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Governments & Open Source

Posted by Hemos on from the oh-noes-the-confusion dept.

sydney-computer-support writes "The Greens in New Zealand who advocate the use of OSS are upset about a Novell contract because it doesn't support open source. The article mentions the greens spokeperson saying the contract "cleared the path for government agencies to adopt and expand their use of non-proprietary software" -- failing to note that Novell is a company offering proprietary versions of OSS."

4 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Grammar Nazis by Recovering+Hater · · Score: 5, Funny

    Slashdot is just taunting with this headline. I mean, come on! "Open Souce"?

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    My humor is probably your flamebait
    1. Re:Grammar Nazis by beef3k · · Score: 5, Funny

      Oh give them a break - anyone can misspell "Sauce" once in a while...

  2. "Proprietary versions of OSS" by overshoot · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This is apparently the new version of the "Red Hat is becoming Microsoft."

    Novell, in case the Greens didn't notice, has been releasing more and more of the Ximian and SuSE code under the GPL and making their distribution much easier to acquire gratis as well as libre. So what's their complaint? Reading TFA it's hard to tell.

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    Lacking <sarcasm> tags, /. substitutes moderation as "Troll."
  3. I'm confused by Digital_Quartz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The news post claims the greens are upset about this deal, then links to an article in which two different spokespeople from the green party praise the deal.

    And what's with the jab at Novell for offering "proprietary versions of OSS". What does that even mean? Is Suse Linux somehow now less open because Novell owns it?

    Am I missing something here?