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Our Blogs Open Sauce - A GNU perspective linux.conf.au: What is Novell doing here?
Our Blogs Open Sauce - A GNU perspective linux.conf.au: What is Novell doing here? | linux.conf.au: What is Novell doing here? |
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| Written by Sam Varghese | |
| Friday, 11 January 2008 | |
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Page 2 of 2 Ms Benjamin replied: "I often need to work with people who have no choice but to use proprietary technologies for a variety of reasons. My interactions with them highlight the need for interoperability. My perspective is that working collaboratively and without hostility is the best way to achieve true cross-platform interoperability which will maximise technology accessibility for the widest number of people. Just as humanity is trying to protect biodiversity in the natural world, I think we should be working towards diversity in our technical world." "I also don't think we succeed when we focus energy on enemies, winners and losers. The question for me comes down to what is possible? How can we bring vision to fruition? I believe passionately in Open Source Software Freedom. It simply is a better way to develop and distribute software. Developers should have access to code, and have the freedom to make it better. But my belief does not extend to flaming the opposition for doing things differently." Jonathan Oxer, the charman of Linux Australia, under whose banner the conference is held, said he agreed with Ms Benjamin's views. "(I) basically agree with what she said. I don't think there's anything in particular I could add to her response or anything I'd contradict," he said, when asked if he had anything to say on the topic. These arguments notwithstanding, it is a fact that overlooking what Novell has done tends to dilute the whole message of FOSS. Novell, obviously, is hoping that, as public memory is woefully short, it will be able to wriggle its way back into the community. Providing such leeway is, in my opinion, a big mistake.
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