Halloween II

[James Love <love@cptech.org>]

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Info-Policy-Notes | News from Consumer Project on Technology 
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November 5, 1998

	Halloween II

	On November 2, 1998 Info-Policy-Notes provided a 
link to the so called Halloween document, which detailed 
Microsoft's analysis of Linux and other open source 
software.  (http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/halloween.html)
Now Eric Rayond has published a second document which he 
has dubbed Halloween II.  This one is on the web at:

   http://www.opensource.org/halloween2.html


Halloween II is authored by Vinod Valloppillil (VinodV), 
the author of the Halloween I, and Josh Cohen (JoshCo).  
It is dated Aug 11, 1998 , and is version 1.0.  The
heading is:

      Microsoft Confidential
      Linux Operating System
      The Next Java VM?

The document is very interesting.  One line that has gotten a lot of attention
is at the end, where the authors suggest:  "The effect of patents and copyright
in combating Linux remains to be investigated."  The Linux community generally
thinks they can out code Microsoft, so long as they are permitted.  But there is
a lot of concern over software patents, which are often very broad, poorly
researched by the US government, and expensive to litigate.  Under recent court
cases, there are few barriers to harassment based upon spurious litigation over
patents, so this is a cause for concern.  On a topic discussed at some length in
Halloween I, Halloween II says by "folding extended functionality into today's
commodity [open standards] services and create new [proprietary] protocols, we
raise the bar & change the rules of the game."  (the brackets added by me).  

There is also an interesting article in today's Linux Today:

    Who are all these people behind the 
    Halloween document?
    Nov 5th, 12:32:47 
    Here's an in-depth look at the personalities 
    behind the Halloween documents. 
    By Dave Whitinger 

    http://linuxtoday.com/stories/638.html


A few other related articles are Tim O'Rielly's Open Letter to Microsoft about
Halloween I, which is on the web at:

http://www.oreilly.com/oreilly/press/tim_msletter.html

and, news that Microsoft has tried to hire Linux hacker Alan Cox.  This last one
suggests Microsoft is stepping up their campaign to crush the open software
movement.  Here are some excerpts that Alan Cox posted today about the Halloween
document.
  
http://www.linux.org.uk/
[snip]

 Its important to realize how fundamental open
 standards are. Most people are probably sitting at a
 PC built with mixed cards from mixed vendors on an
 open standard bus, typing on a keyboard with open
 standard connectors, using an open standard Qwerty
 layout, talking an open standard RS232 serial protocol
 to a modem that talks an open protocol to the ISP. Its
 all running off a standard electricity specification.
 Even your chair is probably held together by open
 standard nuts and bolts. Computing is becoming a
 commodity item and like all commodity items it needs
 to be open, for the consumer and for the long term
 good of the industry as a whole. Linux is open, if there
 is anything you didn't get told you can check the
 source code. 

 A couple of other fun things have happened too, the
 I2O SIG developing the next generation high end I/O
 interface for PC's have now made their specification
 open, and Microsoft tried to hire me. I think the I2O
 SIG have the better chance of success here. 

 Alan 


This is Alan Cox's home page: http://www.linux.org.uk/diary/

 
	There is also running commentary, much if it entertaining, often rather
speculative, but also a very good source of breaking news on these issues at: 
	
	http://www.slashdot.org

	Finally, CPT will be studying the Halloween documents, and asking antitrust
authorities to determine if Microsoft's intended plans to corrupt open standards
violate antitrust laws.  More on this next week.

   Jamie Love <love@cptech.org> 202.387.8030

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