--- begin forwarded text Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1998 18:53:46 -0500 (EST) Reply-To: love@cptech.org Originator: info-policy-notes@essential.org Sender: info-policy-notes@essential.org Precedence: bulk From: James Love <love@cptech.org> To: Multiple recipients of list INFO-POLICY-NOTES <info-policy-notes@essential.org> Subject: Halloween II MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Comment: To unsubscribe from this list, send the message "unsubscribe info-policy-notes" to "listproc@essential.org". Leave the "Subject:" line blank. ------------------------------------------------------------ Info-Policy-Notes | News from Consumer Project on Technology ------------------------------------------------------------ November 5, 1998 Halloween II On November 2, 1998 Info-Policy-Notes provided a link to the so called Halloween document, which detailed Microsoft's analysis of Linux and other open source software. (http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/halloween.html) Now Eric Rayond has published a second document which he has dubbed Halloween II. This one is on the web at: http://www.opensource.org/halloween2.html Halloween II is authored by Vinod Valloppillil (VinodV), the author of the Halloween I, and Josh Cohen (JoshCo). It is dated Aug 11, 1998 , and is version 1.0. The heading is: Microsoft Confidential Linux Operating System The Next Java VM? The document is very interesting. One line that has gotten a lot of attention is at the end, where the authors suggest: "The effect of patents and copyright in combating Linux remains to be investigated." The Linux community generally thinks they can out code Microsoft, so long as they are permitted. But there is a lot of concern over software patents, which are often very broad, poorly researched by the US government, and expensive to litigate. Under recent court cases, there are few barriers to harassment based upon spurious litigation over patents, so this is a cause for concern. On a topic discussed at some length in Halloween I, Halloween II says by "folding extended functionality into today's commodity [open standards] services and create new [proprietary] protocols, we raise the bar & change the rules of the game." (the brackets added by me). There is also an interesting article in today's Linux Today: Who are all these people behind the Halloween document? Nov 5th, 12:32:47 Here's an in-depth look at the personalities behind the Halloween documents. By Dave Whitinger http://linuxtoday.com/stories/638.html A few other related articles are Tim O'Rielly's Open Letter to Microsoft about Halloween I, which is on the web at: http://www.oreilly.com/oreilly/press/tim_msletter.html and, news that Microsoft has tried to hire Linux hacker Alan Cox. This last one suggests Microsoft is stepping up their campaign to crush the open software movement. Here are some excerpts that Alan Cox posted today about the Halloween document. http://www.linux.org.uk/ [snip] Its important to realize how fundamental open standards are. Most people are probably sitting at a PC built with mixed cards from mixed vendors on an open standard bus, typing on a keyboard with open standard connectors, using an open standard Qwerty layout, talking an open standard RS232 serial protocol to a modem that talks an open protocol to the ISP. Its all running off a standard electricity specification. Even your chair is probably held together by open standard nuts and bolts. Computing is becoming a commodity item and like all commodity items it needs to be open, for the consumer and for the long term good of the industry as a whole. Linux is open, if there is anything you didn't get told you can check the source code. A couple of other fun things have happened too, the I2O SIG developing the next generation high end I/O interface for PC's have now made their specification open, and Microsoft tried to hire me. I think the I2O SIG have the better chance of success here. Alan This is Alan Cox's home page: http://www.linux.org.uk/diary/ There is also running commentary, much if it entertaining, often rather speculative, but also a very good source of breaking news on these issues at: http://www.slashdot.org Finally, CPT will be studying the Halloween documents, and asking antitrust authorities to determine if Microsoft's intended plans to corrupt open standards violate antitrust laws. More on this next week. Jamie Love <love@cptech.org> 202.387.8030 ------------------------------------------------------------- INFORMATION POLICY NOTES: the Consumer Project on Technology http://www.cptech.org, 202.387.8030, fax 202.234.5127. Archives of Info-Policy-Notes are available from http://www.essential.org/listproc/info-policy-notes/ Subscription requests to listproc@cptech.org with the message: subscribe info-policy-notes Jane Doe To be removed from the list, the message should read, unsub info-policy-notes ------------------------------------------------------------- --- end forwarded text ----------------- Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com> Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'