For as long as there have been Linux developers and fans, they have spent an extraordinary amount of time philosophizing on "why Linux has yet to take off on the desktop."

This year, however, that favorite pastime was threatened. In May, Dell announced that it would begin shipping Ubuntu-based PCs to its customers. Then it got worse. Asus launched its eeePC, a Linux-based subnotebook, and it was met with incredible sales. Asus was selling one of its $199 pc’s every 6 seconds according to its own numbers. With Linux set to takeoff on mainstream desktops, what else could the Free Software zealot do, but try to stop it!

So, when a blogger found that Asus may have violated the spirit and/or the letter of the GPL, what did the Community do?

  • They didn’t talk about trying to engage Asus in a constructive dialogue about the GPL and its requirements.
  • They didn’t offer Asus help in meeting its GPL obligations.

Nope. The majority of the Slashdot community wanted blood in the form of litigation against Asus. The ONE company that is finally delivering on the promise of the Linux desktop, and they want to sue it into oblivion.

If not, Slashdot might lose tens of thousands of posts every year and Dana Blankenhorn will have to come up with six new original story ideas every year.

But, I digress (and am mostly kidding). I don’t REALLY think that Linux fans are trying to kill the eeePC because it will give them one less thing to complain about… I do, however, think that the eeePC example is instructive on 2 levels.

1. The Community Doesn’t Always Make it Easy for PC Manufacturers to Embrace Linux. One of the many factors for the slow growth of the Linux on the consumer desktop is the Free Software community itself. PC manufacturers have razor thin margins, and Asus was taking a significant financial risk when they stepped out to create a new machine with the Linux operating system (marketing, testing, development, support, etc.). If the community’s first reaction to what was probably a mere oversight is "sue them to death," then new companies are not likely to follow. Perhaps the most insightful comment thusfar on Slashdot is from a person that identified him/herself a Free Software Developer. The developer argued that:

"I was MS I would put people on mailing lists and message boards for free software projects and then have them bitch and moan about every conceivable potential violation. To exemplify: I released a piece of software, (all original c:a 6000 loc) under the GPL. Some people started bitching to me that I had to include build files, or that my copyright text wasn’t right and so on. This caused me to have to go and look it up in the license (which is not trivial because as an original author, not all conditions apply) just to be able to respond. By the third time this happened, I said screw it, and withdrew my software. License nit picking can sap developer enthusiasm like a scifi death ray. If MS really wanted to slow down the progress of free software, I’d say that this is a viable attack vector."

It would be a "viable attack vector" for Microsoft… if the Community wasn’t doing it to itself for free.  Besides, Microsoft is never that slick.

2. Patents Can Be Difficult for SMEs to Navigate, But So Can the GPL. The GPL isn’t the 10 Commandments. It isn’t always clear and it isn’t always consistent (not that the 10 Commandments are either…now that I think about it). So navigating the world of open source and free software can be just as difficult as the proprietary one. Both usually require the consultation of a good IP lawyer.