There's a Yahoo! group dedicated to the discussion of the Amiga One you may be interested in. From the group:
This group is for the discussion of the AmigaOne series of PPC motherboards and Classic Amiga bridge cards developed by Eyetech and distributed by authorised Amiga retailers worldwide.
Yeah, I'll admit, I've been expecting it since IBM announced the chip, and I fully expect that Apple will be the main customer. BUT, my belief (or the belief of any 'industry source', without hard proof) doesn't make it a fact.
Sure, Apple will probably be the main customer, but likely not the only customer. This from c-net:
IBM will use the chip internally in a project of its own, sources indicated, and the chip will also be sold to customers in the embedded and communications markets, two PowerPC strongholds.
Chekib Akrout, vice president of IBM microprocessor development, said big databases and the Internet challenged PCs: "This is the time to introduce a 64-bit machine capable of being used on a desktop," he said in a telephone interview.
Note that he doesn't state specifically that this is for a Mac, although you can logically infer that is one of the intended markets. His implication here is that the Intel based machines are inadaquate for modern applications. Notice he says "This is the time to introduce a 64-bit machine capable of being used on a desktop", rather than simply a 64-bit processor.
I strongly get the impression IBM has some other ideas in mind for these chips other than simply being a supplier for Apple.
I wouldn't be too sure about that. Before I bacame a Unix admin, I worked with mainframes. A lot of the various jobs that I had as an operator, a scheduler and DASD manager, have all been automated out of existence. I kept my job on the strength of learning how to admin the various automation packages. Everyone said that would never work either. All the same, I saw the operations staff reduced from 20 people per shift to 4 in the space of about 18 months.
This feels like deja vu. I had a feeling this would happen sooner or later.
While forced technological innovation may be a bad thing, remember that the main reason this is being pushed through is because the FCC really needs the additional frequencies. This is your future Gigabit wireless that they're trying to lay the foundations for.
OK, but consider this - suppose in the early days of VCR technology, congress had mandated the use of Beta as the standard format for video reproduction? That would have precluded entry of VHS, laser-disk and DVD into the market.
The problem with government mandated technological innovations is that they tend to stifle any further innovation. Why would anyone bother to spend the time and money developing what might be superior technology? You can't compete with a standard required by law.
Here in the U.S. such an agreement probably wouldn't be legally enforcable. I've known of several companies which included the covenant not to sue in their severance agreements, but the courts threw it out. I think it's mostly there as a red herring - getting the court to rule on it is just an extra step you're forced to go through. And it probably has some intimidation value - people who think they've waived their right to sue are less likely to try. But as always, check with a lawyer.
I guess I could rephrase the question into what's in it for me?
I don't know if there's anything in it for PC users, but there may be something in it for Mac users. Both the AS/400 and RS/6000 lines are based on the Power and PowerPC chips. So presumably, they'll be marketing a version of PPC Linux. If they're going to support the IBM PPC machines, I don't imagine it would be that much more of an effort to support Macs as well. We shall see.
Are windows migrations increasing, or unix migrations decreasing? Or both, or what? This is an interesting stat, but fairly meaningless without more information...
I think you have to consider that Linux was replacing Unix primarily at the low end. Nobody is replacing their Sun E15k with an x86 box with Linux. Objectively, Unix wasn't all that frequently used on the low end anyway, and was already largely getting replaced with Windows in that space. The opportunities for replacing Unix with Linux are probably becoming exhausted. It's probably also true that now that IT orginizations are getting comfortable with Linux, migrations from Windows are excelerating.
Eventually, we're going to be at a point where we deal with electric or bio-fuel whether we like it or not. There is just not an infinte supply of petroleum.
Yes, back in 1970, I used to hear that was going to happen by the year 2000. Oops!
The hell of it is, if we were to start *now* working on getting all the kinks and problems worked out of things like bio-fuel or solar-panels with the same energy and resources that the auto industry spends on developing new models every year, when the time comes that petroleum is so rare as to inspire strife, war, and conflict, we will be far enough ahead of the curve not to be affected.
Maybe you need to consider the primary manner of tapping solar energy is still a photovoltaic cell. A PV cell primarily consists of layers of crystalline silicon doped with boron. Since both silicon and boron are toxins, by definition any production process that uses them is going to generate toxic wastes.
Also, even discounting the toxin issue, advocates of solar power tend to overlook the practical problems of implementation. I once considered converting my house to solar energy (not that I'm a
greenie, but I got disgusted with contending with frequent power outages). Now, by definition, a solar panel has to be exposed to sunlight to generate power. Fine if you live in SoCal. But I live near Chicago. Guess what it does in Chicago December through April? It snows, that's what! Your solar panels are going to be of bloody little
use to you if they're covered with snow 3 or 4 months out of the year. And having to shovel snow off the solar panels on my roof didn't sound
like fun. The driveway is bad enough.
There are some very good reasons we haven't moved to alternative energy sources. And, no, they aren't political.
The same guy who was responsible for VMS is responsible for Windows NT. You can think of NT as an attempt of a next generation VMS, with a DOS-like command line and a Windows GUI.
Yes, his name is Dave Cutler - and there goes his reputation!
Can somebody please explain to me (or tell me to RTFM/STFW and point me to the relevant resource) what makes VMS better than *NIX? I hear a lot of 'old timers' say this, but having discovered *NIX only five years ago I have no real idea what they're talking about.
It does seem to have quite a fan club among people who are familiar with it. Considering that, I wonder why no one has attempted an open-source implementation of it. Particularily since it seems to have been neglected by it's last two owners.
The way this works is, you mandate formats, not applications.
So you say, "all forms must be in PDF, all email via normal RFC822 mail (MIME allowed), documents in some-or-other format".
Sure, this at least makes some sense. Specify the file formats, and have the vendors compete on the implementation. That gives a product like Open Office an opportunity to compete, but doesn't exclude MS Office in the event someone needs the particular feature set of that particular product. This is a lot better than the clueless scheme to mandate only the use open source products. That would have been a nightmare. There would have undoubtedly been circumstances where the best product, and possibly the only product, for the job would have been excluded from the competition. This is better - and it creates some leverage with the proprietary vendors. Something like MS Office is still acceptable, but you could make it a requirement that they publish their file formats to compete on a bid. They still get to compete on the strength of their proprietary code, but no longer have exclusive control over the formats. This could actually be a more effective way of dealing with a MS monopoly than breaking them up. Restore competition on open standards. It's unlikely MS would want to give up the revenue from government contracts enough to walk away. And let the best implementation of the standard win.
This has got to hit His Billness right where it hurts! These are the two largest PC vendors in the world. You can be sure it won't be much longer before the rest of the PC vendors start showing some cajones, now that the two biggies have started the revolt. Wonder how long it will take before the next round of defections begins?
I don't think it's really that big of a deal. The article did say the sales are only expected to account for 1% of their revenue. Actually, this is pretty much a no-lose deal for them. The local dealers will be providing the support for the boxes, so they won't have any support overhead in that respect. If they make a go of it, they just have a cheap way of unloading a number of boxes in bulk. If it doesn't go over, no biggie, this is just a side line. It really doesn't effect their core business at all.
If the license is GPL or LGPL, then MicroSoft may be able to use the code by not integrating it into their main product, which would likely be klugey, or they could follow your plan. Since they're not market-stupid, any proprietary equivalent they come up with will have to have genuine innovation or they won't be able to sell it to private concerns. The taxpayer dollars are thus indeed maximised ; the government has an entirely usable product which is also freely available to the public under the GPL's terms. The public also has a proprietary version available which necessarily must be better or MicroSoft wouldn't have bothered making it, by your own argument.
And what does the public gain by having both the open-source version and the proprietary clone? You wind up with exactly the same result as if you have the open-source version in the public domain, and a MS enhanced closed-source version. The only difference is that MS has been forced to spend additional money on developing the clone from scratch. Also consider, MS pays taxes on profits, not revenues. If they have to spend the money to develop a clean room version, that is money that comes out of their profits, ergo, they do not pay taxes on money spent to develop their clone of Collaborate.
Further, you ignored my other example of a small software house that can neither afford to develop a Collaborate clone, nor open-source their proprietary enhancements. What about them?
The other situation in which the poster's scenario won't work is if MicroSoft can no longer effectively wield monopoly power. Good enough for me, I like a level playing field; if MicroSoft doesn't want government contracts wherein they don't get the license they want, I'm sure we can find someone else to do so. If MicroSoft or some other pure software company develops a terrific new proprietary application that the government simply has to have, then the government can get one of MicroSoft's competitors (remember, in this scenario they have some) to develop a workalike - which will then be available to the public, again maximizing taxpayer return.
How many Windows workalikes do you see? Or Office? Sure, the government could use OpenOffice, and require businesses they contract with to provide them with documents in a compatible format. But while OpenOffice may be free, the costs of implementation, training and support for it are not. Particularly when they have to support both OpenOffice to do business with the government, and MS Office to do business with everyone else. And any business that is required to incur those costs is going to pass those costs right back to the government, which means, you guessed it, to the taxpayer. How does that maximize the taxpayer return?
One final point: You are entirely correct that a pure software house like MicroSoft is unlikely to invest research time and money into developing innovative products for licensing under the GPL; however, the flaw in your argument is that they would have no motive for developing BSD software either! They have every motive for using it, and if they remain a monopoly they have every motive to break its utility for others, but they have no more motive to produce innovative work for BSD licensing than they do for GPL licensing.
Tell that to Apple, IIRC BSD is what OS X is based on. And it's a good bet that one of the reasons they chose a BSD licensed product over a GPL licensed product such as Linux is that they are able to withhold enhancements that give them a competitive advantage.
Consider this scenario: Microsoft decides that, in order to remain competitive, they need to market a unix-based OS in addition to Windows. But they want to include the Windows API's in it, in order to make porting Windows apps to it easy. What OS do you think they would use as the basis for such a product? Linux, which would require them to put their proprietary API's in the public domain, or BSD, which would not?
If your objective is simply to deprive MS (and most other commercial software houses) of the use of publicly-funded code, then, by all means, GPL is the way to go. But the last time I checked, the public is "everybody", including commercial software houses. And that means MS, too. GPLing publicly-funded software just to prevent MS from using it is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
You're saying that the public benefits from the taxes MS pays when they improve Collaborate and then charge the public again for? If MS pays taxes on the money they make from distributing CollaboratePlus! surely it's only a small proportion of the money they've received?
Yes. The public benefits from the taxes paid by Microsoft. Also by the jobs they create, the stockholders benefit from the stock price, and the users benefit from the enhancements made to Collaborate. And while the taxes MS pays may well be only a "small portion" of the money they receive, that small portion still amounts to several billion dollars. I think that is a more than adequate ROI to the government for any money they gave your researcher for the original development of Collaborate.
My "paying twice" argument holds and is strengthened by your example.
No, it is not. Your tax dollars paid for the researcher's original development of Collaborate. What you are paying Microsoft for is the enhancements they develop at their own cost, plus packaging, distribution and support. You are still free to use the public domain implementation and not pay MS a damn thing.
Your Garage Logic argument is bogus, as with non-GPLed software, there's no guarantee that the best enhancement wins in the market-place. Garage Logic could make a fantastic update to the original technology and then have it die in the market against MS's mediocre update, because MS bundles their update with the latest Windows or Service Pack. This is an effect of having a monopolist in the OS market.
Not necessarily true. More people still use Quicken than Microsoft Money, more people use AOL than MSN. More people use Oracle and DB2 than SQL server. Until IE evolved to the point where it was an equal or superior product to Netscape, people would still download Netscape.
And if GLS never gets their product to market, then you never know whether it will succeed or not.
This really makes no sense at all. MS has an effective monopoly on the OS market. They are not averse to leveraging that monopoly for their own benefit. If they bundle CollaboratePlus! with Windows, that is what the public will use.
Again, I refer you to my examples of Quicken, AOL, etc.
It has nothing to do with competition in the market. Where have you been for the last three years? Do you really believe that MS software dominates the market because it is superior? Or does their SW dominate because of their (illegal) willingness to use their monopoly to drive competitors out of the market?
Microsoft didn't start out with a monopoly, they built it. They had plenty of competition in the 80's. Let's start by defining what you mean by "superior". Is MS superior technology? No. BeOS, and Mac OS, and Linux are probably superior technologies than MS. But let's look at their disadvantages: BeOS - friendly, but too few apps too be useful. Linux - cheap, but a steep learning curve, too difficult for your typical casual user. Mac OS - very easy to use, but a higher cost of entry, also a lesser selection of apps. So no, I don't think they dominate due to superior technology, but due to a superior value proposition. Note the difference. A value proposition is not defined by technology alone. The same was true in the 80's. MS was able to build their franchise into a monopoly largely because Apple, Commodore and IBM all fell on their own swords, MS wasn't responsible for their competitors commiting suicide. DOS may well have been the most primitive OS out there, but again, it offered a greater value proposition than it's more technically sophisticated competitors. Having a monopoly these days obviously isn't hurting them, either, but let's remember how they got it.
I don't understand the point you're making, as a BSD-style license allows exactly this sort of thing. Once someone (MS in this example) has changed the code they are under no obligation to redistribute the source code.
That is the point I'm trying to make! If they can't retain control over their IP, why would they want to invest in improving the product?
You are making an erroneous assumption here. The assumption you are making is that the only possible benefit to the taxpayers who paid for the development is release of additional code. That isn't true. As I took great pains to amplify in my second paragraph, the public benefits from taxes paid by MS on their profits. And not only MS. Say Garage Logic Software, a small start-up, has a great idea for an enhancement to Collaborate. Now, if Collaborate is GPL, they will have to release their changes to the public, exposing them to the risk of losing their investment in the product when somebody else repackages it and undersells them, thereby driving them out of business. This is exactly what has happened to plenty of Linux companies. Even Red Hat is now earning most of their revenue through their proprietary products. Of course, Garage Logic Software could develop their own proprietary version of Collaborate and add their enhancement, but as we said, they are a small start-up, and developing a clean-room implementation would be cost-prohibitive. Result? Garage Logic Software never gets off the ground, because they have no way to earn a profit, and the public never gets the benefit of their great enhancement to Collaborate.
There are many ways the public can benefit from public domain software, other than simply acruing additional code.
And the point about them creating their own software, without using Collaborate is irrelevant, since they can do that anyway, irrespective of its license (assuming the software in question doesn't include patented technology, but that's another argument altogether).
No, it isn't irrelevent, because the point of publicly funding software, like publicly funding anything else, is that the public at large benefits from it. True, MS may well be able to fund development of a clean-room version of Collaborate. But Garage Logic Software cannot, so you have effectively locked them out of the market. Your hypothetical researcher may well be able to develop the original product, but is he really in a position to package it, distrubute it, support it, and maintain it? Most likely not. That responsibility will most likely fall to commercial entities. And if they can't earn a profit from it, what is their interest in doing so? Linus does not maintain his own Linux distibution, private corporations do. And even at that, I know of none of them that are profitable simply on the strength of being Linux distributers.Most of them hope to become profitable eventually by selling ancillary (and usually proprietary) products and services. It remains to be seen whether they will succeed.
This I don't understand. The cost issue is not relevant, because I can download all the software you mention for nothing if I want, from any number of different sources.
That is correct. But some people choose to purchase the Red Hat boxed set, or purchase it with Windows, or Mac OS, or Solaris. But you are perfectly at liberty to use the free implementation should you so choose. As you would still be perfectly free to use the public domain version of Collaborate if you like.But if you want the enhancements an MS or someone else develops at their own cost, then you have to pay for them.
The question is, after I have contributed to the cost of developming the software, can someone else use this software (for which I've paid as well as they've paid) and then render it useless for me unless I pay them again? That's what my Collaborate example was supposed to illustrate.
The flaw in your argument is this: MS can't render it useless, only public preferences can render it useless. If the public at large (who also paid for the basic development) chooses to use the enhanced MS implementation over the public domain implementation, then I'm afraid you are just SOL. Unfortunately, the public is not obliged to use the public domain version simply because it is convenient for you. For example, I like Macs, but most of the world seems to like Windows. Which means the Windows world gets the benefit of higher priority from software and hardware developers, and the Mac they support when they get around to it, if ever. But that is my choice of computer, and either I have make do with what's available, or switch to Windows. But it would be absurd to expect the rest of the world to switch to a Mac simply to accomodate me. It ain't gonna happen, and that's the price I pay for my choice. But remember, it is still my own choice.
Now contrast this with the situation if our researcher had GPLed Collaborate. Everyone who paid taxes (and everyone else as well, of course) benefits from the technology. MS can still distribute it with Windows, but if they want to "improve" it, they have to give the new version back to the people who paid for it.
Surely the GPL is better in this situation? I don't mean this as a rhetorical quetion, I'm genuinely interested to know whether you think there's a flaw in my argument.
Okay, you asked, here's the flaw. You're assuming MS would be forced to use the GPL code and contribute their improvements back to the community. Actually, the more likely outcome is that they would eschew the GPL code altogether, and simply develop their own product which re-implemented the features of Collaborate. They gain nothing by being forced to make their improvements public. Anyone else could take the code and simply repackage it. Thus, they lose any competitive advantage, and hence their investment, they put into development, and have no incentive to make any improvements to the software whatsoever. Whereas if they create their own closed source implementation of Collaborate, they maintain control over their own IP. So instead of maximizing the commercial benefit of taxpayer sponsored software, you wipe it out entirely. I suspect this was a consideration when Apple chose BSD as the basis of OS X, rather than a GPLed OS such as Linux.
Actually, a BSD or public domain license would be preferable for taxpayer funded software, because private corporations then have an incentive to take the code base and improve it for their proprietary products. While it is true this does not necessarily lead to the improvements being returned to the public domain, the public does get a return on their investment in the form of taxes paid on the profits of the sales of the products. Even if Bruce's contention that MS has managed to avoid corporate income taxes is true, that still doesn't tell the whole story. They are still subject to sales taxes, inventory taxes, head taxes, etc, plus the income taxes paid by their employees on their earnings. I can pretty well guarentee that when the cumulative taxes Microsoft pays are considered, the return on investment to the taxpayer will be very impressive.
This is the part that doesn't get considered in these discussions. Rather than create an incentive for private corps to improve open source software and release their improvements, GPL creates an incentive for them to avoid it like the plauge. Consider how few software companies base their products on GPL code, and of the few who do, how few are actually turning a profit. While companies such as IBM and HP are prepared to make friendly with the GPL, you have to consider that these are primarily hardware vendors. They gain more from additional hardware sales than they lose by making (some) of their IP public. But for a pure software house like MS, the GPL is poison. I guarentee they'll never touch a GPLed product of any consequence with a ten foot pole. I love Linux and other GPLed software, but unfortunately the GPL virtually destroys any profit incentive a private corp might have to make use of the code base. And thus you lose a large part of the benefit of your taxpayer funded software.
Further, the contention that you are paying for the software twice is disingenuous. This is just as true for Linux as it is for Windows. There is plenty of software in your boxed set of Red Hat based on technology developed on government funding. Even if the implementation of TCP/IP is original, the original development of the technology was done at government expense. If you're going to be honest, you have to factor in the cost of the original development of the technology, not just the cost of the specific implementation.
Bruce may know how to code, but I think he's in need of a course in economics.
I think this is great news, it's good that Apple is at least benignly tolerating Linux on their platform, even if not actively encouraging it.
I don't see the value of this so much for Apple, but for the Linux/PPC platform in general. Linux PPC, unlike OS X, does not run uniquely on the Apple platform, other implementations are possible. And there have been some interesting developments in the PPC/Power world lately, for example:
IBM's newly announced desktop PPC processor. Possibly this will be the successor to the G4 in Apple's offerings.
Also, the new Amiga platform will be PPC based, and also runs Linux. Whether this new platform will have any substantial success is still open to speculation, but it will be an interesting experiment, whatever the outcome.
Also, IBM is looking to eventually migrate their mainframe line over to the Power architechture, probably starting with the Power6.
It would be nice to see some competition to the x86 in the commodity processor market. I was ready to write off PPC/Power as doomed, but the recent flurry of activity on that front has caused me to re-evaluate my position. And an OS like Linux which can run across all the various implementations of the architecture would be great for encouraging it's propogation. Imagine applications that are binary compatable across everything from your iBook to a mainframe.
Sounds like duplication of effort, one of the common features of Open Source projects.
But that's the great part about it. Give a thousand monkeys a paintbrush and eventually...
Yeah, that would have been awful. If it'd happened, slavery and racism would have continued to exist until well into the 1900s, and even now, blacks would suffer bad treatment at the hands of whites.
Here's an alternate construction of what would have happened, first put forth by Winston Churchill:
The Confederacy, being highly dependent on trade with Britain, would have eventually been forced to end slavery to retain favor of the British.
The United States, as such, would not have entered the WWI, and Britain and Germany would have eventually declared armistace on essentially equal terms. Germany would have not been forced into the repairations which economically devistated them, and would have had no incentive to aid Lenin in the overthrow of the Czar. Wilhelm would have remained on the throne of Germany, precluding Hitler's rise to power. There would have been no WWII, no holocaust, and no incentive to establish Israel as a Jewish state. And obviously, that would have altered the current situation in the mid-east considerably.
IBM probably figures that they can make a big chunk of change in this field two ways. The direct revenue from consulting, and I suppose the PWC consultants will be "suggesting" IBM solutions for their clients a lot more often now. Win-win for IBM if they can manage the business right.
If they can manage it right. IIRC, EDS had the same big idea when they bought A.T. Kearney. After that, it was all down hill for EDS. As a former employee of EDS, and a current employee of IBM, I'm not happy to hear this.
So basically, Sears broke off a long-standing contract with IBM (although that contract may have been up for renewal) to roll out an NT distribution across several thousand desktops.
Actually, that probably happened at the behest of IBM themselves. They've been encouraging a migration off of OS/2 for several years now. But there are still some companies that swear by OS/2, though. I know as recently as 2001 there were still several business units at the Bank of America that were still using it, and were fighting like tigers to avoid migrating to Windows. Don't know if they're using it still.
Slashdot Mirror
Elves? At Pomeroy IT Solutions, (PITS) we are called drones, and we get nothing. It is not just the economy, as we never got anything.
...every year, they bend us over and bone us!
Where I work, we always get a bonus...
I have always wondered what would have happened if DR DOS wasn't eradicated by microsoft.
Actually, it hasn't been eradicated. In fact, it's back again! Check this out...
DeviceLogics
You might want to post your query over there.
Sure, Apple will probably be the main customer, but likely not the only customer. This from c-net: Wonder what IBM is up to?
Liberty in Our Lifetime
Liberty in our Lifetime
I doubt it will work.
I wouldn't be too sure about that. Before I bacame a Unix admin, I worked with mainframes. A lot of the various jobs that I had as an operator, a scheduler and DASD manager, have all been automated out of existence. I kept my job on the strength of learning how to admin the various automation packages. Everyone said that would never work either. All the same, I saw the operations staff reduced from 20 people per shift to 4 in the space of about 18 months.
This feels like deja vu. I had a feeling this would happen sooner or later.
Liberty in Our Lifetime
While forced technological innovation may be a bad thing, remember that the main reason this is being pushed through is because the FCC really needs the additional frequencies. This is your future Gigabit wireless that they're trying to lay the foundations for.
OK, but consider this - suppose in the early days of VCR technology, congress had mandated the use of Beta as the standard format for video reproduction? That would have precluded entry of VHS, laser-disk and DVD into the market.
The problem with government mandated technological innovations is that they tend to stifle any further innovation. Why would anyone bother to spend the time and money developing what might be superior technology? You can't compete with a standard required by law.
Here in the U.S. such an agreement probably wouldn't be legally enforcable. I've known of several companies which included the covenant not to sue in their severance agreements, but the courts threw it out. I think it's mostly there as a red herring - getting the court to rule on it is just an extra step you're forced to go through. And it probably has some intimidation value - people who think they've waived their right to sue are less likely to try. But as always, check with a lawyer.
I guess I could rephrase the question into what's in it for me?
I don't know if there's anything in it for PC users, but there may be something in it for Mac users. Both the AS/400 and RS/6000 lines are based on the Power and PowerPC chips. So presumably, they'll be marketing a version of PPC Linux. If they're going to support the IBM PPC machines, I don't imagine it would be that much more of an effort to support Macs as well. We shall see.
Are windows migrations increasing, or unix migrations decreasing? Or both, or what? This is an interesting stat, but fairly meaningless without more information...
I think you have to consider that Linux was replacing Unix primarily at the low end. Nobody is replacing their Sun E15k with an x86 box with Linux. Objectively, Unix wasn't all that frequently used on the low end anyway, and was already largely getting replaced with Windows in that space. The opportunities for replacing Unix with Linux are probably becoming exhausted. It's probably also true that now that IT orginizations are getting comfortable with Linux, migrations from Windows are excelerating.
Liberty in our Lifetime
Eventually, we're going to be at a point where we deal with electric or bio-fuel whether we like it or not. There is just not an infinte supply of petroleum.
Yes, back in 1970, I used to hear that was going to happen by the year 2000. Oops!
The hell of it is, if we were to start *now* working on getting all the kinks and problems worked out of things like bio-fuel or solar-panels with the same energy and resources that the auto industry spends on developing new models every year, when the time comes that petroleum is so rare as to inspire strife, war, and conflict, we will be far enough ahead of the curve not to be affected.
Maybe you need to consider the primary manner of tapping solar energy is still a photovoltaic cell. A PV cell primarily consists of layers of crystalline silicon doped with boron. Since both silicon and boron are toxins, by definition any production process that uses them is going to generate toxic wastes.
Also, even discounting the toxin issue, advocates of solar power tend to overlook the practical problems of implementation. I once considered converting my house to solar energy (not that I'm a greenie, but I got disgusted with contending with frequent power outages). Now, by definition, a solar panel has to be exposed to sunlight to generate power. Fine if you live in SoCal. But I live near Chicago. Guess what it does in Chicago December through April? It snows, that's what! Your solar panels are going to be of bloody little use to you if they're covered with snow 3 or 4 months out of the year. And having to shovel snow off the solar panels on my roof didn't sound like fun. The driveway is bad enough.
There are some very good reasons we haven't moved to alternative energy sources. And, no, they aren't political.
The same guy who was responsible for VMS is responsible for Windows NT. You can think of NT as an attempt of a next generation VMS, with a DOS-like command line and a Windows GUI.
Yes, his name is Dave Cutler - and there goes his reputation!
Can somebody please explain to me (or tell me to RTFM/STFW and point me to the relevant resource) what makes VMS better than *NIX? I hear a lot of 'old timers' say this, but having discovered *NIX only five years ago I have no real idea what they're talking about.
It does seem to have quite a fan club among people who are familiar with it. Considering that, I wonder why no one has attempted an open-source implementation of it. Particularily since it seems to have been neglected by it's last two owners.
The way this works is, you mandate formats, not applications.
So you say, "all forms must be in PDF, all email via normal RFC822 mail (MIME allowed), documents in some-or-other format".
Sure, this at least makes some sense. Specify the file formats, and have the vendors compete on the implementation. That gives a product like Open Office an opportunity to compete, but doesn't exclude MS Office in the event someone needs the particular feature set of that particular product. This is a lot better than the clueless scheme to mandate only the use open source products. That would have been a nightmare. There would have undoubtedly been circumstances where the best product, and possibly the only product, for the job would have been excluded from the competition. This is better - and it creates some leverage with the proprietary vendors. Something like MS Office is still acceptable, but you could make it a requirement that they publish their file formats to compete on a bid. They still get to compete on the strength of their proprietary code, but no longer have exclusive control over the formats. This could actually be a more effective way of dealing with a MS monopoly than breaking them up. Restore competition on open standards. It's unlikely MS would want to give up the revenue from government contracts enough to walk away. And let the best implementation of the standard win.
This has got to hit His Billness right where it hurts! These are the two largest PC vendors in the world. You can be sure it won't be much longer before the rest of the PC vendors start showing some cajones, now that the two biggies have started the revolt. Wonder how long it will take before the next round of defections begins?
I don't think it's really that big of a deal. The article did say the sales are only expected to account for 1% of their revenue. Actually, this is pretty much a no-lose deal for them. The local dealers will be providing the support for the boxes, so they won't have any support overhead in that respect. If they make a go of it, they just have a cheap way of unloading a number of boxes in bulk. If it doesn't go over, no biggie, this is just a side line. It really doesn't effect their core business at all.
If the license is GPL or LGPL, then MicroSoft may be able to use the code by not integrating it into their main product, which would likely be klugey, or they could follow your plan. Since they're not market-stupid, any proprietary equivalent they come up with will have to have genuine innovation or they won't be able to sell it to private concerns. The taxpayer dollars are thus indeed maximised ; the government has an entirely usable product which is also freely available to the public under the GPL's terms. The public also has a proprietary version available which necessarily must be better or MicroSoft wouldn't have bothered making it, by your own argument.
And what does the public gain by having both the open-source version and the proprietary clone? You wind up with exactly the same result as if you have the open-source version in the public domain, and a MS enhanced closed-source version. The only difference is that MS has been forced to spend additional money on developing the clone from scratch. Also consider, MS pays taxes on profits, not revenues. If they have to spend the money to develop a clean room version, that is money that comes out of their profits, ergo, they do not pay taxes on money spent to develop their clone of Collaborate.
Further, you ignored my other example of a small software house that can neither afford to develop a Collaborate clone, nor open-source their proprietary enhancements. What about them?
The other situation in which the poster's scenario won't work is if MicroSoft can no longer effectively wield monopoly power. Good enough for me, I like a level playing field; if MicroSoft doesn't want government contracts wherein they don't get the license they want, I'm sure we can find someone else to do so. If MicroSoft or some other pure software company develops a terrific new proprietary application that the government simply has to have, then the government can get one of MicroSoft's competitors (remember, in this scenario they have some) to develop a workalike - which will then be available to the public, again maximizing taxpayer return.
How many Windows workalikes do you see? Or Office? Sure, the government could use OpenOffice, and require businesses they contract with to provide them with documents in a compatible format. But while OpenOffice may be free, the costs of implementation, training and support for it are not. Particularly when they have to support both OpenOffice to do business with the government, and MS Office to do business with everyone else. And any business that is required to incur those costs is going to pass those costs right back to the government, which means, you guessed it, to the taxpayer. How does that maximize the taxpayer return?
One final point: You are entirely correct that a pure software house like MicroSoft is unlikely to invest research time and money into developing innovative products for licensing under the GPL; however, the flaw in your argument is that they would have no motive for developing BSD software either! They have every motive for using it, and if they remain a monopoly they have every motive to break its utility for others, but they have no more motive to produce innovative work for BSD licensing than they do for GPL licensing.
Tell that to Apple, IIRC BSD is what OS X is based on. And it's a good bet that one of the reasons they chose a BSD licensed product over a GPL licensed product such as Linux is that they are able to withhold enhancements that give them a competitive advantage.
Consider this scenario: Microsoft decides that, in order to remain competitive, they need to market a unix-based OS in addition to Windows. But they want to include the Windows API's in it, in order to make porting Windows apps to it easy. What OS do you think they would use as the basis for such a product? Linux, which would require them to put their proprietary API's in the public domain, or BSD, which would not?
If your objective is simply to deprive MS (and most other commercial software houses) of the use of publicly-funded code, then, by all means, GPL is the way to go. But the last time I checked, the public is "everybody", including commercial software houses. And that means MS, too. GPLing publicly-funded software just to prevent MS from using it is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
You're saying that the public benefits from the taxes MS pays when they improve Collaborate and then charge the public again for? If MS pays taxes on the money they make from distributing CollaboratePlus! surely it's only a small proportion of the money they've received?
Yes. The public benefits from the taxes paid by Microsoft. Also by the jobs they create, the stockholders benefit from the stock price, and the users benefit from the enhancements made to Collaborate. And while the taxes MS pays may well be only a "small portion" of the money they receive, that small portion still amounts to several billion dollars. I think that is a more than adequate ROI to the government for any money they gave your researcher for the original development of Collaborate.
My "paying twice" argument holds and is strengthened by your example.
No, it is not. Your tax dollars paid for the researcher's original development of Collaborate. What you are paying Microsoft for is the enhancements they develop at their own cost, plus packaging, distribution and support. You are still free to use the public domain implementation and not pay MS a damn thing.
Your Garage Logic argument is bogus, as with non-GPLed software, there's no guarantee that the best enhancement wins in the market-place. Garage Logic could make a fantastic update to the original technology and then have it die in the market against MS's mediocre update, because MS bundles their update with the latest Windows or Service Pack. This is an effect of having a monopolist in the OS market.
Not necessarily true. More people still use Quicken than Microsoft Money, more people use AOL than MSN. More people use Oracle and DB2 than SQL server. Until IE evolved to the point where it was an equal or superior product to Netscape, people would still download Netscape.
And if GLS never gets their product to market, then you never know whether it will succeed or not.
This really makes no sense at all. MS has an effective monopoly on the OS market. They are not averse to leveraging that monopoly for their own benefit. If they bundle CollaboratePlus! with Windows, that is what the public will use.
Again, I refer you to my examples of Quicken, AOL, etc.
It has nothing to do with competition in the market. Where have you been for the last three years? Do you really believe that MS software dominates the market because it is superior? Or does their SW dominate because of their (illegal) willingness to use their monopoly to drive competitors out of the market?
Microsoft didn't start out with a monopoly, they built it. They had plenty of competition in the 80's. Let's start by defining what you mean by "superior". Is MS superior technology? No. BeOS, and Mac OS, and Linux are probably superior technologies than MS. But let's look at their disadvantages: BeOS - friendly, but too few apps too be useful. Linux - cheap, but a steep learning curve, too difficult for your typical casual user. Mac OS - very easy to use, but a higher cost of entry, also a lesser selection of apps. So no, I don't think they dominate due to superior technology, but due to a superior value proposition. Note the difference. A value proposition is not defined by technology alone. The same was true in the 80's. MS was able to build their franchise into a monopoly largely because Apple, Commodore and IBM all fell on their own swords, MS wasn't responsible for their competitors commiting suicide. DOS may well have been the most primitive OS out there, but again, it offered a greater value proposition than it's more technically sophisticated competitors. Having a monopoly these days obviously isn't hurting them, either, but let's remember how they got it.
I don't understand the point you're making, as a BSD-style license allows exactly this sort of thing. Once someone (MS in this example) has changed the code they are under no obligation to redistribute the source code.
That is the point I'm trying to make! If they can't retain control over their IP, why would they want to invest in improving the product?
You are making an erroneous assumption here. The assumption you are making is that the only possible benefit to the taxpayers who paid for the development is release of additional code. That isn't true. As I took great pains to amplify in my second paragraph, the public benefits from taxes paid by MS on their profits. And not only MS. Say Garage Logic Software, a small start-up, has a great idea for an enhancement to Collaborate. Now, if Collaborate is GPL, they will have to release their changes to the public, exposing them to the risk of losing their investment in the product when somebody else repackages it and undersells them, thereby driving them out of business. This is exactly what has happened to plenty of Linux companies. Even Red Hat is now earning most of their revenue through their proprietary products. Of course, Garage Logic Software could develop their own proprietary version of Collaborate and add their enhancement, but as we said, they are a small start-up, and developing a clean-room implementation would be cost-prohibitive. Result? Garage Logic Software never gets off the ground, because they have no way to earn a profit, and the public never gets the benefit of their great enhancement to Collaborate.
There are many ways the public can benefit from public domain software, other than simply acruing additional code.
And the point about them creating their own software, without using Collaborate is irrelevant, since they can do that anyway, irrespective of its license (assuming the software in question doesn't include patented technology, but that's another argument altogether).
No, it isn't irrelevent, because the point of publicly funding software, like publicly funding anything else, is that the public at large benefits from it. True, MS may well be able to fund development of a clean-room version of Collaborate. But Garage Logic Software cannot, so you have effectively locked them out of the market. Your hypothetical researcher may well be able to develop the original product, but is he really in a position to package it, distrubute it, support it, and maintain it? Most likely not. That responsibility will most likely fall to commercial entities. And if they can't earn a profit from it, what is their interest in doing so? Linus does not maintain his own Linux distibution, private corporations do. And even at that, I know of none of them that are profitable simply on the strength of being Linux distributers.Most of them hope to become profitable eventually by selling ancillary (and usually proprietary) products and services. It remains to be seen whether they will succeed.
This I don't understand. The cost issue is not relevant, because I can download all the software you mention for nothing if I want, from any number of different sources.
That is correct. But some people choose to purchase the Red Hat boxed set, or purchase it with Windows, or Mac OS, or Solaris. But you are perfectly at liberty to use the free implementation should you so choose. As you would still be perfectly free to use the public domain version of Collaborate if you like.But if you want the enhancements an MS or someone else develops at their own cost, then you have to pay for them.
The question is, after I have contributed to the cost of developming the software, can someone else use this software (for which I've paid as well as they've paid) and then render it useless for me unless I pay them again? That's what my Collaborate example was supposed to illustrate.
The flaw in your argument is this: MS can't render it useless, only public preferences can render it useless. If the public at large (who also paid for the basic development) chooses to use the enhanced MS implementation over the public domain implementation, then I'm afraid you are just SOL. Unfortunately, the public is not obliged to use the public domain version simply because it is convenient for you. For example, I like Macs, but most of the world seems to like Windows. Which means the Windows world gets the benefit of higher priority from software and hardware developers, and the Mac they support when they get around to it, if ever. But that is my choice of computer, and either I have make do with what's available, or switch to Windows. But it would be absurd to expect the rest of the world to switch to a Mac simply to accomodate me. It ain't gonna happen, and that's the price I pay for my choice. But remember, it is still my own choice.
Now contrast this with the situation if our researcher had GPLed Collaborate. Everyone who paid taxes (and everyone else as well, of course) benefits from the technology. MS can still distribute it with Windows, but if they want to "improve" it, they have to give the new version back to the people who paid for it.
Surely the GPL is better in this situation? I don't mean this as a rhetorical quetion, I'm genuinely interested to know whether you think there's a flaw in my argument.
Okay, you asked, here's the flaw. You're assuming MS would be forced to use the GPL code and contribute their improvements back to the community. Actually, the more likely outcome is that they would eschew the GPL code altogether, and simply develop their own product which re-implemented the features of Collaborate. They gain nothing by being forced to make their improvements public. Anyone else could take the code and simply repackage it. Thus, they lose any competitive advantage, and hence their investment, they put into development, and have no incentive to make any improvements to the software whatsoever. Whereas if they create their own closed source implementation of Collaborate, they maintain control over their own IP. So instead of maximizing the commercial benefit of taxpayer sponsored software, you wipe it out entirely. I suspect this was a consideration when Apple chose BSD as the basis of OS X, rather than a GPLed OS such as Linux.
Actually, a BSD or public domain license would be preferable for taxpayer funded software, because private corporations then have an incentive to take the code base and improve it for their proprietary products. While it is true this does not necessarily lead to the improvements being returned to the public domain, the public does get a return on their investment in the form of taxes paid on the profits of the sales of the products. Even if Bruce's contention that MS has managed to avoid corporate income taxes is true, that still doesn't tell the whole story. They are still subject to sales taxes, inventory taxes, head taxes, etc, plus the income taxes paid by their employees on their earnings. I can pretty well guarentee that when the cumulative taxes Microsoft pays are considered, the return on investment to the taxpayer will be very impressive.
This is the part that doesn't get considered in these discussions. Rather than create an incentive for private corps to improve open source software and release their improvements, GPL creates an incentive for them to avoid it like the plauge. Consider how few software companies base their products on GPL code, and of the few who do, how few are actually turning a profit. While companies such as IBM and HP are prepared to make friendly with the GPL, you have to consider that these are primarily hardware vendors. They gain more from additional hardware sales than they lose by making (some) of their IP public. But for a pure software house like MS, the GPL is poison. I guarentee they'll never touch a GPLed product of any consequence with a ten foot pole. I love Linux and other GPLed software, but unfortunately the GPL virtually destroys any profit incentive a private corp might have to make use of the code base. And thus you lose a large part of the benefit of your taxpayer funded software.
Further, the contention that you are paying for the software twice is disingenuous. This is just as true for Linux as it is for Windows. There is plenty of software in your boxed set of Red Hat based on technology developed on government funding. Even if the implementation of TCP/IP is original, the original development of the technology was done at government expense. If you're going to be honest, you have to factor in the cost of the original development of the technology, not just the cost of the specific implementation.
Bruce may know how to code, but I think he's in need of a course in economics.
I think this is great news, it's good that Apple is at least benignly tolerating Linux on their platform, even if not actively encouraging it.
I don't see the value of this so much for Apple, but for the Linux/PPC platform in general. Linux PPC, unlike OS X, does not run uniquely on the Apple platform, other implementations are possible. And there have been some interesting developments in the PPC/Power world lately, for example:
IBM's newly announced desktop PPC processor. Possibly this will be the successor to the G4 in Apple's offerings.
Also, the new Amiga platform will be PPC based, and also runs Linux. Whether this new platform will have any substantial success is still open to speculation, but it will be an interesting experiment, whatever the outcome.
Also, IBM is looking to eventually migrate their mainframe line over to the Power architechture, probably starting with the Power6.
It would be nice to see some competition to the x86 in the commodity processor market. I was ready to write off PPC/Power as doomed, but the recent flurry of activity on that front has caused me to re-evaluate my position. And an OS like Linux which can run across all the various implementations of the architecture would be great for encouraging it's propogation. Imagine applications that are binary compatable across everything from your iBook to a mainframe.
Sounds like duplication of effort, one of the common features of Open Source projects. But that's the great part about it. Give a thousand monkeys a paintbrush and eventually...
Yeah, that would have been awful. If it'd happened, slavery and racism would have continued to exist until well into the 1900s, and even now, blacks would suffer bad treatment at the hands of whites.
Here's an alternate construction of what would have happened, first put forth by Winston Churchill:
The Confederacy, being highly dependent on trade with Britain, would have eventually been forced to end slavery to retain favor of the British.
The United States, as such, would not have entered the WWI, and Britain and Germany would have eventually declared armistace on essentially equal terms. Germany would have not been forced into the repairations which economically devistated them, and would have had no incentive to aid Lenin in the overthrow of the Czar. Wilhelm would have remained on the throne of Germany, precluding Hitler's rise to power. There would have been no WWII, no holocaust, and no incentive to establish Israel as a Jewish state. And obviously, that would have altered the current situation in the mid-east considerably.
IBM probably figures that they can make a big chunk of change in this field two ways. The direct revenue from consulting, and I suppose the PWC consultants will be "suggesting" IBM solutions for their clients a lot more often now. Win-win for IBM if they can manage the business right.
If they can manage it right. IIRC, EDS had the same big idea when they bought A.T. Kearney. After that, it was all down hill for EDS. As a former employee of EDS, and a current employee of IBM, I'm not happy to hear this.
So basically, Sears broke off a long-standing contract with IBM (although that contract may have been up for renewal) to roll out an NT distribution across several thousand desktops.
Actually, that probably happened at the behest of IBM themselves. They've been encouraging a migration off of OS/2 for several years now. But there are still some companies that swear by OS/2, though. I know as recently as 2001 there were still several business units at the Bank of America that were still using it, and were fighting like tigers to avoid migrating to Windows. Don't know if they're using it still.