Mail Archives: cygwin/2003/04/03/11:16:22
Steve Coleman wrote:
> Randall R Schulz wrote:
>
>> I think we have to work with the legal system, not try to subvert it.
>> Microsoft has a right to set the licensing terms it wants. We have a
>> right to tell them to go to hell. Currently however, and as you note,
>> the power relationship is highly skewed. It ain't easy to "just say
>> no" to Microsoft.
>
> And in some cases you can't say "no"!
You can always say no. You may or may not always wish to deal with the
consequences of saying no. If you don't want to deal with the
consequences of saying no then you have actively choosen to say yes.
> A long time ago (showing my age here - lol) when I worked for NASA, I
> first cut my teeth on Cygwin out of desperation to get my job done on
> a Wintel box. The very fact that it did not possess anything even
> close to resembling real POSIX was a constant thorn in my side on a
> daily basis. At the time I was a representative to the X/Open
> organization and was heavily involved in the system benchmarking and
> conformance testing to ensure that all equipment supplied on several
> large contracts adhered to the X/Open standards. That is until the M$
> "legal suites" showed up in force and muscled there way in through
> legal threats. Can you imagine that? NASA, as big of a government
> organization as it is, being muscled and pushed around by Microsloths
> lawyers to accept Windows as an X/Open complient operating system?
No I can't imagine that! Somebody, somewhere decided to say yes instead
of no. That is not being pushed to say yes.
> Without Cygwin Windoze would never even come close to being X/Open
> complient, and Cygwin at that point was still in its infant stages of
> development. The short story is that M$ intimidated NASA into creating
> a contract just for M$ to sell their stuff even though they were not
> compliant with any of the benchmark tests or feature lists required in
> order to compete. If you can't compete technically (or just need some
> spare cash on hand), just threaten to sue.
>
> Thank you team Cygwin! ;-)
>
> (These are my own thoughts and opinions and in no way reflect my
> current or past employers positions in any way)
>
> 8*}
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