One of my favorite quotes these days is from “Sideshow” by Sheri S. Tepper: “Evil comes from unchecked power.” Oracle's recent lawsuit against Google over their use of Java in the Android operating system is ample proof of this if there wasn't enough already in the world at large.
How does Oracle get away with this? Java is mostly open source, isn't it? Well, actually, software can be open source and still be proprietary - and Oracle, now that it owns Sun, defines the specification for Java. Open source or not, Java is Oracle's intellectual property. They have taken a phenomenal technological development that millions of people depend on, and have turned it into a weapon against their foe(s) - and by doing so are endangering the stability of the entire Java ecosystem. Are you surprised? As Lord Acton said: “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Fortunately for the xTuple community the PostBooks project rests entirely on foundations that are rooted in not only open source projects, but international standards not owned by any corporate entity.
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