From: "Robert Levin" <levin@openprojects.net>
Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 14:12:41 -0500 (CDT)
To: Linux Weekly News <lwn@lwn.net>, Ian Nandhra <ian@nc-labs.com>
Subject: Ian's editorial

To Whom, etc.:

In regards to the recent editorial on Linux Weekly News---for me, this is
the most telling point:

8.   We now have the right to call our code "ACME Linux RH51" and pay a
     licence fee to TOG each time the product is sold under the UNIX name.
     Any changes to the RH51 tree would have to be re-tested and re-Branded.
     ONLY ACME can use the UNIX Brand Name and only with the RH51 binaries
     that ACME Branded. In simple terms, Red Hat Inc. would have to brand
     separately from ACME.

First, Linux is not being certified here.  RH 5.1 is also not being
certified.  ACME is gaining the advantages of certification.  This is good
for ACME and I urge all of the ACME's out there to go for it.  But in doing
so they are pursuing an agenda whose aims are peripheral (at best) to those
of the open source / free software community.

Second, it does the Linux community as a whole no good whatsoever to have
royalties paid to TOG for every copy of ACME Linux sold.  The development
process for Linux is an open one, and Linux to date has not needed TOG
certification to make its continuing impressive gains in installed base. 
Nor does money sent to TOG further any goals I can think of in connection
with Linux development.  I should further note that, assuming the POSIX(tm)
certification process works the same as Unix98(tm) certification, the
overwhelming number of copies of Linux in use in the world today are not
POSIX-certified.  They are POSIX-compliant, but that's a much weaker thing.
People who want to use a POSIX-certified operating system are probably not
going to be too excited about running Linux (unless they buy the one
POSIX-certified distribution from a single vendor).

Third, this does a lot more for The Open Group(tm) than it does for Linux. 
Unix sales are flat, and are likely to get flatter.  Linux sales are
climbing.  Why should we hitch our wagon to a falling star?  (Apologies if
that obvious metaphor has been used previously in this discussion.)

Anyway, it's certainly interesting to see the old-style "open" standards
process in operation, but I'm unclear that there is an advantage for the
Linux community in participating.

Sincerely,


Robert Levin
Head of Ops, Open Projects Net

"Open Source, Open Technology, Open Information"