Interoperability Does Not Require Deals, Which GPLv3 Annuls Anyway

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2007-07-21 05:00:39 UTC
Modified: 2007-07-21 05:02:03 UTC

Interoperability Does Not Require Deals, Which GPLv3 Annuls AnywayAre deals truly necessary in order to establish a convenient exchange of documents? Quite recently, Groklaw shrewdly pointed out that Red Hat already has interoperability. It didn't require any deals to achieve this, but there is place for improvement, especially where Microsoft holds interoperability hostage.

As we stressed several times in the past, Novell is (at least in part) to blame for this. It opened the door to this type of practice while rudely (or selfishly) shutting some doors right in the EC's face.

Only yesterday, LinuxToday posted a cheeky blog item that sort of retaliates by sticking it right in Novell's face. The headline is self explanatory: "Interoperability Without Patent Agreements. Really."

Mark explained that Zenoss has kicked off the development process with the two ZenPacks (mentioned above) that will allow full interoperability with Microsoft Exchange and SQL Server. And no, they didn't make a patent deal; they used Samba functionality. Imagine that.

In other news, Gnash has just announced its upgrade to GPLv3.

Gnash has now switched to the GPLv3 license, see http://gplv3.fsf.org for more info.

Another quick look at Palamida's GPLv3 tracker reveals nice linear growth. The GPLv3 has been embraced by over 200 projects only 3 weeks after its release. To quote Mr. Radcliffe again, "I believe that the GPLv3 is a very valuable addition to FOSS licenses and solves many of the challenges faced by GPLv2. Companies distributing FOSS should consider it and companies using FOSS should be prepared, in most cases, to accept it".

Are Linspire, Xandros, and Novell ready to accept it?

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Interoperability Does Not Require Deals, Which GPLv3 Annuls Anyway

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