From: "Eric S. Raymond" <esr@snark.thyrsus.com> To: wire-service@snark.thyrsus.com Subject: Microsoft's "Shared Source" plan -- such a deal! Date: Thu, 17 May 2001 18:48:43 -0400 If you're like most people, you have neither the time nor the patience to plough through the quagmire of corporate rhetoric at <http://www.microsoft.com/Business/Licensing/SharedSource/>. Fortunately, what Microsoft is actually saying, beneath all the obfuscatory verbiage, is very simple. Here's an executive summary: Software users and programmers of the world, have *we* got an offer for *you*! 1. First, we'll let you pay us for the privilege of seeing the source code to our software, bugs and all. 2. Then, we'll use your work to raise the price of our next release. including anything you contributed. You won't get paid for your creative work, and you'll have no rights in it. If we're feeling nice, maybe we'll give you a discount on the next release. Then again, maybe not. 3. Oh, and by the way...if you try to use any of what you learned from helping us fix our bugs for your own purposes, we'll sue your ass off and smother you in lawyers. Such a deal! We here at Microsoft call this "protecting intellectual property rights in order to create a sustainable business model". Um, that would be *our* intellectual property and *our* business model. You surely weren't thinking we cared about *your* business or *your* rights, were you? What's ours is ours. And if you cooperate on "shared source", what's yours will be ours too! Have a nice day -- and remember (eyes misting, hand held to heart) we're doing it all to support "innovation". -- <a href="http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a> The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so. -- Hitler, April 11 1942, revealing the real agenda of "gun control"