Salon's Free Software Project (Part 2) 96
jsa writes "Salon has released Chapter 2, part 2 of the Free Software Project Book"
It's by Andrew Leonard again. He's been busy, it's a long one, but there's lots of cool parts that you probably don't know about (including a gratuitous pinball reference ;)
What is it exactly? (Score:1)
- That was the most tightly packed set of buzzwords I have ever scene in my life. Did anybody count how many times the words revolution, enable, adavanced, rich, service, and experience were used?
- I knew more about what it actually is from reading the Slashdot summary! Where did that information come from? I found nothing of the sort at the
.NET hompage.
I'm especially confused about the idea about "authoring" the webpages that you would normally just read. Methinks that would make some web admins a bit upset. Also, how am I to read all of my work on another computer if I'm offline?These are questions that might be answered if we were given any sort of information. Assuming that the more vapor an idea is, the less information there is a available about it, I'd have to say this is pretty darn vapor.
So does anyone have any idea how any of this will work?
Re:Big business vs. monopoly (Score:3)
I disagree with you. Big business *is* inherantly more evil than smaller businesses. A large business can not have any degree of social consciousness under American-style capitalism because it is only held accountable to making profits. Even if a CEO did feel obliged to sacrifice some profits in the interests of sustainability it would actually be a violation of his "fiduciary responsibilities". A small company is not necessarily accountable to the corporate system, and can choose to act for other motivations than maximizing profits if it wishes to.
The second problem is that large organizations, especially hierarchical ones create ever larger and larger communications overhead with size. In a 20 person company everyone in the company can have a clear idea of what is going on and attempt to influence what is happening effectively. In a 10,000 person company with six layers of management, information gets distorted at each pass up the chain (as subordinates alter their opinions consciously or not to agree with the reality of their managers). by the time this gets up to the CEO it is so distorted that he often has no clue what is really going on below.
Large corporations also decouple decision making from the people who do the work. Developers generally know the most about development, Sales people know the most about sales etc. These are the people who should choose how to do these things. In a large organization they often can and in a small organization they often cannot.
Re:Counter Example (Score:2)
Sure, Amazon's financial structure may be a house of cards, but there's no question that they have been a huge influence on the development of the B2C e-commerce industry.
Re:Counter Example (Score:2)
The free software you referred do did indeed get the internet off the launch pad and into the public consciousness, but it's the Amazon's and AOL's of the world that have taken it to an entirely different level. Greed is a powerful motivator...
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:1)
wrong. computers didn't become big business until:
1. visicalc on the apple II+ showed accountants at least the value of pcs.
2. ibm introduced their pc, legitimizing pcs. (not just for hobbyists anymore!)
3. lotus 1-2-3 cruystallized (1) and (2).
at least that's how i remember it. at that time, gates was thought of as something of a selfish bastard for not sharing his code among other hobbyists and nascent capitalists, and microsoft was just one of many software houses.
Re:Counter Example (Score:3)
The use of computers skyrocketed in the 80's not because of the BASIC language as the first root of the thread sugests but because computer were financially feasable to John Q Public. With the advent of cheaper hardware, any individual with the PC spec could write their own operating system and drivers. But Nancy, a school teacher in Madison, Wisconsin is not about to buy a machine and learn how to write an OS for it, however if someone would do it for her, she would find a computer useful.
The internet is a good exmple as well. The internet, as stated OVER AND OVER, began as a military program ARPANET. This was handed over to universities later and beagn using open systems and protocols. (not entirely acurate but an adequate summary) Out of this camne the birth of gopher, ftp, www, irc, etc. Once again the use of email, web, news, IRC, goper, ftp would be great things for Nancy to use, but do you expect her to setup her own modem configuration, connect to an ISP (which were not heard of in most circles) and configure every little program need to do this (mail client, mosaic, etc.)
Here we get into one of the prevalent flaws in hacker style development, hackers code for hackers, a.k.a they code what they want. This means that tools for the average user are not usually develloped initially. I would cringe giving my dad a Linux ditro disk of two years ago for him to install on a computer. It was not designed for use by an average user. Now is a different situation because hackers (and companies) have started to realize the importance of the average user.
Big buisness on the other hand relies on the average user to be willing to pay for making something easy to use. Microsoft became who they are based on this principle, they made things so users didn't have to. When my dad was installing Windows 98, my cringing had nothing to do with his ability to install the OS (it had more to do with him installing THAT OS) The Internet was usable by the average user, but it wasn't until the prodigy/AOL/Compuserve all-in-one-Internet applications made basic Internet access easy to install/use that the average user got online.
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:3)
Damn, bitch, ease off! You be href-in' like you on bathtub crank! You can't be hikin' up yo skirt like dat an' expect t'be gettin' da johns. Dey likes a little bit o' dat mysterious shit, like maybe you ain't a ho, you dig?
You wanna be a karma whore?
Fine, but don't forget...
Re:Big business vs. monopoly (Score:1)
It's true that big businesses are not necessarily evil. Ben and Jerry's, for instance, got to be quite a big business while deliberately using goodness as a strategy. IBM, after decades of being the evil empire, now seems to be making a pretty good effort to be a good corporate citizen.
The problem is that it takes a lot of time and effort to grow a business up to be a big business. There are various shortcuts along the way, and many of them are generally regarded as being evil. Thus it's much easier to get to be a big business if you are evil than if you make an effort not to be.
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:1)
Maybe I'm offtopic, but... (Score:2)
I agree that "big business" not only has it's place, but is what makes our society the way it is posable, but don't EVER underestimate your abilities. If you wanted to organise the money and manpower you COULD build that skyscraper. It may take you longer, but then you should realise that the "big businesses" have a had start.
Start thinking about one-legged men running LENGTHWISE accross Canada and making it most of the way before dyeing of Cancer (not fatuge) [Terry Fox, for thoes of you who are wondering]. Or how about the deaf and bling girl who developed brail? [If you can't figure that one out, I'm not going to help you!] --} OR her parents for that matter!
"big business" is usually one guy pushing a dream/goal of his forward to an extreem. While Bill Gates' dream may be any of 1,000,000,000 things, he pushed as hard as he could at just the right moments and was rewarded for it. Realise that EVEN M$ was once just a bunch of computer-nerds trying to develope an almost non=existant industry.
Maybe this post is less off=tropic than I thought oit would be!
This post brought to you from Istanbul!
Re:Excellent piece (Score:2)
Anyway, this does bring up briefly the important distinction between software and hardware. This is something I have been wondering about lately: what is software, and what is hardware? How can you define them? After all, "software" does exist in the physical worlds, whether as bumps in a CD or magnetic direction in a hard disk. So what is a clear and universal definition for "hardware" and "software?"
No, it really is simply. Hardware is the set of physical parts that store, retrieve and execute instructions. Software is the particular set of instructions that the machine executes.
The fact that you may use a physical storage mechanism (hard disc, CD-ROM, net connection, whatever) to hold the software does not turn the instructions into a piece of hardware.
Its like a story. A story is the actual sequence of events, characters, ideas etc. A story is a piece of software. Writing a story down on a piece of paper may produce a book, but it doesn't change the nature of the story itself - its still that collection of abstract parts.
Who created the cheap PC sea? (Score:1)
Neal Stephenson writes in "In the Beginning Was the Command Line" that MS's insistence that Windows would run on any PC (as opposed to Apple's hardware monopoly) helped create the sea of cheap "commoditized" PCs (which, incidentally, helped spawn Linux).
moderate that up! (Score:1)
Re:Maybe I'm offtopic, but... (Score:1)
I think you've missed the point. The original argument is that while experimentation by individuals is good at first, Big Business has to take over for it to really benefit society.
We don't fly on Kittyhawk Air, we use Continental and Delta.
We don't buy penecillan from the neighbor down the street who brews it up in his garage, we go down to Eckerd's, Walgreen's, Pharmor, Walmart or any other large corporate pharmacy and buy penecillin that was manufactured by somebody like Pfizer.
The first time any new technology is demonstrated, it's almost always done by an individual or a small group of folks who are just doing it. But I guarantee it doesn't take off until Big Business gets involved.
Hell, take a look at Linux itself. Linux was just a hobby OS until Red Hat, Debian, SuSE and other corp's decided they'd endorse it.
WHAT?! (re:Okay, it worked in the past...) (Score:1)
I suppose IBM wasn't Big Business then, huh?
Microcomputers were not big business until the MS/IBM-PC thing came around (though one might arguably call Apple Big Business with the sheer amount of money they were raking in during the early 80's).
However, minicomputers and mainframes were huge business before the 80's. Timeshare systems cost a bloody arm and a leg, especially when you add in all the consulting services, and huge empires were built around them.
Computers were around a long time before the PC. And the Business was Big.
(And incidentally, let's all take time to learn the appropriate use of apostrophes, okay? We're supposed to be the smart ones. Possessive indefinite pronoun is its, not it's.)
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:1)
And how many serious consumer apps were written in BASIC, anyways? Or are you claiming that Bill Gates personally invented the idea of copyright as applied to computer programs? I'm no expert in this regard (being about five years old at the time), but I know I've seen references to commercial software from before 1980. Heck, what about unix? You don't believe AT&T claimed copyright on that!?
Re:They better hurry up (Score:1)
Recently, I realized that I haven't looked at Salon, or even thought about it, in months. It's turned into a cross between the Nation, a really boring issue of Penthouse Forum and the columns in "alternative" newspapers where the writers think they're geniuses because they say "fuck" in every other sentence. Remember that google-part series by the Chinese call-girl/writer? Snore...
Looking now out of curiosity, I see they've now added a whole "Sex" section to their main page. I think Zico's right about them getting desperate. Hint to Salon: the sex angle is good, just don't write any more about Richard Stallman's sex life [salon.com], OK?
Re:Bzzt! Thank you for playing. (Score:2)
AT&T created UNIX (more a research project than a business initiative), but who wrote the TCP/IP stack that made the internet route and forward? Was it K&R, no....was it Bill Gates, no...was it Steve Jobs, no....it was Bill Joy, working as a grad student at UC Berkeley. His group was under a grant from DARPA to create an open system with these new fangled packet switching networks that had been developed in several universities. Big business that had been hired to develop a TCP/IP stack ended up using Joy's implementation since theres sucked.
Business has its place, but I think that business is extremely compatible with open source projects, even though the goals are sometimes orthogonal.
Re:What is it exactly? (Score:1)
well, just for the Overview: A Revolutionary Business [microsoft.com].
Here goes:
advanced 4
revolutionary 3
revolutionize 1
revolutionized 1
service 81
rich 11
richer 1
richly 1
enable 13
enables 2
enabling 8
experience 8
experiences 1
Re:Big business vs. monopoly (Score:1)
Marge, I agree with you -- in theory... (Score:2)
Marge, I agree with you -- in theory. In theory, communism works. In theory.
--Homer J. Simpson
Really, it's almost eerily appropriate.
But really, in a way, communism comes down to giving one body a benevolent monopoly on anything, so the quote does apply.
And I agree with you that, in theory, a monopoly COULD use its leverage for good, it certainly hasn't happened in the U.S. to this point.
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:2)
And all the Linux geeks out there wouldn't be programming for whoever because no Big Business wants to invest in software.
[A bunch of other shrieking strident unprovable assertions deleted.]
OK, so where in all this weird ranting do you get to the point where you prove that without Bill Gates, we wouldn't have something better?
In either case, the argument is nonsensical. By the very construction of IP law software is the expression of an idea and therefore covered by copyright. Certain methods, also by their very nature, are covered by patent.
With or without Bill Gates, that would be inevitable. Of course, without Bill Gates, a lot of people would not have jobs supporting their constantly-crashing trashy software.
I thank Bill Gates for untold hours of income hand-holding bozos every time they get a blue screen.
Re:Big business vs. monopoly (Score:1)
Benevolent monopolies are everywhere. It's just nobody realizes it because they don't want to leave. Look at the movie industry -- it wasn't till DeCSS/RIAA that most geeks realized that the entertainment industry was run by a trust of a few major corporations. If a monopoly treats it's customers well, nobody knows it's a monopoly because nobody's looking for somebody that competes with them.
Foo, Inc., they're a monopoly. You know they are because they make widgets that cost way too much, they're always broken and you can never get anybody to fix them without charging you more than it would cost to buy a new one. So you look for their competitors and to your dismay, you discover there are none. It's either buy Foo's widgets or you don't get any. So you call them a monopoly.
Now, let's say Acme, Inc. makes rocket-powered roller skates, and they make them well, and they treat you nice, and they never charge too much. You don't know whether or not anybody else makes rocket-powered roller skates because you never checked - Foo is cool. Benevolent monopolies are invisible because nobody ever looks for the competition, but they're there.
Vanilla vs. Chocolate (Score:2)
Ben and Jerry's, for instance
Speaking of which, a company called Jeremy's Microbatch [microbatch.com] has a flavor called "Wired" which is essentially excessively caffeinated vanilla ice cream you can eat with your Jolt Cola [joltcola.com].
Great stuff.
The Microbatch site is majorly Flash-heavy. Maybe I just brought it up to start a Flash sucks [flashsucks.com] flamewar.
Re:Bzzt! Thank you for playing. (Score:2)
Re:Counter Example (Score:2)
But I think the point needs to be made. Those that use Amazon and AOL are indeed utilizing BeeTwoCeeEee-commerce (sounds like a chess move), they were the first to do the obvious correctly. Of course it's obvious now because they did it.
However. This is Internet time. I can do B2CE-commerce, as a concept, in about 20 minutes (or 1 "business day", to be honest, I did this very thing last Friday, sold about 450 $15 t-shirts in an afternoon. Anybody listen to WHTZ in New York?). I remember a quote from someplace, I think it was Clancy, actually, "The genius of one generation is the commonplace of the next." That makes about 18 months by my clock, err, overclock.
The "morons" comment was about the people who use AOL or Amazon and think they are the end all be all of the Internet. In such a competitive environment it is important to support a diverse number of companies ("diverse number" look! new jargon..maybe...). They'll probably get bought later on, but competition is more important and more efficient for everyone.
Please excuse the long post, I had a busy week at work,
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Re:Scamming the moderation system (was Re:1st) (Score:1)
Well since moderating is a good way to lose karma (possibly because of the metamoderation system's takeover by the same trolls you describe), perhaps no one moderates anymore except these shill accounts.
I will say though that for a long time I did not create an account myself. I only did when /. decided to change the default view for AC's to "flat" (WHY?! WHY?!). And I lurked and lurked for a long time. It's no good reading /. as a real AC anymore unless you are a "F1r57 P0st!" with hot grits down your pants and a thing for natalie portman (who is boring IMHO).
So there are probably lots of lurkers who never post but must create accounts because the default view sucks now (and has for some time) and of course lots of shills for the "Tr0ll W4rz."
After all, posting unpopular viewpoints is also a great way to lose karma. Watch me get moderated into oblivion once again for speaking the truth on the matter.
Re:Counter Example (Score:1)
Also... the "boom" started in the 1970s before this whole issue came into effect. It continued into the 1980s.
With Commodore Vic20s, CoCos and Apple ][ computers. Basic as a commen programming language and no operating system to speak of.
Public domain played a larg part in the BBS world as well as the Internet. Out of the coutless commertal file transfer protocals the public domain Xmodem was the standard.
Unlike others Xmodem was made by it's author only with his own needs in mind. He did not criple his code with features he believed other people needed. Instead he stayed with what he wanted and that was it.
It is believed the fact that he didn't try to imagin what others needed that lead to Xmodems success.
It works this way....
With free software someone has a real need they create a real solution for that need and tag it on to existing software rather than reinvent the wheel.
With commertal software marketting dreams up neat features they think people will like the software develupers write a brand new application from ground up so the whole pacage will be the property of the company (and not shared property as is usually the case with free software).
As a result commertal innovation is solving problems that may have never existed with solutions that may never work.
Free software innovation is a person needs a tool that dose not exist they create that tool. The resulting tool fits the job perfictly.
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:1)
Re:What?! (Score:1)
They've been stealing the money every day. They steal it before they give us the paycheck and after.
Re:A then B != A causes B (Score:1)
"Argument- Computer Business has taken off due to Bill Gates/Copyright."
This isn't an argument, it's a claim. An argument is a series of logically connected statements that lead to conclusion. A claim is just a bald statement of (supposed) fact.
"I don't see any evidence to prove him wrong though."
And you'll continue to not see any. Let HIM provide evidence that it's true, then we'll talk. BTW, if all you are going to respond with is more non-sequiters and nonsense, I won't be responding. If you want to continue to play your little 14-year-old games, you'll have to get your big brother to help you come up with something interesting.
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Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:2)
MS is evil (except for their successful lobbying to get copyright on software), but big business is not.
How is Big Business not evil? Why do you think we had to create the Sherman Anti-trust Act? What about the court decision in Carnegie Steel Co. v. U.S. (Case # 240 U.S. 156 [findlaw.com]) in 1916? Or 279 U.S. 263 (1929) [findlaw.com], Sinclair v. U.S.?
Take a long hard look, and maybe you'll change your mind about big business.
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:2)
Yes, Bill Gates put it best:
"The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape and the overhead make it a break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested a lot of money in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing 8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft."
After all, who would spend THREE WHOLE MAN YEARS developing software. Free software could never [gnu.org] put that much work [debian.org] into programming [kernel.org], bug finding [mozilla.org], or documenting [linuxbase.org], and distributing for free [linuxburg.com] hobbyist (free) software.
Re:What is it exactly? (Score:1)
Well...I'd say your probably correct for now but that doesn't change the fact that you posted this in the wrong friggin section. This is the Salon article section, not the MS
But hey.. wrong topic and all you are making some pretty good sense. I just love it when markting people get into a pissing contest with their beloved buzzwords. It's pretty obvious this stuff is aimed at people who will never understand it anyways, thus they are pretty impressed by it. This is the majority by the way, so they achieved the result they deisred.
Re:What is it exactly? (Score:1)
Good/Evil? How about neither. (Score:1)
Just like the wind, it can be behind you and greatly assist in getting you to your destination, or it can turn right in your face with hurricane force and crush you.
Big Business doesn't care either way, they will go for whatever enhances the bottom line.
Now, whether a particular company is short sighted in that regard...well, there's a chewy topic.
Mojotoad
Re:1st (Score:1)
Dude, this guy posted the same l33t posts as me, I'm gonna mod his ass up!
Hopefully humanity stands a better chance than Slashdot moderators.
nerdfarm.org [nerdfarm.org]
Scamming the moderation system (was Re:1st) (Score:1)
I suspect that those who thought this "funny" is the poster himself.
It's not really all that hard to scam the Slashdot moderation system.
You can sign up with a bunch of unique emails, and when you get a random
chance to be moderator, you spend all your points on some lame post you
write with your other accounts. Given enough time and effort, you can
probably make enough accounts to get a kind of permanent moderation status.
You don't even have to be as smart as your average script-kiddie to do this.
All you need is a combination of immaturity and way too much time on your hands.
Steve "moderate" Maurer
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:2)
Seriously, don't be so myopic. Believe it or not, there were personal computers before the IBM PC, and operating systems (and BASIC interpreters) before Microsoft. In fact, the success of these other models is what enticed Big Blue and the nascent Evil Empire into the field...
I understand that slashdotters too often knee-jerk condemn certain companies. But let's try not to swallow Microsoft propaganda hook, line, and sinker, OK?
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:1)
The IBM PC ran...hang on...PC-DOS. Yeah, Microsoft made it. Do you know which Taiwanese company made the obscure chip that interfaces your computer and keyboard? Probably not, because it's a commodity product. Microsoft's contribution stood in precisely this relation in most people's minds back then. People were just waiting for Digital Research, or whatever they were called, to reduce their own product, and they eventually released a few. (DR-DOS and CP/M-86, or something like that.) The point is, in the early 1980s, Microsoft was riding other companies' coattails. They were completely dispensible.
(By the way, there were lots of other platforms before the IBM PC besides the various TRS-80s. Apple IIs and CP/M (S-100) machines had large followings. As I recall, Jobs and Woz directly ripped off Gates's BASIC for their Applesoft basic.)
I'm just saying most geeks wouldn't have jobs if it wasn't for Microsoft getting copyright status for software back in the early 80's.
I really don't know what this means; perhaps you're thinking of some case I'm not familiar with? I'd appreciate it if you enlightened me (seriously).
Re:Scamming the moderation system (was Re:1st) (Score:2)
I occasionally use
At least, that's what I would do if I wanted to scam the system.
Also, it seems that the majority of those non-posting accounts have very high user IDs, numbering from about the time the "first post" and "hot grits" nonsense got completely out of hand.
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Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:2)
But Open Source derives from a different model. People aren't doing it for economic gain. There's something more, be it acclaim, strutting rights, or (gasp!) the joy of doing well something worth doing. Open Source partakes of an impulse similar to artistry, and so it is incomprehensible to droids like Gates. Traditional business is, by its construction, soulless. Open Source leaves room for human dignity.
Re:Bzzt! Thank you for playing. (Score:2)
This is way too misleading. You aren't even contradicting me, but you make it sound like I'm saying open standards are useless. Still, this isn't even a good reply.
First, the net was started by ARPA (think ARPAnet), who in 1973 became known as DARPA. I don't recall if they were funded by the DOD or what, but if you don't know it was DARPA that did this, I really can't trust any of the other points you make as being informed.
Second, I'm not saying open standards didn't help the net. But they didn't build it. Like I originally said, open systems are good for getting ideas flowing, but it's Big Business (in this case AT&T) that can actually implement these ideas.
This set the foundation for the modern internet, which was created using open protocols, an open standards process (IETF), and open software.
I never said this was not the case. I said Big Business is what gets into the hands of the public. Big Business is what made the internet big (think AOL).
The internet may have been jump started by an expensive government contract for which a monopolist company happened to win the bid, but it was built collaboratively by developers from numerous universities in a manner which is almost precisely what the open source/free software folks employ today.
You've got it bass-ackwards. It was thought up by a bunch of liberal college folk and some DARPA (well, at that point, ARPA) folks who thought it would be a neat idea. But they needed Big Business to implement it. And that's what I've been trying to say all along, is that private individuals or a couple of college kids rarely ever end up running the show with something they invented (ironically, the only contrary example that springs to mind is that of Microsoft). To use an exploration analogy, Big Business usually doesn't forge the path, but they consistently are the ones that pave the road into 12-lane highway.
Look at companies like Walmart, Borland, Mattel, Foley's and Red Hat and tell me corporations are bad. Free software has had it's day. It'll be useful again in getting new technologies, but it will always be Big Business that adapts and expands these technologies to get them in to the hands of more than just some small elitist faction of hobbyist hackers.
Re:Could be more timely (Score:1)
Re:Bzzt! Thank you for playing. (Score:1)
al gore never said he created the internet. he voted repeatedly in favour of continued funding for arpanet. i am sick of people getting this wrong. on the other hand, i'm voting for ralph nader [votenader.com].
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:2)
commercially, but became more or less free software due to anti-trust
law against Microsoft. (Then it became two families of proprietary OS
again and now both are free...).
One of the points of the article is that software doesn't need to
be restricted to be commercial: IBM's software was both open and
proprietary. It's just that they (= business) need to make money
*somewhere*. UNIX was like that in the pre-OSF days.
Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:3)
I think the problem is that everybody thinks MS when they think computers, and yes, MS is evil (except for their successful lobbying to get copyright on software), but big business is not. Who can honestly call Borland a bunch of money-grubbing bastards? I didn't think so.
Nothing wrong with free software, but don't knock the commercial stuff. It has it's place.
How good or bad is Salon? (Score:1)
Could be more timely (Score:2)
Perhaps
I just found out that Salon had an IPO last year. The stock is hovering around 1.5 dollars right now. Lots of it is available to the public - few institutional shareholders. I hope they don't get bought out by Time-Warner or Conde Nast. I've always been pretty impressed by how ambitious they can be with the reporting.
-carl
Re:Excellent piece (Score:1)
Hardware you can touch and pickup and throw.
Software you can't (unles you turn it into HARDcopy).
Bad Mojo [rps.net]
Counter Example (Score:5)
As others have pointed out, correlation != causation. In the case of the computer boom, one can argue much more plausibly that the commoditization of cheap PC hardware was the primary cause of the boom of computers, and the software which runs on them, than Bill Gates' petty greed or precident setting copyright were. Even before the emergence of Windows as the One and Only Platform sales of PCs were booming, some running DOS, some running MacOS, some running windows, some running Geoworks, etc. etc.
Another counter example is the internet, which was developed with open and free protocols and software implimentations, some in the public domain, some under FreeBSD style licenses, and some under the GLP (all three can reasonably be considered counterpoints to traditional copyright -- they make use of a system they are philisophically opposed to but have no choice in being subject to). None of the software responsible for the infrastructure of the internet, be it USENET news, FTP, IRC, the World Wide Web, or email (SENDMAIL) was commercial. Oh, Sun and others offered commercial clones of some of the products (where the license permitted), but the reference implimentations, and the most widely used versions, were Free. For that matter, they still are, despite overwhelming efforts by various large entities (MS, AOL) to co-opt the net into a distribution channel for their own proprietary products.
The Big Boom in Internet Business appears to be dwarfing the PC boom, stock market fluctuations notwhithstanding. Draconian copyright isn't helping make this happen, it (and other forms of intellectual property such as patents) are actually hampering it and even beginning to threaten it entirely. Examples include Amazon's one click patent vs. Barns and Noble, patents on the RSA algorithm which have seriously hampered the adoption of widespread public key crypto (a prerequisite to online business transactions and contracts), the DMCA and copyright law being used to fragment open standards such as Kerberos, etc.
There is a place for commercial software. I run applix myself, and have used AcceleratedX in the past. I have numerous commercial games, all of which I've paid for. However, that does not mean that IP laws are enhancing progress; indeed to all appearances they seem to be doing the opposite.
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:2)
A lot more computers meant a much larger market for software. A lot of new companies, targeting the new market for low cost software to match the low cost machines. And some of the mainframe software vendors trying to sell ports of their products for 24X the cost of the PC.
And yes, there was a fair amount of commerical software before 1980. But low-cost was Apple-II, most people weren't shopping for packages for their CDC or DEC machine.
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:3)
What do you want to say to troll?
>ask troll about "Signal 11"
Which Signal 11 do you mean, SIGSEGV or (Slashdot User #203709)?
>oops #203709
TRoLLaXoR stares at you and says "New around here, eh, Karma Whore? Signal 11 is much older than that, but we Trolls have destroyed his account and burned his webpages! The Great Karma Whore is no more!"
>ask troll about "Great Karma Whore"
TRoLLaXoR chuckles in delight. "The form errors were only the first step in our plan to overthrow the evil moderators. Now he has been reduced to his mortal form as the lowly 'Bojay Baggins'."
>bojay
The vaporous shapes envelop you; you are teleported through a rabit hole.
>look
You are in a rabbit hole. All the posts have expired. There is a dead link to the east. There is a dangling HREF here.
>look HREF
The link text says "The Search for Signal 11 begins here". The anchor is unreadable.
>i
You have a cookie, and 5 Karma.
>xyzzy
What do you think this is, boy? Adventure?
>
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:1)
Imagine if Windows 3.1 went into the public domain. Microsoft isn't making any money on it any more anyway, so why not? Who loses from this? Even if the source code isn't opened, why not at least release the binaries for free?
I'm quite pleased that Apple has released [apple.com] their old system software for free, and id Software has released the source code [idsoftware.com] to some of their old games under the GPL. Some companies are doing this voluntarily, but perhaps it would benefit the industry if there were more of an incentive for other companies to make their old stuff available for free?
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Re:Counter Example (Score:2)
Woohoo, one-click patents and pop-up windows!!! Yippee!!
AOL sucks and Amazon is still losing money, but they are pretty greedy. The problem comes when that greed gets mixed with power. Greed has no bounds, you can always want more.
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Gates Rode the Coattails (Score:2)
I likewise fail to recall any major products coming out of MS between their BASIC for the Altair & MS-DOS several years later. In fact, until MS-DOS, MS was just another manufacturer of programming languages. And considered an also-ran in that catagory.
Amazing how far Gates played out one lucky break.
Geoff
Bzzt! Thank you for playing. (Score:5)
Even then, the Department of Defense required that it be open, with source code available, and threatened to pull defense contracts if the contractors did not comply.
This set the foundation for the modern internet, which was created using open protocols, an open standards process (IETF), and open software.
The internet may have been jump started by an expensive government contract for which a monopolist company happened to win the bid, but it was built collaboratively by developers from numerous universities in a manner which is almost precisely what the open source/free software folks employ today.
Brush up on your history before claiming that the internet was your creation or even created using your methods.
Boy, you must be bitter. What's the matter, MSFT stock options not what you would have liked? Nowhere did I claim to have created the internet, I leave such claims to Al Gore and Bill Gates.[1]
It was not. The internet was created by Big Busines
No. The internet was founded by Big Government spending taxpayer dollars, then built in its modern form by universities collaborating in an open manner using what today is referred to as the "free software" or "open source" paradigm.
Brush up on your history. I've been using the net for 13 years and have had the privelege of watching much of this happen, and your characterization is completely inaccurate and misleading.
[1]Bill Gates actually claimed to have invented the PC during an inverview. He often makes claims to have invented internet services that have been present as free software in one form or another for over a decade.
THERE'S the point! Exactly there! (Score:1)
And WHY exactly don't we have that kind of money? Because big business sucked it off us. Think about it a little.
, and we can't pool that kind of manpower. It takes a business or a government to pool the resources to accomplish things like this -- and in nine out of ten cases, I'd rather have the businesses doing it.
That's exactly why big business (tm) gives us presidential candidates one can only laugh at; so that people like you and I will prefer to have our society run by big business instead. The pitty though is that big business will own society in order to run it, and that's most often a one-way route, as there are actually laws against taking back our property from the rich.
Incredible, isn't it?
Re:Counter Example (Score:1)
Everyone worth a bit knows Al gore created the internet
Re:Excellent piece (Score:2)
Re:Maybe I'm offtopic, but... (Score:1)
Hint: we don't call it "keller."
You say you want a buzzword revolution ... (Score:1)
Just send $9.99 a month for the next ten years to MSFT and we promise to put the net in
That's right - and, better yet, you won't have to worry about a license, because with the new improved revolutionary
Operators are standing by!
They better hurry up (Score:2)
Or else Salon might go out of business before they finish the book. They'll probably be delisted from NASDAQ before they come out with another chapter. Bloomberg.com's Christopher Byron just had a great column this week about the scam that is Salon and its IPO (Salon.com Typifies Demise of "Content" IPOs [bloomberg.com]). However, because of the abundance of self-important twits over there, and their gutter ethics (Dan Savage or David Talbott, anyone?), I certainly won't miss 'em. Oh well, good thing they're doing this lame-ass Free Software Project, so someone can pick up the pieces when they go bankrupt. Hope Camille Paglia ends up at a good place, though, 'cause she rocks. I really do recommend that article, though -- it's actually a Hell of a lot more critical of the scams that dot-com underwriters are pulling than it is of Salon itself.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Re:Maybe I'm offtopic, but... (Score:1)
Debian's a non-profit organization, hardly a corporation.
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:1)
What are you talking about?!? Even if we restrict this discussion to business software for the PC in the early 1980s, I suggest you investigate the marketshare of products like Lotus 1-2-3, Wordstar, dBase II, Wordperfect, etc. MS Word and Excel weren't introduced until the mid/late 1980s, and didn't start dominating the IBM PC market until Windows 3.0, around 1990.
Look, I use MS Word and Excel everyday, and think they're good enough products. I've got nothing against Microsoft's applications. But you can't rewrite history to suit your view of the present...
Re:Big business vs. monopoly (Score:1)
(hyperbole intended - I know it isn't absolutely true)
Re:Big business vs. monopoly (Score:1)
The Salon story is excellent (Score:1)
"Most of you steal your software... What hobbyist can put years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?"----An Open Letter to Hobbyists, Bill Gates, Micro-soft, 1976
"GNU... is the name for the complete Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so that I can give it away free... Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just like air."----The GNU Manifesto, Richard Stallman, Free Software Foundation, 1985
Microsoft Windows vs. GNU/Linux, 2000
Some bad writers do not a bad mag make (Score:1)
As for hoping for Salon's death, you're being such an ass. Sure, there are some writers whose work I could do without, but Salon is not just one entity. Some writers are good, some are bad, some I like, some I don't. Just because "Mr. Blue" is lame doesn't make you like Paglia any less, right? And it doesn't make Leonard less of a cool writer to work there. Generalizations, self-righteousness, and overall misanthropy. Not so good, Al.
Andrew Leonard, the FSP writer, will probably go on with the FSP with or without Salon, but I hope Salon lives a while. There's some incredible writing in their archives, and I'd hate to see it all die.
Re:Maybe I'm offtopic, but... (Score:1)
Then again how long has big business been around?, even things like the East India Company (whatever their real name was) weren't that big by todays standards.
Big business succedes mainly today because they are convenient (good bit about this in Damian Conways OO perl book), but with the web that is more open to anyone.
It could that todays corps are just a transitional stage, tho then again maybe not and Gibsons books are the future.
just thoughts...
Win 3.1 (Score:1)
Re:Win 3.1 (Score:1)
I'm not proposing that Win3.1 should have been released for free in 1995. I'm suggesting that it should be released for free in 2000. And yes, MS-DOS too. It's been five years since they stopped selling them. If, in five years, you can't come up with a new product that's sufficiently better than the old version that people actually want to buy the new one, then perhaps you need to move over and make room for other companies.
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A then B != A causes B (Score:2)
True. John Lennon being shot in 1980 was a big factor, too.
Just because Gates got in on the ground floor doesn't mean he drove the elevator.
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Re:Counter Example (Score:1)
they have been a huge influence on the development of the B2C e-commerce industry.
Unless you're looking for VC money, how about something simple like..."they figured out how to sell stuff to morons, using a computer."
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Excellent piece (Score:2)
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:3)
Re:1st (Score:2)
OK. Six moderators have said this is funny. Six other moderators have marked it down.
Can somebody explain the humor in this to those of us who don't get it? It looks like a straight troll to me....
The only references I could find to Caleb Jaffa on net searches was as the author of some peice of software available at developer.com
http://www.developer.com/downloads/code/dir.uti
Re:Could be more timely (Score:3)
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..and as Hume said... (Score:2)
Big business vs. monopoly (Score:5)
And the Sherman Antitrust Act isn't really about big business. It's about monopolies. There's a difference. A monopoly is a problem because it harms innovation and favors the status quo in its field. Furthermore, it limits the choices of consumers to one.
Big businesses may not be necessary in developing software. Although I'm not convinced on that. But regardless, the open source model demonstrates that it's at least POSSIBLE for quality software to be developed by a group of people outside of a business.
However, there are advantages to big business. You or I could not build a jet. We could not develop the next wonder drug. We could not construct a skyscraper. You know why? Because we don't have that kind of money, and we can't pool that kind of manpower. It takes a business or a government to pool the resources to accomplish things like this -- and in nine out of ten cases, I'd rather have the businesses doing it.
Take a long, hard look, and maybe you'll change your mind about big business.
Well... (Score:1)
I almost forgot... (Score:1)
... what it was all about eleven years ago when I taught myself BASIC on the Apple II. That whole article gave me a great appreciation for computers, open source, and exploration that Windows stole from me completely. The entire history of computing is something that I am completely lacking. It is definately something I will remedy immediately! The whole thing about computers being a 'black-box' now a days is way too true! Now all I want to do is read, explore, and modify Coffee-HOWTO [linuxdoc.org].
Re:Bzzt! Thank you for playing. (Score:1)
Imagine Big Business HAD created the Internet...
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:1)
I normally don't respond to A.C.'s, espeically ones who flame me, but this is just too funny.
First of all, obligatory on-topic: The point of my posts was that Bill Gates didn't believe hobbyists could put in three man years of work into coding, testing and documentation.
As an aside, I also wasn't aware that providing links to prove a point (for the purpose of amusement) was karma whoring. Which is funny since that comment wasn't even moderated up.
But to address your point, I actually work for a non-profit organisation, a hospital. uswest.net is just my ISP, (you dumb fuck.)
What?! (Score:2)
I'm sorry. You just flabbergasted me. Let me try and articulate.
And WHY exactly don't we have that kind of money? Because big business sucked it off us. Think about it a little.
Thanks for clearing that up. So I take it that, if it weren't for big business, I'd have the resources necessary to put together a 747? Shoot. Not even my Philosophy of Karl Marx prof mentioned that one to me.
Furthermore, I should point out that considerably before the advent of business, there was something called feudalism. In that, you or I probably would have had no money or resources of our own. Instead, we'd be hauling stone to build a castle for our lords. So I'm not sure when we got this money that corporations stole from us in the first place.
That's exactly why big business (tm) gives us presidential candidates one can only laugh at; so that people like you and I will prefer to have our society run by big business instead. The pitty though is that big business will own society in order to run it, and that's most often a one-way route, as there are actually laws against taking back our property from the rich.
Believe it or not, we're not in nearly as bad a state of corporate oligarchy as we have been in the past. From about the end of the civil war to, I don't know, at least 1910, it was worse. In the words of one of my teachers back in high school, the change came when "the government realized the Morgan Trust basically owned the whole country."
I think I've gotten a little away from my point, though I'm going to leave that in. However, what I'm trying to say is that big business really isn't as in control as you seem to think. Assuming that you actually believe what you're saying, you just seem to make it more probable.
Re:Okay, it worked in the past... (Score:1)
umm because win95 is win 3.1 in a tuxedo? :)
no reason they shouldn't release the binaries though, don't imaginge demand would be very high though. Anyway never mind 3.1 can't get DOS either...
Re:Big business vs. monopoly (Score:1)
A minor clarification: monopolies aren't inherently evil, either. It is (theoretically) possible to have a benevolent monopoly which does not abuse it's position and does not stifle innovation. It all depends on the people running it.
They talked about Brains (Score:1)
Garage-based vs. Corporate Innovation (Score:2)
Doing something completely original out of your garage or basement workshop requires a little bit of innovation. In fact, because you don't have access to a muti-million dollar budget it tends to sharpen your mind a little and try new approaches by necessity. If you are a little lucky you can take that garage idea and turn it into the next Microsoft or Apple Computer (both of which were very small companies that grew based on unique idea fostered with a decided lack of capital).
I guess I'm trying to say that the kinds of project and ideas that come from different development environments are just simply different. And they meet the needs of a different group of people. Free software is more a product of the garage workshop mentality (although with some groups like the Linux distro companies this is beginning to change).
Re:Bzzt! Thank you for playing. (Score:2)
This is because the masses will only accept whats spoon fed them from corporations. They have been trained this way from birth, and are loathe to deviate from the norm that advertisers tell them should govern their behaviour.
The Internet was functioning perfectly before "Big Business" told the mass market that it was ok to use it.
There is a BIG difference between making something work technologically and making the public decide that they need/want it.
Re:Some bad writers do not a bad mag make (Score:2)
The only problem is that it's rotten from the top down. I'm sure we could both name a couple of disreputable writers at any publication -- but at Salon, it's the very people who set the tone for the entire staff who can't seem to muster any journalistic integrity. The fact David Talbot is the Editor in Chief (!) pretty much says it all.
But, if that weren't enough, during the whole Savage/Iowa Caucus dustup, Salon actually had the stones to send an editor to CNN's Reliable Sources to start telling lies in order to defend Savage (my apologies, but I can't remember the editor's name, so I don't want to make a guess). Hey, if they want to defend Savage's right to do what he did on some journalistic grounds, fine, but to go on a show whose raison d'être is to critically cut through the spin of the media, and then to actually sit there and lie to the other panelists, that's just insane. The look of sheer incredulity on Howie Kurtz's face, that "Who the fuck does this guy think we are?" expression, was, however, priceless. :)
So, you're somewhat right, I probably was too hard on Mr. Leonard because I'm so down on the rest of the rag. I think I'm still looking forward to it folding, though -- hopefully the features I like will end up elsewhere (I know I don't have to worry about Camille ending up on her feet, but there are other articles besides hers that I enjoy at Salon), and the ethically-challenged higher ups can depart ungracefully from the public eye.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
Origins of Success (Score:3)
For the home computer market to expand, it needed a lot of customers. Not just hobbiests. Buisnesses, followed by people buying computers for home due to exposure to them at work. But why would business be interested in a microcomputer? You needed a killer app.
That killer app was VisiCalc [bricklin.com]. If you look a bit in to its histor y [about.com], you'll find that VisiCalc was that killer app. It quickly paid for itself by reducing errors and reducing hours spent crunching numbers. VisiCalc was THE reason for a business to buy a microcomputer. What was once scoffed at as a non-serious hobbiest toy suddenly became a valuable tool and spawned a whole new industry. BASIC didn't do that, much less copyright law.
Take a look at the IT industry. Look at big names such as Apple, Cisco, Sun. Where did these massive corporations spawn? From very humble "garage" beginnings. Even VisiCalc was developed in an attic of a rented apartment.Sure... things have changed since then for all those companies. And Corporations are able to do things on an amazing scale - something required to make some innovations and manufacture products. But so much of what we enjoy today does not exist because of corporate innovation - it exists because a corporation has expanded on the innovative work done in somebody's garage. Without that work, there would be little for corporations to offer.
Re:Bzzt! Thank you for playing. (Score:1)
I don't think Microsoft as a counter-example. True, he was a college dropout who ended up being a billionare with a large amount of control over the computing industry. But, he was also the son a a lawyer that played the corpertate contract and marketing game as well as IBM.
I don't think Microsoft would be were it is today if it wasn't for IBM. They couldn't have pulled that trick if they wrote the OS for Apple or Atari.
Remember, IBM was late to the Personal Computer game. (It is left to the reader to decide if this was due to their lack of foresight or the fact the had just gotten done with a 10 year battle with the DOJ.) To get a product out the door quickly, they used standard off-the-self OEM parts rather then specing and building their own custom designs like Apple and Atari. Because of this open archticture, the only thing the clones had to reverse engineer was the BIOS.
Before IBM getting in the market, PCs were not getting into corperations, except when engineers "bootlegged" their own computers into companies. Managers considered the PC a toy. IBM's entry into the PC business legitimized PCs. It was IBM's marketing power with large corperations, couple with the spread sheet (anyone know which OS Visicalc was first written for?) that got the PCsinto corperations.
At this point, IBM owned the corperate market, Apple owned the small business market, and the home market was up for grabs.
Once the BIOS was reverse engineered, hardware manufactorers competiton drove the price down on the desktop where it could compete in the home market.
To summarize, I don't think he is a counter example, because his attitude/focus is closer to the coporate borad room than the hacker-college kid. Second, while he is a tough negotiator, I don't think he could have achieved what he did without his partnership with IBM.
Mixed feelings (Score:1)
Jeez, where did they get that artwork??!! If that's the word...
Good article, though. Leonard actually has a clue about what makes us tick.
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Re:A then B != A causes B (Score:2)
Argument- Computer Business has taken off due to Bill Gates/Copyright.
Some argument. I say the computer business taking off had to do with the availability of cheap ICs, the plummeting cost of memory and storage, and that people started wanting them. For some reason I don't credit Bill Gates writing snotty letters to Dr. Dobbs Journal for the existence of inexpensive, ubiquitous computers.
Re:A then B != A causes B (Score:1)
It's not on me to prove Gates DIDN'T have an effect. It's on the original poster to prove that he DID.
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