Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Ponders Shared-Sourcing SQL Server
i_frame writes "C|net is reporting in an interview with Tom Rizo, director of product management in Microsoft's SQL server unit, that 'the company is thinking about including the forthcoming SQL Server 2005 in Microsoft's shared-source program for disclosing product source to customers'.
Is Microsoft reinventing themselves, and are they ready to learn the benefits of open source?" From the article: "It's not finalized. It's not anything there, but if a lot of customers demand it, we'll definitely look at doing shared source with SQL Server..."
Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater where the whole powder keg's about to go up.
The GNAA (Great Negro Association of America) would like to commemorate Black History Month by honoring great Negros in history. We would like to commemorate Malcolm X, an excellent example of the great negro. Malcolm X stood up for what he believed, and so does the ECFA.
About GNAA: The GNAA is slashdot's oldest and most famous mass-troll group. The current ECFA/GNAA combined organization (called "ECFA") is the result of the 2004 merger of the ECFA and the GNAA. The ECFA (Euthanasia for Canis Familiaris Association) serves as sole holder of the GNAA trademark, copyrights, and all other legal ownership. In Q1 2005, ECFA announced that the acronym GNAA now stands for Great Negro Association of America. Note that the ECFA is based solely in the United States. The future of the international GNAA is uncertain, and it will likely cease operations altogether. Please note that the United States ECFA takes memberships from all over the world. The combined organization is committed both to celebrating black history and to the improvement of our society through eliminating overpopulation of animals to improve their lives and the lives of humans.
About ECFA: The ECFA (Euthanasia for Canis Familiaris Association) is an organization committed to improving our society, leaving it better than we found it. We use the Slashdot trolling capabilities of the GNAA to spread our message of improvement.
Do you want to Commemorate great negros?
Are you sick of overpopulation of household pets?
Are you willing to take radical measures to keep these pests at bay?
If you answered YES to any of the above questions, the ECFA(Euthanasia for Canis Familiaris Association)/GNAA is for you!
You can work toward the noble of goal of INCREASING OUR SUPPLY OF O2! OVERPOPULATION of DOGS is RAPANT in this country. Did you know that DOGS turn BENEFICIAL O2 into CO2 simply to gain their energy to bark, drool, and howl? They ACTUALLY BURN OUR OXYGEN SUPPLY WITHOUT PRODUCING ANY BENEFIT!!! One dog easily waste the Oxygen output of ten mature trees!
This country has MANY UNWANTED, ABANDONED DOGS that WE ARE PAYING MONEY TO KEEP ALIVE. We are FEEDING them our food supply while making the homeless STARVE! Are you TIRED of having your TAXES increased? Humane Societies cost our country over $100 million annually. By using a Dog Killing Gadget, a dog can be turned into beneficial food, helping us all. We let children go hungry yet feed our **UNWANTED** dogs like royalty.
We hunt deer when they become overpopulated. Why should dogs be any different? We don't have deer pounds to send 'homeless' deer to. Yet for most people, dogs are personified to the extreme. We advocate treating dogs like the animals they are.
We are also temporarily supporting Great Negros to please our former GNAA members and to keep our distribution channels open. We have been and always will be committed to the eradication of dogs. The takeover was all for the trolling channels, never for the content.
WANT TO SUPPORT ECFA (Euthanasia for Canis Familiaris Association)? Simply participate in our propaganda campaign to exterminate dogs. You can become a member of our slashdot trolling team, our usenet trolling team, or you can be a member of our local campaigning - by simply handing out brocures or posting signs outside humaine socities. If you have MOD POINTS, alternatively you can moderate this post UP to support our cause.
Important Note: The ECFA has recently "connected" with the GNAA to form one ECFA. Stay connected. Please note that since we are moving to a larger demographic (the untold scores of people who deal with dog messes, noises, and annoyances daily), most of the current GNAA content is offline. In fact, we're pulling all of it except the "early post",
Hello,
Consulting for several large companies, I'd always done my work on
Windows. Recently however, a top online investment firm asked us to do
some work using Linux. The concept of having access to source code was
very appealing to us, as we'd be able to modify the kernel to meet our
exacting standards which we're unable to do with Microsoft's products.
Although we met several technical challenges along the way
(specifically, Linux's lack of Token Ring support and the fact that we
were unable to defrag its ext2 file system), all in all the process
went smoothly. Everyone was very pleased with Linux, and we were
considering using it for a great deal of future internal projects.
So you can imagine our suprise when we were informed by a lawyer that
we would be required to publish our source code for others to use. It
was brought to our attention that Linux is copyrighted under something
called the GPL, or the Gnu Protective License. Part of this license
states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available.
Unfortunately for us, this meant that the great deal of time and money
we spent "touching up" Linux to work for this investment firm would
now be available at no cost to our competitors.
Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any
products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to
its source code released. This was simply unacceptable.
Although we had planned for no one outside of this company to ever
use, let alone see the source code, we were now put in a difficult
position. We could either give away our hard work, or come up with
another solution. Although it was tought to do, there really was no
option: We had to rewrite the code, from scratch, for Windows 2000.
I think the biggest thing keeping Linux from being truly competitive
with Microsoft is this GPL. Its draconian requirements virtually
guarentee that no business will ever be able to use it. After my
experience with Linux, I won't be recommending it to any of my
associates. I may reconsider if Linux switches its license to
something a little more fair, such as Microsoft's "Shared Source".
Until then its attempts to socialize the software market will insure
it remains only a bit player.
Thank you for your time.
Our best wishes to the GNAA and ECFA, both noble organizations, on their 2004 merger.
-- Concerned Slashdot Readers Association.
AMERICAN IS SHIT!
and i voted for gorge bush!
"Indeed.. there is a huge difference between shared source and open source."
Er, no there isn't? Both are about being able to look at the source code. You have no other freedoms.
If you want to be truly free, use Free Software, not Open/Shared Source.