ORAC
"The companies represented on the steering commitee aren't that dumb."
Possibly not
, but "opening the source" won't stop MS, says the cynic in me...
"``As a condition to Microsoft before it could establish VC-9 as a standard, it had to strip VC-9 of proprietary status, Majidimehr said. The company satisfied that condition when it submitted the underlying video compression technology to SMPTE last year and opened up its software to developers for the first time. Now developers can download the technical spec, build on it and not be beholden to Microsoft' ' ".
That's as may be; however, I wouldn't put it passed MS to "open the standard", have it adopted and become widespread as a result, and
then start to add all manner of
proprietry extensions, for which a license fee will be payable, which it will be cheaper to pay, rather than to switch technology wholesale (see the SCO/Linux example above.) MS
never do anything unless there's money to be made somewhere downstream...
I'm just waiting for the moment when they announce their new "mail protocol" which will be just incompatable enough with Internet Standards to force people to change to Outlook / Hotmail / whatever with the lure of "spam-free email". And it will hardly cost you more than a few tens of pounds per year per email address to obtain your MS "email license" by which they can track all your email -- sorry, that should have said "by which they can be sure that if you do spam they might know who you are..."
It's the
spammers who should have to pay -- not legitiamte email users
who have already paid for the priviledge. (See
this thread for more of my rants on the subject of victims having to pay for spam, not the spammers (or the spam friednly...
)
/RTFM
(Since we've started thread-creep, Obligatory BSD plug
If you're worried about Linux licensing, (just kidding) or just want to explore the alternaitves, try looking at
NetBSD
www.netbsd.org FreeBSD
www.freebsd.org OpenBSD
www.openbsd.org
Each have their own merits -- let me know if you want a potted summary...
