Open Source:
Forbes: Linux’s Hit Men.
The dispute, which was leaked to an Internet message board, offers a rare peek into the dark side of the free software movement–a view that contrasts with the movement’s usual public image of happy software proles linking arms and singing the ‘Internationale’ while freely sharing the fruits of their code-writing labor.
(Here we go again — the old ‘free software is communism’ line, cf. the ‘Give Communism A Try!’ / Nazi Penguin posters SCO made up earlier this year.)
The article goes on to bemoan how software companies who write proprietary extensions into GPL-licensed software, have to comply with the terms of the license.
It’s all a bit of an obvious dig — but I am looking forward to the follow-up article — that’s the one where the author bemoans how commercial software companies send out their ‘enforcers’ to extort money from companies who don’t bother paying the royalties and runtime license fees their licenses require.
PS: Hmm, ‘software prole’ — maybe I’ll adopt that in the same way
Suresh has adopted ‘lower-middle-class Unix sysadmin’:
The other title came from a spammer who asked Ramasubramanian what she’d done that made him report her to her ISP.
‘I gave her a standard set of links and information on why spam is bad, and took the time to explain all this to her. She then asked me what I did for a living. When I replied that I was a Unix administrator at an ISP, she blew up and said, ‘I thought you were a successful businessman and marketer, but you are only a lower-middle-class Unix sysadmin. Don’t you dare talk to me like this!!!”
Oh look, Suresh has a journal, too; I never realised. Cool.