Open Source Spreads Beyond Software

B'Trey writes "Britain's Prospect Magazine is running an article entitled 'The Microsoft Killers.' The article covers the success of Open Source software in particular but also looks at how the methods and practices of Open Source are moving outside the software environment."

Comments

It's not surprising really.

[ahfoo]

The GPL is based on using copyright as a shield against those who would use copyright as a weapon. The underlying situation is one that is often reflected in the physical world and often noted in literature: the knife cuts both ways.
The Creative Commons licenses could eventually have an even greater impact on the world than the GPL although the latter's impacts have only begun to be felt.

Re:Microsoft Killers : Premature?

[Puchku]

If people could put up with the crappiness of DOS and Win 3.x (the infancy of MS operating systems), why is Linux being bashed constantly during its infancy for stuff MS got away with? Because Liux is being continuosly compared to Windows.. When DOS and 3.1 were around, there was nothing to compare them to. People did not have any expectations, so whatever Microsoft did was sen as a giant leap forward Linux has to catch up to Microsoft becuase that is what people expect from their computers. Once that is done, it can go past. But you have to have the little stuff working first....

Oracle

[rdean400]

"Oracle's dominance in databases is coming under attack from MySQL..."

Please. Oracle's supposed dominance in databases is under far more threat from Microsoft and IBM than it is from MySQL **at this point in time.** IBM earns more database revenue than Oracle, so it's not even fair to say that Oracle dominates.

Re:Microsoft Killers : Premature?

[Xpilot]

Yup, Mac's were great, but beacuse they were in locked down proprietary mode, while IBM PC's were being assmbled by eveyone and his dog, they got left wayy behind...

And yet curiously it does not work the same way with software. Now, it is Windows that is locked down in proprietary mode, with expensive and draconian licenses. Linux distros can be assembled by everyone and his dog, but yet, it is still a mostly a niche OS on the desktop.