Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

More comedy from the ADTI:

Linux is a leprosy; and is having a deleterious effect on the U.S. IT industry because it is steadily depreciating the value of the software industry sector. Software is also embedded in hardware, chips, printers and even consumer electronics. Should embedded software become 'free' too, it would be natural to conclude the value of hardware will spiral downward as well.

Yes, that is it. Sun is releasing the Solaris source -- hey, just out of curiosity, shouldn't that open them up for a SCO suit too? -- IBM, Novell and Oracle are betting their companies on Linux. Red Hat makes money. Google makes money. Basically the "industry" Linux has a deleterious affect on is Microsoft and the "industry" of MSCE and MCPs that support and work around bugs and security holes in their software.

The other thing that just blue me away is somehow Tanenbaum is on Brown's side or at least conflicted. He latches on to one line from Tanebaum's open letter telling him he is full of shit..

“MINIX was the base that Linus used to create Linux. He also took many ideas from MINIX, including the file system, source tree, and much more.(4)�

What Brown doesn't get is ideas are not source code. Let me say that again. Ideas are NOT source code. Contrary to the way software patents are granted and exploited by companies like the ones that are paying his salary, a good idea is not a device. A good idea is not code. Just because someone painted a landscape previously doesn't mean Van Gogh ripped anyone off when he painted "Starry Night". Just because Linus borrowed ideas from Minix doesn't mean he stole from Minix. This is precisely the reason why we have never allowed someone to patent a business model (outside of veiling it as software), but rather copyright expressions of it. To do so would be stupid and would actually HURT the IT industry more than help.

Even Gates has noted that if patent and IP law was as stupid in 83 as 03 he never would have been able to start Microsoft. Frankly, Open Source is an extension of the very ideas -- community good, standards and commonality without forced integration -- that made the early computer world and the Internet the dynamic environments they were. The fact that Brown and the ADTI don't seem to know their asses from a hole in the ground while they do the bidding of someone who is COMPELLED to stifle real advancement to maintain their monopoly simply leads to exactly this kind of wrong headed thinking.

A whole lot more comedy at ADTI yesterday.