Warning: The following was set of by an article in Network World Fusion that can be found at: http://www.nwfusion.com/columnists/2001/0604kearns.html I apologize in advance for the length and incoherence that follows. <RANT> Its interesting that when Microsoft engages in a traditional marketing tactic, the "loss leader", it is "innovating". When others do it, it is unAmerican, or in Mr. Kearns' words "almost communistic". After all what difference is there between giving away a browser, to sell servers and OS licenses and giving away any type of software to sell services. What eats at Mundie, Kearns and others who have joined in the flailing of the Open Source community is that while Microsoft simple destroyed the viability of a single software category, Web Browsers on Windows, the OSS community is potentially destroying the entire multi-billion dollar software industry. While the scale may be different the tactics are not. WIth respect to licensing, a similar arguement can be made. If I license a component and distribute it with a piece of software I am bound by the limitations and restrictions of that license. If I wish not to be bound by such a license I do one of two things: I find a license that is more consistant with my distribution plans OR I write my own "work-alike" component. If I can't or don't want to do either of these I bite the bullet and live by the license of the software I want to use. Again the issue is the details not the tactics. MS and other proprietary/commodity software companies right their licenses to protect what is important to them. Authors who use the GPL and other OS licenses do so to protect what they feel is most important. So my message to those that would label the Open Source/Free Software movement "unamerican" is, "You are more like us than you think." </RANT> I'm sure others will have differing opinions. Fire at will. ;-) Jack