What does Gillmor's article have to do with OpenMPE?   IMO Gillmor
exemplifies some existing prejudices, the same prejudices that help do
MPE/iX in.  This is more of an old and sad story.

By prejudice I mean attractive but ill considered logic.   Gillmor's
hyperbole -- addiction, monopoly -- gives him away.  Funny thing is that
after Gillmor labels a behavior a "addiction" he then gives several good,
logical, economic, and reliability-related reasons why organizations behave
as they do.

Maybe there is sound thinking behind the man's position.   I wouldn't know
because instead of explaining his thinking Gilmor seems to assume that we
already agree with him.   If you don't understand Gilmor's "code words" his
position is hard to understand.   This is strange because while I assume
that Gillmor is attempting to be a light of reason yet in this piece he
fails to shed much light on the subject for me.

Consider:
o IBM's "monopoly" of their OS is clearly different from classic monopolies
like the phone company used to have.   So how is IBM a monopoly?   Gillmor
doesn't say.
o MPE/iX supports POSIX, IBM has virtual machines that run several flavors
of UNIX.   This is a funny kind of monopoly.
o Gillmor says that open standards will soon be seen as the best approach
for security.   Why?   I don't see the point and Gilmor doesn't explain.
o What is the alternative to this monopoly/oligopoly?  A standard.   Yet by
definition isn't a standard also a oligopoly (rule by a group)?   The
standards body controls the standard.
o Gillmor says that "it's dangerous to allow one company or a small group of
companies to control the standards".   What standards he is talking about
Gillmor does not say.   Does IBM's SQL not follow the SQL standard?

A big inherent irony in Gillmor's position is the inherent conflict between
innovation and standards.   The C language became the de-facto standard
years before a standard for it was produced.   Object Oriented COBOLs have
been in use for about a decade yet the official COBOL standard has yet to be
finalized.  Oracle's PL/SQL language extends SQL in way that is very much in
keeping with Dr. Codd's vision yet I don't believe that PL/SQL is a open
standard.  Finally there is the issue of the standards (plural) for the
"standard" OS language, UNIX.

Conclusion.   This is a statement of old prejudices, old arguments that were
most often left unexamined.   This piece generates heat but almost no light
on the subject.

Cortlandt Wilson
(650) 966-8555

>-----Original Message-----
>From: OpenMPE Support Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of
>Mark Wonsil
>Sent: Thursday, March 06, 2003 6:14 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Morphe Project
>
>
>No opinion, just read this before I got the post and wondered what some
>think it means to OpenMPE.
>
>http://www.computerworld.com/news/2003/story/0,11280,78694,00.html
>
>IT's Monopoly Addiction
>
>By DAN GILLMOR
>FEBRUARY 24, 2003
>
>Content Type: Opinion
>Source: Computerworld
>
>Information technology folks must love monopolies. Otherwise, you wouldn't
>help create them.
>
>Sure, you complain about lock-in, vendor arrogance, high costs and all the
>other woes that come with monopolies and the cozy oligopolies that seem to
>arise in so many industries -- but notably in IT.
>
>I don't think you're stupid or naive when you resign yourself to your fate.
>You are clearly aware of the upside and downside of doing business with
>dominant vendors. But you're addicted. Or, in pop psychology lingo, you're
>co-dependent.
>
>The easiest explanation is the near-universal wish for standards.
>Competition -- such as railroad tracks with different gauges -- can be
>messy, as we've seen again and again. Users and suppliers gravitate toward
>single standards.
>
>In technology development circles, no one wants to test a variety
>of devices
>and platforms, much less develop for all of them. One of my brothers, a
>software guy, says he'd be happiest -- in theory -- with just one operating
>system.
>
>It still seems obvious to me that, in a world where information is the
>currency of the future, it's dangerous to allow one company or a
>small group
>of companies to control the standards. But it seems less obvious,
>apparently, to the U.S. government and most buyers of technology.
>
>Monocultures in the physical world are widely understood to be
>risky. We are
>moving that way, unfortunately, in things like farming -- where a single
>virus could, in theory, wipe out much of the world's corn crop in a single
>season, leading to untold human suffering. Yet our food supply is based on
>monocultures because they're more efficient. Today.
>
>And that leads to the other main reason why monopolies, duopolies and
>oligopolies keep springing up: They're good business, largely because
>they're more stable -- temporarily, at any rate -- for buyers as well as
>sellers.
>
>The desire for stability and accountability can be summed up in the
>once-popular saying "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM." Substitute
>Cisco, Microsoft or other big names, and the idea is much the same.
>
>When IBM was absolute master of the IT universe, technology wasn't changing
>as quickly as it does today. But even then, buyers were looking for a level
>of security, an assurance that what they were buying would still be working
>tomorrow and that someone would stand behind it.
>
>The velocity of technological progress today gives even greater advantage,
>certainly in the short term, to the dominant companies, and for some of the
>same reasons. But does it also lead to long-term power? I believe it does,
>largely because of people's -- and institutions' -- logical aversion to
>disruption.
>
>The path of least resistance is to buy into whatever is dominant today.
>That's a mistake.
>
>I have a policy for my personal technology purchasing. I balance my
>dependence, supporting nondominant companies whenever possible. I support
>worthwhile competitors, and sometimes I give up some small conveniences in
>the process -- provided, of course, that the choices I make don't put me at
>a serious disadvantage in my work.
>
>That's one approach. IT can do some of this, but it should employ another
>tactic, too: Push much harder for open, non-owned standards.
>
>Cost is only one issue. The other is safety. I'm betting that open
>standards
>will soon be seen as the best approach for security, an increasingly
>important notion in a dangerous world. Disregard this at everyone's risk.
>
>Dan Gillmor is technology columnist at the San Jose Mercury News. Contact
>him at [log in to unmask]
>
>Source: Computerworld