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Date:      Mon, 18 Jun 2001 15:16:23 -0700
From:      David Johnson <djohnson@acuson.com>
To:        Giorgos Keramidas <keramida@ceid.upatras.gr>
Cc:        freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Microsoft and FreeBSD, as reported in the Wall Street Journal
Message-ID:  <3B2E7DB7.C0BF8429@acuson.com>
References:  <XFMail.010618074223.stox@imagescape.com> <000001c0f812$d97e3280$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> <20010619000407.A3601@hades.hell.gr>

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Giorgos Keramidas wrote:

> The fact that he *does* begin his article speaking about Open Source
> in general though, is important.  No, he does not explicitly mention
> BSD.  Nowhere in his article, the word BSD can be found.  However,
> bashing Open Source in general (even if after a while, it turns out to
> a GPL bashing contest), does harm to all Open Source projects, in my
> humble opinion.

This is very important to note, and I'm glad you made the effort to
clarify it. Microsoft is using smoke-and-mirrors and classic FUD to
discredit all of open source, including the BSD license and all software
under it. They took a part of open source and labelled it as the whole.
The public won't know the difference, but Microsoft sure did.

I'm already seeing rumblings of Microsoft's next attack, which will
utilize a divide-and-conquer strategy. Pit the various OSS advocates
against each other. This is very easy to imagine. Have Microsoft come
out with a clarification of their OSS stance, praising the BSD license
while at the same time condeming the GPL. If you think the rift is bad
now, wait until Bill Gates publicly chooses sides.

David

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