Open Source Quiverings

December 31, 2010

Tremors come in three varieties. (Bear with me. I am simplifying.) There are static tremors. There are intention tremors. And there are postural tremors. Open source is getting the shakes, and I don’t know which type. You may be more informed about the causes of tremors than I. So read “OSI Refers Novell Acquisition to Competition Authorities.” OSI is the open source initiative. The Competition Authorities is a UK outfit that watches for dangerous bites from capitalists intent on biting big chunks from a UK citizen. The main idea, if the write up is accurate, is that companies hostile to open source are taking steps to vibrate open source into submission. Here’s a snippet that I noted:

The fact that Microsoft was leading the takeover of Novell’s patents was itself alarming to the open source community, but when it was revealed that Microsoft had recruited Oracle, Apple, and EMC to be co-owners of the patents, the OSI Board felt compelled to request that competition authorities take a closer look at the proposed transaction.

So what? Open source is a problem for some big outfits. The open source marketing card is useful, but it doesn’t solve the problem in the way degraded neural functions will. Stay tuned and stay stable. What about open source search? I feel a tremor coming on.

Stephen E Arnold, December 31, 2010

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