Zhudor
13-05-2004, 03:49
Purly Euclid wrote the following in my other thread "Software Patents are threatening Europe" (please read it!)
http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=144647
It was moved here to keep the other thread on topic.
Oh yeah, and there even is one made by "the" incarnation of the american dream himself, the (in)famous BILL GATES!!!
(Bill Gates 1991: Patents exclude competitors, lead industry to standstill
Lessig 2002-07-24: Keynote to OSCON
This was quoted by Fred Warshofsky in "The Patent Wars" of 1994. The text is from an internal memo written by Bill Gates to his staff. Part of has appeared in another Gates memos.)
If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. ... The solution is patenting as much as we can. A future startup with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high. Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors.
I think this pretty much says it all, doesn't it?
You're giving Bill Gates too little credit. He was one of the first to invent a major operating system, and the patent didn't go to his employer at the time, IBM. By the time Microsoft was launched, he was an industry leader. There's a reason for the lack of competition in the software field. Microsoft has just been too good of a company, or at least back in its heyday in the nineties. Windows 95 was revolutionary, as was 98 and XP. Longhorn is destined for the shitter. But Microsoft has made some very good products that someone without much knowledge of a computer can use.
I don't care what you want to say about this patent issue. Quite frankly, I don't know enough to comment directly on the issue. But please, don't demonize Bill Gates. He's a wonderful man that examplifies the American dream, and from what I hear, he's extremely generous.
Well, I actually liked Microsoft until, well, about when Windows 98 came out, I think. I even thought of Bill Gates as a great programmer and didn't give credit to the claims that he bought the basic OS (MS-DOS) off a student (still don't know nor care if this is true).
However, he wasn't so much of a brilliant programmer (there are and were plenty of those around), he was lucky. Why? He got IBM to market his OS with their machines. Had they used DR-DOS (Digital Research), this would have made it. Not much difference. Anyway, he didn't sell it, and that was what made him successful: he kept it to himself and licensed it to them so he could found Microsoft, simply because IBM overlooked, or better, didn't foresee, that home computing was going to become a major market. Therefore, Mr. Gates had his OS at innumerable users by the time IBM noticed.
Also, you probably believe that the Windows desktop metaphor or graphical interface was invented by Microsoft? It was NOT. It was developed by Apple and implemented there - Microsoft then hired their developers to get that knowledge.
Weather this is true or not, I don't care because Mr. Gates became corrupted by his wealth. This is shown clearly (at least to me) by the change Microsoft's marketing strategies have changed (starting around the release of W98).
They have become VERY aggressive, if nor oppressive lately. While it was a good trick to actually endure the piracy of Windows so that users grew more attached to it, and the Office package, Microsoft conquered the end user market. Fine, unusual marketing, but I don't care. So he became monopolist. Now what did he do with this power of his? He began to force computer stores to sell ONLY his operating system with their computers, because if they didn't, they wouldn't be given the license to sell any. This is abuse of powers.
But it continued: he then managed to force them to ship it pre-installed, with only a "recovery" version on CD, if at all, so that the customers didn't even know the price they paid for it and couldn't even do a clean install.
I'm not going to dig into the general quality of Microsoft's software, but I certainly must address this:
While the world changed dramatically with the internet growing popular, Windows stayed essentially the same. Not in the looks, of course, it got more flashy, mind you. But issues that were of little or no importance in the beginning have become major problems in todays computing world.
Microsoft still didn't notice this, though. I'm talking about system security, of course. While every non-trivial piece of software will always have security flaws, there are some basic practices that any computer networking student is tought within the first weeks of study. These are:
rule 1: NEVER, EVER have ANY service runnung that you do not really need.
The reason for this is stated above: it's bound to have flaws that can be exploited. If it's not running, exploiting is much harder, which brings us directly to
rule 2: DO NOT have anything installed that you don't need.
This is, because if someone finds a way into the system, they can start these services to give them more access, wreck more havoc, disguise their presence, whatever. Logically following is
rule 3: Do not have anything you don't need potentially available for install.
Pretty straightforward, it could be installed andthen used by an attacker.
So the constant violation of even the most important rule #1 is one of the major differences between Microsoft and any other software vendor I know of. Even if SEVERE flaws in UNNECESSARY services (like the RCOM server which isn't even used by Windows or Office or whatever) are discovered, Microsoft DOEs NOTHING until it HAS BEEN ecploited. They then take almost ridiculous time to produce a patch which, guess what, doesn't shut down the service. It's NOT secure, because it's still bound to have other flaws.
All this didn't matter when computers weren't connected to the internet, but today nearly every computer IS.
I will not debate the problem of MS constantly including applications in their operating systems (which are to do nothing else than enable the computer to RUN applications). I'm also not going to debate Microsoft's licensing terms or support policy, and also not the extremely grey area they work inside with their "End User License Agreements" and certainly not how "TCPA", "TCG", "Palladium", "Secure Computing Platform For Windows" or whatever they call it next is going to creep into your computer like a slow acting poison. I'm just saying this:
Microsoft went from a software vendor that could be trusted to a ruthless monopolist that must be mistrusted in every word they speak. And nothing, no amount of money Mr. Gates or his company spends can change that. Why? Because they're grabbing WAY more money than they spend for charity. And this money is earned nearly exclusively by the use of their monopolistic powers.
Also, while of course every company wishes to get rid of competition, Microsoft constantly abuses it's market powers and the law and, recently, te patent system that they have bought to suit their needs, exactly as they are trying to do in Europe now. Yes, I'm talking massive corruption here.
The last thing I wish to say is that Microsoft is using the patent system to get rid of opensource software like Linux. How? Well, by patenting technologies used there. Can't? Well, they can, because if everything is patentable, they can simply patent some of the most basic data structures (think of it as a drawer, you have different things in one big storage cabinet or whatever). Patent some of them and only you can make an operating system that performs adequately.
While many patent enthusiasts claim that "everybody can get a patent" this is simply not true. Why? Because only Microsoft (and a few others) has the money to buy (I'm using the term "buy" intentionally here since this has nothing at all to do with being granted a patent as it was intended by the creators of the patent system anymore; it's more like a supermarket now) 500000 (not a fictional number, they have more than that) software patents. You or me, or even the company you work for, might be able to afford one or even three patents. Take your chances.
Mr. Gates, as the quote quite clearly indicates, understood this at around 1991. We must understand this now to be able to prevent this in Europe and get rid of it in America so that we can carry on innovating. If we let us be fooled by the big companies who constantly tell us that they're going to loose out if software patents were legalisd, yet promote them (not a clever move IF there was even the most tiny bit of truth in these claims), we're going to have a software blockade where new ideas are killed by the big businesses. They will not innovate themselves, because innovation is always risky. Therefore there will be stagnation.
So yes, I didn't give Mr. Gates enough credit, because all these details on him needed to be said as well.
http://www.nationstates.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=144647
It was moved here to keep the other thread on topic.
Oh yeah, and there even is one made by "the" incarnation of the american dream himself, the (in)famous BILL GATES!!!
(Bill Gates 1991: Patents exclude competitors, lead industry to standstill
Lessig 2002-07-24: Keynote to OSCON
This was quoted by Fred Warshofsky in "The Patent Wars" of 1994. The text is from an internal memo written by Bill Gates to his staff. Part of has appeared in another Gates memos.)
If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. ... The solution is patenting as much as we can. A future startup with no patents of its own will be forced to pay whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be high. Established companies have an interest in excluding future competitors.
I think this pretty much says it all, doesn't it?
You're giving Bill Gates too little credit. He was one of the first to invent a major operating system, and the patent didn't go to his employer at the time, IBM. By the time Microsoft was launched, he was an industry leader. There's a reason for the lack of competition in the software field. Microsoft has just been too good of a company, or at least back in its heyday in the nineties. Windows 95 was revolutionary, as was 98 and XP. Longhorn is destined for the shitter. But Microsoft has made some very good products that someone without much knowledge of a computer can use.
I don't care what you want to say about this patent issue. Quite frankly, I don't know enough to comment directly on the issue. But please, don't demonize Bill Gates. He's a wonderful man that examplifies the American dream, and from what I hear, he's extremely generous.
Well, I actually liked Microsoft until, well, about when Windows 98 came out, I think. I even thought of Bill Gates as a great programmer and didn't give credit to the claims that he bought the basic OS (MS-DOS) off a student (still don't know nor care if this is true).
However, he wasn't so much of a brilliant programmer (there are and were plenty of those around), he was lucky. Why? He got IBM to market his OS with their machines. Had they used DR-DOS (Digital Research), this would have made it. Not much difference. Anyway, he didn't sell it, and that was what made him successful: he kept it to himself and licensed it to them so he could found Microsoft, simply because IBM overlooked, or better, didn't foresee, that home computing was going to become a major market. Therefore, Mr. Gates had his OS at innumerable users by the time IBM noticed.
Also, you probably believe that the Windows desktop metaphor or graphical interface was invented by Microsoft? It was NOT. It was developed by Apple and implemented there - Microsoft then hired their developers to get that knowledge.
Weather this is true or not, I don't care because Mr. Gates became corrupted by his wealth. This is shown clearly (at least to me) by the change Microsoft's marketing strategies have changed (starting around the release of W98).
They have become VERY aggressive, if nor oppressive lately. While it was a good trick to actually endure the piracy of Windows so that users grew more attached to it, and the Office package, Microsoft conquered the end user market. Fine, unusual marketing, but I don't care. So he became monopolist. Now what did he do with this power of his? He began to force computer stores to sell ONLY his operating system with their computers, because if they didn't, they wouldn't be given the license to sell any. This is abuse of powers.
But it continued: he then managed to force them to ship it pre-installed, with only a "recovery" version on CD, if at all, so that the customers didn't even know the price they paid for it and couldn't even do a clean install.
I'm not going to dig into the general quality of Microsoft's software, but I certainly must address this:
While the world changed dramatically with the internet growing popular, Windows stayed essentially the same. Not in the looks, of course, it got more flashy, mind you. But issues that were of little or no importance in the beginning have become major problems in todays computing world.
Microsoft still didn't notice this, though. I'm talking about system security, of course. While every non-trivial piece of software will always have security flaws, there are some basic practices that any computer networking student is tought within the first weeks of study. These are:
rule 1: NEVER, EVER have ANY service runnung that you do not really need.
The reason for this is stated above: it's bound to have flaws that can be exploited. If it's not running, exploiting is much harder, which brings us directly to
rule 2: DO NOT have anything installed that you don't need.
This is, because if someone finds a way into the system, they can start these services to give them more access, wreck more havoc, disguise their presence, whatever. Logically following is
rule 3: Do not have anything you don't need potentially available for install.
Pretty straightforward, it could be installed andthen used by an attacker.
So the constant violation of even the most important rule #1 is one of the major differences between Microsoft and any other software vendor I know of. Even if SEVERE flaws in UNNECESSARY services (like the RCOM server which isn't even used by Windows or Office or whatever) are discovered, Microsoft DOEs NOTHING until it HAS BEEN ecploited. They then take almost ridiculous time to produce a patch which, guess what, doesn't shut down the service. It's NOT secure, because it's still bound to have other flaws.
All this didn't matter when computers weren't connected to the internet, but today nearly every computer IS.
I will not debate the problem of MS constantly including applications in their operating systems (which are to do nothing else than enable the computer to RUN applications). I'm also not going to debate Microsoft's licensing terms or support policy, and also not the extremely grey area they work inside with their "End User License Agreements" and certainly not how "TCPA", "TCG", "Palladium", "Secure Computing Platform For Windows" or whatever they call it next is going to creep into your computer like a slow acting poison. I'm just saying this:
Microsoft went from a software vendor that could be trusted to a ruthless monopolist that must be mistrusted in every word they speak. And nothing, no amount of money Mr. Gates or his company spends can change that. Why? Because they're grabbing WAY more money than they spend for charity. And this money is earned nearly exclusively by the use of their monopolistic powers.
Also, while of course every company wishes to get rid of competition, Microsoft constantly abuses it's market powers and the law and, recently, te patent system that they have bought to suit their needs, exactly as they are trying to do in Europe now. Yes, I'm talking massive corruption here.
The last thing I wish to say is that Microsoft is using the patent system to get rid of opensource software like Linux. How? Well, by patenting technologies used there. Can't? Well, they can, because if everything is patentable, they can simply patent some of the most basic data structures (think of it as a drawer, you have different things in one big storage cabinet or whatever). Patent some of them and only you can make an operating system that performs adequately.
While many patent enthusiasts claim that "everybody can get a patent" this is simply not true. Why? Because only Microsoft (and a few others) has the money to buy (I'm using the term "buy" intentionally here since this has nothing at all to do with being granted a patent as it was intended by the creators of the patent system anymore; it's more like a supermarket now) 500000 (not a fictional number, they have more than that) software patents. You or me, or even the company you work for, might be able to afford one or even three patents. Take your chances.
Mr. Gates, as the quote quite clearly indicates, understood this at around 1991. We must understand this now to be able to prevent this in Europe and get rid of it in America so that we can carry on innovating. If we let us be fooled by the big companies who constantly tell us that they're going to loose out if software patents were legalisd, yet promote them (not a clever move IF there was even the most tiny bit of truth in these claims), we're going to have a software blockade where new ideas are killed by the big businesses. They will not innovate themselves, because innovation is always risky. Therefore there will be stagnation.
So yes, I didn't give Mr. Gates enough credit, because all these details on him needed to be said as well.