Rocketing Over the Chasm

I got a new phone today, an Alltel Hue made by Samsung. It has lots of "features," some of which I may actually start using, but the main reason I got it was to make the leap to EVDO.

After an interminable nine hours at work, I finally got to try out my new toy on my Linux desktop. I opened up the system log, plugged in the data cable to the phone, then carefully plugged it in to the USB hub. Lo and behold, Linux recognized the device and loaded the same driver (CDC ACM) that my old Motorola V262 used. Emboldened with this knowledge, I clicked my dial-up button without changing any configuration at all. It worked!

Actually, "worked" is an understatement. It screams. My downloads run about 7 times faster on EVDO than on 1X, so I can download an ISO image sometime this week. The latest Knoppix image was estimated at an hour and 22 minutes.

Now I can watch all those chintzy 80's music videos on YouTube without completely downloading them first!

Diligence Needed, Not a Panacaea

The Swiss government has demonstrated the same appalling incompetence regarding voting security as the United States: Swiss votes to use 'unbreakable' code

A new "unbreakable" encryption method will be keep votes safe for citizens in the Swiss canton (state) of Geneva in the country's upcoming national elections, officials said Thursday.

The city-state will use quantum technology to encrypt election results as they are sent to the capital on Oct. 21...

What good will a very secure network be, when the physical system itself isn't awarded the same protections? How are the votes protected before transmission, while they are stored on the machine?

Maybe they have taken measures to keep the systems physically secure, but the quantum-encryption panacaea won't get them any security that a very large key in OpenSSL can't get them. By the time the key is cracked, another election cycle will be rolling around.

Another First in My Life

I enjoyed watching the International Space Station going over last night. It was the first time I've seen a man-made object in orbit with my eyes.

The Climate Change Religion

The mask finally slips: Gore sees 'spiritual crisis' in warming:

"It's in part a spiritual crisis," Gore told the crowd in the Convention Center at the American Institute of Architects national convention. "It's a crisis of our own self-definition — who we are. Are we creatures destined to destroy our own species? Clearly not."

Rush Limbaugh was right: Environmentalism is the new Communism, complete with the same demands to end private property rights. This time, instead of service to the all-powerful State, the focus is service to the all-important "Mother Earth."

With evidence of warming even on Mars and Jupiter from the Sun's variable energy production, Al Gore still expects us to believe that rising temperatures on Earth are primarily because of humanity's activity. The new "carbon offset" fraud has about as much research and accountability as Scientology.

Al Gore's own mansion has a five-figure electricity bill, yet we're supposed to believe he cares about the planet? I think Matthew 23 applies here:

Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples,
Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:
All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.
For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.
But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments,
And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues,
And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi.

Environmentalism, as an end unto itself, is a religion, with Al Gore as its Chief Priest, repentance via carbon offsets, and redemption through the Kyoto Protocol. How much more proof do we need?

A Problem of Scope

A "nor'easter" over New York City and the Eastern Seaboard (from the southwest, oh well) is dumping lots of snow and cold rain, making life very inconvenient, possibly dangerous, for people there.

Into this mix, CBS meteorologist John Bolaris tried to impress his viewers with this:

As of 11 on Sunday evening, New York City received 6.41 inches of rain, the fourth wettest day of all time, and the heaviest rainfall in 30 years.

Being from the Midwest, the rainfall doesn't impress me nearly as much as Bolaris' access to a time machine. Maybe he can also put to rest the argument about whether or not Babe Ruth actually pointed to where he intended to hit the ball in the 1932 World Series.

What's that? Bolaris doesn't have a time machine?

Ignoramus.

New Presentation, Same Message

I texted several friends yesterday afternoon, saying "Christ is risen! :-)".

The first reply I got: "Indeed He is risen! (Who is this?) :-)"

The icons are right. The face is important.

Over-regulated

Thanks to some over-zealous bureaucrat, the South Pole must follow Daylight Savings Time between the first Sunday in October and the third Sunday in March.

Never mind that the sun never sets during that time.

NSA: Fine By Me

Has the mainstream press given up trying to make hay out of the NSA domestic spying wiretapping call records database? More importantly, have they actually bothered to look up any pertinent case law or actual legislation?

I won't be one of their sheep. I already know what the Constitution says.

First point: Congress has the power to approve or reject dealing with foreign entities (Art. 1, Sect. 10). This authorizes them to investigate international phone records of United States corporations.

Second point: The President, as Commander in Chief, is empowered to make decisions regarding the implementation and execution of our border policies (Art. II, Sect. 2). When a phone call crosses the national border, it automatically enters the jurisdiction of the Executive Branch.

Third point: The NSA is specifically charged with monitoring foreign communication and defending the domestic communication infrastructure. The telephone companies and any Internet-capable transmission (cable TV, satellite, wireless) are required under CALEA to grant a communications interception for any authorized request.

The real problem seems to be who is leading the defense of our nation. The liberals in the USA didn't seem to have a problem when a Democrat-majority Congress passed CALEA and a Democrat president signed it. But let a Republican administration and a Republican-majority Congress use CALEA, and all hell breaks loose in the doom-and-gloom press.

Fourth point: Whoever revealed this terrorist-tracking activity should be charged with high treason. If loose lips sink ships, then someone just torpedoed part of our national defense.

Unintended Consequences?

The AP put out this anonymous bit of stupid fluff about air quality in the three most in-your-face liberal states: California, New York, and Oregon. To put a fine point on it, laws don't clean air. If anything, there appears to be some kind of correlation between clean air laws (including anti-smoking laws) and dirty air!

I will grant that the report is based on data from seven years ago, so things may have changed significantly since then. But 1999 was still the Clinton era, and these states had a near carte-blanche to restrict people's lives in any way their legislatures saw fit. A whole fat lot of good it did, huh?

As a side note, the cancer risk statistics are reported incompletely. A figure like "68 per million" is meaningless without a time frame. Are these 68 people going to develop cancer in a week, a year, or a lifetime? My guess is over a year, but that's only a guess, no thanks to the shoddy reporting from the anonymous coward at the AP.

(H/T: My mother, who hates New York specifically because of their anti-smoking laws.)

Their Spring is Broken

PETA stinks. Their methods stink, their philosophy stinks, and the people they put on camera probably reek of patchouli oil. In one case, they are on the right track, but for all the wrong reasons.

Humans and other animals form symbiotic relationships. Dogs protect humans from intruders, and humans feed dogs. Humans feed cats, too, and in return, the cats send favorable reports back to their home planet. Humans have farms; so do ants. Cows, sheep, and chickens are utterly dependent on humans for their survival, and we reap benefits of living from keeping them: milk, meat, eggs, wool, leather, and feathers.

However, no other animal kills or causes suffering for the sake of vanity. What good are minks to humans, besides their fur? How is someone's life enhanced by eating veal or goose liver paté instead of beef? The only thing humans typically want from elephants is ivory; just ask the poachers in Africa (if you dare!).

All vertebrates feel pain. The few vertebrates in permanent anesthesia tend not to survive, after burning themselves or breaking a bone and not realizing it until it's too late. Humans can and do take special care of their own who need special protection, adjusting the environment for the needs of those who never feel pain and injury. (Hey, PETA freaks: show me any other animal that does this.)

The ancient Hebrews were instructed to use the most painless method available to kill their livestock for slaughter. In their case, it was by slitting the throat with the sharpest possible edge. In this day of BSE, it might not be a bad idea to get your beef in a kosher market.

Another "just for our vanity" venture is sport hunting and fishing. If the only reason you have for killing that deer, or salmon, or whatever, is to mount it on a wall as a trophy, don't do it. If you don't intend to make food out of it, leave it alone. There are plenty of ways to show the world what a manly man you are, that don't involve death and suffering. Better yet: study humility instead.

So why do I have such a problem with PETA? They try to denigrate themselves, and everyone else with them, with their false claim that humans should have no contact with any other animals. Their tactics alternate between illegal (public nudity), dangerous (releasing a large population of minks without consideration of other local wildlife), and just plain stupid (demanding a meatless society). Their claims use "science" in a very selective manner, ignoring obvious points which contradict their agenda. When their last "reason" fails, they can make only fearful and sympathetic arguments.

Phooey on PETA. A stopped clock may be right twice a day, but it's still useless as a timepiece.

Too Little, Too Late?

Buried by the French riots is this little tidbit:

The Kyoto Protocols are all movie and no reality.

Yup. That's what I said.

Outrage at NASA

They're going to launch, anyway, even if they can't figure out what is wrong with the fuel sensor.

If anyone is hurt or killed, I will put out a call to dismantle NASA and prosecute for reckless endangerment or manslaughter. This kind of pressure to launch is exactly what doomed the Challenger. To continue with this kind of unexplained problem is nothing less than reprehensible. No amount of "humanitarian benefit" can justify being so reckless with people's lives.

He Just Needed Time and Twine

James Doohan is gone. He was famous for a fictional role in a futuristic TV show that was far beyond what most people dared to imagine forty years ago.

Yes, it was fiction. So why am I on the verge of tears?

Update: Forget "on the verge."

Another Liberal Icon Shut Down

It wasn't "star stuff" from "billyuns and billyuns of years ago." All the naturally occurring elements, including those needed to form life, were formed right here on Earth.

So Carl Sagan got it wrong, again, this time regarding our origins. I'm not surprised, really. In my more ignorant, gullible days, when PBS didn't have as much public pressure to keep them in check, I drank up Cosmos like water. Sagan made a point of explaining things in simple terms. The only problem is that his core thesis was wrong.

Two of the most well-known phrases attributed to Sagan from Cosmos were "star stuff" and "billions and billions of years ago." (The latter was actually Johnny Carson, poking fun of Carl Sagan.) Their context was roughly something like this: Our bodies need all the elements, including those that our sun is unable to produce. Anything heavier than carbon came from somewhere else in the galaxy or universe; anything heavier than iron had to come from a supernova, because heavier elements need strong fusion reactions to form. Therefore, our bodies contain elements of the universe at large. We are children of the universe.

I was never really comfortable with this idea, not from any particular theological issues that it raised, but simply from the sheer amount of time it would have taken to accumulate so much uranium. It also couldn't account for the seeming lack of nuclear reaction on Jupiter and Saturn, which would draw the passing "heavy dust" much more strongly. If random chance applies here, then it must apply to the gaseous planets as well. Obviously, it didn't apply the same.

The source of the heavier elements, as it turns out, are right here on Earth. Fifteen natural reactors in Gabon, Africa, began producing ("breeding") plutonium and enriched uranium about two thousand million years ago. Geological shifting exposed the reactors to other materials, which easily caused the formation of different elements. In fact, the entire fifth row of the Periodic Table, and the first row of rare earths, were made more abundant on Earth due to the supply from the Oklo reactors.

Carl Sagan, on the other hand, had to conveniently ignore this in Cosmos. As a dope-smoking scientific atheist, he was the darling child of the Liberal Left's anti-Christian agenda. His "we're just chance, there is no afterlife" dogma made him a shoo-in for a PBS series. His hypocrisy, however, is evident: his railing against the religious establishment's dogma could be applied to his own selective fact-gathering. The Oklo reactors were public knowledge in 1980, when his TV series hit the airwaves. Acknowledging the thoroughly terrestrial nature of humanity would torpedo one of his primary tenets.

This doesn't resolve any great religious discussion. It's no more or less difficult to be an atheist, an agnostic, or a theist, than before. It does put to rest the Cosmic Consciousness tripe that many Christians were forced to support via their tax payments.

Kyoto Is a Sham

And the current Popular Science proves it. Many others have said it, and I'll echo it: Kyoto is nothing more than a billy club for less vital economies to use against the United States. Let the USA slip on some emissions reduction schedules, and all hell breaks loose in the media. Let anyone else increase their dependence on the nastiest automobile fuel there is, and it gets a tidy mention on p. 34 of the July 2003 Popular Science, complete with pretty colors and a high-tech color graphic of Europe.

Here are some quick numbers: Between 1992 and 2002, Austria's diesel automobile sales went from 26.3% of all auto sales to 69.6%, the highest percentage of all in 2002, as well as the highest percentage jump (43.3%). Danes and Swiss are now over 6 times more likely to buy diesel cars. Italians are now over 5.5 times more likely (from 7.9% to 43%). Swedes are over 7 times more likely to buy diesel cars, although going from 0.9% to 7% in ten years isn't exactly pushing the issue overall. Ireland's percentage actually decreased one half percent, from 16.5% in 1992 to 16% in 2002. Austrians, Belgians, and Germans all more than doubled their preference for diesel cars over 1992 levels. The adjacent commentary concedes that "U.S. emission laws have been no friend to oil-burners (they put out more soot than gasoline-based engines)..."

Right below this little half-page snippet is a quick review of the new Honda FCX hydrogen fuel-cell car. Yes, there are still problems with fuel-cell technology, but the best way to sort them out is to put it to daily use. Honda has produced five cars for use in Los Angeles, which has some pretty grueling traffic conditions.

What does this mean? It means that Western Europeans are actually increasing their consumer pollution output while researchers are using United States streets to find ways to reduce consumer pollution. I'm sure this little fact will conveniently slip by the anti-American Euro-weenies. Their idea of leading the race isn't by being the fastest; it's by crippling the fastest. It's time to ignore them and their desire to cripple us, and the perfect way to start is by putting the Kyoto Protocol into the shredder.

Where Are the Drones Here?

Cincinnati, Ohio is thinking about using drones to patrol traffic. I hope they think about this. A lot. For a long time.

I haven't had a lot of respect for Cincinnati's city council, ever since they brought up the idea of giving cars to poor people several years ago ("to open up job opportunities"). Fortunately for them, enough people with sense pointed out that it would:

• draw even more poor people
• increase the liability for the city under Ohio's "lemon laws"
• result in people trying to "prove" how needy they are

Now, they are looking at the use of remote-controlled airplanes ("drones," or, in military parlance, UAV's) to watch traffic conditions. One telling paragraph shows just how ill-conceived this is:

Some come equipped with "sniffers" that would let police know whether a truck has spilled ammonia or gasoline before a dispatcher sends emergency workers. Smaller ones can be sent through a tunnel.

Huh? The last I knew, radio signals didn't penetrate the earth, which nullifies the whole notion of remote control. What's worse, most tunnels are bored and built with about two feet of clearance for most large trucks. The wingspan alone would require at least that much for simple maneuvering. The slightest mis-calculation could cause a collision between the drone and a truck; the crash following would probably result in a fire, which becomes triply disastrous in a freeway tunnel.

I sincerely hope someone, somewhere has enough common sense to do a thorough review of this program, before any more money is wasted on it, or punitive fines are levied on the city after a crash. ODOT, are you listening? Or are you full of drones, too?

(Thanks to Matt Drudge for the link to the story.)

Here Comes the Hurricane!

(This is the first article I ever got published on the Internet. I submitted it, cold, to the editorial staff at Linux.com, and it was published on May 14, 2000, less than a week later. When Linux.com was re-worked to be a news portal, their old articles were removed. Gareth Watts collected the articles and re-published them on his website, omnipotent.net, where I found it. Thanks, Gareth!)

While I was lying in bed yesterday morning, listening to an NPR station, I received a rude awakening in more than one sense. Not that I'm really that fond of NPR, but that's exactly why I use it to wake me up: it motivates me to get out of bed and start the day. Yesterday, though, I received a jolt that sent shivers down my spine.

A coalition of several hundred software companies, including Microsoft, AT&T, and IBM, has requested assistance from the United Nations in developing an infrastructure for delivering software updates and patches on an international level. The coalition is called the Application Service Provider Industry Consortium.

But why the United Nations? Given the UN's ability to entangle itself in situations without really trying, do we really want the UN involved in software updates? Besides, what's really wrong with what we currently have?

Then again, is this the beginning of UCITA on a global scale? Since a corporation's ability to pursue software pirates is limited in such legally difficult areas as sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, and the kid down the street with a CD-RW drive in his parents' computer, the United Nations seems a perfect ally to enforce global restrictions on who can use their products, and how, and when.

Fast-forward one hour. When I arrived at work, I picked up a copy of the Silicon Valley Computer User magazine, and found an article discussing the Registration Wizard for Microsoft Office 2000. The author confessed to being a pirate, in that he violated the terms of the End User License Agreement (EULA), but his overall attitude was "who cares? everyone does it."

While I may not be able to support his attitude towards violating the EULA, I must agree that the Registration Wizard has a creepy aspect about it. After all, without completing the Wizard, you can launch Office only fifty times. If Office crashes and work is lost, does that still count? What if the Wizard's Internet registration isn't an option? Should the purchaser use the Post Office instead? How long will the registration turnaround be for someone in very remote North Dakota or near a billabong in the Aussie outback? Fifty launches without registration is stifling, to say the least. What if a totally new installation is required after the OS has been re-installed?

Combine these two bits of information, and you have a very scary world indeed. The United Nations, maintaining a database of registered Microsoft customers (on Microsoft systems, of course), can deny anyone permission to obtain possibly critical upgrades for their systems, based solely on the fact that their license number doesn't appear in the database. Never mind that the database server crashed between data entry and backup. All in the name of UCITA, or whatever it will be called.

Board up your windows, secure your doors, and make sure the storm stays out of your home! If you aren't prepared, you could find yourself with an unwelcome guest on your home PC, making life very inconvenient for you.

This is where Linux has the edge. Through sites such as Linux.com, kernel.org, gnome.org, kde.org, and of course metalab.sunsite.edu (CORRECTION: this should have been metalab.unc.edu), Linux and the Open Source tools are being passed out to anyone who wants them. Sure, some US sites have export restrictions on them, but anyone in nations not allowed to download from US-based servers can use mirrors. Piracy? Well, it is possible to pirate a GPL'ed product (witness Nvidia's slip-up), but simply downloading Linux, copying it, and giving it to friends doesn't count as piracy. In fact, it's encouraged.

And now the confession: Six months ago, I was a Linux "elitist," expecting anyone using Linux to learn about their system. I have now reconsidered. Given that Linux is all about freedom of choice, I believe it is perfectly reasonable to allow someone to choose fancy GUI tools for configuring their system (think Red Hat). It is also reasonable to allow someone to choose vi as their primary configuration tool (think Slackware). Or even use both, as I have done on occasion.

Another part of that freedom is the freedom to do what you want with it. If someone wants to create an Intranet router using Linux and some old, discarded PC parts, fine. Someone else can set up a high-end graphics design station. Put it in the corner and forget about it, or incorporate the latest patches every week, or even write an experimental driver that could ruin your system. It's your choice. No corporation or international organization will tell you otherwise.

Only by getting Linux (or its older half-siblings, the *BSD flavors) into as many hands as possible, all over the world, will we be able to stem the tide of corporate control away from our personal lives.

Keeping the Good, Transcending the Bad

John Dvorak says that Linux developers need to be more innovative. Their GUIs look too much like Microsoft Windows. Ultimately, he may have a point, but I think his article misses a greater truth.

His basic case is this: The Windows user interface is ridden with deficiencies. Linux, with massively more programming resources than Microsoft, should be able to come up with something better.

However, his memory of history is selective. Among his claims:

• You'll discover that all the flavors of Linux and the open-source software that runs on it are getting more and more like Windows. This is true only of the two major GUI environments: GNOME and KDE. WindowMaker, XFCE, and even the venerable CDE have their own ways of interacting with the desktop. As Larry Wall philosophizes about Perl, "There's more than one way to do it."
• ...none of it is quite as good as Windows-based software. Explain that to Samba users and administrators. Its stability is legendary, and it can be upgraded without a total system reboot. Only with Windows 2000 can Microsoft claim the latter. Other examples abound.
• In the 1980s, the term creeping featurism was coined. It's now become part of the landscape. Except that, with Microsoft Windows, you have very few choices about the features you want to include. A classic case of that is the "integration" of Internet Explorer into the Windows 98 desktop (the design move that re-opened the US government's antitrust action). Supposedly, at least according to Microsoft's official documentation, Internet Explorer and the Windows desktop were so tightly welded, you couldn't remove Internet Explorer without crashing the system. Linux has never claimed that about any of its features, beyond the kernel itself. In fact, Linux makes a fantastic antidote for those who are tired of what is now called the "Microsoft tax." If you don't want it, you don't have to get it.
• So just as Microsoft has copied Apple's inventions out of necessity, the Linux community copies the inventions of Microsoft out of necessity. The first half of that sentence is provably wrong. Apple and Microsoft both got their GUI ideas from Xerox PARC, independently from each other. This point is conceded even by people who were involved with PARC around the time Steve Jobs and Bill Gates visited.
• Programs such as GIMP are compared with Windows programs. The GIMP is not an Open Source answer to a Windows program. It's an answer to Adobe Photoshop, which runs on both Windows and Macintosh. And the GIMP and Photoshop are both powerful programs in their own rights.

Finally, I want to take issue with a notion that permeates his column: if Windows has it, Linux should try to avoid it. He doesn't come right out and say it, but it's there. Behind this notion is the assumption that Windows is nothing but bad ideas (assuming that Linux wants nothing but good ideas). Yes, the Start button's menu structure is derided by Mac enthusiasts, because it can be too cumbersome to navigate. But nobody is stopping users from creating a desktop shortcut to the directory containing the Programs shortcuts. Such a shortcut, when opened, would present a window with many program launchers in it, much like the Macintosh Finder. The same thing is possible in GNOME and KDE.

He also derides "the same old command line and WIMP interfaces." Macintosh wisely included both in their release of OS X. It's based on BSD Unix, hence it has a command line.

The current Big 3 operating systems (Windows, OS X, and Linux) each allow their users access to the command lines and the WIMP interfaces. The command line is nearly universal, since the keyboard is the universal generic input method for alphabet-based languages. But perhaps the greater truth is this: For maximum usability in a GUI, having windows, icons, menus, and a pointer are necessary.

Other possibilities may be faster, or more economical on screen space, but their limitations make them impractical for general use. For example, pie menus allow very quick navigation, but are ergonomically restricted to 8 options before selection becomes difficult.

One case demonstrating strong favor for the WIMP interface, is the Java GUI toolkit. Both AWT and Swing assume a typical WIMP interface, giving it quick and easy entry into most GUI environments. This design decision was based partly on economy, partly on usability and familiarity. Anyone who knows how to use Windows or Macintosh, knows how to use a well-designed Java GUI interface.

And here we come to the crux of the problem: The WIMP interface is what people know. In the words of Donald A. Norman:

When consistency is common, it is taken for granted and the user comes to rely upon it. But when things we have learned to rely on suddenly become unavailable, it can be worse than if they never existed at all. ("Why Interfaces Don't Work," The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design, 1990)

If Linux is to post gains into the desktop market, it cannot be expected its potential new customers to learn an entirely new means of interacting with the system. Macintosh is learning this lesson right now, with their re-design of the desktop details from OS9 to OS X; Microsoft is still the butt of several jokes about their "radical new" Windows 95 interface ("What do you mean, click Start to turn it off?"). What Linux can do is present a mostly-familiar GUI metaphor, in a much more stable environment. Windows, icons, menus, and a pointer, are all understandable on any system that implements them. The further details (context menus, new icon/file creation, shortcuts) are left as decisions for the designers. And Linux has many designs to choose from.

Motorola, Enemy of Privacy

I saw on the tech news wire an announcement from Motorola® describing a new type of super-fast microprocessor.

I went to their home page to see what their own press people were writing about it (I prefer my news unfiltered). Instead, this image was their lead story:

(click the image for the full-size shot in a new window)

Does that scare you as much as it scared me? To confirm my suspicions, I went ahead and followed the "Click to see who's talking..." link at the bottom. A Flash® animation, showing eight pairs of "typical" device communications. To find out what they had to say about the police car/fingerprint pair, a click on either one will show this:

(click the image for the full-size shot in a new window)

Now, let me quote from the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America:

Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated....

Amendment V: No person shall be ... compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law....

See the problem? Some electronic device, be it a cell phone with GPS, or a PDA with some sort of fingerprint security, can be used as evidence against you. Furthermore, with the advent of Bluetooth and 802.11b, what evidence do we have that malicious data won't be implanted on your cell phone/PDA/whatever, without your knowledge, designed to incriminate you? After all, isn't the very point of this ad "Things are starting to talk to other things"? How long before we have "Things are starting to boss around other things"? After that, law enforcement can get your PDA to provide testimony against you on demand.

Apparently, Motorola doesn't remember the lesson Intel learned with their CPU serial number fiasco. Originally touted as a fantastic time-saver, the serial number was supposed to be a handy key for looking up client (customer) records. Privacy groups quickly realized what a nightmare it could be in the hands of a malicious user: find out the CPU serial number in someone else's computer, and you have completed a crucial first step towards being able to take over their online identity. It was the classic Law of Unintended Consequences, a good idea gone bad.

Nor does Motorola acknowledge the fallibility of law enforcement and prosecution. The Constitutional Amendments quoted above are simply two posts in the fence which keeps governmental authority in check. If we do not rely on them, we become the brunt of the world's jokes, just as Russia did under Communism. Notice the text in the second image: "Score one for the good guys." What a dangerous assumption, that all law enforcement officials are "good guys".

Notice also their insistence that identity theft will be harder with their technology: "It will become more difficult for people to masquerade as you..." This is the same mind game that gun control evangelists use: If we make it hard enough, eventually it will be impossible, and then we can trust everyone. And yet, the persistence of violent crime demonstrates that, to the motivated, nothing is impossible. Even if something becomes impossible by some means, the motivated person will find another way to the end. Look at the image again. Could it be possible for someone to steal another person's sweater and begin masquerading as that person? It's wild speculation now. Thirty years ago, so was a computer in every home.

Motorola's latest technology makes communication easy. Perhaps it makes communication too easy.

"Motorola" and the "M" logo are registered trademarks of Motorola, Inc. All images used herein are copyrighted by Motorola, Inc. "Flash" is a registered trademark of AtomShockwave Corp.

Mr. Mundie didn't get a clue

(Craig Mundie's speech to the Stern School of Business got quite a bit of coverage in the Linux community. It generated a lot of reaction, some good, some bad, and some downright ugly. But rather than admit that he didn't know what he was talking about, he sent a letter to ZDnet, who then published it on their website. Once again, my response.)

On May 3 I spoke at the New York University Stern School of Business about Microsoft's position regarding source-code licensing. I wanted to articulate some of the benefits and drawbacks of the various ways commercial software companies could share their source code.

I described Microsoft's shared-source philosophy, a balanced (in Microsoft's favor) approach that enables commercial companies to share source code with their customers and partners while preserving the intellectual property rights that support a strong software business (and interfere with their ability to work on private projects). I also articulated some ways in which shared source differs from open source.

The reactions to my statements have been many and varied (but not so varied as many). I wanted an active debate about intellectual property and the software industry, and I certainly got one. (Was he surprised that so many people would be concerned about our personal freedoms?)

But this is more than just an academic debate. The commercial software industry is a significant driver of our global economy. It employs 1.35 million people and produces $175 billion in worldwide revenues annually (sources: BSA, IDC).

The business model for commercial software has a proven track record (if that's the case, then why is it under such fire?) and is a key engine of economic growth for many countries (and ignores emerging economies, such as Latin America, Africa, and the Indian sub-continent). It has boosted productivity and efficiency in almost every sector of the economy (until the GUI came along, which is actually slower than text-based entry), as businesses and individuals have enjoyed the wealth of tools, information and other activities made possible in the PC era (and licensed by Microsoft).

Companies have the choice of protecting or relinquishing the intellectual property resulting from their research and development consistent with their particular customer and business needs. (One can protect and relinquish ideas at the same time. It isn't a "one or the other" choice. That is the purpose of the Patent Office: to place ideas into public view, for public scrutiny, while protecting it for purposes of private, but limited, exploitation. After 17 years, it is made available for public use.) As the U.S. Department of Commerce stated in a report titled "International Science and Technology": "Innovation relies on a partnership between the public and private sectors in which the government invests in long-range science and technology and in mechanisms to promote private-sector risk-taking and investment."

(The above quote is terribly misleading, because:

• There is no Constitutional provision or requirement for the public [federal government] sector to invest in the private sector
• Innovation did not begin, and has never begun, with the federal government
• Publicly-funded research is automatically public property)

We believe that one of these mechanisms is intellectual property rights (a very tenuous concept, since by common law, property must be tangible). Without intellectual property protection, neither innovation nor a healthy commercial software industry is sustainable. (Bullsh-- again. There was no such thing as "intellectual property protection" when we got the wheel, the plow, books, the loom, ships, ... and the list goes on. Innovation has been going on since before Homo sapiens walked the planet.) The last 50 years of public- and private-sector collaboration has demonstrated that when intellectual property rights are protected, innovators are rewarded for their efforts. (Was there such a term as "intellectual property" fifty years ago?) Furthermore, technology is advanced guaranteeing economic growth and a cycle of future collaboration, investment and innovation.  (The advancement of technology does not guarantee the growth of the economy; Japan's economy was horribly depressed after the Second World War.)

In my speech, I did not question the right of the open-source software model to compete in the marketplace. (His colleague, Jim Allchin, did exactly that; here, Craig Mundie is making a point of avoiding the same mistake.) The issue at hand is choice (that's right); companies and individuals (both developers and end-users) should be able to choose either model, and we support this right. (No, they don't. They want to lock the world into Microsoft-only environments; my first response shows how they manage to do just that.) I did call out what I believe is a real problem in the licensing model that many open-source software products employ: the General Public License. (Once again, he ignores the Lesser GPL, and BSD-style licenses, which avoid many of the "problems" he cites in his earlier speech.)

The GPL turns our existing concepts of intellectual property rights on their heads. (Only for some people, in particular those who find themselves threatened. Others find their views vindicated by the GPL.) Some of the tension I see between the GPL and strong business models is by design, and some of it is caused simply because there remains a high level of legal uncertainty around the GPL--uncertainty that translates into business risk. (I don't see it as being risky for Red Hat. Despite all the naysayers in their early existence, they have built a pretty stable business. It can be done.)

In my opinion, the GPL is intended to build a strong software community at the expense of a strong commercial software business model. That's why Linus Torvalds said last week that "Linux is never really going to be a rich sell." (He doesn't attribute his source for this quote. Besides, Linus Torvalds is not perfect, and is not an economist or marketer; he's a programmer.)

This isn't to say that some companies won't find a business plan that can make money releasing products under the GPL. We have yet to see such companies emerge, but perhaps some will. Recent history tells us, however, that finding a business model that works is difficult. (He's hedging his bets here, but he's right when he says this.) According to ZDNet News, "Ransom Love, CEO of Caldera Systems...said he thinks Microsoft was right in its claim that the GPL doesn't make much business sense." (Ugh. This quote is now third-hand. How can we be sure that is what Ransom Love said?)

What is at issue with the GPL? In a nutshell, it debases the currency of the ideas and labor that transform great ideas into great products. (How very disingenuous. Linux has become a great product, with very little corporate protection. Furthermore, the GPL guarantees that each contributor receives credit for code, rather than being forced to turn over the code to a large corporate interest. This is exactly what shared-source developers will have to do.)

Alfred North Whitehead, the renowned British philosopher, logician and mathematician, observed: "It is a great mistake to think that the bare scientific idea is the required invention (exactly!), so that it has only to be picked up and used. An intense period of imaginative design lies between (something which Microsoft notoriously lacks; they prefer to "embrace, extend, and extinguish"). One element in the new method is just the discovery of how to set about bridging the gap between the scientific ideas and the ultimate product. It is a process of disciplined attack upon one difficulty after another."

In other words, a critical flow of information and experimental data follows every major scientific discovery and results in the verification (thesis), refutation (antithesis) or refinement (synthesis) of the new idea or theory. (This sequence of events has been going on since pre-history.  It's part of our nature.) To facilitate this process, neither copyright nor patent protections are available for abstract ideas or theories. (They aren't? Then how did Amazon.com get their "one-click" patent?) This is as it should be (even though this doesn't reflect reality).

Legendary inventors such as Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford (who held thousands of patents between them [and were innovative in their own rights, independently of government investment]) succeeded precisely because they were able to use (private) funding, management and market insight to deliver their innovations as unique, practical and useful products. (This assumes that all of their inventions and patents were useful, when in reality less than half of them ever became commodity items.) Arguably, the creativity and inventiveness needed to deliver their products was comparable to that needed for the underlying theory or discovery that made their business possible in the first place.

When comparing the commercial software model to the open-source software model, look carefully at the business plans and licensing structures that form their foundations. This comparison leads to the conclusion that the commercial software model alone has the capacity for sustaining real economic growth (but this comes at the cost of our individual freedoms, to do as we wish with our own ideas). Intellectual capital (notice the term shift here, from "property" to "capital") has always been, and will remain, the core asset of the software industry, and of almost every other industry. Preserving that capital--and investing in its constant renewal--benefits everyone. (That's exactly what Richard Stallman did, and does. The fruits of his labors, and the logical extensions of his philosophy, have benefitted far more people, of all cultures and walks of life, than the labors and philosophy of Microsoft.)

My response to Craig Mundie's remarks to the Stern School of Business

(Another old article. Craig Mundie introduced Shared Source, a Microsoft collaboration program designed to weaken Open Source projects through cross-contamination.)

There was no way I was going to let these comments go without a response. My own text is interspersed in the speech, and looks like this.

It has long been said that change is the only constant in the technology industry. In the past 20 years the velocity of that change has accelerated at a seemingly exponential rate, serving constantly as an engine of growth for the global economy.

Yet during the last year, the U.S. economy has hit what could be regarded as its most substantial speed bump of the past two decades. (Wrong. Remember the big drop of 1987? It was smaller in actual numbers, but it was a larger percentage on the day's opening price.) Illustrated most starkly by the declining valuation of the NASDAQ, we've witnessed a notable decline in consumer confidence that has people wondering whether we?re at a brief respite or whether we?ve reached the end of an economic era.

At Microsoft we believe that the personal information technology revolution that began in the early 1980s is far from over. It probably has at least two more decades to go. But it's also important that we learn from the lessons of the past year and apply them in order to make the most of the potential that lies ahead.

One lesson is that we should keep things in context. (Hear here. He doesn't do a very good job, as I'll show below.) Every big phase of economic expansion has its share of downturns, and new technological advances frequently bring with them a share of over-exuberance.  The recent and substantial technology investment downturn mirrors similar episodes that affected railroads, steel, automobiles and radio. In this context, it's not surprising that, as early as 1995, Bill Gates wrote in his book The Road Ahead about what he called the "Internet gold rush" and predicted both enormous long-term advances and substantial short-term setbacks, saying "Gold rushes tend to encourage impetuous investments. A few will pay off, but when the frenzy is behind us, we will look back incredulously at the wreckage of failed ventures and wonder, 'Who funded these companies? What was going on in their minds? Was that just mania at work?'" (This wasn't in the first edition of the book. Besides, Bill Gates didn't write it; he had a ghost writer.)

But there is a broader lesson as well--companies and investors need to focus on business models that can be sustainable over the long term in the real world economy. A common trait of many of the companies that failed is that they gave away for free or at a loss the very thing they produced that was of greatest value--in the hope that somehow they'd make money selling something else. The Internet, for example, was full of sites producing content for free, in the hope that somehow they'd generate revenue from sources that never materialized, whether it was advertising, subscriptions, or a wing and a prayer. As we've learned--or really re-learned--one can't build a business or our economic future on that type of flimsy foundation. (Gee, that sounds familiar. Remember Internet Explorer 3/4/5? Talk about flimsy. If you want your computer to be secure, you shouldn't be using IE. It is the ultimate "wing and a prayer" in web browsers. It was designed to lock people into using proprietary HTML extensions from Microsoft, and make Windows a requirement for surfing the Web.)

Contrast this recent experience with the two decades of economic success that preceded it. The global economy grew in an unprecedented way in no small measure because of a generation of new companies, of which Microsoft was fortunate to be one. Many or even most of these companies invested heavily in research and development and sold their principal products at prices that covered their costs and generated profits that they reinvested in further research and development. (This is no guarantee of success, any more than the method in the prior paragraph is a guarantee of failure. What percentage of companies failed, doing business "correctly"?)

This research and development model, in turn, was almost always based on the importance of intellectual property rights. (Legal debate continues on whether there is such a thing.) Whether copyrights, patents or trade secrets, it was this foundation in law that made it possible for companies to raise capital, take risks, focus on the long term, and create sustainable business models.

Despite the demonstrable success of the computing industry and the IP-based economy (I know that this is the focus of his speech, but how much of the overall economy is he talking about?), and the clear failure of newer firms that gave away products for free, it's notable that in the past year (a matter of months after MS acknowledged it) there has been a broader discussion about whether the ingredients that delivered longstanding economic success can continue to do so. In part this discussion has focused on whether the personal computer will continue to provide a sustainable technological foundation for economic growth. And in part this has focused on whether IP protection as we have known it--whether for music, software, or other products--should continue to be a fundamental engine of economic growth.

The questions to be raised are twofold:

1. Can the personal information technology continue to drive broad economic growth?

   The answer is "yes." (NO.)
   The computing industry needs to move to a model of multiple computing devices that more effectively empower people to unleash the computing power of the Internet and move their ideas and their content with them from machine to machine.

   (Personal IT does not drive economic growth; corporate IT drives it. If anything, personal IT slows down economic growth by making the toy at home the tool at work.)

2. Should an information-based economy protect the intellectual property assets that are driving its growth?

   The answer is "yes." (NO.)
   We should examine the progress of the Internet to understand the landscape of the software industry today and how intellectual property fits into that landscape.

   (An information-based society is not based on the creation of lasting value. Information can only be examined and analyzed. An economy based on information might as well be based on "2+2=4".)

In thinking about the technology foundation we need, it's important to recognize that the popular use of the Internet is still less than 10 years old, and is already moving into its third significant phase.(The currently popular use [Web surfing] is less than 10 years old, but it was e-mail that established it as a viable technology.)

Phase 1: In the early '90s it was all about static information. The nascent World Wide Web was catapulted to the world stage as millions of individuals and businesses began to tap the potential of the medium. (Wrong. Dynamic CGI content was available and common in the early '90s.)

Phase 2: The late '90s saw the birth of the online transaction and the promise (promises, promises) of Internet-based business models. Both were about connectivity, but now the static distribution of information was replaced by business-to-customer or business-to-business transactions. (Totally false. If all information were dynamic, no proxy cache would be useful.) For the general public, Amazon.com came to personify the Internet transaction. (And for Web programmers, Amazon.com and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, personified the corporate swindler. The US Patent and Trademark Office really dropped the ball when it granted the "one-click" patent to Amazon.com.) Revenue models based on advertising sales vs. product sales came into vogue and Yahoo became the poster child for this model. The interesting part of this model is the shift of focus away from the technology IP to content IP (what do these terms mean? Without a definition, this statement is void of meaning) as the revenue engine for a company.

Phase 3 is what is being worked on now. It's all about connecting the currently separate complex systems of information and transactions and bringing that power to the individual in a readily accessible format on a variety of devices. (Never mind the security concerns!)

These new technologies will be able to identify the relationships between disparate information sources and transactional environments. The individual may then cull relevant data and execute the necessary transactions to complete a task or make strategic decisions. An example of this would be to have a single process for identifying physicians covered by your healthcare plan, comparing physical locations of clinics to mass transit schedules and routes, scheduling the appointment and taking care of the co-pay all at once.  Most importantly, this can be done any time, any place and on any device. (And anyone with a packet sniffer can see the names of your doctor and your HMO.)

There are challenges to the success of Phase 3 becoming a reality.

• Business models:
  The increasing numbers of failures in the .com space (because they couldn't hold their own against Microsoft) show a flaw in many of the existing Internet business models.

  1. Advertising as the primary revenue stream
  2. Operating under the assumption that market share equals revenue
  3. Free now, pay later (again, just like IE 3/4/5 and the new "features" you had to get in order to run them)

• Development models:
  A heavy investment in research and development is going to be required in order for businesses and individuals to see the benefits of phase 3. (And to hide the risks from the end user.)

• People:
  The technology industry has to prove its commitment to privacy and security (!) in order to encourage user acceptance of the technologies. Furthermore, the next phase needs to be presented in a simple and compelling fashion so that individuals and businesses may make use of them easily. (How ironic. A Microsofty talking about security, when their Web server has always been one of the riskier servers to use. The NT security model is still weak. Windows 9x/ME have NO security.)

The paradigm shift that is at the core of phase three is the focus of the Microsoft .NET strategy. .NET is a set of Web services that are user-centric rather than device-centric. This is a shift in focus from individual Web sites or devices to new constellations of computers, devices, and services (and system crackers) that work together to deliver broader, richer solutions. People will have control over how, when and what information is delivered to them. Computers, devices and services will be able to collaborate directly with each other, and businesses will be able to offer their products and services in a way that lets customers embed them in their usage of the Web at their discretion.

It is important to note that Phase 3 will not come about due to any one company's, or even a single group of companies', efforts. Innovation investment and a significant community of software developers will need to share the excitement for bringing about the next generation of the Web. The resulting intellectual property will be the foundation of the business model providing the continuing opportunity for R&D investment. (He just finished harping about IP, and now he wants the "community" to join in? How disingenuous.)

The business model I am speaking of for Phase 3 is the Commercial Software Model. The taxonomy of this model is built around 5 key elements:

(What he mentions here are opposing goals in the Microsoft view. Items marked with an asterisk [*] conflict with those marked with a plus [+].)

1. Community: a strong support community (*) of developers
2. Standards: promote collaboration (*) and interoperability (*) while supporting innovation (+) and healthy competition(+)
3. Business Model: promotes the growth of a profitable business
4. Investment: level of research and development investment drives resources for future innovation(+)
5. Licensing Model: provides product and source access (*) without jeopardizing the intellectual property rights of those who create or use the software (+)

(Notice this very last point. He wants to protect the IP rights of the create and use, but he wants to eradicate the right of First Purchase, which says that once I buy a published work, I own that copy. No corporation can dictate to me how often I use it, if I can make a backup copy or transfer it to another medium, or who I can sell it to. The only thing I can't do is sell copies while keeping the original.)

Microsoft has fostered the world's largest community of software developers for well over a decade. (Lie #42: That's only true in the USA. When you take into account the rest of the world, Unix stands out. And how has Microsoft fostered it for over ten years, if the Internet hit it big only in the middle '90s?) Today, our developer network (MSDN) works with a community of 5 million developers. The element of the commercial software model for Phase 3 that we need to improve is that of our licensing model. Microsoft is expanding its licensing model to include our "Shared Source Philosophy."

Shared Source is a balanced approach that allows us to share source code with customers and partners while maintaining the intellectual property (wE 0wN j00!) needed to support a strong software business. Shared Source represents a framework of business value, technical innovation and licensing terms. It covers a spectrum of accessibility that is manifest in the variety of source licensing programs offered by Microsoft.

The principles of the Shared Source Philosophy are:

• Helping customers and partners to be successful through source access programs (while preserving the Pointy-Haired Boss's ignorance)
• Building the development community and offering them the tools to produce great software (in exchange for compromising your ability to work on your projects)
• Improving the feedback process in order to create better products for Microsoft's customers and partners
• Maintaining the integrity of our customers' environments (LIE #71: Windows is a system integrity disaster. Who knows what kind of stuff is in those "security updates"?)
• Increasing educational access in order to get the technology into the hands of universities worldwide, and to seed the future of a strong technology industry (to get them while they're young)
• Protecting software intellectual property based on the firm belief that software offers value as the basis of a successful business (to protect Microsoft's IP)

Some examples of Shared Source already being implemented at Microsoft:

• Research Source Licensing: For nearly a decade Microsoft Research has licensed Windows source code to more than 100 academic institutions in 23 countries. (And now, those students and professors cannot work on Open Source projects, because of "contamination".)
• Enterprise Source Licensing Program:  Source code for Windows 2000 and subsequent releases of Windows is available for licensing at no charge to over 1,000 enterprise customers in the United States.  Today we are announcing a pilot program expanding the ESLP to 12 additional countries. (This compromises the professional programmer's ability to work on Open Source projects as well.)
• ISV Source Licensing: we are developing a program for licensing Windows source code to top tier ISVs for development and support purposes. (This goes after the independent consultants.)
• OEM Source Licensing: Windows source code has been licensed for years to leading OEMs to assist in the development and support of their consumer and server products. (This is for the Mom and Pop computer stores.)
• Windows CE source code access: We are licensing Windows CE source code through Platform Builder 3.0 (generally available to all developers). Microsoft will be broadening and adding to the community support mechanisms through the Platform Builder Program.  In the second half of this year we will offer academic site licenses for CE source code. (Given WinCE's dismal market performance, this isn't a surprise.)
• Additionally, we have announced an expanded level of CE source access to, (i) our leading silicon vendor partners via the Windows Embedded Strategic Silicon Alliance program, and (ii) our leading system integrator partners via the Innovation Alliance Program. (They're even going after the hardware manufacturers!)
• Sample code: Over the years Microsoft has made millions of lines of source code freely available to developers through resources such as SDKs, DDKs, and MSDN. (How hypocritical. Just a few weeks ago, Jim Allchin railed on "freely available" source code, and claimed that it would destroy our nation.)
• We have announced that the specifications for the .NET Framework have been submitted to the ECMA standards body, enabling others to implement and evolve this technology in a platform-independent manner so that it is can be rapidly and widely adopted on an industry-wide basis. (A Microsofty talking about "standards"? They've never believed in standards, unless they're the ones to create them. Examples: MSIE's broken Keep-Alive implementation; their proprietary extensions to the Kerberos protocol.)

We emphatically remain committed to a model that protects the(ir) intellectual property rights in software and ensures the continued vitality of an independent software sector that generates revenue and will sustain ongoing research and development.

The commercial software model is just one model being utilized in the software industry today. It is important to take into account the Open Source Software movement as an example of an alternative model.

The phrase "open source software," or OSS, is often used as an umbrella term for a collection of product development, distribution and licensing practices, many of which have existed individually since the early days of computing. (No, it wasn't. Computing was a cathedral, and only the "ordained" could get access.) There are actually a number of different approaches within this community, but the common traits are providing people with access to source code and allowing others to modify and redistribute that code.

As a result of Microsoft's statement of position today, many people will attempt to say that Shared Source is Microsoft's failed attempt at being an Open Source Company. This could not be a more incorrect statement. Shared Source is not Open Source. (GOOD!) We recognize that OSS has some benefits, such as the fostering of community, improved feedback and augmented debugging. (Which they desperately need. This is an implicit admission that their Beta program is a failure, and their QA department is hamstrung.) We are always looking for ways to improve our products and make our customers more successful (and squash the competition), and to that end we have incorporated these positive OSS elements in Shared Source. But there are significant drawbacks to OSS as well.

The OSS development model leads to a strong possibility of unhealthy (says who?) "forking" of a code base (if the possibility is that strong, then why hasn't Linux forked?), resulting in the development of multiple incompatible versions (Windows 3.1/3.11/95/98/ME/NT 3.5/NT4/2000/CE... 'nuff said?) of programs, weakened interoperability, product instability (NT4 Service Packs, anyone?), and hindering businesses' ability to strategically plan for the future. Furthermore, it has inherent (IP) security risks and can force intellectual property into the public domain. (OK, so maybe he doesn't mean "IP security" here. But if that's the case, then he means "system security". And Microsoft is saying, "Trust us".)

Some of the most successful OSS technology is licensed under the GNU General Public License or GPL. The GPL mandates that any software that incorporates source code already licensed under the GPL will itself become subject to the GPL. (Which the Lesser GPL [LGPL] doesn't do. But he ignores that here, because he knows it will invalidate his whole argument.) When the resulting software product is distributed, its creator must make the entire source code base freely available to everyone, at no additional charge. (Wrong. Source must be available in the same medium as the executable program. This guarantees that the program and its source code can be distributed together.) This viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization making use of it. It also fundamentally undermines the independent commercial software sector because it effectively makes it impossible to distribute software on a basis where recipients pay for the product rather than just the cost of distribution. (BIG LIE #1729: Consumers don't pay for Windows. They pay for the "right" to use it. Microsoft can revoke that right, on their discretion [whim].)

In this sense, open source software based on the GPL mirrors the .com business models that proved the least successful during the past year. They ask software developers to give away for free the very thing they create that is of greatest value in the hope that somehow they'll make money selling something else. (Notice that he asks his audience to take this statement on faith. He offers no objective evidence to support it.) In effect, it puts at risk the continued vitality of the independent software sector. The business model for OSS may well be attractive for software as an adjunct to hardware--the model of the '60s and '70s (a slam on the "communist hippies")--or for service businesses that do not generate the revenue needed for major investments in technology. But as history has shown, while this type of model may have a place, it isn't successful in building a mass market and making powerful, easy-to-use software broadly accessible to consumers. (So why does the *BSD/Linux/Apache installation base grow by leaps and bounds?)

In contrast, two decades of experience (never mind the three decades of Unix experience, and the N decades of IBM experience) have shown that an economic model that protects intellectual property and a business model that recoups research and development costs have shown repeatedly that they can create impressive economic benefits and distribute them very broadly. (OSS-based projects have nearly zero initial R&D costs. No payments for non-disclosure agreements. No big figures for the initial code base. Etc.)

Finally, the fact that we believe strongly in the value of IP protection doesn't mean that we discount the importance of contributing to and supporting the public domain of knowledge as well. (So why did it take an Anonymous Coward to show the world, through Slashdot, how they tried to bastardize the Kerberos protocol? And why did Microsoft then try to shut Slashdot down?) We believe that interaction between the public domain and the IP-based sector needs to be based on mutual responsibility and respect.

There is an important and longstanding tradition for the public domain of knowledge, or "intellectual commons." This is reflected in many ways, including federal support for basic research, the limitations on IP rights reflected in the law (but not the limitations imposed by the Constitution) and, more recently, the broad practice of contributing technology to public standards groups for the continued development of the Internet. We support this (No you don't. You were dragged kicking and screaming into the Internet age. We'd still be running NetBIOS if you had had your way.) and want to continue to be a constructive and responsible (Hardly. Their stubbornness allowed the ILOVEYOU email virus to flourish, even after the Melissa fiasco. All because Microsoft refused to change one default installation setting in their Office line.) participant in this community, including making contributions to public standards. There is an equally important tradition of commercial companies having the opportunity to benefit from and apply this public knowledge, including by developing commercial products that are protected by IP rights. (But let a company develop a truly innovative product that they refuse to sell to Microsoft, and they'll be locked out and shut down.) There are many examples of this, including the many products that grew from research in the space program and the advances in speech recognition technology that followed work done at pre-eminent institutions such as Carnegie Mellon.

The GPL asserts that any product derived from source code licensed under it becomes subject to the GPL itself. (Again, he's ignoring the LGPL.) When the resulting software product is distributed, the creator must make all of the source code available, at no additional charge. This effectively makes it impossible for commercial software companies to include source code that is licensed under the GPL into their products, since by doing so, they are constrained to give away the fruits of their labor. As we think about technology, IP rights, and the public sector of knowledge, we need an intellectual model that encourages interaction (under Microsoft's auspices), not a model that drives them apart. (He tries to paint these two as opposites ends of a continuum, which they are not.) We believe that a shared source model, coupled with continuing contributions to public standards, provides a path that is preferable to the open source approach founded on the GPL.

Collectively (Note the word use here: Jim Allchin accused the OSS/GPL crowd of being anti-American commie pinkos who came from collective farms, and now Craig Mundie is encouraging us to go in that direction. How sweetly ironic!) we need to seize the opportunity to make the most of the next two decades of potential economic growth. This requires the proper combination of continuity and change. It means keeping the model of personal information technology (This is not what will drive the next generation of IT.) but adapting it to the needs of the next generation of technology, as we are doing with .NET. It means promoting a sharing of knowledge, through source code and broader interaction, while respecting the importance of intellectual property rights. If we combine these approaches in the right doses, there is cause for great optimism about the economic road ahead.

(This is so rich. I know that a lot of the points I make in here are specific to IT, but if any of those students at the Stern School of Business are learning anything, they'll look at Microsoft's business practices, and then see what a bunch of bulls--- this speech was.)

For other responses, check out:

• Richard Stallman: press release
• Alan Cox: This Is How Free Software Works

UPDATE 15-May-2001: Hopefully, the Last Response by Bruce Perens, signed by all the major players

Mandated Mediocrity

(Warning: The following article is very pro-freedom, pro-captialist, and anti-Microsoft. Readers continue at their own risk.)

You have probably already heard about, or even read, Jim Allchin's recent comments about Open Source. You may have laughed at the sheer ignorance on display; maybe your face turned red with anger. For my own part, the only emotional reaction I had was disgust, similar to what I would feel upon seeing rotten fish left in the sun. As someone in charge of operating systems development, Mr. Allchin comes up remarkably wanting when it comes to personal, historic, and legal realities.

He really doesn't understand that there are people who will program computers until the day they die. The satisfaction they derive from it is just like the "runner's high," the surfer's being "in the tube," and so on. On the one hand, getting the system (of any kind) to work smoothly and efficiently is a fantastic reward in itself. On the other hand, the ego boost that comes with other users' gratitude is nice as well. This is taking part in what Eric Raymond refers to as the "gift economy." Deny these to the programmer, and you will see what forced impoverishment can do to a person.

I'm sure Mr. Allchin expects his own subordinates to receive some of this satisfaction. If they didn't, their work would turn into a simple routine. Put in an eight- or ten-hour day, and then go home. You'll get your thanks when you get your paycheck. How long would the programmers stay if the company took that attitude? How long would the developers under Mr. Allchin be able to keep their jobs if they took that attitude?

Historically, his company arose in a nation that started with the idea that "we think we can do it better". How ironic it is that the United States of America declared its independence from England, but Mr. Allchin wants to subjugate software projects that have no official sanction. He forgets that the men who signed the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, so that he would be free to choose how to live his life. Those same freedoms which he takes for granted (including the freedom to choose what software he runs on his computer) are placed at risk when he points an accusing finger at the Open Source movement.

Legally, the very products that Mr. Allchin oversees are extremely risky for a customer to use. The operating system manages everything on the computer, and hence the danger of damage caused by any bug increases by several orders of magnitude. If someone wants to audit the OS source code, rather than trusting someone who says "it's stable," they can choose Linux, the *BSD flavors, and the Debian GNU/Hurd, plus some of the commercial Unix brands. Not only that, the patches and bug fixes are also available for scrutiny before installation. Given the track record for bug fixes out of Redmond (NT4 Service Packs, anyone?), I dare Mr. Allchin to admit that his product is in severe need of public scrutiny. I know, it's unlikely to happen.

The sad reality is this: When you buy Windows, you are giving Microsoft all the credit for your system's good performance. However, if an upgrade wipes the screenplay you spent three years on, and the backup as well when you try to recover your files, the blame you can place on Microsoft is limited to the purchase price. If you attempt to hold them accountable beyond that, you will be told that "you must have done something wrong." For any legal action, the burden of proof (at least in the USA) is on you, as the plaintiff, to prove that their product was defective. Without the source code, how can you do that? They've taken steps to make sure you can give them all the credit, but very little of the blame.

Yet, when someone wants to allow others to scrutinize the source code, look for bugs, and make it as robust as possible before putting it to use, Mr. Allchin sees that as a threat. Never mind that the US Court of Appeals has ruled, in effect, that making source code available on the Internet is a form of free speech (Bernstein v. US Dept. of Commerce). If I create a program, and then publish the source code on the Internet, should I no longer be allowed to use it? How does that affirm my intellectual property rights? So much for the "American Way" that Mr. Allchin claims to support.

The final, fatal flaw in his argument is his weak attempt to tie Open Source to Napster. He forgets that Napster is a tool, and using it is not a crime. The crime is in sharing copyrighted material, something that can be done just as easily through IRC, FTP, or HTTP. If a tool is used in committing a crime, does that mean we should ban the use of the tool? Robert Hanssen used a Palm Pilot to help him transfer government secrets into Russian hands. Should the use of PDA's be outlawed? By Mr. Allchin's analysis, yes. But he's wrong. Possessing a PDA is not a crime. Using Napster is not a crime. Sharing code that I wrote is not a crime, once I have placed it under the GPL.

Remember, Open Source is all about choice, for developers and users alike.

In defense of men

Well, how about that. Without men, the human race would go extinct.

For a long time (well, at least for all of my own life), radical political feminists have sought to marginalize men. After all, for so many centuries, men have simply left their wives and children, yet the human race has survived. Doesn't that prove that men really aren't necessary?

As it turns out, the sperm contains not only the DNA needed to guarantee genetic diversity, but also the other genetic material which causes the fertilized egg to transform from "egg with complete complement of DNA" to "living organism." This is not the same as cloning, which produces a twin of another organism, complete with all the genetic mutations that have accumulated over its life. Natural (meiotic) fertilization brings in other DNA, in order to minimize the impact of any mutations which may have formed, or been passed from a parent.

This process is very important. The first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep, was the same bio