South African Minister Locks Horns With Microsoft 325
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.'"
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Equivocation (Score:3, Interesting)
In Microsoft's case I'm inclined to think they're being equivocal on purpose, implying "free as in beer" when the real topic "free as speech."
To fight back, I think we should be calling it "freedomware" rather than "free software."
Re:Nobody (Score:3, Interesting)
I would be willing to bet the vast majority of FOSS developers are working on stuff they actually use, so it's not entirely for charity.
I guess it's just worded with enough wiggle room that they can back out of it later and claim that's not what they meant. It really is stupid for them to say something like this, when there are thousands of people who develop great free software for Windows. I wouldn't be suprised if some people developing cross-platform stop releasing Windows binaries because of brash statements like this.
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.
No such thing as free software? (Score:2, Interesting)
p.s. It made me giggle a little to search for ubuntu, free software, and sourceforge on msn.com using firefox on a linux box.
Re:Well, they're right, and wrong, I guess (Score:2, Interesting)
Is this mostly about employment? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm willing to speculate that if you look at market entrance for the (lower) continent SA is likely the gateway. Is Shuttleworth a large employer there? Is it a veiled threat WRT employment possibilities?
It's a tried and tested method used by corporations to get their way, use (potential and actual) employment as bargaining chips to get the government pork.
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: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.
Re:Technically true though (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Technically true though (Score:3, Interesting)
Some people do things for the pleasure or challenge, some do it for the indirect pleasure (money, prestige or good vibes from helping people), and when stuck between a rock and a hard place, you decide which decision you like most of the options present.
As for patents? I think there's little doubt there needs to be some reform, and there's been a number of interesting suggestions raised in various
One of the more interesting solutions I've found (not my own idea) was a property tax on patents, to be assessed every 5-10 years (or when challenged enough). The patent goes up for bids at this time, and although the owner has the right to refuse any offer, the property is found to be of value equal to the amount bid for tax purposes. This encourages active use of patents, discourages patent trolls, and when there isn't interest in the patent, it expires into public domain.
Obviously this lacks some details, perhaps benefits for the inventor of a patent, a higher tax rate if the owner is found to be simply sitting on the patent, but it seems to solve most of the current issues with patents. This would entail a fair bit of overhead, but with some common sense the burden of much of the work would be placed on corporations who want a given patent, and the property taxes from patents should be more than enough to pay for the workers to review the patents.
Re:Technically true though (Score:4, Interesting)
a) people will always have new problems to overcome which will require creative solutions. b) if someone makes a cheap knock off it will only be that - a cheap knock off, and no where near the quality of the product i make. it will also lag way behind my product as i develop it and lack compatability with future features (see point a)
Re:Nobody develops software for charity (Score:2, Interesting)
Bill Gates became fabulously wealthy because he persuaded the world that you should pay several hundred dollars for every copy of a piece of software. The world is waking up to the fact that software production is not your typical business, and FOSS is providing a concrete example of a more equitable economic model.
In the Microsoft model, customers get off-the-shelf solutions (tough if their business doesn't work the way MS software does), MS get most of the proceeds, and local support people pick up the crumbs.
In the FOSS model, customers can afford to pay for more custom development, local development and support people get most of the proceeds, and the original developer picks up the crumbs.
As a local development and support person, guess which model I prefer?
Re:Technically true though (Score:5, Interesting)
Otherwise your software becomes bogged down and very inflexible.
It occurs in open source software occasionally. Look at KDE 4.
They are taking the opportunity to break compatibility in the name of progress.
Any old dusty and hackish code can be thrown away and be replaced with shiny new code.
This is Window's primary problem. Microsoft is scared shitless at breaking compatibility.
However they will need to do so very soon to survive.
Windows Vista is already filled to the brim with hacks and really odd behaviors due to backwards compatibility.
Want to see a really good example of how it should be done? Look at Apple.
They went from PPC to x86 and it was relatively smooth.
Re:Technically true though (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I agree, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you can't sell your own creation for a particular price, then it isn't worth that amount, no matter how much you think it is. Getting special laws passed to have your own business model enforced by the government doesn't count as free market, no matter how much you pretend it does. Although you were very polite about it and your post was well-written, the contents of your response was incorrect in almost every way.
There is no such thing as a "marketplace of ideas". This is a fantasy which can only be created by using government enforcement to create an artificial scarcity of "ideas".
I'll hazard a guess that because your choice of vocation revolves around concepts & ideas, your desire to control those concepts & ideas is distorting your viewpoint of what constitutes a free market.
I'm a programmer, so I work with concepts & ideas too, but I make the assumption that people are paying me for my service. If I want to keep getting paid, then I have to keep providing service. I don't expect to create a piece of software once, then be paid every time that software is used even when I don't do any more work. That would be greedy, but that's exactly what intellectual property proponents want to be able to force people to do.
Setting up artificial control of the flow of ideas through government enforcement for the purpose of "encouraging" innovation IS, by definition, using government enforcement to manipulate free market dynamics for the purpose of a social goal. How can you not call that social engineering?
This is also incorrect. Monopolies are not harmful only when they don't use their monopoly status to prevent competition. If the time period of their existence is short enough, then perhaps they cause very little harm - but that harm still exists.
That's why I added the "& use" in my statement, since patents definitely prevent you from USING ideas (at least not without paying someone something). Copyrights are definitely about restricting the spread of information.
As far as patents are concerned, if I come up with an idea independently (which happens a lot), why should I be forced to pay someone because they happened to file something similar with the Patent Office a little earlier?
As I stated at the beginning, in a free market, a product or service is only worth what people are willing to pay you for it. You don't get to decide the value of your product or service: the market does. And if you have to depend on government enforcement of a bad business model make your good or service artificially more valuable, then your business model has nothing to do with a free market.
Re:Technically true though (Score:3, Interesting)
I suppose with proper tools and 15 years of experience, you can figure out how to decompile stripped code. Although, I can't quite think of how it would do it... maybe by having a tool that runs the code and decompiles it as it runs? Otherwise, you can't tell the different between data and instructions, so... well, I don't know. I'll take your word for it. Although games are not a good example. All you need from them is small snippets of data that allow you to change their crucial behavior (more resources, faster movement, etc.). It's not quite the same as figuring out an algorithm.
Like you said,
took a while to figure out even after the code was available. So truly innovative stuff (the kind that's worth patenting) is probably outside of the reach of most disassembly and analysis. I am thinking more like routing algorithms. And (**d forbid!) some navigational systems... anything in which the math is harder than the rest of the code. But even sidestepping that, there algorithms to do things which are faily complicated in themselves, so...
Btw, the code is crucial because, as you pointed, out it lets calculate <x,y>/|y| with simple multiplication... thus avoiding both square root (fairly expensive) and division.
Aaah... The good old days. When slashdot had posts like this http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=159570&cid=13367261 [slashdot.org] and not like this http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=497518&cid=22852348# [slashdot.org]