missing the point
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tuxchick Sep 03, 2007 3:27 PM EDT |
ESR and the OSI and the WTF and the BBQ and anyone else involved here are letting themselves be distracted from an important issue- OSI license proliferation, which the OSI itself has made noises about being a fairly urgent problem. Of all the dozens or however many OSI license that exist now, I'll wager the majority of them are virtually identical, and the main reason for their breeding like Tribbles is either ego (My license! Look at me!), or redundant lawyers trying to appear useful and thus keep their jobs (No, my license differs in several very important jots and tittles. Now run along to your meeting at the hooter bar and let me do the hard important work.) So rather than holding their respective noses and going "ew! We don't want to play with Billy and Stevie! They have cooties!" (which is perfectly understandable) all they need to do is stick with their established policies, watch for fast ones, and don't worry so much. There are four possible outcomes: 1. MS submits an acceptable, but redundant, license. The OSI says "forget it, you're duplicating foo, feh, and futz. Just use one of them." 2. MS submits something that is typically overly-complex, ambiguous, and incomprehensible. The OSI does a return-to-sender with a polite request to try again. 3. MS submits something with a fatal defect, some sort of tricksy deceitful guff they luv so well. Again, "thanks but no thanks." 4. MS submits something that is actually fairly novel and acceptable. In that case, what's wrong with accepting it? Sure, they're going to take that tiny little OSI stamp of approval and enlarge it into a blimp-sized banner, and milk it for all it's worth. But in doing so they tell the dimwitted PHBs who think Microsoft is teh hawt and FOSS is dirty hippies that a dirty hippy FOSS license is actually cool. As some columnist pointed out recently, for something that so insignificant and inferior and meaningless, as well as a cancer and a virus (according to Redmond), MS sure is paying a lot of attention to FOSS. Oh, and why pay attention to ESR anyway. He loves infesting Linux with proprietary software, or least he did as long as his Linspire checks didn't bounce, so he's the last person who should be criticizing Microsoft. |
| azerthoth Sep 03, 2007 4:32 PM EDT |
Thank you TC, that pretty much nutshells the decision box as I see it too. |
| gus3 Sep 03, 2007 9:05 PM EDT |
TC, how about a small adjustment to your option #2: The OSI does a return-to-sender with a polite request not to try again. Your penultimate paragraph puts it perfectly: Microsoft is led by hypocrites. They have been called out on this so many times it's no longer even news, which is why it takes "cattiness" and "blow it out your @$$" comments from ESR to get any coverage on it anymore. They have shot themselves in the collective foot, pulled the rug out from under themselves, and generally hoisted themselves by their own petards on this issue. Microsoft is a convicted monopoly, and Bill Gates perjured himself by submitting a fouled video deposition during the trial. These are established facts. Between Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, the culture of lies, deception, and outright thuggery has left Microsoft beyond hope for any notion of "doing the right thing" in the public arena. Trusting them to deal fairly and legally with an OSS license is like trusting Charles Manson to tell you that 1+1=2. You might think you know it to be true, but you'd better be skeptical until you can get some other verification from a more trustworthy source. |
| jezuch Sep 04, 2007 6:11 AM EDT |
Quoting:They have shot themselves in the collective foot, pulled the rug out from under themselves, and generally hoisted themselves by their own petards on this issue. That sounds more like schizofrenia than hypocrisy... |
| dinotrac Sep 04, 2007 6:17 AM EDT |
>They have shot themselves in the collective foot, pulled the rug out from under themselves, and generally hoisted themselves by their own petards on this issue. Sounds like wishful thinking, but we can hope. As to the OSI stuff, it seems to me that Microsoft is in a position it can't possibly lose. From a PR standpoint: If it's license gets approved, it's serious about open source. If it's license gets rejected, those free software types are just a bunch of hypocrites. That presumes, of course, that the license really does meet OSI criteria. Microsoft can even win with an unacceptable license by modifiying it to be acceptable. More likely is that their lawyers have studied current licenses very carefully and also studied the OSI's published criteria to make sure they fit. These are legal beagles, after all, who managed to find a patent protection opening in GPLV2. |
| vainrveenr Sep 04, 2007 3:19 PM EDT |
Would have to mostly agree with tuxchick here
Quoting: 1. MS submits an acceptable, but redundant, license. The OSI says "forget it, you're duplicating foo, feh, and futz. Just use one of them." With FOSS there is a high to fully-complete degree of transparency (open source, open standards, ODF). With MS's strategy of "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish", transparency is rarely (if ever) maintained or desired for. Anyone care to recall MS's 35 IP Patent FUD threats of this past year? Any possible and temporary MS compliance with the transparent submission policies of some of its licenses for OSD certification can only succeed to the extent that MS holds itself fairly transparent for the time-period of OSI approval (case 4). Ah.... but we all know that MS cannot maintain this for long. The instant MS cannot hold back from pulling "the tricksy deceitful guff they luv so well", GAME OVER over and not even the GPLv3-FUDding shills can do anything about it. |
| dinotrac Sep 04, 2007 4:09 PM EDT |
>MS holds itself fairly transparent f Did everybody leave their thinking caps at home today? SHEEEESH!!! The OSI process is not about Microsoft or any Microsoft technology. It is about a license, the terms of which are plainly visible to anybody who reads it. OSI has access to legal advice and need not rely on transparency, niceness, earnestness, or anything else from Microsoft. The license is ok or it isn't. How Microsoft proceeds to use the license is a different matter, but nobody is being asked to pass judgment on that. |
| azerthoth Sep 04, 2007 4:53 PM EDT |
Actually dino there is a trend, there is freedom and the there is Freedom. We almost all can agree on freedom, but it takes a strong stomach and being able to set aside certain prejudices to embrace Freedom. Freedom applies to all, equally, freedom on the other hand applies to everyone who follows the guides (subjective) we feel are important and only them. As people hold up Ghandi as an example of what (subjective again) we should exemplify in our pursuit of FLOSS principals many people forget that what that man did time after time was reach out and embrace those who would oppress him. He risked risked a heck of alot more than getting ticked off about a piece of code when he did it too. Personally I think Ghandi is a horrible choice to hold up as a role model, but thats just me. Nor am I suggesting we go in blindly, but rejecting a license based wholly on its author? Where then are we different from them? |
| azerthoth Sep 04, 2007 6:37 PM EDT |
Thinking a bit more I realize that that post could be taken as more confrontational than I meant it. Don't think of it that way, nor as some random schmuck ranting about I'm more free than anyone else. Rather more as a question that you could ask yourself in private. "Where do I draw the line for other people's freedoms in regards to how it might affect my own?" Best done in private and remember to wash your hands afterwards. |
| Bob_Robertson Sep 04, 2007 8:23 PM EDT |
> that post could be taken as more confrontational than I meant it. Join the club. Of such things are nuclear flame-wars made. > "Where do I draw the line for other people's freedoms in regards to how it might affect my own?" At the point where their actions prevent the equal freedom of others. "Your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose" for example. > Best done in private... Oh darn, that's what you get for asking a linear thinker a rhetorical question. |
| gus3 Sep 04, 2007 9:16 PM EDT |
azerthoth, reading your first comment put the thought in my mind... which you then eloquently expressed in your second comment. In fact, that is exactly why I am opposing their so-called "open source license." It will turn into one more billy club for MS to wield against both the enlightened and the not-so-enlightened. |
| vainrveenr Sep 05, 2007 4:49 AM EDT |
Ah, Freedom........ the first part of France's tripartite motto
Liberté, égalité, fraternité (see [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberté,_égalité,_fraternité]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberté,_égalité,_fraternitÃ...[/url]) But then again, the controlling pigs in George Orwell's famous political classic 'Animal Farm' ended up turning égalité pour les animaux into "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm) The indomitable MS is certainly and theoretically just as "free" to promote its own OOXML format as a standard as supporters of ODF are to promote the truly "Open" format. At the same time, let's get real: MS's intense money and lobbying efforts between now and March '08 will help ensure that the national bodies participating in and voting in ISO/IEC JTC 1 will remain much more "free" to approve OOXML over ODF, unless other events and changes should [hopefully] reverse this trend between now and then. For the most recent news on MS's enhanced freedom to heighten its spin and influence, see http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2178917,00.asp. |
| dinotrac Sep 05, 2007 5:06 AM EDT |
>MS's intense money and lobbying efforts between now and March '08 will help ensure that the national bodies participating in and voting in ISO/IEC JTC 1 will remain much more "free" to approve OOXML over ODF, In some cases, sure. In other cases, home-grown interests will trump Microsoft. In still other cases, the technical merits will matter. I don't think Microsoft wins this one without making some changes to OOXML. The question is: can they win it without making meaningful changes? |
| jacog Sep 05, 2007 5:17 AM EDT |
Meaningful to whom? |
| dinotrac Sep 05, 2007 5:24 AM EDT |
>Meaningful to whom? Good question, although I was thinking in terms of changing the nature of OOXML to get a little closer to justifying the "Open" in the acronym. |
| Bob_Robertson Sep 05, 2007 5:49 AM EDT |
> changing the nature of OOXML to get a little closer to justifying the "Open" in the acronym. But if instead they buy votes, they get both the binary in-compatibility _and_ the "standards" stamp of approval. I do not believe Microsoft will do anything deliberately that will endanger their "lock-in". |
| dinotrac Sep 05, 2007 5:56 AM EDT |
>I do not believe Microsoft will do anything deliberately that will endanger their "lock-in". They have a little problem, however. The United States, where there lock-in is well-established, is a more or less saturated market. The real action is happening elsewhere. Elsewhere, however, standards seem to be more important. If they can't get some kind of standard approved, they may just lose more than their lock-in buys. Personally, I don't know how the numbers work out, but Microsoft doesn't seem to be in the driver's seat. Their heavy-handed actions in the ISO process highlights their lack of control: if they really had the power FOSS folks tend to think they do, their actions would have been far harder to see and far more effective. |
| azerthoth Sep 05, 2007 6:21 AM EDT |
I had a brain fart last night before going to sleep. Since when has MS actually given two shakes about standards of any sort? They have merrily made up their own and expected the world to agree with them for years now, ECMA and ISO be damned. Just a thought, and has nothing to do with the initial topic. |
| gus3 Sep 05, 2007 7:26 AM EDT |
Quoting:Just a thought, and has nothing to do with the initial topic.Huh? That is the general-case statement of the current topic. MS's behavior with the ISO is merely the latest example of: Quoting:They have merrily made up their own and expected the world to agree with them for years now, ECMA and ISO be damned.And let's not forget Sun Microsystems, who had to sue to get that stupid busted Java out of IE. MS kept saying "compatible, compatible," when they knew it wasn't. And of course, when it's in their interest (but certainly not the consumer's), they'll cry "incompatible!" Remember DR-DOS? You could run Windows 95 on top of it, except for that cryptic little startup "error" that wasn't really an error, but just enough FUD to scare people away. Secure-as-Swiss-cheese ActiveX? That one backfired on them. It was supposed to simplify GUI control and creation (and lure devs to Windows, Office and IE), but it morphed into "necessary evil" for developers. I witnessed some of that first-hand. Add to that the ongoing security nightmares from poor engine implementation and poor developer usage, and we can be thankful that one never became a "standard" with traction. And now we have this schizophrenic beast called OOXML. It is only Microsoft's attempt to beat down the ODF platforms, especially those from FOSS, becoming popular in government. MS's own implementation is shaky, and claims of "interoperability," even with their own software, are dubious at best. All the "rah, rah, me, too!" is only empty pseudo-enthusiasm bordering on vaporware. MS likes to think they determine what is a "standard," but those days are numbered. Thanks to the Internet, people can compare notes and see what kind of stupid shenanigans MS engages in, and push back. (And thank God teh Intarweb was invented by Al Gore and not Microsoft! ;-) |
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