10.16.07
Another Successful Invasion: Microsoft ‘Stung’ by the Open Source ‘Plague’
“…Microsoft got its way and received what it once considered “unamerican”, “a cancer”…”After the previous rejection, Microsoft got its way and received what it once considered “unamerican”, “a cancer”, and something which is inherently insecure. Yes, the Open Source Initiative fell victim to another invasion tactic that would enable Microsoft to hurt GNU/Linux. It wasn’t long ago that Ballmer talked about his plot to hijack open source away from Linux. That was last week. OSI shoots itself in the foot again despite Eric Raymond’s observations of fraud in the fight for OOXML.
What’s wrong with Microsoft being part of the “Open Source” movement? Remember that many of the projects to be considered are tied to Sharepoint or SQL Server or whatever proprietary stack is necessary for these arbitrary blocks of code to run. We covered this issue many times before. The “open source” terminology has just become less relevant than ever before. Sad day.
For now though it’s all eyes on Microsoft to see what the company will do next, and in many ways this will be more interesting than whether or not the OSI approved the licenses. For reasons that were never fully explained, Microsoft wanted open source licenses.
Now that it’s got them, will it use them to release significant code to the community?
Remember what Microsoft did to Mono a couple of weeks ago. Microsoft’s open source moves are no reason for celebration, especially when one looks ahead and sees highly-anticipated voids.
Novell ’s Mono chief demonstrated an early incarnation of “Moonlight” before .NET developers Tuesday but he warned that a full implementation of Microsoft’s Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere (WPF/E), aka Silverlight, is unlikely — at least under his watch.
Remember the arguments about Novell allowing Linux to become a subordinate second-class citizen and a follower? That’s exactly it. That’s the sign. One among many.
aw shit said,
October 16, 2007 at 7:43 pm
OSI has sold out. These licenses govern use, it is ridiculous to call them “open source” . So, it is time to get a new ‘authority’ on this regard cause OSI approval now means nothing.
Roy Schestowitz said,
October 16, 2007 at 9:22 pm
OSI is the new ISO.
akf said,
October 17, 2007 at 1:38 am
Microsoft actually did two steps: it submitted “shared source” licenses for OSI approval and it released .Net under a “shared source” license.
This might easily lead to thinking that there is a connection. But… there is none. The .Net code is not released under an OSI approved license! It is now important to make this distinction clear. More than half of the shared source licenses are not open source, and they aren’t even close. Thus shared source is not open source!
Roy Schestowitz said,
October 17, 2007 at 4:28 am
“Open source” ceased to have much of a meaning years ago when it distanced itself too much from Free software. Need CPAL even be discussed here?