Microsoft And The GPL/LGPL

AnimeFreak writes "In this CNET news article, it talks about how Microsoft's new license that will allow competing companies to read-over software code for their products does not allow software covered under the GPL/LGPL licensing agreement (such as Linux, SAMBA, and Mozilla)."

Comments

Just to Nitpick

[FreeMath]

Mozilla is licenced under the Netscape Public Licence, not the GPL.

Re:This is about *Software Patents*

[Jeremy Allison - Sam]

We (the Samba Team) don't think Samba infringes on these patents. We've looked at them.

The problem is it doesn't matter what we think, it matters what lawyers think of this.

We're currently getting a legal opinion on this and will post a more complete statement once we've done so.

Regards,

Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.

Re:Brain Control?

[doug363]

The passage says:

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.

Note that if either (a), (b), OR (c) is true, then the license is an "IPR impairing license". Also, it is possible to sublicense some software in a way that would make it fall under the definition of an "IPR impairing license". In the main passage of the license text, it says:

...Company shall not distribute any Company Implementation in any manner that would subject such Company Implementation to the terms of an IPR Impairing License.

So something like public domain software, which can be sublicensed as BSD, GPL etc. is out as well.

Two wrongs do not make a right!

[Chuck Chunder]

The MPL/LGPL/GPL tri-licence is the preferred licence I think.

The NPL/LGPL/GPL tri-licence is only for stuff originally under NPL.

The most succinct explanation of what's acceptable and where is under "Acceptable Licenses" near the bottom of the licence policy page.

Re:Allow BSD, but not GPL, how?

[manyoso]

That's the thing, BSD is _not_ allowed by this license. Read:

3.3 IPR Impairing License Restrictions. ...Company shall not distribute any Company Implementation in any manner that would subject such Company Implementation to the terms of an IPR Impairing License."

Distributing under a BSD or X11 license would necessarily "subject such Company Implementation to the terms of an IPR Impairing License." if said implementation were relicensed under the GPL.

Sega v. Accolade

[yerricde]

Still, isn't decryption/decoding of standards compliance ommitted in the DMCA?

Yes, 17 USC 1201 permits circumvention aimed strictly at interoperability, but many judges have flatly ignored that provision.

I thought the Sony v Colecio settled that (I knew it's sony versus some other vid game company, as the other company won).

The issue in Sega v. Accolade was the Trademark Security System in the Sega Genesis console, which gave the program on the cartridge a short time to call a BIOS routine that displayed "Licensed by Sega", or the BIOS would halt the program. The judge ruled that copying Sega's code to do this was fair use (read the decision to see why). The Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo Game Boy and Game Boy Advance platforms use nearly the same system (except it's a piece of data in the header instead of a piece of code that must be called within time constraints), making it perfectly lawful for homebrew developers to put the logo data in the header as long as they don't cause trademark confusion (which can be avoided with a simple "NOT LICENSED BY $CONSOLE_MAKER" in the initial screen display).

The anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA don't replace Sega v. Accolade not only because of the interoperability exemption but also because the systems in the Genesis, DC, Game Boy, and GBA platforms don't control access to a work copyrighted by the console maker, and only (representatives of) the copyright owner can sue under 17 USC 1201.

Re:So competing means????

[FFFish]

WTF you mean "grapes don't grow there"?

There are at least 20 wineries within one hour's drive of my house, and at least 30 vinyards, and Okanagan wine has been cleaning up with gold medals at the world tasting events for a good five years or more. We grow grapes here, and damn fine grapes at that.

Ontario also has a thriving winery industry, though it's not nearly so good as BC's. :-)

Re:Separating Interface from Implementation, Legal

[Ben Hutchings]

It seems to me after reading the MS CIFS license that MS actually has a valid concern: they want to publish the CIFS standard and retain intellectual property rights; they want to allow implementors of the standard to be able to implement and sell or give away their implementation and/or their source code; and they want to prohibit implementors from changing the licensing terms of other bundled software components.

Whether or not this conditions is included, there's nothing a licensee can do that would affect the rights of Microsoft and its other licensees to use that specification.

Microsoft is NOT trying restrict use of CIFS.

It certainly looks like it is.

They are trying to prevent a CIFS product vendor from forcing other bundled products to adhere to the same licensing model.

But the GPL and LGPL don't do that.

I and others believe that the people who came up with this aimed to imply, falsely, that the GPL and LGPL do place restrictions on bundled software, as a justification for banning their use for software based on Microsoft specifications.

I honestly can't see what these sections are supposed to protect Microsoft from, other than fair competition.