looking at their record, it's unlikely to be anything other than <span style="font-weight: bold;">moves to ensure their monopoly strangle hold by whatever means</span>. Like all Tyrants, it's about power.<br>I'd like to be 100% positive and cheery about this, as anything that moves towards universal interoperability, relinquishing compatibility woes, is surely worthy of praise... but then... it's microshaft... the same big corporation who in the past have pressured (blackmailed) shops and distributors to stocking only their product, pressured (blackmailed) hardware manufacturers into only providing drivers for their software, forced users into needlessly paying extortionate sums over and over for upgrades and intentionally writing backwards incompatibility into their software, forced training institutions to using only their software, and so on and so on. their list of unscrupulous practices goes on and on (and thats way before any complaints specifically about their products). It's just hard to trust them when they have dozens of hidden filing systems and really really hidden files, spying on all their users, and have not been forthcoming, nor honest, and continue to use scare tactics to get their own way, like a big bully who's only tools in the box are theft and intimidation. I mean... this whole thing was their idea... so why the "FUD" should we trust them?
<br>before this whole cross liscencing agreements stuff... (correct me if i'm wrong here), is it not the case to some extent, that its easy-peasy for propriety software to throw in any open source software into the mix, but is much harder for the open source distributions to include propriety software (though i know many instances where it's included), or even parts of code. could these new lawyer jargonisations correct this? making it easier to have this street become a little more two way? ... i dont think it's so, though think i would love it to be. well, ok, i'd actually love it if humanity could move beyond this silly money concept, but that seems to be a paradigm shift a little too far for most people to imagine being effectively functioning here on earth.
<br>except for the GPL, the Law has always seemed like an out-of-date bumbling ancient, sluggish in dealing with such simple concepts as digitally stored information which can be copied with no degradation of information and no loss/theft committed to the source it was copied from.
<br><br>anyways, there's my two pence.<br><br>(oh the lush irony... writing this on a PC using winXP)<br>:D<br><div><span class="gmail_quote">On 15/06/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Gordon Dunlop</b> <<a href="mailto:gordon@zubenel.freeserve.co.uk">
gordon@zubenel.freeserve.co.uk</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Hi All,<br><br>When Microsoft started these license agreements with Linux distros, the
<br>reason given was that is was for to increase interoperability between<br>operating systems and hence a benefit to the customer that uses<br>heterogenious IT environments. Commentators have said Microsoft has a<br>hidden agenda and gave different reasons for this.
<br><br>Now, what are the Taylug subscribers opinions of what Microsoft's hidden<br>agenda could be. I am sure we would get a lot of variance in opinion and<br>somewhere through it all snippets of truth would emerge helping to give
<br>a clearer overall picture.<br><br>Gordon<br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>dundee GNU/Linux Users Group mailing list<br><a href="mailto:dundee@lists.lug.org.uk">dundee@lists.lug.org.uk</a>
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dundee.lug.org.uk</a><br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>The Universe speaks in many languages, but only one voice. The language is not Narn, or Human, or Centauri, or Gaim or Minbari. It speaks in the language of hope; It speaks in the language of trust; It speaks in the language of strength, and the language of compassion. It is the language of the heart and the language of the soul. But always, it is the same voice. It is the voice of our ancestors, speaking through us, And the voice of our inheritors, waiting to be born. It is the small, still voice that says: We are one. No matter the blood; skin; world; star; We are one. No matter the pain; darkness; loss; fear; We are one. Here, gathered together in common cause. we agree to recognise this singular truth, and this singular rule: That we must be kind to one another, because each voice enriches us and ennobles us, and each voice lost diminishes us. We are the voice of the Universe, the soul of creation, the fire that will light the way to a better future. We are one.