Why Ballmer did not show the code
Many probably remember how at the end of February the Open Source community, and most of the world's technical media followed it, shook a loud ultimatum to Steve Ballmer, who demanded that he show those pieces of source code in open source software that, according to him, violate patents owned by Microsoft. Let me remind you that under the terms of the ultimatum with the simple name Show Us The Code, Ballmer had to file his claims before May 1 or, to put it bluntly, go to hell. And if the second man in Redmond coped with the second himself, as the author of the manifesto put on, the first one was to be assisted by thousands of volunteers from all over the world, by finding the necessary fragments together. What went wrong?
Actually, at first everything went quite predictably. Ballmer was stubbornly silent (he could hardly have known about SUTC), while in the meantime millions of visitors registered on the site. Community support was just awesome. Kevin Carmony from Linspire was the first to respond to the appeal to the largest producers of Open Source software, who said that he would definitely discuss this issue with his colleagues and lawyers of the company.
The only hitch was the fact that Carmoni was the first and the last of the powerful IT worlds who at least reacted to the call. And when it became known that Linspire, following Novell, concluded a “non-aggression pact” with Microsoft, there was no longer any hope for their support. But by that time, the compiler of the ultimatum (still known only by the pseudonym of digduality) did not concern this question in the first place.
As he writes himself, at that time he worked in a large company that is part of the Fortune Top-1000. And apparently, commensurate with the scale of the company, the employee supervision system was also developed, since among the "thousands and thousands" of computers, the bosses somehow noticed how digduality uploaded a couple of files from the flash disk to its website via FTP. After a couple of days, he was called "to the carpet", where he was hinted that he now faces a choice: the dismissal or closure of his "anti-Microsoft" website. The dissatisfaction of the authorities, despite the fact that our hero did not mention the name of the company in his manifesto, was obviously due to the fact that this company is considered a strategic partner of Microsoft and is allegedly at risk because of the political activity of its employees.
')
The site, you guessed it, was actually closed, or rather went into the shadows. Recently, digduality changed jobs and can now speak freely. But he set the deadlines, and no reaction was received in time. Perhaps the whole story from the very beginning was doomed to an inglorious end, but its circumstances make you think.
Actually, at first everything went quite predictably. Ballmer was stubbornly silent (he could hardly have known about SUTC), while in the meantime millions of visitors registered on the site. Community support was just awesome. Kevin Carmony from Linspire was the first to respond to the appeal to the largest producers of Open Source software, who said that he would definitely discuss this issue with his colleagues and lawyers of the company.
The only hitch was the fact that Carmoni was the first and the last of the powerful IT worlds who at least reacted to the call. And when it became known that Linspire, following Novell, concluded a “non-aggression pact” with Microsoft, there was no longer any hope for their support. But by that time, the compiler of the ultimatum (still known only by the pseudonym of digduality) did not concern this question in the first place.
As he writes himself, at that time he worked in a large company that is part of the Fortune Top-1000. And apparently, commensurate with the scale of the company, the employee supervision system was also developed, since among the "thousands and thousands" of computers, the bosses somehow noticed how digduality uploaded a couple of files from the flash disk to its website via FTP. After a couple of days, he was called "to the carpet", where he was hinted that he now faces a choice: the dismissal or closure of his "anti-Microsoft" website. The dissatisfaction of the authorities, despite the fact that our hero did not mention the name of the company in his manifesto, was obviously due to the fact that this company is considered a strategic partner of Microsoft and is allegedly at risk because of the political activity of its employees.
')
The site, you guessed it, was actually closed, or rather went into the shadows. Recently, digduality changed jobs and can now speak freely. But he set the deadlines, and no reaction was received in time. Perhaps the whole story from the very beginning was doomed to an inglorious end, but its circumstances make you think.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/11789/
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