12.19.11
Free Software/GPL FUD Arrives From Microsoft Infiltrators
Summary: The latest badmouthing of the GPL and where it is really coming from
SLASHDOT is lending some space to the latest FUD from Black Duck. For the uninitiated, Black Duck came from Microsoft.
The 451 Group seeks to validate the claims from Black Duck, but upon a close look at comments it is possible to see the flaws.
NB: I am relying on the current set of figures published by Black Duck Software for this post, combined with our previous posts on the topic. I am aware that some people are distrustful of Black Duck’s figures given the lack of transparency on the methodology for collecting them. Since I previously went to a lot of effort to analyze data collected and published by FLOSSmole to find that it confirmed the trend suggested by Black Duck’s figures, I am confident that the trends are an accurate reflection of the situation.
There are already rebuttals to this, so we won’t make more. Another similar company that came from Microsoft, called OpenLogic, is spreading some more FOSS FUD to sell its products. Remember that the company is run by a former Microsoft guy. These are the companies that push nonsense like “Intellectual Property” in the FOSS world (like the GPL-hostile CDDL*), which smells a bit like this thing too:
Today I presented about the complicated relationship between FLOSS and Intellectual Property at the Technical University of Berlin. The presentation was part of a lecture about Intellectual Property management, targeting students in an international master’s program in business administration. This setup guaranteed for a kind of culture clash, since the motivation for students to attend this lecture is to learn about how to increase the value of their companies by building IP assets. Openness, sharing and collaborative development is usually not the focus.
Clarification (5/1/2012): the above turns out to actually be a talk from a FOSS proponent who educates people on the subject. He does not really promote “Intellectual Property” as a concept.
Watch out for another of Microsoft’s proxies for ‘open source’ infiltration. It is “squar[ing] off against the GPL” as one would expect:
I am consistently amazed by the lengths people will go to to try to succeed in the marketplace.
Actually, that’s not true. Having been around fellow humans for 45 years, I would have to say that such destructive behavior doesn’t really surprise me. What does surprise me, though, is the repeated use of the same, tired memes when it’s been proven time and again that they don’t work.
So it was with sad dismay that I read a DotNetNuke blog entry this morning that took unabashed aim at the GNU Public License (GPL) used by DotNetNuke’s (DNN) primary (and more successful) competing content management systems, WordPress, Joomla!, and Drupal.
Microsoft’s front group CodePlex/OuterCurve is accommodated by this company. Surprise, surprise. Loyalty. █
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* Quoting Wikipedia, “In the words of Danese Cooper, who is no longer with Sun, one of the reasons for basing the CDDL on the Mozilla license was that the Mozilla license is GPL-incompatible.” Cooper now works for Bill Gates based on her LinkedIn page.
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