July 13, 2001

I was watching Silicon Spin on TechTV yesterday and they were discussing Open Source, Linux and of cousre, Microsoft :p Now I am by no means an Open Source evangelist (as evidenced by the fact that all my apps are closed source even though they are absolutely free …) but I was really incensed by the sheer effrontery of Microsoft to try to hoodwink the general users out there with the argument that their Shared Source initiative protected intellecutal property rights whereas the GPL did not. What a bunch of poppycock!! Correct me if I’m wrong but the Shared Source basically means that MS owns all rights to the source but allows users to work on their code for free – any revenues made from the changes to their code is enjoyed by MS … I don’t believe any of it trickles down to the users who contributed code. Of course, I might be wrong here since I have not looked any of it up <vbg> If that is indeed the case, of course Shared Source is a good thing … for Microsoft :p But I don’t see why Shared Source is in superior to the GPL. Just because most of us use the mind-numbing GUI, does MS think all of us have the IQ of an amoeba? :p

From the what’s in a name department, I heard today that they want to rename Pimple Lake (which incidentally got it’s name from local farmers calling it “that pimple of a lake” I’m told …) here in Michigan to Gypsum Lake in the hopes of encouraging tourists. Now it might just be me but while Pimple Lake doesn’t really conjure up any negative connotations, when you say Gypsum Lake I think of a murky, cloudy, brackish pool of water :p Ah well, I guess they know better than me :p (And if you are asking yourself “why the heck is he writing about a lake here?” … well I just thought it was funny :p)

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Posted by Fahim at 7:58 am  |  No Comments