Control.com - Nerds in Control

Dale Malony:
> >What if a big corn farmer convinces (to put it nicely) the local grocery
> >to refuse to sell the produce of some of his neighbors. Lets say he
> >also sells all of his new crop of carrots and tomatoes (which are not
> >very tasty but look nice) at a loss, and even gives them away with each
> >bushel of corn to try to get into the growing vegetable market.

Jay Kirsch:
> To a poor woman, with children to feed, these free carrots and tomatoes
> would be a blessing.

Only until all the competition in town was driven out, of course. Then the price goes up to whatever the big farmer feels like.

Look up ``Standard Oil'' sometime; like they say, those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. (That's why it's called `anti-trust'
law; because the prototype, Standard Oil, happened to be a trust.)

> >By the time they realized they would really prefer to taste their
> >tomatoes instead of just adding juice and color to a hamburger, the
> >farmer with the good tomatoes had gone out of business and got a job at
> >the grocery store.
...
> He should get another job. If his ideas were patented, they will be in
> the public domain after seven years. Mr. Big cannot ignore them and
> succeed for long.

Yes he can, if he's big enough. Any new competitor will be small. It's not that much of a problem to drop prices below his costs, sue him for something ridiculous or any number of other strategies, until he runs out of money and is driven out of business.

Mr Big can afford to sell at a loss (especially in a limited area) for far longer than can a new business.

Don't forget also that software has what the sociologists call ``network effects'' - the advantage of a lot of other people using the same brand. You don't get that with corn.

> >Somehow you've managed to miss the stories of Microsoft strong-arming
> >vendors to exclude competitors software from their bundles. You've
> >missed the testimony that vendors feared repercussions from Microsoft if
> >they went against Microsoft's agenda.

> That's better.
[definition of strong-arming]
> This is a rotten thing to do. If anyone from Microsoft did this I'll
> join the posse. We'll hunt 'em do down and hang 'em high.

Read through the finding-of-fact (sorry, I used to have a URL but not off-hand). They did some pretty nasty things to their competitors, and to
their partners. Obviously strong-arming itself is hard to prove in court, because that's the point, but even what was proved was pretty nasty.

> >But more overtly Microsoft created lesser versions of emerging popular
> >products and gave them away for free by adding it to Windows.

> Yes they did, starting with Notepad and Calc. I do not see what is wrong
> with this. Maybe Notepad is OK but a Web browser isn't. How is this
> decided and who decides it?

Mostly by intent, I suspect, what can be proved of it.

If MS forces IE onto Macintoshes, for instance, that can't really be interpreted as improving their own product.

> Shouldn't you hold Linux programmers, who give their software away, up to
> the same standards you apply to Microsoft?

Oh, certainly. Most if not all of the strategies used by SO and MS would seem to be inapplicable, but if somebody does manage to be anticompetitive
using the GPL, they should definitely be called up on it.

Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <jiri@baum.com.au>
"[Microsoft] cleverly associate the word 'open' with XML. What they don't
mention is that to see the XML file definitions for Microsoft Word, you
have to sign a file license that says you will never use the code."
-- http://www.itworld.com/Man/2685/IDG010503source2/

Jiri writes:

>Only until all the competition in town was driven out, of course. Then the
>price goes up to whatever the big farmer feels like.

A businessman cannot do whatever he "feels" like and succeed too. The price of a product cannot exceed what people are willing to pay for it. If he raises the price too much, competitors will be attracted back into the market and the price will drop again ( probably lower than it was
originally ).

In the case of a public corporation like Microsoft, arbitrarily raising prices would result in disaster. If Microsoft announced that Windows would now cost $999.00, investors would immediately realize that almost no one would buy it at that price. In matter of hours, billions of dollars in capital would flow out of Microsoft and into other ventures. The credibility of Microsoft's management would be shattered forever. With no outside capital and no earnings, Microsoft would be near bankruptcy in few months. They would have to sell Windows to someone else. Then a new company would have the dominant desktop OS selling for $99.00 again. You
might like this story, but don't expect the new owners of Windows to run their business any more like a daisy farm than Microsoft did.

I am not an economist but the high-tech marketplace looks to me like a complicated closed loop control system connected to a very powerful
generator. This is the power that drives my little business. So I get a bit anxious when I see politicians and lawyers trying to pry open the
magic box and re-wire the circuits.


>Look up ``Standard Oil'' sometime; like they say, those who do not learn
>from history are doomed to repeat it. (That's why it's called `anti-trust'
>law; because the prototype, Standard Oil, happened to be a trust.)

I wish I knew more about history but here's what I do know 1) there are as many interpretations of the Standard Oil case, or any other historical
event, as there are historians who have written about it 2) any layperson who begins a statement with "History proves..." or makes any similar
inference in the presense of an historian will be instant lunchmeat. (Personal experience talking, they're sticklers about scholarship )

>Don't forget also that software has what the sociologists call ``network
>effects'' - the advantage of a lot of other people using the same brand.
>You don't get that with corn.

Yes, sociologists have turned their attention away from primitive cultures and the laboratory rats we supposedly resemble to share their precious wisdom regarding the high-tech marketplace. Like many of their other theories, this one is suspect, at best.
See http://www.reason.com/9606/Fe.QWERTY.html


>Read through the finding-of-fact (sorry, I used to have a URL but not
>off-hand). They did some pretty nasty things to their competitors, and to
>their partners. Obviously strong-arming itself is hard to prove in court,
>because that's the point, but even what was proved was pretty nasty.

The Constitution is worth reading too. Nowhere does it empower the government to make laws that enable the prosecution an individual or group for engaging in "pretty nasty" behavior.

The finding-of-facts is on the DOJ website:
www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudge.pdf

Many of the conclusions it draws have a more logical explanation than the one presented. For example, it states that Microsoft's monopoly
prohibited Apple from competing evenly. How about the fact that Apple chose a low volume - high markup pricing strategy ( 50% profit
on each unit sold) preventing their own market from substationally growing.

Judge Jackson says, due to lack of competition, Win95 was overpriced at $99.00. How did he divine this knowledge? Nobody knows. The sales tax on many computers is more than $99.00.

There's hearsay evidence about Microsoft luring competitors into going in a direction that Microsoft later blocked off. This smells like
fraud and can be attended to in a criminal or civil court, without the specter of government regulation. If the charges are true, I hope Microsoft gets their caboose kicked. But after Jackson's remarks to the New Yorker, I am not ready to take this at face value.

>If MS forces IE onto Macintoshes, for instance, that can't really be
>interpreted as improving their own product.

Apple's managers would have to be smoking something to agree (there is no force here) to add IE to their product while believing that it
had no benefit.

>Oh, certainly. Most if not all of the strategies used by SO and MS would
>seem to be inapplicable, but if somebody does manage to be anticompetitive
>using the GPL, they should definitely be called up on it.

I can't tell if your in favor of competition or opposed to it. Anticompetitive business ( or person ) is an oxymoron.

...

Microsoft was called "naive" for not involving itself in politics. When the anti-trust action began, the Microsoft lobbyists appeared in Washington. Well there you have it, now Microsoft really is dangerous. Sigh.

Jay Kirsch
jkirsch@macroautomatics.com

Jiri:
> >Only until all the competition in town was driven out, of course. Then
> >the price goes up to whatever the big farmer feels like.

Jay Kirsch:
> A businessman cannot do whatever he "feels" like and succeed too. The
> price of a product cannot exceed what people are willing to pay for it.

Certainly with no competition the price can be much higher.

> If he raises the price too much, competitors will be attracted back into
> the market and the price will drop again ( probably lower than it was
> originally ).

You're right that the monopolist has to be somewhat careful not to raise the price too far (and Standard Oil was). Still, any new competitors will be small, and they will have seen what happened to the last guy.

> In the case of a public corporation like Microsoft, arbitrarily raising
> prices would result in disaster. If Microsoft announced that Windows
> would now cost $999.00, investors would immediately realize that almost
> no one would buy it at that price.

Strange, then, the pricing of Office XP...

> >Look up ``Standard Oil'' sometime;
...
> I wish I knew more about history but here's what I do know 1) there are
> as many interpretations of the Standard Oil case, or any other historical
> event, as there are historians who have written about it

No doubt - but some of SO's strategies make interesting reading nevertheless.

> 2) any layperson who begins a statement with "History proves..." or makes
> any similar inference in the presense of an historian will be instant
> lunchmeat.

Of course. History rarely proves something, but it certainly provides examples of what can happen. It can also provide insight into the reasoning behind laws, laws which we perhaps nowadays take so much for granted that we no longer comprehend them.

> >Don't forget also that software has what the sociologists call ``network
> >effects'' - the advantage of a lot of other people using the same brand.
> >You don't get that with corn.

> Yes, sociologists have turned their attention away from primitive
> cultures and the laboratory rats we supposedly resemble to share their
> precious wisdom regarding the high-tech marketplace. Like many of their
> other theories, this one is suspect, at best.
> See http://www.reason.com/9606/Fe.QWERTY.html

This would seem to have limited relevance - and what is relevant is mostly a strawman argument. Few people are claiming that network externalities
make it *impossible* for a new entrant to compete.

They just make it *more difficult*.

> >If MS forces IE onto Macintoshes, for instance, that can't really be
> >interpreted as improving their own product.

> Apple's managers would have to be smoking something to agree (there is no
> force here) to add IE to their product while believing that it had no
> benefit.

That, or there'd have to be a hint that if they don't fall in line there'll be no more MS Office for Mac.

> >Oh, certainly. Most if not all of the strategies used by SO and MS would
> >seem to be inapplicable, but if somebody does manage to be anticompetitive
> >using the GPL, they should definitely be called up on it.

> I can't tell if your in favor of competition or opposed to it.

In favour.

> Anticompetitive business ( or person ) is an oxymoron.

Hmm, getting the railways to not only give you a massive discount but also to pay you whenever they ship a competitor's product is OK? (This was
subject to NDA at the time, to avoid public outrage.)

For competition to flourish, there must be a certain amount of freedom of enterprise. Sometimes this freedom is threatened by governments, but sometimes it can also be threatened by a large business.

It's the point of the Sherman Act, and equivalent legislation elsewhere, to ameliorate this threat to freedom of enterprise. It's not actually illegal to be a monopoly, nor to make the best widget ever and therefore outcompete everyone else. Nor is it illegal to make a lot of money.

It *is* illegal, however, to use a monopoly to curtail others' freedom.

Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <jiri@baum.com.au>

visit the MAT LinuxPLC project - http://mat.sourceforge.net

warning: Long Post

Jay Kirsch wrote:
> A businessman cannot do whatever he "feels" like and succeed too. The
price of a product cannot exceed what people are willing to pay for it. If
he raises the price too much, competitors will be attracted back into the
market and the price will drop again ( probably lower than it was
originally ). <

But to extend this poor analogy further, if the big farmer controls the plates on which we eat, and makes sure that the OpenSeed(tm) Tomatoes will
sit on your plate without spewing tomato juice on your shirt, then you will continue to buy the TomatoXP product to keep your shirts from getting
messed up. Yea, maybe you can get plates that will allow you to eat OpenSeed Tomatoes, but these plates came free with the table, and their
already set up. Besides, those other plates won't let me use any of the other products in the foodXP product line, which of course has been built up in the same manner as TomatoXP, by driving all the other small producers out of the market.

Yes this sounds rediculous, but that is how it works...

>In the case of a public corporation like Microsoft, arbitrarily raising
prices would result in disaster. If Microsoft announced that Windows would
now cost $999.00, investors would immediately realize that almost no one
would buy it at that price. In matter of hours, billions of dollars in
capital would flow out of Microsoft and into other ventures. The
credibility of Microsoft's management would be shattered forever. With no
outside capital and no earnings, Microsoft would be near bankruptcy in few
months. They would have to sell Windows to someone else. Then a new
company would have the dominant desktop OS selling for $99.00 again. You
might like this story, but don't expect the new owners of Windows to run
their business any more like a daisy farm than Microsoft did. <

Obviously it would be ridiculous. Btw, when I had to buy a MS operating system, I had to pay $200. why is my version worth twice as much as yours? I can *GUARANTEE* it isn't because it's twice as good! Why couldn't *I* buy Win98 for $100? Why is Win95 still the same price as it was
originally? Shouldn't the price have come down as the product moves out of the mainstream? Oh, wait. That's only true if there is someone else's
product competing in the same space. If the only competition to me, is me, then I guess I win either way...

>I am not an economist but the high-tech marketplace looks to me like a
complicated closed loop control system connected to a very powerful
generator. This is the power that drives my little business. So I
get a bit anxious when I see politicians and lawyers trying to pry open the
magic box and re-wire the circuits.<

The high tech market place is just that: a market place. Despite what all the PR people try to tell you, there is nothing special about it. It's the same economics that drives the rest of the world. If anything is different, it's that they get away with much more. If your television shut off in the middle of your show, and it took 5 minutes to get it turned back on, would you accept that? Absolutely not! You'd be down at WalMart buying a new TV! Software is the only product that is allowed to ship in an unfinished state. Also, once the software is written, reproduction is very inexpensive. Economies of scale, in a balanced market place, will say
that after the initial development costs are paid back, the price should start coming down, due to competition in the market place. Take a guess
what a copy of Windows 98 would cost me if I went to buy one. (Hint: Look up 2 paragraphs).

>>Look up ``Standard Oil'' sometime; like they say, those who do not learn
>from history are doomed to repeat it. (That's why it's called `anti-trust'
>law; because the prototype, Standard Oil, happened to be a trust.)<<
>
>I wish I knew more about history but here's what I do know 1) there are as
many interpretations of the Standard Oil case, or any other historical
event, as there are historians who have written about it 2) any layperson
who begins a statement with "History proves..." or makes any similar
inference in the presense of an historian will be instant lunchmeat.
(Personal experience talking, they're sticklers about scholarship )<

That's a pretty standard response. If something can be shown as true in the past, question whether the event actualy occured. How about AT&T? Anyone going to try to say that breaking up Ma Bell was a bad thing? I know I enjoy *my* 5USCent per minute long distance....


>The Constitution is worth reading too. Nowhere does it empower the
government to make laws that enable the prosecution an individual or
group for engaging in "pretty nasty" behavior.<

IIRC, the Constitution never allowed for a federal income tax either, originally....Niether does it state that the government should be able to impose the need for government "papers" to allow you to travel alone. This was pretty much frowned upon, yet I have to renew my drivers license every 5 years, or the government will imprison me for transporting myself without
proper documentation. I realize that there are people who do, actually, honestly, and oh-my-God-can-it-be-true live *outside the United States*!!!
Who'd have thought. This is only relevant because Micro$oft is based in US...

Check this link for the appeals court:
http://cnnfn.cnn.com/2001/06/28/microsoft_file/decision.pdf< br>
>Many of the conclusions it draws have a more logical explanation than the one presented.<

Yea, like the following quote (page 58):

"Microsoft lamely characterizes its threat to Intel as 'advice'"

Gotta love when the appeals court, who every agrees is Microsoft-friendly, refers to their "more logical explanation" as "lame". Note, they upheld this point as violation of Sherman Anti-Trust section 2.

>Judge Jackson says, due to lack of competition, Win95
was overpriced at $99.00. How did he divine this knowledge? Nobody
knows. The sales tax on many computers is more than $99.00.<

What kind of equipment do you buy? Or what state do you live in to get that kind of tax on a computer? Besides, Windows is not sales tax, it's
the Microsoft tax. I have to pay it, even if I never use it. And even though the MS license agreement says I can return it for a full refund
($99), try that some time. MS in in the position now of having violated its own license agreement by refusing to reimburse people who do not agree
to the terms of the license..


>There's hearsay evidence about Microsoft luring competitors into going
in a direction that Microsoft later blocked off. This smells like
fraud and can be attended to in a criminal or civil court, without the
specter of government regulation. If the charges are true,
I hope Microsoft gets their caboose kicked. But after Jackson's remarks
to the New Yorker, I am not ready to take this at face value.<

Page 55, section c. Nicely entitled: Deception of Java Developers

-or-

p56, sect d. The threat to Intel

Where Intel was developing a competing software product, and MS agreed to fund AMD hardware development until Intel gave up the software project. Once Intel dropped it, AMD was also left in the lurch.


>>Oh, certainly. Most if not all of the strategies used by SO and MS would
>seem to be inapplicable, but if somebody does manage to be anticompetitive
>using the GPL, they should definitely be called up on it.<<

Although I fail to see how it could happen. Despite what MS says, Open Source is not about trying to force you too give away all your Intellectual Property. On the contrary, it is a way to keep you from stealing mine. The GPL simply is an agreement between you and me, just like any other shrikwrap product. I am saying:" I have this piece of software I wrote. You can use it for free. You can even have the source code with it. If you like it, great! If you feel like taking the software that *I* wrote
and that *I* want everyone to be able to use, and you want to add on to it, wonderful, you just have to maintain my original agreement to any
derivative work." And, by using my code, you agree. Don't like the terms of the GPL, then don't use my code! Write your own code and license it however you want. I am sure you will ask that I respect your license without a lot of whining...

And it is really that simple. If you aren't going to share your stuff, then I'm not sharing mine with you. If you want to take mine for free, you have to give yours for free. You don't want to give yours away for free? Then you can't take mine for free.

>I can't tell if your in favor of competition or opposed to it.
Anticompetitive business ( or person ) is an oxymoron.<

What? Anti-competitiveness is the business Nirvana! The perfect business model is where you have removed all the competition, therby being able to rule a market without having to follow the laws of supply and demand. You can argue whether MS has reached this Nirvana, and to be honest, I don't think they have, completely, but don't try to tell me that businesses *want* competition...

...

>Microsoft was called "naive" for not involving itself in politics. When the anti-trust action began, the Microsoft lobbyists appeared in
Washington.
Well there you have it, now Microsoft really is dangerous. Sigh.<

Microsoft was never "naive". Too many confused naive with arrogant. MS considered themselves too good to involve themselves with the political
process.

Joe Jansen

At 10:39 28/06/01 -0400, Jay Kirsch wrote:
&lt;clip>
> A businessman cannot do whatever he "feels" like and succeed too. The price
>of a product cannot exceed what people are willing to pay for it. If he
>raises the price too much, competitors will be attracted back into the
>market and the price will drop again ( probably lower than it was
>originally ).
&lt;clip>
>I am not an economist but ...
&lt;clip>

All right, you're not an economist, but are you willing to accept the word of virtually all serious economists when they tell you that monopolies are bad for an economy? If not, well there are plenty of economics books available in book stores. Monopoly pricing theory is pretty
basic and is covered in any introductory text. I suggest trying a used book store where you will find lots of inexpensive discarded university texts.

To sum up the fundamental points, in a competative market profit maximisation occurs when marginal cost equals marginal revenue. This is also happens to be the point at which the benefit to society as a whole is maximised. The happy result is that everyone's welfare is maximised and resources are used in the most efficient possible manner. Any deviation from this point in either direction is less efficient and wastes resources.

If the market is not competative (e.g. a monopoly was established by some means), then the above is no longer true. A higher price can be established in which the seller's profit is maximised at a lower level of sales.

If this monopoly simply resulted in a transfer of money from buyer to seller, this would not concern economists much as this could be corrected by taxes or some such similar means. The real problem is that the gain to the seller (the monopolist) is less (sometimes much less) than the loss to the buyer (the consumer). In other words, there has been net loss to society as a whole - a net destruction of wealth.

To an economist, it is not really relevent to this argument whether the "monopolist" actually has 100% of the market. What matters is whether they can exert sufficient monopoly power in the market to cause the bad economic effects which result from this.

This by the way is exactly the situation occuring (on a wider scale) in many countries with poorly performing economies. Parts of eastern Europe
in particular have a problem with too many monopolies left over as a legacy of communism.

It is also simply not true that monopoly profits will necessarily attract competitors. This is true even if the monopolist does not or cannot use nefarious means to prevent this. Many markets have barriers to entry which may prevent new competitors from arising except at prices well above the monopoly profit maximisation point. A rational monopolist will not charge a price above that which results in profit maximisation. This means that the monopoly situation could endure indefinitely provided that all parties behave rationally.

Since the "alternative" to Windows increasingly seems to be seen as Linux, I thought I should point out that most of the people who are in favour of open software don't base their arguement on "Windows is a monopoly". Rather, they seem to be saying that there are certain basic software services such as operating systems which are better off being shared and given away.

There simply haven't been any significant genuine innovations in desktop computer operating systems or basic office software (word processing, etc.) in years. There have been incremental improvements in ease of use and reliability, or differences in marketing (e.g. the bundling in of unrelated products), but compared to the software innovation happening elsewhere, these areas have been comparitively stagnant.

Given the stagnation in these areas, it would seem that society would be better off if resources were directed away from these areas to others with more potential. The open source advocates claim this can best be achieved by open source software (I won't go into all the explanations they offer for this). The above argument (which I hope I have summarised correctly) applies whether Microsoft is good or bad, or is a monopolist or not, or whether Windows (or MS Office) is junk or not.

The group of people who are working on the Linux PLC (or MAT or whatever) are doing so for precisely the same reasons (Aha! At last we get
to an automation subject). It is worth noting though that they are not working on a operating system, they are working on a soft logic system. I am not involved with this project, but I am glad to see that they have the drive and initiative to attempt this. Whatever the reasons they may have for making their design decisions, ultimately the finished product will stand or fall on its own merits.

**********************
Michael Griffin
London, Ont. Canada
**********************

Micheal is right here on the motivation for Linux not being an anti monopoly thing. Let me explain why I have a problem with the effects of the monopoly. I don't use MS products at all. This means I can't use any of the commercial PLCs or almost any other automation product. Whether you agree or disagree with the fact that MS is a monopoly is moot. In my current sphere of operations they have nearly a complete and total monopoly. I can't do what I need to do with Windows. it's not reliable enough and it's too expensive to develop in and maintain. The low level stuff is all secret and you can only do what MS allows you to do. In the real world, that means Linux is the only way to go.
Unfortunately, if you want to use Linux, none of the big automation vendors wants your business, especially if you also need open protocols
and communications.

The status quo supports no choice with the exception of a few independent IO vendors and they almost always require Windows in some
way, shape, or form. You are probably not aware of that because you haven't tried to work outside this monopoly. Would it be a monopoly if using anything forced you to use Linux? I think you'ld agree that it would.

I have two choices, leave automation or build an alternative. Automation pays my bills and matches my skill set perfectly. Obviously I have chosen the latter and am installing a robotic machining cell this week that replaces a lot of GE proprietary hardware and software with Linux. Not LPLC yet, LPLC will be even better and will save even more time and money because I won't have to do everything myself. And so far, by any measure, Open is far better for the application. And, since there wasn't any reasonable IO hardware for Linux, I designed and built some and donated the design to LPLC. If everyone who uses LPLC gives a little back, we have more resources than any commercial company can put on a project. As long as big automation will only support Microsoft, I'll simply have to design around them. And rather than just solving my problem, I've joined with others who donate their greater skills to solve the problem for everyone. It's not an MS thing, It's that the vendors grant them a monopoly. I simply have no choice. I'd rather they made it possible to use my stuff with their stuff. The scary part was that the Linux route, even with fabricating some hardware, was much faster and easier and much less costly than the traditional route.

We did both and have hard numbers. What's wrong with this picture?

I am not ignoring AutomationX, that is very much overkill for this application and it would be too costly to integrate my vision code. I am looking at it as a replacement for Cimplicity IU that runs on Linux.

In your broader discussion, the question of monopoly is academic. In the automation world, it is simply a matter of fact. The path we are on is the only reasonable solution to the problem. There are many folks who agree and some of them are willing and able to help. In my case it has become a better technology thing and I think it can revolutionize automation and drastically lower costs. Analysts who have nothing to do with the OSS movement agree. It solves my problem and in a little while you will have a choice. I wish I knew why so many people have a problem with that.

Regards

cww

Curt Wuollet wrote:
> I have two choices, leave automation or build an
> alternative.

Technically, you have a third alternative - if your customers demand M$ products do like most of the rest of us and use M$.

Davis Gentry
Applications Engineer
Delta Tau Data Systems

That's strange, I've never run into that. Usually the customer is asking me for the best solution I can provide. The point is moot anyways, I run a Linux consultancy and provide Linux solutions.
MS is irrelevent. There is yet another possibility and that is that vendors could realize that being a popular, if somewhat
unstable, office solution doesn't make something suitable for automation. And their product can never, never, run better than the platform they put it on. If I could up the reliability by
an order of magnitude, I wouldn't hesitate to sell that to the customers. It works for me. But no, MS is not an option for automation or test equipment. Been there, done that, it's
unsupportable, my life is much better now and I have more friends among my customers. Some poeple _know_ it's not the hardware.

Regards

cww

>But no, MS is not an option for automation or test equipment. Been there,
>done that, it's unsupportable, my life is much better now and I have more
>friends among my customers.


If I were to put out a Linux solution it would be
unreliable due to my ignorance of the platform. When I put up an NT or Win2000 solution it is very reliable and, unless someone who doesn't know what they are doing makes a change to the system, it will run until there is a hardware failure. But since with NT or 2000 you can lock unqualified people from making ANY changes, that is not a problem too often. I will not claim as much for Win 9x products, of course. My
assumption is that you can do the same thing with your Linux systems.

The bottom line is that you can make a highly stable and supportable system with ANY platform that you know well.

Davis Gentry
Applications Engineer
Delta Tau Data Systems

>>Davis Gentry wrote:
>>But no, MS is not an option for automation or test equipment. Been there,
>>done that, it's unsupportable, my life is much better now and I have more
>>friends among my customers.

>If I were to put out a Linux solution it would be
>unreliable due to my ignorance of the platform. When
>I put up an NT or Win2000 solution it is very reliable

Um...

You obviously haven't seen the mess that was made of the General Motors L-6 project. Windows NT and Nematron Open-Controls. Reliability went right out the door. You should see the faces of the production managers when you tell them some critical piece of machinery has to be rebooted and it take the line down for 10 minutes.

Of course, the upper management doesn't think there was any problems with the L-6 project (other than having troubles keeping up with production quota's). No body in GM is brave enough to tell Homie Patel that this little experiment was an absolute diasaster.
-----
Ron Gage - Saginaw, Michigan
(ron@rongage.org)

Visit the Gastracker website: http://gastracker.rongage.org

Enough all ready. There have been bad implementations of every type of operating system. People successfully implement NT solutions and they do the same with Linux. Just because a project failed that had NT as the
operating system means nothing.

Can we forget about NT and Linux for a while or maybe control.com can start an NT vs. Linux mailing list and get the stuff off of this list.

Hi,

Agreed, the comparison of Microsoft Vs. Linux is more suitable on Linux and Microsoft users lists.

An Automation list should discuss automation issues based on automation products. lets talk in terms of Wonderware Intouch is........ on Microsoft platform. AutomationX is ....... on Linux platform and so on. Availability of control blocks, special functions, problems in I/O field
instrumentation etc.

I have also faced blue screens and hanging of system and the messages from Dr. Watson which required that the system had to be rebooted. But due to proper selection of the architecture there was never a production loss. I have also seen ssytems that failed on NT due to improper architecture and reliability analysis. UNIX too has had its setback

We are raving about Linux. Linux does seem to hold a lot of promise, But once Linux sets onto the Desktop, there will definately be viruses and
trojans and bad systems on linuxes which may cause failures.

Lets move on with automation issues.

Anand

Is this any different than the MAP debacle?

Big corporations are always thinking they can force the world to adapt to them. They are generally wrong and it costs them big. The case of MAP and these flowcharting software packages that people with no experience in actually automating things think are so great, are just one more example of why the power minds should be locked up whenever they try to make a technical
decision that is at odds with the marketplace. The collective wisdom of the marketplace is generally on target.

It is most interesting that Ford of Europe is leaning toward OSS. Linux solutions could gain a lot of traction in one fell swoop.

Actually I think it is timely, germaine and important to talk about open systems and Linux. And contrast them with the status quo. For one thing we now have people who have never used anything other than Wimdows. For another thing there is an awful lot of traffic that deals
with the infelicities of Windows etal. in automation. The really amazing part for me is the resigned acceptance that "that's the way it is" and nothing can be done about it. I can think of no other instance where people are so willing to accept whatever a megacorp tells them they should be buying. Quite apart from the zealotry is this phenomena, unparalleled in any other product, of putting up with terms, conditions, and unbridled averice that no other sector could get away with for some fairly intangible benefits. To gain some
experience with something else, even by proxy, provides valuable insights and will prove valuable when there is a choice to be made.
Having real choices benefits everyone except perhaps those who have tried to prevent it. And there is no downside.

I liken it to the auto industry. American cars were the greatest until people actually had a choice. This produced chaos for a while, but
american cars are now at the very least competitive, and soon will be the greatest globally. It took change and choice to make that happen. Moving forward in this industry will only occur when the roadblocks fall and the game changes. We are bound in a matrix of barriers and
roadblocks with most of the energy expended in making them higher. The last island of proprietary computing in a sea of open prosperity.
It's important to talk about any possible way out.


Regards

cww

Do you think Bill Gates is the devil? Are we near the end of the world?
Maybe OSS is the second coming. Or maybe Linus is?

--

People are implementing robust, reliable automation solutions with NT and not experiencing any barriers.


Curt Wuollet <wideopen@ECENET.COM> wrote on 07/03/2001:

>It is most interesting that Ford of Europe is leaning toward OSS.
Linux solutions could gain a lot of traction in one fell swoop.
>
>Actually I think it is timely, germaine and important to talk about
open systems and Linux. And contrast them with the status quo. ...<clip> <

> Do you think Bill Gates is the devil? Are we near the end of the world?
> Maybe OSS is the second coming. Or maybe Linus is?

No, actually I am profesionally concerned with the lag betewwn the general computing world and the important field of industrial automation. The
automation market is stagnating while the general computing world is advancing exponentially. The advancement in the general computing world
can be largely attributed to the advent of universal connectivity and ubiquitous commodity networking. I think a great deal of the stagnation
is the direct result of balkanization through rejection of common standards and the enormous burden and waste of development of hundreds of
functionally identical yet totally incompatible solutions. The evidence shows me that this is a failed model. And it concerns me that the only thing they have in common is total dependence on technolgy that has nothing to do with automation and is poorly suited for the task and further, is manipulated to the detriment of the industry, its practitioners and its customers. Any change
from this failed model would be positive and I am trying through reason and argument as well as direct action to effect change. I am not fanatical or radical or any of other brushes people use to paint over uncomfortable reality. I am an engineer who has the detachment to see what are some extremely strange goings on and remark on those that are contradictory to reason and what
an objective observer might think. I am not an entirely objective observer but I do have the perspective of having performed useful work in dozens of systems and environments culminating in Linux which is the best overall I have used to preform useful work for reasons that I am trying to explain. You'll have to gain the spirituality from somewhere else, this is strictly business.

> --
>
> People are implementing robust, reliable automation solutions with NT and
> not experiencing any barriers.

As long as everything is Microsoft and only Microsoft. The mafia are great guys too, as long as you pay the protection money.

Regards

cww

I don't see a stagnation in the automation world. There are a lot of products and it is an exciting time. We have never had better tools for
interfacing with realtime equipment and there have never been so many ways to control the process and analyze the resulting data. The use of
off-the-shelf technology like Ethernet and TCP/IP and the advent of technology like COM and the web have made life simple compared to what it use to be. You can sit at your desk and run Java script in a browser on your PC and perform I/O with a PLC. This is a wonderful time for the automation industry. By utilizing these tools we are able to support the new initiatives in supply chain management. Life is good.

What planet are you living on? Look around! Check out Jim Pinto's archives. Stocks are flat or falling, mergers are the only way anyone is
geting market cap, and it's looking like Rockwell, who has divested everything but their Automation business to become Rockwell Automation, is ripe for a buyout!

There's new software toys, yes, but the ENTIRE economy is slumping. R&D budgets are slashed, etc. Innovation is in minute increments, which is
why the patent suits are flying all over the place. And what is new, isn't really. It is just pretty versions of what could be done years ago. Making my HMI run in a browser instead of stand alone is not innovation. It is a re-compile, and I question it's actual usefulness. Since most vendors want to charge per seat for this too, it isn't something I have given serious thought to.

Like I said, check out Jim Pinto's stuff if you don't see it. It's there.

--Joe Jansen


> I don't see a stagnation in the automation world.

I wasn't talking about the market. I was talking about stagnation in functionality. And, I don't rely on Jim Pinto.

Hi Curt,

the "yada...Yada..." Stuff on ISA magazine made great reading.

But time and again all of us in the list seem to be fighting an unknown devil. But is the Devil Microsoft? As far as I know Microsoft is a very
recent entrant into Automation (With PC based SCADA and Soft PLC's working on NT or Windows 95/98/2000/XP). In fact are they to blame because some Automation vendors picked this platform up because it was more acceptable to the general public. remember that prior to this there were several Unix based costlier systems around and most of the systems were on propreitary
platforms.

If Linux becomes more aceptable to the public then these same vendors may bring out products on Linux Platform. This is why Linux must make inroads into the Desktop in a big way.

M$ may have done so many wrongs (imagined or true or whatever), but it is popular! And that is the chief reason that many automation vendors have
products based on M$. Secondly development on M$ may be more economical and faster for an Automation vendor than Linux.

Again system features are more important. If somebody creates a system based on M$ with no thought to reliability issues then who is to be Blamed. I have seen UNIX systems with reliable platforms but improper automation system
implementation. This system had several upgrades on graphical interface, Engineering station and IMS. And it used to hang! You had to reboot and one such reboot caused the plant to trip because of a mistake in configuration of the stop system loop!! I would not blame Unix here.

What the Automation world needs is a reliable automation system. Again Reliability is also dependent on the engineering done while implementing. Cost is also critical but not factor "numero uno". For a HMI, in a well configured system a once in a while blue screen may be acceptable to the user!

Everyone agrees that Linux is great and yet there are no major Linux products in automation systems around. If someone would make a working system on Linux and it succeeds then these discussions will have more relevance.

As against IT, Automation systems are moving out of monopolies on UNIX systems and proprietary OS's to open systems on Microsoft. In fact systems
on Microsoft and the facility of inter and intra communications have reduced the costs in automation systems.

Microsoft may have done some lobbying, created products that facilitated faster development of systems, but this is just marketing strategy. Linux needs to emulate. In addition Linux has the advantage of being able to upgrade some of the older UNIX based systems.

Microsoft is not certainly a charitable institution and neither were the other OS's. Linux is an Exception to this, but until a workable solution comes out.... lets wait!

Anand

>I liken it to the auto industry. American cars were the greatest until
>people actually had a choice.

NOT. We Americans THOUGHT our cars were the greatest until gas prices went so high we were willing to try out those little Japanese things. WOW were we surprised to find out that they were actually better cars. Why did the Japanese put so much effort into making little econo-boxes?

>This produced chaos for a while, but American cars are now at the very
>least competitive, and soon will be the greatest globally.

NOT. American auto makers have focused on improving quality to the point that it is better than ever for America, but quality is NOT job one at Ford, GM, or Chrysler.

This is the same approach to quality that M$ takes IMHO. They have been challenged by Linux reliability and they will improve it to the point that the typical consumer thinks that it is as reliable as Linux.

This will be just as much of a snow-job as the JD Powers surveys of "Initial Quality." Who in the world really believes that customer perception in the 1st 30days is an indicator of how good a car is? The sad answer is, Most Americans !!! And we are fools in general. We have fallen for the marketing ploys.

We? Not I, and not MANY of the people on this list when it comes to reliability of an OS, which is what started this whole debate.

I used to sell cars, GM and Toyota at different dealerships. The GM buyer usually believes his new car will be "as good as a Toyota." The Toyota
buyer would only buy a GM if Toyota didn't produce what he needed, but would do so with a pain in his gut. Many rejoiced when Toyota developed a full-size pickup and Minivan on a larger than Corolla chassis.

I believe the same will happen when Rockwell ports RS View to Linux, and other pipe-dreams that may just come true.

Oh, I work at Honda of America Mfg now in Marysville, Oh. I bought my '90 Accord for $6500, 5.5 years ago with 98,000 miles on it. It now has 244,000 and the engine has never been opened beyond replacing the clutch at 180k. And I drive it HARD !!! I change my oil every 5-10k miles and stretch my Maint to double the recommended intervals.

I proudly say that my Honda has had fewer problems in 244,000 miles than most American cars in their 1st 50,000. It's broken down on me only once ... at 105k with a bad distributor bearing that Honda covered under warrantee, even though I was well out of coverage. Why? Because they knew
they made a mistake and took responsibility for it. Would an "American car company consider a bearing which lasted 105k miles a design defect? Doubt it.

Why did M$ wait until Win2k was released to admit that WinNT ought to be rebooted every 90 days or so? Why are they now presenting themselves as so
focused on reliability? Why are they FUDing open source and "sharing" their own source? Answer ... They are going to improve a little bit and snow the masses to believe they've improved to equal the new benchmark. Just watch.

Dale Malony

Does anyone have the link to official documentation from Microsoft regarding NT being booted every ninety days or so?

It would be a helpful document to provide to customers.

Does such a document exist?

Thanks

RJ

I use to reboot UNIX boxes every so often. The problem was with an application and not UNIX, except for maybe Ultrix.

I don't reboot my NT boxes. They run forever.

Then you are not following Microsofts recommended practice, are you? They recommend reboot every 90 days.

and honestly, if your NT boxes run "forever" you either have steroid level hardware, with massive RAM and hard drive, or you are't running anything of significance on them. I have run enough NT boxes to know that if you are using them for more than 1 or 2 server functions, they just need to be
rebooted. It is accepted as a norm in the IT industry. MS recommends it.

I continue to find it amusing that people will defend arguments that even Microsoft has given up and admitted as untrue.

--Joe Jansen

Come on over and sit and watch my boxes run then because I apologize ... they just run (most are off the shelf Gateway boxes, even some of the servers), I must have gotten all the equipment that was made on Wednesday ........ I
apologize. 99% of the network machines have only been rebooted when something new was added (updated, new software etc) and that is rare,
otherwise (and I also apologize to M$) they just run. Although I will say that lots of research and reading went into setting them up properly vs open the box and pray.

By the way you say the same thing my IT department says, I actually started printing for my boss all of the network messages they send on rebooting servers etc., because we just don't have to, until I ran out of ink in the printers and the paper was getting used up too fast (sarcasm). This isn't the largest network in the world only about 100-200 clients, 10 servers (the
IT dept is about double that size) , but of the 1-200 over half are running HMI and data monitoring and the Operators Window into the processes all day long and the servers only get looked at once or twice a year, which is the only plant down time we have. (In fact I just defragmented a server hard drive that was 78% fragmented with data after 2 straight years of running with no downtime).

Now I won't say that this kind of support and knowledge comes cheap, I spend 2-3 hours a day trying to stay on top of technology (reading etc.)(lifelong learning) but then again hey, this is my hobby and they pay me for it.

By the way, better bring some resource kits to read because either your finger is going to get sore waiting to hit my reset buttons, or your going to get real, real bored..............

Dave

DAVCO Automation
The "Developing Application Value" Company

I ditto your response Ron!

I was involved with L-18, in which Nematron was driven down our throats!

What a mess!

It must be nice to have so much money that you can waste it like GM has on Nematron PC based controls.

Just my 2 cents............

> From: Ron Gage <ron@rongage.org>
> You obviously haven't seen the mess that was made of
> the General Motors L-6 project.
> Windows NT and Nematron Open-Controls. Reliability
> went right out the door.

You're right. I didn't. But I *did not say* that *ALL* solutions under M$ were stable. I said that stable solutions can be engineered by people who know what they are doing.

Davis Gentry

> You obviously haven't seen the mess that was made of the General
> Motors L-6 project. Windows NT and Nematron Open-Controls.
> Reliability went right out the door. You should see the faces of the
> production managers when you tell them some critical piece of
> machinery has to be rebooted and it take the line down for 10
> minutes.

> Of course, the upper management doesn't think there was any
> problems with the L-6 project (other than having troubles keeping up
> with production quota's). No body in GM is brave enough to tell Homie
> Patel that this little experiment was an absolute diasaster. -----

The more interesting issue here is WHY do the machines require so much rebooting?

Besides specing Nematron for the project, all non-I/O communications were required to be DCOM based using the OPC API. What happens when you loose a DCOM connection? How do you reestablish the communications channel? Answer: you reboot the machines. Is this the reason for the rebooting? If yes, that has nothing to do with Nematron. There were other communications solutions being considered that had a long track history of reliable operation in GM plants that were discarded in favor of the "safer" DCOM route. Maybe that was the key mistake? Lumping Nematron into this might not be fair.

Regards,
Ralph Mackiewicz
SISCO, Inc.

Ralph Mackiewicz wrote:
>The more interesting issue here is WHY do the machines require so
>much rebooting?
>Besides specing Nematron for the project, all non-I/O communications
>were required to be DCOM based using the OPC API. What happens when
>you loose a DCOM connection? How do you reestablish the
>communications channel? Answer: you reboot the machines. Is this the
>reason for the rebooting? If yes, that has nothing to do with
>Nematron. There were other communications solutions being considered
>that had a long track history of reliable operation in GM plants that
>were discarded in favor of the "safer" DCOM route. Maybe that was the
>key mistake? Lumping Nematron into this might not be fair.

Actually, I wasn't referring to the DCOM stuff as the machines I was dealing with didn't have the ethernet drops ran yet. The only things we had for network was Profibus and an occasional RS-232/422/485 connection. There were (and from what I understand from the plant folk I keep in touch with) and still are times when the whole machine would just stop responding. No reason, no notice, no activity. Couldn't even move the mouse pointer. Power down/power up, let chkdsk do it's thing and then wait a few more minutes while Open Control opened up everything it needed
to. That is *IF* there wasn't any real hard drive damage caused by the lockup and/or subsequent "improper" shutdown...

Ahhh, the progress of moving forward... What is it, one step forward, twelve steps back?

Ron Gage - Saginaw, Michigan
(ron@rongage.org)

Visit the Gastracker website: http://gastracker.rongage.org

One of the first Linux automation projects I did was a similar case only on a much smaller scale. As rebuilders, WMC gets back a core for nearly every unit they sell. They wanted to automate handling those. A system for checkin I had developed while in IS was expanded to many parallel stations and produced barcodes that were stuck on the packages. This system was running Linux already as we are a UNIX shop. From the checkin stations the boxes were placed on a sorting conveyor that was to disposition the boxes according to barcode. We were brainstorming to design a conveyor when management decided to outsource it. We were somewhat perturbed, but when asked if _we_ could do it in two weeks, we responded that obviously that would be impossible. End of discussion.
They picked a firm that sells Quantum conveyors. An NT based product that they had seen at some show. For months they diddled and putzed and tried to make that system work. Through this period, I was rather glad I was not involved as they were having to fill trailers with cores for checkin and nothing was moving. The last couple weeks, every manager in the plant was sorting missorts and our systems administrator was standing by to boot the NT system on an average of every 20 minutes. I got looks that could kill when I was driven to laughter by the spectacle. After a little while of the most expensive material handling on the planet it got to lawyer time and we got a challange. Can you _fix_ it in two weeks, and if you can, you get a bonus. Order what you need.
There wasn't time to do it entirely with PLC's as the comms suck or with Linux as I didn't have the industrial IO hardware I have now, so we did the logic and fifo on the PLC and the comms, database and display on the Linux box with a cmm interface between them. We beat the deadline and have had half an hour of downtime in two years, due to a devicenet master on the PLC, Fortunately we had a spare. We shipped three pallets of NT equipment, proprietary electronics and assorted crap back to the vendor and did the job with Beckhoff devicenet IO and a small GE 90/30 and, of course the same Linux box that had been there to run the checkin stations. We used their mechanicals which aren't that great but they do work. This is one of the type of wins you savor on many levels. A small stuffed penguin sits atop the console and smiles. It was the end of NT on the factory floor here forever, or at least until they forget.

Regards

cww

To some extent that is true but I don't think you could make Linux unreliable through omission. I tar my application onto a standard RedHat install and run. That is to say, I don't have to do anything to make it reliable. This is as opposed to NT where there was much busywork. I take the fact that MS advertises W2k as much more stable as significant. Your opinion of supportable and mine probably differ. My customers have my home phone number. And I did at one time know Windows well, I'm feeling better now. As I said, some poeple _know_ it's not the hardware. I'll bet you have never run Linux.

Regards

cww

> From: Curt Wuollet <cwuollet@cpinternet.com>
> Your opinion of supportable and mine probably
differ. My customers
> have my home phone number. .......I'll bet you have
never run Linux.

Actually, I'll bet our definitions of supportable are not far different. My customers don't have my home number - they have my cell number. And while I have played with Redhat Linux I have not ever done a true project on it. But, *one more time*, I am NOT knocking Linux - I am pointing out that an M$ solution can be a proper and a stable one.

Davis Gentry

> If I were to put out a Linux solution it would be
> unreliable due to my ignorance of the platform.

Actually, while it might not work &lt;g>, I'd bet that it wouldn't crash. How do you define reliable?

>When
> I put up an NT or Win2000 solution it is very reliable
> and, unless someone who doesn't know what they are
> doing makes a change to the system, it will run until
> there is a hardware failure. But since with NT or
> 2000 you can lock unqualified people from making ANY
> changes, that is not a problem too often.

Actually, its hard to make Windows NT/2000 100% impentrable to a nosy user. In a past list, I ran a university computer lab. In this lab, we ran
Windows NT. I did my best to lock the systems down so people couldn't run whatever they wanted. However, software for Microsoft platforms is very rarely designed with security in mind. For example, to use Microsoft
Office, the user needed Read/Write/Delete access on the WINNT/SYSTEM32 directory. Microsoft has a technote for it.

Microsoft went from a single-user system and went up, and while their OS guys got it down, a lot of the 3rd party software out there doesn't like not
being able to write files wherever it feels like.

> The bottom line is that you can make a highly stable
> and supportable system with ANY platform that you know
> well.

Without a doubt -- but you can make a stabler and more supportable system with Linux. Remote access in the box with a kernel that doesn't crash -- ever. Its also cheaper.

Just to add a bit more fuel to the fire, perhaps some of you folks have read about the "improvements" M$ has planned for WinXP. Take a look at the excerpt/links below, and consider what havoc some little script kiddie could wreak on your automation system that's connected to the admin network.

From Steve Gibson's mailbot at mailbot-hjwzkjdp@grc.com:

"During the first few weeks of May, GRC.COM was the target of several distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks launched by a 13-year-old hacker using a tool he did not write. Using
this tool, "Wicked" commanded multiple sustained attacks from 474 security-compromised Windows-based PC's.

The whole tale turned into a pretty good read, and is something I imagine you may enjoy. You can read the entire page online on our web site, or you can download the PDF file for offline reading or printing.

The page on our site: &lt;http://grc.com/dos/grcdos.htm>

The PDF file: &lt;http://media.grc.com:8080/files/grcdos.pdf>

Windows XP:

The experience with Windows-based denial of service attacks focused my attention on Microsoft's planned release of Windows XP with its planned inclusion of "Full Raw Socket" support. Full raw sockets are a powerful and dangerous Internet API that exists in all Unix-based operating systems. But under Unix they are
deliberately protected by the rigorous requirement for "root" privilege. (Similar to Microsoft's "Administrative" privilege.)
However Microsoft has done away with this distinction in the Home Edition of Windows XP which threatens to populate the world with
a needlessly dangerous capability.

Microsoft and I have been arguing about this quite a lot recently. Last Thursday, this culminated in an eight-way telephone conference:

My page explaining the XP threat: &lt;http://grc.com/dos/winxp.htm>

About our phone conference: &lt;http://grc.com/dos/xpconference.htm>"

Carl Ramer
Controls & Protective Systems Design
Space Gateway Support, Inc.
Kennedy Space Center, Florida

Unsponsored professional comment

> Just to add a bit more fuel to the fire, perhaps some of you folks have
read
> about the "improvements" M$ has planned for WinXP. Take a look at the
> excerpt/links below, and consider what havoc some little script kiddie
could
> wreak on your automation system that's connected to the admin network.

In this specific case, I'm siding with Microsoft.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?ur l=/technet/security/
raw_sockets.asp

The biggest problems with XP are the product activation features. Change the hardware too much, and *POOF* it goes into non-functional mode until the system is "re-activated". This could cause some concern for people putting XP into user-servicable applications. For what its worth, the system is already in place on Office XP.

For more info on this, check out:
http://www.a1-electronics.co.uk/Operating_Systems/WinXP_Activa tion.html

At 07:34 05/07/01 -0400, Carl Ramer wrote:
>Just to add a bit more fuel to the fire, perhaps some of you folks have read
>about the "improvements" M$ has planned for WinXP. Take a look at the
>excerpt/links below, and consider what havoc some little script kiddie could
>wreak on your automation system that's connected to the admin network.
&lt;clip>
The page on our site: &lt;http://grc.com/dos/grcdos.htm>
&lt;clip>

That was quite an interesting set of articles. What some people may additionally find interesting is that the articles mention that the new sockets feature in Windows-XP which will make it the target of choice for internet hackers is already in Windows 2000. Anyone who is using Windows 2000 for anything would find this set of articles very informative.

An automated system which is connected to the internet would seem to be the ideal target for a hacker. An example might be a pumping station which is monitored remotely over the internet. It would be always on and normally unattended, which are the features a hacker wants.

Such a system would also likely have been set up by an engineer who knows just enough about Windows to think that he actually knows what he's
doing. I got the distinct impression that properly securing a computer system is something that even full time computer administrators have a hard time keeping up with. With the internet reaching further and further into the average plant, this is something to give some serious thought to.


**********************
Michael Griffin
London, Ont. Canada
**********************

Michael Griffin wrote:
> That was quite an interesting set of articles. What some people
may
>additionally find interesting is that the articles mention that the new
>sockets feature in Windows-XP which will make it the target of choice for
>internet hackers is already in Windows 2000. Anyone who is using Windows
>2000 for anything would find this set of articles very informative.

That is not what it said. It said that until Windows 2000 you could not spoof your IP address with the default network drivers. It also said that this has always been possible in UNIX.

> An automated system which is connected to the internet would seem
to
>be the ideal target for a hacker. An example might be a pumping station
>which is monitored remotely over the internet. It would be always on and
>normally unattended, which are the features a hacker wants.

If you have your automated system on the open Internet and not at least in a VPN then you are asking for problems.

At 15:47 06/07/01 -0400, Sam Moore Square D Company/Groupe Shneider wrote:
&lt;clip>
>>the articles mention that the new
>>sockets feature in Windows-XP which will make it the target of choice for
>>internet hackers is already in Windows 2000. Anyone who is using Windows
>>2000 for anything would find this set of articles very informative.
>
>
>That is not what it said. It said that until Windows 2000 you could not
>spoof your IP address with the default network drivers.
&lt;clip>
Which is what will make Windows-XP the hacker's choice. Windows 2000 has this same feature and so is prone to the same problem. If you will allow me to quote one of the articles:

"The huge number of Windows XP machines will motivate hackers to find new ways into those machines — AND THEY WILL. Then users of Windows XP
machines will become the most sought-after target for penetration."

The author makes a number of additional statements about Windows 2000 having an equivalent problem. Windows-XP is highlighted because of the much larger number of systems which will be in existance and the poorer
security likely to be implemented. Is there something which I said which contradicts this?


>It also said that this has always been possible in UNIX.

It also said that this was a bad thing, and is a problem. However, there are (and will be for the foreseeable future) far more Windows systems around than UNIX systems. Furthermore, the typical UNIX system is far more likely to have been configured by someone who knows what they are doing. This makes Windows systems a much more rewarding target.


>If you have your automated system on the open Internet and not at least in
>a VPN then you are asking for problems.

Which was precisely my point. I see exactly this situation happening in the future because people are not aware of, and not sufficiently alarmed about this problem. You're not doing anyone a favour if you discourage them
from investigating this problem.
I can see a lot of time and cost advantages to having internet access to automated systems for remote monitoring, service, software
changes, etc. If I can see these advantages, then so can a lot of other people. System integrators are *already* asking us if we will give them this
sort of access. So far, we have been saying "no" because of security concerns. How many other people have been saying "yes"?

P.S. - The article also mentions in passing that hackers routinely search for systems which have "PC Anywhere" installed. I have seen plenty of messages here asking about using this software. How many of these applications were properly secured?


**********************
Michael Griffin
London, Ont. Canada
**********************

What is the difference? Win2K and WinXP give Raw Socket access which allows IP spoofing, and others. Yes, Unix based systems have had this for
years. The technical difference is that under Unix based systems, Raw Socket access is grnated only to the root user. This is the equivilant of
the administrator on a Win NT/ 2K system. Win XP gives this access to any user. Therefore, under Unix, you have to be logged in and using your
system regularly as the root user, which is actively discouraged by the system and the designers. Under XP, Raw Socket is accessible at any and all points. I may be wrong, but I think Win2K restricts access to admin, which would be the right thing to do, as long as they make everyone aware that they should not use their system day-to-day as admin.

The problem is XP's ability to access the raw sockets at any point. MS responds by saying that they restrict the zombie applications ability to be installed. I'm not making this up: MS is claiming that their new operating system is virus proof. They are confident that opening this
security hole is ok, because nobody can get a virus onto the machine in the first place. Is anyone else laughing at this point? MS has quite the track record of securing their software from virii, don't they? And the raw socket access is not a problem just for outbound access. If a virus author can get even a small program installed, obviously thru email, with an attachment, or whatever mechanism, this program will then be able to access your data sockets to pull in whatever else it wants to install. This is glaring.

Unix handles this by restricting access to the root, and it is your responsibility to make sure you know what you aredoing as root, and get out
when done. How do I shut off this "feature" (flaw) in WinXP? oh, I can't. gee. Thanks.

--Joe Jansen

More on the security issue. With directly connected machines, I think the only way to go is with a firewall set up by someone who knows security. Or use some sort of VPN or other private link that is not actually open. I try
to keep away from networked machines.

For example, we used BlackICE Defender on our "firewall" (i.e., on out machine connected to the outside) world. It turns out (thanks to people like those at GRC who independently test the applications) that BlackICE has some problems and we should not be using it. We are now switching to Zone Alarm Pro from http://www.zonelabs.com/. How long will Zone Alarm Pro be top? Also, we are adding MyNetWatchman for intrusion analysis from
http://www.mynetwatchman.com/ -- but I would not bother with that on a production machine. Do we bother with Zone Alarm Pro on a production
machine? We also have a list of tips and tricks from http:www.jsiinc.com/
to help with locking down machines. Additionally we have purchased security guides from http://www.sans.org/. The list is never ending. All this because the underlying OS is not secure. Linux is by no means immune from hacking either.

Interestingly enough, The Register http://www.thregister.co.uk/ think that Steve Gibson overreacted a little bit. However, I personally agree with the sentiments posted by Steve, even if he was overreacting.

I also agree with the comments about engineers who do not understand security on public networks. Let alone security on any machine using a familiar operating system.

We must always remember that (at least according to the security press) most attacks come from within not teen-agers in the former Soviet Bloc.

RJ

Davis Gentry:
> Technically, you have a third alternative - if your customers demand M$
> products do like most of the rest of us and use M$.

In the part you've snipped, Curt explains why it's not an alternative.

Besides, there is such a thing as professional integrity. Your physician won't harm you, even if you ask for it, your engineer, your lawyer, your
accountant, they all adhere to their professional standards. Why then would you expect Curt to use a solution that he believes to be unreliable and
excessively costly?

Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <jiri@baum.com.au>
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jirib
vi sit the MAT LinuxPLC project at http://mat.sourceforge.net

I, for one, don't expect Curt to use a solution that is unreliable and excessively costly. However, I (and I suspect a large portion of this lists readership) don't believe Windows NT/2000 are as unreliable or excessively costly as Curt would have us believe. Rockwell, Siemens, etc are a different story.

As another person touched on - longevity is also important. I would not use or recommend Linux, because I do not believe it will last as the underdog's darling... the operating system beaten down by the big-bad monopolist [sarcasm intended]. While Linux, in some incarnation, has been around for nearly a decade - it was not until relatively recently that it gained favor
outside the "geeks who write operating systems and books about how to write operating systems" crowd. Sure, there has been a surge or public interest and investments from big names such as IBM and Compaq... but remember that the public is fickle and can turn on a dime; IBM has a history of [effectively] abandoning operating systems (OS/2); and Compaq has shown it's ability to abandon investments that don't make money (Alpha, AltaVista). How long will these companies pour money down a hole? While Linux may never fade
into oblivion, I believe peoples interest and its use will fade. That's reason enough for me not to build an automation solution on top of it.

Jeff
jeffdean@execpc.com
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
- Alan Kay

At 13:32 03/07/01 -0400, Jeff Dean wrote:
&lt;clip>
>As another person touched on - longevity is also important. I would not use
>or recommend Linux, because I do not believe it will last ...
&lt;clip>
> but remember that
>the public is fickle and can turn on a dime; IBM has a history of
>[effectively] abandoning operating systems (OS/2); and Compaq has shown it's
>ability to abandon investments that don't make money (Alpha, AltaVista). How
>long will these companies pour money down a hole?
&lt;clip>

IBM abandoned OS/2? I thought that Microsoft abandoned OS/2 and IBM maintained it for years afterwards so as not to leave their customers in the lurch. Whatever other bad things you may want to say about IBM, please don't
blame them for this one. OS/2 was a joint Microsoft-IBM project. Microsoft abandoned OS/2 because they wanted to pursue Windows NT (without IBM) instead. That probably turned out to be a good business decision in the long run for Microsoft but it doesn't change the fact that OS/2 was Microsoft's original replacement for Windows 3.1.

As for Compaq closing down investments that don't make money, that's true of any company, and not just in the computer business. What any company claims as being a core product today could be a terminated product tomorrow,
or for that matter, the whole company can be terminated. If your company depends heavily upon the availability of a particular product from a single source, you had better start putting some contigency plans in place.

Which brings me to the question which I had in mind. I was busy working on a question about the future of "Windows NT Embedded" and "Windows CE" when the above quoted letter arrived. This seems like an appropriate place to ask it.

What is the future of these two products? I have some co-workers thinking about the suitability of these operating systems for certain
applications. These are more or less OEM rather than end user products, but it is still possible they might appear in a proposal for a test system. We want to know if we should be avoiding either of these two if they may become terminated products, or changed radically in the future. I'm not concerned about "Windows CE" when it is in a sealed OEM product, only if it is used inside something which might be considered user repairable or maintained.
Please, these are serious questions and I would like only serious answers.

We have found some problems with long term maintenance of computerised test equipment because newer hardware may not be compatable
with older versions of Windows, while newer versions of Windows may not be capatable with the application program (or various data aquisition board drivers). Sometimes, even minor changes in the operating system revision have been enough to cause problems. So far we've always been able to sort things out in the end, but it has never been easy. I imagine we could be in much more serious trouble with odd versions of Windows (NT Embedded or CE).

These are the kind of problems which people building these systems rarely see. They have however caused us much more trouble than any actual unreliability or unpredictability of Windows. Our operators are fairly used to rebooting the computers when they act funny so that particular problem never gets mentioned to anyone unless you question them carefully. The types of problems I have outlined above though can put us in a serious bind.


**********************
Michael Griffin
London, Ont. Canada
**********************

There is no such thing as long term support in the PC world.

http://support.microsoft.com/directory/discontinue.asp?s d=gn

"The following products, on a product-by-product basis, have been determined to have reached the end of their product lifecycle. Microsoft has
discontinued support for these products." Note that the list contains W95, W98, W98 SE, and NT4 Workstation. With the new OS versions on the way, how long will NT server last? I think that the MCSE exams for NT will not be given much longer. Hardware is no different. Try to find the motherboard, video card, etc. that you bought two years ago. How about the non-IDE hard drive from 10 years ago? The traditional automation suppliers have longer support cycles, but I'm
sure we all have worked on systems that were operating just fine on equipment that is no longer supported. Expect the life cycle to get shorter and shorter in the non-PC world, too.

Ed

Speaking for me, not for Starbucks. . .

>Hardware is no different. Try to find the motherboard, video card, etc.
>that you bought two years ago. How about the non-IDE hard drive from 10
>years ago?

That used to be true, try www.ebay.com . You can get your old Osborne portable computer up and running again if you want.

Jay Kirsch
jkirsch@macroautomatics.com

This, even more than cost and reliablity arguments, is to me, the strongest argument for Linux or other Free or GPL Open source system.

Not only can I trace out unlikely bugs in the O/S (which are unlikely in the first place with Linux), fix them in my source, and rebuild it, But I can freeze the O/S version I use. So if it takes me several years to develop a product, I won't have had to spend money and development time
when the OS's and development systems shift under foot and the prior ones become unavailable.

And as hardware changes, it would be more likely I could find another user who may have already fixed incompatibility problems, and I can fix just
the portion of my system that needs fixing at the cost of a download.

Even if you could find other users of unsupported proprietary gear, all you'd be able to do is commiserate while crying in your (not free) beer,
and cursing the vendors (if they're still in business in their own name, or still an active group in the company they merged with).

It's hard enough to maintain and support our own installed products in the embedded time-frame, without these external problems, too!

Rufus


Ed Mulligan wrote:
>There is no such thing as long term support in the PC world.

&lt;Microsoft quote>
"The following products, on a product-by-product basis, have been determined
to have reached the end of their product lifecycle. Microsoft has
discontinued support for these products...."
&lt;/Microsoft quote>

Hardware is no different. Try to find the motherboard, video card, etc.
that you bought two years ago. How about the non-IDE hard drive from 10
years ago?

The traditional automation suppliers have longer support cycles, but I'm
sure we all have worked on systems that were operating just fine on
equipment that is no longer supported. Expect the life cycle to get shorter
and shorter in the non-PC world, too.

--- Jiri Baum <jiri@BAUM.COM.AU> wrote:
> Why then would you expect Curt to use a solution
that he believes to be unreliable and excessively
costly?

First, I don't expect Curt to do anything - I simply pointed out that he missed an option in his list.

My assumption is that should Curt decide to use M$
products he would then learn them well enough to
develop reliable solutions with them. As to cost, I did not deal with that issue at all in my post. I have never done a cost analysis looking at a system comparing Linux and M$. It is certainly the case that M$ licenses and development tools are far more expensive than Linux. But my customers are happy with M$ both from reliability standpoint and because most,
if not all, of their other systems are M$. They
therefore do not have to retrain anyone to support
another operating system, and the interconnectivity between systems can be easily managed. Data to and from the factory or fab floor flows well (assuming well coded systems). So why change?

I am certain that Linux is a fine product and that
there are problems for which it is the best solution. I am equally certain that, even with its bugs (does Linux have NO bugs? If so, whose distribution? Redhat? ), that Win NT / 2000 is a fine product and there are problems for which it is the best solution. The zealots on both sides of his issue do themselves and their customers a disservice when they badmouth the other side.

Davis Gentry
Applications Engineer
Delta Tau Data Systems

The argument below is not consistent. There is either a monopoly with no choices or there is no monopoly because there are choices. Its clear that you do have choices and you have taken them. There are choices. Therefore, there is no monopoly. Monopolies can't exist without the law to enforce them. The distribution of electricity in most areas of the world is operated by a monopoly. Software operating systems are not provided by a monopoly. There are hundreds of choices for operating systems.

Regards,
Ralph Mackiewicz
SISCO, Inc.

> In my current sphere of operations they have nearly a complete
> and total monopoly. I can't do what I need to do with Windows. it's
> not reliable enough and it's too expensive to develop in and maintain.
> The low level stuff is all secret and you can only do what MS allows
> you to do.

...snip...snip...

> The status quo supports no choice with the exception of a few
> independent IO vendors and they almost always require Windows in some
> way, shape, or form. You are probably not aware of that because you
> haven't tried to work outside this monopoly. Would it be a monopoly if
> using anything forced you to use Linux? I think you'ld agree that it
> would.

> I have two choices, leave automation or build an alternative.
> Automation pays my bills and matches my skill set perfectly. Obviously
> I have chosen the latter and am installing a robotic machining cell
> this week that replaces a lot of GE proprietary hardware and software
> with Linux.

...snip...snip...

> In your broader discussion, the question of monopoly is academic. In
> the automation world, it is simply a matter of fact. The path we are
> on is the only reasonable solution to the problem. There are many
> folks who agree and some of them are willing and able to help. In my
> case it has become a better technology thing and I think it can
> revolutionize automation and drastically lower costs.

> From: Ralph Mackiewicz [mailto:ralph@SISCONET.COM]
> The argument below is not consistent. There is either a monopoly with
> no choices or there is no monopoly because there are choices.

Wrong! Sometimes I think Parker Brothers have done a disservice selling so many copies of a particular board game. A monopoly does not mean they are the only one in the market, but rather that they can control the prices set in the market.

Mark
Any opinions expressed expressed in this message are not necessarily those
of the company.

In either case, Ralph is correct. Prices are not being controlled by MS. Linux is an example of that.

This list if full of people that believe in giving software away for free. I don't know what the fuss is about MS. It appears the courts see it the same way.

On one side you have a group of people that are developing what they say is the best software ever written. Nothing is as robust or reliable as this software. Yet, this software is free for anyone to use. On the other side you have this big company that has made a bunch of money selling software. The people that see little value in software are upset about the big
company. They say that big company is making bad software. Stop it big company! We will show you. We will develop all this software and everything
will change. Wait... What's going on? How can the big company sell software when the greatest developers in the history of computing are giving better stuff away? Oh... it must be all the people are stupid except for the greatest developers in the history of computing. Time to start telling everyone that the big company is bad. They are really bad. Guess what they
are controlling the price of software! They shouldn't do that. They are not allowed to charge too much for software while we are giving it away. We want the big company to do what we are doing. This is the free enterprise system. Everyone should be giving things away for nothing! All those thousands of programmers that work at the big company need to work for free
so the big company can give software away. Once that is done we can all go live in boxes in a field and eat mushrooms all day and paint colors on each others faces and change our names to things like Sky and Free and Breeze.

That's strange, I don't ever recall saying that Microsoft shouldn't charge whatever they feel their product is worth. I have no problem with that. And I actually liked the bit about flower children, we could use a few more of those instead of hateful murderers on campus. I think if you check the archives I have said not a word about MS selling their software to willing buyers. I do have a problem with the behavior the Sherman act was written to address and the fact that they have with exclusive deals, tying and coercion made it extremely difficult to use anything else and are effectively eliminating choice. The rest of my problems with MS are technical in nature and I have found more flexible and reliable software that provides a degree of access that greatly facilitates problem solving and enhances programming productivity. And I do question why the engineers, the people to whom technical stuff matters aren't interested in making things better anymore.

Regards

cww

Wrong! The definition of the word monopoly that I use is not derived from a board game or from some popular misconception/misuse. The definition is derived from the dictionary.

Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines monopoly as: 1) exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted
action 2) exclusive possession, 3) a commodity controoled by one party 4) a person or group having a monopoly.

While MS has a monopoly on Windows (granted by copyright and patent *LAWS*) they do not have a monopoly on operating systems.

This is not nitpicking. Language is important. MS may be a despicable company with unethical business practices but they are not an O/S
monopoly. Everyone has a choice. MS customers voluntarily make their purchases. There are no laws that require you to purchase MS products. Even by your own definition of price control MS fails the monopoly test. They certainly do not control the price of operating systems as evidenced by Linux and the hundreds of other operating systems that are available.

Regards,
Ralph Mackiewicz
SISCO, Inc.

I bought a computer 2 years ago. I wanted Linux on it instead of windows. I was told that I could not buy that computer without windows. The
features I required were not available on another model. Explain again how I "voluntarily" made that pruchase.

The EULA says that if I do not agree to the terms of their license, to return the software for a refund. Try *that* sometime. I now have a copy
of Windows 98, and I am not bound by the EULA, since MS violated their own license in refusing my refund. I told them I would not comply to the
terms of their license and wanted a refund. They told me they would not give it.

As far as the monopoly, refer to my earlier post referenceing the Supreme Court decision. MS even acknowledges, grudgingly, their OS monopoly. I
think this argument can be put to rest. Like it or not, the LAW says it is.

--Joe Jansen

Ralph:
> Wrong! The definition of the word monopoly that I use is not derived from
> a board game or from some popular misconception/misuse. The definition is
> derived from the dictionary.

It's always a bit rickety to argue by dictionary, but okay.

> Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines monopoly as: 1) exclusive
> ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
> 2) exclusive possession, 3) a commodity controoled by one party 4) a
> person or group having a monopoly.

> While MS has a monopoly on Windows (granted by copyright and patent
> *LAWS*) they do not have a monopoly on operating systems.

You don't need a law to have a monopoly; even your definition offers "command of supply" and "concerted action" as alternatives.

> This is not nitpicking. Language is important. MS may be a despicable
> company with unethical business practices but they are not an O/S
> monopoly.

What they have is close enough to a monopoly for government work. That is not in dispute, not even by MS. They have violated laws regulating
monopolies. (Note - regulating, not forbidding.) That is also not particularly in dispute.

> Everyone has a choice. MS customers voluntarily make their purchases.
> There are no laws that require you to purchase MS products.

Again, MS achieved a near-monopoly not through laws but through other means. But what's really bad is that they misused the resulting power.

Jiri
--
Jiri Baum <jiri@baum.com.au>
http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jirib
vi sit the MAT LinuxPLC project at http://mat.sourceforge.net

>> From: Ralph Mackiewicz [mailto:ralph@SISCONET.COM]
>> The argument below is not consistent. There is either a monopoly with
>> no choices or there is no monopoly because there are choices.

>From: "Blunier, Mark" <Mark.Blunier@Williams.com>
>Wrong! Sometimes I think Parker Brothers have done a disservice selling
>so many copies of a particular board game. A monopoly does not mean they
>are the only one in the market, but rather that they can control the
>prices set in the market.

What we all learned in school today is that dictionaries, economists, and federal Judges are not all in agreement about the definition of a
monopoly or what to do about one.

Microsoft has a monopoly on operating systems that employ a graphical user interface running on desktop computers with Intel based micro-processors made between 1995 and 2001 AD. Microsoft controls the price of these operating systems. It is their property and their right to dispose of it as they please. Does this mean we are paying a higher price for this product than we would if there were a major competitor in the exact same market ? No one knows. Economists are
not in agreement on the nature of monopolies or on monopoly pricing. Some economists say they make prices higher, others say just the
opposite (http://www.mises.org/fullarticle.asp?record=331&month=14 ).

Hoping to make the price of these operating systems drop and to protect the "right" of others to a share of the market, a number people would like to see that Microsoft's freedom to run their business as they see fit be curtailed. Instead, Microsoft should be run by others, on some notion these others have about what is in the best
interest of society.

There is a huge problem with this related to the automation industry. Many of the leaders in this industry depend on Microsoft following through on commitments they have made to develop some of the technologies we use. Many HMI makers are
working with some confidence that Microsoft will continue to develop and support Active-X, OPC, .NET, and the like. Many of us use these products.

Economists and politicians, whether we agree with them or not, are not qualified to run Microsoft. If they do, those of us who choose to apply this technology will no longer be able to base this decision on experience and reason, but instead, we will have to stick our wet fingers in the air to see which way the political winds are blowing.

I don't presume to have the ability to change anyone's strongly held beliefs about American capitalism. All I can say to those who use their voices, votes, and dollars to bring regulation into this industry is "Careful with that axe, Eugene."

Jay Kirsch

Mr. Mackiewicz.

Please refer to zdnet.com for information regarding the US appeals court decision. MS does, in point of fact and law, maintain a monopoly in the desktop operating systems market. Furthermore, MS has, in point of fact
and law, violated section 2 of the Sherman Anti-trust law. You can say and believe what you want, but the facts are evident as attested to in
mind-numbing and sleep inducing detail by the courts.

>>Monopolies can't exist
without the law to enforce them.

???
Laws exist to prevent monopolies, not protect them.... And, as stated above and by the courts, this one does exist.

I would also question the accuracy of your "hundreds of choices" reference.

In closing, neither you nor I are a lawyer, but the judges are. You may not like what they said, but MS does fit the legal definition of a
monopoly, and has fulfilled the legal definition of violation of US Anti-Trust law. Therefore, by definition, they are a monopoly.

--Joe Jansen

PS. Maybe we should get another catagory for the A-List for these discussions, such as OS: so that it can be filtered by those who do not want to follow this discussion any further....

&lt;Moderator's note: Joe, I'd be glad to, but alas, the listserv allows only a finite number of possible categories, and they're all in use. Given the longevity and sometime complexity of this discussion, I think it would be easiest to leave it be, rather than move (return?) to the
most related "real" category -- SOFT(ware) -- which is also heavily used, and which would probably annoy just as many innocent bystanders.
In the meantime, please remember that if anyone must digress into something that's *really* not automation related, it would be considerate
to take it offlist. --Jennifer Powell>

> Please refer to zdnet.com for information regarding the US appeals
> court decision. MS does, in point of fact and law, maintain a
> monopoly in the desktop operating systems market. Furthermore, MS
> has, in point of fact and law, violated section 2 of the Sherman
> Anti-trust law. You can say and believe what you want, but the facts
> are evident as attested to in mind-numbing and sleep inducing detail
> by the courts.

Just because a bunch of congressman and senators in the early part of the twentieth century misused the word monopoly when they wrote the
Sherman Anti-trust law doesn't change the meaning of the word.

What the federal judiciary has been doing regarding MS is ruling on a point of law, not on a definition. They said MS had a "monopoly" on
desktop o/s **AS DEFINED BY THE SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST LAW**. There is a reason why legal and medical terms are sometimes defined by latin
names: so the legal/medical meaning doesn't get confused with the real definition in popular usage. Too bad they didn't do that with Sherman.

You can say that Microsoft is the dominant supplier of desktop O/S but they don't have a monopoly on anything other than Windows.

> Laws exist to prevent monopolies, not protect them.... And, as stated
> above and by the courts, this one does exist.

Laws do not prevent monopolies. Laws create them. Try to setup a company to distribute electricity to residential customers and you will soon enough discover how the law is used to enforce a monopoly. Then to compare, start a company to market graphical user interface operating systems in competition with MS. You may have some trouble
getting investors but you won't get arrested for it. The last I heard Linus Torvalds is still a free man.

> I would also question the accuracy of your "hundreds of choices"
> reference.

OK. I exaggerated a little. The RTOS buyers guide lists 33 O/Ses in their listing. That doesn't even include MS, Linux, and the Unix variations. So there are over 30 operating systems available not hundreds. Sorry.

> In closing, neither you nor I are a lawyer, but the judges are. You
> may not like what they said, but MS does fit the legal definition of a
> monopoly, and has fulfilled the legal definition of violation of US
> Anti-Trust law. Therefore, by definition, they are a monopoly.

I may not be a lawyer but I do know the difference between a legal opinion (MS is a monopoly as defined by the Sherman Anti-trust Act)
and the incorrect assertion that there are no choices because MS has a monopoly on operating systems. Curt W. is proof enough of how this
latter assertion is incorrect: he is building systems that don't have MS in it.

Regards,
Ralph Mackiewicz

> Just because a bunch of congressman and senators in the early part of
> the twentieth century misused the word monopoly when they wrote the
> Sherman Anti-trust law doesn't change the meaning of the word.

Sure it does. Word meanings change all the time.

> What the federal judiciary has been doing regarding MS is ruling on a
> point of law, not on a definition. They said MS had a "monopoly" on
> desktop o/s **AS DEFINED BY THE SHERMAN ANTI-TRUST LAW**.

So we can now come to agreement that Microsoft has a "monopoly". It's not the definition of monopoly used in early twentieth century, but
rather the definition used under anti-trust law, which is the context of this debate.

> Laws do not prevent monopolies. Laws create them.

Create?, perhaps, more accurately, they enable monopolies. If it weren't for laws, we could all have copies of Microsofts, Rockwell Automation, Modicon, and etc. But it is law that stops us. And having a monopoly is not illegal, what is illegal is using anti-competitive practices when you have a monopoly.

Mark Blunier
Any opinions expressed in this message are not necessarily those of the company.

Does this mean that Linux with its anti-competitive prices (0$) is liable for anti-trust motion???

Anand

>Ralph Mackiewicz writes:
>Laws do not prevent monopolies. Laws create them.

I agree, Ralph. The only thing that will happen by getting the government involved in regulating Microsoft is that Windows will become entrenched as the primary PC operating system. Political
interest groups that want to regulate Microsoft will realize that their own interests are preserve by protecting Microsoft from competition. Who needs that ?

Jay Kirsch

The question is can you create a product which more than say 70% of people like and buy and if you have created such a product weather this will become a monopoly.

Anand

I'm not sure why you have problem with the concept of a monopoly when even MS now concedes they have one. but I don't need the term
to describe the problem. Let me be more explicit Ralph. As far as I can tell, None of the PLC wendors, NC vendors, etc. have tools running on Linux. In order to use their equipment, I have no choice but to use Windows. Your argument doesn't make a lot of sense. The problem is that there is no particular reason that doing automation should require one to use Windows especially since it would be hard to find a less suitable platform for critical applications. I don't believe there is a worse platform generally available, yet it is the only one supported. I would be interested in hearing the engineering rationale involved. It's like marketing is the only thing that matters and engineers and other technical people who ought to know better are
agreeing with it, and even vigorously defending it. Even to the point of warping and twisting automation to fit the model. Don't you find that the least bit strange?

Regards

cww

Michael Griffin writes:
> All right, you're not an economist, but are you willing to accept
>the word of virtually all serious economists when they tell you that
>monopolies are bad for an economy? If not, well there are plenty of
>economics books available in book stores. Monopoly pricing theory is pretty
>basic and is covered in any introductory text. I suggest trying a used book
>store where you will find lots of inexpensive discarded university texts.

That's a great idea, but you should be more specific. I might accidently pick out a book written by someone from the Austrian school of economic theory. In which case, your summary of
monopoly pricing would not be correct.

> The Constitution is worth reading too. Nowhere does it empower the government to make laws that enable the prosecution an individual or group for engaging in "pretty nasty" behavior.
>

HOGWASH!! (I'd use a stronger term, but I'm trying to keep it clean.) The Constitution explicitly empowers the Federal government "to regulate commerce among the several States". This is a very broad power (as those who opposed the clause -- but lost -- pointed out) and it is directly applicable here. The whole point of giving the government the power to regulate something is for it to be able to stop "pretty nasty behavior" by some parties.

> A businessman cannot do whatever he "feels" like and succeed too. The price of a product cannot exceed what people are willing to pay for it. If he raises the price too much, competitors will be attracted back into the market and the price will drop again ( probably lower than it was
> originally ).

The point here is not that a monopolist can charge whatever it wants, but that it can charge a lot more than it could in a competitive market. The difference between these amounts is what economists call "rent" (a somewhat different meaning than the layman's term). As another poster pointed out, this is Econ 101 stuff.

> Many of the conclusions it [the findings of fact] draws have a more logical explanation than the one presented.

Note that Microsoft did not bother to appeal the findings of fact. Also, the appeals court confirmed these plus most of the "findings of law" based on these (but not the remedy, although it did not say that the breakup could not be imposed, just that the court did not go through the correct steps in imposing it).

Curt Wilson