[Sussex] Ok the gauntlets on the floor!

Wed Jun 9 16:48:54 UTC 2004

Angelo,

Tell Ajay that he should actually _read_ what he quotes.

The OSF, The Open Group and X/Open that Ajay mentioned are 
_nothing_to_do_with_ Free Software or Open Source.  They are standards 
groups who worked on a common basis for _commercial_ UNIX they are hang 
overs (some of them are now defunct) from an older, nastier times.

If Ajay wants to talk about Free Software please direct him to his local 
representative of the Free Software Foundation (me) or talk to someone 
from the  Open Source Initiative (www.opensource.org).

You may also point out that the terms of the GPL do not require you to 
obey any directives from any group other than the rules set out in that 
license - all of which are about how you can distribute and modify the code.

One major tennant of the GPL is that it does not exclude any person.  
You can come from any faith, country, political view point or 
corporation and use GPL programs and code so long as you comply with the 
terms of the GPL.  SCO can use the GPL code with the same rights as IBM 
or Linus Torvalds.

Regards
Geoff Teale
Software Engineer
Cmed Technology

Angelo Servini wrote:

>I was having a discussion with one of my pro M$ workmates today about the
>"Non American-ness" of LINUX (this was because of the predominantly American
>base of M$ and its supported software base) and I stated that Linux is now
>globally "Owned" and in any case many distros are not "American" although
>some are.
>
>He (Ajay) answered with the following.
>======================================================
>depends on who you believe!
>
>Open Software Foundation
><body <contents/body.html>> (OSF) A foundation created by nine computer
>vendors, (Apollo <foldoc.cgi?Apollo>, DEC <foldoc.cgi?DEC>, Hewlett-Packard
><foldoc.cgi?Hewlett-Packard>, IBM <foldoc.cgi?IBM>, Bull <foldoc.cgi?Bull>,
>Nixdorf <foldoc.cgi?Nixdorf>, Philips <foldoc.cgi?Philips>, Siemens
><foldoc.cgi?Siemens> and Hitachi <foldoc.cgi?Hitachi>) to promote "Open
>Computing". It is planned that common operating system
><foldoc.cgi?operating+system>s and interfaces, based on developments of Unix
><foldoc.cgi?Unix> and the X Window System <foldoc.cgi?X+Window+System> will
>be forthcoming for a wide range of different hardware architectures. OSF
>announced the release of the industry's first open operating system
><foldoc.cgi?operating+system> - OSF/1 on 23 October 1990. 
>
> -----Original Message-----
>From: 	Ajay Askoolum  
>Sent:	09 June 2004  12:51 PM
>To:	Angelo Servini
>Subject:	3 of the 5 are AMERICAN! the other 2 are Japanese,
>operating/innovating in the USA
>
>
>Open Software Foundation
>The Open Software Foundation was formerly an independent unit of what is
>nowadays joined with the X/Open Company in The Open Group
><../../t/th/the_open_group.html>.
>
>
>The Open Group
>The Open Group is a industry consortium <../../c/co/consortium.html>
>sponsored by IBM <../../i/ib/ibm.html>, Sun Microsystems
><../../s/su/sun_microsystems.html>, Hitachi <../../h/hi/hitachi.html>,
>Hewlett-Packard <../../h/he/hewlett_packard.html> and Fujitsu
><../../f/fu/fujitsu.html> for forming de facto-standards in the field of
>software engineering <../../s/so/software_engineering.html>, in particular
>APIs.
>=======================================================
>
>My question is is the Open Software Foundation predominantly American?  If
>so does that mean that we are still dominated by American interests as far
>as Linux is concerned?
>
><Id better go now and get my flame-proof vest!>
>
>  
>