On Fri, Feb 13, 2004 at 12:34:32AM +0100, Spider wrote: > other technologies that can be seen as "infringing" on some of MS > turf. Its an easy, blunt lega weapon to weild against whole projects, > stating that all progress past this point is only because you copied > MS sources, weilding a large batch of patents, tradesecrets and > copyright infringement claims and slamming large and wide.
What scares me, truly, is that it only takes one bonehead to do a copy and paste job from the MS code to a (previously) legitimate OSS application. And, as you say, that gives Microsoft, with their vast financial and legal resources, an opportunity to start doing a lot of damage to the OSS world. I'm probably overly paranoid, but part of me is thinking about a conspiracy. Even if it's not a conspiracy, you've got to admit that Microsoft is pretty good at taking advantage of circumstances, and working things to their favor. I'm sure someone there will figure out a way to use this "opportunity" to kill Linux---as many have suggested, Microsoft's (and SCO's) only way to beat OSS is through manipulation of the legal system. I hope this isn't the first step towards the criminalization of Linux. I've often thought that the best way to get a lot of converts to Linux is for OSS to offer the next "killer app". My vision of the next killer app is highly integrated, "ubiquitous security"---systems that are by default completely secure, but the security implementation and infrastructure is transparent to the users; systems that are *by design* inherantly secure, so they can be open as well (kinda like "open DRM"). I think a component of such a system would be unmistakeable, impossible-to-forge digital audit trails and authentication systems. This would serve a huge purpose for OSS: accountability, and and easy means to verify source code (who made it, where it came from, etc, etc). The intent is to help OSS "prove" that it is legitimate, to avoid SCO-like fiascos. Much of that infrastructure or capability probably already exists, but it's extra work, and not necessarily trivial to use. For an OSS project manager to keep explicit track of every code submission (who, when, where, etc) would (1) take a lot of fun out of the development process, and (2) slow down the development process. But if such a system were fully automated, easy to use---ubiquitous---it would be easy to add the kind of accountability OSS needs to combat the naysayers (and anti-OSS FUD). Sorry, I'm starting to rant/ramble/daydream :) Matt -- Matt Garman email at: http://raw-sewage.net/index.php?file=email -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list
