On Saturday 04 March 2006 22:06, Zane Gilmore wrote: > I have just got back from the GOVIS Open Source seminar. > http://www.govis.org.nz/oss2006/oss2006.htm > There were a lot of government IT managers there. > > One of the speakers was the author of this paper. > At the time I had just spent the last day and night cut off from the > internet and had not heard what was going down. > Just before the seminar at the venue I was getting a coffee and got > chatting to the guy who wrote said document and when he heard I was one > of the OSS errrm cadre he started to act very defensive about his > document. > > It turns out that he has discovered what the consequences of raising the > displeasure of the OSS community. Apparently he had over 300 emails in > his inbox. > (I would think that a few of them would be a bit eeerrm flamey :-) ) > > He has been accused of being a MS flunkey on Slashdot,Groklaw and even > in parliament. Judging by his linguistic output he must either be that, or simply not bright enough to realise that his inflammatory turn of phrase would have the effect if did. Perhaps both. The IBM FLOSS fellow, who's name I cannot recall at the moment, told me at Linux.conf.au, that MS has appointed a propagandist on a six figure salary who's remit is "To prevent Linux getting a hold in NZ".
Is this person the one? No matter, with reference to the GOVIS Seminar, it looks to me as if they have missed their shipping connection. Anybody holding MS shares would be well advised to dump them asap. Had he carefully explained the concepts behind the GPL without using the 'viral' word and ones like it, he might have done the communities of government IT manages and FLOSS developers a favour, instead he went on what might be gently called an excessively intemperate rant and achieved the exact reverse of what he, I presume, intended. I wonder if he realised that he would stir up a flame-fest of Krakatoa proportions. Unless of course what he really wanted to do was to prod the FLOSS community to explain in detail what it is ruled by. > At this talk he went to extreme lengths to ensure his audience that he > was not anti-OSS and when I considered his demeanour later he seemed > beaten. Poor sod. > I felt sorry for him. FWIW I don't think that any of the "big boys" at > that seminar (ACC, IRD etc) were swayed by any of the talk of > "infection" as most of them don't distribute software so it doesn't > apply. However I did challenge him on his recommendation to completely > dismiss OSS if in doubt. He did concede the point that BSD style > licences should be OK. > > I think that his implication that OSS use exposes an organisation to > extra fault risk is dodgey though and I regret that I hadn't read ./ > before going to the seminar. Groklaw was far more informative. > Steve Holdoway wrote: > > This piece was brought to my attention by /. this morning. What it's a > > piece of, I'm not too sure. IMO Chapmann Tripp should be shot for > > using such inflammatory language, but I suppose that without any > > licenses to write, they'd be going out of business. Altruism isn't a > > word they understand in this context, I take it. > > > > Some of the highlights: > > > > "Understanding the Infectious Effects of Open Source Licences" - so > > they're all bad for you then? > > > > "64 As its standard position, all Development Agreements should > > prohibit the use of any open source code in the supplied software." - > > so how are we going to develop ( eclipse ), compile ( gcc ), publish ( > > apache )... it then? > > > > It's put me off my morning coffee, that's for sure. > > > > http://www.e.govt.nz/policy/open-source/open-source-legal > > > > > > Steve. -- CS
