Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Takes Responsibility For GPL Violation
An anonymous reader writes with an update to the news we discussed last weekend that a Windows 7 utility seemed to contain GPL code:
"Microsoft has confirmed that the Windows 7 USB/DVD tool did, in fact, use GPL code, and they have agreed to release the tool's source code under the terms of GPLv2. In a statement, Microsoft said creation of the tool had been contracted out to a third party and apologized for not noticing the GPL code during a code review."
You get fined, face court or jail time. ;)
Also fun how MS can now use the '3rd party' excuse for PR spin.
More of the same embrace, extend, extinguish games.
Embrace open via a third party and see what PR can do.
Have a sit down to extend the laws to make sure MS can play 'nice' in a transparent legal framework.
Extinguish open source in as many national courts as they can via trade deals.
MS got caught again and had to follow the law for now.
The real trick is to spin this into a software/copyright law changer
Commie hackers infected our code and misused the legal system to steal our work would be the real MS feeling.
This is not the start of 'open' MS, just the start of law reform MS style.
MS contracted for code in good faith, why should they have to give back like some common violator of copyright ?
A push for a safe harbour provision to protect the multi billion dollar US software industry form future nuisance claims unless it can be clearly shown MS used "lots" of code in house?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
But MS products are cancer for end users, who face interoperability issues when even thinking about leaving MS's operating system, web browser, office suite, or instant messenger. Not to mention forced upgrades.
A new member of my team and I were talking me awhile back. He's a mac-head, and not really a PC user. We were talking about general stuff, and he asked a question that I simply did not have an answer to.
"How can I get Mac OS 10.5 to install on a 10.6 macbook, so I can get my version of ProTools to run?"
The version number might be off, but it's a great illustration of the point. MS doesn't lock in anyone to anything, especially by the standards of THE ENTIRE REST OF THE INDUSTRY.
Oh fuck off, it wouldn't have mattered what they did in this situation, trolls like yourself would never have been happy.
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Assuming they didn't do this on purpose sure, why not...
Or...they knowingly use GPL code, allow it to be discovered, pull the tool, "review it", and then release it as GPL... Then resume the talk about how it is "cancerous" and "socialist" and how it "infects" code. Now they have a 100% valid example of GPL forcing open a tool in the "cancerous" and "infectious" ways they claim it does.
I'm not saying that that is what is happening here, but let's not go running out to celebrate our victory over the evil empire just yet. These guys aren't exactly stupid when it comes to manipulative shit like this.
My CAPTCHA is "sadden". How disturbingly appropriate.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
MS ships a modern OS, including kernel, massive frameworks, driver infrastructure to work on billions of different configurations and it is reviewed to be a good one.
How come some developer of them doesn't write that tool in matter of hours using the APIs already built into Windows? Who really runs Microsoft these days?
They could at least license a known, legit, stable tool and if you pay them Microsoft way, they won't even bother if their name is mentioned. For example, instead of trying to code their own "download" tool, Adobe licensed Getright framework. Instead of coming up with a "zip" compressor, they licensed a massive compressor which will save them bandwidth (amazing amount).
Now that little tool will cost them millions. You know why? People accusing them of stealing open source and even making movie about it (anti-trust) have another example in hand. Or, if I was some Redhat seller, I would say "MS? They can't even code their own software without stealing from us (open source camp)"