Halloween Documents

[Joseph Osako <scholr@xxxxxxxx>]

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I was wondering if you'd seen this yet:

The Halloween Documents - http://www.opensource.org/halloween/

It is a set of M$ internal documents on how to 'take down' Linux and 
Open Source software in general. It deserves a through reading, top 
to bottom, especially the sections on UI design and large-project 
management. 

This has been around for a while, it seems, but I only just ran 
across it today. Still, even after a full year, it's definitely still 
relevant. Some of it is also very disturbing, but you should make 
your own mind up about that. ESR's commentary is well-placed, 
insightful and viscious.

I'm beginning to think Alan Kay and RMS were right all along: 
software as a product (as opposed to 'software as a service') is not 
commercially viable in the long run. It makes me wonder what, if any, 
the future of programmers and developers will be, professionally. 
Most GNU/OSF programmers work as admins, consultants, house wizards 
and so forth; should we be looking toward ourselves?  In some ways, 
it would be liberating; it eliminates hassles of marketing, office 
management, and other things that programmers usually aren't good at 
anyway. Work in a paid position, while slowly contributing to The 
Project. Maybe.

The main problem with this that I see is the market. M$ doesn't sell 
to programmers- doesn't even try to, really; its sells to managers, 
and to novices. Just explaining to them the issues involved is beyond 
the abilities of the OSS people, IMO.  How can you judge the 
comparative quality of two products if you've only heard of one of 
them, and don't know what the factors you need to compare are? Where 
marketing dominates, quality is meaningless.


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J Osako
Programmer Analyst, Operating Systems Designer, Notational Engineer
http://www.slip.net/~scholr/resume.html