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South African Minister Locks Horns With Microsoft
Posted by
kdawson
on Tuesday March 25, @04:22PM
from the speaking-truth-to-monoploy dept.
from the speaking-truth-to-monoploy dept.
naheiw writes "The South African minister of public service and administration on Monday addressed the opening of the Idlelo 3 free software conference in Dakar, Senegal, saying that software patents posed a considerable threat to the growth of the African software sector (video). Microsoft responded aggressively, saying that 'there is no such thing as free software. Nobody develops software for charity.'"
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freshmeat.net? sourceforge anybody? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Technically true though (Score:5, Insightful)
the 2 things MS is terrified of having to compet on.
Re:Technically true though (Score:5, Insightful)
They aren't capable of admitting, or possibly even acknowledging this any more.
They came to my uni in 2002, and the main speaker, their head of whatever they call their hiring department (he did introduce himself, but I was only there for the pizza) went on what I can only describe as a polite tirade against 'hackers', meaning the proper meaning, not the criminal one. They didn't want them, they wanted people who thought like microsoft did, and were able to do things the microsoft way. A way we were assured was nothing like open source, and far superior.
Their problems quite obviously run deep, and to be frank it was obvious from that one meeting, I was not alone in coming away with that impression (note, not one person at that meeting went to work for them). They want to distance themselves from their hacker origins, but those very same people are what's driving the real innovation in the industry.
Re:Technically true though (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Technically true though (Score:5, Insightful)
That's called a non sequitur.
Most people who receive money in exchange for their work do so without having monopoly rights. There is no evidence that monopoly rights are necessary for monetizing software development; in fact, there's a vast array of evidence suggesting it's not at all necessary.
That evidence ranges from open source companies on one end to the vast majority of programmers hired for coding specific purpose software which is never released and for which copyright or patents is irrelevant.
On the other side is, eh, Microsoft. Claiming that they need software to cost money or they have no business model.
No shit. Wonder what makes them say that then.
Re:Uh... (Score:5, Interesting)
MS Says:
Nonsense. Neither the commercial urge nor the recognition grabbing need have spread to cover 100% of those people producing software. Here [ideaspike.com] is a database system in python that I wrote for my own reasons, and give away for free. No "GPL" or other pseudo-free restrictions, just free. PD. Take it. Do anything you like with it. Or not. Don't care. Not looking for money, not looking for recognition, not looking to promote free stuff over commercial stuff or vice versa, no requirements of any kind. Repost it anywhere, take my name off it, whatever you like. It's just... free. What do I get out of it? It works for me, that's all. Doesn't hurt me or compromise me in any way to give it away, so I do.
What Microsoft - and the GPL-fans, for that matter - have oh-so-conveniently forgotten is the mechanism of PD software. Write it, share it, go on with your life. The more people do that, the more useful things will get created. Personally, I find the GPL just as corrosive as software patents, and for very similar reasons. I try to stay away from both. But that's just me.
Re:Technically true though (Score:5, Interesting)
Where is Stallman? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nobody (Score:5, Funny)
Hello, my name is Nobody. You know, the one that's prefect. Same dude.
Re:Nobody (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, they're right, and wrong, I guess (Score:5, Insightful)
Free Software (GPL/LGPL) is definitely not a charity, it's a give and take trading system. You put in, and you get out, and it largely self-improves through feedback, patches, bug reports, etc.
BSD comes closer, but still required attribution in the past, and of course, the developers were (back in the day) originally producing it as part of various university projects (ie, they get status in return), and more recently, are developing it as for-profit work, but are releasing it. Again, not charity.
That said, whether the argument's been taken out of context, or is accurate in other ways is another matter.
Re:Well, they're right, and wrong, I guess (Score:5, Insightful)
By "charity", I assume that the idea is that someone writes software with the hope of social change with no guarantee he will himself financially benefit from it. Certainly that idea has been widespread in the Free Software world, from Stallman's early dreams to even (funny how this has now gone a complete 180) Miguel de Icaza's founding of GNOME to benefit children in his native Mexico.
Re:Well, they're right, and wrong, I guess (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. Just because people don't see it doesn't mean it's not happening.
Do a quick Google for 'ICT4D' - Information and Communications Technologies for Development. You'll be surprised how much work is being done by organisations big and small, and by individuals, too.
I work almost exclusively with FOSS in Vanuatu [wikipedia.org]. Small linux servers running on ancient hardware was the only way we could conceivably have brought small organisations and NGOs online when I arrived some years ago.
The server OS we use is SME Server [smeserver.org]. I worked for the company that created this software starting back in 2000. I went to work for them specifically because of this software's suitability for use in the developing world. After I left these guys, I worked for 3 years as a volunteer using the same software (and a lot of other FOSS as well) to help people communicate electronically, often for the first time.
FOSS is critical to development work. I've written extensively about ICT and Development. This essay [imagicity.com] explains in layman's terms why FOSS is often the right tool for the job.
Just wait (Score:5, Funny)
You damned dirty liar! (Score:5, Funny)
Quick, someone tell these people they don't exist!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLPC_XO-1#Software [wikipedia.org]
Disgusting (Score:5, Interesting)
PS: What is the chance that the person who said that at Microsoft will be looking for a job very shortly? Having your upper management assert that they are moving toward a more open model and then having some bozo say something like this must look terrible even to the Microsoft Marketing Department (tm).
"Nobody develops software for charity" (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, wait, I am a nobody. At least so far as Microsoft is concerned. It's not that I didn't make enough money to "put food on my family", it's just that I didn't make enough to matter and I never will.
However, the feeling is mutual. If I didn't have clients who need products delivered on MS platforms, I'd happily never touch a piece of MS software again. It's not that I'm ideologically against them, but Microsoft doesn't cater to people like me; we're not a profitable market for them. In fact, we're nobody as far as they're concerned.
That's OK with me; the Gap doesn't offer a line of clothing for people like me; the local Evangelical church doesn't have special Sunday services for people like me either. I'm perfectly happy for each of these organizations to provide their services and wares for people who for whatever reason think they fulfill a need. We just move in orbits that, for the most part intersect.
I think the mutual indifference thing breaks down because Microsoft wants to be everything to everybody. They want to have the one important operating system and the one important file format "standard". Since they don't intend to cater to me, the only way for that to happen is for me to have to use products that were not designed with the things I value in mind. The file format thing is a great example. What I want out of office file formats is not at all what Microsoft is prepared to give me.
Some people just don't get it ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Like the people in the RIAA, Microsoft just doesn't get it. The fundamental issue is not about whether software development is a charity (although sometimes I think that is a motivation), but about Economics 101 and prices in a competitive market. If they had paid attention in class, they would remember that, in a competitive market, the equilibrium price is found where price = marginal cost. The marginal cost of an additional unit of any digital work is very close to zero. So MS, the RIAA, and many others are engaged in an attempt (futile in the long run, IMO) to construct an economic perpetual motion machine by legal schemes and other rent-seeking behavior.
Re:Some people just don't get it ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Unable to grasp the issues (Score:5, Insightful)
Software is not a charity, nobody is discussing it as such.
Software is, however, a written tool, in the end. Control of that tool is the key to empowerment. South Africa, actually all of Africa was held under oppression for many centuries by corporate interests such as microsoft, who held the keys for livelihood out of the masses hands in order to force the yoke.
Microsoft cannot understand why people with such a memory would not jump at the option of putting a new yoke on their necks, to work themselves to death in order to enrich a new foreign master.
Nobody develops software for charity (Score:5, Insightful)
Even since the days before Stallman, the reason people shared software (that is, they gave it away for free), is because it is practically cost-free to reproduce. A community of hackers use the same OS and tools. In my life, it's been DEC TOPS-10, then UNIX, then Linux, but no matter. We all run into the same bugs. Better for one of us to fix and share, than for each of us to find and fix the same bug. Better for each of us to write a tool and share with all, than for each of us to have to write the same tool, most of us doing it poorly. It seems so obvious.
Why did Bill Gates become fabulously wealthy? Because he produces a great product? I think not. Because he produces (and markets) an ok product that he can reproduce for pennies and sell for hundreds of dollars each. And he has managed to lock people into using his products.
The point is that economically speaking, there is a strong argument for sharing (and thereby dividing up) the cost of production of tools if you can reproduce the tools for no cost and with no restrictions. Microsoft may not like this, but a developing nation should understand the point.
Yes but... (Score:5, Funny)
Yes but, were they long horns?
Microsoft Open License Charity program (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, the irony! Or is it hypocrisy?
My, how times haven't changed. (Score:5, Informative)
I hear echoes of a letter written by a certain William Gates over 30 years ago:
http://www.blinkenlights.com/classiccmp/gateswhine.html [blinkenlights.com]
"What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free? "
Free Software (Score:5, Insightful)