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Date:      Tue, 19 Jun 2001 01:40:48 -0700
From:      "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com>
To:        "David Johnson" <djohnson@acuson.com>, "Giorgos Keramidas" <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>
Cc:        <freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   RE: Microsoft and FreeBSD, as reported in the Wall Street Journal
Message-ID:  <003601c0f89b$8a362f00$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>
In-Reply-To: <3B2E7DB7.C0BF8429@acuson.com>

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Ted Mittelstaedt                      tedm@toybox.placo.com
Author of:          The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide
Book website:         http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com


>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
>[mailto:owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of David Johnson
>Sent: Monday, June 18, 2001 3:16 PM
>To: Giorgos Keramidas
>Cc: freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
>Subject: Re: Microsoft and FreeBSD, as reported in the Wall Street
>Journal
>
>
>Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
>
>> The fact that he *does* begin his article speaking about Open Source
>> in general though, is important.  No, he does not explicitly mention
>> BSD.  Nowhere in his article, the word BSD can be found.  However,
>> bashing Open Source in general (even if after a while, it turns out to
>> a GPL bashing contest), does harm to all Open Source projects, in my
>> humble opinion.
>
>This is very important to note, and I'm glad you made the effort to
>clarify it. Microsoft is using smoke-and-mirrors and classic FUD to
>discredit all of open source, including the BSD license and all software
>under it. They took a part of open source and labelled it as the whole.
>The public won't know the difference, but Microsoft sure did.
>

But, many in the GPL community have already tried taking GPL and labelling
it as the Whole Open Source so Microsoft isn't doing anything that hasn't
already been attempted by some people in GPL.

Anyway, Crag doesen't start out bashing Open Source.  (the speech is here:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/craig/05-03sharedsource.asp read it
for yourself)  What he starts out doing is bashing business models that
give away their intellectual property for free.

In case you missed it, the FreeBSD Project is not a business model.  Even
Red Hat is not really a business model that does this - because they don't
create
Linux they just repackage it.  In fact the businesses that really match
this description are all the failed dot-coms.  Craig even says this!

Anyway, the entire first part of Craig's speech is basically a lead in to
rah-rahing the Microsoft.NET strategy, (whatever that is supposed to be)
It's
the same old bullcrap of how everyone's going to make a million dollars from
taking their businesses onto the Internet, and by the way there's this neat
Microsoft software you just need to have to do it.  Oh, and yes you probably
read
about all the failed dot coms that already tried this and it didn't work,
but
guess what we have this new an improved idea that you should actually charge
people on the Internet for your products instead of givig them away.
Whoop-de-do,
there's not anything here that a C-average business student couldn't have
told you.  In short, if you set out to create a commercial entity that is
supposed
to create products to make a profit, then you should charge real money to
the
customers of those products.

Then, his speech moves into a bunch of rah-rahing the Microsoft Shared
Source.
Nothing new here, he just restates the program that they have already been
doing
for some time through the universities.

So, basically what we have here is his not only does his speech start out
but
but a significant portion of it is a bunch of "rah, rah, buy Microsoft"
There's
no Open Source bashing there.

The reason for it being this way, of course is that the first part is for
the general populace because most people today are so God-damned lazy that
they won't even read
entirely through a 3000 word speech posted on the Internet, and in the
audience of people
that were listening to the speech most of them have fallen asleep by now.

It's not until you get deep in the speech that the Open Source bashing
starts up.  But,
there is only a SINGLE _general_ bash at Open Source, which is that it
might create a lot of unhealthy forking.  This is, of course, rediculous
because
that hasn't happened, and furthermore if you want to talk about forking,
just look
at all the different versions of Windows out there now that developers need
to keep
track of when they develop.

Right after the fork bash, though, is when Microsoft starts bashing the GPL.
And,
far from what you say about taking part of open source and labelling it the
whole,
Craig takes pains to separate GPL and Open Source with phrases like:

"..open source software based on the GPL.."

Then, he moves on to this surprising statement:

"..Finally, the fact that we believe strongly in the value of IP protection
doesn’t mean that we discount the importance of contributing to and
supporting the public domain of knowledge as well. We believe that
interaction between the public domain and the IP-based sector needs to be
based on mutual responsibility and respect..."

Now, I'm sorry but the BSD license _is_ the "public domain of knowledge",
despite what columnists and pundits say.  If it looks like a duck, walks
like a duck and quacks like a duck.. remember that!  There's no operational
difference between what people MEAN when they talk about "Public Domain" and
what the BSD license says.  Craig even says this much when he then goes on
to say:

"..There is an important and longstanding tradition for the public domain of
knowledge, or "intellectual commons." .."

Note that he isn't using the legal terminology of the capitalized "Public
Domain" he is talking about "the public domain of knowledge"  Craig is
speaking to the people that use the term Public Domain to mean not only the
BSD license but the X license as well as their own made-up licenses that are
basically copies of the BSD one.

>I'm already seeing rumblings of Microsoft's next attack, which will
>utilize a divide-and-conquer strategy. Pit the various OSS advocates
>against each other. This is very easy to imagine. Have Microsoft come
>out with a clarification of their OSS stance, praising the BSD license
>while at the same time condeming the GPL. If you think the rift is bad
>now, wait until Bill Gates publicly chooses sides.
>

Consider this:  in a fight between Linux/GPL and Microsoft, who would
benefit more by the BSD people siding with the GPL people against Microsoft?
Would it be BSD, or would it be...GPL?  And, do you honestly think that
Microsoft cares one way or another what
side that BSD chooses to support?  How would splitting off us from GPL help
Microsoft?
I know it's humbling but we just don't represnt that big a chunk of the
market compared to Linux.  Expending effort splitting us off won't gain them
the same advantage that
spending that effort directly fighting the GPL would.

In short, it is clear that the GPL is what's under attack here.  It's also
fairly clear that Microsoft has taken some pains to do the dance between
condemming the GPL and congradulating BSD - while they don't come right out
and say "BSD" in Craig's speech,
it's very clear that this is what they mean if you read between the lines.
All the Wall Street article does is confirm this.

What is less clear is how will siding with GPL benefit BSD.  It's quite
obvious that what people like Kirk McKusick fear is what your saying here -
that when Microsoft finishes off GPL that they are going to turn around on
BSD.  That is why he is perpetuating the myth that Microsoft isn't
discriminating between BSD and Linux.  But, if you look closely at what
Microsoft is saying you will find that they are indeed currently
discriminating between BSD and GPL.

I don't believe that it's in BSD's interest to join forces with Microsoft
against the GPL (although I can't say the same for many of the GPL
advocates, most of whom don't seem to like to admit that BSD exists) but I
also think that it's less clear that there's benefit to BSD to immediately
jump in and side with GPL against Microsoft.  It's very clear that
joining GPL will benefit GPL, but I simply don't see much benefit to BSD.
The idea that Microsoft is going to "finish off the GPL" is pretty
rediculous to start with, in fact by fighting against GPL Microsoft is
giving a tremendous amount of free advertising to Linux that they never
would have gotten, and also besides that it's giving a veneer of legitimacy
to GPL.  Everyone expects Microsoft to rail against their competitors and
Microsoft has been doing it for so long now that most people don't put the
credibility into Microsoft bashing a competitor that they used to do.

Fundamentally, Linux is going to turn into Microsoft's Vietnam.  Obviously
they hate GPL
and feel duty bound to fight against it - but it's an unwinnable battle that
is going to suck their energy for years because there is simply no central
corporation that they can force into bankruptcy.  Ultimately all the GPL
bashing that Microsoft is doing is simply going to help convince some people
and companies to look more closely at BSD.

Consider one more thing too - the computer industry has had a history of
lifting the God of standardization above all others.  In the server game
first it was IBM then Novell then Microsoft and now it's looking more and
more like Linux.  Always, we overthrow one Dark Lord and sit another baby on
the throne that in 10 years just grows into another Dark Lord that has to be
overthrown.  It's fucking stupid.  What we should be aiming for is a market
that is split 20% Windows, 20% BSD, 20% Linux, 20% MacOS and 20% Other where
no one company has the capability of dominating the industry.  This would by
far be the most healthy and would fundamentally promote competition and
would pour interface standards into stone so we wouldn't have all these
stupid incompatabilities.  If Microsoft can cut 30% of the users off of
Linux and push them over to BSD then they will have done more good for the
market than anyone could do.

>David
>
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