Wired has an article in which they report about Bill Gates’ comments on Opensource.
One thing Gates won’t be leaving behind in retirement is his distaste for open source software. After one scientist asked if Gates would consider open source uses in health research, the man who built his $280 billion company on the power of intellectual property bristled.
"There’s free software and then there’s open source," he suggested, noting that Microsoft gives away its software in developing countries. With open source software, on the other hand, "there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with."
Open source, he said, creates a license "so that nobody can ever improve the software," he claimed, bemoaning the squandered opportunity for jobs and business. (Yes, Linux fans, we’re aware of how distorted this definition is.) He went back to the analogy of pharmaceuticals: "I think if you invent drugs, you should be able to charge for them," he said, adding with a shrug: "That may seem radical."
The funny part about the whole episode, aside from his ignorance on the matter, is that he is saying to scientists that their approach in academia, which was responsible for propelling the world to the current advanced state, is nonsense. It is time for him to realize that opensource itself was inspired by the scientists in academia. Bill Gates joins Jaron Lanier in his ignorance about science.
I posted this comment in one of the ReadWriteWeb posts. Since the topic fits well into the theme of this blog, the concept of open web, I thought I will also post it in my blog.
The death of Readburner brings into focus a very important question. How can we rely on a web service offered by a small startups whose longevity cannot be ascertained. Readburner is a different kinda web service where we do not upload huge amounts of data. What about those two people web services where we invest our time and upload all our data? How can we rely on such companies with our valuable data? Should we wait for some big companies like Google to acquire the service before we start investing our time?
These questions bring to forefront two of the important ideas in the technology world, Open source and Data Portability. All the web services should offer a way to take your data with us using open standards. This will ensure that we will have our data in the event of a web service shutting its shop. The second important point is that these web services should consider releasing their code in one of the open source licenses. Right now, some of the web services release their code under open source licenses. For example, if wordpress.com or wikidot.com or wik.is is going to shut the shop tomorrow, nothing will happen to me except a few hours of downtime. I can take my data from these web services in an open format, use their released source code to install the software on one of my servers or somewhere in the cloud and, more importantly, my life will not get affected. How cool is that? I hope that all the mom and pop web services startups take the option of data portability seriously and consider releasing their source code to public, at least, when they shut their shop.
There is lot of chatter going on in the tech blogosphere about the $54 million lawsuit filed against Bestbuy for losing someone’s Laptop.
Six months after bringing a damaged laptop computer into a Best Buy electronics store for repairs, and three months after the firm admitted losing it, Campbell filed the whopper of a lawsuit recently in Washington, D.C., Superior Court.
Best Buy has told Campbell that her demands are unreasonable, and has tried to settle for far less. But Campbell said she didn’t start out making astronomical demands. Months of stalling and brush-offs by the company led her to the drastic measures, she said.
I feel that Bestbuy deserves this lawsuit and I hope that the judge offers the victim the full amount (if not more). A similar thing happened to me too. When I bought a SLR camera several years back, they convinced me to get the extended warranty plan and told me that the plan also covers for cleaning. After a couple of years, I saw a spot in the mirror inside and I wanted to get it cleaned. I gave it to Bestbuy for cleaning and they promised me that it will be sent to my home within 2-3 weeks. I didn’t get it for a month and every time I went to Bestbuy, they will look into their computers and told me that it will be delivered soon. After almost 6 or 7 weeks and after ten visits to the Bestbuy, one day I lost my patience and shouted at them. Only after I drew the attention of fellow customers through my voice, they took me to someone who they told was the manager. I am pretty sure he was not the manager because he was in Geek Squad uniform and, as far as I know, the managers don’t wear Geek Squad uniform. My earlier attempts to talk to a manager didn’t work and only my shouting inside the store brought the so called “manager” out. The “manager” told me that he would offer a new camera and refused to offer me any reason for not giving back the old camera. He offered me a new camera (of the same model) which was $50 less than what I actually paid. They had the next model for the same amount I paid. He refused to give me the camera that had the same price tag as I had paid earlier and I had to shell out the difference to get the new model. He also said that I will lose my remaining one year of the extended warranty for which I paid. He told me that the warranty is for that particular piece and they cannot extend it to the new piece. When I argued that my old piece was working ok and I gave it to them only for cleaning and not repair, he refused to budge repeating the same sentences. I pointed out that his argument will hold true if I had given it for repair and they coulnd’t repair it (offered the new camera) but it will not hold true for their mistake (I am sure they have lost the camera somewhere). The arguments continued for another hour and when I started shouting again, he came around and said he will extend the warranty on the new camera for the remaining period of my original warranty. It was a frustrating but similar experience with Bestbuy. I just hope the courts will put this monster in its place and teach them an expensive lesson.
When Google announced Open Handset Alliance and the release of Android SDK under open source license, I was pretty excited. In fact, few people like Robert Scoble even questioned my excitement during a twitter conversation. Some of the arguments put forward by pundits against my excitement towards Google’s strategy were
Android is boring and the phone features are not enthralling
Certain sensible apprehensions like “Android is not released under GPL but Apache software license and network carriers can still maintain their walled gardens”
To all those who were skeptical about Google’s open wireless strategy, I had argued that it is a welcome move, even if their skepticisms turns out to be true. It was my hope that an open source kinda approach is the only way we can break the monopolies of the giant wireless carriers. The open source approach put a dent on the Microsoft monopoly, even in the not so competitive areas like desktop software. Also, the open source revolution moved the industry from its dark ages to the current Web 2.0+ era, where the market place is opened up so much that new players are emerging every day. It was my hope that if the open philosophy is introduced into the wireless market place, the free markets will then take care of everything else and we will easily move into an open standards based wireless world. Google’s Android effort just did that. It brought in the concept of openness to the marketplace. Now only a more and more open approach can survive the free markets. Today’s announcement by Verizon just proves this philosophy. Now, the competition will drive more and more openness and we will soon have an open standards based wireless marketplace, empowering the consumers.
Some people are more worried about the lost subsidies from the wireless carriers for the handset. This is an unwarranted skepticism. Open source mobile software like Android and mobile linux software will drive down the costs of the handsets. Heavy competition among the handset makers will also drive down the prices. I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a decent handset for $25 (I have seen $35-40 handsets in India when I visited the country few months back). In fact, even a sophisticated handset offering capabilities equivalent to a low end windows mobile phone might just cost around hundred dollars. I wouldn’t subscribe to any FUDs regarding high handset prices. I am pretty convinced that it is just a matter of time before we are bombarded with low cost handsets. Low cost handsets with complete freedom to choose any network and install any applications is the ultimate empowerment of consumers. When it happens, we will turn back and thank Google for the first step taken in this direction.
Here’s the first thing that will happen when a phone with Google’s operating system hits the market: Information-technology departments will ban employees from connecting phones that run Google’s operating system to their computers or the corporate network. The reason is that Google’s operating system is open, meaning anyone can write software for it. That includes bad guys, who will doubtlessly develop viruses and other malicious code for these phones, which unsuspecting Google phones owners will download. Employees could spread the malicious code to the rest of the company when they synch their phones to their computers or use it to check email.
I have nothing to debate here and I am sure anyone with basic idea about technology can see the stupidity of his arguments. What I am really pissed off is that Techmeme is picking up such dumb articles.
Intellectual property appears to be an area in which results that seem secure in a static model may be overturned in a sequential setting. The prospect of being imitated inhibits inventors in a static world; in a dynamic world, imitators can provide benefit to both the original inventor and to society more generally. Patents may be desirable to encourage innovation in a static world, but they are less important in a sequential setting, where they may actually inhibit complementary innovation.
The static-sequential distinction is more than just a theoretical nicety. Indeed, it may help resolve a puzzle emanating from the U. S. natural experiment in software patents. Strikingly, the firms that obtained the most software patents (largely firms in the computer and electronics hardware industries) actually reduced their R&D spending relative to sales after patent protection was strengthened (Bessen and Hunt 2004). This behavior is difficult to reconcile with the static model, in which the prospect of patents should encourage R&D, but is quite consistent with the sequential model and specifically Proposition 7.
Thus we would suggest a cautionary note about intellectual property protection. The reflexive view that “stronger is better” could well be too extreme; rather, a balanced approach seems called for. The ideal patent policy limits “knock-off” imitation, but allows developers who make similar, but potentially valuable complementary contributions. In this sense, copyright protection for software programs (which has gone through its own evolution over the last decade) may have achieved a better balance than patent protection.
In fact, this is the premise behind open source. Open source, by allowing “imitation”, helps companies and organizations innovate. We have seen many examples of such an innovation including Linux, Apache, MySQL, etc. If we even look back further, we can note that science had the same kinda approach from the beginning. Sharing of knowledge leads to innovation. Software is knowledge and its sharing is crucial in future innovations.
Eros International has collaborated with Internet television service Joost (www.joost.com) to provide more than 200 Bollywood movies and over 600 music videos from Eros’ catalogue including films like 1942 A Love Story and Salaam-e–Ishq.
This move is fascinating because Joost consumes quite a lot of bandwidth and bandwidth is expensive in India. Who are they targeting? Non Resident Indians? I don’t think Joost will pick up in a big way in India till they sort out the broadband mess. NRI community using Joost is a small audience for this deal to be significant. Unlike many people in India, I wouldn’t put Bollywood on par with Hollywood in getting worldwide audience. Under such a scenario, this deal doesn’t make any sense to me. If you have an alternative opinion on this, feel free to add it in the comments.
Some of the techbloggers are claiming that Microsoft has open sourced .NET libraries. There is a discussion in Techmeme too. In fact, Microsoft blogger used the correct term but the tech blogosphere has got it wrong. I am pretty sure this post will be damned as one of an extreme ideological position. But there is a huge difference between open source and releasing the source code. Open source means more than just releasing the code. It means the associated freedom to use the code in the way user wants. Open source licenses are meant to offer this freedom to the users. Microsoft Reference License, under which .NET libraries are released, doesn’t offer this. It is my humble request to the tech bloggers not to use the term open source when they are referring to Microsoft Reference License. Please do not dilute the importance of the term “open source” by decoupling the associated freedom from it. In fact, this is exactly the strategy of Microsoft. They want to paint a picture as if they are embracing open source whereas they are not actually doing it. Let us be more careful if we have to cultivate the concept of freedom in Microsoft.
PS: Thank you in advance for future cooperation. Scoble and Marshall are great people whom I admire and hence a friendly suggestion. Let us not confuse them with some other tech bloggers and media personal who intentionally misuse this term.
Update: Scoble has changed the title of the post. Kudos to Scoble for listening to his readers. Remember this post on Scoble. It still holds true :-).
