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Did Microsoft Borrow GPL Code For a Windows 7 Utility?
Goatbert writes "Rafael Rivera over at WithinWindows.com has found evidence that Microsoft has potentially stolen code from an open source/GPL'd project (ImageMaster) for a utility made available on the Microsoft Store to allow download customers to copy the Windows 7 setup files to a DVD or USB Flash Drive. If Rivera's evidence holds up, this could be some serious egg in the face for Microsoft at a time when they're getting mostly good press from the tech media."
Stop being insecure about Windows' successes. It's fucking embarassing. Linux has it's place, and that place is nowhere near the average consumer's home computer.
There is a distinct difference between infringing on someone's copyright and infringing on someone's copyright and trying to pass their work off as your own.
Your pathetic trolling aside, I seriously doubt Microsoft would do something nearly this stupid. What would they have to gain from it? Certainly not enough to offset the damage caused by it being found out.
This is Microsoft. The company that tries to step on as many other companies as possible. Do you honestly think that Microsoft doesn't look at GPL'd code and add it? Hahhaah I wouldn't be surprised if a good 50%+ was GPL'd. It'd be a great day of defeat for Microsucks if this got confirmed. Considering their piece of crap Windows 7 it'd only be the final nail in the coffin. :)
I don't think slashdot is correct place to handle issues like this.
Come on people, you can't have it both ways. If you can't "steal" music, you can't "steal" code. MS "stealing" this code didn't deprive the Open Source community from using the code (i.e. stealing my car), or at least that's the argument /.er use whenever the word is used in conjunction with music and movies. Eat your own dog food.
The GPL is based on fear, and scarcity thinking. This argument holds up logically, yes, but don't expect it to fly with anyone who supports the use of the GPL; it won't. However, most of said people will also advocate and accept music piracy, which is, of course, simply a double standard.
This is a victimless crime; although in truth, it isn't really a crime at all. If said code had been using the BSD license, nobody would have said a word about it; it wouldn't even be spoken about at all.
It'd be fun if the FSF did decide to try taking Microsoft to court about it, though; then we'd all get to see just how truly impotent the FSF really are.
Any responses to this from GPL advocates will also be ignored.
Non-physical works CANNOT be stolen. Unless you're talking about a PHYSICAL COPY, you cannot steal it by definition.
The dictionary says the following meet the definition of 'steal', among others:
1. to take without permission or right.
2. dishonestly pass off (another person's ideas) as one's own.
3. to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.
4. to take, get, or win insidiously, surreptitiously, subtly, or by chance.
5. to move, bring, convey, or put secretly or quietly.
6. attract the most notice in (a scene or a theatrical production) while not being the featured performer
You can certainly steal music under, at the very least, definitions 1 through 4.
This argument is among the dumbest advanced by Slashdotters. All it takes is a glance at a dictionary to disprove.
You cannot say a word does not apply by selecting one of its many correct and ubiquitous definitions. No definition of stealing requires the deprivation of physical property.
You are confusing that definition with a number of criminal acts, none of which are, in fact, termed "stealing" and all of which have specific names and elements.
If you want to use an appropriate term for what Microsoft supposedly did with this GPL code, it's called plagiarism. Sure, it's called "stealing" nowadays,
It was always called stealing. Plagiarism is stealing. Theft is stealing. Conversion is stealing. Infringement is by definition stealing (you are asserting a property right which is the exclusive property of another--the entire basis for its illegality). Misappropriation is stealing. Trespass to chattels is stealing. Theft of service is stealing (and utterly lacking in tangibility).
"Stealing" is nothing more than a colloquial term for unauthorized takings, including such takings that are not unlawful, including plagiarism and the ubiquitous "He stole my idea!" uttered by at least one student in every science fair across the globe. It is nothing short of moronic to pretend otherwise. There is nothing about "stealing" that is confined to acts of taking a finite, tangible object from another person to the exclusion of all else. It's time to get over that.
Can we disable MS's internet access?
hint: in economical downturn even serious press are easy to buy - this is only a half joke.
In hard times stories this trivial have no value even as filler.
What the geek ought to be talking - and thinking - long and hard - about this week is Win 7 entering the market with a 4% share of the desktop.
When you make an API call what do you think you are doing