Tocqueville Blames U.S. IT Troubles On Free Software 642
twitter writes "The group that told us closed source was more secure than open source, now tells us that "Open source software, also described as free software, is the neutron bomb of IP" that will destroy 85% of the market value of US companies and drive companies who are currently outsourcing to "draconian measures even worse than outsourcing." So, there you have it, free software is responsible for bad laws, out sourcing and bad hair days." (Remember who funded the same group's report on open source security?)
Cough-Cough-Bullshit! (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I would recommend against using closed source software produced by any company that outsource their programming. It seems to me that is a security risk of incredible measure.
I would also like to suggest that Tocqueville create a report on how an illegally maintained monopolies can hurt the computer industry.
Re:Cough-Cough-Bullshit! (Score:3, Insightful)
Money talks louder than sense. To increase volume, increase back handers.
The software industry is only the latest victim of money-greased government. It's always happened - the only difference is that the modern well educated citizen with freedom of information knows a lot more about it than our ancestors.
Re:Cough-Cough-Bullshit! (Score:5, Informative)
> against relying on open-source software
Since the government is busy sponsoring open source software [cougaar.org], I think this warning falls (happily) on deaf ears.
Re:Cough-Cough-Bullshit! (Score:3, Insightful)
Since the government is
You may find, if you check, that there is more than one government in the world. Some may unfortunately be listening to this kind of nonsense.
Re:Cough-Cough-Bullshit! (Score:5, Insightful)
> > against relying on open-source software
>
> Since the government is busy sponsoring open source software, I think this warning falls (happily) on deaf ears.
Yes, but these guys must be quite specialists of national security since they have the nerve to question the doings [nsa.gov] of this governmental organization [nsa.gov] with track record for not having that nonchalant attitude towards security issues
Re:Cough-Cough-Bullshit! (Score:3, Interesting)
1) MS has allows China (and other countries) to see the MSWindows source code.
2) closed source is better for national security.
3) 1+1=10?
4) ?????
5) Profit!
Re:Cough-Cough-Bullshit! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cough-Cough-Bullshit! (Score:4, Funny)
SELinux or Windows 2003 Server.
I wonder which is more secure and less of a national security risk?
Jedidiah
Your post is not entire BS Free either (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Your post is not entire BS Free either (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cough-Cough-Bullshit! (Score:5, Interesting)
Anytime someone trots out these "Open Source is bad for the goverment" pieces,
I like to hit back with the MITRE report titled Use of Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) in the U.S. Department of Defense [mitre.org]
Choice quote (emphasis added):
"The main conclusion of the analysis was that FOSS software plays a more critical role in the DoD than has generally been recognized. FOSS applications are most important in four broad areas: Infrastructure Support, Software Development, Security, and Research. One unexpected result was the degree to which Security depends on FOSS. Banning FOSS would remove certain types of infrastructure components (e.g., OpenBSD) that currently help support network security. It would also limit DoD access to--and overall expertise in--the use of powerful FOSS analysis and detection applications that hostile groups could use to help stage cyberattacks. Finally, it would remove the demonstrated ability of FOSS applications to be updated rapidly in response to new types of cyberattack . Taken together, these factors imply that banning FOSS would have immediate, broad, and strongly negative impacts on the ability of many sensitive and security-focused DoD groups to defend against cyberattacks."
Overall, MITRE carries much more credibility in the government than some apparently politically and economically motivated "thinktank"
Wah! Stomp your feet! Wahh! (Score:5, Insightful)
So, major U.S. corporations are heavily investing in developing a widely available 'free software inventory' that is open to anyone to use or customize at will. If customers only want to use free software, they will buy more hardware and services because there is no additional cost for software. Moreover, with no software costs, even hardware development, etc. becomes even cheaper.
I always thought that the customer looking for, and receiving, the best value (or "bang for the buck") was one of the inherent features of capitalism. Now that the business model for software firms is being turned on its head Ken Brown is crying foul. I didn't hear Brown whining when domestic garment manufacturers started moving all the sewing jobs overseas to sweatshops which put far more people out of work than the current IT outsourcing.
Of course, being a pieceworker in any industry isn't considered a "glamour job" on Wall Street.
Re:Wah! Stomp your feet! Wahh! (Score:5, Insightful)
The bottom line is this: a non-IP future means that all companies in the Baruch Lev study go to from 85% to 0% in intangible asset value.
That article fails to address the point that their costs associated with developing and maintaining IP (Intellectual Property for the uninitiated) will also drop to near $0. This allows most business to focus on, well for instance, their business. It frees them in some regards from worrying about how much budget to allocate for the overhead of purchasing and maintaining closed source IT "solutions".
Re:Wah! Stomp your feet! Wahh! (Score:5, Insightful)
Some software re-released under the GPL(probably adding some asset to the original company).
Re:85% of tangible assets are not negligible (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:85% of tangible assets are not negligible (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing wrong with that. The economy marches on. You can't halt economic progress just because the market means that progress produces winners and losers.
Re:Wah! Stomp your feet! Wahh! (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think merely owning open source products instead of closed source software weakens (or even levels)your ability to maintain a "competive advantage". What gives you the competitive advantage is how "efficiently" you produce your product or provide your service compared to your competitors. This also "assumes" that your product/service is "perceived" to be relatively equal in value to your competitors. You obtain a "competive advantage" by being the most efficient producer/provider of a product or service. The way that you "implement" your IT solutions (closed or open source) plays a role in making you more efficient, however, merely the ownership of an IT solution doesn't make you more efficient. If the implementation augments (by making you more efficient) your capability to perform your business processes, then you will have a competitive advantage over someone who does not have that same capability. IT solutions do not drive a business. Your business practices and processes are what drive the business. The IT solutions merely make you more efficient (in theory) in executing those practices and processes.
Re:Wah! Stomp your feet! Wahh! (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, if Ford wanted to they could even create driver modules for the kernel and still not be required to include their source. See nvidia's Linux display drivers for this case.
Perfect competition != capitalism (Score:3, Interesting)
That's a feature of perfect competition (a theoretical state which is in actuality impossible and never exists, as it rests on 0 bars to entry of an industry, perfect information, and various other impossible conditions), not of capitalism (a real economic system more often characterised by oligopoly or monopoly conditions, imperfect information, and intentional 'distortions' of markets by firms).
Re:Let the market do its job... (Score:5, Informative)
That's like saying 'real feudalism (i.e. a kingdom of God in which the Church and the monarchy are acting by divine rule), as opposed to the corrupt, rapine, impoverished system that passed for feudalism in the middle ages'. Perfect competition has never existed and will never exist. It is a model, for use in economic theory, that is intended to represent a theoretical tendency.
In REAL capitalism, i.e. the real, actual, existing economic system, since its birth several hundred years ago, (as Adam Smith repeatedly points out in Wealth of Nations incidentally) firms constantly attempt to influence and control goverment to pursue their own profit maximisation goals. This includes raising tariffs when they want them (i.e. against competitors) and lowering them when they are a problem (i.e. for export markets). Manipulation of politics for profit maximisation is and always has been a feature of REAL capitalism, and the inevitable result of this is non-free markets (although even without it, markets would not be 'perfect' as we do not have perfect information, 0 barriers to entry, etc).
John Maynard Keynes was an idiot. He convinced many governments that the way to create wealth was to print money
Keynesianism does not argue that the way to create wealth is to print money. It argues that the government should correct the cyclical fluctuations of the capitalist economy by creating countercyclical expansions and contractions--borrowing and spending in periods of contraction, paying off the debt in periods of expansion, not printing money, but trying to stabilise the economy through spending. Don't get the neoclassical synthesis (today's ISLM model) confused with original Keynesianism. There's a big difference.
And John Maynard Keynes was not an idiot; even if you disagree with him, he was ahead of his time.
For god's sake (Score:5, Insightful)
Nonsense Squared! This is really unreal. I'm not a linux zealot but open source is at the *VERY least* as secure as closed source and has the potential to totally surpass it through the ability to get such a large amount of peer review.
I don't see how companies saving money is going to lead to the end of the American way anyhow.
I just love it when people say open source is anti-capitalist and unamerican. I think quite the opposite. It embodies the spirit of America. Capitalism is about maximising profit. Open source achieves that by being free (as in beer) on the whole. American's also love freedom of speech. Open source is more than freedom of speech. It's freedom of information. Companies don't like this fredom because they can't control it. It is cancerous but this isn't a bad cancer.
If I put my blood and sweat into a piece of software and GPL it I sure as hell don't want a closed sourced vendor to take my hard work and make money from it - I don't see how that is unammerican. It's not Marxist, as some suggest, I still believe the code is mine and there's ownership to that code. It's just that i've made it freely available provided you follow some simple rules.
Another point. The business value of code is not tied to applications as such.. it's tied to the code that bridges those applications. That's where you pay money the money for programmers. Open source will generally have no effect on the value of this important intellectual property. It just means you may not have to reinvent the wheel to do a job that's partly been done before..
And besides, even if his logic was sane, if people are outsourcing jobs to india to save money then by the same token the open source neutron bomb should be able to take a chunk out of the market value of a few corporations. You can't have your cake and eat it.
Simon.
Re:For god's sake (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:For god's sake (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose MS made MS-linux based on the linux kernel and distributed it under the GPL for $10,000 a copy.
Another company would just buy one copy and then resell it for $14.95 if they expected to sell at least 1000 copies.
That is the other half of the GPL - you must license your derivitives under the GPL as well, which means that others are free to use the derivitives.
But what would "MS Linux" be? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:For god's sake (Score:5, Informative)
Read Selling Free Software [gnu.org] from GNU. As I said in my other post, noone ever seems to bother to actually read the things RMS and GNU puts out.
I'm not really karma whoring with this link; just trying to get more people to read this so we can actually see informed discussions instead of misunderstandings like this.
The american way and open source. (Score:5, Insightful)
After hearing at least this argument and the opposite argument (that it's communist) 1,000 times, I've got a neat theory: Open source combines the best aspects of both systems. You get the cheapness, efficiency, and transparency of a free market and you also get the equality and sharing of a communist model.
Ideal communism (as opposed to Soviet and Chinese communism) doesn't allow for copyrights (it would fly straight in the face of the communal model of sharing), and while the GPL relies on copyright for keeping the source open, under communism you would have to share source code you write, since it belongs to the state for everyone's use, so both achieve the same noble end.
Free-market capitalism (as opposed to our crony capitalism and corporatism) maximizes efficiency by setting marginal cost to marginal price, which in the case of software, movies, music, etc., is very close to zero. If you supply the resources, like with P2P, it would be free.
Open source also avoids the pitfalls of both systems. It gets around the state censorship problem by distributing control - anyone can fork off a project is she/he feels like it. It also avoids the problems of monopolists, rent-seekers, corporate censors, and other dirtbags that you find in capitalism.
Re:The american way and open source. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, excluding Duke Nukem Forever, what little scarcity there is in software is artificially created ("We'll make this stuff expensive, because our coders have got to eat"). If suitably licensed, I can share it around at almost no cost to myself.
Capitalism says "get hold of something scarce and barter it for other scarce things." Communism says "gather together all the scarce things and try and share them out equally." Diametrically opposed, but both relying on scarcity.
Linux is immune, because there isn't a limited amount of it to go round.
Re:The american way and open source. (Score:3, Insightful)
Under ideal communism there is no state [marxists.org]. Workers who produce anything own both the means of production and the products which they pr
Re:For god's sake (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a libertarian and an extreme laissez-faire capitalist. I agree with you that I can't see how people believe Free software is anti-capitalism. I am pro-Free software because I am a laissez-faire capitalist.
Intellectual property is a government granted monopoly. I do not agree with government granted monopolies, both on ethical grounds (just not right to restrain everybody else that way) as well as practical (not as good for the economy as some people think; the alternative is better, as demonstrated by Free software). Thus I value Free software as a legal means of resistance against these monopolies.
Read clearly what it says is the purpose of intellectual property in the Constitution some time. The purpose is not to recognize the inherent right people have to their ideas; the purpose is to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts" by "securing for a limited time" an exclusive right to an idea for its inventor. That's a government-granted monopoly. If there were some issue of inherent rights here, then this right would last forever and making it end after the limited time would be immoral. (Your rights to your house don't expire after 14 years.)
Furthermore, I don't agree that the progress of science and the useful arts is part of the purpose of government. I believe granting these monopolies and restraining everyone else who didn't come up with an idea is unethical. Furthermore, I believe it actually hinders the progress of science and the useful arts. Free software is proving that when these monopolies (effectively) don't exist, everyone can build on the work others have released, and the science of software construction advances faster than it would have had people exercised their privilege of government-granted monopoly. In the same way, all science in history has been built on the work of others, and we can best help the advance of science by not restraining those who would use and advance the ideas of others.
Yes, as many point out, if intellectual property laws didn't exist, the GPL and copyleft could not exist, either. However, this misunderstands the purpose of copyleft. If you read what RMS has actually said (most people don't), you'll find that copyleft was invented as a weapon to strike against what he felt was an immoral exercise of copyright. He talks about how he used the rationale that it was acceptable to use the enemy's own weapon against them, even though he didn't agree with what they were doing. Copyleft is a way to use copyright law to work against what RMS felt was an abuse of copyright law.
RMS may be a communist hippie or something like many people say; I don't know. He and I certainly don't see eye to eye on everything (he doesn't advocate the abolition of intellectual property laws or copyright, actually). All I know is, when I think things through from a libertarian point of view, I arrive at the conclusion that Free software is the laissez-faire capitalist way.
Re:For god's sake (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right, they don't. In typical western democracies they expire in less than that. Here in Scotland, for example, if you leave a house abandoned and someone else has the use of it without your permission and without you doing anything about it for twelve years, it's legally theirs.
There is no fundame
Re:For god's sake (Score:3, Insightful)
Conflating Libertarianism and libertarianism makes you look as stupid as if you mixed up Republicans and republicans or Democrats and democrats.
In all cases, the specific uppercased political party named itself after a lowercased general principle, but has gone on to define itself in ways far beyond or even in opposition to what the original term meant.
The acid test to distinguish a Libertarian from a li
Re:For god's sake (Score:5, Informative)
Did you even read what I wrote?
First off, you're not a libertarian.
Sure I am. I'm currently a minarchist libertarian, but learning towards anarchist, also known as anarcho-capitalist.
There's more than one kind of libertarian, you know. Those who, like me, disagree with intellectual property laws are still a minority within the movement, but we are a significant minority. Here [libertariannation.org]'s a good discussion of the issue. Here [thefreedictionary.com]'s some more perspective. Saying libertarians are all agreed on the issue and that I'm not a libertarian because of my position on this is a misrepresentation. As Eric Raymond says [catb.org], the non-coercion principle is about the only thing all libertarians agree on.
Secondly, a basic government is needed to protect property rights (that's a tenent of Libertariansim)
You're dismissing an entire branch of libertarianism, there. Anarcho-libertarians do not believe a basic government is needed, at all, or believe that government itself should be demonopolized (allowing a choice between any number of independent governments in a geographic area, or starting your own). Now, most of the ones I hear from still seem to believe in intellectual property, but I'm at a loss as to how intellectual property law is to be enforced in anarchy.
Furthermore, as I said in my post (did you read it?), I do not believe "intellectual property" is a property right. Nowhere in our legal code is it acknowledged as a right; it is a gift from the public encoded in the Constitution NOT because people have an "inherent right" to their ideas, but in order to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. (Did you read the Constitution?)
Your assumption is that everybody wants to code for free, which is utter bullshit.
Where did I say that? Strawman, or else you're reading somebody else's post.
I don't code for free, but I don't produce proprietary software, either. Something like 70% or more of the coding industry is not jobs for software makers like Microsoft or your favorite game company but coding custom software that is only of interest to one particular company. This will never go away; intellectual property laws have zero bearing on whether this kind of work needs to be done or not. Furthermore, removing the government-monopoly grant of intellectual property would radically change the software industry but not destroy it. Free software is demonstrating that. We are slowly approaching the point where, even with the protection of the government grant of exclusive rights "for a time," proprietary software will be unable to compete on price, features, performance, or TCO with Free software. That's the point of the whole article from Tocqueville! They see Free software as a neutron bomb that will "kill" the industry. What it will do is not kill it, but change it forever. There will still be money to be made in Free software. And even if not, people still have the right to give their "intellectual property" away for free, so this change is going to happen anyway.
How do you propose protecting the rights of people who develop software and want to sell it?
I do not believe anyone has a right to a profit at any particular business model, nor do I believe anyone has an exclusive right to an idea they have originated, thus I do not propose protecting these alleged "rights." (I do, of course, believe in protecting all the same rights for everybody, so they'd have the same basic rights as you and me.)
Meanwhile, it's not impossible to make money selling Free software [gnu.org]. Why don't you do some reading some time?
so all software development is in the hands of people who happen to have the time and mone
Free software makes logical sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Your problem is that you are narrow-mindedly assuming all reimbursement must be in the form of financial payment.
I have personally contributed about 300 lines of code to Debian, for free. In return, I have received all 15 million lines of code contained in Debian, available to use for free. If that doesn't count as reimbursement, I don't know what does.
Free software makes no logical sense, because people do it out of altruism and stupidity.
Let's logically analyze how stupid and altruistic my above mentioned contribution really is. I contributed 300 lines of useful code and got back 15 million lines.
- Is this stupid? No. The 300 lines I contributed only took a few hours to write. The 15 million lines I got back takes a lifetime.
- Is this altruistic? Not in my case. I wrote those 300 lines of code out of pure self interest. The only reason I wrote the code was because I needed it for my own use.
- Does it make logical sense? It sure does. Each of the thousands of contributors receives far more value than he alone contributes.
- How can this work while Communism failed? Because software is infinitely copiable. Communism tries to apply the sharing philosophy to material goods, which unlike software are not infinitely copiable.
- What about the freeloader problem? Freeloaders are irrelevant for infinitely copiable goods. As long as the contributors themselves are adequately reimbursed, freeloaders do no harm.
The moral is, do not blindly assume that the economics of material goods apply to software. And please, for the love of god, do not attack all free software as having "no logical sense". If you're not gonna participate yourself (as is your right), at least don't interfere with other people who wish to participate out of their own free will (as is their right).Re:For god's sake (Score:3, Insightful)
My god you are wrong there.
Free software IS capitialism. Everybody writing it is writing for entirely selfish purposes. Not every reward is money. I would estimate 99% of free software is written to boost the writer's ego and to gain admiration, and perhaps even to advertise their talents and get paid. Maybe 1% is written by somebody literally thinking they are improving the world.
The GPL is explicitly designed so that a persons creative efforts continue to belong to t
Re:For god's sake (Score:3, Interesting)
Offcourse, we already knew this. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Offcourse, we already knew this. (Score:5, Funny)
Business Model (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Business Model (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course Gentoo's founding father and chief architect had to throw in the towel recently because he was not making any money from it and had run up $20,000 of debts.
Microsoft!=All business revenue from Software (Score:5, Insightful)
The offshoring thing is also laughable. A lot of what is being sent offshore is stuff like back office banking coding, not a whole lot of FOSS software for that. FOSS helps level the playing field between giant corporation and small business. Now a little guy can get into the game without having to sign over his first born for windows licences or have to have an army of lawyers on standby in case the BSA comes knocking on their door because someone forgot to activate their copy of XP.
Which brings me to a random aside, if you really want to avoid being offshored, SPECIALIZE! Learn something in addition to CS.
You know... (Score:3, Interesting)
Doesn't make sense (Score:5, Insightful)
So, when I have all these free tools laying around with no restrictions, I'm better off because I am limited only by my imagination. My counterparts who are limited by the size of their wallets can't compete with me.
The end story is that if I'm an employee, I get bigger raises. If I'm a business, I have more money to hire people with.
Meanwhile in another story...... (Score:5, Interesting)
A large service industry that is not outsourceable.
Funny, IBM has been doing better... (Score:4, Insightful)
Gee, I wonder if someone in the proprietary software business is backing these De Toqueville folks -- Microsoft, perhaps?
Question: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Question: (Score:3, Funny)
How does open source cause outsourcing? . . . Can someone explain their reasoning for me?
I was trying to figure that out as well. My take on it is that if companies can't get 80% profit margins selling proprietary software because of OSS, then they will outsource jobs to regain that profit margin. Sounds like a statement about managerial greed to me.
The part of the article I found most interesting was the conclusion: "Unless intellectual property assets are better protected, we will soon see informat
In other news, sky is blue (Score:5, Insightful)
The question is: is it a BAD thing?
Of course, there will be bleating about lost jobs. In the long term, though, it will be only a tiny number which will be absorbed elsewhere as companies have more money to spend on making software what they really need, thanks to the ability to customize. They will have to employ programmers to do this for them or other companies to provide this service. Open source will be bad news for some developers and some customers, but it's very good news for many more companies. Business models sometimes go out of date. People have to deal with it.
I believe in the long run, OSS will be good for employment and the IT industry; it will take away artificial scarcity. It's funny how we as a human race clamour for instant and inexhaustable supply of everything, but as soon as we make something that's easy to make an instant an inexhaustable supply of (a copy of a program), we suddenly have to make it artificially scarce!
Re:In other news, sky is blue (Score:5, Insightful)
Not by a long shot. You can buy as much proprietary software as you want, you are not going to exhaust the supply. And prices would not rise due to increasing demand - they probably would fall instead.
So there is no scarcity. Then why does proprietary software have a price, which, in traditional economic theories, is a proxy for scarcity ?
New economic theories are needed for music, movies, and to all stuff with perceived value but zero marginal cost. I think we haven't seen the full ramifications of the digital era yet.
Re:In other news, sky is blue (Score:3, Insightful)
This guy... (Score:5, Funny)
"However, the open source strategy is a triple-edge sword..."
If you're going to use an analogy how about one that at least sort of makes sense. For some reason I keep thinking about those triple bladed Gillette MACH 3 razors here.
"...most free software such as Linux, (the most popular because of its operating system capability)"
I could've shown you the many typos and bad sentence structure but this one statement shows how little this writer (or his 'writing capability') understands about Linux and/or Open Source.
They give people like this positions where they're stuff can be read by the public?! Amazing!
I've seen one of those!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Hoo boy! I had lines going every which way, textures out of place, the works! But I remember that those who held flame or ice blades had three or four polygon planes of blade sticking out (instead of fire or ice effects)!
Uhhhh, no... That's probably not what the writer of this article was thinking.
Market value vs. productivity (Score:5, Insightful)
Open Source software...that will destroy 85% of the market value of US companies and drive companies who are currently outsourcing to "draconian measures even worse than outsourcing."
The market value of a few software companies is irrelevent compared to the massive increases in productivity and standards of living that result from free software. Even though the world is awash in free software, creating systems and solutions using it is still very lucrative. Ask IBM.
Re:Market value vs. productivity (Score:3, Interesting)
Given a choice of an environment where lots of programmers are employed but their employers can only make modest earnings off their work, and an environment where big companies make a fortune but fire all their programmers anyway, they'd probably rather go for the former.
Also - open source basically forces companies to continue to innovate - since anybody else can pick up one vendors wor
Productivity of WHAT? (Score:3, Insightful)
The patent and copyright system in the US w
In related news... (Score:5, Funny)
This "Marriage" is destroying the market for prostitutes and other providers traditional pay-per-use facilities. While it is true that using the opensource style "Marriage" arrangements it is often more difficult to arrange to get sex, with cryptic error messages like "I've got a headache" with no friendly interface where you can uncheck headache box and get your end in, many people are still choosing this threat to society.
It must stop. Join with the good capitalists and put an end to these terrorists trying to take out country by stealth. Ban marriage!
job loss due to MS (Score:4, Insightful)
This has been going on for a long time. I personally remember the original SCO losing sales to MS as developers began to port products over to DOS and Windows. This meant that qualfied admins were being replaced with college kids who knew Windows.
Then it was the visual languages. A person no longer needed to have a basis in best coding practices and best GUI practices. Just whip some widgets on the screen, and look Ma, I got me a program thingy.
Then it was Frontpage. Who needs W3C compliance. Who needs to employ web browser developers. MS gives away IE and kills the browser industry. Who needs to hire qualified developers. Just put some Flash on the screen, say it is IE only, and the public will think it is a proffesional job.
Re:job loss due to MS (Score:4, Insightful)
And Black and Decker costs jobs because they sell power saws and nailers that allow a single carpenter to frame out a new structure, when once upon a time it would have taken dozens to complete it in the same timeframe.
We should pass a law barring people from creating better tools for getting things done. Everything should be like the way Linux and the Amish do it - as backbreaking and labor intensive as possible, because that means more work!
The joke of it is, you were modded insightful on "we hates msft" principles, while I'll be modded flamebait/troll/offtopic because it may appear I'm "defending" them.
Re:job loss due to MS (Score:3, Insightful)
Duh. That was supposed to be idiotic- equally as idiotic as the Tocqueville report. Maybe he was a little too subtle...
The poster was pointing out that just because something costs jobs or destroys company value doesn't mean it's bad. To fear that a technology will take away your salary is called "Ludditism". If successful cold fusion will destroy the worth of oil companies, so what?
Everything should be like the way Linux and the Amish do it - as backbreaking and labor intensive as pos
Re:job loss due to MS (Score:3, Insightful)
I can code straight Win32 GUIs, but I choose not to. Unless I need a completely dynamic UI, all it does is add more code and make things harder to manage.
If you are having problems finding a job, get off your obsolete ass and learn the new technologies. If you know the easy way AND the hard way, employers will hire you over the retard just out of college.
Accomplishments (Score:4, Funny)
"Not Found
The requested URL http:// was not found on this server."
Alexis de Tocqueville (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, doesn't seem to be worth getting excessively upset over crap like this unless the government starts making laws based on it.
Re:Alexis de Tocqueville (Score:5, Insightful)
Missing the point? (Score:4, Insightful)
GNU/Linux is that! It is true that GNU/Linux advocates want proprietary, closed-source models to fail. The author gets this. In his opinion that is a really bad idea because a huge chunk of US GNP is based on that closed model.
Now whether or not you agee with the conclusion drawn is one thing, but you should not be accusing them of being unaware of the realities.
Chewbacca!! (Score:5, Insightful)
85% of market value of US companies == intangible
intangible value == IP
F/OSS software == anti-IP (& in fact will destroy it, somehow)
Therefore, F/OSS == the destruction of 85% of the value of US companies
I don't know where to begin, this article is so full of holes.
Probably the most glaring error is equating "intangible value" with "IP," and claiming that F/OSS will destroy the former by avoiding the latter. First of all, F/OSS is not anti-IP. If anything, it is merely anti exploiting-IP-till-it-squeaks, but the GPL (etc.) are all about copyright, not against it. Second, what the hell does any of that have to do with trademarks? Last, but certainly not least, where are this guy's numbers? If 85% of "market value" of companies is intangible, and open source and outsourcing are going to destroy that value, wouldn't there be some measurable impact since 1998 (when the 85% number came from) with the increase of Linux market share and outsourcing the last several years? There ought to be some evidence for his position if it is at all defensible.
Well, that's enough rant for now. I've probably made even less sense then this bozo, but idiotic, scare-mongering, groundless spin like this makes my blood boil. (Which is why I avoid TV even more in an election year.)
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
IP Theft (Score:3, Insightful)
Do these people have a clue?
You can't steal Intellectual Property. Why? Because it is not property. It is not governed by property laws. Sure, someone who violates copyright is breaking the law, but no court in the US or UK will convict them of theft.
These people seriously need to get a clue before publishing uninformed rants.
Open source and free software is merely a response (Score:5, Insightful)
It is a response to over priced buggy software.
It is a response by developers that are tired of monopolistic control artificially imposed by vendors of propriatary software.
Open software wrenches the control back to the individual and individual developer.
It may shift control and the current business model but it will hardly mean the end to the software business. Open source software has already changed the software business and it is going to overtake it in my opinion. The only question is are the software development shops going to adapt or die?
Lies, errors, half-truths and suppositions (Score:4, Interesting)
1) That liberal IP policies and free software will shrink the value of existing IP property. False - it will probably raise the total amount of IP capital over the long run. More producers of IP will have access to more tools and be able to provide more solutions on more platforms.
2) Outsourcing is bad - okay outsourcing is bad.
3) Outsourcing ruins US IP. The value a company places on a process, technology etc, is purely subjective. There's an accounting value - which is a function of the acquisition cost and r&d costs, but if they value an asset they will protect it. Companies that take core business processes overseas where IP property theft is rampant are either stupid, or these processes don't have a lot of value.
4) GPL only allows you to develop GPL software - Where do I begin - he said shaking his head in dismay. You can write (and people do write) closed source software based on an cooperating with Open Source software. In some cases you must release certain parts of code, in other cases you can keep it all locked up. Either way, Oracle, IBM, BEA, Sun, etc. all have proprietary software that runs on GPL based platforms.
5) The author assumes that the accounting value of IP = the real value of IP. In some cases you have large "IP assets" that are worthless. Think OS2 software. However, you have to depreciate them on your books because of accounting rules. Also, it doesn't follow that enforcing all your IP claims will make the economy better off. If everyone started suing everyone else over IP, then no one could produce software and what little there was would skyrocket in cost. Remember IBM owns a little here, Oracle some ther, Intel has some, etc. but no one owns even enough to make a complete O/S.
That what's in GPL'ed software is necessarily valuable IP. In some cases these are concepts that have been written about in O/S textbooks for 30 years! Many are based on industry standard APIs or widely adopted practice. Read - Unix like kernels and related software are good, stable technologies but not exactly hot off the press.
Summary - The Tocquaville author is an idiot
Where's the outcry? (Score:3, Insightful)
First, most free software such as Linux, (the most popular because of its operating system capability), comes with a license that dictates that any all development of the product (which would have been valuable intellectual property) becomes community property and must subsequently become free as well.
Incorrect. No organization that utilizes free software is obligated to distribute the modifications to the code they created. (Of course, if that orgaznization distributes the program tehy develop, then they have to distribute the code.
In a widely quoted study, Baruch Lev of the Brookings Institution reported that in 1982, 62% of the market value of companies in the S & P 500 Index could be attributed to tangible assets, and only 38% to intangibles. By 1992, Lev noted, the ratio had essentially reversed: 32% of the assets for S & P companies were tangible, while 68% were intangible. A follow-up study by Brookings in 1998 reported that the asset ratio had shifted even more, with 85% of assets intangible, and only 15% tangible.
When people say "widely quoted" and don't even bother to cite a source, their credibility takes a beating.
Second, Linux initiatives have enabled foreign-based information technology firms with zero IP costs and cheap labor to easily compete with U.S. software companies.
Oh? Competition isn't good? Oops. Our bad. But in one instance,a backboe built out of lots of free software played a role in saving US government organizations $3-10 billion [adti.net]. Where's the outcry over the loos in business revenue for the existing phone companies?
Open Source activists that want to see Linux succeed argue that eventually, they want all intellectual property protection to end, including patents and trademarks. The bottom line is this: a non-IP future means that all companies in the Baruch Lev study go to from 85% to 0% in intangible asset value.
No we don't! Trademarks are very important, and I can't think of anyone in the OSS community who wants trademarks to go away. (i know, people will prove me wrong on this assertion).
As for patents, onClick.do() shouldn't be patentable. X=X+1; repeat; shouldn't be patentable. Business models suck and should not be patentable.
He misses the point of OSS (Score:3, Interesting)
1) I'm a cheap bastard (I was anyway...I was a college student with little extra $$$).
2) I hate piracy (My family owned a software business.)
I appreciated the usage of the software, sent thank you letters or meager donations when I could, and never claimed the work as my own. If Ken Brown is de-crying the theft of IP, then my example helps to refute his argument. I did not have any incentive to steal. This prick wouldn't understand generosity or community if it slapped him in the face.
So let me get this straight (Score:3, Insightful)
So, yes, the shrink-wrapped-box software industry executives may end up screwed. But programmers and other computer professionals will still have jobs, the smart executives will change their business around, and generally land on their feet. This was simple a model of creating software getting competed out of the market.
Obligatory Netcraft check: (Score:5, Interesting)
Why, oh why, does the Alex de Tocqueville institution hate freedom so?
He's making an incorrect assumption. (Score:5, Insightful)
As far as free trade goes, let's try not be naive. He's implying that corporations are really nice guys who wouldn't offshore if only we could get rid of free software. This is an old trick. What he's doing, is he's taking two groups that are a threat to the IT industry, and these groups are:
1. IT workers who have recently been laid off and are upset at the industry for offshoring.
2. Open Source programmers who are creating software for free.
Now he is setting them up to fight amongst themselves so that they'll ignore what the industryis doing. The company I work for is doing the same thing. We have a Union here that is set to strike any day now. They keep bringing up the Union member's wages and saying,"See, look how much they get paid for what they do." Nevermind that they get paid a fraction of what I get paid. The assumption that they are implying is that the Union, by asking for higher wages, is causing my salary to drop and leeching off the company. That's pure nonsense. When low-level workers make more, then that causes everyone else wages to go up as well. This kind of wage inflation might be seen as a bad thing, until you realize where the money is coming from. It's coming from the top 1%. That top 1% owns about 43% of the wealth in the US, and they've managed to acquire 15% of that 43% in the last 20 years. When one knows that single fact, it's easy to see who the leeches are. They've stolen a huge chunk from Americans through scams such as free trade, credit cards, IRA's, Enron, Haliburton, etc., and getting some of is back to the people who actually work for it is a good thing in my opinion.
this is true (Score:3, Insightful)
Who is this guy? (Score:4, Informative)
Accomplishments Page [adti.net]
Support Page [adti.net]
He doesn't cite anyone, using the 'people contacted at' crutch. He's also inconsistent in his opinion. Tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm, simply underwhelmed by the whole thing this guy is about and simply don't understand whether or not he's important, or if I should care.
Value for whom (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are a shoemaker, then someone else giving away free shoes is a detriment to your business, but a benefit to the shoe-wearing population. If you are a software make
However, software makers are also software users: In order to write the business apps that I am paid to write, I need an operating system, a compiler, a database, etc. So I benefit if the software up the chain is cheaper (or if we broke the windows habit), but I might lose my job if the company's clients can get the same business app that I write for free. That's far less likely, as it's rather a specialised application.
A few large, and largely American, companies that exist to make software near the top of the chain will be the losers if free software takes over. The world's population in general will be the winners - they will pay less and get more, counteracting the tendency for the rich to get richer by further impoverishing the poor.
I asert without proof that it's not a zero-sum gain. That is, the total gains to many from freeing IP will always match or more likely far exceed the losses to a few rich people by not gettting IP-rent any more.
Thus I don't think it true that "downward pressure on intellectual property is having a serious impact upon
I'm very happy with that, but then I'm not one of the very rich few, and I don't own a large software company. The Alexis de Tocqueville Institution isn't happy with it, so take it from whence it comes.
Intangible_Assets GT Tangible_Assets EQ Fraud (Score:3, Insightful)
This sounds more like accounting fraud than anything caused by open source software.
Does anybody remember a couple of companies named Arthur Anderson and Enron?
Here are some counter-arguments and fixed mistakes (Score:3, Interesting)
In other words, Mr. Brown's argument here would seem to be smoke, and possibly mirrors.
Mr. Brown offers no proof of this assertion. More smoke. Mr. Brown offer no proof of this assertion. If he limited his statement to stopping protection of software patents, he might have a leg to stand on, as it would appear the open source community tends to be anti-software-patent. See my original point -- intangible asset value is not IP value. At most, if somehow commercially-distributed software were eliminated and patents revoked, intangible asset value will decline a modest amount, because there's other intangible assets. Even in the area of software, FOSS has no problem with firms keeping private IP private, and so that IP has value. For example, even if FOSS ruled the roost, Google's IP value in their search technology, massive server farm management technology, etc. still exists.False economy (Score:3, Insightful)
What they propose is analogous to shutting off the town water supply and throwing arsenic into the local river, in order to support the bottled water industry. This is the message that needs to get out.
And in another analysis... (Score:4, Funny)
Many of the companies in the bottled water industry have invested heavily in, well, water. If the availability of free water is allowed to continue these assets are not worth as much as they could be.
Tocqueville now recommends that the oceans, rivers and lakes be drained in order to build a huge and thriving industry around limiting the availability of water. Combined with legal measures like outlawing other sources of water, and turning off tap water, as well as forbidding private wells this would create a massive amount of wealth in the US. The economic slump could be dealt with in one swift stroke.
Tocqueville would also like to call attention to their upcoming reports on the availability of free air, beer, speech and life, and how the economy could benefit from some other new measures.
This is called the "broken window fallacy" (Score:4, Informative)
It's application in this case is pretty simple: if a business need isn't met by free software, then proprietary software companies can still meet it and nothing has changed. If a business need is met by free software, then the value of any proprietary software companies who previously met that need hasn't been "destroyed", it has simply been transferred to their ex-customers, who now have more money to spend elsewhere.
This is something which will happen with or without free software, in fact. Economics 101 says that in equilibrium, marginal price will equal marginal cost, and even for closed source software marginal cost is under $1. It's possible to delay that price drop (by using monopoly power to deter competitors who might get into a price war with you, for example), but not to prevent it. Even if there was only one software company on the market, eventually they'd be outcompeted by the previous versions of their own products, which don't wear out and need to be replaced like tangible goods do.
Re:This is called the "broken window fallacy" (Score:3, Insightful)
In a monopoly position, that shortcoming of capitalism is fixed simply by either going to a rental model, or by causing the old software to expire, and refuse to work (which is effectively the same as the rental model).
Please note the heavy push by Microsoft in recent years to migrate current customers to a rental model. I believe this is evidence that they are alread
Quite tired old arguments (Score:5, Insightful)
Frederic Bastiat in 1848 wrote a nice essay called "That Which is Seen and That Which is Not Seen" dealing with this topic handily. A good portable copy is at Memoware [memoware.com].
However, then as now many lawmakers were persuaded by this lie and protected the established players from competition. Because of bullshit analyses like Tocqueville's we can look forward to many more years of a sluggish economy. As soon as we stop shielding big players vis-a-vis "intellectual property" we'll see a nice upturn.
AdTI a right-wing front (Score:3, Informative)
Regardless of their evident funding sources, the group is obviously bankrolled by conservative corporate interests and publishes articles whose only purposes are to slander political oponents, promote conservative politicians and causes, and generally undermine anything that might threaten powerful monied interests (i.e. big corporations) in the U.S. or abroad.
A quick perusal of the articles on their site is enough to determine where their political bias lies, searching for the names of their officers and board members (found on their contact page [adti.net]) on google is simply a formality.
The "Broken Window" Fallacy... (Score:5, Insightful)
This fallacy is as old as time itself. It is provably false, trivially. (Breaking the windows increases entropy, reducing the total value in the system). The money going to buy the replacement windows would have been used on something else (eg. the shoes). The only winner is the company producing the windows. The loser is the community.
Microsoft is the maker of Windows, supplying all the local Hardware stores (the businesses producing software) with replacement Windows. Somehow, not being forced to buy new Windows every year or two will "hurt" industry. (Oddly enough, Microsoft gets to go around breaking its own Windows, and forcing you to upgrade...) The only loser will be those producers of proprietary software, who choose not to cooperate with, and take advantage of, those who produce FOSS . For example, Microsoft will lose, if I chose to use Debian for my next Enterprise project. Does that money vanish? No, it goes to my company's shareholders (via. Capital Gains or Dividends), or to my clients (due to lower prices), or to me (due to increased profits). It just doesn't go to Bill. Who loses? Bill. No one else. (Well, Tocqueville also loses, because Bill doesn't pay them to write stoopid articles any more, either...)
Take Apache, for example. Presumably, Apache hurts producers of Closed Source web servers. I cannot use the Apache code and re-brand it as "Joe's Web Server" (I think -- I haven't read the license, but I assume it is more like the GPL than the OpenBSD "free for any and all uses" license). However, this only hurts me if I (Joe) decide not to arrange my affairs to take advantage of Apache!
If I choose to fight Apache, then I am (probably) reducing the overall value in the system. If I have some non-trivial value to add, then I should quit wasting my time re-writing the same code that the Apache team is writing, I should encapsulate my super-duper value in some kind of an add-on to Apache, and I'll start marketing my company as "Joe's Super-Duper Valuable Enterprise Support For Apache, That You Just Gotta Buy, If You're A CTO!"
There! I (Joe) win, Apache wins, my client's win. Microsoft (IIS) loses. Who cares?
Standing on the shoulders of giants (Score:3, Insightful)
Civilization has reach this point because we builded based on previous works, and advanced on them. Wonder in what kind of caves we are living today if today IP laws were from the begining. You just need to patent a brick (or something equally basic) and the entire civilization must live in caves again.
With software things can be worse, and what open source does is giving ways to build things up, to legally base in the works of others to reach new heighs, and without worrying about big corporations, needed money and things like that. Individuals not behind big corporations could make big differences for all, think i.e. in the relativity theory.
The "American Way"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Free software is indeed anti-capitalistic, sort of. Capitalism is based on the notion that the value of all goods can be measured monetarily; the idea that someone would be willing to code for free (or for some non-monetary benefit, like prestige) causes a division-by-zero error in the system.
But it's certainly not non-American, since it fits with the *real* American ideal of liberty: do what you want, as long as you don't hurt anyone. Free Software coders aren't hurting anyone other than by out-competing them (which is legal). They're helping a great many people: those who get neat software for free.
(If I start handing out free cookies in the street in front of a bakery, I'm not breaking the law. In fact I'm a major benefit to society, because people get free cookies. Whether the bakery goes out of business isn't my problem.)
Disclaimer: the *ideal* American Way involves liberty and governmental non-interference. It doesn't exactly work that way any more...
And free beer is destroying Busch (Score:3, Insightful)
I suppose they have to blame someone, and since we dont have the funds to defend ourselves in the mainstream media, we are the first target.
The danger is that the congeress believes this crap and starts legislating a 'fix'. Much as they did with the DMCA.
Open Source != Free Software (Score:3, Informative)
Whether we're talking about free speech or free lunch, "open source" does not necessarily mean "free" in either sense. Both the open source [opensource.org] and free software [gnu.org] movements have lengthy explanations for this.
This is just too rich... they're owned by MS... (Score:3, Insightful)
The plain and simple truth of the matter is that the market was too fat to begin with. To many companies were charging to much for products or services and they're feeling it now.
To many contractors were charging $400/hr instead of reasonable rates. It would have happened *anyway*, anyone who says differently is blowing smoke or selling something.
They're idiots, no one else pays attention to them, why should you.
GJC
Not OpenSource, CEO Fraud. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
CEO fraud. Not Open software.
Supply constraint doesn't work on free software. Find something else to sell. Like talent.
Increase in ANTI-FLOSS propoganda.... (Score:3, Interesting)
GJC
Time stands still for these people (Score:4, Funny)
If Linux becomes the standard over Windows, I'm sure domestic commercial software companies will just sit there and scratch their heads. They won't, for example, start bundling services and building new products around open source. Naw, there's no indication [ibm.com] that this would happen. These companies will simply stop in their tracks like deer frozen in headlights and die and the entire tech industry will implode and we'll all be speaking Hindi.
Foreign developers (Score:3, Interesting)
In fact, remember that Linux was began in Finnland, not the U.S.
Does this mean that we are importing free IP?
In reality, I agree that it will reduce the IP value of some companies. It won't eliminate it, but it will reduce it.
Is that such a bad thing?
It seems to me that if we eliminated software patents, the hardest hit would be those leach companies who patent some nebulous idea and then wait for real companies to develop something similar so they can hit them with enormous lawsuits. Would it be so bad if these firms all went under?
There would still be plenty of IP around. Those maintaining most or all of their IP would be those who use that IP for legitimate, constructive purposes instead of leaching off the work of others.
Sauce for the goose (Score:3, Insightful)
So here's my own opinion on the matter: Call me naive if you must, but am I the only one who doesn't really care about IP laws? Wouldn't it be more innovative if we got rid of the ip laws and let it be free reign on creation and development? Then, the market truely would be customer driven.
Without IP laws, companies would be forced to do as good of a job designing and implementing the product for
One Question... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, I know, you'll 'get back to me'.
Re:One Question... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:One Question... (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft is one specific legal entity. By definition, an attack against it is not a "generalization".
Re:Article reaction (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Linux (Score:3, Funny)