:ZDNet/Yahoo!: Torvalds Blasts Microsoft's Mundie On Open Source
ZDNet/Yahoo!: Torvalds Blasts Microsoft's Mundie On Open Source
May 11, 2001, 21 :56 UTC (17 Talkback[s]) (11851 reads) (Other stories by Charles Babcock)
Slightly less eloquent but more concise than his reaction last week, Linus once again holds forth on Mr. Mundie: "That argument is so much crap," Torvalds said, shrugging off Mundie's comments when asked about them.
"Torvalds said Mundie had seized upon the hard times for technical
companies to try to score points against the open source code movement.
Near the top of his speech, Torvalds noted, Mundie declared, "It's important
that we learn from the lessons of the past year and apply them." Mundie
went on to note that many of the failed dot-com companies had given
something away in hopes of making money on auxiliary products and
services. Open source code is the freely shared output of developers, and
open source companies charge only for their packaging and value-added
additions.
"He's talking about the need to protect intellectual property, when the code
he's describing isn't his intellectual property to protect. How does it cause
Microsoft to fail if I make my intellectual property available to everyone,
including Microsoft?" Torvalds asked during a visit Thursday, May 10, to
Interactive Week's offices in San Francisco."
