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Good Times Ahead for "Sharecroppers"? (Was: [OT] Tim Bray on Slashdot)
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In a message dated 13/07/2003 17:23:50 GMT Daylight Time, david@megginson.com writes:
One of Tim's rants^H^H^H^H^Hthoughtful commentaries just made
Slashdot:
http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePlace
David,
Tim's rant, as is often the case with Tim's rants, is a curate's egg ... good in parts.
He seems to imply that it is the "the right thing" to use OS (open source) tools/products. Is a moral case implied? It seems to be. If it's not a moral case then what kind of case is it? An economic one? In which case we can discuss things on a more informed basis.
It seems to me that Tim misses an important point that Microsoft, and other proprietary vendors **need** what Tim refers to as sharecroppers.
In my opinion the big corporates, Microsoft included, need those sharecroppers more than ever before. And XML is part of the reason why. OS software is another substantive factor.
Tim claims, "...a little thought shows that it’s better not to be a customer on a sharecropper’s platform". Perhaps ... if one makes certain assumptions and one has certain attributes. But with a little more thought the situation becomes less clear. Tim says it is "better". Hm. Better than what? Measured by what criteria? I am inherently suspicious of unattached comparators.
At the risk of stretching the sharecropper analogy too far, there is lots of Unix/Linux/OS land out there .... and, unlike real land, the cyber OS land is still being made. In fact, with the arrival of OpenGroupware.org and other initiatives, the OS land is being made at an increasing pace.
It follows, therefore, that MS sharecroppers ... and sharecroppers of other corporates .... are in a healthier position than, perhaps, they have ever been. Why? Because there is some ... lots of? .... new land out there to go to if the corporate "landowner" becomes too demanding.
So it seems to me that Microsoft and other corporates have, perhaps unprecedented, need to keep sharecroppers sweet.
Undoubtedly there is more OS land out there. But what quality of land is it? What toolset is needed to work it productively? Such land is undoubtedly attractive to those already equipped to "farm" it. But for those without the toolset? .... Just as corporates are under pressure to keep sharecroppers sweet so OS "land makers" need to provide land that is, to the extent practicable, non-intimidating for sharecroppers who just might want to become pioneers.
Tim's concluding remarks are advice to avoid Longhorn. If, as some of the leaked publicity seems to suggest, Longhorn is a quantum step forward (allow all suitable scepticism for leaks) then we need to look at Longhorn with pragmatic questions. For example, does it work? Does it offer additional benefits that "traditional" Win XP / Linux / Unix fails to provide? Just how much or little of an advance is it?
If there is a logical case to avoid Longhorn then, in my view, Tim fails to make it. Perhaps he would like to try to make a stronger case.
Andrew Watt
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