[TAG] [lg-announce] Linux Gazette #140 is out!

[Ben Okopnik]

On Mon, Jul 02, 2007 at 09:32:25AM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting Ben Okopnik (ben at linuxgazette.net):
> 
> > July 2007 (#140):
> > 
> >   * Mailbag
> >   * Talkback
> >   * NewsBytes, by Howard Dyckoff
> 
> There was something I annotated at the time of my svn checkin of
> lg_bytes -- but just realised I should have ALSO put into the STATUS
> notes.  (I'll bet in retrospect that nobody pays attention to svn
> checkin comments.)

How much didja bet? Better MIME-encode it and append it to your next
email. :) I look for those things, and read them.

This month's pub process, BTW, sucked ferociously. Out of the 11
published articles, I had to proof, tech-edit, etc. all but two; as per
Neil's corrections, it shows. 

I note, parenthetically, that Howard's two submissions took more than
two hours to grind through. He does submit interesting material, but his
writing and editing skills are nothing to boast about.
 
> Howard had:
> 
>   Red Hat Adds Business Solutions to Open Source RHX
> 
>   RHX launch partners include Alfresco, CentricCRM, Compiere,
>   EnterpriseDB, Groundwork, Jaspersoft, Jive, MySQL, Pentaho, Scalix,
>   SugarCRM, Zenoss, Zimbra, and Zmanda.
> 
> 
> Problem:  A bunch of those are JUST NOT OPEN SOURCE.  Zimbra, SugarCRM,
> Compiere, Groundwork, and Scalix are classic "badgeware", which is under
> MPL-variant software with some restrictions -- while with CentricCRM,
> there's not even any room for controversy, since _their_ licence doesn't
> even permit code redistribution.  Jive Software (which I'd not heard of,
> before) turns out to be equally bad.
> 
> I have brought this matter, several times, to Red Hat's attention, and
> the presence of actively misleading wording on the Red Hat Exchange
> site, such as this at the top of
> http://rhx.redhat.com/rhx/support/article/DOC-1285:  
> 
>   Red Hat Exchange helps you compare, buy, and manage open source
>   business applications. All in one place and backed by the open source
>   leader. We've collaborated with our open source software partners to
>   validate that RHX applications run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux and are
>   delivered through the Red Hat Network. At RHX, Red Hat provides
>   customers with a single point of contact for support.
> 
> There has been no response and no correction of this error, but the very
> bottom of that page now has this "FAQ" item:
> 
>   Are you only accepting open source ISVs into RHX?
> 
>   The initial set of participating ISVs all have an open source focus. We
>   realize that there is debate about which companies are truly open
>   source. To make it transparent to users, RHX includes information about
>   each ISV's license approach. Longer term, we may introduce proprietary
>   applications that are friendly with open source applications.

Damn. I wish you'd brought that to my attention - I would have been glad
to insert a long editorial note to this effect into NB. Hell, it might
still be worthwhile to do so now; it's possible that a number of the
mirrors have not yet done a 'pull'. If you want to tweak it, go for it
and let me know ASAP.
 
> That is, of course, anything but a straight answer.  First, it's
> nonsense to speak of _companies_ being open source or not -- and the
> above paragraph in general ducks the question.  The issue is whether
> software is.  Second, even if there were debate about the badgeware
> offerings allegedly being open source, there could be absolutely none
> about Jive Software's Clearspace or CentricCRM 4.1, which are
> unambiguously proprietary.
> 
> I'm surprised that this Red Hat's deceptive characterisation got past
> Howard without comment, given that the matter's been extensively covered
> in recent _Linux Gazette_ issues.
 
Howard is OK at _covering_ the stuff, but not interpreting it. I'm not
being harsh - this is just what I've seen in everything he's submitted.
Not his strong point; hence, the need for editorial comments.

Me, well, I was grinding through 200kB of material to edit and focusing
on style, spelling, clarity, etc. 
 
> At the time I noticed this error, it was late at night and I delayed
> dealing with the matter because I needed to chase down which of the
> named offerings were under which licence, and I hadn't done so when I
> suddenly started helping run the Westercon (which is still ongoing).
> 
> Any chance you'd like to append a footnote and republish?

Yes, *please*. I would really appreciate you writing up an insertable
chunk and sending it to me - or you're welcome to edit the article in
SVN itself, and I'll repub as soon as you let me know that you're done.


-- 
* Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *