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Interview with ECIS's Thomas Vinje and Ashwin van Rooijen on the
Microsoft-EU Commission Deal, by Sean Daly
,----[ Quote ]
| Ashwin van Rooijen: Yeah. Well, I think
| the open source issue is important. In
| many markets, Microsoft faces meaningful
| competition -- any meaningful competition
| -- only from open source developers. So
| it is very important that they can
| actually create interoperable products.
| And the current template patent license
| that was part of the undertaking -- I
| believe it was Annex C of the undertaking
| -- is clearly not compatible with open
| source licensing schemes and especially
| not with the GPL. It requires, for
| example, that developers that take a
| license, that take a patent license,
| notify all the other developers that they
| distribute the software to of the various
| patents which Microsoft claims to have in
| its software. And obviously, that's an
| obligation which cannot be reconciled
| with the GPL. And there are other
| provisions as well which I think would
| need to be resolved.
|
| 38:34
|
| Q: Well, there's also been a history of
| Microsoft claiming patent infringement,
| but not communicating the numbers of the
| patents in question.
|
| 38:42
|
| Thomas Vinje: that's been a very serious
| issue indeed. And patent FUD, in that
| regard --
|
| 38:48
|
| Q: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.
|
| 38:49
|
| Thomas Vinje: Fear, Uncertainty, and
| Doubt, which we certainly believe and has
| been engaged in to cause concern mainly
| among potential consumers of open source
| software about potential patent
| liability. That's been a serious concern.
| There are some things in this proposed
| undertaking that would help to address
| that problem. And we should say more
| generally that not everything in the
| proposed interoperability undertaking is
| bad; there are some very serious problems
| with it, some really rather obnoxious
| devils in the details --
|
| 39:28
|
| Q: Could you be more specific?
|
| 39:29
|
| Thomas Vinje: Well, we've been talking
| about the patent one, and the standards
| one, and we could address other ones as
| well. But nonetheless, there are some --
| we're not certainly saying that it's
| unsaveable -- I mean, this is a document
| which could be modified and turned into
| something which would be very useful. Not
| necessarily a panacea, it's not going to
| change the landscape of the industry and
| make it competitive tomorrow in ways that
| it isn't today, or even next year in ways
| that it isn't today, but it potentially
| would be a very useful arrangement.
| Ashwin, I've spoken a lot, why don't you
| mention some of the other devils in the
| details of the proposed interoperability
| undertaking?
`----
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2009100908022461
Recent:
Is the EU-Microsoft Deal a Victory or Defeat? And for Whom?
,----[ Quote ]
| Now, the phrase âcompatible with Open Source Licensesâ
| is pretty vague. Does that include the GNU GPL, for
| instance? If it doesn't, it's a weak undertaking, but if
| it does, it could be significant. Similarly, what
| exactly ânominal upfront feeâ means, and whether it is
| per project and truly negligible, are questions that
| will need to be answered before that undertaking can be
| judged.
`----
http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2576&blogid=14
Meet Microsoft, the Delusional
,----[ Quote ]
| Er, what, like the browser sector, where Firefox now has
| nearly 24% market share worldwide, and Microsoft's share
| is decreasing? Or Apache's 54% in the Web server world,
| where Microsoft's share is decreasing? Or GNU/Linux's
| 88% market share of the top 500 supercomputers in the
| world, where Microsoft's share is static?
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/10/meet-microsoft-delusional.html
GNU/Linux: rubbery figures don't help the cause
,----[ Quote ]
| I wrote to Net Applications on May 6, with the operative part of my query
| being: "Can you please elaborate as to the methodology employed to obtain
| these statistics and the geographical regions which are covered? I searched
| your site for information but could not find anything."
|
| Back came an automated reply which gave me reason for hope; it said, among a
| host of other things, "Messages are normally answered within 24 hours on
| weekdays." But that was the end of the matter. A week later I am none the
| wiser as to how the statistics were collected and what geographical area they
| cover.
|
| [...]
|
| If one wants to look at anything other than the statistics as provided by Net
| Applications, one has to subscribe to something called "Geolocation Upgrade"
| and pay - the options cost anything from $US300 to $US1000.
|
| But on that page, one does get an indication of the reach of the statistics.
| One option available is geolocation segmentation - "country, region,
| designated market area, city and postal code and combination reports for
| browsers, operating systems and search engines." And it adds: "Postal code
| segmentation is for the US, UK and Canada only."
|
| Another option, titled demographic upgrade, is available for the US only. No
| mention of China, India or Brazil, three rather large countries where
| sizeable numbers of the six billion humans who populate our world live.
|
| It is surprising that nobody has thought to ask these questions - it doesn't
| take much intelligence to do so. There has been considerable angst among some
| at what they call under-reporting of the degree of Linux take-up on the
| desktop.
`----
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/25014/1148/
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