The shape of things to come?
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| salparadise Mar 06, 2008 8:35 PM EDT |
Gather yourselves beneath the skirts of mama-corporation or face the consequences? |
| gus3 Mar 06, 2008 9:43 PM EDT |
Do not accept their offer of indemnity. I repeat: DO NOT accept their offer of indemnity. It validates their claim, and endangers Free Software. |
| herzeleid Mar 06, 2008 9:49 PM EDT |
concur |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 06, 2008 10:07 PM EDT |
Who needs silverlight or moonlight anyway? The only content for it is on certain MS sites. Everyone else is still using Flashlight :-D |
| dumper4311 Mar 06, 2008 10:28 PM EDT |
>"endangers Free Software." How, exactly? How do you endanger something that's free of your control or influence? Quite the contrary, I think things like this tend long term to engender disdain towards closed solutions, and promote free software. Leveraged properly, this will help the open source/standards community, and harm MS. |
| tracyanne Mar 06, 2008 11:24 PM EDT |
Quoting:Quite the contrary, I agree, Microsoft wants a cut of the Flash action, and from what I've seen of Silverlight, it's a much better product than Flash, and Adobe is certainly not doing themselves any favours, as far as I can see. Instead of making their product freer and better, they seem intent of locking themselves into DRM hell, and finding ways to alienate as many people as possible. |
| gus3 Mar 06, 2008 11:35 PM EDT |
@dumper4311: Every party that accepts MS's indemnity, implicitly affirms the Silverlight codecs' patent(s). It's the camel's nose pushing into the tent, the salesman's foot in the door, the 63,360 creeping inches adding up to the stolen mile. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/fighting-software-patents.html |
| tracyanne Mar 07, 2008 12:51 AM EDT |
_gus read the article. Microsoft said they would indemnify Linux users against such organisations as the MPAA, the codecs in question are not necessarily owned by Microsoft, but are licensed from the owners by Microsoft. Christ on a stick, the bloody paranoia. |
| tracyanne Mar 07, 2008 1:01 AM EDT |
From the article:Quoting:Patent protection stems from Microsoft's existing canon of agreements negotiated with owners of codec patents in order to ship products such as Media Player and Silverlight. Microsoft has volume licensing agreements with major codec patent holders worth more than $1m, according to Ramji. |
| gus3 Mar 07, 2008 1:45 AM EDT |
@tracyanne: I did read the article. From my last comment:Quoting:Every party that accepts MS's indemnity, implicitly affirms the Silverlight codecs' patent(s).If you accept indemnity from Microsoft concerning a software patent that they don't own, you are setting yourself up later for a lawsuit from Microsoft concerning a software patent that they do own. This is a particularly insidious attempt to damage the legal standing of FOSS. The more parties persuaded by Microsoft to affirm the validity of software patents in general, the fewer parties there will be to challenge software patents, both as a whole, and in Microsoft's portfolio. |
| tracyanne Mar 07, 2008 3:24 AM EDT |
Quoting:This is a particularly insidious attempt to damage the legal standing of FOSS. No it's a desperate attempt to make sure that Silverlight succeeds. |
| Abe Mar 07, 2008 8:44 AM EDT |
I just don't see any good reason why anyone would want to help Microsoft when they are in a desperate situation. A poisonous snake is not neutralized (To remove as a threat) until its head is paper thin flat. Helping Microsoft to take over Adobe market share is not wise. It is just as unwise when they were allowed to take over Netscape's. Helping Microsoft in order to force Adobe to be more FOSS friendly is just equally unwise. |
| tracyanne Mar 07, 2008 12:39 PM EDT |
Maybe Adobe needs to take heed, and make a few friends. Hey they are both proprietary businesses, get real. Take a look at history, and so should Adobe. Every company Microsoft destroyed decided that making enemies was the best way to compete with Microsoft. |
| herzeleid Mar 07, 2008 2:58 PM EDT |
> Every company Microsoft destroyed decided that making enemies was the best way to compete with Microsoft. Unfortunately not true. Many of the companies that microsoft has destroyed were hapless tools that thought partnering with microsoft would be a swell idea. |
| tracyanne Mar 07, 2008 3:08 PM EDT |
Quoting:Many of the companies that microsoft has destroyed were hapless tools that thought partnering with microsoft would be a swell idea. That too. Howver Adobe are going abou this all the wrong way, instead of increasing access to their products they seem to be limiting it, whereas Microsoft are going out of their way to make sure their product, which I might add, after having seen demos of it, seems much better than Flash in a lot of ways. In fact Adobe seem intent on alienating everyone else by cosying up to the DRM zealots. |
| dumper4311 Mar 07, 2008 3:55 PM EDT |
@tracyanne:
You've touched on the only really effective way of beating microsoft. You can't take them head-on, they're too big, and they'll swallow you whole. You can't simply ignore them and pretend they don't exist, they're too big (too much market share), and they'll simply overrun you, and leave you crushed and useless. You beat ms at it's own game by leveraging it's strengths to serve you, and exploiting the weaknesses of their model to convert users. They're too monolithic and entrenched to compensate for this with any measure of speed or flexibility. Again, agreements like this don't harm us as a community. If we're smart, these type of agreements ultimately serve us, just as described in the above paragraph. The work of advocates like helios and projects like Komputers4Kids serve to point out the stark contrast of our two camps. People (and businesses, and educational institutions, and . . . ) eventually learn to ask the questions: "yes, I can get this to run here, but why? Aren't I better off with an open solution based on open standards?" The only harm ultimately done by these agreements is that WE don't utilize the opportunity to move users closer to an open world. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 07, 2008 3:56 PM EDT |
Quoting:In fact Adobe seem intent on alienating everyone else by cosying up to the DRM zealots. As if DRM isn't hardwired into Silverlight as well... |
| tracyanne Mar 07, 2008 7:44 PM EDT |
Quoting:As if DRM isn't hardwired into Silverlight as well... Indeed, so why is Adobe doing it's best to alienate as many people as possible, when they could be on a winner. If it just comes down to which is more available and a better technology, and better supported across OSs (that is both have DRM) then Silverlight/Moonlight wins. |
| Abe Mar 07, 2008 8:23 PM EDT |
Quoting:As if DRM isn't hardwired into Silverlight as well...Forget Silverlight, Vista as a whole is hardwired to DRM. Quoting:You've touched on the only really effective way of beating microsoft.FOSS doesn't need to beat any one. All that FOSS needs is to keep the steady pace of development and everyone else will come. There was a time that FOSS needed protection from Microsoft, no longer the case. Now Microsoft itself is looking for a way to survive along with FOSS. FOSS changed the IT market form licensing model (Microsoft's best model) to support and services model. That is not suitable for Microsoft but there is nothing it can do about any more because the largest IT companies are adopting it. They are not adopting it because they favor it, on the contrary, they are joining FOSS because it is the only way they can compete and survive against Microsoft. Microsoft sees this trend and they know that eventually they will be very isolated. |
| tracyanne Mar 08, 2008 2:07 AM EDT |
Quoting:FOSS doesn't need to beat any one.................. Microsoft sees this trend and they know that eventually they will be very isolated. So what, the patent protection Microsoft is offering with Silverlight/Moonlight is in fact a vehicle to get their product accepted by as broad an audience as possible. The company that seems intent of isolating itself is not Microsoft by Adobe. I might point out here that Microsoft is not a Monolith, there are many factions within Microsoft, only some of which actually bear any ill will towards Linux and FOSS, they may be ascendant right now, but that doesn't mean they always will be, the fact that Microsoft has been forced to make so many concessions demonstrates that there are groups within Microsoft who understand this - yes it's grudging and it barely goes far enough, but it's happening none the less. Look at Internet Explorer and the fact that it is fully standards compliant, that's great for developers, but it's even better for Microsoft, and it demonstrates that there are factions who understand what Microsoft needs to do to continue as a major player in the new reality. |
| Abe Mar 08, 2008 8:06 AM EDT |
Quoting:So what, the patent protection Microsoft is offering with Silverlight/Moonlight is in fact a vehicle to get their product accepted by as broad an audience as possible.This is just peanuts, a bait. there is a lot more that Microsoft needs to do to be accepted. Microsoft is not doing that willingly. They are being forced by Adobe in order to be able to compete. The same goes for Adobe. They will have to match Microsoft to be able to compete. It is the market forces that are driving this change. Therefore, there is no need to make Adobe an enemy of FOSS like Microsoft has been. Quoting:there are many factions within Microsoft, only some of which actually bear any ill will towards Linux and FOSS...I don't believe that, it is the Microsoft top people culture that has been driving their policies, not just few people. Quoting:yes it's grudging and it barely goes far enough, but it's happening none the less.What little they have done so far is just not enough. At least, not enough for FOSS community and large part of the IT industry. Microsoft just scratched the surface of what it still needs to do to show their commitment to this path. How far they are willing to go is not clear, but let's be realist, it is not going to be far enough. Their business model is fundamentally based on license revenues while FOSS and companies adopting FOSS is based on furnishing support and services. Microsoft is not willing to change because they would have to compete to survive and they are not suited for that. They are trying but so far haven't succeeded because of other companies that are much better suited than them. |
| thenixedreport Mar 09, 2008 3:31 AM EDT |
You might want to re-read what dumper4311 just said...Quoting:Again, agreements like this don't harm us as a community. If we're smart, these type of agreements ultimately serve us, just as described in the above paragraph. As a corporate entity, Microsoft is a monolith in and of itself. Sure, there may be those who would love to collaborate with outsiders, but they learn very quickly to keep their mouths shut about making such a suggestion. We can talk about a steady pace all day long. However, without the home user base, Microsoft will still have too much influence. They did well in the business sector, yet they aimed at getting a desktop in every home (running their software) for a reason: getting the mind set ingrained within the individual. That is why Microsoft is at the level they are at today. |
| ColonelPanik Mar 09, 2008 6:45 AM EDT |
Two kinds of Linux people: Those that evangelize. Those that don't. |
| helios Mar 09, 2008 10:30 AM EDT |
Abe...et al, You make a point I think we all need to ponder: "Microsoft is not doing that willingly. They are being forced by Adobe in order to be able to compete. The same goes for Adobe. They will have to match Microsoft to be able to compete. It is the market forces that are driving this change. Therefore, there is no need to make Adobe an enemy of FOSS like Microsoft has been." I can think of nothing to add to the brilliance of this thread...THIS is why I am an LXer...aside from the fact that it's easier to type than any other of the sites. You know I'm kidding... The point Abe made above shows how, if it continues in the projected path, FOSS stands to be the big winner here. Here's the hard part. We have to stop brutalizing each other long enough to leverage the advantage they are giving us. I personally believe MS will open source Office before that happens. Hey, call me a cynic... h |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!