Slides Of Microsoft Anti-GPL Advocacy

An anonymous reader links to these slides outlining Microsoft's position on Free software licenses, in particular the GPL, writing "Regarding the latest memo from MSFT, the current politics is to be against 'copyleft' type licensing... Protecting freedom is fundamental for Free Software and MSFT knows that. They don't want licenses that protect our freedom." Makes an interesting companion piece to the anti-OSS memo mentioned the other day.

Comments

first 4 slides: Source Licensing & SoftwareInd

[ubiquitin]

Let's transcribe this thing! Here are the first four slides, from the first two images (two slides per image). I'd love it if somebody transcribed the whole presentation, as there seems to be a lot to think about in there in terms of Redmond strategy.

Slide 1: Title of the presentation with Microsoft logo

Slide 2: The Software Ecosystem
The flow of shared knowledge goes in a circle.
Diagram shows customers to government to academia to industry and back to customers.

Slide 3: The Business of Software
subtitle: Source Code Licensing
another diagram showing the interactions between source code - Core IP on the left and business model with usage rights and binaries on the right. Arrows showing development, support, deployment, and audit connect the two.

Slide 4: The Open Source Software Model:

complex mix of elements

has produced some great software

has both benefits and drawbacks like any model
Diagram showing "development model" surrounded by "philosophy", "business model" and "licensing"

Finally, somebody please mirror these images, the bandwidth on that site is getting sucked dry.

Mirror

[infolib]

here

Bandwidth sponsored by danish research funding...

Slide 9+10 (img_0223r.jpg)

[Anonymous Coward]

Slide 9:
Source Licensing Debate (continued)

• Wider use of Linux has brought more focus to source licensing as a topic
  • Clear benefits to open source model such as community action
• Result is a healthy examination of source licensing practices by commercial vendors
• Sustainable rate of innovation has been lef out of discussion for too long
  • Software innovation has been a driving factor of growth across all major industries

Slide 10:
Areas of Concern
Box to the left of text contains 4 boxes saying:
General Public License (GPL)
Ecosystem Health
Commercial Software
Government Policy

• Authored by the Free Software Foundation
  • For protecting the individual developer
  • Against ownership or commercialization of software
• Designed to devalue software and to pull, by force, intellectual property into the commons
• Known in the OSS community as a "viral" license
• Terms of license are:
  • Any GPL code can be copied and redistributed at no cost, may charge for cost of distribution
  • If GPL code is distributed in object form you must also include source code
  • Inclusion of GPL code in another work may require you to release entire larger work under GPL termes (e.g., provide source code and allow others to modify and distribute)
• The GPL is fine for the individual to choose, but bad for the industry

Slide 17 (img_0227r.jpg)

[Anonymous Coward]

Slide 17 (last):

Microsoft(R) (logo)

Dirk Tombeur
Microsoft Belux
dirktom@microsoft.com

http://www.microsoft.com/sharedsource

Starting work on 15+16 now...

The GPL protects the developer ...

[codepunk]

No the GPL ensures that some slug is not going to compile in my library and try to sell me back my own code. The GPL is my reward in knowing that I not going to be taken advantage of.

Slide 15+16 (img_0226r.jpg)

[Anonymous Coward]

Slide 15:

Box to the left of text contains 4 boxes saying:
General Public License (GPL)
Ecosystem Health
Commercial Software
Government Policy


Areas of Concern

• Government policy around source code licensing will have long-term implications
  • Procurement
  • Mandatory preferences for either Open Source or GPL software removes the value of quality

R&D

• Government funded research released under the GPL can never be commercialized
• True public-domain licensing would look more like the FreeBSD license

Software Industry Growth

• Strong IP protections provides significant incentive for local software companies to invest in R&D
• Procurement preferences against commercial software companies will harm local industry
• Non-commercial software will have artificial advantage over commercial if government funded R&D is covered by the GPL

Slide 16:

Choice of Models -
Choice of Software

• Individuals and organizations should choose:
  • Development model that works best for them
  • Licensing model that works best for them
  • Software that delivers the most value
• Governments should:
  • Advocate that the broadest range of choices be available
  • Provide strong IP protection to allow individuals and organizations to benefit from their investments

That's it from me for now. Somebody else must do the rest.

Re:Good slides

[thomasj]

That's the heart of MS's position: they want to be able to use everybody else's IP for free while still forcing everyone else to pay to use MS IP.

Oh please, would you?

The story of these slides (MS or not), is that software funded by tax money, or are research done "for the general technological advance" should maybe be released under a more relaxed license, rather than a political licence.

The outstanding phrase of the slides is: "GPL -- good the individual, bad for the industri", saying that: it is good for privately developed software to demand a giveback of co-developers if they add to your software, but projects that has been paid by everybody, including the industry, should be usable in a way that makes sense to more than the OSS crowd.

You don't loose anything by MS downloading software developed by DoD or NASA or whatnot and put in their own software, since the development is already paid for, and you can download it too.

I don't mind that people release under GPL and consider it to be reasonable that others should give back if they release derived works, it is fine. I prefer to release software under BSD or the dual Perl AL/GPL, since it makes better sense to me, and that is fine with me that other people "steal" the code since my concern is that my code gets used even by MS. So be it.

But tax paid code (or industrial funded code) is really a different story.

Re:Viral license??

[Gerry Gleason]

No, the term viral dates from the earliest GPL debates, long before MS even knew it existed.

Re:guy with camera at MS remains unquestioned

[Anonymous Coward]

It was a public meeting...

http://carolo.net/pipermail/os3b/2002-November/0 00 884.html

in Belgium & Luxembourg.

Re:It's a bunch of freakin jpg's

[Fishstick]

well, it's an obvious hoax, isn't it? I mean, I would expect a presentation from MS to be with full-color, animated ppt slides and not something B&W that looks like it was made with wordpad!
</t-i-c>

No, I agree.. no real evidence it actually came from Microsoft, and if it did, so what? No real surprises here.

Re:Viral license??

[andrewski]

Really? References here, please. I am assuming you are referencing the debates between Stallman and Gilmore (maybe even before this). I would be ever so grateful if you would point me in the direction of some of the debates.

The "GPL is viral" myth

[yuri benjamin]

Myth - If you use and modify GPL code inhouse, you have to give away all your code.

Truth - If you use and modify GPL code inhouse, you are free to keep it inhouse.
GPL only comes into effect if you want to distribute your GPL based code outside your organisation.

Re:Good slides

[sheldon]

I have a question.

If John Smith releases product Foo under the GPL. It becomes successful over a few years and Fred, Bob, Jay and Jake all submit changes.

Does John Smith still have the right to sell a license to the Bar company for $X? Somehow I don't think he does.

That's the heart of MS's position: they want to be able to use everybody else's IP for free while still forcing everyone else to pay to use MS IP.

No, that's really not the heart of MS's position. Most companies realize that there were a variety of acts(look up Dole-Bayh) passed by Congress in the 1980's that encouraged research firms to license their work to corporations, so as to build up a synergy of research and implementation. I'm sure Microsoft would gladly pay a licensing fee to get their hands on innovative research. It wouldn't be the first time they've paid someone for their technology, would it?

What they don't want is for that research to have been released under the GPL such that the work is now potentially tainted by other people's contributions such that they cannot legally buy rights to it from the research group without putting themselves at risk to turn over the work that they created.

You don't seem to understand that this debate has nothing at all whatsoever to do with money. Money is a symptom, not the disease.

They're simply concerned that technologies will be chosen as standards which are not available to everybody on reasonable terms. What's interesting about this is that the Linux Community and Microsoft are both concerned about the same thing.

People on /. complain endlessly about patents being inserted into open standards. The reasoning is the same, the licensing terms conflict with your chosen business model. Well the GPL conflicts with Microsoft's business model, and there is no denying that... the GPL was designed specifically to conflict.

You want the same things, just two different sides of the coin. If you'd quit whining about how evil Microsoft is you'd probably realize this and could work together to establish it.

But as long as you keep fighting Microsoft, they are going to fight back. You try to force source code to be released under the GPL, then Microsoft is going to patent things to prevent you from using them.