Write to the OGC and/or your MP and state (in a sane, rational and well argued way) your reasons for disagreeing with Newhams decision. Newham is required not to obtain the lowest price but the best value which is not always the same thing.
You may feel like saying that anyone who signs a 10 year contract in as volatile a sector as IT is an arsehole and I would whole heartedly agree but there are many other reasons why this arrangement stinks, e.g. depriving the public sector of a valuable study that could provide real long term savings, providing an open standards based infrastructure that could be integrated with any future system specced by the EU etc. so go for it guys and girls, get creative!
I will be starting tonight and unless the brain death victim that signed on the line can prove otherwise it'll be harder to support these sort of actions in future contract negotiations.
Always struck me as the first sign that corporate lobbyists had run out ideas as far as attacking Linux goes. Firstly, the protagonists always seem to confuse Soviet style Stalinism with communism which as the original article points out were not the same thing. Secondly, when comparing the Soviet system to modern software Microsoft's monopoly and arrogant, oppressive behaviour via the KG.... oopps, BSA bears more resemblance to the control freakery of the USSR than the relatively chaotic dispersed model practised by FOSS authors and development teams.
The economic damage argument is also a sign that MS and their schills are grabbing at straws. I imagine that the first use of gunpowder led to cries that arrow makers would be unemployed and the powered loom leds to concerns of unemployed weavers but every time a new business model arises the end result is that people adapt and their bloody good at it. Thousands of Miners, whole communities were made redundant in the UK in the 1980's but the end result is that they just moved on and found other things to do.
If any economic effect will be felt in the event of a major shift to OSS it'll be the free availability of software to businesses of any kind, large or small, rich or poor a startup in Bengal will have access to same CRM, office suite whatever that a major corporation in the US or UK has. Open standards will make the dissemination and exchange of information flawless across the global industrial base and a whole industry will spring up installing and supporting it.
The development of such an industry is almost guaranteed by the fact that just because the software is free doesn't mean that businesses will install and maintain it themselves. If this were the case people would be doing it with Windows and as I spend my working life in a sort of purgatory going from office to office doing such exiting things as showing people how to put the shortcut they deleted back I can't see it happening at any point soon.
Besides, there's always the option of following the dual licence model that MySQL, OpenOffice/StarOffice etc. follow so that businesses can buy in the product and service from the manufacturer if they choose to do so.
Anyhow, The more blatantly stupid lines that MS and Co. come out with the greater the pressure thay must be feeling which is a good thing in my book.
Not as stupid as it may sound. In the UK, the police took to videoing protestors at demonstrations as a method of intimidation, oops sorry, monitoring demonstrators in case there's trouble.
Worked well until camcorders became cheap enough for demonstrators to turn up and video the police lines which caused a similar level of discomfort.
Some enterprising types will even send you a copy of their (admittedly one sided) handy work.
What makes me laugh even more is the example shootout with the "magic eraser" that makes it clear that they think Lindows is the best distro available.
Yeah but let's face it, until there's an entry in the list that says "relays 3,000,000 pornographic spams to a harvested list of users" (tick) it'll never really replace Windows.
The oddest thing about the Time Inc. disclaimer isn't its dubious legal language, but its placement at the bottom of the e-mail message. It's one thing to ask a correspondent to agree to terms of confidentiality before they read the message, but to dictate the terms afterwards? Ridiculous!
Someone writing some sense on MSN (bought to you by the gods of shrink-wrapped licences. Whatever next?
Not even that abomination of operating systems, Windows 95, made users retreat to the registry editor to use a single window to navigate folders.
But they do make a shite piece of software called Works that requires a registry edit to set the page size to A4 (at least it did circa 2003 just before I binned it).
Um, since when? Have they changed the history books already, or don't kids your age read their school books? Note: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
soviet n. 1) An elected governmental council in a Communist country
Errrmmm,
Communism - A social system where all are treated equally, decisions are made democratically though a series of local bodies and all give to the best of their abilities regarding their talents be they artists, engineers, etc.
Soviet Russia - A society where one person held a frightening amount of power over the population, where propaganda and terror were used to maintain that power and where a class system arose allowing members of a ruling elite to live in comfort while those around them slaved for a pittance.
Soviet Russia was about as communist as an iceberg is hot.
OK so they called it the USSR but at the end of the day calling a piece of dog shit a chicken nugget does't mean it's chicken.
Please try to not be blatantly stupid next time. Thanks.
Look deeper than the surface before you slag people off. Thanks.
I actually think this is a good idea, if done properly (i.e., not by Microsoft). I'd be a little surprised if this hasn't already been done, I guess nobody has done it well yet.
Or does.....
He further predicts -- ugh! -- that software will not be written but visually designed.
mean....
We have found a small startup that has geated visual design software and are, at this moment, lining up a licencing contract that will allow us to build it into Longhorn before enhancing it by adding our own proprietry extensions and destroying said company with a 5 year long bank draining/bankrupting law suit using our lawyers of mass destruction.
Simple. EU orders stores and distributors to pull MS products from shelves, tells MS to piss off and Mandrake, SuSE, Redhat and all hold the biggest fscking party you've ever seen.
Absolutely. If the Munich switch had been swift and flawless I'd have been very suprised.
The important thing now is that they persevere and resolve the difficulties documenting each step and sharing their experiences with other governments thus easing similar transitions elsewhere.
Balmer's jolly mood is a bit of a piss take given that every government IT project in the UK over the last 10-20 years seems to have overrun by 100% and taken two to three years more than originally promised with some scrapped altogether. In almost every scenario this has included Windows on the desktops and servers.
The EU puzzles me to be honest and I find myself stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea regarding Britain's actions within it.
On the one hand you have Munich, the IBM/SuSE deal and a claim to further Open Source in government and on the other you have Arlene McArthy et al apparently preparing the tools to nail FOSS. The fact that a Labour MEP should be heading this one is no suprise though as the UK gov has bent over backwards to befriend big business in the same way that a wimpy little twat at school will kow tow to the school bully in order to boost his position in the pecking order ( a sure sign of deep personal insecurity).
I don't think that the EU could be accused of tearing MS apart either because a 100,000,000 euro fine is pissing in a lake as far as MS are concerned. I suspect that it's more a shot across the bows designed to frighten MS into thinking what could happen if they don't drop the arrogant attitude and start behaving more like a partner instead of the dictator that their monopoly allowed.
I too like the concept of Europe. Unfortunately though the leaders of the member countries always seem to be trying to bend the rules for their own nation's benefit rather than looking at the big picture.
With a UK government run by people that are really turned on by being seen with the rich and famous while having no understanding of the concepts of ethics, morality or, for that matter, shame, I can't see things improving.
Microsoft and Intel are becoming increasingly frustrated with a number of standards-setting working groups that never seem to get anything done. When you get competitors to the table in these types of groups, they tend to fight rather than cooperate.
So ignore all those nasty wasteful open standards groups and have this bundle of sealed up, DRM based standards that we have here for you. After all, nanny knows best.
For once the BBC carried a tech story on the main news which was reported as follows:
Source code for Windows NT and 2000 was leaked onto the internet. Microsoft fear that the source code being open to view could make it easy for haclkers to attack these systems
So there you have it. Source code readable by plebs = security risk, a statement that will reflect on FOSS in the minds of joe public if you tell them that the Open Source means readable source code.
Imagine the scene. IBM in court has managed to get the judge to order SCO to hand over all the disputed info. Darl stands there smiling smugly because his brother managed to get a court order that specifies only paid IBM employees can have access to the SCO source.
Well what better way to wipe that smug smile or Darlings face than to legally pay Open Source coders for work they do for IBM. Just dump the code on the kernel developers and before you can say intellectual property one kernel scanned checked and (if required) fixed kernel and a tidy sum delivered straight to the coders bank account.
Paranoid? Maybe. But Gates just got a KBE fior services to the global business (which spent $55 Billion cleaning up the wreckage from viruses last year) so I guess anything's possible
If we're getting biblical how about this . The big J himself defined charity as follows:
Mat 6:1 Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
Mat 6:2 Therefore when thou doest [thine] alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
Mat 6:3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:
Mat 6:4 That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
In other words Charity is only charity if you don't have a PR department trumpeting your "generosity" everywhere. I suspect that the fact that in many cases, UK, India, Africa, etc. donations seem to be made when governments start talking about using Open Source may have a bearing on it as well.
Given that you seem to insuate that morals, ethics whatever have no place in business, at which point would you draw the line in a companies pursuit of profit?
The car analogy is bollocks as there although a number of car companies exist, the operation of cars i.e. controls etc are more or less identical across all brands. You can almost always find pattern parts for cars if you don't want to pay the manufacturers premium price and accessories like tyres, brake parts, filters etc are widely available from a variety of third party manufacturers.
Similarly, any brand of car will run on any manufacturers fuel and specifications exist for petrol, diesel and LPG that allow fuel manufacturers to ensure compatibility in the same way that open protocols and file formats would in the software world.
If the situation arose where one car company provided 95% of the cars in the country and ensured that only their cars could drive on 95 % of the roads would you buy another manufactuers car? OK, so you could buy a cheaper car with central Locking, AIrCon, digital everything that is more reliable than the car you own but if you couldn't use it on 95% of the roads why would you?
The car market survives within a multi company environment and the pressure of competition has improved their quality and performance. If MS had had competition to the same level they may have made more of an effort on excellence.
But I think all this Bill Gates bashing is rooted in anti-capitalist ideals and/or PURE JEALOUSY.
In every profession, the exertion of the greater part of those who exercise it, is always in proportion to the necessity they are under of making that exertion... and, where competition is free, the rivalship of competitors, who are all endeavouring to justle one another out of employment, obliges every man to endeavour to execute his work with a certain degree of exactness... Rivalship and emulation render excellency, even in mean professions, an object of ambition, and frequently occasion the very greatest exertions.
This comment on the benefits of competition between companies in the same field was written by that well known commie, anti-capitalist Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter I, Park III, Article III.
I spend a lot of time knocking Gates not because I'm envious or anti-capatilist but because his business practises are anti free market, predatory, anti-competitive and just generally centered around filling the Gates bank account regardless of the damage his activities may inflict on others.
One of the most often used quotes by so called "capitalist" politicians is that small business is the engine that drives the economy. This is mainly founded in the idea that for new, small companies to succeed in any market place, particularly one that is dominated by large, wealthy corporations they have to exercise levels of creativity and innovation that established businesses with their large internal beurocracies seldom match.
Gate's crime isn't that he charges for his software, it's that he has used unethical and immoral methods to beat competitors to a bloody pulp and maintain a monopoly that has for years, had an adverse effect on competition.
Seriously, If Microsoft had had real competition through the 1980s do you think that Windows 95 and 98 would have been as piss poor, bug-ridden and insecure as they were? OK 2000 wasn't as bad but it's still a freaky piece of crap based on the nasty piece of work that NT had become. And Gate's response to compettion from Linux? Good programming? Better software? Nope, stuff a hand up Darl and hurl the FUD about, bring in DRM and start patenting everything in site.
The worst part of it from my country is that the politicians and Microsoft victims are so fucking stupid that they wont even help themselves. Newham council think they're clever because they used Linux to knock MS down to price. Once Longhorn's out and installed do you think Newham will have an option to swap? If MS pulls a patent war out of the hat and Linux gets killed off what do you think is gonna happen, price cuts all round from Microsoft - BOLLOCKS!
If Gates gets a knighthood, the British government will be effectively condoning a method of business business lacking in rules, morals and ethics.
If Microsoft were so sure of the superiority of their products, they'd use open standards and let the consumer decide. Until then you've got Windows, Office et al.
So far, most of the comments have overlooked the most important bit of the original article.
For all you folks over the pond, a bit of recent UK political history starts here:
The person who nominated Gates for this award is Gordon Brown, currently the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Brown and Blair have a love hate relationship based on the fact that Brown believes he was stitched up by Blair over the Labour party leadership prior to Labour's victory in the 1997 election.
This animosity is kept quite on the whole because no government in the UK will dare to show a division of support for its leader as it's a great turn off for the voters as several Tory opposition leaders have found over the last 8+ years.
Blair is in a very vulnerable position for the first time in years as the shit is heading for the fan re: Iraq and Brown sees this as a good time to position himself for the take over if Blair goes down. The entrepeneurs conference Brown has set up is basically (as the article suggests) a "look how important I am and how powerful my friends are" day. Incidentally, the conference's most notable claim to fame is the lack of speakers who have started the business they currently run.
Personally, I find the concept of being lectured on entrepeneurship by people who have taken on the CEO post at a multinational or run their own predatory destroyer of start-ups, small businesses and competitors insulting in the extreme and hope Brown fall flay on his face despite my intense dislike for Blair.
I don't know whether there's a mechanism for objecting to honours in the UK but if anyone does, now may be the time to speak up.
Hi, I cannot compete against this, a better product that costs less. Please outlaw it as soon as possible. Competition is just so un-american!
Funnily enough yes. The strangest part though is that Darl thinks that killing OSS in the US will kill it worldwide. I forsee a problem with this particularly with respect to France and Germany who have Mandrake and (Novell owned) SuSE in their back yards. An attempt to kill off homegrown products in countries that are already wary of the US following the Iraq business could lead to WTO complaints, trade wars, import tariffs on US made software and an even greater determination in the rest of the world to replace proprietry software that would be percieved as being forced on them.
Even in Microsoft friendly Britain this would have an impact as tariffs applied across the EU would hit all the EU states making OSS a better value choice. I also can't see China, Russia and India reacting too well to the US seemingly attempting to force Linux out of existence in order to provide MS and SCO with a better cash cow. There are 6 billion potential computer users in the world of which 250 (ish) million are in the USA. Making too many other countries feel like they're choice as consumers is being dictated from Redmond/Utah may not be as good for the US economy as Darl thinks.
With a diminished US software presence in Europe, China and Asia Mandrake, SuSE, Red-Star etc. would probably see a boom in profits and an industry providing support would develop that would generate cash that wouldn't head to Gate's wallet improving home grown companies positions.
OK so this is a bit doomsday but shit happens and unpredictability is part of the modern world. I mean a year or two ago most people had never heard of Darl McBride, now he's he's one of the most famous arseholes in the IT world.
SCO claims Linux is a threat to national security because it is freely available to any dictator. But the plain fact is, all U.S. software developers are bound by the same export controls that restrict licensing of SCO's products.
You can see the scene in Darl Land.
Well Youseff, have you installed "Jihad on the Infidels XP" on my Global Terror PC yet?
No Boss. It turned up form Amazon this morning but the EULA said that no one outside of the US was allowed to use it under fear of prosecution.
Yeah right, The FBI, CIA, MI5 and MI6 haven't been able to find us but we daren't attract the attention of US Customs and Excise AND the BSA!
Wake up Darl you pig ignorant twat! US export controls mean nothing to terrorists. I hate to shatter your illusions but a trip to PC World and the diplomatic bag of a corrupt embassy official is one of many (thousands) of ways that rich terrorists could pick up a copy of any OS.
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Write to the OGC and /or your MP and state (in a sane, rational and well argued way) your reasons for disagreeing with Newhams decision. Newham is required not to obtain the lowest price but the best value which is not always the same thing.
You may feel like saying that anyone who signs a 10 year contract in as volatile a sector as IT is an arsehole and I would whole heartedly agree but there are many other reasons why this arrangement stinks, e.g. depriving the public sector of a valuable study that could provide real long term savings, providing an open standards based infrastructure that could be integrated with any future system specced by the EU etc. so go for it guys and girls, get creative!
I will be starting tonight and unless the brain death victim that signed on the line can prove otherwise it'll be harder to support these sort of actions in future contract negotiations.
Always struck me as the first sign that corporate lobbyists had run out ideas as far as attacking Linux goes. Firstly, the protagonists always seem to confuse Soviet style Stalinism with communism which as the original article points out were not the same thing. Secondly, when comparing the Soviet system to modern software Microsoft's monopoly and arrogant, oppressive behaviour via the KG.... oopps, BSA bears more resemblance to the control freakery of the USSR than the relatively chaotic dispersed model practised by FOSS authors and development teams.
The economic damage argument is also a sign that MS and their schills are grabbing at straws. I imagine that the first use of gunpowder led to cries that arrow makers would be unemployed and the powered loom leds to concerns of unemployed weavers but every time a new business model arises the end result is that people adapt and their bloody good at it. Thousands of Miners, whole communities were made redundant in the UK in the 1980's but the end result is that they just moved on and found other things to do.
If any economic effect will be felt in the event of a major shift to OSS it'll be the free availability of software to businesses of any kind, large or small, rich or poor a startup in Bengal will have access to same CRM, office suite whatever that a major corporation in the US or UK has. Open standards will make the dissemination and exchange of information flawless across the global industrial base and a whole industry will spring up installing and supporting it.
The development of such an industry is almost guaranteed by the fact that just because the software is free doesn't mean that businesses will install and maintain it themselves. If this were the case people would be doing it with Windows and as I spend my working life in a sort of purgatory going from office to office doing such exiting things as showing people how to put the shortcut they deleted back I can't see it happening at any point soon.
Besides, there's always the option of following the dual licence model that MySQL, OpenOffice/StarOffice etc. follow so that businesses can buy in the product and service from the manufacturer if they choose to do so.
Anyhow, The more blatantly stupid lines that MS and Co. come out with the greater the pressure thay must be feeling which is a good thing in my book.
Microsoft market research had concluded that hatred for Microsoft was lowest in asia,
So they decided to piss them off by saying:
this limitation 'helps [users] stay organized and reduces confusion.
In less words this can easily sound like, "You're all thick and if we let you run more than 3 apps at a time you'll only get confused".
Nice marketing touch.
Not as stupid as it may sound. In the UK, the police took to videoing protestors at demonstrations as a method of intimidation, oops sorry, monitoring demonstrators in case there's trouble.
Worked well until camcorders became cheap enough for demonstrators to turn up and video the police lines which caused a similar level of discomfort.
Some enterprising types will even send you a copy of their (admittedly one sided) handy work.
.
What makes me laugh even more is the example shootout with the "magic eraser" that makes it clear that they think Lindows is the best distro available.
Yeah but let's face it, until there's an entry in the list that says "relays 3,000,000 pornographic spams to a harvested list of users" (tick) it'll never really replace Windows.
The oddest thing about the Time Inc. disclaimer isn't its dubious legal language, but its placement at the bottom of the e-mail message. It's one thing to ask a correspondent to agree to terms of confidentiality before they read the message, but to dictate the terms afterwards? Ridiculous!
Someone writing some sense on MSN (bought to you by the gods of shrink-wrapped licences. Whatever next?
Not even that abomination of operating systems, Windows 95, made users retreat to the registry editor to use a single window to navigate folders.
But they do make a shite piece of software called Works that requires a registry edit to set the page size to A4 (at least it did circa 2003 just before I binned it).
I thought Cancer had the potential for a terminal ending.
Takes longer than most suicides but the results the same.
Um, since when? Have they changed the history books already, or don't kids your age read their school books? Note: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
soviet n.
1) An elected governmental council in a
Communist country
Errrmmm,
Communism - A social system where all are treated equally, decisions are made democratically though a series of local bodies and all give to the best of their abilities regarding their talents be they artists, engineers, etc.
Soviet Russia - A society where one person held a frightening amount of power over the population, where propaganda and terror were used to maintain that power and where a class system arose allowing members of a ruling elite to live in comfort while those around them slaved for a pittance.
Soviet Russia was about as communist as an iceberg is hot.
OK so they called it the USSR but at the end of the day calling a piece of dog shit a chicken nugget does't mean it's chicken.
Please try to not be blatantly stupid next time. Thanks.
Look deeper than the surface before you slag people off. Thanks.
I actually think this is a good idea, if done properly (i.e., not by Microsoft). I'd be a little surprised if this hasn't already been done, I guess nobody has done it well yet.
Or does.....
He further predicts -- ugh! -- that software will not be written but visually designed.
mean....
We have found a small startup that has geated visual design software and are, at this moment, lining up a licencing contract that will allow us to build it into Longhorn before enhancing it by adding our own proprietry extensions and destroying said company with a 5 year long bank draining/bankrupting law suit using our lawyers of mass destruction.
Simple. EU orders stores and distributors to pull MS products from shelves, tells MS to piss off and Mandrake, SuSE, Redhat and all hold the biggest fscking party you've ever seen.
Absolutely. If the Munich switch had been swift and flawless I'd have been very suprised.
The important thing now is that they persevere and resolve the difficulties documenting each step and sharing their experiences with other governments thus easing similar transitions elsewhere.
Balmer's jolly mood is a bit of a piss take given that every government IT project in the UK over the last 10-20 years seems to have overrun by 100% and taken two to three years more than originally promised with some scrapped altogether. In almost every scenario this has included Windows on the desktops and servers.
Fine, they're gonna rip MS to shreds
The EU puzzles me to be honest and I find myself stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea regarding Britain's actions within it.
On the one hand you have Munich, the IBM/SuSE deal and a claim to further Open Source in government and on the other you have Arlene McArthy et al apparently preparing the tools to nail FOSS. The fact that a Labour MEP should be heading this one is no suprise though as the UK gov has bent over backwards to befriend big business in the same way that a wimpy little twat at school will kow tow to the school bully in order to boost his position in the pecking order ( a sure sign of deep personal insecurity).
I don't think that the EU could be accused of tearing MS apart either because a 100,000,000 euro fine is pissing in a lake as far as MS are concerned. I suspect that it's more a shot across the bows designed to frighten MS into thinking what could happen if they don't drop the arrogant attitude and start behaving more like a partner instead of the dictator that their monopoly allowed.
I too like the concept of Europe. Unfortunately though the leaders of the member countries always seem to be trying to bend the rules for their own nation's benefit rather than looking at the big picture.
With a UK government run by people that are really turned on by being seen with the rich and famous while having no understanding of the concepts of ethics, morality or, for that matter, shame, I can't see things improving.
Microsoft and Intel are becoming increasingly frustrated with a number of standards-setting working groups that never seem to get anything done. When you get competitors to the table in these types of groups, they tend to fight rather than cooperate.
So ignore all those nasty wasteful open standards groups and have this bundle of sealed up, DRM based standards that we have here for you. After all, nanny knows best.
For once the BBC carried a tech story on the main news which was reported as follows:
Source code for Windows NT and 2000 was leaked onto the internet. Microsoft fear that the source code being open to view could make it easy for haclkers to attack these systems
So there you have it. Source code readable by plebs = security risk, a statement that will reflect on FOSS in the minds of joe public if you tell them that the Open Source means readable source code.
Hmmmmmm....
Imagine the scene. IBM in court has managed to get the judge to order SCO to hand over all the disputed info. Darl stands there smiling smugly because his brother managed to get a court order that specifies only paid IBM employees can have access to the SCO source.
Well what better way to wipe that smug smile or Darlings face than to legally pay Open Source coders for work they do for IBM. Just dump the code on the kernel developers and before you can say intellectual property one kernel scanned checked and (if required) fixed kernel and a tidy sum delivered straight to the coders bank account.
Paranoid? Maybe. But Gates just got a KBE fior services to the global business (which spent $55 Billion cleaning up the wreckage from viruses last year) so I guess anything's possible
Funnily enough they're predicting several foot of snow and a big freeze in London. Now you've got me really worried.
Some may speculate that the donations are there to get a sufficiently high number of people to say "OK he's no angel but he does give to charity".
If it was done from the goodness of his heart, he wouldn't need to advertise the fact and would keep donations personal and anonymous.
Oh God! Britains already getting everyone else's nuclear waste and toxic chemicals to dispose of.
Don't dump that on us for christs sake.
If we're getting biblical how about this . The big J himself defined charity as follows:
Mat 6:1 Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
Mat 6:2 Therefore when thou doest [thine] alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
Mat 6:3 But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:
Mat 6:4 That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.
In other words Charity is only charity if you don't have a PR department trumpeting your "generosity" everywhere. I suspect that the fact that in many cases, UK, India, Africa, etc. donations seem to be made when governments start talking about using Open Source may have a bearing on it as well.
Given that you seem to insuate that morals, ethics whatever have no place in business, at which point would you draw the line in a companies pursuit of profit?
The car analogy is bollocks as there although a number of car companies exist, the operation of cars i.e. controls etc are more or less identical across all brands. You can almost always find pattern parts for cars if you don't want to pay the manufacturers premium price and accessories like tyres, brake parts, filters etc are widely available from a variety of third party manufacturers.
Similarly, any brand of car will run on any manufacturers fuel and specifications exist for petrol, diesel and LPG that allow fuel manufacturers to ensure compatibility in the same way that open protocols and file formats would in the software world.
If the situation arose where one car company provided 95% of the cars in the country and ensured that only their cars could drive on 95 % of the roads would you buy another manufactuers car? OK, so you could buy a cheaper car with central Locking, AIrCon, digital everything that is more reliable than the car you own but if you couldn't use it on 95% of the roads why would you?
The car market survives within a multi company environment and the pressure of competition has improved their quality and performance. If MS had had competition to the same level they may have made more of an effort on excellence.
But I think all this Bill Gates bashing is rooted in anti-capitalist ideals and/or PURE JEALOUSY.
In every profession, the exertion of the greater part of those who exercise it, is always in proportion to the necessity they are under of making that exertion... and, where competition is free, the rivalship of competitors, who are all endeavouring to justle one another out of employment, obliges every man to endeavour to execute his work with a certain degree of exactness... Rivalship and emulation render excellency, even in mean professions, an object of ambition, and frequently occasion the very greatest exertions.
This comment on the benefits of competition between companies in the same field was written by that well known commie, anti-capitalist Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter I, Park III, Article III.
I spend a lot of time knocking Gates not because I'm envious or anti-capatilist but because his business practises are anti free market, predatory, anti-competitive and just generally centered around filling the Gates bank account regardless of the damage his activities may inflict on others.
One of the most often used quotes by so called "capitalist" politicians is that small business is the engine that drives the economy. This is mainly founded in the idea that for new, small companies to succeed in any market place, particularly one that is dominated by large, wealthy corporations they have to exercise levels of creativity and innovation that established businesses with their large internal beurocracies seldom match.
Gate's crime isn't that he charges for his software, it's that he has used unethical and immoral methods to beat competitors to a bloody pulp and maintain a monopoly that has for years, had an adverse effect on competition.
Seriously, If Microsoft had had real competition through the 1980s do you think that Windows 95 and 98 would have been as piss poor, bug-ridden and insecure as they were? OK 2000 wasn't as bad but it's still a freaky piece of crap based on the nasty piece of work that NT had become. And Gate's response to compettion from Linux? Good programming? Better software? Nope, stuff a hand up Darl and hurl the FUD about, bring in DRM and start patenting everything in site.
The worst part of it from my country is that the politicians and Microsoft victims are so fucking stupid that they wont even help themselves. Newham council think they're clever because they used Linux to knock MS down to price. Once Longhorn's out and installed do you think Newham will have an option to swap? If MS pulls a patent war out of the hat and Linux gets killed off what do you think is gonna happen, price cuts all round from Microsoft - BOLLOCKS!
If Gates gets a knighthood, the British government will be effectively condoning a method of business business lacking in rules, morals and ethics.
If Microsoft were so sure of the superiority of their products, they'd use open standards and let the consumer decide. Until then you've got Windows, Office et al.
So far, most of the comments have overlooked the most important bit of the original article.
For all you folks over the pond, a bit of recent UK political history starts here:
The person who nominated Gates for this award is Gordon Brown, currently the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Brown and Blair have a love hate relationship based on the fact that Brown believes he was stitched up by Blair over the Labour party leadership prior to Labour's victory in the 1997 election.
This animosity is kept quite on the whole because no government in the UK will dare to show a division of support for its leader as it's a great turn off for the voters as several Tory opposition leaders have found over the last 8+ years.
Blair is in a very vulnerable position for the first time in years as the shit is heading for the fan re: Iraq and Brown sees this as a good time to position himself for the take over if Blair goes down. The entrepeneurs conference Brown has set up is basically (as the article suggests) a "look how important I am and how powerful my friends are" day. Incidentally, the conference's most notable claim to fame is the lack of speakers who have started the business they currently run.
Personally, I find the concept of being lectured on entrepeneurship by people who have taken on the CEO post at a multinational or run their own predatory destroyer of start-ups, small businesses and competitors insulting in the extreme and hope Brown fall flay on his face despite my intense dislike for Blair.
I don't know whether there's a mechanism for objecting to honours in the UK but if anyone does, now may be the time to speak up.
Hi, I cannot compete against this, a better product that costs less. Please outlaw it as soon as possible. Competition is just so un-american!
Funnily enough yes. The strangest part though is that Darl thinks that killing OSS in the US will kill it worldwide. I forsee a problem with this particularly with respect to France and Germany who have Mandrake and (Novell owned) SuSE in their back yards. An attempt to kill off homegrown products in countries that are already wary of the US following the Iraq business could lead to WTO complaints, trade wars, import tariffs on US made software and an even greater determination in the rest of the world to replace proprietry software that would be percieved as being forced on them.
Even in Microsoft friendly Britain this would have an impact as tariffs applied across the EU would hit all the EU states making OSS a better value choice. I also can't see China, Russia and India reacting too well to the US seemingly attempting to force Linux out of existence in order to provide MS and SCO with a better cash cow. There are 6 billion potential computer users in the world of which 250 (ish) million are in the USA. Making too many other countries feel like they're choice as consumers is being dictated from Redmond/Utah may not be as good for the US economy as Darl thinks.
With a diminished US software presence in Europe, China and Asia Mandrake, SuSE, Red-Star etc. would probably see a boom in profits and an industry providing support would develop that would generate cash that wouldn't head to Gate's wallet improving home grown companies positions.
OK so this is a bit doomsday but shit happens and unpredictability is part of the modern world. I mean a year or two ago most people had never heard of Darl McBride, now he's he's one of the most famous arseholes in the IT world.
SCO claims Linux is a threat to national security because it is freely available to any dictator. But the plain fact is, all U.S. software developers are bound by the same export controls that restrict licensing of SCO's products.
You can see the scene in Darl Land.
Well Youseff, have you installed "Jihad on the Infidels XP" on my Global Terror PC yet?
No Boss. It turned up form Amazon this morning but the EULA said that no one outside of the US was allowed to use it under fear of prosecution.
Yeah right, The FBI, CIA, MI5 and MI6 haven't been able to find us but we daren't attract the attention of US Customs and Excise AND the BSA!
Wake up Darl you pig ignorant twat! US export controls mean nothing to terrorists. I hate to shatter your illusions but a trip to PC World and the diplomatic bag of a corrupt embassy official is one of many (thousands) of ways that rich terrorists could pick up a copy of any OS.