Boycott Novell Protesters Manhandled In India

James Mathew writes "This is an interesting story from Kerala, India, where the ruling Communist Party organized a national conference in its efforts to hijack the Free Software Movement, which has enviable roots in the state. They got Novell to sponsor it. On the second day of the conference, a few free software activists who displayed posters against Novell were manhandled by the organizers and police — typical of what is expected from them. Most of the snaps taken during the scuffle were forcefully deleted by the organizers, after seizing the protesters' mobile phones. Still they couldn't delete all. Here is another blow-by-blow account."

Comments

Communist software

[kandela]

Why am I not surprised that the makers of Groupwise are communist sympathisers.

Re:Communist software

[Xiroth]

OK, this is a WTF moment. Since when is the Indian National Congress a communist party? I mean, sure, they could be described as centre-left, but probably less to the left than most major northern European parties, and you don't hear them being called communist parties.

Re:Communist software

[Xiroth]

Cheh, never mind. They're talking about the state government. My mistake.

Re:Communist software

[diegocn]

This is an interesting story from Kerala, India, where the ruling Communist Party organized a national conference

It's no April 1st yet. And I feel it's safe to skip the rest of the crap.

Re:Communist software

[polle404]

watch out for:
The Open Source wars; novel by Eric Van Lustbader.
marvel at: the evil Open Source communist Ninjas infiltrate & assasinate the benevolent Wayland/Yutani/Microsoft corporation and...
wait, no evil closed source code here?
scratch that, it's an short story by H. P. Lovecraft, then.

Re:Communist software

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Surely you mean "Che, never mind?"

Re:Communist software

[mcgrew]

Not sure if it still does, but the splash screen for Groupwise used to be incredibly gay, with two men dancing together (although maybe one was an ugly flat chested woman). Bacause of this, I always thought that "groupwise" was a typo, and its real name was Gropewise

Re:Communist software

[operagost]

I liked the one for 5.x, which had a man's face prominent in the logo with lines and a red circle inexplicably placed over one eye. He looked like a Borg.

Re:Communist software

[operagost]

Not until they start the summary executions.

Sadly

[Anonymous Coward]

The pictures don't show anything and any people quoted would have vested interests.

Re:Sadly

[sumdumass]

Well, I can imagine the scene. Someone holds up a poster during a presentation, blocking the view of the people behind them. They make some sort of noise to get attention, when the organizers attempt to removed them, they don't budge which causes the police to get involved, when he doesn't leave then, they drag him out. Then they realize it was just a publicity stunt and attempt to delete the pictures of the people apparently filming it. And here you have the Sensational headlines- communists man-handle protester who was minding his own business doing nothing to anyone, anywhere, anyhow. Look at how evil Novel is now and oh yea- the Indian government who likes to kick puppies and wants to take your free software... oh yes, again, they attempted to CENSOR the events by deleting people's pictures of it.

It all sounds like some stages publicity thing to me in order to get a word out. Of course My first thought was people are actually still going after Novel, what idiots, then I realized they were serious and I just felt sad for them. The entire Novel is evil bit wasa farce in the first place.

Re:Sadly

[calmofthestorm]

"Then they realize it was just a publicity stunt and attempt to delete the pictures of the people apparently filming it."

And that's when they go too far. No. matter. what. happened. Who cares if it's a publicity stunt? The policy should just bring their own cameras. Sure people like me would bitch about the Orwellian state, but it would help solve the problem.

Re:Sadly

[mcvos]

Yeah. I expected a bit more substance.

Re:Sadly

[sumdumass]

Well, here is the thought. If someone commits a crime (and yes, protests can be parts of crimes) and they video tape it for the purpose of promoting themselves, generally they arne't allowed to do so.

Here is an example, Lets say a gun manufacturer wants to promote the self defense status of their latest offering and they take it into town in real life situation where someone endangers them. Lets say they have a skin head, wearing a derogatory T-shirt in the middle of the Bronx or south central LA, and have the wrong colors on their head, just to get someone to respond to them. Now, they are video taping this and when someone confronts them, they pull the gun in a legal or illegal way and the cops find that they want to use the video to promote the gun. The camera will be confiscated and they will likely never have access to the video again. Especially if someone dies because of it.

Now granted, in the situation I laid out, it would have probably gone through the courts and a legal self defense shooting would probably become premeditated murder or some variant of manslaughter because they provoked the incident (even if they were within their legal rights) but the concept on the video or photos is really the same- just exaggerated to different levels.

I guess the question I might pose is did they erase the photos to hide the acts of the police removing the people or was it so they couldn't use the acts in a self promotional way. If the later, Sure I would prefer a courts be involved first, but that alternative would mean a confiscation of the phones until a review was done which could take some time. Perhaps deleting them was actually the least of the two evils in this instance.

Re:Sadly

[calmofthestorm]

I disagree with you. I could understand them not letting the people profit, but I do believe that recording public acts in public spaces* should always be allowed.

* This was private property. I assume that it could be observed from public property however.

Re:Sadly

[WNight]

I was with you until you got to them deleting photos. How does removing a protester ever justify deleting their photos? Even if there ever were justification, how could it be the job of the officers involved to judge/execute the sentence?

Re:Sadly

[sumdumass]

I guess we will have to disagree then. Of course I'm assuming that the only reason people were recording was because they were in on the acts that disrupted the event. Suppose someone videotapes their friend starting a house fire or raping someone else. I know those are felonies but suppose the only reason they were there was because their friend told them to show up. I would think that they shared a little of the blame even if not enough to be criminal but the tape shouldn't be used to further the person's cause. And yes, I'm talking about enviromental terrorists who burn homes after then were built to close to wild life areas and Gang Members video taping new members going through initiation and having to kill someone, rape someone, burn a house down or something in order to get into the gang. The tape shouldn't ever be allowed to eb the evidence for that.

Of course it would be difficult to tell who was just there and who was there because of the planned disruption. I think it's pretty obvious that people were there as part of the plan because of how quick the photo's made it to websites and such. Random people with no connections would take a little longer to track down it would seem.

Re:Sadly

[Teancum]

Were cameras even permitted at this venue in the first place? What else was photographed besides the "protest"?

Law enforcement officers routinely have to step in and make quick judgment calls like this, and even "execute the sentence" in a great many situations as well. They are the first line of criminal law community, and often have to make the call to make decisions that afterward an "armchair quarterback" might disagree with.

More importantly, how much did these guys resist reasonable attempts by organizers of the conference to simply "take it outside" and attempt to resolve the situation peaceably? From a law enforcement perspective, even the act of taking the photos was something to cause further unrest, and in the interest of public safety the deletion of the photos could be considered a sound decision.

This is something I would have expected to see in a great many other places besides India, and may have been done in almost any other country with a similar kind of conference, including having the photos deleted.

Re:Sadly

[WNight]

Sure, it's done all the time, but it's never legal for the officers to do.

Even if cameras were banned, and even if this was enforceable (not written on the back of the ticket, etc) this doesn't mean possession of photos taken at the event are themselves illegal. For starters, it'd be a civil matter.

Even where the photos are presumably a security risk, such as of a flaw at a military base, the correct procedure would be to confiscate the photos until this was proven in court, not to delete them without proving damage and/or guilt.

[..] often have to make the call to make decisions that afterward an "armchair quarterback" might disagree with. [..] in the interest of public safety the deletion of the photos could be considered a sound decision.

Armchair quarterbacks may not have as tough a job as a real quarterback, but that's not to say the real quarterbacks are always right. Ditto the police. It's understandable that mistakes are made, but we need to correct mistakes, not allow them because of who makes them. And frankly your assertion that public SAFETY might be harmed by these photos is asinine. What possible scenario has pictures taken at a publicly accessible conference about open source actually being a threat to the safety of anyone, let alone the public at large?

Re:Sadly

[ultranova]

Of course I'm assuming that the only reason people were recording was because they were in on the acts that disrupted the event. Suppose someone videotapes their friend starting a house fire or raping someone else. I know those are felonies but suppose the only reason they were there was because their friend told them to show up. I would think that they shared a little of the blame even if not enough to be criminal but the tape shouldn't be used to further the person's cause. And yes, I'm talking about enviromental terrorists who burn homes after then were built to close to wild life areas and Gang Members video taping new members going through initiation and having to kill someone, rape someone, burn a house down or something in order to get into the gang. The tape shouldn't ever be allowed to eb the evidence for that.

Are you trying to say that the Indian police is a gang who's members raped and killed the protesters prior to setting their houses on fire and throwing them out ? Or did you mean that videotaping a police officer arresting a criminal shouldn't be allowed ? Because, after all, the video in question didn't show the protesters actions, but those of the police.

Extra points for absurd escalation, from "protesters blocking someone's view" into "an arsonist gang who initiates new members with rape and murder". Nothing like a ludicrously disproportional analogy to add flavour to an incoherent argument - that's why I love Slashdot :).

Re:Sadly

[theaveng]

Absurd comment;

Absurd analogy.

So here's an absurd reply - Anyone who tries to take my camera-phone will receive a nice little gift. A bullet. I don't tolerate thieves stealing my personal property, no matter how they try to justify it. If I'm in a public arena I can use the freedom of the press to report what I see and/or take photos of same. You will not censor my freedom of speech, ye stupid tyrants.

Re:Sadly

[theaveng]

>>>Law enforcement officers routinely have to step in and make quick judgment calls like this, and even "execute the sentence" in a great many situations as well.
>>>

Bzzz. Only judges are allowed to suppress evidence. Police are supposed to collect it, not destroy it. Police who destroy evidence have committed a criminal offense.

Re:Sadly

[maxume]

Are you really knowledgeable about the laws in India, or are you armchair lawyering?

Re:Sadly

[Anonymous Coward]

> So here's an absurd reply - Anyone who tries to take my camera-phone will receive a nice little gift. A bullet.

And hopefully, you will go to prison for a long time.

(And hopefully so would the attempted thief)

Re:Sadly

[James_Duncan8181]

"Now granted, in the situation I laid out, it would have probably gone through the courts and a legal self defense shooting would probably become premeditated murder or some variant of manslaughter because they provoked the incident (even if they were within their legal rights) but the concept on the video or photos is really the same- just exaggerated to different levels."

Oh my word. I am a law student and this is wrong on many levels. If someone puts you (henceforth the 'victim') in reasonable and immediate fear of death (henceforth the 'initiator', victim have the right to kill them in self-defence. Provocation requires that the reasonable man would also be unable to control themselves in Initiator's situation. Initiator cannot reasonably claim that victim's choice of clothes was provocation, and therefore the initiator (depending on circumstances) committed attempted murder against the victim with no ability to claim provocation as a defence. Victim has commited no crime, as self-defence is a complete legal defence against a murder or manslaughter charge. Victim's desire to video a shooting does not have a huge bearing on the matter as it is initiator who has unreasonably started the violence. Otherwise we'd be telling women that it wasn't rape as they were wearing a short skirt.

Now, Victim's tape is likely to be evidence and thus sub judice for a period. Victim's tape will however be part of the public record as evidence if this happens (assuming the evidence is not sealed) and Victim is free to refer to this excepting privacy laws in some states.

I am not a lawyer yet, and this is not legal advice.

Re:Sadly

[sumdumass]

Are you trying to say that the Indian police is a gang who's members raped and killed the protesters prior to setting their houses on fire and throwing them out ? Or did you mean that videotaping a police officer arresting a criminal shouldn't be allowed ? Because, after all, the video in question didn't show the protesters actions, but those of the police.

Actually, I'm saying that trying to promote yourself through an illegal act is the same concept as a gang initiation or creating a scene at a protest. If course the levels of severity is different but the concepts of being able to gain from the acts are the same.

Extra points for absurd escalation, from "protesters blocking someone's view" into "an arsonist gang who initiates new members with rape and murder". Nothing like a ludicrously disproportional analogy to add flavour to an incoherent argument - that's why I love Slashdot :).

You know, that's the problem with analogies. You dumb them down so anyone can understand the points then you get dumb replies from people who can't compare concepts and actually end up transitioning the actual analogy itself. I guess when you make something so simple that ignorant people can use and understand it, ignorant people will use it. I'm sorry I wasted your time.

Re:Sadly

[sumdumass]

Oh my word. I am a law student and this is wrong on many levels. If someone puts you (henceforth the 'victim') in reasonable and immediate fear of death (henceforth the 'initiator', victim have the right to kill them in self-defence. Provocation requires that the reasonable man would also be unable to control themselves in Initiator's situation. Initiator cannot reasonably claim that victim's choice of clothes was provocation, and therefore the initiator (depending on circumstances) committed attempted murder against the victim with no ability to claim provocation as a defence. Victim has commited no crime, as self-defence is a complete legal defence against a murder or manslaughter charge. Victim's desire to video a shooting does not have a huge bearing on the matter as it is initiator who has unreasonably started the violence. Otherwise we'd be telling women that it wasn't rape as they were wearing a short skirt.

Keep on studying the law. The biggest objections to delf defense killing is that people put themselves into situation to impose the threat of loss of life onto themselves. Ie, I can't pull a gun on you, wait until you reach for your gun, then kill you claiming self defense. I provoked your actions in an intentional or reckless manor (yes, read intentional and reckless as being of significantly important) that resulted in my killing the other person in self defense. In other words, I can't claim self defense and walk away scott free if I manipulate you into the situation that causes me to kill you in self defense.

Think about that. A bar fight starts, Instead of you walking away, you stand your ground, you engage the other person in verbal assaults, a little shoving, he says he is going to kill you, you then pull a knife or pick up a beer bottle and strike them once killing them. You will not walk away without charges and most likely a conviction regardless of who started the arguments. Ask your professor about that if you don't believe me.

As for telling women it isn't rape, well it isn't rape when they consent then just to provoke the act then take that consent back. Of course of they don't stop, it goes from consentual sex to rape but lets say he acts as you request and stops. It isn't rape even though she thinks you tricked her into sleeping with you or something.

Now, Victim's tape is likely to be evidence and thus sub judice for a period. Victim's tape will however be part of the public record as evidence if this happens (assuming the evidence is not sealed) and Victim is free to refer to this excepting privacy laws in some states.

Using the tape as evidence isn't quite the same as using it for your gain or profit or benefit. Murderers are often barred from making money from their story even in cases where they were found no guiltily in the criminal trial. Ask you professor about this, he will agree with the it. Of course the part baring the profit action is from separate civil suit in which the standard is less so even if a killer gets off on a technicality, it doesn't mean they can profit from their actions.

Re:Sadly

[James_Duncan8181]

"Keep on studying the law. The biggest objections to delf defense killing is that people put themselves into situation to impose the threat of loss of life onto themselves. Ie, I can't pull a gun on you, wait until you reach for your gun, then kill you claiming self defense. I provoked your actions in an intentional or reckless manor (yes, read intentional and reckless as being of significantly important) that resulted in my killing the other person in self defense. In other words, I can't claim self defense and walk away scott free if I manipulate you into the situation that causes me to kill you in self defense." This is a reasonable fear of immediate threat to life from victim to initiator. The scenario you have created is merely switching the roles of V and I.

Re:Sadly

[sumdumass]

Lol.. NO, that is the premise of the set up. In the example I created that you objected to, I went into an area known to be violent while making every attempt I could to entice someone into a fit of violence just so I could video tape me killing them in a claim of self defense. My self defense claim would probably result in a premeditated murder charge or at least one of the manslaughter charges.

Perhaps I wasn't clear in my first rendition.

Re:Sadly

[James_Duncan8181]

The essential point here is that pulling a gun out at someone creates a reasonable fear of death in them. They can therefore shoot you. Wearing certain clothes, no matter how offensive does not (and we also run into First Amendment and civil rights issues here - should the police be allowed to shoot you if you are wearing an NWA top while listening to Fuck the Police?). You can't conflate the two things. If you are arguing that if someone intentionally causes a fear of death in another they commit a crime and cannot complain when the other person shoots them, this is true. But this is substantially different from your original argument legally.

Re:Sadly

[Teancum]

Are you sure here? Did the police confiscate the cameras, or did they simply delete the images and hand the cameras back to the protesters as they were escorted outside?

Here the police were "keeping the peace", and certainly pressing the "delete" button to shut up some protesters and to keep them from inciting a riot could be considered justified. Certainly not criminal on the part of the officers involved, unless it is later proven that this would be vital evidence in a formal legal proceeding.

I see nothing to indicate that the protesters were even charged with anything at all... only escorted out. They should be grateful that they weren't charged with at least disturbing the peace or some other similar criminal charge themselves.

Besides, where does it say that you are constitutionally (in India, no less) guaranteed to take a picture anywhere you want, whenever you want, about whatever you want. I don't even see that "right" in the USA, any EU country, or UK commonwealth country.

It was also a stupid and foolish thing for these protesters to even be doing the stuff they were doing here, and being obnoxious and disruptive to the convention. They certainly have very little credibility if they were to go before a judge.

Re:Sadly

[sumdumass]

Well, no. Because you can push a person to a point where they commit a violent crime of passion. Now this isn't anything to do with rape, it is the premise that everyone has a point in which they react instead of act. It's how people end up with slaps on the wrist instead of the electric chair when they walk in on their wife having sex with someone else and beat them to death.

In some cases, it actually absolves someone from accountability in what would otherwise be a crime. I actually saw this in an assault case where someone was getting into another person's face and screaming threatening words while jerking their arms as if they were starting to swing a punch. The other guy ended up reacting with a couple of swings of his own and pretty much hospitalize the original aggressor. The dude who literally threw the first punch as a reaction to the other guy was charged and arrested with assault with intent. He was released and never prosecuted once the real set if events was learned by the prosecution.

The deal isn't that you get threatened just because your wearing a shit. You use the shirt to provoke someone and then instead of leaving it drop, you continue to provoke them into a situation that a reasonable person could claim a fear for their life. Except you don't have any fear because you know your going to pull your gun out and kill the other guy before your life is actually in danger. You are manipulating the guy into a situation that allows you to kill them under the disguise of self defense. You see, the claim of fear is only a manipulation from various escalations you created in order to justify the shootings.

but it isn't always obvious in this way, suppose that you see someone tampering with you car, perhaps they are attempting to steal it and you don't live in Texas. Now you start outside and see that he has a crowbar and something that might be a gun, you grab your gun and approach them, you yell freeze while pointing your gun at them, they then grab what you thought was a gun while attempting to duck behind the car, your in fear for your life so you shoot them dead. Do you actually think your going to walk away without any charges? You were already safe, put yourself in danger and basically shot and killed the guy just to stop him from getting away with the crime.

As you will find out in law, things aren't always as the first seem to you. You need to get to the truth of the matter and often the truth is that your self defense isn't one. That's why it is difficult to claim self defense when you invite someone to your house and claim he attacked you so you killed them. It's why you can't claim self defense when there is a reasonable escape route to safety and you refused to take it and remained in the danger. If I'm beating on your frint door saying open up, I'm going to kill you, and you open the door to shoot me instead of calling the cops or locking the door, your not going to get off Scott free.

Re:Sadly

[James_Duncan8181]

"The deal isn't that you get threatened just because your wearing a shit. You use the shirt to provoke someone and then instead of leaving it drop, you continue to provoke them into a situation that a reasonable person could claim a fear for their life."

Then the issue is *not the shirt*. Your patronising tone and inability to stop conflating the two issues leads me to think you're trolling and so I am going to stop having this conversation.

Re:Sadly

[sumdumass]

No, the concept is the same. only the severity of the issue is more. You inability to see that leads me to think that you have a lot left to learn.

As for trolling, either pick apart the Issues I raised or stop it yourself. Talking about my tone instead of the issue only shows what your doing.

Re:Sadly

[WNight]

A simple logical examination of the situation is enough. Why would there be courts if police judged crimes and carried out punishments? Further, India's legal system is somewhat similar to English law, for obvious reasons. Contract and tort law are similar enough that you can reason about the means of limiting the right to take photographs and how these would have to be communicated, how they would be enforceable, and the means by which you could seek compensation. Nowhere in the world do the police solve contract disputes, or complex issues of intellectual property.

Sometimes all you have to do is be able to tell the difference between a touchdown and a hole-in-one.

Alternative Viewpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

Free Software activists start a protest on private property, are asked to leave by owners/organisers and forgo negotiation, instead opting for point-blank refusal. This leads to a confrontation because both of both parties being excessively stubborn.

Sounds like 50/50 blame split to me.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Dreen]

Thats not the point. There shouldnt be any freedom of speech limiting withing groups which both support open and free software. I know the organizers of the event didnt probably care about the free as in freedom idea so much, but there was absolutely no reason to use force. But again, this is India.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[speedtux]

There shouldnt be any freedom of speech limiting withing groups which both support open and free software.

Why not? Open source and free software events have rules and agendas like any other meeting. And participants have limited time to get the job done they came for.

If participants or protestors won't shut up and keep disrupting the event, they should get kicked out by security. It doesn't matter who it is or what message they are pushing, and it doesn't matter whether it's in the US or India.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[nonzen]

Errm, this happened in the campus of a publicly funded university.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no private property in Kerala. Its all state owned, comrade.

My gf was just there it they're like a bunch of keystone cops tripping over themselves with excuses on why "the computers are not working today." Like Castro, the old USSR, and China, they love to control information and have no respect for anything coming close to the enlightenment thinking that dominates the west. Individual rights? Hahaha. Its the collective that matters to them.

Toss in the "Micronovell" protesters and you have no winners in this scenario. Just a bunch of losers.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

Open source and free software events have rules and agendas like any other meeting.

Let's say this was a Open Source and Free Software meeting and all they promoted was proprietary software. Would protesting that be fair?

That's exactly what they're doing according to Groklaw and even Novell themselves ,

Novell's SEC filing reads: "If the final version of GPLv3 contains terms or conditions that interfere with our agreement with Microsoft or our ability to distribute GPLv3 code, Microsoft may cease to distribute Suse Linux coupons in order to avoid the extension of its patent covenants to a broader range of GPLv3 software recipients,"

Remember that Novell helped Microsoft get OOXML approved and Novell forked OpenOffice.org as soon as it moved to GPLv3.

Of course don't forget that Novell make their own version of Microsoft's SilverLight but they call it Moonlight. It's free to download but you have to download it from Novell to get patent indemnity... it exploits loopholes in GPLv2 in order to remove open source rights. To quote Miguel...

During the discussion, de Icaza explained that while anyone who downloaded Moonlight from Novell was protected by the company's licensing of Silverlight codecs from Microsoft through the company's own cross-licensing agreement. Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering from Mozilla, then raised the question that if he downloads and then distributes the code for Moonlight, would he get the patent protection? "There is a patent covenant for anyone that downloads [Moonlight] from Novell," answered de Icaza, who then acknowledged that "as to extending the patents to third parties -- you have to talk to Microsoft."

So this is what Novell want to make Open Source. These protesters stood up for the spirit and the letter of the GPL. Good on them!

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[holloway]

Yep, that's pretty much it! Here's a photo of what the protesters were hanging up (JPEG, 300KB)

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

If participants or protestors won't shut up and keep disrupting the event, they should get kicked out by security.

Why don't you read what actually happened instead of making up your own version and commenting about it?

From what I can tell, all the protestors did was put up flyers and banners. The Novell reps then told the organizers that the organizers would not be getting their sponsor money if the banners and flyers remained up. The organizers then demanded that the protestors take them down; the protestors refused. The organizers then decided to call the cops and forcibly remove the protestors, the banners, and any visual documentation of their actions.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

In India University Campuses are not private property. The event I believe was held in the Cochin University of Science and Technology where some of the campaigners studied.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[sumdumass]

That was rented out to an organization promoting a specific cause.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Igmuth]

If participants or protestors won't shut up and keep disrupting the event, they should get kicked out by security.

Why don't you read what actually happened instead of making up your own version and commenting about it?

From what I can tell, all the protestors did was put up flyers and banners. The Novell reps then told the organizers that the organizers would not be getting their sponsor money if the banners and flyers remained up. The organizers then demanded that the protestors take them down; the protestors refused. The organizers then decided to call the cops and forcibly remove the protestors, the banners, and any visual documentation of their actions.

So, basically the protesters disrupted the event and got the cops called when they refused to stop?

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't news. The cops in Kerala are thugs. That's the story. There isn't anything more to it than that. And besides, fuck the protesters -- Novell, despite my initial skepticism towards their cooperation with microsoft, has shown itself to be a good FOSS citizen.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

That they said was Free Software when infact it was Novell who

1) don't do Free Software
2) sell SCO-like patent indemnity certificates on behalf of Microsoft and threaten patent infringement on other distros but never reveal which patents or software infringe (Novell == SCO)
3) actively work against Free Software by backing Microsoft in OOXML
4) fork GPL2 projects before they relicense under the GPL3 in order to exploit GPL2 loopholes like 3rd party patent protection.
5) promote Moonlight and LINQ for Free Software when it's a trap (ACKBAR!) because Microsoft's patents mean they're not available to Redhat, Ubuntu and Debian.

As the comments on the blog say this this is like an anti-tobacco conference sponsored by a cigarette brand.
This is as simple as people calling someone out on their lying, and considering that they're right everyone should support that!

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[mcvos]

Thats not the point. There shouldnt be any freedom of speech limiting withing groups which both support open and free software.

Without a clear report of what really happened there it's impossible to decide where the blame lies, but if the protesters actually disrupted the conference, you could argue that they were limiting the free speech of others.

In the end, it's the organiser of the conference who decides what talks and what sponsors will be accepted. If you disagree, you can always organise your own conference.

On the other hand, if the protesters were merely wearing anti-Novell T-shirts or protesting outside, and not actually interfering with the proceedings of the conference itself, then I agree their freedom of speech has been seriously harmed.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[speedtux]

Let's say this was a Open Source and Free Software meeting and all they promoted was proprietary software. Would protesting that be fair?

They can protest all they want, just not on other people's property.

Furthermore, how dare your promote free software at an open source event? Don't you understand how evil free software is? I think we should banish all free software-related events from open source meetings!

Remember that Novell

You know, I really don't give a damn. Novell contributes a lot to FOSS, and their deal with Microsoft poses very little real risk. There are companies I'd like to see boycotted; Novell isn't among them.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

The Free Software conference was a good event, i noticed a person who was not a geek setting up a blog using Wordpress for writing his articles on Cultivation,
This shows how the free software and a conference like that can help advocating free software.
Shame that a small disruption like that can cause the whole event to be defamed.
Community should really thrash the trouble makers

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah you've said the same 6 times in this story Speedtux but others aren't so hell-bent on forgetting Novell's support of Microsoft's OOXML and Novell scaring people to try and sell patent indemnity just like SCO without identifying patents or infringing software. Novell are no better than SCO. Infact listen to this to learn what Microsoft+Novell are doing to Linux if you need any more convincing that Novell are just like SCO.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[stephanruby]

Free Software activists start a protest on private property, are asked to leave by owners/organisers and forgo negotiation, instead opting for point-blank refusal.

Private property? The event was organized on the grounds of a Public University under the pretext that it was promoting a public cause -- Free Software. No doubt, the organizers and Novell received a steep discount for promoting their Anti-Free Software stance under the guise of Free Software. And I hope that the University looks at banning and/or leveling fraud charges against those organizers.

In any case, I hope that the protesters and on-lookers think to use recovery software to recover the pictures and the videos that were deleted from their camera phones. I'm looking forward to seeing an actual video of what happened.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[mgiuca]

A source for the quote by de Icaza.

Thank you for finding it.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Dreen]

> Why not?

Because we live in a civilized society? India may not be as advanced socially as west, but its still a civilized place. Dont you think if people discuss something important it is vital and definitely in the interest of all involved for all parties to be heard? And even if they are being ignorant by not wishing to hear them, is it right to resolve to "manhandling" the situation?
Cause I think its not.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[speedtux]

Yeah you've said the same 6 times in this story Speedtux [slashdot.org]

Your point being, Mr. Anonymous? ... forgetting ...

Other open source supporters have a far worse history: IBM, Sun, Nokia, etc.

Infact listen to this to learn what Microsoft+Novell are doing to Linux [youtube.com] if you need any more convincing that Novell are just like SCO.

Novell clearly isn't "just like SCO". All Novell has done is taken hundreds of millions of dollars from Microsoft and used them to develop more free software.

Are indemnifications and similar agreements a problem for FOSS? You bet. But you're not going to fix that by boycotting Novell. I'd much rather have Novell sell these indemnifications than Microsoft.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[ThePhilips]

Setting religion aside... Well, nothing is left of the Novell/M$ partnership case once you set religion aside.

Both Novell and M$ are businesses and they do what they need to do to keep their business alive.

I think 99% of /. posters, combined, contributed less than some Novell paid Linux developers what - along with "Boycott Novell" campaign - disqualifies them as involved parties. And since they are not involved parties - they are just bunch of bloggers or using outdated term - whiners.

And also, GPL - v2 and especially v3 - is pretty clear on the issues. If you ever used SUSE, you would know that the OS was all about pragmatism and never about RMS's religion. They were among the first who started including commercial software into distro, thus on one side allowing users to have feature-full system and on another side helping Linux ecosystem grow by reselling software.

Dismissing M$ is plain arrogant - arrogant to users who are stuck in business software locked to M$ platform. Novell helping the users escape the M$ built cage - forcing M$ to open up - is only commendable in my eyes.

P.S. Frankly IMNSHO RH does much damage to FLOSS compared to SUSE/Novell. The amount of code they forked and left for dead is really incomprehensible. From recent events, they even fork now X Window System by starting new project. Instead of participating in community process, RH simply forks. That is more damaging IMHO to FLOSS in general, than commercial deals, since it fragments user and developer communities without actually bringing something new to the table.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Benanov]

Try PhotoRec. It's Free Software, not just free download.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Ed Avis]

Remember that Novell helped Microsoft get OOXML approved and Novell forked OpenOffice.org as soon as it moved to GPLv3.

That is interesting. So you mean that Novell's go-oo is always going to stay GPLv2? I know that upstream is GPLv3 as of OOo 3.0.

As for the patent covenant with Moonlight, this applies only to the patented media formats (MPEG video and audio, etc) which cannot be legally played with free software in the USA. Microsoft distributes binary-only codecs which can be used free of charge. You can use Moonlight without them, and it is entirely free software in that case.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

Go-OO has existed since before Ximian was bought by Novell, the fork had nothing to do with GPLv3.

Also, all the leading distros ship Go-OO's version.

Re:Alternative Viewpoint

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, all the leading distros ship Go-OO's version.

I'd hope not it's the slowest of all the versions of OpenOffice.org, See http://www.oooninja.com/

Boycott Boycott Novell

[PixelSlut]

Sorry, but the Boycott Novell people are complete retards to begin with. To my knowledge they don't actually produce anything for the open source community, but they sit around and bitch and whine about Novell who employs all kinds of open source hackers; including kernel hackers, GTK and GNOME hackers, window manager hackers, Mono hackers, accessibility hackers, open source artists, and more. Sorry if I have very little sympathy for the situation. It's not that I think anyone should be 'manhandled' under any situation, but these guys are the most inconsiderate members of the "open source community" and it's hard for me to really take most things they say very seriously.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[CRCulver]

...Mono hackers...

That's a reason to lead a campaign against Novell in itself.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[CarbonMonoxide]

In this particular case though , the people who protested seems to be among the most active FOSS hackers in Kerala...

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[PixelSlut]

That's the most retarded fucking thing in the world. If you don't like Mono, just don't fucking use it. The point is, these guys aren't actually contributing anything. Instead they just sit around and criticize fucking awesome hackers. Mono is really fantastic software. If you don't like it, just don't use it.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Hurricane78]

Except that the Mono project is part of the EEE (embrace, extend and extinguish) strategy of microsoft.
Microsoft has a deal with Novell. But not with other Distributions or Gnome. So they can still sue the hell out of them if they want.
Now that Gnome largely depends on Mono (indirect dependencies), they reached an important step.

These people warn about this problem. Many are badly informed because it's some kind of retard magnet, but this makes the base point not untrue.
Oh, and I myself act trough boycotting Gnome. Their philosophy is "Make it as easy as possible, and do not care if the user wants to confgure it differently or have a choice". This is what I disliked about Windows (except for it being closed source and made by a highly criminal company).
This Mono problem is the last straw that breaks the camel's back.

And just for those who disagree: This is - per definition - my POV. Of course you can disagree. :)
But be prepared to bring a hell of a good set of arguments to the table. :)

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, .net kicks ass from the developers' perspective. It's by far the best platform to program in. I'm a huge fan of free software myself, but with visual studio 2008 and the .net 3.5 stuff, I find myself doing all my hobby programming in windows.

Either mono succeeds, or microsoft locks in developers. It's that simple.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[PixelSlut]

"Now that Gnome largely depends on Mono (indirect dependencies), they reached an important step." This is complete FUD. Gnome does not in any way depend on Mono. In fact, pretty much everything in your post except the "this is my POV" is pure FUD. Nobody has ever found any grounds on which Microsoft could sue any Linux companies, and all this "boycott Novell" stuff is just trying to fuck with a company that is contributing a shitload of great work to the community.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[PenguSven]

right, because .Net is making every other development language/platform obsolete, and everyone wants to use .net. in simmilar news, AIDS is the new black, and everyone will have it this summer. you notice the operative word in what you wrote? "I" it might kick ass from YOUR perspective, but not necessarily everyone (or anyone) elses.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Chuck Chunder]

Except that the Mono project is part of the EEE (embrace, extend and extinguish) strategy of microsoft.

Let me get this straight, when Microsoft embraces and extends something (lets says html or Java) that's part of Microsoft's strategy?

And when the opposite happens, ie free/open software embraces and extends something (let's say .Net) that's part of the same Microsoft strategy too?

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[siddesu]

Man, you say "fuck" a lot. You're Sean Connery's distant relative or something?

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody cares if you agree or not. There's been an open source implementation of nearly every programming technology since the beginning of computing.

After you've finished shitting your pants about .NET programmers, maybe you can freak out about people programming in FORTRAN77 or something.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[at_slashdot]

Windows is really fantastic software, if you don't like it, just don't use it -- just trying to replicate your thought process...

The point is that somebody can boycott and criticize something without contributing anything to the product,I haven't contributed anything to Windows but I can still boycott it and bitch about it. Same for Mono or Novell.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[speedtux]

These people warn about this problem.

You're presuming that they are right; I think these people are full of shit.

But whether they are right or not doesn't even matter. I don't want to hear anti-Novell or pro-Novell messages at all at open source conferences, I want people to stick to the agenda and topics that I came for.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[bug1]

That's the most retarded fucking thing in the world. If you don't like Mono, just don't fucking use it.

He criticized a piece of software, your carrying on like he insulted your god(s), Get a grip...

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[powerspike]

what, giving people more options to move away from microsoft?

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the most retarded fucking thing in the world. If you don't like Mono, just don't fucking use it. The point is, these guys aren't actually contributing anything. Instead they just sit around and criticize fucking awesome hackers. Mono is really fantastic software. If you don't like it, just don't use it.

Explaining that Mono and MoonLight continues to be a non-OSS patent-infringing platform that's permitted to stay alive only while Microsoft continue their patent deal with Novell is worthy criticism and these 'Boycott Novell' people are contributing t to that public understanding.

Boycotting Novell makes sense when you figure out the legalese.

Novell's distro comes with Microsoft patent indemnity over all software, even the software that Microsoft and Novell didn't write. This SCO-like accusation that you need their patent indemnity to even use the software is something that Novell are going along with because fear sells.

Novell should be considered like SCO.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[SanityInAnarchy]

Oh, and I myself act trough boycotting Gnome. Their philosophy is "Make it as easy as possible, and do not care if the user wants to confgure it differently or have a choice".

So, in other words, kind of like KDE4? Especially Kubuntu Intrepid?

To any KDE people reading this: I know what you're trying to do, and I respect that. There's a lot of cool things about KDE4, and a lot of old problems solved.

But at the end of the day, it felt like "upgrading" to Vista.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[sumdumass]

I think your missing the point.

Novell is being productive and an asset to the open source community while the best the protesters will do is stop that. They are claiming to be helping the OSS community by chasing the developers, hackers and supporters away. That's sort of like giving your baby up for adoption to a family financially and morally worse off then you are and expecting it to have a better life.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[alexandreracine]

or Robert De Niro perhaps?

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Bacon Bits]

Have you noticed your browser is pointed at SlashDot?

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this "fuck" thing is what bonobo is about :-D

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[mcvos]

The point is, these guys aren't actually contributing anything. Instead they just sit around and criticize fucking awesome hackers. Mono is really fantastic software. If you don't like it, just don't use it.

In other words: it should be about the code, not the politics.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Tatsh]

You are going to have to name a real example where the free/open software community has practised an EEE strategy.

At the very least, the community always embraces. This is necessary.

Secondly, extensions are always documented. They are never kept secret or used to keep others from 'competing'. There is no real competition. There is simply different opinion. GNOME vs KDE vs Xfce vs is a matter of opinion for both developers and users. It is good to have choice.

The real problem nowadays is that Firefox's engine and everyone else's has to handle tags like (brought by Microsoft) and (brought by Netscape), otherwise known as non-standard HTML tags. But simply, a long time ago, Joe Six pack made his web site, thought marquees were great and left his site alone. Now if a browser does not implement the functionality the site looks broken, and is not being shown as the desired by the designer.

I have not seen an example of 'extinguishing' in the community. Standards and features get deprecated, but they never get undocumented nor 'pretend' forgotten. Microsoft can do this in many ways. The best example is HTML. Microsoft added so much new and UNWANTED functionality into HTML that only IE would support. They purposely sent other stylesheets to other browsers (the Opera ordeal); they tried to make other browsers look bad with the sites they had control over. And with their own extensions, and browsers possibly not supporting them, even sites that were not created by MS could look bad. 'Joe Sixpack goes back to IE after trying Firefox and seeing does not work the same as IE.'

Extensions in the community will always be documented, unlike with a company like Microsoft.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Tatsh]

I agree. I tried it. Took 4 or so hours to compile it on Gentoo. Had to unmask many packages. Not worth the time!

I really want to use it. It looks great for the most part. It is not ready for prime time. I stick with KDE 3.5.x just as I stick with Windows XP as opposed to Vista.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Kjella]

He criticized a piece of software, your carrying on like he insulted your god(s), Get a grip...

There's a reason they're called OSS zealots.

1capitalized : a member of a fanatical sect arising in Judea during the first century a.d. and militantly opposing the Roman domination of Palestine
2: a zealous person ; especially : a fanatical partisan <a religious zealot>

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Tatsh]

At least F77 can compile native binaries.

I'm against .NET in the sense that many of apps made using .NET code (managed code) could be made with true cross-platform code (like C, C++, even Python or Perl) or environments like Java (yes, it has patents but at least every major OS has a version). .NET is not cross-platform by any means. Theres dotGNU and Mono and a few others (Wine included) that are trying to implement .NET. Mono is at Microsoft's discretion it seems, and so far it seems Microsoft's discretion is to keep it far behind .NET (it only supports .NET 2.0 officially and some functionality of 3.0). Beyond that, many people make front-end utilities using .NET nowadays that launch Windows native applications. Not running in a Wine environment (or anything similar) means that a Mono/.NET program cannot work completely. Mono and Wine will never work together for the very reason that Microsoft seems to have the ultimate say on Mono to Novell.

I am not a big fan of Java either, but like I said, there are many implementations; Java is nearly completely open source and there are many open source implementations partially complete or complete. Beyond that, there is gcj, which can compile native code. Where is the same for .NET or Mono? I have not seen it.

In VS, you tell it to start a Win32 application and it treats you like a criminal almost nowadays for not wanting to make use of .NET. .NET is even in the product name now. And what is odd to me is Microsoft claims this is part of their solution to the DLL hell problem, and thus .NET apps will run on anything supports .NET, but more importantly a Windows 98 machine can run a .NET 2.0 (only up to 2.0 by the way) compiled on XP. Who wants to wait minutes for an application to start? Not me.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Chuck Chunder]

You are going to have to name a real example where the free/open software community has practised an EEE strategy.

Wouldn't I have to allege that such a thing had happened first?

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

And when the opposite happens, ie free/open software embraces and extends something (let's say .Net) that's part of the same Microsoft strategy too?

It's an implementation that knowing infringes on patents and repeatedly asks Microsoft for permission to keep living.

Microsoft can pull the carpet out from under them any time they like.

People speak out against it because they want to make sure that people know that .Net/SilverLight/LINQ development is done under those terms.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[joib]

He criticized a piece of software, your carrying on like he insulted your god(s), Get a grip...

At least the software exists..

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Tatsh]

Perhaps, but you sound like you are suggesting that the 'free/open software community' would ever act in the manner that Microsoft has when it comes to standards.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately we've learnt that politics affect code through laws that protect DRM, and SCO creating FUD about patent infringement to sell indemnity (kind of like what Novell do in selling Microsoft indemnity), and Microsoft threatening Redhat customers to say that they owe Microsoft money.

And the net effect of those lies and politics is to keep people away. This keeps happening and as long as people benefit from lies and politics it will continue to happen.

And because there will be fewer users we don't get nice things like more open source drivers, so it affects everyone.

I'd like to leave politics out but unfortunately that's not the world we live in. This youtube video explains everything :(

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

Reiser?

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Kadin2048]

You're taking on premise that Novell does more good than harm to the Linux / Free Software world. I suspect that the Boycott Novell people would disagree with that.

I haven't been firmly convinced either way, but their stance seems to be that Novell is basically Microsoft's sleeper agent, and that the OSS world would be better off if they just disappeared tomorrow, even though that would mean some of the less-evil things they're doing would stop, than if they continue. I.e., they think the continued existence of Novell, taken as a whole in its current form, is a bad thing.

I don't think either camp -- pro-Novell or anti-Novell -- is really doing a great job of making its points in a rational and unemotional way. There seems to be a lot of noise and argument but not a lot of actual substantiative discussion.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[WNight]

The point YOU'RE missing is that Novell's main contribution to open source is patent-encumbering things and spreading Microsoft's filth under a different name. They aren't altruistic in the slightest because they intend their "open" source contributions to entangle you in non-open patents.

They'd help the community far more if they deleted everything they'd written and closed up shop.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[WNight]

So why does Microsoft make such a big deal out of the patent indemnity issue if it's useless to them? Can you really imagine them spending a ton of money on lawyers and going through all the anti-GPLv3 nonsense if they didn't plan on violating the spirit of the GPL?

When has MS ever NOT tried to embrace and extend? Which MS CEOs have NOT called open source a communist cancer, etc?

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[ozamosi]

They also write 8.9% of all kernel code, which makes them the second largest kernel contributor after RedHat.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[WNight]

Yeah, because the topic of code ownership is irrelevant. Who cares if it will remain free? Who cares if the companies involved are trying to use software patents to embrace and extend?

Only everyone actually serious about using open source. Which leaves you in the idiots-on-the-sideline-without-a-clue category. Or astroturfing-assholes-making-shit-up...

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[skulgnome]

By that reasoning, the retard is you. What do you produce? What gives you the "right" to express an opinion? Nothing, that's what.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

nobody cares (because you're a moron)

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

Just don't using a platform doesn't help much if that platform is pushed by corporations that create demand in job environments too. You need help from others, hence the word spreading not to use it.

About the "why", well, if you didn't live under a rock in the last 5 years you could have noticed how many well known applications and fields of application got sucked into the Java black hole: OpenOffice almost requires it, Eclipse requires it, Azureus/Vuze requires it, the Arduino IDE requires it, even the stupidest program that displays a single form containing two buttons that call a shell script when pressed requires it.

Programmers are becoming lazy under Linux too; who cares if the software is 5-20 times slower and bigger than its C or C++ equivalent when you could finish it in a week instead of one month?
Companies embraced this way of thinking too; they won't look anymore for programmers who release fast because they're good and experienced, they now look for people who release fast because they use easier languages, and the heck about the performance: a well crafted advertising campaign will make the user believe his machine is too slow and buying a faster machine is the solution. Spend! Spend! Spend! Sorry, guys. If that's what the IT is becoming, I'm happily off that train.

That's why we should boycott the Java/.Net/Mono platforms. If people stop developing using efficient languages because there's no job demand anymore for them, the entire software world is going to suck in a few years, no matter if we "just don't fucking use Mono" or Java or whatever in our personal little project.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[sumdumass]

I don't think either camp -- pro-Novell or anti-Novell -- is really doing a great job of making its points in a rational and unemotional way. There seems to be a lot of noise and argument but not a lot of actual substantiative discussion.

This is largely because there really isn't any points to be made. Novell is a company that deals in FOSS software and they act like a company. The entire MS deal was blown out of the water for the express intent to promote the GPLv3 that until that one event, wasn't gaining much traction. And despite Novell's claims to the contrary during the GPLv3 push, and Grokelaw's analysis of the final deal that more or less laughed at the deal because of clauses like the one that said the Patent indemnification offer was only for products not competing with MS, The anti-Novell crowd kept going and going.

The deal is no real threat to anyone. You are not any safer getting your stuff from Novell then any third party, people are just still upset because OMG, they are doing business and talking with MS. These very same people forget that the Mozilla people did the same, The Samba people, Yes, the same ones who complained about the deal then stomped away, spent about 4 months inside MS making some shit work and collaborating with them.

I'm not pro-Novell. I'm just sick of seeing them used as a whipping post and no one giving them credit for what they do do. Right now, they are behind about 8% of the kernel work, spend a lot of time on drivers, have used their marketing share to influence hardware manufactures for open drivers and/or general Linux support for the hardware (even if it wasn't open). They contribute both time and money to a number of projects like Apache, Mozilla, Open-office and so on. But wait, that's evil because they also work with MS just like a lot of the other projects and companies have.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[mcvos]

Unfortunately we've learnt that politics affect code through laws that protect DRM, and SCO creating FUD about patent infringement to sell indemnity

I think the SCO case was about copyright infringement, which is something completely different from patents. And software patents in particular are not very well established. So SCO had a much stronger case than MS does, and look where they are now.

I'd like to leave politics out but unfortunately that's not the world we live in. This youtube video explains everything :(

I realise the dangers of fear mongers, and I certainly think this paralegal bullying needs to be stopped. But in the end, OSS is about code. We can't allow legalities to trump code.

The problem here isn't Novell. As far as I understand (note that I know absolutely nothing about them), Novell contributes quite a lot of code to various OSS projects. The problem is extortion by frivolous bullying. This problem is not restricted to OSS, and it's a problem in the way the legal system works. It's the legal system that needs to change, and companies that resort to this sort of racketeering that need to be punished. Write to your MPs, senators and congressmen. Get legal organisations up in arms. But don't sacrifice good OSS, because that's not going to solve the real problem.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Teancum]

For Novell to be a Microsoft sleeper agent, they certainly have been shafted by Microsoft enough to make you wonder what they do to true enemies if this is what they do to "friends".

The history of the relationship between Microsoft and Novell is rather long, complex, and rather technical. Some of this goes all the way back to Gary Kildall and Digital Research, with the original IBM-PC, as well as the later acquisition of Digital Research's DR-DOS by Novell. I could also cite deliberate engineering by Microsoft to subvert Novell products and crash computers using Novell software.

There is so much here that to give specifics "in a rational and unemotional way" simply becomes so tedious that it isn't worth the effort to folks who aren't interested in facts.

More to the point, there are a great many organizations in this world that do much more harm to humanity than Novell, and it is debatable that Novell is even being a problem at all. Boycotts usually backfire by promoting the company indirectly, and in this case I think the added publicity Novell is going to get from just this story on /. will cause more sales than any who might actually listen to the anti-Novell people and not purchase these products.

Heck, Novell might even think about donating to their organization as a thanks for the publicity.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Teancum]

The problem here isn't a Novell-Microsoft alliance, but rather the courts that accept the concept of software patents in the first place.

If software patents didn't exist, this wouldn't be an issue in the first place. For myself, I really fail to understand what possible benefit patents like this could have other than to encourage companies like Microsoft to expand their legal rights to mediocre software that only seems to work 80% of the time anyway.

I hate Microsoft... mainly because what they produce is crap. At least a good portion of what Novell produces actually works, and in fact that was the reputation Novell was striving for until Microsoft all but killed off their company.

If Novell started as an open source company and the patent agreement was a part of a larger trend moving to a more closed-source model, I would be concerned. However, the patent negotiation with Microsoft really was a way to convince Novell shareholders that a move into greater participation with the open source movement was a sound business decision, and in fact enabled that company to do precisely what they are doing now with their support of open source software.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[WNight]

They could write 89% of kernel code for all it matters. If they're trying to encumber it with software patents, especially on behalf of Microsoft, it's all totally worthless. Worth less than worthless for that matter, actually harmful.

Besides, there's a difference between actually funding the development of something and merely donating to a developer who was writing that code anyways.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[WNight]

If Novell wanted to help the community they'd have gotten MS to agree to blanket indemnity, not just via Novell. As is, their actions are entirely self-serving.

And yes, laws that would allow software patents are bad laws, but people who exploit these laws knowing full well that their actions are harmful to others are bad people. Takes both to actually abuse something.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[AvitarX]

If they are truly boycotting, then I assume they spend money. For commercial companies such as Novell this is supporting Linux.

Novell isn't a charity, and plans to get everything they spend returned. If people feel that mono is a waste of effort they can reasonably spend there money somewhere else such as Redhat (which als contributes a lot to the community).

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Elektroschock]

The way forward for the easy Linux Desktop is LXDE, not the idiosyncratic gnome with all the components and Mono dependencies. http://www.lxde.org/

I don't trust Novell, look what they did to OpenOffice, they forked it and Microsoft pays their project.

But what really is a no-go: The collaborate with a communist party. How bad is that?

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[ultranova]

And software patents in particular are not very well established.

They are well enough established that I, for one, couldn't afford to fight them in court. Can you ?

I realise the dangers of fear mongers, and I certainly think this paralegal bullying needs to be stopped. But in the end, OSS is about code. We can't allow legalities to trump code.

No, OSS is not about code, OSS is about the freedom to modify, use and redistribute programs as you see fit. Having the code is simply a means towards that end. The lack of code is an inconvenience, but can be worked around, as projects like Wine show; however, legalities - software patents specifically - are show-stoppers. Consequently, legalities trump code.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[sumdumass]

That isn't true and you know it.

Well, maybe it is true, why don't you list everything they contribute and mark where the patents are and such so I can verify it.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[speedtux]

Only everyone actually serious about using open source. Which leaves you in the idiots-on-the-sideline-without-a-clue category. Or astroturfing-assholes-making-shit-up...

I've created a lot more FOSS in my life than you. The "asshole" (to use your own words) here is you and people like you who misuse FOSS issues as a means for venting.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[mcvos]

And software patents in particular are not very well established.

They are well enough established that I, for one, couldn't afford to fight them in court. Can you ?

I've never tried. But as I understand, nobody has. In fact, as far as I can tell, software patents provide no legal protection whatsoever in the EU, and while laws have been proposed to make software patents legal, so far they've all been blocked by the EP.

I realise the dangers of fear mongers, and I certainly think this paralegal bullying needs to be stopped. But in the end, OSS is about code. We can't allow legalities to trump code.

No, OSS is not about code, OSS is about the freedom to modify, use and redistribute programs as you see fit. Having the code is simply a means towards that end. The lack of code is an inconvenience, but can be worked around, as projects like Wine show; however, legalities - software patents specifically - are show-stoppers. Consequently, legalities trump code.

So far, software patents haven't stopped any show yet. And since they're not legal in many countries, efforts to keep OSS free are better spent on maintaining that situation or on introducing laws banning them completely, rather than on banning specific sponsors from OSS conferences.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course he says it a lot. He has never gotten to actually DO it, and quite likely never will.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[nschubach]

I suppose some people look at it like this...

If a drug dealer were spending his money on improving the neighborhood by cleaning graffiti and painting lines in the road while selling drugs, would it be morally right to support this dealer?

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Anonymous Coward]

Unmask many packages? Not really, for me it was setting ~amd64 then just emerge kdebase-meta or kde-meta.

Four hours later, bam, KDE4. With multislot too you can run KDE3.5 and 4 side by side, so just compile while you're working on whatever in KDE3.5. What's the big deal?

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Tatsh]

I was getting 4.0 as soon as it was in the main tree. We all know 4.0 had its problems. I have not tried any recent releases. I really want to hear from everyone 'general acceptance' before I make the jump. And all my PIM data better import properly. My life is on KDE (Kontact, Korganizer, etc).

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[PixelSlut]

They could write 89% of kernel code for all it matters. If they're trying to encumber it with software patents, especially on behalf of Microsoft, it's all totally worthless.

But they're not doing that, and they never have. You're just trolling and spreading FUD with posts like that. This is the type of stuff that we see from the Boycott Novell people, and this is why nobody takes them seriously.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[PixelSlut]

Explaining that Mono and MoonLight continues to be a non-OSS patent-infringing platform that's permitted to stay alive only while Microsoft continue their patent deal with Novell is worthy criticism and these 'Boycott Novell' people are contributing t to that public understanding.

Can you please explain both why it's non-OSS, and how it's patent-infringing? Mono is, I believe, released under MIT license. This is an official OSI-certified Open Source license, so I think you need to back up that statement that it's non-OSS.

Mono is not known to be infringing on any patents either, so I'm not sure what your claim is in that case either. The core of the .NET framework that falls under the ECMA/ISO standard is patented by Microsoft. But anything submitted to these standards must be available for implementation under RAND terms. However, Microsoft went one step further with the patents for these standards and said they would release them under not just RAND terms, but also for royalty-free terms. There is a difference between infringing on a patent and implementing something that is patented but available under a standard with royalty-free RAND terms.

Mono does not knowingly accept code that is patented and does not fall under the ECMA/ISO standard because then they would be setting themselves up for possible litigation.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[sumdumass]

I can sort of agree with that. Except I think it still might unfairly label Novell unless the antinovell people were the drug dealers.

The problems I really have is that the argument of how they are evil just don't hold water outside some idealized worldview that is separated from reality. I mean their biggest complaint against Novell is that they are working with MS and that they are developing specific MS software to work with specific FOSS software. And they are being hypocritical in the process by ignoring other projects who worked directly with MS-- SAMBA.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[DavidTC]

No shit.

Look, I thought Java was dumb when it first came out. I thought 'Hey, why not make some sort of professional-looking cross-platform C/C++ GUI library instead? We could just all write to that + POSIX. Hell, throw in more modern standard libary functions while you're at it, and shims so that multiple OSes don't require any changes to do, for example, multi-threading.'

I note that, as of now, I am essentially just described glib and gtk, although as those were not designed to operate on non-Unix systems, their Windows versions are not as nice as could be.

And, if you're really clever, invent a new 'fat' binary format so that combined Windows/Mac/Linux/whatever can be distributed, and passed it to a shim loader that grabs the right thing and loads it.

The VM idea was horrible bad for anything but web pages, and, face it, the applets were always a toy. Loading a VM with security is insanely stupid vs. using a pre-designed VM that starts out in the crippled form that embedded browser applets need, like Flash.

But Java is a frickin miracle compared to .Net.

.Net isn't a solution in search of a problem like Java was, it's a problem in search of a problem.

It has no fucking redeeming qualities at all. And before someone points out some language nicity, I have no problem with the .Net languages. (Although breaking backwards compatibility with VB was spectacularly stupid on their part in that it really pissed off VB developers.) I have no problem with new shared libraries, as I said before.

What is spectacularly offensive, though, is presenting this as some sort of magic bullet for problems that don't exist at all, when in actuality it appears to be a way to break Wine.

And, Microsoft, we already had a way around 'DLL hell'. It's called named versioning. Release damn DLLs named newlibrary100.dll. When there's a new version, name it newlibrary101.dll. Duh.

Yeah, it won't fix your old DLLs...but, then again, .Net is even less of a help there.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[nschubach]

To me, the hypocritical part of it is a company that uses FOSS software and inflicts certain restrictions on the use of products derived from it. IMHO, truly open software does not have patent protection promises and restrictions on where/when it can be run. You can refuse to support it because you can't (due to manpower, etc.) but to outright bring legal protectionists (or threaten to) into the deal defies the openness.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[sumdumass]

What restrictions are the inflicting? All the I am aware of is that they don't forward something they don't have control over to others. That's not inflicting anything, the danger is already there, the only difference is that on one specific use, one specific company won't sure their customers. Nothing in the novell MS deal stops me from suing Novell's users if my patents are found in the products, nothing stops Sun or HP or the patent trolling company of the month. The patent deal isn't inflicting anything and to date, no one has claimed that novell actually included Microsoft's IP into one of the open source products. Maybe with a stand along closed source or non-free product but not in a FOSS product. Well, unless there is something I'm not aware of.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[Tatsh]

Look, I thought Java was dumb when it first came out. I thought 'Hey, why not make some sort of professional-looking cross-platform C/C++ GUI library instead? We could just all write to that + POSIX. Hell, throw in more modern standard libary functions while you're at it, and shims so that multiple OSes don't require any changes to do, for example, multi-threading.'

I note that, as of now, I am essentially just described glib and gtk, although as those were not designed to operate on non-Unix systems, their Windows versions are not as nice as could be.

True, but Qt4 looks almost equivalent to any native interface (by default) on Windows and Mac OS X. Out of the two I would go with Qt4. Also, the Mac port is complete unlike Gtk.

And, if you're really clever, invent a new 'fat' binary format so that combined Windows/Mac/Linux/whatever can be distributed, and passed it to a shim loader that grabs the right thing and loads it.

Who is this directed at? Microsoft?

The VM idea was horrible bad for anything but web pages, and, face it, the applets were always a toy. Loading a VM with security is insanely stupid vs. using a pre-designed VM that starts out in the crippled form that embedded browser applets need, like Flash.

I agree but my main problem with the VM in the first place is speed. I've read all about XNA and how id made Quake for .NET and claimed it was faster. A cross-platform library avoids the need for any VM. I really prefer fast loading, high performance native binaries (even Cygwin is better than .NET or Java).

But Java is a frickin miracle compared to .Net.

.Net isn't a solution in search of a problem like Java was, it's a problem in search of a problem.

Like I said above, part of it was to solve the DLL hell problem.

It has no fucking redeeming qualities at all. And before someone points out some language nicity, I have no problem with the .Net languages. (Although breaking backwards compatibility with VB was spectacularly stupid on their part in that it really pissed off VB developers.) I have no problem with new shared libraries, as I said before.

Nothing to say here except yes, my experience with C# (for a short time) was not unpleasant.

What is spectacularly offensive, though, is presenting this as some sort of magic bullet for problems that don't exist at all, when in actuality it appears to be a way to break Wine.

Honestly, new/old/current conspiracy theory? I could believe that MS is trying to break Wine; everyday there's more chance someone is going to find they can run their 'extremely needed' app on Wine on Linux and thus no more Windows.

And, Microsoft, we already had a way around 'DLL hell'. It's called named versioning. Release damn DLLs named newlibrary100.dll. When there's a new version, name it newlibrary101.dll. Duh.

Yeah, it won't fix your old DLLs...but, then again, .Net is even less of a help there.

Microsoft also implemented WinSxS/manifests to fix the DLL hell problem. I am not sure how it works (Wine implements it too), but basically an app requests a certain revision (exact version number) for a DLL and inside %WINDIR%\WinSxS is all these DLL versions, and the correct DLL is loaded. Placing a version number on the DLL does solve the problem much more easily. On Windows, the first place to search for DLLs is the app's directory, which is why so many apps ship their own MSVC* DLL file. That also has helped in many cases, even in Wine. Like I said before, .NET is hardly a solution to the problem. (dumb car analogy alert) .NET is like carrying a loaded trailer with your pick-up because you are too lazy to unlatch it.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[WNight]

Regardless of what you've written, you can't be very serious about wanting to keep using free software, as you're willing to support a company whose major actions are setting up a way by which they could patent-encumber Linux, simply because they have not yet (that we can tell) done such a thing.

I haven't heard any compelling arguments for how the Novell-MS partnership helps FOSS as a whole, only shrill astroturfers such as yourselves with no more proof than myself, who are insisting it's harmless. Based on MS's track record there's no reason to assume friendly or harmless motives. Based on the damage that could be caused it's reasonable to expect Novell to either drop the deal or get it extended to everyone if they don't want to appear to be a tool of the next MS monopoly grab.

Novell MAY not be planning any harm, but they have prepared themselves to do harm, and have allied themselves with a company whose history is littered with illegal and abusive sabotage of anything they consider to be a competitor. Why should we assume benevolence?

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[WNight]

Ever hear of submarine patents? They could keep the existence of their patents secret for years. In fact, as they likely don't care to bother collecting royalties from small-fry developers but instead prevent competition they'd be very likely to do so.

Furthermore, the patents wouldn't even have to be infringed in Novell's contributions - they'd still be the only ones protected regardless of who wrote the code. They have a profit motive to help MS - a chance to be the sole distributors of Linux.

Why don't you prove the non-existence of any MS patents (secret or otherwise) related to all GNU/Linux code contributions in the last few years?

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[WNight]

Can you prove that Microsoft doesn't have any submarine software patents? That nothing in Linux could be seen to infringe any of their patents? If not, you're just lying when you say they haven't tried anything like this. You couldn't possibly know.

Novell on the other hand, decided to enter into this licensing deal, presumably for a good reason. What do they know that you do not?

They may be benign, but if they want any support from the community they shouldn't appear to be supporting MS. With MS's track record why would anyone give them the benefit of the doubt?

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[thexile]

Insightful comment, Mr. Obvious!

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[sumdumass]

Ever hear of submarine patents? They could keep the existence of their patents secret for years. In fact, as they likely don't care to bother collecting royalties from small-fry developers but instead prevent competition they'd be very likely to do so.

Ever hear of no patents? As long as we are talking about what they could do, why are we ignoring everything they could do? Any company could put submarine patents into an OSS product. There is nothing special about Novell that makes them more likely. In fact, it is even less likely because of their relationship with MS in that more and more people will be looking for the inclusion of IP that MS owns.

Furthermore, the patents wouldn't even have to be infringed in Novell's contributions - they'd still be the only ones protected regardless of who wrote the code. They have a profit motive to help MS - a chance to be the sole distributors of Linux.

And this is a problem why? If there is a patent in a product which causes that product to infringe on something, regardless of who put it there, do you actually expect it to remain there? Or would you expect the infringing piece to be removed. Or is this one of those, if I can't use it no one can- I'm taking my ball and going home. Or maybe one of those, If I'm getting into trouble, so are you thing- cause it isn't fair that I got busted and you didn't.

I just don't understand this argument. It totally neglects the principles of FOSS where the source is open and many people can effect changes when needed. If something is covered by a patent, then the patent is eiher removed or licenses properly. Even the GPLv3 doesn't protect against anything relating to a third party claim.

Why don't you prove the non-existence of any MS patents (secret or otherwise) related to all GNU/Linux code contributions in the last few years?

Why would I have to prove it? I'm not in charge of any contributions or code that gets included into the kernel or anything. Of course the people who are will have to look at it or risk including patented materials into the code. That's besides the point though, they would have to do that anyways without regard to Novell's existence or the MS deal. Novell could fall off the face of the earth never to be seen or heard of agian and it wouldn't change one bit.

You see, your already taking the word of people with no reputation and nothing to lose when they contribute code, yet just because MS and Novell worked out some agreement, your not willing to take them at their word. Your even neglecting the lawsuits and such that Novell could have to face if they deliberately poisoned some code with patents.

I mean the only degree of separation between all this hate novel when you look at the claims is the fact that they have a deal with MS. The reality is that SAMBA has had deals too, Mozilla has, and so on. So for some reason, it is perfectly fine for these other projects to have deals with MS even though they are susceptible to the exact same concerns, but not Novell. Everything that people say could happen could happen with any company. Every fear people have about Novell is present with every other project. Novell has never done anything to indicate that they would do anything that people claim to be afraid of and yet someone has convinced you that not only might they do it, but that their willingness to do it is so much greater then anyone elses despite all sane evidence offered for review, that you must either fear them or despise them because of it.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[DavidTC]

True, but Qt4 looks almost equivalent to any native interface (by default) on Windows and Mac OS X. Out of the two I would go with Qt4. Also, the Mac port is complete unlike Gtk.

I'm just used to Qt being non-LGPL, although I am aware it is now.

Although it's still only C++, IIRC, and there are plenty of C programmers out there.

Microsoft also implemented WinSxS/manifests to fix the DLL hell problem. I am not sure how it works (Wine implements it too), but basically an app requests a certain revision (exact version number) for a DLL and inside %WINDIR%\WinSxS is all these DLL versions, and the correct DLL is loaded.

Yeah, but that's to fix past broken DLLs in a backwards compatible way. I don't have any problem with that, it was the best solution they could come up with, and a good deal better than many people thought they could come up with.

Microsoft offered .Net as a way to never have to deal with that in the future, when, like I said, they also wouldn't have to deal with in the future if they'd just version the damn names of future DLLs.

And even current DLLs could be copied to a versioned name for new applications to link against. In fact, they probably could have done their WinSxS trick by having Windows relink executables to these new versioned names, although I can see why they wouldn't want to do that. But anyway.

The idea that they'd create a huge system library and multiple new languages to use this library to stop DLL hell is literally crazy talk. :)

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[WNight]

Why would I have to prove it?

You wanted me to prove the existence of what would be undisclosed MS patents, I thought you liked throwing out impossible challenges. Besides, you're the one claiming there is NO problem, so maybe you should attempt to prove it.

The problem with Novell's deal is that they're setting themselves up to be the only legit distributor of Linux, once it becomes encumbered with MS patents. (By anyone - even if the patented code was reproduced by Linus himself.) If there are no patents life goes on as now - if there are, Novell wins big.

Re:Boycott Boycott Novell

[sumdumass]

You wanted me to prove the existence of what would be undisclosed MS patents, I thought you liked throwing out impossible challenges. Besides, you're the one claiming there is NO problem, so maybe you should attempt to prove it.

Your the one making the assertions that they are there. You need to support your claim. If you can't support your claim, then we have to take Novell at their word in that they aren't there. Me proving the opposite of your claim is just ridiculous, that would be like me saying your a no good tax cheating child molesting, raping baster, oh and if you disagree, I won't offer evidence in support of my accusation, you just need to prove that your not.

At least in the case of Novell, there is a record of what they have added, the additions get vetted by many other people in the community as well as the project admins and if your scared that something might have slipped by them, you have the option of just no using the stuff Novell has contributed. In the case of the accusation against you, there is nothing of the sort and the likelihood of it not being true is even harder to catch then in the system surounding Novell's contributions.

The problem with Novell's deal is that they're setting themselves up to be the only legit distributor of Linux, once it becomes encumbered with MS patents. (By anyone - even if the patented code was reproduced by Linus himself.) If there are no patents life goes on as now - if there are, Novell wins big.

This statement is just false. Novell doesn't control Linux. If Linux become encumbered with patents of Microsoft somehow, it will be because of people other then Novell. If novell adds something to anything, it is reviewed. If that review turns up a patent, then other groups and projects simply don't use the patented materials. That means Novell will be the only authorized distributor of Novell's MS patent encumbered versions of Linux in which the GPL already makes statements about despite that the Patent Deal might not even cover them.

Now it appears that what your pissed about is that if there is ever found that patents do exist in linux, then Novell might not have to stop using it when other will. But if you read the deal or even the breakdown Grokelaw did, you will find that the patent deal with MS didn't cover anything that competes with MS products or that were primarily developed by a third parties (that rules out the kernel). There are three exclusions to the covered patents, they are Foundry Products, Clone Products and Other Excluded Products. That means that Postfix or Apache, wouldn't be covered by the patent deal if Novell injected some poisoned code in it. It means that open office or mozilla or Gnome or Mono or anything of the sort in which meets one of more of those definitions wouldn't be covered and Novell wouldn't be an authorized distributor of them if they ever become encumbered by anyone.

The information has been availible for years now. Most people have dropped the "Novell is teh evil" by now because of it. Everything was blown out of portion during the creation of the deal because the Church of Stallman wanted to push the GPLv3 through when very few people were supporting it and they purposely misrepresented the facts in order to do so. The worst part of this is that their manufactured outrage which you apparently are still effected by, came at a time when the disaster that is Windows Vista was first released and all the TCO studies MS did were invalidated because the entire benefit to MS, the retraining costs associated with linux, was being recreated in the switch to vista. For

Yep

[FungusCannon]

Communists are assholes.

Re:Yep

[Khyber]

You just proved you know precisely JACK SHIT about Communism.

Did you know there's quite a few Communism-based societies in the UNITED STATES, yes?

I suggest you look up the Radical Faeries and look at what WORKING COMMUNISM is all about - no race, religious, gender, skin color, NONE of those barriers exist. Christians and Pagans and Satanists and many, MANY other religions cooperating in harmony for a common goal. People of all creeds, beliefs, orientations, all do their job and know they have to do it.

Having spent many weeks at one of their "Sanctuaries" just east of Nashville, I can tell you right NOW that not only are you full of shit but ungodly ignorant. These people are some of the most kind and intelligent people I've met - far above your already-shown intelligence - which is ZERO.

Now go back to Digg, asshole. Real men are talking.

Re:Yep

[MarkvW]

Totalitarian communists are certainly assholes.
Pure (notice the word "pure") free market capitalists are certainly assholes.

Otherwise, its just a matter of adjustment between people with differing points of view.

Re:Yep

[mcvos]

Totalitarian communists are certainly assholes.

I think it's safe to expand this statement to: Totalitarians are assholes.

Re:Yep

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike you i've actually been to Kerala, thus this comment isn't pulled from my arse. Earlier this year I travelled round the entire country so I have a pretty good feel for the different parts of India, which is a country with a great many problems, social and otherwise. Kerala was by far and away the most sorted state that I saw, with little of the apalling poverty to be seen elsewhere (though still not without it's problems). Perhaps your enormous intellect can explain why in India the "asshole communist" state of Kerala has the highest level of literacy in the entire country, and why the poverty is far better contained there?

But then why am I bothering? You are obviously exceptionally ignorant, keep on believing the communist boogy man is coming to get you while you sleep - I mean your man Bush has done so much better for his people. Prick.

Re:Yep

[XchristX]

Is that a fact? Then why are there so many Keralites desperately fleeing the state and migrating to those filthy capitalist scum-ridden havens like Mumbai and Delhi?

Re:Anonymous Coward

[narcberry]

They weren't shot or run over with tanks. Is that what this is about?

non-story

[Anonymous Coward]

a single guy gets pushed around by a couple policeman, after ideologically motivated protest against novell. truly a sign of an out-of-control communist tyranny!

Democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't India the worlds largest democracy?

Re:Democracy

[PenguSven]

according to wikipedia, India is a Federal Republic with Parliamentary Democracy, so where the hell does communism come into this?

Re:Democracy

[Hal_Porter]

The state government of Kerala is led by the Communist party?

Re:Democracy

[Chuck Chunder]

so where the hell does communism come into this?

One sentence before some rant about a capitalist business enterprise?

Re:Democracy

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you know that any government the US doesn't approve of is automatically communist?

Of course, the real answer is that it's possible for a government to be both democratic and communist. They're orthogonal to each other.

Re:Democracy

[CAIMLAS]

Yes, and the United States is a Constitutional Republic. And Nazi Germany was a democracy. But these are just names and labels, and don't really speak for the true nature of the state.

A communist party working in within a republic/democracy is entirely plausible, as communism has always been an insurgent governmental ideal: get into the government and take it over from the inside. You're going to have vestiges of whatever came before for quite a while. And what actually is never is the same as what is being presented (see: Soviet Russia and the difference between the strength/power/unity propaganda and the mafia-controlled-everything poverty that was the reality).

Re:Democracy

[AuMatar]

You seem to have a problem with understanding what communism is. Don't worry, its a common problem in the US.

Communism is an economic system where the means of production are owned by the people, and it's profits go to the people.
Capitalism is an economic system where the means of production are owned by individuals who purchase them, and it's profits go to those individuals.
Socialism is an economic system where the government owns the means of production, and it's profits goes back to the government.

Democracy is a method of government where each person gets 1 vote on an issue.
Republic is a method of government with democratically elected representatives who vote on the issues as proxies for their constituents.
Oligarchy is a method of government where a small group of elite makes all the decisions.

You can mix and match government types and economic systems. You can have a capitalistic oligarchy. You can have a democratic communism. Or you can have a socialistic oligarchy like Russia and China. There is no reason for communism to be incompatible with democracy or republics. If anything it's more in line with the goals of communism, although most large scale (country-scale) implementations have been oligarchies or dictatorships.

Most countries have a communist party. Even the US does, although it's extremely weak.

Re:Democracy

[Teancum]

I think this is mainly a problem by those who can't comprehend that a large group of people would deliberately vote a communist party into power within the framework of a legitimate democratic government (instead of the sham "democracies" like the old USSR and what is currently in the "People's Republic of China").

Communism has a reputation of being brutal, obnoxious, and silencing any and all discussion by those who don't believe in their system with a near religious fervor. Most communist governments throughout the world also have some of the strongest totalitarian states ever created in the history of mankind, not to mention are some of the most brutal in terms of the deaths of its own citizens. For example, between Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin, and Adolph Hitler, who killed more of their own citizens in deliberate and officially sanctioned actions (aka like throwing Jews into the gas chambers)? Hitler comes out #3 in this grouping, both in sheer numbers and in proportion to the populations they were ruling over.

The communist party in the USA generally tries to hide its name, as even the term "communist" is considered unhealthy politically. Heck, even "socialist" is considered a dirty word in American politics, even if the term fits the description of what the candidate is advocating (such as what happened in the last U.S. presidential election).

I'd also like to point out that basic tenants of communism involve violent overthrows of their societies, and encourage widespread insurrection of those governments that are not communist. This also tends to make those folks who don't necessarily believe in communism to look with a jaundiced eye toward anybody claiming to be a communist... regardless of if the communist party can actually accomplish anything in a political sense.

I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Master of Transhuman]

You know, the die-hard haters who come out of the woodwork every time Novell is mentioned, dredging up the years old Microsoft deal, which I predicted at the time would have zero impact on Linux and FOSS and have been vindicated in that prediction - except for the haters.

These people really don't give a damn about Linux or FOSS - all they care about is establishing that they're more "moral" than everyone else by opposing any interoperability deals with Microsoft. The fact that the average corporation couldn't care less and only wants some assurance that their Linux deployment will work with their Microsoft deployment is ignored by these morons. The fact that this allows Novell to improve, however small, Linux's penetration into the data center and corporations doesn't interest them either. The fact that whatever Novell agreed to in the deal in terms of "patent protection" is overwhelmingly irrelevant to any future patent cases (which so far haven't materialized and are unlikely to - and unlikely to be won by Microsoft when they do, as countless people have pointed out) doesn't matter to these clowns either.

Only their juvenile emotional well-being matters to them - and of course, damaging the emotional well-being of everyone else who disagrees with their fanaticism.

Fuck 'em.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny how you appear to have made it here first. Who's the moron?

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[TubeSteak]

The fact that the average corporation couldn't care less and only wants some assurance that their Novell deployment will work with their Microsoft deployment is ignored by these morons. The fact that this allows Novell to improve, however small, Novell's penetration into the data center and corporations doesn't interest them either.

I went ahead and fixed that for you
Novell's agreement with Microsoft doesn't benefit Linux, it only benefits Novell.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[PixelSlut]

It benefits Novell, but Novell benefits Linux.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[renegadesx]

Considering Novell hire tons of open source developers to work on open source projects it actually DOES help the community

Might I add that the patent protection deal with Microsoft, despite something I dont personally agree with has actually been helpful to get Linux into the places that have already bought Microsoft's FUD campaign, increasing Linux's market share in places it proberbly wouldn't have.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Xaria]

Do you really think that once they get in-house Linux experience people won't start looking at other options? You could say most of the above about Red Hat, but there are plenty of people out there who use CentOS and Red Hat are cool with that.

If you want money spent on Linux, it has to appeal to people WITH money. Which means that money has to be spent on it to ensure proper support. Which needs corporate backing. Linux would have no where near the market penetration that it does without Red Hat, SuSE (now Novell) and now Ubuntu.

Get off your high horse. The corporate world doesn't exist to donate money to nice causes. Be GLAD that someone is making money out of Linux. They are benefiting from other people's free labour, but that is a labour of love. Those people who donate their time also benefit from the investment in kernel developers by the big companies. It's a two-way street.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[LingNoi]

Even if novell didn't hire them they'd still work on their projects.

Some people resigned from novell after the microsoft deal, they didn't stop working on their projects.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Anonymous Coward]

The fact that this allows Novell to improve, however small, Linux's penetration into the data center and corporations doesn't interest them either.

Fuck 'em.

Maybe. Currently, Novell seem more interested in taking customers from Red Hat than "increasing Linux penetration" i.e. taking customers from MS. Here's a link. With friends like Novell, why does Linux need enemies like MS? Of course, MS and Novell are all sucky-face Koombaiya buddies now. Gag. Spoken as a former paying SuSE user and current (but probably not for long) Novell stockholder. I appreciated what Novell did to stop MS's old sweetheart SCO, but now Novell seems to have joined MS as an enemy of freedom.

Fuck 'em.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[pirhana]

> Might I add that the patent protection deal with Microsoft, despite something I dont personally agree with has actually been helpful to get Linux into the places that have already bought Microsoft's FUD campaign, increasing Linux's market share in places it proberbly wouldn't have.

You are equating success with market share ALONE. While companies like Microsoft believe in this , FLOSS is altogether different.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[jjohnson]

Other things being equal, they're probably happier to be paid to work on their projects than not. Except for the drama llamas who stormed out, that is.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[DoofusOfDeath]

You know, the die-hard haters who come out of the woodwork every time Novell is mentioned, dredging up the years old Microsoft deal, which I predicted at the time would have zero impact on Linux and FOSS and have been vindicated in that prediction - except for the haters.

Yeah, but in all fairness, I think many of us forgot that you predicted that. If we'd remembered, we would definitely have kept our mouths shut.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Brain Damaged Bogan]

"Fuck 'em."
i'd preffer not too... one curry-fart and my penis would melt.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Tubal-Cain]

Someone further up in the comments noted that Novell is the only one allowed to distribute Mono.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Khyber]

I can't wait for despotic assholes who have nothing better to do than cut people down appear.

Oh, shit, Master of Transhuman is already here, I'm too late.

He who whores for karma by cutting others down deserves a slap upside the face with a replica of a horse cock.

Hey, you wanna cut people down? I don't know shit about Novell, I'll just cut you down because you're the easiest target, with your unfettered diarrhea of the mouth.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[FlyingGuy]

Well I guess Novell could stop funding and or participating in any of these projects

And you appreciate that Novell went to bat for the entire Linux community by pretty much single handedly cutting off SCO's lawsuit, which if it had prevailed would have gutted Linux for the most part and pretty much put and end to the Linux movement in general? Aww that is so nice of you and yet you now bite the hand that feeds you.

With friends like you, hell no one needs enemies

Novell has, without exaggeration done more for the acceptance of Linux in business in the last 3 years then Richard Stillman, Linus, Red Hat or any of them. Get a clue.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you be putting it in their ass? We all know they are pussies, just put it somewhere where you don't have to worry about hot farts.

Fuck, I don't even care if you gay or something. I'm sure it gets off just as well in your hand which means that their pussy will accomplish the same goal if not just for this one time.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Brain Damaged Bogan]

given that they are male nerds there are only a few orrifices available, most of which can excrete curry at volatile temperatures. Given these options the only recourse with the statement "Fuck em" is to resort to homosexual intercourse where your penis is entering a potential lava pit... hence why I was underwhelmed at the prospect and stated "i'd prefer not to". both my hetero and dick-melting spidey sense alarms went off upon the OP's request to provide intimate relations to the indian protestors.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[sumdumass]

If MONO is GPLed, then anyone can distribute it because the GPL gives them that right. Novell is the only one offering patent indemnification which isn't the same thing. MS has never claimed they would sue anyone for MONO if they distributed the source or got it from somewhere other then novell. It is nothing but FUD when people claim Novell is the only ones who can distribute something covered by the GPL. You are taking No more of a change with Mono then you would be from any other product. If some company decides they own a patent on the product and sue you, you hit regardless of using Mono or KDE or Gnome or Linux or BSD or GCC or whatever the person makes the claim about.

Hell, the GPLv3 doesn't even fix that. All it says is that if you know about a patent covering the product, you can't distribute it unless you can distribute a license to use the patent too. If a third party declares they own something in the produce or have a patent that coveres it, your in the same boat as any other license or Mono.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please, even Miguel de Icaza has strongly criticised the Microsoft Novell deal because it conflicts with Free Software and Open Source. He's even said that Novell have left the Open Source community

"I'm not happy about the fact that such an agreement was made, but [the decision] was above my pay grade; I think we should have stayed with the open-source community," de Icaza said. He was speaking on a panel that also included representatives from Microsoft and open-source companies Mozilla and Zend.

"There is a patent covenant for anyone that downloads [Moonlight] from Novell," answered de Icaza, who then acknowledged that "as to extending the patents to third parties -- you have to talk to Microsoft."

This answer led Schroepfer to point out the inconsistency between having products that are called open source but are "patent-encumbered." "There are a lot of complicated IP patent-licensing restrictions," he said. "Even if you have open-source [products], you can't get the end result you're interested in."

If Novell went away go away any time now no one would care and people would migrate to Redhat and Ubuntu.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[mcvos]

Someone further up in the comments noted that Novell is the only one allowed to distribute Mono.

How is that even possible? Isn't Mono supposed to be OSS?

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Chuck Chunder]

Someone further up in the comments noted that Novell is the only one allowed to distribute Mono.

It must be true then.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[holloway]

How is that even possible? Isn't Mono supposed to be OSS?

Seems like it's Microsoft licensed tech QUOTE:

[Miguel] de Icaza explained that while anyone who downloaded Moonlight from Novell was protected by the company's licensing of Silverlight codecs from Microsoft through the company's own cross-licensing agreement.

Mike Schroepfer, vice president of engineering from Mozilla, then raised the question that if he downloads and then distributes the code for Moonlight, would he get the patent protection?

"There is a patent covenant for anyone that downloads [Moonlight] from Novell," answered de Icaza, who then acknowledged that "as to extending the patents to third parties -- you have to talk to Microsoft."

So Novell/Microsoft use software patents to remove some/most of the benefits of OSS.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[recoiledsnake]

mono != moonlight != patented video codecs in moonlight

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Anonymous Coward]

If MONO is GPLed, then anyone can distribute it because the GPL gives them that right.

Wrong! GPLv2 had legal loop-holes that were closed in GPLv3 and those loopholes include patent protection which the Novell/Microsoft deal is about. Only GPL3 software will actually include distribution rights from Novell, and Novell admit as such in their SEC filings.

If the final version of GPLv3 contains terms or conditions that interfere with our agreement with Microsoft or our ability to distribute GPLv3 code, Microsoft may cease to distribute Suse Linux coupons in order to avoid the extension of its patent covenants to a broader range of GPLv3 software recipients

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[ozamosi]

The difference between Moonlight and, say, Mplayer, is that it's actually possible to watch video in Moonlight in a legal fashion - if you got your Moonlight from Novell. It's not possible to watch video in mplayer at all* without violating intellectual property laws in most of the world.

For some reason, legal seems to equal evil for some people.

*Don't tell me it is possible to watch video encoded in Theora or Dirac. No videos are encoded in those formats.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[mcvos]

So Novell/Microsoft use software patents to remove some/most of the benefits of OSS.

How is that relevant? As far as I'm aware, in the US there's no jurisdiction regarding the legality of software patents whatsoever, and in several other countries there's simply no such thing as software patents.

So as long as the source is open, I couldn't care less what kind of patents MS thinks it owns.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not possible to watch video in mplayer at all* without violating intellectual property laws in most of the world.

I think I'm right to state that no indivdual has ever been sued for using Mplayer or doing anything similar. Therefore there is no legal precedent in this matter. Also, in this sort of presumably civil law area, there is effectively no law broken unless the patent holder decides they will sue in this matter.
There are even some Linux distros (?Mint) which include the relevant video codecs with no patent license and they have not been sued or (AFAIK) threatened so far.

To summarize, the 'illegality' of Mplayer etc. has *not* been established.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[WNight]

Why should I give a rat's ass about convincing your/any company to use Linux? If you're too afraid to use it you'll fall behind companies that aren't. Linux has powered billions of dollars of ISPs, not to mention other businesses. Their less successful competitors were wasting money buying licenses to MS products and wasting time getting hammered by code-red type crap.

Personally, I hope that every "You've gotta do X for businesses to use Linux" whiner never uses Linux. Just as I hope you use astrology to plan your business activities. Or Ouija boards and chicken entrails...

It just gives me an even larger benefit (relative to the market as a whole) for being able to evaluate software solutions.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Anonymous Coward]

So the dozens of patent rulings (say, Eolas?) were actually brought on by magic fairies and pixies dust?

I certainly can't be bothered into digging into dusty law books to see whether or not there's "jurisdiction", but it's firmly established by precedents that software patents are to be taken very seriously in the US.

You would be right about the "several other countries", but so long as any one of the big ones is encumbered, it's bad news.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[ultranova]

Just as I hope you use astrology to plan your business activities. Or Ouija boards and chicken entrails...

Real Men plan their business activities based on human hearts, freshly torn from the chests of sacrificial victims and still beating... in tune to Disco Inferno >!-)

If the Almighty Dollar is satisfied with the offering, it then reanimates the heartless corpse, which is why large corporations have so many lawyers.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[hey!]

Who's more moronic? The moron or moron who follows him?

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[FlyingGuy]

Look, I don't like that deal any more then you or anyone else does, but we all know the beast has a patent portfolio the size of Montana. Novell made a smart move for themselves and their customers. If you, like me, think that about 90% of software and business patents are complete idiocy, then use all the energy you are expending tilting at windmills to change the law.

Simply running around screaming the Novell is evil, when they in point of fact are not, is both counter productive to furthering Linux adoption and simply hows that you are unclear on what business and investors require when making multi-million dollar decisions about IT infrastructure.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Anonymous Coward]

http://mono-project.com/License

lurk more

Microsoft is just giving them a binary blob with patented codecs so Moonlight can use them without paying license fees.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Master of Transhuman]

"Novell seem more interested in taking customers from Red Hat than "increasing Linux penetration" i.e. taking customers from MS."

What part of Red Hat and Novell being competitors don't you comprehend? As in, what part of the word "business" don't you comprehend?

"but now Novell seems to have joined MS as an enemy of freedom."

There's a lot of "seem" in your post - as in "what the fuck do I know - it just SEEMS that way".

The reality is that Novell hasn't done one damn thing that has actually had any damaging effect on either Linux or OSS in general. That's the bottom line.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Master of Transhuman]

Miguel de Icaza is not exactly the guy I would turn to for the last word on open source since his sole function appears to be to create a copy of a Microsoft product that nobody really needs in the OSS community. de Icaza has been criticized roundly by the SAME PEOPLE who criticize Novell for just being involved with cloning .NET.

Not that interoperability with Microsoft .NET isn't a help for those corporations who want it. But de Icaza could have picked something considerably more valuable to OSS - namely, a Visual Basic for Applications clone that would allow OpenOffice to run Microsoft Office macros and programs. That would have massively increased the penetration of OSS into corporations.

A .NET clone on the other hand, while useful, is not nearly as important for OSS to penetrate corporations as VBA.

Also, there is no such thing as "patent-encumbered" until your ass is in court being sued. Which is to say that de Icaza is not a frickin' lawyer. The fact that there is a patent covenant applied to Moonlight from Novell is irrelevant unless someone who downloads it from elsewhere actually gets sued. Which hasn't happened and isn't likely to happen - and if it does happen, and Microsoft wins, then nobody else will care unless THEY get caught using it. Like who the hell can even necessarily prove WHERE they got it from.

Also, if Red Hat and Ubuntu went away, everybody would migrate to Novell and no one would care. That's called having a choice. The same is not true of Microsoft as every corporation locked in to that company should know.

Bottom line: I don't give a shit what de Icaza says nor what you THINK he said. The notion that Novell is not part of the OSS community is brain dead.

Re:I can't wait for the morons to appear here

[Master of Transhuman]

Well, you could start keeping your mouth shut now and I'd forgive you for not reading my posts in the past.

MySpace/YouTube Integration is a feature emerging

[SeaFox]

Most of the snaps taken during the scuffle were forcefully deleted by the organizers, after seizing the protesters' mobile phones.

Lesson for next time: Use a phone with automatic blogging so the photos are off the phone and on the Net before they can stop you.

What a Shame !!

[Axe4ever]

I am from India,from Gods Own Country. And i am ashamed to tell that i also know a lot of people who support FOSS not knowing what it is. They support FOSS just because that they dnt have tp pay anything for the usage. They don't understand the concept as such. So that means that even pirated ones are free.Its a shame that things have happened to this extent of manhandling a crowd by the cops. Both parties are not aware of what has to be done. The irony is that this is happening at the worlds largest democracy and that too in a literate state like Kerala, where the literacy percentage is more that 90% and where 1000s of engineers are churned out every year. Truely, a shame!!

Re:What a Shame !!

[Paradigm_Complex]

I've always found it very difficult to chose whether or not to back those who support my own aims for all the wrong reasons.

Re:What a Shame !!

[K. S. Kyosuke]

"...in a literate state like Kerala, where the literacy percentage is more that 90%..."

Literate? With as much as 10 % of population illiterate? OK, I get it, could be worse, but considering that three thousand years have passed since Rigveda was composed, I find this state of affairs rather grim. Come on, you're no bloody Pakistan, are you? (OK, that was far from a good joke, I admit. ;-))

Concerning this event, though, I cannot keep from thinking that perhaps emotions simply reacted faster than brains on both sides. Now where do I get an objective, NPOV report on this quarrel? Nowhere, I guess...

Re:What a Shame !!

[sumdumass]

I don't really see why it would be a bad thing for someone to support OSS simply because it is free. The majority of people who use FOSS will never contribute anything back to it and that is precisely on the freedoms of free and open software. In fact, there are several FOSS programs I use that the GPL doesn't even apply to me because I'm not distributing them in any way.

You have your reasons, they have theirs, and they are pretty much all the right reasons, it's just that the reasons are specific to why you or they use the software.

Re:What a Shame !!

[Anonymous Coward]

The average Indian literacy rate is about 60% in comparison to 90% in Kerala. You are an idiot. No better way to phrase that fact.

Re:What a Shame !!

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy_in_the_United_States

Please read it. All of it.

Re:What a Shame !!

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Thanks for telling me what I knew already. :)))

FOSS Haters Anonymous

[Anonymous Coward]

Hello Bill, Is that you? Steve

Obligatory

[Anton Styles]

*pulls out the gouger* In Communist India, source opens YOU!

Re:Obligatory

[badkarmadayaccount]

*pulls out AK-47 with depleted uranium bullets* Whad' ya say, smart guy?

Boycott Novell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that site run by twitter?

Re:Boycott Novell?

[Hal_Porter]

The police are probably twitter sockpuppets.

Re:Boycott Novell?

[twitter_sockpuppet]

Yeah, because everyone is a twitter sockpuppet.

Inaccurate Report

[Anonymous Coward]

The report is very misleading. These people are not open-source activists. Let them go to hell.

Taint.

[Surreal Puppet]

No matter of the people protesting Novell are a vocal minority subgroup that annoys most people. Having police roughing them up and removing evidence about doing so is bad PR for all free software, and it's completely immoral to rationalize this sort of reprehensible behavior just because you don't agree with with what they're protesting about. So they still live. So what, it still shows that this specific police force consists of thugs. Do you people feel relieved over not getting shot every time you pass customs at the US border?

Re:Taint.

[mooreti1]

Just as an aside, I doubt that there was a Novell rep directing the police on how to disband the protesters. I'm just sayin'...

Re:Taint.

[Surreal Puppet]

No, of course not. But an open-source sponsor company still chooses to associate with an obviously oppressive government. And that's not good at all.

Re:Taint.

[sumdumass]

So what if I knew something would go down in this fashion and decide to promote my cause by making a scene at some event?

I mean I could get people to show up with camera phones (don't want to be too obvious) and record the entire event and then post about it on a self promotional blitz. I would go to the event, put up some posters criticizing one of the event sponsors, maybe even hold up a sign and block the view of people behind me, then when I'm told to leave, I can refuse to do so and cause them to either forcibly remove me or call the police which would be even a bigger spectacle. I could then refuse to leave still forcing the police to use force to remove me which will get everyone's attention and we will have it all recorded on camera phones. I guess we could make it obvious with a few people taking pictures so I can exaggerate the situation even more by claiming censorship of it too.

Oh wait, I didn't mean to mirror the events that happened in India with my fictional details of what I would do if wanted to self promote my cause. I mean I'm sure that no one in the novell sucks group thought about that in the ways that I did. They were just peacefully standing there and lets as soon as they were asked and the organizers were rude to them.

The fact of the matter is, if the people would have left when asked to originally, they wouldn't have been roughed up. If they weren't attempting to disrupt the events by putting the posters up inside the areas the events were happening at when the events were going on, they wouldn't have gotten roughed up. Their roughing up was only them being removed after refusing. It's not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with their cause, it is a matter of if their rights supersede mine or someone else's. Of course they don't and their actions was out of line while the cops actions were in line with theirs. This means that even though the cops actions were out of line, they were necessary because of the protesters actions.

Re:Taint.

[ultranova]

Their roughing up was only them being removed after refusing. It's not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with their cause, it is a matter of if their rights supersede mine or someone else's. Of course they don't and their actions was out of line while the cops actions were in line with theirs. This means that even though the cops actions were out of line, they were necessary because of the protesters actions.

Please explain how someone not leaving when ordered necessitates the police trying to remove all evidence of their actions after that point ? I mean, it sounds kinda odd that the cops are trying to remove evidence that they did their duty and acted in an exemplary way. Now, if they did something more than was necessary, something along the lines of "let's beat up the damn hippies", then it becomes very understandable. You aren't arguing that the cops should be allowed to break the law and then hide the evidence of that, now are you ?

Re:Taint.

[sumdumass]

It's not a complicated idea. If you attempt to force a situation that uses specific actions in order to promote your agenda, then you shouldn't be able to gain anything from that action when it isn't lawful. We're pretty sure that people who took pictures and video of the protests were actually part of it attempting to capitalize from the effects of their actions. Not everyone was but some where otherwise we likely wouldn't have seen pictures on the internet so fast from the protesters.

I would have liked to have seen a judge rule on the deletions of the photos before it happened but that would have likely resulted in the confiscation of the phones and several days if not more in order for a ruling on it to happen. I think most of the people are better off with the cops doing the deleting on their own.

Ideologically Motivated News

[XDirtypunkX]

Oh noes, it's the communist boogey-man! They must be ideologically hard-core communists, worried about losing their sponsors and all (a little ironic, communists with sponsors).

If you invited me over to your house and I started protesting you, putting anti-you posters on your wall, calling you a Microserf and generally being a douche then you would well be within your rights to call the police and have me removed. Of course, if the cops were heavy handed (they often are) I could pin everything on a conspiracy by the "man".

I mean, if you're going to make it a story, someone at least has to get exposed to high voltage (hopefully while saying "bro").

Re:Ideologically Motivated News

[Surreal Puppet]

Yeah, but a country isn't a house. For example, you do not, as the owner of the house, have exclusive right to regulate lethal force within it. Allowing closed communities to form with their own laws and moralities about such basic things as the freedom of speech isn't generally good for society, or the people in the communities. Look at North Korea or Saudi Arabia for example.

Re:Ideologically Motivated News

[Hal_Porter]

Oh noes, it's the communist boogey-man! They must be ideologically hard-core communists, worried about losing their sponsors and all (a little ironic, communists with sponsors).

If you look at China the Communist party has gradually been corrupted by private enterprise to the point where it will take money from one 'sponsor' and then cover up the logos from that sponsor's competitiors. Even worse that sponsor can buy the right to act above the law just like the Party always has. Essentially communism was always about monopolies, originally these were monopolies that were run by the Party - the so called collectives - now private enterprise can run them instead. In both cases government goons protect the monopoly.

Trotskyites always said that 'Communism', or rather the version that Communist Parties implement was State Capitalism, and it sort of seems they were right. Actually if you look at the original collective idea, in practice they were big feudal farms owned by the Party with the workers reduced to the level of serfs since they had no freedom to get a job elsewhere or negotiate about their pay and conditions. The difference is now the Party has merged with big business in a way reminiscent of Musolinis 'Corporate State'. Of course on the upside there is no longer mass starvation, but the system is actually much less free than a country with free markets and free elections and oddly much farther from socialism. I suspect it's not that efficient either even if the inefficiencies can be hidden in the short term by threatening anyone who points them out.

Re:Ideologically Motivated News

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at the US the Republican party has gradually been corrupted by private enterprise to the point where it will take money from one 'sponsor' and then cover up the logos from that sponsor's competitiors. Even worse that sponsor can buy the right to act above the law just like the Party always has.

Fixed that for ya!

Re:Ideologically Motivated News

[Hal_Porter]

Even worse that sponsor can buy the right to act above the law just like the Party always has.

The Communist Party in China is much more above the law than the Republican party. You can sort of tell that is the case given that the Republicans have just lost power because they lost an election whereas the Communist party in China ships people off to camps for trying to start alternative parties.

Re:MySpace/YouTube Integration is a feature emergi

[mdmkolbe]

I'm not a cell-phone/camera sort of person, so I was quire surprised to find out there is already an app for doing this.

Obstructionists, Malcontents

[Anonymous Coward]

These protesters are merely obstructionists who are looking for ripe targets to shake down. They're simply professional malcontents who can't contribute anything worthwhile society in general, much less to software development.

others top my list

[speedtux]

The objections of BoycottNovell.com against Novell make no sense to me: Microsoft's deal with Novell hasn't affected anybody negatively, and Novell continues to make valuable contributions to the FOSS communities (note: I'm an Ubuntu user, and although I like Mono better than Java, I don't use it much).

At the top of my list of companies that claim to be open source-friendly but that actually have dangerous agendas would be Sun, Apple, and Nokia. All of those companies have big patent portfolios, deals with Microsoft, and patent deals, and they have frequently acted against the interests of open source and open standards, and we still don't boycott them. Furthermore, although those other companies talk a lot about their contributions, Novell is probably responsible for a lot more software that people use day-to-day.

Re:others top my list

[pembo13]

Well, I think they are trying to be proactive, where as you seem to suggest waiting for something bad to happen.

Re:others top my list

[Anonymous Coward]

How much would SCO need to contribute to make their fraudulent tactics worthy of your praise? 1 million lines of OSS code a year? 2 million?
Novell are falsely claiming infringement just like SCO. Stop apologizing for this shitty behavior.

Novell?

[Anonymous Coward]

What? What am I missing here? Isn't novell the maker of openSuse? Isn't openSuse uh... free? Why are Free software activists against novell?

I must sound pretty stupid right now.

And then the communist party is against open source? What? Where does that make sense?

Re:Novell?

[von_rick]

What? What am I missing here? Isn't novell the maker of openSuse? Isn't openSuse uh... free?

Isn't novell the maker of openSuse? Isn't openSuse uh... free?

Novell isn't the maker of anything. They sponsor the project. But OpenSuse is different from SUSE Linux Enterprise (SLE). You have to buy SLE licenses from Novell.

Re:Novell?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to add you can also buy licenses for SLES from Microsoft which is why they get so hot, the most hardcore ones view Novell as the Judas of the community.

They are actually the maker of something, they still decide what projects do and dont go in at the end, they employ alot of the developers, they still actually make products (e.g Groupwise, eDirectory etc) and open source some of their own propietry applications (e.g iFolder) and build enterprise distro's such as SLES and OES (Open Enterprise Server)

manhandled

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought 'manhandled' meant to hold someones man-hood. ie grab them on the dick and balls. lucky bastards.

I was already boycotting Novell...

[Narcocide]

... but its good to see that they clearly aren't wasting any effort trying to win me back. That makes the decision quite guilt free for me.

I wonder if they'll send someone over here to rough me up for not using their shit now.

by that reasoning

[speedtux]

By that reasoning, you should boycott anything Linus or the BSD community produce: when those projects started, their kernels and tools were under considerable legal uncertainty. AT&T and other vendors claimed lots of copyrights and patents. You also shouldn't use Java because Sun has numerous patents on Java.

Open source has always been pushing the limits on patents, copyrights, and cloning, and open source has always been rubbing powerful vendors the wrong way. If anything, the legal situation surrounding Mono is better than it was for Linux or Java: with Mono, we have a public commitment from Microsoft that the core is free (the core that FOSS Mono software actually uses), and nobody has been able to identify patents that read on the core language, libraries, or runtime.

The only reason people get pushed out of shape about Mono is because of the Microsoft connection. But let me tell you: the original UNIX overlords were just as nasty and monopolistic and people still adopted Linux and made it a success.

Re:by that reasoning

[Anonymous Coward]

You also shouldn't use Java because Sun has numerous patents on Java.

You shouldn't use Java because Sun has licensed numerous patents on Java. As far as I know, the terms of those licensing agreements have never been disclosed. It appears that the right to use those patents extends to people using Sun's Java, but really, who knows.

At least with Microsoft the legal status of Mono is known. Plus Microsoft isn't in imminent danger of having their assets liquidated to the highest bidder unlike a certain company which recently laid of 6,000 employees and is now relying on selling advertising in open source software for their financial well-being...

Re:by that reasoning

[Anonymous Coward]

The base of .Net is freeish but anything else including SilverLight, XAML, LINQ is heavily patented and only available at Microsoft's discretion under licensing terms that prefer Novell and exclude Redhat, Ubuntu and Debian. Which means that if you want to make an open source application for the majority of Linux or BSD you have to make it without a database and a modern GUI.

Meanwhile we've got Python and Ruby applications they don't have to compromise for powerful GUIs and they're available everywhere.

.Net isn't what new Linux development should use. It should only be used for compatibility, like Wine.

Re:by that reasoning

[speedtux]

.Net isn't what new Linux development should use.

Quite right. However, Mono is a good platform for new Linux development.

Meanwhile we've got Python and Ruby applications

Python and Ruby are nice scripting languages, but their C implementations absolutely suck. For example, both lack reasonable threading.

Re:by that reasoning

[WNight]

Are you retarded? Linux's tools are the GNU toolset, and the kernel was written from scratch. While many companies would love to claim total ownership of any UNIX-like software that doesn't mean they've got a legal-leg on which to stand.

Re:by that reasoning

[speedtux]

nux's tools are the GNU toolset, and the kernel was written from scratch.

Just like, say, Mono.

While many companies would love to claim total ownership of any UNIX-like software that doesn't mean they've got a legal-leg on which to stand.

Yes, just like, say, Microsoft may want to claim total ownership of any .NET-like software, but that doesn't mean that they've go a legal leg to stand on.

All this bullshit about Novell, Microsoft, and Mono is just that: bullshit. Mono is no worse off legally than GNU, Linux, Ghostscript, gcc, and a host of other open source favorites are.

I wonder whether this anti-Mono FUD isn't actually coming from Microsoft because Microsoft really doesn't want Mono to catch on in a big way.

Re:by that reasoning

[WNight]

Software was believed to be unpatentable during the creation of UNIX - so no, GCC and BSD, etc were far better off than Mono, or Linux now.

This is only bullshit, as you say, because none of us can see the future. You choose to assume good intent - fair enough. I'm not claiming they are sneaking MS patents into Linux, merely that they're setting themselves up to be able to do so.

I'm calling for cautious and skeptical analysis of everything MS does in light of their track record. My fears are justified, your blanket denials of things you can't know are not.

Re:by that reasoning

[speedtux]

Software was believed to be unpatentable during the creation of UNIX - so no, GCC and BSD, etc were far better off than Mono, or Linux now.

Nonsense. BSD was under serious legal threats from AT&T.

You choose to assume good intent

I'm not assuming "good intent". Microsoft is one of the sleaziest companies around. They simply can't do anything to Mono.

I'm calling for cautious and skeptical analysis of everything MS does in light of their track record. My fears are justified, your blanket denials of things you can't know are not.

Your fears are not justified. Mono's patent situation is, if anything, considerably better known than most other FOSS. That doesn't mean it's risk free, it means it's no more risky than most other FOSS software.

You are simply spreading FUD, and at this point, one really has to wonder what the motives of people like you are. Do you get paid by Microsoft for spreading FUD about a competing FOSS project? Are you a KDE fanboy?

Re:by that reasoning

[WNight]

And with all of the AT&T BSD threat, patents weren't involved. Software patents are a far bigger worry than copyright issues because they don't allow for independent invention. BSD survived, it wouldn't have if AT&T had had software patents.

Mono isn't my concern - using a spin-off MS technology is going to be encumbered enough simply by being guided by MS. Enjoy. It's Linux in general - an actual alternative to their OS lock-in, that MS really wants to destroy.

You haven't even tried to explain why assuming that Novell's MS-patent-indemnity scheme could be harmful is FUD... Why would they have bothered with this agreement if they didn't expect Microsoft's patents to otherwise encumber Linux?

They don't have to be the ones who slip in the patent-bearing code, that can even happen by accident due to the nature of patents, but they're setup to be a defacto monopoly when it happens. Rather than fight the issue alongside Redhat, the community, etc, they'll sit back as the only "legal" distributors while Microsoft pulls a SCO.

Why else would they have entered into the deal with MS if not to take advantage of such a deal?

Nothing to do with FOSS/Novell ...whatever

[Anonymous Coward]

Its like this...
1. The government organized some event
2. The government deployed police because there would be "eminent" people ( read "politicians") participating in the event, and need "security"
3. A firm sponsored the event.We all know what sponsored means, dont we
4. A group of protesters land up from no where, bad mouthing the chief sponsor
5. The government would be embarrassed if the protesters are not dispersed. After all, its the government, the mighty government, whose actions are beyond reproach, and who is above the law
6. The police disperse them the only way they know of : bash them up

Its just a govt organized event, which ran into problems, and the troublemakers needed to be dealt with.

If it were a automobile expo, and Toyota ( just as an analogy) were a sponsor and toyota detractors landed up, the outcome would have been same.Protesters being manhandled is nothing new here, and nothing unexpected either.

The country has simply moved from protesters being beaten up by the British government prior to 1947, to them being beaten up by their own elected government since then.

The are not hijacking FOSS, but using it

[Anonymous Coward]

The government of Kerala are actually pretty big FOSS promoters. They include FOSS in the school curricula, have converted a number of government departments into FOSS-only, and the chief minister is quite pally with Stallman. The summary is complete bullshit - anyone with about 15 minutes to spare on Google can figure out the real relation between the government of Kerala and FOSS.

bloggers

[Anonymous Coward]

what else do you expect from a bunch of bloggers? their fucking retards who gate crashed a private event and wouldn't leave. this isn't protesting in a public place or anything so noble. a few extra kicks might have done these moron's some good.

Most photos taken with digicams can be undeleted

[merc]

There has never been a time in my life when some person of supposed authority have made any attempt to force me to delete photographs from my digital camera. Perhaps I am just not taking photos of important things. But should that happen I might gleefully comply if I didn't want to make a big deal about it.

Many digital cameras use VFAT filesystems which means their contents can be recovered. The utility of my personal choice is photorec(1). The photorec utility runs quite well on Linux. Just use /bin/dd to make an image of the SCSI disk to your HDD, run photorec with the device file as the parameter.

Photorec is written by Christophe GRENIER (no, I am not he) and can be found at:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/

Sounds familiar

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't taze me bro!

Wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

The Microsoft/Novell pact does NOT benefit Novell. It benefits Novell's customers.

Open source violence

[Simonetta]

This incident does bring up the question of what we will do when a government, NGO, or criminal group like the Mafia decides that Open Source software belongs to them and that people must pay a fee to them for using it. This situation will undoubtedly arise in places (like third world countries and minority communities in the EU, UK, and USA) where violence has always been and continues to be the way that the local leaders govern community activities.

    When a corporation tried to muscle its way into open source 'ownership' several years ago by claiming that they owned Linux because some other corporation tricked them into buying UNIX, we were able to organize, fight, and destroy them using the American court system. Which is a long, expensive, tedious, but not violent process. Court room tactics don't often work in places where decision-by-violence is the normal way of handling disputes. Yet these places are usually where open source software is most attractive because violence-based economies don't generate enough wealth to afford wide-spread use of paid proprietary software.

    Maybe we should just encourage people in violence-based parts of the world (like India, Russia, and the minority communities of the USA) to use pirated Microsoft and other proprietary software. That will keep Microsoft busy and keep us from having to deal with violent people who would direct their violence against us in order to keep 'their' software working.

    Maybe the open-source community needs to become a little more realistic and a little less altruistic. And please don't tell me that I'm a racist or that I don't understand your open-source vision. The open-source vision only works in places where people aren't violent by nature.

BoycottNovell - the sad truth

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, zealous protesters on private property and zealous policemen aside, Roy Schestowitz is just a kid with massive amounts of time on his hands and a grudge the size of Ireland. He's an unemployed college dropout who lives with his parents (I'm not kidding here) and his credibility level is less than zero. Occasionally he'll write up something interesting, but with his seemingly 24/7/365 posting activity (just head on to COLA to get an idea) most of what he writes is just self-referential gobbledygook of no value whatsoever. Six or seven thousand-word-plus posts per day? No way.

Anyone who thinks Microsoft made Hans Reiser kill his wife, claims he turned down a "six figure" job because they asked him for a Word document or posts things like these shouldn't be taken seriously. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and that's what he banks on. The rest is really just his inexperience, insane hatred and child-like demeanor showing through.

That blog is nothing more than an endless stream of misrepresentations, thinly veiled lies, witch hunts and weird "THIS IS WHAT YOU SHOULD BE SCARED OF" prose, accentuated by what I suppose he thinks are "funny" photoshopped images of people and things he thinks are out to get him. A few days ago he wrote up a storm about all the journalists he estimated had been "bribed" by Microsoft because they got evaluation laptops with Windows 7, and a few of those people actually humoured him by stopping by and explaining why they wouldn't throw away decades of journalistic experience and reputation for a $2,000 laptop, but he just ignored them. Hey, he's right and he knows it.

Linux.com featured an article by Bruce Byfield on this. Roy has a retinue of about half a dozen hanger-ons why post up a storm whenever and wherever anyone criticizes his abrasive "advocacy", which can be seen clearly there... don't miss the fact that our very own favorite troll is also chummy with him (I mean if you needed an excuse). It seems he does these days is post links to Schestowitz's blog with his fourteen accounts anyway.

I'm sure it's important to keep an eye out for Microsoft and all, but by god, this guy is just bad news for the FOSS community. He brings out the worst of the "OMG I HATE MICROSOFT, I AM ANGRY AND I'M GOING TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!!" crowd. On purpose, I'm sure. Because the more abrasive he becomes, the more people dislike him and the more he can claim he's being "stalked" and "targeted" by the Evil Empire (TM). That kid is trapped in a vicious circle he built for himself. He needs to take a deep breath, go outside and play or something. He's so desperate and impatient to make a name for himself but he goes about it with such incompetence (volume != quality) that sometimes I think he must be sponsored by someone or something like that. Hell, he's already claiming Microsoft and Novell are directly responsible for all this.

Anyway, teh internet is serious business and all that...

Re:BoycottNovell - the sad truth

[Anonymous Coward]

A few days ago he wrote up a storm about all the journalists he estimated had been "bribed" by Microsoft

See the comments:

http://boycottnovell.com/2008/11/09/yardena-arar-bribed-by-ms/
http://boycottnovell.com/2008/11/09/harry-mccracken-bribed-by-ms/

This is the most idiotic thing I've seen there yet, and I've seen plenty (although I just subscribe to his feeds, maybe it's time to stop now).

You'll notice he didn't post a retraction or an apology or anything like that.

Re:BoycottNovell - the sad truth

[BulletMagnet]

So what you're saying is Roy is the same to the FOSS community that Jack Thompson *was* to the murder simulator...er...gaming community?

If things shake out like they do from time to time, this guy will probably happen to find his way under a bus, metaphorically speaking, the same way JT did...

Re:BoycottNovell - the sad truth

[Anonymous Coward]

You sure had a lot of time to research all this.
This means:
a) you have a slow work day, you got paid to do nothing today anyways
b) the above post is your *work*, you got paid to write exactly what you wrote

Re:BoycottNovell - the sad truth

[Anonymous Coward]

24/7/365?

Re:Most photos taken with digicams can be undelete

[bendodge]

Recuva for Windows also works well (it even works well in WINE, although I doubt that's recommended). I've salvaged photos and some rather important audio recorded on a cheap MP3 player that corrupted itself.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Same shit, different country (slightly different reason too)

I'm sure the Banks Will Offer Better Advice As...

They Hand Out South Korean Military Enlistment Forms

Look at the Odd news side!!!

[freedom_india]

1) Communists supporting profit making enterprises [like Novell].
2) The voters prefer the Socialist model of software: Free Software Foundation.
3) Communist Govt. bashes up the voters who support the socialiist model of software.
Well, well, i have seen stranger things, but this takes the cake!
I always knew communist governments were strange... but.. this is beyond just amazing.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[bain_online]

T.I.A.

This is India.

Hey common it would happen anywhere in the world.
Try spreading anti-microsoft pamphlets in a microsoft conference and you will be escorted out by a security team. And will be "manhandled" if you refuse to.
None of the photos show any kind of unnecessary violence. Unless those photos were deleted as said in TFA.

Re:MySpace/YouTube Integration is a feature emergi

[Anonymous Coward]

Why on earth would you let anyone take your phone away from you? That's why humans have fists you know.

Interoperability?

[John Utah]

Interoperability = open standards, not open source companies jumping in bed with Microsoft. Thanks Boycott Novell for ruffling these bastards' feathers.

in communist Kerala...

[neonsignal]

...information activist wants to be free

Re:Most photos taken with digicams can be undelete

[Anonymous Coward]

on a cheap MP3 player that corrupted itself.

I absolutely love this line of reasoning.. It wasn't me, the anthropomorphous software or piece of plastic (hardware) DID IT ITSELF!

Re:Anonymous Coward

[lordsid]

You do get that it was meant to be a conference on free software, but instead the gobmint decided they wanted to hijack that message by having novell as the main sponsor? right?

This Slashdot thread is diverting the topic

[shyam_k]

HI, Myself one of the protestors of boycottnovell protest happened in kerala. I would like to summarize some points here.

The event was not organized by the Communist Party. Communist Party is promotting Free Software on several occasions and they have a good stand on Free Software. The event organizers are as seen here at the event site http://nfm2008.atps.in./ Some of the organizers were not having enough exposure to the Free Software world. That actually led to the situation of Novell being the platinum sponsor of the event. The whole problem is because of the igorance of the organizers on the subject. The organizers mishandled the subject without realizing the issue, as they have little knowledge about the issue raised by us.

Our concern was about Novell, and we wanted the general public to know the truth. For that we raised the posters telling them the reasons of boycott Novell. We didnot boycott the event. We did participate the event and tried to correct the organizers and tried to pass the correct information to the public. The organizers didnt realize this and they took their position with Novell due to their ignorance. and this mishandling of this issue caused the problems.

Anyway the organizers (CP(I)M is not among the organizers ) owe an appology to free software community regarding this.
I think the way slashdot presented the issue is misleading. This is not an issue between Communist party and Free Software people.
On behalf of the protestors
Shyam K

Re:This Slashdot thread is diverting the topic

[kromagnon]

I can't see anything offensive / illegal about the posters that were put up. In fact, if the posters were not offensive to the owners of the stalls, then it should be of no concern to the organizers. If the police came there and forcibly removed the pictures from the mobiles and camera, this sounds like a pre-determined action on behalf of the unknown masters.
Don't for a second think that your protest was in vain. We hail your actions and thank you for bringing the message to the public.

so how much of a hero are you?

[SuperBanana]

Lesson for next time: Use a phone with automatic blogging so the photos are off the phone and on the Net before they can stop you.

"What's this? Where are the photos you took?" "You uploaded them to a website?"

Then you get to enjoy a free trip in the back of a truck to somewhere with a net connection, and then you get pushed in front of a monitor and keyboard and told to log in and delete the photos by men with guns.

Your idea is great in a country where the police won't threaten to shoot you. Even here in the US, if they don't like you enough, you'll "resist arrest" and need a trip to the hospital; it happened to a photojournalism student in Provincetown, MA when the cops didn't like him taking photos of them beating the shit out of drunks.

Why do you think NYC doesn't supply flashlights to the cops and banned its officers from carrying Maglites larger than 3 D-cells? It's because cops used them to beat the shit out of people...

Re:so how much of a hero are you?

[sumdumass]

Yea but NYC didn't provide the support necessary when they banned the flashlights and the cops started using plungers and stuff.

Re:so how much of a hero are you?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

"What's this? Where are the photos you took?" "You uploaded them to a website?"

Gee, maybe if you leave the original of the photos on your phone, they'll be happy to delete them none the wiser that you copied them to the web.

Re:so how much of a hero are you?

[loonycyborg]

Then you get to enjoy a free trip in the back of a truck to somewhere with a net connection, and then you get pushed in front of a monitor and keyboard and told to log in and delete the photos by men with guns.

That would be pointless. Once something gets on the web, it stays there forever. Google's cache, other people mirroring it, etc..

Re:so how much of a hero are you?

[DigitalisAkujin]

How would they know if they were uploaded automatically?

Re:so how much of a hero are you?

[dkf]

That would be pointless. Once something gets on the web, it stays there forever. Google's cache, other people mirroring it, etc..

Google doesn't spider everything immediately; it can take some time. This means that there's a window of opportunity for those seeking to suppress information. Though if someone not present actually viewed the image then they'd have a copy and the cat would be truly out of the bag. (Which should be as big a hint as anyone needs for defeating this sort of thing...)

Re:so how much of a hero are you?

[richlv]

um. leave a copy on the phone and don't mention any uploads ?
if a person is dumb enough to shout "i uploaded them" when there are such threats possible, then that person should go nowhere near such places.

Re:so how much of a hero are you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, the summary is highly biased and inflammatory.
The Communist party in Kerala is not Authoritarian, it is democratically elected. Not that they are all angels, but they are no Stalinists/Maoists either.
The alternative party is the Congress party which has no stance on the free software movement - I'd take Novell over Microsoft anyday.
And as for guns, they are almost never used in Kerala. I have seen cops carry 1950's issue .303 rifles, but with cotton stuffed in the barrels (it is a coastal area and rust is a problem).
On the other hand student/political agitations are very common in Kerala and cops are usually very heavy handed. If you are a student protestor or a non-politically-backed protestor, they'd probably drag you to lock up and then beat you up. Most likely you won't get charged, but they'll call your parents to the station and berate them.
As for the cops deleting the files from the internet, my bet is that the local constable thinks that the computer is a typewriter with a screen. If you get somebody who knows what a computer is (usually a higher ranked official), they are also likely to be much more civil (no beating up), but they'll still call up your parents and shout at them for letting the kid wander around.
(I lived in Kerala and have some knowledge of how student protests work there).

Re:so how much of a hero are you?

[stephanruby]

Google doesn't spider everything immediately; it can take some time. This means that there's a window of opportunity for those seeking to suppress information.

Not if you post your picture to a porn photo-blog, porn does not follow the normal space-time continuum. Any image uploaded -- flagged as porn is instantaneously transferred to millions of computers at the same time. This is one of reasons the next Internet (IPv6) is being tested with free porn. If the new Internet can handle porn, we'll know it can handle anything.

Re:so how much of a hero are you?

[meringuoid]

Then you get to enjoy a free trip in the back of a truck to somewhere with a net connection, and then you get pushed in front of a monitor and keyboard and told to log in and delete the photos by men with guns.

The joke's on them. rm on my box is a script that ftp's everything out of the country. Except it isn't, because my phone was running an nntp client that posted everything it took to alt.binaries.images.revolutionary.

Point being, they have no way of proving I actually did delete everything, and no way of knowing that the pictures haven't been automatically forwarded to a thousand locations scattered all over the net. If I'm a truly paranoid sousveillance activist, I'd have arranged matters so that I simply couldn't delete the images, even with a gun to my head.

Re:so how much of a hero are you?

[Maudib]

Nonsense. NYC cops now carry collapsible metal batons that are capable of the same sort of damage.

That's how communism works, in Kerala

[cyberjessy]

The problem is that many communists identify free software as aligned with their communist ideals, since it is competing against the bourgeois American Microsoft Corporation and others. That simply isn't true, since Free software is about freedom and not fighting the capitalists.

I have lived in Kerala for 21 years, and found the communists the most despicable political group. What they try to do in infiltrate every movement or group, and try to push ideology.

We have full fledged political organizations, even in junior school (5th Grade! when students are 11 years old). They have "strikes" and "boycotts" in school, and it is just unbelievable.

Of course, if things don't work out the full "force" of the organization comes to play. That includes murder, and the police machinery.

I have never really supported the Boycott Novell thing, and still believe Novell makes a lot of contributions.

I feel sorry for my state, it is just a horrible mess now.

Re:That's how communism works, in Kerala

[Anonymous Coward]

Your views are atleast 15 years old
Kerala no longer has politics in schools, not since they got rid of pre-degree and implemented the 10+2 system. They have strikes and boycotts in colleges, which I think is a necessary part of democracy - non-violent protests and people's involvement is what moves a country forward. Moreover, I would think that all the parties equally believe in "take it to the streets" .
About pushing ideology, what else do you expect a political party to do except push ideology ? Are'nt all parties supposed to be based on ideologies ?
Lets look at some ideologies they have pushed ... 1) 100% literacy
2) decentralization of power (local self government)
3) Free software
4) Anti-nuclear stance
You may oppose any of these ideologies, but that does'nt mean that these issues need not be voiced out.
(I am speaking as an ex-member of the malayala manorama sponsored , congress leaning bala vedi and having participated in student movements for both congress and SFI. No, never advocated violence, never been arrested.) .

Good: We Are Not Communists

[LuYu]

Well, I suppose this should settle this issue for all of those people who call Free Software users "communists". If the communists are beating Free Software advocates, the Free Software advocates cannot very well be communists, can they?

Re:Good: We Are Not Communists

[kayditty]

sure they are. communists love to torture themselves. of course, that all depends on what you mean by communist. if I live in a country with a communist government, does that mean I hold communist idea? not necessarily, but many people who don't know me might refer to me as a "communist" based on some non-existent relationship they perceive between myself and said country. just the same, there are both people with varying degrees of belief and involvement in the ideas of communism, and with varying degrees of belief and involvement in the ideas of "free software"a very general umbrella term.

under some definition of the wordarguably an incorrect oneadherents to the Stallman-esque philosophy certainly hold ideas which could tangibly relate to communism in reality, even if there is no overarching connection to it. of course, people from a background more analogous to the language of the BSD license than to GPL would register not very much on this scale. if we all can keep our voices primed and in tune for the latest rendition of Beasts of England, then I should think we have much less to concern ourselves with the repression of our beloved Socialist State, but do not forget that four legs are bad.

Re:Good: We Are Not Communists

[kayditty]

apparently slashdot doesn't like HTML entities (and emdashes in particular). that should probably read more like this:

sure they are. communists love to torture themselves. of course, that all depends on what you mean by communist. if I live in a country with a communist government, does that mean I hold communist idea? not necessarily, but many people who don't know me might refer to me as a "communist" based on some non-existent relationship they perceive between myself and said country. just the same, there are both people with varying degrees of belief and involvement in the ideas of communism, and with varying degrees of belief and involvement in the ideas of "free software"---a very general umbrella term.

under some definition of the word--arguably an incorrect one--adherents to the Stallman--esque philosophy certainly hold ideas which could tangibly relate to communism in reality, even if there is no overarching connection to it. of course, people from a background more analogous to the language of the BSD license than to GPL would register not very much on this scale. if we all can keep our voices primed and in tune for the latest rendition of Beasts of England, then I should think we have much less to concern ourselves with the repression of our beloved Socialist State, but do not forget that four legs are bad.

Re:Good: We Are Not Communists

[otis wildflower]

Google Trotsky sometime... Religious movements are the most vicious and cruel against their own apostates, and what is commonly known as Communism is in fact a religion. That is, its tenets and conclusions rely on the faith of its believers no less than believers in Allah, the Trinity, JHVH, etc.

Re:Good: We Are Not Communists

[meringuoid]

Well, I suppose this should settle this issue for all of those people who call Free Software users "communists". If the communists are beating Free Software advocates, the Free Software advocates cannot very well be communists, can they?

Spoken like a man who's never spoken to a Communist.

Remember 'The Life of Brian'? Remember the many revolutionary factions who hated each other worse than they did the Romans? Those were a parody of the various groups of the British Left in the seventies and early eighties, who generally spent far more time berating each other for ideological impurity than they did actually doing anything about the capitalist imperialist state that was their official enemy. There's nothing a Communist hates more than a slightly different kind of Communist.

communists

[Anonymous Coward]

Communists manhandling people? What is the world coming to!

SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[SgtChaireBourne]

This incident does bring up the question of what we will do when a government, NGO, or criminal group like the Mafia decides that Open Source software belongs to them and that people must pay a fee to them for using it...

Which is precisely what you have here. M$ tried via SCO to scuttle Linux. It turned out that SCO hadn't a leg to stand on. So, enter the Novel-M$ SW Patent deal where de Icaza and other receipt-carrying M$ Boosters inject proprietary technology into otherwise free and open source projects. Novell differs from SCO in that this time around there is a trail of receipts showing that yes you do owe M$money for their products even though they were readily available for download.

People have been good about readying the licenses for the main packages, but de Icaza and co. target the libraries and other components that these packages are built on. Combine that with a marketing team that hangs around Slashdot and goes after sites like Boycott Novell and they have made some headway. To be sure, Mono wastes a lot of space on the Ubuntu installation CD. Space which could have been used by Free Software. So even without the sw patent deal, Mono is technologically unsound.

Then there are Novell's attacks against OpenOffice.org and the OpenDocument Format. But that speaks for itself.

At the beginning it was simply described as a stupid move. Novell/M$ is a problem that is getting worse, mostly due to the noise they make and the interference they cause in free and open source projects. The patent pact put Novell outside the free and open source software community. The actions since then have only proven this to be more so.

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[h4rm0ny]

I removed any trace of Novell from our department when they signed their patent-pact with Microsoft - a clear preparation of an attack on Free Software. I do get asked by people, because of my position and background, for advice on which distribution to go for. I always caution against Novell products and, because I owe it to clients and friends, I explain why I am against the company rather than just leave it as uninformed prejudice.

As to Novell people hanging around on Slashdot, I'm quite sure they do. But astroturfing is a flawed tactic. There is no better online forum than Slashdot to get bad or biased arguments shot down, so all the astroturfers ultimately achieve is preparing the wider community with solid counter-arguments against their marketing. Consider it vaccination against a virus - a chance for the IT community's immune system to see the coming FUD. Truth will out - yes, even on Slashdot.

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[Teancum]

I really don't see why this is being modded up.

Yes, I understand that you have some vitriolic hatred toward Mono and consider developers working on it to be a source of wasted talent on what you consider to be a useless piece of software. So what? Others disagree and happen to like Mono for whatever other reason.

Novell is in an interesting position, where they started out as proprietary software developers and developed a rather rock solid business model that gave them some huge piles of cash for awhile. The world shifted and frankly Mircosoft is largely to blame for the fact that the earlier businesses that Novell was involved with died a hard death. Novell even tried to compete with offering a better product and using hard-nosed sound engineering principles, only to get shafted by Microsoft when they deliberately put in software that would screw up the Novell network protocols into their Windows OS suites.

I could get into more, but Novell certainly isn't "in bed with Microsoft", and in fact has found a rather interesting way to insulate itself from Microsoft's tactics: embrace and join with the open source software movement. I think it is a stinking genius move on their part, and without moving to supporting open source software, Novell would no longer even exist as a company... or certainly would be looking at auctioning off most of their office furniture (as they already have).

Novell here is the victim of Microsoft harassment, and the reason they are acting they way that they do is precisely out of sheer survival and based on their history.

Furthermore, this still doesn't justify why it was necessary for these protesters to be jerks and disrupt a conference, exhibiting behavior that wouldn't be acceptable in any other "free" country elsewhere in the world either. If this had happened at a technology conference in Las Vegas, I wouldn't have expected anything different (or perhaps the LVPD would be a little more rough).

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[OolimPhon]

-1, Novell fanboy

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[Anonymous Coward]

>I could get into more, but Novell certainly isn't "in bed with Microsoft", and in fact has found a rather interesting way to insulate itself from Microsoft's tactics: embrace and join with the open source software movement.

Was this the pitch that made MS go for the deal, do you think?

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[Ed Avis]

Novell differs from SCO in that this time around there is a trail of receipts showing that yes you do owe M$money for their products

I'm glad to hear there is solid evidence in the form of a 'trail of receipts' showing that paying Microsoft is necessary. I was beginning to think your post was just another uninformed rant, but you have reassured me. Just one thing: do you think you could post this 'chain of receipts' and other evidence that you may have? Of course, I believe you immediately that the whole existence of Novell and free software projects such as Mono and OpenOffice is merely a conspiracy by Microsoft, co-ordinated by Miguel de Icaza as a kind of Gollum figure. But some other people (fools that they are!) might not be so trusting. I have the same problems myself when I try to explain that the Iraq War was secretly started by Barack Obama disguised as a nun. So if you'd be so good as to provide this evidence that you have?

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[Ed Avis]

I removed any trace of Novell from our department when they signed their patent-pact with Microsoft

Did you also remove any trace of Sun from your department? Sun also has a patent cross-licensing deal with Microsoft.

Come to think of it, did you remove all trace of Microsoft?

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[Foofoobar]

Novell here is the victim of Microsoft harassment, and the reason they are acting they way that they do is precisely out of sheer survival and based on their history.

If they are victim, then they are victim of 'battered wife syndrome'. They love the deal too much to leave but hate the abuse that gets heaped onto them. They were warned before entering into this relationship how abusive it was and yet they still went in and are still in it. I think it's time for an intervention and moving Novell to a safe house for it's own safety so that we can once and for all break Microsoft's hold over it and De Icaza.

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[h4rm0ny]

Did you also remove any trace of Sun from your department? Sun also has a patent cross-licensing deal with Microsoft.

Come to think of it, did you remove all trace of Microsoft?

In reverse order, I did not remove any Microsoft products from our department. Firstly, I have no right to as I am only responsible for backend stuff, not clients. Secondly, I rather like XP which is what we use. Thirdly, I feel less strongly about Microsoft. Whilst they may fund efforts that are intended to damage GNU/Linux, the enemy is not usually as hated as much as the traitor that turns on you. That emotive argument aside, your criticism is flawed. Might as well criticise someone for saving a £5 on bus fare by cycling on Monday because they didn't cycle on Tuesday. It's the exact same principle of you demanding to know if I also removed other company's products.

On the subject of whether I removed any Sun servers, again, I did not. We do have a couple, but they're not my responsibility. If they had been, I would have been tempted to replace them with Debian servers but that's just because I'm very comfortable maintaining Debian servers. Our SUNs are Solaris boxes. They are running some Free Software, but I see SUN as a very different case to Novell for a number of reasons. Firstly, they are not a threat to Linux in the way that Novell are. Novell are actively working to undermine Linux through projects like Mono which tries to establish non-Free standards in the Open Source movement. They are also participating in what is effectively a smear campaign against Linux by signing a deal they know to be baseless so that they can falsely market safety to their customers - a smear campaign because it attempts to spread fear amongst Linux users that those without Novell's bit of paper are using something illegally and are in danger. I know of no such actions on the part of Sun. Even if I did, the Sun servers are of more use to us than a couple of SuSE servers which can be easily replaced with a different distribution.

I hope that answers your questions and implied criticisms.

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[bonefry]

Seriously, some people live in lala land.

Between free-software activists that boycott conferences and pieces of technologies, and rednecks that think it's OK for America to bomb the shit out of the rest of the world in the name of their freedom, the difference is none.

I really respect people that work for open source projects, because they are doing it out of passion. But unfortunately some people like to poison the waters for everybody, invoking reasons like the preservation of freedom, when in reality such things are done out of vanity (it's great after all not waisting the air that you breathe, being on your high horse, looking down on others who just "don't get it").

Miguel de Icaza has done a great job with Mono, and with Gnome, and most people criticizing him don't realize the effort it takes to have such accomplishments. Such effort can only come out of passion, and without Ximian, Linux would be in a poor shape today. And sure the end result could be the injection of proprietary pieces in open-source products, but to think about it seems really stupid to me, since copyright and patent laws can change, and technology is the only one responsible for the evolution of our race.

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[FunkyELF]

I removed any trace of Novell from our department when they signed their patent-pact with Microsoft

Did you also remove any trace of Sun from your department? Sun also has a patent cross-licensing deal with Microsoft.

Come to think of it, did you remove all trace of Microsoft?

One commercial OS having patent deals with another commercial OS is fine with me. It is when they start infecting otherwise free software when I have a problem. We use Solaris, Windows, and Linux where I work.

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[DavidTC]

Exactly. No one's going to end up in violation of MS patents by using MS products.

It's MS patents finding their way into Novell Linux distros, and, from them, into other distros, that people need to worry about.

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[Teancum]

If they have a "battered wife syndrome", it is from a Justice Department and legal system that has refused to take their complaints seriously (Novell did try to sue Microsoft for anti-competitive/monopolistic behavior).

That the road which Novell has taken to transform itself from a proprietary software vendor to an open source contributor and supporter may not be as "pure" as some in the open source movement may like, they still are one of the "good guys" compared to companies like IBM that have legitimately earned their reputation. In spite of IBM's current "blessed" reputation in open source, they are hardly the most perfect company in terms of software patents and running roughshod over "the little guy". Don't let the Nazgul run over your too soon if you piss them off.

Yeah, this one deal between Microsoft and Novell stinks, at least from the viewpoint of garage startup open source projects. All I'm trying to point out is that it was something Novell simply had to do in order to appease their own shareholders, many of whom weren't (and still aren't) avid fans of open source/free software applications.

This doesn't mean that Novell is a puppet company for Microsoft, unlike other companies (SCO, hint, hint).

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree. It's very annoying that Mono is taking up space on the CD, and for what? Tomboy and F-Spot. One of which I don't want, and the other of which I couldn't use even if I wanted to, because it's so crappy. But, the vocal minority fanboys spammed the GNOME lists and then the Ubuntu lists until they got their posterboys included. And now, even Nautilus refuses to shut about how it could open this or that disk in F-Spot... with no sane way of removing the alert (yes there is a way).

Insane! And in no way with the end user in mind. Horrid.

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[operagost]

In reverse order, I did not remove any Microsoft products from our department. Firstly, I have no right to as I am only responsible for backend stuff, not clients. Secondly, I rather like XP which is what we use. Thirdly, I feel less strongly about Microsoft. Whilst they may fund efforts that are intended to damage GNU/Linux, the enemy is not usually as hated as much as the traitor that turns on you.

Applying this line of logic to homicidal dictators, Stalin was a monster while Hitler was OK.

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[Foofoobar]

One of the good guys? By trying to put questionable licenses into GPL'd products? By promoting a vendor who is known by the motto 'embrace, extend, extinguish'?? How is promoting this vendor and sleeping with them beneficial to the community? Everytime Microsoft makes a decent gesture, they screw it up by doing something anti-competitive o ruin the gesture of good faith with the open source community. And Novell saying 'no no, I swear they have changed' while we watch the beatings go on is just an embarassment to Novell.

So if Novell refuses to believe they are in an abusive relationship, I think everyone is already making the correct decision... ignore them until they acknowledge the problem.

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[h4rm0ny]

Applying this line of logic to homicidal dictators, Stalin was a monster while Hitler was OK.

Then I would meekly suggest not applying it to homicidal dictators. :) But you know, if you read the sentence afterwards, you'll see I did characterise my own point as an "emotive" argument. And it's true that you are less outraged when someone you have a history of antagonism with harms you than when someone who claims to be your friend turns on you. Especially with lies and slanders. Also, Microsoft do at least produce products of worth. I can buy both XP licenses (or I used to be able to) for the machines I want XP on and use GNU/Linux for those I don't. What do I get from Novell? Pollution and little else. I hear that their developers contribute to Linux, but its a poisoned contribution if we're not careful. So while I don't dispute that your point is right, I maintain that mine is supportable. And it was far from the crux of my argument.

Anyway, as your namesake might have put it:
What a way to run a business!
Give me more unending trials!
Half your code wont compile,
but you make a pile!
Novell!
To hell with market competition -
Have a lawsuit and you're sure to make a mint!

Regards,
H.

Re:SW Patent Pact put Novell outside the community

[Ed Avis]

One commercial OS having patent deals with another commercial OS is fine with me. It is when they start infecting otherwise free software when I have a problem.

Surely Solaris (being free software otherwise) is tainted just as much as SuSE Linux by this? If you want to boycott companies that have a patent non-agression pact with Microsoft that's fine, but make sure you are not applying double standards.

I support this boycott!!

[monkeySauce]

I shall not purchase any Novell Protesters which were Manhandled in India!

We demand unspoiled protesters, dammit! (or at the very least, domestically manhandled ones-- it's better for our economy)

"piracy" only helps M$, hurts FOSS

[SgtChaireBourne]

... Maybe we should just encourage people in violence-based parts of the world (like India, Russia, and the minority communities of the USA) to use pirated Microsoft and other proprietary software.

So-called piracy only helps M$ against FOSS. See this 2006 LA Times article:

"And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. Theyâ(TM)ll get sort of addicted, and then weâ(TM)ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
-- Gates, circa 1998

Advocating piracy in order to undercut competitors has carried M$ through the decades even now:

"It's easier for our software to compete with Linux when there's piracy than when there's not"
-- Gates, circa 2007

The only way for the market situation to get better is to avoid any and all use of M$Âproducts, including "pirated" ones.

Re:"piracy" only helps M$, hurts FOSS

[OolimPhon]

So-called piracy only helps M$ against FOSS. See this 2006 LA Times article:

"And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. Theyâ(TM)ll get sort of addicted, and then weâ(TM)ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." -- Gates, circa 1998

It's now 2008; Gates has had his decade. Worked out well for him, didn't it?

Re:"piracy" only helps M$, hurts FOSS

[hey!]

Well, it probably did, but you have to factor in a shift from piracy to properly licensed, free software.

To the degree they are losing market share, it's illogical to attribute that to piracy. Pirated Windows and Office don't count as lost market share, but when somebody who formerly copied MS products illegally turns to legally licensed, free alternatives, it does. Furthermore, when somebody does this, it dilutes the network effect of the software, the value of having that software because it's the software "everybody else" has. Firefox might, in the end, turn out to be the most historically important F/OSS project, other than possibly Apache. It may be the linchpin project that allows non-Windows platforms to achieve parity in web based apps.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[philspear]

Can we at least agree that they used physical force to silence the other side of the debate?

Clarification

[Anonymous Coward]

I have wrongly stated the organizer of the conference as CPIM. On second thoughts, i have to admit that it is wrong to put the blame entirely on CPIM, for a folly of a handful of their members along with some ill informed people outside of it. Sorry for the confusion.

Re:MySpace/YouTube Integration is a feature emergi

[Anonymous Coward]

Why on earth would you let anyone take your phone away from you? That's why humans have fists you know.

Because the other guys have guns?

(which is a good argument for concealed carry)

...sounds familiar ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Only their juvenile emotional well-being matters to them - and of course, damaging the emotional well-being of everyone else who disagrees with their fanaticism.

sounds like a bad marriage, so far...

Fuck 'em

Confirmed, whichever way you wish to interpret the epithet ...

Proportionate force was still too much.

[twitter]

No, no one died but the organizers did bring in the heavies to protect their sponsor. Censorship is ugly no matter how you do it.

In this case, it blew right back into their face. Had the organizers left the protesters alone, the whole thing would have blown over. BN may have put some pictures up and that would have been the end of it. Instead the news of ripped up posters, deleted pictures and rough handling has spread all over the world. Here's a lesson for everyone: prevent disruption but allow peaceful protest to avoid incidents.

Re:Proportionate force was still too much.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trying to mod yourself up there twitter? How about you just STFU and hand over your $699 licensing fee you cock smoking teabagger!

Re: False

[Anonymous Coward]

He has his doctorate. So he's not a college dropout.

The rest of your rant makes me start for the first time to think maybe
the guy really is being professionally smeared. The Byfield piece
was embarrassing.

too funny.

[Anonymous Coward]

Novell would have been better off giving the protesters a booth.

Re:too funny.

[Thorwak]

Exactly. I bet they are very happy now that this story is in Slashdot's RSS feed :))

Re:too funny.

[cayenne8]

Really....hell, I had no idea that India had turned communist?!!?

So, we have a 'new' commie country with nukes....and we're continuing to send our IT to them??

My...how times have changed.

I guess in Soviet India...'Squishy' serves you?

Re:too funny.

[Anonymous Coward]

2009-01-20: USA turns Communist when Czar Obama takes over.
2009-01-21: Czar Obama declares Martial Laz
2009-01-22: Czar Obama nationalizes the media
2009-01-23: Czar Obama shuts down all independent Internet sites and has the site owners sent to secret gulags in abandoned Wal*Marts, since only Republicans would use Gitmo and the Dems are against that (but not lefty fascism)!

Re:Your lists are strange. Novell is the New SCO.

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you please use a few more dollar signs when you post? Right now you're at the point where I simply dismiss whatever you're saying. But verily, if you use a few dozen more, I'll start to think you're just disabled and take your opinion seriously in the name of equality and progress.

17 years later, maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

There's patents there. if you're using a patented process, your license lasts only as long as your patent owner wants it to.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[h4rm0ny]

And that personal property (mobile phones) was forcibly taken so that what actually happened could not be recorded.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Teancum]

If you are being a jerk, don't be surprised if you are treated like a jerk.

Sometimes these protesters get exactly what they are asking for, and in this case it sounds like they were begging and asking for a violent confrontation.

Unless there is evidence to the contrary, I think the physical force used "to silence the other side of the debate" was properly used.

It was the protesters who were doing the unethical behavior in this instance. There is a whole lot more to the story than what was published. I could give analogies, but this is something like going to a UK Soccer match wearing the colors of the visiting team and yelling obscenities about the home team.... in the middle of a bunch of drunken fans.

Well, not quite, but they certainly should have been aware of the fact that what they (the protesters at this conference) were doing wasn't welcome and may not be tolerated by the other participants. There certainly are a great many analogies to apply here to show this was a stupid idea.

why there are communists

[Max_W]

The ideas of Christianity are love, humility, nonviolence, etc. Good ideas, no doubt.

But the self-appointed "distributors" of these ideas destroyed the original American civilizations if the name of these ideas, while in fact hunting for gold and land. Just using the ideas of Christianity as a disguise.

Nowadays the ideas of freedom, democracy, fair representation are these good ideas. And again there are self-appointed "distributors" of these ideas.

Why not give time to people in remote lands to evaluate and implement these ideas? Why bring them with a sword and fire?

These are the questions to ask yourself before making fun of communists in a poor land.

Wtf /.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that it took me having to read the photo of the posted paper explaining the Novell situation to know why I should care?

Only a matter of time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems this is right on the money, twitter, and I quote:

don't miss the fact that our very own favorite troll is also chummy with him (I mean if you needed an excuse). It seems he does these days is post links to Schestowitz's blog with his fourteen accounts anyway.

And here you are, attacking Novell, defending Roy Schestowitz (whatever) and whipping up your usual "M$ OMG SUX WINBLOWS LOLZ" storm. And in true form, you already started shilling your -1 posts with some of your dozen+ accounts.

Are you and Roy sponsored by someone to put that much effort into this? I mean who has time to maintain so many accounts on Slashdot? And Roy seems to post twenty-four hours a day! Surely no one has that much time on their hands...?

Why are the communists fighting freedom?

[argent]

Why are the communists promoting proprietary technologies at a "free software" conference? Why are they suppressing dissenting voices?

Re:Why are the communists fighting freedom?

[Max_W]

They are always suppressing dissenting voices. This is what communism all about. The communism, more correctly the totalitarianism, is the other side of the medal. It is a reaction, a defense, which people in poor countries are trying to mount against incoming "Trojan horse" of good ideas from more advanced parts with greed and violence inside.

Re:Why are the communists fighting freedom?

[argent]

It is a reaction, a defense, which people in poor countries are trying to mount against incoming "Trojan horse" of good ideas from more advanced parts with greed and violence inside.

So why, again, is this defense being mounted in support of the ideas with the greed inside, like proprietary platforms like Mono?

Uh-oh. Socks?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm told that these two nice chaps (twitter and ibane) readily agreeing with themselves inside of ten minutes (world record!) are actually the same person; apparently Mr. twitter here likes to have conversations with himself to drum up support of his posts.

And the 'Too funny' anon comment below, given the timing of the post (only two minutes after twitter) and the style is also probably him, since ACs (like me!) are actually more visible than his posts because all of his accounts have terrible karma.

I'd give this 'discussion' a wide berth :)

Apropos

- JM (posting anon also... sorry)

Re:Anonymous Coward

[argiedot]

There are many Communist parties. This is the Communist Party of India (Marxist) - the CPI(M) or CPM. It is known for doing stuff like this. They're leftist only in name, have neo-liberal policies in their own state, and oppose anything American because it is American.

In addition, they're idiots. They kill people who oppose them (Singur, Nandigram). Their so-called activists, burn, rape and pillage. I, a leftist, would choose the Congress Party of India over the CPM any day.

In addition, they have thin skins, criticising the CPI(M) is A Bad Thing. "Don't you have any respect? How dare you say something about such a respected party" No, fuck you. Lumpen crap.

Footnote: This is the case with most big things in India, the BJP and the Congress are no different, except that they don't hide what they are, and the Congress is a bit too wimpy to shut people up.

Re:MySpace/YouTube Integration is a feature emergi

[shaka]

There are loads of systems that take care of this. This, however, is one of the most interesting to me: It makes you into a live reporter. You can use it on your phone, or hook up a HD camera to the laptop and broadcast live to the world. You can also chat with the viewers.

Very cool.

They got what they deserved

[j2keral]

This is like crash landing some marriage party and then distributing leaflets accusing the groom of adultery. I find it amusing that they were not arrested! Check this out: http://www.keralatips.org/2008/11/17/the-meaning-of-freedom-free-software-activist-thamasha/

you don't get scuffles with....

[Anonymous Coward]

strangely, you don't get scuffles with *bsd...

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Richard_at_work]

But just saying that without considering context or any other angle to the issue assumes that the physical force was unnecessary and only a totalitarian act. Context is everything.

Re:MySpace/YouTube Integration is a feature emergi

[stephanruby]

Lesson for next time: Use a phone with automatic blogging so the photos are off the phone and on the Net before they can stop you.

Or he could just recover the deleted photos/videos from his mobile. It's not like the organizers thought (or took the time) to overwrite the deleted bits.

Let's organize a God protest in a church!

[erroneus]

I imagine similar things would occur. The "Free/Open Mind" movement would make signs and raise the ire of the faithful.

The results are rather predictable.

I think this was a very stupid demonstration as it would seem any thinking person would have predicted the results... clearly someone also felt those results were somehow desirable in order to make the defenders of their otherwise orderly conference event look like ass-holes. It looks like the protesters went there to stir the pot and pick a fight. As much as I am a F/OSS advocate, I cannot advocate this.

Monopoly rents

[SgtChaireBourne]

2008; Gates has had his decade. Worked out well for him, didn't it?

Well it may not be on schedule, and the market share may be eroding, but he still has enough of a monopoly to command monopoly rents.

Even "pirated" copies of M$ junk help drive up the price of computing by maintaining that monopoly. Sure a lot of people think they pay zero for that "free" copy of M$, but that simply allows Bill to charge the other users 5x the going rate.

Once enough of the market upgrade to OS X or Red Hat or Kubuntu, then Bill and crowd can no longer set the prices. The likely way that will happen may be through government-level and business-level migrations, and that will be set off by those that use Linux or OS X at home and want their work systems to be as fast and easy to use at the home systems. Until then, M$ will keep overcharging.

It is possible that, buried under all the spin, pay-for-say articles, and astroturfing that this tipping point has already occurred. M$ has been buying/selling an awful lot of stock and that is another way to stay in business besides leasing software.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Z00L00K]

Police action will always make the cause more public so if you want to make some great headlines make sure that the police takes action against you.

Re:Most photos taken with digicams can be undelete

[SharpFang]

I wonder how it deals with wear protection mechanisms.

Flash-based memory media are a true bastard to recover deleted data from. As long as you're using filesystem, moving files around and so on, everything is just dandy. But when you try to access raw media, unused space, it becomes messy. Mapping of a sector of the media to a set of memory cells may change without notice, sectors get reordered and so on. As long as you're in userspace, this is entirely transparent, but down by the hardware, where you work to recover the deleted data, it becomes a serious problem.

One of reasons why tools like Eraser are useless for flash media.

What's the point?

[Mantrid]

Isn't boycotting Novell like boycotting the horse and carriage? Does it serve a purpose?

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Lumpy]

you are right. Protesters that chain themselves to a fence deserve to be Tazered over and over and over again. come on they chained themselves to a fence! chains can kill! the cops need to tazer the man so many time because of how dangerous he was! HE WAS ASKING FOR IT!

the following is from a previous slashdot discussion...

"this is also considered resisting arrest and in situations officers will repeatedly tazer a limp person to torture them or pay them back for making them work. This happens a lot with protesters who make 2 or more cops carry them off, One who chained himself to a fence was tazered enough times that the cop had to get a second tazer as he emptied his. The man refused to unlock himself, the cop was too pig headed to get a set of bolt cutters and drag him off and was intent in teaching the protester a lesson.

http://www.ourmedia.org/node/55217
http://digg.com/world_news/Police_attack_PEACEFUL_Anti_War_Protestors_with_tasers_dogs_pepper_spray

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/09/18/1239237

for the actual slashdot article.

Sorry, but cops and "authorities" love to physically assault peaceful protesters. It happens so much I almost wonder if they train them to do it.

Back in the 50's and 60' it was not unheard of corrupt cops being beaten severely off duty, but they also fired and blackballed dirty cops then when they discovered they were doing wrong... today they get a 3 month paid vacation and protected by their other gang members.

Re:Most photos taken with digicams can be undelete

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, I wouldn't comment on technology you obviously have no clue about. It makes you look like an idiot.

Hints: The wear leveling on the memory device knows nothing about filesystems. Wear leveling is invisible to anything using the memory device. "raw" access makes no difference because your still not directly accessing the memory. The memory device will not move stuff around or change anything if you don't write to it (ie. if you delete stuff and don't write to it again then the deleted stuff will most likely still be there; but this is similar to normal storage anyway).

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Mod up Link to Protester Statement.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is best to read the story as told by Swathanthra Malayalam Computing(SMC) themselves.

This a news for /. ?

[NOLFXceptMe]

And why is this on Slashdot? Coz of "Free Software Foundation"?

Part of my research: Will this be marked "troll"?

Re:Anonymous Coward

[ChromaticDragon]

There is some truth that all politicians and to some degree all political parties share much in common that most would find distasteful.

But in India, there is much, MUCH more diversity of main political parties that there is in the US. They really are rather different in many ways.

As an outsider looking in and watching political debates, I can share my opinion. Congress isn't "wimpy". It's just by and large more mature. In any society that values free speech, you don't need or desire to "shut people up". You'd think a country born out of non-violent protest would really appreciate this. When asked about why Congress fared so poorly after the Godhra riots, Sonja had the merit to explain in a public roundtable that time and again we see people shift to hardline parties in times of fear only to come to their senses later. This would be akin to the top Democrat leaders just after Sept 11 holding incredibly steady and pointing out where, how and why Americans were falling sway to manipulation by fear from the Republicans instead of simply trying to outdo the Republicans.

The BJP (and others), is a great example that religious fanaticism intertwined in politics is not at all unique to the US. Their reasoning is so similar to the board in Animal Farm, it's not even funny.

But yes, in Kerala especially these folk (CPM) have a bad rap. Furthermore, Communists in Kerala over the decades have provided excellent case studies of the folly of Communistic policies or anything similar. There are STILL huge swaths of land that were "appropriated" by the government decades ago that lie fallow, undeveloped and unused. There were vast acres and acres of very productive farmland that immediately went into disuse after the land grab. A similar more recent example would be Zimbabwe's horrible decline. Popular sentiment in Kerala is finally swinging around to the idea that this was a very stupid mistake and the former landowners were stiffed. But you're almost certainly not going to see it rise to the level that the CPM (and others) would admit they were wrong.

Novell peeing in the FOSS pool

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't been firmly convinced either way, but their stance seems to be that Novell is basically Microsoft's sleeper agent, and that the OSS world would be better off if they just disappeared tomorrow, even though that would mean some of the less-evil things they're doing would stop, than if they continue. I.e., they think the continued existence of Novell, taken as a whole in its current form, is a bad thing.

Seeing as Novell has been acting as M$agent provocateur for some time, it seems that Novell is by far doing more harm than good. Developers and hangers-on alike in projects that Novell gets involved end up denial-of-serviced. This is done by all the petty arguments Novellers stir up in their pursuit of injecting M$ proprietary technology in to FOSS projects.

So on the whole, the FOSS world would be better off if Novell just disappeared tomorrow. Come to think of it, so would the rest of industry.

In contrast, if you want to see the model of a strong contributor to FOSS look at Red Hat.

Or turfers

[Anonymous Coward]

Or possible Novell astroturfers:

• http://slashdot.org/~Teancum
• http://slashdot.org/~speedtux
• http://slashdot.org/~PixelSlut
• http://slashdot.org/~Master+of+Transhuman
• http://slashdot.org/~sumdumass

So the command to purge yourself of all the Microsoft infected software is as follows: sudo apt-get remove --purge mono-common libmono0

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize this happened in India, right?

Re:Anonymous Coward

[argiedot]

I appreciate your interest in Indian politics and the possibly more objective viewpoint you have as a person outside the country, but I really must mention a few things:

• The Congress is no angel. They have played what's called a soft Hindutva game as opposed to the BJP's more fundamentalist stance. The Congress is perceived as trying to play to both tunes, and failing at both.
• The Congress is no stranger to pogroms. When the Prime Minister was assassinated, Congress politicians, Ministers, the government machinery set up to keep law and order, all tacitly or overtly supported the anti-Sikh violence. The Congress has since suppressed commission reports on the violence. They got away with it, nearly all of them.

Also, there are a lot of things that are wrong with Kerala. It is more of a case in bad governance and horrible land planning than a failure of Communist-style policies. Land reforms have worked well elsewhere in the country. They were necessary, because after the British Raj, a few people held a large amount of arable land, and everyone had to live a painful life as a share-cropper. In the prosperous states, land reforms have worked well, and even in West Bengal (the CPI(M) stronghold, where they've committed some horrible atrocities) the Communist Party stayed in power on the backs of some well thought out reforms.

Anyway, we digress, the issue in this particular case, though, seems to be the same that pervades all levels of Indian society: the old is automatically good, and must be shown 'respect'.

PS: Just thought this is necessary, seeing as I've been scathing. I love this country, which is why I criticise it so much.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Zancarius]

In addition, they have thin skins, criticising the CPI(M) is A Bad Thing. "Don't you have any respect? How dare you say something about such a respected party" No, fuck you. Lumpen crap.

That really makes them more Stalinist in nature than Marxist.

Inverse of Problem

[bill_mcgonigle]

MS has never claimed they would sue anyone for MONO if they distributed the source or got it from somewhere other then novell

The problem is they haven't claimed otherwise.

And they claimed they were going to start going after the OSS community for misappropriating 'their IP'.

Re:Inverse of Problem

[sumdumass]

The problem is they haven't claimed otherwise.

Your neighbor has probablty never claimed that he wouldn't come over some night and rape you or your family in their sleep but somehow I don't think you fear him or her doing that. I have never claimed I wasn't going to rob you and cause you to lose your job and somehow, I don't think your worries about me doing that.

Hell, not knowing who you are and with the circumstances and all, you probably still wouldn't be worried about the even if someone suggested that it was going to happen.

So I guess the question is why would MS or Novell have to take affirmative steps to ensure to you that they aren't going to do anything that they have never shown a sign of intending to do while your neighbor gets a pass or the random guy on the internet gets a pass and so on. I would personally be more suspect of someone claiming they weren't going to do something that they have showed no signed of intending to do then I would of someone who doesn't even mention it. There is definitely a reversal of logic to some extent here. I think FUD is the or should be the operative theme with that.

Re:Inverse of Problem

[bill_mcgonigle]

Did you read the _second_ line of my comment?

Linkage in case you don't remember.

Re:Inverse of Problem

[sumdumass]

I'm sorry, where in that article does it say that Novell is laying a claim to the patents or that either MS or novell is planing on suing users of FOSS for infringement.

Like I said, Novell has never showed any signs of wrong doing. I don't live in fear that someone is going to do something they have never showed an intent of doing. I can beat people up, are you now afraid of your safety? I would hope not, I never claimed you was one of them.

Re:Inverse of Problem

[bill_mcgonigle]

It's a pattern of behavior, e.g. AutoZone/Chrysler. Or do you not buy the BayStar Capital link?

Re:Inverse of Problem

[sumdumass]

And what has Novell done?

You see, the pattern of behavior in the examples you present show something on both parts being done. What had Novell done that is bad besides talking to MS? I think you'll find it very difficult to find something.

Re:Inverse of Problem

[bill_mcgonigle]

What had Novell done that is bad besides talking to MS? I think you'll find it very difficult to find something.

They signed a patent licensing deal with Microsoft to protect their customers against Microsoft lawsuits. No?

Re:Inverse of Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

besides talking to MS

Talking? If you're going to lie for Novell/MS at least make it plausible. No one's annoyed over talking about you know it.

Re:Your lists are strange. Novell is the New SCO.

[Macthorpe]

Novell took $350 million dollars to agree that GNU/Linux was owned by M$ and that everyone needs to pay a license to use free software.

Another piece of borderline libel from the mouth of Slashdot's most prolific troll. You do realise that you can't just make things up?

Re: False

[Anonymous Coward]

He has his doctorate. So he's not a college dropout.

He does not have his doctorate, you schmuck.

Truth

[mahadiga]

Closed source software businesses promote Collusion in the industry.
Open source software businesses promote Competition in the industry.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct. so they dont use tasers, they simply bash your skull in with sticks.

it's a lot worse in places like that.

Due to the intrinsic cultural diversity,

[Anonymous Coward]

These things happen quite often in India due to the intrinsic cultural diversity.
Each State in India cannot productively govern (legislate,administer,justice) more than 2 million citizens per State.
Hence India should decentralize 604 districts into States or Cantons as in Switzerland.
http://www.polldaddy.com/p/209736