[LUAU] the term "open source" is dead, says Eben Moglen

[Dave Burns]

>
> Course, one needs only to look at the Microsoft - Novell deal to see
> just how bad that is.
>
> "Open Source" is dead.  Microsoft co-opted it for its own use.
> Film at 11.



This is all too metaphorical for me, I don't understand what people think is
going on. I am not sure what it would mean for "open source" to be dead or
why I should even care.

After way more googling than ought to be necessary (due to everyone's desire
to  say "Oh my God! The horror! The Horror!" instead of discussing any facts
or tactics or actual implications), I suspect (no one actually said this
that I could find) that people are upset that MS may try to attack samba and
or captive ntfs or some other project that reverse engineers some MS code to
exist. The linux kernel is mentioned in the context of the idea that MS may
somehow be able to attack that for some patent violation.

I'm not a lawyer and unfamiliar with the particulars, so I don't know
whether this is just FUD or not, though I suspect if MS had a legal leg to
stand on (or even a belly to flop on) they'd have been suing people years
ago. They like lawsuits. Losing doesn't particularly bother them. If they
had anything to gain by suing, we'd be discussing the lawsuits instead of
the possibility of lawsuits. Apparently the best they can do is to allude
darkly to the possibility of lawsuits and practice their evil laughs.

So I guess I am supposed to be upset that Novell has knuckled under to the
FUD (or been paid off) and and I should worry that that will somehow lead to
all the other major distros hopping in bed with MS or getting sued or just
FUDed into irrelevance aqnd Novell being crowned the only real linux and
totally assimilated into MS and MS gets to charge everyone for using linux
(SUSE) and gets to lord it over the ruins of the open source world just like
they do with the windows world. I just don't see it happening. Maybe I am
not paranoid enough - sure MS would like to try to get a handle on stuff
that reverse engineered their code, they'd love to FUD linux into
irrelevance by suing a bunch of people over patents (even frivolous
lawsuits), but how does this Novell deal help them? People will all flock to
Novell instead of IBM?

And what all this has to do with "open source" being dead or why I should
even care totally escapes me. I guess I have always seen open source as a
fuzzy term, and depended on the actual license on a piece of software to be
not fuzzy.


I am curious what other people think MS will do as a result of this deal. I
am not very interested in vague metaphors. What has Novell given MS that
they did not have before?


Mahalo,
Dave