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To: magellan
It's not "open source madness", its "GPL madness".

GNU madness, since the 'copyleftists' at GNU (who coined the term) can make their free copies of anything using most any "open source" license, such as the MPL license, etc. The only way you could stop them is via software patents, which of course the GNU opposes anyone having for protection.

I wonder if these GNU zealots will rewrite Apache under GPL. BIND is not GPL. Will they rewrite that? What about Sendmail (not GPL). What about XFree86 (not GPL)?

They don't have to re-write anything, using the open source licenses, they just take the original label off, and put their own on there instead. There's an open source company here in the U.S. called "Red Hat" that is legally renamed and resold by China as "Red Flag". Proponents of this renaming/reselling model call it a benefit, even if the technology flow is all one way.

4 posted on 10/09/2006 8:20:15 PM PDT by Golden Eagle (Buy American. While you still can.)
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To: Golden Eagle

I was under the impression that no one "sold" any open source software, per se (except paying for delivery of the media and some pretty packaging, or things like that). What you pay for is support from a branded company for a branded version of the open source code. I would go pay a company like the one that makes Firefox if my company decides to make it our standard browser (currently 30,000 seats worldwide). We already do this with Red Hat Linux. Installing and using the software is free. We pay them for support. That's the business model.

I ain't paying the folks at GNU squat and, even if I did, they wouldn't be providing me the kind of support I require. Red Hat does a very nice job for us on the servers we use it on.


23 posted on 10/10/2006 5:49:17 AM PDT by Phsstpok (Often wrong, but never in doubt)
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