[Poster child:]
WordPress is Open Source
,----[ Quote ]
| Six Apart has recently decided that the best way to win back customers
| fleeing their platforms is to target WordPress, which is a new strategy they
| call competing. (What have they been doing the past 7 years?) A good example
| is this exchange between a commenter on Valleywag and Byrne Reese, the lead
| developer of Movable Type:
|
| Sundown: “@anildash: what part of Wordpress is not open source?”
|
| byrnereese: “@Sunnduwn - I think that is a question better asked of
| Automattic. Anil, and certainly not Six Apart, has never been briefed, nor
| has anyone for that matter been presented with an accounting of what is open
| and closed source at Automattic.”
|
| Okay, here’s some accounting:
|
| WordPress is 100% open source, GPL.
|
| All plugins in the official directory are GPL or compatible, 100% open
| source.
|
| bbPress is 100% GPL.
|
| WordPress MU is 100% open source, GPL, and if you wanted you could take it
| and build your own hosted platform like WordPress.com, like edublogs.org has
| with over 100,000 blogs.
|
| There is more GPL stuff on the way, as well. :)
|
| Could you build Typepad or Vox with Movable Type? Probably not, especially
| since people with more than a few blogs or posts say it grinds to a halt, as
| Metblogs found before they switched to WordPress.
`----
http://ma.tt/2008/03/wordpress-is-open-source/
GPL a winner. Another new article, which also slams "intellectual monopolies".
How The GPL Can Save Your Ass
,----[ Quote ]
| If you are the multi-billion dollar IT industry you stick you head in the
| sand and just keep making cars. It is after all, not your problem. That seems
| to be the attitude of almost every company with a vested interest in the
| computing market. There was a recent announcement indicating Intel and
| Microsoft have put up $10 million to fund research in parallel software. Hah!
| I'm going to laugh harder this time HAH, HAH! Ever here the phase pissing in
| the ocean, well this is more like throwing a match into the sun. We need
| more -- much more.
|
| [...]
|
| Second, the entire in industry must co-operate and be involved. We need
| everyone working on this problem. The best minds in high performance
| computing have been at it for quite a while and it is time to turn up the
| volume. Fantasies of telling your R&D guys to get on it are not enough.
| Trying to corral your Intellectual Property (IP) with trade secrets and
| patents is wishful thinking. The rocket scientists (and plenty of other smart
| people) have been working on this issue for a long time. You don't have the
| time to waste trying to expand your IP fiefdom. Instead start thinking about
| what happens when the next generation of products is of absolutely no
| interest to your customers.
|
| Third we need to respond quickly. There is no time for IP agreements,
| posturing, and NIH ego trips (Not Invented Here). We need leaders to
| recognize the scope and magnitude of this challenge and act. Before too long,
| it will not be unreasonable to have four or even eight cores in a desktop. A
| workstation or server may have double this amount. It would sure be nice if
| my software could effectively use all these cores.
|
| [...]
|
| Using the GPL will immediately remove issues that would normally choke such
| an important undertaking. First, the any IP barriers get pushed aside and
| everyone can cooperate openly
`----
http://www.linux-mag.com/id/5379
What if... Windows went open source?
,----[ Quote ]
| But, given all the pressure that Microsoft is under these days from different
| quarters, what if the company decided to reveal those jewels? Would it have
| any impact on FOSS? Would people in the FOSS sphere really care? Would it
| make a difference?
`----
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/17132/1148/
Related:
GPL Violations On Windows Go Unnoticed?
,----[ Quote ]
| Several of the packages I installed included GPL and LGPL software without
| any mention of the GPL, much less source code. For example, DVD Photo
| Slideshow (www.dvd-photo-slideshow.com) included mkisofs, cdrdao, dvdauthor,
| spumux, id3lib, lame, mpeg2enc, and mplex (all of which are GPL or LGPL). The
| company tried to hide this by wrapping them all in DLLs.
`----
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/30/1221225
Microsoft Embraces Machinima ... and Maybe the GPL?
,----[ Quote ]
| To those of us who are licensing lawyers, that's an interesting development,
| as there are those who have questioned the GPL to the extent it's not a
| contract. Apparently Microsoft agrees with the FSF that unilateral
| permissions "work" in the world of IP licensing.
`----
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/005419.php
What Microsoft can and cannot do
,----[ Quote ]
| While I disagree with the FSF that the term intellectual property is “a
| propaganda term designed to confuse patent law with copyright and other
| unrelated laws, and to muddy the different issues they raise,” I do agree
| that Microsoft must abide by the terms and conditions of the GPL, whether
| version 2 or 3, whichever is applicable, which may emerge as a key question.
`----
http://blogs.the451group.com/opensource/2007/08/29/what-microsoft-can-and-cannot-do/
Ten Tech Blunders: Whoops, We Stepped in It!
,----[ Quote ]
| In a horrible case of foot-in-mouth that revealed deep fear behind
| a thin mask of disdain, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer compared Linux
| to cancer. Ouch!
`----
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/entdev/article.php/11070_3679516_1
Microsoft denies Novell deal is breach of 'cancer' (GPL)
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft Corp has denied that its patent deal with Novell Inc is in
| breach of the 'cancer' (GNU General Public License) or will automatically
| spread Microsoft's FUD (patent protection) to other Linux distributions.
`----
http://www.cbronline.com/article_news.asp?guid=B8218C15-4A5C-448D-A537-C5DBC4F2B38A
http://tinyurl.com/y2royp
,----[ Quote ]
| "Microsoft says open-source software is un-American. Has the
| company completely lost its mind?
|
| Once upon a time, Microsoft executives confined
| their criticism of Linux and free software to old-fashioned FUD
| -- fear, uncertainty and doubt. Linux wasn't good enough for
| enterprise-class systems, they declared. You couldn't get
| quality support, and it was too hard and clunky for average users.
|
| Fair enough. But now, judging by comments made Wednesday by
| Microsoft's operating systems chief Jim Allchin (and reported
| by Bloomberg News), it turns out that free and open-source
| software is something far worse than anyone could possibly have
| imagined. It is nothing less than a threat to the American
| way of life! "
`----
http://archive.salon.com/tech/log/2001/02/15/unamerican/index.html
|
|
