Zealotry

I’m really saddened by the fanatic tone that a part of FOSS community is using to criticize the Novell-Microsoft deal. It should be noted that personally I don’t like the deal at all, since Microsoft has a good history of stomping on its partners when they’re no loner needed. But still, the reactions from the community are too strong, sometimes leading to (involuntary) disinformation.

You should have noticed that both links come from Groklaw. I like the legal articles published there, but not the moralistic attitude of posts like the ones I have linked. The “community” inside, while being extremely helpful and cooperative, sometimes is a little one-sided. I didn’t like being called “traitor” because I had a different stance on the topic than everyone else.

The same can be said for GPL v3: Groklaw is excessively pro-GPL v3, and (sadly) doesn’t contemplate anything else (see the discussion between PJ and Linus Torvalds to get an idea). It’s a shame, since the legal analysis of IBM vs SCO is interesting and insightful. I’d actually prefer if it would cover just legal cases of interest to FOSS, rather than being a form of propaganda for certain software ideas.