On Sat, Jul 07, 2001 at 07:10:25AM -0400, Russell Hires wrote:
> (I'm still playing with my GPG signature, so I hope this all comes out ok)
>
> I gotta say that M$ and RedHat and Caldera are, believe it or not, on the
> right track with their software licensing, though I'm sure I'm distinctly in
> the minority on this. AT&T gets to charge you a monthly fee for service. So
> does the electric company. I realize that M$ and so forth are selling
> software as if it were furniture, and this would continue to be a reasonable
> model if people bought furniture every few years. But they don't. They buy
> every 10 years (except the wealthy, of course, who are buying furniture for
> several homes) or more. I think we've been spoiled by the software companies
> because they used to be able to count on a new rev of their software to show
> up every six months to two years to continue financing their software
> development and pay their employess. But as Operating Systems and other
> software has matured, people don't need to update their software so often.
> How many businesses are still using Windows 95? Lots, probably. So, now, in
> order to stay in business, software companies have come to realize that they
> are really selling a service. (I guess this is where I put on my asbestos
> flame retardent firesuit, even though I might get cancer from the asbestos --
> I have a more immediate danger of flames! :-)
>
<flamethrower setting="high"> ;-}
You're right, what Microsoft is doing is little different from what
anyone else in the commercial software industry does. But here's the
problem: Microsoft owns 90% of the desktops in the world. When _they_
do it, it becomes something different.
Think about it: Companies _renting_ you software. Yes, that's what they
do, but does it really make any sense from a consumer perspective?
People don't want to rent computers and rent software. They want it to
be like their toaster-- they buy it and it works without problems
until it stops working. Then they buy a new one. Renting you software
(especially operating system software) is like renting you the chips on
your motherboard.
But there's another problem if your computer stops working and you
decide to go buy another one. You put your data on that computer. Buy
another one, and you've lost your data. Microsoft has an answer for
that, though-- put your data on _our_ servers.
So Microsoft is going for the hardware-as-commodity,
platform-doesn't-matter way of doing things. Run your rented software
from your Palm Pilot, access your data on our servers. Run your rented
software on your laptop, access your data on our servers.
Again, this makes perfect sense for Microsoft. And if any other company
did it, we'd just say, "That's the way they do it." But with Microsoft,
they have everyone by the short-and-curlies. Because OEMs don't
advertise Linux-equipped machines to compete with Microsoft. There _is_
no effective competition to Microsoft on the desktop. So when they
begin to rent you the apps, upgrade them at will, take down your name
and number in order to give you access to the internet, and store the
details of your hardware configuration so they can track it, all of a
sudden, it becomes anti-consumer. Especially when you consider that
Microsoft's software products are generally mediocre. (Another down
side of monopolies-- no impetus to innovate and truly improve your
products.)
> M$ is right when they say they should be allowed to make improvements to the
> OS. (It just ain't right that they already own the market and force others
> out of business or competition with them.) Bug fixes should be paid for out
> of the budget of the already sold software. But "improvements" (which may be
> some kinds of bug fixes -- it is left to the reader to determine what bug
> fixes are required, vs those that are optional) do merit a charge of some
> kind. Clearly, forcing people to change from a buying furniture model of
> software purchases to a buying a magazine subscription (for example, "Brain
> Research" a rather obscure journal, goes for roughly $1000 a copy, and can be
> found at a few research libraries around the country) can be a bit of a
> shock. But I think that perhaps Linux's strength here is that the endless
> upgrades can come at no cost, or at a significantly reduced one, since we are
> talking about Free software here. I think someone should still get paid for
> doing work for businesses (if that's what they do for a living), I agree that
> holding a company hostage is not the way to go.
>
Making improvements in the software is one thing. Microsoft does some
of this. But what they also do is find a product other people are
doing, include a free version in their OS, and shut those competing
companies down. Not to mention hacking up protocols and such so that
you can only operate with _their_ version (which is patented or
copyrighted, so no reverse-engineering, kids). It's happened before,
and it's happening right now, and is central to the government's case.
Paul
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