MS Rails On Open Source, Appeals To Gov't Greed 635
Bill Harper writes "Open source software is a 'waste of money,' a Microsoft executive has said. He goes on to say that governments planning to use it will damage their own economies and that giving away source code is shooting yourself in the foot. What's interesting though is that this is just the latest in a series of nonsense arguments put forward by MS in Asia because it's scared of Linux stealing the market. An early one was that open-source software is anti-competitive!" Funny thing is, the MS executive (Chris Sharp) used to work for Red Hat.
Funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny? It's scary more than anything, as it'll just make what he says seem more 'credible'. Of course, he's just some greedy bastard, and it's good to see him not working for an OSS company anymore, but it doesn't help Linux much in this propaganda campaign.
Re:Funny? (Score:4, Insightful)
Being greedy is one thing, but making money is another. There's NOTHING wrong with making money.
Whilst the claim the open source software will devastate the economy is probably overblown, Mr. Sharp does have a point. Goverments _should_ purchase goods from their home country whenever possible, or from companies that hire the citizens of said country.
Let's face it, open source software doesn't seem to employ very many people. It's not good business for Governments to push products that are detrimental to the welfare of its citizens.
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who ever said there was anything wrong with commerce?
Consider a normal transaction, where free people exchange goods or services, with 0 subsequent dependencies in either direction, for an agreed price.
Consider an abnormal transaction between a drug dealer and an addict.
Now, proof by analogy is fraud (Stroustrup), so we'll let the reader decide to which degree either of these models apply to the Free or Proprietary model.
Software is an infrastructure cost. Whether or not you threw away another ~$500 for the latest version of the Mighty Spiffy Office suite has little noticeable affect on the quality of the memo you wrote, but it does have a vampiric effect on the quartely earnings statement.
That sucker really does suck, as in 'the life right out of you', when your company is laid out flat by the virus du jour.
Can we face some realities here? The basic protocols and application required to run a business are fairly well understood, and implemented.
I think that the price of MSFT over time, and the price of an MSDN Univerasl (scaled appropriately for the truckload of stuff it contains) pretty well argue that Moore's Law, tired of crunching silicon, has turned its Beholder-eye towards software prices.
And for all that cost, Visual Studio still hasn't got half the functionality of emacs...
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
While you might not be able to play Tetris or send email with Visual Studio (or maybe you can - they did, after all, put a flight simulator in Excel!), you also can't visually design a GUI with Emacs!
--
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, that is false. OSS employs many people who make good livings writing both open and closed source software, standing on the shoulders of Open Source projects. Administering systems running OSS (Even OSS that runs on non-OSS platforms), or running their non-technology business using OSS
Just because very few peopele have FSF or Redhat or Your Pet OS Project at the top of their paycheck does not mean that OSS is not a force in the global economy.
Re:Funny? (Score:4, Interesting)
Couldn't agree more.
The worst thing is all those government health, safety and reliability regulations that relate to plumbing. Don't even get me started on national open standards. The fact that a property owner can go out and choose any old vendor and installer for their plumbing needs is ludicrous.
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, and there are many people who will teach you about plumbing if you are willing to learn (it's part of my current job).
That's why the money to be made (and that is being made all over) thru open source belongs to the service trade. (There's no shame in being a software maintenance guy; the nice thing about open source vs. closed is that you have a lot more options open to you, whether you are a programmer or DIYer
SB
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're kidding me, right? No...
Well, technically, here in the US in most towns plumbing requires one to be licensed if you are running new lines to the vanities in question. It does not apply to simple fixture repair, however ( at least where I'm at, jurisdictions vary, I'm city licensed, which is somewhat unusual in the States)
That said, the teaching part I spoke about comes from my main job, which is a hardware monkey in a local hardware store. I have over a decades experience working as a Handyman in three states, each with varying laws. I like this one
The nice part about my job is the back and forth between us and the local contractors - we teach each other, and we all learn. For example, there will be times when I'll teach a plumber how to replaster a wall that he had to open up, and he teaches me a trick or two about how master plumbers do their job (I'm a JOT, but a master drywall finisher).
That is how it should be. My point was share and share alike is what benefits the most people... and there are places in the US where the specialties have monopolies too. In my opinion this contributes to the general ignorance, but what the fuck do I know
Sorry if that comes across a little offensive, but it's a pet peeve of mine. Contrary to some opinions, I don't feel I'm in danger of losing my job by teaching the proper way of doing things to the average Joe. On the contrary, I might get to take a vacation someday... Guess I'm old fashioned, without being old (only middle aged)
Cheers!
SB
Re:Funny? (Score:4, Interesting)
The link in my sig is commercial software I offer built on open source such as JBoss, Tomcat and MySQL. It works, however, with applications running in commercial J2EE vendors such as WebSphere.
There's room for BOTH open source and commercial software.
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
A business is free to do as it chooses. But it's foolish to spend a lot of money on something when its competitors can get the same functionality from something that costs very little. It has to compete just that much better in everything else, and ultimately that can't be sustained.
In any business decision I make, Microsoft will have to prove to me that it's worth it to pay $250-$500 per seat for their stuff before I'll buy it. Their stuff is pretty good, but the free/libre alternatives are pretty good too.
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, who would one go after if the plumbing job sprung a leak and ruined twenty grand worth of housing?
This is a completely bogus argument that I am sick to death of hearing. Show me one single company anywhere in the world that has managed to squeeze a thin dime out of microsoft because of losses resulting from defective microsoft products.
Re:Funny? (Score:4, Informative)
Just because Microsoft says you cannot sue them does not mean your lawyer can't walk down to the courthouse and file a suit ANYWAY. Now the Microsoft Lawyer can hold his breath at the preliminary hearing all he wants complaining that the defendant is not allowed to be in the courtroom, but the judge can still rule that the plaintiff has valid grounds for a suit.
I can sue you for ANYTHING....including wearing a bad shirt, it may just be thrown out of court...or may NOT.
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the point. The point is that you shouldn't be locked into only one vendor for your plumbing parts. If your plumbing required only left handed threads of a certain pitch that was covered under layers of patent protection and NDA's then you would have a more comparable situation.
Ring ring.
"Joe's plumbing, how may I help you?"
"Come fix my sink."
"Ok, I'll be over."
.
.
.
"Sorry guy but you got a blufurbl sink there. You can either pay extra for the rental of the blufurbl sink tool or we can swap you in a new Murican Standard -- course swappin' will cost more up fron but Murican Standard will take any old pipe wrench."
So: do you rent the wrench or buy a standard system? In direct response to the parent: There's no question you pay Joe for his work. The question is do you pay extra a little extra to blufurbl industries and hope this never happens again? What if you know blufurbl will force you to upgrade to a new blufurbl product next year by getting a compound put in the water that will eat some select parts of your old blufurbl pipes?
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to see it in real life, go to your local Pepsi and Coke distributors. Order bags of Syrup. Now try to find the hardware to attach to the bags. They are a little hard to find other than from the Pepsi or Coke distributor. The connections are not open standard. You won't get the Pepsi bag connected to a Coke adaptor. Try buying a Pepsi connector when you don't have a Pepsi fountain with a service plan.
These two fierce competitors will want to tie you into an exclusive plan to sell you the syrup and despensor parts. Without an exclusive plan, it's hard to get parts or syrup. Microsoft is the Pepsi Company of software. They don't have a Coke competitor. The competition is Apple (7-up botteling). Needless to say the MS exclusive distribution model tend to lock out other products (Netscape, Opera, Quicktime, RA, etc) favoring their own flavors exclusively (Media Player, IE). Try going to your favorite restraunt and ordering a Pepsi, Coke and 7-up for your party. Most of the time 2 products will be substituted as only Pepsi or Coke is on hand. Only rarely will 7-up be provided. Exclusive distribution contracts are to blame. Non-soft drink products are not affected. You can get coffee, OJ, water, etc. as they are not considered a threat. Linux as has hit the software industry as a replacement for expensive soft drinks. It's the healthy tap water, free for the asking that is killing high price software market. They snuck in as water. Free, but who wants it. Now that is is improving and becoming popular it is becoming a big threat to established software. No one vendor has a monopoly on water, It can be trucked or piped in from anywhere. It can be gotten for free when it rains.
The software industry (MS) is trying to fight both competition from Apple, Sun, IBM, HP, and the threat of free as in rain water software.
Re:Funny? (Score:4, Insightful)
Even more, one can learn to DIY plubming, and be pretty good at it as well. You see, there are standards [plumbingproducts.com] for plubming as there are for software. Howver, unlike monopoly companies like MS, plubmers have to adhere to those standards.
There are also tons of people who know plubming, septic, etc stuff inside out (I am not one of them), who would gladly share that knowledge with you with out crying "IP" violations.
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
case in point (Score:5, Insightful)
Open Source Makes Good Sense For Governments (Score:5, Insightful)
Taxes tend to have a negative effect on the growth of the economy. You have to have some taxes or you can't run a government at all, and there are certainly important programs that must be funded, but governements should try to save money wherever possible. If I'm not giving my money to the governement, I'll spend it myself, and I'll spend it on things that will drive the economy towards making more goods that I want to purchase.
I'm no economist, but I believe that when governments decide where the money gets spent, you create artificial economies that can collapse when political tides change. There are buying fads as well, but I believe they have less of a deterimental effect on the economy.
By investing in Open Source solutions for software, governments help create a body of software that can be used by all other governments. Keeping it open gives us a way to directly help governments in smaller countries by making top quality software available for them. This is all done without any extra cost. It's sort of foriegn aid as a by-product of smart shoping on our governments part. Since most governments face similar organizational problems, there is bound to be tremendous overlap in the software requirements they all have.
Open Source software is more secure, in general, than commercial softare because it is open to public scrutiny and analysis. I think it's frightening to imagine viruses taking over government computers and opening them up to manipulation by criminals. It seems that creates all sorts of potential problems that are best avoided.
In summary, I think that the best decision any government can make is to use Open Source Software whenever it meets the requirements of the situation. It's the best thing for the economy and for the taxpayers.
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Interesting)
I would be a little more hesitant to call anybody who goes to work for MS a greedy bastard. I go to a small university in Pittsburgh [cmu.edu] that has a rather large anti-MS student body.... but at the same time I have never seen a larger turnout for prospective job seekers than when MS comes to town. Microsoft has the luxury of being able to hire the best people, and in the marketing business they can often come from the competition. After all, who better to detail the flaws in a competitor's products than someone who used to hawk them?
That being said I think the arguments are bunk but if you ever want to succeed you should learn to never hate your enemy since it clouds your judgement.
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
And maybe Chris Sharp isn't who you think he is. Red Hat is, after all, a software company. If Mr. Sharp worked there, and decided that the umpteen failures in their manipulation of the "OSS Model" were indemic to OSS itself, it would be foolish of him to stick by it because he "believed" in it. Maybe he decided, as many others outside of Slashdot have, that not every aspect of traditional software is inherently evil. Maybe he realized that "forced upgrades" pay the bills which fix the software and finance new development. Maybe he noticed that when you can download something for free OR pay $50 for it and get support, most people will err for free and just fight through the issues -- so if you want to make money, you can't give them the option.
My hosting business started as a web collective. Everybody was gonna pay for his percentage of the server, and we were going to be a non-profit. For art! For software! For the sheer coolness of being the first Open Cost webserver! But when it came time to pay the bills, nobody ever had the money, and since we were equal partners I couldn't well shut them off without selling out, could I? Eventually, I had to turn commercial to pay the massive hosting bill, and you know what? Selling a little webspace for a fair price was FAR BETTER from pretty much every standpoint than trying to force everybody to pitch in to a communal server. I still attracted artists [somethingpositive.net] and programmers, but if somebody didn't pay, I could shut off their account, and then the money came in real quick. Yeah, I guess I abandoned my morals. But the more authoritative method actually worked. And that goes pretty far in my book.
Re:Funny? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have an enemy to conquer, rather than hating him, ask yourself why you want to conquer him. If you have good reasons, they will be all the motivation you will need to "go for the throat." A DA doesn't need hatred to vigorously prosecute a murderer or rapist. He needs a sense of justice. Then he has the presence of mind to lay careful plans and make effective maneuvers. If all you have is hate, you will generally be impulsive and opt for that which causes the most immediate pain, which usually turns out to be a poor long-term strategy.
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or perhaps the best example, from cache Borland's web site [archive.org] back before they were payed off^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H settled their case with msft.
-
Microsoft's Concerted and Systematic Efforts to Unfairly Compete with Borland
...
.... As Gross put it, without even asking him to interview, "Microsoft gave him an offer he could not refuse." Borland is informed and believes, and on that basis alleges, that Microsoft's offer included a $1 million signing bonus, stock options and title to selected real estate in or near Redmond, Washington. Microsoft also informed Gross that it would increase the already substantial offer if he would accept it immediately, even though he had already scheduled a three month sabbatical to plan his wedding.
...Borland is informed and believes, and on that basis alleges, that Microsoft viewed Gross as key to its successful recruitment of Anders Hejlsberg ... Hejlsberg was reluctant to leave California, but Microsoft offered him a $1.5 million signing bonus, over a base salary of approximately $150,000 to $200,000 and extremely lucrative options to purchase 75,000 Microsoft shares.
Wonder if the RedHat guy got anything close....the method Microsoft chose to develop its answer to Delphi, as well as to C++ and the Internet tools, was to hire away the people at Borland who had developed Borland's superior products. By taking Borland employees, Microsoft reduces the number of people working on products that can compete with Microsoft and support open industry standards.
Gross had always been vehemently opposed to Microsoft and its way of doing business and had tried to discourage many of Borland's employees from taking jobs there. Representatives of Microsoft set their sights on Gross, however, and one day Silverberg and Bob Muglia of Microsoft arrived outside of Borland's headquarters in a limousine to pick up Gross to recruit him over lunch at an expensive restaurant.
Personally, though, I think it's nice to see that Microsoft recognises individual talent and rewards these people well.
Re:Funny? (Score:5, Interesting)
"Microsoft's continuous raiding did not stop after Microsoft took the top Borland strategist and Borland's top tools developer. Before 1996 was out, Ramin Halviatti, a Delphi Development Manager and, Jean Marie Babet, a C++ R&D engineer, had moved to Microsoft. In the past few weeks alone Microsoft has successfully recruited at least three more key Borland employees: Bill Dunlap, Marie Huwe, and Roland Fernandez."
"In April 1997, Microsoft hired two Borland marketing managers. Both Bill Dunlap, the Product Manager for JBuilder and Marie Huwe, the Product Marketing Manager for C++Builder,"
"Microsoft also hired Borland's senior Architect for its C++Builder product. Roland Fernandez, who resigned from Borland on April 25, 1997 played the key role in Borland's development of C++Builder, Borland's Rapid Application Development ("RAD") tool for C++. He left Borland with detailed knowledge of the overall architecture and feature set definition of C++Builder. At Microsoft, he is now doing exactly the same thing: creating a RAD C++ tool that competes directly with C++Builder. Unable to fix its tools products on its own, Microsoft has recruited Borland knowledge to do it. Minds that previously worked on products that support a wide variety of open industry standards are now limited to products that now support Microsoft platforms and proprietary technologies"
" Microsoft willfully, deliberately, according to its plan, and with the intention of harming Borland, hired at least 34 former employees of Borland, and set them out to use their knowledge of tools development, some of which is proprietary to Borland, to create tools for Microsoft. Microsoft continues, and will continue unless restrained, to accomplish this illegal course of conduct by continuing to solicit and recruit Borland employees. ...Borland is informed and believes, and on that basis alleges, that Microsoft=s solicitation and recruitment of Borland employees is intentional and being done for wrongful purposes: to inhibit Borland's competitive position in this technology area and to acquire Borland confidential information -- all with the express intent and purpose of unfairly benefiting Microsoft."
And the Asian government reps just nod and smile.. (Score:5, Funny)
"Yes, yes, you Americans have very large penis!"
.. then duly ignore the stupid American who is trying to tell them how to run their country and go off and do precisely whatever it was that they intended to do before the stupid American started mouthing off.
I just love the way Asian folks do business. It varies a bit from country to country of course, but generally, they'll make a nice polite show of pretending to give a shit about the rubbish the stupid American is spouting, then go quietly back to whatever they were doing before, unmoved. It's fun to watch the religous types pushing their word in Chinatown anywhere. The victims listen politely, nod and smile, and go on their way. The religious types read the situation to mean that because (a) no-one told them to f*ck right off, and (b) someone nodded and smiled at them, that they're getting their message through. This is why Chinatown precincts are always more clogged with religous freaks than elsewhere in any given city.
Here in Sydney, Australia it's generally the Morons pushing their false religion with their stilted crash-course Chinese. They're incapable of picking what nationality any given Asian person is, so they try to talk to everyone in Mandarin Chinese (very few people actually speak Mandarin here in Sydney, it's a predominantly Cantonese thing here). It's amusing to wander along 10 metres behind them, watching them greet random people with their "Ni Hao" and a big cheesy smile and all the wrong intonations, and watch the victims return the greeting with a polite nod and smile, then crack up laughing once the Morons (mormons?) have passed!
Religious Freaks in ChinaTown (Score:5, Interesting)
If anyone wanted to talk about what we had presented, that was up to them. If people wanted to watch the concert and leave, that was fine too. We did the same thing in King's Cross and Darling Harbour.
What wrecked it was the freaks who followed us. The moment they started with their fake Chinese and bible bashing, people ran. We actually gave away over a hundred Bibles that day, and people seemed pleased with what they got. These other idiots didn't get to base one.
The moral of the story is that you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. We said what we had to say in a non-confrontational way, and moved on. Everyone was happy. Go out of your way to offend, and end up going backwards.
This applies to the Linux evangelists as well as anything else. I can't stand Windows or anything else by MS (apart from their mice!) But I've found the easiest way to get people thinking about changing over to the Light Side is to use Linux, maybe show off a little bit, and know what the differences are. When people get interested, I can explain the benefits, and give them a copy of Knoppix. Easy. By treating people as human beings instead of targets to be hit everyone benefits.
Speaking of evidence... (Score:5, Interesting)
Lest we forget, Microsoft has at least one OpenSource project. While copyright, and restricted use, microsoft has many, many example source programs on MSDN as well. Not GPL, but certainly open (as in viewable and modifiable) source.
Perhaps.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Perhaps.. (Score:5, Funny)
MS STILL hasn't started learning .. (Score:5, Insightful)
They honestly believe that having tons of cash will buy them anything but open standards and architecture eventually win out. They always have, they always will. They are just throwing up their arms in exaperation because they just don't get it. They will,..soon enough
Re:MS STILL hasn't started learning .. (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't get it? Hell, I'm the one that doesn't get it! What is it beyond the 50 billion(not that this money actually exists) in the bank that they want?? This is all very psychotic to me. Dudes, cash out, hit the Riviera, French, Mexican, Mayan, whatever. They must be doing this for a good laugh, watching us wetting our pants everytime they speak. There's just no other reason. Maybe it's some "wag the dog" thing. What are they distracting us from?
Re:MS STILL hasn't started learning .. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's about power. Maybe a little about accomplishment. Doubtful that the customer is as important as a person as
Re:MS STILL hasn't started learning .. (Score:5, Insightful)
Riiight... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hooray for hypocracy.
Re:Riiight... (Score:5, Informative)
I know in the case of air traffic control the FAA must certify all systems, and with hospitals the various professional specialty organizations certify software within their fields.
Re:Riiight... (Score:5, Insightful)
It has nothing to do with MS's quality, it has to do with the requirements for mission-critical systems (things like aircraft flight systems, medical life support, etc.). These applications require a higher standard; a standard Linux isn't allowed to be used either.
Re:Riiight... (Score:5, Insightful)
Steve Jobs made a really good point about Microsoft, he said that after Apple forced him out in the 80's they person in charge was a salesman. Apple made obscene profits but in the long run damaged the company and almost killed it...he said that Steve Ballmer is one of the biggest salesmen he has seen.
It is obvious that MS is very worried about linux taking some of their profits...even more so now that they have no new OS for sale for the next several years. If linux wants to make inroads now is the time since MS has not product to compete with new developments in linux.
Chris Sharp... (Score:5, Funny)
Right... (Score:5, Insightful)
*rubs index finger and thumb together* This is the worlds smallest violin, playing a sad, sad song for you, Microsoft.
Re:Right... (Score:5, Funny)
Sending money to a foreign company? Not all governments are American. Hell, I'll venture most aren't.
Waste of money... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Waste of money... (Score:5, Funny)
Only in Microsoft-land (Score:5, Funny)
Guys like Sharp are a joke (Score:4, Insightful)
to the contrary, it's a more efficient use of $$$ (Score:5, Insightful)
From the government's point of view, the ROI on OSS is orders of magnitude greater than that of closed-source software.
It's a vastly more efficient utilisation of resources.
Re:to the contrary, it's a more efficient use of $ (Score:4, Insightful)
You can, however, point to hidden costs like the expenses of in-house/outsourced Linux support vs. Microsoft support (those MCSEs bills are expensive!), savings from your enhanced security (the what virus? I guess I didn't get it), and the fact that Microsoft doesn't always produce the best product in a given industry - so you're not tied down to them.
Microsoft, on the other hand, can point to the negative effects on the economy of losing major employers like itself, of removing gov't income (there's no sales tax on free software), and their longevity and reliability (they've been around, and aren't going anywhere soon).
There are two sides... the people with the money will need to examine them both carefully (and hopefully make the right choice).
Re:to the contrary, it's a more efficient use of $ (Score:3, Insightful)
When you install a copy of Linux, what's your support agreement?
Have you ever actually tried to get Microsoft to support their product as part of the purchase price?
Re:to the contrary, it's a more efficient use of $ (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:to the contrary, it's a more efficient use of $ (Score:3, Funny)
Mid-size and large companies often have support agreements (for a hefty price, but it's usually effective) with Microsoft. Call 'em up, get a person, and sometimes you'll get a fix just for your problem. Kinda makes you wonder what drives
Re:to the contrary, it's a more efficient use of $ (Score:3, Interesting)
Even one SPA audit kills any number of the "advantag
Re:to the contrary, it's a more efficient use of $ (Score:5, Interesting)
when you install your copy of XP professional where is your support agreement...
YOU DONT HAVE ONE. Microsoft does not profide free support when you buy their OS you have to pay for support. JUST LIKE LINUX.
I dont know where this myth that microsoft OS has syupport built in comes from but everyone in the business that works with MS operating systems knows that MS support comes with a very large price tag and is never EVER free.
XP=$300.00 PLus a support agreement price... Linux= $0.00 plus a support agreement price..
even if Mandrake or Suse/Novell support was the same price as MS support (it isn't... it's cheaper) you are STILL ahead by $300.00 + the cost of the Office Suite + the cost of the server seat licenses + the cost of the assorted support software that comes free with the linux distro and is supported by the linux vendor.
the cost of support that is supposedly attached to linux is also there for Windows. nobody ever seems to mention that... or they somehow forget that HUGE bill they pay to MS for that support agreement they signed.
Re:to the contrary, it's a more efficient use of $ (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm trying to argue both sides here - but Microsoft does offer free support and such free, comprehensive Linux support doesn't exist.
I call bullshit.
Microsoft's knowledge base is nice, yes, but honestly, it's there out of strict necessity. And it's not as good as Google anyway. For both Linux and Windows, Google is the way to go.
If you have a real problem with Windows, it won't be on support.microsoft.com, it'll be on Google. Probably Google Groups. And probably with a bunch of people with titles like "Microsoft MVP" chiming in with their two pence, all wrong and clueless. Guess why? Because nobody knows how the software works. And these real problems don't get solved.
How do you solve the problems? By calling up Microsoft. They'll charge you hundreds of dollars, to be refunded if they decide it's a bug in their software. You will be on hold for hours on end, and their support is far from helpful.
I spent over six months with Microsoft support on a single issue a few years ago; I still see the problem today, so their solution obviously didn't work, but we just learn to live with the problem.
More recently we experienced a bug with Windows 2000 Server SP4; it just kept rebooting randomly. Turns out this stems from a fix of a vulnerability in SP3 and below. Microsoft support was useless and to my knowledge they haven't actually fixed the new bug. Google Groups, on the other hand, helped us find the problem (we just use SP3 now, vulnerability and all).
I've set up GNU/Linux in mission-critical situations. When problems come up, IRC or Google or Google Groups has always had the answer. The three have a combined 100% track record. Why? Because the developers listen, and if not, you can always look at the source code. (You'd be surprised how easy it is to find the problem in the source code going by nothing more than an error message.)
In my experience, GNU/Linux support costs all of $0. But if I had a scary manager who wanted support, I could always recommend one of the zillions of companies selling Linux support. I doubt any would be as good as newsgroups, but they can't hurt. They'd certainly be more helpful than Microsoft, since in my experience Microsoft support is nothing more than a waste of time and patience.
Re:to the contrary, it's a more efficient use of $ (Score:5, Insightful)
I've lost track, was that the study Microsoft did, or the one they paid for or both?
Uhm, actually no. Mozilla IS netscape, just a few genereations and a name change later, with much more added to it. And the relationship between Open Office and Star Office is mostly the same.
The exception being the one about Unix. Wich is not to good a point as Linux is a POSIX compliant os same as Unix.
Of course you are almost certainly a 3rd rate troll, or just possibly a employee of a comercial company threatened by OSS who failed to do his/her research and is now sitting there with egg on his face.
Mycroft
from the article... (Score:5, Insightful)
-Chris Sharp
translated:
f**ck you all. We're only here for the money.
Re:from the article... (Score:3, Funny)
Jaysyn
Give back to the community?! (Score:5, Funny)
-Chris Sharp
This statement is absolutely spot on. After all, what benefits could possibly come from sharing information and knowledge?
The same argument should be used to end the cheap/free distribution of HIV drugs in Africa. After all, who benefits from research into saving lives if those lives are saved without reasonable profit margins?
In fact we should put an immediate end to free condom distrubution, because somebody had to work very hard indeed to come up with the design of the resevoir tip. Nobody benefits from condoms, especially free ones.
Libraries should also be dismantled and the books therein burned. If you want the information, you should have to buy the books, because otherwise nobody benefits.
As a former teacher of English in the developing world I am appaled at my own past behaviour of occasionally offering language instruction for free. Clearly nobody at all has benefited from this compulsion to 'give back to the community'.
I fully agree with Mr Sharp (with his delightfully descriptive name) that all information should be propriatary.
If someone wants to know, for example, how I am on any given day, I simply tell them that the information belongs to me, but I offer a range of scalable licensing plans to allow access to that information. Who could possibly benefit from me saying 'I am well' without proper remuneration?
Unsecure research, open communication, and 'giving back to the community' have done nothing since the beginning of time except stifle innovation and harm consumers' interests.
As a result of my new dedication to Knowlege (TM), I am pleased to offer the following innovative products that no consumer can do without:
I Am Well (TM)
Making Fire (TM)
Boiling Leaves to Make a Tasty Beverage (TM)
Conveying Heavy Objects More Easily with Narrow Cylinders (TM)
Making Pleasing Sounds by Striking Membranes under Tension (TM)
Futher products are in developent.
Riiiight... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sharp, who used to work for Red Hat before joining Microsoft, said building open-source software is a "waste of money" and that a company was in effect giving away its intellectual property, preventing it from getting future benefits. "If you are compelled to give back to the community, then you don't have the opportunity to benefit from that knowledge," he stressed.
Because, of course, Microsoft is sooo concerned about it's potential competitors in the Asian market. "We'd just hate for our competitors to lose profit and stagnate"Newsflash (Score:3, Insightful)
Film at 11.
Whinin' in the past (Score:5, Insightful)
And if you want to start a company in this world and make money while giving away source code, go right ahead. Lots of companies are doing just fine that way. It's only the proprietary, lock-em-up, IP theft is a crime!, sign this NDA! crowd that will fall further and further back.
Funny Hell. (Score:5, Interesting)
"See...he had to move to Microsoft to make an income and not work for one of those evil/stupid 'Linux companies'".
Microsoft's marketing machine is in full motion these days, and we are taking a beating beacuse of it.
MS = Prostitute ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:MS = Prostitute ? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MS = Prostitute ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:MS = Prostitute ? (Score:5, Funny)
- Linus Torvalds
Open source economy (Score:5, Insightful)
Open source is a good source of business revenues if you're in a country with cheap labor where you can more or less limitlessly hire support people.
If you're in a country where the labor is more or less expensive, and moreover if your employees are not support people but software engineers, then the financial outlook is questionable. For people and companies not wanting to move into cheap support, but stay in higher-paid research and software development going into open source does not make a whole lot of sense.
The government should care little about the source. They should mandate open standards. If you decide that your document standard will be the OpenOffice Writer XML-based standard, documented and open, then you can use either OpenOffice Writer for that (free) or any closed source utility that will save to desired format, but perhaps offer some other advantages.
Re:Open source economy (Score:3)
If you're in a country where the labor is more or less expensive, and moreover if your employees are not support people but software engineers, then the financial outlook is questionable. Support for programs cost more than the initial development if the programs weren't designed right to begin with. Programmers should solve problems, not introduce new ones or work-arounds.
The government s
Re:Open source economy (Score:5, Insightful)
But there is more to good government than just circulating memos at minimum cost. Governments ought to consider all the additional benefits of investing in open source rather than proprietary software. It contributes to what Moglen calls "the world's greatest technical library", to the benefit of students. It creates opportunities for local businesses, whereas most proprietary software is developed in the US. Free software can be used by every citizen, so they all get value from their taxes, and so that people unable to drop $700 on an office suite are not excluded.
Perhaps none of these matter to corporations, who don't need to care about whether their purchases help the public good or not. But they ought to at least be considered by governments.
Chris Sharp was the Redhat Australia guy wasn't he (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's probabaly a fallacy to think that the RedHat managers are open source evangelists - they are more "executives" than evangelists.
Even the current local RedHat CEO doesn't come across as your typical oss advocate. They are more business driven (perhaps unfortunately - perhaps not, depends on your view).
Microsoft and open source (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft and open source (Score:3, Informative)
What is "Fear"? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think if these guys had any brains they would give away a base version of windows that had enought functionality to be useful.
Gotta love the article.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps its about time for Microsoft to realize the playing field has changed and it should figure out (like IBM, Novell, etc..) how to utilize OSS instead of trying to fight it.
Government suicide==MS partnership? (Score:5, Informative)
Free software increases productivity (Score:4, Insightful)
Coffee tables, on the other hand, tend not to increase anybody's productivity.
MS tells it like it is. (Score:5, Interesting)
Really? Huh. So tell me again... as a Microsoft marketing strategist, when you look at me, what do you see [microsoft.com]?
Microsoft's Ally over here (Score:5, Insightful)
oh yes i must also mention that after all those years of "free education", M$ started "cleaning up" several years back. Talk about traitors.
MS - Altruistic? (Score:3, Insightful)
"a 'waste of money,'" (Score:4, Funny)
And by God, if anyone can recognize a waste of a customer's money it's Microsoft!
MS *is* good for a country's economy .... (Score:5, Insightful)
In that sense if a non-programmer wants to help the FOSS movement then translating a how-to, a man page or something else is a great way.
Waste of what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course free software is attractive to governments in Asia, South America, Africa, etc, etc, etc. Every dollar saved on the cost of a desktop OS or database server is a dollar that can be spent on health care, education, etc. You know - those pesky issues that ordinary people care about more than "How much richer is Bill today?".
Microsoft seems to be operating under the delusion that the only thing a government should care about is growing a local software industry. Heaven forbid that they have other priorities.
Reality distortion field (Score:5, Interesting)
A statement such as "With open source, there is no way to make more software" may make sense to a bunch of coders inside of Microsoft, but it's so obviously stupid outside of that context that it doesn't even survive cursory analysis.
Could they actually define at what point this "no way to make more software" statement has/will kick in? Was it after Linux was released in 1991? After Apache was released a year or so later? Maybe OOo was the last piece of software that could be produced? Is it happening right now, and the code that's being developed at the moment can't be finished? Maybe it's in the future sometime; I'd really like to know the date that it's gonna occur so I can get into another industry beforehand.
Idiots
obligatory "In a related story.." (Score:5, Funny)
I've heard stupider things (Score:3, Informative)
He did make one good point. "People tend to believe it is free, he said, but even companies that support open source are just as motivated by commercial interests as any other commercial software vendor." But so what? Is a MS executive really complaining about companies wanting to make money?
The problem.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Well it'd shoot Microsoft in the foot as they wouldn't have a competitive edge. But the gov't isn't in the software business.
I'm not exactly anti-MS, but this comment isn't very persuasive.
hurt their economies? hardly. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's good for the economy when things like steel and coal and fabric gets cheaper, because it means a better standard of living for consumers. Businesses also become more efficient; when their raw material costs go down, they either make more money or drop prices, both of which are good for the local economy.
So if cheaper steel is good, why on earth is cheaper software bad?
But Microsoft is trying to assert that if you wnt any chance of growing your own Microsoft, you need a strong IP regime.
But the simple fact is that there will be no new Microsofts. The existing one will make very sure of that. Only people who completely change the rules and play a different game entirely can hope to succeed against a compaany with half the money in the world.
If your local economy actually DID 'hit gold' and come up with a wonderful new software idea, it's virtually certain that Microsoft would simply subsume it into Windows. This has happened many times over the last twenty years; Microsoft has put company after company out of business by leveraging Windows. (Stacker, Quarterdeck, Lotus 1-2-3, Netscape... the list goes on and on.) The Windows software ecosystem has very little diversity; there are a few big companies and a lot of small ones, but very very few midsize ones. The sharks eat them instead and get bigger.
In other words, with Microsoft already existing in the world, the chance of creating your own local Microsoft is ZERO. The creation of the closed source software industry was a very special event that will only happen once; it will not be repeated.
There can still be small software niches, of course, ones that are too small for Microsoft to bother with. But if you grant that you most likely can't make huge piles of money, why not give away the code for free and sell services and support instead?
As a government, why not encourage consulting-type technology businesses like this? Service businesses can make very comfortable amounts of money. While they don't have the huge potential upside of being able to sell, over and over again, a product that costs them nothing to duplicate, they don't really have that upside ANYWAY because of Microsoft. The open-source industry is still forming, and there's lots and lots of room for new companies.
If you REALLY want to help your economy out, get behind open source and PUSH. Your local government spending $5,000/year for local companies to support and fix their Linux servers is a HELL of a lot better for your economy than is sending a check to Microsoft. Money that goes to Redmond is gone; money that is spent locally stays in your local economy.
Now, if Microsoft offered solutions that were wildly better than their open-source counterparts, it might make financial and economic sense to buy Windows. If you can be twice as productive, say, on a Windows box, and the total cost of Windows is less than twice that of Linux, then it's an overall win to buy Windows. I'm setting aside control and forced upgrade issues, along with many others, but economics is ultimately about cost, and you can abstract all those factors into cost of ownership.
But if, as I believe, Windows' overall advantage over Linux is slim at best, then it's just wasteful to send money to Redmond when you can spend it locally instead.
There's one other scenario, too... you may be so technically savvy you that you don't NEED support. In that case, you you can drop your computing cost to ZERO. This is STILL better for the local economy, because that $200 you don't send to Redmond is money you can spend at the county fair.
In a world with free alternatives, paying for Windows is very much like a tax. Taxes are always harmful (at least directly) to an economy, because it's wasted money...profit that didn't get reinvested.
You know, it occurs to me Microsoft is un-american (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't blame a company who outsources work to another country because its less expensive.
I can BLAME an American company who intentionally lowers prices in other countries and rapes us here in the states.
One small detail Bill... (Score:3, Insightful)
No Bill, I'll find somewhere else to spend it. Perhaps down town at the restaurant, Maybe a tread mill from Dick's Sports. I could get my lawn treated. I could spend money on my local economy supporting jobs just like mine. Everyone wins but you bill.
Whaaa? (Score:4, Informative)
So what he's saying is that doing both is no better than just doing the one?
He then contradicted himself again, adding that without getting back any commercial returns, a software company will find it difficult to invest in developing new software products. Intellectual property rights fuel sustained innovation, was his point. "With open source, there is no way to make more software."
WTF? He at least has to have heard of Mozilla...
This aggressive if confused approach comes after months of determined effort by the software giant to prevent Linux taking over as the de facto operating system in the world's largest expanding software market.
Months? Try years....
FUD.
SB
Ignorance of Power (Score:5, Interesting)
Governments are in a position to establish vendor neutral specs that could dominate the industry. If the IRS established XML specs for tax forms (rather than letting Intuit or another vendor dictate proprietary formats as the standards) then they can drive real competetion for good software that implements the standards. If this sort of thing expands it could make communication of data about patents, censuses, and parking tickets as easy to find as looking up a zip code is online today.
Governments don't seem to recognize that by giving power to the little dictators and their proprietary products they are ceding their own power as the neutral referee and protector of their people.
What is the Value Proposition? (Score:5, Interesting)
OSS value proposition is service based. Give the software away, and provide services, consulting etc. to help companies deploy and use the software. Companies may get support from either internal and/or external resources - either way they cost $.
Note: You still need services for product based vendors.
IBM (and others) have a hybrid model, services and software product sales. IBM get much more revenue from services than they do from software product. Interestingly, IBM will heavily discount there products (80%) in competetive situtaions - guess what? they want the service revenue!
Which model wins in the long run? The market will eventually sort that out.
Assuming that a service based model wins, then product oriented companies will fail: Which is why M$ are poohing their pants on this issue.
The basic economic free market model for OSS assumes a service based model. In fact for OSS to really work, it needs a really free market. Software patents are a really big risk for OSS, praticularly where the granted patent is for the trivial (one click, scroll bars, progress bars etc.)
Now we talk free market - we get political (where are Stallman and Raymeond when u need them
open source developers are selfish! (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me explain my reasoning:
Ok, initially, the majority of open source development was dev support based (libraries, support and development applications...and a few OSes). However now there is a plethora of open source work being done in the application domain. Writing open source applications puts companies out of business. I'm not arguing if that's right or wrong yet, just stating fact. I write an application, sell it...someone comes along and starts giving it away...I go out of business (generally).
So, where does selfish come into it. One developer, who doesn't have to worry about the other parts of software development (administration, quality control, iso certification etc) because he's giving his product away, develops a product simply for the glory of it and maybe some cash in support money. If the application get's big, maybe he makes enough money to be well off from support and on the conference circuit.
Now, if he'd had the courage to take a chance and develop his software as a going concern...and it took off...he would be building something bigger than himself. A company that supplies income to many, perhaps even 1000s one day, employees and their families. But instead, he puts a company out of business (or at the least reduces market share)...all for his glory he puts 100s of families out of work. Sounds pretty selfish to me.
p.s. I'm now a microsoft nut, and do contribute regularly to several open source projects (library projects). I just think open sourcing applications of every variety is going to end up killing our industry
Re:open source developers are selfish! (Score:4, Insightful)
The micro-economic argument would go like this:
The cost to produce one additional unit of software (marginal cost) is very near zero. Furthermore, the average cost per unit at higher levels of production is always decreasing. The fixed costs of development are spread over ever increasing copies of software, which each have negligible cost to produce.
Software development is a contestable market. That means that new companies can enter and exit the market at an insignificant cost. (Anyone can write software at home and distribute copies over the Internet.) In a contestable market, if the average cost curve has negative slope where it crosses market demand (guaranteed for digital copies, since the slope is negative everywhere), there is a "natural monopoly". The "natural contestable monopoly" firm must set output and price at the point where their average cost curve crosses market demand, where profits equal zero. At a lower price, the firm takes losses, and at a higher price, it invites competition. Even then, a firm that can incur lower fixed costs (zero for open source) can outcompete the others. The price would tend to move to where marginal cost (near zero) meets demand.
Essentially, profit-seeking companies must innovate first, before a zero-development-cost solution becomes available. They must continue to innovate, and always ensure that the consumers are willing to pay more for higher quality and additional features, otherwise they sell fewer copies.So open-source won't kill the industry. It is the heel-nipping dog that will drive the industry towards more innovation and greater consumer satisfaction. Unfortunately, there is not much room for either profit or error, unless your company has just invented something totally new. In that case, a patent can provide breathing room, though piracy still puts limits on pricing.
Also, though 100 families may become unemployed when an open source project is completed, 100 million can now become more productive at near-zero cost. The hundred can now move on to a new project with no competitors.
Re:open source developers are selfish! (Score:5, Insightful)
Industries always improve efficiency. As a matter of fact, that's one of the key reasons for having free markets. As part of this process, people get put out of their jobs and forced to find new work. Perhaps reimplementing word processors isn't a viable job any more, and programmers will be forced to work on, say, font creation software.
Until that day when there isn't a thing in the world that computers could potentially be made to do that they can't do, there will be jobs for every software developer in the world.
Also note that there are more people working on custom code and vertical-market code than horizontal-market code. Horizontal-market code derives the most benefit from open-sourcing -- if you're doing up a custom forum system, *some* of the work may be done for you if you start with an existing base, but it's unlikely that everything is complete.
I think that you should be more concerned about improvements in ease of programming. If everyone had to code in assembly, it would take many more man-hours to write a package. High level languages like Java, SQL, and perl allow people to produce software much more quickly. This *does* affect vertical-market and custom development.
what nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd expect a government to buy direct. The only "local" software vendor here is Microsoft.
building open-source software is a "waste of money" and that a company was in effect giving away its intellectual property, preventing it from getting future benefits. "If you are compelled to give back to the community, then you don't have the opportunity to benefit from that knowledge,"
Their benefits are (1) The free use of software that they CAN imrove on, (2) The use of those improvements in their own line of business (If you need a new feature or bugfix in a commercial product, your options are limited, as in your only option is to wait and see), and (3) The use of improvements made by businesses who are using the software because of your improvements. Etc.
even companies that support open source are just as motivated by commercial interests as any other commercial software vendor.
Yeah, what's wrong with expecting a little well earned profit?
Intellectual property rights fuel sustained innovation
Need is a pretty big motivation to innovate. Some call it the root of all invention. You keep your IP rights, enough to relicense and enforce against commercial pirates. And open source won't prohibit you from making commercial software, on your own, and seeing how far those IP rights get you when nobody wants to pay to use your software because you're competing with Microsoft. And how was 15 years of DOS, an OS that was a decade outdated when it was created, defended heavily by litigation and anti-competitive tactics, and based entirely on the works of others any without credit or compensation, a shining example of innovation fueled by IP rights? Quite the opposite.
Or what about the fear of patent litigation if I invent something that someone else invented independently? Non-innovators need not worry about such things.
With open source, there is no way to make more software
??? With FUD, there is no way to make more sense?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sites really slow - article text (Score:5, Informative)
Re:First they ignore you... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The truth lies within... (Score:4, Informative)
You may be right to an extent: both camps have their agendas and are willing to do a lot (including lie sometimes) to move those agendas forward. But look at the motivations of each and things soon become much clearer...
Proprietary software is all about removing consumer choice in order to gain marketshare. The more people that dump boatloads of money into your software, the more people that train on and become experts on your software, the more people that develop towards your software, lessens that chance that those people will ever move away from your software or service. Why? Economics! If you paid several million dollars for software in this economy and invested huge amounts of time and energy in it you would be very wary about moving to something else - especially something of such highly contested value as open source. In proprietary software, the software's success relies primarily on the quality of the marketing department and not the software itself.
Contrast this with the open source model: you write software and give it away. But we're not talking freeware here we're talking source code and all. You're empowering consumers. You're saying "use this software and, if you don't like the way we're doing things then change it or go to someone else who'll change it". That is a powerful thing. It's forcing the development company to compete on a much higher level and necessitates that they develop much better software because there is much less incentive for a company to stay with you as a vendor if you mess up. With open source software, people stay with you because you are the best and they are loyal. In proprietary software people stay with you because they've dumped millions or hundreds of millions of dollars into your platform and are so confused by marketing FUD that they are afraid to leave. It's a huge difference.
Don't get me wrong: I am not saying that proprietary software is always a bad thing. I don't believe it is if it in the hands of an ethical and responsible company. Unfortunately, there are too few of them out there to effect change in the proprietary landscape. Personally, I would love to see a hybrid of the GPL and a proprietary license. Why NOT provide the source code with a proprietary product. Allow users to customize the product to their needs. Allow them to create very tight integration components that spawn whole communities around your software. But still sell it in a quasi-proprietary model. We could have the best of both worlds: fully business friendly OSS. Unfortunately, that probably won't happen for a very long time until open source developers stop being so freaking anti-commercialization. Like I said, that probably won't happen for a very long time to come.