Microsoft, SCO, Linux, Intel

Fri Sep 26 10:52:17 GMT 2003 Microsoft, SCO, Linux, Intel

Interesting stuff this week. First, as has been widely reported, the primary author of Report: Widespread use of Microsoft poses security risk was fired. As the company that formerly employed him makes its living consulting for Microsoft, the firing was of course completely unrelated to what he wrote.

His points were on the mark: how many U.S. immigration system hit by virus Network links suspended between Washington, foreign embassies, and consular offices for nine hours stories do we need to see before that sinks in? What will it take to see wider use of other systems like Linux?

Maybe this will help: InfoWorld: Seagate to Ship Drives with Lindows . If it's already there, maybe a few more people will at least test drive it.

Ransom Love, formerly of Caldera, made some very interesting comments including stating that Intel was one of the biggest problems for Linux. You see, Caldera wanted to open up Unix source code so that it could be used in Linux. Intel holds a lot of the copyrights that prevent that, and had no interest in playing nice. Why? According to Ransom:

I don't know their real reason, but my sense was that they were using Linux against Unix and Sun [Microsystems Inc.]. They wanted to destroy the Unix base on Intel in favor of Linux so Sun wouldn't have a low-end Unix path.

And, of course, there was their love-hate relationship with Microsoft. At the same time, they didn't want to displace Microsoft with a Linux that had the best of both operating systems.

Linux and Unix are highly compatible and should be supportive of each other, but they were being pitted against each other because no one wants to threaten Microsoft. In Intel's case, Windows was also making them too much money.

I think it is disgusting that greed and fear play such a major part here. I know, I know: it's the way of the world: dog eat dog, every man for himself, playing "fair" is for kids. But is it really? Is that really the way most of us think and act? When you are starving and desperate, sure, morality is easily dispensable. But aren't we rich enough that we don't need to snarl over every crumb on the table? Again, I understand that our financial system contributes to this: Intel has a fiduciary responsibility to its stockholders and isn't supposed to be concerned with what is good for the larger world. That legally imposed selfishness is, I think, a problem that is going to have to be fixed someday, but for now we have to live with it. Still, can't Intel see that standing up to bullies is the right long term path? Never mind the morality of it: doesn't it make business sense?

The folks that fired that writer missed an opportunity to stand up and do the right thing. If in fact it was pressure from Redmond that triggered this, they should have folded their arms across their chests and just said "Hell no". And then gone public with the whole sordid mess. Yeah, that might put them out of business. Or it might have got them enough popular publicity to put them into a whole 'nother business: a business where you aren't subservient sycophants to a greedy giant.

OK, we all make bad moral choices. That's part of being human: in the first place it's sometimes hellishly difficult to know what the "right thing" is anyway, and if we aren't sure, anything that threatens our own stability isn't going to get examined as closely as it perhaps should be. But never mind the ambiguous cases, the "yabuts": what about when we know without a doubt what's right? Are we generally immoral, self serving s.o.b's? Or are most of us actually honest, stand-up people? Is it too many blind eyes or complete lack of moral fiber?

I sure don't know. I'd like to think that most of us are decent people who don't like greedy bullies. Darned if I'm sure that's got even a grain of truth in it though.

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