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From Advogato:

• "...But one thing is certain: the open-source community must try to break free from the current situation of constantly chasing Microsoft's tail. Right now, when Microsoft creates SMB, someone tries to clone SMB; when Microsoft creates .NET, someone tries to clone .NET; when Microsoft creates Word, someone tries to clone Word; and so on. This definitely won't do..."

It's simply time to acknowledge the reality of the situation, and go our own way.

F*ck Micro$oft; f*ck interoperability with Micro$oft; let Micro$oft and its ilk rot in hell, stewed in their own juices, which they most certainly will.

Two worlds, one the world of darkness, and one the world of light.

Guess which one is Micro$oft?

Which one will you join?

t_t_b

Go read the article. It's good. It's about human-language CLIs and readoing the GUI.

:-)

--

It seems from your account that your employer is not distributing your program: Behind closed doors, it can do with your program and their proprietary changes (including ones it pays you to make) whatever it wishes. You will not own those changes -- but they fall under the GPL, with obvious consequences if your employer distributes its version.

What happens beyond that depends entirely on whether you're working at a firm run by intelligent and enlightened management: Advised of the situation, management may well authorise release of its mods. Or, they may wish to negotiate a separate licence for the whole package. In your shoes, I'd certainly ask.

However, let me tell you what happens at a less-than-enlightened firm that fails to act in its own interest:

Deirdre Saoirse, Elise Shapiro, Nick Moffitt, and I once started a helpdesk-management project, coding it (in Python) in the evenings at The Linux Cabal in San Francisco. Deirdre did almost all of the work, but we made good progress, and it was starting to look like a realistic enterprise-level ticket-tracking system.

All three of us were then working at a VC-funded, supposedly open-source-oriented firm, which initially allowed and encouraged further development of our project during work hours, with a view to adopting it internally. But soon thereafter a new CIO was brought aboard, and Deirdre was suddenly told -- by a founder/board-member who ironically claims to be a spokeman for the open-source community -- that she was not an open-source developer, and would be subsequently forbidden to work on the project during work hours.

(Some USA employment contracts purport to assign to the company ownership of all work you do during your term of employment. I consider it highly likely that such terms violate basic copyright law and are inherently unenforceable. I suspect employers know this.)

All three of us subsequently left, and it's my understanding that the firm then spent tens of millions of dollars on a proprietary software project of the CIO's, and I have no idea whether they yet have a functional helpdesk system.

But, the good news is that our project's codebase still exists, remains free software, and may emerge at some point for general use. And the nice thing is that you can (and should!) leave buttheaded companies and take your open-source projects with you. So, that is your worst-case scenario.

-- Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

It seems from your account that your employer is not distributing your program: Behind closed doors, it can do with your program and their proprietary changes (including ones it pays you to make) whatever it wishes. You will not own those changes -- but they fall under the GPL, with obvious consequences if your employer distributes its version.

What happens beyond that depends entirely on whether you're working at a firm run by intelligent and enlightened management: Advised of the situation, management may well authorise release of its mods. Or, they may wish to negotiate a separate licence for the whole package. In your shoes, I'd certainly ask.

However, let me tell you what happens at a less-than-enlightened firm that fails to act in its own interest:

Deirdre Saoirse, Elise Shapiro, Nick Moffitt, and I once started a helpdesk-management project, coding it (in Python) in the evenings at The Linux Cabal in San Francisco. Deirdre did almost all of the work, but we made good progress, and it was starting to look like a realistic enterprise-level ticket-tracking system.

All three of us were then working at a VC-funded, supposedly open-source-oriented firm, which initially allowed and encouraged further development of our project during work hours, with a view to adopting it internally. But soon thereafter a new CIO was brought aboard, and Deirdre was suddenly told -- by a founder/board-member who ironically claims to be a spokeman for the open-source community -- that she was not an open-source developer, and would be subsequently forbidden to work on the project during work hours.

(Some USA employment contracts purport to assign to the company ownership of all work you do during your term of employment. I consider it highly likely that such terms violate basic copyright law and are inherently unenforceable. I suspect employers know this.)

All three of us subsequently left, and it's my understanding that the firm then spent tens of millions of dollars on a proprietary software project of the CIO's, and I have no idea whether they yet have a functional helpdesk system.

But, the good news is that our project's codebase still exists, remains free software, and may emerge at some point for general use. And the nice thing is that you can (and should!) leave buttheaded companies and take your open-source projects with you. So, that is your worst-case scenario.

-- Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com

It seems from your account that your employer is not distributing your program: Behind closed doors, it can do with your program and their proprietary changes (including ones it pays you to make) whatever it wishes. You will not own those changes -- but they fall under the GPL, with obvious consequences if your employer distributes its version.

What happens beyond that depends entirely on whether you're working at a firm run by intelligent and enlightened management: Advised of the situation, management may well authorise release of its mods. Or, they may wish to negotiate a separate licence for the whole package. In your shoes, I'd certainly ask.

However, let me tell you what happens at a less-than-enlightened firm that fails to act in its own interest:

Deirdre Saoirse, Elise Shapiro, Nick Moffitt, and I once started a helpdesk-management project, coding it (in Python) in the evenings at The Linux Cabal in San Francisco. Deirdre did almost all of the work, but we made good progress, and it was starting to look like a realistic enterprise-level ticket-tracking system.

All three of us were then working at a VC-funded, supposedly open-source-oriented firm, which initially allowed and encouraged further development of our project during work hours, with a view to adopting it internally. But soon thereafter a new CIO was brought aboard, and Deirdre was suddenly told -- by a founder/board-member who ironically claims to be a spokeman for the open-source community -- that she was not an open-source developer, and would be subsequently forbidden to work on the project during work hours.

(Some USA employment contracts purport to assign to the company ownership of all work you do during your term of employment. I consider it highly likely that such terms violate basic copyright law and are inherently unenforceable. I suspect employers know this.)

All three of us subsequently left, and it's my understanding that the firm then spent tens of millions of dollars on a proprietary software project of the CIO's, and I have no idea whether they yet have a functional helpdesk system.

But, the good news is that our project's codebase still exists, remains free software, and may emerge at some point for general use. And the nice thing is that you can (and should!) leave buttheaded companies and take your open-source projects with you. So, that is your worst-case scenario.

-- Rick Moen
rick@linuxmafia.com