Worldliness, the enemy of Christendom, is benign, despite the fear of men, women and children who grew up with a love for God and his Only Begotten.
Yet, imagine for a moment that worldliness is not the enemy, but is the mean by which individuals learn that only God is the author of good and evil.
All satan is is the accuser, the adversary, and the poor foolish creation of God who has blackened the light and covered it with selfishness and all the worldly temptations that befall mankind.
Thus, why fear the devil? It is best to only fear God and respect him because we have overcome that fear by His grace and mercy, and our sins forgiven due to his Son's sacrifice.
Indeed, fear only God. All the devil is good for is to laugh at until he retreats. For he who fears God respects him. Let laughter chase the devil away.
Without satan, worldliness is not temptation but inspiration to choose the Christ, rather than commit the unpardonable sin, apostasy and the forgetting of God.
Yet he who chooses poverty over wealth and obscurity over fame walks the meek path, free from all temptation. Though he may covet worldliness, this man knows God is great and his Only Begotten the light that frees all who follow Him.
When we follow the Christ, all worldliness is is temptation to which we cry "Get thee behind me, satan" before we claim what was a part of God's creation which was lost to us and now has found its way back to consecration.
What power does worldliness have that men, women and children choose its treasure, and forget God, only to awaken in old age, miserable and alone? If we covet any part of it, then we might be lost until we repent and return to God through the power of love unconditional that God sent the Christ to us.
No enemy then is worldliness — a meddlesome irritation that distracts us from the path towards perfect.
For His love is free from human conditions and His mercy allows the faithful to follow Him.
To those Christians who say the Word shows us satan is all powerful, what diabolical lies are you peddling? This subtle devil worship that a Christian might practice when he claims "the Devil exists" to instill fear in the hearts of his fellow men is blasphemy.
Only God shall you fear out of respect for his power, and the devil is impotent in the face of laughter of God's people. You can serve only one Master, and He shall return one day. Thus the devil is unreal and unworthy of our fear.
I say this in Jesus' name that only God shall be worshiped, his Only Begotten Son being the Christ who has bound the devil so he only tempts all of us, some more than others. They who say satan is unbound only have a difference of opinion, and the touch of fear mongering so that they may control their flocks.
As with worldliness, the devil is not as big an enemy as our true selves. Why else is Jesus Christ all of Christendom's friend?
Showing posts with label wealth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wealth. Show all posts
20140918
My First Technology Gig (satire)
It is amazing to see how wealthy retirees live in their big houses with two cars, two computers, a laptop, a tablet and a cheap HTC smartphone. (I won't mention the LG 230 flip phone much).
The new SUV is cool with an entertainment centre using bluetooth to hookup to the phone to play music on.
People this old will not have a clue of how to move their pictures off their phone onto their computer, and to put new pictures on their phone again. Nor will they know that they need a data USB cable to copy to and from their smartphone, or even how to get their phone to send music to their entertainment centre in the SUV.
Furthermore, they need to be reassured that knowing their computer password won't let me break into their computer on the Internet - I have to be in the den on their computer to do that. Also Facebook never automatically shares their intimate photos with the world - they have to do that themselves.
That is where I come in, to help them learn how to do it. Though, at their age, without daily practice, a week later they will have forgotten how to do it because they do not practice what I preach to them.
I think I have found my niche market for my technology skills: people over 60. Since it isn't right to charge them $80/hour, I'll take $20 a lesson, which can last from an hour to two hours.
There is no way I'd stay any longer. My reasoning is, it is impolite to stay at anyone's place for more than two hours unless they expressly have invited you for dinner too.
I sure like this new part-time job that I lucked into by helping my client Paul with his smartphone while at an LDS baptism last week.
The new SUV is cool with an entertainment centre using bluetooth to hookup to the phone to play music on.
People this old will not have a clue of how to move their pictures off their phone onto their computer, and to put new pictures on their phone again. Nor will they know that they need a data USB cable to copy to and from their smartphone, or even how to get their phone to send music to their entertainment centre in the SUV.
Furthermore, they need to be reassured that knowing their computer password won't let me break into their computer on the Internet - I have to be in the den on their computer to do that. Also Facebook never automatically shares their intimate photos with the world - they have to do that themselves.
That is where I come in, to help them learn how to do it. Though, at their age, without daily practice, a week later they will have forgotten how to do it because they do not practice what I preach to them.
I think I have found my niche market for my technology skills: people over 60. Since it isn't right to charge them $80/hour, I'll take $20 a lesson, which can last from an hour to two hours.
There is no way I'd stay any longer. My reasoning is, it is impolite to stay at anyone's place for more than two hours unless they expressly have invited you for dinner too.
I sure like this new part-time job that I lucked into by helping my client Paul with his smartphone while at an LDS baptism last week.
20140609
Poverty's Influence on 9-11 (satire)
After much reflection, I have come to the conclusion that the Afghan and Iraq wars may have been instigated, not only because of 9-11, mainly due to recession caused to US involvement in the Yugoslav wars, the second Gulf War and financial problems caused by globalism. However, it is mainly because of a strong desire for financial gain that a financial recession preceded the wars in both fronts.
Had the US Government and its corporate sponsors not been so focused on gain, perhaps a different scenario might have played out following 9-11. For there is a strong tie between gain and revenge, as evidenced by the many different corporations that played a part in the drama unfolding in Kabul as well as Baghdad.
One strong proof that US-based multi-national corporations may be playing a role in Iraq cones to light in the revelation that a certain VA official who recently stepped down was also the same individual nobody listened to when he stated that a total withdrawal from Iraq would lead to disaster.
When his words came true, the Bush administration lost credibility and their days were doomed.
When Blackwater attacked civilians later, it took seven years to bring six of the men caught in the firefight to be brought to justice. In the fall out of that incident, Blackwater became Academi. As well, there were never any WMD in Iraq. For the Iraq War is the result of a decade of propaganda, and has left Iraq more vulnerable to attack by al Qaeda than ever before.
All that the Afghan War has done is push the Taliban into Pakistan to their backers among the Pakistan warlords. How can launching drone attacks do anything more than polarize the Pakistanis?
Today it has been three years since Arab Spring, and the Syrian uprising has morphed into a purported civil war, with the rebels supported by the US, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. al Qaeda operates on two fronts, through al Nusrah and ISIS, with ISIS being unwanted because of their criminal acts against both sides.
Meanwhile, in northeastern Nigeria, the Boko Haram have stolen over 300 girls, all because GoodLuck Jonathan, the president of Nigeria, has amassed an oil fortune worth billions, billions of oil dollars that he only shares with his in-group. Once again, oil has led to corruption.
In Saudi Arabia, four beautiful princesses are slowly starving to death due to the Saudi King's ill-will towards their mother. This too is due to corruption caused by oil wealth.
In my opinion, financial gain is in part the root of the world's ills because despite seeking it, the world corporations give back very little. Corruption is the result of concentrating wealth in the hands of a limited amount of people. It is this inability to share wealth that is rooted in a certain mindset that believes power and control is determined by the amount of wealth you amass.
Yet the truth is, the more you share what little you have, the better off all of society is. Free-market capitalists will never understand this truth about wealth because they only believe in physical wealth. They do not understand that true wealth consists not only of what you own but also of what is in your heart.
Without generosity, only the richest people are powerful. Because of generosity, even the poor are enriched. That a nation thinks only of Wealth in terms of how to amass it without considering generosity astonishes me. For without charity, what good is wealth?
9-11 was done as a revolt against globalism because of its impact on the Third World and especially on the Middle East. After 9-11, the people fighting for freedom around the world were recast as terrorists, even though it is freedom that they fight for. This includes Chechens, Palestinians, Moroccans, First Nations, Turks, and Uyghurs among many people fighting for the right of self determination. It even includes the Tibetans.
This even includes the freedom of Russians in the Ukraine.
However, with freedom comes the challenge to not morph it into license and abuse the freedom gained from struggle. Rather than using freedom to amass wealth and the challenges that brings, it may be even more freeing to make enough money to afford to life simply. That way, it is possible to avoid much of the problems that financial success brings to us.
For what good is wealth if when you become successful, someone else is going to steal it? It could be a better life to live simply and not to make a lot of wealth, but enough to stay alive without wanting more. However, that takes a lot of sacrifice to accomplish.
None of what happened after 9-11 surprises me. It became unnecessary to use encryption to validate email immediately after until the recent revelation that Canada spies on its citizens. Then the use of HTTPS became more common, though the majority of web traffic is unencrypted because most people assume that by having nothing to hide, there is no point in encryption.
Even so, would you open your router to everyone by removing the password to WiFi access?
Without wealth there is poverty. Yet with poverty, there is the means to climb out of it, not to become immensely successful, but to live simply. And a rich man cannot live simply.
This is what 9-11 has taught me.
Had the US Government and its corporate sponsors not been so focused on gain, perhaps a different scenario might have played out following 9-11. For there is a strong tie between gain and revenge, as evidenced by the many different corporations that played a part in the drama unfolding in Kabul as well as Baghdad.
One strong proof that US-based multi-national corporations may be playing a role in Iraq cones to light in the revelation that a certain VA official who recently stepped down was also the same individual nobody listened to when he stated that a total withdrawal from Iraq would lead to disaster.
When his words came true, the Bush administration lost credibility and their days were doomed.
When Blackwater attacked civilians later, it took seven years to bring six of the men caught in the firefight to be brought to justice. In the fall out of that incident, Blackwater became Academi. As well, there were never any WMD in Iraq. For the Iraq War is the result of a decade of propaganda, and has left Iraq more vulnerable to attack by al Qaeda than ever before.
All that the Afghan War has done is push the Taliban into Pakistan to their backers among the Pakistan warlords. How can launching drone attacks do anything more than polarize the Pakistanis?
Today it has been three years since Arab Spring, and the Syrian uprising has morphed into a purported civil war, with the rebels supported by the US, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. al Qaeda operates on two fronts, through al Nusrah and ISIS, with ISIS being unwanted because of their criminal acts against both sides.
Meanwhile, in northeastern Nigeria, the Boko Haram have stolen over 300 girls, all because GoodLuck Jonathan, the president of Nigeria, has amassed an oil fortune worth billions, billions of oil dollars that he only shares with his in-group. Once again, oil has led to corruption.
In Saudi Arabia, four beautiful princesses are slowly starving to death due to the Saudi King's ill-will towards their mother. This too is due to corruption caused by oil wealth.
In my opinion, financial gain is in part the root of the world's ills because despite seeking it, the world corporations give back very little. Corruption is the result of concentrating wealth in the hands of a limited amount of people. It is this inability to share wealth that is rooted in a certain mindset that believes power and control is determined by the amount of wealth you amass.
Yet the truth is, the more you share what little you have, the better off all of society is. Free-market capitalists will never understand this truth about wealth because they only believe in physical wealth. They do not understand that true wealth consists not only of what you own but also of what is in your heart.
Without generosity, only the richest people are powerful. Because of generosity, even the poor are enriched. That a nation thinks only of Wealth in terms of how to amass it without considering generosity astonishes me. For without charity, what good is wealth?
9-11 was done as a revolt against globalism because of its impact on the Third World and especially on the Middle East. After 9-11, the people fighting for freedom around the world were recast as terrorists, even though it is freedom that they fight for. This includes Chechens, Palestinians, Moroccans, First Nations, Turks, and Uyghurs among many people fighting for the right of self determination. It even includes the Tibetans.
This even includes the freedom of Russians in the Ukraine.
However, with freedom comes the challenge to not morph it into license and abuse the freedom gained from struggle. Rather than using freedom to amass wealth and the challenges that brings, it may be even more freeing to make enough money to afford to life simply. That way, it is possible to avoid much of the problems that financial success brings to us.
For what good is wealth if when you become successful, someone else is going to steal it? It could be a better life to live simply and not to make a lot of wealth, but enough to stay alive without wanting more. However, that takes a lot of sacrifice to accomplish.
None of what happened after 9-11 surprises me. It became unnecessary to use encryption to validate email immediately after until the recent revelation that Canada spies on its citizens. Then the use of HTTPS became more common, though the majority of web traffic is unencrypted because most people assume that by having nothing to hide, there is no point in encryption.
Even so, would you open your router to everyone by removing the password to WiFi access?
Without wealth there is poverty. Yet with poverty, there is the means to climb out of it, not to become immensely successful, but to live simply. And a rich man cannot live simply.
This is what 9-11 has taught me.
20131228
To be Happy and Gay (satire)
In Western history, we have to go back to Byzantium when the Emperor proclaimed the mother of all future anti-homosexual edicts, which was aimed at keeping the Greek church free of homosexuality among bishops and priests,.whereas most of the flock were monogamous heterosexuals.
There were social penalties for being homosexual and powerless due to a misinterpretation of Biblical anecdotes.
It threatened the church because one gay couple == no new generation of tithe givers and reduced chance of property passing onto the Church.
However, nobody was homosexual at that time because everyone followed heteronormative behavior not because of Church propaganda but because there were less people living in those days.
As well, homosexuality only arises during times of plenty in world history. Sodom and Gomorrah were probably cities of splendor. Constantinople was a successful city with a population consisting of Romans, Greeks, and many nations from Albania to Zanzibar. Though homosexuality is a sexual pastime practised during times of plenty.
Therefore the edicts against it were due to abuses of power by the Greek clergy and the hypocrisy seen among the less affluent Christians, most of whom were heterosexual because they didn't have the means to become homosexual.
Today, all of Christendom is anti-gay for moral reasons, but give lip service to support of gay rights. By doing so, they indirectly influence right-zing radicals to commit hate crime against open displays of homosexual behavior while also condoning hate crime against women when the next quarterback of a Christian school gets his girfriend pregnant but she is punished while he gets the scholarship.
However, I do not write this article to criticize Christianity but to satirize one aspect of human behavior: our willingness to hate others just because they are different. I also showed that there are social benefits for homosexuality (zero population growth) and that homosexuality is prolific in times of plenty.
This is why homosexuality is repressed in the Middle East: most Muslim nations are kingdoms where wealth is controlled by elites based on their historical claim to power over the 99.9 percent, most of whom may live in poverty. Those in poverty should not be homosexual because of a moral code that highly esteems many sons and deems many daughters a tragedy. Thus, the anti-homosexual laws of the Middle East are complemented by what amounts to hate crime against gays and women.
I would have a field day attributing all of this to narcissism, considering how the Muslim boy lives in a world of entitlement and how the culture leads to such a lad feeling like he rules over all women, especially in light of the fact that sharia belittles the intelligence of women.
However, it is less offensive to mock Christianity for its anti-homosexual laws. Besides, the fact that sometimes Afghan men will abuse dogs to death in between abusing their women and engaging in covert pedophilia with boys on Thursdays is suppressed in the West because the roots of it is not in Arab culture but is the legacy of Alexander the Great. Since it is endemic in Afghan culture, but the West also inherited Greek culture, the truth is, heteronormative behavior is practiced due to poverty, be it economic or moral.
To be happy and gay in society today, one is merely trying to keep up with the Joneses.
YMMV
There were social penalties for being homosexual and powerless due to a misinterpretation of Biblical anecdotes.
It threatened the church because one gay couple == no new generation of tithe givers and reduced chance of property passing onto the Church.
However, nobody was homosexual at that time because everyone followed heteronormative behavior not because of Church propaganda but because there were less people living in those days.
As well, homosexuality only arises during times of plenty in world history. Sodom and Gomorrah were probably cities of splendor. Constantinople was a successful city with a population consisting of Romans, Greeks, and many nations from Albania to Zanzibar. Though homosexuality is a sexual pastime practised during times of plenty.
Therefore the edicts against it were due to abuses of power by the Greek clergy and the hypocrisy seen among the less affluent Christians, most of whom were heterosexual because they didn't have the means to become homosexual.
Today, all of Christendom is anti-gay for moral reasons, but give lip service to support of gay rights. By doing so, they indirectly influence right-zing radicals to commit hate crime against open displays of homosexual behavior while also condoning hate crime against women when the next quarterback of a Christian school gets his girfriend pregnant but she is punished while he gets the scholarship.
However, I do not write this article to criticize Christianity but to satirize one aspect of human behavior: our willingness to hate others just because they are different. I also showed that there are social benefits for homosexuality (zero population growth) and that homosexuality is prolific in times of plenty.
This is why homosexuality is repressed in the Middle East: most Muslim nations are kingdoms where wealth is controlled by elites based on their historical claim to power over the 99.9 percent, most of whom may live in poverty. Those in poverty should not be homosexual because of a moral code that highly esteems many sons and deems many daughters a tragedy. Thus, the anti-homosexual laws of the Middle East are complemented by what amounts to hate crime against gays and women.
I would have a field day attributing all of this to narcissism, considering how the Muslim boy lives in a world of entitlement and how the culture leads to such a lad feeling like he rules over all women, especially in light of the fact that sharia belittles the intelligence of women.
However, it is less offensive to mock Christianity for its anti-homosexual laws. Besides, the fact that sometimes Afghan men will abuse dogs to death in between abusing their women and engaging in covert pedophilia with boys on Thursdays is suppressed in the West because the roots of it is not in Arab culture but is the legacy of Alexander the Great. Since it is endemic in Afghan culture, but the West also inherited Greek culture, the truth is, heteronormative behavior is practiced due to poverty, be it economic or moral.
To be happy and gay in society today, one is merely trying to keep up with the Joneses.
YMMV
20131220
The Big Question on Wealth (satire)
"People who value being wealthy as an end in itself (rather than an outcome on achieving other life goals) are less happy and more prone to depression." — J. M. Zwenge & W. K. Campbell, The Narcissism Epidemic: Living In The Age of Entitlement; "Ninjas in McMansions", page 129; Chapter 8: "I Deserve The Best At 18% APR."
Eventually, state the authors, materialism that raises one's status is self-destructive. Why is status-driven materialism dangerous? Such materialism is self-destructive, and may lead to bankruptcy, unhappy marriages, and even divorce.
Yet narcissists would be the first to deny that their desire for status has destroyed their lives, as long as they have credit cards, a couple million hidden away in the Grand Cayman Island, and a limousine driven by a trusted chauffeur.
Indeed, who in their right mind would declare to the world that "money is nothing" and transform their energy to practice materialistic consumerism into humanistic philanthropy? By framing the question as such, the narcissist lives in denial of moral poverty.
Earning power is not dependent on soundness of mind, for a few of today's billionaires have never finished college. Sometimes, even their behaviour when seeking status and power takes appears sociopathic.
Are we really entitled to wealth as a measure of our success? This question cannot be answered with a firm "Yes" or "No" because money is supposed to be a measure of your achievement in your life, rich or poor.
Suppose we have two brothers we'll call Gerald and Samuel Jones. Being the financial success in the family, the older Gerald dotes on his elderly parents for helping him to succeed in life. Meanwhile, Samuel has become the "black sheep" of the family.
Years ago, Samuel had been financially cut off because he couldn't pay his bills on time. After the $15,000 bailout for a student loan, all Samuel does instead of completing his degree in Computer Science is spend too much time on the computer.
In contrast, not only is Gerald a financial success, he has recently married Louise. He has argued with his mother over giving Sam any money, to which Mrs. Jones replied "If I don't give him spending money, then he will leave me and go on welfare. That would ruin the family name if he did it."
What Mrs. Jones means is, Sam is captivated by his mother's narcissistic personality; and is willing to trade his independence for dependence on her.
If this imaginary family seems normal to you, except for Sam, then you have not read between the lines. Mr Jones died 15 years ago, but left the family with a hefty inheritance. With Mrs. Jones as the executor of Mr. Jones' will, and Gerald as co-executor, he has ensured that he could invest wisely and maintenance an active investment portfolio which made him a millionaire.
However, Sam was the pampered child, due to ADHD and depression, plus years of Ritalin use. Currently he lives at home. Once a week, his mother gives him spending money. Due to his lack of employment, she pampers him and sometimes may be hear to say "You don't need to go find a job. Your dad left you with a trust fund."
Sadly though, this trust fund is managed by his brother, Gerald, who only doles out his brother"s weekly stipend. Originally he had allowed the trust fund to fund Sam's slow but sure path from college student to drop out with only six months of work, and an offer of internships.
In the end Sam never sought out work because he likes it at home. Although he is fine with the arrangements as it is, Sam wishes he had mone control over his finances. Luckily he knows better than to be a spendthrift but his ADHD in adulthood has made it difficult to hold a job because his behaviour is "odd". At one point, the college president considered him a security threat due to rumours of him being "psychotic".
Since colleges are not in the habit of measuring the learning disabilities that might be comorbid with ADHD, the college staff and some students who have interacted with Sam socially are unnerved by his sometimes erratic and often confrontational behavior.
Honestly, Sam did not quit university; he had to quit because after his brother Gerald got married, nobody could be at home to help out their mother. A housekeeper was totally out of the question, since Mrs. Jones has a peculiar way of putting away the dishes and glasses.
In this story, the mother of two boys might have an undiagnosed narcissistic personality. We do not know about the father, but since he left his surviving family, he must have been a CEO who spent a lot of time away working to afford the mansion his younger son and wife now live. He may too be undiagnosed.
As for the older son Gerald, his narcissistic personality is in check. This allowed him to date, court and marry his wife, who may have had the neurotic urge to avoid moving into his parents' house due to her poor self image.
Lastly, Sam has ADHD but had controlled it throughout childhood. However, the stress of finishing college led him to "drop out" to support his mother. Since both he and his brother have worked together on their mother's will, they both know they will be entitled to a lot of the inheritance when their mother passes on.
In my imaginary family, it appears that nobody is sociopathic except for the reason why Sam actually dropped out, for he was actually asked quietly to leave due to his ineptness in a failed romance with a lovely lady named Sue whose intelligence matched his own.
College life meant that she had to go to pub night, and was well on her way to become a chronic alcoholic in denial, often convincing Sam to come to dances and maintain her legal drug of choice. Sam rarely drinks, because his father died of alcohol-related causes.
When he tried to break off the relationship, Sue tried to convince him that they would surely get married. So when she asked for money for a wedding dress, he gave it to her. When she suggested they get engagement rings, again Sam obliged.
However, Mrs. Jones was canny, and figured Sue was up to no good. "Nobody for my Sammy unless she is honest and trustworthy. Her drinking like a fish rings a bell." Sammy thought he was in love, until Mrs. Jones asked Sue if she had picked out a wedding dress.
"Well, I'd put a down-payment with the money your son gave me," Sue replied. "But, no worries. It'll be worth it, Mrs. Jones."
Then Sue went out with Sam to pub night at the college. At some point during the night, she got him drunk. The next morning, Mrs. Jones got a call from Sam. "Mom, Sue's gone. So's our engagement rings."
In this imaginary world, Sue has the narcissistic personality to work her charms on a neurotic such as Sam and also his mother. Yet the clues were hidden in plain sight: the first clue is drug addiction. A disturbed character like Sue may be highly intelligent, but likes to engage in risky behaviour. For Sue, that consisted of drinking since age 12. After a string of boyfriends, she managed to avoid pregnancy via safe sex.
Each and every ex-boyfriends of Sue, if asked nicely, would admit Sue was a high-maintenance woman. If they were to offer any advice, then it would be "Don't give her money. Buy her things."
So, this is where the story ends: Sam is going to look after his mother until the day she dies, with Gerald and his lovely wife, Louise, occasionally visiting to provide updates on Louise's pregnancy and other chitchat.
Overal, their narcissistic personalities are under control, barely. However, Mrs. Jones put it simply: "Blood is thicker than water. My late husband worked hard and invested wisely. His legacy has been passed on, and when it's time for me to go, my sons will be well looked after, especially my Sammy."
In truth, the Jones' family is wealthy. Even though each of them have some sense of entitlement, they earned it in their own way. Gerald got a wife while Sammy lost at love only to decide his one true filial love is his mother.
In stark contrast, Sue lives in moral poverty. Although Sammy's potential wealth was apparent, it made him an easy target for Sue. When she realized that both Sam and his mother were pressuring her to get married and settled down, she showed her true colors and left before following through.
After declaring the money for a wedding dress and the engagement rings as theft to the police, Mrs. Jones and her son Sam, have yet to recover the money, let alone the engagement rings. Though it is possible that the rings may be recovered one day due to the engraving on both rings: one says "To Sue with love and respect" and the other, "To Sam with honor and trust."
20130620
Repentance and Humility: Tools of the Faithful
The idea that satan curses the faithful with poverty is a pernicious fallacy. For the very idea that material wealth is the sign that God has blessed you is actually a sign of spiritual materialism.
Indeed, in some cases, wearing a silver cross is such a sign. It shows that a person of faith has sacrificed time to afford a valuable trinket rather than performing acts of repentance.
How foolish! Were a religious person truly aligned to God, he would remember Jesus' saying "Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God."
This is why I, as a Buddhist, will not convert to Christianity. Far too many financially success Christians have attributed their new-found wealth to being blessed by God. They forget that a repentant attitude is caused them to stop sinning. By making beneficial choices motivated by their faith, they actually profited, because those choices gained respect with their peers.
As long as the attitude of Christians is reflected in the philosophy of material wealth being a blessing from God, their spiritual materialism will blind them to repentance. Furthermore, they may fear poverty so much as to be influenced by satan to oppress the poor, be it through taking advantage of them or worse, teaching them that the road to riches is by attributing it all to the work of God.
Any Christian who believes that satan is the author of poverty might also believe that, satan being the enemy, it is right to let the poor in need suffer. This belief contradicts Jesus' attitude of the poor, and also shows that popular Christian preachers with a large flock may actually be wolves in sheep's clothing.
If I as a Buddhist know this, then it's amazing how large that block of wood in the eyes of the faithful actually is.
For even in Buddhism, much value is placed in repentance as its helps the Buddhist to make choices which benefit all sentient beings.
Indeed, in some cases, wearing a silver cross is such a sign. It shows that a person of faith has sacrificed time to afford a valuable trinket rather than performing acts of repentance.
How foolish! Were a religious person truly aligned to God, he would remember Jesus' saying "Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God."
This is why I, as a Buddhist, will not convert to Christianity. Far too many financially success Christians have attributed their new-found wealth to being blessed by God. They forget that a repentant attitude is caused them to stop sinning. By making beneficial choices motivated by their faith, they actually profited, because those choices gained respect with their peers.
As long as the attitude of Christians is reflected in the philosophy of material wealth being a blessing from God, their spiritual materialism will blind them to repentance. Furthermore, they may fear poverty so much as to be influenced by satan to oppress the poor, be it through taking advantage of them or worse, teaching them that the road to riches is by attributing it all to the work of God.
Any Christian who believes that satan is the author of poverty might also believe that, satan being the enemy, it is right to let the poor in need suffer. This belief contradicts Jesus' attitude of the poor, and also shows that popular Christian preachers with a large flock may actually be wolves in sheep's clothing.
If I as a Buddhist know this, then it's amazing how large that block of wood in the eyes of the faithful actually is.
For even in Buddhism, much value is placed in repentance as its helps the Buddhist to make choices which benefit all sentient beings.
20110112
Shared Source versus Open Source: Talking Back to Microsoft
Note: This is a revised version of my original post on December 04, 2007. It has been corrected and lightly edited to reflect my current position that the Open Source concept liberates the open-minded computer hobbyist to consider all operating system to be equal in their basic use. Although my preference is currently for Linux, I have no issue with the use of Windows. However, my next operating system on my wishlist will be a suitable BSD flavour because it too is more compliant with the Open Source concept. Please read with care over several days. It's long.
Update 20121124.1438
My current computer systems are Crunchbang Linux on my PC and Android on my smartphones. I have yet to find a BSD flavor which boots into a XFCE desktop successfully due to the old age of my computer. However, I do like window shopping to see what Window7 and Windows8 are like.
The following quote is from a transcript of Microsoft Vice President Craig Mundie's remarks on the Commercial Software Model, dated May 3, 2001. While the topic addressed near the end of Mundie's remarks is dated, I will attempt to retort to several of his remarks regarding Microsoft's Shared Source and the GPL-based Open Source software.
Although I am aware that others have replied to Microsoft over the years, I thought I'd reread what Mundie said nearly 11 years ago, and comment on each of the paragraphs of his remarks in response to the overall impression that SS is superior to OS software.
Even though I do not expect Microsoft to ever respond to my commentary and critique of Mundie's position on SS versus OS software, I still have hope someone out there is listening.
If not, then this entry gives me the opportunity to publicize my views on this matter.
Before I start commenting, I'd like to take this opportunity to give a brief history of my interest in computers. It all goes back to 1985 when a friend introduced me to computer bulletin board systems (BBSes). I believe it was on a Commodore 64, an 8-bit machine, but later I'd buy a Commodore SP9000 Superpet and a couple Commodore 64s, plus even a TI99.
About five years later, there's a rumor that Gates said "All you'd need is 64 megabytes of RAM" in reference to the Pentium I. Today, regardless of the platform, your operating system needs much more RAM, in excess of 128MB. Indeed, with respect to Pentium motherboards, 512 MB is barely optimal ; 1GB is ideal and 2GB or more is optimal. With respect to AMD motherboards, 512MB is ideal while 1GB or more is optimal.
It wasn't until 1992 that I could afford my first 16-bit i386 16MHz IBM clone with 4 MB of 72-pin RAM, floppy drive and 100 MB hard drive for about $2000, and play with MSDOS 5.1. Access to computer networks was still through dialup as in the 8-bit computer days of the late 80s and using text, for the Internet had only been a concept an academic in England wrote about in collaboration with a scientist from CERN called the World-Wide Web.
At this one Internet provider, I had access to the Linux command prompt using BASH. Using a text-based interface, it was possible to subscribe Usenet groups and interact with people from around the world, first mainly from the US and then later from Europe, South America and Asia.
Today, the legacy of the Web lives on as the prefix to domain names in URLs and web links. At the time of writing of this article, I used a 733MHZ P2 or better machine with 256MB of 168-pin PC-133 SDRAM, CD-ROM drive and a 20GB hard drive. Today, I use a 2 GHz P4 machine with 2GB of 184-pin DDR RAM, a rewriteable CD-ROM drive with DVD reader, a rewriteable DVD drive, and a 120 GB hard drive.
To help better my knowledge of computer, I learned how to maintain computers as a trade and, in my spare time, learned to administer a LAN, having migrated from Windows to Linux between 2003 and 2006. It was only in 2007 that I fully dedicated myself to Linux, after 3 years of trying out different flavors such as Redhat, Debian, SuSE, Knoppix and finally Ubuntu. As well, I tried FreeBSD and QNX.
While Gates and I only share the fact that we are both college dropouts, he parlayed his interest in computers and electronics into a vast software empire.
However, I honed a growing love of electronics since I bought a book on transistors which was basically the US military's training manual on the subject. Consequently I also breadboarded transistor and later IC chip designs photocopied and written into a notebook at the library in Vancouver.
Meanwhile, Gates was selling software and establishing business models of profit, mainly to gain the respect and admiration of his parents. I on the other hand took the easy yet perilous route to today because for me, status and wealth are almost meaningless.
Today, I live and breathe Linux, and the world is at my hands.
For Open Source has opened up a radical model of livelihood based on the concept that "information wants to be free", and consequently since information is software, "software wants to be free", Therefore I feel that commenting in response to Microsoft VP Mundie's criticism of Open Source - albeit belatedly - is still within my capabilities since my comments address the concept of Open Source Software (OSS).
Why do I wish to comment about OSS? Because Mundie's support of Shared Source software implies a worship of the two things I abandoned a decade before I bought my first IBM clone: wealth, and the power derived from status.
Thus do I liberate myself by freely responding to Mundie. However, this is not done out of any true desire to be on an equal level with him, but to act freely according to the concept of free speech, and thus to express my opinion in a public forum. In doing so, I also endorse the prime concept of Free Software Foundation that software wants to be free.
For Linux is based on Open Source, and is the means of my liberation from Microsoft dependency.
Mundie states:
The phrase "open source software," or OSS, is often used as an umbrella term for a collection of product development, distribution and licensing practices, many of which have existed individually since the early days of computing. There are actually a number of different approaches within this community, but the common traits are providing people with access to source code and allowing others to modify and redistribute that code.
On this point, I agree with Mundie's definition, as he just summed up the history of OSS, its definition and business model in a nutshell.
As a result of Microsoft's statement of position today, many people will attempt to say that Shared Source is Microsoft's failed attempt at being an Open Source Company. This could not be a more incorrect statement. Shared Source is Open Source. We recognize that OSS has some benefits, such as the fostering of community, improved feedback and augmented debugging. We are always looking for ways to improve our products and make our customers more successful, and to that end we have incorporated these positive OSS elements in Shared Source. But there are significant drawbacks to OSS as well.
By stating that Shared Source is Open Source is not true since the SS software community has to "buy" into the SS model. Rather, what Mundie means, is that Microsoft has "borrowed" concepts from OSS and he is trying to confuse us by stating that SSS is OSS. It is not, because if software partners have to buy into SS to get code Microsoft shares with them, SS is not open because OSS and the concept that software wants to be free are implicit.
I suspect Mundie is trying to say that SSS is OSS in order to create cognitive dissonance in knowledgeable people who know that OSS means "software wants to be free". For SSS is anything other than free.
The OSS development model leads to a strong possibility of unhealthy "forking" of a code base, resulting in the development of multiple incompatible versions of programs, weakened interoperability, product instability, and hindering businesses ability to strategically plan for the future. Furthermore, it has inherent security risks and can force intellectual property into the public domain.
I question Mundie's use of the word "unhealthy" but assume that he means forking of a code base is economically unhealthy. It's like upgrading to a new computer but still using both to accumulate data. Unless a method of syncing data on both computers is implemented, the newer computer's data will fork off from the previous compuer's data. One could sync the sources of data from the old computer to the new one, and recycle the old computer.
With respect to software, forks usually occur when the current upgrade stops supporting previous versions. Thus Windows forked off from MSDOS when Windows 2000 was created and forked off again with WIN95/98 and OS/2. As well, XP forked off between Home and Professional, and Vista forked off from XP. With everything before XP being discontinued after 2010, WIN95/98 will become a dead fork. This is from an Operating System point of view, though. Apparently the file formats are still compatible between discontinued WIN95/98, XP and Vista.
However, RTF format forked off from its earliest incarnation RTF 1.0 1987 with most applications being unable to read correctly documents made with Word 3 for Window 3.0.
Inspired by Tex and Adobe Postscript, Microsoft created an RTF module for Windows Word to interface with the kernel to provide "enriched text" using its proprietary fonts and formatting. Even if the OSS community reverse-engineers RTF, there was no guarantee of a good match of "look-and-feel".
Judging from the inability of OpenOffice to accurately read a Microsoft RTF document, I can only conclude that reverse-engineering RTF (a copyrighted format) would violate OSS ideology.
My guess is that the OSS community would not buy into Microsoft's SSS program since its copyright policy makes closed source implicit. If Microsoft truly followed OSS protocols with SSS, then they should "free" RTF and be more implicit with the directives so that default fonts and formatting follow an OSS-like protocol.
Note: This actually happened as of March 2008 for Word 12 with the introduction of RTF 1.9.1 2008.
Some of the most successful OSS technology is licensed under the GNU General Public License or GPL. The GPL mandates that any software that incorporates source code already licensed under the GPL will itself become subject to the GPL. When the resulting software product is distributed, its creator must make the entire source code base freely available to everyone, at no additional charge. This viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization making use of it. It also fundamentally undermines the independent commercial software sector because it effectively makes it impossible to distribute software on a basis where recipients pay for the product rather than just the cost of distribution.
The threat Mundie states posed by the viral aspect of the GPL is also economic. What he means when he explains how that aspect "undermines the independent commercial software sector" is that that "viral aspect of the GPL" would affect the financial health of the commercial software sector.
However, it is the GPL that Mundie finds unhealthy to the bottom line of that sector within which Microsoft excells. As well, he is dishonest in suggesting that recipients will pay "just for the cost of distribution". For recipients also pay for the cost of support, which is not the same as distribution since it is mainly service. Upgrades are still part of distribution. Having tech support talk you through the configuration and use of software is not distribution. Yet a recipient who only pays for distribution will be affected greatly if an upgrade crashes their LAN and their IT manager is unable to service it because no one in accounting bought into a workable support plan offered by Microsoft or a third party equivalent of customer support.
OSS only frees the software so that a software company can easily distribute and maintain through support for a price. Both distribution and support allow enough feedback to get back to the software engineers to help them create an increasingly improved upgrade. They are not getting "cheated" of compensation for their hard work creating software since they could also wear hats for distribution and support, thus adding an extremely valuable skillset to their CV by dealing with customers.
In this sense, open source software based on the GPL mirrors the .com business models that proved the least successful during the past year. They ask software developers to give away for free the very thing they create that is of greatest value in the hope that somehow they'll make money selling something else. In effect, it puts at risk the continued vitality of the independent software sector. The business model for OSS may well be attractive for software as an adjunct to hardware the model of the 60s and 70s or for service businesses that do not generate the revenue needed for major investments in technology. But as history has shown, while this type of model may have a place, it isn't successful in building a mass market and making powerful, easy-to-use software broadly accessible to consumers.
Mundie again is assuming that we know what "least successful" means i.e. resulting in losses of revenue. .COM was still successful since it followed the SSS=OSS paradigm to the letter, which resulted in greater distribution but sometomes woefully inadequate support.
In contrast, two decades of experience have shown that an economic model that protects intellectual property and a business model that recoups research and development costs have shown repeatedly that they can create impressive economic benefits and distribute them very broadly.
In short, closed source software equals big bucks. So why are a few users of Microsoft products complaining about getting dinged for support while desiring "ease of use"?
Finally, the fact that we believe strongly in the value of IP protection doesn't mean that we discount the importance of contributing to and supporting the public domain of knowledge as well. We believe that interaction between the public domain and the IP-based sector needs to be based on mutual responsibility and respect.
What Mundie means is "don't steal or reverse-engineer our code". Responsibility here implies the financial one of paying to get to access to their SSS, while respect means "respect the fact that Microsoft SSS is OSS that comes with a price".
There is an important and longstanding tradition for the public domain of knowledge, or "intellectual commons." This is reflected in many ways, including federal support for basic research, the limitations on IP rights reflected in the law and, more recently, the broad practice of contributing technology to public standards groups for the continued development of the Internet. We support this and want to continue to be a constructive and responsible participant in this community, including making contributions to public standards. There is an equally important tradition of commercial companies having the opportunity to benefit from and apply this public knowledge, including by developing commercial products that are protected by IP rights. There are many examples of this, including the many products that grew from research in the space program and the advances in speech recognition technology that followed work done at pre-eminent institutions such as Carnegie Mellon.
"Limitation on IP rights reflected in the law" refers to laws regarding Digital Rights Management which led to MPAA and RIAA rulings that allows them to sue a widow who uses a MAC with no access to p2p software, just because she ripped one music CD onto her computer for personal use, and iTunes reported her. It's another cash grab like the one for software products.
The GPL asserts that any product derived from source code licensed under it becomes subject to the GPL itself. When the resulting software product is distributed, the creator must make all of the source code available, at no additional charge. This effectively makes it impossible for commercial software companies to include source code that is licensed under the GPL into their products, since by doing so, they are constrained to give away the fruits of their labor. As we think about technology, IP rights, and the public sector of knowledge, we need an intellectual model that encourages interaction, not a model that drives them apart. We believe that a shared source model, coupled with continuing contributions to public standards, provides a path that is preferable to the open source approach founded on the GPL.
Microsoft believes "that a shared source model, coupled with continuing contributions to public standards, provides a path that is preferable to the open source approach founded on the GPL." By stating this Mundie contradicts his earlier statement that "SSS is OSS".
SSS based on a license that is not the GPL is not really OSS, for the GPL is what makes it open and thus "frees" it from closed source "tyranny".
GPL liberates OSS by including source code with it. Think of GPL as the Emancipation Proclamation. Consider Microsoft's SSS licensing akin to Southern laws involving slavery.
As of October 2007, Microsoft added its Public License (Ms-PL), renaming it from Microsoft Permissive Licence to Microsoft Public Licence while under review by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). While the Free Software Foundation calls it a free software licence, they make it clear that the Ms-PL is not compatible with the GPL. Indeed, even Microsoft Reciprocal Licence (originally Microsoft Community Licence)is not compatioble with the GPL.
For more information on Shared Source Software, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source
For more information on Open Source Software, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
Originally posted: 04/12/07 8:11 PM
Current update: 12/01/11 2:46 PM
Update 20121124.1438
My current computer systems are Crunchbang Linux on my PC and Android on my smartphones. I have yet to find a BSD flavor which boots into a XFCE desktop successfully due to the old age of my computer. However, I do like window shopping to see what Window7 and Windows8 are like.
The following quote is from a transcript of Microsoft Vice President Craig Mundie's remarks on the Commercial Software Model, dated May 3, 2001. While the topic addressed near the end of Mundie's remarks is dated, I will attempt to retort to several of his remarks regarding Microsoft's Shared Source and the GPL-based Open Source software.
Although I am aware that others have replied to Microsoft over the years, I thought I'd reread what Mundie said nearly 11 years ago, and comment on each of the paragraphs of his remarks in response to the overall impression that SS is superior to OS software.
Even though I do not expect Microsoft to ever respond to my commentary and critique of Mundie's position on SS versus OS software, I still have hope someone out there is listening.
If not, then this entry gives me the opportunity to publicize my views on this matter.
Before I start commenting, I'd like to take this opportunity to give a brief history of my interest in computers. It all goes back to 1985 when a friend introduced me to computer bulletin board systems (BBSes). I believe it was on a Commodore 64, an 8-bit machine, but later I'd buy a Commodore SP9000 Superpet and a couple Commodore 64s, plus even a TI99.
About five years later, there's a rumor that Gates said "All you'd need is 64 megabytes of RAM" in reference to the Pentium I. Today, regardless of the platform, your operating system needs much more RAM, in excess of 128MB. Indeed, with respect to Pentium motherboards, 512 MB is barely optimal ; 1GB is ideal and 2GB or more is optimal. With respect to AMD motherboards, 512MB is ideal while 1GB or more is optimal.
It wasn't until 1992 that I could afford my first 16-bit i386 16MHz IBM clone with 4 MB of 72-pin RAM, floppy drive and 100 MB hard drive for about $2000, and play with MSDOS 5.1. Access to computer networks was still through dialup as in the 8-bit computer days of the late 80s and using text, for the Internet had only been a concept an academic in England wrote about in collaboration with a scientist from CERN called the World-Wide Web.
At this one Internet provider, I had access to the Linux command prompt using BASH. Using a text-based interface, it was possible to subscribe Usenet groups and interact with people from around the world, first mainly from the US and then later from Europe, South America and Asia.
Today, the legacy of the Web lives on as the prefix to domain names in URLs and web links. At the time of writing of this article, I used a 733MHZ P2 or better machine with 256MB of 168-pin PC-133 SDRAM, CD-ROM drive and a 20GB hard drive. Today, I use a 2 GHz P4 machine with 2GB of 184-pin DDR RAM, a rewriteable CD-ROM drive with DVD reader, a rewriteable DVD drive, and a 120 GB hard drive.
To help better my knowledge of computer, I learned how to maintain computers as a trade and, in my spare time, learned to administer a LAN, having migrated from Windows to Linux between 2003 and 2006. It was only in 2007 that I fully dedicated myself to Linux, after 3 years of trying out different flavors such as Redhat, Debian, SuSE, Knoppix and finally Ubuntu. As well, I tried FreeBSD and QNX.
While Gates and I only share the fact that we are both college dropouts, he parlayed his interest in computers and electronics into a vast software empire.
However, I honed a growing love of electronics since I bought a book on transistors which was basically the US military's training manual on the subject. Consequently I also breadboarded transistor and later IC chip designs photocopied and written into a notebook at the library in Vancouver.
Meanwhile, Gates was selling software and establishing business models of profit, mainly to gain the respect and admiration of his parents. I on the other hand took the easy yet perilous route to today because for me, status and wealth are almost meaningless.
Today, I live and breathe Linux, and the world is at my hands.
For Open Source has opened up a radical model of livelihood based on the concept that "information wants to be free", and consequently since information is software, "software wants to be free", Therefore I feel that commenting in response to Microsoft VP Mundie's criticism of Open Source - albeit belatedly - is still within my capabilities since my comments address the concept of Open Source Software (OSS).
Why do I wish to comment about OSS? Because Mundie's support of Shared Source software implies a worship of the two things I abandoned a decade before I bought my first IBM clone: wealth, and the power derived from status.
Thus do I liberate myself by freely responding to Mundie. However, this is not done out of any true desire to be on an equal level with him, but to act freely according to the concept of free speech, and thus to express my opinion in a public forum. In doing so, I also endorse the prime concept of Free Software Foundation that software wants to be free.
For Linux is based on Open Source, and is the means of my liberation from Microsoft dependency.
Mundie states:
The phrase "open source software," or OSS, is often used as an umbrella term for a collection of product development, distribution and licensing practices, many of which have existed individually since the early days of computing. There are actually a number of different approaches within this community, but the common traits are providing people with access to source code and allowing others to modify and redistribute that code.
On this point, I agree with Mundie's definition, as he just summed up the history of OSS, its definition and business model in a nutshell.
As a result of Microsoft's statement of position today, many people will attempt to say that Shared Source is Microsoft's failed attempt at being an Open Source Company. This could not be a more incorrect statement. Shared Source is Open Source. We recognize that OSS has some benefits, such as the fostering of community, improved feedback and augmented debugging. We are always looking for ways to improve our products and make our customers more successful, and to that end we have incorporated these positive OSS elements in Shared Source. But there are significant drawbacks to OSS as well.
By stating that Shared Source is Open Source is not true since the SS software community has to "buy" into the SS model. Rather, what Mundie means, is that Microsoft has "borrowed" concepts from OSS and he is trying to confuse us by stating that SSS is OSS. It is not, because if software partners have to buy into SS to get code Microsoft shares with them, SS is not open because OSS and the concept that software wants to be free are implicit.
I suspect Mundie is trying to say that SSS is OSS in order to create cognitive dissonance in knowledgeable people who know that OSS means "software wants to be free". For SSS is anything other than free.
The OSS development model leads to a strong possibility of unhealthy "forking" of a code base, resulting in the development of multiple incompatible versions of programs, weakened interoperability, product instability, and hindering businesses ability to strategically plan for the future. Furthermore, it has inherent security risks and can force intellectual property into the public domain.
I question Mundie's use of the word "unhealthy" but assume that he means forking of a code base is economically unhealthy. It's like upgrading to a new computer but still using both to accumulate data. Unless a method of syncing data on both computers is implemented, the newer computer's data will fork off from the previous compuer's data. One could sync the sources of data from the old computer to the new one, and recycle the old computer.
With respect to software, forks usually occur when the current upgrade stops supporting previous versions. Thus Windows forked off from MSDOS when Windows 2000 was created and forked off again with WIN95/98 and OS/2. As well, XP forked off between Home and Professional, and Vista forked off from XP. With everything before XP being discontinued after 2010, WIN95/98 will become a dead fork. This is from an Operating System point of view, though. Apparently the file formats are still compatible between discontinued WIN95/98, XP and Vista.
However, RTF format forked off from its earliest incarnation RTF 1.0 1987 with most applications being unable to read correctly documents made with Word 3 for Window 3.0.
Inspired by Tex and Adobe Postscript, Microsoft created an RTF module for Windows Word to interface with the kernel to provide "enriched text" using its proprietary fonts and formatting. Even if the OSS community reverse-engineers RTF, there was no guarantee of a good match of "look-and-feel".
Judging from the inability of OpenOffice to accurately read a Microsoft RTF document, I can only conclude that reverse-engineering RTF (a copyrighted format) would violate OSS ideology.
My guess is that the OSS community would not buy into Microsoft's SSS program since its copyright policy makes closed source implicit. If Microsoft truly followed OSS protocols with SSS, then they should "free" RTF and be more implicit with the directives so that default fonts and formatting follow an OSS-like protocol.
Note: This actually happened as of March 2008 for Word 12 with the introduction of RTF 1.9.1 2008.
Some of the most successful OSS technology is licensed under the GNU General Public License or GPL. The GPL mandates that any software that incorporates source code already licensed under the GPL will itself become subject to the GPL. When the resulting software product is distributed, its creator must make the entire source code base freely available to everyone, at no additional charge. This viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization making use of it. It also fundamentally undermines the independent commercial software sector because it effectively makes it impossible to distribute software on a basis where recipients pay for the product rather than just the cost of distribution.
The threat Mundie states posed by the viral aspect of the GPL is also economic. What he means when he explains how that aspect "undermines the independent commercial software sector" is that that "viral aspect of the GPL" would affect the financial health of the commercial software sector.
However, it is the GPL that Mundie finds unhealthy to the bottom line of that sector within which Microsoft excells. As well, he is dishonest in suggesting that recipients will pay "just for the cost of distribution". For recipients also pay for the cost of support, which is not the same as distribution since it is mainly service. Upgrades are still part of distribution. Having tech support talk you through the configuration and use of software is not distribution. Yet a recipient who only pays for distribution will be affected greatly if an upgrade crashes their LAN and their IT manager is unable to service it because no one in accounting bought into a workable support plan offered by Microsoft or a third party equivalent of customer support.
OSS only frees the software so that a software company can easily distribute and maintain through support for a price. Both distribution and support allow enough feedback to get back to the software engineers to help them create an increasingly improved upgrade. They are not getting "cheated" of compensation for their hard work creating software since they could also wear hats for distribution and support, thus adding an extremely valuable skillset to their CV by dealing with customers.
In this sense, open source software based on the GPL mirrors the .com business models that proved the least successful during the past year. They ask software developers to give away for free the very thing they create that is of greatest value in the hope that somehow they'll make money selling something else. In effect, it puts at risk the continued vitality of the independent software sector. The business model for OSS may well be attractive for software as an adjunct to hardware the model of the 60s and 70s or for service businesses that do not generate the revenue needed for major investments in technology. But as history has shown, while this type of model may have a place, it isn't successful in building a mass market and making powerful, easy-to-use software broadly accessible to consumers.
Mundie again is assuming that we know what "least successful" means i.e. resulting in losses of revenue. .COM was still successful since it followed the SSS=OSS paradigm to the letter, which resulted in greater distribution but sometomes woefully inadequate support.
In contrast, two decades of experience have shown that an economic model that protects intellectual property and a business model that recoups research and development costs have shown repeatedly that they can create impressive economic benefits and distribute them very broadly.
In short, closed source software equals big bucks. So why are a few users of Microsoft products complaining about getting dinged for support while desiring "ease of use"?
Finally, the fact that we believe strongly in the value of IP protection doesn't mean that we discount the importance of contributing to and supporting the public domain of knowledge as well. We believe that interaction between the public domain and the IP-based sector needs to be based on mutual responsibility and respect.
What Mundie means is "don't steal or reverse-engineer our code". Responsibility here implies the financial one of paying to get to access to their SSS, while respect means "respect the fact that Microsoft SSS is OSS that comes with a price".
There is an important and longstanding tradition for the public domain of knowledge, or "intellectual commons." This is reflected in many ways, including federal support for basic research, the limitations on IP rights reflected in the law and, more recently, the broad practice of contributing technology to public standards groups for the continued development of the Internet. We support this and want to continue to be a constructive and responsible participant in this community, including making contributions to public standards. There is an equally important tradition of commercial companies having the opportunity to benefit from and apply this public knowledge, including by developing commercial products that are protected by IP rights. There are many examples of this, including the many products that grew from research in the space program and the advances in speech recognition technology that followed work done at pre-eminent institutions such as Carnegie Mellon.
"Limitation on IP rights reflected in the law" refers to laws regarding Digital Rights Management which led to MPAA and RIAA rulings that allows them to sue a widow who uses a MAC with no access to p2p software, just because she ripped one music CD onto her computer for personal use, and iTunes reported her. It's another cash grab like the one for software products.
The GPL asserts that any product derived from source code licensed under it becomes subject to the GPL itself. When the resulting software product is distributed, the creator must make all of the source code available, at no additional charge. This effectively makes it impossible for commercial software companies to include source code that is licensed under the GPL into their products, since by doing so, they are constrained to give away the fruits of their labor. As we think about technology, IP rights, and the public sector of knowledge, we need an intellectual model that encourages interaction, not a model that drives them apart. We believe that a shared source model, coupled with continuing contributions to public standards, provides a path that is preferable to the open source approach founded on the GPL.
Microsoft believes "that a shared source model, coupled with continuing contributions to public standards, provides a path that is preferable to the open source approach founded on the GPL." By stating this Mundie contradicts his earlier statement that "SSS is OSS".
SSS based on a license that is not the GPL is not really OSS, for the GPL is what makes it open and thus "frees" it from closed source "tyranny".
GPL liberates OSS by including source code with it. Think of GPL as the Emancipation Proclamation. Consider Microsoft's SSS licensing akin to Southern laws involving slavery.
As of October 2007, Microsoft added its Public License (Ms-PL), renaming it from Microsoft Permissive Licence to Microsoft Public Licence while under review by the Open Source Initiative (OSI). While the Free Software Foundation calls it a free software licence, they make it clear that the Ms-PL is not compatible with the GPL. Indeed, even Microsoft Reciprocal Licence (originally Microsoft Community Licence)is not compatioble with the GPL.
For more information on Shared Source Software, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shared_source
For more information on Open Source Software, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
Originally posted: 04/12/07 8:11 PM
Current update: 12/01/11 2:46 PM
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