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Microsoft Makes Second GPLv2 Release

Posted by Soulskill on from the baby-steps dept.

angry tapir writes "Microsoft has made its second release under the General Public License in two days with software for Moodle, an 'open-source course management system that teachers use to create online learning Web sites for their classes[, which] has about 30 million users in 207 countries.' It comes on the heels of Redmond contributing drivers to the Linux community. No reports as yet on dropping temperatures in hell."

7 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. No reports as yet on dropping temperatures in hell by ChoboMog · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't know... It looks like its going to drop a few degrees overnight. http://www.weathercity.com/us/mi/hell/

  2. Re:Inspect thoroughly by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not really necessary. Microsoft's contribution is explicitly designed for "Live Services integration" for signing in to moodle instances using Windows Live IDs(from MS, naturally) and using the various Windows Live web services(bing and friends).

    Nothing subtle about it.

  3. Re:Bravo by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Informative

    Moodle is a preexisting OSS project, this is just a plugin for making Windows Live web services work with it. This does suggest that MS doesn't think that they can kill moodle; but it isn't their offering.

  4. Re:Not contribution; use by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Mod parent up! And realize that Linux kernel is and will stay GPL2. Moron.

  5. Re:Not contribution; use by Freetardo+Jones · · Score: 4, Informative

    If it was a big change, they'd go GPLv3.

    Why? That would make it be under an incompatible license with what the original software is written under and as such no third party would be able to distribute it legally because of this incompatibility. Or did you not even bother to take the 2 seconds to realize this fundamental problem with your argument?

  6. Re:Not contribution; use by uhoreg · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, the original software (Moodle) is moving to GPLv3, while Microsoft has released their plugin under GPLv2 only which makes it impossible for anyone to legally distribute Moodle with Microsoft's plugin. Not only that, but Moodle had previously be licensed under GPLv2 or later, so using a GPLv3 plugin was always fine. So it would have been better if Microsoft had used GPLv3 instead.

    --

    To get something done, a committee should consist of no more than three persons, two of them absent.

  7. Re:Bravo by bertoelcon · · Score: 2, Informative

    what's-it's-name-now Gaim

    Its Pidgin.

    --
    Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.