ditch the expense of Windows and still keep the cash cow app software.
No, no, no.
.NET is MS reading the writing on the wall: namely, that Windows is a dying brand, that will not be relevant in the long-term future as a major cash cow.
.NET is a 10-year hedge against that. Thanks to .NET, MS has the ability to ditch Windows in the future. As Windows fades, MS can be assured that its other cash cows - MS Office, the backend products, etc are still viable and dont need rapid porting to a new platform.
.NET ensures MS's relevance even if Windows fails. Virtually all of the Windows software developed in the next decade will be developed with varying degress of support for .NET. Even now its starting to trickle into the marketplace. Desktop software, server-side software, everything. Even games will soon be enginered with maanged C# code. MS has started using it for their internal development of various products. As hardware adapts and as performance is tweaked and improved, everything MS writes will be done with .NET. At that point - 5 years, 10 years, etc - in the future MS will have successfully allowed themselves to be #1 regardless of hardware vendor, architecture, operating system, and even written language!
.NET around, healthy, and adopted for alot of software development is currently in MS's best interests. It means that even if they are directly profiting they will be relevant no matter what happens in the industry.
.NET now will be seen by analysts as MS's most brillant move. Windows decline has begun in ernest. Linux is on the rise. Apple is on the (modest) rise. But yet MS will continue to thrive. And be poised to be viciously competitive regardless of what the "next big thing" is.
You are bigtime wrong.
"Little" OS's chipping at Windows: Linux, MacOS, etc will eventually force desktop OS's to be commoditized, and MS knows this, and realized it a long time ago.
Look at it this way:
Sun is virtually a solved problem: they are sick company who cannot continue to compete with MS in the fashion it has been. COntinued massive losses pile up to spending cuts and focusing only on profitable products. McNealey already is having to focus on profitable businesses at the expense of "long-term vision". Shareholders won't tolerate the types of losses that Sun has posted recently for very long. As it is Sun isn't even profiting from Sun as much as other major players: that's a bad thing from a business perspective.
It all boils down to this: keeping
In another decade moving to
None of that matters.. this isn't a USPTO matter anymore, hasn't the patent been upheld in court? Its an issue of law, not of procedure at this point as far as I can see..