On Mon, 25 Feb 2002, Bill wrote:
> > On Sun, 24 Feb 2002, R P Herrold wrote:
> > > >From Slashdot:
>
> I think the byline pretty much said it all ... but I have posted a fuller
> response under Mr. Herrold's earlier response. Sun has acted ethically and
> honorably and is owed a written apology by those who slandered / libeled it.
Tell Scott not to look for one from me.
While Sun may have acted within the scope of that it said (in
part -- The article extract quote stirred a list member to
their archive, and it sure seems to me that the Sun PR quotes
from early on have not been abided "ethically and honorably"),
just not actionalbly breaching affirmative covenants does not
translate to acting "ethically and honorably"
My points were (and are):
1. [Cue Ella Fitzgerald]: No source -- No acceptible license
permitting forking and use under BSD or wider ==> implies" You
don't have a thing."
2. Sun has successfully diverted the development pool from
focusing on software testing which feeds back to that
community -- taken a free ride from the good will 'nice guys'
in Open Source again, _again_ just as it did with the
Blackdown port.
This is to the detriment of Open Source. The maturity of the
Gnome and KDE suites suffer as a result. Complete and robust
import filters for Abi- and Kword to XML intermediate code and
back to RTF would be useful; identifying faults for Sun is
not.
3. Miguel De I is letting the potential vaporous beauty of a
.Net cast, ensnare the effort of him and other Open Source
developers, with no enforceble 'ownership' of the
specification to prevent the 'Extend proprietarily' and then
'Extinguish phase'. Both MS and Sun are experienced
practioners in this arena.
The results will be predictable, and not happy [It will
provide much grist for the mill for NewsForge and SlashDot].
More productive to focus on the Open Source buildout of the
Application layer and meta-integration tools.
-----------------
Back to "ethically and honorably" -- I've been variously a
Sunday school teacher; TCC, District Commissioner, and ASM in
Scouting; and served my community in several non-profits.
Let's ask a couple of questions:
Did Sun act 'On its honor, to do its best, to do its duty, to
its Lord and its Country, to act in a [trustworthy, loyal,
helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful,
thrifty, brave, clean and reverent]' manner? [I've trimmed and
made fit the Scout Oath and Law - a non-denominational civil
standard compatible with most religions], These require
affirmative virtue and striving for excellence, not passively
'not being bad'.
Should I trust an offer from Sun and rely on their good will
side representations, or carefully read the 'fine print?'
-- I have a prized coffee cup, distributed internally at Sun,
admonishing: "Keep Sun's Future Bright: Protect Its
Intellectual Property" -- Were the improvements to BSD
represented in SunOS fed back to the community freely; was the
Solaris source released more freely than for AT&T's releases
[Ans: certainly not]. The cup is prized, for it reminds me
of the Dark Side
I see just more of the same coming from Sun.
I am presently subject to only one relevant NDA, and that one
permits GPL release of my work product. I still pondered for
a week before signing that. And by the way, I an no mooch,
leech or freeloader; I support the community which supports me
-- see our Anon FTP server and Projects page.
-- Russ Herrold
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