James Burgett was featured on the front page of Digg.com, where he got 2906 diggs for his blog entry about his dispute with the government (spam warning: I dugg that story). James has subsequently told me that he and the government are working things out. He is not entirely satisfied with the government's approach, but at least he will be able to continue operating his excellent Ubuntu box giveaway program. So it seems as if the attention from the popular media (Digg in that case) has taught the government that James was doing something that was sufficiently meaningful to the community that they should really try to work with him.
Full disclosure: I do not work with / for James or CNN. I do volunteer for a public middle school in San Francisco, California that benefited from a donation of 30 Ubuntu fat clients for our Linux chubby terminal lab.
Please read Pamela Jones' referenced article. The quote you are asking about is taken from a netcast linked in the first paragraph in Pamela's article. The page with the link to the netcast is here, clicking on this link will launch the mp3 file with that netcast. Those same links are pasted in their respective orders below, in case any one needs to copy and paste:
One thing that I really liked about this netcast: At one point, one of the Microsoft guys makes a huge concession, without really realizing it, because he states it so much as a matter of fact, and so much as an after thought. He says something like, "yeah, most of the students coming out of university are trained on Linux. I was a computer science student, and so I appreciate how great it is to be able to see the source code."
As IBM said in its GNU Linux commercials, "the future is open."
Another interesting thing: one of the Microsoft guys says "We've got the largest Linux server farm west of the Rockies!" All of these quotes are summaries, not verbatim quotes. Listen for yourself if you want the exact quote.
And yet another interesting quote by one of the Microsoft guys. "We walk around talking to our engineers, and they say, 'open source is such a cool way to get feedback. No wonder developers like to work in an open source environment.' " Again, that is a summary. Please listen for yourself to get the exact quote.
Thanks for point out that I was not trolling. I really am not looking for a fight. I merely would like to know if Acrinonymous is being paid to write his / her opinions in this thread. I believe that it is an abuse of the anonymity of/. comment sections to advance an employer's interest or a client's interest by posing as an individual/. reader if, in fact, the poster is paid to advance the interests of an employer or client, and does not disclose that bias.
IMHO, it is perfectly fine for people to be paid to post to Slashdot, but an ethical paid poster would announce their bias. In fact, it is deeper than that. Ultimately, the veracity of/. itself is at issue. If astroturfers continue to post under a false identity, ultimately the credibility of the comments section on/. itself will suffer, as more and more readers come to believe that they cannot trust the integrity of the contributions by readers./. is one of the oldest and most venerable on-line publications that has relied on the contributions of its readers to supplement the content presented in the referenced article.
We all come to/. because we know that if the calibre of the content is not up to snuff, the community will discover those flaws and improve the overall article by correcting it here in the comment section. It is up to each of us to monitor each other as well, so that can know that the overall system is trustworthy.
ozmanjusri's comment shows that the/. moderation system is working. I was originally modded down (I guess) as a troll (it happened during the night here in San Francisco, so I didn't see it happen). But then ozmanjusri made a comment, and my score when from a 2 to a 3 when a moderator apparently picked up on ozmanjusri's comment.
Ultimately, if a moderator had decided that I was, in fact, a troll, and no one from the community had spoken up, then I would have had to consider that hey, maybe it was *I* who was out of line, and not Acrinonymous!! But I was merely asking for accountability on Acrinonymous' part, and both ozmanjusri and at least one moderator agreed with my position, and so the system is working. It's working both because I was modded down AND because I was then modded back up. I recognize that people will not always agree with me. That is what a community-moderated magazine like/. is all about, and why it is so powerful. Robust debate.
So how about, it, Acrinonymous? Are you part of our community or not? If your opinions are your own, they why not make yourself accountable? Tell us who you really are! And if you are being paid to render your opinion, don't we, your community, deserve to know your biases?
Maybe Acrimonymous created this particular account just to post controversial statements. But maybe Acrimonymous doesn't really have a deep history of making contributions on/., and maybe he / she is a paid troll. I'm not making accusations. Not yet. But look at his / her posting history. If I read his / her profile correctly, Acrimonymous has a very high/. user number, and has only posted on this particular thread. And, lo and behold, this comment is a criticism of Free Open Source Software production methods.
Okay, nothing human is perfect, and only ideologues would say that Free Open Source Software is perfect, etc. But I find it really curious that this poster has a high/. number and a very shallow history here on/., and his / her first series of comments are directed at a broad-based criticism of Free Open Source Software production methods.
So I would like to know, Acrinonymous, who are you, really? My name is Christian Einfeldt. I'm an attorney in San Francisco, California. I have used FOSS since 2001. I know about 20 CLI commands, and I use openSUSE 10.2 and Kubuntu Edgy in my law practice and in producing a documentary film called the Digital Tipping Point about how Free Open Source Software is changing global culture. I earn no money from representing FOSS industry players.
I respect the fact that you might want privacy, and that you might want to continue to post behind the shield of your Acrinonymous handle. But I would encourage you to consider telling us all who you are, and the extent of your experience with FOSS, and, most important, what industry you are in. Because right now, a first gut impression is that you are, indeed, acrimonious by nature and by trade.
Actually, I have stuck several different flavors in front of actual grandmothers, and they do just fine. To say that Linux is more complex than Mac OS X is, for most uses, an inaccurate myth.
It is true that overall, the Mac is easier to use, but the margin is increasingly narrow. It's also true that there are some issues with proprietary codecs and so forth, but with a wee little bit of support, it is possible to get 80 year-olds using Linux. I have supported several people in their 60s, 70s and 80s with Mepis or PClinuxOS, so I have hands-on experience with what I am saying.
And, actually, there are perhaps less tech support issues with Linux than with Windows. I support a public middle school in San Francisco with Linux boxes, and I know from working with the teachers on their Linux boxes that pop-ups and viruses are a serious problem that has caused at least 8 boxes out of 17 to be rendered more or less useless. We installed Linux on them and they work fine.
I do acknowledge that there can be good user experiences on Windows and the Mac. My main point in this thread is that people who are already in the FOSS community will occasionally use Macs, and I just personally find that odd. I'm not saying that these people are odd or traitors or evil, I'm just saying that it is counter-intuitive for me to see people in the FOSS community to use Apple products due to cost and lock-down, especially in light of the fact that in many cases, the "Free Software" alternatives perform just as well from a functional standpoint, and then you don't have the cost and lock-down issues to deal with.
Call me a fanboy, I don't care... I use what is best.
I don't want to call anyone names, that is tedious to me. And I do understand that some people want higher levels of applications installation and integration than is currently available under FOSS, and I acknowledge that is a valid point. My response is simply that, from my perspective, the marginal improvement on functionality is not worth the other frustrations that come with locked-down software. In the particular case in point, the iPhone, is the hardware platform so special that it overcomes the potential to be sued pursuant to the DMCA for simply sharing those hacks? IMHO, the answer is no. I just wanted to hear how other people resonated with that issue.
I have always wondered why there are so many FOSS advocates who put up with Apple's DRM'd little empire. Somehow, if Apple does the same thing that Microsoft does, Apple gets a pass, but why? And perhaps, more important, what can the FOSS community do to move Apple in a more Free and open source direction.
Are people really happy with Apple's contributions to BSD and Konqueror code?
If people are willing to put up with lock down just because Apple products are slick, I have to ask, are Apple products really that much more slick than Compiz? Is slick performance alone enough of a difference that people will give a pass to Apple?
I am not someone who believes everyone must use gNewSense and use only Free Software, because that is inconvenient for most users. But can't we make a little more effort to support vendors such as HP, Dell, Zareason, TechCollective.com, Emperor Linux, and other similar vendors who offer decent hardware with a better balance of Free to non-Free software?
IMHO, desktop Linux is good enough that we should try to encourage people to give it a shot, rather than just putting up with tyrannical insistence on having everything his own way, including his own little DRM'd desktop. Why put up with a company that would resort to the DMCA to attack its own customers? I understand that there is a lot about the iPhone that is cool, and yes it is a nice platform to hack, but why go to such lengths to hack it when you can't share your hacks?
In the wake of Enron, etc., accountants are looking over their shoulders whenever they are asked to do something unethical. I am betting that not only are the accountants seeing that they might not be paid on time or at all, but they are also seeing that they are being called upon to do something unethical, something that would be a blight on their careers.
You can bet that these accountants were not working for SCO because they loved Daryl. So late or non-existent pay + ethical lapses = hasta la vista, baby.
Okay, this is actually a good point. I was a little sloppy in my original post. It is probably NOT the code that we lose, because the license is probably truly an open source / Free Software license. It's the community that we lose. Or at least the community has to migrate from one name to another. So you are right, it could become more of a speed bump than a real obstacle.
But IMHO, there is occasionally some juice that is lost and confusion generated when projects change. For example, Mambo became locked down code, and IIRC, the transition to Joomla was not as seamless as one would hope. Am I right about this Mambo ----> Joomla move? Anyone? And does anyone else know of examples where a move resulted in either a more robust or less robust FOSS project? There is, of course, Firefox. What a great success story that is. So maybe even a Microsoft acquistion would not be all that bad.
Heh, in fact, it might be kinda funny. If Microsoft buys Yahoo, the disdain for Microsoft in the FOSS community will tend to drive developers away. So Microsoft could, in essence, be paying a premium for a community that will tend to shrivel upon Microsoft's acquisition.
oooo, this could turn out bad. There has been a lot of talk of Microsoft buying Yahoo in an attempt to catch up to Google. And if MSFT does buy Yahoo, thereby acquiring Zimbra, it is another FOSS code base that we might lose time and effort on.
Of course, we don't want to speculate needlessly about a Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo. This is exactly the wedge that we see Microsoft driving into the FOSS community with their deals with Novell, Xandros, and Linspire. Undoubtedly, one of the benefits to Microsoft of the Yahoo acquisition talks is that many members of the FOSS community will shy away from Yahoo, simply because they might become a Microsoft property. And even people who like Microsoft and its products might hesitate to use Yahoo products and services if they see Yahoo stumbling.
So I would like to see Yahoo get its financial house in order. I am really fond of Google and its products and services, and I tend to use Google tools and properties more than the Yahoo counterparts. But I wouldn't want to have competition in this area reduced to only two major players: Microsoft and Google.
So come on, Yahoo, get your act together! And stop talking with Microsoft about acquisitions! Ick!
Robertson is not a patent troll. He has actual businesses, and they are selling actual products, and actually making money. He has spotted a weakness in the business model of a ruthless monopolist (Microsoft) and he has the courage to attack that weakness.
That is the brilliance of Michael Robertson's strategy, and why he will win, again.
I'll accept that you call this "brilliant" only if we call patent trolls "brilliant". Because that's what his strategy is: a mutated version of patent trolling.
No, patent trolls don't have actual products. Robertson sells stuff.
Also, patent trolls do the suing. Michael Robertson usually doesn't file lawsuits. He starts businesses, and then gets sued. It is almost the opposite of patent trolling. Robertson just calls their bluff. He fights their lawsuits. They lose. Then they pay him money. How cool is that!
I completely agree with what you are saying, and I would take it one step further. IMHO, Michael Robertson is doing as much as Richard Stallman, Steve Weber, The Pirate Bay and maybe even Che Guevara to redefine the nature of property. Each of these four guys / entities has done something to help us envision or experience "intellectual property" in a radical new way.
Richard Stallman formalized the idea of "Free Software." Steve Weber gave Free Software a new name, calling it an "anti-rival" resource, meaning a resource that increases in supply as it is consumed. The Pirate Bay and Che Guevara both thumbed their nose at western notions of capital accumulation. Michael Roberston has commercialized the delivery of "anti-rival resources.
Of course, lots of people would say that I am nuts to compare these four guys. Che killed people. The Pirate Bay is regarded by many as organized international theft. Richard Stallman has never held a gun in his life, probably, and has a low opinion of combining Free Software with non-Free Software, which is the mainstay of Robertson's business. And Michael Robertson considers himself a gung-ho capitalist. Steve Weber is a political science professor at one of the premier universities in the world, he drives a sexy black Saab, and he is no enemy of free market capitalism. So of course there are huge differences between all of these guys.
But if you look carefully at their lives, I think you will see that each of these people has played a remarkable role in changing the way that we think of property. My point in comparing and contrasting them is to point out that Michael Robertson deserves respect for fundamentally re-imagining the role of "intellectual property", maybe even as much as Richard Stallman, but just in a more commercial way. And yet even Richard advocates selling "Free Software." In 15 years, Michael Robertson will be thought of as one of the stars of the Free Software revolution.
Finally, don't think of Michael Robertson as an intellectual slouch. He completely understands the theories of Steve Weber, Richard Stallman, and Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen. In fact, one of the things that impresses me most about Robertson is his ability to boil very complex ideas down into really simple, straightforward statements and businesses.
Lots of people bash Michael Robertson for one thing or another, but I completely agree with you -- he and his Linspire team have done a good job of preparing a GNU/Linux distro for the mainstream.
One of the biggest contributions that Michael Robertson made to the Free Software community (yes, that means all of us, including Eric S. Raymond) is that he envisioned a commercial distro which would be palatable to North Americans. I have traveled to 3 continents and five nations to shoot filmed interviews for a documentary that I am making about how FOSS is changing culture, and I can tell you that there are HUGE differences in the way that people perceive FOSS.
In Brazil and other places in South America, people are more likely to resonate with the libertad of "Free Software." In North America and Europe, people are more likely to talk about how wonderful it is that "open source" is creating so many new opportunities to create wealth.
The differences are differences of culture.
Michael Robertson's message resonates with consumers who are sick and tired of the high cost of Apple, and Microsoft's dirty tricks, high cost, and malware. But many of his best customers don't care about Freedom in cycberspace. At least not yet. And maybe then never will. But they sure do love the convenience of CNR, Linspire's implementation of the Debian pool. But maybe one day they will finally "get" it that low cost and convenience are best obtained where there is freedom in cyberspace and true competition on the desktop. And Michael Robertson will have contributed to these consumers' support for a FOSS market.
I tend to be more of a "Free Software" guy than an "open source" guy. And yet I am very grateful for Michael Robertson's work, because he is helping us build a larger, more populous, and more diverse FOSS community.
That is the brilliance of Michael Robertson's strategy, and why he will win, again. Windows is far too generic a term, and Microsoft is vulnerable there, IMHO. That is probably why Microsoft paid Lindows to stop using a term that sounded like Windows. Microsoft new that it had chosen a name that is too generic. After all, a window is just the name for a frame. From Microsoft's home town newspaper, the Seattle Times:
Microsoft has settled its trademark-infringement lawsuit against Lindows.com and will pay $20 million to the San Diego-based startup, bringing an unusual end to a case that made Lindows famous.
In the final analysis, getting sued by Microsoft might have been the best thing to happen to Lindows. The company has received vast amounts of free publicity from the lawsuit, positioning itself as David to Microsoft's Goliath. And now, David is embarrassingly richer, and Goliath is richly embarrassed.
Damn, I love this guy. Who else would do something like this? Bear in mind, this is the guy whom Microsoft sued for using the name Lindows, and ends up getting paid $20 million. Oh, and the RIAA? While others end up paying the record labels thousands for petty downloading, Michael Robertson founds MP3.com, commercializes file sharing, and gets paid hundreds of millions and then goes on to take that money to start Lindows, which, of course, lays the foundation for another pay day. And all of it using open source software.
So when Michael Robertson says that he is ready, I interpret this to mean that he is getting ready for another pay day at Microsoft's expense. LOL, party at Michael's house!
I mean really. It is deplorable that the product of a publicly funded project (ARPANET) could be privatized in this fashion. So if the big telcos and cable companies think that they can eat our lunch, just let them try. Hopefully, the more they try to lock it down, the faster their business models will be commoditized by mesh networks.
I wonder if Microsoft's scandalous misbehavior in regard to this vote will follow them permanently? It seems as if people with deep roots in any field, be it literature or science, have longer memories than the population at large. Hopefully we have been reminded (again) that Microsoft's business model is currently dependent on leveraging its monopoly on the desktop, and that it will do *anything* to preserve that monopoly. Microsoft has shown only average or sub-par performance in driving revenue in sectors where its monopoly does not serve it as well, such as the Zune or the X-box or search or SaaS (Software as a Service). Microsoft's genius is not really engineering, where it is merely an average company, readily eclipsed by Apple or Google, for example. Microsoft's genius is really in marketing strategy, and until now, that strategy has been asserting a value proposition that has proven difficult to refuse by the various supply-side and demand-side players in the desktop space.
Now that a little polish has been taken off its faux standards, perhaps we will see a bit more free market competition enter into a previously broken market. I wonder how well Microsoft would compete in the Office productivity market if it were unable to charge exorbitant prices for its commodity office productivity solutions? I am betting that a large segment of the market is going say that OpenOffice.org is "good enough" for them, and abandon Microsoft.
At any rate, Microsoft's most recent round of bullying will serve as a visible reminder to the world why it is dangerous to allow Microsoft to continue to hold its monopoly: because it will abuse its power.
The Novell deal works into this somewhere [...], Microsoft is playing to ensure it has a finger in everyone's pie to make up for the loss in sales revenues. For Windows and other products to survive as well as Microsoft wants them to, the costs will have to come down, and Microsoft will do that, to keep their flagships afloat.
I have been very puzzled by the Microsoft-Novell-Linspire-Xandros deals. Microsoft has been giving money away to companies that they claim are violating their patents, and neither Linspire or Xandros have relevant patents that I know of that would justify Microsoft's relationship with them. I now believe, as you do, that they want to have economic ties to these various GNU Linux vendors so that these vendors will craft solutions that wrap around Microsoft solutions. Doing so will allow them to dictate the terms to these vendors, as in Linspire's unfortunate decision to make Windows Live Search the default search on Linspire 6.0.
It all snapped into focus for me when I read this article that shows how, in order to get prime biz opportunities with the beast of Redmond, it is necessary to leave your iPod at home, and not even talk about "googling" or Google solutions. Microsoft's insistence reminds me for all the world of the Scientology cult. In both cases, they say one thing in public, but demand blind obedience in individual private dealings. Of course, you could say that all companies want to encourage the use of their products, and discourage the use of others, but Microsoft is different. It's a monopoly, and its dominance of the desktop market triggers anti-trust analysis when it demands blind obedience in this fashion.
So I believe that Microsoft is basically trying to create cultural expectations that they expect their business partners to be their best advocates in the field, and IMHO, it seems to be working. I actually like Kevin Carmony, and I like the fact that Linspire is bringing FOSS to mainstream consumers who otherwise would never be exposed to FOSS. And yet, Linspire's message about Microsoft has become increasingly conciliatory, to the point where Kevin Carmony has become, like so many other CEOs whose companies are Microsoft business partners, a voice of reconciliation and acceptance toward Microsoft, as in this quote from Kevin Carmony's 14 June 2007 Linspire Letter:
But isn't Microsoft the enemy of Linux?
They certainly compete, just like Ubuntu, Red Hat, and Novell compete with each other, but we all have to live in the same desktop computing ecosystem. I'd prefer to use diplomacy and cooperation, than go to war. Linspire plans on working with Microsoft, just like we have with dozens of other partners, to build a better Linux. We will never force anyone to use what we produce. The choice to use, or not to use, the "better" Linux we strive to produce will always be up to you, but I like the idea of finding a mutually advantageous way for Microsoft and Linspire to work together.
Again, I like Kevin Carmony and Linspire, but what we see unfolding in the Microsoft-Novell-Linspire-Xandros deals is a process of accomodation, as Microsoft moves to co-opt its competitors, and align their business interests with its own. Simply put, if a business environment is a constellation of celestial bodies like our solar system, Microsoft wants to be the Sun, and certainly not merely even Jupiter or Saturn. It wants to dictate the terms of interaction, so that it can skim off value from each and every transaction. And it can succeed in doing so. And that is what makes Microsoft so dangerous, IMHO.
Which brings up the issue of.Net . I personally try to avoid using Microsoft products, simply because I don't want to have that kind of undue influence in my life. I understand that for man
...the future belongs to Richard Stallman. It sounds to me as if Microsoft is trying to employ a marketing campaign aimed at developers, business IT managers who are not tech savvy, and the tech press. They are trying to drain resources away from FOSS projects by competing for developers. They are trying to get unsophisticated IT managers to use products that "interoperate" nicely with Microsoft's core cash cows. They are trying to get the tech press to focus on Microsoft's "open source" products to draw attention away from truly Free Software products.
IMHO, Microsoft's problem is that we, the Free Open Source Software community, are drawing end user, developers, and business partners out of their business network. No longer do user need to use Microsoft Office; they can use OpenOffice.org (OOo) or Google Docs. No longer do developers need to learn to code for.Net and similar projects; they know have many other choices.
Microsoft is trying to compete, but their problem is that they will not see the same kinds of profit from these activities that they saw with their Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office cash cows. This problem is what Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen calls "cramming". Lots of market leaders have done this in the past. Cramming is what happens when the market leader tries to use the disruptive market entrants business models. The problem is, the margins are almost never good enough for the market leader, which usually has a massive cost infrastructure to feed, and stellar earnings targets to hit, and the disruptive technology typically assists with neither of those areas.
In the meantime, the market entrant is very familiar with getting by on lean margins and low budgets. Earnings that are too small for the market leader are comfortable for the market leader. So the market leader shrinks, relatively speaking, and the market entrant grows relatively speaking. Sure, Microsoft will now start to compete for service contracts. But it won't make enough money to still be the darling of Wall Street that it once was. In the meantime, Novell and Red Hat and others will continue to grow slowly in their offerings and profitability, while Google continues to hammer on Microsoft in on-line services.
And in the meantime, the areas where Microsoft will least be able to compete will be in code functionality where GPL'd software does fine. The FSF and GNU will continue to lead, depending on how the overall FOSS community deals with the Linux kernel - GNU dispute over GPL 3.
Everything that Microsoft does is dangerous, IMHO, and they should never be taken lightly. But I see this move as reflecting relatively dim news for Microsoft's business network, and ultimately, its earnings and stock price.
I can understand the concern for keeping one's job. But there are 1,489 people who have publicly challenged Microsoft to sue them based on Microsoft's questionable Microsoft patent claims:
Included on that list is none other than Eric S. Raymond, who has this to say:
130. Eric S. Raymond. Yes, Microsoft, the guy who's been harshing your mellow since I wrote The Cathedral and the Bazaar in 1997. Linux user since 1993, so I've been violating your nonexistent patents for fourteen years. Sue me first. Please, oh please! Because I don't think I've kicked your sorry asses enough yet, and I'd love another round with you chumps.
And this from someone who is supplying the Aussie Defence Forces with "patent infringing" software:
Steve O'Connor (Adelaide, Australia) BAD ME - I am using a pirated copy of Gentoo Linux that I illegally downloaded off the internet, and have installed on a whole rack of servers that I use to make money by providing information services to the Australian Defence Forces. I skipped out on paying any licence fees by doing it this way, and I have (illegal ?) access to all the source code, so I can hack my application around however I see fit. I have also ripped off a copy of PCLinuxOS from the internet (Which is like a HaXoRed version of Vista), without giving out my credit card, and used that same single copy to install on dozens of other computers. The recipients of these PCLinuxOS machines are way happy too...
MOD PARENT UP! This is funny! The quote is a classic example of a Jedi mind trick used by Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars III -- Return of the Sith, to get past some Storm Trooper guards running a checkpoint.
I wonder how much this posting of Ubuntu cost Microsoft. Now check my math, because I am REALLY bad at math. If we assume that each person who downloaded this Ubuntu package would have spent an *average* of only $100.00 USD but didn't due to this download, then 10,923 copies times $100.00 each = $1,0923,000.00. Not a big hit for Microsoft.
Now, you might well say that only a small percentage of these people who downloaded Ubuntu would have purchased a copy of Microsoft Office or Microsoft Vista. But what about subsequent sales to those downloaders? And what about second and third generation conversions as a result of this download?
If only 1% of those downloaders (100) would have spent $100.00 on Microsoft products, it is a loss of $10,000.00 USD in the first generation (chump change for Microsoft). If each of those downloaders later introduces only two people in the next generation (100 dowloaders x 2), each of whom would have spent $100.00 on Microsoft products, then it is a loss of another 200 sales in the second generation, for another $20,000.00 USD, or a total of $30,000.00. If each of those 200 people in the second generation introduces only one person in the third generation, then it is a loss of 200 more sales, for an additional $20,000.00, or a total of $50,000.00. Not enough to show up as a rounding error for Microsoft.
But what if 10% of the downloaders and the second and third generations would have spent $100.00 USD? Now we are talking about $500,000.00 USD. Still not enough for a rounding error. But what if the lost sales would have amounted to $200.00 per person, and 10% would have made purchases. Now we are talking about lost sales of $1 million USD, and maybe that is enough for Microsoft to notice.
But rather than look at is as a loss, let's look at it as a gain for someone else. What if 1% of those downloaders (100) and their second (200) and third generation (200, total 500) progeny when out and spent $500.00 on a naked system on which to install Ubuntu? Now we are talking about 500 systems at $500.00 each, or a total of $250,000.00 USD spent on naked boxes. And what if 10% of those downloaders and the second and third generations did the same thing? Now we are talking about $2,500,000.00 USD in new sales to companies that are rewarded for selling a system without Microsoft Windows on it.
So in a worse case scenario of 10% defectors, this error would have cost Microsoft $1 million in new sales, and increased sales by $2,500.000.00 for "rebellious" OEMs selling naked systems. Still not enough to effect Microsoft, but it is enough to make me smile for the 5 mins that it took me to write this silly post.
There are now 1,458 people who have challenged Microsoft to sue them in court and prove Microsoft's patent claims, or shut up with the patent claims. Included in the group are Eric S. Raymond (number 130 on the list), who is the author of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," and Patrick Berry, (number 1,458) who is one of the sys admins for Distrowatch and Linux.org. Here are their journal entries:
130. Eric S. Raymond. Yes, Microsoft, the guy who's been harshing your mellow since I wrote The Cathedral and the Bazaar in 1997. Linux user since 1993, so I've been violating your nonexistent patents for fourteen years. Sue me first. Please, oh please! Because I don't think I've kicked your sorry asses enough yet, and I'd love another round with you chumps.
1458. Patrick Berry, Linux User #65,411, since 1997, I have been converting thousands of businesses, schools, charities, and users, to FOSS. Microsoft is a small pathetic multiple convicted felon pirate, whereas I am a voting retired disabled veteran, and I welcome the opportunity to expose more of Microsoft's greedy insanity! I am Patrick Berry, TSgt., USAF (Retired) technician, and I run ALL the FOSS at http://livecdlist.com/http://distrowatch/http://linux.org/http://yolinux.com/ I am curious, do you also intend to sue your VP Hilf, who runs 200 Linux machines, in a lab, and Akamai, who run all your websites behind their 15,000 Linux servers? Don't worry, I will name them in my countersuit. Microsoft is the DOOMED multiple convicted felon pirate!
So yeah, Microsoft, exactly which patents are you referring to out of those 235 patents? And which FOSS projects violate which patents? Please do show us.
This is a link to a map showing free wifi nodes in San Fancisco. Of course, someone is paying for these "free" nodes, but hey, these telecoms are starting to price themselves out of business:
Meraki is teaming up with people in Alamo Square, Duboce Park, the Castro, and the Mission to start bringing free wireless Internet access to the city. As a neighbor, you can help the network grow by putting a Mini repeater in your front window, balcony, or roof. We're giving away the hardware and if you can place a repeater on your roof, we may set you up with a free DSL line as well.
Our goal is to connect the next billion people to the Internet by changing the economics of access. From time to time you might notice things like local advertising and search tools. These are things we're testing to determine the best way to roll out affordable wireless access to the rest of the world.
anonymous coward wrote:
you could have easily included a link to the original source In retrospect, yes, it would have been easy to include a link to the original. But I felt that I would not have found that blog entry without Rosenberg's intervention, and so I thought that he deserved credit and traffic. Journalists do invest considerable personal time, effort and resources into bringing us the news, and so it seems only decent that people should be acknowledged for the work that they do.
Slashdot Mirror
James Burgett was featured on the front page of Digg.com, where he got 2906 diggs for his blog entry about his dispute with the government (spam warning: I dugg that story). James has subsequently told me that he and the government are working things out. He is not entirely satisfied with the government's approach, but at least he will be able to continue operating his excellent Ubuntu box giveaway program. So it seems as if the attention from the popular media (Digg in that case) has taught the government that James was doing something that was sufficiently meaningful to the community that they should really try to work with him.
Full disclosure: I do not work with / for James or CNN. I do volunteer for a public middle school in San Francisco, California that benefited from a donation of 30 Ubuntu fat clients for our Linux chubby terminal lab.
Please read Pamela Jones' referenced article. The quote you are asking about is taken from a netcast linked in the first paragraph in Pamela's article. The page with the link to the netcast is here, clicking on this link will launch the mp3 file with that netcast. Those same links are pasted in their respective orders below, in case any one needs to copy and paste:
http://www.peapodcast.com/msc-oss-sig/index.html#osssig-2007-09-26-18-00-48
http://www.peapodcast.com/msc-oss-sig/MTLC-MS-Novell-2007-09-26.mp3
One thing that I really liked about this netcast: At one point, one of the Microsoft guys makes a huge concession, without really realizing it, because he states it so much as a matter of fact, and so much as an after thought. He says something like, "yeah, most of the students coming out of university are trained on Linux. I was a computer science student, and so I appreciate how great it is to be able to see the source code."
As IBM said in its GNU Linux commercials, "the future is open."
Another interesting thing: one of the Microsoft guys says "We've got the largest Linux server farm west of the Rockies!" All of these quotes are summaries, not verbatim quotes. Listen for yourself if you want the exact quote.
And yet another interesting quote by one of the Microsoft guys. "We walk around talking to our engineers, and they say, 'open source is such a cool way to get feedback. No wonder developers like to work in an open source environment.' " Again, that is a summary. Please listen for yourself to get the exact quote.
@ozmanjusri,
/. comment sections to advance an employer's interest or a client's interest by posing as an individual /. reader if, in fact, the poster is paid to advance the interests of an employer or client, and does not disclose that bias.
/. itself is at issue. If astroturfers continue to post under a false identity, ultimately the credibility of the comments section on /. itself will suffer, as more and more readers come to believe that they cannot trust the integrity of the contributions by readers. /. is one of the oldest and most venerable on-line publications that has relied on the contributions of its readers to supplement the content presented in the referenced article.
/. because we know that if the calibre of the content is not up to snuff, the community will discover those flaws and improve the overall article by correcting it here in the comment section. It is up to each of us to monitor each other as well, so that can know that the overall system is trustworthy.
/. moderation system is working. I was originally modded down (I guess) as a troll (it happened during the night here in San Francisco, so I didn't see it happen). But then ozmanjusri made a comment, and my score when from a 2 to a 3 when a moderator apparently picked up on ozmanjusri's comment.
/. is all about, and why it is so powerful. Robust debate.
Thanks for point out that I was not trolling. I really am not looking for a fight. I merely would like to know if Acrinonymous is being paid to write his / her opinions in this thread. I believe that it is an abuse of the anonymity of
IMHO, it is perfectly fine for people to be paid to post to Slashdot, but an ethical paid poster would announce their bias. In fact, it is deeper than that. Ultimately, the veracity of
We all come to
ozmanjusri's comment shows that the
Ultimately, if a moderator had decided that I was, in fact, a troll, and no one from the community had spoken up, then I would have had to consider that hey, maybe it was *I* who was out of line, and not Acrinonymous!! But I was merely asking for accountability on Acrinonymous' part, and both ozmanjusri and at least one moderator agreed with my position, and so the system is working. It's working both because I was modded down AND because I was then modded back up. I recognize that people will not always agree with me. That is what a community-moderated magazine like
So how about, it, Acrinonymous? Are you part of our community or not? If your opinions are your own, they why not make yourself accountable? Tell us who you really are! And if you are being paid to render your opinion, don't we, your community, deserve to know your biases?
Maybe Acrimonymous created this particular account just to post controversial statements. But maybe Acrimonymous doesn't really have a deep history of making contributions on /., and maybe he / she is a paid troll. I'm not making accusations. Not yet. But look at his / her posting history. If I read his / her profile correctly, Acrimonymous has a very high /. user number, and has only posted on this particular thread. And, lo and behold, this comment is a criticism of Free Open Source Software production methods.
/. number and a very shallow history here on /., and his / her first series of comments are directed at a broad-based criticism of Free Open Source Software production methods.
Okay, nothing human is perfect, and only ideologues would say that Free Open Source Software is perfect, etc. But I find it really curious that this poster has a high
So I would like to know, Acrinonymous, who are you, really? My name is Christian Einfeldt. I'm an attorney in San Francisco, California. I have used FOSS since 2001. I know about 20 CLI commands, and I use openSUSE 10.2 and Kubuntu Edgy in my law practice and in producing a documentary film called the Digital Tipping Point about how Free Open Source Software is changing global culture. I earn no money from representing FOSS industry players.
I respect the fact that you might want privacy, and that you might want to continue to post behind the shield of your Acrinonymous handle. But I would encourage you to consider telling us all who you are, and the extent of your experience with FOSS, and, most important, what industry you are in. Because right now, a first gut impression is that you are, indeed, acrimonious by nature and by trade.
It is true that overall, the Mac is easier to use, but the margin is increasingly narrow. It's also true that there are some issues with proprietary codecs and so forth, but with a wee little bit of support, it is possible to get 80 year-olds using Linux. I have supported several people in their 60s, 70s and 80s with Mepis or PClinuxOS, so I have hands-on experience with what I am saying.
And, actually, there are perhaps less tech support issues with Linux than with Windows. I support a public middle school in San Francisco with Linux boxes, and I know from working with the teachers on their Linux boxes that pop-ups and viruses are a serious problem that has caused at least 8 boxes out of 17 to be rendered more or less useless. We installed Linux on them and they work fine.
I do acknowledge that there can be good user experiences on Windows and the Mac. My main point in this thread is that people who are already in the FOSS community will occasionally use Macs, and I just personally find that odd. I'm not saying that these people are odd or traitors or evil, I'm just saying that it is counter-intuitive for me to see people in the FOSS community to use Apple products due to cost and lock-down, especially in light of the fact that in many cases, the "Free Software" alternatives perform just as well from a functional standpoint, and then you don't have the cost and lock-down issues to deal with. I don't want to call anyone names, that is tedious to me. And I do understand that some people want higher levels of applications installation and integration than is currently available under FOSS, and I acknowledge that is a valid point. My response is simply that, from my perspective, the marginal improvement on functionality is not worth the other frustrations that come with locked-down software. In the particular case in point, the iPhone, is the hardware platform so special that it overcomes the potential to be sued pursuant to the DMCA for simply sharing those hacks? IMHO, the answer is no. I just wanted to hear how other people resonated with that issue.
I have always wondered why there are so many FOSS advocates who put up with Apple's DRM'd little empire. Somehow, if Apple does the same thing that Microsoft does, Apple gets a pass, but why? And perhaps, more important, what can the FOSS community do to move Apple in a more Free and open source direction.
Are people really happy with Apple's contributions to BSD and Konqueror code?
If people are willing to put up with lock down just because Apple products are slick, I have to ask, are Apple products really that much more slick than Compiz? Is slick performance alone enough of a difference that people will give a pass to Apple?
I am not someone who believes everyone must use gNewSense and use only Free Software, because that is inconvenient for most users. But can't we make a little more effort to support vendors such as HP, Dell, Zareason, TechCollective.com, Emperor Linux, and other similar vendors who offer decent hardware with a better balance of Free to non-Free software?
IMHO, desktop Linux is good enough that we should try to encourage people to give it a shot, rather than just putting up with tyrannical insistence on having everything his own way, including his own little DRM'd desktop. Why put up with a company that would resort to the DMCA to attack its own customers? I understand that there is a lot about the iPhone that is cool, and yes it is a nice platform to hack, but why go to such lengths to hack it when you can't share your hacks?
In the wake of Enron, etc., accountants are looking over their shoulders whenever they are asked to do something unethical. I am betting that not only are the accountants seeing that they might not be paid on time or at all, but they are also seeing that they are being called upon to do something unethical, something that would be a blight on their careers.
You can bet that these accountants were not working for SCO because they loved Daryl. So late or non-existent pay + ethical lapses = hasta la vista, baby.
Okay, this is actually a good point. I was a little sloppy in my original post. It is probably NOT the code that we lose, because the license is probably truly an open source / Free Software license. It's the community that we lose. Or at least the community has to migrate from one name to another. So you are right, it could become more of a speed bump than a real obstacle.
But IMHO, there is occasionally some juice that is lost and confusion generated when projects change. For example, Mambo became locked down code, and IIRC, the transition to Joomla was not as seamless as one would hope. Am I right about this Mambo ----> Joomla move? Anyone? And does anyone else know of examples where a move resulted in either a more robust or less robust FOSS project? There is, of course, Firefox. What a great success story that is. So maybe even a Microsoft acquistion would not be all that bad.
Heh, in fact, it might be kinda funny. If Microsoft buys Yahoo, the disdain for Microsoft in the FOSS community will tend to drive developers away. So Microsoft could, in essence, be paying a premium for a community that will tend to shrivel upon Microsoft's acquisition.
please.
/. and Digg?
Aren't we tired of seeing these Microsoft trolls on
oooo, this could turn out bad. There has been a lot of talk of Microsoft buying Yahoo in an attempt to catch up to Google. And if MSFT does buy Yahoo, thereby acquiring Zimbra, it is another FOSS code base that we might lose time and effort on.
Of course, we don't want to speculate needlessly about a Microsoft acquisition of Yahoo. This is exactly the wedge that we see Microsoft driving into the FOSS community with their deals with Novell, Xandros, and Linspire. Undoubtedly, one of the benefits to Microsoft of the Yahoo acquisition talks is that many members of the FOSS community will shy away from Yahoo, simply because they might become a Microsoft property. And even people who like Microsoft and its products might hesitate to use Yahoo products and services if they see Yahoo stumbling.
So I would like to see Yahoo get its financial house in order. I am really fond of Google and its products and services, and I tend to use Google tools and properties more than the Yahoo counterparts. But I wouldn't want to have competition in this area reduced to only two major players: Microsoft and Google.
So come on, Yahoo, get your act together! And stop talking with Microsoft about acquisitions! Ick!
Also, patent trolls do the suing. Michael Robertson usually doesn't file lawsuits. He starts businesses, and then gets sued. It is almost the opposite of patent trolling. Robertson just calls their bluff. He fights their lawsuits. They lose. Then they pay him money. How cool is that!
I completely agree with what you are saying, and I would take it one step further. IMHO, Michael Robertson is doing as much as Richard Stallman, Steve Weber, The Pirate Bay and maybe even Che Guevara to redefine the nature of property. Each of these four guys / entities has done something to help us envision or experience "intellectual property" in a radical new way.
Richard Stallman formalized the idea of "Free Software." Steve Weber gave Free Software a new name, calling it an "anti-rival" resource, meaning a resource that increases in supply as it is consumed. The Pirate Bay and Che Guevara both thumbed their nose at western notions of capital accumulation. Michael Roberston has commercialized the delivery of "anti-rival resources.
Of course, lots of people would say that I am nuts to compare these four guys. Che killed people. The Pirate Bay is regarded by many as organized international theft. Richard Stallman has never held a gun in his life, probably, and has a low opinion of combining Free Software with non-Free Software, which is the mainstay of Robertson's business. And Michael Robertson considers himself a gung-ho capitalist. Steve Weber is a political science professor at one of the premier universities in the world, he drives a sexy black Saab, and he is no enemy of free market capitalism. So of course there are huge differences between all of these guys.
But if you look carefully at their lives, I think you will see that each of these people has played a remarkable role in changing the way that we think of property. My point in comparing and contrasting them is to point out that Michael Robertson deserves respect for fundamentally re-imagining the role of "intellectual property", maybe even as much as Richard Stallman, but just in a more commercial way. And yet even Richard advocates selling "Free Software." In 15 years, Michael Robertson will be thought of as one of the stars of the Free Software revolution.
Finally, don't think of Michael Robertson as an intellectual slouch. He completely understands the theories of Steve Weber, Richard Stallman, and Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen. In fact, one of the things that impresses me most about Robertson is his ability to boil very complex ideas down into really simple, straightforward statements and businesses.
Lots of people bash Michael Robertson for one thing or another, but I completely agree with you -- he and his Linspire team have done a good job of preparing a GNU/Linux distro for the mainstream.
One of the biggest contributions that Michael Robertson made to the Free Software community (yes, that means all of us, including Eric S. Raymond) is that he envisioned a commercial distro which would be palatable to North Americans. I have traveled to 3 continents and five nations to shoot filmed interviews for a documentary that I am making about how FOSS is changing culture, and I can tell you that there are HUGE differences in the way that people perceive FOSS.
In Brazil and other places in South America, people are more likely to resonate with the libertad of "Free Software." In North America and Europe, people are more likely to talk about how wonderful it is that "open source" is creating so many new opportunities to create wealth.
The differences are differences of culture.
Michael Robertson's message resonates with consumers who are sick and tired of the high cost of Apple, and Microsoft's dirty tricks, high cost, and malware. But many of his best customers don't care about Freedom in cycberspace. At least not yet. And maybe then never will. But they sure do love the convenience of CNR, Linspire's implementation of the Debian pool. But maybe one day they will finally "get" it that low cost and convenience are best obtained where there is freedom in cyberspace and true competition on the desktop. And Michael Robertson will have contributed to these consumers' support for a FOSS market.
I tend to be more of a "Free Software" guy than an "open source" guy. And yet I am very grateful for Michael Robertson's work, because he is helping us build a larger, more populous, and more diverse FOSS community.
Christian Einfeldt,
Producer, The Digital Tipping Point
Oh, ya think?
Damn, I love this guy. Who else would do something like this? Bear in mind, this is the guy whom Microsoft sued for using the name Lindows, and ends up getting paid $20 million. Oh, and the RIAA? While others end up paying the record labels thousands for petty downloading, Michael Robertson founds MP3.com, commercializes file sharing, and gets paid hundreds of millions and then goes on to take that money to start Lindows, which, of course, lays the foundation for another pay day. And all of it using open source software.
So when Michael Robertson says that he is ready, I interpret this to mean that he is getting ready for another pay day at Microsoft's expense. LOL, party at Michael's house!
like this one in San Francisco, California:
,
http://sf.meraki.net/overview
I mean really. It is deplorable that the product of a publicly funded project (ARPANET) could be privatized in this fashion. So if the big telcos and cable companies think that they can eat our lunch, just let them try. Hopefully, the more they try to lock it down, the faster their business models will be commoditized by mesh networks.
I wonder if Microsoft's scandalous misbehavior in regard to this vote will follow them permanently? It seems as if people with deep roots in any field, be it literature or science, have longer memories than the population at large. Hopefully we have been reminded (again) that Microsoft's business model is currently dependent on leveraging its monopoly on the desktop, and that it will do *anything* to preserve that monopoly. Microsoft has shown only average or sub-par performance in driving revenue in sectors where its monopoly does not serve it as well, such as the Zune or the X-box or search or SaaS (Software as a Service). Microsoft's genius is not really engineering, where it is merely an average company, readily eclipsed by Apple or Google, for example. Microsoft's genius is really in marketing strategy, and until now, that strategy has been asserting a value proposition that has proven difficult to refuse by the various supply-side and demand-side players in the desktop space.
Now that a little polish has been taken off its faux standards, perhaps we will see a bit more free market competition enter into a previously broken market. I wonder how well Microsoft would compete in the Office productivity market if it were unable to charge exorbitant prices for its commodity office productivity solutions? I am betting that a large segment of the market is going say that OpenOffice.org is "good enough" for them, and abandon Microsoft.
At any rate, Microsoft's most recent round of bullying will serve as a visible reminder to the world why it is dangerous to allow Microsoft to continue to hold its monopoly: because it will abuse its power.
I have been very puzzled by the Microsoft-Novell-Linspire-Xandros deals. Microsoft has been giving money away to companies that they claim are violating their patents, and neither Linspire or Xandros have relevant patents that I know of that would justify Microsoft's relationship with them. I now believe, as you do, that they want to have economic ties to these various GNU Linux vendors so that these vendors will craft solutions that wrap around Microsoft solutions. Doing so will allow them to dictate the terms to these vendors, as in Linspire's unfortunate decision to make Windows Live Search the default search on Linspire 6.0.
It all snapped into focus for me when I read this article that shows how, in order to get prime biz opportunities with the beast of Redmond, it is necessary to leave your iPod at home, and not even talk about "googling" or Google solutions. Microsoft's insistence reminds me for all the world of the Scientology cult. In both cases, they say one thing in public, but demand blind obedience in individual private dealings. Of course, you could say that all companies want to encourage the use of their products, and discourage the use of others, but Microsoft is different. It's a monopoly, and its dominance of the desktop market triggers anti-trust analysis when it demands blind obedience in this fashion.
So I believe that Microsoft is basically trying to create cultural expectations that they expect their business partners to be their best advocates in the field, and IMHO, it seems to be working. I actually like Kevin Carmony, and I like the fact that Linspire is bringing FOSS to mainstream consumers who otherwise would never be exposed to FOSS. And yet, Linspire's message about Microsoft has become increasingly conciliatory, to the point where Kevin Carmony has become, like so many other CEOs whose companies are Microsoft business partners, a voice of reconciliation and acceptance toward Microsoft, as in this quote from Kevin Carmony's 14 June 2007 Linspire Letter:
Again, I like Kevin Carmony and Linspire, but what we see unfolding in the Microsoft-Novell-Linspire-Xandros deals is a process of accomodation, as Microsoft moves to co-opt its competitors, and align their business interests with its own. Simply put, if a business environment is a constellation of celestial bodies like our solar system, Microsoft wants to be the Sun, and certainly not merely even Jupiter or Saturn. It wants to dictate the terms of interaction, so that it can skim off value from each and every transaction. And it can succeed in doing so. And that is what makes Microsoft so dangerous, IMHO.
.Net . I personally try to avoid using Microsoft products, simply because I don't want to have that kind of undue influence in my life. I understand that for man
Which brings up the issue of
...the future belongs to Richard Stallman. It sounds to me as if Microsoft is trying to employ a marketing campaign aimed at developers, business IT managers who are not tech savvy, and the tech press. They are trying to drain resources away from FOSS projects by competing for developers. They are trying to get unsophisticated IT managers to use products that "interoperate" nicely with Microsoft's core cash cows. They are trying to get the tech press to focus on Microsoft's "open source" products to draw attention away from truly Free Software products.
.Net and similar projects; they know have many other choices.
IMHO, Microsoft's problem is that we, the Free Open Source Software community, are drawing end user, developers, and business partners out of their business network. No longer do user need to use Microsoft Office; they can use OpenOffice.org (OOo) or Google Docs. No longer do developers need to learn to code for
Microsoft is trying to compete, but their problem is that they will not see the same kinds of profit from these activities that they saw with their Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office cash cows. This problem is what Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen calls "cramming". Lots of market leaders have done this in the past. Cramming is what happens when the market leader tries to use the disruptive market entrants business models. The problem is, the margins are almost never good enough for the market leader, which usually has a massive cost infrastructure to feed, and stellar earnings targets to hit, and the disruptive technology typically assists with neither of those areas.
In the meantime, the market entrant is very familiar with getting by on lean margins and low budgets. Earnings that are too small for the market leader are comfortable for the market leader. So the market leader shrinks, relatively speaking, and the market entrant grows relatively speaking. Sure, Microsoft will now start to compete for service contracts. But it won't make enough money to still be the darling of Wall Street that it once was. In the meantime, Novell and Red Hat and others will continue to grow slowly in their offerings and profitability, while Google continues to hammer on Microsoft in on-line services.
And in the meantime, the areas where Microsoft will least be able to compete will be in code functionality where GPL'd software does fine. The FSF and GNU will continue to lead, depending on how the overall FOSS community deals with the Linux kernel - GNU dispute over GPL 3.
Everything that Microsoft does is dangerous, IMHO, and they should never be taken lightly. But I see this move as reflecting relatively dim news for Microsoft's business network, and ultimately, its earnings and stock price.
http://digitaltippingpoint.com/wiki/index.php?tit
Included on that list is none other than Eric S. Raymond, who has this to say: And this from someone who is supplying the Aussie Defence Forces with "patent infringing" software:
http://www.mediafirst.co.uk/news/jedi.htm
I wonder how much this posting of Ubuntu cost Microsoft. Now check my math, because I am REALLY bad at math. If we assume that each person who downloaded this Ubuntu package would have spent an *average* of only $100.00 USD but didn't due to this download, then 10,923 copies times $100.00 each = $1,0923,000.00. Not a big hit for Microsoft.
Now, you might well say that only a small percentage of these people who downloaded Ubuntu would have purchased a copy of Microsoft Office or Microsoft Vista. But what about subsequent sales to those downloaders? And what about second and third generation conversions as a result of this download?
If only 1% of those downloaders (100) would have spent $100.00 on Microsoft products, it is a loss of $10,000.00 USD in the first generation (chump change for Microsoft). If each of those downloaders later introduces only two people in the next generation (100 dowloaders x 2), each of whom would have spent $100.00 on Microsoft products, then it is a loss of another 200 sales in the second generation, for another $20,000.00 USD, or a total of $30,000.00. If each of those 200 people in the second generation introduces only one person in the third generation, then it is a loss of 200 more sales, for an additional $20,000.00, or a total of $50,000.00. Not enough to show up as a rounding error for Microsoft.
But what if 10% of the downloaders and the second and third generations would have spent $100.00 USD? Now we are talking about $500,000.00 USD. Still not enough for a rounding error. But what if the lost sales would have amounted to $200.00 per person, and 10% would have made purchases. Now we are talking about lost sales of $1 million USD, and maybe that is enough for Microsoft to notice.
But rather than look at is as a loss, let's look at it as a gain for someone else. What if 1% of those downloaders (100) and their second (200) and third generation (200, total 500) progeny when out and spent $500.00 on a naked system on which to install Ubuntu? Now we are talking about 500 systems at $500.00 each, or a total of $250,000.00 USD spent on naked boxes. And what if 10% of those downloaders and the second and third generations did the same thing? Now we are talking about $2,500,000.00 USD in new sales to companies that are rewarded for selling a system without Microsoft Windows on it.
So in a worse case scenario of 10% defectors, this error would have cost Microsoft $1 million in new sales, and increased sales by $2,500.000.00 for "rebellious" OEMs selling naked systems. Still not enough to effect Microsoft, but it is enough to make me smile for the 5 mins that it took me to write this silly post.
http://sf.meraki.net/overview
From Meraki's home page: I'm in !