MS Pulls Windows 7 Tool After GPL Violation Claim

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday November 10, 2009 @07:16PM from the least-they-could-do dept.

Sam notes an Ars story on Microsoft pulling the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool from the Microsoft Store website after a report indicating that the tool incorporated open source code in a way that violated the GNU's General Public License. Whether the software giant is actually violating the GPL, a widely used (including by the Linux kernel) free software license, is not confirmed. "We are currently taking down the Windows USB/DVD Tool from the Microsoft Store site until our review of the tool is complete," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. The fact the company pulled the tool doesn't bode well, so we'll have to watch closely to see what the company puts back on its servers.

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more info by Anonymous Coward · 2009-11-10 19:55 · Score: 5, Informative

A friend of mine works at the borg. He's a penguin at heart and generally a good guy. This is what he told me. I believe him, but you can make up your own mind. There is/was a GPL violation, but MS didn't do it directly. They licensed some code from a third party. The third party was responsible for the GPL violation (they licensed the GPL code under a non-GPL license).