Comments on: Microsoft's struggle to compete with 'free'
Microsoft has long struggled with the price tag of Linux, even as it has sought other ways to increase that price through patent FUD.
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Good to see MS hires people with an IQ slightly over 80, who can state the obvious. I didn't think that hired anyone north of 70.
It is funny how they get upset when someone tried to even out the playing field. For some odd reason they think that everyone in software is legally obligated to play on their slanted field.
Competing with free is simple:
1. Produce product superior to the free ones - with very few exceptions, they can no do this
2. Price them fairly in terms of what you are offering. No version of Vista is worth more than $50. And I am being very generous here.
Unfortunately, that argument doesn't work either. OS X includes too many software extras and the hardware isn't priced that much differently than comparable PC hardware for when you originally buy it. Windows is just trying to milk its customers for all they've got.
The hybrid models seem to be the ones that corporations leveraging OSS are using.
Robert
For me money didn't become involved until much later, when I started to resent being coerced into giving MS money that they were doing nothing whatsoever to earn. It's been quite a long time since I was willing to pay MS in order to buy a computer that I had no intention of using any MS software on. I'll pay premium prices to avoid doing that.
P.S.: You might read http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/ for January 25, 2009. This gives another person's reason.
Yes, for most consumers and commercially Linux is not viable and won't be until we have main stream programs available for it like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc. That may come so with luck Windows days could be numbered or Linux may go down in history as a footnote and nothing more. Time will tell about that. But, right now Windows is way over priced just like the Apple hardware.
Robert
Wrong! Hackers in the '70s were the good guys. They modified and improved code as they saw fit for their use or their organization's use. The emergence of proprietary licenses has disabled this practice. Imagine someone who enjoys to work on cars in his/her garage being told they cannot paint their car or add any horsepower to their engine. GPL does for the software what recipe books do for cooks. GPL does for software what case law does for judges. GPL does for software what therapists do for their patients. GPL gives programmers something they can use. With proprietary licensing they have nothing. According to Mr. Allchin this is the best thing for the world.
Hackers were always seen to be a bit strange in the 70's, but it was "in" back then to be strange. In any event, they were tolerated because nobody thought that they could do any harm in breaking into computer systems that had little direct effect on the vast majority of people's lives; computers were also seen to be a symbol of the establishment. It was also "in" to be anti-establishment.
Hackers are now seen to be criminal menaces to society because, for example, their piracy deprives entrepreneurial college students who write proprietary software of their college tuition money (see Cnet news, security article on January 13). This is no longer an honorable trade by any means; it is now viewed as criminal piracy. To the extent that the open source community gets connected to this practice, it will lose in every single jury trial in the U.S. You will also see Microsoft just stand back and laugh, as common people put these open source criminal hackers in prison. The recent trials have gone decidedly against these open source hackers. See a review article by Huang in the Cornell Law Review for example.
This may come as a shock to you, but being a hacker and being a pirate are not synonymous. I have never stolen software, nor would I ever condone it. You're confusing the issue by producing irrelevant information. There have been creators of proprietary licensed software that have committed crimes as well. The story here is about Microsoft telling the world that free software (GPL) is bad. My argument is that the collaborative spirit of these hackers, who improved the software and made it freely available for anyone else to use for their own gain, lives on in the GPL. If someone finds this immoral then they need their head examined.
I am just echoing the popular sentiment that computer hacking is not a good thing and the open source community is the main culprit as seen in a number of high profile legal cases brought out in the media lately. I understand that 99% of those who develop under the GPL structure have integrity and put honest code into these applications like I am sure that you do. The problem that honest GPL developers like you have is the other 1% of GPL developers who have stolen code or trade secrets. This makes GPL applications especially vulnerable to legal challenges. Yes, hacking and piracy also goes on with proprietary developers and I certainly do not condone it. It is just much easier to discover and prosecute criminally in cases with GPL open source, as evidenced by these recent high profile legal cases. Interestingly, these legal challenges to GPL are not being brought by Microsoft, but by small time proprietary developers who have been victimized by these crimes. When those GPL developers who are responsible are found guilty, the entire GPL application falls faster than a house of cards because part of its development is based upon criminal code. The real challenge to the open source GPL community is how to police itself, so that these criminal elements do not ruin their applications.
Explain the discrepancy (and the difference between 'hacker' and 'cracker' while you're at it, and I might not call you an ignorant boob.
In the meantime, I'll just continue resenting the idea of still having to pay upfront for software that will never work as advertised.
My friend I am sure that some hackers do copy Windows. I do not want to get into a definition of software hacker vs. cracker, but I can assure you that none of these are good labels. A case in point; I was just listing to CBS Radio News here in the US an hour ago and they were talking about how Obama's email system was immune to "hackers". Once again, the open source community should not make apologies for those amongst you who break into software in ways that have been interpreted as criminal in the US courts. Instead, you should try to police this activity yourself or else you will not have many GPL applications left because not much of the remaining code will be legitimate.
As for that last bit: you're not Darl McBride are you? Wonderful court case that, proving solidly that Linux has the cleanest code possible.
Once again, baseless assertions and allusions are all you have. Don't reply until you've done some research. I mean, seriously, you on peer review panel? Don't make me laugh, I'll get coffee up my nose.
As I recall, you were another one bragging in the very same blog about how easy it is to break into a trade secret in proprietary code as a reason for not doing proprietary code. Please don't make me dig out your exact statement on this a few weeks ago. As I told you then, go ahead and do test the US courts on this. I will be happy to read about your criminal hacking trial in the news.
If you want the open source community to have a clean image, you could start by not bragging about how easy it is to hack into proprietary software when you present yourself as an adovate of open source software. Some people might get the wrong impression :).
What has LEGAL reverse engineering of software for LEGAL PURPOSES got to do with any of your *********?
Hmmm?
"As I told you then, go ahead and do test the US courts on this."
Did I not just make a direct reference to you're complete an total ignorance on legal issues? Yes. I did. I provided two examples of court cases that have already failed and commercially sold software which directly contradict everything you said and yet you persist in this boneheaded ideological belief of yours that any and all reverse engineering is illegal. But don't let me confuse you with facts, you've already made up your mind.
I mean, the MPAA and Adobe with their LEGAL TEAMS must have missed something that your magical superbrain has somehow perceived, right?
The cases with Elcomsoft and Jon Lech Johansen demonstrated quite nicely that reverse engineering for LEGAL PURPOSES is STILL LEGAL. Consider the weight (Adobe, MPAA) behind those cases and how little merit they must have had to still lose. The case you brought up, the one single example, was written by a standard attorney (seven years is how long it takes for ALL attorneys to qualify you idiot, he's not special and especially not a Professor, he's not even a Reader) who wasn't even a practicing attorney when he wrote on the case and the case was lost because NO LEGAL PURPOSE COULD BE DEFINED.
This was EXPLICITLY STATED in the article.
If it was any more clear cut you'd lose a finger just reading it.
"Please don't make me dig out your exact statement on this a few weeks ago."
I wish you would, both my post and the one I was replying to. I wasn't at all claiming it was a reason to not produce closed code, I was laughing at your naive believe that it would protect your code. But then, you're full of belief that has no basis in reality. Maybe you should put the idea that DRM does anything but alienate paying customers past Stardock Entertainment, then ask them what their sales figures are. I expect you'll be blown over by the gales of laughter.
It has been proven time and time again that "copy protection measures" are at best an inconvenience to the PAYING CUSTOMER and at worst a form of lock in while doing absolutely nothing, zero, zip, nada, zilch, stop kidding yourself it's just not funny anymore, to stop piracy. I mean really, only a complete retard would believe that these things would actually stop illegal activity. They didn't even stop activity which is PERFECTLY LEGAL no matter how much you may stick your fingers in your ears and shout 'la la la la la, not listening, not listening' a la Boris Johnson.
It is a widespread opinion in F/OSS circles that DRM, code encryption and other forms of vendor lock-in have only one purpose: screw the customer.
People like you seem to have forgotten just who it is that's paying your damn wages. The FSF designed the GPL to rectify this.
Here is the reference to the Cornell Law Review article for all to see:
http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/research/cornell-law-review/upload/CRN504Hwang.pdf
Obutaig, if you believe that this legal scholar and ex-editor of the Cornell Law Review is totally baseless, then you should write an article to get published in a prestigious Ivy League law journal yourself - hey maybe even try the Harvard Law Review. Once again, I tend not to take legal advice from computer hackers on what is and is not legal in the world of computer hacking. I look to legal scholars for this judgement. What is especially interesting about this article is that the author is actually a proponent of open source software, so he does not have all the biases of computer hackers who think that they are experts on the law like Obutaig.
For all who are interested, Mr Huang - the author of this article - warns that the basic foundation of open source software development is probably going to be uprooted by these new legal cases in the US involving criminal computer hacking of proprietary software.
PS. You conveniently missed the part where he was Internet Editor which is a role that invariably has much less weight regarding what actually gets published.
PPS. Stop making assumptions about my occupation or hobbies. You are, as usual, wrong.
That's an interesting comment. Do you have any facts with which to back up your assertion, or are you just upset at BoycottNovell for some reason? Is it their accuracy level? I've read a lot of the articles there, and their accuracy level is quite high, and of course, if you disagree with them, you wouldn't like that.
I wrote about it and asked the BBC for a transcript of the programme too: http://www.theopensourcerer.com/2009/01/22/the-economics-of-free-for-free/
It's an excellent resource and when you really grok it - MS doesn't have a chance unless it radically changes it's ways.
However open source is also a sort of uber flexible component model. You can take a module, tweek it, and use it in you own products. Here the GPL is a poor option because you cannot combine closed source and GPL in the same application. But for that situation you could use the weaker LGPL. However you are not garanteed access to you competitors extensions on top of the module, only the refinement and bugfixes of the module itself, hence the sharing is less with LGPL.
Compiling it in your proprietary code is a no-no. Calling it as you would any other library and you can.
I was surprised but, it's not realistically any different.
Yes, I found that statement rather amusing, and the one about the GPL being "Un-American". It's obvious that whoever made that statement at Microsoft doesn't know a lot of history (or is trying to ignore it). Community projects are very American. Consider Barn and House raising for example, both examples of a community working together for the greater good.
And over at Groklaw http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20081102011538422 : "The Bilski ruling was that abstract ideas are not patentable, and the court tossed overboard the State Street "useful, concrete, and tangible result? test that made it possible for software to be patented in the first place. Now a process has to be either tied to a particular machine or apparatus or must transform an article. So while the court didn't decide the question of whether or not software is patentable, or to what degree, because In Re Bilski wasn't a case about software, I think Microsoft has to know that the rug is being pulled out from underneath its feet..."
"Tech" writers, such as yourself, keep ignoring this case and fanning the flames of patent threats to Linux. And in the case of SCO vs Novell and SCO vs IBM, labeling a suit over copyrights as one over patents. With the above case and SCO's stinging defeat over its copyright claims, Groklaw has stopped publishing, as its mission is complete; the threat has passed.
But publishing that news isn't nearly as much fun as spreading now old, false charges, is it?
If you had been paying attention the last few years, OSS is policed heavily.
You don't seem to understand the difference between hacking, cracking, and reverse engineering. Nor do you actually understand programming.
- by arjenlentz February 1, 2009 3:56 PM PST
- a) Microsoft has actually been very smart (historically) with its own community, gaining many of the benefits that you'd otherwise only see with an OSS project. If they don't recognise their own success, oh dear.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(55 Comments)b) The litigious society = USA, mainly. Most other countries don't give a toss, or understand that discouraging litigation through various measures (limitation of awards, etc) actually works better economically. We all know that the only winners in litigation are the lawyers.
And, since the world is way bigger than just the USA, it's good to realise this basic economic fact.