Open-source activists gathered at LinuxWorld Expo late last week to protest what they say are anti-Linux campaigns being spearheaded on Capitol Hill by rivals the SCO Group and Microsoft. Thursday evening, Linux lobbyists, academics, programmers and ISVs predicted the political battle will heighten as Linux gains ground on the desktop, and as governments worldwide--including the U.S. federal government and several U.S. states--consider adopting open-source procurement policies. "The challenge is going to be in the political and legislative arena, and we think there will be some serious obstacles," said Ed Black, president and CEO of the Open Source & Industry Alliance (OSIA), which hosted a panel on the issue late last week at the Javits Center in New York. "We have seen fingerprints of companies trying to get U.S. government advisers to advocate positions that cause problems for open source."

Several attendees at the LinuxWorld panel blamed that on political interference by large proprietary software companies, namely SCO and Microsoft. At the panel Thursday, many protested in particular a letter SCO's CEO recently sent to members of Congress claiming that open-source software--and Linux in particular--is a threat to the U.S. IT industry, the nation's international competitive position, American jobs and national security. "Open-source software has the potential to provide our nation's enemies or potential enemies with computing capabilities that are restricted by U.S. law," wrote SCO CEO Darl McBride, in his Jan. 9 letter. "I'm bringing these troubling issues to your attention to ask you to consider them whenever you are discussing or voting on issues of the economy, intellectual property, and national security," McBride's letter to Congress states.

News source: CRN

Gal Saloman, chief executive of Discretix, told The Register that 12-15 handsets feature its crypto technology. These devices include phones from Sony Ericsson and other manufacturers, some of which will be declared publicly during the forthcoming 3GSM conference.

Over the last year mobile operators have become more interesting in selling content over mobile phones, providing access to corporate calendaring and performing firmware upgrades over the air. This requirement has led to a need to hardware-based security from handset manufacturers.

Without improvements in security the industry risks repeating the cracks to games for Nokia NGage the accompanied the high-profile release of the integrated phone / gaming device last year, Saloman warned. NGage's protection technology was software based and therefore less secure than a hardware-based system, Discretix argues.

Discretix is a member of the Symbian Platinum Program and its technology also supports Linux. Saloman said Discretix is "still waiting for its first Microsoft customer".

"We'd love to help but we're not seeing much traction in the market," he added.

Discretix also provides security technology for PDAs and storage cards. By contrast to mobile phones this is an area where demand for Discretix' security technology for Microsoft-based devices is far more tangible.


There are 6 additional comments
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(3 replies) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #1 Posted by trance on 28 Jan 2004 - 18:35
but anti-microsoft campaigns by open-source activists are ok? Come on, one good deed deserves another. Both have their strong and weak points, but unless you have the stomache to fight for what you believe in, then you are nothing but people that jump on the current bandwagon. GROW UP!
Quote this comment #1.1 Posted by rezza on 28 Jan 2004 - 20:46
Yeah but the difference here is that SCO & MSFT are actively attacking linux and open source in general with some unfounded FUD... these linux / open source people are just defending their methods and software. They're not attacking anything from MSFT or SCO. Are you saying they should just shut up and let SCO and MSFT blatantly lie about linux and open source?
Quote this comment #1.2 Posted by matric on 28 Jan 2004 - 22:08
Just as I was about to say trance. When was the last time you saw Bill Gates and co protesting the use of open source. Actions like this create a bad image - an image similar to that of Do Gooders protesting about (whatever has annoyed them this week, let it be treatment of refugees etc). Nobody cares and in fact it doesn't help their cause!

Would the open source community stop crying wolf every five minutes and create a compelling product that is effective on the desktop, since that is what the most vocal "protestors" are really going after.
Quote this comment #1.3 Posted by theh0g on 29 Jan 2004 - 09:16
matric: yer a MS fanboy and I really doubt anyone is interesting in your "ms-r0x" crap, you don't even understand what's going on in IT business. It'd be so much better if you spent that time learning how to read since you didn't understand what the article says. Oh, and spend some time reading news also, since you obviously don't know about the bogus "fatcs" campaign from Microsoft...if you did, you would know who's creating bad image here.
(1 reply) Quote this comment Reply to this comment #2 Posted by BigBoy on 28 Jan 2004 - 21:25
QUOTE

Yeah but the difference here is that SCO & MSFT are actively attacking linux and open source in general with some unfounded FUD...


Hahaha... that is funny...

Please check the Register or Slashdot to see who is quicker in spreading FUD - your tipical Linux or your tipical Windows user?
Quote this comment #2.1 Posted by quintesse on 29 Jan 2004 - 11:23
But somehow I doubt many of them have multi-billion dollar budgets to spent on lobbying their point of view in congress...
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