PlexNex

OLPC + Windows

Negroponte redefines "open" in his statement justifying the inclusion of an opening for Windows on the OLPC.

"It would be hard for OLPC to say it was 'open' and then be closed to Microsoft. Open means open," Negroponte said.

Jo Best | ZDNet Australia

Open means visible code. Not welcoming of having your head stoved in.

This twisting of language, good sense and repudiation of declared objectives must be an expedient to get Bill Gates & Warren Buffett to stop standing on his bunyons.

Negroponte needed to get the anti-OLPC-league off his back to close some big deals. But he just gave up one of the strongest educational principles supporting the project: that kids can open up the software and learn from playing with the source. This will probably never be possible with a Windows version of OLPC (-- and if Microsoft releases its source it will stop these kids from ever contributing to Free Software because they will have seen the Microsoft code and become a patent violation risk).

In addition, OLPC Windows runs afoul of the principles of Free Software and common sense in an education project by distributing a hornet's nest of proprietary dependencies into fast-growing markets.

In fighting for oxygen in the real world of influence, OLPC just stopped being important. Another big win for the Gorilla.

Hacker Crack Means Vista Can't Phone Home

Joe Wilcox posts on Microsoft-Watch about the supposed hack that defeats Vista's authentication facility. Windows Genuine Advantage -- the Stalin-esque nomenclature for the Windows Vista authentication mechanism -- appears to be under commical siege before Vista is two strides out the door.

Wilcox...

I can confirm the cracking tools are out there. I easily found Web links to torrents of the crack. Supposedly the software contains a VMware image and visual basic script that acts as a pseudo activation server for Windows Vista. The user obtains a Windows Vista image file--also available on torrents--and activates against the pseudo server.

Apparently, Genuine Advantage wasn't working well anyway: ZDNet's Ed Bott observed the system was registering false positives when some legitimately purchased installations of Vista checked in with MotherShip and these boxes were being infairly disabled. That's bad, and probably stimulated the 2600 guys to get busy on a clever hack to prove Genuine Advantage is fundamentally wrong-headed, counterproductive, idiotic and all other kinds of derrogatory things we can imagine.

Microsoft will need to learn the hard way that pricing is the only anti-piracy measure worth pursuing. Central Command & Control is hard to pull off. Take the Soviet Union as a case in point. From the brilliant Daniel Yergin's Commanding Heights series on PBS...

1989-1991: Gorbachev's relaxation of controls creates an economic halfway house. As output plummets, shortages, rationing, and queues grow increasingly severe. A desperate attempt to restore centralized planning proves unworkable. The Berlin Wall falls, and Eastern Europe breaks free from communism and Soviet control. The USSR is dissolved, and Boris Yeltsin is elected president of the Russian Federation.

Hey Daniel. [Piercing NYC taxi-cab wistle with thumb & middle finger.] We've got another one over here.

Hiser on Don Marti's LinuxWorld Podcast

Don Marti was Editor of LinuxJournal during its long and important middle phase. He's now back at LinuxWorld.com as Senior Editor.

MP3 (24:02)

Don & Gary Edwards and I spoke together a few weeks ago about the GPL-ing of Java and the conversation turned to our file format work on ODF at the OpenDocument Foundation. This led to the LinuxWorld Podcast, which Don recorded late last night after my return from Boston.

Hiser...

"We have to stop being coy...if we're serious about the success of Linux in the market-place -- either desktop or server -- we have to be realistic about aggressively attacking some of the choke-points these gorillas are exerting..."

Don's questions were excellent -- they're questions we've been hoping to field from the Linux sector for years now. I ramble through the points (am fixing that), but the conversation represents our views clearly,and hopefully for a wider than usual audience.

Throwing the Temporary-Inconvenience Switch

I'm baffled by this anxiety about Microsoft's "kill switch" in Vista. Are people actually supportive of piracy? Are you worried because Microsoft lied, or that they are being mealie-mouthed (semantically too clever) again? What?

I would be more insistent that Microsoft make higher-quality software, but the kill switch is not a major problem...unless it produces false positives, turning off software for which customers have paid good money. What?

Ed Bott is finding this to be a problem with the WGA ("Windows Genuine Advantage"). WGA is another of those ungrammatical, Strangelovian, intrinsically contradictory naming schemes -- like "PlaysForSure" (is there a doubt?) the "Business Software Alliance" (Brown-Shirt thugs run by Bill Gates dad's law firm, Preston Gates & Ellis, to handcuff CEO's and parade them in front of the Five-O'Clock News when their companies are caught with invalid Microsoft software) or the "Initiative for Software Choice" (a coalition led by Microsoft to prevent fair software procurement in government). These Soviet contraptions with their Python-esque Obviously False Names are a comical tell of Microsoft's always opposite underlying intentions. According to Mr Bott, the WGA is proving to quite a few honest users of Windows neither genuine, nor an advantage.

Additionally, Microsoft should evaluate the positive value of piracy (consider the success of the GPL). They may find their file format and psychological lock-ins significantly curtailed if one-half of their market should fail to show up out of fear of a poorly worded wizard interrupting their workflow...something about ' invalid authentication...credit card...thank you.' Clearly their estimates are showing them a net positive Revenue impact: a lot of non-paying customers will stop using Windows, but too many of the quite literally unwashed will still now scrape together the several years' salary to permit their undernourished children to play pirated PC games. One family is too many, and these will eventually find Linux.

Kill switches I'm all for. They provide impetus for the emotionally battered customer (suffering Stockholm Syndrome) to find better software from a more sincere vendor.

Now, Microsoft's bean-counters have always been conservative, avoiding things like valuing their software as an Asset on the Balance Sheet. (The reason is no mystery: in such a case they would have to Depreciate the Asset and that would only create an Expense; Expenses -- like Taxes, for example, which Microsoft hasn't paid too often -- have the inconvenient effect of reducing accounting Earnings).

Perhaps they should lean toward the other conservative thing and add a line-item for Negative Goodwill. This would be a Contra-Asset or in other terms, a Liability, on the Balance Sheet. I would define Negative Goodwill as the passionate hatred of nearly all of one's customers. For Microsoft, Negative Goodwill takes shape in things like software virus attacks, piracy, and neverending negative publicity (quite like this blog post). Perhaps they could amortize, ameliorate, the Negative Goodwill account too -- as a booster of accounting Earnings much like the way Deferred Revenue liabilities are managed back into the Income Statement to keep Revenues alive and growing at whim.

There will be a time when the company wishes it had treated its customers with respect. Evidently, it's not yet.

Vista & Security

I'm interested in the Vista security flap going on right now in which Vista is a) taking a new design tack (reminiscent of Linux's and the BSDs' separation of kernel and user space); and b) muscling aside McAfee, Symantec and other 3rd-party security vendors.

What intrigues me is that, security-wise, XP + anit-virus protection (more or less) = Vista with Microsoft's own security features. There is no energy loss to the system and, even more important, no energy gain. Just a lot of excuses to upgrade for no reason. The disruption of change alone should rightly keep adoption of Vista at bay. And what, are we to trust Microsoft as the new high-water mark in security? Microsoft over McAfee or Symantec?

What's more, if Microsoft does security right this time, there should be no money in the Windows (in)security industry left for anybody...least of all Microsoft.

Someone needs to tell me just what is the business proposition of Vista? What, please? To have something approximating OS X -- but not -- on all the desktops in the Global 2000?

It's a $50 Billion jerk-off.

CIOs adopting Vista better have a better excuse than their CEO's admiration for the Philanthropist of the Year.

Vista's Security Ovations

The environment is like this: Microsoft has threatened to delay Vista's release in Europe because the EU commission on competition has expressed concerns and, says Microsoft, failed to give specific guidance whether new security features in Vista prevent competition from third-party security vendors.

McAfee's CEO, George Samenuk, is now on a multi-day press tour behind the message you would have seen in yesterday's Financial Times (2 Oct 2006) in a full-page advertisement (page 9 of the main section). It begins, "Dear computer users around the world." Here's an exerpt, one of eleven paragraphs...

With its upcoming Vista operating system, Microsoft is embracing the flawed logic that computers will be more secure if it stops cooperating with the independent security firms. For the first time, Microsoft shut off security providers' access to the core of its operating system -- what is known as the "kernel." At the same time, Microsoft has firmly embedded in Vista its own Windows Security Center -- a product that cannot be disabled even when the user purchases an alternative security solution. This approach results in confusion for customers and prevents genuine freedom of choice.

An article in BusinessWeek is also worth a look...

Chris Paden, a spokesman for Symantec, was more blunt: "The M.O. of Microsoft is to prevent innovation from being able to happen, dumb down the environment, and then create solutions of their own."

Sarah Kacy & Jay Greene | BusinessWeek (3 Oct 2006)

Despite the DoJ case in the US -- the hard record of anti-competitive business practices -- and ongoing legal conflicts in the EU (fines still clocking daily due to intransigence about revealing Windows server documentation), it is significant that Microsoft elects in its Vista security strategy the audacious & in-your face move of shutting out its erstwhile partners. They could have done this, what, a little more graciously while still keeping advantage? One wonders if they have only one speed: maximum aggression?

On the side of McAfee & Symantec, it is easy to loose sympathy quickly. They've done well playing Microsoft's Achilles Heel, riding a large insecure Windows installed base, playing the good paracyte and even adding value. How long did these companies imagine Microsoft would permit them to stay on?

There is no partnering with Microsoft. Yet eager, naive young companies continue to renew the line to suckle the hag's teet.

Well, Dell?

"Dark Days at Dell" | BusinessWeek (24 Aug 2006)
Nanette Byrnes, Peter Burrows & Louise Lee

Dell's eroding profitability is attracting a media pile-on. Ultra-successes attract jealousy equal to devotion. But I'd like to believe that Dell's problems signal a shift in the PC business, that they are not restricted to Dell's moribund culture or slipping "execution."

hp will be taking share from Dell and Apple will too, now that the Intel-based Macs are rolling through the channel. I expect the Intel Macs to accelerate in share gains this year. That's because youths & adolescents as well as high-functioning adults are getting tired of WinXP because it is so old, going on its 6th year.

In the server market, Dell seems to have its work cut out as Sun recovers strongly -- while Dell's CTO, Kevin Kettler continues his world tour to market Intel's Virtualization technology. Dell is also poised to miss the inevitable Linux desktop boom, since Kettler's idea of a desktop is so very much like the niche Sun Ray, driven off of Dell servers through virtual partitions.

Back to Apple: the reasoning among the great unwashed to buy the new Macs goes something like this: 'Well, I can have the Mac to run my iPod & iTunes seemlessly and gradually get used to other things (like the amazingly simple and attractive Dashboard), while I will not necessarily be cut off from Windows -- which I can run in emulation or via Boot Camp. My fears are assuaged!'

My wife just got a new MacBook which she will share with our daughter for email, writing and gaming. These new Intel Macs are beaUTIful! And I was struck by how the Mac OS -- now Tiger -- is evolving underneath (more automation, fewer & fewer reasons to engage Preferences and configuration gobbledygook) but changing very little at the superfice. Stable underneath -- OS X is built on the NetBSD kernel -- it is stable in its appearance and UI functionality, too. This reflects the confidence at Apple that they've got it right: a system people really like that works exceptionally well for what people want to do. The Mac is the best home system by such a far margin that you would think Apple is a decade ahead in thought as well as delivery.

Even more significant than the Intel Mac factor, in my opinion, is above noted age of XP and the high cost of PCs which pack enough power to run the new Windows Vista system. This indicates the Vista upgrade cycle will spark bright -- due to the long pent up demand for something new -- but will moderate rapidly and grind to a crawl over the aggregate first few years.

Dell, as Intel's & Microsoft sales arm, will need some radical thinking and a different kind of energy to play in the new PC markets during Vista's Syssiphaean climb and Microsoft's recovery from Existential Crisis driven by their loss of control of their old and their new document file formats.

The Desktop Today

Does this look queer? [click image to enlarge]

It does to Microsoft and among the helpless Microsoft feeding chain -- including customers who are hopelessly committed to those systems. It is a screenshot of a Windows XP desktop and there are no Microsoft applications in the Quick Launch bar.

It's an indicator of the direction of software markets and it explains the anxiety at Microsoft. (This link is a blog entry by an anonymous Microsoft insider clamoring for scalps, with over 500 affirmative responses from other, anonymous, citizens. For example: "MSFT shareholders need to start rolling some heads, starting with [Ballmer] the monkey-boy.")

Software applications visible include...

• Firefox browser
• Opera browser & email program
• OpenOffice Writer
• OpenOffice Calc
• OpenOffice Impress
• Acrobat Reader
• N|VU (open source & free web page editor)
• The GIMP (open source & free Photoshop-equivalent)
• Apple's iTunes (music & Quicktime player)

This user can get his work done and produce work in standard formats without tithing. Also important, the programs are more elegantly built and engineered than their expensive corporate equivalents because of the user-enthusiasm which goes into their creation. This is why people like to use them.

Almost two years ago I wrote an article for LinuxWorld Magazine entitled, "The Power of Mozilla Firefox and OpenOffice on Windows." That vision is coming true.

Table 1: The operating systems people use with OpenOffice
(This table was omitted from the original article. People often expressed surprise that most OpenOffice users are running Windows. It's naturally so, and those splits have been drifting toward aggregate market-share levels, since then, as OpenOffice usage has expanded into more representative weight in the tens of millions.)

The Windows XP desktop screenshot depicted up above makes sense today. When the organization upgrades within the next 2 or 3 years, it will be to a Linux desktop (without, necessarily, a hardware upgrade) where the organization can better control its software in use as well as its software and hardware spending.

The amount of spending on Linux infrastructure and desktops is certainly lower; that's a nice one-time gain. However, the fundamental benefit is that the control of spending shifts to the consumer.

If the barrier to your organization's migration away from monopoly software has to do with your feeling of a lack of access to skilled Open Source & Free Software IT talent, then we'll fix that. I'm going to do an article series on the colleges and universities that are producing young people who are competent in administering and programming in mixed Windows/Linux environments.

They're there; you just don't want to believe it. And you're afraid to look in the right places for what you might find: a blow to your dull and frightened concept of the world.

Windows WiFi Hell

My wifi connection (WinXP) won't stick. Every 2 minutes, I get the popup saying, "One or more wireless networks are available." Apparently this is quite common. I have found the thread on WiFi Planet dating back to this time 2003.

Needing to synch up with clients (we tend to use FreeWare quite a bit on Windows), I have been using Windows XP on my ThinkPad (T21) for about 70 percent of the time (it dualboots to Ubuntu Breezy now on the other partition). So my XP install was fairly clean with SP2 as of last November. Now it's rather crufty from use and I've developed this wifi problem.

It might have been my cludgy Linksys router tangle, but I've changed channels (from 3 to 11 now), eliminated the extra access point and repeater and tried as many ways to narrow the glitch. Now, having finally configured my Linksys WPC54G card in Ubuntu (Linuxant Driveloader provides a wrapper for the Windows driver -- $$ -- easy to configure via Linuxant's wonderful online mechanism and worth it), I need no further convincing this is a Windows problem. And the WiFi Planet thread indicates it may have to do with a bad Windows update or hotfix. Honestly, it could be anything in that uncontrolled mess of a system that is, yet, over 5 years old! It strains belief.

It is this kind of technical difficulty sent me screaming to Linux back in 1998. I am now back on Linux as much as possible.

Has it occurred to anyone that Microsoft could be so desperate to "Pull Up" customers from legacy platforms to Vista that they send out bad updates or abet a catastrophic viral epidemic after Vista becomes available?