Here is, i my opiniopn the crux of the entire DNS debate. It's
a cultural clash between the way things have been done on the
net and the way big business wants them to be done.
I remember talking to a certain unnamed but very drunk IAHC commitee
memeber from Geneva two years ago in DC. I said almost word for
word, this:
>The disruptive technology currently attacking Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the
>Open Source development model. Eric Raymond's classic paper "The Cathedral
>and the Bazaar" has recently been published by O'Reilly as part of a book by the
>same name. It explains how software can be developed not by a team of highly
>trained professionals, but by a loose association of hobbyists organized through
>the Internet as a kind of fan club. It also discusses why this software development
>model often beats the pants off of the old way of writing software.
And was treated to a condescending "Richard Richard Richard... you don't
UNDERSTAND. Big business doesn't weant it this way, it wants a corporate
structure.
Silly me. I forgot to ask which three lettered company "big business"
was.
http://www.fool.com/portfolios/rulemaker/1999/rulemaker991124.htm
>GAITHERSBURG, MD (Nov. 24, 1999) -- On Friday, I reviewed The
>Innovator's Dilemma, a book about disruptive technologies that encourage
>start-up companies to replace large established firms. On Monday, I talked about
>"use value," which is discussed in greater detail in Eric Raymond's book The
>Cathederal and the Bazaar (which I'll be talking about some more today).
>Yesterday, I explained how network effects can create natural monopolies, and
>discussed the first way I know of to compete with this type of monopoly:
>participating within the existing network to share the market.
>
>A disruptive technology can also crack a monopoly, by replacing the existing
>network with a new and larger one. A larger network will consume a smaller
>network operating in the same space, because the value of the network increases
>exponentially with the size of the network. But a disruptive technology doesn't
>(initially) operate in the same space; it starts by finding a new market with wants
>and needs that the old technology cannot meet.
>
>Because a disruptive technology can't initially compete directly against the existing
>technology for the original uses even without taking the network effects into
>consideration, the only successful way to market one is to carve out a new
>"roaches under the floorboards" niche taking advantage of the new technology's
>distinctive advantages. This new niche is a market the existing technology can't fit
>into, and is usually too small and low margin for the existing companies to care
>about anyway. But it gives the disruptive technology a protected base within which
>to develop, and which can finance an upscale attack into the existing value
>network. Since the disruptive technology can eventually be made to serve the
>same purposes as the old technology, and it has its protected base to draw from
>as well, it forms a larger network than the old technology.
>
>The disruptive technology currently attacking Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) is the
>Open Source development model. Eric Raymond's classic paper "The Cathedral
>and the Bazaar" has recently been published by O'Reilly as part of a book by the
>same name. It explains how software can be developed not by a team of highly
>trained professionals, but by a loose association of hobbyists organized through
>the Internet as a kind of fan club. It also discusses why this software development
>model often beats the pants off of the old way of writing software.
>
>While traditional software development is motivated by the sale value of that
>software, Open Source development is motivated by the software's use value.
>People who use the Apache Web server naturally want it to be the best Web
>server it can be. So, if they are capable of improving it, many of them will -- in
>their spare time or when they encounter a problem they need to fix. All that time
>spent on hold to tech support for proprietary software companies is spent actually
>finding and fixing the bugs and limitations of Open Source software. The
>availability of the source code to Apache gives the technically inclined individuals
>and organizations using Apache the ability to do whatever they like with it.
>
>Sharing the improvements through the fan club doesn't cost Apache's users
>anything, since they didn't plan on selling those improvements anyway. They just
>want a good Web server. The fact that it's a free download is merely a bonus.
>What they really get is control over the tools they use to run their business -- high
>quality tools created by people motivated by how well they work and not how
>well they sell.
>
>Apache is the server behind the majority of the websites on the Internet. In that
>niche, Open Source is the dominant paradigm. To examine Open Source as a
>disruptive technology, we need to look at a clean room clone of Unix that started
>as the Free Software Foundation's GNU project and was completed (well, first
>made independently usable; Open Source development and improvement never
>ends) by a graduate student at the University of Helsinki in Finland named "Linus
>Torvads." You may have heard of it; it's called Linux.
>
>Linux started out in a "roaches under the floorboards" niche. People who couldn't
>afford what AT&T and others charged for Unix but wanted to use it anyway
>reverse engineered the thing and made it run on PC hardware. Then, Linux
>became popular to turn old, discarded, underpowered PCs into file servers and
>print servers. As the Internet (created by and full of Unix machines) became
>popular, this reverse engineered Unix clone was a cheap way to use a PC as a
>Web server, gateway, or firewall to hook up to the Internet.
>
>Microsoft's high end is the desktop, and that's the last market Linux will take over.
>From the low-end machines that other operating systems were too inefficient or
>expensive to use on, Linux jumped straight to high-end multi-processor machines.
>As the Web became important and expensive hardware was thrown at it, Linux
>was moved over to that expensive hardware where the lean and mean efficiency
>required to run at all on the cheap junk was just as valuable to squeeze every drop
>of performance out of the expensive stuff.
>
>Again, this was fringe territory as far as Microsoft was concerned. Although they
>have tried to push Windows NT on the high-end for almost ten years, it has never
>shipped in volumes even approaching that of its desktop home ground. Microsoft
>may have been unwilling to yield any niche, but Linux definitely attacked where it
>was weakest.
>
>Linux has also had success with embedded systems, and has virtually driven
>Windows CE from the field. Microsoft may have unlimited funds with which to
>develop their products, but Open Source products simply cannot be starved for
>cash. Their development is funded with their users' time and effort, not with
>revenues from any sale. Use value again, not sale value.
>
>If you remember FUD from yesterday, Linux is un-FUDable. As long as the users
>have the source code, development will continue. And how can it go out of
>business if it never made any money? Companies make money off of Linux, of
>course. Red Hat's (Nasdaq: RHAT) IPO shot to a multi-billion dollar market
>capitalization, and hundreds of established companies like IBM and SGI are
>betting heavily on its success. But like dating services, they seek to cash in on an
>existing phenomena. They dip their mill wheel in a river that's already there, and
>could go on without them just fine.
>
>Like all companies performing an upward retreat (however grudgingly) in the face
>of a disruptive technology, Microsoft's profits will probably continue to increase
>right up until the end as it tightens its focus on the areas that make it the most
>money. The desktop is Microsoft's home ground, its strongest niche, and where it
>makes the most money. It will be the last niche Linux penetrates, and the one
>Microsoft will fight hardest to keep.
>
>According to the Gartner Group's estimate, Linux passed the 10 million user mark
>during 1998 and was growing at 212% annually at the time. Assuming it slows to
>100% annual growth (which it has maintained since its introduction in 1990), it will
>surpass the Windows installed base in about three years. At that point, the
>network effects will favor Linux and hinder Windows.
>
>Strangely enough, many of us in the software industry view the trial as an
>interesting supplement to the main action. Microsoft IS an abusive monopoly, and
>unrestrained perhaps it could force the entire computer industry into stagnation.
>But we're busy working on its replacement.
>
>- Oak
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