Home Messages Index
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index

Re: Obama chooses to get the facts from Scott McNealy


Verily I say unto thee, that Matt spake thusly:

> By the way, since the threat of FOSS migration drives the price of 
> Windows and Office ever closer to zero, it seems likely that those MS
> products are destined to be FOSSified someday.

It happens (recently: Xara XTreme), but I invariably find that, when it
does, it's already too late, because the Free Software equivalents have
matched or exceeded the capability of that proprietary software. A good
example of this is Nero Linux, which AFAICT is a complete waste of time
on a platform that already has tools like K3B et al. Now certainly Nero
Linux isn't free, but it was already redundant before it could even get
to that point.

IMHO and IME, proprietary software forced down to zero value, by market
pressure from Free Software, is much /more/ likely to just be abandoned
than relicensed as Free Software. The two primary reasons for this are:

. Third-party "IP". Software companies don't necessarily own every part
  of the software they license, and getting the necessary permission to
  relicense that third-party components can be impossible. Alternatives
  like replacing those components can be impractical, although the Xara
  XTreme example is one such exception.

Considering that nearly the /whole/ Microsoft portfolio was assimilated
from elsewhere, with all the additional "IP" baggage that entails, it's
obviously going to be rather non-trivial to relicense any of that.

. Spite. Yes, this really happens ... very often AFAICT. In fact I have
  been personally affected by this several times. A developer of either
  a shareware, freeware, or fully commercial proprietary software title
  will just abandon it, either due to lack of personal interest or lack
  of profit from sales, then "lock away" that software forever, make no
  effort whatsoever to relicense it, and leave his users stranded, with
  absolutely no justification other than "it's *mine*, and I don't want
  to give it away", despite the fact that this "precious IP" will never
  see the light of day ever again.

Nowhere is this attitude more prevalent than at Microsoft:

"I /want/ /that/ to be mine, I don't /want/ it to be yours" ~ Charles
Carmine, Microsoft Technology "Evangelist" and Channel9 interviewer,
talking about "owning" a mathematical algorithm for memory management.

http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/ch9/0/LangNetMiguelDragos.wmv 0:08:29

Also remember that Microsoft has a long history of abandoning products,
the most recent example of which is their beleaguered OneCare.

Where are they now?

-- 
K.
http://slated.org

.----
| "Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It
|  is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." ~ William
|  Pitt the Younger
`----

Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.25.11-60.fc8
 06:19:57 up 82 days, 14:02,  5 users,  load average: 0.04, 0.04, 0.01

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index