On Tuesday 14 November 2006 15:25, Boyd Lynn Gerber wrote: > I am a bit a shamed at the way the OSS community is/has been acting.
I'm not sure its your place to be ashamed of the community. The community is looking out for itself and the GPL > The sad point is what has happend to thought, understanding and truth. > Are we all just lemings rushing to the cliff? This is the real world. > Nothing is truely free. Someone has to pay for the Net, the server, the > equipment, Hardware, electricity, food, ... Do you grow/hunt/provide > everything for your self? Maybe you make/made everything, design of your > system, your mother board your case,,.. even the batteries for your solar > power system that provides the power you use. So you did not pay anything > to any one. I really doubt it. We all rely on someone or something and > we pay for it. So we have to let Novell make money to pay the OSS workers > they have. If not I really doubt that all this would be done for free and > gratis. OSS is a great way of doing things, but someone some where pays > for our privliges. It not where would we be. An excellent flow of consciousness rant. But not particularly on point. Nobody objects to Novell getting money from Microsoft, and nobody cares about Novell giving money to Microsoft except for the rabid few who would Nuke Redmond if they thought they could get away with it. What people DO care about is the GPL and a few notable folks in the FOSS community think this agreement is not in compliance with or designed to undermine the GPL and FOSS in general. Novells promise of money to Microsoft based on the SALES OF FOSS software, while at the same time declaring that there is no infringements in Suse is confusing at best, disingenuous, and possibly in direct violation of the GPL. Failure to come forth Publicly with the details at least to the extent they concern community property is unsettling. This problem is one of Novell's own making. Not something unfairly dumped upon them (like Oracle's usurpation of Red Hat). That's what the debate is about. Not making money. Until these issues are settled openly and publicly you can expect a certain amount of discontent. -- _____________________________________ John Andersen
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