Windows XP EULA Compared to GPL

cranos writes "The Sydney Morning Herald is running an article comparing the XP EULA to the GPL. Basically it's just reinforcing what we already knew but it could be a nice little piece to show your PHB next time."

Comments

Conflates GPL and LGPL

[p3d0]

"Under Linux, many of the libraries are released as LGPL software, which allows non-Open Source software...to be compiled and linked to these programming libraries. This software then can remain as proprietary, non-Open Source software, even though it directly links to GPL software," the study pointed out, effectively killing the idea that the GPL has some kind of viral properties.

Er, the LGPL is not the GPL. It's a different license. The GPL does have viral properties, and that's the whole point of it.

Vaccine not virus- stop the FUD madness

[abe ferlman]

The GPL does have viral properties

The GPL has vaccine-like properties. Virii have the connotation of being malicious. The GPL ensures that software, once freed, stays free. And like a vaccine, you can't get it accidentally- you have to deliberately ingest it (i.e., link it into your own code). A virus is something you might get whether you like it or not.

Try linking to some Microsoft code and then check the licensing health of your application. What's that you say? You have to convince Microsoft to allow you this privelege, just like you would have to obtain permission from the author(s) of GPL'd software to make nonfree extensions?

The vaccine metaphor is more apt- the GPL allows healthy usage of code and prevents non-free cancers, parasites and virii from growing on otherwise free (healthy) software projects. Proprietary licenses can be viewed as more of a tourniquet, cutting off all unapproved growths, for better or for worse.

Re:In summary...

[listen]

More like:

GPL protects the rights of users,
grants external developers extra rights,
copyright holder retains rights

EULA restricts users rights,
restricts external developers,
grants extra rights to the copyright
holder from the external users.

*BSD* protects the rights of users,
grants external developers even more
extra rights than GPL
copyright holder retains original rights

Re:Apache on Windows

[GregWebb]

Licensing, and this is nasty.

Netscape used to do quite nice business by pointing out that their webserver could run very happily on NT Workstation (indeed, in their opinion, better than others on Server) and that the combination of the NTWS and their license was still cheaper than NT Server.

At which point MS change the license and prohibit using NTWS as a server. If you want that, buy NT Server - which is way more expensive and, look, happens to come with a 'free' web server...

If I choose to dig my garden with a teaspoon, that is my right. If I choose to run a removal firm out of a Mini, that is just as much my right. Why, therefore, should it be legal for a software company to prohibit me using something for a purpose they did not intend and do not believe it suitable for? If I'm happy with it, I should be able to.