[BadVista Advocate] Xandros

[Jacob Maynard]

http://www.ecanadanow.com/technology/2007/06/05/microsoft-and-xandros-linux-make-patent-deal/


I have a fear that this is going to be bad. Since Novell started it, I
have a fear that a lot of major distributions are going to follow. Xandros
just dumped on us, as well.

We need to start writing individual "nasty-grams" to these companies. I'm
not talking an individual letter from the BadVista organization. I mean
individual people. We also need to write letters to those distributions
that haven't turned on the free software ideals. These letters should be
saying thanks for not betraying the community.

Frankly, I'm a bit concerned that Novell started a trend that is going to
continue. Because the problem is that a partnership with Microsoft is
going to make big money for any open-source company. The only thing that
can truly help the situation is if a huge number of people were to give
their support to the open-source companies that didn't stab us in the
back.

It's not the individual users that are going to suffer from a lawsuit.
It's going to be the corporations that use open-source as their networking
and/or desktop computing solutions. And too much fear is being put on the
open-source companies because Microsoft is being so shady about the deal.

We need some action, people. This trend can't continue, or else we're in
big trouble. Whether or not Microsoft's claims are valid or FUD, if they
get the open-source companies scared enough, GNU/Linux will be less and
less free.


Jacob