Linus Defends Proprietary File Formats [Updated]

Simon (S2) writes "Torvalds launched a blast against OpenOffice.org, and defended Microsoft's right to keep its binary Office formats proprietary. 'I'm happy with somebody writing a free replacement for Microsoft Office. But I'm not fine with them writing a free replacement just by reverse engineering the proprietary formats,' said the Linux founder. 'Microsoft has its own reasons for keeping them proprietary, and I can't argue with that.' At the heart of Torvalds' decision to refrain from using Bitmover's BitKeeper source code management tool last week, a day after BitKeeper decided to drop its limited functionality free client, is a dispute between BitKeeper developer Larry McVoy and Samba developer Andrew 'Tridge' Tridgell. It has subsequently emerged that Tridgell was working on a clean room reverse engineered implementation of McVoy's proprietary software, and Torvalds has come down on the side of his friend McVoy." Update: 04/13 17:24 GMT by T : As reader Daniel Callahan points out, this is a goof. "The Register article made up the Torvalds quote. The article offers the quote and then continues: 'Actually he didn't - we just made that quote up. But what Torvalds really did say this weekend is only slightly less bizarre.'"

Comments

Re:Dupe and a lie

[pomo monster]

You must be new here ;)

That was quick...

[Infinityis]

A few mere minutes and seems like every post is about how that quote was made up. Apparently, the typical Slashdotter will do anything in exchange for free karma.

Great Job Editors

[StarkII]

I was very irritated to see people bitching about an editorial oversight within a couple of minutes of it being posted...claiming that the editors "must not care." What a load of BS. The error was corrected in seven minutes. If that's not good enough for you, too d*mn bad.