Rockin' on without Microsoft

Sterling Ball, a jovial, plain-talking businessman, is CEO of Ernie Ball, the world's leading maker of premium guitar strings endorsed by generations of artists ranging from the likes of Eric Clapton to the dudes from Metallica.

But since jettisoning all of Microsoft products three years ago, Ernie Ball has also gained notoriety as a company that dumped most of its proprietary software--and still lived to tell the tale.

In 2000, the Business Software Alliance conducted a raid and subsequent audit at the San Luis Obispo, Calif.-based company that turned up a few dozen unlicensed copies of programs. Ball settled for $65,000, plus $35,000 in legal fees. But by then, the BSA, a trade group that helps enforce copyrights and licensing provisions for major business software makers, had put the company on the evening news and featured it in regional ads warning other businesses to monitor their software licenses.

Humiliated by the experience, Ball told his IT department he wanted Microsoft products out of his business within six months. "I said, 'I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses,'" recalled Ball, who recently addressed the LinuxWorld trade show. "We won't do business with someone who treats us poorly."

Ball's IT crew settled on a potpourri of open-source software--Red Hat's version of Linux, the OpenOffice office suite, Mozilla's Web browser--plus a few proprietary applications that couldn't be duplicated by open source. Ball, whose father, Ernie, founded the company, says the transition was a breeze, and since then he's been happy to extol the virtues of open-source software to anyone who asks. He spoke with CNET News.com about his experience.

Q: Can you start by giving us a brief rundown of how you became an open-source advocate?
A: I became an open-source guy because we're a privately owned company, a family business that's been around for 30 years, making products and being a good member of society. We've never been sued, never had any problems paying our bills. And one day I got a call that there were armed marshals at my door talking about software license compliance...I thought I was OK; I buy computers with licensed software. But my lawyer told me it could be pretty bad.

The BSA had a program back then called "Nail Your Boss," where they encouraged disgruntled employees to report on their company...and that's what happened to us. Anyways, they basically shut us down...We were out of compliance I figure by about 8 percent (out of 72 desktops).

We pass our old computers down. The guys in engineering need a new PC, so they get one and we pass theirs on to somebody doing clerical work. Well, if you don't wipe the hard drive on that PC, that's a violation. Even if they can tell a piece of software isn't being used, it's still a violation if it's on that hard drive. What I really thought is that you ought to treat people the way you want to be treated. I couldn't treat a customer the way Microsoft dealt with me...I went from being a pro-Microsoft guy to instantly being an anti-Microsoft guy.

Did you want to settle?
Never, never. That's the difference between the way an employee and an owner thinks. They attacked my family's name and came into my community and made us look bad. There was never an instance of me wanting to give in. I would have loved to have fought it. But when (the BSA) went to Congress to get their powers, part of what they got is that I automatically have to pay their legal fees from day one. That's why nobody's ever challenged them--they can't afford it. My attorney said it was going to cost our side a quarter million dollars to fight them, and since you're paying their side, too, figure at least half a million. It's not worth it. You pay the fine and get on with your business. What most people do is get terrified and pay their license and continue to pay their licenses. And they do that no matter what the license program turns into.

What happened after the auditors showed up?
It was just negotiation between lawyers back and forth. And while that was going on, that's when I vowed I was never going to use another one of their products. But I've got to tell you, I couldn't have built my business without Microsoft, so I thank them. Now that I'm not so bitter, I'm glad I'm in the position I'm in. They made that possible, and I thank them.

Nobody likes to be made an example of, but especially in the name of commerce. They were using me to sell software, and I just didn't think that was right. Call me first if you think we have a compliance issue. Let's do a voluntary audit and see what's there. They went right for the gut...I think it was because it was a new (geographical) area for them, and we're the No. 1 manufacturer in the county, so why not go after us?

We looked at all the alternatives. We looked at Apple, but that's owned in part by Microsoft. (Editor's note: Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple in 1997.) We just looked around. We looked at Sun's Sun Ray systems. We looked at a lot of things. And it just came back to Linux, and Red Hat in particular, was a good solution.

So what kind of Linux setup do you have?
You know what, I'm not the IT guy. I make the business decisions. All I know is we're running Red Hat with Open Office and Mozilla and Evolution and the basic stuff.

We were creating the cocktail that people are guzzling down today, but we had to find it and put it together on our own. It's so funny--in three and half years, we went from being these idiots that were thinking emotionally rather than businesslike...to now we're smart and talking to tech guys. I know I saved $80,000 right away by going to open source, and each time something like (Windows) XP comes along, I save even more money because I don't have to buy new equipment to run the software. One of the great things is that we're able to run a poor man's thin client by using old computers we weren't using before because it couldn't handle Windows 2000. They work fine with the software we have now.

How has the transition gone?
It's the funniest thing--we're using it for e-mail client/server, spreadsheets and word processing. It's like working in Windows. One of the analysts said it costs $1,250 per person to change over to open source. It wasn't anywhere near that for us. I'm reluctant to give actual numbers. I can give any number I want to support my position, and so can the other guy. But I'll tell you, I'm not paying any per-seat license. I'm not buying any new computers. When we need something, we have white box systems we put together ourselves. It doesn't need to be much of a system for most of what we do.

But there's a real argument now about total cost of ownership, once you start adding up service, support, etc.
What support? I'm not making calls to Red Hat; I don't need to. I think that's propaganda...What about the cost of dealing with a virus? We don't have 'em. How about when we do have a problem, you don't have to send some guy to a corner of the building to find out what's going on--he never leaves his desk, because everything's server-based. There's no doubt that what I'm doing is cheaper to operate. The analyst guys can say whatever they want.

The other thing is that if you look at productivity. If you put a bunch of stuff on people's desktops they don't need to do their job, chances are they're going to use it. I don't have that problem. If all you need is word processing, that's all you're going to have on your desktop, a word processor. It's not going to have Paint or PowerPoint. I tell you what, our hits to eBay went down greatly when not everybody had a Web browser. For somebody whose job is filling out forms all day, invoicing and exporting, why do they need a Web browser? The idea that if you have 2,000 terminals they all have to have a Web browser, that's crazy. It just creates distractions.

Have you heard anything from Microsoft since you started speaking out about them?
I got an apology today from a wants-to-be-anonymous Microsoft employee who heard me talk. He asked me if anyone ever apologized, because what happened to me sounded pretty rough to him, and I told him no. He said, "Well, I am. But we're nice guys." I'm sure they are. When a machine gets too big, it doesn't know when it's stepping on ants. But every once in a while, you step on a red ant.

Ernie Ball is pretty much known as a musician's buddy. How does it feel to be a technology guru, as well?

I think it's great for me to be a technology influence. It shows how ridiculous it is that I can get press because I switched to OpenOffice. And the reason why is because the myth has been built so big that you can't survive without Microsoft, so that somebody who does get by without Microsoft is a story.

It's just software. You have to figure out what you need to do within your organization and then get the right stuff for that. And we're not a backwards organization. We're progressive; we've won communications and design awards...The fact that I'm not sending my e-mail through Outlook doesn't hinder us. It's just kind of funny. I'm speaking to a standing-room-only audience at a major technology show because I use a different piece of software--that's hysterical.

You've pretty much gotten by with off-the-shelf software. Was it tough to find everything you needed in the open-source world?

Yeah, there are some things that are tough to find, like payroll software. We found something, and it works well. But the developers need to start writing the real-world applications people need to run a business...engineering, art and design tools, that kind of stuff...They're all trying to build servers that already exist and do a whole bunch of stuff that's already out there...I think there's a lot of room to not just create an alternative to Microsoft but really take the next step and do something new.

Any thoughts on SCO's claims on Linux?
I don't know the merits of the lawsuit, but I run their Unix and I'm taking it off that system. I just don't like the way it's being handled. I feel like I'm being threatened again.

They never said anything to me, and if I was smart, I probably wouldn't mention it. But I don't like how they're doing it. What they're doing is casting a shadow over the whole Linux community. Look, when you've got Windows 98 not being supported, NT not being supported, OS/2 not being supported--if you're a decision maker in the IT field, you need to be able to look at Linux as something that's going to continue to be supported. It's a major consideration when you're making those decisions.

What if SCO wins?
There are too many what-ifs. What if they lose? What if IBM buys them? I really don't know, and I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. But I can't believe somebody really wants to claim ownership of Linux...it's not going to make me think twice.

You see, I'm not in this just to get free software. No. 1, I don't think there's any such thing as free software. I think there's a cost in implementing all of it. How much of a cost depends on whom you talk to. Microsoft and some analysts will tell you about all the support calls and service problems. That's hysterical. Have they worked in my office? I can find out how many calls my guys have made to Red Hat, but I'm pretty sure the answer is none or close to it...It just doesn't crash as much as Windows. And I don't have to buy new computers every time they come out with a new release and abandon the old one.

Has Microsoft tried to win you back?
Microsoft is a growing business with $49 billion in the bank. What do they care about me? If they cared about me, they wouldn't have approached me the way they did in the first place...And I'm glad they didn't try to get me back. I thank them for opening my eyes, because I'm definitely money ahead now and I'm definitely just as productive, and I don't have any problems communicating with my customers. So thank you, Microsoft.

Exactly. And, when your replace that machine with another bought from an OEM supplier, you get another set of licenses for that machine.

When the engineer gets a new computer, are they supposed to uninstall the software from the old computer before installing it on the new one? What if the installation fails (as can and sometimes does happen)? Normal practice, while not strictly legal, is to get the new machine fully working before doing anything to impair the usability of the old one.

To be sure, the unused software should have been uninstalled after the new software was installed, but--especially under Windows--getting rid of unused software seems to be a rare tendency. Part of this, I think, stems from the fact that uninstalling things can cause other things to break, and part of it stems from the fact that many people have no clue of what software they might need.

I don't know what the best solution to these issues is, but having business software that tracks usage might be helpful. If five machines each show that a piece of software has been used solidly for 8 hours a day, and there's only one license, that's a problem. If three machines have a piece of software installed, one of them has it used solidly for 8 hours a day, the second has it used 8 hours a day except for a couple days, and the third has it used only during the days when it wasn't used on the second (because the second computer's motherboard had flaked out), that should not be a problem if there are two licenses for the software (it would obviously be a problem if there were only one).

Of course, the BSA would probably insist that people buy two copies of a piece of software if they're going to look at the screen with two eyes while running it...

However in general these represent my beliefs that there is a very anti american anti captialist agenda hiding behind this "touchy feely - caring sharing" Free software movement

You are welcome to your beliefs. But, the reality is that the open-source software community (I refuse to call it "free", because it isn't) spans a wide spectrum of people. For every Stallman, there is a Raymond (who is a staunch Libertarian and founder of "Geeks with Guns"), and everyone in between. These people set aside their politics to work together.

The same is true for proprietary software vendors. Gates' foundation is funded by Microsoft profits. His very first documented political contribution was to support the anti-gun Prop. 676 in Washington (state), and his father contributed even more. However, I was acquainted with some of the people working against Prop. 676, and they got a lot of support (technical and financial) from Microsoft employees -- more than enough to offset Gates' contributions.

That's why the issue is largely irrelevant: there is plenty of "sin" on both sides. And because it does nothing but reduce people to sniping at each other, I believe it has no place in the "tech" section.

Getting back to the subject at hand however. If these pictures are really "personal attacks" than every picture of Hillary in a black pantsuit in a derogitory manner that Doug From Upland posted with his songs about her are a "personal attacks" too.

I consider unacceptable personal attacks to be ones on other people posting to the thread (excepting intentional disrupters, which quickly get ZOT'ed :-). Disagreement is one thing, but when you start accusing people of being thieves, pirates, communists, Marxists, or intentionally associating with any of the above, I draw the line.

To quote: " How do we distinguish between the state-sanctioned killings of innocents at Waco and Ruby Ridge, the ‘terrorism’ of Timothy McVeigh, and the revolutionary violence of the U.S.'s Founding Fathers?"

As usual, you are quoting people out of context to twist their meaning. Rather than picking parts that refute your contention, I'll just quote the entire thing and highlight one particular paragraph:

On April 19th, 1995, a fertilizer bomb blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. By the time the dust settled, 168 people — 19 of them children — were dead.

Within weeks, a decorated veteran of the Gulf War named Timothy McVeigh had been arrested. After being convicted of the act, he defiantly justified it as retaliation for the U.S. government's actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge. In a famously chilling quote, he described the deaths of all those women and children as "collateral damage".

This week, five years after the event and a mere week before McVeigh was scheduled to die by lethal injection (the first person to be executed in a Federal prison since 1963), we learned that a major FBI bungle in evidence handling may save his life. He might even go free on a mistrial.

This news has triggered a media frenzy. This morning, I looked at a Newsweek cover on which McVeigh's face had been solarized into a demonic, glowing mask. The cover was no more portentious than its content — an earnest, almost plaintive inquiry into the nature of evil. The article itself is actually rather interesting — it suggests that there may be consistent neurological deficits of the prefontal lobes, anterior cingulate gyrus and left temporal region behind murderously sociopathic behavior.

Similar exercises are being repeated all across the national media. And yet, as I read them, I sense a peculiar, determined evasiveness about them. There's a rush going on to demonize McVeigh as a nearly unique vessel of radical evil, a man whose acts were (like Stalin's or Hitler's) so far beyond the pale of normal human behavior that the only possible explanation is a deep pathology of the brain or of less tangible elements of the self.

This seems to me like a way to avoid facing the really hard questions. Questions which begin with this one: where and when and how did Timothy McVeigh learn to think of taking the lives of innocent women and children as acceptable "collateral damage"?

Of course we know the answer to that one. McVeigh learned that term in the U.S. military. He learned it while faithfully serving the U.S. government's military and political objectives. In pursuit of those objectives hundreds (possibly thousands) of Iraqis women and children died in the bombings of Baghdad and elsewhere. They were "collateral damage".

In writing about the Nuremberg trials after World War II, Hannah Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil". She was encapsulating the utter ordinariness of the men who carried out Hitler's orders for the Final Solution, the attempted extinction of the Jews in Europe. It seems that we have not yet learned the lesson Nuremberg was teaching.

The Holocaust, and the Oklahoma City bombing, should frighten us not because the killers were beyond the pale, but precisely because they were not — their `radical evil' was in fact difficult to distinguish from similar behaviors that have been (and are still) considered necessary to society and honored rather than despised.

I think Senator Bob Kerrey understands this very well. Recently he admitted that in 1969 the Navy SEAL team on which he served shot up the North Vietnamese hamlet of Thanh Pong while on an assassination mission against a Viet Cong leader. Dozens of defenseless women and children died. Collateral damage.

If history had turned out differently, would Kerrey have belonged in the dock of a war-crimes trial? Kerrey himself seems to be unsure. He says he is not fit to be President. He is probably right. But he has supporters eager to exonerate him from all across the political spectrum.

Timothy McVeigh was no Ted Bundy, no simple psychopath dicing up victims at random. He timed the bombing for the anniversary of the Waco massacre, in which U.S. Government agents used tanks, teargas, and munitions known to have incendiary side-effects against civilians on U.S. soil. During the attack, 27 children were gassed to death in a bunker. Collateral damage.

If Timothy McVeigh says he was motivated by a sense of moral outrage and duty to his country, why is it that we rush to dismiss him as a psychopathic embodiment of evil while Bob Kerrey and the FBI agents at Waco are treated as moral actors?

Note that in asking this question I am not arguing that the Oklahoma City bombing was ‘right’ or that Kerrey's actions or those of the agents at Waco were ‘wrong’. I am trying to point out that we don't have any grounds to declare McVeigh insane or evil that he doesn't share with others of whose actions we approve.

The theory that Kerrey and the Waco agents were within the pale because they were following the orders of a legitimately constituted government won't wash. The Nuremberg trials, if they settled anything at all, settled that "I was just following orders" is not an excuse for slaughtering the defenseless.

More generally, that McVeigh reported acting from individual radical political conviction doesn't solve the problem either. History has not infrequently judged violent revolutionaries to have been in the right. Our own country was founded by violent revolutionaries who took up the gun only after they felt (as McVeigh says he did) that peaceful avenues of redress had been exhausted.

History may yet judge the U.S. government's actions at Waco and Ruby Ridge and in Vietnam more harshly than McVeigh's; we don't know that yet, and cannot now know it. In any case, declaring McVeigh a psychopath either because of or in spite of the fact that he justified his killings with anti-government rhetoric seems to me uncomfortably close to the old Soviet tactic of defining dissidents as insane.

The real questions Timothy McVeigh poses, the ones I think we are all trying to duck by demonizing him, is the same one that the Nuremberg trials implicitly raised but never answered. Is the killing of innocents as "collateral damage" inflicted in pursuit of a political end ever justified?

If we answer "no", then we have to start asking hard questions about Bob Kerrey's SEAL team, and about the agents who killed at Waco — and about the Gulf War in which McVeigh, killing Iraqis for his country, earned a medal. Most Americans today aren't prepared to take that pacifist a line.

But if we answer "yes", we have to start asking even harder questions about where we draw the line. How do we distinguish between the state-sanctioned killings of innocents at Waco and Ruby Ridge, the ‘terrorism’ of Timothy McVeigh, and the revolutionary violence of the U.S.'s Founding Fathers?

If we reject the pacifist "no", is there any standard more principled than "winners write the history books"? That is the final and most troubling question the unrepentant McVeigh raises, and the one that the media frenzy of analysis is evading. Perhaps because, deep down, we know we have no good answers.

And it's not an academic question, because if history is any guide Timothy McVeigh won't be the last of his kind. What can we teach our honorable men, our war heroes, our Kerreys and McVeighs, that will keep them from becoming what we judge to be monsters?

The murdered children of Waco, Ruby Ridge, Oklahoma City and Thanh Pong demand an answer.

Not quite the same as your out-of-context quote, is it? Of course, you see only what you want to see, and only what you can use to promote your political vendetta.

Coral Snake has made what (so far) appears to be a sincere gesture to end the political vitriol that has been a regular feature of these threads whenever you and your friends appear. I don't hold out any hope for Bush2000, but if you are willing to leave your politics elsewhere, you can be a much more effective contributor to the discussion.

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