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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)."
It's their code, they can licence it however they damn well please.
That's what "freedom" is all about. You get to choose how your code can be used. MS has decided, now it's up to us to honor that decision.
Otherwise, you have no right to expect anyone to respect licences like the GPL.
Normally, you would be right, but Microsoft has been found guilty of illegaly abusing a monopoly. This trial is in the penalty phase, not the "did they do it or not" phase; Microsoft is being punished.
The very heart of "punishment" means that Microsoft is going to have to do things that they do not want to. The fact that this is an anti-trust trial means that they are going to have to do things that hurt themselves and help their competition. GPL software represents some of their strongest competition, so a "punishment" that does not help GPL developers is not a punishment at all. Remember, they have been abusing their competitors and their customers.
In the past, when Microsoft did whatever they damn well pleased, they broke the law. They cannot continue to do whatever they damn well please to correct this.
Thomas Galvin
Wow, a first post that probably wasnt aiming for it. Well, that aside....
:-) ePSXe works great in linux too....
Anyways, how can MS compete with GPL? I see they're trying to look _good_ by allowing some source to leak out to freeBSD. Still, with their standards, how can they prevent/make sure that somebody doesn't share the standards with somebody in the samba group? Still, isn't decryption/decoding of standards compliance ommitted in the DMCA? I thought the Sony v Colecio setteled that (I knew it's sony versus some other vid game company, as the other company won).
Oh well, MS is outliving their usefulness with their ever constricting contracts and costs. I've even shown Linux to friends who never have had a computer. They prefer KDE over windows. They realise setting up is a chore, but learning a bit is cheaper than resorting to a Evercrack(-like) software. Just fork over 200 bucks and we'll give you a patch^H^H^H^H^Hupgrade!
I still use Windows(2k), But I'm trying to find the best way to port over to linux, as the major tool I need is an avi video editor(VirtualDUB in linux would be wonderul, but I have very little skills in that area). I game a bit, But I OWN the metal box Quake3. I also have UT, RtCW, and other fun linux games. No probs there....
The picture I get of Microsoft when I read articles like this, is that of a spoiled child who wants all of the toys, wants them his way and wants them right away. However eventually this child grows up and learns that he has no friends. In Microsofts case, the child has grown up and learned to beat the other children with his toys.
"Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me"
From the text of the license:
3.2 Patent License. Subject to Sections 3.3 - 3.7, Microsoft
hereby grants Company a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, personal,
transferable, non-sublicensable, license under its Necessary Claims to (1)
make, use, import, and (2) offer to sell, sell and distribute, directly or
indirectly, to End Users, Company Implementations that fully comply with the
Technical Reference. The above license is limited to implementing the CIFS
communication protocol itself, and does not include any express or implied
licenses or other rights to any underlying technology (operating system
technology, local file system technology, etc.) that may be used to make a
complete file server or other CIFS compatible device.
Reciprocal Patent License. To the extent Company owns,
controls or can sublicense without payment of a fee to an unaffiliated third
party, any patents that are required for Microsoft or its licensees to
implement CIFS as set forth in the Technical Reference and distribute such
implementations, Microsoft and its licensees are hereby granted a license to
such patents solely for the purpose of implementing CIFS as set forth in the
Technical Reference and distributing such implementations.
If I understand this correctly, Microsoft is claiming patent rights (5,265,261
and 5,437,013) on technology related to implementing CIFS. Basically they're saying "everybody can use our patents royalty-free as long as it's not part of (L)GPL'ed software." Essentially this is a patent license, not a software or documentation license. The "technical reference" is just along for the ride--also free under the same terms. I predicted this about 2 years ago--that Microsoft would turn to software patents after realizing that GPL software was undefeatable by any other means. This is their first attempt.
It seems there are 3 options:
1.) Develop CIFS software outside the US, ignore the patent for use within the US.
2.) Develop a CIFS module for Samba under the BSD license (license compatibility?)
3.) Develop CIFS software at will and ignore M$ altogether.
All three cases probably require some degree of civil disobedience for US citizens--in the form of not honoring software patents. I say go for it. This could become the first time M$ ever legally fought individuals, and believe me--it could raise such a stink in public opinion that it destroys them completely.
Can anybody explain to me how Microsoft can allow BSD software to use their license while forbiding GPL? Since BSD software can be re-licensed under any other license (the property that MS likes), why couldn't it be re-licensed under the GPL. In other words, what would prevent me from writing a very small BSD program that just used the MS doc but doesn't really do anything useful, and then re-license it under the GPL.
Or probably better, all the MS interoperation code could be put in a BSD library (since there'd be nothing innovative in that part, MS won't even bother) and then link all kinds of GPL programs to that library. Does that make sense?
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
This shit is legal?
If it is, why not just ruin their market? A client which on installation calls a 3rd party server anonymously, to indicate a sale. The dealer donates all the money to the dolphins or maybe the FSF. No money is collected, he just donates on behalf of all the users.
Scenario two: The software is only sold in 1000,000-packs, price is 1 cent. What constitutes a sale? What constitutes prior restraint on business? Microsoft does not make money directly from this license it would seem. Is it possible for them legally to force a licensee to take a profit?
This could sprout a new anti-anti-GPL: Just like BSD but the FSF or somebody else puts up 1 cent for enough copies to cover the world population. We can have a $10 fund to cover any number of M$ products which use this until the sun explodes. Perhaps we should use a dead currency that will give us better compression..
If this license is allowed by the court,
it is now far worse for the open source developer
than before the trial!
Now there is a specific exclusion for a specific competitor. Would the contract be legal if it named a company instead of the GPL?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
All reimplementations of this then will be released under a different license that is an exact copy of GPL, plus an additional clause that Microsoft or any entity that is owned by Microsoft is prohibited from using it. Technically it will be perfectly ok under Microsoft's license -- it's not GPL at all, it's not even compatible with GPL.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
First of all, there is no way Microsoft can enforce conditions upon the implementation of a standard (read: "standard"). Entering into a contract requires, well, that you enter into a contract.
The above sentence is meaningless. First of all what do you mean by "standard"? A defacto standard like Flash, a standard ratified by a standards body, an industry standard (like Java), or something else? Secondly, regardless of what you meant if MSFT has patents on technology they are well within their rights to license it however they see fit.
Here's the argument that Microsoft and other anti-GPL nutballs are making: "You're not making any money off this, so we want to steal your intellectual property, violate the hell out of your license, and make money from our criminal activities." The underlying, unstated argument is, of course, that unless you're in it for profit, you have no intellectual property rights. This is utter bullshit, of course, and serves only to show what basically unethical and indecent people we're dealing with.
Interesting, I am curious as to what MSFT literature you read that made you come to that conclusion. From what I've seen of the anti-GPL rhetoric that has come out of MSFT, they are primarily against Richard Stallman's political agenda that comes with the GPL. They see nothing wrong with altruistically giving away code (which is what the BSD license and its ilk are about) but licenses like the GPL that attempt to devalue the cost of software are anathema to such people. The GPL drives the cost of software to 0 or at worst the cost of distribution media (just take a look at Cheapbytes for a living example of this). This means that any entity that produces GPL software most augment their income in some way be it through moonlighting, consulting, support, selling hardware, etc. This is not a mere side-effect but was an explicit goal of the GPL which can be garnered by reading Richard Stallman's early writings especially the gunk about software developers should work as waiters so that we can afford to give our software away.
Since the GPL makes it near impossible for an entity to simply produce and sell software as its core business, it is unsurprising that the world's largest software company would be wary of doing anything that encouraged the spread of this meme. What is surprising is that most observers find it difficult to realize this and instead of applying Occam's Razor, resort to conspiracy theories about how MSFT wants to steal their code. Then again this is the same website where people bitch about Slashdot's responsibility to slashdotted webservers and how The Great Slashdot Whine Out will strike a blow for Freedom so maybe I shouldn't be so surprised after all.
Disclaimer:This post reflects my opinions and does not reflect the opinions, strategies, thoughts, plans or intentions of my employer
For example, the Linux kernel is GPL'd but allows non-Free modules to be loaded dynamically. Lots of Free programs may be linked against non-Free system libraries, e. g. on AIX or Solaris. Why can't we do the same with Samba? Of course, the module or library has to be optional, but so is a non-Free kernel module.
Between the DMCA and other laws passed for the express purpose of enriching large corporations at the expense of the multitude of small niche competitors, and the rampant abuse of patent law, software development in the United States is rapidly becomming a closed guild wherein only the large corporations who own portfolios of spurious software 'patents' can afford to play. When an independent software developer or a small software company discovers that fundamental computing concepts are locked up in idiotic patents which they can not afford to either license or litigate, they will, I believe, decide to do something else with their time. Why not? If every piece of software you release into the world exposes you to the threat of financially ruinous litigation, how can you release anything? That is exactly the environment Microsoft is creating.
Yet not all software is developed in the United States. At the moment the rest of the world pays lip service to US copyright and patent law, including the DMCA, because the US is such a large market. But what happens when it becomes much more expensive to do business in the US because of the cost of defending your products against patent litigation, or due to the need to purchase multiple patent 'licenses' for every product you sell? In this case, extensive portfolios of software patents become a barrier to trade and I would expect to see action in international trade court against them at some point.
History teaches us that when confronted with difficult obstacles people tend to find a way over, around, or through them. I believe that we will find ways around these spurious, artificial legal barriers as well. Being a simple sort of person, I imagine that we'll end up simply ignoring them. Even Microsoft can't bring 10,000 patent infringement lawsuits against every individual writing GPL'd or otherwise competing software. They'll pick a few high-profile cases as warnings to others but eventually people will figure out that Microsoft is not about to spent a couple of million dollars suing each independent developer. I expect to see cases where developers release software and then 'disappear' into the void, essentially becoming phantom targets. I expect to see developers release software in other, more innovation-friendly countries. I expect that net effect of the DMCA and current patent law will be, like the tax code of the IRS, simply to make most of us criminals, just because no-one knows all of the law or all of the moronic patents which have been granted. We live with it now, we'll manage to live with it then. The difficulty for a societal point of view is that once people begin ignoring 'bad' laws, they ignore the 'good' ones also. Injudicious use of intellectual property law in a misguided attempt at protecting software monopolists will simply result in widespread disregard of all intellectual property laws, including copyright.
"Sten". My name is "Sten". As far as you know!