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231 lines
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<title>Into the Belly of the Beast LG #43</title>
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<center>
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<H1><font color="maroon">Into the Belly of the Beast</font></H1>
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<H4>By <a href="mailto:normj@aa.net">Norman M. Jacobowitz</a></H4>
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<P> <HR> <P>
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<EM>ESR goes to Microsoft ... and lives to tell about it!</EM>
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<p>It was not a normal day here in Seattle. Eggs were balancing on
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end. The city was shrouded in a most un-summerlike mist and fog. And
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ESR was speaking at Microsoft.
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<p>That's right. Eric S. Raymond was the invited guest of Microsoft
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Corporation, and gave a speech to their research group. June 21st was
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indeed a freaky Summer Solstice day here in the Northwest.
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<p>Eric went into the belly of the beast ... and lives to tell about
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it. He was kind enough to share his impressions of what went on, via
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this e-mail interview.
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<p><i><STRONG>Q:</STRONG> Can you give us a general overview of how and why you came to
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be invited to speak at Microsoft's Redmond campus?</i>
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<p><STRONG>A:</STRONG> I was invited there by a member of one of Microsoft's research
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groups that I met at PC Forum 99. She seemed OK, and offered an
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inducement far more interesting than a speaker's fee (about which more
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below) so I accepted.
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<p><i><STRONG>Q:</STRONG> Were you offered a tour of the campus, and/or were you
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introduced to any of the "big name" executives of Microsoft?</i>
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<p><STRONG>A:</STRONG> No campus tour, no big names. Though I suppose they might have been
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watching the video feed....
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<p><i><STRONG>Q:</STRONG> What was the venue like, and how many people showed up for the
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event?</i>
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<p><STRONG>A:</STRONG> It was a small auditorium. It looked to me like about 200 people
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showed up; it was standing room only, with people stacked against the
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walls and sitting in the aisles.
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<p><i><STRONG>Q:</STRONG> What were the general themes of your speech/presentation? How
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were they received? </i>
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<p><STRONG>A:</STRONG> All the usual ones for anyone who has heard my talks. Better
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reliability through peer review, how Linux beat Brook's Law, open-source
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project ownership customs and the reputation incentive, the eight
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open-source business models, scaling and complexity effects.
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<p><i><STRONG>Q:</STRONG> A confidential informant tells me the event was broadcast to
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all 20,000-plus Redmond employees of Microsoft over their internal
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network.
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This same informant also says a fair percentage of those in actual
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attendance became somewhat belligerent towards you and your Open Source
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message. Is this true? If so, would you mind elaborating on which parts
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of your presentation they took issue with? For example, were they most
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perturbed at the insinuation that Open Source products like Linux are
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better in the long run than proprietary systems like MS Windows 2000?</i>
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<p><STRONG>A:</STRONG> Yes, there were a few belligerent types. Typical was one guy who
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observed that Oracle has a partial open-source strategy, then
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triumphantly announced that Microsoft's earnings per employee are
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several times Oracle's, as though this were a conclusive argument on the
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technical issues.
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<p>It was kind of amusing, really, fielding brickbats from
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testosterone-pumped twentysomethings for whom money and Microsoft's
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survival are so central that they have trouble grokking that anyone
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can truly think outside that box. On some subjects, their brains just
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shut down -- the style reminded me a lot of the anonymous cowards on
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Slashdot.
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<p>One of the Microsoft people, who knew the faces in the audience,
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observed to me afterwards that the people from the NT 2000 development
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group were particularly defensive. So, yes, I think my insinuations
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were perturbing.
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<p><i><STRONG>Q:</STRONG> Did you notice an overall "mood" or general level of
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receptivity held by attendees towards what you had to say?</i>
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<p><STRONG>A:</STRONG> More positive than I had expected. The flamers were a minority, and
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they occasionally got stepped on by other audience members.
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<p><i><STRONG>Q:</STRONG> Anything else interesting to report from your Microsoft
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visit?</i>
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<p><STRONG>A:</STRONG> Yes. One of its co-authors gave me an autographed copy of
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"The Unix-Hater's Handbook" :-) But that doesn't quite mean
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what you think it does -- I had been one of the manuscript reviewers.
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<p><i><STRONG>Q:</STRONG> Of course, many may gather that perhaps the most fun and
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exciting aspect of your visit was your dinner with science/speculative
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fiction authors Greg Bear and Neal Stephenson. Was that as fun as it
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sounds to the rest of us?</i>
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<p><STRONG>A:</STRONG> Sure was. Those dinner plans were what seduced me into going to
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Redmond, and I wasn't disappointed. George Dyson (author of "Darwin
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Among the Machines", and Esther Dyson's brother) was there too. We
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spoke
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of many things; science fiction and AI and Turing-computability and
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cryptography. Oh, and Neal solicited my advice on the proper firearm
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for dealing with cougars while hiking with his kids.
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<P><HR><!-- ***************************************************** -->
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<p>Belligerent Win2k developers. An outspoken advocate of Open Source.
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Put them together in a room, and what do you get? Rumor has it there
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were fireworks. Who knows what galactic alignments were knocked off
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kilter -- it was the Solstice, after all. We'll never know exactly what
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happened over there, at least until a sympathetic mole over in Redmond
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e-mails us a RealVideo/MPEG copy of ESR's speech. Illiad's <a
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href="http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/99jun/19990620.html">
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User Friendly</a> offers us some food for thought.
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<p>Thanks very much to <a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr">Eric
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S. Raymond</a> for sharing his Microsoft experience with the Linux/Open Source
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community.
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<P>
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<HR> <!-- ********************************************************* -->
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<A NAME=update></A>
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<h2>Update!</h2>
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<p><a href="http://weber.u.washington.edu/~gfish">Matthew Dockrey</a>
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offers his eyewitness account of ESR's Microsoft speech.
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<p>Monday morning, a friend of mine at Microsoft mentioned he got a
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mailing about the ESR presentation and thought he would swing by. Being
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an opportunist, I convinced him to sneak me in. Luckily, they weren't
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checking badges at any point. Considering how much they value trade
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secrets, their security is really quite lax.
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<p>The presentation was in a conference room in Building 31 (Research).
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It was far too small for the turnout, although my friend reminded me that
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this was supposed to be for just the research group. Getting there 20
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minutes late after missing the bus, we were left trying to catch a peek
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through the crowd. There was a live video feed as well, and we ended up
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watching the first half from 10 meters down the hall on someone's
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computer.
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<p>The audience was a very odd mix. Most of the people seemed very
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serious and were even taking notes. I did notice someone with a KMFMS
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t-shirt, though. Some were very obviously hostile towards the Open
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Source approach, but not all. (Not everyone who works at Microsoft
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actually uses their products at home, remember.) On the way to the
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presentation, I saw an office with <i>Linux Journal</i>s and
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O'Reilly Linux manuals laying about, so not everyone there is ignoring us.
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<p>Overall, it was a good presentation. I was generally impressed with
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ESR's skills as an orator. He spent most of the time giving a
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sociological explanation for why OSS works, or exists at all. Nothing
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all that revolutionary (to us): Open Source is a variant of the
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"gift-culture" that often forms when groups of people are not
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greatly
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bounded by material limitations (such as coastal Pacific Native
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Americans and really rich people) and therefore take to giving away
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wealth as demonstration of their worth. He also detailed the culture of
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Open Source projects, the general patterns and taboos (a project is
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owned by someone; you don't fork the project unless you have very good
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reasons, etc.) and compared this to territoriality, especially the way we
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view land ownership. You can homestead land (start a project), buy
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land (have the previous project owner give it to you) or squat on unused
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land (take over a long-idle project).
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<p>I felt the presentation lost a bit of its focus when he moved from
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the abstract sociological viewpoint to actual justification for Open
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Source in a business model. I think this was largely because he based
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some of his arguments on sweeping claims about OSS being generally
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better than proprietary, and the audience challenged this. His point
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would probably have been better made without being quite so
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confrontational here.
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<p>He did make a very good point that 95% of software development is for
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internal use only, although there was an amusing moment when his survey of
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this particular audience did not reflect this. He also touched on the
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fact that most revenue from software is based in support, not the
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original sale. He mentioned what happened with Zope, but failed to
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pursue it. Of all the business arguments for OSS (and I admit I lean
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towards RMS's moralism over ESR's practicality), this seems to be the
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most relevant.
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<p>Overall, it was a very good presentation, and the audience seemed
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generally receptive to his ideas. There were some good-natured laughs on
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both sides, such as ESR admitting that most of the gift cultures had been
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destroyed by disease, or ESR stating a desire to live in a world "where
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software doesn't suck" as a valid reason for working on an OSS project. I
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found it particularly amusing when, halfway through the presentation, someone
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started handing out freshly printed copies of Sunday's <a
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href="http://www.userfriendly.org/cartoons/archives/99jun/19990620.html">
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User Friendly</a> comic.
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<!--===================================================================-->
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<P> <hr> <P>
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<center><H5>Copyright © 1999, Norman M. Jacobowitz <BR>
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Published in Issue 43 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, July 1999</H5></center>
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