[svlug] changing the rules (was: MICROSOFT VS LINUX)

[Javilk]

> 
> > From: John Conover <conover at inow.com>
> > Kind of a "if you can't win at the game, change the rules" mentality. 
> 
> Actually, changing the rules is what Open Source did to them.  Any
> strategist's response would be to seek to re-gain the initiative in the
> competition.  MS has been able to win against traditional competitors by
> owning the rule book (OS).  When Linux and Apache changed the rules on them,
> all the old tactics didn't work any more.  They're only just beginning
> to get it now.

     I would suggest that we did not simply change the rules on them... It
was more a change in the fundamental landscape caused by the World Wide
Web, which then brought the Internet to a public level.  Once that
happened, the old mainframe 3270 full-screen block update paradigm, in the
form of an http/html web page, became a global one in which mainframes and
terminals need not be in the same building, or even on the same continent.
And with that came the second paradigm shift, that applications need not
be monolithic, but can be glued together from little stateless CGI scripts
feeding each other via web pages. Compared to that, the old protocols
(rules,) became irrelevant.

     And once again, old mainframe ideas won out over PC's and their
character at a time connection protocols.

> My take on this... the best action on our part is to continue to push the
> Open Source development methodolgies and the advocacy campaigns.  We'll all
> keep an eye on Redmond for more signs that they've realized what hit them.

     They are still a viable packaging and marketing organization.  Sooner
or later, they will end up selling their own version of Linux.  I kid you
not, they will!  If the market trashes Windows and moves to Linux, MS is
smart enough that they will be there with a Linux clone or even Linux
itself, with their own proprietary protocols meshed into it.

     It will be our responsibility to make sure they don't sell a broken
Linux with their patented protocols or such embedded in there where they
are compatible with the "legacy Windows applications", and thus prevent us
from reselling "mainstream (MS) Linux".  If that happens, we will have to
raise a HUGE HUE AND CRY about fundamental violations of GNU agreements. 
And it will require the entire Linux and GNU communities to oppose MS's
legal steam rollers. 

     Remember, the only things MS does well, are sell, and sue!  And no
matter who has the ideas, they get their hands on them and sell them!

     Linux will be no different.  MS will extend it, patent parts of it,
and then sue anyone who tries to sell it.  It is their only viable
strategy when their programming staff is as outnumbered as they are by
open software developers. 

     Our only real hope, is to overturn the patenting of pure software. 
(This, from a holder of a software patent.) 

- javilk at mall-net.com -----------------------------
-------- MS asks "Where do you want to go?" -------
------- Linux asks "What do you want to do?" ------
-- It is doers, not goers, who built this world! --
--------- Member: http://www.svlug.org/ -----------



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