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chrome a windows killer? i doubt it

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Read an article in eWeek that left me scratching my head a bit. The nub below:

Google may be treading lightly with Chrome now, but the browser, combined with Google’s search and Apps, could end up being a big threat to Microsoft Windows’ market share.

Then later:

When Google accidentally leaked its Chrome comic book Sept. 1, reporters and analysts, including yours truly and my colleague Joe Wilcox, argued that Google could make Chrome the premier Web operating system by combining it with its market-leading search engine and increasingly popular SAAS (software as a service) applications. This would eventually constitute a threat to Windows.

And that would spell doom for Microsoft. It’s one thing to squeeze Microsoft out of the Internet game by dominating search and Web services. It’s another entirely to come after the software giant’s core operating system business, wielding the Web as your platform.

Must admit I have a lot of trouble seeing that, as I would have thought in order to supplant Windows, it would need to be gone, and to go from a browser that sits on an o/s to replacing the o/s seems to be a rather large leap. A huge leap, actually.

What they’re suggesting might happen is already a possibility today. There is definitely something that can supplant Windows altogether, and provide access to all the web-oriented apps, etc. that Google offers. Its cheap (sometimes free), stable and has pretty good UIs – in fact, a selection of UIs and different flavours. Its called Linux. However, for a variety reasons, it hasn’t kicked Microsoft’s ass yet (at least on the desktop – there are a few areas where it definitely does, such as web and other server functions).

To suggest, then, that, because Google has come out with a browser, that that will lead to the supplanting of Windows seems, IMHO, to be a bit far-fetched. I’m not suggesting that Google wouldn’t have the wherewithal to try to go after the desktop. They may do so. Though I’m not sure if they’d want to – they have a pretty good business model already…

Anyway, if and when they do something like that it will be so much larger an undertaking than Chrome that the links between that and Chrome would be tenuous at best, other than possibly bundling Chrome within whatever o/s they create.

Even possibly on the application front, I can see Google putting some pressure on MS, and how this might tie with Chrome. But not the o/s on which the whole thing runs.

So I think for the time being, Bill and Steve probably don’t have much to worry about with Chrome’s introduction, at least when it comes to the o/s business (IE on the other hand, is another matter altogether…).

multitasking

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This one isn’t quite law related or quite technology rated, though it sort of touches on both. Just wanted to share something quite remarkable I saw this evening.

I was riding home in a cab with my wife and young son, going down Bay St. at about 8 pm this evening. While stopped at the lights, I casually noticed a gentleman, sitting in the car beside us, obviously very preoccupied with something, looking at his Blackberry  with some degree of concentration and furiously typing away with his thumbs It was quite easy to see given the backlight of his BB was very bright.

After a few seconds the light changed, he sped onwards, and so did we. And he continued to type, with some degree of vigour, apparently fully preoccupied with his urgent e-mail.

So, you ask, what is so remarkable about this, you ask? Surely this isn’t the first time I’ve seen someone tapping away on a BB in a cab, right? And the answer to that would be no. Definitely see it all the time. In fact, do it myself sometime. Great time saver.

So what’s the big deal? He was the one driving! Certainly understand perhaps taking a quick peek at your BB when stopped at the lights. But amazingly, this fellow that I saw simply continued to tap away busily while pressing the accelerator and speeding away. Neither of his hands were on the wheel, and it was quite clear to me that his vision was focused on his BB and not the road (though admittedly he did see the light turn green). I couldn’t tell if he perhaps was guiding the wheel with his elbows.

The stretch of Bay St. we were on is fairly straight, so I imagine someone could just take their hands off the wheel for a stretch and continue relatively unscathed. But do so, and at the same time also try to write an e-mail to someone? What sort of e-mail could possibly be so important to worth risking your life (and the lives of those around you)? Moreover, what kind of person would be so pressed for time that the could not let the e-mail wait a few minutes until they pulled over somewhere to compose it? I can’t imagine that he did a very good job at either.

While nothing much happened this time (he managed to make his left a bit later – too out of range to see what happened to his BB (but obviously with at least one hand off of it) I do wish him the best that karma may have in store for him.

press neutrality and lawsuits

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Techcrunch (Mr. Arrington) has put up an article suggesting Digg sue Wired (that’s also the headline – “Digg Should Sue Wired”). Because Wired posted some negative reviews of Digg. And because Wired’s parent, Condé Nast, owns a competitor of Digg (reddit). The nub:

Digg can’t treat Wired like any other user that’s engaged in fraud. Wired is the press, and the press has tremendous power. Wired is putting Digg in an impossible situation, and they should be called on it. Reporting news is one thing (although they should note the conflict of interest there as well), but actively creating negative news about a competitor and then using the massive reach of Wired to promote that “news” is way over the line.

Very strog words indeed. I’m quite surprised by this comment, as I understand Mr. Arrington has legal training and in fact practiced as a lawyer for some time. Why surprised? Because, apart from the possibility that the reporter who wrote the second article to which he refers (who basically tried to see if Digg’s system of user rankings could be “gamed”) breached Digg’s terms of use (of course – because rightly so their terms would prohibit such gaming…), its really, really tough for me to see exactly what Digg should sue Wired for? What exactly is the cause of action? Surely he’s not accusing Digg of actually committing fraud, is he? It difficult for me to see how fraud has been committed – what exactly is fraudulent about the articles?

Sure, there is a conflict of interest situation here, the usual cure for which is full disclosure, but hardly the basis for a lawsuit. And if he thinks that Wired suffers from conflict of interest, well, I invite him to check out the ownership of most major media in the US and Canada, and see how many times they are taking a stab at competitors of other companies that their ultimate owners control. If this is as big a deal as Mr. Arrington suggests, the Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent should be considered a field manual to endless lawsuits against not only Condé Nast but also CBS, NBC, ABC, CanWest Global, etc. etc. etc.

But perhaps I took the words too seriously – perhaps he was just using the words “sue” and “fraud” figuratively or to illustrate his point. Or perhaps, given the more litigious nature of the US, and the somewhat kindler, gentler, less punitive (as in damages) environment in Canada, there is actually a basis for Digg suing the heck out of Wired.

Bit of a tempest in a teapot, I think…

And of course in the interest of full disclosure, I am a subscriber to Wired, and also hope someday to see one tiny link from their site to this little blog.

Wikiality – Part III

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Bit of an elaboration on a previous post on the use of Wikipedia in judgements. I cited part of a New York Times article, which had in turn quoted from a letter to the editor from Professor Kenneth Ryesky. The portion cited by the NYT article suggested that Ryesky was quite opposed to the idea, which wasn’t really the case. He was kind enough to exchange some thoughts via e-mail:

In his New York Times article of 29 January 2007, Noam Cohen quoted a sentence (the last sentence) from my Letter to the Editor published in the New York Law Journal on 18 January 2007. You obviously read Mr. Cohen’s article, but it is not clear whether you read the original Letter to the Editor from which the sentence was quoted.

Which exemplifies the point that Wikipedia, for all of its usefulness, is not a primary source of information, and therefore should be used with great care in the judicial process, just as Mr. Cohen’s article was not a primary source of information.

Contrary to the impression you may have gotten from Mr. Cohen’s New York Times article of 29 January, I am not per se against the use of Wikipedia. For the record, I myself have occasion to make use of it in my research (though I almost always go and find the primary sources to which Wikipedia directs me), and find it to be a valuable tool. But in research, as in any other activity, one must use the appropriate tool for the job; using a sledge hammer to tighten a little screw on the motherboard of my computer just won’t work.

Wikipedia and its equivalents present challenges to the legal system. I am quite confident that, after some trial and error, the legal system will acclimate itself to Wikipedia, just as it has to other text and information media innovations over the past quarter-century.

Needless to say, quite a different tone than the excerpt in the NYT article. Thanks for the clarification, Professor Ryesky.

The Virtues and Evils of Open Source

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Yes, I know, I’ve been behind lately. A ton of very interesting things to catch up on. But I’d like to put in one quick note about open source code. I recently came across an article, written last year by a lawyer, generally advising development companies not to use open source. I don’t quite recall where it was (if I did I’d link to it) but I do remember it being quite clear in stating that using open source is A Bad Thing and to avoid it altogether – not just to be careful, but rather to treat it as one would radioactive waste.

With respect, I don’t quite agree. I certainly advise my clients to take a great deal of caution in using open source code, particularly the GPL variety, and very particularly if they have a desire to keep some or all of their own secret, proprietary code secret and proprietary. That being said, I do have many, many clients who have used open source code to great advantage in various ways. Some have simply used existing open source code to avoid reinventing the wheel (and saving on costs), while taking care to keep viral elements out of their proprietary code. Others have been more aggressive with the open source model and have intentionally decided to use open source as the basis for their business model and making their very own code, or parts of it, either open source or subject to a dual-licensing model. As the Red Hats, JBosses, Sleepycats, MySQLs etc. etc. of the world have demonstrated, you can go open source and still have a pretty viable business. And, of course, there are the “old world” companies like IBM who have decided to go open source (in some limited ways – e.g. IBM’s DB2 Express-C thing).

Of course, this is not to suggest that anyone through caution to the wind and just start pulling down stuff from Sourceforge and whacking it into your product. Use of open source definitely requires some planning ahead and consideration of what the business model and value proposition of your business will be. Optimally, enlist the help of a lawyer who’s familiar with open source licenses to discuss what you plan to do and the packages you plan to use. Or, if that’s not feasible, try at least to read the applicable licenses yourself and ensure you comply with them, because if you don’t think that anyone will notice, or that no one will actually sue you, you may want to pay a visit to the GPL Violations Site and reconsider, in addition to the questions that will be asked of you when the due diligence starts on your next round of financing or, even worse, your (aborted) exit event. Can badly managed open source usage (and I emphasize badly managed, not simply open source usage) kill a deal? Definitely.

In short – I don’t think open source is necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it can be a pretty good thing, not just in the social good sense and all that, but also as a business. But it need to be used taking into account its terms of use and ensuring that its consistent with the strategy you plan to take.

If perhaps there’s one thing I’d recommend it would be for shops to make absolutely sure they have a disciplined approach in tracking where code comes from and the terms under which its being used and why its being used. That applies not only to open source stuff, but also, for example, your programmers taking neat snippets of code from Dr. Dobbs or something else, or coming across a nice little script somewhere on the Web and saying “Gee, that’s neat, let’s use it in our product”.

Anyway, if I remember where the article was I’ll update this to include a link.

D-Wave’s Quantum Computing Demo

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As I mentioned earlier, there was a Canadian company that announced it would demonstrate a working quantum computer this week. And demonstrate they did. Yesterday. In California. Then they released this press release, which is frustratingly short on details.

There was some other minor press coverage, including a short article in Scientific American. The nub:

For the demonstration, he says D-Wave operators remotely controlled the quantum computer, housed in Burnaby, British Columbia, from a laptop in California. The quantum computer was given three problems to solve: searching for molecular structures that match a target molecule, creating a complicated seating plan, and filling in Sudoku puzzles.

But experts say the announcement may be a bit – er – premature. Even if the computer were to work as advertised, it still would be nearly 1,000 times too small to solve problems that stump ordinary computers. Moreover, researchers do not know whether it will work at bigger sizes.

A similar tone was in most other articles that didn’t parrot the press release – namely, that the demo was not very impressive. That part is rather unfortunate, although not wholly unexpected – the company did indicate (somewhere) that this was intended to be a proof of concept to gain interest.

So I guess at least for the foreseeable future, the cryptography industry will still be around.

Wikiality

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Interesting post on the Wellington Financial Blog about “Wikiality” – the practice of taking stuff in Wikipedia as the truth, or, to quote: ““a reality where, if enough people agree with a notion, it becomes the truth.”

JN notes that Wikipedia has been cited by the courts, and this is reason for concern. A snippet:

The practice poses two problems:

  1. The references may be inaccurate; and
  2. Even if accurate, the references are subject to change at any point in the future, making it difficult for any future decisions to refer back to the original or understand the context in which it was made.

Given recent reports of Microsoft offering to pay individuals to make changes to certain Wikipedia articles in which they have a vested interest, the credibility of the site as a definitive reference source again comes into question.

A few of my colleagues at the firm also expressed bemusement when a recent case in Ontario (don’t have the citation, sorry) also cited Wikipedia.

I am quite a big fan of Wikipedia. It is, I think a rather useful and handy tool to refer to from time to time. Do I take it as the gospel? No. Would I use it if I were trying to concoct an antidote for a poison that was about to kill me? Probably not. Would I cite it in a legal research paper? Possibly. In fact, quite likely.

Although Wikipedia is by no means without its weaknesses, it also has its strengths. Sure, there is a possibility of inaccuracy. But then again, isn’t something less likely to have inaccuracies if it is reviewed (and edited) by more eyes (and more minds)? Isn’t it more likely that if there is a dispute about what is and isn’t correct, it will come to light, just like the Microsoft incident?

And what source, can it be said, is free of inaccuracies? Certainly not The New York Times. Although the Gray Lady is quick to point out that it was “deceived” by an errant reporter, it is less quick to reflect on the fact that it published fabricated stories. That of course is the clearest example, but history is rife with examples of inaccurate or misleading stories in the press. Less clear, of course, is media bias. And one only needs to refer to Manufacturing Consent. I don’t necessarily agree with all that book has to offer, but it certainly provides some food for thought.

What about scientific publications? Hmmm. Well. Again, truth is quite often relative. The clearest examples, are, of course, outright fabrication. Nonetheless, Dr. Hwang Woo-suk’s paper on producting the first cloned stem cell line was considered the truth for several years, until he was discredited. And more generally speaking, is it not true that, in the world of science, what is considered to be the truth is what most scientists believe to be true? Is that not the system of peer review? A great read on this topic is The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (as an aside, its also the book that introduced the phrase “paradigm shift” into popular parlance). I won’t bore you with details, but suffice it to say that, at the end of the day, science, at least in concept, may not be that far from wikiality.

My point isn’t necessarily to skewer existing sources of “truth” but rather to point out that such sources aren’t necessarily more reliable or accurate, or less fallible, than something like Wikipedia.

And as for things changing? Make a copy.


Pretexting, Ethics and Clients

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Still catching up a bit – very quick post on the HP “pretexting” thing. As you may recall, HP asserted that its practice of pretexting – i.e. pretending to be someone else to get confidential telephone records – was legal. They were investigated leaks to the press by one of their board members and had resorted to this practice to try and find the leak. I had commented elsewhere long ago when this story first broke that even if it were illegal, very few (if anyone) could consider such actions the least bit ethical.

As most of you know apparently there was some disagreement as to legality and a few folks at HP were charged. Then I read this recent story about how HP was ending its special ties to Larry Sonsini, of the California powerhouse firm of Wilson Sonsini:

Sonsini – famous for decades in these parts – gained national fame in September during HP’s spy scandal hearings in front of Congress. Emails between the lawyer, HP executives and former director Tom Perkins raised serious questions about how sound Sonsini’s advice was around the practice of pretexting. He seemed to indicate that phone record fraud sounded like fair game, after being nudged in that direction by HP’s internal lawyers.

My emphasis. Its unfortunate to hear of something like this. I don’t doubt that he took the time and effort to research the law to come to a reasonable opinion on the matter before advising his client – obviously it was a very grey area of the law. In those circumstances its unfortunate that he didn’t perhaps suggest, notwithstanding the black letter of the law, that it would be unwise do take the course of action they were contemplating. That as good corporate citizens with a significant public profile, that such a practice is not something they should even consider. But then again, maybe he did and they didn’t listen (and of course he would surely have the good sense never to say that in public and embarrass a major client) or maybe he thought that such comments were not for legal counsel to make. Who knows.

The situation is not unfamiliar to many lawyers – particularly when it comes to giving opinions – lawyers are sometimes subjected to pressure to deliver the opinion that a client wants to hear rather than the one they should probably be delivering. By this I’m certainly not suggesting lawyers are delivering bad or incorrect opinions. What I am saying is that there are often grey areas of the law (which tend to be the areas on which legal expertise are sought) and in respect of which opinions can go one of two or more ways. And sometimes, the client will want to hear a certain outcome – for example, in the case of HP, I’m sure they would have liked the comfort to hear from their external counsel that their actions were legal – it would serve as some evidence that they took some degree of diligence and could serve to mitigate consequences if it turned out governmental authorities differed. If he, on the other hand, refused, or proffered a legal opinion that it was fine but qualified with a recommendation not to take such actions, HP likely would have not been very happy with him. And everyone knows what happens when clients aren’t happy.

Its an unfortunate situation to be in. Particuarly in this case, where, at the end of the day, HP still, obviously, isn’t happy with him.