[K12OSN] needed: recommendations for Linux flavor with ongoing support

[Robert Arkiletian]

On 1/4/07, Les Mikesell <les at futuresource.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-01-03 at 18:32 -0800, Robert Arkiletian wrote:
>
> > The point is, of all the distros out there only SuSE has implicitly
> > admitted that it is violating M$ IP by accepting a covenant for it's
> > customers that states M$ will not sue them for any IP violations.
>
> That's not at all clear - and Novell has explicitly stated the
> opposite.

Yes, publicly Novell has stated the opposite but actions are greater
than words. In addition, M$ has publicly stated they don't agree with
Novells interpretation.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2006/nov06/11-20Statement.mspx

> In any case, everyone else is using the same code and
> has the same violations if any exist.
>

Exactly.

> > Samba does not violate any M$ IP. M$ wishes it did. We can thank the
> > brilliance of Andrew Tridgell for that.
>
> I'm not sure anyone can say that with any confidence, given the
> state of US patent law and the number of patents held by MS.  And
> no amount of brilliance can work around a patent - that's the point
> of having them.
>

That is true but I was referring to the method by which Samba was
developed. As far as I understand Tridgell simply (or not so simply)
looked at packets on the wire. He had no M$ protocol specs or docs.
IANAL but as far as I understand Samba development model was legal. In
any case, I think if it did infringe M$ would have already taken Samba
to court.

> > For M$ it's a
> > win-win situation. They get the FUD they wanted plus get the FLOSS
> > community to abandon one of the top 3 distros. And for anyone that
> > buys the BS that this deal was about creating better interoperability,
> > all I have to say is M$ has been hard at work doing it's best to
> > thwart Linux-Windows compatibility for a long time.
>
> I think you missed the other half of the arrangement. Novell still
> claims rights to the original UNIX code (in spite of SCO's claims)
> and MS now includes Services-For-Unix and other things that might
> possibly infringe.  It's better for everyone for MS to be able to
> use good, well tested designs instead of inventing something worse
> and putting it on our networks.

If M$ wants to truly create interoperability they can, easily. Pretty
much all the standards in the FOSS world are open from a specification
and legal sense. They don't need Novells blessing.

>
> > They hate Samba
> > and tried to obfuscate it out of existence. But Tridgell is not
> > someone easily obfuscated :)
>
> Samba is really only interesting to someone running Windows anyway.
> If the GPL didn't prevent people from distributing all the components
> you need together, we might have had some real competition to
> windows by now and made it irrelevant.

I can see your point of view Les. Shuttleworth, I'm sure, sees it also
as he has decided to ship binary video drivers with the next version
of Ubuntu. However, this is a very controversial topic as some feel
that in the end it hurts us more than it helps us. However, if we look
at FreeBSD/OpenBSD they have basically no restrictions. They haven't
attained the support that Linux has.  I think that's because of the
the GPL. The GPL keeps a fair playing field and thus encourages
contribution. In any case, I don't think the GPL is standing in the
way of beating Windows. Apple has been trying for some time with a
superior product and they haven't made much of a dent either.

-- 
Robert Arkiletian
Eric Hamber Secondary, Vancouver, Canada
Fl_TeacherTool http://www3.telus.net/public/robark/Fl_TeacherTool/
C++ GUI tutorial http://www3.telus.net/public/robark/