The Real Price of Linux Software (law.com)

The article recommends that you make sure you know what OSS you are using, and understand the licenses, especially if you are redistributing it. It also recommends doing some diligence before distributing modifications.

To me, the meat of the article is actually aimed at elminating confusion that might result in problems like Linksys had. Linksys clearly hadn't done their homework enough to understand that Broadcom was asking them to distribute OSS, and implicitly agree to GPL licenses in the process. I think we all agree that the outcome was a good one, but I'm sure it was painful for Linksys/Cisco. They undoubtedly benefitted both from having a feature-complete product more-or-less handed to them, and later from the development of an active community of firmware hackers.

It's *very* unfortunate that the title and introduction to this article are so misleading and poorly informed. I wonder if they thought no one would read their suggestions without an eye-catching intro, complete with threats of litigation and massive liabilities (all of which are unfounded).

--kirby

For his guests, he chose Nathan Torkington, you know, the Perl guy.

And, , ,

Johnathan Zuck.

Name rang a bell, or rather, a buzzer. I was listening to the
evening re-broadcast, and this guy Zuck said some very interesting
and -to my ears- well trained, things concerning open source.

In fact, a lot of what he said was very contrary to what little
good press OSS receives, and some of it was downright disengenious.

When they went to the phones, a suprising number of folks tried to
call Mr Zuck on his posture, but he held true, and few even hinted
that he was little more than a Pro-Microsoft Shill. Kojo even asked
him to comment on that, and it was all passed off with a laugh.

Mr Torkington challenged Mr Zuck on a number of technical points,
but it was a polite exchange. (which is always good) Yet Mr Torkington
brought no meat to the table.

Next day, I spent all of 15 seconds on Google, turning info that
Mr Zuck is in *fact* a Pro-Microsoft Shill, his organization of
which he is the president is none other than the Association for
Competitive Technology, which many have said over the years is
nothing more than a microsoft PR firm.

I emailed Kojo and NPR concerning why they would choose an openly
anti-open source "source" like Mr. Zuck to be a guest "expert"
on a show about Open Source. Remember, the point of the show was
not to argue the benefits/pitfalls of OSS, but rather to explain
OSS to the "masses".

I also emailed Mr. Torkington as to his take on this.

I've not received any replies.

Both of my emails were non-confrontational, and professionally
worded.

Me thinks something is rotten here, perhaps.

PRI, NPR and such receive large funding from Microsoft and the
Bill and Melida Gates Foundation.

----

Just interesting, that's all.

PS,
for those of you who buy into the horror of RealPlayer, you can
listen to the show from this link:
http://www.wamu.org/programs/kn/05/01/25.php

Come on- what did anyone expect they'd write about- the cleverness of the kernel scheduling algorithm?

Look, these guys are probably writing about a non-issue. Then again, anything is possible in the American legal system, especially when you have too many highly motivated lawyers running around trying to find creative ways to make a buck.

One further point to consider: You've heard the saying "when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail"? Well, I propose the corollary that when all you have is a law degree, every issue looks like potential litigation.

Carry on.

What about closed source? I can't check the Windows XP source.

> the lack of warranties

Interesting. Most commercial software disclaims warranties as well.