osOpinion: Microsoft and FSF, that should not be a war! | Linux Today

osOpinion: Microsoft and FSF, that should not be a war!

Written By
Web Webster
Web Webster
Nov 16, 1999

[ Thanks to Kelly
McNeill
for this link. ]

“In those last two weeks, after judge Jackson issued his
sentence, we have seen a lot of proposal about the “Microsoft
Problem” to solve what de facto is a monopoly on software. On the
other hand, Microsoft is crying that they should be in condition to
innovate”.

For a lot of people involved with free Software and Linux
this is becoming a war of sorts, and that is wrong. I can agree
that, after the Halloween documents were made public and so on, the
feeling that Microsoft is making itself a war against FSF is really
strong, but it should not be a problem for us. Let MS
boil.

“The point is that proposals like to force MS to realize their
sources of WIN systems and so on are not a solution. There is
nothing wrong with a software house that sell his OS and keep
sources secret, think to aix or hp-ux, isn’t it the same? The real
problem is when this software house is the only one that has a
system on which you can make your hardware run, because drivers are
developed only for this OS.”

Complete
Story

Web Webster

Web Webster

Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.

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