Larry Osterman is about to demonstrate one of the great values of open source. He's identified a set of malformed HTML and within a few days/weeks someone will have fixed it.
If this were a closed source / Microsoft browser, then there would have to be a complete release cycle before a non-security issue is resolved.
All software has defects, it is the access to the code that allows someone to rapidly fix issues that sets open source apart.
One behavior that indicates that a competitor is reacting to you is that they change a long time successful strategy. This is even better if the change of behavior appears to be reactionary and counter-intuitive. Microsoft has had tremendous success with embrace and extend. To now change to a Microsoft or else stance with Open software is not inline with their previous success. In addition, this is a reactionary move directed at open source which may indicate that Microsoft is struggling.
My take on this new EULA is that you simply cannot distribute the software with an open source project. It is no longer freely re-distributable. This just causes additional work for the end user that can easily be pinned on Microsoft. I am sure they can try, but Microsoft cannot stop open source software from interfacing with theirs. The license is granted to the end-user running the software, not the interfacing software or team.
Won't it be fun if Microsoft changes the Windows license so that Open Source software is not allowed to run on Windows?:)
Lastly, Microsoft is the one who showed that developer support of your platform is a requirement for success. People go where the applications are. BeOS (and many before them) showed that you can have a great operating system, but users need to be able to do something with it other than boot. By alienating developers, Microsoft could jeopardize this principle. What if the next killer app is Open Source. The team that builds it patents it, but releases the patent to GPL, but not Microsoft. If Microsoft can make their EULA not allow Open Source, we can make Open Source software that is not allowed to run on Microsoft. "Want to run the latest killer app? Sorry, not on a Microsoft OS, but you can run FreeBSD as your desktop for free. Application Support? Oh yeah, we have word processors, a great GUI, image editors, multimedia, and a rock solid server OS." Sucks to be Microsoft.:)
If Microsoft wants to try and pick a fight. Let them. Who cares. Let them fight the war. Me, I'm going to go on with my life.
After reading this article, I definitely think the way to stop Microsoft and future Microsofts is to open up the API.
An open freely available universal API would give the consumer real choice in which operating system to use. Every OS could run any application. A consumer would choose their OS and then be able to choose their applications independently. I would no longer have to use win32 just because the applications I need to do my work only run on win32.
As most of the Win32 API can be found just by installing the Win32 SDK, the real issues here are change control and ownership. An independent board should carefully control all changes made to the API. Benefits and consequences should be weighed and voted on before any change is published. The API should be owned by the public and not by any company. Even the company/agency that controls change should not be the owner.
I believe that there should be an independent computer API company/agency created. Microsoft probably should fund it as part of their fine from the anti-trust trial. The new API could be based on Win32 (God forbid:) or it could be entirely new. A system like what NT is using now, internal API with Win32/Posix translation layer, could be used as an implementation model. The real problem with an entirely new API will be transitioning exiting Win32 applications and development houses. Another part of the MS equation could be a translation layer from Microsoft for Win32 to the Universal API.
Finally, the wine project has been moving toward providing this utopia, but one of my big concerns about wine is that once wine achieves complete compatibility, Microsoft will introduce some new piece and we'll be right back where we started. For example, wine was making very good headway on 16 bit apps just as Windows 95 was released, and although I don't think MS would change their API again (at least not until IA-64) they could introduce a new common control or some other important piece.
The Linux community is the champion of Open (and often free) computer systems. Instead of focusing on how to punish Microsoft, let's use this to create something good.
Slashdot Mirror
Larry Osterman is about to demonstrate one of the great values of open source. He's identified a set of malformed HTML and within a few days/weeks someone will have fixed it.
If this were a closed source / Microsoft browser, then there would have to be a complete release cycle before a non-security issue is resolved.
All software has defects, it is the access to the code that allows someone to rapidly fix issues that sets open source apart.
One behavior that indicates that a competitor is reacting to you is that they change a long time successful strategy. This is even better if the change of behavior appears to be reactionary and counter-intuitive. Microsoft has had tremendous success with embrace and extend. To now change to a Microsoft or else stance with Open software is not inline with their previous success. In addition, this is a reactionary move directed at open source which may indicate that Microsoft is struggling.
My take on this new EULA is that you simply cannot distribute the software with an open source project. It is no longer freely re-distributable. This just causes additional work for the end user that can easily be pinned on Microsoft. I am sure they can try, but Microsoft cannot stop open source software from interfacing with theirs. The license is granted to the end-user running the software, not the interfacing software or team.
Won't it be fun if Microsoft changes the Windows license so that Open Source software is not allowed to run on Windows? :)
Lastly, Microsoft is the one who showed that developer support of your platform is a requirement for success. People go where the applications are. BeOS (and many before them) showed that you can have a great operating system, but users need to be able to do something with it other than boot. By alienating developers, Microsoft could jeopardize this principle. What if the next killer app is Open Source. The team that builds it patents it, but releases the patent to GPL, but not Microsoft. If Microsoft can make their EULA not allow Open Source, we can make Open Source software that is not allowed to run on Microsoft. "Want to run the latest killer app? Sorry, not on a Microsoft OS, but you can run FreeBSD as your desktop for free. Application Support? Oh yeah, we have word processors, a great GUI, image editors, multimedia, and a rock solid server OS." Sucks to be Microsoft. :)
If Microsoft wants to try and pick a fight. Let them. Who cares. Let them fight the war. Me, I'm going to go on with my life.
After reading this article, I definitely think the way to stop Microsoft and future Microsofts is to open up the API.
An open freely available universal API would give the consumer real choice in which operating system to use. Every OS could run any application. A consumer would choose their OS and then be able to choose their applications independently. I would no longer have to use win32 just because the applications I need to do my work only run on win32.
As most of the Win32 API can be found just by installing the Win32 SDK, the real issues here are change control and ownership. An independent board should carefully control all changes made to the API. Benefits and consequences should be weighed and voted on before any change is published. The API should be owned by the public and not by any company. Even the company/agency that controls change should not be the owner.
I believe that there should be an independent computer API company/agency created. Microsoft probably should fund it as part of their fine from the anti-trust trial. The new API could be based on Win32 (God forbid :) or it could be entirely new. A system like what NT is using now, internal API with Win32/Posix translation layer, could be used as an implementation model. The real problem with an entirely new API will be transitioning exiting Win32 applications and development houses. Another part of the MS equation could be a translation layer from Microsoft for Win32 to the Universal API.
Finally, the wine project has been moving toward providing this utopia, but one of my big concerns about wine is that once wine achieves complete compatibility, Microsoft will introduce some new piece and we'll be right back where we started. For example, wine was making very good headway on 16 bit apps just as Windows 95 was released, and although I don't think MS would change their API again (at least not until IA-64) they could introduce a new common control or some other important piece.
The Linux community is the champion of Open (and often free) computer systems. Instead of focusing on how to punish Microsoft, let's use this to create something good.