[News] [Rival] Microsoft Breaks the Law Again, SFLC Should Sue?
Roy Schestowitz
Hash: SHA1
Did Microsoft violate the GPL?
,----[ Quote ]
| What's quite sad about this is that the tool in
| question wasn't being sold for money, and was
| just there to help people upgrade to a new
| Microsoft operating system. Were Microsoft to
| release the source code of the tool under the
| GPL, it wouldn't lose any money, since it's not
| asking for any. It might even gain some new
| Windows 7 users, as people hack the code to make
| it support a wider range of hardware. Dogma is
| preventing everyone from gaining in this
| situation.
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http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10014432o-2000331765b,00.htm
Microsoft yanks Windows 7 tool over open-source code swipe
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| Microsoft has yanked a tool it touted as a way
| for netbook owners to install Windows 7 without
| a DVD drive after a prominent blogger accused
| the company of using open-source code without
| acknowledging where it originated.
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http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2009/111009-microsoft-yanks-windows-7-tool.html?fsrc=rss-linux-news
Microsoft yanks Windows 7 tool over open-source code swipe
Microsoft Yanks Windows 7 Download Tool
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Microsoft-Windows-Download-Tool-GPL,9043.html
Microsoft pulls download tool over GPL violation accusation
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/29193/1090/
Microsoft pulls Windows 7 tool after GPL violation claims
Free Windows 7 RTM USB/DVD Download Tool Pulled Down
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Free-Windows-7-RTM-USB-DVD-Download-Tool-Pulled-Down-126704.shtml
Recent:
SFLC: Microsoft violated the GPL
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| Microsoft violated the General Public License v2 (GPLv2) when it distributed
| its Hyper-V Linux Integration Components (LinuxIC) without providing source
| code, says the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC).
|
| The violation was rectified when Microsoft contributed more than 20,000 lines
| of source code to the Linux community last week. The drivers are designed to
| improve the performance of the Linux operating system when it is virtualized
| on the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V hypervisor-based virtualization system.
|
| [...]
|
| "It seems to me that Sam [Ramji] is likely correct when he says that talk
| inside Microsoft about releasing the source was under way before the Linux
| developers began their enforcement effort," said Bradley Kuhn, a policy
| analyst and tech director at the SFLC.
|
| "However, that talk doesn't mean that there wasn't a problem. As soon as one
| distributes the binaries of a GPL'd work, one must provide the source for
| those binaries, so Microsoft's delay in this regard was a GPL violation.
|
| "The important thing to note from a perspective of freedom is that this
| software, whether it is released properly under the GPL or kept proprietary
| in violation of the GPL, is a piece of software designed to convince people
| to give up free virtualization platforms like Xen and KVM, and [to] use
| Microsoft's virtualization technology instead," Kuhn added.
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http://www.sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=33641
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