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SCO Down, MS in Trouble, and . . .The White House Uses GNU/Linux -- |
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Sunday, July 27 2003 @ 12:04 AM EDT
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SCO Down, MS in Trouble, and . . . The White House Uses GNU/Linux --
Are Pigs Flying, or What? Take a look at SCO stock. I guess all the insider trading was just in the nick of time. Note all the July 24 entries.
Microsoft has patent troubles, maybe huge ones. Here are a couple of articles in Fortune about the Intertrust case. They didn't do too well at the pretrial hearing. It's good to read up on patents, because I suspect MS plans on attacking GNU/Linux with a patent issue eventually, either directly or through a surrogate. It doesn't hurt to get mentally ready. Here is another article on patents you might enjoy.
And saving the best for last, in the pigs-must-be-flying department, Netcraft reports that the White House web site is running on Linux and Apache. That tops Hellman's, don't you think?
Linux attracts an ecclectic crowd, it seems. SCO told us terrorists like it. Now we learn, so does the White House. I think it may be a tad difficult to dis GNU/Linux users as "Linux-loving crunchies" now, huh, Forbes? At least without disrespecting the White House at the same time... while the whole world falls on the floor laughing, which I am doing myself this exact minute. All in all, a really satisfying day.
P.S. The Register called SCO to ask about the White House, and asked if they would be going after them. SCO spokesman said, "If the White House is running that, they are probably a candidate." Those SEC-bound, might want to reread that Forbes article, just for old times' sake. It explains the Canopy Group, SCO's master. Here's a National Law Journal article on the top litigators under 40 in America.
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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, July 27 2003 @ 12:00 PM EDT |
Hmm, my earlier comments seem to have vanished :-/ Well, in any case having
re-read Bill G's comments he's being a bit more canny than I first thought. He
says that MS IP has clearly made its way into "Open Source", and that is
strictly speaking true (a prime example being MPlayer which runs into many
patents, although this doesn't make it illegal per se, you just have to have
obtained the relevant licenses to use it.) I very much doubt that anything in
the core GNU/Linux system violates a patent that MS could bring forward that
would not trigger a patent war with IBM, but Bill is relying on the IT press's
inability to realise that "Open Source" is not a company which makes product,
and that whatever the MPlayer people do has no bearing on the validity of Linux
or open source in general. (Hey, Mplayer runs on Windows too! :) That is, by
casting aspersions against "open source" in general he hopes to have some of
that rub off against Linux in particular. Dr Stupid[ Reply to This | # ]
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