Tech Moron of the Year

Well it's not everyday that I would get a privileged of handing out this great award at the end of every year. First I'm a fairly conservative minded guy when judging other people stupidity. Since all of us got that "oh I was an idiot" movement, and yes I've experienced quite a few of them. Nevertheless there are times sheer stupidity fueled with ignorance tenacity, would overcome all reason of a man- hence a moron is created. And it is my duty to remind us all with power come great responsibility. So if you're planning to be a moron, please refrain yourself entering the world of politics.

Without further delayed, let me introduce you all to our Tech Moron of the Year and he is not Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), The Series of Tubes Guy. Though his remark resembled a drunk homeless guy talking about the yellow brick road. In Mr. Stevens defense, at least he knew the benefits of the internet as a potential monetization platform for the US government so he definitely got the runner up prize. As for out top moronic winner this year goes to the new Thailand ICT Minister, Professor Sitthichai Pokai-udom. As for the audience who are wondering about his background, not to worry he didn't really have anything valuable too much for your IT trend research. For a starter he is a newly Thai junta appointed leader of Information and Communications Technology of Thailand, which ironically the organization was form by the deposed Thaksinian government. Why does he deserved the Tech Moron of the Year 2006 you asked? Well recently in November, Sitthichai came with a strong criticism toward open source software. In an interview, he noted,

"With open source, there is no intellectual property. Anyone can use it and all your ideas become public domain. If nobody can make money from it, there will be no development and open source software quickly becomes outdated... As a programmer, if I can write good code, why should I give it away? Thailand can do good source code without open source. Apart from Linux, open source software is often abandoned and not developed further, and that it leads to a lot of low-quality software with lots of bugs.

And here's the gem - he said the current government plan (regarding open source) was a case of the blind leading the blind, as neither the people who are in charge nor the people in the industry seem to know the dangers of open source software."

What a head trip, did I hear this correctly? So I went to consult the source on IT intelligence at Slashdot just to make sure that I'm not only one who nominating him and sure enough, it was confirm on their category Tags. Wow I did not know that, the dangers of open source software, obviously the Professor has been watching too many Battlestar Galactica episodes. The hi-tech renegade open source Cylon is coming out for vengeance toward their creator and the rest of humanity rest in the hand of Microsoft. Probably that was the motive for Microsoft Thailand representatives meeting prime minister, deputy prime minister, and finance minister for implementation of the future of the Thai e-government.

One thing is certain on the current state open source initiative in Thailand, a senile blind leading the blinds to an abyss of anti-competitive monopolistic software business . If you hoping the carnage would cease there, letting all the sacrificial blood of the open source hippies on the alter then you're so wrong. To add more salt to the wound, Mr Sitthichai Pokai-udom made another great insight in a recent MIT invention for the world poors, The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) which he nonchalantly disregard them as "toys". So let me summarized Mr. Siitthichai's deluded Phenomenological world, he thinks open source is only good for A.D.D hippies and OLPC is such a bad toy it need not be introduced to Thai poor youths who barely have money to even buy a toy this Christmas. Perhaps the real reason for his anti-sentiment toward open source is the lack of support in the technical services and financial support from Mr. Gate? So it' s better to accept a software that famous for the blue screen of death and bloated with security vulnerabilities than an open standard of open source initiative which is on constant scrutinies from it user 24/7 for bugs?

Perhaps Mr Sitichai himself never use the world wide web, which came from W3C open source initiative. May be the minister himself worries that if a web page is broken on his computer, then he might actually have to call Tim Berner Lee himself. Better yet in Mr Sittichai's wonderland, let's call Microsoft because they invented WWW with the Internet Explorer right ? So let me explain a brief point the leader of the blinds. Open source is all about the initiative to implement an open standard where all could benefit on an agreeable software framework platform. In the current digital world one thing reign supreme, which is standard the ultimate trump card. Obviously he is missing the real point, this idea of common share knowledge will prevent some moron who are trying to patent hyperlink just because they feel like it. Plus you don't publicized your magical source code that enhance your competitive edge open on the internet, even though the framework of your application is base on open source software.

As for the situation of the destruction of Intellectual Property, perhaps the professor fail to read the latest theory of The Law of Conservation of Attractive Profit, which state once software is commoditized just like the PC from IBM in the 70-80's. The monetary value will migrate up the value chain in the form of services on the platform, or stacked down in the form of supportive ecosystem of the framework. As you can see the perfect examples are Google with Adsense and Skype with their VOIP Services. On the other hand in the eternal sunshine of his spotless mind, the nutty professor probably still think they are some nifty websites worth bookmarking for his weekend chat with Tin man. Here is a food for though my fellow Thai techies, "In the Land of the blind one eye man is the king". So let's vote for our Tech Moron of 2006 !