[wplug] Recent news: IBM's commitment to Linux

[Hagbard Celine]

> 
>   Is it possible that such corporate software, which attempts to define or
> enforce self-indulgent structures (and strictures) on linux,  will simply be
> engineered around by cogent open-source devotees, and find their
> self-limiting packages replaced by open-source versions of the same?  It's
> an interesting intellectual property issue as to whether an open-source
> group organised to implement a software solution that is similar to someone
> else's proposed proprietary solution (prior to the release of the finished
> proprietary product) has equivalent IP rights - or negates portions of the
> vendor's IP rights under previous art.
>   I'll enjoy watching it - and continue to have faith that our co-operative
> software development model can handle the challenges of the proprietary
> software world.
> 
Actually, this is what I hope for.  Linux has always appealed to those with a
greater degree of intelligence and ability than your typical WinBlows
sychofant.  My hope is that this intelligence and ability will allow us to
maintain a quality system in spite of corporate pressures to the contrary.

As for IP rights, this will indeed prove interesting.  I hold that the
developer of software holds the rights to it, even if it is similar to other
software, whether it is released prior to or subsequent to the release of the
software to which it is similar (the author of the first computer-based word
processor does not hold rights to computer-based word processing in perpetuity,
for example).  There will be lawsuits, however, that will test open-source's
ability to survive as the corporations filing them get larger and wealthier.
Here's hoping that open-sourcers will prevail...

Hagbard