The reputation of Reuters should clearly be on the decline as this isn’t the first such incident. In fact, I might write about this (as a standalone iterm) as a warning to our readers and anyone else who gets exposed to disinformation in the press.

I have received a reply from an anonymous-yet-reputable source (anonymous by preference):

‘The first story [Finkle] is a lie. There never was a “decision” about this. Reuters started it with a bigger lie that a decision would be announced. Now this.

They made it all up.‘

Reuters have done a lot of ‘mouthpiece-ing’ recently, including the anti-FSF headlines. Why am I not surprised?

I have said that I don’t want GPLv3 to go specifically after Novell, just fix the loopholes they exploited – then they choose if they want to play nice or not.

I have even gone on record as saying I think GPLv3 is best served without S11 P5 – forget the grandfather clause, lose the whole paragraph, it’s too cumbersome, and if it requires a grandfather clause to prevent friendly-fire then it is probably too far-reaching to begin with.

I definitely don’t say "just wait til GPL3" – I have contended that Microvell are crossing the line on GPLv2 compliance, and when v3 comes out I will likely call them out on those issues as well if the argument can be made that GPLv3 applies to their actions (Eben Moglen thinks it might happen, since the coupons apparently don’t expire).

Anyhow, to sum up – I want GPLv3 to protect the four freedoms – the Boycott will take care of Novell.

http://www.itwire.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12554&Itemid=1091

“But if the Reuters report is correct – and Reuters has proved to be extremely unreliable on this subject in the past – then the FSF could reasonably be accused of a volte-face.

I’ve asked Richard Stallman to comment on the report.”

Other cases where Reuters deceived and showed anti-FSF bias:

http://boycottnovell.com/2007/03/28/media-vs-linux/