If any company has even a thought of entering the desktop market, they have to focus on their commitment to sales. Sounds easy, right? But that commitment means showing up for sales meetings and making sure the customer is happy not only with your product, but with your company as well.
Microsoft didn't get to market dominance by ignoring their customers. The problem they have had in the past has been a pit bull aggression toward their competitors. This often left the customer with half finished products, but their early focus was to move the product closer to what the customer wanted at all times. Their focus has changed now that they dominate the market, but their competitive drive still remains on steroids.
Compare that to a Linux vendor who was supposed to speak at our company today. They set up two consecutive meetings with our company and a LUG to show how their software would not only provide a good user experience, but would also convince skeptical IT personnel that their product was a ready replacement or alternative to Windows.
They decided to 'no-show'. And they did it without providing adequate notice. Through their actions, they have told both organizations they scheduled meetings with that the customer is not important.
I know that things go afoul and that sometimes a scheduled event must be cancelled. But if Microsoft had scheduled the meeting where they thought they could have an opportunity to get to a competitors customer, they would have shipped a sales representative with a 102 degree Fahrenheit fever rather than 'no-show'.
That is why they dominate the desktop market, and probably will for years to come.
I don't know whether people will lose their brand identification so easily, though, because there are plenty of commercial vendors out there who have a vested interest in keeping the name Linux alive.
I do, however, look forward to a more healthy OS ecosystem where the evolution of various systems can occur in parallel.
If Gates really believes his press releases, he would share the view I've articulated above.
1. Linus manages the production of software with all of the available source published in the public domain.
2. Linus tracks each individual contributor to the kernel back to the start of Linux development.
3. We think that your auditing process ought to include a laborious process of researching every patent ever filed for any technology related to kernel development.
4. We find that this process is flawed compared to our model of:
a) closing our source from public view, thereby increasing the potential that stolen code is in our source,
b) not identifying who is working on particular aspects of kernel development and the potential conflicts of interest that might develop (e.g., hiring a Sun developer and then using their expertise to enhance SCO's code), and
c) not researching every patent ever filed for any technology related to kernel development thereby giving us plausible deniability if we develop code that is similar to a competitor's IP.
Does anyone but me think that SCO is getting funnier as time drags on?
I've read the links above, and have been following the claims from both sides of this issue, and have come to a conclusion:
Linux development cannot be stopped.
I reached this conclusion by looking solely at how Linux has been created. The kernel has progressed through the efforts of thousands of contributors from around the world. Each of them can lay a legal claim to portions of the kernel. They contributed to the kernel under the full knowledge that no one could take their contribution away based on IP rights. Are these developers going to stop developing if SCO's claims prove to be true?
Also, what does SCO hope to secure from the Linux community? They are guilty of distibuting the very product that they claim infringes on their IP. I believe that they do have a right to object to full integration of their property without their concent. That said, I do not believe that their property should be GPL'ed without their permission. But how does their claim of ignorance trump Red Hat, Slackware, SuSE, or any other vendor? They had access to the UnixWare source. If they were duped and claim that in court, then they can hardly claim that these other vendors were willful in their conduct. In short, I can't see how they are going to make much headway against the other Linux vendors.
I also don't see where SCO gets the idea that people will pay them for a license to use Linux. The developer community will simply strip out the offending code and will ship the kernel out as a fork. All of the contributors to the kernel will make their claim to their portions of the infringing code and will incorporated it legally into the fork.
SCO will not kill Linux, nor will it kill community development of software. The auditing process will just become more robust.
"Prior to its acquisition by #1 PC maker Compaq in 1998, the company was a top supplier of networked computer systems and components, software, and services. Digital developed the speedy 64-bit Alpha microprocessor; Alpha-based products included workstations and servers. Digital also sold UNIX-based computers, network components (such as adapters and hubs), PCs, and peripherals. Digital (formerly known as DEC) also offered services such as network design and support, systems integration, and project management. Formerly based in Maynard, Massachusetts, the company's last reported sales were more than $13 billion in fiscal 1997."
DEC died despite having good sales and top flight technology.
Sun could die quickly despite its cash reserves. The cost to run a company the size of Sun could drain that reserve fast if their sales continued to drop and the equity market dried up for Sun.
Where I work, the high-end computing and backend servers systems are still dominated by Sun. But I work for a government-owned laboratory.
That is the problem with Sun's approach. You can kill your business attempting to cherry pick the top clients while ignoring the commodity market.
The computing industry has plenty of carcasses at the side of the information superhighway. They represent the best and brightest companies of their time.
What, for instance, was the dominant computing platform in the Oil & Gas industry 20 years ago? I know for a fact that the exploration market did not belong to Sun. Check out the history of Intergraph.
I don't like Microsoft's history or how they do business, but I'm racking my brains here to find a way that they're evil and my favorite business OS, Linux, is good. All I'm coming up with is either ways to kill Linux accidently or ways that this is a legit thing to do.
I don't see how giving away Microsoft products kills Linux. People were writing for Linux and Gnu before it became something that IT departments would pay for.
If Microsoft gave me a free copy of Windows XP tomorrow, I wouldn't use it. Not because it isn't good or that Linux is better; its because that license is only good for one copy on one machine. So Microsoft gave me a copy of XP; I now have XP on one machine. WOOT! Too bad I own several machines.
Aside from brand hatred of Microsoft, why do I want Linux to succeed? Simply because I can and have modified the source code (but that gets back to it being Free as in libre which I think should stay out of this argument).
But freedom is precisely the point. I can reproduce the same OS on several machines without getting permission from Microsoft.
If they gave one free copy of Office away, it would not be with a license that would allow you to copy it to another machine.
That is the fundamental difference between Microsoft's approach to free software and the free software movement.
Although this is not a criminal case where the person making the charges has the full burden of proof (beyond a reasonable doubt), the complainant does have to show a preponderance of evidence that IBM stole SCO's code. One or two similar lines of code will not be enough to convince a court that IBM, or anyone else, has stolen their code. IBM has been in the IP business about as long as they've produced business machines. I doubt they are uninformed about how to shoot holes in SCO's claims.
As for the price of SCO's stock doubling: that can be accounted for by speculation by investors. Their profitability can be affected by layoffs (costs drop, profits up), so their $4m quarterly profit may drop to $0 by next quarter. Has anyone seen a job posting emanating from SCO lately? I thought not.
Their suit will slowly erode by their revenue. I don't know what Microsoft's' defense cost them, but if scale is any measure, taking on a larger adversary in court is costly. I'm sure SCO's lawyers aren't working this case pro bono.
In short, after operating expenses, profit taking by investors (who will cash out on the bubble when they tire of SCO's rantings), and no hope of dropping costs further, the amount of money spent hourly on this legal venture should put the company out of business by Q4.
So lets assume that SCO is right and that, for whatever reason, their code ended up in the kernel.
So what? They plan on going after users for infringement? They are soooo fucking high...
Here's how that will play out:
1) SCO reveals which code bits are in the kernel. 2) Hours after their disclosure and possible judgement from the courts, hackers strip the offending code out and fork the kernel. 3) Minutes after the kernel is forked, the SCOBlows distro is available via ftp. 4) Users around the world rebuild their Linux boxes with non-offending OS running modified kernel. 5) SCO is fucked in the marketplace forever.
Of course they will have whatever money they can drain from IBM, SuSE, and Red Hat, but they will get squat from the users.
As for who ripped off who, there are more than one opinion on that matter: yours, mine, The Bungee, and 500,000 +/- advocates of their favorite flavor of operating system.
He made sweeping generalizations that I couldn't allow to go unchallenged.
Fine. Let's assume that I've mischaracterized your initial argument. If you are not claiming that these organizations have stolen Microsoft developments, then what have you claimed?
I reject the idea that Microsoft somehow got the ball rolling by developing a working windowing environment. That is my positive counterclaim to how I read your initial post.
If you believe that Gnome, KDE and Lindows are the benefactors of Microsoft developments or innovations, then spell out which ones. The Apple v. Microsoft case is replete with examples of how both companies 'borrowed' from other developers. Innovation is rare in the software industry.
As I read the history of the GUI, Microsoft saw the success of Apple's foray into windowing and decided that they needed to develop a GUI. Through a massive development efforts funded by their own sales of DOS, Microsoft was able to produce a workable windowing environment. There were distinct similarities between what Apple claimed were their innovations and what Microsoft have put in Windows. The courts didn't see the situation as Apple did.
But has Microsoft advanced their interface? Certainly. When faced with a challenge, Microsoft is capable of producing significant improvements in existing technology. But they only produce those innovations when they have a credible adversary.
Microsoft will not, however, put a penny into innovation just to advance general computing technology. They spend mightily to protect their product from tampering and theft (to their credit), but will also spend millions to thwart innovations by their competitors (which is illegal - Microsoft has been found guilty of monopolistic abuses in a federal court).
You now have my opinion of Microsoft. They are the quintessential American company. They have both positive and negative qualities that propel them to success.
Soooo... are you saying they copied the "look and feel" from somewhere else? Where?
I never said who they 'borrowed' their look-and-feel from. Read the article I cited and make your own determination. As for my claim, here's the quote from my reply:
"I leave it as a community pissing match to argue over who cloned who."
I never claimed Apple, Linux, X.org or anyone else invented the GUI. I merely took exception at your assertion that Microsoft was the innovator you proclaimed them to be.
Demanding that I again point out your incredible claims is a waste of time. Too bad you haven't read your own posts carefully enough before submitting them. Backpedaling now just makes you look weak and pathetic.
These stories should be posted on a Mac advocacy website. This is the home of the folks whose crowning achievement remains cloning [gnome.org] whatever [kde.org] Microsoft [microsoft.com] does [lindows.com].
Implicit in your post was the claim that all of these organizations (i.e., Gnome, KDE, Lindows) have all purloined technologies and/or 'look-and-feel' qualities from Microsoft products.
I successfully poked a hole in the primary premise of your argument. I leave it as a community pissing match to argue over who cloned who.
It is a fact that Microsoft did not invent the GUI. They copied ideas from one company who had, in turn, copied the concepts from another company.
Slashdot Mirror
Consider the following two sentences:
"We need to start new-to-computers people with non-MS operating systems."
and
"I repair Windows machines at work for my job,..."
Doesn't that imply that if you get your first wish, you will not have a job?
If any company has even a thought of entering the desktop market, they have to focus on their commitment to sales. Sounds easy, right? But that commitment means showing up for sales meetings and making sure the customer is happy not only with your product, but with your company as well.
Microsoft didn't get to market dominance by ignoring their customers. The problem they have had in the past has been a pit bull aggression toward their competitors. This often left the customer with half finished products, but their early focus was to move the product closer to what the customer wanted at all times. Their focus has changed now that they dominate the market, but their competitive drive still remains on steroids.
Compare that to a Linux vendor who was supposed to speak at our company today. They set up two consecutive meetings with our company and a LUG to show how their software would not only provide a good user experience, but would also convince skeptical IT personnel that their product was a ready replacement or alternative to Windows.
They decided to 'no-show'. And they did it without providing adequate notice. Through their actions, they have told both organizations they scheduled meetings with that the customer is not important.
I know that things go afoul and that sometimes a scheduled event must be cancelled. But if Microsoft had scheduled the meeting where they thought they could have an opportunity to get to a competitors customer, they would have shipped a sales representative with a 102 degree Fahrenheit fever rather than 'no-show'.
That is why they dominate the desktop market, and probably will for years to come.
Too bad there isn't a "6 Interesting" category.
I don't know whether people will lose their brand identification so easily, though, because there are plenty of commercial vendors out there who have a vested interest in keeping the name Linux alive.
I do, however, look forward to a more healthy OS ecosystem where the evolution of various systems can occur in parallel.
If Gates really believes his press releases, he would share the view I've articulated above.
I run one at home. It is a LEAF floppy created by Charles Steinkuehler.
Here's another one.
Dachstein CD
Here's Forbes take on the case.
They think IBM should settle because Caldera got Microsoft to settle and because McBride got his former employer to settle.
Here's the link to the story
1. Linus manages the production of software with all of the available source published in the public domain.
2. Linus tracks each individual contributor to the kernel back to the start of Linux development.
3. We think that your auditing process ought to include a laborious process of researching every patent ever filed for any technology related to kernel development.
4. We find that this process is flawed compared to our model of:
a) closing our source from public view, thereby increasing the potential that stolen code is in our source,
b) not identifying who is working on particular aspects of kernel development and the potential conflicts of interest that might develop (e.g., hiring a Sun developer and then using their expertise to enhance SCO's code), and
c) not researching every patent ever filed for any technology related to kernel development thereby giving us plausible deniability if we develop code that is similar to a competitor's IP.
Does anyone but me think that SCO is getting funnier as time drags on?
I've read the links above, and have been following the claims from both sides of this issue, and have come to a conclusion:
Linux development cannot be stopped.
I reached this conclusion by looking solely at how Linux has been created. The kernel has progressed through the efforts of thousands of contributors from around the world. Each of them can lay a legal claim to portions of the kernel. They contributed to the kernel under the full knowledge that no one could take their contribution away based on IP rights. Are these developers going to stop developing if SCO's claims prove to be true?
Also, what does SCO hope to secure from the Linux community? They are guilty of distibuting the very product that they claim infringes on their IP. I believe that they do have a right to object to full integration of their property without their concent. That said, I do not believe that their property should be GPL'ed without their permission. But how does their claim of ignorance trump Red Hat, Slackware, SuSE, or any other vendor? They had access to the UnixWare source. If they were duped and claim that in court, then they can hardly claim that these other vendors were willful in their conduct. In short, I can't see how they are going to make much headway against the other Linux vendors.
I also don't see where SCO gets the idea that people will pay them for a license to use Linux. The developer community will simply strip out the offending code and will ship the kernel out as a fork. All of the contributors to the kernel will make their claim to their portions of the infringing code and will incorporated it legally into the fork.
SCO will not kill Linux, nor will it kill community development of software. The auditing process will just become more robust.
I hope you are right. The death of Sun would mean the death of yet another great technology leader.
We will be left with nothing but mediocrity.
From this webpage:
"Prior to its acquisition by #1 PC maker Compaq in 1998, the company was a top supplier of networked computer systems and components, software, and services. Digital developed the speedy 64-bit Alpha microprocessor; Alpha-based products included workstations and servers. Digital also sold UNIX-based computers, network components (such as adapters and hubs), PCs, and peripherals. Digital (formerly known as DEC) also offered services such as network design and support, systems integration, and project management. Formerly based in Maynard, Massachusetts, the company's last reported sales were more than $13 billion in fiscal 1997."
DEC died despite having good sales and top flight technology.
Sun could die quickly despite its cash reserves. The cost to run a company the size of Sun could drain that reserve fast if their sales continued to drop and the equity market dried up for Sun.
Where I work, the high-end computing and backend servers systems are still dominated by Sun. But I work for a government-owned laboratory.
That is the problem with Sun's approach. You can kill your business attempting to cherry pick the top clients while ignoring the commodity market.
The computing industry has plenty of carcasses at the side of the information superhighway. They represent the best and brightest companies of their time.
What, for instance, was the dominant computing platform in the Oil & Gas industry 20 years ago? I know for a fact that the exploration market did not belong to Sun. Check out the history of Intergraph.
Forget the stock price and flagging sales, [McNealy] argues, and focus on Sun's record of innovation.
Ask DEC how far that got them.
If this is the tack Sun's management is going to take in responding to criticism, then it may be "Goodbye Sun. Glad we knew ya....."
I don't like Microsoft's history or how they do business, but I'm racking my brains here to find a way that they're evil and my favorite business OS, Linux, is good. All I'm coming up with is either ways to kill Linux accidently or ways that this is a legit thing to do.
I don't see how giving away Microsoft products kills Linux. People were writing for Linux and Gnu before it became something that IT departments would pay for.
If Microsoft gave me a free copy of Windows XP tomorrow, I wouldn't use it. Not because it isn't good or that Linux is better; its because that license is only good for one copy on one machine. So Microsoft gave me a copy of XP; I now have XP on one machine. WOOT! Too bad I own several machines.
Aside from brand hatred of Microsoft, why do I want Linux to succeed? Simply because I can and have modified the source code (but that gets back to it being Free as in libre which I think should stay out of this argument).
But freedom is precisely the point. I can reproduce the same OS on several machines without getting permission from Microsoft.
If they gave one free copy of Office away, it would not be with a license that would allow you to copy it to another machine.
That is the fundamental difference between Microsoft's approach to free software and the free software movement.
Now I know why Sontag is so feisty. He isn't getting shit for pay.
Name/Age/Position/Pay
Ralph Yarro, III/38/Chairman/none
Darl McBride/43/Pres,CEO/$80.5K
Robert Bench/53/CFO, Principal Accounting Officer/$173.0K
Opinder Bawa/39/Sr. VP-Technology/$178.0K
Christopher Sontag/39/Sr. VP, Operating Systems Group/$6.2K
Source
Although this is not a criminal case where the person making the charges has the full burden of proof (beyond a reasonable doubt), the complainant does have to show a preponderance of evidence that IBM stole SCO's code. One or two similar lines of code will not be enough to convince a court that IBM, or anyone else, has stolen their code. IBM has been in the IP business about as long as they've produced business machines. I doubt they are uninformed about how to shoot holes in SCO's claims.
As for the price of SCO's stock doubling: that can be accounted for by speculation by investors. Their profitability can be affected by layoffs (costs drop, profits up), so their $4m quarterly profit may drop to $0 by next quarter. Has anyone seen a job posting emanating from SCO lately? I thought not.
Their suit will slowly erode by their revenue. I don't know what Microsoft's' defense cost them, but if scale is any measure, taking on a larger adversary in court is costly. I'm sure SCO's lawyers aren't working this case pro bono.
In short, after operating expenses, profit taking by investors (who will cash out on the bubble when they tire of SCO's rantings), and no hope of dropping costs further, the amount of money spent hourly on this legal venture should put the company out of business by Q4.
Anyone want to start a SCO death pool?
... and Paul Allan bought the Portland Trailblazers!
Now I Know Why The Team Has Done So Poorly!
ITS BECAUSE OF THE SLASHDOT EFFECT!!!
Not because, as one would assume, the team is made up of felons and crack-addicts.
So lets assume that SCO is right and that, for whatever reason, their code ended up in the kernel.
So what? They plan on going after users for infringement? They are soooo fucking high...
Here's how that will play out:
1) SCO reveals which code bits are in the kernel.
2) Hours after their disclosure and possible judgement from the courts, hackers strip the offending code out and fork the kernel.
3) Minutes after the kernel is forked, the SCOBlows distro is available via ftp.
4) Users around the world rebuild their Linux boxes with non-offending OS running modified kernel.
5) SCO is fucked in the marketplace forever.
Of course they will have whatever money they can drain from IBM, SuSE, and Red Hat, but they will get squat from the users.
Fuck SCO.
I wish I had mod points.
This one would go up 'funny'....
Non-MS OSs: Mac, Lindows.....
Affiliated with non-MS OSs: KDE, Gnome.....
As for who ripped off who, there are more than one opinion on that matter: yours, mine, The Bungee, and 500,000 +/- advocates of their favorite flavor of operating system.
He made sweeping generalizations that I couldn't allow to go unchallenged.
Actually, he made a rather sweeping condemnation of all non-MS operating systems since his original post contained references to Mac as well.
Which is the point I was trying to make: Everyone in the GUI wars has been on a borrowing spree.
There is nothing innovative about the 'Start' button on the menu bar either. I owned a copy of a nice button bar utility that ran under Windows 3.1.
I guess Microsoft used the word "Start" first.
Fine. Let's assume that I've mischaracterized your initial argument. If you are not claiming that these organizations have stolen Microsoft developments, then what have you claimed?
I reject the idea that Microsoft somehow got the ball rolling by developing a working windowing environment. That is my positive counterclaim to how I read your initial post.
If you believe that Gnome, KDE and Lindows are the benefactors of Microsoft developments or innovations, then spell out which ones. The Apple v. Microsoft case is replete with examples of how both companies 'borrowed' from other developers. Innovation is rare in the software industry.
As I read the history of the GUI, Microsoft saw the success of Apple's foray into windowing and decided that they needed to develop a GUI. Through a massive development efforts funded by their own sales of DOS, Microsoft was able to produce a workable windowing environment. There were distinct similarities between what Apple claimed were their innovations and what Microsoft have put in Windows. The courts didn't see the situation as Apple did.
But has Microsoft advanced their interface? Certainly. When faced with a challenge, Microsoft is capable of producing significant improvements in existing technology. But they only produce those innovations when they have a credible adversary.
Microsoft will not, however, put a penny into innovation just to advance general computing technology. They spend mightily to protect their product from tampering and theft (to their credit), but will also spend millions to thwart innovations by their competitors (which is illegal - Microsoft has been found guilty of monopolistic abuses in a federal court).
You now have my opinion of Microsoft. They are the quintessential American company. They have both positive and negative qualities that propel them to success.
I'm still waiting for the positive defense of your position.
Read my replies to The Bungie carefully. I never made the claim that Microsoft had not been copied.
I made the claim that Microsoft is just as culpable in look and feel theft.
I stand by that claim without fear of equivocation.
Soooo... are you saying they copied the "look and feel" from somewhere else? Where?
I never said who they 'borrowed' their look-and-feel from. Read the article I cited and make your own determination. As for my claim, here's the quote from my reply:
"I leave it as a community pissing match to argue over who cloned who."
I never claimed Apple, Linux, X.org or anyone else invented the GUI. I merely took exception at your assertion that Microsoft was the innovator you proclaimed them to be.
Demanding that I again point out your incredible claims is a waste of time. Too bad you haven't read your own posts carefully enough before submitting them. Backpedaling now just makes you look weak and pathetic.
These stories should be posted on a Mac advocacy website. This is the home of the folks whose crowning achievement remains cloning [gnome.org] whatever [kde.org] Microsoft [microsoft.com] does [lindows.com].
Implicit in your post was the claim that all of these organizations (i.e., Gnome, KDE, Lindows) have all purloined technologies and/or 'look-and-feel' qualities from Microsoft products.
I successfully poked a hole in the primary premise of your argument. I leave it as a community pissing match to argue over who cloned who.
It is a fact that Microsoft did not invent the GUI. They copied ideas from one company who had, in turn, copied the concepts from another company.
"Freedom to Innovate" = Big Enough To Steal