Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Re: monocultures (Anti-Microsoft sentiment)
Author: Michael Bernstein Posted: 9/19/2000; 6:59:50 AM Topic: Debunking the OSS Bazaar? Msg #: 21494 (In response to 21493) Prev/Next: 21493 / 21495
Regarding your point that software is the electricity of the information age, I would still tend to disagree.Protocols are the electricity of the information age. That is where the 'AC vs. DC' style battles are being fought, and where most of the critical infrastructure lies.
Anyway, DC power is fairly standardized as well without being proprietary (battery sizes).
Examples of infrastructure protocols:
TCP/IP
HTTP
RDF/RSS
DNS
Note that in some cases (notably DNS) we did have a monoculture (Network Solutions) for a while, and we are transitioning to a more diverse 'ecosystem' of providers. Also note that in all these cases, the tendency has been for competing implementations (some proprietary, some not) to interoperate because of industry pressure.
I do of course realize that all of these protocols are implemented in software, but other than reference implementations, the implementations may be as proprietary as you like, while still preserving the diversity in the marketplace.
Still, non-proprietary implementations are important because the exert pressure against coporations tendency to slide from a proprietary implementation over to proprietary 'enhancements' of the underlying standard (Microsoft and Kerberos come to mind).
It seems like the 'holy grail' of business models these days is to invent a protocol or file format, have it become ubiquitous, and then start charging all the implementors because it's proprietary.
This doesn't really work, and in fact I would posit that 'proprietary standard' is an oxymoron.
Current 'proprietary standards' that will ultimately become extinct or non-proprietary:
GIF (Unisys)
PDF (Adobe)
MS Office File formats
MP3/fraunhofer
WAP (?)
I don't think that software and operating systems themselves must become standardized (and thus non-proprietary) any more than I beleive that motherboards should. Nevertheless, certain features of operating systems are becomming standardized (and thus non-proprietary), such as the unix command line and various communication protocols mentioned earlier. These govern operating systems and software interoperability more than anything else.
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