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• Microsoft, the most regressive force in IT
  Most of the world has bad habits of one sort of another. How is that fact any endorsement of the bad habits? Recall the ugly findings of fact--which withstood every appeal--about Microsoft from their anti-trust trial.
  
  Now, with Microsoft making so much noise about suing others over patents that will never be specified, any claims about how Microsoft benefits the world look not just groundless but ridiculous.
  
  Indeed, Moglen _understates_ what Microsoft is. They are no mere monopoly but were found to be an illegal one. It's no surprise at all to hear about, for example, the trouble that the EU has time and again with Microsoft. Crying over Microsoft sounds just like when certain Luddites cry over how great it was during the AT&T monopoly--ridiculous.

  May 23, 2007

  0 replies

• Designed for freedom
  The GPL has always been about freedom*. Even if you are unconvinced about this freedom, it is easy enough to at least learn what the specific four freedoms are:
  http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
  
  The GPL3 simply tries to restore some of the protection for these freedoms that have been lost from attacks on the GPL2. The GPL3 will be the license of choice for all of those who want the most effective means of promoting those freedoms.
  
  Naturally, anyone promoting nonfree software will be skeptical, and given the huge investment in that legacy business model, it is not surprising to see all manner of attempts to disparage the GPL3. That Microsoft leads the disparagement tells prospective free software developers all they need to want to learn more about what the GPL3 can do for them.
  
  (*): "Leveling the monopolist" is not quite a motive; it's a side effect. More generally, spreading freedom tends to threaten illegitimate power built from ill-gotten gain, e.g., Microsoft.

  May 23, 2007

  0 replies

• Article is silly, insulting and self-serving
  This article asserts that many "open source" developers do not understand the software business. This suggests that they may not know how to innovate or how "customers win".
  
  If this claim had any validity, open source would never have taken off in just a few years to the point that the monopolist Microsoft would feel the need to "reach out" to it. After all, Microsoft is doing this for _their_ bottom line. The claim is not just nonsense, it also allows the author to praise a deal that has divided the "open source" community.(1)
  
  The self-serving part of the nonsensical claim is that the MS/Novell "partnership" inevitably opposes the new version v3 of an essential software license, the GPL. GPLv3 is not _inherently_ bad for the author's business, but the author is anti-GPL enough so as to agree with the poison(2) dispensed by Daniel Lyons(3). (Learn more about Lyons to find out about corporate anti-Linux spin-doctoring to ridiculous proportions.) Why couldn't the author just lay his anti-GPLv3 card on the table in this article? The answer is then he would not be able to so easily gush about how "customers win", etc.
  
  (1) http://techp.org/petition/show/1
  
  (2) http://floatingpoint.wordpress.com/2006/10/16/an-open-source-ceo-on-the-gplv3/
  
  (3) http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/174

  December 4, 2006

  0 replies

• Re: Profit margin!
  MSFT extracts monopoly rents to get its profit. RHAT, on the other hand, survives in a cut-throat market where the software it sells can be easily and legally be copied and distributed by competitors. RHAT is far more *service-oriented*, which is where the future for software is. You are comparing apples and oranges.
  
  MSFT tries to keep its customers locked-in to its proprietary tarpits. It's very telling that some of the heaviest users of IT---wall street brokerages---are thriving (look at their profits!) with open standards, i.e., away from MSFT tarpits.

  June 22, 2006

  1 reply

• Re: Missing the point
  The analyst warns that there is no business case for an upgrade. Is there a business case hiding somewhere in your comment? Who is really missing the point here?

  June 22, 2006

  0 replies

• Article is tainted by Microsoft monopoly.
  A web search shows the following on the background of the critic's organization:
  
  "Computer Aid is a Microsoft-certified refurbisher"
  
  We already know that Gates has heavily criticized the project while conveniently overlooking Microsoft's own failures in the past.
  
  The real problem is not Computer Aid, which is likely obligated to Microsoft, but Microsoft itself, with its attempts to sabotage efforts that do not fall in line with the monopoly.

  June 20, 2006

  1 reply