This page also has a link to a complaint form where you can send your Microsoft gripes.
I don't live in Massachusetts, but I'm thinking about writing anyway. I think we should take the time to formulate a few good letters to send to the Mass. Attorney General. In particular, we can address some of the following points (of course this is an incomplete list):
Lack of OEM support for non-Microsoft software. While there are several computer companies offering Linux pre-installed on their systems, the average consumer probably isn't aware of these companies. Even the "Linux aware" crowd has to use a little extra effort to ensure they are getting Linux-friendly systems.
Why major computer distributors don't offer their systems without Windows at a reduced price. Unless you put forth the (extra) effort to find a Linux OEM, you probably can't get a computer without an operating system (at least from major distributors). The Massachusetts Attorney General should investigate potential strong-arming with OEMs.
How the Microsoft monopoly perpetuates itself through vendor lock-in and closed, proprietary data formats. If enough people push hard enough, maybe the Mass. Attorney General could actually get Microsoft to publish complete, correct documentation for their data formats. (I'm starting to write letters/articles addressing this issue that I intend to send to editorials.)
I'd almost be willing to send money to support this effort. As another poster pointed out, most states' budgets are all but completely depleted, and I'm sure Massachusetts can't afford to work this too long. But if we generated some funds, or at least made our voice loud enough, we might live to see a leveled playing field.
All in all, I think the fundamental problem is lack of information. The average person probably isn't aware that the Microsoft monopoly compromises his rights (and is effectively a tax on computer hardware); most folks don't understand proprietary data formats or vendor lock-in; most people don't realize the scope of Microsoft's questionable business practices...
Get the word out, get the word out, get the word out!
open standards, open standards, open standards...
on
Bill Gates On Linux
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
As much as I love Linux and the free software movement, my biggest (personal) agenda is educating people about the pitfalls of proprietary data formats (vendor lock-in) and the freedom of open standards (choice).
I think Bill's interview is typical PR material; anyone from MS's marketing group could probably give the same interview. But what scares me, is that every time Microsoft "innovates", all they really do is make stuff that is incompatible with anything non-Microsoft (and sometimes their own products aren't compatible!)
That in mind, it seems more important to me to promote open standards than Linux itself. Of course I would love to see Linux have a respectable desktop market share for better OEM support. But what good is my Linux machine if I can't even surf the web because too many web pages are written only for IE? How much of a pain is it if I have to tell everyone to resend their MS Office documents in a format I can read (OOo won't always cut it)?
And now we're seeing some cases where the US and/or state governments' are officially blessing Microsoft's otherwise incompatible data formats---this should be criminal! Public information that is avaialable electronically (either through the web or some other means) should not dictate which software is used to view, edit, modify or interact with that data.
If you go to a "IE only" government website, you're effectively seeing a tax funded advertisement for Microsoft. Your taxes paid for the software purchase, for the staff to setup and maintain that system, and now you're effectively taxed again by being forced into purchasing some (very expensive) software. And people call open source communist?!
I think we need to put some effort into a strong "inform the masses" campaign. An easy first step is to write editorials to your local paper brining to light the dangers of proprietary data formats and vendor lock-in. I was thinking about pre-scripting a lot of these letters and posting them on my website for all to use/borrow/steal/whatever. These letters also need to be sent to government representatives.
The article should contain proposed solutions. As much as we love Linux and friends, we can't beat it down peoples' throats. Some other viable thoughts:
More pressure on Microsoft to release specs on their proprietary stuff (e.g. Office, IE-only features, etc) and insist on reference implementations for these data formats.
Push for legislation that guarantees public data sytems will use an open format (e.g. the OOo format)
Finally, I think it's important to have some good, strong analogies or metaphores to illustrate the negative impact of the Microsoft monopoly (and their use of proprietray, non-compatible data formats). The most obvious analogy, to me, is as follows:
What if Ford Motor Co. owned all the roads in the U.S.? Surely they would design the roads such that only Ford vehicles worked on them. And furthermore, they would hide behind IP laws to make it illegal for anyone to make a car for their roads. What if Ford only offered one or two models of cars that actually worked on these roads? And those cars were their most expensive?
If the above scenario were true, public outrage would be rampant. Most people simply don't realize that this contrived situation is the case with Microsoft. Worse, people don't understand the implications of Microsoft literally owning your data.
Welcome to the United States of Microsoft, comrade.
Maybe this has already been contrived, but, if not, here's my guess as to what's going on...
Microsoft wants to kill Linux and open source friends, but they don't want bad press
SCO is a company that's not doing too well; their stock sucks and they either want a lot of money NOW or want to get bought out
So Microsoft secrety offers to buy SCO if they generate a bunch of bad publicity for Linux. If SCO wins the case, all the better, if not, they still seeded the doubt of Linux's legality
Furthermore, wasn't it Caldera (now SCO) that originally brought the Microsoft antitrust case to court? Knowing very little about the details of that case, and how such things work, I ask: what are the implications of Microsoft buying the ones who brought the case to court? Though nothing substantial has come of the antitrust case, it's still a thorn in Microsoft's ass. If they could somehow reduce the weight of the antitrust case...
A co-worker and I regularly have some semi-heated discussions, given that I'm pro-OSS and he's very much anti-OSS (and pro-Microsoft to boot).
He subscribes to the GNU software = communism FUD. Although I disagree, I do get a bit worried when he makes the following point: the issue isn't about whether or not Linux has code stolen from SCO, it's about their intellectual property. My co-worker loves to make the point that when you talk about open source software, it's about communal ownership of intellectual property (and I agree, that's the whole point). But he claims that principle clashes with capitalism, because, eventually, some open source software will look a lot like some commercial offering. Even if there's no actual stolen code, the commerical compnay will see it as an intellectual property violation---they're going to come looking for their due profits.
John Dvorak kind of hints to this in the following article:
Code or no code, it's possible that SCO sees their concepts or ideas being used in Linux, probably something they could (at one time) consider a competetive advantage.
How hard would it have been for some IBM staff working with SCO during their deal to go home and put the same ideas or technology (in the general sense, i.e. no actual code) into Linux?
I'm afraid the Dvorak article makes the following valid point: this whole mess is bad for Linux unless it's completely thrown out. The worst case is a settlement or ruling in favor of SCO: it sets a precedent for other companies to sue open source businesses for intellectual property theft.
This is slightly off-topic, yet somewhat related... What about contributing ideas or concepts to open source that were developed at your place of work?
A co-worker and I were having this discussion with regards to the SCO vs IBM case: say I'm developing some technology at work, a state-of-the-art journaling filesystem for example. Now I go home at night and work on an open source journaling filesystem. All the code between work and open source projects is separate (i.e. absolutely no code sharing). However, there are certain concepts and ideas that I will inevitably borrow from my work project and put in the open source project.
Now we have a potential SCO vs IBM situation on hand: my company finds out that there is some open source using very similar technology (to their own patented or copyrighted work). My company is going to want royalties for this!
Although a lot of us open sourcers are taking the SCO vs. IBM situation lightly, if it does happen to go in SCO's favor (either by court decision or settlement), it's sets a precedent for companies to go scouring all open source code for possible IP infringement. This will scare corporations away from open source in a heartbeat.
Slashdot Mirror
Massachusetts Attorney General
This page also has a link to a complaint form where you can send your Microsoft gripes.
I don't live in Massachusetts, but I'm thinking about writing anyway. I think we should take the time to formulate a few good letters to send to the Mass. Attorney General. In particular, we can address some of the following points (of course this is an incomplete list):
- Lack of OEM support for non-Microsoft software. While there are several computer companies offering Linux pre-installed on their systems, the average consumer probably isn't aware of these companies. Even the "Linux aware" crowd has to use a little extra effort to ensure they are getting Linux-friendly systems.
- Why major computer distributors don't offer their systems without Windows at a reduced price. Unless you put forth the (extra) effort to find a Linux OEM, you probably can't get a computer without an operating system (at least from major distributors). The Massachusetts Attorney General should investigate potential strong-arming with OEMs.
- How the Microsoft monopoly perpetuates itself through vendor lock-in and closed, proprietary data formats. If enough people push hard enough, maybe the Mass. Attorney General could actually get Microsoft to publish complete, correct documentation for their data formats. (I'm starting to write letters/articles addressing this issue that I intend to send to editorials.)
I'd almost be willing to send money to support this effort. As another poster pointed out, most states' budgets are all but completely depleted, and I'm sure Massachusetts can't afford to work this too long. But if we generated some funds, or at least made our voice loud enough, we might live to see a leveled playing field.All in all, I think the fundamental problem is lack of information. The average person probably isn't aware that the Microsoft monopoly compromises his rights (and is effectively a tax on computer hardware); most folks don't understand proprietary data formats or vendor lock-in; most people don't realize the scope of Microsoft's questionable business practices...
Get the word out, get the word out, get the word out!
I think Bill's interview is typical PR material; anyone from MS's marketing group could probably give the same interview. But what scares me, is that every time Microsoft "innovates", all they really do is make stuff that is incompatible with anything non-Microsoft (and sometimes their own products aren't compatible!)
That in mind, it seems more important to me to promote open standards than Linux itself. Of course I would love to see Linux have a respectable desktop market share for better OEM support. But what good is my Linux machine if I can't even surf the web because too many web pages are written only for IE? How much of a pain is it if I have to tell everyone to resend their MS Office documents in a format I can read (OOo won't always cut it)?
And now we're seeing some cases where the US and/or state governments' are officially blessing Microsoft's otherwise incompatible data formats---this should be criminal! Public information that is avaialable electronically (either through the web or some other means) should not dictate which software is used to view, edit, modify or interact with that data.
If you go to a "IE only" government website, you're effectively seeing a tax funded advertisement for Microsoft. Your taxes paid for the software purchase, for the staff to setup and maintain that system, and now you're effectively taxed again by being forced into purchasing some (very expensive) software. And people call open source communist?!
I think we need to put some effort into a strong "inform the masses" campaign. An easy first step is to write editorials to your local paper brining to light the dangers of proprietary data formats and vendor lock-in. I was thinking about pre-scripting a lot of these letters and posting them on my website for all to use/borrow/steal/whatever. These letters also need to be sent to government representatives.
The article should contain proposed solutions. As much as we love Linux and friends, we can't beat it down peoples' throats. Some other viable thoughts:
Finally, I think it's important to have some good, strong analogies or metaphores to illustrate the negative impact of the Microsoft monopoly (and their use of proprietray, non-compatible data formats). The most obvious analogy, to me, is as follows:
What if Ford Motor Co. owned all the roads in the U.S.? Surely they would design the roads such that only Ford vehicles worked on them. And furthermore, they would hide behind IP laws to make it illegal for anyone to make a car for their roads. What if Ford only offered one or two models of cars that actually worked on these roads? And those cars were their most expensive?
If the above scenario were true, public outrage would be rampant. Most people simply don't realize that this contrived situation is the case with Microsoft. Worse, people don't understand the implications of Microsoft literally owning your data.
Welcome to the United States of Microsoft, comrade.
Furthermore, wasn't it Caldera (now SCO) that originally brought the Microsoft antitrust case to court? Knowing very little about the details of that case, and how such things work, I ask: what are the implications of Microsoft buying the ones who brought the case to court? Though nothing substantial has come of the antitrust case, it's still a thorn in Microsoft's ass. If they could somehow reduce the weight of the antitrust case...
-shrug-
He subscribes to the GNU software = communism FUD. Although I disagree, I do get a bit worried when he makes the following point: the issue isn't about whether or not Linux has code stolen from SCO, it's about their intellectual property. My co-worker loves to make the point that when you talk about open source software, it's about communal ownership of intellectual property (and I agree, that's the whole point). But he claims that principle clashes with capitalism, because, eventually, some open source software will look a lot like some commercial offering. Even if there's no actual stolen code, the commerical compnay will see it as an intellectual property violation---they're going to come looking for their due profits.
John Dvorak kind of hints to this in the following article:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1115156,00.a
Code or no code, it's possible that SCO sees their concepts or ideas being used in Linux, probably something they could (at one time) consider a competetive advantage.
How hard would it have been for some IBM staff working with SCO during their deal to go home and put the same ideas or technology (in the general sense, i.e. no actual code) into Linux?
I'm afraid the Dvorak article makes the following valid point: this whole mess is bad for Linux unless it's completely thrown out. The worst case is a settlement or ruling in favor of SCO: it sets a precedent for other companies to sue open source businesses for intellectual property theft.
A co-worker and I were having this discussion with regards to the SCO vs IBM case: say I'm developing some technology at work, a state-of-the-art journaling filesystem for example. Now I go home at night and work on an open source journaling filesystem. All the code between work and open source projects is separate (i.e. absolutely no code sharing). However, there are certain concepts and ideas that I will inevitably borrow from my work project and put in the open source project.
Now we have a potential SCO vs IBM situation on hand: my company finds out that there is some open source using very similar technology (to their own patented or copyrighted work). My company is going to want royalties for this!
Although a lot of us open sourcers are taking the SCO vs. IBM situation lightly, if it does happen to go in SCO's favor (either by court decision or settlement), it's sets a precedent for companies to go scouring all open source code for possible IP infringement. This will scare corporations away from open source in a heartbeat.