TomTom added to my "Good Companies" list

You may remember a while ago, Microsoft started to try and sue TomTom for its use of the Linux Kernel and the Fat filesystem (in a big mess of patents that noone totally understands). Well, TomTom then decided to try and sue Microsoft over their mapping system. Supposodly it breaks a TomTom patent. Ok, so noone likes suing and patents, but that is only part of what TomTom has done which has made them into my Good Companies list.

TomTom joined the Open Invention Network. This is a group of companies (such as Red Hat, IBM, Google, etc) who joined together to share patents and fight Microsoft and Apple essentially. By joining the Open Invention Network, TomTom promise to not sue any other companie in the Open Invention Network and to help fight any companies trying to sue another companie in the Network. In return for this, TomTom get the protection of all the other companies in the Network. The only other requirement is they have to have something to do with Linux or Open Source software.

This is a great move, because, by doing this, it stops TomTom being able to make a patent deal with Microsoft, and shows that TomTom are really willing to fight Microsoft. This is great, because now we will see if Microsoft really has anything, or if it is just scaremongering. I think this is fantastic and I am very happy with TomTom, and for this reason, they are now on my Good Companies list. Good on ya TomTom

Open…

Ok, so I was thinking recently of all the open-source things there are now. Granted, in some cases, they aren’t as featureful, or mature, and their proprietry counterparts, because they are newer, but I can’t think of any proprietry program that there isn’t an open-source counterpart to.

There is even an open-source IM protocol (jabber), an open source micro-blogging tool (identi.ca) and an open-source map (openstreetmap.org).

I was also looking at the progress of open-source programs, and realised that, although they are newer than some, they are progressing much quicker. The problem is, a lot of the time, they are trying to use features that propreitry ones do, so that people wanting to switch to open-source don’t feel like they have to stay with proprietry. However, because of this, they are slightly behind because they don’t know what the proprietry programs are going to be doing.

Of course, in other circumstances, we are ahead of proprietry programs. Granted, Windows Vista Ultimate edition uses some 3D desktop effects, but they are nowhere near the amount in Compiz-fusion.