Microsoft Fracturing the Open-Source Community

TechGeek sends us to eWeek, where Mark Shuttleworth is quoted to the effect that Microsoft has succeeded in fracturing the Linux and open-source community with its patent indemnity agreements. Quoting: "Microsoft's strategy was to drive a wedge into the open-source community and unsettle the marketplace, Shuttleworth said. He also took issue with the Redmond, Wash., software maker for not disclosing the 235 of its patents it claims are being violated by Linux and other open-source software. 'That's extortion and we should call it what it is,' he said." Shuttleworth added, "I don't think this will end well for the companies that slipped up and went down that road."

Comments

Fractured, schmatured...

[gowen]

The Linux Community was quite capable of indulging in ridiculously petty schisms, flamewars, arguments and
bickering before Microsoft got involved. Ever since someone noticed the GPL and BSD licenses were different, there's been 3000GW of heat produced by zealots and pragmatists alike (and almost no light).

This is nothing new. Haven't you ever read debian-legal?

A common enemy unites, not fractures, a community

[Qubit]

Before Microsoft tried the whole "patent indemnification" trick the community was less cohesive about these important issues to Free Software.

Now, after MS has made patent agreements with several companies, GPLv3 has been released, and several companies have explicitly REFUSED to sign such patent agreements with MS, the community is more cohesive -- more understanding of the importance of Free Software and in agreement that signing such patent indemnification agreements with Microsoft is a Bad Idea(tm).

As the dust settles, there are splits: Novell sits alongside Microsoft. Alongside the FSF we see Redhat, Ubuntu, Debian, and many others.

I'm excited that major vendors such as Dell and Lenovo are offering GNU/Linux pre-installed on their machines. By supporting such vendors, the Free Software community can show them that a strong demand for GNU/Linux exists. Unfortunately Lenovo will be pre-installing SuSE (from Novell) on their machines, and I encourage all of you geeks out there to WRITE to Lenovo and request that instead of SuSE they pre-install a distribution that respects Free Software such as Redhat or Ubuntu. Similarly, write to Dell and tell them that you STRONGLY appreciate the fact that they chose Ubuntu as their GNU/Linux distribution.

So to sum it up:
Keep on using the software, spend your money in support of these companies, and preach the good word of Free Software.
Peace. Love. Linux.

Re:The Blame is Not MS

[jellomizer]

Ummm. No you are wrong.

Before there were people in the GPL 2 camp sure they argued inside on things but with GPL 3 my making the rules clear means people who were once in the GPL camp are now out. Thus causing fracturing. You are bringing a smaller group of people together at the expense of ostracizing others who don't agree with this view. It took a long time for companies to begin to warm up to the GPL, and began finding ways to use it and make profit off of it. Then RMS with his sometimes hypocritical usually Ultra Leftist views decides that companies are abusing the nature of open source (except for IBM who can't do no wrong... Who probably is a big supporter of the FOSS). Most of us doesn't care about what Microsoft and Novel is doing trading patents in exchange for mutual protection of each others patents are a normal thing that goes on. But GPL 3 is what worries people myself included because we feel that it is going into a direction that is to strict and removes to much freedom from the developer and the user as well. Because a lot of the time Users are Developers too.