lug-bg: Bitkata mai zapochva....

[ivo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Ivaylo Toshev)]

Å , ìàé âå÷å íàñòàíà âðåìå ðàçäåëíî.....
È âñåêè òðÿáâà äà èçáåðå ñòðàíà, ìäàààà.
Microsoft ÿâíî çàïî÷âàò áèòêàòà ñðåùó Îòâîðåíèÿ êîä è ïî ñïåöèàëíî ñðåùó GPL.
Âèæòå ñòàòèÿòà ïî-äîëó, èçëÿçëà â÷åðà â "New York Times".
Íà ïðúâ ïîãëåä âåäíàãà ñòàâà ÿñíî, ÷å ìàé Microsoft èñêàò äà ïðèëàïàò ðåøåíèÿ 
íàïðàâåíè ïîä GPL è äà ãè ïðîäàâàò êàòî Windows, êàêâà ìèñëèòå ÷å èíà÷å áè 
ìîãëà äà áúäå ïðè÷èíàòà çà àòàêàòà èì ñðåùó GPL ? Ìîðàëíè èëè ïàòðèîòè÷÷íè 
ñúîáðàæåíèÿ? ×å Microsoft, ñà òîëêîâà çàãðèæåíè, ÷å âèäèòå ëè, GPL ïðå÷åë íà 
ðàçâèòèåòî íà òåõíîëîãèèòå è íà ðàçâèòèåòî íà ñîôòóåðíèòå êîìïàíèè, ÷å äàæå 
çàáåëåæåòå, áèë ïàãóáåí çà äúðæàâèòå, êîèòî ãî òîëåðèðàëè ?!
Âÿðâàòå ëè íà òîâàà ?! Âÿðâàòå ëè, ÷å Microsoft ñà çàãðèæåíè çà ñïîìåíàòîòî 
ãîðå ?! Àç ÍÅ!

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May 3, 2001 

Microsoft Is Set to Be Top Foe of Free Code

By JOHN MARKOFF

AN FRANCISCO, May 2 ? Microsoft is preparing a broad campaign countering the 
movement to give away and share software code, arguing that it potentially 
undermines the intellectual property of countries and companies. At the same 
time, the company is acknowledging that it is feeling pressure from the 
freely shared alternatives to its commercial software. 

 In a speech defending Microsoft's business model, to be given on Thursday at 
the Stern School of Business at New York University, Craig Mundie, a senior 
vice president at Microsoft and one of its software strategists, will argue 
that the company already follows the best attributes of the open-source model 
by sharing the original programmer's instructions, or source code, more 
widely than is generally realized.

 The speech is part of an effort by Microsoft to raise questions about the 
limits of innovation inherent in the open-source approach and to suggest that 
companies adopting the approach are putting their intellectual property at 
risk.

 Advocates of the open-source movement say that making the code available 
permits other developers to tinker with it, find problems and improve the 
software. Although the movement has not yet had a significant effect on sales 
of Microsoft's Office and Windows products in the personal computer market, 
the company wants to enter the corporate software market, where open source 
has gained ground.

 In his speech, Mr. Mundie will argue that one aspect of the open-source 
model, known as the General Public License, or G.P.L., is a potential trap 
that undercuts the commercial software business and mirrors some of the worst 
practices of dot- com businesses, in which goods were given away in an effort 
to attract visitors to Web sites. G.P.L. requires that any software using 
source code already covered by the licensing agreement must become available 
for free distribution.

 "This viral aspect of the G.P.L. poses a threat to the intellectual property 
of any organization making use of it," Mr. Mundie said in a telephone 
interview this week.

I.B.M. in particular has been heavily marketing the free Linux operating 
system. 

 Mr. Mundie does not identify I.B.M. by name in his speech, which was 
provided beforehand, but he says that large companies are naïve in adopting 
the open-source model. 

 "I would challenge you," he said, "to find a company who is a large 
established enterprise, who at the end of the day would throw all of its 
intellectual property into the open- source category." 

 An I.B.M. executive said that his company had considered the issues 
surrounding the protection of intellectual property and had decided that it 
was possible to follow both a proprietary and a shared business model, even 
one based on the G.P.L.

 The executive, Irving Wladawsky- Berger, an I.B.M. vice president, said, "If 
we thought this was a trap, we wouldn't be doing it, and as you know, we have 
a lot of lawyers."

 In February, Jim Allchin, a software designer at Microsoft, became a 
lightning rod for industry criticism when he said in an interview with 
Bloomberg News that freely distributed software code could stifle innovation 
and that legislators should be aware of the threat. 

 Mr. Mundie said he would elaborate on Mr. Allchin's comments while also 
trying to demonstrate that Microsoft already practices many of what he called 
the best aspects of the open-source model.

 "We have been going around the industry talking to people," Mr. Mundie said, 
"and have been startled to find that people aren't very sophisticated about 
the implications of what open source means." He acknowledged that the 
open-source movement was making inroads.

 "The news here is that Microsoft is engaging in a serious way in this 
discussion," he said. "The open- source movement has continued to gather 
momentum in a P.R. sense and a product sense." 

 He said Microsoft was particularly concerned about the inroads that the 
open-source idea was making in other countries.

 "It's happening very, very broadly in a way that is troubling to us," he 
said. "I could highlight a dozen countries around the world who have 
open-source initiatives."

 Mr. Mundie said that in his speech, he would break the open-source strategy 
into five categories: community, standards, business model, investment and 
licensing model. Microsoft, he said, in support of the community ideal, 
already has what he called a shared-source philosophy, which makes its source 
code available to hardware makers, software developers, scientists, 
researchers and government agencies. 

 Microsoft would expand its sharing initiatives, he said. But he added that 
the company's proprietary business model was a more effective way to support 
industry standards than the open-source approach, which he said could lead to 
a "forking" of the software base resulting in the development of multiple 
incompatible versions of standard programs. 

 He cited the history of Unix, which has been replete with incompatible 
versions. Although he acknowledged that the open-source approach had created 
new technologies, he said that business models using the open- source 
community were suspect.

 "It is innovation that really drives growth," Mr. Mundie said, arguing that 
without the sustained investment made possible by commercial software, real 
innovation would not be possible. 

 He reserved his harshest criticism in the text of his speech for the G.P.L., 
a software licensing model defined by programmer Richard M. Stallman in 1984. 

 "This is not understood by many sophisticated people," Mr. Mundie said. "The 
goal of the G.P.L. is sweeping up all of the intellectual property that has 
been contributed. That creates many problems downstream, many of which 
haven't come home to roost yet."

 Mr. Stallman has made a distinction between the open-source software 
movement and the G.P.L., which he designed as part of the free software 
movement that he led.

 In a response to Microsoft's Mr. Allchin in February, Mr. Stallman 
wrote:"The free software movement was founded in 1984, but its inspiration 
comes from the ideals of 1776: freedom, community and voluntary cooperation. 
This is what leads to free enterprise, to free speech, and to free software."

 Today a proponent of the open- source software movement said he thought that 
Microsoft was taking a clever approach in its challenge. 

 "It's very clever of them," said Eric Raymond, president of the Open Source 
Initiative. "Instead of attacking the entire open-source movement they've 
singled out the one license that is in a sense politically controversial."
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