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.
Yea those fine upstanding capatilist at the UN population control fund love him..
Perhaps. We'll see.
The case is going to a full trial
Most definately. Since you seem to be oblivious to the whole case, I'd suggest you read up on your history. The CC10 motion is merely for part of the claim SCO brought against IBM--not the whoel thing.
IBM's motion is just the usual legal maneuvering by a guilty IBM to delay the trail as long as possible, in the hopes that SCO runs out of money.
I have NEVER read anything so clueless on these boards in regards to this case as this statement.
Ever.
Tell me what any of these men had to to with Plymouth, Jamestown, Philadelphia, etc., before 1812. Answer: Zip.
These men built business empires. Their own little kingdoms -- which were not democracies, BTW. They amassed fortune and wealth and insulated themselves from their workers with layers of management.
This is nothing like nation-building.
You are blinded by your profit motive and your worship of the Almighty Dollar.
... principles diametrically opposite to what the communist open source crazies stand for.
Such as?
And if you can't trust mass-murdering tyrants, who can you trust?
As others have noted, you can find out how your car works easily. If you want to know why nobody is giving away cars for free, it's because making an additional car costs money, while making an extra copy of a software program costs nothing. Google for "marginal cost". (Or do an MSN search, since Google is apparently communist for using Linux).
How come you beat your wife?
hmmm I can go to my car, open up the hood, study it, pull it apart, put it together, use parts from it in another car. Thats open source. Would you buy a car that you could not look under the hood of?
Now that's funny. I assume you've picked up lots of SCOX at its dirt-cheap prices?
Wrong yet again. (This is getting too easy!)
Open source methodology includes full histories of where each line of code originated from, including author's name, and verification process.
Do you know the name of the MS engineer(s) who wrote Notepad?
Can you find a vourt case where it has been proven that Linux has stolen IP?
Are you saying MS infringes on no patents?? Where is their respect for ip?
Of course.
Nobody mentioned nation building in that post.. You just inserted it to carry out your own agenda
No, I mentioned it in my first post. Go back and read it for context.
You are the one with the agenda here, and that's plainly obvious.
The author of every piece of Linux code is known..
Good for you. I have MSFT too, although I wish it had been AAPL.
And..SCO will still win.
So why aren't you buying SCOX? Pretty much every analyst and trader disagrees with you, so you have an easy opportunity to make a fortune. Scared to put your money where your mouth is?
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