In article <MPG.208023af28a0a4b798971e@n...>,
Grant Robertson  <bogus@b...> wrote:

>> Well, you might be able to trademark the name to prevent them from
>> claiming that it's a version of it, but I don't think you can - or
>> should be able to - stop people from writing software that implements
>> extensions to your standard.

>Then you would be indisagreement with the Open Source Initiative and most 
>of the experts on the open standards field. Only by protecting a standard 
>can it ever be a "standard" at all. Fragmentation is what killed UNIX. 
>Linus Torvold's tight rein on what can be considered part of the kernal 
>of Linux is what makes it successful.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.  Linus does not sure people
who extend the Linux kernel.  His authority is (currently) sufficient
to limit fragmentation, but anyone who wants to produce a modified
version of Linux is free to do so.  It's one thing to have the moral
authority to keep a standard intact, quite another to use legal means
to stop people trying.

And Unix obviously isn't dead, because Linux is an implementation of
it.

-- Richard
-- 
"Consideration shall be given to the need for as many as 32 characters
in some alphabets" - X3.4, 1963.