Microsoft's new weapon against open source: stupidity
,----[ Quote ]
| An Information Week article published last week appears to position Microsoft
| as trying to do something right when it comes to open source. And it
| positions the open source community as being not quite ready to make nice
| after past insults, threats, and abuse.
|
| Speaking for myself, I am always ready to see what somebody has to say when
| they say they want to work with the open source community. Unfortunately,
| Microsoft seems to be continuing its campaign of defining open source on its
| own terms, terms that violate the basic principles of our community.
| According to the article:
|
| For patented protocols, Microsoft said it would offer licenses
| on "reasonable and non-discriminatory terms." Open source developers can
| access the protocols for free for noncommercial use without fear of
| lawsuits, Microsoft said.
|
| The Open Source Definition makes it quite clear in #6 that restrictions
| against commercial use violate the OSD. Thus, a free-of-cost license that
| prohibits commercial use is useless to open source developers. And therefore
| I cannot understand why anybody would think that Microsoft is doing the open
| source community any favors.
`----
http://opensource.org/node/280
Here comes Perens (hopefully back to OSI):
The state of open source: Bruce Perens, Open Source Definition
,----[ Quote ]
| Open source leader views software patenting as the No. 1 impediment to
| innovation
|
| [...]
|
| Does widespread adoption and commercialization of open source software create
| new challenges or pressures for open source projects?
|
| A big problem facing many companies today is that they entirely depend on
| open source for their operations, and they haven't even begun to deal with
| that from a corporate policy perspective. I've met CEOs who haven't known
| they use open source at all, and then they have found out that all of their
| most critical projects depend on it.
`----
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;724324336
Days ago:
No Justification Need
,----[ Quote ]
| What's at the forefront of my crabbiness is the almost-complete capture of
| the Open Source Business Conference's news cycle by Brad Smith's presence at
| that conference left me wondering who else was even there this week, other
| than Smith, Matt Asay, and a few pundits and luminaries. In a nicely done
| spin for the media, OSBC suddenly became about how Microsoft braved the
| lion's den, instead of the real progress a lot of companies are making in
| open source development and business.
`----
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2008-03-28-020-26-OP-SW
All That Got Stolen Was Microsoft's Thunder
,----[ Quote ]
| The best response I've seen was from Jonathan Corbet at a panel at the Open
| Source Business Conference in San Francisco last May. Corbet is a Linux
| kernel developer himself and executive editor of the Linux Weekly News.
|
| "I feel I've been called a thief," he said levelly during a panel at the
| event, and pointed out that Microsoft was one of the companies that had
| patented "thousands of trivial functions ... There's no way to write a
| nontrivial program that can't be claimed to infringe on someone's patents."
`----
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/03/message_to_brad.html
Recent:
Brad Smith continues its FUD spreading, wants to tax RedHat
,----[ Quote ]
| Brad Smith continues its FUD spreading, wants to tax RedHat. The only
| solution for Microsoft to tax linux is software patents. Microsoft wants to
| render GPL free software non-free. The message is clear.
|
| [...]
|
| Microsoft needs to be sued more often, because in their current position they
| still believe too much in a patent system where no software developer has
| ever used a patent to write a computer program.
`----
http://www.digitalmajority.org/forum/t-49513/brad-smith-continues-its-fud-spreading-wants-to-tax-redhat
Microsoft's dilemma: The importance of the downstream
,----[ Quote ]
| To work within the open-source community, which Microsoft will absolutely
| have to do if it wants to remain relevant in the 21st century of the Web,
| Microsoft must stop polluting the downstream with patent encumbrances.
| Period. Full stop. Microsoft is not alone in being threatened by open source.
| Everyone is to a greater or lesser extent, including open-source companies.
| MySQL's biggest competitor is not Oracle. It is fee-free use of MySQL. Ditto
| for other open-source companies.
`----
http://www.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9899201-16.html
Feeling the heat at Microsoft
,----[ Quote ]
| A couple of years ago you reiterated that IBM was Microsoft's biggest
| competitor and you said not just on the business side, but overall. If I ask
| you who is Microsoft's biggest competitor now, who would it be?
|
| Ballmer: Open...Linux. I don't want to say open source. Linux, certainly have
| to go with that.
`----
http://www.news.com/Feeling-the-heat-at-Microsoft/2008-1012_3-6232458.html?tag=ne.fd.mnbc
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