Clarifications

re: Clarifications

einhverfr — Fri, 25 May 2007 18:38:04 GMT

Communist:

What changed Microsoft was a series of antitrust suits starting, iirc, in 1995. The neverending threats of these suits, and what losing would entail, has kept Microsoft largely in check and prevented the worst of the offenses from repeating.

IANAL, but I understand that when a lawsuit is decided that a principle kicked in called "collateral estoppel" which means that any facts decided as a necessary part of the case may not be relitigated in other cases barring a change of circumstance. In short, if Microsoft wanted to argue that they no longer have market power, the burden of proof would be on them to show that this had changed, and they can no longer argue that they do not have a history of illegal maintenace of a monopoly.

In many ways the consent decree from the USDoJ vs. Microsoft represented one of the worst possible outcomes for the company. Although on appeal, some of the facts in the case were overturned and a portion of the judgement vacated, Microsoft was still found to have market power and to have illegally maintained that market power. And they were allowed to go on without any other fundamental changes of circumstance.

This means that Microsoft is very vulnerable to antitrust suits because the burden of proof against them is far lower than it might be against, say, Intel. As I say, Microsoft is assumed at least to have a Windows monopoly, and is shown to have a history of illegally maintaining that monopoly.

Had Microsoft been broken up into "Baby Bills," only one company might even have to answer to this legacy, but as they got a slap on the wrist and a promise not to do it again, all parts of the company have to be really careful. Also antitrust suits against Office and other departments almost have to be settled out of court simply because they cannot afford even the possibility of losing.

Also, this plays into the patent threat questions as well. Patents are not designed to allow companies to undermine the free market through antitrust violations.

In short, Microsoft has changed because they had to. They are now subject to a sort of legal blackmail I would not wish on anyone (my competition or otherwise). And they are in for some extraordinarily difficult times ahead.

re: Clarifications

communist — Fri, 25 May 2007 08:28:36 GMT

I guess we could both go on and on and we do have different opinions. I for one do not think/believe that MS has gotten better and will remain skeptical, I see no reason to trust them any more than a few years ago.

re: Clarifications

einhverfr — Fri, 25 May 2007 01:43:36 GMT

Communist:

I could go on and on about the Getthefacts campaign, and in particular the TCO figures. However, if you think they are still pulling tricks like the AARD code (look it up), you would be mistaken. Also the federal suit brought an end ot the rest of the really harsh methods employed by Microsoft to stifle competition (including ending the licensing requirements that forced OEM's to ship Windows).

Yes, a lot of really horrible crap went on at one point on a scale we probably haven't seen since the rise of The Bell Corporation. And *that* really horrible crap appears to be behind Microsoft now. Yes, we still see occasional FUD. Yes, we still see occasional problems. But they are not even in the same magnitude as they once were.

As for a summary of my view on the Getthefacts campaign, I regularly use quotes and figures from those studies to *promote* Free/Open Source software and Linux because, while the raw data in the studies matches my experience, my experience with *my* customers suggests that the conclusions are way off.

re: Clarifications

communist — Thu, 24 May 2007 23:26:19 GMT

einhverfr this is all nice and dandy and only idealists would ask random people on the net to drop their current work and look for a more 'ethical' on. This is not the point however. The problem is MS has not changed much from after that Caldera case, they're still muddying the waters by funding with shady getthefacts crap, abusing their monopoly to establish another (MS vs EU) etc.:

http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2007/01/an_interesting_offer.html

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-513089.html?legacy=zdnn

http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/non_broadcast/Adjudication+Details.htm?adjudication_id=38475

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39155268,00.htm

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/13046.html

re: Clarifications

einhverfr — Thu, 24 May 2007 20:26:57 GMT

Zap-bang;

I can't speak for Mr. Hilf, but my experience at Microsoft would suggest that those who criticize people for working there just because of who their employer is are being blinded by some sort of strong feeling.

I worked at Microsoft during the time when Caldera v. Microsoft was working its way through pre-trail hearings and I bothered to read all the decisions. That did provoke a crisis of conscience for me but in the end, most of the really horrible behavior documented in that suit (during the Windows 3.0-3.1 days) had ceased and I felt that Microsoft gave me the tools to make a difference and help prevent more problems like that.

When I worked for Microsoft, I always put my conscience above policy and there were times when I broke policy in order to keep customers (and hence my employer) from being hurt by poorly thought-out policies. Everything I did respect was that these efforts were positively appreciated by the management and rather than subject to disciplinary action, they were taken as a good thing.

In at least one point, I systematically broke one policy because I was empowered to do so for the customer. I continued to do so after senior management had weighed in because their recommendation cost us more than my solution and did not serve customers as well.

Other cases involved me providing technical support for Linux on company time in order to recover from damage caused by other support engineers. Also against policy, but done with appropriate disclaimers ("This is against policy because I am the only one here with this expertise. So I am going to help you but please don't expect this again.") and was also looked favorably on by management. In short, I was empowered to do what I ultimately felt was right for the company and the customer, something that is not frequently found in many other companies today.

Sure I also had my share of "you bleeping monopolist" contacts from customers, but you know what? I ignored that.

As one who has spoken to reporters in the past about my own business, I can say that it is not unreasonable for me to expect that Mr Hilf was misunderstood (I have had reporters here in the US misrepresent things that I say, and here I am guessing that English was a second language to the reporters so that may have contributed). At the same time, it also highlights the the importance of being careful how you frame a message so that it cannot be easily misunderstood.

re: Clarifications

zap-bang — Mon, 21 May 2007 08:15:21 GMT

I am having some problems getting to sleep at night, and I thought I'd ask Hilf what he uses - because it must be powerful.

Taking money from a convicted monopolist to aid in their FUD-campaigns isn't killing babies, but it's not exactly ethical either. If people get upset about people calling these guys frauds, don't be so sad. They are being well compensated with nice salaries etc. If they went elsewhere and to an ethical company and took a salary that was 10% less.... you would be asking them to give up 10% of their salary to not work for an evil convicted monopolist. You can't ask a man to take a pay cut to be ethical, that's just not *ethical* in our society.

to gapingvoid

ohboy — Sun, 20 May 2007 11:28:30 GMT

Thank you, gapingvoid, for proving my point. Much appreciated.

re: Clarifications

gapingvoid — Sun, 20 May 2007 02:38:46 GMT

Thank you, ohboy, for proving my point ;-)

to daivid meyer III

ohboy — Sat, 19 May 2007 14:09:27 GMT

Thanks David. Appreciate that. Have a nice weekend as well.

re: Clarifications

davidmeyer — Sat, 19 May 2007 13:30:33 GMT

OK...well, we're not going to agree on this, but hopefully we can part as friends. I'm probably not doing a good job of voicing my point, but I understand your positions...and I respect them. At least we had a good debate. Have a good weekend all.

to gapingvoid

ohboy — Sat, 19 May 2007 12:03:14 GMT

Well the people that "never got over high school" have sharp eyesight and are intelligent.

In contrast, the people that got over high school are blind and dump.

It are the people that "never got over high school" that care. It is the people that "never got over high school" that make a difference. It are the people that "never got over high school" that have an impact. It are the people that "never got over high school" that make a difference. It are the people that "never got over high school" that change the course of events. It are the people that "never got over high school" that are remembered.

In contrast, the people that got over high school are not noticed. During their lives, nobody is aware of their existance and when the cease to exist, nobody noctices there absence. The people that got over high school are gaping voids indeed.

to daivid meyer II

ohboy — Sat, 19 May 2007 03:32:05 GMT

As demonstared by my previous post, Bill's public statements are consistent of Microsoft's agenda to kill OSS and inconssistent with the assertion that Bill wants to promote Open Source.

Now, what Bill's intentions and Bill's beliefs are, I can't tell.

What's sure is that it is not in Microsoft interest to promote OSS. Therfeore, it is not in Microsoft's interest to hire someone to promote OSS.

Rather than begging us to "stop beating Bill", you could argue why are positions don't hold up to reallity. You get started by arguing why it is in the interest of a monopolist to promote OSS. Good luck.

re: PCWORLD

ohboy — Sat, 19 May 2007 03:20:09 GMT

I just read http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131947-c,opensource/article.html, and sorry to say Bill, though you appear to me to be an ok person, you seem to me to be a gentle, warm blooded, kind of person with a touch of vulnarability, and I like that kind of people, all my friends are, I am myself, but from what I read there as a Microsoft spokesperson you are just pathetic. It is just.... pathetic. At least the Steve Ballmer's and Brad Smith's, and what have you, come up with decent spin. Spin that is at least credible to the casual observer. Are you sure you'd rather slept a weekend over it to come up with something better?

What is all this talk about 'growing the ecosystem'? What is all this talk about interoptability? What is all this talk about 'resolving IP issues'? What is all this talk about 'building bridges to OSS'? What is all this talk about the 'years it took Microsoft to build a bridge to OSS'?

Building bridges to, being interoptable with OSS is basically just trivial. It's all out in the open out there. Many OSS projects have public mailinglist where every soul on this planet having a computer and an Internet connection can subscribe to. If you want to make, for example, some OSS project, say, OpenOffice, more compatible with your own office product, well just plug in into the OpenOffice public mailing list, just download the latest OpenOffice source code, it's called Open Source for a reason, you know, start coding, and debuging and coding and testing and coding and testing, and then, when you are satisfied with your work, you can create a patch containing only the differences from the stuff that you downloaded and the end result of your labour and submit that patch to the mailing list and the fruits of your work will be incorprated in the source code repository. Many Open Source projects have version control system ready to be accessed from any corner of the world that greatly simplify this download of the latest version and submiting of am improvement to it. And the next version of OpenOffice will contain the fruits of your hard work, and the next version of OpenOffice will thus be more interoptable with Microsoft Office. It's called Open Source for a reason, Bill. That's how it works. Many companies and individuals have built this bridge to OSS before. And building this bridge to OSS, hooking into to a public mailing list, and downloading the latest source code, took them a few hours at most.

Or you could just port your own products to run on Linux. You could just rewrite portion of the code underlying, say, Microsoft Office to run on Linux as well as on Windows. And you can keep your product propriatery just fine. Many companies have done so before. For instance, Oracle has a Linux version of it's enterprise database system, and it keeps its source code secret just fine. And nobody has a problem with that.

Or you could make your own products more interoptable with Open Source offerings. You know, everything is based on Open Standards, and if your developers are in doubt, are confused or just puzzled over what they read in these Open Standard documents, there's allways the OSS projects source code for reference, and there is allways the public mailing lists to have your developers ask questions to have their confusion resolved. You know, Bill, its called Open Source for a reason. For instance, this way, you could make Microsft Office interopt with OpenOffice by implementing the ODF Open Standard just fine.

Or you could just make your own OSS project. Just code and code and test and debug and code and test and test and than you can just publish the fruits of your work on the Internet under a license of your choosing.

And given the fact that Microsoft has well over 50 billion dollars in cash in the bank and that Chinese, Indian and Eastern European developers are dirt cheap and damn good, all this coding, debuging and testing should be peanuts to Microsoft.

And when Microsoft patents are in the way of achieving its objective of inetroptability and bruidge buiilding to OSS, Microsoft has a plethora of options. It could dedicate them, like AT&T did with its suid bit patent. It could license them like IBM did with its RCU patent, it could issue a patent covenant like SUN Microsystems did with its OpenOffice related patent.

Now, we all know that the US patent system is in a kind of sorry state. We all know that the US Patent Office grants overly broad, obvious and non-inventive patents. Patents that thus should not have been granted in the first place. And we all now that Microsoft holds quite a bit of overly broad, obvious and non-inventive patents.

Now, Bill, didn't a Microsoft official in recent days say that Microsoft refused to specify what the 235 patents Microsft claims to have over OSS out of fear that the OSS community might chalenge them? Now, Bill, is that a position of a company that is confident that these patents are specific, non-obvious and inventive or is that the position of a company that is afraid that these 235 patents fall in the overly broad, obvious and non-inventive category, and thus shouldn't have been granted in the first place and thus do not constitute much of "Intelectual Property?" Now, Bill, if these 235 patents that Open Source software treds on, don't constitute IP worth speaking of, and thus are basically worthless, and if interoptability with and bridge building to Open Source Software is so important to Microsoft why not license them IBM style? The RCU patent that licensed was a real one, RCU was a real invention and IBM gave it basically away. Or why not issue a patent covenant SUN style? Why can't Microsoft give something that is wortheless to begin with away? If interoptability with OSS and building bridges to it so an important goal to it, giving something worthless away seems like a rather small price to pay, doesn't it? 'Resloving IP issues' is thus a mater hardly worth speaking of, a triviality.

In conclusion, this 'building bridges to', 'interopting with', OSS, 'resolving IP issues' should be a rather simple, painless and cheap process. These bridgebuilding should have taken Microsoft only a few ours, not years.

Let's have a look at the the solution Microsoft came up with to 'build bridges to', 'interopt with OSS'. Let's have a look with how Microsoft 'resolved IP issues'. Let's look why it took them years, not hours, to 'build' this 'bridge'.

Recently Microsoft struck a deal with Open Source distributor Novell. And they agreed to work on Microsoft - Open Source interoptability and then Microsoft wanted Novell promissing not to sue Microsoft custumors over Novell's patent portfolio and Microsoft promising not to sue Novell's customers over its patent potrfolio as part of the deal. And thus they agreed. And microsoft wants, and gets, coupons from Novell, that can be exchanged with Novell for a fine Novell Linux dvd.

Now, much of the Open Source that Novell distributes is covered by this copyright license called the GPL. The basic idea of this license being that when you receive a work licensed under the GPL, you may modify and redistribute it, subject to the condition that you apply the very same conditions, i.e. the GPL, on the resulting work, including the midifications and that when you release an executable version of the work, you are obliged to make the corresponding source code available. And there is a provision in the GPL that effectively mean that in the case one holds patents on a modifications one implicitly licenses them.

Now this GPL is for a company that likes to kill competing offerings by bringing incompatible versions to the market, a compatitive tool that Microsoft calls Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, a bit of a hurdle. Say, Microsoft wants to kill this competing offering that is called Linux by means of bringing an incompatible version to the market. It downloads the source code, no sweat, as Linux is covered by the GPL, its source code is therfore readily available. Now Microsoft starts adding its own, incompatible, extensions, compiles the resulting work into an executable program and releases the resulting, incompatible with mainstream Linux, executable program to the world. Confusion in the market place. End of Linux. But wait, Microsoft is obliged to make the source code of the incompatible version of Linux available, under the GPL. Thus the source code of its incompatible modifications are available under the GPL, Microsoft patents are implicitly licensed, and thus can be included in the mainstream version of Linux. And thus the once differing, incompatable versions of Linux are one and the same and fully compatible again.

It thus comes as now surprise that Microsoft has in the past been saying all kind of nasty things about the GPL. 'viral', 'cancer', 'pacman', 'eats all of your intelectual property away', 'very, very unfair'.

It thus also does not come as a surprise that Microsoft, mainly through its Brad Smith, has pressured the legitimate copyright holders of Linux to change the license conditions undetr which they publish the fruits of their labour to the terms of the BSD license, a license that gives room for this Embrace, Extend and Extinguish game with ease. "We are reaching out to you, we want to cooperate with you, we want to ineteropt with you, and this all means that we have to rethink the way we license our intelectual propert with eachother."

Now, back to the Microsoft-Novell deal. Let's look what happens to the GPL covered open source code that Novell distributes over time. Microsoft and Novell start coding and coding and debuging and testing and more coding on all kind of wonderful interoptability projects. And all of their wonderful modifications are included in the Linux source code, and other GPL covered works that Microsoft distributes. And all these wonderful modifications are infected with Microsoft patents. Now, that's not a problem for Novell's customers. They are covered by Microsoft's promise. But wait. Could all of these wonderful, Microsoft patent infected, modifications be included in the mainstream Linux source code? RedHat custumers are not covered by Microsoft's promise not to sue over its patent portfolio, neither are corporations and individuals that obtain Linxu from sources other than Novell. Well, no. Users of mainstream Linux would need to fear Microsoft patent litigation. End because Microsft does not distribute Linux, it just sells coupons, Novell is, the implicit patent license provision of the GPL does not kick in. Wait, at the end of the day you have two, incompatible, versions of linux in the market place.

But wait. Two incompatible versions of a competing offering in the market place, the base product, and a enhanced one, well, that's, that is just the good old, Embrace, Extend and Extinguish that Microsoft so loves.

And now we see what this why it took Microsoft so many years to 'build this bridge'. It took them years to find a loophole in the GPL. We now see what this 'bridgebuilding to the GPL' means: finding a loophole, that's why it took the so long. We now see what 'resolving IP issues' in actuality means: Microsoft using its patent portfolio to infringe the copyrights of others. We now see what 'working on interoptability' in actuality means: infected with Microsoft patent.

And indeed, recently, when the latest draft of the GPLv3 was released, a release that fixes this loophole, a Microsoft representative expressed his bitter disapointment that under the GPLv3 "Microsoft was no longer able to strike Microsoft-Novell like agreements". Which is nonsense, except that, under a GPLv3 regime, a patent pledge has to be extended to all recepients of a work, nut just a company's customers. Thereby losing the abililty to Embrace, Extend and Extiguish.

And you Bill, have the nerve to say in public that there is not a hidden agenda? Bill you are a amployee of a criminal monoply. You are every bit a crinminal as Stteve Ballmer, Bras Smith, and what other tumors you have within Microsoft.

You see, Bill, it's been enough. 25 of dirty tricks.. it's just been enough. You want to kill us? Let's turn the tables this time. How about we are going to kill you, this time. You killed many competitors, now it is Microsoft's turn.

re: Clarifications

gapingvoid — Sat, 19 May 2007 01:08:10 GMT

Re. some of the previous comments...

One always wonders where the people who "never got over high school" eventually end up. And now we know. Hurrah!

re: Clarifications

dangerpossum — Sat, 19 May 2007 00:50:37 GMT

Sorry David Meyer,

I think you missed my (and perhaps Ohboy's, but I won't deign to speak for him) point. I don't care what Bill Hilf "was" - open source supporter or otherwise. He represents a corporation who are diametrically opposed to everything open source stands for. By representing Microsoft, he is fundamentally undermining his credibility in the open source community. His own personal motivations are unfortunately irrelevant because the motivations of his employer are so completely clear: maximise profits for shareholders by maintaining an illegal (but unpunished) monopoly. The problem is this: Microsoft's corporate policy is to break the law and disregard ethics where doing so is more profitable than not doing so. Therein lies the fundamental problem. Microsoft are an amoral organisation. Those who choose to do Microsoft's work are unfortunately pawns in its activities, and regardless of their personal philosophies, to the degree that the promote Microsoft's disingenuous attempts to *appear* pro collaboration, are simply sullying their own reputations. Because history shows the Microsoft cannot be trusted with anything but maximising profit (without qualms for any legal or ethical breaches that might be required to do so). Microsoft, for better or worse (I'd argue the latter) has a major influence in the world simply because they control such a disproportionate amount of wealth. As a result, all too often their word goes unchallenged. The injustice that their deceit imposes on hard working, innovative, passionate people who do not work for Microsoft (which, as it happens, is the vast majority of of hard working innovative people), is something which raises my ire and moves me to speak out. I believe that Microsoft is a blight on the world and deserves nothing other than scorn (as you might have gathered from my previous posts).