Steve Ballmer's Thoughts On Free Software 263
An anonymous reader writes, "Steve Ballmer during a 3-day visit to India was asked about whether Free software is the future of India. And he effectively circumvented the question and answered that in the future, software businesses can look at a number of revenue streams such as subscription fees, lower cost hardware, advertising and of course traditional transaction. What is amusing is that in answering the question, he refuses to use the word 'free' or anything close to it."
India and free don't go well together (Score:2, Insightful)
I was just in India this year (Spring 2006) for almost a month on a tour of Eastern Europe and Western India. The primary focus of the trip was to see how gold bullion affected areas with poverty and reduced labor. I was shocked at the competitive and relatively free market of India -- I also saw why so many people were gaining wealth and blowing open the tech community -- they were driven versus what I am familiar with in the States.
That being said, I don't think Ballmer was wrong to dance around the que
Re:India and free don't go well together (Score:4, Interesting)
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I'm sort of surprised how often I'll get a first post, though, even though I'm not looking for it. Where are the other subscribers? Maybe they don't read via RSS
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He is a schill. dada21 often claims how he is some millionaire with these new concepts and ideas. I don't buy it. I think you should question it too. He sounds like a hired snake oil salesman.
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I'm NOT a millionaire -- I live in a mobile home, I drive a 96 Toyota Corolla, and I reinvest almost all my profits into new risky ventures or into ventures for others. But I may LIVE like a millionaire because my cost of living is about 80% lowe
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Libertarians are Statists who want smaller government or more local government. Anarcho-capitalists are either Voluntaryists who believe in a voluntary society or Unanimocrats who believe in unanimocracy -- they both believe in 100% voluntary affiliations. Both are anarcho-capitalists: they believe in no use of force (the State) and the ability to use your hands, mind and property to better
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I do believe that the State as it exists now is a cartel, and it is a monopoly of force. In fact, I do believe that monopolies in the market can not exist without the State enforcing those monopolies, or using practices that create monopolies in the market. All monopolies in the market because of laws -- copyright, tari
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There is an interesting "economic" theory called technocracy that i dont seem to find anyone talking about any where. http://www.technocracy.ca/simp/begin.htm [technocracy.ca]
It's quite a fascinating idea, it strikes me as the kind of system that Vulcans would have
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Frankly, if people embraced personal responsibility, thrift, and love for their neighbor, we could live under Marxism and we'd do equally well. The extremists on both sides of this argument (small vs. large government) make the same claim: that moving in the correct direction will c
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It's called modern Russia (as opposed to Soviet Russia, in which the army buys YOU).
That said, dada21's philosophy seems to be something along the lines of: "Lookit! Just follow my simplistic philosophy and the world will be perfect! Really!"
If an ideology makes perfect sense to you, sense flawlessly logical, and you honestly believe everyo
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Reminds me of my friends being accused of being Quake BOTs all the time just because they're good.
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I think he's equating "minarchism" with "libertarianism," and possibly conflating with "Libertarianism" (the party, which is pretty much expressly minarchist by definition). Others of us consider libertarianism to be a broader category which includes both minarchism and anarchism/anarcho-capitalism. Another thing that causes confusion is lots of anarcho-capitalists consider minarchism to be an invalid expression of libertarianism, believing you can only come to that conclusion if you compromise the non-ag
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Posted by Hemos in the Mysterious Future
Re:India and free don't go well together (Score:4, Funny)
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B. I write for a living -- thousands of words a day, generally.
C. I take notice of Slashdot articles that are pertinent to my future, such as this one.
D. I can write long-winded and fairly accurate articles in minutes, a little longer if I need to add sources.
Not so difficult, really. I have a long history of +5 first posts only because of how I browse slashdot (RSS link to my subscriber account). Love this site because
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Fast writing (Score:2)
You Didn't Allow for the Mysterious Future :o) (Score:2)
OMG (Score:2, Funny)
Re:India and free don't go well together (Score:4, Insightful)
And how are they working around the extreme poverty? And social services?
Yes, I thought so.
Re:India and free don't go well together (Score:5, Interesting)
As for extreme poverty, I saw a lot of poor people doing what they needed to do to get out of that situation -- caused by the high taxes and tyranny that existed within the socialist schemes. Some poor people recycled what they found in the trash (one lady we met with in a poor area actually bought her house by recycling water bottles over 10 years). Some poor people sold coconuts to tourists (very lucrative at 25 cents per coconut). Some poor people did horrific things -- but I've seen indebted Americans do horrific things, too. Overall, I saw people with their eyes glistening for opportunity rather than what I see in my own country -- poor people who submit to the State to take care of everything.
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Are you nuts?
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How much support do you need, honestly? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know of much free software that is really competitive because truly free software doesn't have the support that it needs to compete with software that does have support.
For most people it's email, office applications, web browser, solitaire. I keep seeing this support argument tossed around and every time I ask myself - honestly, how much support does someone actually need?
I used to do end-user support for a living (think Geek Squad-like work). And 99% of the time, it was getting rid of spyware/viruses. Most people really don't need more than that, in my experience.
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If MegaWidgets, Inc. has its email and web servers crash and can't sell any Widgets, then that's when you need support.
You start losing money at a rapid, rapid rate when key services drop. In business, you can't afford to be out of the game for any length of time.
Re:How much support do you need, honestly? (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people, when referring to the support needed, are talking about Companies, not Individuals.
You make a valid point about business. Downtime is lost money and that adds up fast. But - the original poster's point is the following:
I don't know of much free software that is really competitive because truly free software doesn't have the support that it needs to compete with software that does have support.
Most of the computers running today are not business computers. They are end-users. To apply a business metric to these users is incorrect, IMHO. Your average user doesn't need tier-1 24/7 support.
Using this as an argument against open source is misleading.
Re:India and free don't go well together (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem with web services is that they are just that - services. You are not in control of your data. Granted, you can use gmail as a pop account and utilize encryption securely that way, but that's not what you mean and it's not what I mean, either. For many people this is all right, but for those of us who care about privacy, it is mandatory. Now, with that said, I use gmail for any communications that I don't care about keeping secure, because it is quite good. However, I also use thunderbird for other mail, and I have a work account and a personal account which I use with it.
Incidentally, if you find thunderbird frustrating, I'm interested in what you think of Outlook. Outlook is very unreliable itself. I was using it for a while so I could try out a Franklin-Covey planning application (which turned out to be pretty lame anyway) and I just sort of kept using it for a while because I was already using it - until one day, without any help from me beyond possibly allowing some security updates at some point, it stopped retrieving my mail and I went back to Thunderbird.
Firefox, by the way, may be a memory leaker, but IE7 is the least responsive IE yet (in terms of the UI) and its memory use has come down to practically nothing relative to how it has been. In fact IE often uses more memory than Firefox on my system now. But just as importantly, Firefox is standards-based, it receives security updates dramatically more rapidly than IE, it has a much richer architecture that allows much more powerful plugins to be donated by the community... No, there are many compelling reasons to use it over IE that have nothing to do with ideology.
Socialism is a red herring. (Couple decades ago, it was communism... ah, how the rhetoric changes, and how it stays the same.) Free software doesn't mean you can't make money. It means that you sell services. This only makes sense - over time there is less and less difference between software packages, not more and more; they all tend to pick the low-hanging fruit first with only limited exceptions which are driven by monetarily directed development, which is to say that some company commits to buying a zillion seats if it does x. Thus they all tend to converge on the same point, or at least wander more or less towards it. At that point the only differentiating feature is service. The Open Source community is in a better position to provide service simply because of its size.
In actuality, this model moves us closer to the ideal of the free market, because those who are best able to provide the service are the ones who are in the best position to profit from it. The person who is best suited to develop the new feature is the one who (ostensibly) gets the job. The people who need it the most pay for it.
I'd like to believe that, but my experience tells me different. In fact most commercial software gets worse and worse as time goes by, not better and better, until it is a big pile of crap that collapses under its own weight and is replaced by the new hotness. On the other hand, Free softwar
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Re:India and free don't go well together (Score:5, Insightful)
However, India has a very serious problem that you appear to view as a virtue.
What you are referring to when you say "black" money is tax evasion, and it is a means of corruption. I don't see how it can be compared to open source software. Can you (or someone else) explain this analogy? I don't see it.
Also, the State can be a burden, but the degree that it is a burden is ultimately under the control of the populace. The State is a necessity; order will always be imposed, contrary to what anarchists fantasize, since order is necessary.
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All forms of taxes come from a cost-benefit analysis, even if you don't realize you're doing it. In India, people KNOW their government is worthless, so they only give just enough in white market money to
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Did you see this article about tax collection in India [timesonline.co.uk] this weekend off of LRC? I was astounded to read this paragraph:
I hate that it's assumed to be pitiful that most people don't pay tax. That's like the insanity here in America of assuming it's pitiful that so many people don't get healthcare insurance.
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Maybe the US government can send them Lon Horiuchi, as a gift.
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Here's an unpleasant truth - "pure" Libertarianism (or Anarcho-capitalism) is as silly a fantasy as pure Communism; neither re
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Re:India and free don't go well together (Score:4, Insightful)
India was never communist -- they had a quasi Socialist economy post independence, for a short while. During this time, the state owned most most things, but the private sector was also allowed ownership of a lot of things.
Perhaps you meant Socialism, not Communism?
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But Linux is more pro free market than MS (Score:5, Interesting)
Then India will love Linux, because Linux is more pro- free market than Microsoft is. You need to stop thinking of copyrights like a property right, and start thinking of them like a communist regulation that controlls how people use information in the information age.
Let me give an example, at one large data center I worked for they had these NT servers that ran a database application for 1000's of locations. Sure enough the things would crash every day, and sure enough it would cost them over a million dollars per hour of down time. They bought the best x86's that money could buy, they custom re-wrote the tcp/ip stack, but still the computers would crash every single day and still it would cost them over a million dollars per hour. Finally, they flew in experts from all over the planet. The experts came back and said that there was a bug in the OS that was causing it. So my company then went to Microsoft and demanded that they fix it. Microsoft in "business speak" basically said "screw off and FU".
So please tell me that if they had the source, and ownership of that source couldn't be controled. Would they have refused to pay for a fully backed support contract? Would they have said "no were not going pay developers to fix it, because someone else could copy our fixes?" Hell no, that code would have gotten fixed, and every body would have benefited.
In things like software, free riders are not a burden because their copy deosn't deprive me of my copy. But rather, spreads exposure and therefore the chances soneone elses fix will be my fix. So the forces driving Linux forward and pushing Microsoft back are pure unadulterated free market forces and that is that.
"a communist regulation"??? (Score:2)
typical bullshit arguments (Score:2)
Where the hell do you get the idea that open source developers don't get paid, and paid handsomely? I suspect the average FOSS developer salary is significantly higher than industry average, because it takes dedication and skill to produce software that stands up to public scrutiny. And companies are willing to p
a total distortion .. (Score:2)
"I do see how Microsoft wouldn't care about free software because it isn't on their radar screen. I don't know of much free software that is really competitive because truly free software doesn't have the support that it needs to compete with software that does have support"
How do you explain the existance of the Firebird Database project. It isn't 'free' but free to use and extend as you see fit as long as you contribute changes back to
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You know, this simple phrase made you lost all credibility. There are some very big South American corporations, like Vale do Rio Doce, Odebrech, Petrobas, just to name 3, and only from Brasil.
Sorry, but I have to ask. If you failed so badly doing your research for something as simple as this, how can we credit anything you say on a much more complex topic, like free software ?
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But that makes for an easier point. I would not call IBM anti-corporation. Nor RedHat, Novell and even Sun.
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However, in a Libertarian world, contrary to Libertarian claims, there is little mercy for the unfortunate. India is a perfect example of this, where one sees desperately poor people living in shanty towns next to glittering high tech campuses.
British professor Alexander Fraser Tyler wrote:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist only until the voters discover they can vote themselves largesse (defined as a liberal gift)
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Probably a troll, but I'll bite:
1) Have you ever read a Microsoft EULA? They do their best to avoid any liability for bugs in their software.
2) Do you know anyone who has successfully sued Mic
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Yes there is, at least four reasons:
Re:"...People realize what a burden the state is.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The function of the state is to protect its citizens. Protecting their property is just a nice aftertought.
As part of the collective... (Score:2, Insightful)
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Defense (Score:3, Insightful)
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Ballmer is a businessman. (Score:2, Insightful)
Which free are you talking about? (Score:3, Insightful)
lower cost hardware? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm assuming by this he means that as hardware costs drop, the overall product cost can remain the same or even increase, thereby increasing the percentage of revenue that's attributable to the software.
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I'm assuming by this he means that as hardware costs drop, the overall product cost can remain the same or even increase, thereby increasing the percentage of revenue that's attributable to the software.
Or he was misquoted, or he rambled. I will bet on the "rambled".
Make sense, dammit! (Score:4, Funny)
Wrong Subject (Score:2, Interesting)
let's give equal airtime to... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:let's give equal airtime to... (Score:5, Funny)
As you can see, Free Software seems committed to avoiding the question - always changing the subject or feigning ignorance of the grammar being used. To be fair, I don't think we can consider this a reasonable position, any more so than Ballmer's at least.
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Ballmers Idea (Score:5, Insightful)
" Free software is fine, as long as it isn't really free, and we control it "
Anything more is simply a waste of words.
Cheers
$99 (Score:2)
That's right, it needs to be at least $99 [youtube.com].
Riiight (Score:4, Insightful)
Asking him what *he* thinks of free software is not a fair question, neither to him (how can he possibly be honest) nor to anyone else that doesnt already understand that (they are likely to not understand that his answer is evasive at best)
Try asking a buggy whip exectuve what they think of the automobile, and internal combustion engines in general.
The commodity software business is dead (Score:2)
However today you can get a reliable, secure set of all the comodity software you need for free, by getting one of the numerous Linux distros, according to your level of competence (I hear Ubuntu has prettu low competence requirements, I use Debian etch, more of an expert's distro). Unless you do gaming, there is no need at all to buy OS, browser, mailer, office application, backup software,
In addit
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there was a time when doing math was elite (Score:2)
Then in time we began using the hindu-arabic decimal system that allowed the common man to do math beyond with the former elite accounts could do. Today we use calculators in common everyday use.
And so it shall be with programming. The common man will do it as they find need to.
Free Software is just a step in that direction.
For programming is the act of simplifying
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To stay in your analogy, back in medieval times (or rather, before that), accounting was a fairly simple process. Today, you have regulations, you have things like SOX, you have a billion of rules to obey and things to watch and take care of to be a "good" accountant.
The same will (and already does) happen with programming. In the 70s, being a "programmer" was a position only a handpicked few could fulfil, who could actually figure out just why those punchc
rodent (Score:5, Insightful)
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So why are you so upset about his answer? The question wasn't fair, and it was based on a premise that is entirely antithetical to Ballmer's interests - in fact, to suggest somehow that we didn't know Microsoft was "not interested in your interests (i.e. free software)" until this question was asked is bordering on clinical.
Don't get so
Microsoft's Mission Statement (Score:2)
Now THAT is conviction!
Asking Steve Balmer about free software is like... (Score:2)
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hints of MSFT tactics (Score:2)
Obviously, when ever a Microsoft exec speaks, the only thing you can count on is hot air escaping their lips. But really, this does give some insight into how they will continue to fight FOSS. They've been trying the SUBSCRIPTION FEE approach for a few years already. The LOWER COST HARDWARE is an interesting one since it means subsidies for OEMs( like marketing dollars, etc? ) or m
"Refuses"?? (Score:2)
I was under the impression (Score:2)
(or that Bill would beat the stuffing out of him all the way back to Redmond)
Seriously though, I'm sure there is a list of words that he has trained himself to avoid using in public at all costs, and I'm certain that "free software" is really high on that list.
Microsoft is _too_ competitive (Score:2)
"You Get What You Pay For".... (Score:2)
Just a thought.
interesting interview fact (Score:2)
terminology (Score:3, Insightful)
Libre software only partially exists in the business world, however. Industry can benefit from user freedom the same as everyone else.
It bugs me that "free software" is the term de jour when the gratis/libre confusion is mainly caused by the selection of a thing - software - for the object of the adjective. Things have no use for freedom; as such, it's reasonable to assume that free software means gratis. Software has no use for freedom;
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To paraphrase, "I hate Microsoft but they sure are keen and smart and I wish I was just like them."
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You might want to brush up on the free beer/freedom thingies again.
Re:Ballmer's Free Software (Score:5, Interesting)
Today you will. But tomorrow, economic principals strongly suggest it will be used by fewer and fewer consumers. In a few years, your
Take a look at this graph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Price_setti
A monopoly strongly tends to produce at a lower quantity (Qm) versus a competitive market. (Qc)
For you, and all other developers that translates into:
1. fewer organizations using
2. More
For you and all consumers, that translages into:
1. More expensive hardware. Microsoft is a price maker. They alone set the price for their OS and get to drive the cost of the computer package up accordingly. They will probably provide at Quantity Qm instead of Qc to OEM's like Dell who have no choice but to pass on that cost to you.
2. Fewer employers using Microsoft products. They will only provide their OS at successively higher prices and lower quantity. There is no reason to believe the price they demand will ever go down because the thirst for profit is unquenchable.
3. Lack of innovation on Microsoft's part. Since Microsoft has no competition, there is no reason to innovate. Like most big businesses they borrow or steal from the innovaters. This will drive many customers away as well.
I still feel like I paid for XP & not the Express tools.
1. As my previous comments point out, you already paid too much.
2. You are limiting your future revenue by adopting microsoft tools. There is no path where Microsoft becomes enlightened and lowers their prices to provide the quantity the market demands. History has proven this repeatedly.
3. You would do well to add GPL'd languages that -today- do not command a premium, but will indeed tomorrow because of Microsoft's monopoly position creating demand between points Qm and Qc.
To silence the quickie-mart economists and Microsofties who claim I just "proved" that the developer world is competitive, please note that economic theory also strongly suggests "consumer surplus" is -still- destroyed despite alternatives.
Today's lesson: There is no good that can come from Microsoft any more.
Mod parent back up, guys (Score:2)
I was very pleased with the interface in VC#, and it was easier to find what I needed that in other open source IDE's. There definitely
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As hard as I try not to, I'm starting to hate the FSF just as much, if not more. The self-righteousness, the arrogance, and the brutal insistence on lock-step conformity with their "our way or the highway," thinking...not to mention the juvenile name-calling and vilification (and worse, in the case of Laura Didio) which anyone who opposes them is subjected to. The one way I've heard it described
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What do you mean?
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Re:Ballmer's Free Software (Score:4, Interesting)
A former boss of mine, who had dealt with the Microsoft of the 80s once said, "the issue is that Bill has a Vision. One vision, and that vision is frozen in the 1970s".
On the other hand, I find that I am less and less interested in the political fights, and more and more interested in getting work done. So, I use a mix of proprietary, but highly-functional, desktop apps under a mostly proprietary, but highly functional, operating system, and rely on Free software (of one sort or the other), for specialized tools, compilers, and things that the Free community has taken a real interest in. (except for the 9-billion IRC clients. One for each name of God.) So, if uSoft cares to offer cross-platform development tools, less annoyingly licensed operating systems, etc, I'll talk to them. Otherwise not, but it's a decision these days made mainly on suitability to the tasks at hand. This being said, all they make that I use is Word, and that's because it interfaces to my reference manager. However, that decision is a technical, not emotional or political decision. Some time spent by the FSF making their software more functional would convert far more people to their side than all of the songs in favor of Software Libre ever will.
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Pot, meet kettle.
That might a decent analogy except that DRM is becoming a real thing while the WMDs were mostly just chim
Re:free software is good, but so is making money (Score:4, Insightful)
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Nash Equilibrium (Score:2)
As an example (related to free software) consider Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefo
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Why should Microsoft do that? The whole point of having a monopoly is so you don't have to compete. Why would they want to compete with other companies on quality... if their "massive resources" could make a better product, don't you think they would have done that already? Microsoft is a marketing company, not a
you can make money out of 'free' software (Score:2)
Is 'free' only good for learning. Is there any commercial companies making money out of selling Open Source solutions. Any company who licenses a proprietary solution are effectivly giving away the company as they are tied into the never ending upgrade mill.
was Re:free software is good, but so is making money (Score:5, Not)