Before mid-2005, Groklaw coverage of Florian simply cited his work against software patents in a few stories on that topic.
Then there was little or no mention of him until the Oracle purchase of Sun was under discussion. Florian joined Monty of MySQL in opposing the sale, citing as one of the reasons that because MySQL was under GPLv2 only Oracle would be able to fund MySQL development by selling proprietary licenses (MySQL's business model). The theory is that to make a viable fork of MySQL should Oracle turn out to be bad, you needed to be able to sell proprietary licenses to fund development. (RMS criticized the proposed sale on similar grounds).
Groklaw decided that this was FUD against GPL (and hand waved away RMS's similar view), and then brought up the Munich Linux migration to show Florian is an evil anti-FOSS person. For those who don't remember that, Florian and other anti-software patent activists, along with the Green Party, wrote a letter to Munich officials raising the issue of potential software patent problems in free software. Their aim was for this to slightly disrupt the project enough for the press to take notice and write about the dangers of software patents.
It in fact did disrupt the project. The Munich Linux migration was put on hold for a week while patents were discussed, and the press picked up on it. Some people decided that since Microsoft would obviously like Munich to stick with Windows, Florian must have been working for Microsoft, and the anti-Florian FUD has been flowing ever since.
The next thing Florian did that ticked off Groklaw is criticize IBM. Groklaw seems to have a soft spot in its heart for IBM, so criticizing them is not welcome there.
PS: The Munich Linux migration is a top contender for worst-managed software migration of all time. That one week delay Florian caused in order to get publicity for the dangers of software patents is a drop in the bucket compared to the massive schedule slips that followed. For those who enjoy spectacular failure, there's a blog that has been following the show: http://limuxwatch.blogspot.com/
Then there was little or no mention of him until the Oracle purchase of Sun was under discussion. Florian joined Monty of MySQL in opposing the sale, citing as one of the reasons that because MySQL was under GPLv2 only Oracle would be able to fund MySQL development by selling proprietary licenses (MySQL's business model). The theory is that to make a viable fork of MySQL should Oracle turn out to be bad, you needed to be able to sell proprietary licenses to fund development. (RMS criticized the proposed sale on similar grounds).
Groklaw decided that this was FUD against GPL (and hand waved away RMS's similar view), and then brought up the Munich Linux migration to show Florian is an evil anti-FOSS person. For those who don't remember that, Florian and other anti-software patent activists, along with the Green Party, wrote a letter to Munich officials raising the issue of potential software patent problems in free software. Their aim was for this to slightly disrupt the project enough for the press to take notice and write about the dangers of software patents.
It in fact did disrupt the project. The Munich Linux migration was put on hold for a week while patents were discussed, and the press picked up on it. Some people decided that since Microsoft would obviously like Munich to stick with Windows, Florian must have been working for Microsoft, and the anti-Florian FUD has been flowing ever since.
The next thing Florian did that ticked off Groklaw is criticize IBM. Groklaw seems to have a soft spot in its heart for IBM, so criticizing them is not welcome there.
PS: The Munich Linux migration is a top contender for worst-managed software migration of all time. That one week delay Florian caused in order to get publicity for the dangers of software patents is a drop in the bucket compared to the massive schedule slips that followed. For those who enjoy spectacular failure, there's a blog that has been following the show: http://limuxwatch.blogspot.com/