The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Power Matters for PCs Alan Cubbon |
A book called "Linux and the UNIX Philosophy" by Mike Gancarz was reviewed by Major Keary in PC Update for April 2004; it supports the widespread use of Open Source programs. I don't know of any work called "Windows and the Microsoft Philosophy", but one would imagine that its attitude would be the opposite. Open Source programs use code that is made publicly available; they can be downloaded free of charge from people who put their time and expertise at the service of everyone. Microsoft programs are markedly restrictive; as Major Keary says in the opening paragraph of his review, "If you are p...'d off.." with features including "..blue screens that accuse you of illegality, this is the book to read." He quotes from the book: "The calculation of Microsoft license fees for 10,000 PCs is left as an exercise for the reader."
Microsoft's profits from the Free Market philosophy, with its emphasis on accumulating wealth and power, have given Bill Gates the ears of the powerful and the eminent world-wide.
An example of the use of de facto power comes from the European Union: "In direct contravention of the recent vote by the European Parliament, the Irish Presidency... has surreptitiously reinstated unlimited Software Patent language into the text of a statement to be adopted by the European Council of Ministers on Monday 17 May, without further debate!" This is from a News Flash put out by Mandrake Linux, which can be seen also through the OpenOffice.org Web site. The Mandrake Online Team explains the importance of the Irish move. "The new text, if adopted, will extend Software Patents to every piece of software, including computer programs, data structures and process descriptions. This will directly harm most software firms and all Open Source projects unable to pay patent licensing tribute, and amounts to an appropriation of the public domain by proprietary interests. A direct beneficiary will be a new class of pure patent companies without any real business or contribution to employment, which will use the threat of litigation to extort payments."
Ireland has in recent years found a new prosperity through its openness to IT firms, with favourable terms of tenancy; at the same time however, it appears that there has been no new association between political virtue and accumulating wealth. In the Guardian Weekly of March 11-17, Angelique Chrisafis opens her article on Ireland with the sentence, "It sounds like something from the worst sort of banana republic." She summarises by saying, "Six years of relentless corruption hearings have revealed Ireland to be one of the most sleaze-ridden countries in Europe." She cites accusations against both Prime Minister Ahern and former European Union commissioner Flynn.
But the occupation of the European Presidency is not apparently affected by such a state of affairs, and votes in the European Parliament need not stand in the way of the Presidency. Again, one is not surprised that the Mandrake Team remarks: "Of note is that a sponsor of the Irish Presidency is Microsoft, currently building a large patent portfolio. If the Software Patent text is adopted, Microsoft may use this patent portfolio against Linux and other Open Source projects." One final quote: " ..the good old rule Sufficeth them, the simple plan, That they should take who have the power, And they should keep who can." (Wordsworth, on Rob Roy's Grave).
Reprinted from the July 2004 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
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