On Friday 20 June 2003 09:12 am, JoeHill wrote: > http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2136285,00.html > > Quote: > > "A UK IT industry body backed by Microsoft, IBM, Intel, BAE Systems and > other high-tech heavyweights has urged the UK government to show > restraint in its use of open-source software, particularly software > covered by the General Public License."
OK, I read this article and I don't really get the same thing out of it. Such as what this part says: "Intellect, which was formed from the merger of the Computer Services and Software Association and the Federation of the Electronics Industry last year, and represents about 1,000 UK IT companies....." IBM may only be in it for what prestige it buys them, obviously the group does not represent IBM's views. Most likely it is the majority view, which may or may not be right. Anyway, furthermore, I think what they're saying is legitimate. The government wants to require the GPL in its software contracts, and this group is saying that for government contracts this may be a bad idea. They didn't state it directly, at least not that I saw, but it would stand to reason that you don't want critical software to be publicly available so that would-be terrorists or crackers can read the source code and find a way in. While I applaud the UK attempting to stand behind the GPL like that, I think this group in this instance may be right. > > and apparently we can't trust Sun either. They're in on this whole SCO > thing: > > http://www.pclinuxonline.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6976 > > Seems SCO's filing annual filing with the SEC exposed some interesting > info, to whit: > > " We initiated the SCOsource effort to review the status of these > licensing and sublicensing agreements and to identify others in the > industry that may be currently using our intellectual property without > obtaining the necessary licenses. *****[this is where it gets > interesting]***** This effort resulted in the execution of two license > agreements during the April 30, 2003 quarter. The first of these > licenses was with a long-time licensee of the UNIX source code which is > a major participant in the UNIX industry and was a"clean-up" license to > cover items that were outside the scope of the initial license. The > second license was to Microsoft Corporation("Microsoft"), and covers > Microsoft's UNIX compatibility products, subject to certain specified > limitations. These license agreements will be typical of those we expect > to enter into with developers, manufacturers, and distributors of > operating systems in that they are non-exclusive, perpetual, > royalty-free, paid up licenses to utilize the UNIX source code, > including the right to sublicense that code." OK, I don't get this one. I read the article and I see your quote here, and nowhere does it mention Sun's involvement. The only Sun involvement I see is in the paragraph above this one where it mentions Sun's Solaris. Now that I look at it again, I see where you're going "license with a long-time licensee", but you cannot infer that that is Sun without some sort of proof. Besides, even if it is, it may be for good reason on Sun's part. But this is my 2 cents worth. Tom Williams
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