Submitted by “At first glance, the FSF and the Commission attacks on Microsoft appear to be unrelated. But the common thread is this: the attacks are based on a lack of faith that consumer demand will lead a market to where consumers want it to be. It is based on a faulty assumption that a company can use its intellectual property to harm competition rather than fuel it.”
Lars Liebeler is antitrust counsel for the Computing Technology Industry Association and a partner in the Washington law firm Thaler Liebeler. Microsoft is a member of CompTIA.
Ya, how could he possibly benefit form closed source staying closed? Lawyer’s fee’s , perhaps?
Would it kill these guys to allow some other people to think and exchange ideas freely , or is the ONLY THING THAT MATTERS IS YOUR SHAREHOLDERS? I know money is important, but how important is it, really? Can you eat it? Will it save you from drowning, or drag you down?
Interesting to see how far Corps are willing to go to ensure that they always come out on top.
Sheez… honestly, Linux zealots … if you’re going to attack somebody for something, at least have enough of a clue to understand what a conflict is. You clearly don’t understand that concept. Liebeler is a lawyer for CTIA. Microsoft is a member of the CTIA. This is an OPINION piece; ergo, it’s an editorial (ie. not news). Liebeler wasn’t acting in any capacity that required objectivity, nor was he representing that he was unbiased.
And the GP expressed his disagreement. What’s wrong with that? Since Liebeler published his opinion online he should expect people to have opinions of their own about it.
And the GP expressed his disagreement. What’s wrong with that? Since Liebeler published his opinion online he should expect people to have opinions of their own about it.
The poster called the editorial a “conflict of interest” — which it is clearly NOT: Liebeler is actively lobbying on behalf of MSFT and others, and the publication was an editorial. Where’s the conflict (except in the poster’s mind)?
The FSF’s assault on the Microsoft–Novell deal demonstrates its open hostility to Microsoft’s–or any other company’s–use of its intellectual-property rights to protect its innovations and inventions. This position is directly contrary to a central premise of free-market economics: IP protections will encourage investment and result in a wider breadth and depth of innovation.
I read up to here, then realized the article author lives in a distant planet. When everyone keeps complaining that IP on software patents hurt free-market economics, he’s defending them without any personal point of view.
When everyone keeps complaining that IP on software patents hurt free-market economics, he’s defending them without any personal point of view.
Everything depends on your perspective. To the individual inventor who has everything he owns invested in a particular invention, a patent represents protection against predatory interests (ie. Microsoft, open source rip-offs, etc). To the large company, it’s protection against other companies and open source rip-offs. To open source zealots, patents are a nuisance which prevent them from actively ripping off technology.
To open source zealots, patents are a nuisance which prevent them from actively ripping off technology.
LOL. It’s not like patents have stopped Microsoft “actively ripping off technology”. And don’t bother trying to claim that they have invented anything, unless you enjoy being laughed at and called a liar on an open forum.
BTW, any signs of Microsoft “changing” yet?
Edited 2007-04-11 06:26
There is a long list of Microsoft’s granted and pending patents that actually shows that they did invent something.
I have found a list of patents granted in Europe only, that might be out of date.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p…
Microsoft patents do exist and Microsoft will protect them. Declaring patents “evil” won’t change a thing.
Microsoft patents do exist and Microsoft will protect them. Declaring patents “evil” won’t change a thing.
Yeah, but it makes him feel better to demonize people.
… a faulty assumption that a company can use its intellectual property to harm competition rather than fuel it. – Is he saying MS can’t, and hasn’t?
… the same erroneous foundational assumption–that there is something wrong with the operation and functioning of the free market in general – there is when there is a practical monopoly.
It’s like this guy hasn’t heard of lockin. Easiest example is how Microsoft, using their dominance in the OS market elbowed their way into and took over the browser market. Having done so, they were able to sit back and make no improvements to their browser for years.
Sure, Netscape didn’t help their own cause, but today, even very good browsers have to fight for a percentage point or two of share, thanks to lockin. With most users on IE, many sites are made for IE and IE only (with its nonstandard extensions), so people can’t use those sites with other browsers. The stagnation of the browser market and inability for clearly superior browsers to gain any traction is but one example. At least now MS has grudginly brought out a new browser with some actual improvements, but it should have happened years earlier.
Anyway, the story is told at the bottom of the article:
Biography
Lars Liebeler is antitrust counsel for the Computing Technology Industry Association and a partner in the Washington law firm Thaler Liebeler. Microsoft is a member of CompTIA.
It’s this guy’s job to lawyer about with antitrust issues (primarily pretending they don’t exist it appears) and he’s at least tangentially involved with Microsoft. Not to say this disallows him from speaking on the subject, but one can harly say his viewpoint is impartial
For all the constant snipping and MS bashing, Open Source would die instantly if there was no MS. Like it or not, without MS’s unifying power, we’d have a mishmash of incompatible systems and because of open source, people would be able to tweak computers to suit their needs.
Nothing wrong with having a 1000 different/incompatible architectures. But at the end of the day you want cheap mass produced goods.
Without access to the source, everybody had to fall in line and make Windows compatible computers that helped Linux as well. When you have mass produced PCs, prices fall.
Look at Sparc, PPC, and Itanium – they all run Linux but can you afford them?
For all the constant snipping and MS bashing, Open Source would die instantly if there was no MS.
Oh really?
Like it or not, without MS’s unifying power, we’d have a mishmash of incompatible systems
Microsoft’s “unifying” power? Is that why UNIX networks all use NFS instead of SMB? Is it why all Unices use the X Window System? Is it why US State governments are now mandating use of ODF? Because I don’t recall any of those ever being endorsed by Microsoft, nevermind invented by them.
and because of open source, people would be able to tweak computers to suit their needs.
Yes, and thank God they can’t. Instead they can just go on using ill-fitting products that treat them like morons. Thank Goodness for Microsoft!
Nothing wrong with having a 1000 different/incompatible architectures. But at the end of the day you want cheap mass produced goods.
I won’t deny that the UNIX vendors chucked common sense out of the window when they decided to make all their Unices incompatible. But you conveniently forget that at least part of the reason they became incompatible is because they did not have access to each other’s source code. The fact that they have all gotten behind Linux – a system for which source code cannot be hidden – is due at least in part to the fact that they realize their mistake and these days are, apparently, a lot more clueful than you on how not to repeat it.
Without access to the source, everybody had to fall in line and make Windows compatible computers that helped Linux as well. When you have mass produced PCs, prices fall.
The question of source is totally irrelevant here. The only reason people ended up being able to make IBM PC compatible products is because IBM only made one proprietary part, which (it turned out) was relatively inexpensive to legally clone – and they had given Microsoft carte blanche to sell DOS to any and all of these clone makers.
Look at Sparc, PPC, and Itanium – they all run Linux but can you afford them?
I hate to break it to ya, but both of the first two were around long before Linux became A Force, and the third is a marketing disaster. Also, haven’t you noticed that Linux runs on PC’s too?
I don’t know where you got any of that drivel from, but for my money, next time you can keep it.
“Like it or not, without MS’s unifying power, we’d have a mishmash of incompatible systems and because of open source, people would be able to tweak computers to suit their needs.”
I may say this: MICROS~1 is not interested in compatibility or unified standards. They violate existing standards nearly everywhere and “invent” their own ones, which, by the way, change from one OS or application version to the next one.
“Nothing wrong with having a 1000 different/incompatible architectures. But at the end of the day you want cheap mass produced goods.”
You’re right. People want it cheap, they get it cheap. The worst solution always wins. It’s sad, but in my opinion it’s true.
“Look at Sparc, PPC, and Itanium – they all run Linux but can you afford them?”
Today is not the time when computers were expensive and only affordable for users who had enough money and education. Today’s computers are designed for everyone, for Joe Q. Sixpack and Jane Average. While SparcStations, SGI Octane or IBM RS/6000 were designed for special purposes, PCs are designed for “all” purposes. One size must fit all…
> without MS’s unifying power, we’d have a mishmash of
> incompatible systems and because of open source
Not true POSIX, the X11-standard, the freedesktop standard, ODF, OpenGL, and dozens of other standards serve to unify Linux (and Solaris and FreeBSD and anyone that cares about standards). If anything, Microsoft is a dividing force since they choose to ignore standards everyone else accepts and either re-invent the wheel (e.g. “Open”XML) or embrace-and-extend an existing standard (e.g. Kerberos/Active Dire) since this tactic allows them to lock in their users.
Your key confusion is mixing up the application with the file format/protocol. It doesn’t matter if each distro uses a different Linux kernel patch or a different word processor (e.g. OpenOffice versus KWord) or a different browser (e.g. Firefox vs Konqueror vs Gtk+ Webcore) as long as they share compatible file formats and protocols (which they do).
My rule of thumb is that closed source is doing now what open source will be doing (at the earliest) five years from now.
My rule of thumb is that closed source is doing now what open source will be doing (at the earliest) five years from now.
My rule of thumb is that you haven’t the beginnings of the dawning of an inkling of an idea.
lack of faith that consumer demand will lead a market
Uhm, excuse me, since when has consumer demand taken over ’cause I fail to notice it. These days the fashionable way is for a company to artificially create demand for a product that otherwise wouldn’t be needed. No wonder that “faith” mentioned above is lacking.
The assumption that a “free” market will solve any problem and nothing bad will ever happen and it can only benefit consumers is completely ridiculous. Sure, a free market can benefit consumers, provided there’s sufficient competition, a feasible cost of entry etc.. Proudhon had a good point when he said “Competition kills competition”, though. In other words, a free market based on competition will become monopolised and very unfree without any kind of intervention. Free market fundamentalism is as stupid as state Marxism.
In my view the IT business especially in the USA is, in many ways, turning away from a truly free market more and more. The situation is starting to look a bit like some scifi dystopias where big corporations rule and small businesses and customers have less and less power.
What kind of a free market allows big corporations to patent ideas like basic computer algorithms? IP patents are usually means to put competitors out of the market, to give big corporations ever more power, not a way to give each player equal chance to use the same ideas and, then let the customers decide, in a free market, what product they see the best.
However, big corporations are often not able to see “free market” from the point of view of small business not to mention customers. They see things from their own point of view where often shareholders, big corporations, and big money matters most. Free market to them is too often a corpotocracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatocracy
or plutocracy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy
where those big corporations should be allowed to do anything, and anybody else should just humbly bow down in front the the big money.
Anybody who has even the slightest idea about IT business and Microsoft knows that MS has often been using really rude business tactics in order to prevent free competition. It is just a cold fact.
In a free democracy and in a free market, it is necessary that more and more people try to prevent the biggest corporations like Microsoft from trying to own the whole world. If it might be too late in the USA perhaps already owned by corporations(??), at least it must be done in the EU and in other still relatively free parts of the world where not everything is yet decided in a few big corporations in order to make their owners ever more richer.
Edited 2007-04-10 19:14
Too often in macroeconomics some people still want to see things from a black-and-white point of view where the two alternatives are either a leftist, totally state controlled economy (called communism) or a completely laissez fair market liberalism (called “free market”) where corporations are practically above/beyond all the law. Naturally neither of those extreme alternatives work too well.
In a well-working free and democratic society and economy, there must be some regulations that also companies and big corporations must follow. That doesn’t mean that the market couldn’t still be free for any kind of business as long as that business is done according to the rules like laws agreed on in the democratic society.
If, however, big corporations are allowed to work above/beyond the democratic regulations, do what ever they please (like some corporations like perhaps sometimes Microsoft seems to want?) and/or are allowed to decide (by bribing, lobbying etc.) which rules are made laws and followed in the economy and society, the society will become a totalitarian corporatocary, ruled by a few corporate leaders. It would be just another form of totalitarianism, not very much different from Natzism or Marxism. Hardly a sustainable and successful model for any society or economy in the long run.
Edited 2007-04-10 20:20
In Laizzes faire market liberalism corporations are not above the law nor beyond the law. It is a misinterpretion.
Fact is laizzes fair market liberalism works perfectly when applied fully. That means no patents since these are granted by the authorities and the authorities have no such rights in a free market
– and no kind of concentrating of the power in the hands of the authorities.
The semi-communistic state capitalism as practiced in USA is as bad as full-scale communism since a little or a lot of authority interruption in the free market upsets the balance between the strong and the weak – because it leads to concentration of the power in the hands of the authorities – authorities controlled solely by the those with financial power. The financial power can only be countered with complete lack of protection of “fake” individual property (ideas – which is actually commonly owned, since everybody can get an idea).
Remove the protection of the big companies (e.g. implement fully laizze faire free market economy) and the competition field will be leveled out – for the benefit of the individual.
The funny thing is, in a free market, IP other than trade secrets wouldn’t exist since IP is a govern created construct. If you believe in a completely free market, you should be in favour of abolishing all IP laws since they place artificial constraints on what a business can and can’t do with things they purchase. This is especially the case since Intellectual Property laws are actually more strict than Physical Property laws (Proof, if I buy a car from you I can make some minor modification and resell it. If I buy a book or software from you, I can’t without violating copyright.).
So if you support IP, you can’t rely on the completely free market argument and have to agree that some government regulation is necessary.
Correct
…to understand that Microsoft is under assault from all corners because it managed to piss off everyone in the computing business during its “meteoric rise to fame”. Microsoft apologists like to cast antipathy towards the company as an example of jealousy or wishing we were there first, or that we had the vision, or the marketing know-how. In reality it goes way beyond all of these. It’s an example of the old age, “be careful who you step on on the way up, because you may just meet them on your way down”. Microsoft is on its way down, and having stepped on everyone on the way up, they are taking understandably human delight in stepping on it.
The central premises of the free market are: “It is clear why Smith says that moral norms are necessary for such a system to work – in order for exchange to proceed, contracts must be enforceable, people must have good access to information about the products and services available, and the rule of law must hold”
http://plus.maths.org/issue14/features/smith/
So for instance, customers should be able to a really broad picture of the offerings, in order to be able to choose what best fits them, not have Windows pre-installed on their computer, nor have Microsoft spread FUD over free software.
To me, it seems logical that the commission, while stating that Microsoft server protocols contains “virtually no innovation”, also states that Microsoft should disclose them free of charge.
Let’s just say that Microsoft protocols are some kind of language. In order to communicate with Microsoft servers using those protocols, third-party software should speak the same language. You see, it’s just a language, it has nothing to do with innovation.
“The FSF objects to any cooperation between proprietary vendors and open-source vendors, and it vowed to prevent similar deals via its update of the General Public License.”
No, it doesn’t; what the FSF doesn’t want is this: a vendor selling GPL software is immune against legal threats from another (non-GPL) vendor, while the other (GPL) vendors aren’t.
“the attacks are based on a lack of faith that consumer demand will lead a market to where consumers want it to be.”
Sure, now go to your school, and try to change the Coke machines in there. Try that even with all the parents on your side, and you’ll see that this is not going to happen.
“It is based on a faulty assumption that a company can use its intellectual property to harm competition rather than fuel it.”
What about Microsoft Office (pre-XML) formats ? Didn’t the fact that they are closed property mean that, say, OO can’t be 100% compatible ? What about Samba ? Much time has been spent discovering the language used by Microsoft software, just in order to interoperate with them.
On a side note, i ” suffer from the […] erroneous foundational assumption–that there is something wrong with the operation and functioning of the free market in general, and that IP protections that underlie the free market.”
Given that the free market’s goal is to maximize human happiness, I really believe that there should be close to no IP protections. The reason ? Humans are stupid monkeys. Stupid monkey sometimes discover something a little less stupid. When enough monkeys test and use that something, there is a slight chance that something even lesser stupid.
Now, the free market is just a theory, not a law. A theory is debatable, and can be proven right or wrong (and needs explicit premises, axioms). One day, I believe it will be proven that the free market is just another stupid theory.
Edited 2007-04-10 18:53
If people should be forced to sell products that they don’t want because some person on the Internet thinks it would be a good thing, then I propose that we force Linus Torvalds (et al) to release a closed-source version of Linux.
I know this is a troll, but it does bring up an [unintended] good point. You can’t force someone to release a closed-source version of a GPL’d product. In fact, even if Torvalds went completely nuts and married Steve Ballmer, even if he wanted to, he couldn’t. That’s always refreshing to me. Code lives beyond individuals.
Having said that, it does bring up a question in my mind. How do products like Nessus switch to a closed-source license? Obviously any code prior to that point can be still used (it can’t be unreleased). However, how to they create future closed-source work based off of their existing GPL code. Aren’t they themselves violating the GPL. Just wondering.
However, how to they create future closed-source work based off of their existing GPL code. Aren’t they themselves violating the GPL. Just wondering.
If you yourself wrote 100% of the code in a piece of software, you’re the copyright holder and as such, you have the right to re-release it under any license you so choose. Linus can’t do that because he’s not the copyright holder of 100% of Linux, but it is possible for some people to.
Of course, you still can’t get rid of the GPLed version that’s out there, since the GPL specifically waives your right to revoke the license. So unless your proprietary version is substantially different than the existing GPL version, it’s likely that nobody will use your new release. Even if it is different, it’s quite possible that some irate users will fork the last good GPL version of your software and take it in a new direction, which is within their rights to do since you released it to them under the GPL.
Thanks, I figured it probably had to do with being the copyright holder of the code.
“It is based on a faulty assumption that a company can use its intellectual property to harm competition rather than fuel it.”
“Lars Liebeler is antitrust counsel for the Computing Technology Industry Association and a partner in the Washington law firm Thaler Liebeler. Microsoft is a member of CompTIA.”
One would figure that, with “antitrust” in his title, he would know what it means.
And is it just me or does that last sentence seem completely random and non-biographical? It’s like he put it there as a disclaimer.
It is there as a disclaimer, probably by the editor to save the publisher from flames while posting flame bait…
Apparently IP is central to free markets? Maybe he means that property is essential to markets and that intellectual property allows intellectual markets. Whether or not this is a good thing is a completely different argument.
What scares me the most is that he specializes in anti-trust and he ignores the anti-trust issue…
I tend to agree with the author that *eventually* a free market sorts itself out. The monopolist which achieved its position by making consumers feel that they liked their products, needed their products, or simply had no choice, eventually gets greedy and needful enough (we have a responsibility to our stockholders) that consumers finally see how they’ve been duped, and that opens up a space (and a consumer mindset) for someone else to actually compete, after years of not being noticed by the market.
The problem is that this process can take decades, as the damage continues to accumulate.
My grandmother was a Christian Scientist. (In a nutshell, they don’t believe in doctors and feel that prayer will cure any physical ills.) I roughly equate the kind of laissez-faire attitude that the author espouses to Christian Science. God will take care of it if you only believe! You don’t need that antibiotic! You don’t need that surgery!
God will, eventually, take care of it.
Seems to me it would be better to take the antibiotic and recover in a week rather than a month or, in the worst case, die from the infection.
Unfortunately, sometimes even medical treatments are ineffectual if the disease is virulent enough, resistant enough, or treatment begins too late.
The huge fines levied against MS don’t really seem to have had much effect.
Perhaps it is time to try a triple antibiotic therapy?
Edited 2007-04-10 19:11
I can follow you line of thinking. Unfortunately the “free market” described by Lars H. Liebeler isn’t a free market at all.
In a true free market (void of IP laws) I would agree. But in his centralistic state capitalistic system it will never sort out. It will only lead to more concentration of power in the hands of the authorities. This concentration of power can – in reality – only be affected by an equal amount of financial power, leading to a authoritarian corporate system void of any freedom except for those in power.
It can only be prevented by complete free market – which Lars H. Liebeler isn’t interested in. He wants what he has now – it just want it to be utilized by MS (he his an employee of MS – in reality) and not his competitors.
It’s the same old FUD: free/open source software are anti-capitalist and anti-American because my client cannot compete with it by using the tired old dumping and bundling tactics of yore.
Unfortunately, the words of clowns like this guy are sometimes heeded, which is why Microsoft spends good money on them.
Edit: Corrected sentence structure.
Edited 2007-04-10 19:07
That this was billed on the clock to CompTia/MS as a PR piece? I mean come on.
This is a good example for students who are in an Elementary Logic class. This is a classic example of a “Straw Man” argument.
Here is the Straw:
“It is based on a faulty assumption that a company can use its intellectual property to harm competition rather than fuel it”
This is an easy Straw Man to tear down. As always, this IS NOT the argument of most in the Free/Libre world. Microsoft has NOT obtained its market strangle-hold by its tremendous wealth of IP. It has done this through very agressive, and at time illegal market strategies.
Unfortunately, this is not the last Straw!
[q]Those wishing to “control” markets should take note.[/]
Yes Microsoft, please take a note and send good old Lars a big fat cheque. He is such a good boy!
I guess somebody was asleep during the PC/browser/office document wars.
It seems to me that this opinion piece is either genuinely miss guided or a blatant attempt at miss direction. For example, take this quote
That last line is, at best, a half truth and no one who has kept up with the GPLv3 story would ever come out with that statement unless for spin.
This is the second so called “opinion piece” I have read in two weeks that sticks up for MSs current behavior. Looks to me like the new “Get the facts!” campaign is just getting started.
Yeah, we haven’t even heard anyone claim that “MS has changed” or that Linux market share is going “down, down, down, year after year after year” yet
“This is the second so called “opinion piece” I have read in two weeks that sticks up for MSs current behavior”
Well, to be fair we also get opinion pieces that are as crazily pro-oss as this one is anti-oss.
It’s the second MS shill we hear in a week complaining about how bad bad bad is the EU with MS. Please stop that. Or better: I agree that even shill stories may be interesting, but shouldn’t the OSAlert editors at least warn about the author affiliation of the original story? This should hold for every time there is someone with a clear bias, let it be for MS or OSS or Apple or whatever.
(Not counting the fact that in EU no sane information website or newspaper or the like would publish some blatant corporate advertising like news.com does here. At least, we would try to have a bit more style in hiding it…)
Anyway, this is one of the many times I’m happy to live in the old Europe instead that on USA. The fact we are still trying to grasp some sanity from the claws of total laissez faire oligopolism leaves me a breath of hope. It’s incredible that someone can seriously believe that Microsoft (or any other company) should really be left building non-interoperable products, when these products run most offices and industries in the world, locking them in.
This section of the TFA makes me cry:
Attempting to “outlaw” the Microsoft-Novell deal through changes to the GPL or trying to force Microsoft to disclose its software protocols through regulation and litigation both suffer from the same erroneous foundational assumption–that there is something wrong with the operation and functioning of the free market in general, and that IP protections that underlie the free market.
Yes, my dear, there is something wrong with the operation and functioning of the free market in general in the Western world: because a 90% monopoly on desktop computing without interoperability is -for a lot of various and complex reasons that OSAlert readers can immediately understand- is not free market, and harms consumers and companies together.
And yes, there is something wrong with IP protections, because if it’s intellectual, it’s not a “property” in the sense of property of an acre of land. It doesn’t behave the same way, it doesn’t follow the same rules, it’s a completely different object, regardless of your opinions about copyright etc.. The talk about IP is an exquisite example of Newspeak. There is no true “intellectual property”: there are abstract rights on works of the intellect. And as of today, the way those rights are protected again harms both consumers and companies, as everyone dealing with DRM know.
He does not like government intervention in the free market, yet he seems to demand the sanctity intellectual property. Intellectual property is a social concept that is codified in law, which implies that it is a form of government intervention in the free market. It seems as though his assessment of which laws are valid and which are invalid in the free market are biased towards the interests of his industry association.
The second is that you cannot have a free market when there is any controlling force in that market. The most obvious controlling force is the government, but it could just as easily be a business like Microsoft. Because of Microsoft’s dominant position in certain markets, they can write most of the rules in that market. They certainly have more control than any single government entity.
I don’t think you can have a functional market without property laws… I could be wrong, but I believe most economists agree with that statement.
Free isn’t free of rules.
The market would certainly look different without intellectual property laws, but I think it is a bit of a stretch to say that the market would become dysfunctional without them. As an example: I teach. There aren’t any legal restrictions on dissemination of that knowledge, so they may do anything they wish with the knowledge that I impart to them. That means that they can become my competitors by teaching themselves. It certainly does not mean that I am out of a job because of that (and yes, many of my students have become teachers).
As for property laws in general, the physical ones are (in my opinion) productive because they prevent a situation where might becomes right. But that is only because physical property is a limited commodity. If somebody takes a loaf of bread from me, I am deprived of food. But intellectual property is a different story. It is not a scarce resource, so sharing means that both parties benefit. That being said, I recognize that people would differ from me on both sides of the spectrum. There are certainly people who view intellectual property as sanctified. On the other hand, there are people who do not share the same ideas on physical property and treat some things as communal (may that be a civic park or a person’s home).
There is a gigantic difference between you owning your own bread – and you owning the right to bake bread.
The latter one used to be protected – it led to uprisings and it led to the Enlightenment, which unfortunately didn’t achieve it’s goal for very long. The old feudal system shot back, and today Microsoft is the front leader of the old feudal system. So today we again have a situation where certain people can own the right to “bake bread”.
Well, there is a heck of a big difference between feudalism and guilds (which I believe that you are referring to) and government enforced monopolies (i.e. intellectual property).
There was something else that I remember from history class about feudalism, and it had to do with landowners. It had something to do with too much property being in the hands of the rich, and that being used as an instrument of power.
Granted, I don’t think it’s that bad either. We live in very rich societies and the peasants of feudal states would laugh at us or mourn at us for griping about intellectual property when they were virtual slaves.
(If you don’t like DRM, give up your iPod. If you think that Microsoft is a monopoly, use open source. We have alternatives.)
I don’t think you can have a functional market without property laws…I could be wrong, but I believe most economists agree with that statement.
Most OSS developers don’t think you can have a functional market without property laws either…They could be wrong, but closed-source supporters seem to be doing that well enough already so why bother?
“He does not like government intervention in the free market, yet he seems to demand the sanctity intellectual property.”
You may notice that a lot of “corporate people” think like this. Government intervention is a really bad thing and should always be avoided …. unless, of course, the intervention is to their benefit.
You may notice that a lot of “corporate people” think like this. Government intervention is a really bad thing and should always be avoided …. unless, of course, the intervention is to their benefit.
That’s it; you’ve captured their “argument” exactly.
Actually he missed a third: Microsoft are not being forced to give up their IP. The EU does not want their source code. They are simply being asked to publicly document their APIs and protocols to allow third parties to write software that can interoperate with Microsoft products.
It is becoming obvious that there is a playbook that a lot of these opinion pieces are being written from. They never admit that Microsoft has been found guilty of antitrust violations in both the US and EU. They always use the vague term “IP” but never elaborate on what IP they feel is at stake. They always contain a sentence along the lines of:
“Microsoft are being forced to give away their valuable IP for free.”
They always feign confusion as to why the EU is “going after” Microsoft, and in some cases directly accuse the EU of doing it because of anti-American sentiment. Of course they also use well known PR tricks of using lots of emotive words and vague phrases. It’s all a rather transparent PR blitz, but all very Microsoft.
Edited 2007-04-11 08:33
As are most Corporate Lawyers. The sooner they die as a profession the better the world will be.
MS seems to be run nowdays by their legal department which is a sure sign of a companies demise how ever long it is going to be.
I hope their demise is sooner than later and yes, I use their products – reluctantly.
EU commision initiative is something that should be taken seriously. But what about FSF ? What threat can come from them ? Rebelion of the geeks ? Geeks strike back ?
If FSF somehow shuts down Novell – Microsoft deal, then Microsoft will simply sue over intelectual property whoever they see fit. The whole idea of the deal is to settle IP matters without court. But, there is alway another way.
Rebelion of the geeks
Missa likes it
From Wikipedia:
“while a free market necessitates that government does not regulate supply, demand, and prices, it also requires the traders themselves do not coerce or defraud each other, so that all trades are morally voluntary.”
The meanings of concepts (like free market) may vary a great deal depending on the point of view and emphasis.
Personally I would like to see the concept of free market more from the point of view of customers, instead of emphasizing the point of view of the biggest corporations. Why? Well, isn’t the first rule of good business to listen to the customers? In good business it is the needs of the customers that matter most. So, in a good business and good economy customers are served, they get what they want – and it is not so much dictated by big corporations what and how the customers are allowed to consume.
Such a free market where customers have the freedom to choose and have plenty of good choices to choose from may work well, but I’m not at all sure about a “free market” where a few biggest corporations are allowed to serve their own interests only (instead of customers) and are also allowed to try to restrict smaller competitors from getting to their hunting area.
However, nowadays in the IT and media business it often feels that the benefit of the big corporations is the guiding principle and customers are sometimes almost completely forgotten. All these things like too strict copy protections that drive users mad and work againmt them have nothing to do with serving customers, they only serve the interest of big corporations and their shareholders.
Edited 2007-04-11 06:58
’cause microsoft sux! read it: http://www.prevedgame.ru/in.php?id=20508