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1. Comment - Is open source converging with 'proprietary' software?

   (Jan 25, 2008 - 9:23 PM)

   I think this article misses the point in part. There will always be a fundamental difference between proprietary and F/OSS software, simply because of the licensing model. Yes there are differences between the "Open Source" view and the "Free Software" view, but both represent a fundamentally different approach to software than proprietary. For example, in both cases a customer can easily choose a different vendor to provide support, since anybody can download the code, become an expert in it, and set up shop selling and supporting it. At least in the case of the *real* F/OSS licenses. I'm not counting companies who market their stuff as Open Source while remaining under a license that is closer to Microsoft's "Shared Source."
   
   As long as you can fork the package, companies who "sell open source software" aren't actually selling software at all: they're selling a relationship. The bits become irrelevant under an open source model. That is completely different than a proprietary play where they really are selling the bits. Red Hat groks this, and assuming they continue to do a good job of selling, maintaining, and building relationships, they will continue to gain ground in the OS space. This despite the existence of rebuild distros where you can legally download binary images that are 99.9% identical to RHEL.
   
   Tell me Microsoft would continue to be as successful if you could legally download an image of Windows, Office, SQL Server, etc. that was essentially 100% functionally equivalent to the original? I don't think so.

2. Comment - FTC Asked to Block Google-DoubleClick Merger

   (Apr 21, 2007 - 8:11 PM)

   This is all much ado about nothing. Nobody is required to use Google, and it's easy enough to use a hosts file or DNS server to map all doubleclick.com hosts to 127.0.0.1 so they get no info. One can also configure their browser to reject cookies from DoubleClick if they're that concerned.
   
   I'm as much of a privacy advocate as anybody, but I'm even more of an advocate for personal responsibility. Don't like Google or DoubleClick's business practices; then don't do business with them.