[PLUG] Question about companies and open source applications

[Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay]

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 12:07 PM, Nikhil Karkare
<nikhil.karkare at myshala.com> wrote:

> I am part of a school, and keep meeting people who want to sell me software.
> Here is a situation that I come across regularly.
> I find people selling products based on Linux. I see them writing a
> few lines of code, customizing Gnome or KDE a bit, and using the rest
> for free from the Linux world.
> By apps I mean GCompris. These guys use gcompris apps, and don't
> mention anywhere that the apps are from GCompris. Plus, they don't
> even mention that they use Linux as an operating system! They say that
> they have no problems of viruses, no problem in virtualization. Is it
> some groundbreaking OS that has been written from scratch? I don't
> think so. Why don't they mention that they run Linux and use open
> source apps? Aren't they liable to do that?

By 'mention' do you indicate that they don't provide such things
in-writing or, is it that it goes unmentioned during their pitch ?

> More than liability, I feel sad that since most schools don't know
> about Linux and GCompris, they are sold out on this. Linux and
> GCompris don't get the recognition that they deserve.

The problem begins to arise when the custom development for the
applications are based on existing FOSS bits but access to source code
is not provided as a matter of entitlement. And then of course we have
that 'open core' thing :)
<http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2011/03/05/open-core-slur.html>

-- 
sankarshan mukhopadhyay
<http://sankarshan.randomink.org/blog/>