Open Source in Russia ... lock-in

[Bill Sconce]

Microsoft opens source code to Russian secret service
By Tom Espiner, ZDNet UK, 8 July, 2010 16:56 

NEWS  Microsoft has signed a deal to open its Windows 7 source
code up to the Russian intelligence services.

Russian publication Vedomosti reported on Wednesday that Microsoft
had also given the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) access
to Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft Office 2010 and 
Microsoft SQL Server source code, with hopes of improving Microsoft
sales to the Russian state.   [...]
   
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/security/2010/07/08/microsoft-opens-source-code-to-russian-secret-service-40089481/


________________________
Remarks:   [Sorry for the length; this turned into almost a blog post. -Bill]

  1. The point isn't so much that a commercial entity did this.
  It's that proprietary software is *typically* handled this way;
  that users of proprietary software agree [by EULA] to expect no
  voice in such a decision.
  
  
  2. "They stand to benefit massively from having you locked-in;
  they want to trade your freedom for their profit."
      --Simon Phipps
        "Open Core Is Bad For You"
        http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=3047&blogid=41
  
  
  3. I happen at the moment to be researching remote-access technologies,
  things like "logmein.com", for a client. Again and again we are asked
  to trust third parties, to sign EULAs, to give up [not just a few] 
  rights, to get a shiny app. Again and again I find myself cornered by
  the actual terms of agreements: "check back at our Web site for our
  unilateral changes to our privacy policies", etc; I always end up
  wondering how anyone who thinks about the problem doesn't restrict
  his or her choices in software to licenses which don't require
  abandoning all rights. Even if, as in the case of remote access,
  one has to learn a few things (as is certainly the case with the
  warty SSH!).
  
  [The fact seems to be that not CIO has ever been fired for giving
  away their company's rights, however. I guess if I were a CIO I'd
  have to do the same thing; a good reason to remain a technician.]
  
  
  4. Sometimes I wonder if things would be any better if there was
  a big meter over the door, "Locked-In", 0 to 100.  [Imagining a
  world in which a client not only noticed lock-in, but attached
  some significant value to not being locked in.]
  
  "...a 'good enough' reaction among users. Particularly for users
  who have generally used only proprietary software, the experience of
  using a package that mostly respects software freedom can be
  incredibly liberating. When 98% of your software is FaiF-licensed,
  you sometimes don't notice the 2% that isn't. Over time, the 2% goes
  up to 3%, then 4%. This proprietary drift will often lead back to a
  system not that much different from (for example) Apple's operating
  system, which has a permissively-licensed software freedom core, but
  most of the system is very much proprietary."
      --Bradley M. Kuhn
      "Beware of Proprietary Drift"
      http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2010/05/08/proprietary-drift.html
      
      
  5. 'But we HAVE to locked in'.
     'Everything is wrapped up shiny and ready to use'.
     'They take charge cards.'
     'SSH is too warty.'
     'Everyone else does it.'
  
      Well, no.  400,000 employees at IBM:
  
      "Some of us started using it because it was new and fast and cool.
      I tried it for those reasons, but I still use it for the following
      ones:
        * Firefox is stunningly standards compliant, and interoperability
          via open standards is key to IBM's strategy.
        * Firefox is open source and its development schedule is managed
          by a development community not beholden to one commercial entity.
        * Firefox is secure and an international community of experts
          continues to develop and maintain it.
        * Firefox is extensible and can be customized for particular
          applications and organizations, like IBM.
        * Firefox is innovative and has forced the hand of browsers that
          came before and after it to add and improve speed and function.
      [...]
      Any employee who is not now using Firefox will be strongly
      encouraged to use it as their default browser. All new computers
      will be provisioned with it."
      
      --Bob Sutor
      "Saying it out loud: IBM is moving to Firefox as its default browser"
      http://www.sutor.com/c/2010/07/ibm-moving-to-firefox-as-default-browser/