"Roy Schestowitz" <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:3704430.beZWjiRVV2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> GPL v3 takes shape in Sydney
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | It is estimated between 70 and 80 percent of all free and open
> | source software is licensed under the GPL, including prolific
> | software like Linux, Samba, and more recently Java.
> |
> | [...]
> |
> | "DRM can be used as an impediment to rights and patents may prevent
> | distribution," he said.
> `----
>
> http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=1950825836&rid=-50
>
> This should now also include the 'Novell clause' (for exclusion).
That would be the most foolish thing that the OSS vendors could do. OSS has
to rid itself of the flower child image created by Stallman and the FSF and
the Novell agreement with Microsoft was a major step in bringing an aura of
dignity to the situation. A bunch of Nervous Norrises fretting over whether
or not some future developer might someday choose to not give away his work
product in exchange for the gratitude of the OSS users is not a comforting
image for the OSS products. Rather, customers want to have a sound basis
for believing that their technology choices will survive and prosper. It is
easy to see where that has been the case with Microsoft products, and not so
easy to see how it might work with OSS.
The charge-for-service model presented by Novell and Red Hat overcomes a lot
of that uncertainty, but if OSS is stained with the paranoia associated with
the outcry over the loss of some kind of theoretical purity of the movement
and exhibited by the public statements of Stallman and others, that will
disappear and Microsoft will have a clear field to pursue their more
conventional business model.
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