[ubuntu-us-mi] wtf?!

[Jay R. Wren]

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From: "Greg Grossmeier" <greg at grossmeier.net>
Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2009 3:04 PM
To: "Ubuntu Michigan Local Community Team" <ubuntu-us-mi at lists.ubuntu.com>
Subject: Re: [ubuntu-us-mi] wtf?!

> The one thing you can't do, because the issue never presents itself,
> is say that we are alienating ANYONE.  Creative Commons operates under
> the belief that any kind of change towards freedom is a good change.
> So we work with Google, we work with Yahoo, we work with Apple, we
> even work with Microsoft to get some small changes made (yes,
> Microsoft uses some CC licenses for some textual content).  Hell, we
> even partnered with Nike to promote a more open method of sharing
> patents among corporations (why we are dealing with patents is beyond
> me, we are a copyright/licensing group).

I really like the topic of the thread and just have a comment about my 
favorite open source software backing corporation: Microsoft. Yes Microsoft, 
one of the largest donors to the Apache Foundation. I made a joke the other 
day that it won't be long until MS gives more source to the .NET world than 
Sun did to Java. At the rate they are releasing open source (MS-PL is an OSS 
certified license) it will be in the next few years.

One parallel which I find funny to the discussion is the words of one person 
v. the actions. FSF does put out some awesome software under GPL. RMS ruins 
it with rhetoric. Microsoft puts out some reasonably ok software under MS-PL 
and MS-RL. Steve Balmer ruins it with rhetoric. Balmer uses very stupid 
words like "viral license" yet MS has its own version of a viral license 
also OSS approved call the MS reciprocal license.

IMO it's a good life lesson. Let actions speak louder than words, even when 
those words are spoken by a huge leader of some organization.
--
Jay