<div>No need to try not to flame :), not even sure there's a need to think about it, it's only an opinion of mine. You actually cite one of the things I was thinking actually. Things like the ms fonts afaik aren't allowed to be distributed unless in original form? Which I assume is why most distros are flakey with them. Now Suse would be able to do this without problem unlike other distros.
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<div><br>I'm not stating that there aren't concerns over other issues at all, far from it. <br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 11/18/06, <b class="gmail_sendername">Nico Kadel-Garcia</b> <<a href="mailto:nkadel@gmail.com">nkadel@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">Ian mu wrote:<br>> Still think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. I don't think<br>> that code (any gpl code at all) is at issue, because it would only be
<br>> used with other code protected by the gpl and so on. I'm guessing its<br>> none gpl, closed source solutions that the "partnership" is looking<br>> towards.<br>I'll try not to flame here, but suffice to say that I've known Mr.
<br>Stallman personally since the mid 80's. The FSF's concern over this is<br>well-founded, and the creation of the GPLv3 was aimed at avoiding<br>exactly this sort of confusing mess.<br><br>Look at CIFS file sharing and the history of Samba and of Novell's
<br>Netware, and the history of SPF and the patent-encumbered SenderID tools<br>duct-taped on top of it and leading to it effective destruction in<br>Marid. Also look at the new XML format for MS Office, NTFS drivers for<br>
Linux, and the planned XML based WinFS originally planned for the Vista<br>release. Open source development is seriously hampered by Microsoft<br>legal threats and litigation. Novell has just entered an interesting<br>position to have Microsoft protected tools for it, that are not under a
<br>real open source license of any kind. SuSE already distributes, although<br>historically rather badly, non-open-source tools such as NVidia drivers<br>and MS fonts.<br><br>Microsoft also has a long, long history of intellectual property theft,
<br>such as DOS, the Windows interface, and David Cutler and his software<br>team at DEC, hired away to create NT and leading to some fascinating out<br>of court settlements. An agreement not to sue about such violations is
<br>of much more benefit to Microsoft.<br><br>__<br>Sussex mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Sussex@mailman.lug.org.uk">Sussex@mailman.lug.org.uk</a><br>E-mail Address: <a href="mailto:sussex@mailman.lug.org.uk">sussex@mailman.lug.org.uk
</a><br>Sussex LUG Website: <a href="http://www.sussex.lug.org.uk/">http://www.sussex.lug.org.uk/</a><br><a href="https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/sussex">https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/sussex</a><br>
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