Bruce Perens Canned by HP 692
bmarklein writes "Bruce Perens has been fired by HP for "Microsoft-baiting". This was linked in part to the HP-Compaq merger, since Windows is now a much bigger part of HP's business."
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Bruce Perens Canned by HP
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For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!
Microsoft's dominance (Score:4, Insightful)
I doubt that this came from a purely internal HP-Compaq decision. The forces that be in Redmond probably played a role.
What is Bruce on to next?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Microsoft's dominance (Score:4, Insightful)
This shows the reach and depth of fear that Microsoft's monopoly can instill in even the biggest and baddest companies on the planet.
How? You think MS told them to fire Perens?
How about this for a try. HPQ makes millions and millions selling Windows only things. MILLIONS. They probably lose money on their Linux divison- but even if they are profitable, its not to the degree (because of scale for sure) of the Windows division.
You go on to answer your own "how". Microsoft doesn't have to have Bill call up Carly and say "fire that Perens bastard" to have a bully-like dominance that causes other companies to dance to its tune. The very fact that Windows is so dominant and that Microsoft is so huge is what prevents true competition from getting a foothold. Microsoft doesn't need bully tactics, they can just carry on like a normal monopoly and everybody will feel bullied anyway. (Of course, we know that Microsoft does in fact use bully tactics; witness them telling Dell that Dell wasn't allowed to sell OS-less PCs.)
-Rob
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft's dominance (Score:4, Insightful)
Just to be the devils advocate (saying that is how you keep from getting modded as a troll around here) - did you ever consider that perhaps Perens' MS bashing was hurting HPQ's bottom line?
HPQ probably makes 1000x times more selling MS-loaded computers than Linux-loaded systems. Perens running around telling everyone how insecure MS software is probably doesn't help them move those MS-loaded systems now does it?
Who knows, if Perens had spent less time MS bashing and more time evangelizing open source maybe he'd still be at HPQ.
Re:Microsoft's dominance (Score:5, Funny)
Lets hope he joins Dell.
Dude, You're Getting a Job!
Re:Microsoft's dominance (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, I'm sure Bill Gates personally has a black list in his office with the names of all Open Source advocates that have challenged his empire and every morning, at a strategic meeting with his closest advisors, he has a conversation like this:
- Bill, we have successfully increased the revenue of the company by 20%. We expect this to bring the stockholders to the level of optimism they had before the recession.
Bill: Yeah, yeah, whatever...
- Bill, our deals with the media conglomerates regarding DRM are proceeding flawlessly, ensuring that we are unopposed to push for the PC as the consumer device that coordinates everyone's information-related activities, including entertainment.
Bill: Sure. That's nice, I guess.
- Bill, our marketing campaign for Web Services is being successful among developers. Soon they will be tied to our standards and companies will have to consider Windows servers seriously for their large-scale network services.
Bill: What's wrong with you people? Is this what I pay you for?!
Silence.
Bill: Ok, who can answer the really important question? How close am I to fulfilling my personal vendetta against the Open Source Linux geeks? How many did we get fired today?
- I called HP yesterday morning. We got Bruce Perens fired.
Bill: Geek #427? EXCELLENT!
Bill takes list, draws little check mark on "#427 Bruce Perens" entry.
Bill: Ok. According to my list, "#428 Billy Tempherton" is next. He's a Linux administrator for a community college in Iowa that posted something about me being evil and Windows crashing his computer, at that Slashdot site in 1999...
- We're working on it, Sir!
Bill: Good! Meeting dismissed! I have to go to Slashdot and see who posted something against me today...
That's funny, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
But... you are being naive if you think the list you describe in your parody doesn't exist. I have been in meetings (not in the computer industry, but the principle is the same) where such things are discussed. Every successful business does indeed do that sort of thing. Given the threat that Linux poses to Microsoft's revenue stream, it would be foolish of them not to hold such discussions.
sPh
Fukk a Registration (Score:4, Informative)
By STEVE LOHR
For nearly two years, Bruce Perens was a senior strategist for open-source software at Hewlett-Packard -- an evangelist and rabble-rouser on behalf of a computing counterculture that is increasingly moving into the mainstream. Part of the job description, he was told, was to "challenge H.P. management."
His last day as a Hewlett-Packard employee was 10 days ago. The parting was amicable, Mr. Perens said, but he was fired -- "officially a termination," he noted. "It came after a long, long warning," Mr. Perens explained. "The thing that I did that was most hazardous for H.P. is the Microsoft-baiting I tend to do."
A spokeswoman for Hewlett-Packard declined to comment on Mr. Perens's departure, citing company policy against making public statements about why individual employees leave.
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But, according to Mr. Perens, a handful of forces combined to make his exit from Hewlett-Packard inevitable. After it bought Compaq this year, the combined company became the largest single buyer of Windows for personal computers and data-serving computers, and thus more dependent on Microsoft. A rising threat to Microsoft is GNU Linux, an operating system distributed free and developed using the open-source model in which communities of programmers donate their labor to debug, modify and otherwise improve the code.
After the merger with Compaq, Hewlett also became the largest vendor of Linux-based server computers, ahead of Dell Computer and I.B.M. Yet Hewlett's bet on Linux still pales compared with its reliance on Microsoft. And after the merger, it was mainly former Compaq executives who took senior positions overseeing the Linux business.
In the premerger Hewlett, Mr. Perens, a leader in the open-source movement, enjoyed a lot of independence. When speaking to potential Hewlett customers on Wall Street and elsewhere, he would make the case for Linux, extolling it as a reliable and secure operating system that also allowed corporate customers to avoid being locked in to proprietary software like Microsoft's Windows or Sun Microsystems' Solaris.
Mr. Perens did not have to make the pitch for Hewlett as supplier of choice for Linux-based servers, services or support. That chore fell to Hewlett's sales people. "It was a pretty unique job that existed because of the H.P. culture," Mr. Perens said. "I would still be at H.P., I think, except for the Compaq merger."
Yet beyond the postmerger atmosphere at Hewlett, Mr. Perens also says that he had been taking a more outspoken stance against Microsoft recently. "Microsoft is out to crush Linux as a competitor," said Mr. Perens, who became truly galvanized after the emergence in May of a Microsoft-backed industry group, the Initiative for Software Choice. Besides the chip maker Intel, a close Microsoft ally, most of the other 20 or so members are smaller foreign companies or trade organizations.
The software-choice group sees a threat in what it has identified as 66 legislative proposals, government statements and studies promoting open-source software in 25 countries, including Germany, Britain, China, Peru and Brazil. Some of those legislative proposals would require the use of open-source software in government, but most of the government steps are efforts to ensure there is an alternative to Microsoft in their critical software markets.
The Microsoft-backed group says its purpose is to promote even-handed competition based on the merits of products, instead of a government bias for one kind of software. But as Mr. Perens sees it, the software-choice group has another agenda. "Its principles are nice-sounding words," he said, "but what they really say is, `Let's maintain the status quo.' "
Mr. Perens has stepped in himself and started an effort to respond to the Microsoft-backed group. His initiative, called Sincere Choice, has its own Web site (www
"The royalty-free patent issue is crucial because the companies with huge software patent portfolios, especially Microsoft and I.B.M., have huge tolls booths on the Internet that can limit the spread of open-source software," Mr. Perens observed.
Mr. Perens, 44, has regarded technology as a force for personal freedom since he was a teenager in the Long Island suburbs of New York. He was a ham radio enthusiast, ran a pirate radio station in Lido Beach, N.Y., and was briefly a "phone phreak," who could trick the telephone network into giving free long-distance calls.
His introduction to computing came in college, when he worked at the radio station at the New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury. Mr. Perens was a station manager, and one of his duties was to prepare the weekly logs of programs to be broadcast, as well as commercials. It was a job for a computer, he figured, and he taught himself the Basic computer language and wrote a program to handle the logs.
The appeal of computing proved irresistible. "I got so involved in the computer that I didn't go to classes anymore," recalled Mr. Perens, who never got a college degree.
Much of his considerable programming skills over the years since have been self-taught, a trait fueled by his early experience with formal education, when he was briefly misdiagnosed as mentally disabled (it was a motor-deficit problem that he soon outgrew). "All of this is about empowering the individual with technology," Mr. Perens said. "That has been a lifelong thrust."
Mr. Perens eventually joined Pixar, where he worked for 12 years on hardware and software tools for the animators of "Toy Story," "Toy Story II" and "A Bug's Life." While working at Pixar, he became more deeply involved in the emerging open-source movement and with Linux.
Having left Hewlett, he is talking to other companies about doing consulting work. "Open source doesn't mean you take a vow of poverty," Mr. Perens said.
Yet Mr. Perens is also deeply committed to the values that he believes the open-source movement embody. "I'm sorry that I had to leave H.P., but I'm not going to shut up about my views," he said. "I'm not just going to sit back and be a quiet engineer. I have a two-year-old son and I don't want him to grow up in a world that is less free.
Re:Fukk a Registration (Score:2)
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But, according to Mr. Perens...
Aw, man! If you're going to go to the trouble of posting the article here, at least have the decency to edit the ads out!
-
Re:Fukk a Registration (Score:2, Funny)
Non-sequitor (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't get it. If I moved from n to 1 on the list of a vendor's customers, why wouldn't I see increased leverage with my vendor? The story implies that being the number one customer of Microsoft is tantamount to losing leverage ("more dependant")?
It's a semantic argument to be sure, but regardless of what Bruce said about Microsoft you would think that they wouldn't want to damage their reputation with their number one customer, would you?
Or is this all about MS playing Dell and HP off each other?
Re:Non-sequitor (Score:4, Interesting)
The merger was bitterly fought and hard won by Carly Fiorina vs the old guard of the company. It got ugly and personal. Fiorina is under extreme scrutiny and pressure to show that it was a good idea to buy CPQ. If HP management perceives that there could be any problems with M$, even if there isn't really a threat, they have to do something, because they cannot afford any missteps with Compaq.
So, to answer your question, even if HPQ theoretically has more leverage with M$, management is not in a position to use that leverage because they cannot afford to be seen as battling M$.
Re:Non-sequitor (Score:3, Insightful)
Markets stop working correctly in the presence of a monopoly. Microsoft has monopoly power over sales of Microsoft Windows (that's what copyright does). Compaq/HP doesn't see any feasible options other than Windows. HP on its own had significant profit in other areas: printers, scanners, calculators, and other hardware. Compaq increased HP's investment in Microsoft Windows driven computers and made HP more vulnerable.
I can't help but think of the similaries to addictive drugs. The bigger a customer you are to a pusher, the more dependant you are on the pusher.
Re:Non-sequitor (Score:5, Insightful)
What happens if you get into a dispute with the oxygen vendor and threaten to cut off your purchases? If worse comes to worst and you do stop buying from him, he might go bankrupt. On the other hand he might not - there are a lot of people who need to breathe. You on the other hand will certainly die.
That's the problem the OEMs face when dealing with Microsoft.
sPh
Re:Non-sequitor (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was working there as a consultant, pro-Microsoft propaganda was everywhere. Sure, there were plenty of Linux people working there, but it was really under the radar. Microsoft was the party line and woe to anyone who would challenge that too vocally. Yeah, Compaq didn't mind if Linux ran on their machines, but they didn't really put a whole lot of effort into it. IIRC, Microsoft bought an obscene number of Compaq machines during the time I was there. There was also a massive Windows 2000 migration push at the time, which may have been related to it.
I've posted regarding this before, but I think it bears restatement. There are an AWFUL lot of strong personalities in what used to be Compaq, hardened by a bitter internal war during the days after the Digital merger. Large caliber bullets didn't fly, but there was a whole lot of political fallout, even when I was there long after the merger (for about a year, from summer 2000 to summer 2001 before the consultancy I worked for laid me off). The "HP Way", as laid back as it's projected to be, I believe, cannot stand up to the hardened take-no-prisoners warriors at Compaq. Sure, alot of people at Compaq are going to get laid off, but sometimes you have to sacrifice your own men in a battle to win a war, and I would bet that's how the Compaq people see it, a war to save their way of doing things, and in the end, their personal employment.
random NYT registration generator (Score:2)
Enjoy,
-forged
Hi (Score:5, Informative)
Bruce
Re:Hi (Score:3, Insightful)
Besides, being "fired" for speaking your mind is IMHO the best way of losing a job.
Thank you. (Score:3)
You are the level-headed balance between sometimes feuding, always ranting zealots.
On a side note: I made my neighbor watch RevolutionOS with me and I think she's got the hots for ya!
You take care of yourself now, and don't be a stranger.
Re:Hi (Score:3, Funny)
Hmm.... I think I know the real reason he had to go...
Carly: Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has the biggest HP ego of all?
MM: I don't think I should let this loose, you won't like it, it's not you, it's Bruce.
Carly: Noooooo! Where is my huntsman? I need someone good with a chopping block.
(No offense Bruce
Re:Hi (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hi (Score:5, Interesting)
Bruce
Popups (Score:5, Funny)
If all of our advertisements were like this, I don't think I'd even bother with blocking popups.
Now, I must go buy something at random.
Now that he has some free time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Now that he has some free time... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Now that he has some free time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Now that he has some free time... (Score:5, Interesting)
There is the small problem that I'm a registered democrat, and would be running against the most liberal people in congress if I stayed where I'm living, and I don't want to do that. For example, my congress person, Barbara Lee, is the only one to have voted against the war. Which leaves Senator Boxer, and I am not sure this is realistic. I am, by the way, a registered Democrat.
Bruce
Re:Now that he has some free time... (Score:3, Interesting)
There are a number of good competitive districts immediately surrounding Barbara's, at least a couple of which could be sympathetic to a candidacy like yours. I do this for a living, and while I have not taken the time to review your background to the extent that I could comment on your political viability, you're public persona is one that could be very appealing to voters in that region.
I have spent years trying to get more techies involved with politics. While the majority would not be best used by getting directly involved and running themselves, you are one of the few individuals who may fit the mold. To the extent that a politically tenable techie is such a rarity this is something I would urge you to consider and explore.
Again, knowing nothing of your financial situation, if you are able, this would be the opportune time to take a position that would boost your political prospects.
How does everyone here feel about the idea of a Congressman Bruce Perens?
Re:Now that he has some free time... (Score:3, Informative)
She was a nurse and card-carrying Republican with political aspirations who had lost the Republican primary. Then her son was injured and her husband killed by a gunman on the Long Island Rail Road. After tending to her son's recovery, she decided to run again, but Nassau County's legendary Republican political machine backed eight-year state assembly veteran Dan Frisa, who went on the win the election.
Two years later she switched parties, and ran as a Democrat, painting herself as a widowed housewife calling upon the voters to send her to Washington to bring about gun control. The voters responded overwhelmingly to her single-issue campaign, so much so that her incumbent opponent gave up in the days before the election -- he stopped answering reporter's calls and making public appearances. Six years after her election as a democrat, she is still in Congress and still a registered Republican who calls herself as a Democrat, though she has now branched out to two issues: gun control and health care.
It's all in the delivery.
Funny; I prefer DC's weather to Northern California's. It never rains during the summer and never stops raining during the winter -- we have bipolar weather. Where's the variety? And don't you miss New York's snow? (I grew up in Westbury)Not Boxer, Feinstein. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Now that he has some free time... (Score:4, Interesting)
Bruce
Perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
Libertarians are FAR closer to Republicans than they are to Greens or Democrats
Libertarians can be social, economic or both. A true libertarian would be both and believes in equality of opportunity *both* socially and economically. A true libertarian is Darwinian. These are anti-capitalistic, since capital is a lever of ability, not a measure of it.
Greens (and Democrats) are socially liberal but economically centrist, as such are only half way off a true Libertarian on one axis, the economic, and very similar on the alternate social axis.
Republicans are socially conservative or even authoritarian; this is at least half off the social axis. Republicans promote the status quo, are anti-progressive, pro-capitalistic and pro-monopolistic, again at least half way off a true libertarian.
Therefore Green and Democrat are certainly closer to a true libertarian than republicans.
Re:Libertarian fallacy (Score:3, Insightful)
When I'm required by law to work for a corporation, and competition among corporations in a particular line of business is outlawed, then you might have a point. Until then, freedom rules.
Comparing a corporation to the power of a government is just absurd. A government can restrict your ability to leave the country, can lock you away, make war on another country (I don't recall any corporations recently launching exocet missiles at another corporation), or a million other powers that corporations don't have.
More so, in fact, than those of elected governments, where the people at least have some control of what the behemoth does.
Of course, people can just IGNORE the corporation, which is difficult to do when you are talking about governments.
Let me guess: This is about your ability to steal music, right?
Re:no, no... (Score:3, Interesting)
Bruce
Corporate economics (Score:5, Insightful)
hmmmm....somehow I am not realy sure about that. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:hmmmm....somehow I am not realy sure about that (Score:5, Insightful)
Please cite examples where competent Windows administrators who kept up with Windows patches were stymied by a Windows problem that kept mission-critical systems down.
For every example you provide, counter-examples can be found for Linux. The VM upheaval in early 2.4 (so-called "stable" series). The ext2fs corruption in early 2.2 (once again, so-called "stable" series).
Anybody with blind faith to The One True Operating System doesn't understand very much about computing at all. Yes, Linux is malleable to the point of silliness, but why make a new hammer out of clay when Microsoft and IBM already have steel hammers that are have a much longer, and more proven, track record?
Code Red virus and "keeping up with patches" (Score:5, Informative)
Another example of ongoing Windows instability was the IIS 4 server on NT 4, which leaked memory something horrible when ASP was used, resulting in busy sites needing to restart services and/or reboot servers every few hours in order to keep websites running. For some time, Microsoft ran a private mailing list ("ASPPrivate", iirc) for users experiencing this problem - mostly large website customers. I'm not sure when this was fixed, if ever - I think that Win2K and IIS5 came out before the problem was ever fixed on IIS4, and Microsoft's strategy for addressing customer concerns was simply to stall for many months and then tell customers to upgrade their OS.
Anyone who tries to hold up Microsoft OSes as comparable to Linux, or any Unix variant, in terms of stability and reliability, probably has no experience of *nix, stability, or reliability.
Another issue, perhaps not as major, is uptime. Windows still requires reboots if you look at it funny - even 2000 and XP. At sites I deal with that have a mixed server population, I regularly see *nix servers with uptimes in the hundreds of days, where the Win servers are lucky to have a couple of months of uptime.
Re:Code Red virus and "keeping up with patches" (Score:3, Interesting)
Period.
Due to the changes in the ELUAs - and MS's propensity to demand more rights to YOUR system when they distribute "bug fixes" - the LLC that we are starting will not, under any circumstances, run MS server software - and after looking at the XP EULA and more recently, the latest w2k service pack EULAs, the lawyers recommend us not ever install the latest SPs. They state that for us to provide what we state - we cannot have anyone in the company running anything better than W2k stock.
Period.
this is because we are starting a security firm - the prvacy of our networks, our data, and our client's data means we must be able to prove the privacy state of our customer's data - while, at the same time, we're making it available to our customers over the internet.
Systems desiring to "call the mothership" and send back to them God knows what, and the mothership sending us God knows what without our consent will not do. So, to make our lives simpler, we're going to stay with Linux, and Unix (including Mac OS X) servers, mostly Mac clients, and for the few folks who just can't survive - we'll let them run Windows up to 2k.
This is what we are going to do.
There are many reasons to NOT use Microsoft software - esp. their OS's - other than simple hatred. If i ever had an application for tons of servers - they would HAVE to be Microsoft Windows 2000 and later free.
Re:hmmmm....somehow I am not realy sure about that (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Corporate economics (Score:3, Interesting)
Come on, a corp. has to find its own way of existance, not lean on another corps.
Re:Corporate economics (Score:5, Insightful)
That's what they. We would *all* do well to never forget that. I like Red Hat, and I support them, but they *are* a corpration. So is VA Software.
It is never advisable to place any trust in a corportion.
Re:Free market, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
"A corporation has no soul to damn and no body to kick" (variously "kill", "punish").
This comes from the Baron Thurlow, the Lord Chancellor of England in the 1700's and as far as I can tell (http://www.xrefer.com [xrefer.com]) the full and correct quote is :
"Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned, they therefore do as they like."
Or you might prefer this from Ambrose Bierce :
"Corporation: an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility."
More at http://www.endgame.org/primer-quotes.html [endgame.org]. These quotes (naturally) apply to HP, to MS, to Dell, Red Hat and so on
Re:Corporate economics (Score:4, Insightful)
Read joelonsoftware.com - he has an excellent article about the complements of products. Essentially, if you drive down the cost of a product's complement (as a PC is to Windows) you sell more and make more money. Another example, MP3 players sell like hot cakes because it's easy to get free music.
Re:Corporate economics (Score:3, Interesting)
Huge increase in operating margins does not equal increase in profit: i.e, benefit to shareholders.
You are being pretty vague about your plan for H-P, but you forgot the starting point for the P&L statement: TOTAL SALES. Hint: ten times better margins on 1/20th the total sales is half the gross profit, and if you aren't cutting your expense base by the same amount, you are reducing your net profit.
Why is this news? (Score:2, Troll)
I think that it should have been obvious that an open source activist would upset MS.
Additionally Bruce doesn't have a great history of keeping everyone happy, it should have been expected that he'd make a few stabs at MS, who is one of the more popular targets.
My Resume (Score:2)
So, that's why (Score:2)
I guess that'd explain why Bruce has been posting to Slashdot more regularly [slashdot.org].
Now I go buy a Lexmark printer (Score:2)
Why does it count? Because I'm not aware of anything the Bruce has said that is immoderate or baiting (ourrageous statement inciting a response). Bruce has actually rather toed the line in withdrawing his DMCA? demo at HP's request.
Motivations. (Score:5, Insightful)
I once had someone I admired tell me that "You shouldn't live for anything you aren't willing to die for". I've tried to incorporate that in my decision processes. Clearly, Bruce believes his child, and his freedom is more worth living for than his job at HP.
I get his motivation, I understand where he is coming from, and so, I can relate to him, and less readily dismiss him as a zealot, crackpot, or trouble maker, which is sadly the case with some other prominant free software advocates.
So, Bruce, thanks. You have my respect, even if you haven't got a job.
Re:Motivations. (Score:2, Insightful)
b) what do you expect from HP? A company that has been sliding into corporate mediocrity for years, now run by an idiot with a degree in medieval studies who preserves her private jet complete with hair stylist while laying off thousands. Are you really that amazed that someone was fired for stepping out of his box?
Re:Motivations. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's bullshit on a grand scale. While companies do have a responsibility to their shareholders, they also have a greater responsibility to the world at large. But nobody wants to admit that because then all those morally questionable (if not outright unethical) activities designed to reward CEOs and the Board of Directors while fscking the employees, environment, and basically the rest of the world would no longer be "questionable" at all; and then they'd lose all their money and power.
Just because companies in the US routinely act as though their only responsibility is to shareholders, it doesn't make it so.
Now, before you go thinking I'm a leftist nutbag liberal socialist <insert label here>, I understand and agree that companies are usually formed for the intended purpose of making a profit. That's all well and good, and making a profit is a wonderful motivator. There's nothing wrong with profit.
I'm just saying the belief that companies have no responsibilities to anyone other than their shareholders is wrong and a company whose sole purpose is to make a profit is incorporated for the wrong reason. It's unfortunate, but I believe the mantra of the modern American CEO (as said best by Daffy Duck) is:
Re:Motivations. (Score:4, Interesting)
A good way for you to point this out to others is to mention that governments give corporations the permission to be corporations, on the presumption that they will benefit the society. The people who run the corp. get protections not allowed for individuals. In exchange, society at large can and should expect that corporation to benefit society.
For most corporations (especially lately) society has only asked for economic growth from them. It is entirely understandable that a company would forget or try to minimize their other obligations (federal government, irs, state government, SEC, etc..) Especially since the people's voice to businesses is largely through the government and courts which are themselves often swayed by money.
Bravo for calling out this oft-quoted fallacy for what it is.
-pos
Re:Motivations. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, a point I was trying to make in another post in this discussion, is that it's about integrity.
A company may try to do the best for its shareholders, but the point is that they don't realise that integrity is actually good for the shareholders.
A lack of integrity will earn you the distrust of the market, and that is bad for the company, and bad for the stock price. In fact, it is my personal opinion that the current low consumer confidence in the U.S. (remember that consumer spending drives the U.S. economy) is due to low corporate integrity.
HP/Compaq touting their support for Linux on the one hand, and firing a major advocate on the other shows their lack of integrity, and is ultimately damaging for the company. They better hope Microsoft is good for them, because that's all they'll be left with if they continue on this path.
MartRe:Motivations. (Score:2)
Re:Motivations. (Score:2)
Today we have decent drivers for most of their printers, and you can get HP boxes with Debian out of the box!
Good luck to you Bruce.
I don't. (Score:3, Interesting)
Firstly, if HP decides to drop Linux, then his job is necessarily obsolete. In other words, it would be in his own best interest to keep Linux afloat at HP.
Secondly, his job was probably questionable at best, more PR than anything else, so his firing may very well have been inevitable. In other words, he had nothing to lose. In fact, he may have been fired, in actuality, because he was a waste of resources.
Thirdly, his longer term "career" prospects would almost certainly have been harmed if he had appeared anything less than a free software zealot (because he has staked this niche out as his bread and butter--just look at his resume).
Fourthly, maybe he cares for his popularity more (made almost exclusively through his position) than his job.
I, at least, don't see any reason to necessarily ascribe any noble purpose to this man, especially given the kinds of behavior that I've seen from him in the past. If a priest got fired from the Catholic church for maintaining and flaunting a theological position (esp. one that he was long associated with), then would you necessarily presume it was because he was principled or because he might have had some thing other in mind? The point is simply that just because he surrounds himself in something that is "not for profit" or "noble" does not make his own personal ends any more noble.
Re:Motivations. (Score:3, Insightful)
As the father of a two (and nine) year old, and a free software advocate, I can see the conflict of interests here: do you sacrifice short-term comfort for long term principles, when it affects other people, particularly, one's offspring? I suspect being in a position to have to make that choice is one reason that RMS does not want children, ... or a mortgage, ... or the usual trappings of a comfortable life.
One should always try to stick up for a principled stand, as much as possible, and not put one's self in situations where that has to be compromised. When finding one's self having to compromise one's principles so one can feed, clothe, and house one's family, one should try to get away from that situation, as fast as possible.
I vaguely remember some famous speech about "chains resting lightly" and chosing "death" over the loss of "liberty"... some guy by the name of Henry, I think.
While we are not all so free, noble, or principled, as old PH, that does not mean we should not heed his words and strive to live by them.
Office politics are more important than business? (Score:5, Insightful)
...or integrity for that matter?
Funny. Compaq (now HP) is running large ads in the trade press touting that they were the first major company to support Linux and Open Source.
Now they fire a major advocate? Sounds like the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.
Oh, wait, that's what those corporate types mean that a merger brings synergies and the opportunity to eliminate redundancies.
Well, so far HP/Compaq sounds like a typical merged company: the power politics of the officers of the originating companies are more important than anything else. They'll either spend 5 years trying to get their shop integrated (meanwhile facing dwindling market share), or they'll undo the merger, with the usual corporatespeak (divestiture, focusing on core business, spinning off unprofitable divisions) that all come down to 'we screwed up; please don't hurt us!'.
</cynism>
MartPay his home a visit (Score:4, Informative)
"I am no longer with Hewlett-Packard. If your company would like to use my expertise in forming an Open Source policy and processes, or operating a relationship with the Open Source developer community, please contact me [perens.com]."
challenge HP? (Score:2, Funny)
Among my assignments is to challenge HP management.
That's what he thought!
thinking matters (Score:5, Insightful)
If more people thought this way, the world would really be more freer.
Re:thinking matters (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately freedom declines as population grows - when you have a family on a farm with the nearest enighbor 5 miles away you can pretty much do as you please, if you screw up something, it doesn't hurt anybody but yourself and family. When you're crowded into a tight city neighborhood with a family 20 ft away you are very restricted in what you can do, how much noise you can make, what times you can do what, where you're children can play, what they can play at, what buildings you can put up, etc., all regulated by local ordinances.
As population density grows, freedom of mobility decreases (Private property! Keep Off!). Similary, as more people become dependant upon intellectual 'property' freedom of information decreases, so expect mandatory copy controls and policing on electronics devices.
Just facing the facts in the brave new world.
tells us a lot about HP (Score:5, Insightful)
If HP is so threatened by a single person like Perens, they must really be in deep trouble. Apparently, The New HP is trying hard to become The New Unisys. Too bad--DEC and HP used to be nice companies. Compaq just keeps eating up one company after another, digesting them, well, and you know what comes out the other end.
Re:tells us a lot about HP (Score:2)
McNealy gets someone that can bait MS, and Bruce can fix Sun's love/hate problem with OSS.
Re:tells us a lot about HP (Score:3, Insightful)
HP having problems???????? (Score:2)
HP Consultancy could have been onto a winner by moving into the high-end Linux support business. Big customers prefer systems with a support licence. HP could have done well there, but whether they continue to take Linux seriously remains to be seen.
To put it bluntly, Bruce put his balls on the plate (excuse the expression) more than once for the open source movement. I'm glad hthat he took a stand. The problem is somebody [microsoft.com] probably waived an OEM agreement over HP. However according to the article, they were the largest single vendor of the Windows system family. One would have thought HP would have wanted to use Open Source if only for a negotiating position.
Great differentiator in a commodity market (Score:2)
Re:Great differentiator in a commodity market (Score:2)
Taking one for the team (Score:5, Insightful)
Bruce has done a ton of work to raise open-source's profile in the boardrooms of corporate America, something the movement really does need to continue to gather steam the way it's been doing over (well, at least) the past ten years with the introduction of Linux.
Whoever said that Bruce should run for Congress makes a good point, but I sincerely doubt that Bruce would be comfortable among such a bunch of dolts as Congressmen.
Thanks again, Bruce. Keep fighting the good fight.
Wonder if Bruce Paid fot this one? (Score:2)
I hope I can get a way to get a million people view my CV
Huge Hole in Story (Score:2)
Why and how would Microsoft crush Linux? Palladium? I would be more worried about the general public than Linux about this one, because my "market research" shows the public isn't going to buy a DRM enabled computer that won't run Linux.
Re:Huge Hole in Story (Score:3, Informative)
Why? Duh. Cuz Linux is competition.
How? Halloween documents. Mainly abstract thought patents I'm guessing. Palladium will be part of it. All they have to do is convince Intel and AMD to put circuits into their chips that require MS abstract thought patents to operate the hardware and *BOOM* It's illegal to use Linux on Intel/AMD hardware. I think they will do this simply because this is the biggest dick move I can think of in terms of how to fuck Linux over in ways that Linux can't possibly recover from. You should decide now if you're willing to violate Microsoft abstract thought patents to use hardware that you bought fair and square in a store. I am willing to do that.
Re:Huge Hole in Story (Score:5, Interesting)
Buy SGI, which holds patents on page allocation algorithms used in the Linux kernel.
-russ
Am I the only one (Score:4, Interesting)
Big corporations are becoming more and more like feudal land-barons these days. They seem to believe that they not only own your work, but YOU -- as in you can't publically say anything bad about them or their partners, even if it's clearly stated as YOUR opinion and not (nescessarily) that of your employer. Back in medieval europe, that made some sense, as there was at least job security (also see Japan, pre-1980's)... but nowadays, they expect that AND the ability to toss you out on your ass whenever the wind shifts.
I really think it's time people got their priorities sorted out. What good is a well-paying job if you don't have the time and freedom to enjoy the life you have to fit around it?
Infoworld Aug 15 story has a different emphasis (Score:3, Informative)
Bruce Perens leaving HP was reported in an Infoworld article on August 15 [infoworld.com]. Although it is essentially the same story, the emphasis seems somewhat different. That article suggests that HP was restricting the level of activism, and Bruce would leave rather than put up with that. It does not mention Microsoft-baiting.
Note also that HP is cutting jobs at the moment; people who are given the boot get some money, those who walk don't. I would not read too much into "being fired" rather than "resigning" at the moment, it could just be a procedural device that Bruce goes as part of the cuts, so gets some money on the way out.
Completely backwards! (Score:5, Insightful)
After it bought Compaq this year, the combined company became the largest single buyer of Windows for personal computers and data-serving computers, and thus more dependent on Microsoft.
Am I the only one who thinks this is just ass-backward from the way you'd expect things to be in an open market? So, HP/Compaq becomes MS's biggest customer. Back in the olden days, it would mean that *MS* would quake in fear and bend over backwards not to piss off their biggest client, lest they lose their business. Nowadays, it appears to mean that HP/Compaq needs to be careful lest they upset their vendor.
It's ridiculous. And, frankly, it should stop. Too bad short-term shareholder value has to take precedence over long-term strategic planning (like finding a way to get out from underneath MS's thumb).
Re:Completely backwards! (Score:3, Insightful)
If Bill called Carly and said, "Sorry, seems there's a problem with our agreement with you to license Windows. We're very earger to work things out, but I'm afraid you're not going to be able to legally sell desktops, laptops, or servers running Windows until, oh, say, January. If you think Linux is so hot, why don't you try selling Linux systems at Best Buy?"
That's the exaggerated version (and would violate the terms of the proposed DoJ settlement); but subtler variations work, too. Microsoft controls HP's oxygen supply; and Dell's, and Gateway's, and ad infinitum. Only IBM has a committment to Windows plus a large line of non-Windows products to fall back on.
And that is why Microsoft is a monopoly.
HP has always been a Microsoft patsy (Score:3, Interesting)
Look at the history of OpenMail, for example:
- When OpenMail was first released, they had a Windows NT version in the works. Microsoft told them to knife it because it would threaten Exchange. They did.
- When Linux became popular, OpenMail began another rise. It was about to become prominent again, and possibly threaten Exchange again. This time, Microsoft told them to kill the product completely on all platforms. And they did.
Now that Perens guy is a nuisance. He makes too much noise, so Microsoft told them to fire him. Of course, they did.I have no respect for a company that is such a pushover, and certainly no respect for a company so tightly bound to Microsoft.
Topsy-turvy world (Score:3, Insightful)
After it bought Compaq this year, the combined company became the largest single buyer of Windows for personal computers and data-serving computers, and thus more dependent on Microsoft.
The logic of this is exquisitely twisted. Hp-Compaq is now by far Microsoft's biggest customer, so the logic goes, Microsoft has the most leverge over them.
Excuse me?
I think anybody who doesn't think that Microsoft's use of monopoly power needs to be severely restrained needs to think this one over. How can there be competition when companies fear a vendor so much they can't even flirt with the competition?
Backwards... (Score:5, Insightful)
Does this not seem wrong to anyone else? Sense when does the supplier dictate the terms and not the largest customer? This, more than anything else I think, demonstrates that Microsoft has gone from being a viable solution for decent software to a company that needs to be reigned in.
The problem now, though, is that market forces will have to accomplish this. We already know that the government is incapable of stopping Microsoft from doing what it wants. Short of breaking the company into two or three parts, things will continue the way they are.
I hear the REAL reason was... (Score:3, Funny)
...that he kept pestering Carly to change the company name to GNU/HP
guess there's a Bruce Perens in all of us (Score:3, Funny)
In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Yesterday, Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, came out in support of the 1633 house arrest of Galileo Galilei during an address to industry executives.
"Pope Urban the Eighth had every right to do this.", Ms. Fiorina exclaimed. "Mr. Galilei knew that this 'Sun belongs in the Center' heresy was dangerous stuff and he should have known better than to go around spouting off about it. If I were Pope, I would have canned his ass much, much sooner."
hmmm.... (Score:3, Funny)
(play on his old sig)
The devolution of HP (Score:4, Insightful)
However, since the founders died, the company looks to have been taken over by managers who are primarily interested in their paycheck, not the well being of the company. For example, one of the driving factors behind the Compaq merger was the fact that Carly got a $70 Million bonus check if the merger went through. Lord knows what she would have earned had the Price-Waterhouse acquisition taken place.
The corporate logo "HP Invent," alludes to an inventive spirit at HP but unfortunately, that spirit is the spirit of HP-past. I've seen exactly one interesting idea come out of HP in the past 2 years and that was a cooling device - not something that'll generate billions in sales. Carly was a History major at Stanford so she's obviously got some smarts. But they're the wrong kind - she doesn't have the technological background to recognize really good technical ideas when she sees them and so must rely on her staff to evaluate them for her. The inevitable "what does she want to hear?" filtering takes place and in that process and HP is all the poorer for it.
The next time the HP board goes looking for a new CEO (like in the next 18 months maybe...), hopefully they'll choose someone who not only has some sales smarts but is also technologically competent. And perhaps, if they've learned anything, the compensation plan will reflect the CEO's effect on HP's bottom line, not how many pointless mergers the CEO steers the company through.
Ruminations on being at HP (Score:3, Interesting)
Linux commoditizes the operating system. HP recognizes it. Everyone recognizes it. HP intends to capitalize on it and make some money. Many HP engineers use linux on a daily basis. We will always be into linux and free software, if only to give us a bargaining chip with Microsoft!
We understand the reasons Bruce has previously communicated for leaving HP. Though we wish he was staying because he's so damn cool, we understand that he may be better able to follow his dreams elsewhere. Bruce isn't pissed at HP.
HP has a business relationship with MS, but we aren't afraid of them. Business relationships are about making money. If our relationship with MS remains profitable, we will continue it. If our relationship with free software, open source, and linux remains profitable, we will continue it. That's how business works. We're here to maximize shareholder value. If free software remains economically sound (and it will), the community has nothing to worry about.
WD Out.
Re:I tried to post this... 10 days ago :) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Bruce says... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why shouldn't they?
Simple example. It's like CIA getting rid of their resident Arab intelligence advisor, to replace him with some professor from US. It's a bad strategy.
Sometimes you just have to hold on to people who know the emerging markets, even if they do not share the same ideology. Especially now, in a hostile economy, with all the stock market distress, companies are careful not to overrun their budget, and looking for ways to cut costs. What better way to save few million dollars than to replace Windows 2000/XP with Linux. You kill 2 birds with one stone. Increased stability + cost efficiency.
Furthermore, HP/Compaq are in the hardware business. As long as they sell their plastic boxes the investors will be happy.
Dell = 1
HP/Compaq = 0
Re:Bruce says... (Score:5, Interesting)
What makes me nervous is that Microsoft might have threatened HP in some way as a partner. They obviously wouldn't want a partner promoting their product with internal factions insulting it. For that matter, HP 's argument might be that it's hard to sale your product, loaded with Windows, when you have vocal employees talking about security and usabiltiy problems.
Re:Bruce says... (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft doesn't seem to have a problem with one of its own doing the same [slashdot.org].
Re:Bruce says... (Score:2)
Where I work, stability and cost efficiency has nothing to do with our choice of OS. We need something that will run all those damned legacy apps we still have left over from the DOS 6.22 days. It's so much easier, it seems, to accomodate these old apps then to replace or upgrade them.
A lot of other big companies probably stay on Windows for the same reason.
Re:Bruce says... (Score:3, Insightful)
>nothing to do with our choice of OS. We need
>something that will run all those damned legacy
>apps we still have left over from the DOS 6.22
>days. It's so much easier, it seems, to accomodate
>these old apps then to replace or upgrade them.
>A lot of other big companies probably stay on
>Windows for the same reason.
OK, that's the client side, but you could still start turfing NT/2000 in your server room.
HP/Compaq (or Dell or IBM) would love to sell you some servers.
corporate culture (was: Re:Bruce says...) (Score:3, Interesting)
True, but lots of corporations don't believe this. Profit in modern corporations is like God in organized religion. Large corporations say they're about Profit, but they are really about maintaining the corporate culture. Anyone who isn't a true believer must go.
The corporation I worked for was, for the most part, staffed at the line-management level with mindless functionaries. We would piss away hundreds if not thousands of dollars every week for the sake of doing things the company way. We'd bend over forward time after time after time to accomodate repeat customers who were losing us money by the continued presence of their job in the store. Why? Because corporate culture demands not profit, but accomodation and competition. Don't piss anyone off! Don't let them go to the other company! If it were about profit, we would have sent these problem customers to the competiton. They could have crippled our competition in no time at all.
(I'm not pro-profit in any big way, but I do think that a genuine profit motive makes a company a better member of its community than corporate culturalism, by way of ordinary free-market forces. I think it's sad that ruthless profit-mindedness would actually improve the current situation.)
Or look at election workers. I saw some on television the other day after local primaries and they were jumping up and down like little kids because their candidate won. That wasn't about believing in and striving for an ideal, or doing an important job; that was about Our candidate won! Yay!
I feel that over time, this culturalism percolates to higher and higher levels in any given social structure. Without some kind of check against culture becoming the end instead of the means, soon the entire institution in question is run by these tribal idiots. At this point, the people serve the culture instead of the culture serving the people.
Ellen
Re:Dumb move on HP's part (Score:3, Interesting)
Raise their prices? Yeah, maybe a little bit. But, keep in mind that one of the strengths of the HP/Compaq alliance is all of the corporate accounts that they have. MS knows that they need to own corporate computing; if they push HP too hard, they force HP to find a solution to the problem by pushing more open source solutions out the door.
And I wouldn't be so quick to discount MS's fear of judicial backlash if they act in an overtly anticompetitive manner. MS is still trying to cut deals with the DOJ, so they have some concern about the issue.
Netscape 4 does not do that... (Score:2)
Netscape 4 does not do that while the page is loading. The URL does flash up very briefly (too quick to be read), but then is wiped over by the status line that says how many bytes have been read at what rate. And big stories like this tend to have quite a lot of bytes and it takes a while to be loading them. And many people do know about middle-clicking on links to force a new window and get concurrent loading on 2 pages while they go get a refill on the coffee ... only to come back to see that nytimes.com wants a password. Basically, you have to wait until the page finishes loading to see the mouse-over URL because some nitwit programmer at Netscape in days gone by (Netscape 3 had the same stupidity) decided it was cool to overload different status messages in the same place.
Re:NY Times Link (Score:2)
Why? Because we're LAZY. And because when we're reading Slashdot, we're not in our most intellectually aware (or porn-browsing paranoid) mood.
Almost flawlessly the "Free Registration required: blah blah blah" warning has been there, so at least I got used to the idea that if something similar wasn't there, I could click away.
Once more, not a matter of life-or-death. Just something NICE to do, to save a percentage of your users two clicks and an annoyance.
Re:HPQ: Microsoft Victim...er, Customer (Score:4, Informative)
MS is technically a monopoly -- its market share is large enough that its pricing and other decisions have a disproportionate impact. The common European regulatory term is "significant market power" (SMP). MS does not post uniform prices; it can raise or lower the effective price to HP on a whim. They shut down IBM's retail OS/2, for instance, by threatening to raise their Windows 95 license fee by an amount that exceeded their entire OS/2 revenues.
HP is big, but they're in a commodity business. Nothing in HP's lineup that runs Windows cannot be replaced by similar Dell or IBM kit, to name but two vendors. So HP has negligible market power. That's one reason their acquisition of Compaq got approved -- together, they're still weak. HP's profit largely comes from ink. That doesn't give them much leverage over MS.
Re:He'll be ok... (Score:3, Insightful)
but that's the neat part... you CANT close the door on linux. you CANT kill it and you CANT kill Open source. It will always exist, Microsoft cant stop it, the Government cant stop it. It's like personal freedom... Many governments, corperations and people throughout time have tried to Quash, Kill and supress freedom... and they cant. It rises out of the ashes every time.
Linux and Open source are like someone here said once... Like Cockroaches... you can kill one but 10 will spring up in it's place... and they will survive anything you try to do to them, including nuclear war....
I am glad to be a "cockroach" and one of those that feed the cockroaches on a regular basis.
You cant close doors on Open Source... because Open source doesnt open doors, we remove the hinges and kick it down... effectively removing that door forever.. (DeCSS for example)