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04.16.10

TurboHercules’ Attack on IBM Gains Support From Microsoft Investor/Booster and More

Posted in Free/Libre Software, IBM, Microsoft at 6:44 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Hercules
A stone statue of Hercules on the way to the Hercules tower

Summary: The ‘mini-SCO’ from Seattle continues with the same talking points and gains new lobbyists, found in the form of Microsoft enthusiasts with financial interests in Microsoft’s welfare

WE HAVE created a new page about TurboHercules vs IBM. This is where we’ll keep track of the case. LWN has great new coverage (as usual), whereas IDG, in its pro-Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] tabloid-esque fashion is letting Microsoft investor and Microsoft booster Bill Snyder write about the case as though he is an independent observer.

“IDG has published his musings under at least two separate and somewhat inflammatory headlines (with a question mark of course).”Suffice to say, Snyder takes Microsoft’s side by accusing IBM of “giving up” on Open Source. How far fetched. We saw that statement before. IDG has published his musings under at least two separate and somewhat inflammatory headlines (with a question mark of course) [1, 2]. Rather than give attention to his misinformed piece, we wish to quote the commenter, who writes: “You got a few things wrong. (1)Groklaw was created by Pamela Jones, not “Penny Jackson”. (2)Florian Mueller is not an open source activist. He is a lobbyist who will say whatever someone pays him to say. (3)IBM’s letter was part of an exchange with TurboHercules. That particular letter was in response to a claim by Bowler that IBM had no IP rights in the area covered by the emulator. IBM was just saying “yes we do.” While I don’t particularly agree with IBM’s refusal to license z/os this way, they have every right to do so. If anyone can force someone to license something in a way they don’t want to we might as well not have any licenses or copyrights. The right to license things the way the creator wants is one of the pillars of open source and free software. If you don’t like my license you are free to create your own work, but you are not free to steal mine.”

It appears as though TurboHercules has sent (or has had) one of its PR bunnies to also leave a comment and promote Jay Maynard’s blog, which takes the form of ibmvshercules.com, constantly rants about Groklaw, links to Eric Raymond’s blog, and is very much reminiscent of Florian Müller’s new attack blog against IBM. What a bunch. █

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