A Penguin in the Orchard

Lamers At SAP

This guy is the head of product development and technology at SAP:

Open-source community hits back against SAP - Computerworld

Agassi attempted to lighten the mood by joking about his attempt to install a Linux desktop, but his discussion characterized open-source as fundamentally opposed to intellectual property protection. He argued that innovation happens only when it can allow private companies to profit.

First of all, how freakin’ lame do you have to be to be unable to install a modern Linux distribution? Certainly far more inept than you’d expect the head of product development and technology to be, especially in a company as big as SAP.

Secondly, he’s clearly missed the boat on open source. I’ve made a reasonably good living with open source over the past several years. And, that’s just my wage from the companies for whom I’ve worked. They’ve all managed to use open source in a way that does, in fact, generate profit.

All together now: “Free as in freedom …”