Summary: Symantec enters the AllSeen Alliance and Sonatype is once again trying to claim great insecurity in FOSS due to software licensing

THE surveillance-oriented AllSeen Alliance has welcomed Microsoft and other patent aggressors (such as Red Bend Software) into its ranks. Now we discover that Symantec, which has been disseminating FUD about GNU/Linux, joins this Alliance, as revealed by the Linux Foundation a couple of days ago. To quote: "Symantec is an AllSeen Alliance Community Member, one of the world’s largest software companies and a leader in security, backup and availability solutions. Roxane Divol, SVP Product and Services Acceleration Group for Symantec, shares why the company decided to join the AllSeen Alliance and how they plan to contribute to AllJoyn for a connected experience that will change the Internet of Things."

Well, Symantec, like some other companies, has been making money from creation of fear, putting aside its Microsoft connections and history of hostility towards Linux and FOSS. Symantec is one of several.

There are those who cover a "legal" security angle (they call their licensing FUD 'security', as per a deceiving headline from some weeks ago). Some of those are well linked to Microsoft (e.g. OpenLogic and Black Duck) and another such player is Sonatype (it targets Microsoft's proprietary software and .NET developers). We covered its FUD quite recently, after we had observed Sonatype's FUD reports from last year. Watch the gross misuse of the word "suspected" to insinuate that many organisations don't comply with FOSS licences. As if proprietary software licences are always obeyed, without leading to assaults from the BSA et al. It is not so hard -- let alone expensive -- to comply with FOSS licences. ⬆