Re: value of open-source in the driver community (was "how to execute a process...")

> Myself - I would be very glad to consider Open Source as soon as someone

answers this question from the perspective of a small company:

How does a (very small) software development house make money under Open
Source licenses?"

Thomas,

Correct me if I’m way off-base in saying this, but your business currently
operates under a model that differs from the general Open Source license
only in the fact that a person has to pay to view/use your source code. I
think that technically you have already answered and are currently operating
under the answer to the question you’ve posed. If you’re asking how a
company could survive strictly releasing all their code under the GPL, it’s
doubtful they could. However, as is evidence by your current business
model, you’ve successfully managed to run a business that releases some of
its source code.

Now, as I said before, if you were to change your companies model to use the
GPL exclusively, then I think you’re right, you would likely not succeed.
If, however, you used the GPL or, more likely the LGPL, and released chunks,
snippets, or even full samples of source code, your business could still
survive. The key would be that, in order to survive, you must not use the
GPL or LGPL exclusively, as you now have exhausted your entire source of
income – your software.

Since you limited this question to how a small business could be run, I
won’t bother touching the Microsoft side of things.


Finally, just to add more fuel to the fire, let’s think long and hard about
who the people are that work on open source software. Do they work day in
and day out on that software for a living? The majority of them, no. Then
why do they do it? Perhaps it’s for a “love of the game”, if you will.
Internal motivation, I think, is incredibly more powerful than external
motivation.

I think that most of the people who view the open source movement as a virus
are strictly ignorant and afraid. They are ignorant because they don’t
realize that they don’t HAVE to accept open source. They can go on their
way writing their closed source software without being infected by the
‘virus’. They are afraid because the open source movement is not one that
is going to stop due to lack of funding or roadblocks, and the fact that
they are not going to stop causes the closed source person to fear the fact
that they may soon be obsolete. They may soon be obsolete because the minds
of 20 open source people working on an open source project might just
eventually produce a product that rivals, or is even better than, the closed
source person’s product.

Suffice to say, that’s the thing that I’ve noticed from most people who look
upon open source so negatively. Anyways, sorry to contribute to the open
source flame war…excuse me whilst I put on my flame retardant suit. :slight_smile:

Matt

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com]On Behalf Of Thomas F. Divine
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 4:37 PM
To: Windows System Software Developers Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: value of open-source in the driver community (was
“how to execute a process…”)

Bill,

Although I wouldn’t use the same working as you, I certainly agree.

Myself

I work for myself, buy my own tools, buy my own development hardware and
write my own code. Although I am “small potatoes” in the overall world of
software chances are pretty high that somewhere lurking on your Windows PC
is software derived from something I’ve written.

Sources to the code I have written (bought and paid for) belong to me,
and I believe that I should have a right to decided who can see (license)
the code and who cannot.

I continually maintain and improve my code because my customers expect
expect that in return for their license fee. (I get repeat customers).

I don’t like folks who steal my software because they say they can’t
afford it or they are “only using it for educational purposes” or that they
are “doing me a big favor” by stealing it becauses it shows that I should
improve my security. I give it away sometimes, but please don’t steal it.

Microsoft

By the same token, Microsoft works for itself, buys its own tools, buys its
own development hardware and writes its own code. Microsoft is not “small
potatoes” in the overall world of software and chances are pretty high that
somewhere lurking on your Windows PC is software written by Microsoft.

Sources to the code Microsoft has written (bought and paid for) belong to
Microsoft, and I believe that Microsoft should have a right to decided who
can see (license) their code and who cannot.

Microsoft continually maintains and improves their code because their
customers expect expect that in return for their license fee. (Microsoft
gets repeat customers).

Microsoft doesn’t like folks who steal their software either. They give
it away sometimes, but please don’t steal it.

I certainly agree that software developers have an “obligation” to support
their community. I try to do that with websites like www.ndis.com, articles
on www.wd-3.com and a mailing list
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/discussion-pcausa/ that is heavily frequented
by NDIS newbies. (Lots of “I wanna rite a Ndis drivur…” questions get
answered there - as well as some other more obscure chats.) I don’t provide
lots of free code samples, but the few I do are appreciated.

I think that Microsoft gives quite a bit of community support as well.

If someone is interested in Open Source software, then they should go to
products that support open source. Simple choice - like deciding which brand
of beer that you like: home brew in the bathtub or an expensive imported
beer.

Myself - I would be very glad to consider Open Source as soon as someone
answers this question from the perspective of a small company:

How does a (very small) software development house make money under Open
Source licenses?"

(I am serious about needing an answer to that question)

Thomas F. Divine

“Bill Casey” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>
> Peter:
> Like Mt. Vesuvius I have been keeping the lid on my own pontification
> regarding the “Open Sore” community. But your posting and the recent
“Open
> Source” front-cover headline by C/C++ Journal has caused the following
> venting:
> By the sweat of my brow and force of my intellect (no sniggering!) I have
> managed to stay in business for myself for almost 30 years. So why should
I
> be forced either directly or through reverse engineering to make both past
> AND future intellectual work product not only FREE but FREELY available?
> How the hell am I and thousands like me supposed to make money? Are we
> supposed to DONATE our time and thoughts.
> It isn’t often I come to the defense of Microsoft but I will in this
> instance. Let’s all quit whining about having the Windows source
available.
> Maybe we should all stare at our OWN code a little longer for the sake of
> improving it rather than dump responsibility onto MS for our perceived
> difficulties. Buck up and take it like a man. It is THEIR code paid for
> with THEIR money. We can complain but it isn’t our RIGHT to look at,
touch
> it or feel it.
> If only I had a small chance of speaking to the head of Red Hat, I’d let
> him know my opinion of his recent comment that “one should be able to look
> at source code without fear of being arrested”. Well, he can look at MY
> source code but he should fear getting the crap beat out of him.
> Bottom line is that these “penguinites” as you so politely call them are
> nothing more than lazy, thieving, stupid, fascist, bottom-dwelling
> scavengers. They want to impose their socialist world-view (that software
> should be free) on all of us. They want it free because in the final
> analysis they are cheap assholes cloaked in the mantle of world saviors.
>
> Bill Casey
>
> == SCSI Adapters & VirtualSCSIT Target Mode Libs ==
> Advanced Storage Concepts, Inc. (409) 744-2129
> 2720 Terminal Drive xxxxx@virtualscsi.com
> Galveston, TX 77554 USA www.virtualscsi.com
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
> > [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com]On Behalf Of Peter Viscarola
> > Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 8:44 AM
> > To: Windows System Software Developers Interest List
> > Subject: [ntdev] Re: value of open-source in the driver community (was
> > “how to execute a process…”)
> >
> >
> > Nick,
> >
> > As usual, you make several well thought-out points.
> >
> > I just wanted to “discuss” a few:
> >
> > “Nick Ryan” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> > >
> > > Microsoft can write the best VPN and AV utilities both because
> > > it has smart people and because those people can see the source code.
> > > Any other group of equally smart people are at an automatic
> > > disadvantage.
> > >
> >
> > This is absolutely true. The entire world of Windows system software
> > developers would heartily benefit from having the Windows sources for
> > reference.
> >
> > However, there another problem at work here that make writing
> > things like AV
> > filters in the file system stack harder than it should be – even WITH
> > source code. And this is true generically for drivers of all types in
> > Windows.
> >
> > That problem is the complexity of the driver interface. Or, one
> > might say,
> > the lack of a really well defined interface without side effeects
> > for driver
> > development. This problem is rampant in the file system stack… there
are
> > subtleties of the interfaces that change with each release of
> > Windows. Even
> > WITH the source code, you’d have a rough time building a robust
component
> > for the file system stack that works across multiple versions of the
O/S.
> >
> > > Microsoft’s
> > > competitive advantage is that they can string 10,000 good algorithms
> > > together in such a coherent way that a competitor can’t hope to match
> > > the effort without 30,000 smart programmers of its own.
> > >
> >
> > Absolutely right. Making the source code, especially of the O/S itself,
> > available should really be no big thing when you think about it. Those
of
> > us who just want to know all the places where IoXxxx returns
> > STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED (or whatever) would be able to find out relatively
> > easily. And, anything that’s a security risk, ah, shouldn’t be
> > there in the
> > first place and is just waiting to be “discovered” by someone who
DOESN’T
> > have the source code (is it David Craig who regularly reminds us that
> > security through obscurity is no security at all?).
> >
> > Now, I could possibly see reasons why Microsoft might not want to
release
> > the source code for the Win32 subsystems (user and kernel mode)
> > – No sense
> > helping the penguinites build a really good Win32 emulator, right? And
> > maybe there are certain other kernel modules that fall into this
category
> > too.
> >
> > But you’re absolutely right… When you think about it, there’s no risk
is
> > letting the vast majority of this stuff out.
> >
> > I feel a pontification coming on,
> >
> > Peter
> >
> >
> >
> > —
> > Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@virtualscsi.com
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
>
>


Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256

You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@positivenetworks.net
To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com

The one problem I see is with Visible source code is the old question
flagged in Brook’s Mythical Man Month, if you use the source as a reference
how do you tell architecture from implementation. It is very easy for the
user community to start relying on something that you do not want them to.
I believe there was reference at some talk I was at the Call Usage Verifier
was hampered by usage inside of Microsoft that was not exactly as defined by
the docs. I have experienced the pain of this first hand at a mini-computer
firm where some OS extensions got canceled because customers who had read
the source, knew that is was safe to fiddle with fields we told them not to
touch.

I’d still like the source, but this is one reason I can see Microsoft for
not going there.

Don Burn (MVP, Windows DDK)
Windows 2k/XP/2k3 Filesystem and Driver Consulting

“Nick Ryan” wrote in message
>
> I will therefore say that making source code Visible probably poses
> little danger to software companies both large and small, provided a bit
> of effort is taken to reduce the ease of piracy (such as PGP’s decision
> not to publish the quite complex but mostly irrelevant installer project
> source code with PGP 8.0). If you want to develop Open Source, however,
> I’d say at this should be done more as a hobby and as a community social
> effort than as a way to make money.
>

> > Bottom line is that these “penguinites” as you so politely call them

> are nothing more than lazy, thieving, stupid, fascist,
bottom-dwelling
> scavengers. They want to impose their socialist world-view (that
> software should be free) on all of us. They want it free because in

> the final analysis they are cheap assholes cloaked in the mantle of
> world saviors.

Silly, ignorant, and puerile comments.

Actually, if you read what Stallman (and many of his disciples) write,
they ARE trying to impose a specific socialist world-view, and they are
very explicit about it. Stallman is so extreme that, in a recent
interview, he refused to even mention one Linux distribution that did
not conform to his extreme views on IP rights, because he didn’t want
people to see their site, and thus be “exposed” to it. (To me, this
demonstrates the fear and weakness in Stallman’s arguments – if they
were as good as he claimed, they should withstand the existence of
counter-arguments and counter-examples.)

Stallman, and many, many others, do hold extreme views, and are actively
using GPL to push those views. It is useful to draw a distinction
between something we can all observe & verify (that Stallman et al. are
explicitly pushing their views), and something that we can’t (their
motivations, e.g. cheap-assholes / saints – which is what Bill is
speculating on).

– arlie

I think your distinction of “Visible Source” is a useful one.

What if software companies published sections of source code, that were
obfuscated using techniques similar to what Yahoo and other companies
use, to obscure keywords that you must type in? In other words, what if
the source code you were making visible was presented in the form of
JPEG images, with text that humans could recognize, but was obscured
enough to defeat OCR software? You could still include a list of
keywords (symbol names, etc.) in each document, so that text searches
would still be somewhat functional.

This would allow for software visibility, and yet prevent a buildable
product from being released.

– arlie

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com] On Behalf Of Nick Ryan
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 6:17 PM
To: Windows System Software Developers Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: value of open-source in the driver community (was
“how to execute a process…”)

First I’d like to say that I am grateful to Microsoft for the developer
community outreach efforts they ARE making. Events like the filesystem
filter plugfest are great, and I realize that rand-and-file Microsoft
employees do as much as they can for the community; they of course do
NOT have the authority to make decisions on their own on such an issue
as revealing source code.

Myself - I would be very glad to consider Open Source as soon as
someone answers this question from the perspective of a small company:

How does a (very small) software development house make money under

Open Source licenses?"

(I am serious about needing an answer to that question)

I think we may need to develop some new terminology here (if this hasn’t

already been done and I haven’t heard about it). What I’ll call 'Visible

Source’ is what companies like PGP do - they’ll let you see and download

the source and maybe compile some of it, but you can’t use it or
redistribute it in any way. ‘Open Source’ is widely taken to refer to
source distributed under licenses advocated by the Free Software
Foundation that typically allow modification and redistribution of the
source (often termed ‘copyleft’).

I will therefore say that making source code Visible probably poses
little danger to software companies both large and small, provided a bit

of effort is taken to reduce the ease of piracy (such as PGP’s decision
not to publish the quite complex but mostly irrelevant installer project

source code with PGP 8.0). If you want to develop Open Source, however,
I’d say at this should be done more as a hobby and as a community social

effort than as a way to make money.


Nick Ryan (MVP for DDK)

> Finally, just to add more fuel to the fire, let’s think long and

hard about
who the people are that work on open source software. Do they work day in
and day out on that software for a living? The majority of them,
no. Then
why do they do it? Perhaps it’s for a “love of the game”, if you will.
Internal motivation, I think, is incredibly more powerful than external
motivation.

You mean like the “love of the game” the virus writers have?

fear the fact that they may soon be obsolete. They may soon be obsolete
because the minds of 20 open source people working on an open source
project might just
eventually produce a product that rivals, or is even better than,
the closed source person’s product.

Complete rot!! The Linux kernel is just NOW getting around to releasing
things like preemptive multitasking (in the kernel) and processor affinity
that have been in Windows since NT - this is years folks! These 20 people
sure are kicking software butt aren’t they?

Bill Casey

“Bill Casey” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>
> > > How the hell am I and thousands like me supposed to make money? Are
we
> > > supposed to DONATE our time and thoughts.
> >
> > No. You’re supposed to make money by writing new code instead of
> > spending much of your time re-writing the same old code that hundreds
> > or thousands of others (and sometimes ourselves) have written many
> > times before. The idea is that we do something useful advancing the
> > state of the art, and society in general, rather than all sitting
working
> > for different companies individually writing code to solve the same old
> > problems for which code has been written many times before. It’s a
> > service model instead of a property model, and it enables a vastly
> > greater proportion of a limited resource to be spent on innovation and
> > advancement instead of repeating the same old same old.
>
> Wow! “sitting around working for different companies”! The fall of the
> Soviet Union must have been a CRUSHING blow to you.

Why do you say such a silly thing? What is the connection between
your distortion of what I said, dishonestly enclosed in quotation marks,
and your comment?

> Actually, if you read what Stallman (and many of his disciples) write,

they ARE trying to impose a specific socialist world-view, and they are
very explicit about it. Stallman is so extreme that, in a recent
interview, he refused to even mention one Linux distribution that did
not conform to his extreme views on IP rights, because he didn’t want
people to see their site, and thus be “exposed” to it. (To me, this
demonstrates the fear and weakness in Stallman’s arguments – if they
were as good as he claimed, they should withstand the existence of
counter-arguments and counter-examples.)

Stallman, and many, many others, do hold extreme views, and are actively
using GPL to push those views. It is useful to draw a distinction
between something we can all observe & verify (that Stallman et al. are
explicitly pushing their views), and something that we can’t (their
motivations, e.g. cheap-assholes / saints – which is what Bill is
speculating on).

– arlie

Your erudition is admirable and YOUR arguments cogent. If I got a little
‘hot’ on this subject earlier, its because I’ve been reading such copious
amounts of drivel on this topic for so long that I couldn’t contain myself.

Bill Casey


Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256

You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@virtualscsi.com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com

It’s entertaining :slight_smile:
People who advocate for open source (or should I say “free source”) look
at it not from the intellectual property prospective, but from the
freedom of information prospective (well, at least I do). Meaning, that
everybody has right to know [information] and to use that knowledge
[information]. Benefits of this approach are quite evident for those who
know the power of freedom :slight_smile: And MS itself is a great evidence as it
won the war by opening their interfaces and making the majority of
softdevs working for them for free by adding value to MS products
(didn’t somebody mention that already?). And there is nothing
“socialistic” or even “communistic” about sharing your source code. It
is simple math: you trade one line of your (most of the time stupid)
source code for a hundred lines of (most of the time genius) somebody
else’s sorce code. From another hand, people that have experience and
knowledge that they’ve earned hard way have rights to protect that and
secure their advantage over young and hungry (sometimes not just
figuratively speaking) competitors (isn’t this what it is all about,
keeping competitive advantage?). But 80% of the “old horse” value is
what is in his/her head and not what is on her/his hard disk. Which is
not just ability to “code an algorithm”, but to build the product.

P.S. Pardon my French :slight_smile:

It’s rather an argument on the side of not doing Visible Source for
everyone. Just like you have to learn how to couple words “freedom”
and “responsibility” before you can drive :slight_smile:

-----Original Message-----
From: Nick Ryan [mailto:xxxxx@nryan.com]
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 4:05 PM
To: Windows System Software Developers Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: value of open-source in the driver community (was
“how to execute a process…”)

This is definitely an argument on the side of not going Visible Source,
but one that I believe is still outweighed by the practical benefits.
Ideally, an interface would be complete and reliable enough that it
should just work without having the need to deal with leaks from the
abstraction. Practically, this has never been accomplished on a major
software platform as far as I know. Hardware firms like Intel do it all
the time, however. When’s the last you needed to see the microcode for
an x86 instruction in order to ship a driver (I’m sure it’s happened for

SOME of us, but very rarely)?

Don Burn wrote:

The one problem I see is with Visible source code is the old question
flagged in Brook’s Mythical Man Month, if you use the source as a
reference
how do you tell architecture from implementation. It is very easy for
the
user community to start relying on something that you do not want them
to.
I believe there was reference at some talk I was at the Call Usage
Verifier
was hampered by usage inside of Microsoft that was not exactly as
defined by
the docs. I have experienced the pain of this first hand at a
mini-computer
firm where some OS extensions got canceled because customers who had
read
the source, knew that is was safe to fiddle with fields we told them
not to
touch.

I’d still like the source, but this is one reason I can see Microsoft
for
not going there.

Don Burn (MVP, Windows DDK)
Windows 2k/XP/2k3 Filesystem and Driver Consulting

“Nick Ryan” wrote in message
>
>>I will therefore say that making source code Visible probably poses
>>little danger to software companies both large and small, provided a
bit
>>of effort is taken to reduce the ease of piracy (such as PGP’s
decision
>>not to publish the quite complex but mostly irrelevant installer
project
>>source code with PGP 8.0). If you want to develop Open Source,
however,
>>I’d say at this should be done more as a hobby and as a community
social
>>effort than as a way to make money.
>>
>
>
>
>
>
>


Nick Ryan (MVP for DDK)


Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256

You are currently subscribed to ntdev as:
xxxxx@borland.com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com

-----Original Message-----
From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
[mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com]On Behalf Of Bill Casey
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 6:04 PM
To: Windows System Software Developers Interest List
Subject: [ntdev] Re: value of open-source in the driver community (was
“how to execute a process…”)

> Finally, just to add more fuel to the fire, let’s think long and
> hard about
> who the people are that work on open source software. Do they work day
in
> and day out on that software for a living? The majority of them,
> no. Then
> why do they do it? Perhaps it’s for a “love of the game”, if you will.
> Internal motivation, I think, is incredibly more powerful than external
> motivation.

You mean like the “love of the game” the virus writers have?

Yes, the same thing. Is that supposed to make open source people look like
bad guys or something? Just because you like pie and Charles Manson likes
pie doesn’t mean you intend to chop up a bunch of people.

> fear the fact that they may soon be obsolete. They may soon be obsolete
> because the minds of 20 open source people working on an open source
> project might just
> eventually produce a product that rivals, or is even better than,
> the closed source person’s product.

Complete rot!! The Linux kernel is just NOW getting around to releasing
things like preemptive multitasking (in the kernel) and processor affinity
that have been in Windows since NT - this is years folks! These 20 people
sure are kicking software butt aren’t they?

So, you countered my general argument with a specific example. This is an
ineffective form of arguing. The reason it is ineffective is because I too
could go and enumerate a list of things that the Open Source community have
done that the Closed Source haven’t done yet. In fact, your specific
citation has pointed out the truth in one of my premises – that 20 open
source people might eventually produce a product that rivals a closed source
product. Also, keep in mind, that I stated that those 20 open source
programmers might eventually do it BETTER than the closed source people.
Success of software is, in the end, not determined by who did it first,
rather it is determined by who did it BEST.

Bill Casey

Matt


Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256

You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@positivenetworks.net
To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com

“Time to market” is a killer for a small company. If Microsoft had to write
MS-DOS after IBM contracted for it, I think they would have gone by the
wayside as many startups have done over the years. Lotus had a lock on the
spreadsheet for several years, but once they attracted the attention of the
OS vendor who could use revenue from one side to fund startups (even if
inside the same company), it was the beginning of the end. Microsoft Money
used to be rather pathetic when compared to Quicken, but after the purchase
was blocked, Microsoft has improved it considerably. Intuit’s recent fiasco
with TurboTax copy protection may be something they never recover from, but
I am not enough of a soothsayer to know.

This sure is fun!

“Matt Miller” wrote in message
news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
> [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com]On Behalf Of Bill Casey
> Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 6:04 PM
> To: Windows System Software Developers Interest List
> Subject: [ntdev] Re: value of open-source in the driver community (was
> “how to execute a process…”)
>
>
> > > Finally, just to add more fuel to the fire, let’s think long and
> > > hard about
> > > who the people are that work on open source software. Do they work
day
> in
> > > and day out on that software for a living? The majority of them,
> > > no. Then
> > > why do they do it? Perhaps it’s for a “love of the game”, if you
will.
> > > Internal motivation, I think, is incredibly more powerful than
external
> > > motivation.
>
> > You mean like the “love of the game” the virus writers have?
>
> Yes, the same thing. Is that supposed to make open source people look
like
> bad guys or something? Just because you like pie and Charles Manson likes
> pie doesn’t mean you intend to chop up a bunch of people.
>
> > > fear the fact that they may soon be obsolete. They may soon be
obsolete
> > > because the minds of 20 open source people working on an open source
> > > project might just
> > > eventually produce a product that rivals, or is even better than,
> > > the closed source person’s product.
>
> > Complete rot!! The Linux kernel is just NOW getting around to releasing
> > things like preemptive multitasking (in the kernel) and processor
affinity
> > that have been in Windows since NT - this is years folks! These 20
people
> > sure are kicking software butt aren’t they?
>
> So, you countered my general argument with a specific example. This is an
> ineffective form of arguing. The reason it is ineffective is because I
too
> could go and enumerate a list of things that the Open Source community
have
> done that the Closed Source haven’t done yet. In fact, your specific
> citation has pointed out the truth in one of my premises – that 20 open
> source people might eventually produce a product that rivals a closed
source
> product. Also, keep in mind, that I stated that those 20 open source
> programmers might eventually do it BETTER than the closed source people.
> Success of software is, in the end, not determined by who did it first,
> rather it is determined by who did it BEST.
>
> > Bill Casey
>
> Matt
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@positivenetworks.net
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
>
>

> > state of the art, and society in general, rather than all sitting

working for different companies individually writing code to solve
the same old
> > problems for which code has been written many times before. It’s a
> > service model instead of a property model, and it enables a vastly
> > greater proportion of a limited resource to be spent on innovation and
> > advancement instead of repeating the same old same old.
>
> Wow! “sitting around working for different companies”! The fall of the
> Soviet Union must have been a CRUSHING blow to you.

Why do you say such a silly thing? What is the connection between
your distortion of what I said, dishonestly enclosed in quotation marks,
and your comment?

You’re right; my apologies for inserting “around” - very dishonest, a grave
distortion, very silly! I suppose sitting ‘around’ (after your
non-programming day job presumably) “advancing the state of the art, and
society in general” (did I get that one right?) is what you do. But really,
referring to honesty when we’re discussing the ‘Open Theft Community’ is a
bit of a stretch, what?

Bill Casey

> Nobody’s saying that they should give away their software for

free. Giving people read access to your source is lightyears away from
GPL’ing it.

THIS is good - “read access to your source” - like that doesn’t give them
WRITE access to copy it!

Yes, open source is a different philosophy from closed source. No,
open-sources are not generally thieves, nor are they lazy, stupid or
“fascist”. That’s the dumbest argument I’ve heard in a while. I
would have thought that there were better manners among people who are
capable of
writing kernel-level software. Alas, it seems I’m wrong.

Gee, a .DE return address! Why am I surprised? Was it the word fascist
that got you? Like it isn’t fascist to impose your opinion/world-view on
everyone else? Notice I said impose not share. You guys in the Open Sore
twilight are DEMANDING that all source be free and open. What is that?
Benevolent dictatorship?

Bill

> And where, exactly, did you get all of that wisdom? I’ve worked with open

source people in the past, and none of them is even remotely like the
fictional people you’re describing here.

You really like your cold-war foe images, don’t you?

Burkhard Daniel

mtronix Precision Measuring Instruments
xxxxx@mtronix.de * www.mtronix.de

ANOTHER .DE address heard from - you guys are staying up late. No,
actually, I was never much of a cold warrior. But I DO remember something
called the Berlin airlift - heard of it? That’s where we selfish,
money-grubbing, ideologues saved a city for a year - but I could be wrong.

Bill Casey

> > > why do they do it? Perhaps it’s for a “love of the game”, if

you will.
> > Internal motivation, I think, is incredibly more powerful
than external
> > motivation.

> You mean like the “love of the game” the virus writers have?

Yes, the same thing. Is that supposed to make open source people
look like bad guys or something? Just because you like pie and Charles
Manson likes
pie doesn’t mean you intend to chop up a bunch of people.

Oh no? You Open Sore guys are trying to up chop the entire independent
software development industry by depriving them of income. Face it; all
this talk of “society in general” and better software through an
international mind meld is just a ruse and bilge respectively.

> Complete rot!! The Linux kernel is just NOW getting around to releasing
> things like preemptive multitasking (in the kernel) and
processor affinity
> that have been in Windows since NT - this is years folks!
These 20 people
> sure are kicking software butt aren’t they?

So, you countered my general argument with a specific example. This is an
ineffective form of arguing.

Well, pardon me all to hell down here in Texas. I didn’t know argument
form was going to count.

The reason it is ineffective is
because I too could go and enumerate a list of things that the Open Source
community have done that the Closed Source haven’t done yet. In fact,
your specific
citation has pointed out the truth in one of my premises – that 20 open
source people might eventually produce a product that rivals a
closed source product. Also, keep in mind, that I stated that those 20
open source
programmers might eventually do it BETTER than the closed source people.
Success of software is, in the end, not determined by who did it first,
rather it is determined by who did it BEST.

Yep, the operative word there is MIGHT!

That’s all folks! No more Looney tunes for me - unless it is something I
just can’t resist :).

Bill Casey

“Bill Casey” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>

Let’s all have a sing, shall we:

Arise, ye pris’ners of starvation!
Arise, ye wretched of the earth,
For justice thunders condemnation,
A better world is in birth.


Oh, sorry, Bill… you’re not singing, are you.

(sorry… but this whole socialist thing just lights my bulb)

Peter

----- Original Message -----
From: “Thomas F. Divine”
Newsgroups: ntdev
To: “Windows System Software Developers Interest List”
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 11:37 PM
Subject: [ntdev] Re: value of open-source in the driver community (was “how to execute a process…”)

>
> Myself - I would be very glad to consider Open Source as soon as someone
> answers this question from the perspective of a small company:
>
> How does a (very small) software development house make money under Open
> Source licenses?"
>
> (I am serious about needing an answer to that question)
>
> Thomas F. Divine
>

Overhere, some earn the money with projects “on demand” - based on high level specifications from the customer.
The source code is thereby a part of the product - and delivered to the customer. Most of the time, this source code ( or parts )
are Open Source after a while …

Bill,

> call them are nothing more than lazy, thieving, stupid, fascist,
bottom-dwelling scavengers.

And you are a star, of course. A man which call other fascists. Get a grip
on reality man. Dont play
with words so easily. Youll make yuorself an easy target for lawyers. But,
yet again, you are angry, and anger
made you spit this words. Too bad you cant control it. Just dont get a
hearth attack, then youll complain you had to
pay your doctor because of open source drivers and operating systems.

> They want to impose their socialist world-view

This is plain bullshit.

> cheap assholes cloaked in the mantle of world saviors

So, if anyone do something for this comunity, like putting out an article
about Nt internals, or a open source SCSI port, they are cheap assholes, no
?
Because they where helpfull ? Ohhh , no, because other ppl learned much more
easier from this code and endangered your precious
job by narrowing the market.

----- Original Message -----
From: “Bill Casey”
To: “Windows System Software Developers Interest List”
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 11:31 PM
Subject: [ntdev] Re: value of open-source in the driver community (was “how
to execute a process…”)

> Peter:
> Like Mt. Vesuvius I have been keeping the lid on my own pontification
> regarding the “Open Sore” community. But your posting and the recent
“Open
> Source” front-cover headline by C/C++ Journal has caused the following
> venting:
> By the sweat of my brow and force of my intellect (no sniggering!) I have
> managed to stay in business for myself for almost 30 years. So why should
I
> be forced either directly or through reverse engineering to make both past
> AND future intellectual work product not only FREE but FREELY available?
> How the hell am I and thousands like me supposed to make money? Are we
> supposed to DONATE our time and thoughts.
> It isn’t often I come to the defense of Microsoft but I will in this
> instance. Let’s all quit whining about having the Windows source
available.
> Maybe we should all stare at our OWN code a little longer for the sake of
> improving it rather than dump responsibility onto MS for our perceived
> difficulties. Buck up and take it like a man. It is THEIR code paid for
> with THEIR money. We can complain but it isn’t our RIGHT to look at,
touch
> it or feel it.
> If only I had a small chance of speaking to the head of Red Hat, I’d let
> him know my opinion of his recent comment that “one should be able to look
> at source code without fear of being arrested”. Well, he can look at MY
> source code but he should fear getting the crap beat out of him.
> Bottom line is that these “penguinites” as you so politely call them are
> nothing more than lazy, thieving, stupid, fascist, bottom-dwelling
> scavengers. They want to impose their socialist world-view (that software
> should be free) on all of us. They want it free because in the final
> analysis they are cheap assholes cloaked in the mantle of world saviors.
>
> Bill Casey
>
> == SCSI Adapters & VirtualSCSIT Target Mode Libs ==
> Advanced Storage Concepts, Inc. (409) 744-2129
> 2720 Terminal Drive xxxxx@virtualscsi.com
> Galveston, TX 77554 USA www.virtualscsi.com
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xxxxx@lists.osr.com
> > [mailto:xxxxx@lists.osr.com]On Behalf Of Peter Viscarola
> > Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 8:44 AM
> > To: Windows System Software Developers Interest List
> > Subject: [ntdev] Re: value of open-source in the driver community (was
> > “how to execute a process…”)
> >
> >
> > Nick,
> >
> > As usual, you make several well thought-out points.
> >
> > I just wanted to “discuss” a few:
> >
> > “Nick Ryan” wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> > >
> > > Microsoft can write the best VPN and AV utilities both because
> > > it has smart people and because those people can see the source code.
> > > Any other group of equally smart people are at an automatic
> > > disadvantage.
> > >
> >
> > This is absolutely true. The entire world of Windows system software
> > developers would heartily benefit from having the Windows sources for
> > reference.
> >
> > However, there another problem at work here that make writing
> > things like AV
> > filters in the file system stack harder than it should be – even WITH
> > source code. And this is true generically for drivers of all types in
> > Windows.
> >
> > That problem is the complexity of the driver interface. Or, one
> > might say,
> > the lack of a really well defined interface without side effeects
> > for driver
> > development. This problem is rampant in the file system stack… there
are
> > subtleties of the interfaces that change with each release of
> > Windows. Even
> > WITH the source code, you’d have a rough time building a robust
component
> > for the file system stack that works across multiple versions of the
O/S.
> >
> > > Microsoft’s
> > > competitive advantage is that they can string 10,000 good algorithms
> > > together in such a coherent way that a competitor can’t hope to match
> > > the effort without 30,000 smart programmers of its own.
> > >
> >
> > Absolutely right. Making the source code, especially of the O/S itself,
> > available should really be no big thing when you think about it. Those
of
> > us who just want to know all the places where IoXxxx returns
> > STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED (or whatever) would be able to find out relatively
> > easily. And, anything that’s a security risk, ah, shouldn’t be
> > there in the
> > first place and is just waiting to be “discovered” by someone who
DOESN’T
> > have the source code (is it David Craig who regularly reminds us that
> > security through obscurity is no security at all?).
> >
> > Now, I could possibly see reasons why Microsoft might not want to
release
> > the source code for the Win32 subsystems (user and kernel mode)
> > – No sense
> > helping the penguinites build a really good Win32 emulator, right? And
> > maybe there are certain other kernel modules that fall into this
category
> > too.
> >
> > But you’re absolutely right… When you think about it, there’s no risk
is
> > letting the vast majority of this stuff out.
> >
> > I feel a pontification coming on,
> >
> > Peter
> >
> >
> >
> > —
> > Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
> http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@virtualscsi.com
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>
>
>
> —
> Questions? First check the Kernel Driver FAQ at
http://www.osronline.com/article.cfm?id=256
>
> You are currently subscribed to ntdev as: xxxxx@rdsor.ro
> To unsubscribe send a blank email to xxxxx@lists.osr.com
>

“Christiaan Ghijselinck” wrote in
message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: “Thomas F. Divine”
> Newsgroups: ntdev
> To: “Windows System Software Developers Interest List”

> Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2003 11:37 PM
> Subject: [ntdev] Re: value of open-source in the driver community (was
“how to execute a process…”)
>
>
> >
> > Myself - I would be very glad to consider Open Source as soon as someone
> > answers this question from the perspective of a small company:
> >
> > How does a (very small) software development house make money under
Open
> > Source licenses?"
> >
> > (I am serious about needing an answer to that question)
> >
> > Thomas F. Divine
> >
>
>
> Overhere, some earn the money with projects “on demand” - based on high
level specifications from the customer.
> The source code is thereby a part of the product - and delivered to the
customer. Most of the time, this source code ( or parts )
> are Open Source after a while …
>
This is the clasic “consulting” model. In this case, your customer owns the
work and will decide what to do with the source code. Your customer will
reap future benefit from your work but you will not (and will be exhausted
and while looking for more work…). Your customer may decide to make the
code Open Source - if it suits HIS business model. For a hardware vendor
your source enables him to sell his hardware and he may sell more hardware
if he gives away the source you developed! Finding your next job will, of
course, eventually be more difficult because your expertise is already in
the public domain.

Many of us do consulting on a project basis. In this case we do not
participate in licensing decisions at all. It is not our discussion.

Thomas

> That problem is the complexity of the driver interface. Or,

one might say, the lack of a really well defined interface
without side effeects for driver development.

I totally agree with Peter here. I’ve worked on good size chunks of
software, where I can see all the source code. Being able to see all the
internal complexity of other code modules does NOT make my life easier.
Having well designed interfaces and code implementations that match the
well designed interface makes my life easier.

  • Jan