[KLUG Advocacy] Another interessting article

[Robert G. Brown]

On Mon, 07 Jun 2004 10:37:06 -0400, Adam Williams <awilliam at whitemice.org> wrote:
>>>THE CORE OF .NET IS AN ECMA STANDARD!!!!!
>>>And there is nothing platform-centric about .Net, crack a
>>>stinkin' book.
OK, I got that, and I'm pleased to see it.

>>The trouble is that Microsoft is extending .Net in whatever
>>direction it pleases, and can/will patent some of those extensions.
>Sure,  but their are proprietary extensions to everything.  Because a 
>binary propietary module exists for the Linux kernel does not a 
>proprietary kernel make.  The core (and more) of .Net is open,  and 
>protected from proprietorization.  Certainly enough of it is open to be 
>VERY useful.

Others are also free to create "compliant extensions", which is an old 
hat to anyone involved in creating or reading ISO standards, not merely for 
softeware but for other things as well.

>>No open implementation will be able to be 100% Microsoft-compatible,
>>thanks to the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.
>You are correct.
The same thing is true for transmissions and other items, but that doesn't 
seem to bother anyone. The point is that people get trained in principles, and 
there's a core technology which is transportable and understood by anyone. 
Others can come up with compliant extensions, too.

>BUT - the existence (of two) Open Source implementations of .Net DOES 
>create a disinsentive for proprietorization, or at least the adoption of 
>proprietary extensions in an application.  Alot of companies have come out 
>and said, and some have delivered, that they really want their 
>applications to be available on the Linux platform.
That's true... and the "netowrk effect" that has sustained the arguments in
favor of Microsoft products from so long become favorable to open standards 
when they start to play a critical role in the marketplace (which is at a 
level of marketshare way below dominance).

>So they can build a  .Net application, and without really any great
>sacrifice, make it available.  Sometimes playing-along is the best way
>to make a game more fair.
A lot of Microsof-o-philes I've talked to lately are rather impressed and
surprised to learn that:

1. .Net is an implementation of an underlying standard that is OUTSIDE of
   Microsofts control, and

2. There are other compliant implementations, and interoperability is going
   to be a reality, at least to some degree.

Moreover, Microsoft once again has an opportunity to show it's level of
citizenship in the industry, and key users are more critical now. The 
teflon coating is wearing thin.

By the same token, I tend to think that all camps are startigto learn that 
none of the players is going to cave in and vanish anytime soon. Mostly,
Microsoft is beginning to understand that Linux and projects with similar 
business models are here to stay, and we ought to understand that Microsft
ain't going away anytime soon, perhaps to the chagrin of thise who predict
the collapse of the company, or hoped that breaking it up under anti-trust 
laws would weaken its grip on the market.

On Tue, 08 Jun 2004 04:40:47 -0700, Rusty Yonkers <therustycook at yahoo.com>wrote:

>>feelings for M$;  I'm a *(&^#$@&*^$^&* socialist and think, ideally, the
>>federal government should sieze control of the entire company, auction off
>>it's assets and make all its intellectual property public-domain.
No Adam, that's silly. You have my sympathy, but not my agreement.

>I am pretty much a capitalist purist and as far as I am concerned the
>forced distribution of intellectual property is one of the worst
>things that can happen!
Yes, Rusty, rising to Adam's baiting is your principle eror! :)

>The problem is patenting software.  The
>patent system is a system for the industrial age (and even then not
>really as good a solution as people had hoped).
As originally conceived, it was a pretty damn good solution. Recently, 
litigants, the courts, and Congress have mucked it up a lot. The strongest
origianl supporters of patents (guys who wrote the Constitution) would be
horrified to see what's happened to patent law since 1975.

Patents promote progress because they extend some legal protection to the
patent owner, but require them to publish the patented work. If software
patents do not require publication, they are a perversion of the whole 
notion of patents.

>It is not open source software that will free us but the ability to
>improve,innovate, and compete that will give us the best of the best and
>prevent monopolies and power centralization.
Open Source is a procedural model for reaching these ends, but I agree it 
is not the only one. 

>Pure capitalism is about not having strong central control.  Socialism is
>all about strong central control.
Poppycock and horsefeathers, Rusty! There have been places that violate 
both of these statements, and they went on for long periods were stable for 
it, too. Now, some of the most notable countries that CALLED themselves 
"Socialist" (but weren't) turned out to be rather spectactular failures
(like the USSR), and some other places that had "state capitalism" were 
pretty nasty, totalitarian joints (most "bannana republics", Fascist Italy,
NAZI Germany, etc.).... compare that with local, decentralized socialism
as practiced in a lot of Scandanavia, where Capitalism is alive and well....

>People are inherently powerhungry and control freaks.
One of the assumptions underlying American government.

>The role of government in a capitalist government
A capitalist country/economy? I thnk you mean that....
>should be about making sure that a single group does not inhibit
>other groups from competing, whether it is with free, open source,
>shareware, or closed source software.  
Thus we have anti-trust laws and entities that were created to regulate
a nominally free market.

>I have no problem with people deciding to close source their code if
>they chose.  They created it.  They just need to be made to compete
>fairly in the marketplace!  The problem with people like Billy Gates
>is that they only believe that they have won when everyone is using
>thier solution.  He does not believe in the win-win option.  

>On an aside from this, maybe should be made a new thread, I was
>thinking about the possibility of trying to get a ballot proposal on
>the state ballot that would state that all governmental data created
>needs to be in data formats that are completely open and published
>standards.....
Good idea!

>The problem is not the closed source code...other competing programs have 
>potential troubles with reading and writing the data file format. Thus 
>people are timid about switching to another tool to create the data.
Sure... watch the carping about "limiting innovation" from the closed-
source companies when this idea is publisized.

>What do others think about a ballot proposal like this??? Don't think
>there would be time for this year but there is 2005.  Talk about
>putting Michigan in the news!  We could start a whole new revolution.
>The open data format movement!
Personally, I favor this, and I'd shoot for 2006.

>...Could this also be successful for things like audio formats???
Maybe... one at a time! :)

							Regards,
							---> RGB <---