Jonesieblog

The Eee PC is a fantastic wee device. Add a touch screen (which is apparently coming soon) and you have a viable means of delivering 1-1. What makes all the difference to the cost point of the device is the fact that you don’t have to pay for a copy of Windows xp. That would add something like 20-30% onto the cost. You don’t have to pay for Windows because the Eee pc uses Linux.
The Eee pc does not shout about its Linux operating system - it just uses it. So I’d like to shout about the hundreds of thousands of hours of work given freely by thousands of developers to create the Linux operating system and the vast range of free software that runs on it.

These people have given of their own time without any financial reward simply because they wanted to help to make something useful to humanity, or maybe because it was just an interesting problem to solve. Whatever their motivation, I am immensely grateful to them. Without them we would still be stuck with the duopoly of MS and Mac, and the Eee pc would not exist.

Linux has benefited from considerable investment by IBM and other companies over the years, but it is the vast army of unpaid volunteers that created Linux and continue to drive its growth.

Stumble it!

So, Microsoft is now claiming that Open Source software and Linux infringe 253 of their patents. But it isn’t saying which ones [UPDATE - it has described some broad areas, but not named specific patents]! Here in Europe we fortunately don’t generally allow software patents (thanks to a spirited campaign in which I am proud to have taken part). In the US, however, surreal patents exist like Amazon having a patent on “1-click purchasing”. Complete lunacy, but true.

Microsoft knows that it can’t really pursue Open Source projects for patent infringements - mainly because it is itself infringing many patents owned by Open-Source-friendly companies like Novell and IBM (or at least we guess that it is - hard to be sure when the source code is a secret!).

Remember the bit in Austin Powers when Dr Evil, exasperated at the fact that all his evil plots have already taken place whilst he was frozen, says “sod it, let’s do what we always do: steal a nuclear warhead and hold the world to ransom”? Can’t you picture a similar scene at Microsoft, when it was made clear to the executives that taking Open Source to court for patent infringement was a non-starter? “Sod it, let’s do what we always do: issue some vague and unsubstantiated threats and spread some fear, uncertainty and doubt.”

The Open Source community has responded, by and large, with a sigh and a shrug of the shoulders, but Linus Torvalds has commented, and so too has Jonathan Schwartz from Sun in his blog.

This whole things saddens me, because you can be sure that at least some people will have been fooled by this latest move from Microsoft. Some people will have read the news reports and will now believe that Open Source is really stealing something that belongs to Microsoft. Open Source is a remarkable ray of hope in our cynical, market-driven times, and it deserves better. Please don’t fall for Microsoft’s big lie.

Stumble it!

Whilst we are still waiting for another installment of “Open Source for Beginners”, check out Revolution OS - a great documentary about Open Source.

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Part 3 of this series is taking me a long time to publish.  I’ve written 4 different drafts already, but can’t quite get it right.  Meantime, imagine a day without Open Source…

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I must confess, I’m struggling to write this post. There’s so much to say about Open Source, and I’m not sure that I’m saying it in the right order. I guess I’ll just bash on and hope for the best!

So… Open Source software is software which is given away freely, and for which the source code is freely available.

But what is to stop someone taking this source code, packaging it up as a new application and selling it as a closed source program? Sometimes nothing, but usually it’s the license!

Some Open Source programs are given away with no license at all, but most are copyrighted and distributed under the some form of Open Source license.

There are dozens of such licenses. The most popular and famous is the GPL. The preamble offers a beautifully succinct description of the purpose of the GPL - take 2 minutes to read it (bearing in mind that the document uses the word “free” as in “liberty” rather than as in “no cost”).

One aspect of the GPL is particularly contentious: the GPL stipulates that any programs created using portions of the code from a GPL licensed program must also be Open Source. In other words, if I grab an Open Source program, tinker with it a bit and call it something new, the GPL license under which I received the program demands that the new program I have created may only be distributed under the terms of the GPL.

Some see this feature of the GPL as a stroke of genius - guaranteeing the continued freedom of source code, but others are less impressed. Microsoft in particular does not take kindly to the GPL, and there is a long history of attempts by Microsoft to undermine Open Source.

That history will be the subject of part 3!

Stumble it!