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CBC News Interprets GPL - Poorly

Posted by Zonk on from the that's-a-new-one dept.

frankShook writes "The Canadian news service CBC has up an article entitled 'Linux distributors scorn Microsoft partnership'. Primarily, it looks to describe the ongoing licensing saga between Microsoft and Linux distributors. It also includes a highly unique interpretation of the GPL: 'Open-source software such as Linux, on the other hand, encourages individuals to add to or modify software without fear of legal repercussions, so long as they abide by the conditions of the general public license, which stipulates that the program must remain open and sharable.'"

4 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. right name by Laebshade · · Score: 4, Informative

    See: the GPL homepage.

  2. Re:wrong name, but pretty accurate as these things by ispeters · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, the only nit I could pick in calling it the "general public license" is the capitalization. If you go read the GNU page on the GPL, you'll find they call it the GNU General Public License.

    Ian

  3. Re:I'm not too sure I follow... by seaturnip · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually no, the original article contains the word "the" before the word "software". This is a transcription error on the part of the submitter (unless they went and corrected the article without changing the update time).

  4. Re:Sounds reasonable to me by Lisandro · · Score: 4, Informative

    What is so wrong, again?

    Nothing really - it's not a completely accurate description of the GPL, but it was never intended to be. In fact, like you, i think it's a darn good layman explanation.

    Why do we have editors?

    Hey, someone has to dupe this story next Wednesday!