Very Computer

http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1007528.html

While restarting Outlook, Steve grumbled:

Quote:> http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1007528.html

    "Unfortunately, that has been misconstrued in many ways. It's a
    topic that you can leap on and say, 'Microsoft doesn't make free
    software.' Hey, we have free software; the world will always have
    free software. I mean, if you characterize it that way, that's not
    right. But if you say to people, 'Do you understand the GPL?' And
    they'll say, 'Huh?' And they're pretty stunned when the Pac-Man-like
    nature of it is described to them."

Pot kettle black!

--
Linux:  Less filling, works great!

Lin?nut scribbled:

<deletia>

Quote:>But if you say to people, 'Do you understand the GPL?' And
>     they'll say, 'Huh?' And they're pretty stunned when the Pac-Man-like
>     nature of it is described to them."

Pac-Man-like nature of the GPL?  Was the person trying to say that like the
Pacman character eating those powerpills and becoming stronger the GNU GPL
makes software released under its license stronger?  If this is the intent
of the quote I have to agree.  The GNU GPL makes any software more powerful
in the hands of the users since having the source code is akin to having
information about the particular software and information leads to
knowledge when applied correctly and knowledge is power.

--
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Associate Member 499
Linux Counter Statistics: UserID 277671  MachineID 197525
LindowsOS v3.0 (Linux kernel 2.4.19) IBM ThinkPad R30 Celeron 512 MB RAM

 > Lin?nut scribbled:
 >
 > <deletia>
 >
 >> But if you say to people, 'Do you understand the GPL?'
 >> And they'll say, 'Huh?' And they're pretty stunned when
 >>  the Pac-Man-like nature of it is described to them."

Most of the Linux community is acutely aware of the
"Pac-Man-like" nature of the GPL.  It's one of the reasons
we also have the LGPL and the Common Public License.

But the Pac-Man-like Nature of Microsoft's Intellectual
property is more like "invasion of the body snatchers".
Microsoft Intellectual property rights agreements and
licenses are so predatory as to be illegal.

With Microsoft the most recent EULA prevents you from even
running GPL software on your computer (even if there is an
LGPL buffer library between the two).  Never mind that this
directly defies the unanimous ruling of the Appeals court.

Microsoft's point of view is that if you run any GPL
software then it will automatically infect everything else.

But Microsoft is only telling half the story, and they know
it.  They only point to the GPL.  They never acknowledge the
LGPL, which allows you to create a shared library or DLL
which allows you to dynamicly link between LGPL, GPL, and
Proprietary software.  This "buffer library" is required,
and implementations such as the Cygwin library are available
to safely protect Microsoft from the "Viral Effects" of GPL.

 > Pac-Man-like nature of the GPL?  Was the person trying to
 >  say that like the Pacman character eating those
 > powerpills and becoming stronger the GNU GPL makes
 > software released under its license stronger?

I've more often seen it termed as the "viral effect".  If
you have a proprietary program, and you were to copy/paste
GNU Public License code directly into that program, then
compile it all together into a single application, your
entire program would have to be released under GPL.

With LGPL, you can #include header files into your
proprietary code, which sets up the calls into the shared
library, but you can't alter the original library.  If you
need a new custom function in the LGPL library, that new
subroutine or "hook" would be covered by the LGPL library.

What Microsoft doesn't tell you is that you can use LGPL or
CPL libraries to isolate proprietary code from GPL code.

 > If this is the intent of the quote I have to agree. The
 > GNU GPL makes any software more powerful in the hands of
 > the users since having the source code is akin to having
 > information about the particular software and information
 >  leads to knowledge when applied correctly and knowledge
 > is power.

The Linux community has worked very hard to create framework
based on GPL, yet still supports the development,
distribution, and porting of commercial software through the
  LGPL.  This is why companies like IBM, Oracle, SAP, BEA,
PeopleSoft, and so many others have ported to Linux.

The power of Linux comes not only from it's GPL source code
and kernel, but also from it's ability to serve as a
platform for commercial software.

--
Rex Ballard
Leading Open Source Advocate
http://www.open4success.org/bio

Someone in Microsoft doesn't miss a trick with putting out press releases.

The merits, or lack thereof, of SCO's claims [hmm... who owns 25% of SCO? I
wonder...] should be decided before anyone licenses anything from anyone.

But anyway, MS is hardly the big-elephant in this pasture.  They're suing
IBM, which is more than 25 times bigger than MS ever was.  Probably not a
smart move.

But...  a meritless case anyway.

No problem.  You are allowed to create such software since it is your
own and not licenced from somebody else.  But if somebody else runs
this software on his computer, Windows XP might blow the whistle on
him when it phones home the next time, and then Microsoft may decide
to disable his computer and encrypt his personal files as a first
measure of dealing with his violation of the EULA.

Outrageous?  You bet.  It would be a reason not to use Microsoft
software anymore if I had not stopped using it ages ago, anyhow.

--
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Rex Ballard scribbled:

<deletia>

Quote:> Most of the Linux community is acutely aware of the
> "Pac-Man-like" nature of the GPL.  It's one of the reasons
> we also have the LGPL and the Common Public License.

The LGPL not withstanding does not automatically make the GPL Pacman-like.  
There is no requirement under the GNU GPL to release source code to an
internally created/derived software unless such software is to be sold or
used by external partners or clients/customers.

Otherwise your points were very interesting and on the mark.

--
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Associate Member 499
Linux Counter Statistics: UserID 277671  MachineID 197525
LindowsOS v3.0 (Linux kernel 2.4.19) IBM ThinkPad R30 Celeron 512 MB RAM

Microsoft doesn't own anything of SCO.  The company that Microsoft owns a
stake in (10%, IIRC) *WAS* called SCO, but after selling much of their IP
to to Caldera, changed their name to Tarantella. Caldera, later renamed
themselves SCO.

Rex -
  One more time ... CAN YOU POINT TO A COPY OF THIS EULA?  A
major corporation or two would immediately be in deep
EULA-violating doo-doo if this is true, and their choices would
be dump GPL stuff (and amazing cost) or dump M$ (also at an
amazing cost).

  I asked for solid proof the first time I saw you post this, but
you did not bother to reply to newsgroup posts or to an email.  

Tsu

--
To doubt everything or to believe everything
are two equally convenient solutions; both
dispense with the necessity of reflection.
- Jules Henri Poincar

I wonder what else Microsoft was buying, like maybe
controlling shares of SCO stock?

SCO was the one company which could keep Microsoft from
reentering the UNIX market, and now they have just opened
the floodgates.  It looks like Microsoft has finally "seen
the light" and decided that it's pointless to spend
$billions trying to create "not UNIX".

The good news is that we may see Microsoft becoming a little
less obstinate about resisting industry standards
established by the UNIX and Linux community.  The bad news
is that we may see Microsoft trying to take control of SCO
and using that control to harass companies that use Linux or
BSD UNIX.

SCO seems to be determined to drag these things through the
courts as slowly as possible.  And Microsoft seems to gave
given them the funding required to wage a prolonged legal
battle.  But this is a huge gamble.  There are many
companies who could file countersuits, and if SCO doesn't
start getting very specific, in a very public way, so that
these issues can either be rectified or settled, they could
find themselves being attacked for harassment.

Thus far, all of the petitioners have been very lenient, but
it might be time for someone to step in and take agressive
counter-measures.  Either SCO has direct proof of specific
copyright, patent, and NDA violations, which should should
have been stated in their public filings, or they have no
proof, and are simply "fishing", hoping that someone who has
minimal interactions with the actual development community
might help them by suggesting some copied code.

SCO has been beligerantly uncooperative with the Open Source
community.  When it was Caldera, they had no problem using
and distributing the Linux code.  They have even continued
to distribute this code after filing the lawsuit.  They only
stopped distributing and offering Linux a few days ago.

I can't help but wonder if SCO is acting as a Microsoft
sock-puppet.  Perhaps they are acting under pressure from
Microsoft, and are screaming "the sky is falling" to see how
many little animals they can herd into the fox's den.

The good news for the Linux community is that it creates a
great deal more attention toward Linux.  Even bad publicity
is better than no publicity.  Furthermore, the nature of the
lawsuit is the greatest possible compliment.  SCO is
asserting that Linux is "Too Good" to possibly have been
developed without the help of SCO and commercial UNIX.

What SCO seems to ignore is that there are many sources for
this publicly available information.  There are many ways
that Linux could implement the standards using information
no longer controlled by SCO, and that the Linux community,
and more specifically IBM, take great pains to make sure
that the Linux code base is not polluted with illegally
obtained proprietary software.

--
Rex Ballard
Leading Open Source Advocate
http://www.open4success.org/bio

 >
 >>
 >>> http://news.com.com/2100-1016_3-1007528.html
 >>
 >> Someone in Microsoft doesn't miss a trick with putting
 >> out press releases.
 >>
 >> The merits, or lack thereof, of SCO's claims [hmm...
 >> who owns 25% of SCO? I wonder...] should be decided
 >> before anyone licenses anything from anyone.
 >
 > Microsoft doesn't own anything of SCO.  The company that
 > Microsoft owns a stake in (10%, IIRC) *WAS* called SCO,
 > but after selling much of their IP to to Caldera, changed
 > their name to Tarantella. Caldera, later renamed
 > themselves SCO.
 >
This is really getting confusing.  Originally, Caldera had
purchased ONLY the service organization from SCO, and
Tarantella owned the rights to UNIX/Xenix.  Caldera later
obtained the rights to UNIX.  Microsoft's equity interests
were tied to the UNIX intellectual property.

I'm not sure what happened to Microsoft's equity interests
when Caldera purchased the SCO UNIX source code.  Since
Microsoft's intellectual property was still tied to the SCO
implementation of UNIX, Microsoft could probably have sued
Caldera for misusing Xenix IP, especially if they included
anything Xenix in Linux.

On the other hand, if Microsoft's equity interests were
transferred to Caldera, and there was enough outstanding
stock for Microsoft to wage a proxy fight, this could have
been what led to the placement of Mr McBride.

Does anyone have a detailed chronology of who got what,
when, and under what terms?

Curious stockholders would like to know :-)

--
Rex Ballard
Leading Open Source Advocate
http://www.open4success.org/bio

Of course not, because it's more of his fantasy world that he can't prove.
If he does reply to you, he'll say it was something he once read, and if
you pay him he'll find it.

Take a look at his page: http://cbbrowne.com/info/mslinks.html

Go down to section 6.4 "Advocacy Group Links."  On this whole page,
Christopher Browne only felt the need to offer a qualifier regarding the
trustworthiness of a single source.  Guess who?

"The prolific Rex Ballard presents, on Usenet, lots of 'Linux advocacy' and
'Microsoft de-advocacy.' Some is of somewhat questionable value, in my
view.  He commonly combines fairly useful insights with claims that I tend
to think don't closely correspond to reality."

--
Bo G
"Mankind does nothing save through initiatives on the part of inventors,
great or small, and imitation by the rest of us. Individuals show the way,
set the patterns.  The rivalry of the patterns is the history of the
world." (William James)  Linus is just such an inventor; Linux is just such
a pattern.

<snip>

Quote:> Of course not, because it's more of his fantasy world that he can't prove.
> If he does reply to you, he'll say it was something he once read, and if
> you pay him he'll find it.

You once posted the statement that you were always being critisised for
sniping too little. I asked for proof. No such proof was forth coming.
Nor did you produce a retraction. That proves you a LIAR.

ps: Isn't it ironic that we have you a known LIAR and prevaricator
lecturing the rest of use on honesty.

I honestly don't understand why people don't get up in arms about this
sort of thing.  It's hideous.  There are lots of people who refuse to
use windows because it's technically superior.  That's great, but I
refuse to use it because I find the latest crop of Microsoft EULAs
sprinkled among w2k, xp and media player to be completely unacceptable.
It's *my* computer, and I'll have final say in what it does
thankyouverymuch.