...by saying insider, I'm saying that I am Asian, or more specifically a Malaysian who is working in Singapore.
While the article would seem like a happy fairy tale for Linux supporters, the cold, hard reality is that Linux is not even known by the large majority of computer users in most parts of Asia... AND this includes the so-called high-potential areas such as China and India.
While companies prefer to stay legit and actually buy licenses for their software (and even this is fairly recent, thanks to the BSA), a large majority of home-based consumers run pirated versions of Windows, and a bunch of pirated application which can be bought at less than US$2 per CD. This is the cold hard truth.
And many Western media report blames the Govt for not doing anything when the fact is that they can't actually properly enforce the rules. The pirates here are true gangsters in the sense of the word... not some pimply faced kid with cable connection and terrabytes of storage like the typical image of software pirate many of you think.
They are backed by armed thugs, scouts that check on police/IP-enforcers, and possibly insiders from the police or even the local BSA branch... yes, really!
And to top it off, they keep the customers happy... Yes, they really do. I find these pirates more approachable than your average MS or Adobe salesperson.
CD not working? No problem, we'll replace it for you... No questions asked.
Two weeks guarantee on any purchased CD.
Recommendation on a better substitute of the app you wanted to buy
With that kind of service it's no wonder people here flock to pirated CD shops than to the legit vendors. Price is one thing, but if you are going to be severely restricted by EULAs and other licensing terms, might as well buy a pirated copy for 1/200 of the price and be happy about it.
From a typical Asian point-of-view, there is no value-added incentive to purchase original CDs.
Back to the topic, while companies (especially SMEs) will embrace Linux because of the money they can save from software licenses. But even so, many of the established businesses will stick to propietry software because it is what they are used to. And these are decided by the bigwigs which have no desire at all to embrace new technologies eventhough it might save them a huge pile of cash. It is in the mindset... not the software itself.
Linux can move forward by becoming more Desktop-centric not just for home users but for corporate users. And it does not need to be free (as in beer)... most companies will invest a suitable amount of cash to improve productivity.
True... nor is it defined by my opinions or yours for that matter. Reality is how it is perceived by the person making the observation.
Anyway, what is so wrong by coercing the Chinese population to buy their own products? I mean like people drive Chevies, wear Levi's, and smoke Marlboros just to show how proud they are to be Americans and nobody's making any noise about that.
I'm amazed on how you can readily classify that chip as inferior... Seen the design of the chip? Guess not, maybe it is the Made in China writing that made you derive this conclusion.
As for closing the market... this comment can only come from a blindly ignorant redneck white trash in a trailer parked somewhere where there is little to no TV or radio signal. FYI, a prerequisite of joining the WTO is to have an open market. China has been a member of the WTO since 11 December 2001.
What kind of market would buy those chips? What about computers that are not meant for managing critical data? And from the article itself, mobile phones and televisions? Why the hell would your mobile phone need a 2GHz Pentium 4?
I hate to break it to ya', but it's Control Panel, Add Remove Programs, Add/Remove Windows Components. True, there isn't an icon on the desktop saying "Click Here to uninstall Outlook Express", but it's far from "impossible".
This is in what? Windows 98? Didn't you see the Windows 2000 part? That's impossible, because you pasted it yourself. FYI, removing Outlook Express in XP (via control panel, add/remove progs/windows components, even to see this you need SP1) will only remove the shortcut to it, and not the program itself. Want to see the procedure on how to fully remove OE manually? Check this page out... from MS itself, no less.
And I didn't say it's impossible... I said it's near impossible from a typical user's standpoint. Again, you pasted this yourself, so most likely you did read it.
Check your posts and reference, man... Hate to break that to ya:P
This might set a precedence on other areas that MS has decided to bundle in Windows...
My case: In Windows XP Pro (possibly even in XP Corp) MS includes IIS in the default installation. Can other web server producers (eg. Apache) sue them for this? Why? Because it is pushing their own product within an OS that is not meant to be a web server in the first place. IANAL, but I would appreciate any comments from those with a firm understanding of US laws.
Another case: Since the release of Windows 2000, Outlook Express has been integrated so tightly in the Windows code that it is near impossible to remove it (from a typical user's standpoint, n00b?). I have installed The Bat! as my default email client, but OE always retakes files with.MSG extension everytime I close The Bat!. Isn't this, too, considered misuse of monopoly in one area to gain market leverage in another?
Mildly offtopic, I know, but I do hope that there are people out there who can give their views on this.
Take IMF "Solutions" with a Pinch of Salt
on
Taxing Text Messages?
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· Score: 4, Informative
The IMF financial solutions are not always ideal. Look at what happened to countries which actually implements its proposals. Most end up becoming worse before seeking IMF bailouts.
Indonesia didn't improve, Argentina's financial woes worsens, and S. Korea ended up pawning some of their biggest companies. Malaysia almost took up IMF's offer during the 97-98 financial crisis, but luckily the govt forsees the impact of some of the conditions... and Malaysia is recovering quite well if compared to other countries in S.E. Asia.
The Filipino govt should be able to decide what's best for the country's economic condition because they are more familiar with the economic factors involved.
I'm not saying taxation is a bad decision, but it shouldn't be at the expense of the population's financial well-being. Perhaps taxation of mobile phone sales and accesories would be more fair?
How did this get categorized as Space news? Until there is hard evidence that UFOs actually exist, then it will forever be viewed as a fragment of a person's imagination.
Even if UFOs really exist, what makes people so inclined to believe that they are chariots of alien civilizations? And while we're going paranormal, why can't we consider alternative reasoning such as UFOs could possibly be ghosts from the future. Do ghosts have to be from the past to be considered as ghosts in the sense of the word?
However, like most people I think that a more logical explanation for UFO sightings is that it is some glitch in the sky... strange manifestation of star/sunlight, mini auroras, heck even mutant glow-in-the-dark birds for all it could be.
Seemed more feasable if compared to a Starcraft theory IMHO.
I may be old fashioned, but there are a couple of things I would have thought that a mobile phone would do. Make calls and send SMS's being top of the list. Sadly, the experience I've had with my SPV doesn't make this possible.
Wow... a phone review of a something that doesn't function like a mobile phone. Truly News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters.
Could it be Phoenix Mail? It is computer related, it does have the word Phoenix in it... and more strangely, it has been available much longer than Phoenix the browser without any action taken on them by Phoenix Bios.
Or is there a selective method of choosing so-called infringers?
Precisely the point... Mandela was put in prison for advocating equality towards blacks. Can you blame him for advocating armed struggle against the apartheid regime? A regime who wouldn't bat an eyelid at someone who is not white regardless whether the protest is peaceful or otherwise.
Whether my position is of ignorance or otherwise is your opinion, and I respect it regardless of whether I think it is true or otherwise. Opinions are (sic) basic human rights, as also taking up struggle against opression regardless whether it is an armed struggle or a peaceful one.
As hard as it may seem to you, my opinions are based on actionstheytakeninmy country has caused more harm than good. And that is my honest opinion.
It is not about getting beat up badly and looking foolish in the process, it is about my own observation on Amnesty's stand in issues that I am very familiar happening in my country and region. What basis did you form your opinions on? Eventhough I absolutely agree that you have valid points, you in turn must not just see what is programmed by parties in the mass media. Take a long hard look at what is going on behind the curtains, some things might suprise you a lot.
You can't have your cake and eat it... Many political prisoners deserve to be imprisoned for one reason or another. Inciting riots, provoking racial violence, etc.
Who is Amnesty to decide who gets scott free and who rots in jail?
...if you look at their track record, it's almost always about something bigger than the human-rights shit they pimp. They always have a hidden agenda. So what if a country chooses to filter certain sites from the net? What's so morally wrong with that?
And why is it that if non-western countries chooses to implement democracy in their own way, Amnesty will almost surely have to criticize them for not being more democratic.
IMHO, that would be totally blown out of proportion. Flash is nice and err... flashy at what it does, but you forgot one important factor, $COST$.
How much does Flash MX cost? HTML doesn't require you to have some propietry software to code it, all you need is just a text editor... even edit.com in MS-DOS will work just fine.
And even with broadband, I think Flash is too bloated and a pain for the eyes... and I don't think I'm alone.
...I care about download speed. Even if it comes with per minute charges like dial-up, I will still consider purchasing a broadband plan.
I recently (about a month or so) purchased a broadband plan from my ISP, because it is finally available in my area. The first thing I noticed is how quickly my hard disk space runs out... is it the ISOs? Or MP3s? DivXs? M2Vs? Apps? Heck, it's all of them. In fact I think I have done more downloads the past month than my whole lifetime prior to switching to broadband.
What do I think about the BBC's reasoning that's it's actually more because of the no-per-minute-charges benefits? It's very likely to be true... and I exibit this new-found powers of mine by staying on IRC 24-7 and looking k-l33t:P
While there are no published numbers, back of the envelope calculations indicate Microsoft's Indian arm currently generates sales in the region of Rs 1,600 crore. That's a little over $330 million. This ties in neatly with the fact that last year, India purchased packaged software worth $409 million - of which 80% were Microsoft products. But, honestly, for a juggernaut sitting on $40 billion in accumulated cash and a projected turnover of $32 billion in fiscal 2003, $409 million is loose change. So what "destiny" is Mistry talking about?
The fast-talking British citizen of Indian origin has been in the country for barely 10 months now. He heads a team of 17 evangelists, keeps obscenely long hours, lives out of his suitcase and has an awfully tough mandate from Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond - do whatever it takes to keep Indian developers and programmers working on Microsoft platforms.
Unlike any other director heading operations in the country, Mistry has no revenue targets to meet. "The Indian systems integrator, as he moves up the value chain, will finally make a decision on what platform to settle on. We have to capture them before they make that decision. Which is why, my team is very important for Microsoft Corporation, not just for India alone."
Intrigued? Don't be. Estimates put the present size of India's developer population at anywhere between 450,000 and 600,000. That's about 10% of the world's developer population. By end-2002, India will probably have more developers than any country in the world. This is why it is important to gain control of this population.
"We are paranoid someone is going to come along and take away mindshare from developers. We're paranoid something out there is going to be more exciting to developers." Quite clearly, Mistry is talking of the threat Linux poses to Microsoft. Probe him. He'll hark back to January, when he took up his Indian assignment. Among the first things he did was to put two people from his team on Linux forums. They were asked to figure out: what is it that excites the Linux community? Is it plain Microsoft baiting? Is it Bill Gates bashing? Is it a desire to change the world? For Mistry, answers to those questions hold solutions on how to choke the Linux community in India. By doing that, the open source world loses access to one of the largest developer bases. Deprived of that base, the movement suffers and Microsoft gains a major victory. "This is primarily a battle for the hearts and minds," says Mistry.
Till sometime ago, Microsoft and Mistry didn't have to worry about losing the Indian developer. But with the tech downturn and corporates slashing IT spends, things changed. Public perception that using open source technologies reduce the cost of technology deployments convinced companies across the world to seriously consider cheaper alternatives. Consequently, the number of jobs available for developers working on these technologies went up. To get a sense of that, log on to Monster.com, the world's largest online job board. The number of people needed with expertise in open source technologies is roughly the same as that of those with expertise on Microsoft platforms.
Now add to this the fact that Indian contribution to the open source community has shot up over the last year. Chennaikavigal, a Chennai-based product company, is working on an Indian office suite designed to work on the Linux platform. In fact, language fonts for Linux are now available for practically every Indian language. There is Delhi-based Kandalya building applications that work on free and open source technologies. Then there's Anjuta, which is a development environment for C and C++ on Linux. There's also the Bangalore-based Peacock Solutions, which calls itself the first Indian company to commercialise supercomputing technology on a Linux platform. Peacock's projects include building Linux parallel supercomputers for high-speed rendering, molecular modelling, weather modelling and bioinformatics solutions. And, the list of converts to Linux keeps growing.
Flashback to October 1999. Businessworld was talking to a senior Microsoft functionary on the sidelines of a conference on e-commerce. "What do you think of Linux?" Businessworld had then queried. "What's that?" he shot back. Things have certainly changed since then.
It's the 'roaches-under-the-board theory' at work, says Javed Tapia, director at Red Hat (India), a Linux distributor. Cockroaches multiply because typically they're under a board and no one cares what happens below the board. One day when you lift the board and look, there are a few million of them waiting to get out. By the time you get around to swatting them, most escape. That's pretty much what happened with Linux, chuckles Tapia. "Microsoft ignored us for too long. Thank God for that."
Chapter II: It's The Money, Honey
Forget the developer argument for a moment and focus on the economics - a packaged software market currently worth $409 million, of which 80% is controlled by Microsoft. But the legal market is small potatoes. Estimates say for every licensed piece of software Microsoft sells in India, there are eight pirated copies doing the rounds. Which means, in an ideal Indian world, Microsoft would sell software worth a whopping $2.64 billion (that's 8 x $330 million) in India. Add another factoid here. In 2001, when IT spending was being slashed across the world, the packaged software market grew 37% in India. Growth rates are expected to continue at this rate for a few years to come. Those sort of numbers cannot be sneezed away.
Now take another look at the Indian market. Two-thirds of the packaged software sold in the country is picked up by the government. The rest is largely accounted for by the private corporate sector. Now imagine a world where the government makes a conscious decision to move towards Linux. There are precedents. Over two dozen governments in Asia, Europe and Latin America, including China and Germany, are encouraging the use of open source software - the most popular of which is Linux. In Germany, the government argued that moving to Linux would help cut costs and improve security. In an interview to BBC, German interior minister Otto Schilly said: "We are raising computer security by avoiding a monoculture, and we are lowering dependence on a single supplier."
In Taiwan, the government has announced a National Open Source Plan earlier this year. It aims to establish a software development infrastructure based on free and open source to create a foundation for Taiwan's software industry. It includes the creation of a "Chinese Open Source Software Environment" international cooperation on free application software development, and work with community colleges and non-government organisations to train 9,600 teachers and 120,000 users. Also, the national education system will switch to Open Source.
That these initiatives are being observed seriously in India is evident from the number of government projects under way on Linux. Like we mentioned earlier, the judiciary, the Central Railways, Air-India, Central Excise, Delhi RTO, various e-governance projects across the country. The list is increasing. It's a battle Microsoft cannot afford to lose.
Cut to Corporate India. At a recent Hewlett-Packard seminar on solutions for the manufacturing industry, attended by 300 CIOs, almost 60% said they would be moving to Linux-based systems. Kamal Dutta, HP India's country business manager, isn't surprised. "Enterprise customers are evolving strategies for Linux," he says.
In India, manufacturing and telecom companies are looking at some form of Linux use, though banking firms are staying away at the moment. Explains Dutta: "Banks are conservative." He doesn't expect Linux to completely take over the rest of the market but he says that he can see a "more heterogeneous environment where say core applications like ERP, CRM could run on existing systems while others like VPN, mail, load balancing could be on Linux."
Hughes Software Systems (HSS) started working on Linux almost seven years back. But in the last 12 months, there has been a spurt in interest. Says HSS' head of engineering: "Telecom OEM (original equipment manufacturers) who make boxes for telecom networks want Linux solutions. It's also becoming popular in the area of embedded applications.''
To begin with, companies are deploying Linux to the extent of 15-20% of the total applications - mainly in mail servers, RAS, Web servers. And the reasons for going the Linux way is that "it decreases their dependence on the hardware vendor, the companies can negotiate with multiple vendors and hence get better deals, it lowers the total cost of ownership and offers flexibility,'' says Dutta.
That's not an argument that Microsoft is willing to accept. Argues Sanjay Mathur, head of marketing at Microsoft India: "With fewer dollars to spend on technology, some corporations have been considering Linux. The irony is that choosing Linux may be more expensive in the long run. Emerging data indicates that corporations spend more for additional software, labour and consultant costs when they choose Linux." Precisely the reason why a ruthless battle on Indian soil appears inevitable.
Chapter III: How Ruthless Does It Get!
WHAT is clear is that Linux has made inroads into the Indian landscape. What isn't clear is: to what extent. Details are hard to come by. As Sandeep Menon, head of IBM's Linux initiative in the country says: "It is not owned or tracked by any one organisation. People simply download the software. Data from International Data Corporation, or IDC (a research firm that tracks IT trends) only shows how many CDs have been sold or how many downloads have been made." The problem with this data is that because Linux's terms of licence allow a user to make as many copies as he needs and distribute them freely, it is impossible to estimate how many copies actually exist.
The other more significant problem is that those in the know don't like to talk. Menon, for instance, knows of virtually every major Linux project underway in the country. But he doesn't like giving out details. "Strategic reasons," he explains.
It's much the same thing with Red Hat's Tapia. Now, Red Hat is the largest distributor of Linux in the world. "I can do with little publicity. In fact, I can do with no publicity." The reason, says Tapia, is that he doesn't know how Microsoft will strike back.
For instance, says a Linux distributor speaking off the record, his company had recently concluded a deal with a large private sector company to implement Linux across the organisation. This was done after the company rejected a Rs 9-crore Microsoft proposal to upgrade its systems. Even as the ink on the deal was drying, Microsoft staged a counter attack by offering to implement the infrastructure for just Rs 2 crore. "And we lost out on what could have been the best lighthouse projects for Linux in the country," rues Tapia.
Chapter IV: The Chinks in Linux's Armour
But, for all its strengths, Linux has its own crosses to bear. "It's too early to conclude that Linux will be everywhere," says Srikant Acharya, SCO's (formerly Caldera) country director for India. SCO is among the largest implementors of Linux- and UNIX-based systems worldwide. The feeling is echoed by IBM's Menon. He reckons that though Linux will catch on, the chances that it will overthrow Microsoft are thin. "My guess is both will exist." There are various reasons for that.
The most fundamental problem with Linux is that it is an amorphous entity around which robust business models are yet to evolve. Companies that have built a business around it are still gasping for breath. Take Red Hat. In spite of a 71% marketshare, it reported losses in excess of $140 million. Worse, Red Hat's total revenue is down from fiscal 2001. Now consider the other Linux vendors - SCO, Connectiva, Turbolinux and SuSE. In a bid to achieve greater strength, these vendors came together to create UnitedLinux. Mathur of Microsoft points out that Red Hat and Mandrakesoft refused to join the alliance. "The lack of unity among the Linux vendors offers evidence of continued fracturing," he says.
The point in all of this is a simple one really. The largest Linux vendors are still trying to gain critical size in their home countries. Given this reality, the incentive they have to push their distribution unitedly in countries like India, where the market is still exploring the operating system, are remote. Over the last couple of months, Microsoft has used these facts to hammer home a key point with clients. That unlike others, Microsoft isn't likely to go down in a rush.
Lack of Support: Then there is the issue of government policy itself. In spite of the fact that Linux evangelists have been pushing for increased acceptance of the software in India, truth is, until now, no policy documents have been framed. Frederick Noronha, a freelance journalist and Open Source evangelist points out that Goa actually went ahead and gazetted a pro-Open Source/Free Software notification. "But how does one implement this? The departments keep flouting it. The basic flaw is with the tendering process, which can be subverted in 101 ways if the intentions are malafide. Since then, the Goa IT minister (Ramakant Khalap) has defected from the ruling party. The so-called government policy turned out to be a one-man initiative, which has all come back to a big zero."
Then there is the case of Karnataka. Here, the IT Department supports Open Source on paper. But even as the police force goes in for modernisation, it is being equipped with Windows XP machines. The only exception until now has been Kerala, where the IT policy makes it mandatory for all government departments to first consider free/open source software for all its needs. And only after open source solutions have been exhausted can the government go in for proprietary systems.
The lack of legislation percolates to other areas too. In education, for instance. Dr Nagarjuna G, a teacher at the Homi Bhabha Science Centre in Mumbai and an active free software evangelist is pained as he flips through the IT syllabi of various colleges in the country. The reason is "a lack of secular IT education loaded almost entirely against free and open source software." What he means is this. In most colleges, teachers are asked to show the students how to use Excel or Word. "Why?" asks Dr Nagarjuna. "Shouldn't students be shown how to use a spreadsheet or a word processing document? What they ultimately choose ought to be up to them. Why should the state make a choice on their behalf?" He's been lobbying to get the discrepancies removed. And he's notched up some successes. But there's a long way to go.
Misunderstandings: Tapia of Red Hat faces a rather unique problem. While the interest in what he provides is high, most clients are reluctant to pay for the services he offers. The problem stems from the fact that most people imagine Linux is free. They argue that since it can be downloaded from the Internet or purchased from any vendor at a nominal cost, the prices Red Hat quotes are too high.
But Red Hat's business model, like those of other vendors in the Linux space, is built around a simple assumption. While the basic software itself is free, users will pay for the support vendors provide. It's an argument that has not gone down too well with Indian business. Weaned on a steady diet of Microsoft support that comes with software purchases, the new business model is still making itself understood in most places. "I end up not signing many contracts as clients don't understand they have to pay for support. Where else will my bread and butter come from?" asks Tapia.
Epilogue
In the past, numerous contenders have tried and failed to dislodge Windows. But like we said earlier, Linux, has a key advantage. It isn't owned by anyone. To that extent, Microsoft does not know exactly whom to attack.
Take Asia for instance. Linux, outside of Japan, is being driven by the fact that the continent is less developed than the US or Europe. What this means is that there are fewer computers in the region. Consequently, there are fewer small- and medium-sized enterprises committed to Microsoft products. More importantly, these companies don't have dollars at their disposal of the kind American and European companies have. Which is why, their propensity to acquire Linux is higher.
Does that mean the future of Microsoft in this part of the world is at stake? Not quite. Sure, Linux has been growing rapidly. But it has, at least until now, been confined to servers. More importantly, this growth is coming in at the expense of older operating systems. By 2006, IDC estimates that 26% of the servers in operation will be running Linux while 56% will still run Windows. The remaining 12% will be on UNIX. As for the desktop market itself, shipment details are hazy. Compaq, Dell and, more recently, LG are shipping Linux machines into the Indian market. Until next year, when clear numbers emerge, it will be difficult to gauge how it is being accepted.
Then there are questions on whether businesses based on almost-free technology can ever be profitable - a challenge for Linux companies everywhere, but particularly for those in Asia. A recent IDC report says that although worldwide sales of servers of all types will rise 17% annually over the next four years, revenues will inch up only 1%, largely due to the low cost of Linux.
In Korea, growing competition among Linux distributors have forced prices of a basic Linux package to as low as $10. A Red Hat version that sells for $80 in the US, hawks for less than $3 in China. That's hardly any money worth writing home about. As for business models built around the support and services models, they're still nascent and have some way to go before they mature. It's a long haul - an awfully long haul.
It doesn't matter if they specialize in Windows or Linux because Windows is practically free over there. In the Indian IT world, no copy protection laws are ever respected, and the Windows XP pirated edition runs on every computer.
If Microsoft began enforcing copyrights strictly for Indian schools, then you would see quite a switch to Linux over there -- and quite possibly a boost to the hiring of American teachers with Windows teaching skills, if the H1B training mills are shut down because of it.
We need to be extremely careful moving forward. Challenging such things as DeCSS and DMCA with the term 'open source' leads, just as it did here, to the ideal that the open source community is simply a group of software pirates.
There must be a point made, whether by press release or otherwise, that Open Source does not in anyway support the copyright infringement of any commercially available (or, for that matter, freely available) software. We need to make it clear that we are not advocates of breaking the law, as this judgement seems to suggest.
However, saying that "I am not guilty of copyright infridgement because I work for the open source community" is not a valid arguement. This is probably why it has been associated with piracy. Again, we must make the difference clear to everyone so they don't get the wrong impression.
On a similar note, since the Judges of the court obviously do not understand what Open Source is and labeled "us" as "rogue software pirates", is there any legal action we can take against the court in a defamation of character suit? It's obvious they have just degraded us and our cause without a viable reason.
JUDGE: Would that you could render this extermination unnecessary by renouncing this method of illegal decryption! Pavlovich: No, Your Honor, it cannot be. I don't think much of our profession, but, contrasted with respectability, it is comparatively honest. No, Your Honor, I shall live and die a Pirate King. (SONG -- PIRATE KING) Pavlovich: Oh, better far to live and die Under the flightless bird I fly, Than play a corporate raider's part With a pirate head and a pirate heart. Away to the cheating world go you, Where pirates all are well-to-do; But I'll be true to the song I sing, And live and die a Pirate King. For I am a Pirate King! And it is, it is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King! For I am a Pirate King! SLASHDOTTERS:You are! Hurrah for the Pirate King! Pavlovich:And it is, it is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King. SLASHDOTTERS:It is! Hurrah for the Pirate King! (Inserted to avoid lameness filter.) Hurrah for the Pirate King! Pavlovich:When I sally forth to seek my prey I help myself in a royal way. I rip a few more flicks, it's true, Than a well-bred hacker ought to do; But many a hack with a first-class clone, If he wants to call his warez his own, Must manage somehow to get through More lines of code than e'er I do, For I am a Pirate King! And it is, it is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King! For I am a Pirate King! SLASHDOTTERS:You are! Hurrah for the Pirate King! Pavlovich:And it is, it is a glorious thing To be a Pirate King. SLASHDOTTERS:It is! Hurrah for the Pirate King! (the lameness filter, to avoid, inserted.) Hurrah for the Pirate King! (exeunt.)
then I won't go to school!"... are words that you can hear come out of a 3-5 year old. Basically, they are threatening you to oblige to their demands or they won't do something that is required of them.
As you can actually see, school is an important part of mental development for the child. In the context of this post, Mr. Schulze is the child and SPI is the school.
Just because he didn't get his candy, he is threatening to quit SPI? And pray, tell me, what possible good can this achieve? Even the purpose of SPI is unclear (No news for the whole year?).
And what is the role of free software? Just simply to reduce (possibly halt) Microsoft's domination? Only MS? Why not Apple, they too produces propietry OS? Or Macromedia for their overpriced web graphics tools?
Am I the only one to see that neither of these bodies actually serve any useful purposes other than (sigh) more propaganda for the Open Source community? Even in this area, they suck like hell! Somehow I fear for the longevity of the projects under the co-ordination of SPI.
So Mr. Shulze, basically you're just acting selfish. You have access to the minds and opinions of the SPI people and yet you decide to just quit them altogether. Thanks for helping out to futher dysfunctionalize the SPI.
Slashdot Mirror
Windows Activation is a joke... it was cracked since RC builds. Then MS releases SP1 which won't run on installations using known pirated keys.
The pirates then sells XP with integrated SP1. Pirates ??? - MS 0.
While the article would seem like a happy fairy tale for Linux supporters, the cold, hard reality is that Linux is not even known by the large majority of computer users in most parts of Asia... AND this includes the so-called high-potential areas such as China and India.
While companies prefer to stay legit and actually buy licenses for their software (and even this is fairly recent, thanks to the BSA), a large majority of home-based consumers run pirated versions of Windows, and a bunch of pirated application which can be bought at less than US$2 per CD. This is the cold hard truth.
And many Western media report blames the Govt for not doing anything when the fact is that they can't actually properly enforce the rules. The pirates here are true gangsters in the sense of the word... not some pimply faced kid with cable connection and terrabytes of storage like the typical image of software pirate many of you think.
They are backed by armed thugs, scouts that check on police/IP-enforcers, and possibly insiders from the police or even the local BSA branch... yes, really!
And to top it off, they keep the customers happy... Yes, they really do. I find these pirates more approachable than your average MS or Adobe salesperson.
CD not working? No problem, we'll replace it for you... No questions asked.
Two weeks guarantee on any purchased CD.
Recommendation on a better substitute of the app you wanted to buy
With that kind of service it's no wonder people here flock to pirated CD shops than to the legit vendors. Price is one thing, but if you are going to be severely restricted by EULAs and other licensing terms, might as well buy a pirated copy for 1/200 of the price and be happy about it.
From a typical Asian point-of-view, there is no value-added incentive to purchase original CDs.
Back to the topic, while companies (especially SMEs) will embrace Linux because of the money they can save from software licenses. But even so, many of the established businesses will stick to propietry software because it is what they are used to. And these are decided by the bigwigs which have no desire at all to embrace new technologies eventhough it might save them a huge pile of cash. It is in the mindset... not the software itself.
Linux can move forward by becoming more Desktop-centric not just for home users but for corporate users. And it does not need to be free (as in beer)... most companies will invest a suitable amount of cash to improve productivity.
Sorry for the long rant, hope u get my point.
Uhhhhh....The WTO does not define reality.
True... nor is it defined by my opinions or yours for that matter. Reality is how it is perceived by the person making the observation.
Anyway, what is so wrong by coercing the Chinese population to buy their own products? I mean like people drive Chevies, wear Levi's, and smoke Marlboros just to show how proud they are to be Americans and nobody's making any noise about that.
I'm amazed on how you can readily classify that chip as inferior... Seen the design of the chip? Guess not, maybe it is the Made in China writing that made you derive this conclusion.
As for closing the market... this comment can only come from a blindly ignorant redneck white trash in a trailer parked somewhere where there is little to no TV or radio signal. FYI, a prerequisite of joining the WTO is to have an open market. China has been a member of the WTO since 11 December 2001.
What kind of market would buy those chips? What about computers that are not meant for managing critical data? And from the article itself, mobile phones and televisions? Why the hell would your mobile phone need a 2GHz Pentium 4?
Get a clue!
I hate to break it to ya', but it's Control Panel, Add Remove Programs, Add/Remove Windows Components. True, there isn't an icon on the desktop saying "Click Here to uninstall Outlook Express", but it's far from "impossible".
:P
This is in what? Windows 98? Didn't you see the Windows 2000 part? That's impossible, because you pasted it yourself. FYI, removing Outlook Express in XP (via control panel, add/remove progs/windows components, even to see this you need SP1) will only remove the shortcut to it, and not the program itself. Want to see the procedure on how to fully remove OE manually? Check this page out... from MS itself, no less.
And I didn't say it's impossible... I said it's near impossible from a typical user's standpoint. Again, you pasted this yourself, so most likely you did read it.
Check your posts and reference, man... Hate to break that to ya
This might set a precedence on other areas that MS has decided to bundle in Windows...
.MSG extension everytime I close The Bat!. Isn't this, too, considered misuse of monopoly in one area to gain market leverage in another?
My case: In Windows XP Pro (possibly even in XP Corp) MS includes IIS in the default installation. Can other web server producers (eg. Apache) sue them for this? Why? Because it is pushing their own product within an OS that is not meant to be a web server in the first place. IANAL, but I would appreciate any comments from those with a firm understanding of US laws.
Another case: Since the release of Windows 2000, Outlook Express has been integrated so tightly in the Windows code that it is near impossible to remove it (from a typical user's standpoint, n00b?). I have installed The Bat! as my default email client, but OE always retakes files with
Mildly offtopic, I know, but I do hope that there are people out there who can give their views on this.
The IMF financial solutions are not always ideal. Look at what happened to countries which actually implements its proposals. Most end up becoming worse before seeking IMF bailouts.
Indonesia didn't improve, Argentina's financial woes worsens, and S. Korea ended up pawning some of their biggest companies. Malaysia almost took up IMF's offer during the 97-98 financial crisis, but luckily the govt forsees the impact of some of the conditions... and Malaysia is recovering quite well if compared to other countries in S.E. Asia.
The Filipino govt should be able to decide what's best for the country's economic condition because they are more familiar with the economic factors involved.
I'm not saying taxation is a bad decision, but it shouldn't be at the expense of the population's financial well-being. Perhaps taxation of mobile phone sales and accesories would be more fair?
Just my $0.02's worth.
How did this get categorized as Space news? Until there is hard evidence that UFOs actually exist, then it will forever be viewed as a fragment of a person's imagination.
Even if UFOs really exist, what makes people so inclined to believe that they are chariots of alien civilizations? And while we're going paranormal, why can't we consider alternative reasoning such as UFOs could possibly be ghosts from the future. Do ghosts have to be from the past to be considered as ghosts in the sense of the word?
However, like most people I think that a more logical explanation for UFO sightings is that it is some glitch in the sky... strange manifestation of star/sunlight, mini auroras, heck even mutant glow-in-the-dark birds for all it could be.
Seemed more feasable if compared to a Starcraft theory IMHO.
DigiPen has a cool collection of downloadable games created by their students here... None of them open source though :P
Wow... a phone review of a something that doesn't function like a mobile phone. Truly News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters.
What about "deranged"?
http://www.rendlesham.comh tml
http://www.io.com/~nelson/rendlesham.htm
http://www.debunker.com/texts/RidpathRendlesham1.
Tape Transcript: http://www.skiesare.demon.co.uk/bentwatr.htm
Could it be Phoenix Mail? It is computer related, it does have the word Phoenix in it... and more strangely, it has been available much longer than Phoenix the browser without any action taken on them by Phoenix Bios.
Or is there a selective method of choosing so-called infringers?
Precisely the point... Mandela was put in prison for advocating equality towards blacks. Can you blame him for advocating armed struggle against the apartheid regime? A regime who wouldn't bat an eyelid at someone who is not white regardless whether the protest is peaceful or otherwise.
Whether my position is of ignorance or otherwise is your opinion, and I respect it regardless of whether I think it is true or otherwise. Opinions are (sic) basic human rights, as also taking up struggle against opression regardless whether it is an armed struggle or a peaceful one.
As hard as it may seem to you, my opinions are based on actions they taken in my country has caused more harm than good. And that is my honest opinion.
It is not about getting beat up badly and looking foolish in the process, it is about my own observation on Amnesty's stand in issues that I am very familiar happening in my country and region. What basis did you form your opinions on? Eventhough I absolutely agree that you have valid points, you in turn must not just see what is programmed by parties in the mass media. Take a long hard look at what is going on behind the curtains, some things might suprise you a lot.
You can't have your cake and eat it... Many political prisoners deserve to be imprisoned for one reason or another. Inciting riots, provoking racial violence, etc.
Who is Amnesty to decide who gets scott free and who rots in jail?
...if you look at their track record, it's almost always about something bigger than the human-rights shit they pimp. They always have a hidden agenda. So what if a country chooses to filter certain sites from the net? What's so morally wrong with that?
And why is it that if non-western countries chooses to implement democracy in their own way, Amnesty will almost surely have to criticize them for not being more democratic.
What a crock of shit.
IMHO, that would be totally blown out of proportion. Flash is nice and err... flashy at what it does, but you forgot one important factor, $COST$.
How much does Flash MX cost? HTML doesn't require you to have some propietry software to code it, all you need is just a text editor... even edit.com in MS-DOS will work just fine.
And even with broadband, I think Flash is too bloated and a pain for the eyes... and I don't think I'm alone.
Your arguments are the shortcomings of the Christian faith (Specifically Roman Catholic), not all religions in general make such false claims.
...I care about download speed. Even if it comes with per minute charges like dial-up, I will still consider purchasing a broadband plan.
:P
I recently (about a month or so) purchased a broadband plan from my ISP, because it is finally available in my area. The first thing I noticed is how quickly my hard disk space runs out... is it the ISOs? Or MP3s? DivXs? M2Vs? Apps? Heck, it's all of them. In fact I think I have done more downloads the past month than my whole lifetime prior to switching to broadband.
What do I think about the BBC's reasoning that's it's actually more because of the no-per-minute-charges benefits? It's very likely to be true... and I exibit this new-found powers of mine by staying on IRC 24-7 and looking k-l33t
Chapter I: The Importance Of Being In India
While there are no published numbers, back of the envelope calculations indicate Microsoft's Indian arm currently generates sales in the region of Rs 1,600 crore. That's a little over $330 million. This ties in neatly with the fact that last year, India purchased packaged software worth $409 million - of which 80% were Microsoft products. But, honestly, for a juggernaut sitting on $40 billion in accumulated cash and a projected turnover of $32 billion in fiscal 2003, $409 million is loose change. So what "destiny" is Mistry talking about?
The fast-talking British citizen of Indian origin has been in the country for barely 10 months now. He heads a team of 17 evangelists, keeps obscenely long hours, lives out of his suitcase and has an awfully tough mandate from Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond - do whatever it takes to keep Indian developers and programmers working on Microsoft platforms.
Unlike any other director heading operations in the country, Mistry has no revenue targets to meet. "The Indian systems integrator, as he moves up the value chain, will finally make a decision on what platform to settle on. We have to capture them before they make that decision. Which is why, my team is very important for Microsoft Corporation, not just for India alone."
Intrigued? Don't be. Estimates put the present size of India's developer population at anywhere between 450,000 and 600,000. That's about 10% of the world's developer population. By end-2002, India will probably have more developers than any country in the world. This is why it is important to gain control of this population.
"We are paranoid someone is going to come along and take away mindshare from developers. We're paranoid something out there is going to be more exciting to developers." Quite clearly, Mistry is talking of the threat Linux poses to Microsoft. Probe him. He'll hark back to January, when he took up his Indian assignment. Among the first things he did was to put two people from his team on Linux forums. They were asked to figure out: what is it that excites the Linux community? Is it plain Microsoft baiting? Is it Bill Gates bashing? Is it a desire to change the world? For Mistry, answers to those questions hold solutions on how to choke the Linux community in India. By doing that, the open source world loses access to one of the largest developer bases. Deprived of that base, the movement suffers and Microsoft gains a major victory. "This is primarily a battle for the hearts and minds," says Mistry.
Till sometime ago, Microsoft and Mistry didn't have to worry about losing the Indian developer. But with the tech downturn and corporates slashing IT spends, things changed. Public perception that using open source technologies reduce the cost of technology deployments convinced companies across the world to seriously consider cheaper alternatives. Consequently, the number of jobs available for developers working on these technologies went up. To get a sense of that, log on to Monster.com, the world's largest online job board. The number of people needed with expertise in open source technologies is roughly the same as that of those with expertise on Microsoft platforms.
Now add to this the fact that Indian contribution to the open source community has shot up over the last year. Chennaikavigal, a Chennai-based product company, is working on an Indian office suite designed to work on the Linux platform. In fact, language fonts for Linux are now available for practically every Indian language. There is Delhi-based Kandalya building applications that work on free and open source technologies. Then there's Anjuta, which is a development environment for C and C++ on Linux. There's also the Bangalore-based Peacock Solutions, which calls itself the first Indian company to commercialise supercomputing technology on a Linux platform. Peacock's projects include building Linux parallel supercomputers for high-speed rendering, molecular modelling, weather modelling and bioinformatics solutions. And, the list of converts to Linux keeps growing.
Flashback to October 1999. Businessworld was talking to a senior Microsoft functionary on the sidelines of a conference on e-commerce. "What do you think of Linux?" Businessworld had then queried. "What's that?" he shot back. Things have certainly changed since then.
It's the 'roaches-under-the-board theory' at work, says Javed Tapia, director at Red Hat (India), a Linux distributor. Cockroaches multiply because typically they're under a board and no one cares what happens below the board. One day when you lift the board and look, there are a few million of them waiting to get out. By the time you get around to swatting them, most escape. That's pretty much what happened with Linux, chuckles Tapia. "Microsoft ignored us for too long. Thank God for that."
Chapter II: It's The Money, Honey
Forget the developer argument for a moment and focus on the economics - a packaged software market currently worth $409 million, of which 80% is controlled by Microsoft. But the legal market is small potatoes. Estimates say for every licensed piece of software Microsoft sells in India, there are eight pirated copies doing the rounds. Which means, in an ideal Indian world, Microsoft would sell software worth a whopping $2.64 billion (that's 8 x $330 million) in India. Add another factoid here. In 2001, when IT spending was being slashed across the world, the packaged software market grew 37% in India. Growth rates are expected to continue at this rate for a few years to come. Those sort of numbers cannot be sneezed away.
Now take another look at the Indian market. Two-thirds of the packaged software sold in the country is picked up by the government. The rest is largely accounted for by the private corporate sector. Now imagine a world where the government makes a conscious decision to move towards Linux.
There are precedents. Over two dozen governments in Asia, Europe and Latin America, including China and Germany, are encouraging the use of open source software - the most popular of which is Linux. In Germany, the government argued that moving to Linux would help cut costs and improve security. In an interview to BBC, German interior minister Otto Schilly said: "We are raising computer security by avoiding a monoculture, and we are lowering dependence on a single supplier."
In Taiwan, the government has announced a National Open Source Plan earlier this year. It aims to establish a software development infrastructure based on free and open source to create a foundation for Taiwan's software industry. It includes the creation of a "Chinese Open Source Software Environment" international cooperation on free application software development, and work with community colleges and non-government organisations to train 9,600 teachers and 120,000 users. Also, the national education system will switch to Open Source.
That these initiatives are being observed seriously in India is evident from the number of government projects under way on Linux. Like we mentioned earlier, the judiciary, the Central Railways, Air-India, Central Excise, Delhi RTO, various e-governance projects across the country. The list is increasing. It's a battle Microsoft cannot afford to lose.
Cut to Corporate India. At a recent Hewlett-Packard seminar on solutions for the manufacturing industry, attended by 300 CIOs, almost 60% said they would be moving to Linux-based systems. Kamal Dutta, HP India's country business manager, isn't surprised. "Enterprise customers are evolving strategies for Linux," he says.
In India, manufacturing and telecom companies are looking at some form of Linux use, though banking firms are staying away at the moment. Explains Dutta: "Banks are conservative." He doesn't expect Linux to completely take over the rest of the market but he says that he can see a "more heterogeneous environment where say core applications like ERP, CRM could run on existing systems while others like VPN, mail, load balancing could be on Linux."
Hughes Software Systems (HSS) started working on Linux almost seven years back. But in the last 12 months, there has been a spurt in interest. Says HSS' head of engineering: "Telecom OEM (original equipment manufacturers) who make boxes for telecom networks want Linux solutions. It's also becoming popular in the area of embedded applications.''
To begin with, companies are deploying Linux to the extent of 15-20% of the total applications - mainly in mail servers, RAS, Web servers. And the reasons for going the Linux way is that "it decreases their dependence on the hardware vendor, the companies can negotiate with multiple vendors and hence get better deals, it lowers the total cost of ownership and offers flexibility,'' says Dutta.
That's not an argument that Microsoft is willing to accept. Argues Sanjay Mathur, head of marketing at Microsoft India: "With fewer dollars to spend on technology, some corporations have been considering Linux. The irony is that choosing Linux may be more expensive in the long run. Emerging data indicates that corporations spend more for additional software, labour and consultant costs when they choose Linux."
Precisely the reason why a ruthless battle on Indian soil appears inevitable.
Chapter III: How Ruthless Does It Get!
WHAT is clear is that Linux has made inroads into the Indian landscape. What isn't clear is: to what extent. Details are hard to come by. As Sandeep Menon, head of IBM's Linux initiative in the country says: "It is not owned or tracked by any one organisation. People simply download the software. Data from International Data Corporation, or IDC (a research firm that tracks IT trends) only shows how many CDs have been sold or how many downloads have been made." The problem with this data is that because Linux's terms of licence allow a user to make as many copies as he needs and distribute them freely, it is impossible to estimate how many copies actually exist.
The other more significant problem is that those in the know don't like to talk. Menon, for instance, knows of virtually every major Linux project underway in the country. But he doesn't like giving out details. "Strategic reasons," he explains.
It's much the same thing with Red Hat's Tapia. Now, Red Hat is the largest distributor of Linux in the world. "I can do with little publicity. In fact, I can do with no publicity." The reason, says Tapia, is that he doesn't know how Microsoft will strike back.
For instance, says a Linux distributor speaking off the record, his company had recently concluded a deal with a large private sector company to implement Linux across the organisation. This was done after the company rejected a Rs 9-crore Microsoft proposal to upgrade its systems. Even as the ink on the deal was drying, Microsoft staged a counter attack by offering to implement the infrastructure for just Rs 2 crore. "And we lost out on what could have been the best lighthouse projects for Linux in the country," rues Tapia.
Chapter IV: The Chinks in Linux's Armour
But, for all its strengths, Linux has its own crosses to bear. "It's too early to conclude that Linux will be everywhere," says Srikant Acharya, SCO's (formerly Caldera) country director for India. SCO is among the largest implementors of Linux- and UNIX-based systems worldwide. The feeling is echoed by
IBM's Menon. He reckons that though Linux will catch on, the chances that it will overthrow Microsoft are thin. "My guess is both will exist." There are various reasons for that.
The most fundamental problem with Linux is that it is an amorphous entity around which robust business models are yet to evolve. Companies that have built a business around it are still gasping for breath. Take Red Hat. In spite of a 71% marketshare, it reported losses in excess of $140 million. Worse, Red Hat's total revenue is down from fiscal 2001. Now consider the other Linux vendors - SCO, Connectiva, Turbolinux and SuSE. In a bid to achieve greater strength, these vendors came together to create UnitedLinux. Mathur of Microsoft points out that Red Hat and Mandrakesoft refused to join the alliance. "The lack of unity among the Linux vendors offers evidence of continued fracturing," he says.
The point in all of this is a simple one really. The largest Linux vendors are still trying to gain critical size in their home countries. Given this reality, the incentive they have to push their distribution unitedly in countries like India, where the market is still exploring the operating system, are remote. Over the last couple of months, Microsoft has used these facts to hammer home a key point with clients. That unlike others, Microsoft isn't likely to go down in a rush.
Lack of Support: Then there is the issue of government policy itself. In spite of the fact that Linux evangelists have been pushing for increased acceptance of the software in India, truth is, until now, no policy documents have been framed. Frederick Noronha, a freelance journalist and Open Source evangelist points out that Goa actually went ahead and gazetted a pro-Open Source/Free Software notification. "But how does one implement this? The departments keep flouting it. The basic flaw is with the tendering process, which can be subverted in 101 ways if the intentions are malafide. Since then, the Goa IT minister (Ramakant Khalap) has defected from the ruling party. The so-called government policy turned out to be a one-man initiative, which has all come back to a big zero."
Then there is the case of Karnataka. Here, the IT Department supports Open Source on paper. But even as the police force goes in for modernisation, it is being equipped with Windows XP machines. The only exception until now has been Kerala, where the IT policy makes it mandatory for all government departments to first consider free/open source software for all its needs. And only after open source solutions have been exhausted can the government go in for proprietary systems.
The lack of legislation percolates to other areas too. In education, for instance. Dr Nagarjuna G, a teacher at the Homi Bhabha Science Centre in Mumbai and an active free software evangelist is pained as he flips through the IT syllabi of various colleges in the country. The reason is "a lack of secular IT education loaded almost entirely against free and open source software." What he means is this. In most colleges, teachers are asked to show the students how to use Excel or Word. "Why?" asks Dr Nagarjuna. "Shouldn't students be shown how to use a spreadsheet or a word processing document? What they ultimately choose ought to be up to them. Why should the state make a choice on their behalf?" He's been lobbying to get the discrepancies removed. And he's notched up some successes. But there's a long way to go.
Misunderstandings: Tapia of Red Hat faces a rather unique problem. While the interest in what he provides is high, most clients are reluctant to pay for the services he offers. The problem stems from the fact that most people imagine Linux is free. They argue that since it can be downloaded from the Internet or purchased from any vendor at a nominal cost, the prices Red Hat quotes are too high.
But Red Hat's business model, like those of other vendors in the Linux space, is built around a simple assumption. While the basic software itself is free, users will pay for the support vendors provide. It's an argument that has not gone down too well with Indian business. Weaned on a steady diet of Microsoft support that comes with software purchases, the new business model is still making itself understood in most places. "I end up not signing many contracts as clients don't understand they have to pay for support. Where else will my bread and butter come from?" asks Tapia.
Epilogue
In the past, numerous contenders have tried and failed to dislodge Windows. But like we said earlier, Linux, has a key advantage. It isn't owned by anyone. To that extent, Microsoft does not know exactly whom to attack.
Take Asia for instance. Linux, outside of Japan, is being driven by the fact that the continent is less developed than the US or Europe. What this means is that there are fewer computers in the region. Consequently, there are fewer small- and medium-sized enterprises committed to Microsoft products. More importantly, these companies don't have dollars at their disposal of the kind American and European companies have. Which is why, their propensity to acquire Linux is higher.
Does that mean the future of Microsoft in this part of the world is at stake? Not quite. Sure, Linux has been growing rapidly. But it has, at least until now, been confined to servers. More importantly, this growth is coming in at the expense of older operating systems. By 2006, IDC estimates that 26% of the servers in operation will be running Linux while 56% will still run Windows. The remaining 12% will be on UNIX. As for the desktop market itself, shipment details are hazy. Compaq, Dell and, more recently, LG are shipping Linux machines into the Indian market. Until next year, when clear numbers emerge, it will be difficult to gauge how it is being accepted.
Then there are questions on whether businesses based on almost-free technology can ever be profitable - a challenge for Linux companies everywhere, but particularly for those in Asia. A recent IDC report says that although worldwide sales of servers of all types will rise 17% annually over the next four years, revenues will inch up only 1%, largely due to the low cost of Linux.
In Korea, growing competition among Linux distributors have forced prices of a basic Linux package to as low as $10. A Red Hat version that sells for $80 in the US, hawks for less than $3 in China. That's hardly any money worth writing home about. As for business models built around the support and services models, they're still nascent and have some way to go before they mature. It's a long haul - an awfully long haul.
Additional inputs by Shelley Singh
It doesn't matter if they specialize in Windows or Linux because Windows is practically free over there. In the Indian IT world, no copy protection laws are ever respected, and the Windows XP pirated edition runs on every computer.
If Microsoft began enforcing copyrights strictly for Indian schools, then you would see quite a switch to Linux over there -- and quite possibly a boost to the hiring of American teachers with Windows teaching skills, if the H1B training mills are shut down because of it.
We need to be extremely careful moving forward. Challenging such things as DeCSS and DMCA with the term 'open source' leads, just as it did here, to the ideal that the open source community is simply a group of software pirates.
There must be a point made, whether by press release or otherwise, that Open Source does not in anyway support the copyright infringement of any commercially available (or, for that matter, freely available) software. We need to make it clear that we are not advocates of breaking the law, as this judgement seems to suggest.
However, saying that "I am not guilty of copyright infridgement because I work for the open source community" is not a valid arguement. This is probably why it has been associated with piracy. Again, we must make the difference clear to everyone so they don't get the wrong impression.
On a similar note, since the Judges of the court obviously do not understand what Open Source is and labeled "us" as "rogue software pirates", is there any legal action we can take against the court in a defamation of character suit? It's obvious they have just degraded us and our cause without a viable reason.
JUDGE: Would that you could render this extermination unnecessary by renouncing this method of illegal decryption!
Pavlovich: No, Your Honor, it cannot be. I don't think much of our profession, but, contrasted with respectability, it is comparatively honest. No, Your Honor, I shall live and die a Pirate King.
(SONG -- PIRATE KING)
Pavlovich: Oh, better far to live and die
Under the flightless bird I fly,
Than play a corporate raider's part
With a pirate head and a pirate heart.
Away to the cheating world go you,
Where pirates all are well-to-do;
But I'll be true to the song I sing,
And live and die a Pirate King.
For I am a Pirate King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King!
For I am a Pirate King!
SLASHDOTTERS:You are!
Hurrah for the Pirate King!
Pavlovich:And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King.
SLASHDOTTERS:It is!
Hurrah for the Pirate King!
(Inserted to avoid lameness filter.)
Hurrah for the Pirate King!
Pavlovich:When I sally forth to seek my prey
I help myself in a royal way.
I rip a few more flicks, it's true,
Than a well-bred hacker ought to do;
But many a hack with a first-class clone,
If he wants to call his warez his own,
Must manage somehow to get through
More lines of code than e'er I do,
For I am a Pirate King!
And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King!
For I am a Pirate King!
SLASHDOTTERS:You are!
Hurrah for the Pirate King!
Pavlovich:And it is, it is a glorious thing
To be a Pirate King.
SLASHDOTTERS:It is!
Hurrah for the Pirate King!
(the lameness filter, to avoid, inserted.)
Hurrah for the Pirate King!
(exeunt.)
the rule also applies to Canada... because it is still under American rule and military protection.
Sheesh, do more reading before posting such silly questions.
then I won't go to school!"... are words that you can hear come out of a 3-5 year old. Basically, they are threatening you to oblige to their demands or they won't do something that is required of them.
As you can actually see, school is an important part of mental development for the child. In the context of this post, Mr. Schulze is the child and SPI is the school.
Just because he didn't get his candy, he is threatening to quit SPI? And pray, tell me, what possible good can this achieve? Even the purpose of SPI is unclear (No news for the whole year?).
And what is the role of free software? Just simply to reduce (possibly halt) Microsoft's domination? Only MS? Why not Apple, they too produces propietry OS? Or Macromedia for their overpriced web graphics tools?
Am I the only one to see that neither of these bodies actually serve any useful purposes other than (sigh) more propaganda for the Open Source community? Even in this area, they suck like hell! Somehow I fear for the longevity of the projects under the co-ordination of SPI.
So Mr. Shulze, basically you're just acting selfish. You have access to the minds and opinions of the SPI people and yet you decide to just quit them altogether. Thanks for helping out to futher dysfunctionalize the SPI.
Mod me as you will... it's only karma.