Message-ID: <3BD657A5.B3846030@zip.com.au>
Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 22:54:45 -0700
From: Andrew Morton <akpm@zip.com.au>
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To: "Rick A. Hohensee" <rickh@Capaccess.org>
CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: OFF TOPIC: HOWTO: compromising Microsoft
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"Rick A. Hohensee" wrote:
> 
> The prominent proposed solutions to the Microsoft problem I have seen and
> which are apparently currently under arbitration are narrow, superficial,
> will not provide a substantive general remedy, shackle Microsoft to no
> real benefit, and will lead to horrible complexities further degrading the
> possible effectiveness of said remedies. Interested nations have an
> approach available that can be implemented unilaterally by legislation or
> by executive order, which solution will be measured, just, and effective.
> The executive branch of the USA has brought and won the right case, albeit
> a bit late, and the judiciary ruled correctly, to the extent that it has
> ruled so far, but the judiciary is having difficulty finishing the job.
> Of course, it is quite correct for a government to move very deliberately
> in such matters, but a plague on creativity requires a very creative cure,
> which is not the usual milieu of the courts.
> 
> The protections a civilized world provides for owners of intellectual
> property are among the most fundamental to civilization itself, and are
> therefor almost universally agreed upon via the Berne Treaty, but are
> based on several assumptions that do not pertain in the case of Microsoft.
> The fundamental tacit assumption of copyright protection is that the
> protected party is not incessantly criminal or utterly devoid of ethics.
> Given that crime can cause the duly convicted to lose any and all rights,
> it does not at all follow that the authors of the USA itself expected
> copyright to be absolute or inviolate, nor is it reasonable to assume that
> "for limited times" in the Constitution is restricted to "always the same
> time limits, above some minimum". In particular, "Below some maximum, in
> specific particularly obnoxious or highly economically interdependant
> cases" is equally admissible under the Constitution if it promotes the
> general welfare. So it will in this case.
> 
> Consider legislation declaring Microsoft operating system products to be
> "specifically compromised intellectual property". The "compromise" is to
> allow anyone to "reverse-engineer" and resell Microsoft operating system
> products no less than five years after thier release dates, on a
> permanent, continuing, version-by-version basis. If such a law were
> enacted today that would mean that e.g. Windows 95 and earlier are fair
> game for modification and/or reselling by others as of today, as are early
> versions of NT, I believe. Windows 98 and later would still be exclusively
> Microsoft's protected property for a couple years. This is the measured
> approach to take, measured against, and in the units of, the industry in
> question. Five years is a long time for a great engine of innovation. I
> believe a five year product lag of this nature will destroy Microsoft,
> unless they rapidly become the great engine of innovation they so ardently
> pose as. However, this scenario has clear advantages for Microsoft even as
> they exist now versus other proposals. Meanwhile, viable alternatives to
> Microsoft as a source of operating systems for PCs can reasonably be
> expected to arise rapidly. This approach puts Microsoft in level
> competition with thier own past, thier only possible source of substantive
> competition in the short term.
> 
> The advantages to Microsoft are that this approach leaves them as the
> pilot of thier own compromised ship, the sole architects of all thier own
> products, the sole judge of what should be in a Microsoft OS and what
> shouldn't, and otherwise spares them from government micromanagement.
> Government involvement would be very limited, stating what is and is not
> bundled. For example, MSN-related client software is bundled and
> compromisable, the MSN network itself isn't. Et cetera. This leaves them
> free to be thier rusticly charming proprietary selves vis-a-vis the
> products they have not yet bundled into Windows, such as (last I heard,)
> Office, which reflects the idea that the operating system has
> public-interest aspects that ancillary products may not. Thus Internet
> Explorer and so on would be subject to compromise in due time.
> 
> As a programmer and musician I am revolted when Microsoft and similar pose
> as defenders of intellectual property rights. I feel that the Constitution
> meant something other than exactly what we have now when speaking of
> "...to Authors and Inventors...". Note the use of "Authors", not "Owners".
> Certainly, authors need to be able to sell thier works if copyrights are
> to have material value, which is essential, but a fair price to an
> individual idea-peddler assumes a free market, and free of bullying
> especially. There's something very wrong when the loudest proponents of
> "intellectual property rights" have never produced any important
> intellectual property. Ideas have the very least need for monopoly. Ideas
> are not municipal utilities. Ideas need to be planted in numerous
> environments to continue to evolve. Civilization requires this.
> 
> As an American, I sincerely hope the USA does the right thing here, and
> continues to be a leader in such matters, rather than leaving the
> initiative to someone like, for example, The People's Republic of China,
> even though I personally have no desire to use Windows or variants thereof
> from any source, in any flavor, at any price. To potential vendors or
> political patrons of "compromised Windows", I note that this proposal and
> Microsoft itself are scabs on a flawed market paradigm. A better overall
> approach to charging for, and compensating authors of, software for
> personal computing use is the cLIeNUX membership model.
> 
> Rick Hohensee
> John Marshall Park, D.C.
> ftp://linux01.gwdg.de/pub/cLIeNUX/descriptive
> 
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