Top > Dave's World > Weblog Archive > 2001 > June > 30Previous/Next


Scripting News, the weblog started in 1997 that bootstrapped the blogging revolution.
 
Permanent link to archive for Saturday, June 30, 2001. Saturday, June 30, 2001

John Rhodes: "The days of rabid profits for Microsoft through certain software sales channels are almost gone. It doesn't seem that way to us, but Microsoft knows this." A must-read.

I agree. Microsoft's new services model is the most ambitious Hail Mary ever in the software business. It won't work because the users have had a taste of Napster, and they remember how cool it was. Or maybe the users won't care. But get this -- my issue was and still is Smart Tags. I don't care if MS wants to own everything else. Either the users and govt will let them do that or not. I want to keep writing and making tools for others write for the Web. That's my business, and in order for that to work we need the Web to remain a high-integrity publishing environment. That's my issue.

Further, we will support HailStorm and Passport, if it's possible for us to do so. But we will also support whatever AOL does, or Sun, IBM, and most importantly an XML-based storage and membership system defined by independent developers that's open and clonable and decentralized. If it's not possible to do this and co-exist with Microsoft, well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there!

Hey what happened to Scoble? He pieced together the tea-leaves on Microsoft's interest in open source. And he got the story right, even down to the O'Reilly connection, and I guess this embarassed Microsoft. Now there hasn't been an update to his weblog since Tuesday. I asked Scoble what happened. "I can't talk about it, Dave."

I had comments here about Microsoft's role in Scoble's disappearance, but I decided to let people investigate and make up their own minds, rather than tell them what I think happened. I have the same tea-leaves to read that everyone else does.

NY Times: "..the court could order Microsoft to license the entire Windows operating system code to several companies, each of which would have full rights to produce its own version of the software, much as I.B.M. did with its personal computer hardware platform in the 1980's." This is incorrect. IBM did not license its hardware platform in the 80s. They were cloned.

Mike Donnelan is searching for the real monopolist. Geesh just think about it -- they're still at large!

<meta name="allMicrosoftHacksDisabledForAllTime" content="TRUE">

Peterme continues the KnowNow bash-o-rama. It's funny he's right. KnowNow used to know what they don't seem to now know.

Did you notice that Salon's roundup on the Appeals Court decision didn't include the point of view of a single practicing software developer? We got a lot of respect from the court, they wrote at length about independent software vendors, but this hasn't caught up with the press that covers our industry yet. (For perspective, imagine an important decision about medicine that didn't include the point of view of a doctor or a user of health care.)

Another example. A NY Times think piece about software and monopolies and network effects in the Internet economy, and they only talk to lawyers and economics professors. No technologists. Welcome to the invisible profession.

It's Saturday so just for fun here's a meta-survey, a survey about a survey!

     

Last update: Sunday, July 01, 2001 at 6:22 AM Eastern.

Dave Winer Mailto icon
 

Click here to view the OPML version of Scripting News.

Morning Coffee Notes, an occasional podcast by Scripting News Editor, Dave Winer.

June 2001
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
 
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
May   Jul


Click here to see an XML representation of the content of this weblog.


          



© Copyright 1997-2005 Dave Winer. The picture at the top of the page may change from time to time. Previous graphics are archived.


Previous/Next