On dealing with Microsoft [LWN.net]

Sequels, it is said, often fail to live up to the original. So it may not be entirely surprising that Eric Raymond's latest, Halloween XI, lacks some of the impact of its predecessors. There are no "smoking gun" memos to dissect this time around; instead, Eric looks at Microsoft's latest marketing techniques and redefines the free software community in terms of a cold-war style confrontation with Microsoft. This view of things is not likely to be helpful.

Eric's analysis of Microsoft's latest road show does have its good points. The company, he notes, has dropped its discussion of "intellectual property threats" posed by Linux and Microsoft's higher level of "innovation." Instead, Microsoft is pushing total cost of ownership arguments and trying to sell the idea that its "shared source" program is as good as truly free software. The company's position does, indeed, appear to have shifted into a more defensive mode.

But consider this quote:

Because coexistence is not a stable solution for them, it cannot be for us either. We have to assume that Microsoft's long-term aim is to crush our culture and drive us to extinction by whatever combination of technical, economic, legal, and political means they can muster.

One can imagine several ways of characterizing the whole free software movement. A couple of those might be:

A group of software developers and users who are pooling their effort to supply themselves with the best software they can create, free of restrictions, obnoxious licensing, hidden "features," etc.
A noble, if outgunned army, led by wizards, in an epic battle against the dark forces of Mordor and the roving red eye of Steve Ballmer.

The truth of the matter is that we are not fighting a war. We are building a set of tools which allow us to better run and control our lives, and, with luck, having some fun in the process. Forcing our efforts into the mold of a battle is not likely to help us in that process.

The competitive threats to Linux are relevant. In general, expanding the user base of free software is a good thing; it causes a corresponding expansion of the developer base and makes it more likely that we will encounter free software in all aspects of our lives. Growing the user base means dealing with competing forces which have their own ideas of how things should go. That's capitalism. Certainly some people should be thinking about how to make free software competitive; this task naturally falls on those working to build businesses around free software.

There is also a definite legislative threat - as there is in many aspects of our lives. This threat goes far beyond Microsoft, however. Software patents, black-box voting systems, cryptography regulations, mandatory digital rights management schemes, anti-circumvention laws, etc. are all part of the fight for freedom which is as old as the human race. Focusing on Microsoft as the Big Threat can only distract attention from the real battle, in which Microsoft is only a part.

In that context, consider this quote:

The thing not to do is talk abstractions. FSF-style propaganda about freedom or user's rights has its uses occasionally, but it will register on this campaign's target audience of bottom-line-fixated IT managers as irrelevant or nutty. And when you look irrelevant or nutty, you hand Microsoft a victory.

If your focus is Microsoft, this advice may make some sense. But if your goal is an "abstraction" like freedom from software patents, systems which spy on you, etc., a focus on Microsoft seems short-sighted. Let the folks at IBM, Novell, Red Hat, and so on talk to the bottom-line people; that's their job. They should, while they are at it, be able to find ways of selling freedom as well; that freedom is just as valuable to a large corporation as to anybody else. The rest of us, meanwhile, can find better things to do.

Microsoft can certainly be expected to attack us. It will fund corporations which attempt to claim ownership of Linux via the courts. It will fund "think tanks" to spread doubts - see this impressive list of Microsoft-funded organizations which have published attacks on free software. It will attempt to intimidate government officials contemplating switching away from its products. But Microsoft is a small piece of the problem, and the best way to fight it is the production of more, better code. That approach, after all, has worked pretty well so far.

As a postscript, it is worth noting that there are good things to be found in the latest Halloween essay. In particular, Eric's advice to work to increase the adoption of Linux inside governments makes a lot of sense. If we can feed a government enough free software that it becomes addicted, that government is more likely to think twice before passing laws which are highly inimical to free software. Of course, that's "drug dealer" talk, which we'll get to in the next article.

On dealing with Microsoft

Posted Jun 24, 2004 4:18 UTC (Thu) by noise (guest, #2923) [Link]

While I agree that MS is not the biggest part of the problem, the patent and other IP law issues
should not be taken lightly. Writing more and better code will do no good if that code is
outlawed due to patent restrictions. As much as we may not like it, we need to be at least a little
bit politically involved to make sure that we _can_ continue to produce more and better software
without the fear of being sued and/or imprisoned for violating patents or DMCA-style laws.

On dealing with Microsoft

Posted Jun 24, 2004 6:12 UTC (Thu) by Xman (guest, #10620) [Link]

I do think that sometimes Eric seems to want to use open source to bludgeon specific companies that strike out against the open source movement (Microsoft and Sun come to mind), and to the extent that he does so is a disservice to the movement. It is a distration, and Microsoft has slain many an opponent simply by getting them to pay more attention to Microsoft than to their customers.

At the same time, I have to disagree with the statement the "production of more, better code" is all that is needed to ensure the success of open source. There has been open source software longer than there has been proprietary software, and folks have been writing tons of high quality open source code for long before "open source" existed as an expression. Eric's great contribution has been to focus on the customer (and I by this I mean anyone who is a potential software user), and to hone his message, and the energies open source movement as a whole on the what appeals to the customer. This is a big deal, because the open source world has a natural tendancy towards navel gazing.

On dealing with Microsoft

Posted Jun 24, 2004 6:24 UTC (Thu) by melevittfl (guest, #5409) [Link] (1 responses)

I think Eric was trying to say something a bit like the old "They came for my neighbour, and I did nothing..." argument.

We may not want to fight a war, but Microsoft is. If we don't, at least, pay attention, and be ready to fight when the time comes, we are going to loose.

You're right, the vast majority of people should worry about producing better open source software, but when the next anti-open source bit of legislation comes around, we need to be ready to do something about it.

On dealing with Microsoft

Posted Jun 24, 2004 19:09 UTC (Thu) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link]

Ah yes... "they came for the Jews, but I was a Catholic, so I said nothing".

IMO this is *exactly* the point ESR is trying to make, and as much as I agree with Jon's reply, I don't think he really rebutted this particular aspect of it. The major corporations which own our politicians don't seem to be able to think of any other way to compete with Open Source than by having said politicians make some of the fundamental underlying properties of F/OSS into *crimes*... things you can't *do* F/OSS and avoid.

And the politicians, in general, aren't smart enough to see the unintended consequences, and the corporate pukes don't *care*.

I've often thought the proper solution here is the same as the solution to people calling criminals 'hackers'; to quote Manny Davis: 'down tools and tell them go to hell'. Pull the plugs, wipe the drives, deprive the corporate monoliths of the benefits of the Free software they want to make illegal, and see how they like it (when the United States goes in the toilet).

Oh, whoops. I shouldn't say things like that. They'll call me a terrorist.

But, yes, this point does have to continue being hammered, IMHO.

No, it won't make ESR any extra friends.

RMS ain't the most popular guy, either.

In some circles, Linus isn't real popular, neither. It's hard to be a leader and still be popular. Hell, even Nelson Mandela's honeymoon was only about a year...

But, hell; maybe it's just me.

So many things are just me...

On dealing with Microsoft

Posted Jun 24, 2004 7:51 UTC (Thu) by del (guest, #380) [Link] (1 responses)

Thank you John Corbet for a helpful review of Eric Raymond's latest
Halloween document.

Indulge me while I add my own perspective concerning Halloween XI: I
tire of Mr. Raymond's persistent, unproductive, and unfair jabs at the
creator of the license and the movement that makes a phenomenon like
the Linux kernel and a GNU operating system possible.

Not giving bean counters credit for the intelligence to compare the
effects of pages and pages of dense legalese that comprise a Microsoft
EULA against the GPL and the corresponding effect to the bottom line
is in my view FUD by Mr. Raymond.

One way to ensure that the Free Software Foundation is relevant is to
invest in it. Please consider an associate membership and help grow
freedom!

David Emile Lamy, proud associate member #1292 of the FSF

minor correction

Posted Jun 24, 2004 10:14 UTC (Thu) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link]

Our favorite editor's name is Jonathan ;-)

On dealing with Microsoft

Posted Jun 24, 2004 11:59 UTC (Thu) by rakoch (guest, #4666) [Link]

Jonathan seems to disagree with Helloween XI but I can't see where exactly the dissence is. Both Raymond and Jonathan agree that Microsoft is a (currently big) part of the problem. Jonathan acknowledges (elsewhere) that Microsoft is buying legislation against OSS. Eric is not reducing the issue to a MS vs OSS battle:
<QUOTE>For Microsoft (or at least its present business model) to survive, open source must die.</QUOTE>

There is the abstraction Jonathan is missing - everyone with a business model building mainly on vendor lock in and monopolistic power on the market must be fundamentally opposed an approach like OSS. Now MS happens to be the entity with the deepest pockets and the most to loose. Of course they have allies when it comes to particular actions which happen to be bad for OSS: Patent lawyers, the content industry and to an extend even companies like HP, Oracle and IBM. But of all these, only for MS the destruction of OSS is a value as such. Only MS is committed to destroy OSS whatever it takes.

The only controversy I can see is whether or not the document fits into the Helloween series. If you think of the Helloween series as a publication of leaked scandal memos it doesn't. But I guess it's up to Eric to decide what a Helloween document is.

-Rudiger

On LWN dealing with Eric

Posted Jun 24, 2004 13:55 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (5 responses)

A strange article. Like Halloween XI, it starts off with logic but then there's an ESR-ish bait-and-switch:

> "the best way to fight it is the production of more, better code"

Huh? This sentence isn't justified by the preceding text.

(context: the "it" we should fight with code is either MS or "the problem", the latter being attacks on free software)

Producing good software might have gotten us most of the way to where we are today, but this isn't the nineties anymore. The fruits of our hobby and volunteer efforts are now detracting from the profits of wealthy influential corporations.

The only three things we need are: a programmable computer and our rights to develop software, and to distribute software. To maintain their current profits, to keep shares high and employees paid, the above mentioned corporations have to outlaw one or more of those three.

Producing more, better code won't hurt us, and it'll probably have some indirect benefit to us in the political arena, but it's not enough on it's own to protect us from legal threats to the three things we need. Our community has tens or hundreds of thousands of developers, but very few political activists. That's why MS have taken this battle to the law makers, they know it's our weak spot. We need developers and non-developers to contribute to the political defense of the three things.

I'm not accusing Our Editor of purposely inserting that bait-and-switch, which is why I call it a strange article.

My own quick critique of Halloween XI is that ESR seems to have realised that people don't read his open letters anymore, but many are interested in leaked memos from MS - so he's hijacked the Halloween brandname for himself.

On LWN dealing with Eric

Posted Jun 24, 2004 15:20 UTC (Thu) by rgoates (guest, #3280) [Link] (4 responses)

coriordan, you make some very good and precise points. The only real threat to free-as-in-speech software is bad law. That includes the law(s) enabling software patents.

There have been a few noises in the community about organizing to lobby against such bad law, but I have yet to see much effective action. Am I missing something? I would love to contribute monetarily (and by writing letters/emails) in support of an effective OSS lobbying organization. I'll even consider participating in peaceful protest marches, which is not something I'm prone to do. But I'll only commit significant support to an organization that is making a significant and honest effort. By "honest" I primarily mean keeping focused on fighting for the freedoms needed by OSS and not being suborned to other causes.

Political lobbying is not the only thing required in this fight. Even more important is getting the general public to understand the issues and realize how important to everyone's welfare this fight is. If we can get the public to understand, we win. This will be harder than political lobbying. Is there any significant effort in that direction? I would love to contribute money to an effective and honest public relations campaign.

On LWN dealing with Eric

Posted Jun 24, 2004 19:37 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Hi rgoates, I'm stuck for time, so this post is quite coarse. I'll follow this post up with a better one tomorrow.

The best thing you can do is to educate yourself. I have a small list of sources for digital freedom info. Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen are the two guys to look out for. The Wikipedia page on Eben Moglen has links to a lot of very interesting (and entertaining) talks he's given.

If there's no software freedom organisation in your area, set up a mailing list and get the word out. FSF or FSF Europe will happily do this for you. Twelve months ago in Ireland, there was no software freedom group, but I got a list set up and now it has 80 members. We're working on the software patents issue, the IP enforcement directive, the EU Copyright Directive, setting up conference stalls, organising talks etc.

People want to help, they don't know where to start. So make a starting point and ask for help, then people realise that they have some useful contacts, knowledge, etc. Collaboration works better for politics as well as software.

Think about giving talks. This could be a good way to get the info to the masses. Most college computer societies run series of amateur talks and will accept all offers. I'm not a "people person", but I started giving talks when I saw that no one was talking about software patents, I put my name down to give a talk. This had the benefit of educating a room full of people, but it also lit a fire under me to make sure I knew enough not to make a fool of myself.

hmmm, more tomorrow. Your post sounds a lot like me 3 years ago, and it more deserving of an essay than an LWN post.

On laws, in general

Posted Jun 25, 2004 8:46 UTC (Fri) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link] (2 responses)

A quote from Kropotkin's article on Anarchism for The Encyclopaedia Britannica:

Laws, [Godwin] wrote, are not a product of the wisdom of our ancestors: they are the product of their passions, their timidity, their jealousies and their ambition. The remedy they offer is worse than the evils they pretend to cure. If and only if all laws and courts were abolished, and the decisions in the arising contests were left to reasonable men chosen for that purpose, real justice would gradually be evolved.

I feel this sentiment is relevant to the freedom-vs-bad-law problem.

On laws, in general

Posted Jul 1, 2004 11:49 UTC (Thu) by markhb (guest, #1003) [Link] (1 responses)

angdraug quoted:

Laws, [Godwin] wrote, are not a product of the wisdom of our ancestors: they are the product of their passions, their timidity, their jealousies and their ambition. The remedy they offer is worse than the evils they pretend to cure. If and only if all laws and courts were abolished, and the decisions in the arising contests were left to reasonable men chosen for that purpose, real justice would gradually be evolved.

I submit that quoting anarchist propaganda falls exactly into the category of comments ESR was talking about when he wrote:

FSF-style propaganda about freedom or user's rights has its uses occasionally, but it will register on this campaign's target audience of bottom-line-fixated IT managers as irrelevant or nutty. And when you look irrelevant or nutty, you hand Microsoft a victory.

Remember: regardless of what we say about corporations, the largest swing block of voters in the USA today is relatively comfortable suburban mothers ("soccer moms"). Those mothers, taken as a group, have as their overriding priority the safety of their children, and they are perfectly happy with any reasonable restrictions on freedom (read: PATRIOT Act) that appear to support that goal. Anarchist sentiments are about as far in opposition to that as one can possibly imagine. As I used to say in my Slashdot .sig,

Those who would surrender essential liberty for a little temporary security may deserve neither, but they tend to be the majority of voters.

On laws, in general

Posted Jul 1, 2004 15:38 UTC (Thu) by angdraug (subscriber, #7487) [Link]

I submit that quoting anarchist propaganda falls exactly into the category of comments ESR was talking about

What was quoted wasn't anarchist propaganda, it was anarchist analysis. And my impression is that LWN's audience is not "soccer moms", but mainly critically thinking IT professionals who can take an argument for its worth, without running away crying "gasp! anarchists!".

Those mothers, taken as a group, have as their overriding priority the safety of their children, and they are perfectly happy with any reasonable restrictions on freedom (read: PATRIOT Act) that appear to support that goal.

And that is the reason why anarchist analysis of laws is relevant: it demonstrates that it is not necessary to allow "soccer moms" and politicians to decide what's good for us.

Anarchist sentiments are about as far in opposition to that as one can possibly imagine.

Which further proves that these sentiments are correct. Unless you mean to say that opposition to bad laws like PATRIOT Act is wrong, of course.

Microsoft is not eveil because they are Microsoft

Posted Jun 24, 2004 17:47 UTC (Thu) by Ross (guest, #4065) [Link] (1 responses)

One thing about the language sticks out. It reads as if Microsoft is
inherently evil. Are we fighting against Microsoft's misdeeds or against
a logo?

Yes, the absolutely use unfair tactics and leverage their monopoly power
whenever they can get away with it. Their products aren't great and they
force changes on customers when it suits their needs. But that doesn't
mean the only way to "win" is to destroy them. If Microsoft were to start
playing nicely with others and improve their products there is no reason
to continue "fighting" them. (I'm not saying I have any hope that they
will reform, just that we should remember what the fight is really about.)

And Linux, Free Software, and open source can never be destroyed by
Microsoft's FUD. Yes, they could destroy our market share but we will
always be there waiting for them to falter. We would still affect the
industry by forcing them to produce better products at a lower price.
Microsoft might be able to destroy our market by outclassing us. In that
case what would be the problem? If cusomters were genuinely happier why
shouldn't they use Microsoft's products? (Again, I'm not saying that is
likely.)

This is not a war and there don't have to be a losing side. We certainly
don't have to worry about being completely obliterated.

What is a problem is Microsoft's influence on the governments of the
world, on the UN. That is a real threat. That is something which could
result in the death of the GPL, open source, etc. But again, it's not
all about Microsoft. There are many forces at work here including the
RIAA and MPAA.

Another point is that the "open source" guys don't necessarily understand
what business want any than the FSF. You'd think so, but they said that
businesses would never accept the GPL. Yet they are now embracing it.
Most businesses now prefer to use the GPL over other open source licenses.
So they may be wrong about freedom as well. Is freedom not important to
businesses? It means they will not be stuck if the vendor goes out of
business or stops supporting the product. It means another vendor can
compete which means lower service costs. It means they can do the work
in-house if they feel like it. It keeps their options open. At least to
me there are real, tangible benefits to Free Software.

The point about Free Software being confusing applies to open source as
well. Is Microsoft's Shared Source program Free Software? I don't think
so. Is it open source? Well, that depends on if you use the normal
meaning of the word or the one which is a euphemism for Free Software ;)

Microsoft is not evil because they are Microsoft

Posted Jun 29, 2004 16:39 UTC (Tue) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link]

No, they're not evil.

They're amoral.

It'a the natural result of being a public company.

But, from our viewpoint, we have to *treat* it as evil, since it has the same results. Micros~1's goal is the same as any other public company: maximize shareholder value. In any necessary fashion, lest the officers get canned and the directors sued.

And since the only practical way they can see to stay in business (going out of business tends to minimize shareholder value in the extreme) is to put F/OSS out of business, whether by competition, by legislation, or by painting us as terrorist-helpers and letting Justice do it, then yes, I agree with those who assert that it's a war.

Our not wanting to be in a war has little to nothing to do with whether it is one.

But, of course, it may just be me.

(Say it with me now :-) So many things are just me.

On dealing with Microsoft

Posted Jun 24, 2004 21:17 UTC (Thu) by Lorenzo (guest, #260) [Link]

I recall some politician say that the opposing candidate was not his enemy, but his opponent. Some say that Microsoft is the competition. I beg to disagree. Microsoft is the enemy. Nothing more and nothing less.

Looking at Microsoft's behavior shows them time and again to use "dirty tricks", unfair competition, and are, in the eyes of the law, a convicted felon.

Because of that, open sourcers had best look at Microsoft as a sworn enemy. We had best think of ways to comepletely destroy it. To imprison their officers and directors, impoverish their stockholders, and make public every line of their proprietary source. And to do as they are attempting to do to us: we should work to make the closed source business model illegal. Nothing less than total destruction of the Evil Empire will do.

If you think I'm fooling, you got me wrong. If you think I'm nuts, you might be right. But, that's the way I see it.

On dealing with Microsoft

Posted Jun 25, 2004 4:46 UTC (Fri) by a_hippie (guest, #34) [Link]

"A group of software developers and users who are pooling their effort to
supply themselves with the best software they can create, free of
restrictions, obnoxious licensing, hidden "features," etc.

A noble, if outgunned army, led by wizards, in an epic battle against the
dark forces of Mordor and the roving red eye of Steve Ballmer."

This is a great quote!

Thanks for the great article. It's stuff like this that makes me feel so
good about being a subscriber!

Wishing you well.

On dealing with Microsoft

Posted Jul 1, 2004 8:49 UTC (Thu) by job (guest, #670) [Link]

Thank you! Pieces like this are informed and part of an intellectual
debate. Something the web usually doesn't spoil us with :)

When the GPL is outlawed....

Posted Jul 1, 2004 16:48 UTC (Thu) by sphealey (guest, #1028) [Link]

While I am agreement with the sentiment of the editorial, there is a slight problem: I suspect that Microsoft is working to outlaw the GPL and/or Open Source software. And if that happens, won't matter if friendly free software programmers are plugging away in their garages; there won't be any way to distribute or use the result of their efforts.

That, I suspect, is what ESR is trying to warning against.

sPh