Microsoft Interoperability and the GPL?

NZheretic asks: "Microsoft will be including Interix in it's next release of Services For Unix (SFU). How can Microsoft use GPL licensed products, such as GNU GCC, for the express purpose of 'interoperating' with Unix and Linux systems and at the same time deny everybody else the right to use GPL licensed products to interoperate with Microsoft's own products?"

Comments

Exactly because the GPL permits.

[mirabilos]

The GPL does not permit combinated code
(i.e. linked-together programmes) being
under a different license than the GPL.
But because the gcc etc. in the example
are not linked to that other code, just
packaged with it, it doesn't infect the
other code as it would if e.g. it would
be linked to libreadline etc.

SAMBA Vs Interix - Why one and not the other?

[NZheretic]

The question makes more sense if you check out the last link to the slashdot article on Microsoft's CIFS and SAMBA.

Even so ...

There is nothing stopping Microsoft from bundling GPL licensed software on it's CDroms, as long as they provide the end customers with a copy of the particular modified source under the same GPL license.

There is nothing stopping Microsoft from linking LGPL licensed software in their own software, as long as they provide the end customers with a copy of the particular modified source under the same LGPL license. ( You might want to check out what LGPL licensed libraries come with Interix )

Aparently neither of the above restrictions prevent Microsoft from including such licensed code in their Interix and SFU 3.0 products, for which Microsoft charges a fee. This runs entirely counter to most of the arguments presented by Microsoft against GPL and LGPL licensing.

If the GPL was such an Intellectual Property Destroyer then how is Microsoft able to bundle it in with SFU 3.0 and charge for the result?

But far more important is how much Microsoft is the hypocrite on GPL License.

If Microsoft can use, distribute and sell products containing GPL and LGPL licensed code for the specific purpose of "interoperating" with Unix AND Linux, EXACTLY what gives Microsoft the moral right to prevent anybody else using GPL or LGPL source code for the purpose of Unix, BSD and Linux "interoperating" with Microsoft's own products?