Why not refuse indirectly?

Posted Apr 7, 2010 8:37 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333)
In reply to: Why not refuse indirectly? by rvfh
Parent article: IBM and the labors of TurboHercules

Yes... Apparently IBM has not threatened them or anything after all.

To paraphrase:

TurboHercules: We want you to license your proprietary software to run on our software so we can take your customers using your proprietary software.

IBM: Ahh.... No.

TurboHercules: *Files a complaint with EU*

TurboHercules: What exactly do you have that prevents our customers from running your software on our software?

IBM: *sends short cover letter + patent list*

TurboHercules (to everybody): Help! Help! I'm being oppressed! *posts letter to internet*

-----------------

So it's not so much IBM threatening a open source project as much as IBM sending a implied threat to a company that wants to use IBM's software in violation of IBM's licensing.

Still sucks. But that's normal for proprietary software. Which is why people should not get locked into the stuff in the first place (hind site being 20:20 and all that)

I don't trust IBM, as nobody here should trust them either, except I can trust them to continue to support Linux because Linux is now making them money and their customers are using Linux (and open source software) and are paying for IBM's services.

Threatening and pissing off your own customers is not only bad form, but pretty stupid. Combining that with threatening and pissing off the people that write the software you make money from is just straight stupid no matter how you look at it. IBM is not that stupid.

You missed the proprietary word

Posted Apr 7, 2010 14:40 UTC (Wed) by southey (guest, #9466) [Link] (1 responses)

It should say:
TurboHercules: We want you to license your proprietary software to run on our proprietary software so we can take your customers using your proprietary software.

IBM does not currently violate it's agreement since this involves proprietary software involved not open source software.

You missed the proprietary word

Posted Apr 7, 2010 19:46 UTC (Wed) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link]

So this is something I haven't seen addressed, and didn't find out myself after 1 minute of searching: Is the software sold by Turbo Hercules 100% the open source thing, or is it an open core model where they add proprietary enhancements to the open source code?