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____/ nessuno@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on Friday 23 May 2008 01:20 : \____
> <Quote>
> The sudden moves by Redmond point out two hard facts:
>
> 1. It’s not nice to fool Mother Europe.
> 2. If Microsoft says you’ve got five fingers on each hand, many
> people will insist on an independent count.
>
> In my view the second problem is bigger than the first. Credibility
> may not mean much in the proprietary universe, where money counts for
> everything and truth is a commodity.
>
> In the open source world, political values like credibility are real.
> Microsoft has only just begun to recognize this.
> </Quote>
>
> http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=2462
The EU regulators will hopefully take a look at what PJ had to say...
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20080522012330406
"Once again, the problem is software patents. Internet News indicates that
commercial Linux/FOSS vendors, and the GPL license that Linux comes with, will
be excluded..."
[...]
"GPL developers can't obtain patent licenses. That would violate the terms of
the GPL. Period.
"Like Microsoft doesn't know that.
"But, you say, Linux is GPL'd and that's Microsoft's primary competition. Can
it be that commercial vendors and the GPL will be exiled again from the "even"
playing field everyone else gets to be on? Why yes. It appears so. Commercial
Linux vendors need not apply. Or they can sell out.
"In short, I think Microsoft has no intention of interoperability with its
actual competition, namely commercial Linux, like Red Hat and Ubuntu, et al,
all the vendors who refuse to sell out to their patent demands. I'd say it has
to be deliberate on Microsoft's part, because when Microsoft offered its Open
Specification Promise (OSP), the promise not to sue over OOXML, sorta, kinda,
it was clearly informed by the Software Freedom Law Center that the OSP's
terms are inconsistent with the GPL and that the promise provides no assurance
for FOSS developers. And Microsoft is certainly knowledgeable about the
problems with RAND terms for FOSS. But they persist in offering what they know
commercial GPL developers can't accept."
[...]
"Please note that they too expressed dreams of maintaining ODF, not just OOXML,
and making the two "interoperable". So, now Microsoft says it will join OASIS
and "help" ODF and it hopes ODF will go to the same folks who mangled OOXML.
"Does that sound helpful?
"I wish they were sincere. I'd love to be proven wrong. But I'm afraid, having
watched Microsoft shove OOXML through the Fast Track process, despite it not
even being usable, that ODF will be harmonized out of meaningful existence. I
suspect that is the plan. And so to me, the announcement of "support" for ODF
sounds like it could just be the next chess move in Microsoft's strategy to
maintain its heavy footprint."
- --
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | Windows is 'intuitive': go to 'Start' to finish
session
http://Schestowitz.com | GNU is Not UNIX | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
http://iuron.com - proposing a non-profit search engine
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