Re: Will Open Source be forced to go Proprietary

On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Bruce Momjian wrote:

> Alex Satrapa wrote:
> > Rod Taylor wrote:
> > > Discussion about OpenSource projects moving to support Windows.
> > [link]
> >
> > This article was WOFTAM (Waste of Time And Money).
> >
> > The article asks if open source projects will be "forced to go
> > proprietary" without describing what "proprietary" means. I'm not sure
> > the author really understands the software "industry".
> >
> > One of the telling comments is that the author confuses "published" with
> > "open" - Microsoft has indeed "published" the XML schema for it's new
> > range of Microsoft Office products, but the patent it has applied for
> > implies that the schema is not "open". Software can be "proprietary"
> > without being "closed".
> >
>
> As is MySQL.  They say you can't produce a non-GPL client that talks to
> their server via the protocol.  They say they will enforce this via
> patents.

Will it be as enforceable as I imagine the MSN Messenger protocol and/or
Yahoo and/or ... is?  Oh, wait, maybe MySQL is going to team up with SCO
as a way of encouraging market share? *evil grin*

----
Marc G. Fournier           Hub.Org Networking Services (http://www.hub.org)
Email: scrappy@hub.org           Yahoo!: yscrappy              ICQ: 7615664