Posted on 01/13/2005 12:54:36 AM PST by nickcarraway
Bill Gates, Microsoft's chairman and chief software architect, has been talking about the digital future. The other Bill, technology critic Bill Thompson, has been reading between the lines.
Bill Gates thinks I'm a communist.
Not the old-fashioned state socialist concerned with five-year plans for boot production in the eastern provinces, but a "new modern-day sort of communist", the sort who "want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and movie-makers and software makers".
Admittedly, Mr Gates probably does not know who I am and I doubt if he spends a lot of time reading the BBC news site.
But he clearly thinks that those of us who are concerned about the restrictions on creativity placed in our way by the extension of intellectual property law, and those who oppose software patents, pose a serious danger to the US economy and Microsoft's profitability.
Gates made his comment about communism in an interview he gave to tech news site CNet just before he spoke at the opening session of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
It was an interesting aside, since it revealed just how much Microsoft is worried by the growing popularity of the free and open source software movement.
Patent pounding
Microsoft likes patents and protection partly because it has a lot of patents and can afford to employ expensive lawyers to defend them.
And it is clear from what Mr Gates said at the show that he has decided to bet the future of the company on finding lucrative ways to help the content industry - music, movies and games - reach consumers rather than just offering operating systems and applications to those who want them.
That means turning away from the idea that a computer is a general-purpose device that will process any sort of digital content into building systems that enforce restrictions and help rights holders exploit their customers more effectively in future than they ever managed in the past.
It means providing publishing systems to set up online music stores, writing operating systems that allow people to listen to music and watch TV or DVDs on any screen they can find, and ensuring that all of these systems incorporate the sort of digital rights management that provide ways for content owners to 'protect' their property by limiting copying, viewing or distribution.
It is a vision that puts Microsoft everywhere - not just as a software company but as the core provider of every component for our new digital lives at work and home.
It is also a vision that relies on controlling what we can do with the music, movies, games and any other forms of digital content we find on our hard drives.
Business software and commercial systems remain important, of course, partly because Office and other tools make a lot of money, but also because the technology we will be using in our homes is only the end point of a sophisticated and incredibly complex chain of integrated components.
Xbox Live, for example, is not just about the console in someone's living room, but relies on the network and a customer management service to let people sign up and pay.
It also needs a massive server farm to host the games in progress and let players communicate.
And setting up an online music store is a major e-commerce undertaking, even once you have sorted out the rights issues with the record companies.
Tough talk
It would be easy to dismiss this as just another unreachable aspiration from an egomaniacal geek, but we should not forget just how powerful Microsoft can be.
In his CNet interview Gates defended Internet Explorer against the increasingly popular Firefox browser, arguing that many people will have both IE and Firefox on their computers and will use both.
And when he was asked if Microsoft would lose to Firefox he said "people who underestimated us there in the past lived to regret that".
Those of us who remember the browser wars, when Microsoft used its market dominance to undermine Netscape, know just what he means.
So while Linux, Firefox and even Apple may look like threats at the moment, we should not forget that Microsoft is big enough to make serious mistakes, retreat and then come back having learned its lessons.
In the mid 1990's it tried and failed to persuade US cable companies to run a version of Windows on set top boxes, believing that it would give it access to the broadband content market.
The cable companies did not like what Microsoft was trying to do and did not trust its software, and the plan failed.
But now cable companies like SBC Communications are running the latest version of the same software, and Microsoft's IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) work is beginning to take off.
It's the same with mobile phones. The first Windows smartphone, the SPV, was universally derided as buggy and unusable, but now it claims 61 operators in 28 countries are using the latest version.
And of course the second-generation Xbox will combine console gaming with home entertainment, network connectivity and many other functions.
If Microsoft has decided that the future lies with the content owners, using the increasingly restrictive laws on intellectual property to build and safeguard its markets, rather than with the hardware providers who are capable of building PCs, hard drive recorders, portable music players without copy protection, then we should all take notice.
Or in five years time it could be: "Where do you want to go today? - but get permission from Microsoft first".
Bill Thompson is a regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Go Digital.
Now let's check the latest news from the country you claim does not have a Communist economy -
Joint venture cigarette factories ruled out
BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- China will not allow the establishment of new cigarette factories including foreign-funded ones, the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) insisted Wednesday.
Speaking at a press conference, administration spokesman Xing Wanli said "the country's current cigarette manufacturing capacity exceeds market demands, and the establishment of new cigarette factories will not be approved."
Xing's statement comes as especially bad news for British American Tobacco (BAT), according to Thursday's China Daily.
The global cigarette giant is currently lobbying local governments around China, trying to persuade them to approve the establishment of a joint venture company in China.
BAT even claimed last July that the Chinese government had approved the establishment of an 800-million-pound joint venture in the country. But this was strongly denied by the STMA.
Xing added that foreign firms will not be allowed into the nation's cigarette distribution sector either.
As cigarettes are classified as a special product, the industrywill continue to employ the monopoly system and cigarette sales will continue to be monopolized by the China Tobacco Co, added Xing.
From a technical standpoint, Microsoft has implemented a totaltarian regime. They maintain absolute control. I've done quite a bit of programming in their environments and it IS frustrating. One can spend their career waiting for the next release.
Open Source is a free market of ideas. Anyone and everyone is free to contribute. The resulting products are more feature rich and robust. The competition of ideas and excellance has lead to the most secure systems available today.
The business model is different between the two. Microsoft requires you to upgrade hardware and software regularly for them to remain profitable. Open Source gives you choice: there are still many Linux 486 servers out there on the internet. If all you see is a US Corporation under 'attack', consider at this point Microsoft probably has more staff lawyers and accountants then programmers on staff in the US at the point. Gates is a democrat and he runs his company like one.
Don't forget: FreeRepublic runs on perl - a language that has always been and always will be Open Source.
I'm just getting started.
China has an active electronic warfare program against us, and many Windows exploits have been traced back to China since Microsoft gave them the source code. Microsoft has compromised the national security of the United States and made the world more unsafe for everyone. It is the height of irresponsibility.
Microsoft also registered and activated server software for the Taliban regime, in direct violation of U.S. law.
If Hitler was around today, Microsoft would be selling their wares to him too.
A lot more than that. When people aren't doing it for the money, necessarily (or maybe just for the fame), as in academia, 'open source' is how things are done. People around the world contribute to the science. It's the nerdly way.
Micro$oft has benefitted greatly from such worldwide open academic research. It's a tasteless, clueless, socially irresponsible mega-corporation, at this point. There would be no 'medical ethicist' employed there to raise the hand and wag the finger and say - hold on a minute. No, instead, this childish behemoth would attempt to claim for itself, and its own distribution, virtually everything published now, and importantly in the past. They would, eventually, attempt to destroy libraries, as libraries themselves out of misguided PC have attempted to do themselves. They would outlaw publishing thousand year old documents as proprietary 'intellectual property' of Micro$oft. The brave new world of Communist tyranny is not found in 'open source', but in megalithic corporations run by egomaniacs who admit no social responsibilty and no check on their unquenchable lust for power.
If you think that's overstated, if you think that slippery slope simply doesn't even exist - try to look ahead, and think again. I think it's a truth seemingly much less credible than fiction. That's how truth is. But consider that artwork hundreds and hundreds of years old is suppposedly considered the 'intellectual property', today, of that museum which claims ownership, as I understand the law. How much further behind can all other published materials down through history be if Micro$oft gets its 'band of lawyers' on the chase? If they don't like the Magna Carta, people will never hear it mentioned again. A particular version of the Bible? Micro$oft no like? Every known copy burned and that version locked away from people forever afterward, save for the brave subversive souls who secret away their copies and meet with others in the underground to study the text. Hopefully, as Micro$oft tries to play Big Brother, I won't be around to see it. Or hopefully, wiser heads will prevail against them. Maybe the free marketplace will have the last laugh on this for-rofit corporation. To say the least, they scare me. I'm beginning to wish there were no Micro$oft corporation.
It always does, one way or another. It was only a matter of time before Firefox came around. Next on the list is a replacement for Windows itself, which is compatible with existing software.
The market will eventually figure out how to do it.
Ultimately, it will be good for Microsoft too.
I note that a lot of software is prohibited from export by us common civilians yet indeed Gates licensed ChiCom with munitions-level stuff. Scary and very interesting in the One World Order scenarios and in considering Gog/Magog of the Book of Revelation.
Much of the Gates Foundation grants has gone to left-leaning stuff including pro-abortion causes. Much of MS's antitrust settlements have been paid "in kind" using published, obsolete software. As re: the foundation, I am on a deadline/all-nighter but opensecrets.org or freshmeat.org should be a good source to verify this.
But overall, he's done more harm than good.
What a bunch of losers. Look at this article from the UK:
"Bill Gates may find it's better to be red than dead".
http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020505,39183282,00.htm
Right on.
This nation was built by free people who wanted to do their own thing, free from the bonds and restrictions imposed on them by the King and Church of England. The Open Source community's philosophy and background is very similar.... notwithstanding the fact that a few pirates have attempted to pervert OSS for their own gain.
How some otherwise-right-thinking people can equate this to communism is beyond me.
He is a commie, btw.
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