Tuesday, March 27, 2007

US Government risking security due to propietary software?

It may seem odd or prone to be marked as sensationalism, but the findings of the inspector general related to the US Government Integrated Wireless Network project is disturbing for several reasons. It will be others' job to discuss how serious in security and crime prevention is a government that seems to have that flag as the only still flying (all the others, regardless the spin you try to put on it, are not taken seriously anymore), but following with previous postings, this is yet another example of the problems associated to proprietary software and the use (permitted due to lack of regulation) of unfair licensing practices. One of the reasons that the inspector general's report found for the IWN project's failure, which can have negative consequences for the safety of law enforcement officers, was the fact that some of the current systems were obsolete because the manufacturers no longer supported them...Does it seem familiar? While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with proprietary software (open source is not the panacea in every situation), lack of regulation resulting in abusive practices should be a serious concern and here we have another example that even the government of the most powerful country in the planet, immersed in a so-called war on terror may put their law enforcement officials in jeopardy due to lack of support from who created its system (who probably has a new fully-supported version to offer) and we already know the legality of self-supporting proprietary software or hardware that has a technological protection measure...

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Microsoft, the defender of IP rights


While this post adds nothing new, it is worth to keep repeating how hypocritical is Microsoft position to the protection of intellectual property rights. Now, its Associate General Counsel has started an open attack on Google relation with others' intellectual property rights, as if the Redmond company was some sort of saint in this business of respecting, or not, others' IP rights. It is important to note that the software giant main products are improvements over other people's ideas (Windows derived from Apple's graphical interface desktop environment, Word from WordStar and Word Perfect, Excel from Calc-sync and Lotus 1-2-3, and a long list of etceteras), which would have not been possible if software patents were around when Microsoft started its illustrious career and as Microsoft founder said "[i]f people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today." But once it got enough market share and money to hire attorneys, respecting IP rights and promoting software patents become some sort of holy task for Gates' company (well, unless to carry out the development of a new product needs to forget this for a while). Of course copyright is a different matter, but it seems that, again, the thrust is too use IP as a offensive weapon when the competitor has a better idea than its own, and on doing that Microsoft is really an innovator. Following Bill Gates' words "[e]stablished companies have an interest in excluding future competitors." Magister dixit...