Re: Embrace, Extend Extinguish

[Alan Mackenzie]

Morning, RJ!

In gnu.misc.discuss Rjack <user@example.net> wrote:
> "Microsoft's embrace of MySQL could kill it"
> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10402551-16.html
> by  Matt Asay:

> "For those who have fret about Microsoft fighting against open
> source, I have news for you:

> Microsoft's impact on open source may be worse as a friend than 
> as an enemy. Over the past few years, Microsoft has steadily 
> warmed to open source, to the point that it now hosts its own 
> open-source code repository and has seen its Microsoft Public 
> License used more often than venerable licenses like the Mozilla 
> Public License or the Eclipse Public License, according to new 
> data released by Black Duck Software.

> The open-source world should be worried."

I agree completely.  Any open-source or free software project that gets
into bed with MS is doomed.  The theme is nothing new - Faust made a pact
with Microsoft several hundred years ago, and paid with his soul.

Why should Microsoft's way of squashing competition from free software be
essentially different from from proprietary software?

Allowing MS to contribute to free software, as the Linux project has
done, is hopefully a different matter.  At least Linux has big legal guns
behind it, if needed.

> Sincerely,
> Rjack

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).