Klarinet Archive - Posting 000612.txt from 1999/11

From: "Kevin Fay (LCA)" <kevinfay@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Dichotomitis
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 19:12:44 -0500

Oh my. I'm being tweaked here--and can't resist. Apologies to all who
aren't interested in this stuff--please delete away.

Tony Pay wrote:

<<<The issue with software then surfaces easily, because it soon won't be
(even now isn't, in my estimation) possible to produce goods of
sufficiently high quality (i.e. that *work* properly, even) to be acceptable
by the consumer, using closed tactics aimed at maximising profit.

Why? Because of the present and increasing complexity of the systems
involved.

I wonder whether this statement is what Kevin Fay was calling 'religion' or
'(personal) philosophy' in his own thread?>>>

Exactly.

What follows is a short epistle to give the other listmates some idea of
what Tony and I are sniping about. (In reading it, please remember who I
work for. I'm happily assimilated into the Borg, and don't at all pretend
to be unbiased).

There are people who believe that certain activities are so important that a
business should not be able to "own" a particular solution; instead,
"ownership" should be "open" so that the entire community (scientific or
otherwise) can use their best efforts towards a common good. A classic
example would be the scientific method as applied to medical technology--if
medicine is done for profit, people overall will be less healthy. A loose
practical translation of Tony's assertion about software above is that
Microsoft software sucks (i.e., is inevitably of low quality) because it's
not open source. Because we own it, it can't be good.

There are actually two levels to the issue. First, one must accept that
there could be activities so important that an open ownership model is
necessary. Tony posits bioengineering. Personally, I don't buy into the
argument -- too many drugs and other biomedical advances have been created
with profit making as a primary motivation for me to say that all medicine
needs to be done on a non-profit basis. If you want to be altruistic -- and
many in the medical field do -- go right ahead; I just don't see that
government intervention to deprive people of their intellectual property is
either necessary or desirable.

The second level of the problem is the assertion that computer software is
one of the areas where open ownership is to be enforced. The argument is
usually heard from open-sourcers who view Bill Gates as the Antichrist --
they see it as terribly evil that Microsoft makes all this money for selling
what they view as "substandard" code. The assertion is made that Microsoft
is a mere "marketing machine" that is able to foist inferior products on the
public out of sheer evilness and a pact with the devil. (Note -- this is
the "religious" part). If consumers only know what a fraud was being
perpetrated . . . why, there would be unrest!

IMHO, this is a terribly elitist argument. Debating the merits of Linux v.
Windows NT -- while very interesting, I suppose -- completely misses the
point. Software is not of religious importance -- it's just a PRODUCT, like
(getting back to the list) a clarinet. While Linux may be a "better"
product for Mark Charette to run this list on, it absolutely stinks for your
average consumer (my favorite example -- my Mom). My Mom doesn't care a
whit whether or not the code is "elegant" or not; like the vast majority of
users, she'll never know. She does want to be able to open the box, plug it
in and email her sister in Boston. Just like the toaster, it works. Heck,
my two-year-old plays bop the bunny on my PC at home, and he can't even read
yet.

Now I suppose you can make the argument that the information age is just too
darned important to let anyone make money on it. You could point to
hobbyist altruism -- the model for Linux -- as how the whole shootin' match
should be done. But open ownership won't get Cisco's routers built, any
wires connected or a single chip manufactured -- if you want IT to work at
all, people are going to have to be able make a living at it.

(This quickly devolves into political argument. Some folks just don't like
capitalism -- it's not "fair." No argument from me; it most certainly
isn't. It is, however, brutally efficient, and as a system gets things
done.)

Most people buy Microsoft software for the same reason that most advanced
clarinet players buy a Buffet R-13. Can you buy a better clarinet?
Perhaps. You can certainly spend a whole lot more -- but the R13 seems to
work pretty darned OK by the vast majority of professional clarinet players
here in the U.S. Similarly, my Mom's computer cost her less than $1,000,
printer, monitor and operating system included. An iMac with similar
functionality (again made by an evil profiteer, but a pretty good machine)
would look better but cost more.

If my Mom had switched to Linux, she would have saved the hundred bucks for
her Windows license. She doesn't have the time or the money, however, to go
back to school for 2 years to figure out how to use it. As it is, she was
on the internet with her sister in about an hour.

kjf

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