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Stories and comments across the archive that link to businessreviewonline.com.

Comments · 14

  1. Judge Tinder indirectly helped by SCO FUD by KWTm · · Score: 1 · on Microsoft's Code Contribution Due To GPL Violation

    Everyone has had to respect the GPL because it has already been held up in court as far back as germany in 2004 and redhat in 2006.

    Thank you for those links. The one to Red Hat leads to: http://www.businessreviewonline.com/os/archives/2006/03/gpl_gets_court.html which pointed to http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/WallaceFSFGrantingDismiss.pdf, in which Judge Daniel Tinder affirmed the validity of the GPL against Daniel Wallace's claim that it was anti-competitive.

    In doing so, his decision referenced Jason B. Wacha, Taking the Case: Is the GPL Enforceable, an article in SANTA CLARA COMPUTER & HIGH TECH. L.J. [Vol. 21] by the VP and Head Lawyer of MonteVista software. I found that article via Google; it's a step-by-step clear and concise rebuttal of 10 common claims against the GPL's validity. Mr. Wacha references the SCO vs Linux case several times.

    By essentially launching a lawsuit against Linux, SCO has mobilized enough of the F/OSS community and legal IT community that enough literature was generated to be acknowledged by a US Federal Judge and to firm up the GPL's defenses and establish its validity. Thanks, SCO! It's nice to see Microsoft dollars make a real contribution to improving our world!

  2. Re:That means all that's left is to build a framew by LizardKing · · Score: 1 · on Plug-In Architecture On the Way For GCC

    And to reply to my own comment ... the grandparent poster may want to read this article which reports on a study showing Sun has contributed more than three times as much code to open source projects than IBM, and is the leading commercial entity to have done so (way more than RedHat for instance).

  3. Re:PR problem for Sun... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Sun Spokesman Says "We Screwed Up On Open Source"

    GPL is a great license in theory but it hasn't been tested in court oh no, the gpl has never been tested in court, at all.
  4. Re:this might be a small part of it by Curlsman · · Score: 4, Informative · on Non-Compete Pacts Called Bad For Tech Innovation

    But DEC then sued MS:
    http://www.businessreviewonline.com/blog/archives/2005/10/index.html

    "Microsoft hired Cutler, who immediately started work on what would become Windows NT. DEC sued because it believed Cutler had put Mica or even VMS code in NT, and Microsoft eventually paid up $150m. As part of the settlement Microsoft agreed that Windows NT and its BackOffice applications would offer support for DEC's Alpha processor, which is why DEC Alpha was the only RISC chip that supported both Digital's version of Unix and Windows NT - quite a coup for DEC."

    And
    http://www.vanwensveen.nl/rants/microsoft/IhateMS_1.html

    "As a result, many design principles found in the VMS kernel ended up in Windows NT. (The number and splitting of priority levels in the scheduler, the use of demand-paged virtual memory and the layered driver model are only a few examples of many, many similarities.) The first version of VMS was released in 1977. Without trivializing the efforts of Cutler and his team (they did a lot of work on the project) one has to wonder what Microsoft really means with "New Technology". To illustrate, in a little known out-of-court settlement Microsoft paid DEC $150 million in compensation for using portions of old Digital OS code in Windows NT."

  5. Re:Now change the ZFS license SUN by njcoder · · Score: 1 · on MySQL Reverses Decision On Closed Source
    I disagree and I'll leave it at that. Except to say that it would have made more sense for Novell to claim that SCO is not entitled to collect that money rather than SCO owes them the 95%.

    Anyway, according to Schwartz in a 2003 interview he said:

    eWEEK: Some critics are saying that its not just Microsoft funding SCO but also Sun, citing the fact that you acquired another license from them recently, received warrants to buy shares in SCO and are losing the most customers in the migration from Unix to Linux. It thus makes enormous sense for Sun to fund SCO, their logic goes. How do you respond to that?

    Schwartz:We took a license from AT&T initially for $100 million as we didnt own the IP. The license we took also made clear that we had rights equivalent to ownership. When we did the deal with SCO earlier this year we bought a bunch of drivers and when we give money to a company oftentimes we get warrants, which is part of the negotiations. I have warrants in 100 different companies, we have a huge venture portfolio. I cant do anything about the perception thats out there and to be blunt, I dont care as those people arent going to drive our futureâ"customers are. Which makes sense considering Sun developed SYSVR4 with AT&T.

    From this article:

    "We're not interested in suing people over Unix," Novell spokesman Bruce Lowry said. "We're not even in the Unix business anymore." How would it look for Novell, to sue Sun over an open source project? Especially considering Sun is the biggest corporate open source donor. By the way, the article doesn't specify, but if you read the study, those numbers are from the source of Debian. They do not include OpenSolaris, OpenJDK or any of the other open source projects Sun participates in or has released.

    While I do believe McNealy and Schwartz shared similar views, McNealy's mouth did tend to get in the way. As we've seen here Schwartz is sticking to his commitment to open source.

    It looks to me like Novell is talking about OpenSolaris to bolster their case. Novell's CEO has also been spreading a lot of FUD about OpenSolaris.

  6. Re:As the first SCMAD (in my country?) i just woul by njcoder · · Score: 2, Informative · on Interview With Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz

    There's plenty of denying that.

    Sure you can deny the sky is blue if you wanted to as well. However an independent study created for the EU says otherwise.

    The study also backs up Sun Microsystemsâ(TM) claim to be the biggest donator of open source code. The top ten business contributors were as follows:

    1 Sun Microsystems 51,372 Person-months 312m euros
    2 IBM 14,865 Person-months 90m euros
    3 Red Hat 9,748 Person-months 59m euros
    4 Silicon Graphics 7,736 Person-months 47m euros
    5 SAP 7,493 Person-months 46m euros
    6 MySQL 5,747 Person-months 35m euros
    7 Netscape 5,249 Person-months 32m euros
    8 Ximian 4,985 Person-months 30m euros
    9 Realnetworks 4,412 Person-months 27m euros
    10 AT&T 4,286 Person-months 26m euros Also from here.

    "Did you know that Sun contributes more than $200 million per year of intellectual property to the open source movement, in dozens of open source projects? The companyâ(TM)s historical contribution tops $2 billion. WOW!" A list of some of the open source projects Sun contributes to can be found on that link.

  7. Re:linux by ReeceTarbert · · Score: 1 · on Ubuntu Linux vs. Mac OS X
    i find it amusing that an article concludes that a product cobbled together by a few geeks for free in there spare time [...] can compete with the best product of a multi-billion dollar company

    Actually, this is getting less and less true as companies are getting involved either directly or indirectly. For instance this article refers to a report by the European Commission on the Economic Impact of FLOSS and the numbers speaks for themselves.

    Although the report states 61.2% of the code has been contributed by individuals, it also mentions SUN, IBM, Red Hat, Silicon Graphics (!) and others as heavy contributors.

    That being said, I don't care much for OS wars and I think it's great to have options (proprietary or otherwise).

  8. Carmony apparently isnt even sure about resistance by Burz · · Score: 1 · on Linspire Signs Patent Pact With MS

    Many self-contradictory comments on MS patent deals from Carmony: http://www.businessreviewonline.com/os/archives/20 07/06/a_slight_differ.html

  9. Re:stop spreading FUD by NickFortune · · Score: 1 · on Jeremy Allison Resigns From Novell In Protest
    There is no rational reason anybody has demonstrated why SuSE shouldn't be able to ship Samba under GPL v3.
    Short memory, huh?

    Never mind, let's recap the important point: Stallman has promised to make the incorporate wording into GPLv3 that will explicitly forbid deals such that between Novell and Microsoft.

    This doesn't seem to have sunk in from last time, so just to be clear: Novell will not be able to ship any GPLv3 versions of anything under the terms of their deal with MS, because Richard Stallman has promised that the GPLv3 will forbid them from doing so.

    If he does this, and I can't for the life of me see why he would not, then that would prevent SuSE from shipping any subsequent versions. The standard GPL boilerplate would still give Novell the option of distributing the last GPLv2 version, but as the GP points out, that would leave them with a fork.

    Rational enough? Or do I have to go through it again using smaller words?

    So, please, stop spreading FUD.
    "You keep saying that word; I don' think it means what you think it means"

    I don't know whether you're trolling, stupid, wilfully ignorant or just plain in denial, but please stop spreading falsehoods.

  10. USA DOD Open Technology Development more than OSS by OldHawk777 · · Score: 1 · on Letter to European Commission Warns Against Open Source

    I am sure the EU will recognise the more robust economic model "Open" provides to the world economies with which we all compete for market share.

    The USA Congress and GWBush may not understand "Open" economics and basic S&T+R&D to future market products; So, the rest of the world will bury the USA economy in about 10 or 20 years.
    Who gives a shit (not polticians, televangelist, fools ...), I have no kids, and I'll be dead of old age in another 20 years; So, I no longer give a shit how US citizens vote ... It is all a big fucking joke on US).

    !HAVEFUN!

    http://www.opentechdev.org/index.php/Open_Technolo gy_Development_Roadmap
    http://www.acq.osd.mil/actd/articles/OTDRoadmapFin al.pdf
    http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/1_1/daily _news/28963-1.html
    http://www.businessreviewonline.com/os/archives/20 06/07/open_source_in.html

    OH21 - Reality is self-induced hallucination.

  11. What happened to customer choice? by munchola · · Score: 1 · on The End of Naked PCs in China?

    Microsoft UK is trying to do the same thing, by sending the boys round to help partners by providing "proactive assistance during customer visits" http://www.businessreviewonline.com/os/archives/20 06/04/a_note_to_micro.html

  12. How big is red hat and novell in the server market by raffe · · Score: 1, Informative · on Is There Room for Xandros in the Server Market?

    Looking att thees numbers it looks like novell isnt doing so well...

  13. Re:He loves his Mum though... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on The Story Behind JBoss's Boss

    Make that http://www.businessreviewonline.com/os/archives/20 06/04/the_filth_and_t.html

  14. He loves his Mum though... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on The Story Behind JBoss's Boss

    "In person Fleury is animated, intense and sometimes aggressive, but he can also be charming, and is keen to engage in debate and discussion about JBoss, open source, and wider issues, rather than simply reeling of the latest marketing spiel. Fleury is also the only chief executive I have met who has delayed an interview because he needed to go and say hello to his mum. Does this sound like the second most hated man in open source?" From CBR Online http://www.businessreviewonline.com/os/archives/20 06/04/the_filth_and_t.html/