Bowing to M$ (was Re: [ale] comcast static IP?)

[James Baldwin]

On 27 Jan 2005, at 07:52, Preston Boyington wrote:

> I insist on interoperability, which is why I push for companies to use 
> open standards.  How company's achieve the open standard is what 
> should be a deciding factor in using that company's software.

I agree that open standards encourage interoperability more than 
proprietary ones. Applications which take advantage of open standards 
and offer and equal or greater amount of usability would be a far 
better weapon to combat proprietary standards. The technical 
sophistication with which many open projects are written cannot be 
questioned, but the usability of those systems is often lacking in 
comparison to their proprietary brethren. Aqua is an excellent example.

> If Microsoft has a more intuitive way of creating a text document with 
> formatting then that's wonderful, but they shouldn't have the right to 
> trap a user in using their operating system/office suite because of a 
> text document with formatting.

Why not? That's like suggesting an MP3 player shouldn't have the right 
to trap a user into using MP3. The retort for this is simple: Use an 
alternative. The iPod traps me into using a very small subset of audio 
formats and I make that sacrifice because the "intuitive way" of 
accessing my music is more important to me than the issue of being 
trapped into that subset of formats.

If it is a question of extensibility, I believe this discussion will 
boil down into "open source good, closed source bad" and I don't think 
that will be very productive.

Users have the choice of using that format or not using that format 
(Users in this sense can mean a single user, a company, or another 
organizational unit). Vendor lock in happens all across the board and 
it has never been questioned as both a successful tactic to retain 
consumer base and a horrible misuse of consumer tendencies.

I think it is important to note that while Microsoft has done many 
things it should be called to question for, software bundling is not 
one of them. And that is what I believe we are discussing: alternate 
software vendors are upset that Microsoft can bundle their own 
applications with their operating system and create a barrier for 
entry, in the form of effort required by the user to acquire the 
alternative. Microsoft should be called to question, and has been, for 
unfair trade practices including the strong arming of OEM vendors by 
requiring them to bundle Microsoft and Microsoft approved software only 
with their distributions.

The distinction is important as it can influence open software projects 
as well, for instance the ubiquitousness of Apache already makes it 
difficult to find distributions which provide more than it as the only 
choice of an http server. Do we yell and scream about Apache lock in? 
No, because we all have the ability to acquire an alternative. The same 
exists for alternative text editors on a Microsoft platform.

> Interoperability is one thing, but it shouldn't be at the cost of 
> submitting to an inferior format.

Microsoft is not the company which requires you to use an inferior 
format.
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