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Why is Microsoft sponsoring the Open Source Census?
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| And note the mention of license compliance here — a hot button for Microsoft,
| the company which has alleged that open-source software violates more than
| 200 of Microsoft’s patents. The Census discovery tool doesn’t search for
| open-source software on Linux boxes only; it also scans for open-source
| installed specifically on Windows machines.
|
| Microsoft officials are emphasizing that Microsoft wants to know about
| open-source adoption levels and trends because the company is interested in
| helping its customers’ Windows systems better interoperate with open-source
| systems. I’m sure that Microsoft also wants a better understanding of
| where/how open-source software is gaining traction in enterprises in order to
| better fight it.
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http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1444
Related:
Is Microsoft Hijacking Open Source?
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| What really worries me is what looks like an emerging pattern in Microsoft's
| behaviour. The EU agreement is perhaps the first fruit of this, but I predict
| it will not be the last. What is happening is that Microsoft is effectively
| being allowed to define the meaning of “open source” as it wishes, not as
| everyone else understands the term. For example, in the pledge quoted above,
| an open source project is “not commercially distributed by its
| participants” - and this is a distinction also made by Kroes and her FAQ.
|
| In this context, the recent approval of two Microsoft licences as
| officially “open source” is only going to make things worse. Although I felt
| this was the right decision – to have ad hoc rules just because it's
| Microsoft would damage the open source process - I also believe it's going to
| prove a problem. After all, it means that Microsoft can rightfully point to
| its OSI-approved licences as proof that open source and Microsoft no longer
| stand in opposition to each other. This alone is likely to perplex people who
| thought they understood what open source meant.
|
| [...]
|
| What we are seeing here are a series of major assaults on different but
| related fields – open source, open file formats and open standards. All are
| directed to one goal: the hijacking of the very concept of openness. If we
| are to stop this inner corrosion, we must point out whenever we see wilful
| misuse and lazy misunderstandings of the term, and we must strive to make the
| real state of affairs quite clear. If we don't, then core concepts like “open
| source” will be massaged, kneaded and pummelled into uselessness.
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http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1003745
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