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Last Word on ADTI Document 86

Posted by michael from the die-dead-horse-die dept.
kris writes "Linux and Main's Anthony Awtrey put together a very nice analysis of the ADTI "Opening the Open Source Debate" paper before and after the temporary retraction. He came up with some interesting research of just why the paper adressed specific examples such as the FAA and exposes the FUD behind the FUD in the paper."
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Last Word on ADTI Document More

Last Word on ADTI Document

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  • a link to the original report (Score:4, Informative)

    by gimpboy ( 34912 ) <john,m,harrold&gmail,com> on Sunday June 16, 2002 @04:49PM (#3711923) Homepage
    original report [pitt.edu]
    • There is a lot more strangeness tucked away in that document than ever men dreamed of. For example, it was produced from a Microsoft Word document named `sullivan' - who is Sullivan?

      Now that it is for sale (!), if anyone wants to see the very last free revision (with some fixed figures etc) with a view to mirroring and linking from here, please email me and ask.

      Within a few days (work commitments), an updated and more detailed version of this analysis [linux.org.au] will be up, including commentary on the diffs. A word-by-word diff is most enlightening. An incomplete summary of the diffs is up here for the curious-but-lazy [linux.org.au].

      It does look very much like AdTI simply ran the controversy up in order to raise hits, which they are now converting into sales.

  • Again with the inflamation (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @04:54PM (#3711932)
    Ya think we might, one day, get a non-inflammatory response to the ADTI paper? This latest one is as bad as all the others - filled with deprecating comments written as if the audience was part of the "in-crowd." If you really care about the accuracy of the debate, why waste your time writing a rebuttal article for the linux audience? The ADTI article was not aimed at the linux audience but rather at the suits who don't know the details of the either the politics or the tecnology. A rebuttal written for that target audience is worth more to the forward progress of linux than a hundred of these "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" rebuttals that can only sound like the squabbling of an infant to an outside party.

    • A rebuttal written for that target audience is worth more to the forward progress of linux than a hundred of these "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" rebuttals that can only sound like the squabbling of an infant to an outside party.

      The author makes it quite plane, both in his preface and in his methodology: he's simply providing a resource for others to use in their arguments in the "perception battle". That's why he went through the process of converting the pdfs to text and diff'ing them.

      The additional comments were there to offer his own perspective and, quite rightly, they were to the intended audience: those who'd be using his research as substance for their own arguments in their own forums.

    • Ya think we might, one day, get a non-inflammatory response to the ADTI paper?

      If you want one so badly, how about writing it?

      It would probably make for a great story on the other site [kuro5hin.org].

  • Context? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by peterdaly ( 123554 ) <{petedaly} {at} {ix.netcom.com}> on Sunday June 16, 2002 @05:00PM (#3711950)
    I am unclear on the context. Where was the article he is commenting on, and who was the intended audience?

    Other than me not being clear on that, it was a good article once I got through some rough parts at the beginning. I think this guy should write his own paper on the topic, since he seems to know it and took quite a bit of effort to comment on someone else's.

    Can someone clue me in to the context? Should I know the names of the people involved? I don't.

    Must be a slow Sunday.

    -Pete

    • The context is here:

      http://www.adti.net/html_files/defense/opensource_ debate.html

      here:

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25656.html

      and here: (a very good devastation of the original paper)

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25659.html

    • Re:Context? (Score:3, Informative)

      by handsomepete ( 561396 )
      I went to the site [adti.net] I thought it was and the paper appears to be for sale(?) But, being the web wizards that they are, they left the directories publically readable, so... here's the white paper [adti.net] (don't know if it's the revised version or not - I don't have time to dig through it again)

      Just drop down to the /defense/ directory to browse whatever else they have.

      • Interesting link (Score:3, Interesting)

        by rjamestaylor ( 117847 )
        Thanks for the link you provided. Hunting around, using only hyperlinks provided on their pages, I found another directory: http://www.adti.net/html_files/technology/ [adti.net] which may go a long way to explaining the ADTI's comfort level with Microsoft. For example, see the pro MSCE articles:
        • http://www.adti.net/html_files/technology/anders on ad_techtrends020501.html
        • http://www.adti.net/html_files/technology/purpsq ui rrel_familiarity0201.html
        • http://www.adti.net/html_files/technology/Weston _c ounty_gazette_041901.html
        • http://www.adti.net/html_files/technology/Standa rd _examiner_techtrends041001.html
        And so on... Just click through the stories that are ALL pro-Microsoft, anti-Antitrust. Holy Cow. Western Civilization depends on an unfettered Microsoft to lead the technology charge!
        • Neat find. I'll admit that this white paper business was the first I'd really paid attention to ADTI. Some of these little misc. pages are kind of unnerving. How in the world do they say that they're "non profit, non partisan?" Their leanings and bias are painfully obvious to even the man with the worst eyesight in the world.

          My personal favorite: "Conservative Think Tanks Having Impact" [adti.net]

          Bah. I need to stop reading this junk. This was very insightful, so I won't complain. I was secretly hoping that if I kept going up the parent directories I'd eventually hit their system root or some bizarre spreadsheet that documented their "non-profits." Oh well.

    • Re:Context? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fermion ( 181285 )
      I am unsure why this is so highly rated.

      The basis of the review is a rewritten version of a paper published by the he Alexis de Tocqueville Institution. The main purpose of the original paper was presumably to put a credible "Think Tank" justification on the standard Microsoft closed source dogma. The original paper was quickly withdrawn after widespread criticism for lack of credible scholarship or logic. The paper did, and does, largely contain unsupported statments and hearsay. It is important to discredit this paper, as it appears to be an important part of the anti-GPL PR campaign

      Microsoft has been forging a war against open source software in general, and the GPL in particular. The GPL is a serious threat to companies like Microsoft because they can no longer take previously developed outside software, modify it, repackage it, and sell the product as thier own innovation. The GPL will force such companies to provide all code to the customer for which the software was intended, and acknowledge that the software uses GPL code. This openness has huge economic and competitive consequences to closed source software vendors who maintain a monopoly in their field (the problem is likely greater than Microsoft).

      The revised paper is still a contrived piece of propaganda meant to scare people into thinking that open source software, and most notably the GPL, will cause economic collapse and massive terrorist attacks. This is interesting because lack of transparency in business and politics in precisely what causes economic collapse and terrorist attacks. Remember Enron and the lack of communication between the various U.S. agencies. We should therefore expect companies and government to insist on transparent business practices.

      In any case, the paper will be used to get the U.S. congress, schools, and other governments to fork over huge licensing fees to Microsoft, Sun, and other such companies, for software that these agencies can neither control or properly audit. Which is not to say that closed source software is good, or open source software is bad, but to say that silly wolf in sheep clothing papers are a waste of everyones time.

  • The author of this rebuttal made an excellent point: software in the Open Source is becoming "mature", not only for server applications but also on the desktop. It does not matter that these products will likely never measure up to the level of proprietary versions of software: once the software is "good enough", it will be adopted by more and more people because it is unencumbered by restrictive and expensive licencing.

    It may take awhile longer, but it will happen. Of course, the goal of the proponents of the FUD are hoping to head off this inevitability by legislating Open Source software out of legal existance. To be honest, I think that this really is the only course available to them: Microsoft is going to be in huge trouble (sooner than one may think) if they don't stem the Open Source tide.
    • Microsoft is going to be in huge trouble (sooner than one may think) if they don't stem the Open Source tide.

      No, they won't be in trouble and they have no desire to stop the Open Source movement. Software proprietors love the Open Source movement and Microsoft has never complained about that movement's goals (giving gifts of code to business) or its means (advocating use of non-copylefted Free Software licenses like the X11 and new BSD licenses instead of licenses that preserve software freedom). Microsoft and AdTI complain most about one movement and its chief license: the Free Software movement and the GNU GPL. The GNU GPL is properly recognized as a Free Software license, not an Open Source license.

      Also Microsoft has decided to join 'em rather than beat 'em [microsoft.com]. The most recent AdTI revision is remarkably poorly timed. It would have had some weight if it had been published before Microsoft decided to become a turncoat.

    • Not a chance (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      This response misses the key point, as do so many comments from the OSS and Linux camps: Sheer level of functionality is necessary but not sufficient for Linux to succeed on the mainstream desktop. There is no magic threshold or critical mass of functions that will suddenly start tipping people over to Linux from Windows.

      Why? If you work with non-expert mainstream users, as I do on a daily basis, you'll find out that they care not one iota about the OS. They are completely invested in their stored data and their time investment in learning how to use their current set of apps. If you want them to move to a different OS it has to have not a set of virtually identical apps, but the ability to use all of their existing docs in a truly seamless fashion. And even that's not enough to get them to switch. Non-expert mainstreamers, almost without exception, hate PC's, and consider them too hard to use. Asking them to undertake the task of relearning a lot of stuff for what they'll see as no net gain in functionality or convenience is a non-starter.

      Until Linux can overcome all those hurdles, it's a Windows world. I hate it every bit as much as does anyone else on /. reading this, but that's the way it is.

  • GPL Question (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    My question is this:

    If a software developer makes an application for a customer that contains GPLed code is it considered "distribution" when he delivers the finished product to the customer?

    The Article says:
    If I am writing an application for a customer that will only be used in house, the contract probably already has source code availability as a requirement, so the fact that the GPL also requires it is moot.
    The GPL only requires the source code to be released to the same party the application binary is delivered to. If the binary is not made public, there is no requirement that the source code has to be.

    It seems to me that the statement from the article about
    "The GPL only requires the source code to be released to the same party the application binary is delivered to."
    would conflict Section 3b of the GPL that says
    "Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give
    any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code"
    if the act of delivering the finished product to the customer constitutes "distribution."

    Could someone more knowledgeable about the GPL please enlighten me sbout this?

    • Several reasons (Score:3, Interesting)

      by epepke ( 462220 )
      1. This is under Section 3, which only applies to distributing executables. If you don't distribute executables, it doesn't apply.
      2. This is clarified in Section 0: "Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope."
      3. 3b is one of three options. If you do 3a, giving the source, you don't have to do 3b.

      There's one more thing about the GPL that most people miss. It is directed to a licensee, not the author. Note from section 7: "Many people have made generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice."

    • As stated by an earlier reply, if you are distributing GPL-ed binaries, you must do one of the following (the explanations are my simplifications):
      (3a) Send the source code with the binary.
      (3b) Agree to give the source to any third party. (This is because the entity that received the binaries from you could have redistributed the GPL-ed binaries under the terms of the GPL and followed 3c. You would then have the obligation of providing them with the source code. I suppose, technically, if you heard about a piece of GPL-ed software being distributed with a promise to deliver the source, as in 3b, you could demand the source even though you didn't have the binaries. This may be construed as a bug or feature of the license, depending on your personal feelings.)

      I would imagine that if you were afraid of having to distribute source to anyone, you could simply follow one of the other options. (Typically, you would have to follow 3a, as 3c applies in only a select number of cases.)
      (3c) Pass along the message of the original distributor's agreement to distribute the source code.

      As usual, IANAL. If you need legal advise, contact a lawyer in your area.

  • Reverse Engineering (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @05:17PM (#3711984)
    They highlight a quote from the original white paper:

    "reverse engineering harbors very close to IP infringement because and has staggering economic implications."

    That is utterly bogus. I spent the first 5 years of my career reverse engineering IBM's PCs (back in the days when IBM was the "bad guy" and Microsoft supplied a fun little OS that freed users from sysadmin tyranny). Due to the efforts of hundreds of engineers like myself at PC "clone" manufacurers, we now enjoy a utopia of cheap, fast, interchangeable PCs supplied by numerous competitors in the marketplace.

    Decades of continued reverse engineering between manufacturers as they added improvements has maintained compatibility as the architecture has scaled in performance by over 1000X. The affordable computing power made possible by reverse engineering has provided immeasurably huge benefits to the world's economy.

    Unfortunately, the software market has not seen nearly as much reverse engineering and cloning as the hardware market. If it did, we'd all get to keep more of our money to spend as we wish, and we'd have fewer headaches managing and sharing our data.

    Sending your money to someone just because they've erected a barrier of obscurity and secrets around the tools you need to use your data does not help the economy or spur innovation. It's more like being taxed to pay for an entitlement program.

    • What you described certainly sounds like "staggering economic implications" to me.
    • "Reverse engineering...has staggering economic implications."

      "Decades of continued reverse engineering between manufacturers as they added improvements has maintained compatibility as the architecture has scaled in performance by over 1000X. The affordable computing power made possible by reverse engineering has provided immeasurably huge benefits to the world's economy. "

      I'd say that's a staggering economic implication, then! Perhaps not quite in the sense that AdT's writers meant...
  • A temporary retraction? That's like this:

    "Hey! You! You are a jerk!"
    "Ouch! That hurts!"
    "Oh, I'm sorry, I was just kidding around."
    "Thanks"
    "NEVERMIND! YOU ARE A JERK!"

    It's a crappy tactic.

  • You know, it just depresses me (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dark Paladin ( 116525 ) <jhummel.johnhummel@net> on Sunday June 16, 2002 @05:23PM (#3711994) Homepage
    I have yet to read the newly revised version of the ADTI document, but looking at the original doesn't fill me with anger, or the need to go change the world.

    It just depresses me. That there are people out there who find nothing better to do with their time and money than to tear other people down.

    We have Microsoft machines at my Day Job. And MS SQL servers. And an AS 400. And a Macintosh (granted, only me, but hey, it's a start). And several Novell servers (I love the new licensing scheme.) And a Nokia IPSO box.

    They all do a job, they all work together, and when I need to do something new, I look it over, and choose what I need. More often than not, it's Open Source, and everything else is slowly being pushed out (well, except for the Netware boxes - NDS rocks). I don't care about philosphy. I care about cost, performance, and how easy/difficult it is for me to use.

    I might read the new version of the ADTI just for the heck of it. Odds are, I won't. It doesn't nothing but tear down, and I have a hard enough time building things to worry about what I should be taking out.

    Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

  • Last word? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Roadmaster ( 96317 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @05:28PM (#3712003) Homepage Journal
    Last word, my ass. The AdTI paper is so freaking biased and badly written, that we'll be ripping it apart for weeks to come. Unfortunately, it'll do little good until a) a serious and polite rebuttal, aimed at the same kind of people the original paper is aimed at, gets written, and b) it gets diffusion equal or superior to that of the AdTI document. The much maligned, "inflammatory" rebuttals that have been written and published in mostly-linux weblogs are little more than preaching to the choir.

    Perhaps some of the big Open Source organizations can help? someone from the Free Software camp? the FSF perhaps?
  • I say that Microsoft should get it's money back for this report...it is just a re-hash of things that have already been said...

    ttyl
    Farrell

  • This flies in the face of the reality of software development. Most really successful Open Source software projects like the Linux kernel, Samba, Apache, PHP, Perl and the GNU tools are providing commodity applications which not intended to be particularly innovative in and of themselves, although many are.

    Prediction:
    Open Source dominates infrastructure,
    Closed Source handles specific markets, where economies of scale are scarce or specific requirements (e.g. performance) dominate.
    Our beloved polar opposites, BillyG and RMS, remain the stuff of fond /. memories.
    Maybe Open Source development turns into a journeyman scene,
    where you have to pay some dues and contribute to the general welfare prior
    to being hired by a 'serious' company with that fat salary. Such an ecosystem might lead to more useful software. Or not.

  • I want a "FUD FAQ" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bokmann ( 323771 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @06:05PM (#3712079) Homepage
    I want a document that has the 10-20 most often heard arguments representing the FUD companies try to spread about Open Source in general and the GPL in particular, and a clear, concise, relevant, non-inflammatory rebuttal to each.

    The author's language, such as "the market is a tough bitch" and "hell yes!" will not fly if I ever want to supply a rebuttal to these kinds of arguments.

    Take the original paper's example of "a piece of software an engineer writes that represents 5000 hours worth of work, but uses a GPL component that represents 100 hours of effort. Is the GPL'ed component's requirement to release the original work under the GPL 'fair'?"

    The proper rebuttal to this is:
    Imagine that an engineer writes a piece of software representing 5000 hours worth of work, but uses a PROPRIETARY component that represents 100 hours worth of effort. That proprietary component has a license that says 'the engineer will pay $10,000, plus some percercentage of revenue the original work generates". There are PLENTY of proprietary products like that. Is that fair?

    It is up to the engineer to decide. If his time-to-market is so critical that those 100 hours are worth $10,000 plus a percentage, then that engineer will do it... otherwise, they will just write it. It is a business decision, like any other.

    In both cases, the person who wrote the 100 hour effort component OWN THAT WORK, and get to say what the costs of its use will be. The person using it has to decide what costs they are willing to pay.

    In GPL, the cost is not financial (at least, not directly). The 'cost' is to release the 'new' product under the same license. Many other licenses (both Open and Proprietary) put 'costs' on that have nothing to do with monetary value.

    I want to see 10-20 arguments like this made. they are clear, concise, NON-INFLAMMATORY, and make a point.

    • Re:I want a "FUD FAQ" (Score:4, Interesting)

      by sconeu ( 64226 ) on Sunday June 16, 2002 @06:58PM (#3712235) Homepage Journal
      I believe that Villaneuva's letter to Microsoft [pimientolinux.com] does that rather nicely.

    • Re:I want a "FUD FAQ" (Score:3, Insightful)

      by kyras ( 472503 )
      I want to see 10-20 arguments like this made. they are clear, concise, NON-INFLAMMATORY, and make a point.

      Then I suggest you get writing. It's not like Santa Claus can be expected to bring you this stuff for christmas.

      I don't mean to be a complete asshole. I'm just trying to say, if you know what the arguments are, why not write them down yourself? I don't see why you have to wait for someone else to do it, unless you want the official RMS guide to why FUD sucks or something. Part and parcel of the whole OSS mentality is this: if you have an itch, scratch it yourself.
      • If you know what the arguments are, why not write them down yourself? I don't see why you have to wait for someone else to do it, unless you want the official RMS guide to why FUD sucks or something

        The tone of an official RMS guide would be too strident to persuade the business types. What we need is an O'Reilly "FUD in a Nutshell."

        What animal should be on the cover?
        • What animal should be on the cover?

          A bat? No, that's just "fear". Perhaps an uncertain, doubtful bat? I'm not sure how those kind look different from the regular ones, though...

  • The paper from the think tank? (Score:3, Funny)

    by peterdaly ( 123554 ) <{petedaly} {at} {ix.netcom.com}> on Sunday June 16, 2002 @06:12PM (#3712111)
    This is the paper about Open Source put out by that Microsoft funded (among other) thinktank a little while ago.

    Now it all makes sense. Took me the longest time to figure out the connections.

    -Pete
  • Thanks, Open Source Community, for helping us improve our document. Please keep sending us patches for it, we will certainly consider them.

    (As you know, not many managers read Slashdot, or have much respect for the "Slashdot crowd". No one will listen to your shrill cries of "This is just FUD!" [In fact, I would hazard a guess that there is a fair number of managers who don't even know what the acronym "FUD" stands for.])


  • Several years ago, IBM introduced the OS/2
    operating system. It was supposed to be so
    stable that it cannot crash. Microsoft
    destroyed that notion via a simple
    expedient: a team of MS programmers worked
    a whole day and night and created a terminator
    disk: a disk which contains software that
    crashes OS/2. It was a simple and effective
    counterfoil. With a single stroke, Microsoft
    demolished the claims IBM made about the
    stability of OS/2


    Now Microsoft, through ADTI, has made a claim
    that the very nature of open source makes
    it vulnerable to cracking. Microsoft had
    at least since 2000 to make good on that
    claim. So you experts from ADTI, answer me
    this: Where is the terminator software?
    Where is this software or technique that allows
    you to crack any and all open-source
    software?


    One has to think that with all the propaganda
    and FUD MS is spreading about open source
    security, they should at least have
    some proof. Microsoft, a company that
    has recruited some of the best programmers
    out there is unable to crack Linux.


    How could they? MS is in a catch-22 situation
    here. If they do find an exploit, they
    would have to publish it, and publishing it
    effectively allows the OS community
    to patch and improve the system.
    They will always lose whatever they
    do. That's why they are doing this
    FUD tactics.

  • < begin shameless plug >

    I wrote a comment on the AdTI paper [juliao.org], trying to outline, paragraph by paragraph, what I think is wrong with the assumptions and claims made, and offering counter examples and alternate visions on the claims made and the truth of the open source movement.

    Maybe you think it't worth a read.

    I am available for criticism and comment, and will produce a revised version if enough people show interest and provide constructive criticism.

  • To paraphrase the article:

    1) I work 5000 man hours working around NT/2000 problems
    2) I spend 100 man hours building a solution

    Conclusion: My whole work should now belong to M$, because their product represents the majority of work!

    :)

  • A very brief rebuttal... (with text) (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dwheeler ( 321049 ) on Monday June 17, 2002 @10:46AM (#3715197) Homepage Journal
    A very brief rebuttal can be found in my "Look at the Numbers!" paper; see http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html#adti [dwheeler.com]; I also include links to other rebuttals.

    In one place, ADTI claimed I said something I didn't say, and in others ADTI intentionally carefully quotes only part of what I said.

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