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The 'Hairy Guys' Vs. Microsoft
Jeremy Allison - Sam writes "The IHT is running the best write-up I've seen on the Microsoft vs EU Anti-Trust case, featuring quotes from tridge (Creator of Samba) and Carlo Piana (the FSFE lawyer). Nicely contrasts the difference between the Microsoft legal Team and the resources the FSFE has to work with. I was the FSFE witness for the initial hearing and the first trial, and this article nicely explains what it's like to be there." From the article: "The settlements left a group of computer programmers and activists, united under the banner of the Free Software Foundation Europe, with a bigger-than-expected role in supporting the EU's goal of loosening Microsoft's grip over the software industry. Only half-joking, one observer at the court this past week called some members FSFE and allies 'the hairy guys' - in contrast to the well- groomed legal teams fielded by Microsoft."
Many people who write free software don't have money for haircuts. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
The judge on the case misbehaved making himself look biased (he was *extremely* biased) and got his remedy thrown out. They were going back to reargue and the Bush administration decided to settle with terms that theoretically should have kept Microsoft from abusing their monopoly. The reason Microsoft's desktop monopoly hasn't started to shrink is because there simply isn't anything easy to use, with every application imaginable and available on standard PCs. Licensing issues are probably the biggest reason Windows is still running 90+%. Linking with GPLed libraries that aren't part of the standard system (there is NO standard with Linux) requires that you GPL your code as well. Just recently I linked against a "standard" library for Linux that also exists as a GPLed library for Windows. Am I forbidden from shipping a Windows version while the UNIX version is free and clear? I don't want to get a lawyer just to have him give me an answer the FSF doesn't agree with....
You can't even write a hardware driver for Linux unless you bow down to the FSF. Writing a closed source binary driver for Linux is actually a GPL violation according to the FSF and giving out tech specs for hardware isn't something manufacturers like to do.
There should have been allowances made for this stuff in the GPL and other licenses, but the people who wrote the licenses don't want people to write software for their operating system/environment. They just want code written for them.