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Microsoft Tries to Stop Use of Free Software, Journal Reports | |
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| Time: 14:10 EST/19:10 GMT | News Source: Bloomberg | Posted By: Robert Stein | ||
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Microsoft Corp. has been quietly lobbying to stop government agencies in the U.S. and abroad from using free software that poses a threat to its Windows operating system, the Wall Street Journal reported. Some congressmen have agreed to ask the Office of Homeland Security to avoid funding research that uses certain open-source software, whose instructions can be copied for free and then modified, on behalf of the company, the newspaper said. Microsoft has also taken issue with a report by the Department of Defense on the benefits of using free software, the Journal said. | ||
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| #26 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 12/11/2002 1:04:33 PM |
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Cthulhu - "Oh, and the NSA's secure linux project was killed. So that's out of the question. "
Not completely killed, but the work did result in some concerns that it was tied up with the coercion of the GPL license. The work is available here: http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/ Keep in mind this statement: "This work is not intended as a complete security solution for Linux. Security-enhanced Linux is not an attempt to correct any flaws that may currently exist in Linux. Instead, it is simply an example of how mandatory access controls that can confine the actions of any process, including a superuser process, can be added into Linux." So by gg's definition the SeLinux work is largely worthless. :-) BTW, this work from the NSA is more interesting: http://www.nsa.gov/snac/index.html It's best practices on configuration and setup of a variety of products, including Windows. |
| #27 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 12/11/2002 1:07:03 PM |
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Oh, one more post(trying to beat BobSmith)
Cthulhu wrote - "Could Linux (pick a distro) get C2ed? Maybe, there's a lot of documentation that someone would have to write. And that's the problem, the Linux documentation, in my opinion, has and probably always will suck." That's actually a big concern with Linux. What's the incentive for a Linux distro to go through all of this effort? None. They won't receive any more business, because they're giving their product away. That's just one of the many flaws of the GPL business model, it does not provide incentive to do the hard not-so-fun work that is often required in the real world. |
| #28 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 12/11/2002 3:05:33 PM |
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linuxhippie - I see no new evidence from you supporting your claim. The information on softwarechoice.org is in sync with what the article claims Microsoft is doing. i.e. taking issue with the mitre study, the use of GPL in research, etc.
From my point of view it seems you are simply unwilling or unable to address Microsoft based on the merits of their arguments, so you are resorting to ad hominem of a sort. Again, why do you try to avoid these issues by changing the subject? |
| #29 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 12/11/2002 3:08:50 PM |
| While we're at it, linuxhippie, why don't you explain to us why you feel government funded research should use the GPL rather than a less coercive license such as BSD? |
| #30 By 135 (208.50.206.187) at 12/11/2002 6:39:01 PM |
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#50, that is until they publish something negative about Linux. Right?
Typical. "First, though, I must take issue with your calling the GPL "coercive"." Then you are taking issue with Richard Stallman. "I believe publicly funded work should remain public." I agree, which is why we should use the BSD or something similar. The reason why the GPL is coercive is because it not only makes the publicly funded work public, but it also forces any additional work no matter who funds it to be public. "When you GPL-licenced your code, it is like making an investment; you reap dividends each time someone else takes the code, improves it, and releases these improvements to you under the terms of the GPL." You also reap dividends by selling the code. Federal law allows for research institutions to sell rights to their work under reasonable terms, which again would be preferable over the GPL. "Rather than simply returning the value of the public's tax dollars to the public a single time, as would be the case with a BSD-licenced release, the government's releasing of GPL code benefits the public over and over again each time someone releases a new version based on that code. " Actually that's factually false. By releasing the work under the GPL it prevents any commercial entity from taking the work and creating a product out of it. This means that the work must be re-implemented to keep it safe from the coercive GPL license, which is fine as we still have the notes from the idea, but it dilutes the value of the public investment by denying access to the implementation example. mod/gzip would have never made it into the HTTP 1.1 spec if the code had not been re-released under a license other than the GPL. That's just one example, there are others. Again I am tired of GPL zealots using examples of non-GPL projects as proof that open source works, but then subliminally attempt to force all software to be released under the GPL. By denying these fundamental truths it makes your entire argument worthless. |
| #31 By 135 (208.50.206.187) at 12/11/2002 6:45:44 PM |
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Oh yeah, one more comment...
"Rather than simply returning the value of the public's tax dollars to the public a single time, as would be the case with a BSD-licenced release, the government's releasing of GPL code benefits the public over and over again each time someone releases a new version based on that code." This statement is also factually incorrect in one other way. You state that code released under the BSD license never seems future improvements being re-released to the public. To disprove that I need only point you to bind, sendmail, various other unix utilities, projects like Apache or Perl which have licenses similar to BSD, etc. The number and breath of examples of this is far greater than a similar list of worthwhile projects released under the GPL. The only difference between the BSD license and the GPL license is this... With the BSD license, you(the developer), have a choice to release your enhancements to the existing codebase to the public. With the GPL license, you(the developer), have no choice. If you give your work to anybody else, you immediately must release all of the source behind your enhancements to the public. The former offers options, the latter is coercion. I've been working on open-source projects using the BSD license for approximately 10 years now. I recently released my latest source code with a modified license which has the intention of preventing someone from re-licensing my work under a GPL style license, because I find such coercion evil and a discouragement to innovation. The only reason anybody would purposefully choose such a license is out of contempt for their fellow developer. I hope those words are strong enough for ya. |
| #32 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 12/11/2002 6:55:01 PM |
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"Actually that's factually false. By releasing the work under the GPL it prevents any commercial entity from taking the work and creating a product out of it."
soda, why is it that I always get the impression that the only value you think arises from code is selling it? |
| #33 By 2332 (65.221.182.3) at 12/11/2002 7:06:54 PM |
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#50 - "I believe publicly funded work should remain public."
For the most part, I agree. Purely scientific progress should almost always be made public, but some things must remain private to be worth the effort of creating them because of their very nature. Do you think the work on the Manhatten project should have been made public? What about breeder reactors, or our war plans, or our spy networks, or any other publically funded endeavor. Some things must be kept secret or they are worthless. One could argue that modifacations made to an NSA computer system built off of somebody else's code is another instance of something that will only work properly if it is kept secret. |
| #34 By 135 (208.50.206.187) at 12/11/2002 8:30:05 PM |
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jerky boy - "soda, why is it that I always get the impression that the only value you think arises from code is selling it? "
Because you don't listen. |
| #35 By 2332 (65.221.182.3) at 12/11/2002 11:10:01 PM |
| linuxhippe... why didn't you answer my criticism of your comment? See post #54. |
| #36 By 135 (208.50.206.187) at 12/11/2002 11:50:23 PM |
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linuxhippie - "No choice?? You made your choice when you decide to use GPL code."
At some point here we began talking about Government supplied code. I believe it started with the NSA description... you must have missed that. "I should have written, the GPL licence *guarantees* that this happens; the BSD licence merely allows it to happen." By way of coercion. Thank you for backing up my point. |
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