Bonum Certa Men Certa

When Management and Investors Betray Free Software and Corrupt Honest Reporting

"Money corrupts"

Brand name variations can make a lot of difference. I have been a SuSE user, but never a SUSE/SLED/Opensuse user. YaST aside, SuSE was once a truly Free software-oriented project with positive spirit behind the company. With Free software in mind, the company was worth tens of millions. Free software was an asset. The other day, Jeremy Allison revealed that an unnamed company had offered his $40 million for Samba, but he declined. He refused to sell out and give up on his mission. On the contrary, CUPS was sold to Apple. So, is Free software a statement against monetary value? Of course not. Freedom is not associated with cost. When exploited, however, its value can be gamed.

SuSE was all about Free software. Novell, on the other hand, had deep proprietary roots. Its mindset has not evolved sufficiently. On several occasions we said that Novell's management, which is pressured by investors, gives the project as bad name (unless it is a product, not a project).

This sentiment and this issue is not unique to Novell. In fact, several companies such as Mozilla come under fire for similar reasons.

Perhaps it’s inevitable that community-driven development, maintenance, and support will reduce markets for proprietary software up and down all of the stacks. Perhaps the most successful projects will have the strong support of businesses.

Do you want to rely on their goodwill to allow you to use, study, and redistribute software as you see fit? Are you willing to take the risk that they will encourage a healthy commons which allows you to use your data as you see fit?


There are open source companies, there are mixed source companies, and there are those whose products are truly proprietary, although they might mount them atop an open source stack. Canonical (think Ubuntu) has some proprietary software, Red Hat still thrives in open source and services, and Novell does a little bit of both. And then there are companies like Oracle...

Every now and then, a very large software company will throw a bone at the community, whose mindshare it hopes to buy. Oracle is a good example of this because it has contributed some GPL-licensed code. As announced last week:

Oracle Corp. on Wednesday announced that several of its open-source projects -- including a file system and a systems management tool -- will be available under the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2).


How far can a company go however? MySQL is making headlines at the moment because of its new treatment of source code. MySQL is not on the verge of running out of business. In fact, MySQL is preparing for a very large IPO. So what can possibly justify walking away from Freedom and goodwill? What is it that gets companies scared of the GPLv3 which, among several other things, forbids Tiviozation? Have a look.

The discussion ends with a look at the GPL v3 and the importance, or not, of the Apple iPhone.


He closes by saying the the lawyers are the winners in this scenario. You can still see a battle between corporate greed for money or control and the needs of the consumer that requires independence, freedom, and low cost. The danger here is that developers might be lured into a financial agenda. This is another interesting discussion about this in the new Web site of Don Parris.

The team at GNU/Linux Matters have clarified their comments about the venerable Linux.org site. Their position is that the site is too commercialized and outdated to be of much use, especially to the newcomers it is supposed to help.


There are very few sites that have not yet been tempted and jumped on the bandwagon of commence, but how long will it last? The media, just like software, still seems to be corrupted by the money. If you don't believe this, watch how a banned journalist returns to publishing corporate tosh from SCO.

Maureen O'Gara, that intrepid American technology [sic] journalist [sic], took a swipe at Judge Kimball's ruling in SCO v. Novell. And she did it behind the ".NETDJ News Desk" byline on the cutting edge Sys-Con website, Open Source version. (If you want the entire article, Google for it. I refuse to provide a link.

[...]

And you thought Maureen had been banned from Sys-Con, didn't you?


More public relations placements in the media is what you might find in Sys-Con then. The "Get the Facts" ads there give it all away, don't they?

Recent Techrights' Posts

Representing and Speaking for Animals
If I ever choose to take this matter to tribunal with animals-centric NGOs on my side, it'll get some press coverage for sure
Slopwatch: Fake Articles About "Linux", Slop Images in VentureBeat, Linux Foundation Spam Made With LLM Slop and Slop Images
The only relief or upside - if any exists - is that the pace of slop was down a bit this week
Richard Stallman (RMS) Talk in Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress Will be Remote
This past week RMS received lots of accolades online
Links 28/08/2025: Chatbots Distorting/Fabricating History and Also Driving Suicide
Links for the day
 
Links 29/08/2025: Arti 1.5.0, War on Public Health (CDC), and Slop 'Bros' Made to Pay for Their Mass Plagiarism
Links for the day
No, 4Chan is Not Fighting for You by Lawyering Up Against Ofcom (UK)
Don't mistake proto-fascists for people who "fight for you". They don't.
Downlplaying the Impact of "UEFI 9/11" is a Losing Strategy
we won't publish much whilst on holiday
In Many Places in the World Vista 11 "Market Share" is Going Down, Not Up
In some countries Windows is already down to third place or lower
More Microsoft-Connected Layoffs, at Least Third Time This Month! (Also Another Death on Campus)
Microsoft as a "gaming" company is where studios, projects, games, and even developers come to die
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, August 28, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, August 28, 2025
Gemini Links 29/08/2025: Poems, Games, and Java 25 Performance
Links for the day
Links 28/08/2025: Greenland 'Interferences' by US and Skinnerboxes to Get Banned in Korean Schools
Links for the day
The Register MS (Run by Microsoft Operatives): Free Software is Putin, Hence Evil and Dangerous
The current editor in chief is an American Microsofter, the previous one went to work for Google (US)
Gemini Links 28/08/2025: Back in Japan and Why "Hacker News" Sucks
Links for the day
A Much-Needed Wake-up Call to Users of Wordpress.com, Blogspot, Substack and All Those Other Outsourced (and Centralised) Platforms
There are several lessons in there
The UEFI 9/11 - Part II - Campaign of Censorship and Defamation Against Critics
In dictatorships, humour serves an important role. It's tragic.
Open Source Initiative (OSI) Resists Software Freedom, Even by Attacking Its Own
The OSI is compromised
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, August 27, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, Slopfarms in Google News, and More
Some readers of ours end up sending us links that are from slopfarms, not realising those are slopfarms
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Katrina Memories and Google Versus Software Freedom
Links for the day
Links 27/08/2025: Police Against Media Freedom in the UK, Energy-Hungry Countries Targeted by China
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows Fell to All-Time Lows in Egypt This Summer, Vista 11 Adoption Decreases While GNU/Linux Increases
Vista 11 is going down rather than up
Links 27/08/2025: Microsoft Demoralises Staff With Slop Demands, Leaving Mastodon Explained
Links for the day
12 Hours Ago The Register MS Published a Fake (Paid-for) Article, But This One for a Change Did Not Promote a Ponzi Scheme
There are also Free software alternatives, but they don't pay The Register MS for "synthetic" so-called 'journalism'
More People Need to Call Out and Put a Stop to Serial Sloppers
Unless slopfarms are stopped, people will read and share Microsoft propaganda made by chatbots
Gemini Links 27/08/2025: Headphones and Tartarus
Links for the day
Morale at Microsoft is Terrible (Proprietary Plagiarism Machines Have No Future, LLM Slop is a Bubble)
The slop sceptics/critics are going to have lots of "told you so" moments
GNOME "governance issues, staff reduction, etc." amidst Albanian whistleblowing and women trafficking
Notice the connection to Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) and GNOME
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, August 26, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, August 26, 2025