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Dvorak On Microsoft/Novell Deal
zaxios writes, "John C. Dvorak has weighed in on the recent Novell-Microsoft pact. Among his insights: 'Microsoft has been leery of doing too much with Linux because of all the weirdness with the licenses and the possibility that one false move would make a Microsoft product public domain at worst, or subject to the GPL at best.' But now, 'the idea is to create some sort of code that is jammed into Linux and whose sole purpose is to let some proprietary code run under Linux without actually "touching" Linux in any way that would subject the proprietary code to the GPL.' According to Dvorak, it's only a matter of time before Linux is 'cracked' by Microsoft, meaning Microsoft figures out a way to run proprietary code on it."
Supposedly, the GPL is some sort of virus which, once touched, makes all proprietary software into open source. Microsoft has good reason to be afraid. Symantec can't innoculate against that type of virus.
If the copyleft provisions were invalidated by a court, the gpl pretty much ends up looking like public domain. It isn't going to happen, but he isn't that far out there with that comment.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.