Linux-Advocacy Digest #118, Volume #26 Thu, 13 Apr 00 22:13:07 EDT
Contents:
The PC Consumer Manifesto (T. Max Devlin)
Re: Microsoft NOT a monopoly (Bloody Viking)
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From: T. Max Devlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: The PC Consumer Manifesto
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 22:05:53 -0400
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
PC Consumer Manifesto - A call for a new technology marketplace
I. Preamble
Within the last three decades, a host of new commercial, occupational,
social, and cultural changes have occurred as the result of the serendipitous
combination of several technologies. These technologies were themselves
developed over the preceding years, yet their combination and extension has
given rise to a flood of methods, mechanisms, and equipment which have enabled
people as workers, consumers, and citizens to benefit from the predicate
technologies. These benefits are putatively much greater and often quite
different than can be anticipated based purely on a technical, financial, or
legal reckoning which bases its understanding and directives solely on the
component technologies.
These component technologies include, generally and without presumption,
consumer microcomputers, commercial Internet access, graphical user interface
software, enhanced and extended computer operating systems (particularly the
specific and detailed, if only pseudo- or semi-standardized development of
'*nix', a variously related family of time-sharing operating systems with
integrated network-level protocols such as TCP/IP, hereafter referred to as
"Unix"), development of effective and highly scalable software-level network
protocols and standards such as HTTP, FTP, DNS, FTP, and others.
In addition to the development of the PC, Unix, and the Internet, the
world of business has been developing in profound ways. There may indeed be
some causal relationship between the "PC and Internet Revolutions" and the
increase in scope, freedom, and power of mega-corporations. In concert with
regressive or even non-existent enforcement of anti-trust laws in the United
States, so-called 'media powers' have been formed by merger & acquisition
amongst the publicly funded corporations serving the largest segments of the
news & information, computer hardware and software, telecommunications and
technology, entertainment, and financial insurance markets. The potential
reversal of this trend which might be signified by the extreme and exceptional
case of Department of Justice prosecution (and conviction) of Microsoft seems
dubious in the face of the incomprehensible market powers of such well-funded,
and by nature amoral, entities.
The following recommendations are offered in modesty but with conviction
that they can contribute a dialog among the different individual, commercial,
legal, and financial viewpoints in the world. Although we who endorse this
document share common principles and values, we are prepared to modify our
views in the light of new knowledge, altered circumstances, and unforeseen
problems that might arise. it is not possible to create a permanent
Manifesto, but it is useful and wise to devise a working document, open to
revision.
II A Universal Bill of Rights and Responsibilities for Consumer PC Markets
To realize the benefits of PC and Internet technology, all consumers must
be enabled to make competent and successful choices in whatever markets
develop to offer them goods and services. The difficulty and great danger of
this requirement is the need for reliable, accurate, and useful information
concerning those products available. It has been remarked that encouraging a
knowledgeable consumer base is ostensibly enjoyable to the producers and
resellers of such equipment, software, and services. Examination of
experience and an awareness of human motivations and activities makes clear
that relying on the market itself to mitigate these difficulties is not
sufficient to ensure the protection of the consumer. A productive business
must generate profit, and we believe that a free market-based capitalistic
economy is essential for commerce to provide appreciable net benefits to
society. While we do not wish to artificially limit the profits available or
realized by the provider of PC and Internet technologies and services,
explicit protections are required to ensure that misrepresentation, lack of
information, and obfuscating declarations are not used to take unethical
advantage of the relative inexperience, ignorance, or impotence of the
consumer in the producer's quest for profits. Some consensus definition and
even circumscription of concepts is necessary which will balance the technical
requirements with the commercial desires of both buyer and seller. In hopes
of furthering this endeavor, we present the following Bill of Rights that
applies to all consumers purchasing goods and services of a technical nature.
The intent of this enumeration is not to undermine or deter efforts to
promote knowledge amongst consumers or in the market. We do not seek to
relieve the pressure which competition, innovation, and even development of
proprietary technologies, products, or marketing and delivery mechanisms and
methods. As a set of initial safe-guards to allow a fully informed
marketplace to develop by creating an organized structure of necessary
information and behavior to guide all participants in both commercial
transactions and the realization of the benefits to the consumer of those
transactions, we submit this as a fair and reasonable proposal.
Implementation of the proposed rights will not be easy. It is
contingent, of course, on there being sufficient value to both producers and
consumers, as well as the ability for these values to be realized by and
through any third party resellers. The means adopted to achieve the Bill's
principles will need to provide competitive advantage for adopters without
unjustly burdening those who, due to financial, ethical, or personal
reservations, choose not to adopt that means, but who still support the
principles of these rights. There will no doubt be tremendous financial
opposition to accomplishing these goals, but we should at least set long-range
goals, even though they may be presently difficult to achieve in certain parts
of the technology world. While we may dictate the statement that a
consumer/end-user "has a right", it is meaningless and unjust unless it
translates into a practical "has the ability and benefits from" in the typical
world of the amateur and professional consumer alike. It is anticipated that
a great deal of the cost and effort of implementing these ideals will be born
by individual developers as they attempt to create a software product or
service which supports the autonomy and supremacy of the individual consumer
and end-user. Designing, coding, and building a software product which is
functional and valuable is difficult enough; exceeding these requirements to
try to make it more open, compatible, and interchangeable seems
self-defeating. Yet it is our strong belief that such efforts, when executed
within an environment which both supports and mandates cooperation and
competition amongst vendors (i.e. a free market, unburdened by attempts to
monopolize and unrestricted from superfluous or oppressive government
regulation), will be greatly rewarded and are necessary to ensure the
continued development of the enabling technologies which we refer to as PCs,
applications, and the Internet.
1. A consumer/end-user has the right to their data.
Regardless of the software product which creates or modifies a document
file, the introduction of user data into the document requires that reasonable
efforts be taken by the source and supplier of the software to provide
published data format structures sufficient to fully and completely decode the
file. Optimum use of standard formats should be highly encouraged, and both
exceptional and routine use of other products to modify the file must be
supported by the source and supplier of all such software products or
services.
2. A consumer/end-user has the right to an operating system.
As a component of the multi-purpose microcomputer systems referred to as
Personal Computers (or PCs), the independence and distinction of the operating
system cannot be assuaged. There is tremendous value and there should be a
robust market for all manner of special-purpose or application-specific
computer systems (including 'smart phones', 'Internet gaming consoles', and
many types of both real, proposed, and imagined 'intelligent appliances').
The value of general-purpose microcomputers is there ability to be quickly
re-programmed (by the end-user or, far more commonly, a third party, executed
by the end-user by running a program) to provide any manner of processing for
any number of unspecified and unlimited software and hardware functions. The
critical enabling technology of this necessary basis for both cooperation and
competition between suppliers is the use of an operating system (regardless of
the preferred or recognized definition of the functions, features, components,
or extent of the operating system) which is specifically independent of both
the hardware assembly and the software application which make up any
particular instance of 'a PC'.
It is understandable that suppliers will prefer to produce products
within the most lucrative and least expensive market. This does not excuse
conscious, but un-conscientious, manipulation of customer awareness to deter
admission, acceptance, or support of alternative markets. Indeed, this
premise requires that suppliers of PC technology and suppliers of 'connected',
'intelligent', or PC-like appliances and equipment both encourage and be
extremely open in providing specifications for integration, by the end-user,
of various combinations of products, both within a vendor's line-of-goods and
with other vendor's products.
3. A consumer/end-user has the right to interchangeability.
Regardless of the platform, environment, or operating system's design or
architecture, no effort can be spared in ensuring that implementation of any
combination of each of these in parallel and with any application software and
peripherals of the consumer's choosing (i.e. a hardware platform should
support as many operating systems as possible, an environment should support
as many platforms as possible, etc.) The limitations and requirements of
technology within both private and public development naturally acts as a
force against such compatibility. It is outside the ability of the customer,
and therefore falls to the seller, to promote a greater level of independence
between these fundamental components.
All suppliers should engage in active, substantial, and productive
efforts to promote interchangeability between components by strenuously
restricting their dependencies and assumptions concerning the platform,
environment, operating system, or applications which will eventually be
implemented in combination with their own product. A simple assumption that
this will take place automatically as the basis of an open market is
insufficient; support for technical competition amongst suppliers outside of a
company's own product line (support for all possible, not simply the small
number of most common, 'integration partners') should be pursued vigorously in
order to be considered adequate.
Support for public standards is normally outweighed by both the profit
motive, which limit acceptance of such standards, and the real benefits of
proprietary solutions, which, applied ignobly, make such standards ephemeral
or valueless. Competition amongst value-add suppliers is possible and
profitable, however, even when standards make compatibility a "commodity
issue". Opportunities for reasonable market differentiation include scope of
features and functions, scalability, reliability and longevity,
interchangeability, resource use or cost, and even appearance, as well as the
ever-popular brand name which continues to support industries which themselves
could easily be reduced to commodities, such as clothing and soft drinks. The
self-serving practice of restricting compatibility with unethical motives is
not tolerable in technical markets which are founded on interchangeability of
components.
This right is similar to a consumer's right to their data, and is also
related to the consumer's right to an operating system. All three of these
fundamental principles must be supported for consumer PC commerce to be
considered a free market as well as a reputably open market.
4. A consumer/end-user has the right to compatibility.
As an extension of the right to interchangeability, setting forth a
user's ability to choose any combination of components, and also related to
the aforementioned right to their data, a consumer/end-user should be able to
integrate, through simple and fully reversible installation processes, any
number and variety of applications or hardware peripherals. The limitation on
these capabilities should be entirely technical and provisional (i.e. file
locking or protocol socket mapping, storage or bandwidth limitations, or
limitation on number of physical connections). Any implementation which
un-characteristically restricts the ability of the consumer to utilize, either
simultaneously or alternatively, a product providing equivalent or similar
functionality should be abhorrent to the consumer/end-user. The great number
of attempts to refute this principle are a testament to its importance and
value. Just as it is not up to the supplier to determine which components
they must integrate with, but is a demand provided by the customer's choice,
it is not expected that a supplier will, in the absence of private benefit or
motive, design their software or components so that substitutes or
alternatives are available from competitors. Again we point out that
consideration of this as a sole or critical characteristic for market
definition or profits has not been demonstrated and may be unfounded.
5. A consumer/end-user has the right to proprietary technology.
Whenever supportable and beneficial in balance with a consumer's right to
data, operating system, interchangeability, and compatibility, the ability for
functions, features, and capabilities of a product or service to be extended
in any way which may under any conditions benefit the consumer/end-user or be
perceived by the user to be of benefit to them. This does not mitigate the
consumer's other rights in any way, though it may prompt them, alone and
without undue influence from other causes, to limit their enjoyment of those
rights while they enjoy the benefit of the proprietary development. No
agreement may be made to extend their suspension of their rights to their
data, operating system, interchangeability, or compatibility outside the
scope, extent, or time-frame of the related proprietary benefit and associated
implementation, and any such agreements should be considered unenforceable,
unless the consumer is clearly aware of the special nature of these
circumstances and provisions, and is justly compensated within the agreement.
There specifically shall be no restrictions placed on the consumer to limit
their ability in any way to seek alternative or substitute products from other
vendors, nor limitations on comparisons with other products and the ability to
perform benchmark or real-world tests and provide any technically accurate
results to any interested party.
6. A consumer/end-user has the right to functionality.
A software or hardware component is recognized to perform a particular
function, which function we must assume to be defined exclusively by the
supplier and only circumstantially by the end-user. A software or hardware
product, and by definition, a market, is defined by packaging and commercial
transactions. A software component is typically assumed to be commensurate
with a software product, because a hardware component must, by necessity of
physical assembly, be considered in all cases to be a hardware product.
Software, however, is infinitely mutable, and so the relationship between
packaging (product) and function (component) is also mutable. It is not, nor
should it be, possible for the customer to dictate, outside of normal market
mechanisms, what that relationship is; this decision must entirely rest on the
supplier's understanding of the market opportunities and their optimum
business strategy. It is necessary, however, that this relationship be
consistent in order to guard the consumer/end-user from prevalent and
overwhelming fraudulent abuse of this mutability.
The consumer is dependant on the supplier to provide a recognizable,
understandable, and useful mechanism for differentiating the specified
component and product involved in each transaction to which they are party.
Conversely, a supplier is free to modify the relationships in any way they see
fit, so long as that modification is consistent with this defined mechanism
and reasonably accurate. To accomplish this, the supplier must publicly
differentiate their various components and/or products and maintain an
acceptable distinction between components, versions, and revisions.
Historically, the natural distinction between operating system and application
has been developed, and various technical characteristics, including
instrumentation (data structures/file formats, connections), processing
(functions) and display (features) have led to distinguishing applications and
software programs. This typically causes the function of a component to be
used to define a product. Each version may or may not be considered a
separate product, depending on marketing and licensing, and signified
additional features or functions, but all relating to the single, still
primary, function which was related, by the vendor, to the component/product
definition as understood by all parties involved. Each revision (minor
version or patch/update) was conventionally thought to be a correction of
faults in the component.
These conventions are by no means a requirement of a valid and active
free market, nor do we mean to impose them involuntarily upon either supplier
or customer. They are, however, recognized as meaningful and important
conventions. While not irreplaceable in the slightest, they provide a useful
and essential role of providing some cognizance of the component/product
structure which the software provider imposes upon themselves to enable
knowledgeable and accurate selection in a competitive market. An individual
supplier is not free to be ambiguous or unreasonably inexact in their
adherence to whatever definition of functionality and products they wish to
promote. Innovative or alternative conventions may easily be attempted, and
accepted as more or less efficient in resulting in the successful use of the
company's products both within their product line, within their competitive
market, and across the full extent of integrated software and hardware
products which make up their own implementation. Any such suggestion or
variance from existing conventions must be enacted with honest and sincere
intent to improve the efficiency of delivery of components in products, and
matching intent to avoid defrauding consumers by taking advantage of confusion
or ignorance in recognizing and selecting the desired functionality and
features, and value-added characteristics, in the most efficient manner, from
the marketplace.
This right also precludes licensing agreements which link one software
product to any other product in any way which is not fully commensurate with
the declared definitions of functionality and packaging and fully understood
by the consumer. This intentionally countermands the most egregious and
notorious example, Microsoft's End User License Agreement mandated through
their pre-load contracts, which entirely binds the licensing of the operating
system to the hardware platform (or binds the purchase of the hardware
platform to the licensing of the operating system, more accurately).
7. A consumer/end-user has the right to source code.
A customer must be able to examine (or have examined by assignees) the
source code for any software products which they have licensed, purchased,
rented, or otherwise had legally been provided an ability to execute (unless
such ability is predicated on a temporary evaluation period in which source
code is not available) if such execution is suspected of causing faults or
incurring additional cost. The provider may place reasonable restrictions on
this to prevent misrepresentation by the examiner or consumer with the intent
to use this access to duplicate the functionality or presentation of a
competing product (as currently protected by intellectual property laws), so
long as they do not restrict the exercise of this right for the sole intended
purpose of ensuring, verifying, or detecting defects or un-standardized
support for published or standard API and compatibility with other software
products, regardless of the method or extent of integration between the
various products.
This right does not extend to unlimited and perpetual access to the
source code. It may be restricted in any reasonable way by the vendor to
ensure that additional replication of their code or its concepts (as currently
protected by intellectual property laws) does not occur to unauthorized
parties, separately licensed users, or anyone which does not currently require
this access.
The right to source code is the most excessive sounding of the liberties
stated in this document. It is unforeseeable, in light of the current methods
and techniques of the software industry, how such access could be facilitated,
or if it would be beneficial in practical cases. It also seems to conflict
with conventional understanding of copyright or patent laws, though this isn't
truly the case. Including the right to examine the source code for a software
product you are legally using is simply an extension of the recognized right
of a consumer to hold a supplier accountable for the honesty of their claims
and the proper functioning of a product free of defects in materials (code) or
workmanship (packaging). This is similar to the purpose of the description of
product definition and valid version numbers as related to the right to
functionality. If the customer is assumed to be unable to create and support
the product themselves, then an equitable transaction requires the vendor to
take responsibility for doing so to whatever extent is sufficient to fulfill
the description. This provides the necessary motivation to provide a
component/product which does not cause faults or incur additional unspecified
costs for the consumer. In the case of software product identification,
versions numbers, and revisions, this requires the vendor to be clear and
consistent in their policies. A consumer's right to source code likewise
requires the vendor to be honest and accurate in their representation of their
technology.
8. A consumer/end-user has the right to open source software.
If the customer is able to create and support the necessary software for
their purposes, then there must be a legal mechanism that allows them to do
so. This provision actively calls for a re-assessment, based on
socio-economic, not simply financial, principles, the radical and crucial
reversal of previous decisions to protect software as intellectual property.
Previous to 1976, software was not considered protected by copyright or patent
laws. With a profoundly small amount of public debate, education, or
awareness of the issues, both copyrights and patents were variously extended
to include software code. This may be considered tolerable to those who wish
these rights to be realized, so long as the availability of enforcing and
benefiting from an open sources software license (such as the GNU GPL).
Examination and consideration of the validity of both or either copyright or
patent protection for software is appropriate, and should not be assumed.
It should be clear that some conflict between the nature of software and
intellectual property must exist, though it must be admitted that there is
also some affinity, however strong, between the two, if separate, concepts.
Does the copyright of the source code in any way extend to the binary
executable, given that the consumer does not currently have access to that
source code? If copyright is appropriate for protecting software code from
unauthorized replication, then why is the additional burden of licensing,
often excessive in restrictions, necessary? Why doesn't the current structure
already provide access to the source code, if the same intellectual property
rights extend to both? While a software product might be compared to an
encyclopedia, where corrections, updates, and additions are not included when
you purchase the product (and replication is not feasible, so no licensing is
necessary to restrict it), an encyclopedias does not fail to function entirely
because of one wrong statement. Again, it should be clear that there is some
conflict, as exemplified by the exist and necessity of open source licensing.
Should renewed and ongoing debate fail to clarify this situation, the
accessibility and acceptance of open source software commensurate with
restricted license 'commercial' products must assured.
Well, what do you think? Any useful comments?
(c) Copyright 2000 T. Max Devlin [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
T. Max Devlin
Manager of Research & Educational Services
Managed Services
ELTRAX Technology Services Group
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
-[Opinions expressed are my own; everyone else, including
my employer, has to pay for them, subject to
applicable licensing agreement]-
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From: Bloody Viking <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Microsoft NOT a monopoly
Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2000 02:08:14 GMT
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
: He's just misunderstood. It's tough getting by on $60 billion.
It can get a bit costly to commute by ICBM these days, what with the price
of petrol. Not to mention how you have to pay the IT Professionals who
barely qualify as butler server admins. And just think. He'll have to
upgrade his entire home every year and a half. And his home will have more
bugs, run slower, and the walls turn dark blue with sky blue gibberish
numbers every few hours when it crashes yet again. Blue Home of Death,
anyone?
Gotta hate those BHoDs when you have impoverished execs from Intel as
house guests over...
--
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