Need to get a clue?
The other day on Open Source blog there was a snipe at Sun for asking why IBM isn’t contributing to OpenOffice. Stephen seems to think the issue is reasonably complex.
Joe Brockmeier says:” I think it’d be great if IBM did contribute to OpenOffice.org, but I’m not sure that the project is critical to IBM’s plans for making money with Linux.”
Well here’s news from the front. I sat in a conference session a couple of days ago with Scott Handy, who runs IBM’s Linux business. He said IBM had rolled out some 25k Linux clients. However progress has stalled, for now–Scott said once IBM had rolled out its Workplace client platform, which looks the same on Linux or Windows, then IBM could complete its Linux client rollout. In other words Workplace is vital to IBM’s Linux client plans. So critical, perhaps not, but important surely. And what are the office components for Workplace sourced from? OpenOffice. I have no significant beef with IBM on its open source committments, nor Sun.
Open Source blog on the other hand i do have a bit of a beef with, mainly because of this. Who is playing spin the media?
Just to clarify then, because you seem to have had some problems parsing my comments.
1. Microsoft will take opportunities to use FUD against the GPL, Linux, and Open Source. That’s business. Therefore a legal case, in which questions are asked about intellectual property, will “make Microsoft very happy as it adds to fears over the GPL being unworkable.”
2. At the same time, the GPL is a very important license. It is a contract and should be tested in law. That will make it stronger. If Fortinet has indeed abused the terms of the GPL then it should cease and desist. This is about protecting the GPL, not damaging it, that is what the gpl-violations.org project is working toward, as i understand it, anyway.
I realise its hard to deal with complexity, but its important we do so. This is not a binary world. A court case over the GPL could make Microsoft happy, but make life more difficult for the vendor in the longer term. By dealing with complexity rather that ignoring it Open Source communities will be strengthened not weakened. This is not a science project, which means we need legal protections. For similar reasons the CreativeCommons is creating geographical licenses, to allow protection for authors.
A little more sagacity and a little less self-promotion, just what you called for when you dinged me.
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