GPLv3 - Update was: Re: [LINK] the slow motion gpl trainwreck

[rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au]

Quoting Glen Turner <glen.turner at aarnet.edu.au>:

> Brendan Scott wrote:
>
>> Ballmer: Software is becoming a service
>> http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-6099198.html?tag=nefd.top
>>
>> "Software is becoming a service," Ballmer said at the company's 
>> financial analyst meeting being held here. "Embracing advertising 
>> and subscription-based models and Internet-based delivery across 
>> Microsoft's product line is an important part of what we will do."
>
> Hi Brendan,
>
> Is this really so?  Or is it just a way for Microsoft
> to move their revenue stream from depending on new PC
> sales and widely-spread product releases to depending
> upon the installed base of PCs.
>
> Personally, I don't want to read advertisements in my word
> processor. Part of the genius of Google is that their ads
> are sometimes relevant to the task I'm trying to do.  It's
> hard to think of an ad relevant when writing equipment
> installation procedures.

The "advertising will save us all" is delusional, becaus adherents to 
this view:

1) Don't notice the relatively small scale of the advertising market 
compared to
the business they expect it to fund (a great example is telecommunications,
which is many times bigger than advertising, but some fools think ads will pay
for all phone calls).

2) Believe that existing advertising outlets will meekly say "ok, eat our
lunch".

3) Think that an advertisement in (say) an office application is useful or
effective.

4) Believe that users won't find ways to avoid the adverts ("I just found out
that MS Word works better if you turn off the DSL modem!").

5) Believe that the advertising will remain an effective model forever (Google
search spam anyone?).

6) Haven't noticed the cyclical nature of advertising markets. ("The 
advertisers
have cancelled next year's MS Word contract, sponsored tatoos are this year's
big thing".)

RC



>
> Cheers, Glen
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