-----Original Message-----
From: owner-spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com
[mailto:owner-spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com] On Behalf Of James
Couzens
Sent: October 21, 2004 7:36 PM
To: spf-discuss(_at_)v2(_dot_)listbox(_dot_)com
Subject: RE: [spf-discuss] Re: When did we lose control?
Maybe I'm on the wrong mailing list, but I thought this
mailing list
was supposed to be about anti-email-forgery technology, not about
factually incorrect opinionated rants about software that has
absolutely nothing to do with anti-forgery technology.
What your little anti-MS crusade is doing is telling people
in Redmond
that hey, it's worthless making (or just contemplating) any
sacrifices
for the sake of a common standard because those communistic open
source zealots backing SPF aren't willing to listen to anything or
talk about anything. Then in the PR game (or worse, if government
regulatory agencies were to get involved, in these agencies' eyes),
THEY look like the cooperative good guys while you (and anyone you
drag into this crusade of yours) look like the one prioritizing
ideology over pragmatic achievement, even though they are actually
equally, if not more so, guilty of it. MS has gazillion of
well-paid
spin professionals whose job is to make open source and its
partisans
look bad, so if you want SPF to succeed, don't make their
job easier
by feeding them quality soundbites.
Don't you understand? I'm _TRYING_ to tell them to Fuck off
here, you aren't making it easy. I actually WANT them to go
away, because they have NOTHING to offer us. All they have
done is hinder development, waste time, create divisions, and
void us of any one central direction.
I would LOVE to have that in print. "Microsoft gets told to
shove their money and stupid ideas where the sun doesn't
shine by group that would rather operate unpaid and actually
accomplish something".
I understand you're trying to tell them to go away, but I don't think that's
a wise strategy. Do you really want to fight a one-man crusade against an
enemy as evil as you've pictured Microsoft to be? If Microsoft is that
evil, then... they're capable of a lot things.
It seems clear to me from lurking for the past months on this list that
Microsoft intends to be seen (by the general public, the DoJ's antitrust
division, politicians, Wall Street analysts desperate to see MS make money
in a new industry, and whoever else they think cares) as the savior in this
domain forgery issue. Their problem? SPF had the bad timing of entering the
scene a few months earlier, and they obviously don't want to run the risk of
the magical MS anti-forgery thing losing in the marketplace, which I suspect
it would, given a level playing field. MS has had plenty of expensive,
money-losing ventures in their history, and they don't really need another.
So, what do they do? They take a couple pages out of the handbook of sleazy
American legislative tricks, and start making generous offers with poison
pill conditions, knowing fully well that people like you will see the poison
pill condition and raise all hell. But, guess what? You, sir, are not the
audience they are playing to.
So, they wanted XML, because... whatever. They can't get MARID to follow the
MS XML syntax, that's no problem. Going with someone else's syntax is a
small concession to make. PR spin: "MS follows lead of standard body and
shows willingness to compromise" (which implies "everybody else is being
stubborn"). MS - 1, Everybody else - 0.
So, then, they come up with the "conveniently incompatible with open source"
royalty-free licence. That was a clever ploy. If you fall in the trap, well,
they win, and if you refuse, the MS spin department can say "well, we
offered them a royalty-free licence to our new Magical ID technology, and
those communistic zealots with no respect for hardworking American
businesses refused it." To the intended audience, this looks like MS - 2,
Communistic Zealots - 0. To the Wall Street analysts still quivering after
the Eolas patent debacle, it looks like MS is learning from what could have
been a very painful hit (bottom-line-wise). And the various people in
Washington DC who don't understand the intricacies of various software
development models quietly swallow the MS party line: "a hardworking,
taxpaying US corporation offered to licence its hot new technology for no
royalties, and these zealots are opposed to this - the only reason for this
opposition must be that they're against intellectural property rights
because they're communists who believe software should be free when in fact,
we create tens of thousands of good paying American jobs by selling
software"
Do not forget (look at copyright term extensions, and the proposed knee jerk
responses to P2P, among other fine examples) that probably about 530 members
of the US Congress will happily go with anything that strenghten big
corporations' IP rights without giving a second thought to the technological
issues involved.
You know who I think the real audience of this game is? Regulatory agencies
and legislators.
Microsoft, in its nearly thirty year history, made ONE massive blunder that
almost killed it: they operated in the marketplace and ignored those fine
people in Washington, DC (and Brussels, and everywhere else). They've
learned from that lesson, and now, sir, I suspect they're going to turn the
regulatory process into a way to further the MS agenda that you've so...
ably, albeit bluntly ... described.
In the modern world we live in (to paraphrase a villain from one of the last
James Bond movies), lobbyists are the new armies and lawyers the new
artillery, and you and your noble ideals have neither of those. MS has as
many of those as is necessary to get the job.
I think MS' strategy is two-fold:
A) Convince everybody to adopt technology that MS has IP rights to. You, and
everybody else, have seen through that, but you don't see the bigger danger
waiting.
and B) Convince the FTC or other regulatory agency (or Congress, or
whatever) to mandate MS' anti-forgery technology. ISTR that the FTC already
stated it would like to see anti-forgery technology deployed, preferably
technology that the industry came up with, but... If the industry does not
agree on something, the MS lobbyists will be like "Well, Mr./Ms.
Senator/Commissioner/whatever, unless everybody uses the same anti-forgery
technology, your rich banking campaign contributors will continue to be
ripped off in phishing attacks, so it is in those constituents' interest to
mandate a single standard."
And what single standard exists? Well, only one has the army of lobbyists
necessary to make itself widely heard in Washington, DC, and that's
Microsoft's. So, the US government starts mandating use of MS' anti-forgery
technology, which, as we already established, open source projects can't
use. That means that whoever is subject to this new regulation cannot use
open source software anymore, and who 'coincidentally' happens to be sitting
there waiting to provide compliant products? Microsoft and its big-$$$
consulting partners.
And then, well, Bill G. smiles and says "checkmate, Mr. Couzens and open
source community." MS almost got itself destroyed by the government last
time because they were naïve, but this time they'll use the government to
destroy their competitors.
Why do people like Meng try so hard to keep MS at the table? It's because
they know fully well that once MS leaves, MS will turn all their resources
to establishing their thing as the dominant one, so the smarter strategy is
to engage in quiet diplomacy and hope to convince MS to make the licence
open-source compatible (and back down from some of the other more outrageous
things) in exchange for their PR department claiming they did most of the
work on the standard and some Wall Street analysts adding a few paragraphs
in their reports about MS' leadership in eradicating this horribly forgery
problem.
If MS and Meng and others can agree, great for MS, it'll save them millions
in PR/lobbying expenses and their MSN/Hotmail side gains usable anti-forgery
technology faster, but if you (and others with the same ideological mindset
as you) manage to scuttle the deal from the SPF side, MS will get out the
big artillery. You may think that by getting MS to go away, you'll be able
to deploy your nice, open-standard, open source SPF quietly without
interference from MS, but I think they're playing for keeps in this game and
if they go away, it'll only be to reload their weapons. And you, sir, do not
want to be the target of the MS political/PR machine.
Vivien