... some years ago I was hired to help the UK Cabinet Office understand how they could use open source both in their IT environments and as a way to avoid vendor lock-in.
While the politicians understood full well what open-source like licenses could do for them, the civil service was an entirely different matter. It was like an episode of Yes Minister, only it lasted months and the decor was mid-70's avantgarde (thing orange seating, green carpets and lots of white plastic), not classically English.
Anyway, the civil servants would not (and perhaps could not) see how open source licenses were better than Crown Copyright. After all, Crown Copyright gave them all the rights and everyone else nothing, what could be better?
I wish good luck to The Right Honorable gentlemen and ladies in Westminster, but unless they convince the Sir Humphreys' of the world that it's a good idea, it's a complete non-starter.
"Whereas a previous parliamentary commission told the entertainment industry that they should innovate before any such ban would be introduced, this government decision turns it around, saying they'll make it illegal first in order to stimulate motivation."
The source talks about blocking access to stimulation innovation - the title is "Copyright must be stimulant for creativity and innovation" (auteursrecht moet stimulans zijn voor creativiteit en innovatie)
... or perhaps even the largest - people also used FidoNet extensively. I was running an import/export company at the time and we specialized in sending consumer goods to the former Soviet Union. FidoNet was one of the only reliable ways to communicate as it could take days to get a phone line.
Quite frankly, I don't remember anyone using Usenet - all the communications I ever heard off and did were through FidoNet. Even CNN was using FidoNet to file reports...
AFAIK, most Usenet servers were in universities, not exactly bastions of independence at the time, while FidoNet was largely run by independent volunteers. But what do I know ;-)
I've done both (transmission and really small electronics). I have a bench full of electronics testing & manufacturing equipment (more than any Apple repair facility... I seriously doubt they have reflow ovens) and a shop full of CNC machines capable of making pretty much any part in any piece of machinery new or old.
Are you telling me that I can't fixing [insert widget here] I bought or at least break it trying?
Sorry, no. That's just a stupid attitude. Esp. since I have all the tools to _machine_ a bit for the 'security' screws...
"ter·ror·ism
/ˈtɛrəˌrɪzəm/ Show Spelled[ter-uh-riz-uhm]
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government. "
Mission accomplished, apparently. People are intimated, coerced and in a state of fear & submission.
and stupid. Newsweek has quite a few content partnerships, and I regularly read their stuff when it appears at the MSNBC website. I've never been to the Daily Beast website (and probably never will).
It's too bad, Newsweek was better than Time, IMHO. I guess there's always the Economist.
4. You have apparently never encountered dependency hell, I have and it's getting worse. TPB on Ubuntu 10. Or upgrading something that requires a new version of zlib (BTDT).
Your assertion that porting things is trivial just shows a lack of experience in actually doing the work.
Yes, and try getting support for either one of those.
Sorry, it's not worth crashing a $500k machine running and destroying a $17k tool just to prove a point.
In most businesses, the cost of licensing Windows is pretty insignificant. MasterCam costs upwards of $20k and SolidWorks is easily $5k.
Look, I spent 10 years getting all kinds of companies to use open source, from the US gov't to F100's to startups. Sometimes you have to recognize that open source is not the right solution and move on.
Configuring and compiling is NOT porting. Chances are most of the cross-platform heavy lifting has already been done for you as the app was obviously designed to be portable from the beginning.
Running DotNetNuke on Linux was never going to be easy and porting native desktop apps is hairy at best. Just look at the message about Ubuntu 10 on the Transmission download page. And I'll be you'd have trouble running Bean (a very good GPL word processor) on Windows or Paint.NET (open source) on Linux....
Never mind the fact that just cross-installing apps from one Linux distro to another can be a huge pain, never mind trying to port from one OS to another. The fact that you even have to re-compile apps is a sad statement as to the state of the Linux desktop.... It was one of the things we were trying to address when I was helping the Linux Foundation, but it's actually worse now than it was back then...
My point was that it's much easier to find heterogeneous local sources of support for either Windows or even Mac than it is for Linux, at least on the desktop side of things.
From what I can tell, you're just reinforcing my point while also underscoring that MSFT has created a certain standard for knowledge (what ever you think of the cert, it's something people without tech knowledge can look for...).
"I don't permit Microsoft products in any of my operations"
That is just as stupid as being an all MSFT shop. Not choosing the best tool for the job for religious reasons is doing a disfavor to the people who are obliged to use the tools....
Never mind the fact that you are making your users dependent on your support as the vast majority of tech/infrastructure support is Windows oriented.
Well, I have a Mac with iWork, NeoOffice (a Mac-specific fork of OO) and MS Office.
MS Office pretty much blows the others out of the water. Keynote is very good, but most people still generate PPTs, so it's only ever worth using for preso's I'm never going to share.
Besides, if you are a large corp., the cost of re-training people to use something else far outweighs any cost of the software. Never mind the fact that there are some things for which there are no open source alternatives (try running SolidWorks or MasterCam on Linux or Mac).
Besides, quite a few open source apps are amazingly crappy, even worse than what MSFT offers for free...
Too true. Even if the specific MSFT requirement is removed from the RFP, the favored vendor will still win.
Mind you, it might not be all that bad in this case as retraining thousands of workers to use Google Apps instead of what they have been using for years might be a bit of a cost. Nevermind all that data on Google servers rather than gov't. desktops.
Since I can't edit my post, I should make it clear that I was talking about typical early stage angel terms.
They are all in a similar range, YC does $12k for 6%, others are doing $250k for 30% (which is, ironically, better than YC's terms), and it's all very expensive money for entrepreneurs.
Honestly, it would be MUCH cheaper just to max out credit cards and sell all your stuff.
Let's see - $250,000k for 30% of your company? That's what someone I know was recently offered...
It's a great deal for Phil, not so much for you, the entrepreneur. Sure, he's published a lot, and I'll give him credit for open sourcing some legal docs, but it doesn't mean he's god's gift to entrepreneurs.
In fact, I would say that off the 70+ startups I've advised, pretty much none of the founders got good deals. Why? Because venture money of any kind is pretty much always a bad deal for entrepreneurs.
As an aside, I don't think that YC has been the primary driver of changes in startup investing, they were just the first to capitalize on wider industry changes.
This has been going on for years, and not just with angels. Everyone always compares notes on companies and asks about what they are interested or working on. I don't know how many times I've been in VC meetings where one or more of these topics are discussed.
It's not usually this structured (and I have my doubts as to whether is was actually this structured), but most investors always seem to come back to the same themes of backstabbing successful firms, lowering valuations and keeping outsiders away from good deals.
As for Y Combinator, their deals always seem to be pretty crappy for entrepreneurs, but no crappier than everyone elses. They do seem to have better PR, however.
... in 1086, William the Conqueror used the Doomsday book to gather data about all assets in England and, in the process, made sure that assets were transferred from Anglo-Saxons to Normans. The data gathering methods were open hearings, which had the side-effect of making sure that everyone knew which Anglo-Saxons were challenging Norman rule.
Fast forward 1000 years, and it seems a similar open process is being used to disenfranchise people with less power.
On the post: Does It Make Sense For Governments To Make Their Content Creative Commons... Or Fully Public Domain?
Crown Copyright...
While the politicians understood full well what open-source like licenses could do for them, the civil service was an entirely different matter. It was like an episode of Yes Minister, only it lasted months and the decor was mid-70's avantgarde (thing orange seating, green carpets and lots of white plastic), not classically English.
Anyway, the civil servants would not (and perhaps could not) see how open source licenses were better than Crown Copyright. After all, Crown Copyright gave them all the rights and everyone else nothing, what could be better?
I wish good luck to The Right Honorable gentlemen and ladies in Westminster, but unless they convince the Sir Humphreys' of the world that it's a good idea, it's a complete non-starter.
Chris.
Notes:
Yes Minister - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister
Sir Humphrey - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Appleby
On the post: Dutch Gov't Speaks Out Against Exporting Internet Filters; Then Introduces National Internet Filter
I think you mean innovation not motivation
The source talks about blocking access to stimulation innovation - the title is "Copyright must be stimulant for creativity and innovation" (auteursrecht moet stimulans zijn voor creativiteit en innovatie)
On the post: How The 1991 'Usenet Revolution' In Moscow Predates The 'Twitter Revolution' Claims
Wasn't the only channel...
Quite frankly, I don't remember anyone using Usenet - all the communications I ever heard off and did were through FidoNet. Even CNN was using FidoNet to file reports...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FidoNet
AFAIK, most Usenet servers were in universities, not exactly bastions of independence at the time, while FidoNet was largely run by independent volunteers. But what do I know ;-)
Chris
On the post: Apple Using Special New Screws So You Can't Open Your iPhone
Re: Re: Re: Re: Device over user
Are you telling me that I can't fixing [insert widget here] I bought or at least break it trying?
Sorry, no. That's just a stupid attitude. Esp. since I have all the tools to _machine_ a bit for the 'security' screws...
On the post: TSA Agents Absolutely Hate New Pat Downs, Find Them Disgusting And Morale Breaking
Sad day for the USA
"ter·ror·ism
/ˈtɛrəˌrɪzəm/ Show Spelled[ter-uh-riz-uhm]
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government. "
Mission accomplished, apparently. People are intimated, coerced and in a state of fear & submission.
On the post: Newsweek Merges With The Daily Beast... To Shut Down Newsweek?
Wierd
It's too bad, Newsweek was better than Time, IMHO. I guess there's always the Economist.
Chris.
On the post: Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Efforts: Millions Spent Driving People To Open Source Software
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
1. I've been using Linux for 15 years
2. My mom had a laptop running Linux in 1998 - she now uses a Mac ;-)
3. http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/Group-to-Divide-Linux-Standards-Base/ (yep, that's me)
4. You have apparently never encountered dependency hell, I have and it's getting worse. TPB on Ubuntu 10. Or upgrading something that requires a new version of zlib (BTDT).
Your assertion that porting things is trivial just shows a lack of experience in actually doing the work.
Chris.
On the post: Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Efforts: Millions Spent Driving People To Open Source Software
Re: Re: Re: Same old debate
Sorry, it's not worth crashing a $500k machine running and destroying a $17k tool just to prove a point.
In most businesses, the cost of licensing Windows is pretty insignificant. MasterCam costs upwards of $20k and SolidWorks is easily $5k.
Look, I spent 10 years getting all kinds of companies to use open source, from the US gov't to F100's to startups. Sometimes you have to recognize that open source is not the right solution and move on.
Chris.
On the post: Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Efforts: Millions Spent Driving People To Open Source Software
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Running DotNetNuke on Linux was never going to be easy and porting native desktop apps is hairy at best. Just look at the message about Ubuntu 10 on the Transmission download page. And I'll be you'd have trouble running Bean (a very good GPL word processor) on Windows or Paint.NET (open source) on Linux....
Never mind the fact that just cross-installing apps from one Linux distro to another can be a huge pain, never mind trying to port from one OS to another. The fact that you even have to re-compile apps is a sad statement as to the state of the Linux desktop.... It was one of the things we were trying to address when I was helping the Linux Foundation, but it's actually worse now than it was back then...
Chris.
On the post: Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Efforts: Millions Spent Driving People To Open Source Software
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
My point was that it's much easier to find heterogeneous local sources of support for either Windows or even Mac than it is for Linux, at least on the desktop side of things.
From what I can tell, you're just reinforcing my point while also underscoring that MSFT has created a certain standard for knowledge (what ever you think of the cert, it's something people without tech knowledge can look for...).
????
On the post: Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Efforts: Millions Spent Driving People To Open Source Software
Re: Re: Re:
Sure, you could write a wxPython app that might work across different platforms if you are very careful, but most apps are not written this way.
The fallback would be a Java, but most large desktop apps are written in native code for good reasons.
Chris.
On the post: Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Efforts: Millions Spent Driving People To Open Source Software
Re:
MSFT Mkt cap 231.08B # Shares 8.56B
Total Current Assets $59.6B
RHT Mkt cap 8.26B # Shares 190.58M
Total Current Assets $1.2B
No, sorry. MSFT could buy 6 RHT's in cash. Please try again.
On the post: Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Efforts: Millions Spent Driving People To Open Source Software
Re: Re: Re:
That is just as stupid as being an all MSFT shop. Not choosing the best tool for the job for religious reasons is doing a disfavor to the people who are obliged to use the tools....
Never mind the fact that you are making your users dependent on your support as the vast majority of tech/infrastructure support is Windows oriented.
Chris.
On the post: Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Efforts: Millions Spent Driving People To Open Source Software
Re: Same old debate
MS Office pretty much blows the others out of the water. Keynote is very good, but most people still generate PPTs, so it's only ever worth using for preso's I'm never going to share.
Besides, if you are a large corp., the cost of re-training people to use something else far outweighs any cost of the software. Never mind the fact that there are some things for which there are no open source alternatives (try running SolidWorks or MasterCam on Linux or Mac).
Besides, quite a few open source apps are amazingly crappy, even worse than what MSFT offers for free...
Chris.
On the post: Google Sues The US Government For Only Considering Microsoft Solutions
Re: Us Government deals
Mind you, it might not be all that bad in this case as retraining thousands of workers to use Google Apps instead of what they have been using for years might be a bit of a cost. Nevermind all that data on Google servers rather than gov't. desktops.
Chris.
On the post: Leaked Report Admits That Hadopi First Strike Accusations Won't Be Reviewed For Accuracy
Re:
And that will do wonders for the cultural industries of France, I'm sure.
On the post: Are Silicon Valley Angel Investors Colluding Over Deals?
Re: Re: Re: Well, duh
They are all in a similar range, YC does $12k for 6%, others are doing $250k for 30% (which is, ironically, better than YC's terms), and it's all very expensive money for entrepreneurs.
Honestly, it would be MUCH cheaper just to max out credit cards and sell all your stuff.
Chris.
On the post: Are Silicon Valley Angel Investors Colluding Over Deals?
Re: Re: Well, duh
It's a great deal for Phil, not so much for you, the entrepreneur. Sure, he's published a lot, and I'll give him credit for open sourcing some legal docs, but it doesn't mean he's god's gift to entrepreneurs.
In fact, I would say that off the 70+ startups I've advised, pretty much none of the founders got good deals. Why? Because venture money of any kind is pretty much always a bad deal for entrepreneurs.
As an aside, I don't think that YC has been the primary driver of changes in startup investing, they were just the first to capitalize on wider industry changes.
On the post: Are Silicon Valley Angel Investors Colluding Over Deals?
Well, duh
It's not usually this structured (and I have my doubts as to whether is was actually this structured), but most investors always seem to come back to the same themes of backstabbing successful firms, lowering valuations and keeping outsiders away from good deals.
As for Y Combinator, their deals always seem to be pretty crappy for entrepreneurs, but no crappier than everyone elses. They do seem to have better PR, however.
On the post: Does Open Data Help The Rich Exploit The Poor?
There is precedence for this...
Fast forward 1000 years, and it seems a similar open process is being used to disenfranchise people with less power.
Chris.