Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
The Almighty Buck

The Coming "Open Monopoly" 171

Posted by timothy from the redfining-monopoly dept.
Ramsed writes: "On cnet Petr Hrebejk and Tim Boudreau wrote an article claiming that the current Microsoft Monopoly will be replaced by an 'Open Monopoly'; a monopoly of Open Source. They are explaining why big companies like IBM support this. In their view, it's inevitable this 'Open Monopoly' will win in the end, and that apart from the current monopolist, everyone will be better of, because of lower barriers for participation, software better targeted at its users and lower development costs. Profit should be made with support and consultancy." Update: 10/28 13:42 GMT by J : Little-known fact -- for important stories, slashdot sometimes runs duplicates to see who's still awake on a weekend. Nice work to those of you who caught it. See you next week. *sigh*
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

The Coming "Open Monopoly" More

The Coming "Open Monopoly"

Comments Filter:
  • That's nice and all but you reported on this already last week.

    Oh, and first :)

  • monopoly? how about co-operation? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by callinan ( 525996 ) on Sunday October 28, 2001 @09:37AM (#2489414) Homepage
    I kind of dislike the phrase "open-source monopoly", and I don't believe that the total infastructure for the internet (or any other platform) will be totally open source. ALthough the use of OSS will continue to expand, I hope it can co-exist with commercial closed source also. I can't believe all companies will adopt OSS or just fall by the wayside.
    • This viewpoint is quite naive. There is no reason for closed source software (and in fact no way for it to survive) in a world that has fully embraced an infrastructure of free open code. Unfortunately, some people are still deluded by the notion that software has to be produced by a software company. Bullcrap. Read the article again until you see the point: the USERS are the developers. If you are a programmer for a closed source company, don't worry. You'll have plenty of jobs in the future helping to produce pieces of much higher quality software that people need. On the other hand, if you're the owner of a closed source based company, I'm afraid you're SOL. I suggest you start thinking of ways to adapt before you go the way of the Dodo in the next 5 years. Survival of the fittest doesn't play favorites to the underdog.
      • There is no reason for closed source software (and in fact no way for it to survive) in a world that has fully embraced an infrastructure of free open code.

        I'm not sure if that's meant to be a tautology, but in any case, it won't happen. Open source software has not yet achieved parity with closed source software in key areas like usability and support, and it may never do so. Unless it does, the world will never embrace it.

        Unfortunately, some people are still deluded by the notion that software has to be produced by a software company. Bullcrap.

        All major open source projects have been financed for many years by software companies, who do most of the development themselves. The idea that open source is largely a volunteer movement is not accurate and has not been for some years.

        Read the article again until you see the point: the USERS are the developers.

        Which is great, as long as your target users are computer programmers. It doesn't work so well for the more general case.

        On the other hand, if you're the owner of a closed source based company, I'm afraid you're SOL. I suggest you start thinking of ways to adapt before you go the way of the Dodo in the next 5 years. Survival of the fittest doesn't play favorites to the underdog.

        Pardon me while I snort derisively. There is not a single major software market category where open source software has achieved the levels of user adoption currently enjoyed by closed source software. Predicting the death of an opponent that you have barely begun to even scratch suggests some kind of religious zealotry or Messiah complex. It is delusional.

        Tim

        • There is not a single major software market category where open source software has achieved the levels of user adoption currently enjoyed by closed source software. Predicting the death of an opponent that you have barely begun to even scratch suggests some kind of religious zealotry or Messiah complex. It is delusional.

          If you believe the Netcraft reports, then Apache would be one such example of an open source product beating closed source products. Apache has over fifty percent market share. It is also an interesting example. Apache could be compared with Windows in many ways. It's design is poor, compared to Zeus, which is in every way a better web server. The decision to continue with multi process/threaded web server is flawed, in my opinion. While the arguments on the mailing lists might have some valid points, they don't hold any water in light of the fact that there is already a web server that does everything that is "too hard" for Apache to do. Many people use Apache, just like many people use Windows, but that doesn't make it the best at what it does.

          • I was referring to end-user-oriented software, not server-side stuff targeted at programmers and sysadmins. With respect to Apache you are correct. It is possible that within the small market segment of programmer and syadmin software, open source could become dominant.

            Tim

  • dang (Score:2)

    by Ryandav ( 5475 )
    i hope Jim Allchin's out looking for a new job.

    Cause this article makes him sound like the worst sort of MS mouthpiece available. And a chump to boot.

    The sad thing of it is, though, he likely makes a bazillion times more money than I do and has more job security than God. And he is where he is, because he is willing to make such statements on behalf of The Company. I have no doubt he probably believes those things he is quoted as saying, deep down in his heart. So the only conclusion is what? That he's saying something obviously braindead that CIO's out there will hear and believe? It may be. Or not.

    go, Consumer!

  • The article is written at a very high level of abstraction. One huge unconsidered factor is the XBox [wired.com], a sub-300$ computer whose effects on the market will be negligible (doubt it) or catastrophic. We'll see in a couple of years.

    OTOH, between my RedHat 7.1 disks, the KDE 2/Qt Bible, and some downloads, I am still finding installing KDevelop an ...educational... experience. 'T'sall good, I'll figure it out, but what a prolonged tooth extraction. C++ Builder under 'Doze this is not.
  • Looks like the same [slashdot.org] monopoly we read about just a couple of days ago on /.
  • Nice work to those of you who caught it.

    ... let us see and vote on the submission queue and we will catch it even earlier next time.
  • In the open source fields that are almost no monopoly, witch is good. Think about it, there's two or more for everything :

    OS : BSD, LINUX, HURD?
    DESKTOP: Gnome, KDE, Enlightenment
    Browser: mozila, konqueror, lynkx?
    Text Editor: vi, emacs
    Office suite: Star Office, Koffice, gnome-office

    If everyone turned into open source tomorrow we wouldn't end up in a monopoly, people would have choices.
    • You forgot:
      Web server: Apache, Apache, Apache.
    • The above poster is right, mod them up. The best part of all these open source tools is that they do exactly what they're meant to (not 100% of the time, but what does?), but more importantly, they generally do little if anything more than they need to. Not to mention they all provide the same services anywhere, so that what one programmer does with his RedHat/GNOME/Emacs station, he can send to his friend with her Debian/KDE/vi desktop, and expect nothing to change in between.
    • Not sure if you're trolling or just missinterpreting the point of the article.

      The point here is that a new "open monopoly" is meant to be a monopoly of ideology.

      The monopoly is, that all software of the future will be based on open source technology and tools and that proprietry software will be a disadvantaged outsider, not that there will be a single set of software tools/apps that happen to be open sourced. It would mean that in order to join the software market, aligning with open source aligns you with the majority, giving you an advantage over those who choose to stay proprietry.

      And I'd have to say that if that did happen, I would not be all that upset. :)
  • Look, I don't care how much you guys believe in capitalism, Adam Smith, and market forces. As long as big companies can buy laws to support their monopolies, they can legislate their way out of any situation where normal capitalist forces would stop them.

    I'm just wondering how in hell the "Open Monopoly" intends to survive laws like the SSSCA (they WILL try again). I hardly think sitting around and patting yourselves on the back is a good way to bring Linux or whatever to market dominance. I'm all in favor of Linux winning out here, but we are not living in some perfect, pure capitalist economist's vision, where the best product wins out every time.

    -Kasreyn

    • As long as big companies can buy laws to support their monopolies, they can legislate their way out of any situation where normal capitalist forces would stop them.

      You know, that's right! In this case, however, the entertianment folks and M$ look like tin horn prawns next to some big boys who are tired of paying through the nose for IT services provided by desktop PCs. Think GE, Westinghouse, Coke, Archer Daniel, and other giants are going to let M$ tell them what backdoored buggy junk they have to run on their thousands of desktops? Not a snowballs chance in hell. Oh yeah, they will suck up all of M$'s punny one billion dollar advert campaign, then stuff them. The owners of CBS and ABC will figure out where their break even point is. As soon as they figure out that free software can not be held over their heads and that it will save them money, security and trouble, M$ will vanish.

    • "As long as big companies can buy laws to support their monopolies, they can legislate their way out of any situation where normal capitalist forces would stop them."

      Well one thing working against this is that now some of the big companies are begining to use their money and influence to favour open software. IBM, SGI...
      • SGI was financial deep sneakers and in worse shape now. Open Source was just a jump on the band wagon move they hoped to saves thier ass. Same with Borland and most of the other large corporation "supporting" open source. Many are just offering lip service and waiting to see if supporting open source will generate sales of other products. IBM is the same thing, but they have very deep pockets and using them to look like they care. But if supporting open source doesn't sell hardware it will go the way of OS/2.

        Bottom line big companies aren't going to use products they can't get support contracts for. When things go wrong, they have to have someone feet to hold to the fire. Also open source doesn't have the facilities for research and testing on enterprise level systems. No, open source is going to be good for international users and companies where costs are prohibitive. It will help smaller companies with tight budgets, but that will be limited when they realize open source cost more over the long run than commericial software. A software support contract is cheaper than the salary for developers and QA staff to support open source. Open source has a place, but not the big place you think.
    • This is a true post. Most notably, IBM and so other big companies can't make a real difference. They can provide some "branding" and some funding but that's all.

      The real power is at the people and companies fingertips. We just need to fund the projects ourselves. And this "ourselves" means millions of people making small contribution to develop the free quality software we need done ASAP (photoshop killer, Office killer, IE killer...[add what you need to the list]).

      95% of the people can't code and most of them can only contribute money. Right now it's too unbalanced. We are asking some guys to sacrifice themselves for us all. Of course, they gain recognition but that doesn't feed their children.

    • I'm all in favor of Linux winning out here, but we are not living in some perfect, pure capitalist economist's vision, where the best product wins out every time.

      You've hit on the biggest thing that Linux zealots need to learn: The best product has ALREADY won.

      The rub is in the definition of "best". To the typical Linux zealot, "best" means "most flexible", "source code available", "free", "Unix-like", etc. To the rest of the world, "best" means "the operating system that let's me run the applications I want to run".

      Windows is BY FAR the best operating system for the majority of people. That's because it runs all the software that they want to run, wrinkles and all.

      When Linux zealots realize that they technical superiority is worthless if it doesn't have the applications you want, then we might see some progress. The problem is that the people who work on Linux have much different priorities than 98% of the rest of the world.

      Market forces are working exactly the way the should have. The market picked exactly the product it should have picked: the one that gets work done, because work is done by applications, not operating systems.

  • Profit should be made with support and consultancy.

    Does this not imply that you should make your software as hard to use as possible, without seeming obviously too difficult?

    I think a better idea would be to make the software free for non-commercial use. If you make money with it, it's only fair that you pay the author.

    If you make free software, it's free for you to use. This way you would have freedom to write whatever "free as in beer" software that you want.

    • So, suppose I write a full development toolchain. Then, you use it to make some software. Are you making a commercial use of my kit? Should I only see money if your users are making money with your software?

      • If I don't get paid, neither will you. If I get paid, so will you.

        When you create the software and I use it to make some software, either I give it away for free or expect payment. If I get paid, I've used it commercially and therefore have to pay you...

        Or at least something like that was my train of thought.

    • I have this idea that charging for support cannot be a good idea, except for big companies. Charging for services and products may be. But charging for support? What are they talking about? Either the software is well supported or it is unsupported. If it is well supported you don't need extra support. What you need is the next key technology developed!

      We need to find a suitable extra motivation for Open Source (and free) projects. People can contribute money. I could contribute money. I use forware at work so i could easily pay money. I can't code. Mostly ANYONE can donate work. Mostly anyone can benefit from Open Source software and open standards.

      We just need a kickstart. The code is as mature as it can be. It's usable, we can start from what we've got now, replace every Windows and fund the godam development in a speedy fashion.

      If, for example, Microsoft manages to get 70% of the people to use the .Net actively and Apache can't serve it. What should my company do? Run out of business or install the stupid libraries and ditch Mozilla?

      We should all be supporting the Mono project right now. Not some venture capitalist or 2 single companies that can "sell their souls" anytime for some (big or small) bucks...

  • I for one like getting paid for writting code. How long do you think that will last if profits only come from support and consultancy? I thought the communist threat was vanquished but now I see we have another battle to be fought, at home. Remember 'free' is anti-american. If you think that our system of capitalism needs to be reworked just remember that although ignorant people complain, there's a mcdonalds and kfc in every country in the world (execpt afganistan) for a reason, captialism kicks social reform's ass.
    • "How long do you think that will last if profits only come from support and consultancy"



      What kind of software do you write? Every programmer I know of writes software for bussinesses and not for a software company. There can be no opensource replacement for customized software solutions, website development and database apps for the enterprise. If you work for Borland or Microsoft then I can understand your concern. The programmers who actually work for software companies make up only a small portion of the overall job market for coders. I am more bothered by the huge over saturuation of the IT job market by the dot-com fall-out and H1 Visa's. THey have taken all the jobs away. Unless you have a mseters degree in computer science its impossible to get any IT job outside of help desk. The only way I can show an employer that I can code is by opensource. I don't believe opensource = socialism. It equals freedom much like artists sometime work for free to show off there work. They do it because they like it and want to make a difference. Also if a monopoly owns a whole market then its not truly capitalism. Capitalism means competition. Buying laws to prevent competition equals a dictatorship more then a free market. I believe more jobs will be created if Microsoft is ever replaced by open standards. I doubt this will happen anytime soon but who knows. When netscape introduced the www the IT market exploded. Java was customized to bring servlets and applets, html became a hot langauge, intranet apps replaced costly client server apps and enabled mobility, xml is coming out. The list goes on and on. When something is new in the IT market the demand for coders goes up. I support this new open monopoly then the old "do as the license agreement says" one we have to suffer through today. Maybe new innovations will prop up as a result.

      • Billy Gates wrote:
        Every programmer I know of writes software for businesses and not for a software company. There can be no opensource replacement for customized software solutions, website development and database apps for the enterprise.

        I wouldn't say "never." It's amazing what kinds of things are being written as open source projects: spreadsheets, chemical analysis, sales tracking, all kinds of "niche" applications. Nevertheless I don't think it matters if the *whole kaboodle* comes out of an open source effort or not. The open source foundation for our development efforts (languages, databases, GUIs) is enough to establish its inevitable dominance.

        In my job writing proprietary solutions for my company's various clients I use open source tools and open source code all the time. It's not so much the customized proprietary bits that matter here, but the fact that I have a skein of time-tested code already available that carries 90% of the load. Open source saves our department enormous piles of time and effort. After building a dozen sites for various clients I wouldn't use anything *but* open source. It's the kind of monopoly I don't mind supporting.
    • no no no... your post was good, but i think people were questioning your sarcasm, some may have thought that you actually _liked_ america, heres how its done:

      [begin example]
      Yeah!!!! go capitalism!!! down with the commies!!!

      I wish i lived in america, so i could to pledge alegence to the fag of the united states... Long live Microsoft and McDonalds, let my money go into the 'Bill and Melinda Gates Bribe the Supreme Court Fund" Bush rules, kill those Afgans, ('accidently') Cruise missile their villages, Cluster bomb their fields, drop food on mines (comment on my spelling). Freedom for allllllllll.....
      [end example]
    • I for one like getting paid for writting code.

      Code will always need to be written. Companies will always pay to have it written. Some of it will always be proprietary. Under the Open Source monopoly, the only difference is more of the code being written will be open source.

      When IBM says they're investing $1 billion in Linux, where do you think that money is going? A BIG chunk of it is going to programmers to write open source software!

      That same calculus is going on in every company threatened by Microsoft. Open source is the only weapon they have to fight Microsoft's anti-competitive behavior. Some have jumped on board in time (IBM, HP), some were too late (Corel). Eventually everyone but Microsoft will be on board, and in the battle of Microsoft vs. the world Microsoft will lose.

      In the Open Source monopoly, you'll be writing code for someone. It just won't be Microsoft.

  • And I thought this was going to be a "more on" thread. I think the Open Monopoly needs more time in the light of day anyhow.

  • Spin Doctor (Score:2, Funny)

    by Judas96' ( 151194 )
    " Update: 10/28 13:42 GMT by J: Little-known fact -- for important stories, slashdot sometimes runs duplicates to see who's still awake on a weekend. Nice work to those of you who caught it. See you next week. *sigh* "
    So what you are essentially saying is: it isn't a bug; it's a feature?
    • Ah, you see, you are right. It is definately a "feature" and if it was out by Microshaft, it would be an "Exciting New Feature!".
    • Why not? Considering if I catch the original story late anything I want to say is drowned out in a sea of posts. With a redundant story a person has a chance to be heard.

      Personally I don't have any problem with redundant stories be they a few days apart so the weekend readers can get a shot or even having one creep up a couple of months after the original. The window of opprotunity to comment and get involved in any meaningful dialog is a matter of a few hours. The exact opposite extreme you see in newsgroups where threads can last for weeks.

      Redunant stories mitigate that problem at the cost of some obligatory anal-retentive whining by people who could have just skipped the story they have seen before.

  • Little-known fact -- for important stories, slashdot sometimes runs duplicates to see who's still awake on a weekend. Nice work to those of you who caught it. See you next week. *sigh*

    Strange.

    I thought this was for the benefit of those people who only read Slash Dot on the weekends. You know, those people who have it banned at work (with a lot of other sites) during the week.


    • > > slashdot sometimes runs duplicates to see who's still awake on a weekend.

      > I thought this was for the benefit of those people who only read Slash Dot on the weekends.

      I thought it was for the benefit of editors who don't read Slashdot at all!
  • Two weekends in a row?
  • ... there's been some rather interesting work being done on analysing markets based on assymetric and incomplete information (in fact I beleive this years Nobel prize in economics was on precise that ... selling used cars as lemons). The problem with software (especially closed) is that there is zero information about the quality of a *new* piece of software. Until you get to use it (and discover + avoid things which BSOD it), it basically has zero utility.

    So how do software companies actually generate cash-flow? They have to "prove" their fitness in other ways (ie signal to the potential buyers that their code solves your future needs). Whether it is giving out a first freebie (QUAKE) or carpet bombing the user base (AOL), somehow the vendor needs to demonstrate that they provide something worth the "value" others place on it.

    Now, the curious thing is should open source be such a signal? It might not be the "monopoly" in the traditional sense, but more a meritopoly ... ie through the school of hard knocks, it has demonstrated that it is the "best" at a particular niche (given economic constraints) and which case it is better non competiting against it. Look at stuff such as Aladin ghostscript, or the publishing templates DocBook.

    To actually get bigger than a sustainable niche, you basically have to bullshit like crazy ... (cough*intel*cough with claims that its high-speed chips were essential for the internet ignoring the minor issue of bandwidth/latency). Unfotunately marketing is a sunk cost ... once you've spent your advertising budget, you can't recover it. Hence for firms who suddenly find they've overspent, the only way they can make back their money is to either eliminate competitors or else or cut back on the quality/support. And guess what, if you're the only solution, then you automagically create a self-fufilling prophency that your product is the "best" in its category and therefore all the technology followers (ie conservative foggies who don't trust anything less that v3.0) are forced to purchase it irregardless of the absolute quality (stability, security, mtbf, etc).

    However, with open source this approach doesn't work as you cannot eliminate a competitor that cannot be bought off. As such, a rational player would instantly quit the market segment as soon as they can tell the open-source version exceeds their market share. Hence by definition, OpenSource becomes the new monopoly ...

    LL
  • You know, every time I type a little too quickly I hit a lameness filter... Every time I have a lot to say, lameness filter. Every time slashdot gets a little slow and I click submit more than once, lameness filter.

    All the annoyance the users must go through to prevent spam, crap flooding, trolls, and duplicate submissions, and there's nothing for the Admins.

    What do you say we have the VERY well trusted users (those past the karma cap, etc) moderate the front page stories before they are posted. This would end dups, dead links, speelling problems ;-), and would give some slashdotters a chance to create mirrors of slow sites as well.
  • Given that the people most likely to participate in an open-source project are also users of the application being worked on, what would happen if the customers for a software product actually participated in its design and creation?

    Umm, I for one would not want to pay a large corp. for the privilege of using software I helped to create, and watch the money go to them. Exactly what would I be paying for?

    Perhaps I misunderstand, as this would work in a corporate environment, where staff helped out, but surely not for a commercial product?

    I think open-source is great and all, but if your programmers are all coding away, and the code is released freely, revenue and profit is generated by service contracts and support, then a) how are your coders paid? Surely not the salaries and recognition of the present day. Will coding be reduced to a more mundane role? Lots of CS grads these days. Hell I don't even have to be a CS grad to throw something up on the net b) what about your competition? They will be able to put out a duplicate or improved product lickety-split.

    -- By the way , these questions are not intended to address the morality of OSS ( I don't want to get into that), but the financial aspects, which are what will take down MS, as only a viable business solution ala IBM will be able to provide the infrastructure to maintain that sort of venture.--

    mod away
  • Microsoft enjoys what economists call a "natural monopoly."

    Natural hmm?
    Article Warning: Delusional understatement imminent.
  • Profit should be made with support and consultancy

    As a developper I suck at support and consultancy. How am I supposed to get money then?

    • Hi.
      I honestly don't think you suck at support and consultancy.
      If you've written the software then you are more than qualified to answer questions about it, right.
      And when someone who use the software wants it modified a bit, who should they call? You!

      That's where you get money.
      And besides, if you are a good developer then you can probably modify other OpenSource products too, with minimal effort.

      You will get the money, you just won't get the money from selling the software.

      Regards

      //Haeger
    • So go work for a company that does consultancy.

      You can have some marketing guys deal with finding the work, and billing the customer, and you hack the code the way they tell you to.

      Or else you go work on custom business applications, and use open source as a foundation. Since the company has no intention of ever selling the software, they don't care if it's under the GNU license. And you can make software better / faster / easier by using the off-the-shelf free libraries than you can by writing everything from scratch.

      In the end, open source just makes everything that is a commodity (filesystems, kernels, TCP/IP stacks) "free", and requires software engineers to work on non-commodity products.

      Besides, how many times should the TCP/IP stack be re-implemented from scratch? That's not a good use of the limited developer resources in the world.
  • Lame. You could at least run a story that Apple fixed it's security problem in OS X last week. You like to report problems but it appears you don't like to report the problem has been fixed. There are all kind of stories out there that deserve Slashdot coverage. I find this practice sophomoric.
  • You're supposed to turn back the clock ... not turn back the articles....
  • Lemme get this straight:

    If Microsoft has a monopoly, its evil.

    If anyone else has a monopoly, its good for Open Source.

    Make up your minds. A monopoly by definition is harmful. There are no "good" monopolies.

    The only way this posting would have sounded more retarded could be only if Cmr Taco or Jon Katz had written it.
    • Oh god you troll i am sure you mean what you say but how come? How can you be such a troll?

      Don't you get it that an Open Source Monopoly it's the same as saying "No Monopoly at all". It's like the peoples monopoly for Elections. Americans have the Monopoly to elect the candidates and no company has or will ever have that right (that can be argued). Voting is free. Anyone can try to get elected as senator or president. And they will all geit paid. Or you rather replace the USA goverment for a privately held one?
      You had a civil war to free yourselves from the UK crown. They had the Monopoly to govern your lifes. Now Microsoft has that right in softwareland. And business run on top of software. And if Microsoft is the only one controling it then they will rule your bussiness. And by nobody can compete is not because everyone else is incompetent. It's because it's a natural monopoly just like goverment is a natural monpoly of the civilian (now) and the tirans (in the past and in some countries as well).

      Don't you get it? Software is not like making cars. It's a building block of the society. An interactive international business system. A means of comunicating. It has no marginal costs. It is radicaly different. Special porpuse software can always be closed source and really expensive, but not the building blocks.
      • How naive...

        Let's allow IBM to spearhead and champion (!) the Open Source movement until they are the heavyweigth. Then let them little by little pollute it until they downright own it. Somebody as big as IBM has the political power and the lobby dollars to pretty much wipe their asses with your o-so-precious GPL.

        Think about it, don't you see this is the same IBM that not so long ago was in the same position as Microsoft these days?

        I can't wait to see you morons 10-15 years down the road praising Microsoft for embracing the "Open Monopoly" and spitting at IBM for being such an anti-competitive monster.

        Those that forget history are bound to repeat its mistakes...

  • Open monopoly (Score:2, Funny)

    by G-funk ( 22712 )
    I can see it now...

    Geek1: "You've landed on Redhat ave, with 3 houses, that'll be $280"

    Geek2: "Howabout I give you BSD street and $25?"

    Of course the purple ones nobody wants will be named after places in Redmond :-)
    • Don't underestimate the purple and light blues. Statistically, those are the squares people hit the most. They occur A) before "Go to Jail", B) before many card spaces where you can be skipped over them and C) right after "Go", where players are often skipped to. I'm no Monopoly champion, so this is just my $2*10^-2.
    • I've won games of Monopoly by snapping up those properties and throwing houses and hotels on them ASAP. Everytime someone passes go, they have to negotiate a minefield that could cost them a hell of a lot more than nine bucks. This income subsidizes buying at least one property from the other color groups so they can't turn around and do it to me. Come to think of it, parallels would be easy to draw between this behaivor and Microsofts.....

  • No, Microsoft will unfortunately rule onward (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ars-Fartsica ( 166957 ) on Sunday October 28, 2001 @12:12PM (#2489672)
    The last battleground is the web.

    The "open", standards-based web exists largely because Microsoft allows it to exist. With over 90% of desktops under their control, and over 90% of the browser market under its control, Microsoft could at any time move off to a "extended" web (an online service using proprietary protocols), and in fact, we see that already happening.

    Recently Microsoft has begun shipping XP, IE6, a new Windows Media Player, and the client libs for .Net.

    They have also begun to shun non-IE clients at their web sites.

    Why they are doing this should be obvious - soon, MSN sites will start to accesss client code available only on MS platforms. This will truly allow MS to extend what they have embraced.

    Of course, can you blame them? HTTP and HTML are useful protocols that have become outdated. The stateless, text-oriented model was extremely useful to get early adoption, but at this point there is no doubt that users of every type of platform are ready to move on to more advanced protocols that offer greater functionality. This is why many websites use SSL now as a way of creating a session of any kind. Unfortunately the HTTP-NG protocol has been shelved - it would have provided a great deal of new functionality that could have moved the web in to the next generation.

    So Microsoft is going to get there on their own. You will soon see them exploiting the client libs shipped to 90% of the desktop users out there to radically enhance the browsing experience.

    The standards-based web will soon be relegated to a second-class experience, and its our collective fault for not moving more rapidly to create open standards that provide for a better user experience, and get the tools out there to support them.

    • Mod this up guys. That's what WILL happen. You all slashdoters be happy an think that will never happen. But it ain't true. It will happen. It happened to the palmtops ("Windows CE is so cute"). It happened for the games ("Porting not trivial anymore"). It happened to Office Suits firms (Wordperfect, Borland, Lotus).

      Internet is the last chance. It can't be bought. Microsoft arrived late. So what is everybody waiting for? You pay $500 for the newset XP + Office that costs $5 a piece to Microsoft. And with the remaining money they develop their next eggs to fuck your companies or bisiness in the name of future where computers are for everyone.

      In the very end, Microsoft will be the goverment best partner so they will not get divided:

      "Oh, it's nice. Every company has it's accounting on MS .Net ...call the IRS. Let's take a look at who is doing what".

      "Oh, let's prohibit people from making CD copies. Microsoft, can you add a drivers blocking system? Yeah, we are a team right?"

      "Oh, company A doesn't use XP IIS 9A? What a shame they can't use any advanced features of Explorer 12 because only our server can serve them!"
    • You forget that:

      1.) dot net is still vaporware and has no installed base, nor even a solid customer base--home user OR business--that wants to downgrade to (eXtermination of Privacy).

      2.) People are satisfied with your so called "second class standards based Internet" and frankly most don't have the bandwidth for anything better even if it *was* an open standard.

      3.) There is plenty time to build our own superior open architecture for any 'enhanced web' that the closed-source dinosaur world may dream up.
      • > 1.) dot net is still vaporware and has no installed base,...

        no. They claim 160 million users. Izzat more than Linux? Maybe that's Passport. Trojan horsed by the fact that if you want to install XP, want a Hotmail account, want an MSN account, etc, you need your Passport.

        I dunno, I don't think I'd enter my real name if I was in that situation, but that's john Q public.

        >2.) People are satisfied with your so called "second class
        >standards based Internet" and frankly most don't have the...

        Most people will go where Internet Explorer will take them. Now that MSN isn't accepting Netscape, soon IE won't be able to surf to Slashdot. Etc.

        Yes. Get alarmed.

        > 3.) There is plenty time to build our own superior open
        >architecture for any 'enhanced web' that...

        Won't happen. Guess what, Sun is trying this. But do you hear about it on SlashDot? No. Do you hear calls to support Sun's authentication system? No. That's because Unix people are too divisive.

        Linux people say BSD sucks. BSD people say Linux sux. Both say Java sux.

        Solaris and Linux are so "cozy" with each other that when I multiboot between Solaris and Linux, I have to move files to an MS DOS partition to exchange data between them - for this reason alone, Microsoft will never go out of business: it's the only way to get Linux and Solaris to talk.

        Linux CAN mount Solaris UFS partitions - read only. At least they recognize that Solaris UFS is different from BSD UFS. Both Solaris and BSD considers the other one to be broken. Hey, instead of building a "superior enhanced web" how about a "superior file system" that isn't fucking broken all the time? Start with the basics.

        I haven't managed to get FreeBSD on this system - just getting Linux and Solaris to coexist is like walking on eggshells.

        And bill gates laughs all the way to the bank.
      • 1.) dot net is still vaporware and has no installed base, nor even a solid customer base--home user OR business--that wants to downgrade to (eXtermination of Privacy).

        If XP users don't have it already, they'll get it the next time they do a Windows Update (yes, most people blindly download whatever MS tells them to at update time).

        2.) People are satisfied with your so called "second class standards based Internet"

        People were satisfied with BBSs at 1200 baud...most things MS, Apple, and most any other platform company do are not to satisfy users existing needs but create new needs

    • The "open", standards-based web exists largely because Microsoft allows it to exist.
      Somehow, the largest computer company on earth didn't really notice the net until someone else started to make money from it.
      Microsoft could at any time move off to a "extended" web
      Remember that MSN was originally going to be an alternative to the net - something like compuserve but a decade too late.

      Microsoft have not yet taken over the web server market. The only way that such a "takeover" of the net could be enfoced is from the server side. There are always plenty of third-party developers around waiting to fill up the gaps in microsoft's products, so there will be software that supports the current standards even if MS doesn't support those standards.

      The standards-based web will soon be relegated to a second-class experience, and its our collective fault for not moving more rapidly to create open standards that provide for a better user experience, and get the tools out there to support them.
      What extra functionality has non-standard IE browser tags really given us? IE has the ability to display pages containing seriously broken HTML, which would be a virtue if fairly unskilled web page designers would stop using IE to display their pages during testing. Scripting is a different story, but MS is a very long way from getting a monopoly on server side scripting - and doing everything on the client side is the last thing you want to do in a financial transaction.

      HTML is incredibly simple, a lot of the changable information on the net is rendered as text so it will most likely be around for at least another nine years.

      The standards-based web will soon be relegated to a second-class experience
      Why? MS don't actually own any of the current protocols, and have not yet released a significant one of their own (their new java - no sorry C#, isn't out and about yet and .NET is still vapour). Owning the leading web browser is not enough to dictate terms of the shape of the internet.
    • So Microsoft is going to get there on their own. You will soon see them exploiting the client libs shipped to 90% of the desktop users out there to radically enhance the browsing experience.

      This is another example of Microsoft leveraging their desktop monopoly to their advantage. It's precisely the kind of thing that got them into hot water with the DoJ over the bundling of IE into Windows.

      The difference between then and now is that, by bundling IE into Windows, they were able to cut Netscape's supply lines and thereby (very nearly) kill the company.

      This time, there is no company to kill. There are only a series of OSS projects that aren't making money at the moment. So Microsoft can't starve them of money, no matter how hard they try.

      The DoJ, if it has the slightest bit of sense, wil l have to come down on Microsoft like a ton of bricks over this (if it happens) and when the outcome of that trial is decided, OSS will be waiting in the wings.
    • ...to embrace and extend the web.

      Too large a proprtion of the webservers on the planet are something other than IIS to make it easy for Microsoft to fundamentally change the protocols. What they would find easier is to embrace and extend HTML. Oh, they already did that.

  • Not likely (Score:2, Insightful)

    by xbrownx ( 459399 )
    As long as Linux still requires knowledge of console commands (and not just any command-prompt commands, but Unix commands), it is going to be very hard for 90% of computer users out there to use Linux.

    I don't think the mainstream is very interested in editing their operating system.
    • As long as Microsoft still requires run regedit to access the registry the...ah wait..it's hiddend for the novice!

      You don't need the command like in a "Secretary Enviroment" just as you don't need to edit the registry in normal Windows use.

      The comand line is powerfull and you may learn it, but the normal user should not be forced to use it. He shoul only know what he is trying to acomplish (print a document, search the web, read email, finish that BP and making those invitations for the children birthday)...

      • Why all of a sudden are these people who would have been able to use a DOS commandline based computer 10+ years ago suddenly unable to use a unix shell based one now.

        They have been told that it is hard and old and primitive and not as good as a gui. Told by people who want to sell them a gui shell incidentally.

        A pure KDE distro (which is what we need by the way, koffice rules) would probably never require use of the command line.

        But if you included a printed friendly guide to bash which included nice documentation of all the cl commands and simple explanations of how to do command tasks and scripts and examples of neat things you can do some of these newbie gui only users would pick it up and flick through it and go wow and learn little bits of it.

        The difference is:
        Case one: you have to use the command line to do things, it is not what you are used to but you have to learn it. People will resist, and not learn anything about it.

        Case two: You don't have to use this really powerful and useful command line shell, you can use the gui instead. But here is a guide to the shell, those of you who are interested can have a look and we'll tell you everything you need to know. Some people won't look, but others will and some of them will learn things. And then they will show their friends this cool thing they can do now. And then their friends will want to know about it. And suddenly people will be learning to use the shell because it is useful, not because they have to .
        • Not quite. I've actually witnessed the reaction people have had when explaining that they don't *really* have to use the command line. They usually say something like, "If an operating system even *has* a command line, it's out of date and shouldn't be used." A far better strategy is just to not tell them that there even *is* a command line. That's what MS does, incidentally. You'll find no mention of the "fabulous DOS shell" as a feature of the Windows operating system.
        • I agree, the command line is a powerful tool, I can also see that it has many options that would be hard for people that were brought up on iconised gui interfaces to grasp... like parameter extentions.

          Granted they would still be using them, it's just that they would be dependent on other people to make decisions like this for them.

          Sure you could hide the command line as an alternative, don't even tell the end consumer it exists, but how much of a step away from the current windows like setups is this?

          Until the O/S programmers decide that consumers should have some ability to actually have direct control over their own systems, the quickly released/ slap together-patch up latter hieroglyph oriented downward spiral will continue, until eventually we won't even need the alphabet on our keyboards, we will just have two keys...an 'I LOVE BILL!' key which will be right next to the Windows key.

          And for all you people that being able to have the choice as to wether or not you want to be able to define your own paramaters is a bit much... By all means let's hide the command line, get out our we-come-from-the-future identical uniforms, and lets all sing another chorus of "God save Bill's monopoly"... judging from the number of oxygen thieves I talk to every day people aren't using their brains anyway, let alone the command line.
    • What kind of dark ages are you living in? Linux is not your father's Unix. We abandoned "Unix" 10 years ago. Ever use KDE or GNOME? I fail to see where ordinary users would require a console, although it may be beneficial to their productivity if they took the small amount of time required to learn a few commands.
  • Does this *really* have something to do with Mandrake that I'm not catching? Why does is it under the Mandrake topic??
  • It's not hard to understand why open-source software, such as the Linux operating system and the Apache HTTP server, is growing in popularity among corporate IT departments. When source code is open, any developer is free to read, redistribute and modify it.
    To assert that this is a sufficient reason, or even a significant reason, is simply ridiculous. This view point is quite simply out of touch with the realities of IT. It is the rare IT department that has the time, the resources, the will, and sufficient need to justify spending the time to fix bugs in house (or to hire). Put bluntly, 99.99% of the time it is more cost effective to allow someone else (e.g., the vendor) to fix it or to work around the problem. In a large scale production environment, say, at Google.com, such an argument can be made, but this is not where Linux, Apache, and other Open Source software are making significant inroads. Quite the contrary, it is the lower-end (or as MS might say "back office") type of application where OSS is making its growth.

    The growth of Linux and Apache mainly has to do with the fact that it can be employed more cost effectively in these limited low-end applications than even NT. By cost, I don't mean just the licensing costs, I mean the total setup and upkeep cost: installation, support, actually arranging the licensing, acquiring the necessary hardware, and so on. Linux and Apache get the job done sufficiently well at a minimal of cost.

    Now let's examine one of our other questions: Why would anyone want to develop open-source software? All participation in open source can be traced to self-interest, and participation in open-source software development can be seen as a kind of barter trade. Participants donate the code they've developed in exchange for value: the opportunity to be part of something bigger than their own work, to influence the direction of a project to suit their needs and to achieve some measure of social status among their peers. Result? Both the participant and the open-source project get what they need. One such benefit that all participants and users get from open-source software is robust, modular and stable architectures. The reason for this is that all of the participants need to have their needs met. Modularity both reduces the learning curve required for participation and allows individual participants to concentrate on the functionality that directly serves their needs. And stability is in the interest of everyone.
    This argument misses the point and fails to address the real question. Does it make financial sense to invest in the development of Open Source Software? In other words, do the benefits of Open Source software really exceed the costs? Merely "adding" to your own welfare is insufficient, if it costs you more. The answer is quite simply no when it comes to most software development.

    Let's take the case of the Word processor. Why would a very major companany like, say, General Motors want to spend ALL (or even PART) of the total 30 million dollars and 3 years of development time that it takes to develop a full featured Word processor? It is extremely unlikely that they would increase their workers productivity enough to justify this on a cost vs benefit basis [Especially in light of more real world elements of finance and economics. e.g., Opportunity Cost.]. Proprietary software companies on the other hand, that enjoy intellectual property protections, get LEVERAGE when they make similar efforts. That is to say, that they enjoy not only their own savings but a slice of everyone else's savings (which is where the real money is). Furthermore, companies that are setup purely for the development of software are in many ways in a superior position to develop software more economically.

    To put it bluntly, this kind of Open Source development depends on charitable actions (in a corporate sense, the only real justification for this is that it promotes the company's image) and/or on the rare project where the benefits accrued IN HOUSE are greater than the development cost. None of the above is enough to make the Open Source a major development ENGINE of wide varieties of software. This is especially true for the relatively less-visible but still highly costly applications. e.g., MRP systems, powerful photo editors like photoshop, etc.

    What's more, Open Source software is going to, and does presently, fall victim to the 80/20 rule. That is to say, Open Source can get 80% of the results with 20% of the effort. Even the better regarded Open Source projects are perpetually in this state. It's the remaining 80% of the effort that it the hard hill to climb. Many would argue that not a single Open Source project has yet demonstrated itself capable of the last 80%: seemless installation, tight integration, good UIs, etc.

    Many people less fanatical boosters of Open Source have taken the few words of apparent fear from Microsoft's management as proof that the whole of Microsoft is, and should be, afraid of Open Source. This is just grasping for straws. The fact of the matter is that Open Source can put a significant dent on MS' profitability, and thus provoke such words, without being a threat to the whole of Microsoft, never mind having the potential to go the next step and exceed MS. Open Source software hurts MS by marginalizing some of their highly profitable enterprises, namely: Linux vs NT, Apache vs IIS, etc. Besides the fact that this is almost exclusively confined to servers, the areas where Open Source is taking a bite out of MS is mostly on the lower-end stuff. The kind of stuff that IT will install in a pinch. You need web server to serve some internal documents? Simple, run Apache and Linux. You don't need anything more and you can do it with less of hassle than NT. Although the likes of Apache and Linux will likely continue to succeed in a similar vein, this is hardly proof of Open Source's self-proclaimed greatness.
    • It's unbelievable how much you Slashdot FUD artists miss the point. Read my lips: collaboration! Of course General Motors will not spend $30mil and 3 years developing their OWN word processor. Nobody said they should. But if they're going to spend $10 million on MS Word licenses and it would only cost them $1 million to hire a few top programmers to add missing features to an existing 'almost there' Open Source package like OpenOffice or KWord, the best decision is quite obvious even from a purely greedy, hard business analyst's view. True, much of today's OSS was developed by altruistic hackers, but that doesn't mean it's going to STAY that way as the infrastructure solidifies.
      • It's unbelievable how much you Slashdot FUD artists miss the point. Read my lips: collaboration!
        You act as if somehow this magical collaboration concept dillutes the negative return on investment. Whether you invest 1 dollar or 30 million dollars, in development, the fact remains that you're going to sink more money in development than YOU can get out in the vast majority of cases. If anything, the smaller the investment, the less return you'll get per dollar investment because it's simply inefficient to develop software in a hodge podge fashion like that.

        But if they're going to spend $10 million on MS Word licenses and it would only cost them $1 million to hire a few top programmers to add missing features to an existing 'almost there' Open Source package like OpenOffice or KWord, the best decision is quite obvious even from a purely greedy, hard business analyst's view.
        No, it's not nearly so simple and even your own conclusion is not nearly so obvious.

        First, for any given feature set where there is reasonably high demand amongst other parties, the proprietary vendor can better spread the costs out across the various interested parties. In other words, even if we accept that it only costs 1 million dollars to add feature list A into a software product, if there are say 100 interested parties in that same feature set, then the proprietary software vendor could offer each of those companies that feature set for 10k dollars a piece + profit, much less than the 1 million dollars in your scenario. And if this feature set is so limited as to only be useful for one or two other parties, the contribution is of little worth to the Open Source effort.

        Second, there are few areas where something of significant worth to the rest of the world can be developed cheaper than the pre-existing products.

        Third, in true hardnosed financial terms, not all money is alike. You must take into consideration the amount of risk undertaken and the time that it would take to recoup the investment. In other words, if that feature set takes an extra year to deliver, that's money lost by the company that could have been invested in, say, profit producing assets. Both of these counts really would deter most companies from investing in Open Source.

        Fourth, companies today continue to purchase proprietary software of all types hand over foot without investing in Open Source efforts of the kind described.

        Fifth, OpenOffice and KWord are not "nearly" there in respect to the overall quality of the MS Office Suite. They're still very much in that 80/20 zone, which means they have a very long way to go.

        Sixth, the style of development that you suggest, where each party merely adds in a few "features" here and there, is a recipe for disaster. At best, it's woefully inefficient insofar as it would require a lot of re-work. At worst, it's simply unworkable. Some objectives are mutually exclusive. But even far more troublesome is that the methods of development that each firm employs can preclude the development of other firm's needs. For instance, while it may be required that every firm discloses its modifications under the GPL, the more self-interested firms may find that the extra cost involved in writing maintainable/modular/readable/upgradable code exceeds cost of writing crap.

        True, much of today's OSS was developed by altruistic hackers, but that doesn't mean it's going to STAY that way as the infrastructure solidifies.
        It's still just a theory, one which has many other theories and problems working against it. Open Source may have already demonstrated that people are willing to write code without owning it or being directly compensated, but that is not the same thing as being a superior producer of software of wide range. I, for one, believe Open Source has its place, but it's never going to replace proprietary software en masse.
  • Let's say you have a deadline, you need the money, but you just couldn't find any new and interesting (or at least original) material. What DO you do? It's quite simple - you make up a title that doesn't make any sense and therefore sounds original. n 1: (economics) a market in which there are many buyers but only one seller; "a monopoly on silver"; "when you have a monopoly you can ask any price you like" 2: exclusive control or possession of something; "They have no monopoly on intelligence" OS, as we all know here, dictates precisely the opposite - it creates more sellers, and it does away with exclusive control. They could have just as well called it "Closed Open Source" or "Many One Seller" or "Non-exclusive exclusive control". Of course, they didn't go to college for nothing, they know to pick a name that doesn't make them sound like imbeciles to people who don't know what they're talking about - it only makes them sound like imbeciles to people who *do* know what the article is about. Oh, and I won't do the traditional "WHY is it posted here?". I know why it's posted here.
  • Let's see now:
    It's written by two Sun MicroSystem Employees and IBM is supportive of what? Open Source directions?
    Because of why?

    http://www.research.ibm.com/autonomic/

    This Autonomic Computing direction sounds extreamly familiar.
    The core of which contains nine functions or action constants identified here.
    http://www.mindspring.com/~timrue/KNMVIC.html
    (USPTO published as one [#4] of the written responces to given RFC ***)

    This project in the Python Programming Language
    http://www.mindspring.com/~timrue/python/python- IQ .html

    Timothy Rue

    ***
    Issues Related to the Identification of Prior Art During the Examination of a Patent Application
    http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/hearings/pr io rart/prior_art1.doc
    http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/hearings/pr io rart/0714pato.doc
    http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/hearings/pr io rart/comments_book.doc
    #4-> http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/hearings/prio rart/comments.doc
    http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/hearings/pr io rart/comments2.doc
    http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/hearings/pr io rart/comments3.doc
    • damn windows cut and paste....

      in the links of the above post "prio rart" should be "priorart" - so simple remove the space before hitting return in your browser.

      I also forgot to add that it's not going to be an open source monopoly but rather an evolving common and open computing baseline that competition will have to continue to be competitive and innovative in order to stay above this evolving baseline.
    • Another set of links:

      http://www.google.com/search?q=timrue@mindspring .c om+software+patents

      Hmmm, something is screwy with slashdot adding spaces where they don't belong!

      remove any blank spaces slashdot adds to the url

    • HTML template patents:

      http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/17/0052 32 &mode=thread

      This poses a big contridiction about IBMs autonomic computing direction.

      IBMs two faces? Open source and patented software?

  • Messers Hrebejk and Boudreau would like this to be the case, but they're only argued that one **might** occur, not that it must.

    "Natural" monoplies are those which arise because there cannot be anything else. For example, it's not credible to expect more than one hydro cable to your house, or more than one telephone company: there isn't enough room on the poles for more than one each. Heck, the cable folks often have to sue to get permission to use the other guy's poles... These are existing natural monopolies, along with water, sewers and the like.

    They propose that Bill has a natural monopoly, and that it will be broken and replaced with one where we are the monopolists. Well, natural monopolies are not trivial to overturn, so by arguing the we will overturn Bill, they're (accidentally!) arguing that he doesn't have a natural monopoly.

    They have argued that some of the prerequisites exist, but they've jumped from there to the conclusion that it does exist, without offering proof.

    A cople of references, findable via google: A Glossary of Political Economy Terms [auburn.edu], and from http://www1.oecd.org/daf/clp/non-member_activities /dnme10.htm [oecd.org],
    Natural monopoly arises in sectors characterised by declining costs of production so that there is room for only one firm to exploit available economies of scale. Typically, natural monopolies occur in industries characterised by large distribution networks with substantial fixed costs, such as gas, electricity, water and railways. In practice, however, it is as rare to find examples of industry-wide natural monopoly as it is examples of perfect competition. Even if some parts of an industry have natural monopoly characteristics others may be potentially competitive. For example electricity supply consists of natural monopoly in transmission but potential competition in generation and the supply of user equipment. Telecommunications was for a long time considered to be a natural monopoly at least for the basic telephone service, whereas value added services and the equipment market are competitive. The creation of new networks for voice transmission has even eroded the monopoly of the basic service.

    • "Update: 10/28 13:42 GMT by J: Little-known fact -- for important stories, slashdot sometimes runs duplicates to see who's still awake on a weekend. Nice work to those of you who caught it. See you next week. *sigh*"

    You have *got* to be kidding!

    More like, who's asleep at /.

    t_t_b

  • Platform software (Score:2, Informative)

    by Mr. NetBean ( 531308 )
    Re the various comments "with an open source monopoly all the jobs would go away": Note that in our article, we were primarily thinking of and talking about platform software. There will always be a niche for software that performs specialized tasks (i.e. if I want a control program for my homemade veeblewhitzer that uses a propriertary protocol using parts of an EEG machine to monitor the my cat's water bowl via passenger pigeon, I'm going to have to either write it or pay someone because it's just not generally useful enough). I think we were clearer about the platform distinction in the original draft of the article than we ended up being in the final, shorter, draft. My bad.

    For things that are useful to a broad spectrum of people, open source just makes sense. For some things it doesn't.

    I posted a more detailed response to some of the issues brought up in the earlier conversation on Slashdot and this one here [slashdot.org] if anyone's interested.

    (wow, slashdotted twice...I feel special :-)
    -Tim Boudreau

  • Profit should be made with support and consultancy

    Oh, goodie. Software McDonald's-- franchising support with staffing supplied by min-wage comp-sci grads with B- grade averages. I guess the people who actually produce the code that's being supporting are to survive on handouts from (pick one)-- maw and paw, the university, the government , the MacArthur Foundation.

    This is the "open source" attitude that is equivalent to the one that says that developing countries should embrase tourism as their economic salvation. Both always seems to be advocated by those with the most to gain by that arrangement.

  • Profit should be made with support and consultancy.

    It's not for you or anyone else to say how or how not profit should be made. The market will decide for itself, as ever. Even now, Microsoft et al are making money... how are Red Hat doing?

Slashdot Top Deals

Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky

Close