"1. The license only applies to works created to work on the windows operating system. As far as I know no other Open Source license is limited to a particular OS."
You're showing your ignorance. MS has 5 shared source licenses. MS-PL, MS-CL, MS-LSL, MS-LCL, MS-RL. You're referring to the MS-LPL and MS-LCL, which are not on the table for OSI approval. Only MS-PL and MS-CL are at issue.
"What I find interesting is not just that this has received a lot of criticism and opposition, but that one of the key opponents is Chris DiBona, open source programs manager for Google, Inc. "
From reading the OSI discussion list, DiBona is virtually the ONLY person raising criticism and opposition. This summary is widely innacurate.
iWork '08 supports OOXML. The idea that OOXML isn't documented well enough to be supported is FUD. Too bad you swallowed it. Then again, as a MS-hater, you were predispsposed to swallow it. Here's an idea: Whenever you see any story regarding MS, replace the word "Microsoft" with whatever your favorite tech company is, and see if you feel the same way about it, just to see if your bias is getting in the way of understanding the issues at hand or not.
So Adobe leverages its monopoly on rich web plugins and/or documents to gain access to the Office market? Maybe. Theres a few problems though: 1. Your scenario assumes Adobe would gives its stuff away for free. They won't.
2. OSes already come with basic word processors (e.g. Windows has WordPad, Mac has TextEdit) which are already powerful enough for most users anyway. So Adobe bundling something into Flash/Acrobat wouldn't achieive higher penetration than what OSes already provide. Why use some Flash-Wordprocessor rather than WordPad/TextEdit?
Anyway, Adobe is no threat to MS Office. It may be a threat to OO.o and Google Docs/Spreadheets.
"Microsoft has hired third parties with expertise in the area for Unix ports in the past - Internet Explorer for UNIX was ported by Mainsoft."
But why hire when you can get OSS devs to do the work for free?
Re:This is a FAILURE of the OPEN SOURCE Community
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Ubuntu Servers Hacked
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LOL The fact is, 99% of those that talk of a million eyes constantly pouring over OSS code haven't looked at even one line of code (of projects they don't directly contribute to) themselves. The million eyes thing is a myth. I guarantee you that 90% of slashdotters haven't looked at linux code any more than they have windows code.
Apparently Linux and Mac UK users are pissed that their taxes go to the BBC yet they can't use iPlayer because it's currently a Windows only thing.
Here's the solution: Divide the cost required to support a particular platform among the users of that platform. For instance, let's say it takes two million dollars to support iPlayer on Windows, two million to support it on Linux, and two million to support it on Mac. OK, so the obvious solution is for the BBC to charge all of its Windows users a combined two million dollars in fees/taxes, charge all of its Linux users the same, and its Mac users the same. Of course, since Windows has 92% userbase share, Mac has 5%, and Linux as 1%, each Linux user would pay 5 times as much as a Mac user and 92 times more than a Windows user, but fair is fair. If you don't go along with this, then what you're asking the BBC to do is to go out of its way spending tax dollars paid by 92% of its users (Windows users) just to satisfy 1% of its users (Linux users). Let Linux users pay the amount it takes to support Linux.
Or, let the BBC refund to each Linux user the handful of pounds of his taxes that went into iPlayer.
Um, what do you mean by "current" generation vs the "Me" generation? Is the "Me" generation not a "current" generation? There are 4 or 5 generations alive right now which are all "current" generations.
"So if you don't provide support... Someone else will for a price or they'll move to another more support friendly package. "
That's another problem with relying on support. If a company spends millions developing software, gives it away for free, then charges for support, there's nothing preventing another company from charging for support of the same software.
Hell, this is even the case for closed-source software, where support is provided in ways other than tweaking the actual code. For example, there are lots of books on Photoshop, 3D-Studio Max, Auto Cad, etc, that provide support for those closed-source apps, and the money those books bring in goes to parties other than the companies that created the software. And there are companies that specialize in supporting closed-source software through on-hands administration, tweaking of settings, etc.
OSS adds the ability for a company that did not originally create the software to support software by tweaking the actual code.
In all of those cases, the company that created the software is getting none of those support dollars. Even if the creating company provides its own support (its own books, its own administration people, its own coders), it may be that some other company is better at "support" than they are. So, the creating company spent millions to develop software and others are getting rich by supporting said software. Now, if the creating company sells its software (and either does or does not charge for support), then they make money even if others that specialize in support make the lion's share of support money.
"Can we please leave "evil" out of this? Evil belongs in religious texts and fanatical dogmas, not in software."
To RMS disciples, FLOSS is a "religion", with RMS as their Lord and Savior. So the term "evil" is perfectly proper to use, from their religious point of view.
Let's say that a company makes a very popular video/computer game, like id did with DOOM and DOOM II. These games require no "support", certainly not support worth charging for. How would id have made money on "support" for DOOM and DOOM II? There are lots of software that have great value that require no "support". Why do you guys think that software can't be valuable in itself and only "support" is of value? What is the basis for such logic?
Besides, companies that rely on "support" have an incentive to make sure that their software *requires* support, by making it difficult to use in some way (poor UI, inflexible, buggy, etc). Companies that rely on up-front payment rather than support have an incentive to make their software as close to perfect as possible. Under your utopia, a company that makes a poor accounting program that requires lots of support would thrive while a company that made a great accounting program that required no support would go bankrupt.
"If you're talking about games, there are several ways you can do a free software game. You release the engine as free software and then assert copyright on the artistic assets like textures, sound, music, character design, etc. You would be charging for your ideas, not for your software, if that makes sense, and users would not be able to freely distribute the artistic assets. "
This is utter bullshit.
Let's say that I have a company that invested millions of dollars in developing a kick-ass engine. My company has every moral right to license it out to others for a fee; it's in no way "evil". You expect my company to give its engine that cost millions to develop away for free and then come up with designs for clothing, characters, music, and art and charge for those instead? My hypothetical company's expertise is game engines, not game art. If forced to rely on "art" for revenue, we'd fail because "art" isn't our expertise, and any "art" we created would suck and nobody would want to pay for it. But my hypothetical company kicks ass at making game engines, and many are willing to pay for it. Why is it "evil" to license our game engine?
The ethical compass of RMS and his disciples is completely broken.
"AppleTV is $300 and HD DVD is $500, and you can get a PS3 if you want Blu-Ray for not much more than that. "
Um, AppleTV can't play protected HD-DVD or BR discs. And dedicated HD-DVD players and BR players implement the very same DRM that Vista does, so they will downlgrade video under the same circumstances (which are NOT the circumstances that the widely incorrect article lists).
I'd say that 99.999999% of playback time for HD-DVDs or BR discs are played on dedicated HD-DVD and BR players, which do support the required DRM. The remaining 0.000001% of the time, such discs are played on computers. Vista's implementing the DRM so that it can play these discs legally won't significantly increase the market penetration of DRM more than HD-DVD and BR players already have.
It's better for Vista users that Vista is able to play these discs legally, unlike other OSes that can't play them at all. (Now, if you want to play them *illegally* (i.e. breaking the DRM in violation of DCMA), then you can do that on any OS, including Vista.)
Um, no. Vista downgrades HD videos only if: a. They are DRM'ed videos AND b. they have the Image Constraint Token flag set AND c. the user is playing displaying them on a non-HDCP monitor.
In other words, Vista is doing what every HD-DVD and BluRay player does, in respecting the ICT flag (BTW, almost no HD-DVD or BR discs even have the flag set, and won't until 2010, by which time many will have HDCP monitors). Would you rather that Vista simply be unable to play these videos, like Linux?
This incident shows the pitfalls of DRM, but Google didn't HAVE to do this. When Microsoft shutdown their MSN Music Store (the music store portion of http://music.msn.com/ ), they kept the DRM servers in place so users that had purchased music from there could still obtain DRM licenses for the music as needed (for example, when moving the music to a new computer). Google has *plenty* of money and ability to do the same. This is a BS move by Google.
"I don't trust no one, especially closed-source drivers from ATI."
If you really "trust no one", then open-source drivers won't do you much good either, because in order to trust them, you'd have to trust those that take time to audit the code. Or are you going to sit there and pretend that you, yourself, are qualified to audit the code of every driver you use AND that you'd actually take the time to do it?
That Adobe "monopolist" quote is 4 months old. Did that quote really need to be dragged out again for this story? (BTW, Adobe has some nerve calling someone else a "monopolist" when Adobe tried to collude with MS in price fixing to protect its own Office to PDF export monopoly (Adobe proposed that MS could include PDF export functionality in Office 2k7 if MS up'ed the price so as not to undercut Adobe's Office PDF-export tools.))
And Silverlight is already working on Macs, so the question of Silverlight being "compatilble with non-Windows operating systems" is more 4-month old FUD.
The submitter should've just gone with the story at hand, not dig up a 4-month old story about Adobe's fears of competing with Silverlight.
"I tend to use http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php more than the w3schools stats, they're usually more accurate since w3schools has a very specific audience."
It may be more accurate, but still not very, considering that it says that Latvia makes up 4% of web usage.;)
I don't have a problem with patents, even for software. But I believe that in order for a patent to be enforceable, the patent holder must: A. Make a good faith effort to market a product using the technology in question. AND/OR B. License the patent at reasonable prices in a timely manner. (That is, no waiting for years for someone else's product that might infringe on your patent to become popular, then popping-up out of nowhere demanding billions.)
C. If a patent holder discovers at a late date that some popular product does infringe on his patent, then he must make good faith effort to license the patent using the price he would've asked for before the offending product became popular.
Microsoft made good faith effort to license the technology in question from Fraunhofer for $16 million. But Alcatel-Lucent claimed that Microsoft licensed it from the wrong party. Even if that were the case, then Microsoft should only have been ordered to pay ~$16 million to Alcatel-Lucent, not 1.5 billion. That's why I felt the jury decision was BS. Why apply punitive damages to Microsoft when they made good faith effort to comply with the patent?
"In fact, open source has conclusively, and probably forever, denied Microsoft a monopoly in the server market."
If you look at the netcraft graph, Apache denied Netscape and Sun far more than Microsoft. When Apache entered the market, Netscape servers ruled the roost, followed by Sun. By the time Microsoft entered the arena, Apache was becoming the dominant player, and destroyed Netscape and Sun shortly thereafter. Then Microsoft started to make some headway in 2002, then Apache increased its lead to 50 percentage points in 2005, but Microsoft has gained ever since Nov 2005 to cut Apache's lead to its smallest yet today (12 percentage points). In fact, the opposite of what you state is true - Microsoft denied Apache a monopoly in the web server space, not the other way around.
Oh, and it's not just "parked sites". The GoDaddy switch was a one time thing and doesn't explain Microsoft's continuous rise since then. (And it's likely that Apache still has many more parked sites than IIS does.)
Slashdot Mirror
"1. The license only applies to works created to work on the windows operating system. As far as I know no other Open Source license is limited to a particular OS."
You're showing your ignorance. MS has 5 shared source licenses.
MS-PL, MS-CL, MS-LSL, MS-LCL, MS-RL. You're referring to the MS-LPL and MS-LCL, which are not on the table for OSI approval. Only MS-PL and MS-CL are at issue.
"What I find interesting is not just that this has received a lot of criticism and opposition, but that one of the key opponents is Chris DiBona, open source programs manager for Google, Inc. "
From reading the OSI discussion list, DiBona is virtually the ONLY person raising criticism and opposition. This summary is widely innacurate.
iWork '08 supports OOXML. The idea that OOXML isn't documented well enough to be supported is FUD. Too bad you swallowed it. Then again, as a MS-hater, you were predispsposed to swallow it. Here's an idea: Whenever you see any story regarding MS, replace the word "Microsoft" with whatever your favorite tech company is, and see if you feel the same way about it, just to see if your bias is getting in the way of understanding the issues at hand or not.
So Adobe leverages its monopoly on rich web plugins and/or documents to gain access to the Office market? Maybe. Theres a few problems though:
1. Your scenario assumes Adobe would gives its stuff away for free. They won't.
2. OSes already come with basic word processors (e.g. Windows has WordPad, Mac has TextEdit) which are already powerful enough for most users anyway. So Adobe bundling something into Flash/Acrobat wouldn't achieive higher penetration than what OSes already provide. Why use some Flash-Wordprocessor rather than WordPad/TextEdit?
Anyway, Adobe is no threat to MS Office. It may be a threat to OO.o and Google Docs/Spreadheets.
"Microsoft has hired third parties with expertise in the area for Unix ports in the past - Internet Explorer for UNIX was ported by Mainsoft."
But why hire when you can get OSS devs to do the work for free?
LOL
The fact is, 99% of those that talk of a million eyes constantly pouring over OSS code haven't looked at even one line of code (of projects they don't directly contribute to) themselves. The million eyes thing is a myth. I guarantee you that 90% of slashdotters haven't looked at linux code any more than they have windows code.
Apparently Linux and Mac UK users are pissed that their taxes go to the BBC yet they can't use iPlayer because it's currently a Windows only thing.
Here's the solution:
Divide the cost required to support a particular platform among the users of that platform.
For instance, let's say it takes two million dollars to support iPlayer on Windows, two million to support it on Linux, and two million to support it on Mac. OK, so the obvious solution is for the BBC to charge all of its Windows users a combined two million dollars in fees/taxes, charge all of its Linux users the same, and its Mac users the same. Of course, since Windows has 92% userbase share, Mac has 5%, and Linux as 1%, each Linux user would pay 5 times as much as a Mac user and 92 times more than a Windows user, but fair is fair. If you don't go along with this, then what you're asking the BBC to do is to go out of its way spending tax dollars paid by 92% of its users (Windows users) just to satisfy 1% of its users (Linux users). Let Linux users pay the amount it takes to support Linux.
Or, let the BBC refund to each Linux user the handful of pounds of his taxes that went into iPlayer.
"You think the FSF will be happy with Microsoft WMV DLLs?"
Who gives a shit?
RMS != GOD.
Mono devs have expertise in Linux, MS devs don't. So why not leverage Mono devs' expertise to do the Linux port?
Secondly, then whole idea behind OSS from a corporation's perspective is to get OSS devs to do the work for free. If IBM can do this, so can MS.
Um, what do you mean by "current" generation vs the "Me" generation? Is the "Me" generation not a "current" generation? There are 4 or 5 generations alive right now which are all "current" generations.
"So if you don't provide support... Someone else will for a price or they'll move to another more support friendly package. "
That's another problem with relying on support. If a company spends millions developing software, gives it away for free, then charges for support, there's nothing preventing another company from charging for support of the same software.
Hell, this is even the case for closed-source software, where support is provided in ways other than tweaking the actual code. For example, there are lots of books on Photoshop, 3D-Studio Max, Auto Cad, etc, that provide support for those closed-source apps, and the money those books bring in goes to parties other than the companies that created the software. And there are companies that specialize in supporting closed-source software through on-hands administration, tweaking of settings, etc.
OSS adds the ability for a company that did not originally create the software to support software by tweaking the actual code.
In all of those cases, the company that created the software is getting none of those support dollars. Even if the creating company provides its own support (its own books, its own administration people, its own coders), it may be that some other company is better at "support" than they are. So, the creating company spent millions to develop software and others are getting rich by supporting said software. Now, if the creating company sells its software (and either does or does not charge for support), then they make money even if others that specialize in support make the lion's share of support money.
"Can we please leave "evil" out of this? Evil belongs in religious texts and fanatical dogmas, not in software."
To RMS disciples, FLOSS is a "religion", with RMS as their Lord and Savior. So the term "evil" is perfectly proper to use, from their religious point of view.
Let's say that a company makes a very popular video/computer game, like id did with DOOM and DOOM II. These games require no "support", certainly not support worth charging for. How would id have made money on "support" for DOOM and DOOM II? There are lots of software that have great value that require no "support". Why do you guys think that software can't be valuable in itself and only "support" is of value? What is the basis for such logic?
Besides, companies that rely on "support" have an incentive to make sure that their software *requires* support, by making it difficult to use in some way (poor UI, inflexible, buggy, etc). Companies that rely on up-front payment rather than support have an incentive to make their software as close to perfect as possible. Under your utopia, a company that makes a poor accounting program that requires lots of support would thrive while a company that made a great accounting program that required no support would go bankrupt.
"If you're talking about games, there are several ways you can do a free software game. You release the engine as free software and then assert copyright on the artistic assets like textures, sound, music, character design, etc. You would be charging for your ideas, not for your software, if that makes sense, and users would not be able to freely distribute the artistic assets. "
This is utter bullshit.
Let's say that I have a company that invested millions of dollars in developing a kick-ass engine. My company has every moral right to license it out to others for a fee; it's in no way "evil". You expect my company to give its engine that cost millions to develop away for free and then come up with designs for clothing, characters, music, and art and charge for those instead? My hypothetical company's expertise is game engines, not game art. If forced to rely on "art" for revenue, we'd fail because "art" isn't our expertise, and any "art" we created would suck and nobody would want to pay for it. But my hypothetical company kicks ass at making game engines, and many are willing to pay for it. Why is it "evil" to license our game engine?
The ethical compass of RMS and his disciples is completely broken.
"AppleTV is $300 and HD DVD is $500, and you can get a PS3 if you want Blu-Ray for not much more than that. "
Um, AppleTV can't play protected HD-DVD or BR discs.
And dedicated HD-DVD players and BR players implement the very same DRM that Vista does, so they will downlgrade video under the same circumstances (which are NOT the circumstances that the widely incorrect article lists).
Get real.
I'd say that 99.999999% of playback time for HD-DVDs or BR discs are played on dedicated HD-DVD and BR players, which do support the required DRM. The remaining 0.000001% of the time, such discs are played on computers. Vista's implementing the DRM so that it can play these discs legally won't significantly increase the market penetration of DRM more than HD-DVD and BR players already have.
It's better for Vista users that Vista is able to play these discs legally, unlike other OSes that can't play them at all. (Now, if you want to play them *illegally* (i.e. breaking the DRM in violation of DCMA), then you can do that on any OS, including Vista.)
Um, no.
Vista downgrades HD videos only if:
a. They are DRM'ed videos AND
b. they have the Image Constraint Token flag set AND
c. the user is playing displaying them on a non-HDCP monitor.
In other words, Vista is doing what every HD-DVD and BluRay player does, in respecting the ICT flag (BTW, almost no HD-DVD or BR discs even have the flag set, and won't until 2010, by which time many will have HDCP monitors). Would you rather that Vista simply be unable to play these videos, like Linux?
This incident shows the pitfalls of DRM, but Google didn't HAVE to do this.
When Microsoft shutdown their MSN Music Store (the music store portion of http://music.msn.com/ ), they kept the DRM servers in place so users that had purchased music from there could still obtain DRM licenses for the music as needed (for example, when moving the music to a new computer). Google has *plenty* of money and ability to do the same. This is a BS move by Google.
"I don't trust no one, especially closed-source drivers from ATI."
If you really "trust no one", then open-source drivers won't do you much good either, because in order to trust them, you'd have to trust those that take time to audit the code. Or are you going to sit there and pretend that you, yourself, are qualified to audit the code of every driver you use AND that you'd actually take the time to do it?
Oh, shut up.
BTW, iWork '08, which Apple just released supports OOXML. So stop with the OOXML == lock-in FUD.
"Adobe's CEO, calling Microsoft a '$50 billion monopolist,' has questioned whether Silverlight will be compatible with non-Windows operating systems..."
That Adobe "monopolist" quote is 4 months old. Did that quote really need to be dragged out again for this story?
(BTW, Adobe has some nerve calling someone else a "monopolist" when Adobe tried to collude with MS in price fixing to protect its own Office to PDF export monopoly (Adobe proposed that MS could include PDF export functionality in Office 2k7 if MS up'ed the price so as not to undercut Adobe's Office PDF-export tools.))
And Silverlight is already working on Macs, so the question of Silverlight being "compatilble with non-Windows operating systems" is more 4-month old FUD.
The submitter should've just gone with the story at hand, not dig up a 4-month old story about Adobe's fears of competing with Silverlight.
"I tend to use http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php more than the w3schools stats, they're usually more accurate since w3schools has a very specific audience."
;)
It may be more accurate, but still not very, considering that it says that Latvia makes up 4% of web usage.
I don't have a problem with patents, even for software.
But I believe that in order for a patent to be enforceable, the patent holder must:
A. Make a good faith effort to market a product using the technology in question.
AND/OR
B. License the patent at reasonable prices in a timely manner. (That is, no waiting for years for someone else's product that might infringe on your patent to become popular, then popping-up out of nowhere demanding billions.)
C. If a patent holder discovers at a late date that some popular product does infringe on his patent, then he must make good faith effort to license the patent using the price he would've asked for before the offending product became popular.
Microsoft made good faith effort to license the technology in question from Fraunhofer for $16 million. But Alcatel-Lucent claimed that Microsoft licensed it from the wrong party. Even if that were the case, then Microsoft should only have been ordered to pay ~$16 million to Alcatel-Lucent, not 1.5 billion. That's why I felt the jury decision was BS. Why apply punitive damages to Microsoft when they made good faith effort to comply with the patent?
"In fact, open source has conclusively, and probably forever, denied Microsoft a monopoly in the server market."
If you look at the netcraft graph, Apache denied Netscape and Sun far more than Microsoft. When Apache entered the market, Netscape servers ruled the roost, followed by Sun. By the time Microsoft entered the arena, Apache was becoming the dominant player, and destroyed Netscape and Sun shortly thereafter. Then Microsoft started to make some headway in 2002, then Apache increased its lead to 50 percentage points in 2005, but Microsoft has gained ever since Nov 2005 to cut Apache's lead to its smallest yet today (12 percentage points). In fact, the opposite of what you state is true - Microsoft denied Apache a monopoly in the web server space, not the other way around.
Oh, and it's not just "parked sites". The GoDaddy switch was a one time thing and doesn't explain Microsoft's continuous rise since then. (And it's likely that Apache still has many more parked sites than IIS does.)