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.
It was these kinds of thinkers that created the internet and the web. But why quibble.
How long should patents and copyrights protect is the heart of the question under discussion. Naturally creators and inventors want the protection to last as long as possible and the public should want it to last long enough to keep inventors and creators motivated to do their thing, but short enough to give everybody else a chance to get on the bandwagon and improve. Democrats, close cousins of communists, extended copyrights substantially beyond anything reasonable. That is why software authors are far more interested in copyright protection instead of patent protection. And defending patents against infringers or circumventers is far more difficult than defending copyright claims.
Kwasi has confused the roles of capitalists and communists in this debate because of the confusion over copyrights. Gates is not the good guy and the open source folks are not the communists. Microsoft has already had reasonable protection for its inventions. The same is true of authors, playwrights, movie producers, entertainment artists etc. Congress will be the arbiters of these disputes and has some homework to do before it determines what is reasonable copyright and patent protection. As always, government planning is an oxymoron and they have let things get badly out of balance. It is predictable that they will swing too far the otherway.
This is so far a thread full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Feel free to waste more band width by airing your opinions on a discussion that will matter but be held elsewhere sometime in the future. The US has several problems of considerably greater importance and of a much more urgent nature. Here is one that needs to be addressed before it becomes too late. The archive contains a great deal more on the subject.
Look out the window sometime. Every one you see is open source. They may not be free (as in beer), but they are open source.
Want proof? Go to Autozone and get a third-party repair manual. They couldn't produce those without knowing the layout and diagrams of their product.
What flavor is that Kool-Aid?
Do you know what open source is?
That's what I was beginning to suspect--you have no idea what it is you are argusing against.
Open source is source code from computer programs that is open for anyone to look at. That's it. Nothing more.
So my claim of cars and planes being open source? Perfectly valid. Anyone can go in and look at how it is put together. That's how and why we have third-party repair manuals.
Open source is governed under several different licenses in order to grant priviliges not otherwise granted under copyright. Make no mistake--copyright is still under full force with open source.
Perhaps you mean to argue against the GPL? Or the BSD license?
Rantings of a psychopath? You call me that and then post this drivel?
Post your proof. If you can, then I know a Utah company that would love to talk with you.
And you call us nuts?
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