Updegrove's Groklaw article [LWN.net]

Updegrove's Groklaw article

Posted Apr 14, 2011 13:00 UTC (Thu) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458)
In reply to: Updegrove's Groklaw article by FlorianMueller
Parent article: Groklaw shutting down in May

I, for one (as a follower of Groklaw from the very beginning) am convinced PJ is a person (by consistency of style, opinions, and knowledge on certain issues). Does it matter? No, what mattered is that she showed the evidence, and so in several cases I came to different conclusions that the "official party line".
See the above point: An avatar (even one created by the famed HBGary) won't be as consistent as she has shown over the years. No commitee of IBM lawyers (or others) will come out as forcefully for (or against) some points as she did.

Re the Turbo Hercules stuff: Here I do side with IBM. The system is licensed to use on real, IBM machines (yes, IBM did get burned way back with the clones by Amdahl and others of their big iron running IBM software); if they opt to look the other way if somebody installs a self-compiled copy of an emulator for fooling around as an alternative to doing it on the big iron in the neighboring datacenter, that certainly is their prerogative. But they certainly will not look the other way if somebody,as part of their business operations, asks for copies of the software for running on emulated machines and leaving IBM completely out of the deal. I just don't understand how somebody even imagined that such would fly (maybe being inmersed into technical stuff can make you blind to the wider implications of what you are doing); and even less that some (clearly otherwise intelligent) people who aren't directly involved bought into this ridiculous theory.

Plus I am fogetting my guideline of not feeding trolls...

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Updegrove's Groklaw article

Posted Apr 14, 2011 16:30 UTC (Thu) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]

>Re the Turbo Hercules stuff: Here I do side with IBM

Would you still say that if it were anyone but Florian defending them?
I'm confused as to how so many OSS people seem to think IBM are in the right and I can only assume it's because they hate the messenger.

When Apple did more-or-less the same thing they were being Bad; when Microsoft sold copies of Windows with a EULA saying you couldn't run it virtualised they were being Evil; when IBM sell copies of their OS with a EULA saying you can't run it on anything but their own expensive hardware, suddenly that's cool?

It's a blatant abuse of a monopoly position - far worse than bundling IE or WMP with Windows or rubbish like that, but for Groklaw IBM can do no wrong, and herds of people just copy and paste their opinions from there.

Updegrove's Groklaw article

Posted Apr 14, 2011 18:50 UTC (Thu) by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458) [Link]

I came to that conclusion after looking at the evidence shown in (suprise!) Groklaw's article which so inflamed Florian Mueller. At first reading, I thought IBM was being overly heavy-handed (which wouldn't have been surpsising to me, given part history); on further analysis I came to the conclusion that they were right. And then Mr. Mueller showed up and the whole discussion went down the drain (just like here).

Updegrove's Groklaw article

Posted Apr 14, 2011 18:55 UTC (Thu) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link]

I didn't show up in that Groklaw discussion on IBM. By making this completely false claim, you just show that you're not a serious participant in such discussions, @vonbrand, but willing to say anything just to defend Groklaw.

Updegrove's Groklaw article

Posted Apr 15, 2011 6:29 UTC (Fri) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

I find these FM threads generally very annoying, but I have to agree with the parent: The Turbo-Hercules/IBM case sounds like a potential abuse of a monopoly in one area (copyright on critical software) to tie down another, different area (the sale of hardware, real or virtual).