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A political advertisement

Posted Nov 21, 2003 18:37 UTC (Fri) by rickfdd (guest, #4519)
Parent article: A new source of anti-GPL FUD

Maybe if we talk this up a little, the article will google-rank pretty high for Wolf Greenfield. The release is an embarrasment of poor law I would not want to be associated with. Unfortunately, Laurent had it right, the release was a political statement to advertise their intended pro-big-wealthy-business stance. Hopefully, they got that wrong too, and increasingly more businesses will do business with the GPL, because it is good business.

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Posted Nov 21, 2003 20:32 UTC (Fri) by euvitudo (guest, #98) [Link]

The problem I see with this is that the more "business opportunities" that open up for lawyers, the harder it is going to become to convice businesses to use GPL software. If lawyers can convince businesses who hold some kind of grudge against the GPL (and other OS licenses), to file suit against GPL authors and other supporters, then more businesses will become fearful of adoption, because they don't wish to be needlessly and frivolously sued.

It would not surprise me if it was Boies and "company" that whispered in SCOG's ears that they may (howbeit even remotely) have a case against IBM. Why could this scenario not be the case? Lawyers thrive off of high-stakes complaints, do they not? We all know that whether the plaintiff or defendant "wins" or "loses", the lawyer always wins. Do they not?

So, if we tally the opposition that has surfaced during the past few years, a short list is: Microsoft with their FUD campaign--which appears to NOT be working, the press with their lack of responsibility in objective reporting (or the influence of their under-the-table support?), and now lawyers with their expertise with the manipulation of words (and so-called proprietary source code, may I add?) to their own wallet's benefit. Each day I read the news, it is more obvious to me that we, the lumpin' proletariat, are threatening the source of the uber-wealthy corporate overlordship of big business. They are reacting in this manner, as indicated by their unwillingness to co-exist.

I say what we have going on is a techno-revolution. There are a lot of people, with a lot of money and other financial interests, against us, and it is becoming more apparent. Hmm... this sounds very familiar to me...

Cheers!

A political advertisement

Posted Nov 23, 2003 9:40 UTC (Sun) by fLameDogg (guest, #11305) [Link]

They do when they have a guarantee in writing, like SCOX's lawyers do. Which is why, if some shyster sidled up to me as in your hypothetical case and whispered, "You have a case against X. Let me represent you, and we'll win", I would say, "Okay. And since you're so certain, I'm sure you'll be happy to represent me on a contingent-fee basis".

My guess is that someone else, not Boies, cooked up the lawsuit. I'm not so sure the GPL, et al, was even on his radar screen beforehand--I could be wrong. I think the money his firm is guaranteed constitutes a good sign--if the suit appeared to be a slam-dunk, they might be willing to risk more.

I also don't think the evildoers in SCOland are in much danger of coming away empty-handed, whatever happens at law. Whatever they're up to, it may be shot full of absurdity (and so it is), but I fully believe all the players expect to gain--at the expense of stockholders, their employees, maybe IBM, and possibly FLOSS distributors or the FLOSS community at large.

I can only hope that everyone involved gets a big, karmic dose of exactly what they deserve. I'm not holding my breath, though.

A political advertisement

Posted Nov 21, 2003 20:53 UTC (Fri) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

"and increasingly more businesses will do business with the GPL, because it is good business."

And a different kind of business too, of which Linux Distros seems obvious candidates,... Who would mind having its own tayler maide distro ?

http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_11/munoz/index.html

A political advertisement

Posted Nov 23, 2003 2:04 UTC (Sun) by XERC (guest, #14626) [Link]

I think, that in case of serious IT projects, special distros are part of the whole system. For instance, a kiosk installer, which has only all the nessesary, CLIENT SPECIFIC software configured and set up, not to mention, special distros are pretty common "inhouse". I guess that some web-related(wall, Storage_A.Network stuff, mail, etc) distros are grown out of inhouse special distros. So, it's good and relaxing fact for us.