Opinion

Yes We Can Music Video

davestechshop.net — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:57:09 GMT

The will.i.am music video "Yes We Can" hit the Net on Friday and by Tuesday it had been streamed a staggering 10 million times on YouTube and the website www.yeswecansong.com.

Watch it.

The Yes We Can Song
by will.i.am

I was sitting in my recording studio watching the debates...
Torn between the candidates

I was never really big on politics...
and actually I’m still not big on politics...
but 4 years ago, me and the black eyed peas supported Kerry...
And we supported Kerry with all our might...
We performed and performed and performed for the DNC...
doing all we could do to get the youth involved...

The outcome of the last 2 elections has saddened me...
on how unfair, backwards, upside down, unbalanced, untruthful,
corrupt, and just simply, how wrong the world and "politics" are...

So this year i wanted to get involved and do all i could early...

And i found myself torn...
because this time it’s not that simple...
our choices aren’t as clear as the last elections ...
last time it was so obvious...
Bush and war
vs
no Bush and no war...

But this time it’s not that simple...
and there are a lot of people that are torn just like i am...

So for awhile I put it off and i was going to wait until it was decided for me...

And then came New Hampshire...

And i was captivated...

Inspired...

I reflected on my life...
and the blessings I have...
and the people who fought for me to have these rights and blessings...

and I’m not talking about a "black thing"
I’m talking about a "human thing" me as a "person"
an American...

That speech made me think of Martin Luther King...
Kennedy...
and Lincoln...
and all the others that have fought for what we have today...

what America is "supposed" to be...

freedom...
equality...
and truth...

and thats not what we have today...
we think we are free...
but in reality terror and fear controls our decisions...

this is not the America that our pioneers and leaders fought and
died for...

and then there was New Hampshire

it was that speech...
like many great speeches...
that one moved me...
because words and ideas are powerful...

It made me think...
and realize that today we have "very few" leaders...
maybe none...

but that speech...

it inspired me...
it inspired me to look inside myself and outwards towards the world...
it inspired me to want to change myself to better the world...
and take a "leap" towards change...
and hope that others become inspired to do the same...
change themselves..
change their greed...
change their fears...
and if we "change that"
"then hey"..
we got something right...???...

1 week later after the speech settled in me...
I began making this song...
I came up with the idea to turn his speech into a song...
because that speech effected and touched my inner core like nothing in a very long time...

it spoke to me...

because words and ideas are powerful...

I just wanted to add a melody to those words...
I wanted the inspiration that was bubbling inside me to take over...

so i let it..

I wasn't afraid to stand for something...
to stand for "change"...
I wasn't afraid of "fear"...
it was pure inspiration...

so I called my friends...
and they called their friends...
in a matter of 2 days...
We made the song and video...

Usually this process would take months...
a bunch of record company people figuring out strategies and release dates...
interviews...
all that stuff...
but this time i took it in my own hands...
so i called my friends sarah pantera, mike jurkovac, fred goldring, and jesse dylan to help make it happen...
and they called their friends..
and we did it together in 48 hours...
and instead of putting it in the hands of profit we put it in the hands of inspiration...

then we put it on the net for the world to feel...

When you are truly inspired..
magic happens...
incredible things happen...
love happens..
(and with that combination)

"love, and inspiration"

change happens...

"change for the better"
Inspiration breeds change...

"Positive change"...

no one on this planet is truly experienced to handle the obstacles we face today...
Terror, fear, lies, agendas, politics, money, all the above...
It’s all scary...

Martin Luther King didn't have experience to lead...
Kennedy didn't have experience to lead...
Susan B. Anthony...
Nelson Mandela...
Rosa Parks...
Gandhi...
Anne Frank...
and everyone else who has had a hand in molding the freedoms we have and take for granted today...

no one truly has experience to deal with the world today...

they just need "desire, strength, courage ability, and passion" to change...
and to stand for something even when people say it's not possible...

America would not be here "today" if we didn’t stand and fight for
change "yesterday"...
Everything we have as a "people" is because of the "people" who fought for
change...
and whoever is the President has to realize we have a lot of changing to do

I'm not trying to convince people to see things how i do...
I produced this song to share my new found inspiration and how I've been moved...
I hope this song will make you feel...
love...
and think...
and be inspired just like the speech inspired me...

that’s all...

Let's all come together like America is supposed to...
Like Japan did after Hiroshima...

that was less than 65 years ago...
and look at Japan now...

they did it together...
they did it...

"We can't?...

Are you serious..?..

WE CAN!!!

Yes we can...
A United "America"
Democrats, Republicans and Independents together...
Building a new America

We can do it...
"TOGETHER"

Please visit www.yeswecansong.com

Thank you for reading and listening...
will.i.am

Contact
mr.dippy@dipdive.com
http://www.myspace.com/mr_dippy

What Makes Windows Deteriorate Over Time

davestechshop.net — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:58:07 GMT

I've been using Microsoft Windows since version 3.1. One consistent issue I've faced is that the operating system becomes degraded in some way with normal use over time. Usually, after about a year of normal use I have to reinstall WIndows - and that means reinstalling all my applications and reconfiguring all my personal preferences and customizations.

Over the years and over all the versions of Windows since 3.1 through the latest the specific issues that have resulted in forced re-installations have been different. But some common symptoms include these:

An existing software application stops working or works incorrectly -- and very in-depth debugging fails to reveal the problem. The application works on other systems, just not on my system. Nothing except a re-installation seems to solve the problem. I recently experienced this issue with my password manager software. The developer worked very hard with me and we could not resolve the problem. Reinstalling Windows finally fixed it.
A new software application refuses to install. This recently happened to me with a new development environment from a major vendor. Their software runs well on millions of computers - just not on mine. Reinstalling Windows was the only solution we found and that worked.
A service pack or other update will not install. This recently happened to me when installing Service Pack 2 from Microsoft. The service pack would not install. Microsoft generously offered help, but ultimately the solution was once again to reinstall Windows.
Windows stops booting up with a message that the kernel is missing some DLLs. It will not even boot into safe mode, etc. Some people might be able to diagnose these errors better than me, but I inevitably decide to endure the pain of a re-installation rather than try to debug/resolve kernel errors.

Each time I have to re-install Windows it feels like I'm being kicked out of my house. I spend a lot of time working on my computer -- indeed, my wife says I live there.

What would happen if, after getting a plumbing leak under your house, the plumber tells you that you must move out of your house, tear down the house and build a new one in its place, and eventually you can move back in, but you will have to redecorate all over again and move all your possessions back in from storage and all that stuff? Now, what would you think if this happened to you every 12 to 24 months?!

That's how I feel about being forced to re-install Windows approximately every year. The intense part of this re-installation takes a couple days; but then it seems to require about two weeks before I have everything completely back like it was. I don't mind the work, but I hate the fact that it is unproductive work. It isn't creative. I'm not moving ahead - I'm simply getting back what I already had and was happy with (except for the fact that it stopped working!).

Fifteen months ago I was faced with re-installing Windows on my desktop computer for about the hundredth time. I decided to install Windows Server 2003 as my desktop OS. I set it up so that all my data and as many of my settings as possible (including my complete Windows profile) were on my file server. I hoped that running Windows Server 2003 as my desktop would give me the kind of stability and reliability we often see in real Windows servers.

The Windows servers I typically work with professionally do not degrade over time like Windows on the desktop does. I've seen Windows servers that continue to run well for years. I want Windows on my desktop to hold up over time that well.

I enjoyed using Windows Server 2003 as my desktop OS for about a year. I was very careful with it. I never had a virus infection. I never had a single piece of malware infect my system. I was very selective about which applications I installed. I spent a year treating my operating system with great care. However, in the end, my fate was the same. I was forced to re-install Windows. Why does this happen?!

This time it was actually 15 months between installs, but that's only because I endured a malfunctioning operating system for at least three months before I found the time to re-install Windows. Once I did re-install Windows I realized how poorly everything had been working. Application after application suddenly began doing what it was designed to do again. That's nice, but I really want to know how to prevent Windows from deteriorating over time.

Is the degradation of Windows due to installing and uninstalling applications? I know Windows servers generally have a fairly stable set of applications. I also know that experience tells me to be very careful about installing new applications because this can often lead to problems. At the moment I feel installing and uninstalling applications is the primary suspect in Windows's degradation over time. However, there is no way to avoid installing some new or upgraded applications over the course of a year or more. I minimized the applications I installed, but I still suffered a serious deterioration in WIndows functionality that led to a forced re-installation (and all the related pain).

People often point to malware, viruses and other threats from online activities as the reason for Windows degradation over time. In my case I am confident this is not the reason (and I tested for this with the best tools I know of). What else could it be?

Other sysadmins point to lack of maintenance as the culprit. This includes things like neglect of disk defragmenting, tons of temporary files piling up, etc. As you can probably guess, I'm well above average when it comes to taking care of my system. I don't think lack of maintenance explains why I have to reinstall Windows every year (or two at the most). Plus, my servers don't suffer the same fate as my desktop. My home file server (running the same Windows Server 2003 operating system), for example, just runs and runs and runs. I actually do less preventive maintenance on it because it never gives me any problems. Why is it that the same operating system, cared for by the same person, but used on the desktop craps out after a fairly short period of use?

Installing hardware device drivers can often cause problems, but I approached this area much the same as new software applications. Over the 15 months I used my last installation of Windows I only installed a few new USB devices. I made no other hardware changes. Plus I had not made any changes at all recently. I don't think device driver problems explains what happened to me.

I would love to hear from anyone who has figured out to to prevent and avoid the Windows degradation that is so common. Everyone seems to have experienced it. No everyone has experienced it as frequently as I have, but I use my computer all day long every day.

I'll conclude this article by saying that my most recent re-installation was much less painful because of some key changes I made last time this happened to me. These are:

I put all my personal data on my home file server. Sure there was a cost in setting up a home file server, but it was worth every penny!
I wired my house with CAT6e and installed a GigE switch.
I set up a roaming profile and stored it on my home file server. The price for doing this is a longer start up and shut down time in Windows, but again I feel it was one of the best changes I have made considering that Windows on the desktop deteriorates over time.
I took My Documents (and My Pictures and all my other stuff) out of my profile and stored it directly on the file server.
I set up email with Google. I still used Outlook and POP3, but I left copies of all my mail on Google's servers. While I was re-installing Windows, Gmail saved me. In fact, I'm not sure I'll go back to Outlook - at least not in the same way I relied on it before.
I moved all my favorites/bookmarks online (Spurl and del.icio.us).

This time, I took a couple more steps in addition to those listed above.

I set up a home application server, for one. This server will run all my productivity applications. I will access it via RDP 6.0 (so I can have my high resolution dual monitor experience) from my desktop. I will strive to keep the set of applications very stable. I will not access the Internet from this box (except for Windows updates and a few limited situations). I won't plug USB or Blue Tooth devices into this box, and I won't install new hardware unless there is something I can't avoid. I probably will run Visual Studio as well as Office on this box. Doing development on it concerns me a bit. Maybe I should have a separate development box, but that seems impractical for several reasons. First, I use the Office apps together with Visual Studio quite frequently. Second, I'm already at a ridiculous level of complexity for a single user. (After all, why should a single user have to have a desktop, a file server, an application server and a GigE network just to achieve some level of reliability? I simple want Windows to stop crashing and deteriorating over time.)

The other step I took is to more fully embrace Virtual PC 2007 and Virtual Server 2005. I will be using these virtual machines extensively for testing any new application I may be considering installing on my desktop (or application server). I'll be using them for development work as much as possible. And I have a Virtual PC VM set up for all my online activity. It has an undo disk enabled and I virtually never commit the changes. I find that I can get a lot of online work done and save the results of my work and then simply close the virtual machine and undo all the changes. That way my virtual machines stays nearly as fresh as it was the day I first installed Windows. I do have to plan for installing updates and doing other maintenance. I simply do that work in a session where I don't browse the web, then I close the VM and commit the changes.

The virtual machines do have some limitations. For example, they don't have video support for dual monitors or high resolutions. I don't think you can burn CDs or DVDs from within a virtual machine. They don't use all the power of modern CPUs. They aren't suitable for gaming. The list goes on. Therefore, a virtual machine cannot completely protect me from the problems I have experienced with Windows degradation, but I think they will help.

What other suggestions can you think of?

I hope that the next time I re-install Windows on my desktop (or any of my personal servers) will be due to my own decision to upgrade, not because I'm forced to re-install due to deterioration of the operating system.

You should not be purchasing goods from a company that is at war with you

davestechshop.net — Wed, 02 May 2007 12:53:03 GMT

John Leach says it well here: You should not be purchasing goods from a company that is at war with you.

Read at your own risk.

The Problem of Open Source in the DotNet World

davestechshop.net — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 09:19:54 GMT

If you missed Oren Eini's (a.k.a. Ayende Rahien's) post on The Problem of Open Source in the Microsoft World, I would highly recommend it. He makes a lot of points I wish I had made in my earlier posts on open source in the .NET community.

One of the commenters on Ayende's post said, "This is the most well-written explanation of the dillemas which are caused by MS lack of support for OSS." Ayende's post is definitely worth reading if you are interested in this subject.

With Ayende's excellent points available for the readers's reference, I think I can better state the points I was trying to make in one of my earlier posts.

Microsoft doesn't do enough to support the .NET open source community.
Microsoft holds a unique position in this community.
The .NET OSS community is good for Microsoft and .NET.
Microsoft needs an attitude change.

In my view, a great way to both demonstrate an attitude change to the community and to help precipitate that attitude change within Microsoft is for Microsoft to commit funding to select open source projects or to put together an organization like INETA for OSS.

When the leaders of a company commit serious funding to new direction, team leaders within the organization get a very clear signal about priorities. A serious funding commitment can cause an attitude change throughout the organization in a way that memos and meetings and annoucements cannot.

Both Ayende and I agree that Microsoft needs an attitude change in regard to OSS. My suggestion is simply that putting some serious money into the .NET OSS community is a really good way to induce that attitude change within Microsoft while simultaneously helping accomplish some good things within the community.

It seems that many readers (but not all) agree with me that Microsoft needs an attitude change toward the .NET open source community. However, I wonder if my emphasis on funding (money) is something people in the OSS community have a hard time relating to.

I believe my emphasis on money (in the form of funding) is warranted when it comes to Microsoft because they are a cash-rich company and they have demonstrated that money (in the form of fines) will cause them to change their behavior. I am a developer, but I have a business background, and I tend to think like a business person at times (although when I catch myself doing it I attempt to cure myself by writing some code ;). Although my earlier posts could have been better written, I continue to believe that Microsoft Should Financially Support Open Source Projects. I'm not saying they have a responsibility to desolate OSS projects or that they should support all (or even most) OSS projects in the .NET community. I am saying that I'd like to see the same types of changes Ayende describes and that I think a financial commitment by Microsoft's leaders would focus the entire company on really changing in a way that will benefit everyone in the .NET community, including Microsoft.

Vista Licensing

davestechshop.net — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 11:48:20 GMT

Koroush Ghazi of www.TweakGuides.com wrote an article (here) on Vista Licensing from the PC enthusiast's point of view. I happen to think he makes some excellent points.

Here is one quote that particularly resonates with me:

"You might say that [Microsoft's past policies] only demonstrate how generous Microsoft have been in the past, and that having picked up on the confusion, they have now simply clarified their position on transfer rights in the Vista EULA to avoid future problems. I would argue otherwise. To me and many other people this move has only served to open our eyes to just how draconian the Windows licensing arrangements are - and this is what all the fuss and bother is about."

The potential licensing issues are only one of several factors that could delay or prevent me from upgrading to Vista for years, if not forever. The other factors are the expense, the user-unfriendly Digital Rights Management (DRM) and the overbearing Anti-Piracy measures (read Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications). On these points, Koroush provides another insightful quote:

"My training as an Economist tells me that only a company with significant market share, when faced with little competition in said market, can get away with a scenario like this. The games I buy don't have all of these measures or restrictions. The third party applications I buy don't have all these measures or restrictions. Yet apparently I am forced to accept that the one key piece of software my system cannot do without comes with all these added goodies, and at a premium price to boot.

By "goodies", he means the DRM and the Anti-Piracy measures, neither of which are features desired by most PC enthusiasts.

My strategy is clear: I'm staying with XP for as long as possible while I look for alternatives to Vista (or, possibly, eventually discover that Vista isn't so bad). Linux might or might not be an alternative, but until recently I didn't have much interest in Linux. Now, thanks to Microsoft's hard work on Vista, I have renewed interest in Linux. I doubt that was part of Microsoft's strategy.

Who knows if any Linux distro can capitalize on the increase in people "window shopping" now, but the confluence of Microsoft's various decisions with Vista has once again sent many of the hard core Windows enthusiasts out to attempt to make friends with another OS.

This has happened before. I personally hope the current frustration and anger felt by PC enthusiasts over Vista results in a huge boost for Linux this time. If this happens, it's a win-win situation for me. On the one hand, that Linux popularity boost may help ease some of the minor annoyances (such as hardware compatibility) that put an obstacle between me and Linux. That would be my preferred outcome. On the other hand, it might result in more competition for Microsoft in a manner similar to Firefox vs. IE. It should be obvious to any PC user that Firefox's popularity has resulted in Microsoft putting more attention on certain IE upgrades and improvements. A more formidable threat from Linux on the desktop might change the economics cited by Koroush enough to make purchasers of Vista feel a bit more fairly treated.

Google Groups Sorry...

davestechshop.net — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 12:00:33 GMT

You cannot reply to this topic because it is more than 30 days old...

Sometimes I sure wish I could reply to Google Groups topics that were more than 30 days old. This is especially true if I see an unanswered thread and I have some helpful info on that topic.

I know I often search for and find useful posts that are a year old or more.

In fact, I used to get responses on threads that were much more than a year old. Maybe this 30 day limit is a response to comment spam. Damn spammers.

Opinions on Funding Open Source Projects

davestechshop.net — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 12:38:24 GMT

Here are some other opinions on whether Microsoft should do more to support the .NET open source community (the list also includes some related discussions):

Should Microsoft Financially Support Open Source Projects? by Joe Brinkman
Should Microsoft Financially Support Open Source Projects? by Phil Haack
Will Microsoft Subsume Open Source? by Wyaatt Barnett
Open Source Projects As A Form Of Community Service Don catalogs some of the related opinions:
- Phil Haack talks about his ideas behind helping/saving the open source community and laid down a challenge.
- Eric Wise mentions that he will not work on another FOSS project.
- Scott Hanselman laments that Microsoft hasn't put together an Ineta like organization to handle giving grants to open source projects, and also shows how easy it is to submit a patch/fix to a project.
- Peter Provost worries that bringing money into the equation may spoil the cool part of community developed software, and that leadership is the key to good open source projects.
- Derek Denny-Brown says that "Microsoft needs to understand that Community is more than just lots of vendors creating commercial components, or MVPs answering questions on newsgroups".
NDoc dead, Community Contributions by tomas restrepo
Open Source, the Microsoft Community and Funding by John Lam
Open Specification Promise by Jason Matusow
Is your project fiscally sound? by Joe Brinkman
eWEEK Labs Bakeoff: Open Source Versus .Net Stacks
NDoc 2 is Officially Dead by Charles Chen
More Tool Stagnation to Come? by Daniel Read

Let me know if I have missed any good articles.

My past articles on this subject can be viewed here.

Microsoft Has a Greater Responsibility to the Open Source Community

davestechshop.net — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 10:36:57 GMT

Joe Brinkman wrote a great follow up to my earlier post, Microsoft Should Financially Support Open Source Projects. He made some important points better than I did in my original article. I hope everyone that reads my article also reads Joe's article.

We now have several people speaking out about the fact that the .NET open source community receives financial support from all types of individuals and entities in the .NET community except Microsoft. People ranging from students to developers to small companies to large companies are willing to make financial donations to .NET open source projects. To my knowledge, Microsoft refuses to do that. (Or it does it to such a small extent that it is insignificant.)

Microsoft is not just another entity in this community. The situation is not the same as it is for a company like IBM (or Sun, etc.) in the Linux open source community. Linux doesn't run nearly exclusively on IBM hardware, for example.

However, in the .NET open source community, Microsoft is in a monopoly position (even though Mono is an important and hopefully strongly growing presence). More importantly, this community is Microsoft's home territory.

Microsoft is not just one of many players in the .NET open source community. Microsoft is the largest, richest, and most powerful entity in this community. In addition, nearly the whole community depends on and is connected with Microsoft in a way that is different from any relationship a single commercial company has with Linux. If Microsoft disappeared, Mono (and other open source projects) might continue, but the devastation to the .NET community would not be small.

If you are very wealthy, or if you have worked closely with a very wealthy person advising that person regarding donations, you understand that the wealthy and powerful people in a community have greater responsibilities than average people in the community. This is not just fanciful thinking. Whether they want the responsibility or not, and regardless of their individual character, most wealthy people eventually realize that they cannot ignore the responsibility that comes with their greater means.

In the .NET open source community, Microsoft has so far been ignoring the responsibility that comes from its position. So has almost everyone else. I don't know of anyone except Scott Hanselman and Joe Brinkman who have called upon Microsoft to financially support the .NET open source community. Scott said,

It's a shame that Microsoft can't put together an organization like INETA (who already gives small stipends to folks to speak at User Groups) and gave away grants/stipends to the 20 or so .NET Open Source Projects that TRULY make a difference in measurable ways. The whole thing could be managed out of the existing INETA organization and wouldn't cost more than a few hundred grand - the price of maybe 3-4 Microsoft Engineers.

He's right. It is a shame and it needs to change. Joe said something similar. He stated,

I believe it is in Microsoft's best interests to identify a handful of open source projects to support.

I agree that it is in Microsoft's best interest. But I also want to take the argument one step further. Microsoft has a greater responsibility than any other company or any other individual because Microsoft has greater means and Microsoft has more at stake and this is Microsoft's home ground.

At this point, a lot of people seem to assume that I am saying Microsoft has a duty to keep individual open source projects afloat. I am not implying that at all. Both Joe and Phil articulate this clearly. I also tried to clarify it in my comments to my earlier post. Rather than restate it again, I encourage you to read Joe's article because he articulates why the responsibility for any individual open source project's success or failure falls on the shoulders of that project's management team.

In summary, all of us who have aligned our careers with Microsoft technologies need to see several things from Microsoft:

We need to be 100% confident that Microsoft will not apply its embrace, extend, exterminate mentality to .NET open source.
We need more than a promise not to do harm. We need Microsoft to embrace and nurture the community. (Again, I'm not implying that MS should be responsible for keeping any particular project afloat - only the management team can do that.)
We need to feel like we are part of a community of good guys. None of the developers I know want to be associated with the Evil Empire (see postscript). Microsoft earned that reputation and now it needs to actively shed it.

Microsoft can help accomplish all these goals, in part, by financially supporting the open source community (as in Scott's INETA-like proposal).

Furthermore, Microsoft simply has a duty to the community because of its wealth and power. I know I seem to be the only one saying this. But maybe I'm the only developer blogging about this who has had the experience of advising a multi-millionaire on making million-dollar-plus charitable donations. I'm not wealthy, but all the very wealthy people I know recognize their greater responsibility. Microsoft should recognize it too.

If you don't believe this greater responsibility stuff, go become a billionaire and then let me know how you feel about your responsibilities to the community ;) Moreover, do it in India where you can create your own cities! If you do that enough times, you may be in a similar position to what Microsoft enjoys in the .NET community.

(Wouldn't it be nice if that statement actually inspired some reader to go out and become a billionaire just to be able to tell me what affect it had on them?! Well, let's hope that happens to at least one reader!)

Microsoft Should Financially Support Open Source Projects

davestechshop.net — Sat, 16 Sep 2006 10:38:45 GMT

I left Jason Matusow a comment on his article about the Microsoft Open Specification Promise.

Jason Matusow graciously replied here. Jason, thank you for taking an interest in this topic. I think these issues are important to Microsoft as well as to the community of .NET developers. Jason also replied to my comment on his blog with some good points in a follow up comment.

I guess those exchanges got me warmed up. I have a much more clear picture now of why Microsoft should financially support .NET open source projects and why it bothers me that Microsoft doesn't do this already.

As Jason mentioned, DotNetNuke (DNN) is a good example of a .NET Open Source Project that is very positive for the Microsoft developer community. My current employer uses DNN in its commercial application. I also agree with Jason that DNN is a good example of the type of project Microsoft could and should continue to actively support.

Another great open source project is the Subtext blogging platform which is a fork of .TEXT. (If you clicked on the link to Subtext, the site you saw was hosted in DNN.) I run this blog on Subtext and I have recently gotten to know the Subtext team. Subtext is one of those projects on SourceForge Jason mentions that uses Visual Studio for its development. Subtext also uses log4net, Nant, NUnit and other open source tools that are critical to its survival. I recently contributed a patch to Subtext and I used TortoiseSVN for Subversion along with Visual Studio to do so.

These open source dev tools (NUnit, log4net, TortoiseSVN, NDoc and more), plus SourceForge itself, keep many of these other projects such as Subtext going. In fact, that is also true of commercial (non-open source) projects.

I am a Microsoft-centric developer with an MSDN subscription working in a company that is a 100% Microsoft shop. Yet I depend upon open source tools to supplement my MSDN subscription and my company's subscriptions to commercial tools such as Developer's Express. Without the open source tools, life as a .NET developer would be a couple notches less satisfying and much less productive.

In my company's commercial application we depend upon DotNetNuke, Nant, log4net, NUnit and other open source tools. Those open source projects help support us. (In fact, without DNN, we would probably be out of business because our developments costs would be too high.) In turn, my company helps support Microsoft (because we purchase licenses and MSDN subscriptions). Yet Microsoft does not complete the circle by financially supporting any of those open source projects. NDoc stands out as an example.

Microsoft benefits far more from all these open source projects than people in the company realize. The open source projects fill critical gaps of functionality - but that is obvious. What isn't obvious is how the open source projects benefit Microsoft financially. As I said, my current employer would not be in business without the open source tools. How do I know? Because the company actually told the staff it was going out of business and it started shutting down. At the last minute an outsider stepped in and saved the company. A central part of his turnaround plan was using DotNetNuke to lower development costs. And one of the first uses of funding that came in was to purchase more Microsoft products (and renew existing licenses).

As an insider who has both software development and business experience, watching all this happen demonstrated clearly that DotNetNuke contributed directly to Microsoft revenues. This may be a dramatic (and small scale) example, but the same forces are at work in subtle ways in development shops all around the world.

Open source projects lower the costs for development teams and those lower costs translate into greater ability to afford the prices Microsoft charges. Therefore the existence of .NET open source projects helps support Microsoft's pricing power. Microsoft could help itself and help the community by financially contributing to a lot of those 600+ open source .NET projects Jason Matusow mentions.

The appearance (real or imagined) of Microsoft exterminating an open source project and replacing it by a closed source project doesn't sit well with me or a lot of others. Similarly, passively standing by while any widely used .NET open source project dies (this is certainly not imagined-- see NDoc) from lack of financial support makes Microsoft look bad and it hurts the community.

That lack of action (and financial support) also scares people like me. As I said in one of my blog posts, Microsoft's shared source efforts with .NET and other actions won over my heart and mind and I aligned my career with Microsoft's technologies. But when I saw Microsoft let NDoc die, I surveyed the landscape. What I saw gave me a twinge of fear that I had aligned myself with a company that still had elements of the 'Evil Empire' alive somewhere deep within it. That feeling is what prompted my recent blog post that Jason referred to.

I want to associate myself with the good guys (in my career and otherwise). I would love to see Microsoft unquestionably become known as the good guys. Financially supporting open source would do a lot to help make this happen. If I ever do refocus my development career around Linux development (which is a real possibility), the primary factor driving that change would undoubtedly be related to Microsoft's behavior. The more Microsoft treats others poorly (whether those others be small open source projects or large government entities), the more I want to move to the other side.

Jason, thank you for taking an interest in my comment on your blog and for taking the step of forwarding the link to my blog to a few folks inside MS.

Postscript

As I was finishing this article, I typed in Evil-Empire on Google. Out of 3,230,000 results, Microsoft was mentioned as high as #7. Microsoft also showed up many times in the results, even though the term "Evil Empire" originally had nothing to do with Microsoft. However, as Wikipedia says,

Within hacker culture, the term has come to be used as a reference to Microsoft and its business tactics, often seen as unethical and monopolistic.

As a side note, I have to ask: Does Google somehow tune their search results to return Microsoft when someone searches on Evil-Empire? I saw articles that mentioned Microsoft [anti-trust, etc.] but did not include the words Evil Empire.

Wouldn't it be great for all of us who enjoy developing on the .NET platform to eradicate any association of the term "Evil Empire" with Microsoft? As I said, I want to be associated with the good guys!

Read my follow up thoughts on this subject here.

HP's Boardroom Mess

davestechshop.net — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 13:27:14 GMT

Are there any truly upstanding citizen's on HP's board? I know they are in a tough position and I wouldn't want to be in that position. But none of them have exhibited the kind of behavior that exemplifies excellent character.

The person who is looking the best at the moment is Tom Perkins. See his full statement (pdf). Many are praising him.

Over on Scoble's blog, I read the following comment (until then I had not planned to write anything on this topic):

Tom Perkins on the other hand demonstrated the best conduct that the modern boardroom has to offer. Good for him for exposing Dunn’s callous actions.

Comments like that miss the facts.

A closer reading of Tom Perkin's own public documents reveals the following facts:

Tom, together with the chair, approved a clandestine plan to investigate the board's own members. He could have instead proposed a plan to just ask the board members directly, but he didn't. Tom was fine with keeping the leak investigation secret from the full board. (He calls it offline.)
Tom only disagreed with the actions when he found out that personal communications were obtained as part of that investigation.

See Tom's letter of July 18th to Ann Baskins.

It is all a sad situation. I would love to see HP get back on track.