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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.
What good is this to my lynx browser?
Kidding aside..
It's just a bunch of jpg's on a non MS site. Just pointing out the obvious, what verification do we have these came from M$?
Please tell me and don't mod down, I think I have a very valid question here.
A lot of time, softwares are developed by the Academia and heading straight to the consumer. And those software are usually distributed freely for non-commercial use (sometimes they are free for all).
Apparently the Industry (a.k.a. Micro$oft) want the finding and development to go through the industry first.
One motive: MONEY
See, Microsoft is a Big Evil Company. Their interest isn't making money, it's robbing people of their freedom. Withness the Internet Explorer debacle. Microsoft knew that I wasn't going to make them a nickel, but they released it for free so that they could take away our right to someone else's browser. Shit howdy, man, they don't care if they lose every nickel they've got so long as they get to keep robbing us of our rights!
Don't you see, man? They're eeeeevil. So evil that anyone who alleges that they did something evil is automatically right. So evil that when they release good software we must overlook the fact that the software is good and instead focus on how they are bad.
Microsoft operates the world's largest kitten and puppy grinding facility! Fact!
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the strongest word is still the word "free"
I'm glad some people finally understand that the battle isn't about markets or choosing a software license, but freedom. All to often people think that free markets are about markets, and not freedom. But just the opposite is true, when a society has healthy freedoms - the markets tend to take care of themselves.
There is an old saying, a nation can't be half slave and half free - but only all slave or all free. Unfortunately, alot of people don't understand this about copyright controlls. They think that choosing a software license is like going to the store and choosing between pears and apples or between painting your room yellow or pink - that it's just about preference. Well, it is not, and it is so fusterating to see how people refuse to consider the long term consequences of their own belief systems.
The simple truth is copyright controlls are untenable without massive free speech restrictions like the DMC0A (and beyond), and information is so easy to manuipulate and change form - that it can't be controlled unless all of it is controlled.
Read the interview with a former microsoft developer on kuro5hin for an insight into maybe why this is so.
Executive summary: Microsoft employees are arrogant assholes. (insert sweeping generalization disclaimer here)
Quote from interview: Microsoft constructed an enabling environment for socially obnoxious behavior: it was welcomed and rationalized into positives. If you were late for meetings it meant you were busy doing important work, if you were extremely confrontational it meant you were passionate about your job, if you required subordinates to work long hours it meant you were committed to the product, if you turned down everyone you interviewed it meant you weren't soft, and so on. ... And some of that behavior trickled out into meetings with customers and partners, where they were correctly seen as negatives and helped foster the anti-Microsoft attitude. But since Microsoft kept hiring and promoting obnoxious people, they kept being obnoxious.
Now this is just one former employee's opinion. But in sales meetings I have had with Microsoft, (I'm an IT manager for a 13,000 user college), I've seen the same attitudes.
Okay, maybe I'm dense, but how does your line of reasoning go? The only restrictions I see in the GPL are that 1) You have to make your source available under the GPL if you make a modified version and you choose to distribute that version to the public, and 2) programs that use GPL'ed code fall under the GPL.
That's it. You can use the program on as many machines as you want, give copies to your friends, all legally. You can even make modifications and keep the source to yourself, so long as you also keep the binaries to yourself. There is nothing in there to prevent you from being selfish. Heck, for most purposes you don't even have to accept the license. You can decline the GPL and still use the program all you want, you just can't legally modify it.
Compare this to Microsoft's licensing policies. Let's take a specific example: Windows 98 OEM version. That Windows disc that came with your computer can only be used legally on your computer. If you replace, say, the motherboard, it's not the same computer anymore, and you no longer have the right to use that copy of Windows 98 on any computer at all. Similarly, if you sell the computer that the disc came with and build a new one, you cannot use it on the new computer, even if you wiped the old one clean before you sold it. And there are lots of other restrictions, too -- read through a Microsoft EULA some time. If you actually take the time to understand it, you will find that there are about a zillion restrictions on how you can use the program. And of course you are not allowed to modify it, and couldn't if you wanted to, unless you are a wizardly programmer who can read binaries and reconstruct the original source code from them.
Compare this to the GPL, where there are only those two restrictions, and they only apply to developers. And the GPL is probably the most restrictive open-source license: others, like BSD-style-licenses, or the Zlib license, place effectively no restrictions at all on your use of the program. So, please explain to me: how is it that you have less freedom with open software than with closed?
I must conclude that this AC is a troll. Dang. Oh, well, I've got karma to burn.
First off the number of software companies vs other sectors is really small. I work as a porogrammer / sysadmin at a manufacturing plant. Do we really care if it is bad for microsoft when we use GPL software. No we care about reducing overhead thus lowering the cost of manufacturing thus allowing us to take bigger price cuts on our products while maintaining the same level of profit. Linux makes us competitive in our industry and this is why we use it, religion is not the issue but simple economics is. Furthermore do I want to sit at home each night and write some code for MS so that they might be able to sell it back to me and or overcharge my company for it. No thanks I will choose the GPL!
Got Code?
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.
Got Code?
In the sixth slide, it says that the GPL is 'Known in the OSS community as a "viral" license.'
Totally regardless of whether or not the GPL is viral, isn't this the description that Microsoft came up with?
I'm confused. Who first described the GPL as viral? MS? RMS? Somebody else?
Actually the GPL doesn't prevent companies from using the covered IP in their products. What it does do is force them to negotiate a suitable license from the original author of the covered IP (if they don't want to give away their own IP, that is). The big advantage to companies of the BSD license is that they can use the covered IP without negotiating with the original author and probably having to pay for the IP they use. 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.
Why is it a different story? The taxpayers paid for it, precisely why should a business be allowed to profit from it without paying royalties back in one form or another? What MS is asking is to be allowed to reap the profits while letting the taxpayers foot the bill. Sorry, that's not kosher in my book. And yes, we did lose something when MS used software developed by the DoD and NASA without paying: we lost the funds that went into developing it and that aren't being recouped.
And it still comes back to, if the stuff was put out under the GPL, the company can go back to the agency that did the work and negotiate a license other than the GPL.
Personally I think something along the lines of the LGPL, or a modified BSD license which requires that the software being used and any modifications/enhancements to it be made available under the terms the original software was gotten under, would be more appropriate than the GPL. It still boils down to, a private company should not be able to take taxpayer-funded property and use it to make a profit without some of that profit going back to the taxpayers in some way.
For me, the most interesting slide was the bottom half of img_0224r.jpg, (Areas of Concern) where it says: "Primary research results placed under the GPL are precluded from commercial use: TCP/IP example".
I'm wondering if this translates to "We are concerned, because we can't charge people royalties for every packet they send." I would have loved to have heard the commentary that went with that slide.
You can look at the GPL and write your own proprietary implementation. But a lot of source code from companies like Microsoft and Sun software is licensed under agreements that "contaminate" you; that is, you can't develop a competing implementation because the presumption will be that you copied stuff from their source code. They also contain lots of other clauses that "infect you", like with an indefinite possibility of getting dragged into a law suit between Microsoft or Sun and a third party.