| To: | Analysts & Members of the Press |
| From: | Tim O'Reilly |
Here's the wording of the license sent out with NT Workstation RC2 (Beta B):
"...you may permit a maximum of ten (10) computers to connect to the Workstation Computer to access and use services of the SOFTWARE PRODUCT, such as file and print services and peer web services. The ten connection maximum includes any indirect connections made through software or hardware which pools or aggregates connections."That means that the limitation has been expanded, from "10 users in 10 minutes" (the original limitation) to "10 users (period)." We believe that Microsoft's position amounts to nothing more than a "land grab" in the uncharted territory of the Internet.
While at first blush it might seem logical that Microsoft has the right to set the licensing terms for their own products, and to make reasonable distinctions between NT Workstation and NT Server, I believe that in this license, Microsoft is taking the further step of limiting the use of the TCP/IP protocol for their users. TCP/IP is not a Microsoft product, and I don't believe Microsoft has the right to tell application vendors and users what they can and can't do with it. TCP/IP is a fundamental service for internetworked systems.
If you accept that Microsoft has the right to tell users how many sockets their applications can have open, you must also accept that they have the right to tell users how much memory their applications can use, or how much processing power.
As I've pointed out in my letters to Microsoft, at bottom, I don't want to argue on the basis of whether it's legal or even moral for them to try to use their control over the operating system to freeze out competing application vendors. Instead, I want to argue that what they propose is bad for the Internet.
Because Microsoft is in the unique position of controlling the operating system as well as competing in the application space, they have a special responsibility to use that control wisely.
Microsoft argues that they simply want to position NT Workstation as a desktop operating system, and that if users want to run servers, they should use NT Server. Such a view is short sighted, since it presupposes that we already know what users want and what developers can create.
Consider the following analogy: If IBM had had the control over the operating system that Microsoft now has, one could imagine them saying, back in the mid-1980's:
"When we created the IBM PC, we never meant that users should do so much on the desktop! This is hurting our mainframe revenue. So tell you what, we'll give you a special set of tools for the desktop that will let you create small spreadsheets and databases there, but if you want to do any serious computing, you have to use a mainframe."
While this analogy is a bit farfetched (mainly because IBM didn't hold all the cards in the way Microsoft does!), a few problems are obvious. Such a move would have choked off the waves of innovation that made up the PC revolution. IBM couldn't imagine then how much people would do on the desktop. I maintain that Microsoft can't imagine now how much people will do with the Web on the desktop. When you build in limits from the start, you get what you build...limits. We are still only at the beginning of the web revolution, and we *must* keep the system open, for the applications that have not yet been imagined or invented.
A final point: Microsoft's attempt to get the Internet community to accept via a license agreement a limitation that they clearly found repugnant when encoded in the software seems like a dangerous trojan horse offering. If users accept the license now, what is to stop Microsoft from coming back six months or a year from now and setting limits in the software. After all, by then they could say: "We're just enforcing it now, that limit has been there for a long time--since NT Workstation 4.0!"
The Internet community understood the implications of the technical limitation and forced Microsoft to back down. Microsoft stated publicly in their July 19 press release that "rigorous customer beta testing and subsequent customer feedback ...led to this decision [to remove the limits]." Let's make them stand by that statement, and remove the limits from their license as well as from their code.
To reiterate my basic point: Microsoft didn't invent the Internet or the TCP/IP protocols. They came late to a great party. They have a choice: they can join the party or they can try to shut it down. If they try to shut it down, they can expect that the rest of the people there are going to complain. And at this particular party, the Internet gives the partygoers a pretty loud megaphone.
Contact:
Ellen Elias, Software Publicist, O'Reilly & Associates
103 Morris Street, Sebastopol, CA 95472 USA
phone: (707) 829-0515 ext. 322 fax (707) 829-0104 email elias@ora.com
Online: http://software.ora.com, http://www.ora.com