[LUAU] Did Microsoft give up?

[Jim Thompson]

On Feb 29, 2008, at 3:32 PM, R. Scott Belford wrote:

> Jim Thompson wrote:
>> On Feb 29, 2008, at 1:46 PM, Clifton Royston wrote:
>>> Sure, it's a new verse to the tune of that old song "Embrace and  
>>> extend."
>> I always thought the song was titled, "Embrace, extend and  
>> extinguish", but perhaps thats just how the chorus goes.
>
> The funniest thing was watching CNBC last week and hearing the most  
> candid comment from someone completely uninitiated to FOSS.  The  
> reporter who had been in the press briefing and had a follow up  
> interview commented, "If I had a dollar every time he said open or  
> community."

true dat.

Note that they're not saying "Free Software".    MSFT intents to usurp  
"Open Source" by assimilation.

It doesn't help when members of OSI's board decide that licenses that  
grant freedom to USERS are unimportant, because its about the (wait  
for it...) community.

Quoting Russell Nelson @ <http://www.opensource.org/node/243>:

> I'm starting to think that the dynamics of Open Source production  
> are such that user licenses are crap. Yes, I'm saying that  
> everything that we've put into licenses, all the thought, all the  
> drama, all the durm-und-strang, is wasted. You might wonder why.
>
> Why, indeed. Consider that all Open Source licenses are a unilateral  
> grant of privilege. That doesn't reflect the reality of the  
> situation. Yes, somebody can take a code drop, but the advantage of  
> Open Source doesn't exist without community. The value is not in the  
> static code, the value is in the relationships between people. Free  
> Software has never been about freedom (pace RMS). It's been about  
> the community formed around software that is open for community  
> contributions and use.
>
> So, it turns out that the part of licensing to which we have paid  
> short shrift, contributor licensing, is the most important. It  
> doesn't really matter what rights the users of the software gets. It  
> matters, instead, what the contributor grants to the project. The  
> relationship between the user and the project is a matter of  
> necessity. If a user gives up that relationship, they lose, so  
> there's no need to control that relationship.
> Anybody else with me on this? Or am I talkin smack?

See also: <http://www.opensource.org/node/209>, <http://www.opensource.org/node/194 
 >

IMO, OSI (or at least Nelson) is Microsoft's puppet.