Comments on: Microsoft seemingly steals code via Anti-trust style plot

By: sandylaphon

sandylaphon — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:50:43 +0000

Tristan Nitot, President of Mozilla Europe, makes some interesting points in a recent story in SkyNews:

They take for granted that the freedom they enjoy is forever. I don’t think it is like that. The internet is full of promise but the future is not bright unless we make sure it is.

This rings true for me, and I think it is a point oft-missed by critics of Free Software. There seems to be some line of thinking – especially among the anti-Free Software crowd that it is “Mission Accomplished” and is now time for everyone to gather hands round the campfire and sing Kumbaya.

This is usually couched in terms of “either way is a win for the consumer” or similar nonsense – as if all ends are equally desirable.

I don’t get this thinking. FLOSS has made incredible gains thanks to core principles – gains made despite one of the world’s largest corporations best and slimiest attempts to retard progress – but somehow, now that FLOSS is enjoying real commercial and philosophical success it is time to discard those principles?

Freedom, including Software Freedom, is not forever and requires constant effort.

By: sandylaphon

sandylaphon — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:44:21 +0000

You can always, always count on Dildo Dave to support MS and any and all corporate actions against Free Software. His entire job is to market linux away from free software and back into proprietary control. this is what ACCESS pays David to do, he is attached to their Marketing dept. He is a paid corporate troll and astroturfer. This is the new face of PR and Marketing, troll down and shout out the opposition, harass them if need be. This is how they are rebranding Free Software into mere ‘open source’, which is controllable and containable. They change the definitions, just by shouting long enough. This is how American politics works. and the identical principles of Black Marketing and Karl Rove style dirty tricks are just how business is done. It is literally Orwellian marketing, contaminating and degrading the language itself if need be to get their way.

By: admin

admin — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 22:05:49 +0000

Seems like Brad Kuhn doesn’t think there’s sufficient evidence for you to be making the claim you, Roy and Rafael are making here.

When there is sufficient evidence that proves otherwise i’ll post an update.

By: Eruaran

Eruaran — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:19:48 +0000

I sat here reading that and not even the smallest tremor of surprise rippled through me at all.

By: Microsoft Found to be a GPL Violator, Again? | Boycott Novell

Microsoft Found to be a GPL Violator, Again? | Boycott Novell — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:28:01 +0000

[...] gets caught lifting GPL-licensed source code from its anti-GPL site and onto Vista 7, assuming the allegations out there are true. While poking through the UDF-related internals of the Windows 7 USB/DVD [...]