Venezuela eliminates govt. software piracy (Register) [LWN.net]

Venezuela eliminates govt. software piracy (Register)

Posted Sep 3, 2002 20:13 UTC (Tue) by erat (guest, #21) [Link]

Ummm... Wow. Long diatribe, my friend. I guess I'll offer one of my own (perhaps with a bit less venom).

I am mostly in agreement with what you say about common data formats, but I'll remind you that MS, AutoDesk, WordPerfect/Corel, etc. did not shove data formats down our throats. In fact, even in MS' products you have a choice of formats to choose from. The people who entrenched the current lot of proprietary data formats are end users, not software corporations. I'm sorry it ended up this way, but blaming the MSes of the world for our own foolishness is like blaming McDonalds for forcing us to eat Big Macs.

That said, common data formats would do more to release the stranglehold that software companies appear to have than anything else you mentioned in your post. From my extensive observations I can say that the majority of folks I know of prefer apps based on two major criteria: (1) functionality, and (2) data formats used by their companies. Functionality can be duplicated easily in other applications. Data formats are trickier. Open the formats and you'll open the market.

Now, about the whole Best Buy Et Al Are Evil thing. I can't agree with you on this one, not even a little bit. What you are saying they need to do is akin to saying every software application they sell must be available on the showroom floor for customers to play with (if you stop at Linux, others will scream that they want "fair exposure" too). As good of a marketing tool as this may be, it doesn't even come close to being practical. Besides, retailers sell products that are produced by people other than themselves (typically). If they're selling Gateway systems, for example, they must represent the systems as Gateway produced them, not as you or I would like them to be. There are rules that retailers must adhere to, and for good reason; if someone sees something on a PC on a showroom floor and purchases that PC just to find (at home) that what they saw isn't what they bought, that could spell a lot of trouble for the manufacturer and for the retailer. If I were Best Buy, I wouldn't want to deal with that either.

There have been numerous opportunities for folks to get Linux on PCs straight from the manufacturer (Dell, IBM, the various Linux hardware sellers, etc.). In every case, the desktop/laptop "pull" has been less than spectacular. At some point you need to accept that perhaps the for-profit Linux PC momentum isn't there yet. I'm sure some day it will be, but for now the market just isn't there. And I doubt that pushing retailers into showing PCs running Linux or telling them to set up Linux install-fests is going to do much to help. They don't owe anyone anything, nor are they responsible for providing the means by which people can migrate away from proprietary software. They sell stuff to make money. Stop. It goes no further than that.

Yep, my viewpoint is unpopular. I can live with that. I'm an avid command-line driven FreeBSD and Linux user, though, so I'm not speaking from the outside looking in.

Venezuela eliminates govt. software piracy (Register)

Posted Sep 4, 2002 12:41 UTC (Wed) by torr_reor (guest, #1374) [Link]

I am mostly in agreement with what you say about common data formats, but I'll remind you that MS, AutoDesk, WordPerfect/Corel, etc. did not shove data formats down our throats. In fact, even in MS' products you have a choice of formats to choose from. The people who entrenched the current lot of proprietary data formats are end users, not software corporations. I'm sorry it ended up this way, but blaming the MSes of the world for our own foolishness is like blaming McDonalds for forcing us to eat Big Macs.

BZZZZZT ! Wrong analogy. If you get your Big Mac and if I settle for a pizza from Domino's, after we've eaten them we can still communicate (unless I'm offended with your onion breath or if you can't stand the smell of my parmiggiano cheese).
But if you choose MS Office and if I use Corel WP Suite, then we will (sooner or later) have problems exchanging our documents, despite the conversion tools : we will have format losses, rendition problems and so on.
Since MS have always had an easier access to OEM contracts because of their enforced domination on the OS field, it was easier for them to market their Office tools. Then, anyone who had to work with a partner who used MS Office was bound, sooner or later, to switch to MS too.
Don't get me wrong : MS has build over the years some good, polished software, that had the advantage of importing foreign formats nearly flawlessly (with very little loss) but its export features did not even come close to the quality of its import conversion filters. On the other hand, since the MS Word format changed every two years or so and remained mostly undisclosed, most competitors could not keep up with the evolution and produce hi-quality conversion tools. Whether or not this asymmetry between import and export filters in MS Office was built on purpose, this is the reason (IMHO) why people switched to MS Office : it was (and it still is) actually much easier to migrate a whole set of documents to MS Office than the other way round.
Which is why it should be important to build open standards for file formats, and even make them the default on most softwares. RTF, for example, was a good attempt at building an open standard for word processing; but it is never the default file format for saving a document under MS Word. So, if you don't own a copy of MS Word, you have to ask your partner to send his/her file again in RTF format, and if he/she is not computer literate, you have to explain why and how to do it, and so on... until you're tired of doing it and you switch to MS Word too. That aspect of MS's strategy has long been the key to domination.

Still, I agree with the rest of the post : MS, despite all the gripes that we may have against them, have produced nifty tools, and it has been a long uphill battle for alternative tools (Linux desktop oriented distros) to come close to the usability of an MS-bundled desktop computer. Which is why the attempts to sell Linux boxes to Joe Average have more or less failed in the past few years...

Venezuela eliminates govt. software piracy (Register)

Posted Sep 4, 2002 13:31 UTC (Wed) by erat (guest, #21) [Link]

Actually, I think I made the correct analogy. The doc formats that we are bound into using today are doc formats that we propogated. AutoCAD (from my recollection, having used AutoCAD from '87 through '95) has always offered DXF as an export option. You may not get all the pretty colors and line thicknesses may or may not be retained, but the option is there. Had people used DXF more than DWG, AutoCAD et al would have had more of an interest in making DXF better. As it stands, most people use DWG so now it's a de facto standard.

Ditto for Word, WordPerfect, et al. I seem to recall Word being able to read/write WordPerfect format files and vice versa. The export filters may not have been perfect, but for probably 90% of the word processing world the extra bennies in the specialized file formats go unused. The folks who have bound us into using these foofie formats are the folks who don't understand that you can change your default file format to something more "shareable", that you don't have to encrypt your documents, that you don't have to embed macros into documents, etc. A bit of education would have prevented a whole lot of headaches. People just didn't know any better.

There is still hope, though. Office file formats from the Excel 5 era seem to be well supported even by open sourced applications. If folks today simply change their default file format to those older versions you'd see a lot of document exchange issues evaporate overnight. Not all, but a lot.

Nope, I'm not holding my breath on that one either... :)

Venezuela eliminates govt. software piracy (Register)

Posted Sep 4, 2002 13:57 UTC (Wed) by rmdirms (guest, #2659) [Link]

Hmm, Ever drive by or walk past a McDonalds in the past 10 years? Noticed the attractive salt in the air? Ever smelled those hot apple pies? I don't know your locale, but where I am, in California, it is VERY attractive when I am on an empty stomach. Think McD doesn't craftily hunt down the right chemical composition to attract most human's olfactory and other senses (not to mention the wallets)? Well, the DO! In fact, check out Cinnabons, and the pretzel place. They ALL go after your senses (whereas some software companies prey on your myopia, laziness, or complacency, depending on their product and long-term goals...), as do grocery stores with their mood music.... slow, bee-boppy, nostalgic music in the slow, early hours when they want you to linger and fill up your basket while they late-night restock before your eyes, and fast, get you in-and-out paced music so you don't hold up the lines in the day time....Conspiratorial? By committee, absolutely!

Here, in the states, (I'm trying to keep the parallel tween computers and McDonalds/foods industry), Los Angeles, the US' 2nd largest public school district, resoundingly ordered that Coca Cola be removed from the high school campus vending machines (they'd previously ordered such for the k-6 or k-8 grades) and replace them with sodas? Why, because 1 20-oz, tantalizing confectioned fizzy beverage contains not 1, not 4, not 8, but some 16-20 teaspoons of sugar. Combined with reduced phys-ed, or fitness regimens, US kids are in an EPIDEMIC OF OBESITY.

But, as regards, formats, I think the more universal a common/single format, the more likely businesses and government can interchange their docs. And, the less likely the developers have to play catch-up if AutoCAD decides to inject something interface-related into their file formats. Myself, I am looking to use VariCAD, or maybe PTC, since they have parametrics and internet-based stuff going on, AND in Linux. Too bad they cheesily don't ADvertise on their front page, "We now have a viable, post-beta, in-the-wild, stable Linux port/build out for several months." No, they bury the headline deep in their site for you to STUMBLE upon it, as if ordered from within or externally to downplay their great Linux prowess.

Really bumming. The more ms is a THREAT to ANY corporations business viability, the MORE a company NEEDS, MUST, seek alternatives. Otherwise, such companies are practically selling or (selling, the other wh*$ing) themselves for no reason other than laziness or fear of ticking off ms.

As for Best Buy, I agree with you to an extent. However, I think they are missing an opportunity to give Customers some "play access". All they have to do is say, "We are demoing ONLY the GPL stuff as shipped on the CD/DVD, most of which your LUGS can help you with if you need help locally. Otherwise, we are using vanilla clone machines that the Gateway/PowerSpec/Dell types didn't ship us and therefore, check the Linux Hardware Compatibility equivalent." IN other words, if Best Buy is massivly advertising ONE OS, then how much could it hurt them to advertise Mac or Linux on just ONE clone/generic PC, JUST so Customers can see what the frackas is all about. LIke I said, I'd PAY for up to two clones myself (max of $600), and how can THAT hurt BestBuy legally, since they wouldn't be messing with a "mfr ship system"?

Regards, David Syes...

Venezuela eliminates govt. software piracy (Register)

Posted Sep 4, 2002 18:16 UTC (Wed) by erat (guest, #21) [Link]

Yes, the aroma is tantalizing when you pass McD's on an empty stomach. That said, nobody is forcing you to go into McD's. Will power is key here. I know will power... I smoked on and off for almost 15 years, quitting only about 4 years ago. Not a day goes by when I don't want to go back to my old habit. I don't, though, because I have will power. Believe me, when you've been addicted to a drug, the desire to go back to it is a McD's temptation multiplied by about 1000. Somehow the idea of not being able to resist a Big Mac or a large order of chemically imbibed fries just doesn't seem all that big of a deal to me.

I have no doubt that McD's et al have researched the most tantalizing aromas and tastes for their food products. They're corporations interested in making their stuff better than the stuff sold by their competition. I don't fault them for that. I don't see any mind control or conspiracy here, though. I believe McD's has even admitted publicly that they add stuff to their food to make it more appealing. I'm pretty sure they don't hide this. As long as they're not putting Ephedra or crack in their food, as far as I'm concerned they can do what they want.

I guess I hold individuals to be responsible for their own actions. It's just how I am. If I do something stupid (like smoke), that's my fault. If I put on 20lbs from eating sticky buns from Cinnabon, strike two for me. On and on... I don't hold my environment responsible for my actions. Others may feel differently. To each his/her own, I guess.

Before this strays even further off topic, I'll add in here that I find the issues people are having nowadays with fast food to be very similar to what people are saying about proprietary software. I stand by my belief that we -- the consumers -- made it all happen, not the other way around. I don't hold McD's responsible for the youth of America being overweight (I blame parents and genetics for that), nor do I hold MS, AutoDesk, WordPerfect, Quicken, etc. responsible for the current state of proprietary software and data formats.

That's just me, though.

Venezuela eliminates govt. software piracy (Register)

Posted Sep 8, 2002 8:13 UTC (Sun) by rmdirms (guest, #2659) [Link]

Oh, Today, I just learned of a link that I wish I'd read or found before I posted my own wish for Best Buy and others who SELL Linux apps actually DEMO them:

http://www.linuxformat.co.uk

Then

http://www.wewantlinux.org

As for not finding corporations at fault, please, you (I, and the rest of us out there) MUST have some conviction that corporations need to be kept in check. It is the human WEAKNESS for flavors, aromas, etc, that corporations rely upon. They are EXPLOITING (just as a baby exploits its parents for attention when it cries, but THAT is a natural, necessary exploitation) the human weakness. If they made the foods odorless, yet tasty, I bet you they'd lose over 10-20% of their customer base. Once you find a mental or physical block to returning, just as whatever valid reason you had that let you kick the cigarette habit, you begin to regain some sense of control. As long as you HUNGER for some kind of food, the ones adulterated to addict you will win over the healthier choices.

I am of the mind that if health officials want to do right by the public or the consumer, the government would and SHOULD say that for every X thousand people in a given area, ONLY an X amount of fats, carbs, oil, fries, etc, can be sold. Not that I embrace government to do everything, but in many cases if the government successfully eludes a bribe or campaign contrib, then ONLY the government is powerful enough to keep the food industry in check. After all, red dyes, certain fats, certain shifty or false labelling schemes and others wouldn't have been defeated if corporations were left to police themselves. (I'll stretch and then get to computers...)

Yep, we must start limiting fats to an X amount per city block and per capita of the block. Personally, I have found Quiznos to be a worthy replacement to McDonalds, Jack In the Box, AND Burger King. I'd for YEARS driven by but never bothered to try (blame it on habit and addiction to BK, McD, and JITB, a habit they ALL vie for...) Quiznos. I tried the two different chicken sandwiches on two diffeent days, and BOY, I enjoyed it. Just the sandwich and water. I didn't even need a soda, not even the soup. I added greek peppers to my sandwich and left feeling fed "just right; not too light, not too bloated". But, with a valueless, specious "value meal" the REAL value is in the greed of the food corp, not the eater. The eater TRULY doesn't "NEED", 35 more fries, 28 ounces more of coke, and so on. Look at how many people (in my case, I watch Americans) STUFF and GORGE and lumber and amble, and burp their way around the place or behind the wheel of an auto. It's PATHETIC, seeing so many overweight (not by genetics, but by INDUSTRY) people who are held to full accountability. If I had a starship voyager and blasgted every high-fat food establishment, leaving behind only Subway, QUizno's and some salad shops (minus fatty salads and soups and desserts), in 5 years the US would likely see a HEALTHIER nation. The blasted food industry will NEVER give the public that leverage, (just as mocrostif will never like to see Linux get past 5% market share). I am sure it has its issues, but perception is a LOT. Remember when McD's got busted for using meat oils in their fries, and screwed up a lot of religious vegetarians? If SOMEBODY doesn't catch and expose the corps, they'll run roughshod. Coke IS responsible for fat teenagers. Afterall, the schools NEED money, and with the Govt always scheming for a war, an arms buyer, more radios and guns for cops, more tanks, more bribery, err, foreign aid, and so on, the schools (and their bad self-administration) lead to the vulture soda companies to paying to the schools what our TAXES ought to be doing, to keep desperate or mismanaged schools from being easy prey to junk food and junk TV adverts IN the schools.

If the Gore teams back when and the Bush teams of now REALLY want to push education in our schools so there is a REAL difference they'd stop taking contrib money, they STOP exploiting the public. A recent study showed kids in wired schools, working on the expensive, newly installed computers, nets, and software, didn't increase test points. I recall they actually DROPPED. Interesting, since ms is always asking us where we want to go today, and somehow wants to think their warez make the schools go round. I'm sure ms will blame the teachers if blame has to be assigned (oh, they didn't buy enough licenses from us...). I bet the US could churn out more talented students if OpenSource and Linux-/FSF/OSDN/-related apps were gently and interestingly (write games, build an app, make a grade-scoring tool...) introduced to the kids and the kids to them, and then ms would REALLY have a hissy fit (Oh! YOU're subsidizing our competition) But, ms CONVENIENTLY forgets that their existence owes a lot to PUBLICLY-FUNDED university -level work. . But SCHOOLS need CHEAP, effective, ACCESSIBLE, (legally and freely) redistributable tools and knowledge share, and our SCHOOLS (ANY nation's schools, for that matter) should NEVER-EVER-EVER be held hostage by corporations when tools such as Linux and OSDN exist. We can blame myopia, greed, and maintenance of the status quo, basically human greed and laziness, if things don't change. Schools and kids are ANY nations most valuable assets, not the fogy, corrupt, vermin occupying nations and state's capitols and boards of many (not nec. all) corporations. (Well, mostly vermin, waging turf wars.) Linux properly and relentlessly introduced to schools would sign ms' death warrant, and IFFFF ms perishes so that schools get cheap, effective, accessible, redistributable tools, then I SAY: ms SHOULD PERISH. NO, I mean NO corporation should take precedence over decency, sense, fair play, long-term-health of body or society, and if they don't like it, then may the next overdue Tsunami selectively strike ms...

They just cannot accept that their company, TOO, has a lifespan. They should take their coffers and stand aside for other anxiously vying players to have a chance at the sand pit, a chance that is devoid of sand in the eyes....

Regards

David Syes

Venezuela eliminates govt. software piracy (Register)

Posted Sep 5, 2002 12:47 UTC (Thu) by raindog (guest, #1235) [Link]

Of course, after eating a Big Mac you aren't forced to eat another Big Mac the next time you're hungry, as opposed to what happens if you create, say, a Visio document and later want to print it. Food products don't have interoperability issues except in the sense of personal taste ;) I can vouch for this because I stopped eating at McDonalds some years before I switched to Linux.

I think you guys have missed the most salient point about the Best Buys of the world: they have a financial disincentive to push Linux simply because those who buy a packaged Linux distribution are going to get about half of the aftermarket functionality they make most of their software money on, included for free with the package. This is neither a good nor a bad thing; I would do the same if I were selling software at retail. I'd bet (outside of Microsoft operating systems and Office) that their margin on optional aftermarket software tends to be higher than their margin on, say, PC's.

They'll still sell Linux (I bought my last three boxed set versions of Mandrake at CompUSA, Best Buy and Staples, probably not in that order) so you can't exactly call it an evil corporate conspiracy, it's just not in their best interest to actively promote it. Wouldn't surprise me if they declined to sell Lindows, though, seeing as how their stated purpose is to eliminate retail software sales via "Click'n'Run". (I use Mandrake's update system much the same way but people don't seem to be as aware of it.)

To the poster at the top of the tree, I understand how easy it is to get all angry and offended by this stuff. Been there, done that. If you must take all this as a personal insult, consider directing your anger towards something productive, like donating some time to the languishing KBasic project which would go a long way towards migrating corporate users over, or writing documentation for any underdocumented project as there are thousands in dire need of such. Crying about corporate bondage on a Linux site, frankly, wastes your time and annoys the pig. Instead think "well, I'll show them."

Finally, for what it's worth, only Gateway stores sell Gateway PC's. The Best Buys of the world sell stuff like HPaq. I know you were just pulling a brand out of the air for an example, though, and HPaq isn't much different than Gateway in what they install on their PC's (though I hear they're installing WordPerfect on low end machines rather than MSWorks now.) I'm sure they sell other brands too - 5 years ago it would have been Packard Bell and IBM - but a PC is not something I'd necessarily want to buy off the shelf at Best Buy, anyway, so I don't really know.

Venezuela eliminates govt. software piracy (Register)

Posted Sep 6, 2002 1:19 UTC (Fri) by erat (guest, #21) [Link]

Regarding not having to buy another Big Mac after buying your first... My point was that it's your choice to buy the Big Mac in the first place, and the only reason you would do such a thing is because you may not know that it's a bad thing to do it. Education could have prevented us from locking in on Big Macs, Word documents, whatever, but pushing that aside, the "alpha goof-up" -- the first Big Mac, if you will -- was done by an end-user, not a corporation. That was my original (and current) point.

Regarding financial disincentives to push Linux... What would the "up-sell" be for Adobe Acrobat 5, a software product that's pushed fairly hard through retail channels and costs in excess of $250 but doesn't have any clear "next level" to buy into? Pushing a Linux distribution doesn't seem any worse incentive-wise than selling Acrobat. Maybe I'm missing something here.

Regarding "wastes your time and annoys the pig"... Something tells me I know you. From work perhaps? :) I don't run across that phrase very often. Just checking.

And last, FWIW there was a time not too long ago when I could step into an Office Max (or was it Office Depot? Maybe Staples?) and see a major chunk of floorspace dedicated to "Gateway Country". I have no earthly idea if that's still going on. Perhaps not. Regardless, I do recall Gateway selling PCs through something other than Gateway stores.

Venezuela eliminates govt. software piracy (Register)

Posted Sep 8, 2002 8:35 UTC (Sun) by rmdirms (guest, #2659) [Link]

Seems like Gateway is struggling. They pulled out of the Office Max which was just a mile from their country store.

But, as for HP, I installed SuSE Linux on one of their Wal-Mart-available PCs. The owner of the PC decided she wanted to go back to wmillennium, and on this hard drive, to restore it back to HP, we needed the CD that ms or HP now doesn't or then didn't want to ship, ostensibly for piracy reasons. It was incredulous to hear the HP technician, when HP was blathering about supporting Linux, found it impossible that SuSE could read the windoze partition and outright obliterate it. He just couldn't are WOULDN'T have any of it. Well, we got the disk and I restored the system. Unfortunately, HP's choice of viceo hardware really screwed the pooch. Even Mandrake crawled on the vid. On MY own boxes, of 4 makers, I could resolve my probs, but not on the HP hardware.

As for the stores, I offered or suggested to MicroCenter AND to Best Buy (not in the same year) that I personally buy the hardware, the tables, and man them myself, and even rent space. They could use this as an opportunity to guage setting up in-store Linux courses, the way Gateway teaches *dows in its facilities. I think the issue of "nonincentive" is really just the stores not wanting to do it if its not their own idea, and simultaneously not wanting to incur ms' wrath. Which AGAIN points to more antitrust trials ahead. I think the most effective way to rid the further wasting of Public money on ms is to simply CENSURE ms and banish them from business. That is not possible, but the best way next is simply to BAN schools from ANY further Public-money expenditures on proprietary software that has a working, near 80% replacement or near equivalent. Schools (and businesses, for that matter) need to BAN the use of twirlies and whirlies in ms' formatting and psycolgicical features-addictions games. Government should demand that ALL documents sent to it for correspondence or incorporation of docs MUST be in RTF or plain text or some common, Linux-friendly file format that is usable by SO, OOo, or Abiword or Kwrite or something. But, that won't work either, with corrupt, lobbied, splaying, prolapsed rectumed polycrats taking slick, deep money.

They playing field, as regards, Linux & ms, will be a LONG time coming before any semblance of "levelness" is present. THAT is whay the vitriol will not cease. No matter HOW many volunteer projects I or others get into, until and unless a powerful or credible mechanism COMPELLS the interchange of non-ms formats files, ms will by defacto keep hogging the sand pit. Heck, if ms wants to exist without fear of my starship voyager, JUST STABILIZE AND OPEN THE DATA FILE FORMAT. Then people could stick with w98 if they want, wme, w2k or xp or Linux or Apple.

But, ms will simply have none of it. Hence, my business plan and all it's chivalry or idiocy in going after:

Kinko's, Baskin Robbins, Starbucks, and more... If you have resources and an interest, freely copy and use my plan as a template for your own coffee shop/Internet Cafe. Just refrain from hijacking my company name...

Regards,

David Syes