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Microsoft Tech Specs Prohibit GPL Implementations

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the difference-between-trust-and-anti-trust dept.

abartlet writes "As described in this Advogato entry, MS is trying to pull a swifty with their latest 'release' of their CIFS (the networked filesystem Samba implements) Technical Reference. The licence specifically prohibits any GPLed or (or LGPLed) program from implementing it, defining it as an 'IPR Impairing Licence'! Fortunately the CIFS community is about to release its own Technical Reference based on earlier MS documents and long experience in attempting to interoperate with the MS product." Microsoft's claim is completely ungrounded - nothing written by a third-party can take away Microsoft's intellectual property rights. But it makes a good (read: confusing to the general public) justification for preventing others from interoperating with their software.

3 of 803 comments (clear)

  1. Thank you Microsoft by PhysicsGenius · · Score: 1, Troll
    As I've mentioned before, I spearhead an effort to create a high-performance phase-stabilized hamiltonian-invariant file system here at the lab. I've worked with CIFS and SMB extensively. I don't particularly like the spec, what with restricted file name length and all, but I am forced to agree with Microsoft on one thing: They can't allow a GPLd version to get out.

    Why not? Because any GPLd version would of necessity be a copy (in the moral if not the legal sense) of their work and would thus unethically divert profits from their business.

  2. Not just GPL by delta407 · · Score: 4, Troll

    This is kinda creepy.

    1.4 "IPR Impairing License" shall mean the GNU General Public License, the GNU Lesser/Library General Public License, and any license that requires in any instance that other software distributed with software subject to such license (a) be disclosed and distributed in source code form; (b) be licensed for purposes of making derivative works; or (c) be redistributable at no charge.

    Microsoft seems to have just banned any open source or even free (as in beer) CIFS implementations.

    Then, my question becomes: what about interpreted languages? Many languages don't have a compiled form... does the license prohibit those?

  3. Re:patents? by Royster · · Score: 1, Troll

    what would Evil RMS look like?

    Since RMS is his own worst enemy, then his anti-version is himself.

    --
    I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i