The dichotomy of open standards

R

Ralph Mackiewicz

> Yes, we do disagree again but mostly because you mischaracterise the
> principles involved and like almost all of these types of posts, you
> exaggerate to paint us black.

I'm not using any colors that aren't provided for me by posts just like this one.

> No one disagrees with capatalism, I believe we all expect to get
> paid for a days work. I run a business for profit occasionally, I
> am a republican, although I don't register these days. I am far
> from a socialist or communist. Profit is not evil. The whole thing
> is more about value. If you run out of gas, out in the middle of
> noplace, you walk to the only station for miles, and the guy
> charges you $50.00 for a gallon of gas and a can, I suppose you
> would smile and congratulate him for being a shrewd businessman.

I certainly would not be smiling. But if you don't recognize that a gallon of gas is worth more in the middle of no place than it is on a street corner with 15 other gas stations within a 1/4 mile then you certainly do not understand what you claim to agree with: capitalism.

This is not a shrewd businessman either. He is stupid. That is why places that do this will remain dirt poor dumps in the middle of
nowhere. A shrewd businessman would try to make his customers happy by giving him good service at a fair price. In that case, the next time I drove by that out of the way place I would stop and fill up even if I didn't need gas. If I was charged $50 you can be pretty darn sure that guy would never get another penny from me as long as I lived.

> I suppose he would be even shrewder if he arranged for you to run
> out of gas or if he put a cup of water in the gas so you could
> experience his towing service and car repair service.

No. Putting water in my tank is criminal. You are attempting to insuate an equivalence between companies that aren't smart enough to see how open systems benefits their bottom line and companies that purposely sabotage their customer's equipment in order to extract
money from customers in a criminally fraudelent manner. You are the one making these equivocations between legal consensual commercial
activity and criminal behavior. I'm simply pointing out that for this to really be true you must be assuming that profit is morally wrong
if it is obtained by consensually selling proprietary technology. If you don't like me pointing this out, stop making these assertions.

> Profit is not at all evil, any good or evil is all in how you earn
> it. And this sense that there are lines that should not be crossed
> is certainly not mine alone, it is present in almost everyone. Some
> people lose track of it when they are the guy getting the $50.00,
> yet find it again if they run out of gas. I merely think we should
> be consistant in the view that someone is getting ripped off. We
> can then argue about whether it's right or wrong. It should be easy
> to gain a consensus.

Just because you don't personally agree with a consensual commercial arrangement involving proprietary technology doesn't make it wrong.
You continually want to put this in moral terms. The point I was trying to make before, and that John Dvorak made much better and much
briefer, is that putting it in moral terms when everybody else wants it in technical and economic terms is not an effective way to get your message across. You are simply distracting people from looking at the very useful technology you claim to be promoting.

> It seems what we have is simply a disagreement in how much
> manipulation and extortion is allowable.

I'm not the one painting this picture black. These are your words here. Once again you state the underlying theme: a company that develops some property and charges what people are willing to pay is involved in manipulation and extortion. This is exactly the kind of rhetoric that is what I would call "cultish" and "anti-profit". The
idea that companies that sell proprietary technology and actually charge for it are "extorting" (a criminal activity) money from their unwitting customers. This is pure BS. The companies that charge for their proprietary technology are doing so becuase their investors
demand that they show a profit. To continue using the rhetoric of criminality when discussing what most normal people refer to as "commerce" indicates to me that you must somehow think profit is bad. You don't claim that it is simply overpriced. The claim is made that this is bad and you imply criminal behavior. If you don't think that this is criminal then don't use the words. And just for the record, I don't think ANY extortion should be allowed...period. If you think that any level of extortion should be allowed then that is another area that we disagree with.

> You see, I think a person should have a free choice to buy or not
> buy additional products from a vendor based on their merit and
> value.

Everybody has that choice. Nobody is forced through a threat of violence (ie. extorted) to buy any automation products. People that buy proprietary systems are making completely voluntary economic decisions to do so.

> Most customers think that way also, and can be quite disappointed
> when they find out that they have been locked in. You might change
> this to protecting their profits or some other crisp business
> euphemism, but the fact remains that the customer was intentionally
> wronged.

No euphemism is needed. If the customer doesn't like buying proprietary products he shouldn't buy them. They were not intentionally wronged (in a moral sense) in any way shape or form.

> You might even pretend that you don't know what I am talking about
> or change the subject to attitude or attitudes or even hint at
> political persuasion rather than accept that someone is doing
> something less than honorable in the name of profit.

I'm not going to pretend anything. Up until this post I had no idea what your political affiliation was. I never thought you were a
communist because I had no personal first-hand knowledge (frankly, if you "own" anything at all then you are obviously not a communist).
All I know is the words posted here which to me indicates excactly what I said in my previous post. I see no problem at all from a moral perspective with companies selling proprietary technology nor do I have any problem at all from a moral perspective with customers buying proprietary technology. I think open technology makes a heck of a lot more economic sense. When my customers ask me why, I reply with technical and economic justifications, not moral ones.

> If you wish to discuss the issues that's fine, but it quickly boils
> down to the fact that I think some of these tactics are just plain
> wrong and I'm trying to do things another way. Rather than flag waving
> or questioning my motives, why don't you explain what makes them
> right? The view that they are right because we wish to give away
> software is illogical. The view that it is right because it makes them
> money is, well........

I'm not questioning your motives, I am questioning your assertions. I know that you feel passionately about the rightousness of your cause. That is obvious. I think that by trying to couch proprietary technology in a moral blanket of evil (their profit is bad...mine is good) will only prevent people from seeing the true technical and economic benefits of what you are doing.

Sincerely,
Ralph Mackiewicz
SISCO, Inc.
 
M

Michael Griffin

Standards, particularly ones which customers have confidence in, can increase the value of of a proprietary product by making it more useful and widely accepted. A smaller share of a larger market can be worth much more than all of a very small market.
When consensus causes everyone to support a single standard, that can be
better than half a dozen competing "standards". When there is no widely accepted standard, customers will often avoid purchasing the product while they wait to see which (if any) standard will predominate in the end.


--

************************
Michael Griffin
London, Ont. Canada
************************
 

Curt Wuollet:
> > If you run out of gas, out in the middle of noplace, you walk to the
> > only station for miles, and the guy charges you $50.00 for a gallon of
> > gas and a can, I suppose you would smile and congratulate him for being
> > a shrewd businessman.
...
> > I suppose he would be even shrewder if he arranged for you to run out
> > of gas or if he put a cup of water in the gas so you could experience
> > his towing service and car repair service.

Ralph Mackiewicz:
> No. Putting water in my tank is criminal.

So's misusing a monopoly.

> You are attempting to insuate an equivalence between companies that
> aren't smart enough to see how open systems benefits their bottom line
> and companies that purposely sabotage their customer's equipment in order
> to extract money from customers in a criminally fraudelent manner. You
> are the one making these equivocations between legal consensual
> commercial activity and criminal behavior. I'm simply pointing out that
> for this to really be true you must be assuming that profit is morally
> wrong if it is obtained by consensually selling proprietary technology.
> If you don't like me pointing this out, stop making these assertions.

You can't argue morality of existing laws by referring to existing laws, that's petitio principii. You're also a bit shaky on the negations there.

If you go by laws, then certain kinds of consensual trade is illegal, particularly where one party is in a much stronger position than the other.

> > Profit is not at all evil, any good or evil is all in how you earn it.
...
> Just because you don't personally agree with a consensual commercial
> arrangement involving proprietary technology doesn't make it wrong. You
> continually want to put this in moral terms. The point I was trying to
> make before, and that John Dvorak made much better and much briefer, is
> that putting it in moral terms when everybody else wants it in technical
> and economic terms is not an effective way to get your message across.

The same point works in reverse - if everybody else wants it in moral terms, then your technical and economic terms are not effective.

FWIW, the technical and economic terms are that Adam Smith's hand breaks down under monopoly conditions. This results in a net destruction of
wealth. Society suffers by more than the guy on top gains.

> > It seems what we have is simply a disagreement in how much manipulation
> > and extortion is allowable.

> I'm not the one painting this picture black. These are your words here.
> Once again you state the underlying theme: a company that develops some
> property and charges what people are willing to pay is involved in
> manipulation and extortion.

No, Curt is claiming that it may be involved in manipulation and extortion, depending on how it conducts itself.

> This is exactly the kind of rhetoric that is what I would call "cultish"
> and "anti-profit". The idea that companies that sell proprietary
> technology and actually charge for it are "extorting" (a criminal
> activity) money from their unwitting customers. This is pure BS.

Some companies have indeed crossed the line to what counts as manipulation and possibly extortion. You can't deny it.

> The companies that charge for their proprietary technology are doing so
> becuase their investors demand that they show a profit.

That is irrelevant. Why they do it is irrelevant to the fact, and in this case doesn't counter any reasonable claims of mens rea.

> > You see, I think a person should have a free choice to buy or not buy
> > additional products from a vendor based on their merit and value.

> Everybody has that choice. Nobody is forced through a threat of violence
> (ie. extorted) to buy any automation products. People that buy
> proprietary systems are making completely voluntary economic decisions to
> do so.

Curt wasn't claiming extortion here, merely lack of freedom; and voluntary decisions are shaky between two parties of significantly different power.

> > Most customers think that way also, and can be quite disappointed when
> > they find out that they have been locked in. You might change this to
> > protecting their profits or some other crisp business euphemism, but
> > the fact remains that the customer was intentionally wronged.

> No euphemism is needed. If the customer doesn't like buying proprietary
> products he shouldn't buy them. They were not intentionally wronged (in a
> moral sense) in any way shape or form.

Planning to do this, however, does count as an intentional wrong.

Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <[email protected]> http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jirib
MAT LinuxPLC project --- http://mat.sf.net --- Machine Automation Tools
 
C
Hi Ralph

We're back on track.

I would ask only one question. Doesn't it seem odd that the vendors always fall on the "technical and economic" side, while the customers emote freely on the morals involved?

You can justify absolutely anything if you separate the two.

Regards

cww
 
Curt:
> I would ask only one question. Doesn't it seem odd that the vendors
> always fall on the "technical and economic" side, while the customers
> emote freely on the morals involved?

The division is not as crisp as you'd like to make it out.

Indeed, as far as I see, both parties use both sides of the situation. The vendors have moral justifications for what they do, and customers technical and economic issues.


Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <[email protected]> http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jirib
MAT LinuxPLC project --- http://mat.sf.net --- Machine Automation Tools
 
M
> > No one disagrees with capatalism, I believe we all expect to get
> > paid for a days work. I run a business for profit occasionally, I
> > am a republican, although I don't register these days. I am far
> > from a socialist or communist. Profit is not evil. The whole thing
> > is more about value. If you run out of gas, out in the middle of
> > noplace, you walk to the only station for miles, and the guy
> > charges you $50.00 for a gallon of gas and a can, I suppose you
> > would smile and congratulate him for being a shrewd businessman.
>
> I certainly would not be smiling. But if you don't recognize that a
> gallon of gas is worth more in the middle of no place than it is on a
> street corner with 15 other gas stations within a 1/4 mile then you
> certainly do not understand what you claim to agree with: capitalism.
>
> This is not a shrewd businessman either. He is stupid. That is why
> places that do this will remain dirt poor dumps in the middle of
> nowhere.

No, if we wasn't in the middle of nowhere, he couldn't charge $50 for gas and a can. It's because he is in the middle of nowhere, and doesn't have any competition.

> A shrewd businessman would try to make his customers happy
> by giving him good service at a fair price. In that case, the next
> time I drove by that out of the way place I would stop and fill up
> even if I didn't need gas. If I was charged $50 you can be pretty
> darn sure that guy would never get another penny from me as long as I
> lived.

Why? As you said, he was being a shrewd business man. Or maybe its becuase what he is doing is ethically wrong? Not illegal, but wrong.

>
> > I suppose he would be even shrewder if he arranged for you to run
> > out of gas or if he put a cup of water in the gas so you could
> > experience his towing service and car repair service.
>
> No. Putting water in my tank is criminal. You are attempting to
> insuate an equivalence between companies that aren't smart enough to
> see how open systems benefits their bottom line and companies that
> purposely sabotage their customer's equipment in order to extract
> money from customers in a criminally fraudelent manner. You are the
> one making these equivocations between legal consensual commercial
> activity and criminal behavior. I'm simply pointing out that for this
> to really be true you must be assuming that profit is morally wrong
> if it is obtained by consensually selling proprietary technology. If
> you don't like me pointing this out, stop making these assertions.
>
> > Profit is not at all evil, any good or evil is all in how you earn
> > it. And this sense that there are lines that should not be crossed
> > is certainly not mine alone, it is present in almost everyone. Some
> > people lose track of it when they are the guy getting the $50.00,
> > yet find it again if they run out of gas. I merely think we should
> > be consistant in the view that someone is getting ripped off. We
> > can then argue about whether it's right or wrong. It should be easy
> > to gain a consensus.
>
> Just because you don't personally agree with a consensual commercial
> arrangement involving proprietary technology doesn't make it wrong.
> You continually want to put this in moral terms. The point I was
> trying to make before, and that John Dvorak made much better and much
> briefer, is that putting it in moral terms when everybody else wants
> it in technical and economic terms is not an effective way to get
> your message across. You are simply distracting people from looking
> at the very useful technology you claim to be promoting.

But moral terms are why a lot of things get done. Some of us think it is unethical to charge a sap $50 for a can of gas. Much of the open
source and standards movement is advancing because of ethical concerns.

Mark Blunier
Any opinions expressed in this message are not necessarily those of the =
company.
 
R

Ralph Mackiewicz

> I would ask only one question. Doesn't it seem odd that the vendors
> always fall on the "technical and economic" side, while the customers
> emote freely on the morals involved?
>
> You can justify absolutely anything if you separate the two.

Huh? I haven't seen many customers emoting on how proprietary technology vendors are involved in criminal extortion. I don't read every digest so maybe I missed all of those. Most customers I have run across use the terms "good" and "bad" in a technical and economic sense, not a moral sense.

I have had all kinds of vendors trying to sell me all kinds of proprietary technology that would lock me in. I don't recall any of them ever asking that I accept the premise that their competitors are evil extortionists (or, for that matter, radical communists out to destroy capitalism) in order to determine if their products make technical or economic sense for me. If they tried to use either of these arguments on me they would have been shown the door. As I
recall, I fell asleep during some of these presentations so maybe I
missed that part.

You guys are doing something useful. If you would just lay off the rhetoric of a great moral battle between good and evil I think your business case would be easier to see and harder to avoid. Requiring the equivalent of a religious conversion makes it easy to avoid listening.

Ralph Mackiewicz
SISCO, Inc.
 
One wonders if the rhetoric is merely covering the inability to make a good and sound business case.

I, for one, hope that that is not the case.

Bob Pawley
250-493-6146
 
Ralph Mackiewicz:
> You guys are doing something useful.

Thank you!

> If you would just lay off the rhetoric of a great moral battle between
> good and evil I think your business case would be easier to see and
> harder to avoid.

Ah, the RMS vs ESR schism...

Richard M. Stallman espouses the moral arguments, Eric S. Raymond argues in purely economic terms. Perhaps you should read some of ESR's writings?
"http://tuxedo.org/~esr/":http://tuxedo.org/~esr/ and follow the link to
"http://tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/":http://tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/

Historically, the way we get high reliability of results in
engineering and the sciences is by institutionalizing peer review.
Physicists don't hide their experimental plans from each other;
instead, they skeptically check each others' work. Engineers don't
build dams or suspension bridges without having the blueprints vetted
first by other engineers independent of the original design group.::

Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <[email protected]>
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jirib
MAT LinuxPLC project
http://mat.sf.net
Machine Automation Tools
 
C
Hi Ralph

I don't disagree and I have no problem with a fair deal between willing parties. And it's not an extreme moralistic position that I'm coming
from. After all, I'm not charging people $400.00 for a serial card with a special connector. I would say that it's more extreme to say that's OK than to question it. It's not $50.00 for a gallon of gas but it's not that far removed. Folks seem to be conditioned to $100.00 for a serial cable and that sort of consistant overpricing and to a certain extent, if they think it's worth it, fine. At least you know about it up front. The tactics that actually impair functionality to lock people in just don't seem like good
business. All I'm saying is that from an objective viewpoint and in comparison to other technology products, these guys seem to be getting away with a lot that no longer goes over in other markets. And I don't think it religious or overzealous to point that out. I speak from a
fairly strong background in applied electronics and computing and this is one of the last bastions where intrinsic value and pricing have such a weak relationship.
And it's not at all rhetorical. It answers the question of why people would want to use our OSS project. This question has been asked repeatedly. The simple answer is because with a community sharing resources and with some commonality and reasonable attention to interoperability and connectivity, it becomes much easier and cheaper
and better for all parties involved (with the possible exception of the existing large vendors) to provide solutions. The solutions can be more
capable and flexible and it really isn't rocket science to see why that would be.
And the moralistic part comes in with the fact that a community of peers is far more likely to operate in _your_ best interest than the status quo. And it's not a very long reach to grasp why that would be.
And it's also glaringly obvious that together we can do it. All of us have solved bigger problems that that.

The extreme part and the rhetoric come in with the fierce defense of the Tower of Babel and massive duplication of effort and the many other
infelicities of the current model that has slowed progress to a crawl and produced such wonders as the fieldbus Medusa. I liken this to the
Stockholm syndrome. I do get drawn into the argument: "What's wrong with the way things are?" when that is fairly obvious. For my own part I would much prefer to discuss how things can be. But, for reasons that truly mystify me, nobody wants to go there.

I'll try to lean that way. Perhaps that would chafe less at the expense of sounding too idealistic.

Regards

cww
--
Free Tools!
Machine Automation Tools (LinuxPLC) Free, Truly Open & Publicly Owned
Industrial Automation Software For Linux. mat.sourceforge.net.
Day Job: Heartland Engineering, Automation & ATE for Automotive
Rebuilders.
Consultancy: Wide Open Technologies: Moving Business & Automation to
Linux.
 
R

Ralph Mackiewicz

You guys are starting to wear me down again. I don't know how you can keep up this pace. I'm calling it quits after this.

> > You are attempting to insuate an equivalence between companies that
> > aren't smart enough to see how open systems benefits their bottom
> > line and companies that purposely sabotage their customer's
> > equipment in order to extract money from customers in a criminally
> > fraudelent manner. You are the one making these equivocations
> > between legal consensual commercial activity and criminal behavior.
> > I'm simply pointing out that for this to really be true you must be
> > assuming that profit is morally wrong if it is obtained by
> > consensually selling proprietary technology. If you don't like me
> > pointing this out, stop making these assertions.
>
> You can't argue morality of existing laws by referring to existing
> laws, that's petitio principii. You're also a bit shaky on the
> negations there.

Throwing Latin at me, eh? I'm just a stupid uni-lingual (poor upbringing). I have no idea what this means. I'll leave the legal arguments alone. However, I will maintain that selling somebody
proprietary technology even if it locks in the customer is NOT extortion by any legal definition of extortion that exists in a modern liberal society.

> If you go by laws, then certain kinds of consensual trade is illegal,
> particularly where one party is in a much stronger position than the
> other.

Sorry. That is just not true. The very definition of "consensual trade" means that both parties agree to it without force or the threat of force. Just because one party is stronger than the other
doesn't change the fact that the transaction is still voluntary on the part of the weaker party. How you could possibly guarantee that all parties are always equal in all trades is beyond the capability of my simple mind to comprehend. OSS only changes who the stronger party is from the owner to the developer. By this reasoning, then the developer becomes the evil upper hand holder with OSS.

> > You continually want to put this in moral terms. The point I was
> > trying to make before, and that John Dvorak made much better and
> > much briefer, is that putting it in moral terms when everybody else
> > wants it in technical and economic terms is not an effective way to
> > get your message across.
>
> The same point works in reverse - if everybody else wants it in moral
> terms, then your technical and economic terms are not effective.

Yes, but hardly anyone wants it in moral terms.

> FWIW, the technical and economic terms are that Adam Smith's hand
> breaks down under monopoly conditions. This results in a net
> destruction of wealth. Society suffers by more than the guy on top
> gains.

Thats an assertion that I haven't seen any facts to support. In the case of Microsoft, the government never even claimed that they hurt
"society". The only people hurt were the idiots at Netscape who thought that the browser would replace the O/S.

> > This is exactly the kind of rhetoric that is what I would call> > "cultish" and "anti-profit". The idea that companies that sell
> > proprietary technology and actually charge for it are "extorting" (a
> > criminal activity) money from their unwitting customers. This is
> > pure BS.
>
> Some companies have indeed crossed the line to what counts as
> manipulation and possibly extortion. You can't deny it.

Some companies? Which ones? Be specific if you are going to make charges of extortion. I do emphatically deny that the act of selling
proprietary technology to a user, even if that technology "locks" them in, is extortion unless that user was threatened with violence. If users buy proprietary technology and then are surprised that their future choices are diminished then they need to start buying open technology. They are not victims of extortion.

> > > You see, I think a person should have a free choice to buy or not
> > > buy additional products from a vendor based on their merit and
> > > value.
>
> > Everybody has that choice. Nobody is forced through a threat of
> > violence (ie. extorted) to buy any automation products. People that
> > buy proprietary systems are making completely voluntary economic
> > decisions to do so.
>
> Curt wasn't claiming extortion here, merely lack of freedom; and
> voluntary decisions are shaky between two parties of significantly
> different power.

Maybe. I can't read minds. The word extortion was not written originally by me. If he meant lack of freedom then he should have said it.

> > No euphemism is needed. If the customer doesn't like buying
> > proprietary products he shouldn't buy them. They were not
> > intentionally wronged (in a moral sense) in any way shape or form.
>
> Planning to do this, however, does count as an intentional wrong.

To do what? Plan to sell proprietary technology that locks users in? If the user buys it then the only wrong committed was by the user. It is a wrong in an economic sense: they could have lowered their long terms costs by buying open technology.

And from somewhere else:

> > Just because you don't personally agree with a consensual commercial
> > arrangement involving proprietary technology doesn't make it wrong.
> > You continually want to put this in moral terms. The point I was
> > trying to make before, and that John Dvorak made much better and
> > much briefer, is that putting it in moral terms when everybody else
> > wants it in technical and economic terms is not an effective way to
> > get your message across. You are simply distracting people from
> > looking at the very useful technology you claim to be promoting.
>
> But moral terms are why a lot of things get done. Some of us think it
> is unethical to charge a sap $50 for a can of gas. Much of the open
> source and standards movement is advancing because of ethical
> concerns.

1. Don't pay $50 for a can of gas if you think it is wrong.

2. If being able to make a business case for OSS is predicated on someone having ethical concerns about non-OSS solutions then it will be a long time (if ever) that OSS becomes mainstream. Put away the harp and take out your calculator. Business decisions are normally made on economic terms, not on dubious claims of immorality made by ompetitors.


Ralph Mackiewicz
SISCO, Inc.

The opinions given above should be attributed to me and not my company because my company did not write them...I did.
 
C
Hi Ralph

Ralph Mackiewicz wrote:
>
> > I would ask only one question. Doesn't it seem odd that the vendors
> > always fall on the "technical and economic" side, while the customers
> > emote freely on the morals involved?
> >
> > You can justify absolutely anything if you separate the two.
>
> Huh? I haven't seen many customers emoting on how proprietary
> technology vendors are involved in criminal extortion. I don't read
> every digest so maybe I missed all of those. Most customers I have
> run across use the terms "good" and "bad" in a technical and economic
> sense, not a moral sense.

I never said anything about "criminal" extortion. Nothing at all about breaking the law. But your argument that anything goes as long as it's not breaking the law is absurd. And "criminal" is a red herring. I'm sure virtually everyone else on the list knows what I am referring to. Steering the argument to the legal definition is irrelevent. Flipping off every other driver on your way to work is probably still legal. I doubt that your legal argument would weigh heavily in the results.

> I have had all kinds of vendors trying to sell me all kinds of
> proprietary technology that would lock me in. I don't recall any of
> them ever asking that I accept the premise that their competitors are
> evil extortionists (or, for that matter, radical communists out to
> destroy capitalism) in order to determine if their products make
> technical or economic sense for me. If they tried to use either of
> these arguments on me they would have been shown the door. As I
> recall, I fell asleep during some of these presentations so maybe I
> missed that part.

Ah, but a vendor who came in and offered me free updates, investment protection and Open and Standard protocols and interoperability and
guaranteed satisfaction would find me wide awake. If they added pricing consistant with the rest of the electronics industry and plug compatibility with my existing systems they'd leave with a blanket PO.

> You guys are doing something useful. If you would just lay off the
> rhetoric of a great moral battle between good and evil I think your
> business case would be easier to see and harder to avoid. Requiring
> the equivalent of a religious conversion makes it easy to avoid
> listening.

You mean, if we were to alter the project so as to make the most money possible from you, you'ld be more interested? We wouldn't do that of
course, but, I have a private consultancy and I'd be happy to offer you the LPLC on those terms. Well, consistant with my conscience anyway,
which means you'ld get a fair deal. You purchase the hardware and pay my time since the software is free. No hidden costs. No licenses, and you
get to own every part of the system. You would be doing very well and I would have no problem making money. I can do business that way with OSS
it'd be pretty tough with the alternatives.

Regards

cww
 
J

Joe Jansen/ENGR/HQ/KEMET/US

Example:

Microsoft recently used their standard tactic of threatening to 're-value' the windows licensing to Dell if Dell did not stop offering linux preloaded on their computers. Dell reacted by no longer offering to sell a linux computer in order to keep their windows costs equal to that of other
vendors (Gateway, etc).

Is this extortion? I would argure that it is.

Ralph would argue that it is not, since there was no threat of violence.

However, threatening to increase the cost and ability to get windows licenses directly threatens Dell's ability to compete. If Dell cannot compete, they lose business, go under, and close.

The threat of killing the business is very real, and is, in my opinion, economic violence that does meet the required level to call it extortion. Violence is not only 'buy this or I break your legs', but the threat of causing economic harm to the point of 'killing' or even seriously harming a business is also a threat of violence.

So how much harm would come from switching from AB controls to Siemens controls?

If everyone that sells products tells me 'once you have my system, changing will probably cause you serious economic harm', are you going to seriously tell me I should just run without automation?

Businesses need this technology to survive. It may have been short sighted to get into this situation, but the alternative of not keeping pace, losing market share, and going out of business is a serious threat of economic harm. There is no alternative.

And, for the record, if you are in the middle of nowhere, and the only gas station is selling you gas for $50 USD a gallon, what other choice do you have? Walk 50 miles to the next station? Get real.

--Joe Jansen
 
C
Hi Jiri, Ralph

I believe my learned and eloquent associate "gets it". I have found that the guy in the gas station _always_ feigns ignorance and approaches the
points obliquely and with great cunning. Me, I'm still working on my latin.
I much prefer C.

Regards

cww
 
From the viewpoint of an observer outside of Dell and Microsoft I would say that - Here is a great business opportunity. If the Linux computer is this much of a threat to Microsoft, so much so that all Microsoft clients can't sell it, the market is then wide open for a new entrant selling Linux only. That's the capitalist, free market strength.

I would suggest Joe, that you quit whatever job you now have set up a company and sell this new powerful system called Linux. There's money in them thar hills.

Bob Pawley
250-493-6146
 
C
Hi Bob

SO the solution is to let Microsoft use whatever tactics they want to maintain their monopoly in violation of federal law and have Joe and
everyone else fight for the scraps? Legality aside, there are many problems with this pat answer. Not the least of which is that having
Joe selling pure Linux systems is vastly different than having Dell selling Linux systems and that is exactly what Microsoft wants. If
XYZ corp. wants to replace all their aging Windows desktops with Linux systems in one lifetime, they need a Dell class vendor. And it's
no remedy. If Joe also had to sell Windows machines to stay afloat, (very likely because a lot of Linux fans build their own machines) he would be subject to the same license game as Dell. In fact the states that are after MS are acting on behalf of a lot of little PC shops (and some big ones) that were being strongarmed by MS.
It is their _stated_ policy to divide and conquer by insuring that shops are all Windows or all Linux. Hmmmm..this sounds very familiar.

And this exclusionary licensing goes much further than this. I have been told by ISPs, banks, card manufacturers, online vendors, media services, and even a monopoly telephone company that their agreements with Microsoft prohibit supporting Linux use with their various services and products. Of course, you wouldn't know that because as a MS customer none of this affects _your_ world. And at least one confided that the clause is non-negotiable. So you get the choice of Microsoft _or_ anything else. If you are trying to sell a product or service in a big enough way to show up on Redmond Radar, you effectively have no choice at all. You must support MS and accept that this precludes supporting any other options or give up 80% of the market. Is this your idea of competition? The free market system? A level playing field?

Fortunately in recent times, with the DOJ and states as watchdogs, a few very large companies have dared to defy the 800 lb. gorilla and do what they want. Walmart is selling PCs with _no_ OS which was a big taboo with MS, and IBM has pretty much tossed down the gauntlet. After all the DOJ silliness is over and the money's in
the pockets, I fully expect Microsoft to try to make examples out of these two.

The states are the remaining hope for anyone to get a chance to make the money that's in them thar hills. If they had folded, the fix was
in and we would already be back to business as usual with no competition. And you don't have to believe me on any of this. It's all spelled out in the Tunney Act depositions.

Regards

cww
 
Bob Pawley:
> One wonders if the rhetoric is merely covering the inability to make a
> good and sound business case.

Well, the good and sound business case has now been made by all the main parties in this thread, so I guess not...

In some ways, the rhetoric is more trying to remind people of something that they probably already know: that good ethics make good business.

Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <[email protected]> http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jirib
MAT LinuxPLC project --- http://mat.sf.net --- Machine Automation Tools
 
> > You can't argue morality of existing laws by referring to existing
> > laws, that's petitio principii. You're also a bit shaky on the
> > negations there.

Ralph Mackiewicz:
> Throwing Latin at me, eh?

The Oxford dictionary of English:

*/petitio principii/* /n./ a logical fallacy in which a conclusion
is taken for granted in the premiss; begging the question.

> However, I will maintain that selling somebody proprietary technology
> even if it locks in the customer is NOT extortion by any legal definition
> of extortion that exists in a modern liberal society.

Like I said, you can't argue morality of existing laws by referring to existing laws.

> > If you go by laws, then certain kinds of consensual trade is illegal,
> > particularly where one party is in a much stronger position than the
> > other.

> Sorry. That is just not true. The very definition of "consensual trade"
> means that both parties agree to it without force or the threat of force.

Sometimes the difference between the parties is such that there's basically a presumption of force. In fact, it's reasonably common - for instance, all the consumer protection laws make this assumption, so it applies every time you step into a retail store.

> OSS only changes who the stronger party is from the owner to the
> developer. By this reasoning, then the developer becomes the evil upper
> hand holder with OSS.

Except that anyone may become a developer with no qualifications or other requirements, simply by downloading the code.

> > FWIW, the technical and economic terms are that Adam Smith's hand
> > breaks down under monopoly conditions. This results in a net
> > destruction of wealth. Society suffers by more than the guy on top
> > gains.

> Thats an assertion that I haven't seen any facts to support.

Read an economics textbook?

> In the case of Microsoft, the government never even claimed that they
> hurt "society".

It was implicit in their claim that they abused a monopoly. That's what abusing a monopoly means. If it wasn't for that, the government would have
no business prosecuting them - it'd be a civil suit between MS and NS.

> > > This is exactly the kind of rhetoric that is what I would call
> > > "cultish" and "anti-profit". The idea that companies that sell
> > > proprietary technology and actually charge for it are "extorting" (a
> > > criminal activity) money from their unwitting customers. This is
> > > pure BS.

> > Some companies have indeed crossed the line to what counts as
> > manipulation and possibly extortion. You can't deny it.

> Some companies? Which ones?

The above-mentioned Microsoft, for one...

> > > No euphemism is needed. If the customer doesn't like buying
> > > proprietary products he shouldn't buy them. They were not
> > > intentionally wronged (in a moral sense) in any way shape or form.

> > Planning to do this, however, does count as an intentional wrong.

> To do what? Plan to sell proprietary technology that locks users in?

Yup. Particularly if it's ``industry practice'' to do so.

> And from somewhere else:

> > > Just because you don't personally agree with a consensual commercial
> > > arrangement involving proprietary technology doesn't make it wrong.
> > > You continually want to put this in moral terms. The point I was
> > > trying to make before, and that John Dvorak made much better and much
> > > briefer, is that putting it in moral terms when everybody else wants
> > > it in technical and economic terms is not an effective way to get
> > > your message across. You are simply distracting people from looking
> > > at the very useful technology you claim to be promoting.

> > But moral terms are why a lot of things get done. Some of us think it
> > is unethical to charge a sap $50 for a can of gas. Much of the open
> > source and standards movement is advancing because of ethical concerns.

> 1. Don't pay $50 for a can of gas if you think it is wrong.

And if the only alternative is to die in the desert, do you believe that a threat of violence is not present?

> 2. If being able to make a business case for OSS is predicated on someone
> having ethical concerns about non-OSS solutions then it will be a long
> time (if ever) that OSS becomes mainstream.

The two are intertwined. Using morality without economics is folly; using economics without morality even more so.

> Business decisions are normally made on economic terms, not on dubious
> claims of immorality made by competitors.

As it happens, you already provided the economic arguments :)

To quote:

proprietary technology that locks users in? If the user buys it
then the only wrong committed was by the user. It is a wrong in an
economic sense: they could have lowered their long terms costs by
buying open technology.

Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <[email protected]> http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jirib
MAT LinuxPLC project --- http://mat.sf.net --- Machine Automation Tools
 
C
Hi Bob

List Manager wrote:
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Bob Pawley <[email protected]>
>
> One wonders if the rhetoric is merely covering the inability to make a
> good and sound business case.

The case for using the tools doesn't require a lot of explanation. It's pretty simple. You get the tools free and maximum use of commodity
equipment means lower fixed cost. The labor part is sort of hard to define at the moment and support is not definable in contract language
but experience in the OSS world has been very favorable. And there are a lot of intangibles like absense of lock-in, no forced upgrades, the
ability to address problems inhouse, etc. All the stuff we have been talking about.

People who talk about business cases in isolation rather than in aggregate often have already made a decision and are doing post-decision support.

In other words, you can take what is known now and use it either way.

IF you prefer the status quo, you cite the support as nebulous and make the hard to use arguments and who to sue arguments and play to
peoples basic insecurity which is usually 100% effective if done properly. Since it's much easier not to change anything, this is usually the majority view.

IF you would really like to reap the benefits known so far, you acknowlege that it will really never be done as it is a process not a destination. You assess your needs verses the exixting functionality. If favorable, you do a pilot. If not, you identify what features you need and either submit them or look at the
feasibility of adding them. For certain classes of work the ability to extend the platform and do things not addressed by the status quo will make a compelling case and the integration capabilities will make many things possible.

So far, I haven't seen anyone who wants the business case delineated as wanting it to justify their use of OSS. In other words, they don't want a business case, they want the lack of a business case to justify doing things the same old way.

I can say that a very simple business model I have been using works and is especially suited to small business. I charge for my time. You (the customer) buy the hardware to agreed upon standards. The software is OSS to the maximum extent possible with the balance to be developed or adapted and the whole body of software is yours on completion subject to the GPL. If the GPL is to be avoided, cost will certainly increase, often dramatically, as the amouunt of new code needed increases.

Mat/LPLC will be slightly different as platform work can be handled as above. Application work will not be remarkably different from how it is handled now with the exception that tool and add-on costs will be zero. And application programs will default to private ownership.

Regards

cww
 
M

Michael R. Batchelor

> From the viewpoint of an observer outside of Dell and
> Microsoft I would say that - Here is a great business
> opportunity. If the Linux computer is this much of a threat
> to Microsoft, so much so that all Microsoft clients can't
> sell it, the market is then wide open for a new entrant
> selling Linux only. That's the capitalist, free market
> strength.

Sorry, have to disagree here. First, the Linux only choice has been tried. VA Research couldn't make a go of because the market for the "opportunistic infection" was at that time too small, and may still be for a while.

But to rebut the main point, assume for a minute that we say that the US Govt. reaction to approximately 4e-6 percent of the population (a pretty small number statistically) cases of anthrax was a knee-jerk over reaction much the same as you intimate Microsoft's position would be over reacting. By that logic, they should have waited until at least a few thousand cases turned up to take any action. How many people would have agreed with that course?

The problem is that while a company selling Linux hardware has a hard time reaching critical mass, that fact is completely independent of the other fact that there are statistically significantly large portions of the consumers willing to cut out
Microsoft. Trying to maintain a monopoly if there is a reasonable alternative for the consumers really is like trying to fend off a highly virulent opportunistic disease. Stay vigilant and it stays under control. Take your eyes off of it for a while and it kills you.

Sorry, that's a bit graphic, but if you fill in a lot of the missing detail that I don't have time to type you can see the reduction to absurdity.

Michael
 
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