Bruce Perens on the Status of Open Source

Lars Lehtonen writes to tell us that Bruce Perens has posted the text of his LinuxWorld press conference. In his talk he takes a look at many of the hot topics surrounding the open source community including ODF, NTP vs RIM, and GPLv3. From the article: "It's interesting to note that Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist implicated in scandal with Republican Tom Delay, was employed by Bill Gates' dad's law firm "Preston Gates", a political proxy for Microsoft. Microsoft succeeded in lobbying both Republicans and Democrats to oppose ODF."

Comments

knows his stuff

[PMuse]

This is why reading Bruce is better than reading some random guy on slashdot. The man knows his stuff. Go RT whole FA. It's worth it just to hear some one say it straight without screwing something up.

Re:Mistaking "interesting" for "suspicious".

[Bruce Perens]

Sometimes when you think a connection might be there, the best you can do is put that connection in front of empowered people who might find something. Abramoff was working as a lobbyist for Gates. I'd imagine the main thing on the agenda would be anti-trust, but competition with Free Software in government might be there as well. After all, we have had multiple published incidents where US diplomats lobbied a foreign government not to make a pro-free-software decision.

Bruce

Re:Mistaking "interesting" for "suspicious".

[Bruce Perens]

Well, list the most important things in your life, in order, and that will tell you a lot.

For me, it used to be that Open Source was #1. For Richard, Free Software always will be. For me now, being a dad is #1. And I find that I can look at Open Source with more objectivity because of this.

Bruce