7 July 2007: Googles week spots

Google is an incredible company. It hires a lot of the great minds of the Open Source community and is very uniquely structured. It still has a remarkably flat structure which mostly resembles IMHO a democratic centralistic structure with the final decisions still at the top. This means that most things are decided in commitee form with a pseudo-random grouping of that commitee. And it is a very innovative structure that has never been tested before.
If we had been in the times of early capitalism, probably someone would have come up with such an experiment, but it's only now that the technological means allow this. Voting on important issues, judging about project importance together... never did I came up with such an idea for one of my companies. My approach always stayed the typical benovelent dictator approach. 
And certainly this is what makes Google unique and flexible. Very flexible. If theres for example a bad press report about Google, they're on top of it immediately... I only see one problem. It might make Google too flexible...
Bad press can be driven by worthy opponents. And if the press has a large impact on a companies priorities, things might go wrong at a certain point. I'm not sure if Google is prepared for that. However, to a certain extend Google is already unable to combat the negative notion that Google is too big and has too much private information about its users. So I'm sure that we will see some announcements about technologies implemented to address that in the short future.
We techies believe that technology can solve most problems, and Google shines with that believe. Might it be possible that somehow an evil empire might cook up a problem on which Google could break its teeth? After having pushed Google down that road through the media?
I think that there's probably no way of going back to a more centralised decision structure for Google. The employees will probably never vote for that! And employee discontent is the highest fear of its founders.
So we'll have to sit this one out and see what the Google experiment brings :)

Another week spot is Google entering areas where it doesn't know anything about and where it just follows popular beliefs. An example of such a thing is Google Earths involvement into Darfur. I'm no expert to the Darfur matter, but I heared thus far 2 kind of stories: the first one is the one repeated all over in the popular press that the farming people of Darfur are being massacred by the Arabic militias out of seemingly religious and/or ethnical reasons. Another story that I heared puts it differently: the farming people and nomadic Arabic traders lived happy together and the farmers allowed the nomads on their land for their camels to eat and drink. Because of the continuing dry climate in Darfur at a point in time, it became impossible for the farmers to allow the Arabic nomadic people on their lands because they didn't have enough water themselves, triggering the conflict. Just do a Google search for 'darfur ecology'.
The second story moves the cause from enthnic/religious reasons to ecological reasons. And therefor a completely different responsabile for the conflict. Putting the responsability at least partially with us, as the major pollutors of the world.
I don't know which story is more true and there are probably other views on the conflict as well, we're talking about civil war here. So there must be other explenations as well (let alone to justify each side of the conflict). In warfare, typically each side things they're right and have relatively good explenations to justify their actions.
But things can go wrong if the Internet largest search engine - the worlds information catalog - is going to judge which side is right (especially if both sides are using the search engine). Possibly even making itself a target in a conflict.
Wrong visions on warfare are typically only very visible to the naked eye if the war turns out other than expected or after some time. The Crisis in Darfur is a complex one, possibly also related with the recent massive oil contracts between Sudan and China and recent oil discovery in Darfur (Google for 'oil darfur' and 'oil sudan china'). One could argue that if it hadn't been for the mess in Iraq, the US Military might have been present there to defend the US oil interests over there...
So Google might be already in a mess over Darfur. But Google will certainly make other political stands which might turn out to be mistakes later on. We'll also have to see how it deals with that. 
"Do No Evil." is a great slogan. But it's a slogan, nothing more. Most people who fight in a conflict, killing people, believe they're fighting against Evil. Good and Evil don't exist absolutely, there's tons of filosophical writings about that. And class oppositions in the Marxistic sense is only one example of that. Is it "Do No Evil" for the Google shareholders or for its own employees? In the current market situation it's hard to see a conflic there, but at a period of time, that conflict will be there as well...


6 July 2007: GPL v3 and it's importance in the current evolutions

The PC is death. It seems absurd to give this statement, yet it seems to be the case. The economics just aren't there anymore. Prices have been driven down to such a poing at which selling computer hardware can only be compared with home appliances and consumer electronics. And that's exactly what the big PC players are doing: Apple has shifted dramatically away from it's computer business to consumer electronics such as the iPod and the iPhone. Microsoft sells the Xbox 360 and the Zune... 
Microsoft and Apple are 2 companies who date back to a time where the paradigm of hard- and software seperation wheren't the market standard. While Microsoft initiated this together with IBM, it made the PC revolution with it's constantly downpricing possible. Now that the level is at that of appliances and Apple still alive, their model is a lot more interesting. So we will see a lot more of that in the future... by locking software into hardware, more percieved value can be created and less competition can take place.
So yes, it will be interesting times ahead for the likes such as Steve Jobs. And yes, we all liked - or even loved Apple for their underdog role in the past. But Apple could be an even worst opponent than Microsoft in their monopolistic reflections.
If we want our future to be free and remain in control of our own paid-for devices, we need to make sure we go over to the GPL v3 quickly and swiftly.

16 December 2004: The evolution of Linux over the last 2 years

I prepared an overview presentation of the evolutions of Linux over the last 2 years and where it's heading. I also make the comparisation with Microsoft and present my view on the current Microsoft strategy.

You can find it here in PowerPoint format: MS-Linux.ppt
For the convinience of those who are unable to open OpenOffice :)



12 July 2004: Linux/GNU technology will be part of Longhorn

It's official now!
This article on vnunet.com explains that with Longhorns Services for Unix (SFU) single processes will be able to use both Windows and Linux libraries. It will be an integral part of the next release of the Windows server operating system.

I assume chances are high, part of this code is related with the SCO license deal. As some discussions indicated with respect to the SCO/IBM lawsuit, it's even possible that we might see some GPL violations there. Microsoft doesn't have a track record of Intellectual Property respect, as can be seen by the numerous lawsuit and that they actually got sued for stealing QuickTime code to create Media Player...

Further more, it indicates the hipocresy of the 'Get The Facts' campaign in which they slander Linux. Expect Microsoft to continue doing this till they're ready to put this into the spotlight. And that will probably only happen at maximum a year before the actual Longhorn launch date (maybe that can be an interesting indicater to determine the REAL date ;-)

I guess we made it this far! Wow!

Will it stop here?
No, Microsof will have to show that they're offering something substantially more interesting than the competition with only 22.000 developers. And we're of course still not talking about the Linux kernel here. I highly doubt Microsoft to be capable of keeping on par with the Linux kernel development... the numbers aren't in Microsofts advantage at all, neither the determination and commitment.

We will see how things evolve.

Because if we're only talking about non-graphical compatibility, Microsoft might miss the boat another time. Co-existence on the level of GUI will have to be supported as well, and I'm talking about an higher degree of integration than an X server here... the magnitude of applications being written in QT and GTK these days is enormous.
One can only begin to dream about the evolution they will go through over the next years.

One thing remains certain: interesting days are ahead for those with Linux knowledge!



11 July 2004: Linux is a technology, not a product

Microsoft is fighting Linux as if it's a competing product. That just isn't the case... GNU/Linux is a technology, not a product. SUN Microsystems made the same mistake in 2000. It fought Linux to preserve her own operating system Solaris. Big mistake it turned out. IBM was in a simular situation with people starting to get Linux running on it's mainframes. Simularly, Linux on Enterprise 10000 (SUN's flagship) was attempted. Instead of seeing Linux as another possibility to sell these extremely expensive numbercrunchers, it was seen as the enemy.
We see where IBM's strategy brought them in contrast with SUN's.
Maybe SUN was afraid that Linux on SPARC would be compared performance-wise with Linux on other architectures, whereas this is less straightforward when comparing two different operating systems. But instead of a revenue opportunity, it was regarded as THE ENEMY. A big mistake!

Microsoft made the same mistake,... Linux is a technology, not a product. Yet, there are some companies who try to turn Linux into a product (such as Red Hat and SUSE). They don't seem to be very successful at it. 
Red Hat has less than 40.000 customers for it's Enterprise Linux... while Red Hat/Fedora linux versions run on at least 1.3M detected web servers.

Linux is a technology and by not integrating it into Windows, Microsoft is competing with a bunch of small companies who deliver no or hardly any added value above what can be freely obtained over the Internet.
It makes no sense, businesswize.

Microsoft can integrate GNU/Linux into Windows and deliver the best of two worlds at once. Not delivering this, means that consumers get so desperate for the Microsoft tools that they're building the bridges themselves. Wine which runs MS Office in Linux is an excellent example of that. 
Microsoft risks to loose everything because of non-delivery of Linux.

Every time I talk about this with a Microsoft employee, they say that it's impossible because of the antitrust actions in the United States. That simply means they still don't get it: Linux isn't a product, it's a technology!

Why couldn't they afford to hire someone to tell them this?



28 March 2004: Microsoft and Open Document Formats

Microsoft is scared of Open Office.
As a result, they created this document to create the typical Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt around a competing product: http://members.microsoft.com/partner/salesmarketing/opensource/discguides/OpenOffice.pdf

It got reviewed at this NewsForge article.

Microsoft's holy cash cow is MS Office - artificially sustained by their Windows monopoly - they finance all their anticompetive business activities in other markets with it. And in the other way - Office supports the Windows monopoly as the only way

On the 'Open Documents' format, the typical MS answer these days is:

Upgrade to Office 2003: Office 2003 allows to export Word documents as XML documents in the WordML format.

Several OpenSource people get confused by this when confronted with such an answer. It's very important to realize the following:

It isn't useful XML: This might sound strange at first as a reaction. But the WordML format is a Object Serialisation. This means that it's possible to do full text searches in it or store it in a database - but that it's virtually impossible to create an application to visualise the file in the same way MS Word does. Microsoft also stated repeatedly that this format is not for interoperability.
They patented this format and have a very specific user license: they allow you to use this format, but disallow any usage that adds anything or changes anything to this XML specification. This means that if you want to write a competing word processor program which would be capable of reading/writing the WordML format, you still were NOT allowed to add any XML tags to the document format. In practice, this would mean you can not add any feature to the word processor that MS Word doesn't do.

As always, it is Microsoft and it stays Microsoft.

I was especially suprised with their 'with MS Office you need only one vendor' statement in their brochure - given the current commotion in the European commission regarding their monopolostic behaviour.


What's next for us wrt Microsoft and OpenOffice?

They will probably add OpenOffice import and export capabilities in Word after a certain percentage of OpenOffice usage is accomplished (maybe even first for certain more critical regions than others).

A good thing you assume Wrong again - I'm not a MS basher, just an analyst of their tactics for over 15 years.

If MS implements OpenOffice import/export they will probably do the importing of OpenOffice documents correctly, but the export function WILL have critical problems (a deviation of certain standards, a so-called programming bug, you name it)

OpenOffice will have no other option to release a new version that resolves the problems introduced by MS then - hopefully quickly.

An important -but often forgotten part of the FUD is the $4.8 billion R&D budget. It's a number that is not questioned as MS is known to have a lot of money. However - MS Office is a product with virtually no innovation at all over the last 10 years. The Microsoft team responsible for MS Office for Mac counts only 100 people (the real budget for the developement of Mac MS Office must be only around $15 million yearly). An incredible profit margin only sustainable because of MSs monolopistic behaviour.

Microsoft invests enourmous amount of money in the markets in which it doesn't make any money to keep its wintel monopoly in place. And THAT's what makes up the big $4.8 billion in R&D.

The last 10-Q SEC filing of Microsoft says the following (not that MS has a track history of accurate SEC filings - but anyway):
In the last 3 months of 2003 - a revenue of $2856 M was generated with $2130 M profit (Office is called 'Information Worker' in the SEC filings)- this means a maximal total spending of $726M - much of this will of course be marketing! Actual R&D on Office will probably be in the order of $50M or less... 
MS presence in the embedded market or in the Home and Entertainment market could not be possible without its Office profit center. The vision that MS abuses its monopoly to gain an unfair advantage in these markets by the European Commission becomes very clear here.
Explenation about how 'Research and Development' is counted creatively are provided in the SEC filing itself costs incurred internally in creating a computer software product should be charged to expense when incurred as research and development until technological feasibility has been established for the product. Or: any non-research costs for unsuccessfull products are accounted for as 'R&D'.... In practice, it's this R&D amount which is used to push companies out of any IT industry Microsoft finds appropriate.

More ideas and analysis can be found at MicrosoftLinux 16 January 2004: Old-time VP of MS quiting; Xbox responsible - a wild guess Ed Fries, the responsible for the Xbox platform resigned from Microsoft. An educated guess, while looking at a recent interview with him, would suggest that since MS didn't buy SEGA - the premier Japanese Xbox producer - he might be disappointed... SEGA were close friends of him and an aquisition would make sense for MS and SEGA. But in the light of a flat MS revenue, the corporate aquisition strategy could have changed... Maybe this is the kind of disapointment that could lead to a person of his level quitting. But of course... this is all wild guessing :) 28 December 2004: One way out for Microsoft? Some friends of mine once started a Linux company with the acronym 'Microsoft Is Nearly Death'. Today I received the news that for the first time since long Microsoft its revenue is flat. No increase in revenue. This is very abnormal for Microsoft. Especially in the light of their new increased cost licensing program version 6.0. Most defenetly some people will start to worry now. The biggest competitor - financially wise - for Microsoft, are its own old products. When customers don't follow to the latest version there are really big problems ahead. Ironically the last versions of the MS's Operating Systems are really good compared to their predecessors. People are just fed up with Microsoft. They're starting to loose their own crowd. The security problems related with the MS product line will only increase, bad design choises aren't fixed with a few patches. It took the UNIX flavors 2 decades to get it up to a decent level. And even in the UNIX world minor security flaws are discovered on a regular basis. The only way Microsoft can rectify this mood and looks from the general public and IT managers worldwide, is by doing something which looks drastically. A security audit is not sufficient and will not be accepted. The Trusted Computing initiative to be launched with Longhorn is seen by most as a way to push DRM technology and to prevent illegal software copying. Not as a way to protect their computers. Embracing Linux, as scetched below, is of course a viable option, but the fear for the GNU General Public License is deeply rooted into the brain of Bill Gates. Not without reason. Competing with this model, is a nightmare. Even programmers from India need to be paid for. But there is one operating system which is respected by the Open Source community and which is a mix of Open Source (BSD License - which can also be found in the MS kernel, eg the TCP/IP stack) and closed source. The GUI is completely closed and operates fairly well with X11, but doesn't need it. While being completely proprietary, Linux people have respect for it from point of security, stability and userfriendlyness. If Microsoft can buy this Operating System, they can claim they have a reliable, secure and userfriendly environment which is superior of Linux. And very few people will contradict that statement. That is what Microsoft needs. What's more, this Operating System is actually originally ported from Intel to another architecture. So backporting it to Intel should be a no-brainer for Microsoft. But what with Longhorn? In IT technology people have a long term goal in their heads. With Windows the next step is Longhorn. What lies beyond is unclear to everybody. However, the vision with Linux is clear: Linux wants to be everywhere: on your game console, on the servers, on the desktop systems, on the mainframes, on the mobile phones, everywhere... Microsoft currently has a simular vision, with different operating systems for game consoles, phones, pda's, desktops and servers. However, they don't interoperate very well (except from the desktop/server relation which is basically the same OS). With Linux it is THE SAME kernel source tree. With Windows, it's only the same brand, period. So, now that Microsoft will have to cut it's expenses because it has a flat revenue, it will cut these things in which it's the least successfull: everything except Intel Windows. A better integration of the different Microsoft Operating Systems will not come. Only a focus on what they sell best will allow them to present good profit numbers to the stock market. Microsoft needs to have a long term vision. Longhorn isn't a long term vision. It's just medium-term. And the only innovative parts are WinFS and Trusted Computing. The rest are mere corrections of initial design problems. Buying an Operating System which is looked upon as superior than Linux, IS a long term vision. It's saying: "Linux is good at what it's doing, but we're better at integrating software for end users, we have a competitive advantage". It presents something to look forward to for all those Win 2000 sysadmins out there. And it's great marketing. Considerations Buying an OS is always dangerous for Microsoft because of the anti-trust history. However since MS gained enough political influence after the last US elections, this shouldn't be so much of a problem in the US. Europe might be a tougher nut to crack. MS is already heavily under investigation by the European Commission. However, the reality is there that Linux is a very big competitive treath to Microsoft, if it counts as an argument however, since Linux is a collective of individual copyright owners and not a company, remains to be seen. Will they sell? Good question. I'm of course talking about MacOS X from Apple. Different scenarios are:

• MS buying Apple alltogether Probably the best option for MS if approvable by anti-trust commitees. MS can pay this, but Steve Jobs might have very strange conditions tied to his personal wish list. The ambitions of Steve Jobs have always been very high. And the recent success of the old- school Apple proofed tactic of tieing software with hardware, once again proved to be successfull with the iPod. Where the iPod is going to, remains to be seen, but it could well outperform - on every scale - the success of the Macintosh, even that of the Personal Computer... So, maybe a split-up of Apple would be more advisable. However, to sell-out the typical Apple customers, is like selling a gold-mine. This could be the deal of the millenium. Much will depend on the Gates/Jobs relationship.
• MS licensing MacOS X for Intel only This would leave Apple in an advantage hardware-wise. It would seem highly unlikely to me. Unless this would be the only option for which Steve Jobs wants to go. However, for MS to be successfull, they will need at least an important part of the core development team (both from the MacOS 9 and NextStep sides.
• MS buys MacOS X and the OS development team (both the Darwin/NextStep/MacOS 9 teams). Raises questions like: Would Apple get an exclusive license for the PPC platform or not? IBM would certainly be an interesting other canidate-licensee here (but Apple is - no doubt - aware and afraid of that). It's not without reason that Jobs killed the CHRP licensing to allow other parties to make MacOS hardware. Apple is already focussing on entirely different thing than the core OS. The iPod/iTunes is a hughe success in the old Apple fashion: tieing software to hardware

June 24th - message from Mr. Robertson Hi! I just finished reading your thesis at microsoftlinux.com and I wanted to make a few comments. Why wouldn't MS just do what Apple did and create a desktop unix-based operating system? They already have a license from SCO and they could use it to create a desktop-based and server-based version Windows based on Unix. Sun, HP, and IBM with their Unix systems are pretty much doing the same thing, but they focus on the server market with their products. My real question us: If they have a license to use Unix, then why would they care about the GPL or a non-prioritory Linux kernel? The next version of Windows could be Unix-based. Think about it, they have pretty much stripped all of the DOS commands from Windows to the point where it is pretty much not usable. It can no longer run older DOS programs, either. So it becomes a terminal. MS wouldn't buy SCO out, because that would put it back into the monopoly problem with the Justice Department again. So HP-UX, Solaris, etc...would still be safe. Regards, My response It is a very good point. Also in the light of the recent SCO/IBM lawsuit. Microsoft moving to UnixWare instead of Linux is certainly an option that wasn't considered here before. There are however quiet a few advantages of Linux above UnixWare: - No expensive UNIX license (possibly on a per copy basis) - Technical superiority of Linux in certain fields such as its multiprocessor capabilities (in which Linux beats UnixWare) - Instant availability of drivers for very different hardware (which might be less of a concern possibly) - Application base (but it also can be accomplished with LKP) - Shock effect of 'Microsoft embracing and extending Linux' on the Linux community and beyond - Linux on the mainframe scales way above UnixWare standards (but that's not where the market is) - There could be Justice Department related problems as the collaboration / technological merger with SCO's UNIX would be a more monopoly-like situation on the Intel platform than what we saw before. The dominance created by the collaboration of these 2 companies in the Intel compatible market can be called more monopoly-like as the one before. I do not know if this is important or not if there's no company merger, just a collaboration contract. - Linux runs on non-Intel hardware, and this could be possible future markets, but we saw with NT a move from multi-platform to 'only-Intel'. Would MS want to reverse this strategy with strong competition in the Handheld market and mobile phone market (who are converging) - with Symbian and PalmOS as major opponents. On the other hand the clear advantages to Microsoft are there: - The technological advantages of UNIXWare above NT are very clear to all - All kinds of Intellectual Property related advantages (lower risk than the alternative) - Protection of MS schooled engineers and sysadmins - This also could explain why MS licenses this technology from SCO instead of Novel. - This really puts Sun Solaris/Intel in the dark and is a real danger towards Solaris/Sparc and the other UNIX players. - If UnixWare Windows doesn't work out as well as expected a MicrosoftLinux is still an open option, the other way around could be more of a one way street. - This option doesn't changes the PocketPC and other non-PC strategies of Microsoft It also is the first theory that makes some sense with respect to SCO's recent actions: - SCO had a revenue problem with their Linux related ventures - the SCO/IBM lawsuit gives some time till possible MS-related actions deliver revenue - if MS-ification is the long term strategy, it doesn't hurt to speak up against the Linux community - Recycling and revalue-ing of UnixWare knowledge in the marketplace (long term) - NeTraverse Merge 5.3 delivers already the Windows ME/98/95/Dos application compatibility layer and is available for both UnixWare and OpenServer. MS might be (partially) interested in this too. - MS had/has(?) SCO shares. - It is compatible with the UnixWare/OpenServer filosophy. - However this Linux Kernel Personality might be contested because of possible GPL violations. This might be a Microsoft no-go chance: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1123176,00.asp This last thing could be a show-stopper towards the Microsoft-SCO commitment I think. We will see if this last thing is more than just another rumor on the rumormill (maybe to seek reactions?), or maybe something substansial backed by hard facts. If the latter is the case, there still would be some UnixWare advantages compared with the NT kernel, but the Linux Kernel Personality is vital to release the fear that Microsoft has of Linux. Thank you for your contribution! By Jasper Nuyens
Jasper Nuyens was the founder and CEO of LIFE - the linux company, he was European Director for VA Linux Systems Inc. and currently runs Linux Belgium and LinSpot.