What is Florian's strategy?

Posted Oct 5, 2010 2:05 UTC (Tue) by hozelda (guest, #19341)
In reply to: What is Florian's strategy? by FlorianMueller
Parent article: Microsoft sues Motorola, citing Android patent infringement (ars technica)

I remember at least looking up their product on their website and having them tout it as having Windows integration. I can't remember if the letters themselves stated explicitly of the Windows connection. I brought this up at the time and I didn't get anyone to disagree (which could have been for various reasons), and a few people also picked up on that.

BTW, I followed a link I think may have been the one I mentioned (describing Microsoft integration) http://www.turbohercules.com/solutions/turnkey_product/ and as you can see, it is a page with the main contents removed. If I have a copy of it from before I would have to dig for it (and it probably won't be for this thread).

What is Florian's strategy?

Posted Oct 5, 2010 4:19 UTC (Tue) by FlorianMueller (guest, #32048) [Link] (1 responses)

I remember at least looking up their product on their website and having them tout it as having Windows integration.

There's no "Windows integration" going beyond the fact that the emulator, originally developed for Linux, is available for Windows. So what's wrong with that? Are you basically saying that free and open source software can be attacked in any way just because there's a Windows version? How about Apache, MySQL, Firefox etc.? Are they fair game because there are Windows versions? Or do you mean to say their Windows versions are fair game for any kind of attack (or for a denial of what antitrust law requires)?

I can't remember if the letters themselves stated explicitly of the Windows connection.

You could have easily googled those letters. At any rate, here's a link and there's no mention of Windows.

What is Florian's strategy?

Posted Oct 5, 2010 14:43 UTC (Tue) by hozelda (guest, #19341) [Link]

Well, as for Windows integration, I was stating what I remember reading. I am not the webmaster or author of the TurboHercules com website, so I can't say why they would have said (iirc) that they had good integration with Windows. [Recollecting, I don't know if they used that word "integration"] In particular, with or without "integration" the product mentioned by name appeared to be one they shipped with a Windows environment. The integration stands out because otherwise they likely would have felt no need to have picked Windows.

Yes, I could have googled and didn't. I wanted to mention the TH thing, but that event is in the past and was mostly off topic. Since their page appears to have changed, it's not too useful to me right now to go further into it (I'm not a fan of IBM's patent policy, though it does appear to be friendlier to Linux today (and IBM does leverage the Linux community much more than does Microsoft, so that much would make sense).

The most I can say for IBM in terms of excuse is that they repeated their pledge (for what it's worth, since obviously they have many more patents off the pledge and which obviously might apply). I do know that the groklaw articles had mentioned there might have been some inconsistency in who had taken what action by what point in time and that the letters might not have shown the whole picture. In any case, we all gain in these respects without sw pats.

My personal view is that I care about open source being safe and do not worry about closed source. This means I would be happy if open source was safe regardless of the closed source situation (open source provides all the blueprints and this is very developer/end-user/progress friendly, especially in the long run); however, I can understand the closed source folks also feeling frustrated with sw pats.

Specific to Microsoft, they are a monopolist of an important segment (desktop OS) and very ambitious (they would easily take over google's market share and then some if given the opportunity). I don't support that. I don't port to Windows. I want the high-value FOSS products to exist on open platforms, preferably exclusively. On proprietary platforms, FOSS apps are completely dependent on the underlying OS so are not FOSS as a piece of software actually running on the system. When Microsoft leaves their position in the market clearly, I won't be so negative, at least not towards them with bias.

I would like Google to spread Linux, but I personally am not interested in their OS product and would recommend people switch off it as Google adds proprietary components and lock-in (ie, in the future).