Bonum Certa Men Certa

A Black Duck Loses Its Head

T

he last time we wrote about Microsoft insiders, we also mentioned Black Duck as a possibility. Some insiders don't perceive themselves as such, yet they naturally function in this way.

Here you have a Microsoft employee founding and heading a company that sells services around Free software FUD. The company has developed proprietary software only. It has nothing to do with Free software, yet its CEO moderates panels that discuss the subject. In a way, the CEO sought some authority over GPL matters, which is astounding. It's a case of "do as I say but not as I do".

Anyway, here's what just happened at a very interesting moment. We won't draw conclusions; rather, we simply present the case as-is.

Black Duck Software — a pioneer in the open source legal consulting business — has lost its CEO.

On Thursday, Douglas Levin, the company founder and a director at the Waltham, Mass.-based company, announced his resignation, effective Sept. 1.

The announcement came the same day that a federal appeals court issued a decision maintaining that open source licenses are valid under copyright law. Black Duck Software is a software and services company that advises developers and corporations about open source licensing requirements and compliance.

Are the two related?

No, Levin said in a broadcast email and blog posted yesterday.


Sheer hypocrisy of the company aside, recall this story. They also pretty much stole GPLv3 data from Palamida, which recently lost its GPLv3-tracking person. Black Duck is based in Waltham, Massachusetts where Novell's headquarters are located too. Black Duck commented extensively on the GPLv3. It still does so in press release that it issues. According to this, "He [Doug Levin] moderated an OSBC panel with Microsoft just as Novell was preparing to release details of its deal with the company." Remember that OSBC is funded and was at least partly founded by Microsoft to serve Microsoft [1, 2, 3, 4, 5].

There are some more details about this surprise departure in the blog of the 451 Group.

For his part, Levin sees proprietary software not being displaced by open source, but vendors being forced to evolve and, in the process, accept and embrace open source more themselves. As for open source companies, they are increasingly opting for dual-license and subscription strategies that rely on commercial licensing. Levin says open source is still very significant and now represents a checkbox item not only for companies interested in supporting or developing software, but deeply and broadly in enterprise IT beyond the LAMP stack to a host of open source components. Along those lines, Levin says he is not sure what his next move will be, but whatever it is, it will have something to do with open source.


Taking this paragraph apart, there's room for sensing a lot of what we find in Microsoft's 'open source' endeavours.

"...proprietary software not being displaced by open source, but vendors being forced to evolve..."

"...increasingly opting for dual-license..."

"...beyond the LAMP stack..."

This has shades of Stephen Walli, but maybe we are being overly picky. By allowing certain individuals to gain influence, their former colleagues (who tend to be clannish) can use them to steer developers in particular directions. It's part of a very broad affinity charade [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6].

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Is Ubuntu Compromised? Push Away From GNU and GPL Led by Army Officers.
Perhaps people should ask Canonical what the thinking behind it was...
Phoronix Seems to be Trying to Kill Discussion About "Asahi Lina" and the Anti-Torvalds Brigade
Our informed guess is that by reporting this news Phoronix got caught up in flamewars that divide and fracture the community
Facts on the Case Already Disclosed by US Authorities
NGOs in the UK (several keep abreast of this, judging every recent move) are truly unimpressed
The Times Group (and The Times of India) Basically Died Again
This time a death by LLM slop/plagiarism
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 19, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, March 19, 2025
Debian Pregnancy Cluster, when I stopped using IRC
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Mass Layoffs at IBM Confirmed
Thousands believed to have been laid off
Slopwatch: linuxsecurity.com, cybersecuritynews.com, gbhackers.com, and techmonitor.ai (Fake 'Articles' About "Linux")
Almost all of them (75%) show up in Google News
Gemini Links 19/03/2025: go-gopherproxy and 'Small Web' as Self-expression
Links for the day
Links 19/03/2025: Attention's Cost and Media Still Besieged by Dictatorships
Links for the day
Claiming to Love What You Reject or Seek to Totally Own, Control
The Russia analogy is political
LinuxTechLab Became Just LLM Slop and SPAM
Another dead (former "Linux") site
The Rust Song
It's about control
The Death of The Economic Times (India Times): LLM Slop Presented as 'Articles', Containing Errors and Revisionism
They'd be better off shutting down operations with some dignity than resort to bots giving the false impression (illusion) of authorship
In Belgium, Android is Finally Measured as Bigger Than Windows
In Belgium, the lobbying capital of Microsoft, it wasn't easy to get there
"Rust People" Are a Threat to BSD Too (the Licence Isn't the Main Issue, Nor is the Proprietary Microsoft Hosting)
BSDs aren't written in Rust, so BSD developers should buckle up
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 18, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Sami Tikkanen Explains Rust Language and Its Goals
"Sompi" (the nickname of Sami Tikkanen) has weighed in
Links 19/03/2025: Gardening Season and the Web Without an Audience
Links for the day
Mauritius: Windows at All-Time Low, Down From 96% to 17%
Put in simple terms, people choose to connect from the "phone" (running Linux), not some laptop running Windows
Many IBM Layoffs Reported Today in Europe and North America
there's definitely a lot going on today
The GNU Manifesto is 40. Here's the Original Print (1985).
Some unpleasant people want to replace GNU with Microsoft-controlled (GitHub) Rust copycats
Unixmen Seems to Have Died After Turning Into a Slopfarm and Spamfarm, Is LinuxSecurity.com Next?
Better to not publish anything at all than to resort to fake garbage.
What Happened to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) Elections: More People Begin to Speak Out
Kuhn set another bonfire ablaze
Links 18/03/2025: ‘Meritless’ Defamation Suit Thrown Out, InterDigital Software Patents Headed for the Bin Too
Links for the day
These Strange Web Statistics From The Bahamas Show Windows Falling From 93% to Less Than 5%
There are about half a million there
Gemini Links 18/03/2025: Weather and Resisting "MAGA"
Links for the day
Links 18/03/2025: New Apple Blunders and Windows Disliked by Users
Links for the day
Once Again 'Losing Track' of Who the Clients Are, The Serial Harasser and Strangler from Microsoft
Timing is everything
2025 Rumours of IBM Layoffs in Marketing Likely True, Online Powwow Drops More Clues
Expect over 10,000 layoffs this year (at IBM alone)
Android (With Linux) Rises to Record Highs in Hong Kong and in Macao
Looking quite bad for Microsoft
Distractions. Distractions Everywhere.
distracting from the real solution
EPO Concerns About the Education and Childcare Allowance Reform (ECAR) and School Liaison Officer (SLO)
The public deserves to know as it impacts thousands of families
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 17, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, March 17, 2025