Illuminating the elephant in the open source room

By Trevor Clarke, Computerworld Australia, 01/21/10

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Microsoft is an elephant that needs to be turned to stop it trampling the open source community, according to a vocal critic of the software giant's approach to software patents.

Speaking at the annual Linux.conf.au event, which is being held in Wellington, New Zealand, one of the lead developers for the Samba Team and Google employee, Jeremy Allison, described Microsoft as a real threat to the open source community.

"We have a system that is absolutely free that we can do anything with, so why are we so obsessed with picking on Microsoft?" Allison asked the audience. "Shouldn't we leave the elephant alone and stop poking it with sticks? Well, the problem is they aren't going to leave us alone."

Allison was quick to point out that his comments at the Linux.conf.au address are his own views and not those of his employer. In December 2006, Allison, a famed open-source proponent, resigned his position at Novell to join Google in protest over the company's Linux-Windows interoperability deal with Microsoft.

In comments published at the time, Allison called Novell's deal with Microsoft "a mistake ... [that] will be damaging to Novell's success in the future." He said that even if the deal -- which involved Novell paying Microsoft for patents -- did not violate the GNU General Public License (GPL), it violated "the intent of the GPL".

(Read a 2007 interview between Allison and LinuxWorld's Don Marti on the topic.)

Just over three years later, Allison maintains the same threat to the GPL and the wider open source community remains. In his presentation, streamed from the Linux.conf.au website, Allison said despite some changes to Microsoft's personnel the company continued to refer to GPL Linux implementations as "infestations".

"Which kind of fits me as I always thought of myself as the cockroach in the wall when I started," he joked.

"But it is really not a sign of a company that is peacefully coexisting, adopting free software, trying to make money out of it like, for example, IBM or Google for that matter."

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