17 Nov 1998
Copyright, 1998, Max K. Goff, all rights reserved
 
Today is another travel day.  This time, I'm going home.  A SwissAir flight from Zurich to JFK.  I left Oslo quite early this morning.  The Leonid meteor shower should peak during this flight, but I doubt we'll see anything from here, as the sun will be with us the entire nine hours.  A part of me fears being in the air while the bulk of the meteorites hit the atmosphere.  But the more rational part of me dismisses the very unlikely possibilities that my fear would magnify.  It's not likely that the flight will be disrupted, or that the satellites involved somehow in our ground communications will become inoperable.  I'm sure it will be a rather dull, uneventful flight.  Life will go on.

I  read in the Financial Times today a couple of articles about the recent Larry Ellison announcement.  I also read the press release from Oracle online at the Internet Cafe in Amsterdam this past weekend.  From what I can gather, Larry would work with hardware partners to provide thin clients at low costs to businesses (ostensibly), starting from the standpoint of necessary services.  What services, what "applications," does a modern enterprise really need?  Start with that question and expand to the desktop from there -- not the other way around.  The same article quoted Bill Gates as stating the the PC paradigm had won the desktop, was winning the server battle, and would also win on small devices.

I'm not sure it matters.  I don't mean that it doesn't matter what software architecture is utilized, or what kinds of protocols are used.  I'm not sure it matters where you begin - from the perspective of the desktop, or the perspective of the server.  I think what matters much more is the philosophy behind the architecture.  And to me, that battleground becomes clearer every day:  Open versus Proprietary.

The Internet was built on "open" protocols -- known, accessible communications protocols that allowed anyone to participate.  As long as you followed the rules, you could play the game.  And competition was based on those rules.  "Open systems" too are based on such a philosophy.  The assumption is this:  as long as there are certain, basic rules of behavior we can count on, we can move forward and profit as a community from the contributions of all.  "Proprietary" systems are based on the premise of customer lock-in.  Probably the best analogy for such a model is the complex system that arises in a culture where highly addictive drugs are illegal.

Since drugs are illegal, there is a premium the user must pay.  That premium reflects the implicit costs of the black market from which drugs must necessarily come.  And, of course, corruption follows cash.  This gives rise to a self sustaining status quo, effectively a regulated monopoly, where drug dealers can charge excessive premiums, which provides cash to a few corrupt law enforcement officials, who also benefit from the excessive charges. These corrupt officials, who benefit from the status quo, in turn behave in such ways as to allow the flow of drugs to continue despite the best efforts of politicians and the majority of well meaning officials who are not corrupt.  The high price users must pay for illegal, addictive drugs is a direct result of the fact that they are illegal (the black market).  The corruption is an unintended consequence, but an important and necessary component for the system to continue (the unintended benefactors).  In other words, illegal addictive drugs will always give rise to high prices and corruption, and the system will be very reticent to change, as too many key participants benefit from the status quo.  Who suffers in this environment?  Who benefits?

 
 And who suffers in this system?  Clearly the users of illegal drugs.  Black market prices for illegal drugs can be very high.   "But these are drug users," you may say.  "Why should I care if a drug addict pays premium prices?  Didn't they bring it on themselves?"  I won't argue that point.  Indeed, users of illegal, addictive drugs presumably had a choice.  How they should be treated in taking responsibility for that choice is not the point.  But there are others who suffer as well -- specifically, you and me.  We all suffer from this model, due to the costs and the unintended consequences of making addictive drugs illegal.    How many billions of dollars has the U.S. government spent on the "War on Drugs" in the past 20 years?  I don't know the exact amount, but I'm quite certain the answer is "lots."  Lots and lots of billions of dollars.  That's money out of the pockets of every tax paying citizen.  And are drugs less prevalent than they were 20 years ago? Some would argue that drugs are even more pervasive than they were.  Especially the highly addictive drugs like heroin and cocaine.

And consider the untended consequences.  Since prices are high, drug users must ensure a steady supply of disposable income in order to feed a habit that will never be satisfied.  Lacking means otherwise, many turn to crime, sometimes very violent crime.  I think it can be argued that the funding for most types of organized crime (including youth gangs), comes from the high premiums charged to end users of illegal, addictive drugs.  Hence, drive-by shootings are also the unintended consequence of making addictive drugs illegal.

But this is not a missal denouncing the fact that addictive drugs are illegal.  The point of these ramblings is  that there are many similarities between the behaviors that arise from the set of relationships in an environment where addictive substances are against the law, and the behaviors that arise when markets succumb to proprietary systems.  Proprietary systems are like illegal drugs.

Rather than drug dealers, we have the suppliers of proprietary systems.   Given their status in the industry, Microsoft makes the most obvious example of such an approach.  In the name of "Innovation" and "giving customers what they want"  (the 2 Big Lies), Microsoft has brilliantly addicted 95% of the desktop users of the entire planet.  Their similarity to the drug dealer in this model is quite obvious.

Who are the unitended benefactors in this model?  The key participants that ensure that the status quo is maintained?  (And in the case of Microsoft, ruthlessly expanded?)  Clearly, the Compaq's and Dell's of the world have benefited from the proliferation of the PC.  From the point of view of Bill Gates, I'm quite sure it was never his intention to make Michael Dell  wealthy.  Michael Dell was, therefore, an unintended benefactor.  And IT managers who roll over and buy Microsoft server solutions despite the gross inadequacies of NT are like the no-brainer politicians who benefit from the drug model without having to take real responsibility for the impact such decisions may have on their electorate.

And once again, who suffers?  Clearly, the users who pay premium prices.  Are we as insensitive to them as we are the drug addict?  Perhaps we should be.  Presumably, they all once had a choice.  But just as with the illegal drug model, there are others who suffer as well.  Everyone.

Everyone suffers when there are inherent flaws in the infrastructure of commerce.  Everyone suffers when a substantial drain on resources gets funneled to a small cadre of companies which deliver little of what is really possible with computing capabilities, and focuses more on customer lock-in than it does on creating real value.  Everyone suffers when things simply don't work.

If you are a user of illegal, addictive drugs, you should stop.  You should seek counseling, therapy, medical help, whatever it takes to stop squandering the resources of your life.  Similarly, if you are a user of Microsoft products, you should stop.  Stop squandering your own resources, or those of your company or your organization.  There are much better ways to go.  Linux, for example, is free, is much higher quality, is growing faster than NT, and is winning the hearts of developers worldwide.  There's a message that Sun Microsystems put out a few months back:  stop the technology madness.

So we're somewhere over Dublin right now.  It's all white clouds below.  Maybe they'll start the movie soon, and I can relax and forget about Microsoft and Linux and Java and evangelism for a minute. Maybe  I'll think about the X-files.

There was another article I read in the Financial Times today about wearable computers -- a company in the U.S. has produced a chip that can bend, a system that can be worn as a belt.  Or  another article about free PCs -- with the prices of PCs coming down so low now, companies will be giving them away to sell you services.  It's not unimaginable for a bank to give away a cheap PC to an internet-only customer with a big enough deposit. Things are changing faster each day.  And there is goodness in it, I think.  Yes, a give-away PC.  That makes all the sense in the world.  Such a system, however, should come with a free operating system as well.  And it should plug in to free, open protocols.  And link you to a free, open internet, to facilitate the free and open exchange of information that represents the very hope of the future of humanity and the framework for adding value for us all.   Such a system shouldn't turn you into a drug addict -- or the software equivalent of one.
 
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