Subject: Some Advice for Microsoft (revision 1)

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2002 13:09:43 +0300 (IDT)

This is a rough sketch of a document I wrote. I am posting it here for you
review and comments. Flame away!

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

I'd like to give some advice to Microsoft. As we all know, Windows is
losing market share, and Microsoft did not earn more money this year
than it did the last. I do not claim that they should open source their
technologies. I don't think they should. But here's what I think they
should do.

1. Respect your users. Hold the BSA; Oppose UCITA and friends; and start
thinking of why people like Linux better, regardless of its possible
technological superiority. That's right: freedom _as in free speach_.

Microsoft cannot adhere to Stallman's strict policy, but it doesn't need to.
What it should do is make sure you talk people to pay for their software
instead of threatening to imprison them (fear does not work.
Friendliness does.[1]), give them their money back if they request it (you sort
out the OEM deals), and treat them as your second best asset after your
workers. They are.

2. Make Windows a better Linux. By including, porting and maintaining
free software. Including GPLed one. My friend thinks that the fact that
the Win32 API lacked (and still does) crucial UNIXish features, was
because Microsoft wanted to have a for over the UNIX-derived competition.

Well, these days are gone. If a program, or a simple script, that runs on
Linux needs something that is only available for UNIXes, its developer
may not bother trying to port it to Windows. Some people go even further
and restrict themselves to Linux alone, because they don't know what
to expect in other UNIX systems. If Windows want to win at this battle,
it must make sure it has everything Linux has and more.

3. The GPL is not your enemy. I generally don't qualify licenses
(including proprietary ones) as moral or immoral. A license is ammoral,
because a person needs not accept it. Those long EULAs with absurd claims
are a different issue, but they are still not immoral.

I don't like the GPL. I kept every software I wrote and was given the choice
of the license under a Public Domain license such as Pure PD, BSD or
MIT X11. The GPL has a long FAQ, a quiz and has been the topic of countless
flame-wars. I am not aware of the BSD License FAQ or the BSD License Quiz,
and that's because you're allowed to do whatever you want with it.

Nevertheless, it is possible and safe to port GPL-based programs to Windows.
While Microsoft cannot take a GPLed work and commercialize it or make use
of its code for its own products, it can safely make their systems more
popular and robust by distributing such programs.[2]

4. The Palladium Script would make Windows Unusable for Power Users, who
know the names of a zillion obscure shareware programs by heart. They
will take the completely non-gurus with them to the promised land of Linux
and MacOS X. (hint to Apple: Three Buttons+ScrollWheel Mice[3])

It's not a good way to make more money. It's a braindead suicide.

5. Port your software to Linux (on your free time, but soon). Microsoft
can survive even if Linux takes over.[4] But I strongly recommend
against using a Win32 emulation layer. No-one will like it, and it
will hurt you badly in the long run. I would not suggest a complete
re-write, but instead a gradual encapsulation of the internals into
their own domain, while using portable abstraction libraries to write
once and compile everywhere.

6. Create Windows Versions of Powerful Linux Features. ( preferably
compatible). Windows is getting better, but Linux is still miles ahead in
many areas. And the open-source world is not standing still either. (or have
you visited Freshmeat or Sweetcode lately?)

7. Good Luck! Smart people need it less.

What's missing? Revealing the source. It helps, but is not a panacea. Some
open-source projects have notorious security records. Some commercial
offerings are known as very secure and reliable. I think the source code is
not really an asset for a company. More of a state variable. It's there, but
you should not be too possesive about it. If the source code of WinXP is
posted on Usenet, Microsoft would not be hurt a bit. I'm sure the ReactOS
people already have better code for the parts they wrote so far, and the
internals of Microsoft would interest them, but would not be critical enough
to stop them. And Wine is in a much better state than ReactOS, and was told
that the only thing holding them up is some Microsoft patents on the Win32
API.

As for open specifications and protocols - always a good idea. And please
don't add anti-GPL clauses into its EULA. As for the American Government
sorting Microsoft out: seriously, Microsoft is not half as bad as the
American Government. I actually admire them, and could think of very few
things the American Government did right in the past 100 years.
And Microsoft got a lot of things right or at least partially right.

[1] - The Nazi Regime was depicted as a friendly regime instead of a regime
of terror. Microsoft is increasingly seen as a regime of terror. I have met
only one guy who was a full Microsoft junkie in my life, and he later turned
into Chemistry instead of Computing. He may have converted to UNIX by now.

[2] - For the record, the copyrights owner may choose to exempt a program
from the GPL. One cannot depend on it, as he may hold very radical views.

[3] - A one-button mouse is a very bad design decision. Many users like to
use the mouse exclusively and having to press keyboard keys to emulate mouse
buttons is very inconvenient. The one button mouse is a Macintosh childhood
disease - get rid of it ASAP.

[4] - We are not getting rid of Microsoft that easily. They can dominate
the commercial market in a Linux-based world. What we can do is change
the rules of the game.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish        [email-masked]
Home Page:         http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Home E-mail:       [email-masked]

"Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups..."
"Wait a second - is n a natural number?"

---

From: "Nadav Har'El" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2002 17:11:38 +0300

> things the American Government did right in the past 100 years.

Hmm, let's see:
	* 1911: Rockefeller's Standard Oil broken up according to the 1890
          Sherman Act (the most important anti-trust suit ever).
	* 1920: The 19th amendment (the "Susan B. Anthony Amendment") allowing
	  women to vote.
	* The "New Deal", 1933-1935, letting the U.S. pass the great depression
	  relatively-unharmed, when other countries like Germany and Italy
	  were being destroyed from within by maniacs with crazy plans.
	* 1941: Entering the 2nd world war and saving the entire human race.
	  Over 400,000 Americans lost their lives in that war, mainly for
          saving Europe, Asia and Africa, not America.
	* The Marshall Plan, 1947. No third world war in Europe!
	* The 24th amendment (the right to vote shall not be abridged by
	  failure to pay any tax), ratified by all states except Virginia
	  by 1964.
	* 1969: An American (Neil Armstrong) was the first human to ever
	  walk the moon. This is just an example of the huge investments
	  the Americans goverment have made in high technology, which will
	  later make them the leading country in the world designing
	  computers, software, medicine, and other sophisticated products.
	* 1973: Nixon and Kissinger meat Golda Meir, and agree to airlift
	  supply of arms to Israel keeping it from collapsing or using it's
	  (supposedly available) nuclear weapons during the Yom Kippur war.
	
I'm sure other people with better knowledge of American history than mine
can come up with a few other good things the American government did over
the last 100 years ;)

Obviously, there's also a similar list of *bad* things they did in the last
century...

-- 
Nadav Har'El                        |           Sunday, Aug 4 2002, 26 Av 5762
[email-masked]             |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |We could wipe out world hunger if we knew
http://nadav.harel.org.il           |how to make AOL's Free CD's edible!

---

From: Shlomi Fish <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2002 20:23:36 +0300 (IDT)

>           Sherman Act (the most important anti-trust suit ever).

I don't really consider this a good thing because I'm not sure Standard
Oil was abusive. And even if it were, there would have been better things
to do than break it. Anti-trust is a scratch for the itch of not having
Laissez-Faire Capitalism, where monopolies cannot be abusive.

Check:

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/writings/libgates.html

> 	* 1920: The 19th amendment (the "Susan B. Anthony Amendment") allowing

True. A good thing.

> 	  were being destroyed from within by maniacs with crazy plans.

I'm not sure the new deal helped in anything. If only it made things
worse.

>           saving Europe, Asia and Africa, not America.

True.

> 	* The Marshall Plan, 1947. No third world war in Europe!

I don't know the details, but True.

> 	  failure to pay any tax), ratified by all states except Virginia

True.

> 	  computers, software, medicine, and other sophisticated products.

Whatever. In an LFC, private enterprise would have conquered space much
faster.

> 	  (supposedly available) nuclear weapons during the Yom Kippur war.

True.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

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