Matt’s Blog of Truth

Most of you know, first hand, how dreadful things are becoming for, not only the United States, but for the entire World, regarding the economy. This is a cut and dry, grass roots explanation, as to why the economy is shrinking. More importantly, why we need not go crazy with fear.

First, let’s look at how it all started. The Industrial Age has been with us for over 200 years now. But, I will begin at a more rationale point.

It begins with the creation of The Internet.

The Internet was adopted from a military network and put into public domain by Bill Clinton. This was done to stimulate and grow the economy. In 1995 the Internet was all the craze on Wall Street. Dreams of billions to be made from this new ‘virtual online shopping store’, to sell everything and anything, traditionally done with Brink and Mortar buildings. Well, the investors on Wall Street were told this was going to be HUGE, so they invested BILLIONS of dollars into Internet Start Up companies.

The problem was that these Wall Street traders and Investors were putting all their money on a hunch. The assumption was that the Internet would balloon their stocks and make them all Billions. The ballooning began around 1999 and finally crashed (burst) at around 2001. People over estimated the initial value of the Internet. Yes, some did win like; Amazon, Yahoo!, Ebay, PayPal and many more. But, over 95% of all the initial Internet start ups, which these over zealous investors had put all their stocks and bonds into, crashed. Losing them Billions. In fact, the Internet Bubble, was the biggest stock bubble in history.

So, what does this have to do with the current economic ‘crisis’, of 2008 to present day?

It is known, that when one ’stock bubble’ bursts, another bubble is formed, somewhere else in the stock market. This time in the Housing Market. Namely, Home Mortgages (big loans).

Starting in 2001 through 2004, or so, everyone noticed that if you wanted to buy a house, you could get a record low interest rate. Rates as low as 4.5% was common place around 2003-2004. The reason for this, was that all those investors, that had their stakes in the Internet Bubble, which made some millionaires and others bankrupt, moved their attention to the housing market. Some stock traders moved to avoid the Internet crash before it happened and moved all their Overly Ballooned stocks over in the Housing Market. These Internet stocks were moved in a panic, as the Housing Market has always been known to be a strong and solid sector of the Stock Exchange.

So, as a result of all this heavy Investment into the Housing Market, that sector of the market flourished. There was literally Trillions invested into Housing and Real Estate, which lowered Interest Rates, which got people to buy more and more homes. The formation of yet another Stock Bubble was beginning to take shape.

All was good and great. The situation was healthy. People were able to afford their dream home, while Stock Investors were making bank on their investments. This is what is known as a growing and healthy economy.

But, something happened.

Something called GREED.

Things were going so well for the Housing Sector, that major lenders (banks) began looking into ways to make even MORE money. The idea was that, since the market was doing so good, they could then begin to lend money (mortgages) to people that were previously off limits, or considered high risk. In other words, the banks began to give Home Mortgages to lower income families, with the risk that the borrowers may not be able to pay back the loan.

This high risk lending is known as Sub-Prime Mortgages, as I am sure you have now all heard about. Sub-prime, meaning a chance the loan could go sour and force the home buyer to go into foreclosure, which costs all parties involved, grief and wasted money.

The major banks, all at once and at a high rate of speed, sold these sub-prime mortgages in the TRILLIONS on dollars.

So, the drama was to begin.

It was not until 2007 that their were problems found in two major banking institution, known as Lehman Bros and Bear Sterns. They had what is known as TOXIC ASSESTS. Meaning that all their investments were bad, known to be lent to people that were on their way to foreclosure. TRILLIONS of dollars in Toxic Sub-Prime Mortgages were never going to be paid back to the banks that lent them out.

The problem then becomes a viral effect, because not only are the banks that sold these toxic loans are now in trouble, but all the Stock Share Traders on Wall Street ALSO put money into Sub-Prime Mortgages. So, now the banks and stock traders were in deep, deep sh**.

Once news of this was put out to the public, Wall Street went into a panic and pull out all their investments they had in these major banks. And well… here we are today.

If the banking system itself is full of Toxic Assets, then the Core Financial System is corrupted. This created a paranoia effect, where other banks were suddenly afraid to lend any money, to anyone! Banks that were not directly impacted by the Sub-Prime Toxic Money, froze all lending, which crashed the economy.

If money does not move (liquid), nothing happens, so the Stock Market begins to crash/stop. It stops breathing and slowly begins to die. All due to a couple bad banking moves and forcing everyone else to freeze all their money and stop the economy from breathing. I like to think of this as someone going through a panic attack and not able to breathe, for fear itself, has engulfed them.

So, what has been done to stop the situation from becoming worse?

Enter the US Federal Government Reserve Bank.

Before, the markets were free with NO government regulation. That is what everyone wanted, including the US Government! People do not like Big Government telling the free markets what to do. But, there was no choice. Money HAD to be injected into the Banking System or a collapse was to ensue, very very quickly.

So, that is what they did. The US Government passed the TARP Bill which gave the failing banking system Billions and now to date TRILLIONS of Federal Reserve money to the banks and told the CEO’s of all the major US banks to STOP the credit freeze and use this Federal money to start lending again, to get the economy breathing again.

President Obama took the ‘federal reserve money injection’ a step further by, not just bailing out those that cause this mess in the first place, but to use this opportunity to invigorate ‘green technology’ and jobs, restructure health care and fix the US infrustructure like bridges and roads. Obama is taking a major gamble, and hoping that HIS investments will pay off, in the long run.

I believe they will. Obama is a smart man. He even understands computers and the Internet age. Just take a look at his website. He was the first President to put all his policies on the table for all to read. He put it all out there on the Internet.

Now, let us pray what he has done with the additional TRILLIONS borrowed (mostly from China) and see if it does anything for the greater good. I think it will.

Thanks for reading.

Obama has become an icon. Kenya, has declared Wednesday, the day after Obama defeated McCain in a ‘land slide’ victory, a National Holiday!

Obama is one smart cookie. He has made more people cry then any other president. I for one cried when he came on stage after defeating McCain on election night, 2008. This is a man for humanity and is for the people, at large.

Guess what software he used to power his campaign?

Obama used Open Source, across the board.

McCain used Closed Source.

This is not to say Obama won the election because of F/OSS and Linux running his campaign Web Sites — although it would be awesome to be able to make that claim — but the fact is he did.

Now, Open Source is being mentioned on CNN! The news reporter, one of their Tech News Guys, started to actually reference The Cathedral and the Bazaar. That is huge. Although, most people would not know what all this talk of Cathedral and Bazaar business was, but the fact it is self aware, at least by some of those that work in huge TV News stations, like CNN, that are seeing F/OSS spread like wild fire into even elections.

Check this article out, which includes the YouTube Video of the CNN clip.

Simply amazing, for all us F/OSS geeks.

When I make a title of an Article, I try to grab your interest. When I refer to, ‘The Unknown’, I am referring to the future of Vista, Linux, Apple, Windows 7 (aka Vista 2) and even API’s like Direct X and OpenGL and The Web.

The situation has become very interesting, to say the least, regarding 3 giants, in the Computer Industry.

• Microsoft
• Linux
• Apple

All of them are fighting on all battle fronts. The battle fronts include;

• Desktops
• Servers
• Mobile Devices
• Laptops / Netbooks
• HPC - High Performance Computing
• Data centers and Cloud Computing
• Web Browsers
• Internet Standards and Protocols
• Developer Mind share
• Media Formats
• Social Networks
• Search Engines (Ad Networks)

and on and on and on…

To sanely attempt to grasp all of this, I will describe each of the 3 giant tech companies, in relation to the listed areas of computer, above. This is going to be quite a load of information draw, so grab a cup ‘o joe.

Apple

Apple has a very strong platform. It has a stable Desktop and even Servers based off a striped down Desktop. Macintosh was reinvented when Steve Jobs decided to go drastic and switch from RISC chips to Intel based CISC chips. But, more balls to the wall, was his accomplishment of taking an existing Operating system called BSD, a direct descendant of AT and T’s Unix Operating system, and slapping a GUI shell on top, calling it Darwin.

Needless to say, this was a brillant move, because now Apple is aligned with Linux, an up and coming Desktop, leveraging software already designed, stable and secure. OS X is a master piece mixture of beautiful Desktop integration, that just works, using a proven solid as a rock core, called Unix.

However, Apple does not seem to have let this get to it’s head, because Steve Job’s is clearly thinking in other areas of consumer electronics that no one else was, and apparently still is.

First came the iMac. Perfectly, in time to save Apple Computer from going bankrupt, by leveraging the Internet and delivering a Computer that was easy to use as 1 - 2 - 3, literally. Plugin the power, Plug in the Internet cable and turn the damn iMac on. How brain dead, yet brillantly simple is that? Sheer genius, which has always been a trademark of Steve Job’s thought process. Add in a splash of colors, bright as a happy go lucky gay rainbow and you have yourself a product posed to sell in the millions, which it did. You dont, see the iMac much any more, because of the G’s serious of Computers, which is just a serious player in the Video and Audio Media markets.

Get yourself a G5 running Pro tools for digital music multi track editing and Final Cut Pro for full blown professional video editing. Not to mention iLife for all out multimedia publishing on a professional level, unmatched by Microsoft or Linux. All major movie and music studios use Apple as their only choice for this type of Multimedia Publishing, hands down.

Next, Steve Jobs, comes up with the iPod, that catches the hair on fire of every teenager in America and the world. Multicolors and essentially just a cool, hip mp3 player at first, then evolving into playing small videos, downloaded from Youtube. To add firepower to the iPod, Apple opened a fully Web Based Internet Music Download store called iTunes. For .99 cents a song, you could have it, without having to buy the entire album. This little wonder from Apple again, kept Apple in the mainstream, regardless of a convicted Monopolist, which happen to be stealing every Desktop feature Apple came up with.

At this point Apple Computer, changed to just Apple. Sure, Apple had a kick ass Desktop running Unix under the hood, but it was far more successful selling iPods, iMacs, Pro Software for serious Movie and Music Industries and the best was yet to come.

Enter, the iPhone. Before, everyone was running around on a Blackberry, which was a very cool hand held PC, essentially, Internet ready. But, the iPhone, in Apple’s own style, did away with any buttons on the device, about the size of a Blackberry and made it appear HIP, by making everything touch screen enabled.

It is no surprise why Apple, years before, released their very own Web Browser, called Safari. Safari would than be installed on the up and coming iPhone. Safari, is essentially, took the same approach as OS X, there by, using KHTML — an Open Source HTML Render Engine — which they retooled and called WebKit. Apple then took WebKit and wrapped a decent GUI around it and Apple’s first Web Browser was born. Seemingly, out of the blue.

With the success of the iPhone, Apple opened the iStore to sell applications that would run on the iPhone. It is a huge success.

Apple is also working on something called Apple TV, which I do not know much about, but is sure to be just as a hit as everything else ‘i’Steve ‘i’Jobs has thought up. Not, one of his ideas has flopped. yet, each one a major risk in heavy investment, which if at anytime failed, would put the already treading deep water, that Apple was in. Yet, Apple management to execute each one, in rapid succession, with utter success to phone home about.

Simply amazing, the turn around that Apple has achieved, since the return of Steve Jobs as CEO in 1999.

Apples Achilles heel.

Steve Jobs is Apple. Apple is Steve Jobs. Therefore, if something were to happen to Steve Jobs, you can assume Apple, as a company, would be in serious trouble. All the gadgets and toys Apple has come up with was a direct result of one man’s main driving force, Steve Jobs. In fact, Steve did leave Apple for a long time, only to return in 1999 to save the company. It is rumored, that Steve Jobs knows how important he is to Apple, that many view him as a major a**hole. This is not good, if you think about it.

Linux

Linux is something you can look at in awe and sheer wonder, mostly as to, how in the hell could something like Linux even happen? Linux is truely a weird evolutionary human experiment, that seems to defy all preconceived notions of Traditional Business, Models of Software Development and managing to find itself creeping into every little nook and cranny imaginable.

Linux is really a symbol of many larger ideas. Ideas like Free Software, Open Source, Copy Left, Open Collaboration, unrestricted and almost hippy like in it’s Revolutionary way of working with Computers. It is almost impossible to know where to begin with this monster called The Linux Free and Open Source Movement. When I say movement and revolutionary, I really do mean what those words deeply mean.

Software, everywhere was closed, private and proprietary. The only way to get any market share was to have a business plan built to support it. Yet, the creation of Linux the Kernel and Operating Systems renaming themselves as a Distribution is the beginnings of me attempting to describe something unique, unexpected, yet obvious all at the same time.

A quick note about 2 men that seeded the Revolution. Keep in mind, these two men are really just symbols of a movement that actually includes millions of other people, almost cult like as followers.

Richard M. Stallman, or RMS as he liked to be called is a long haired, bearded hippy, obviously still recoving from Woodstock and all that happened in the 60’s. (Well, not exactly, but this is what I am reminded of, when I see him speak.) He is essentially, a programmer that became fed up with how Software, in particular Operating Systems were being locked down by a company called A T and T. He decided, to start his own software company, but in his own way. Instead of going down to your town hall and applying for Copy Rights and Business Licenses, RMS, decides to do everything backwards and opposite to what you would normally expect a Business man to do.

• In 1985, RMS founded the Free Software Foundation.
• Wrote the first draft, of the General Public License or GPLv1.
• Invented a new copyright methodology, called copyleft.

He then set out to gain followers of his movement be called GNU. Which stands for Gnu is Not Unix. His mission was to completely rewrite Unix from scratch, including the compiler, editors, linker, kernel and all the software programs necessary to built an Operating system. The GNU Operating system, would be free as in Free to use and modify it’s source code, as outlined by its copyleft License called the GPL.

The GPL would ensure that anyone entering into the GNU project, gave up all rights to any code contributed to the project and that it would all be software not for profit. Building Software for Software’s sake. Mind you, all of this was before Microsoft took over the world with Windows.

Richard M. Stallman, is a brilliant software programmer. He write the GCC or Gnu C Compiler, which is the standard compiler that Linux Kernel and all of it’s software is built with. He wrote his own text editing software, called Emacs, which gained a cult like following of programmers to use to write the software and libraries needed to construct the GNU Operating System.

Things where going well, with a major snag to over come. Stallman’s Software Foundation could not come up with some of the final pieces to the GNU Operating System, called a Kernel. They also needed drivers for the floppy and hard disks and networking.

Linus Torvalds in 1991 sent an email to the Minix Kernel Usenet Group that he was working on a Unix like Operating system. He already had the beginnings of a kernel and drivers for the disk drives. Linus decided to adopt the FSF’s GPL and GNU Tool chain and was able to get a shell terminal up and running called bash.

Linus uploaded his software, all as free software so that others could look at the code and he could than get user feedback on what they wanted to see added or made better. Originally, Linus called his Operating System Freax, but was later renamed by the FTP Admin, calling it Linux instead.

After the integration of Stallman’s software and GPL, Uploading of the source code with instructions on how to get it working for would be users and finally posted the Email of where people could get the code, Linux as a project, simply exploded with interest from all around the world.

Kernel developers began to submit patches while Linus Torvalds managed the process, while attending his Helsinki College Education in Computer Science. His college allowed him to work there as an assistant in the computer lab, at the same time manage his new pet project, called Linux.

By, 1993 Linux was making headlines in the Computer Industry. Just as the Internet was also taking off. The timing could not have been perfect. The pieces just seemed to all fall into place. Linux and GNU are the two foundations of what would eventually become Linux Distributions like Slackware, Debian, Red hat, Caldara, SUSE and many more.

With each new Linux Distribution, came improvements which all the other existing Distributions could implement. The reason, was because the GPL requires all derived works that originate under the GPL, inherited those same Licensing rules. The GPL is simple. Keep the Source Code Open, make it available for download by anyone and allow anyone interested the rights to modify to than submit patches to Linus for inclusion into Linux.

Linus became the maintainer of Linux and is still so today. Just as there were maintainers for the GCC compiler, and all the other drivers and programs that were actively being developed.

What set Linux apart from all previous Unix or Unix like operatinh systems before than, was that there was always some License that got in the way of further development. AT and T are classic examples of trying to soly own the rights to the code, which only caused programmers grief when trying to submit patches to improve the damn thing. Linux adopted the FSF’s GPL from the get go so, this prevented anyone from trying to take the project and dictate what to do with it.

Linus Torvalds is the perfect man for the job as Maintainer of the Linux Kernel. The way he dealt with issues both technically and socially was used as a base for how all the other GPL’ed software projects should conduct themselves. If you had good code to contribute, most likely it would get excepted into the project’s, of which there were many.

Keep in mind that thousands of Free Software Projects Licensed under this Revolutionary way of writing software among thousands of programmers, where all happening at once. In one area, a group was tackling the issue of Linux Drivers, in another a sendmail system, still in another Networking code and so on. The number of projects was enormous.

To facilitate a way to centrally host and manage all the thousands of Free Software Projects, SourceForge, Inc. (NASDAQ: LNUX), formerly VA Software Corporation, VA Linux Systems, and VA Research, is the provider of the SourceForge Development Intelligence application.

SourceForge, Inc. owns several well-known websites, including ThinkGeek and Slashdot.

VA Software is notable because of its IPO on December 9, 1999. The shares for the IPO were offered at $30, but the traders held back the opening trade until the offers hit $299. LNUX later popped up to $320, and closed their first day of trading at $239.25, a 698% return. However, this high-flying success was short-lived, and within a year the stock was selling at well below the initial offer price. As of 2005, this is still the most “successful” IPO of all time. The stock price reached an intra-day nadir of 54 cents on July 24, 2002. It then soared more than 1000% to an intra-day high of $6.38 on September 11, 2003. As of November 26, 2006, the stock closed at $4.64.

As, we get deeper and deeper into this incredible story of how a group of programmers could build their own Platform, under their own terms, in such a way as to never stiffle software innovation in favor of profit and greed. The whole movements intentions were created by geeks for geeks to be able to control their own destiny, to never repeat the A T and T disaster that happened to the original Unix.

Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie are considered the inventors of Unix. Stallman and Torvalds just created a Unix like system they called GNU/Linux.

Today, the FSF — Free Software Foundation — was over run, so to speak, by a new term for the Movement they dubbed, Open Source. To Eric S. Raymond, the author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Free Software had the word Free in there that can confused the Business World, wanting to leverage Free Software. Was it Free as in Free Beer? Or Free as in Freedom’s and rights to do with the code what once wished, as long as it adhered to the GPL, now at version 2. — GPLv2 —

So, a new foundation was formed in 1999, spear headed by Eric S. Raymond, called the OSI or Open Source Initiative. Or simply, Open Source Software. This created many disagreements between the FSF.org and OSI, so many call the movement Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) or Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS).

Yet another argument is whether to call the Open Source Operating System, Linux or GNU/Linux. Since, GNU represents the compiler and core server software tools created by the GNU Foundation under the FSF, Stallman insists Linux include this rather tacky add on to what can be simply called Linux.

Either way, is correct and in the end, does not matter a terrible amount. But, to RMS is does.

So, what has happened now that it is September 2008, to this Revolutionary Software Movement? Well an absolute crap load, which I have written many an article about. You are free to read those which I will list as references at the end of this article.

But, essentially, Linux now has a dominate Distribution called Ubuntu, based on Debian Distribution, that aims to be a Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X, competitor. Linux has grown up a lot ever since a man by the name of Mark Shuttleworth decided to fork Debian Linux, to allow a 6 month release and update cycle, called Ubuntu.

Ubuntu, is what I am running right now to write this article. Ubuntu is marketed as Linux for Human Beings. It has fixed a lot of interoperability problems that plagued the Free and Open Source Software model for years. The challenge is this.

How do we get all the little pieces of Open Source Software to communicate, in order to work together to create a unified, stable and user friendly Linux Desktop?

The challenge has taken 4 years to get to it’s current release, dubbed, Ubuntu Hardy Heroin version 8.04. And I have to say that it is a beautiful piece of software engineering. It truly is stable, immune from all known Internet Viruses and as point and click ably easy to use as Microsoft Windows XP or Apple OS X.

Linux, however, started as a headless server, meaning no GUI anything. This meant everything was done using shell commands. Linux has a stack called the LAMP stack, standing for, Linux Apache, MySQL and PHP, which has become the #1 solution for Web Servers, Mail, File and Print Servers. Linux has been ported to more hardware architectures there any other Operating System.

Linux runs the NYSE - New York Stock Exchange –, commands the Mars Rovers and can also be found in microwaves and refrigerators. It is also entering into the mobile space of cell phones, PDAs and an iPhone clone called Android.

Linux powers French parliment using Ubuntu as it’s Desktop of choice. Did I mention Linux was used to build 97% of all the currently top rated Super Computers, known as HPC or High Performance Computing?

The list goes on and on. Linux also includes programming languages like Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl and more, as I better stop before my head explodes.

To top all this off, the user applications number in the ten’s of thousands. Ranging from Audio, Video, Image editors, to Games Free and Commercial. Endless server utilities and a powerful shell scripting language called bash. Linux also leads the way in super innovative Desktop Effects like the 3D Cubed Desktop and compositing FX to make your Windows wobble and contort, for the art of it all.

Linux, also commands the choice of up to over 500 different Distribution choices. All of them can be reviewed and downloaded from the well organized site called DistroWatch. The sheer amount of choices is mind boggling, but there is a top 10 list to keep you sane, until you get brave enough to try the others.

Linus is so viral in the way it spreads into every area of computing that most of the software that runs on Linux will also run on Windows and the Mac. And if that were not enough, it is possible to install and execute native Windows binary programs, like Adobe Photoshop to run on Linux using the amazing Wine project.

Let’s not forget that Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Flickr, Twitter and so many more endless web sites run Linux Servers and Services like Apache and Postfix for Mail. My god can I go on?

Yes, IBM sponsored and released Eclipse, which is an IDE framework to build any type of IDE by using its revolutionary plug in system. All build using the now Open Sourced Java Virtual Machine, which allows Eclipse to run on the Mac and Windows as well. Making Eclipse, fast becoming the programmers IDE of choice for every programming language Eclipse has a plug in for, of which, just about no language is left out!

Linux and Open Sources Achilles heel.

There is none. If Linus were to get hit by a Bus, there are plenty of programmers waiting in line to take his place. Even, if multiple Linus replacements were to step forward, natural selection would find the right one. This is the nature of all Open Free Software Projects. If Open Free Software runs out of money, well, is irrelevant. Open Source is not funded by any one. There are corporations that leverage Open Source to turn a profit from, but this does not mean money or any business sustains Open Source. The community sustains Open Source and Linux. The only way for Open Free Software to die, is if the entire community loses interest. Therefore, I think the biggest threat to Open Source Software is something like Global Warming, a killer Comet or Asteroid or a major natural or unnatural disaster, such as a nuclear war, resulting in the death of most the human race. Even then, I think geeks would find some way to keep coding and their passion alive, even in a nuclear fallout.

Microsoft

Now, I save the best (or worse, in some people’s view) for last.

Microsoft, I like to think of as a Mix between Apple and Linux. On the Apple side MS just seems to take every idea, innovation, GUI tweak, OS feature and anything else they thought looked cool from Apple OS X and changed it a little to look like the MS way. Let’s just say Apple hates MS with a passion, and for good reason.

The same thing goes for MS steal (sorry, borrowing) innovations and ideas from Linux and the Open Source world, including Unix. In fact, every OS has taken something, usually asbolutely fundementally core about how a computer works. Unfortunately, MS decided to not borrow key security features of Unix, which Apple and Linux did, which has now rendered MS powerless to stop the floods of viruses coming from all directions via Email and Web Sites.

Now, that is not a very good way to start off with MS. We do have to give credit for a lot of MS innovations. But, most of those innovations were taken from Apple or Linux and extended to work a little better. This is how I view MS as a whole. MS is a company that watches the Industry, like a hawk, appearing to seem more interested in other companies ideas, at the same time finding ways to integrate them into their own MS way to end up with something that is just one step ahead of the companies they, borrowed from. This method of innovation is certainly not illegal, and is common, but MS takes the idea to a whole new level.

Here is a short list of innovations MS did contribute that really are key:

• Ajax was a MS technology first used in 1999, called HTTPXMLRequest.

Sorry, that is really all I have! Just about everything else, from GUI Windows that over lap, instead of tile, mouse and GUIs to click and manipulate a menu system, and core fundamentals how how a Kernel and shell works, are all taken from either Apple or Linux / Unix.

What MS is truely credited with was pulling through the mess that was computer hardware compatibility, or lack there of, and still making MS-DOS and Windows 1.0-3.1 able to run on these IBM-PC Compatibles. They were smart enough to build their platform on commoditized hardware, which allowed OEMs to build similar enough computers to run MS software. This in comparison to Apple strictly sticking to their own custom hardware, which locked out OEMs from partnering and distributing Apple computers. Sun Microsoft systems did the same thing with their SPARC hardware.

Microsoft exploded as the primary OS, was directly attributed to using hardware that was becoming more and more compatible and distributable on a mass scale. But, all is not rosy. Microsoft, in this process of making these OEM deals did do illegal things. like force all OEM’s to only preinstall Windows and no other OS, else MS would cut the OEM’s contract to distribute MS Operating Systems.

After MS secure the ports, so to speak, effectively blocking any other software company from using IBM-PC hardware as a platform, that was literally run by MS based on extortionist tactics. All MS has to do now, was sit back, observe what Apple and Linux / Unix were doing, and simply coping those same ideas, adding MS marketing logos and twists, to be easily digestable by the mass market.

MS had it make, and to this day, still has contracts with all the major OEM’s (Dell, HP and Acer to name a few) based on the scare tactics MS uses to ensure only Windows ever gets majority distribution percentages. Why the government has yet to step up and put an end to this illegal Monopolist way? Is anyone’s guess.

My guess, is that these contracts as under strict company confidentiality and therefore the bigger governments, like the Supreme Court, does not have juristition to obtain anytype of warrant for investigations to obtain and review MS / OEM contract agreements. But, I will stop there, before I get into too deep of water.

OK, the nasty mean stuff aside, lets begin to look at what MS is doing, on the battle fronts of the computer industry.

Internet Explorer, which Microsoft built as a direct result of Netscape. Now this is another long and nasty story, in itself. Here is what happened.

• netscape released the first commrecial Web Browser, to take 90+% marketshare.
• Netscape partnered with Sun to include Java built into Netscape.
• Netscape was building a Web Platform, independant of Mac, Linux or MS.
• MS released Internet Explorer, cloning Netscape, feature for feature.
• After a few rounds, IE version 4, MS decides to Integrate IE into Windows.
• Netscape goes bankrupt within months of IE and MS inegration.
• MS is sues by the U.S. Government for using it’s monopoly to undermine Netscape.
• MS is ordered to break the company into 2 parts, one for Applications the other for Windows.
• Bill Gates and lawyers appealed and the split was over turned, MS was saved, but fined millions.

That is the story of the first browser war, in a nut shell. But, in 1999 Mozilla, company befind Netscape, decides to do something revolutionary. They Open Source Netscape, ultimately re branding and rewriting the code base and calling it Firefox 1.0. Since, this is about MS technology, I will leave this final note. Now in 2008, Firefox 3.1 has 45+% market share and Internet Explorer 8.0 only 50+% and losing ground month after month. Also, with the entrance of Google’s Chromium Browser, IE’s days are numbered.

Zune, is Microsoft’s clone of the iPod. To make this one short and easy. Zune is a complete failure, commanding little to no market interest. The iPod is simply too hip to compete with.

Xbox gaming console. Now, I was surprised when MS decided to enter the Gaming Console Industry. After all, Sony, Nintendo and a few others had this market under control. But, the XBox inspired gamers, particularly with one of Microsoft’s biggest success stories, Halo. Halo is a first person shooter, but taking the genre to a whole new level. Halo is action packed, uses realistic physicals and actually has a deep and engaging story line. Microsoft did well with Halo, releasing the final installment of Halo 3, which was better than the previous two, In turn, Halo 2 was better than Halo 1 and the original Halo was amazing in itself, to begin with.

Halo cemented the XBox as a console to easily be valued by gamers and many were sold.

Xbox 360, on the other hand, has mixed results. Xbox 360 is Xbox v2. Yes, the 360 was awesome, in terms of more graphics and better sound and more CPU power. But, it had one major flaw, it over heated, to the point you could smell the burning solder as it melted from the heat the console generated. Xbox 360’s red ring of death was a set of circular led lights that gave status indications about the health of the console. Millions of units had to be shipped back to Microsoft for repair. MS did a great job at accommodating the customers, but it cost MS all the revenue’s the Xbox generated, in order to fix all the recalled over heated 360’s.

The reason this happened, was because MS decided to built the entire Xbox, from the hardware chassis, motherboard, power supply and controllers and games, at Microsoft’s campus. MS is a software company, not an experienced hardware company, and they had to learn this the hard way. As of now, you can attach an external fan to the 360, along with the repairs MS did, and his fixed the over heating problem. But, like I said, at a huge cost to MS. Not, to mention the unit is very loud and easily generates enough heat to warm a master bedroom, on it’s own.

Mobile Windows CE, has been around for a long time. But, it has never really taken off, not because of MS, but because of how fragmented the cell phone industry is. I don’t know many details about Windows Mobile CE, so you will have to Google this on your own. But, I do know, the iPhone, Blackberries and up and coming Google Android are clearly winning the battle on the mobile front.

Now I want to get into MS Servers. This battle front can be divided into two parts. One which is the Small Business Server and the other are Server’s used by Corporations to centrally manage ten’s of thousands of Workstations, within a companies Corporate Intranet.

Small Business Server from Microsoft for use on the Internet, was created to compete with Linux’s overwhelming encroachment of Servers built for Web, Mail, File and Database facilities. However, SBS is reported to be very limited in terms of customization, scalability and price point. Linux has what is known as their LAMP stack, which is highly stable, configurable to do Web, Mail, File, Print and Database Serving on the Internet. And Linux has no License fee, unlimited user seats and no restrictions on how many Linux LAMP servers you want to have on your Network. MS SBS on the other hand is restrictive in every way possible. This is because MS wants to sell their full blown Windows Server 2003 / 2008 Servers, costing into the ten’s of thousands of dollars.

Windows Server 2000-2008 are designed as the best of what MS has to offer, to compete with Linux LAMP and friends server lines. Windows 2008, boasts a few interesting changes. MS traditioanlly, tried to keep out of the command line as much as possible, instead opting to use GUI tools to do all the server configurations. This is highly inefficent, because you have to have a good way to compress the graphics to be responsive enough for remote adminitration. GUI controls add a lot of over head, in terms of, CPU, RAM and Disk usage.

The headless version of Windows 2008, in which everything is configured via the command line, just like Linux has always done. They did this due to customer demands. It is ironic that MS do a backward two step, back into the command line and away from the GUI. Windows 2008 also boasts a powerful shell called PowerShell.

PowerShell is essentially .NET all wrapped up and accessible via PowerShell. It has been reviewed as being very powerful. However, the move to a headless server, only solidifies the fact that Linux / Unix had it right all along. So, if I am now going to be working in the Command line shell anyways, companies might as well choice Linux servers, which has no limited on anything. Linux also boasts more tools and options and Server applications.

Databases available to a Linux Server. Postgre, MySQL, SQLite, Berkeley Database, LDAP and more. Microsoft, boasts MS SQL 2000-2008, which is not nearly as configurable, scalable and faster as the Linux choices.

Mail Servers, that Linux offers include; Sendmail, Postfix, Exim, Qmail and many more. The choice of IMAP and POP mail management software are numerous. What MS has going for it’s Server is MS Exchange, which is a full blown Enterprise level application using Active Directory to centrally manage user accounts, their mail and policies for each user.

Alternative Linux options that try to integrate with MS Exchange Server, are still not 100% compatible. MS Exchange and Active Directory is a very strong selling point. Also, 90% of Corporations, already have MS Exchange installed, which means MS Exchange is deeply entrenched in that aspect of Corporate Business. Migrating away means downtime, cost to ensure the migration goes smoothly and retraining staff to use the Linux Alternative. I believe, in the long run, it will be worth it.

Windows Desktop and Workstations are Microsoft’s number one cash cow. With 90+% market share in both the corporate and home markets, Microsoft definitely has a massive advantage. Owning the platform, also means being able to dictate what can run on that Platform and dictate which communication Protocols and API’s Independent Software Vendors to use, like messaging between Exchange and Domain Controllers. file system network sharing, printer sharing and authentication and encryption protocols like IPsec.

Proprietary protocols, usually overly complex and in binary format, makes it very hard to reverse engineer, and enables MS Windows Platform to easily lock out competitors. An example of Protocol Lock out/in, is if another company wants to offer an alternative to MS Exchange Server, Microsoft can simply prohibit the use of Exchange’s Proprietary Protocol and if they do decide to make an agreement, would enable MS complete control over Licensing fees or any other fine print. In many cases, MS makes the fee is so huge, that the company trying to arrange an agreement simply backs out and made a laughing stock.

In recent news, the European Commission has ordered Microsoft to share the specifications of key MS proprietary protocols, but only a very small group is allowed to review. This was ordered, as a result, of many anti-trust law suit convictions. In the past MS was punished by having to pay Millions or even Billions in fines, which MS simply considered pocket change.

Search Engines called Live Search is Microsoft’s attempt to compete with Google, Yahoo, Ask and all other Search Engines. A Search Engine is very expensive to set up and maintain. They require enourmous data centers comprising of thousands of servers, raid arrays and network switches. All this computer power is required to do the following;

• Visit as many Web Sites as possible.
• Index all Web site data and store it in a Database.
• Have some kind of page rank system to make search results relavant as possible.
• Create a way to track user behavior using browser cookies.

A search engine is a bit deceptive, in that, in order to support the enormous data centers required to crawl the Internet, store the Peta bytes or more of data and servers with massive processing power to process the collected data, sort it all and make presentable for human consumption. Finally, if the Search Engine is popular, it will need to query the Indexed Search data and serve it up using Web servers.

In order to pay the bills for all this hardware and rack space + bandwidth required to run a successful Search engine needs to come from somewhere. The way Google does it, is by providing a responsive and effective Ad Network, called Ad Sense and Ad Words. Microsoft Live follows this same Business model as well as Yahoo! Search.

Let’s just say that Microsoft’s Search Engine market share is dismally small compared to Google and Yahoo!. Yet, Microsoft can easily afford to maintain the data centers necessary to make it all run. Microsoft, got into the Search Game too late in the game.

Social Networks, Windows Live Spaces (formerly known as MSN Spaces). Microsoft does not appear in any top 10 Social Network Lists. While other Top 100 Social Network Sites, rank MS Live Spaces as number 3. So, you may need to do some specific reason on this yourself.

Social Networks are much like Search Engines, in that they are created as a place to than make money by Advertising to the users of the Social Network. Unlike Search Engines, a Social Network requires much much less data center server power.

Media Codecs that are under MS patent control include; WMV3, WMVA and WVC1. The good news, is that there are all alternatives to these formats which are Open Source.

Microsoft developers are very well equipped. Since MS is a Closed Source Platform, MS API’s are very important, and MS has done an excellent job at providing them, as well as, Documenting them. It is a well known fact, that if not for Microsoft’s extensive support promotion of it’s API’s would render MS a useless Platform. Without an API, it would be impossible to create software on a Closed Source Platform. But, this also includes an Open Source Platform like Linux.

A complete list of Active and depreciate MS APIs.

.NET Framework. Microsoft, may not have invented the idea of a cross platform language. Java is famous for that. But, that does not stop MS from cloning the idea and calling it something different. Microsoft’s .NET Framework really is cool. It is a framework, in that, it allows any .NET language or API the ability to allow the Programmer to easily integrate code from one type of .NET language and including it. In other words, it is possible to base your Application on C#, than easily link to a VB Library to access those function available in the VB library. This includes any .NET language, of which there are many.

The idea of a cross platform language is not new. Sun Microsystems, invented Java and it’s Virtual Runtime Machine to allow the programmer to write a Java program on Windows that will also execute on a Mac or Linux, with no code modifications required. MS took this concept a step further by making the runtime, Cross Language as well as cross platform.

Microsoft’s Achilles Heel.

Money and reputation. Microsoft needs capitol and loads of it. MS is being sued left and right. MS is in court, currently fighting multiple court battles. And the law suits do not appear to be slowing down, but instead, picking up steam. If you can believe that. MS has more than 70,000+ employees to feed and a massive campus to sustain. Clearly, money is Microsoft’s, bottom line. Reputation is just as important and tied directly with profits. Vista, for instance, was deemed a failure. People are losing faith in MS and it’s products. As a result, alternative methods of computing are being sought after, not only by other businesses, but also by entire governments. Microsoft, I would say has a lot at stake, therefore, a lot to loss. But, unlike Apple, Bill Gates is not a major influence anymore. MS has a massive talent pool of employees it can tap into. MS is also very deverse and able to adapt and play hardball if they have to. Microsoft may have seen it’s glory years and will decrease in size, unless they figure out a way to fix the Vista OS mess. But, MS has seemingly unbreakable sales teams will to do anything to keep Microsoft the #1 software company in the world, for decades to come.

If it wasn’t for Microsoft putting a PC on every Desktop where possible, the Internet would not have exploded into the size it is today. In turn, the Internet sold more PC’s, because more and more people wanted to get on the Internet. The two technological concepts really are meant for each other.

So, in essence, your Desktop PC is really an Internet PC. Apple knew this soon enough with it’s release of their iMac’s, which literally saved Apple from going under, to a large degree.

Imagine not having your Internet Connection up and running when you sit down at your computer! Most would not want to use it, until the Internet Connection was up again. Sure, your PC would still function, but not being able to check Email, Chat, Blog and Surf the Web for the latest News and Gossip, literally makes your PC feel different. A sort of loneliness sets in, for those that have become dependent on the Internet, for Work and Play. This is exactly my case, with my Computer. When my Internet is lost, for whatever reason, priority one is to get it back up, asap.

The marriage of all these Computers with the Internet, has also changed the way software is created, sold and distributed. Traditionally, we would take a trip over to your local computer shop, and buy a box that contained the software we needed. Then, huge outlet stores emerged like CompUSA, Circuit City and Best Buy to fill the demands of the PC and Internet Age. Software companies make Billions and Billions of dollars annually in software sales. The sale of proprietary software like Microsoft Windows, Adobe Photoshop and Games, to name just a fraction, of what is on the selves of these huge stores.

But, as time marches on, things began to slowly, but drastically change. It was suddenly hip to be a geek and no longer looked upon as something you didn’t want to become known for, in fear of becoming socially ridiculed. The geek, became cool. Geek Squad, a computer tech support company, is proud to wear their pocket protectors and thick black glasses, running around in white shirts and black ties first made popular at IBM.

With this new attitude towards computers, teenagers and old a like, began to embrace the Computer age. They turned this lifeless and dry piece of machinery, which was connected to the Internet, into a deep, broad and far reaching set of Social Networks on a Global Scale.

Sites like MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Digg, WordPress, Twitter, del.ico.us, Ning, Hi5, Match, eHarmony, Millionaire Match and countless other Social Sites began to spring up everywhere.

Along with them, came personal Web Pages made by the, now hip geeks, proudly displaying their coding tricks and solutions to technical problems, in the form of HowTo’s and Tutorials or just quick and dirty instructions to show invisible peers, what they could do with their Computers. A sort of bragging rights.

Scratching your Own Itch

Instead of waiting for some Corporation or Business to bring the geeks the software they urned for, decided to band together and create it for themselves. Often times, merely to scratch an itch and other times out of necessity either for a small business or from programmers working in a large Corporation.

A new way of creating complex software was born, called Free and Open Source. This new way of making computer programs, threw established software companies into a frenzy. No longer did titan software Corporations, like Microsoft, have absolute control of what we could do with our Computer Hardware. In fact, many disagreed with how these mammoth Software Companies were conducting themselves, by abusing their power, in ways that would put enormous cost on it’s End Users.

The Geeks, now considered Hip, were forming the next Computer Revolution, since the release of the Personal Computer itself. It was the geeks that formed the Committees and Foundations, that created the standards that all Internet based technology is based on. These Foundations were assembled on a volunteer basis to create standards like HTTP, TCP/IP, HTML, CSS, JavaScript and all the things that make the Internet work, as it existed today. This meant that the technology was not controlled by for profit organizations, but rather, to address the challenges of making the Internet easy to use.

These Open Standards are the hallmarks of what made the Internet and Computer Revolution become accessible to many non geeks. Had these same standards been formed under a single Corporation, would certainly have certainly been formulated with the selfish interest for that Corporation.

That is why HTML, HTTP and all the Protocols, that make the Internet work, are all plain text Protocols, making them very easy to read and understand. There are no special software tools required to examine Web Pages, for example. Anyone, can easily View the Source from a Web Browser and inspect the HTML, CSS and JavaScript that make the Web Site work!

Traditional Software vs Revolutionary Software

As mentioned previously, software was traditionally created by for profit corporations, like Microsoft, Adobe, Real Networks, Apple and many more. This type of software was most always created in house, and under tight lock and key, in order to keep trade secrets from falling into the hands of competitors. This type of Software creation model is known as, Closed Source Software, in that, the human readable code is kept as intellectual property and out of the public domain. The only entity capable of benefiting from this approach to software development is the Business that created it. This allowed the owners to dictate the Licenses, prices and all terms, regarding the use of their software, which is always delivered in Binary format. Binary software, is software that is not in it’s human readable state.

On the flip side, is the Revolutionary Software Model. Created by the same individuals that formed the standards that the Internet uses. This also includes, just about anyone with the skills to participate. These programmers, known as Open Source Programmers, initially grew out of hobbyist groups, dating way back in the 60’s.

In other words, Open Source is simply a way for programmers to collaborate, and form Software Projects. Some projects are as simple as a text based calculator, maintained by a single individual. While other Software Projects, like Gnome or KDE, which are Desktop Environments can include thousands of participating programmers, all doing various tasks, like Documentation, creating artwork like icons and desktop themes to programming the code.

What are the motivations of Open Source Programmers?

Essentially, being a programmer and having the ability to instruct a machine to do exactly what you want it to do, is empowering and rewarding and motivating. Other motivations come from being able to work with other like minded people on a common mission, which is the project. Many times, it is hard for other programmers to locate one another, but the Internet erases all barriers and allows the programmers to build their own communication methods, either using Email, Live Chat or Web Page Forums.
The motivation to connect with others and compete as friendly peers to see who can come up with a solution to a problem.

There are many motivations as to why Open Source Programers work together, but probably the number one reason can be considered a self one. Scratching ones own Itch. If you are someone that wants a program or some way to get your computer to do a task, be it simple or complex, drives that programmer to see if they can create it. This simple little quirk of human nature is probably at the heart of anything that results completely free from monetary influence.

Much like why artists paint, or musicians write songs. Programmers fall in this same group, because there are near limitless angles a person can tackle a programming challenge, means that it is up to the creativity of the programmer to choose how they go about making a solution to the challenge. There by, scratching their own Itch and then moving on to the next annoying Itch!

The DRY Principle

The DRY principle stands for Don’t Repeat Yourself.

It is also considered redundant to constantly reinvent things that are already exist. Reinventing the wheel, is a common analogy. Why do it? Same thing applies to building software. However, the only way to properly use the DRY principle, is to make all Source Code Open for anyone that wishes to review and perhaps contribute. In fact, Open Source programmers often start a project on their own, only later to Open Source it, in order to gain some peer review, gain ideas and expand their own project. All programmers know that there are smarter programmers out there, willing to review your work and contribute a better solution. To Open Source programmers, if you build something and hide it away in some folder, where no one will ever see it, let alone use it, voids most the reasoning for creating the program, in the first place.

In other words, Programmers are not complete isolationists. They want others to see what they are up to and therefore share their projects, often times, including code from others, that may have found a better way to do it. It feels good and is normal human behavior to want to share and be open.

What is an Operating System?

Each and every piece of software created can, in some way, contribute to the creation of the ultimate software project, known as an Operating System.

An Operating System is a program in itself, that manages other programs, allowing them to be managed by a Human User. An Operating System is really just a collection of thousands of smaller programs, all working in unison or on standby, to in turned allow Human Beings to benefit, by using the computational power that a computer can deliver, in a way Human Beings can understand and make useful.

How could a mostly Volunteer Process Produce a High Quality Operating System?

Traditional Software companies like Apple and Microsoft never dreamed, in a thousands years, that a purely volunteer based Operating System, such as Linux and Ubuntu, could ever become a real possibility. It was always assumed, that the sheer complexity of organizing all the little programs needed to form an Operating System, was simply not possible, without direct supervision that only a Business under Management, could provide.

The reason an Operating System like Linux and Ubuntu became a reality, has to do with the idea, that software does not degrade or spoil as time passes. Once a piece of software is written, it stays that way, until someone changes it, in most cases for the better. Software, given enough time and quality contributions no matter how small, can only get better and more useful. It may take a longer for an Open Source Operating System to become as easy to use as a Proprietary, Closed Source Operating System, like Apple or Windows. But, give it enough time and attention, eventually it will be built.

Software does not spoil or degrade, as time passes.

Closed Source and Open Source Software is Merging

First, software was built under the crack of the corporate whip and everything had a strict deadline for mission accomplished. At the same time, programmers that felt unchallenged, under a Corporate whip, worked at home, with other programmers in an Open and Revolutionary way.

Since, a Corporation’s sole foundation is trying to achieve a the bottom line in terms of profits, is met with a flip side to that, with the idea that Open Source Software is Free of Charge and Free to utilize.

Companies like Microsoft and Sun Microsystems have had to take a hard look at the direction Open Source or this Revolutionary way of building software is effecting their Industry. It has changed to rules of business, forever.

In order to stay in business, closed source software companies, once completely under lock and key, have begun to Open Source their software in hopes they can sell support or additional features. It is either that, or consumers will simply not buy anything and use what is available for free from the Open Source Community.

At first, Software Companies did not know what to do. They were literally scared, that one day, bankruptcy was a real possibility. Open Source was considered a cancer to Microsoft, as an example. But, what Open Source forces all of the Software Industry Leaders to do, is to become honest. The playing field is beginning to level out. And companies like Microsoft, are forced to take a new approach to their Business practices.

Open Source empowers anyone willing to learn the Open Source platform. Software that costs nothing, in terms of Money, and complete freedom to personalize Open Source, because it is highly customizable.

Only 15 years ago, there were very few options, a new small business could turn to, for their computer technology needs. The shortage of choices lead to unfair and exaggerated price points for software and hardware. Need a Web, Mail, Print or File Server? In the past this could cost you ten’s of thousands of dollars. Why? Because, the only businesses capable of providing these extremely complex programs, had little to no competition. No competition means, the sole provider can set any price they want, resulting in them getting very very rich and all others left to pay the high prices.

Why Sustained Monopolies are Bad for Everyone

There is nothing wrong with pricing your products and services really high, if you are the only kid on the block capable of producing the products and services others need. The problem with a sustained Monopoly situation, is that, the Monopolist is much like a dictator over seeing a country. A single, all powerful Monopoly, can easily choose to abuse this power, by practicing unfair business, that only kills everything, but the Monopoly.

I believe, that to become a sustained Monopoly, is a direct indication of some sort of malpractice going on. Otherwise, how could the Monopoly, sustain it’s position for a long period of time? In order for a Monopoly to sustain itself for an unnatural amount of time, is to use it’s established power to undermine any attempts for competitive forces to emerge, and take that initial, yet crucial first foot hold, it needs in order to allow time for the competitor to grow.

A monopoly that is playing fair, can only sustain it’s position for a limited amount of time, before another competitor decides they too wish to join the same or similar lucrative business. This results in creating a healthy competitive business model that aides in the evolution of the products and services. It also results in lower and competitive prices and makes the resulting products and services more accessible to a large consumer base.

That is why the Open Source Software Model is often referred to as a Revolutionary Model. A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time. This describes, exactly, what Open Source means. If software corporations insist on trampling on would be competitors, by using their already entrenched Monopolies money, marketing and man power, to make it impossible for competitors to keep a foot hold in long enough to grow and become competitive, are in fact, committing anti-trust laws.

Getting a Foot Hold in a Software Monopoly

First, make the Source Code Open, because the Monopoly operates on a Closed Source model.

Second, make the product and services Free of Charge, because the Monopoly depends on continuous revenue to continue to be organized.

Finally, create Licenses that effectively make obsolete any current ones, because the Monopoly will then become burdened by their own License model.

Results of the Dispersion of a Monolithic Monopoly Within a Market

Once, the Monopoly has been penetrated and begins to disperse, will allow the new models to begin to compete in the same arena the Monopolist once had complete control of over. This forces the Monopoly to adapt or risk becoming obsoleted. The customers of the Monopoly benefit, in the case of Software, with drastically lower prices, more flexibility and choice in how the software is configured to behave, allowing a more innovative economy to evolve.

Many other benefits result after a Monopoly is forced to adapt or risk becoming obsoleted like, patching once unnoticed security holes that made vulnerable the entire market the Monopoly once controlled. If the Monopoly decides not to patch these massive security holes, risk losing customers to businesses that do patch the security holes.

More competition means more choices, lower prices and expanded possibilities, in that particular market. Some examples include; Smaller Businesses, relative to the mammoth Monopoly business can now utilize competitor software, which may be more configurable and flexable than what the Monopoly was offering. This results in these Smaller Businesses to customize servers to suit their particular needs and making the price competitive therefore with in the means of the smaller businesses.

Once the Monopoly has been forced to allow cheaper, more customizable server technology and server tools, will result in untold variety, some becoming niche markets to form. These variety and niche markets, could generate unmeasurable economic gains to the market as a whole, at the same time, allowing Freedom to Innovate and evolve, due to competition, as of yet, unknown technologies.

Conclusive Thoughts

Open Source and Closed Source will — and currently are — mixing together, to find ways to coexist. After all, programmers do not want to put themselves out of business, by writing all the software imaginable and releasing it Free of Charge. But, there is software that should become commoditized and accessible to everyone, to allow common services to flurish.

Closed Software has it’s place and will not become obsoleted. Closed Software is a form of privacy that must exist, just like our basic rights to privacy in our homes.

But, the point of software is to allow the creation of services. Anyone is free to create any type of computer program from scratch. No one should own the rights to any ideas made possible by writing software. Trademarking names, logos and such should be legally protected, but not a common idea like Software compression or encryption. Anything too broad in terms of it’s usage scope should not be possible to patent, else it makes it impossible for bigger more important ideas to come about, known as innovation.

Hybrid Software to Rule the World

Finally, I come to the point of this article.

The two worlds, Closed and Open, Proprietary and Free will continue to morph and mix themselves into a new entity. It is already happening. Companies like Sun Microsystems have Open Sourced nearly every technology they have invented. They now consider themselves an Open Source Software Company.

The reason for doing this is, because Linux was taking all their business away. Sun demanded enormous sums of cash from their customers to License their products and services. Linux is just as stable as Sun’s Servers and more customizable, and Free of Charge. In order for Sun to compete, they Opened their technology, which allowed others to modify and expand, resulting in a better Sun offering in terms of fixed bugs and optimized performance. Sun makes it’s money by selling support to those that need it as well as Licensing useful and Proprietary Software they have not Open Sourced that they feel will add value to key areas of services.

Microsoft, is a big fish. And that word monopoly we have been using throughout this article was directly referring to Microsoft. They are approaching Open Source very cautiously. Like a terrified diver slowly working his/her way into shark infested water, fully dawning a chain mail shark suit, spears and all. Microsoft, can not simply Open Source everything they have created, like Sun Microsystems has. Microsoft has a very unique Kernel, which has some heritage to Unix, but not like Sun’s Solaris — openSolaris now — as well as Microsoft’s Office Suite and Visual Studio IDE tools. They also have their own Database (MS SQL), Web Server (IIS) and a myriad of programming languages and run times which include; C++, C#, JScript, VBScript, VB and all .NET and finally the entire .NET frame work itself.

It does’nt stop there. The Xbox and all their games, Direct X, Silverlight — Adobe Flash Clone — as well as an iPod clone, complete with a music store like iTunes. How about Microsoft Active Directory, Exchange Mail Server, Internet Explorer, their own search engine called live.com. Finally, the entire family of Desktop, Workstation and Servers ranging from MS-DOS to Vista and NT 3.5 to Windows server 2008.

The list goes on and on. Microsoft, truly has built an empire, based on software plus services. They are their own Universe of software. Huge amounts of stocks, that their shareholders would not think twice about suing Microsoft over, had Microsoft done anything drastic. — Remember, what happen to Yahoo! when they did not sell out to Microsoft? –

Instead of Open Sourcing much of anything, they instead apply for their own OSI Licenses two of which have been approved to be Open Source compatible Licenses, which they have not used yet. They invent their own term for Open Source, called Shared Source, which isn’t much like Open Source. They try to appear to create and utilize their version of an open Protocol, called Open XML, which to so, weaseled their way in by paying off many countries to vote it in as an Open Standard.

The most controversial thing they have done, in reaction to Open Source, is threaten the entire Open Source Community with 280 some patents, which they have yet to clarify what those patents violate. This was purely done to scare businesses from using Open Source or any business providing Support for it. To a some degree it worked, but not by much, and a specially with what I am about to describe, on top of Linux Red hat’s year over year increased annual profits selling Linux Servers and Support packages and Linux training.

Then in 2006, after annoying their 280 plus patent violation claims, forced Novell (SUSE Linux), Linspire Linux and Xandros Linux to sign into a very controversial agreement. The agreement was essentially, they have to buy Microsoft Certifications for each Linux they roll out, which ensures to those Linux Companies and their customers Microsoft will not sue them. This has been referred to as a form of extortion.

What makes these controversial deals a confirmed extortionist plan, was when Microsoft decided to support the Apache Foundation, by becoming an Official partner, by paying a $100,000 membership fee. Microsoft also released their very first small bits of Open Source code. Microsoft clearly benefits from this Apache deal far more than the Open Source side does, because the software technology Microsoft released, known as ADO database integration with Apache, is basically useless, because Open Source alreay has their own superior versions called the LAMP stack. — Linux Apache MySQL (Postgre and SQLite) Perl, Python PHP — Not to mention a myriad of other technologies, all of which work natively on the Windows Platform.

Now back to the Novell Patent law suit threats. It would seem that they would then void them, since Microsoft is clearing support Open Source Foundations now, no less. However, Novell just extended their agreement with Microsoft for a few more years! Also note that Mandriva Linux — a French Linux Company — the famous Red hat Enterprise Linux, Canonical and Ubuntu have all, turned their heads, to signing any such deal with Microsoft. This includes big blue, IBM, which invested the historic, 1 Billion dollars, in Linux research, years past.

The situation has yet to resolve itself, this Open vs Closed Source thing.

My prediction is that Microsoft will be forced into working with, and not against, Open Source and what it stands for. It will reveal many of Microsoft’s anti-laws to more and more businesses, which is already open and available in detail at Groklaw’s Web site. This may not bee good for Microsoft, because many of the things it did as a Corporation were against the law, particularly with ISV’s and OEM’s to stifle any incoming competition from forming, which Microsoft always look at as an unhealthy threat, rather than healthy competition, which always results in better products and fair prices for the End User.

The future look bright for Open Source as well as Microsoft, if they would only see that supporting their customers is better than trying to force feed them.