Erwin's StarOffice Tango

Erwin's StarOffice Tango
Erwin Tenhumberg's Insights into Open Source and Dancing
... or why Open Competition matters

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Dienstag Mai 15, 2007

The Register, Groklaw and CBR about the Microsoft news
"Pointing out these bits and pieces, however, misses the most obvious problem Microsoft faces. Close partners such as IBM and HP - companies with more than ample patent portfolios - would not sit idly by as Microsoft tried to derail their lucrative Linux server businesses."
Full article at the Register.

"To actually sue, Microsoft has to sue its own customers. Microsoft itself has told us that its customers mostly use Linux too in a mixed environment. I believe SCO can provide them a useful example of how well it works out when you sue your own customers. I just can't believe Microsoft would do it."
Posted on Groklaw.

"The company's reluctance to detail its claims is reminiscent of the position taken by SCO Group in its copyright infringement claims against Linux. SCO's reluctance to detail its evidence eventually led to it being heavily criticized by Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells in June 2006.
"Certainly if an individual was stopped and accused of shoplifting after walking out of Neiman Marcus they would expect to be eventually told what they allegedly stole," she wrote. "It would be absurd for an officer to tell the accused that 'you know what you stole I'm not telling'. Or to simply hand the accused individual a catalog of Neiman Marcus' entire inventory and say 'it's in there somewhere, you figure it out'."
While Wells was referring to SCO's failure to detail its evidence that IBM breached a contract by transferring its own Unix code to Linux, it was appropriate given the company's already abandoned claims that IBM misappropriated its trade secrets by transferring SCO's Unix code to Linux."
Published by Computer Business Review.
( Mai 15 2007, 05:55:55 PM CEST ) Permalink

Picture: StarOffice on Singapore Airlines
Chhandomay just sent me this link. The blog entry includes a screenshot of StarOffice running on an in-seat screen on a Singapore Airlines plane. Very cool!!! If you're interested in StarOffice, you also might want to check out this StarOffice review.
( Mai 15 2007, 05:39:52 PM CEST ) Permalink

Jonathan about the power of open source
"In essence, we decided to innovate, not litigate.

Net result? Our contributions, from Java to OpenOffice to Gnome and Mozilla, now account for in excess of 25% of all lines of code within your average Linux distribution (yup, read that sentence again - or see the report, here, page 51).
...
All of which is to say - no amount of fear can stop the rise of free media, or free software (they are the same, after all). The community is vastly more innovative and powerful than a single company.
...
That's not a genie any litigator I know can put back in a bottle."

Jonathan's full blog entry can be found here.
( Mai 15 2007, 09:50:37 AM CEST ) Permalink