on Fri, Mar 19, 2004 at 10:26:22AM -0600, Tom Adelstein (adelste@netscape.net) wrote:
> alex@synchcorp.com wrote:
> > On Tuesday 16 March 2004 06:50 pm, Tom Adelstein wrote:
> > > Khawar
> > > khawar@atrc.net.pk wrote:
> > > > Did people know that M$ has been selling open source for more than a
> > > > decade ?
> > > That's not true. You should check to see if anyone (like me) ever
> > > did development for them and what kind of Non Disclosure
> > > Agreements we had to sign.
It is true.
One person's contracting or employment conditions don't apply to all.
Nor do they cover use of Free Software otherwise written.
If Microsoft wants to distribute Free Software according to the terms of
the applicable license(s), they're more than welcome to. Particularly
GPL'd works. Strongly encouraged, as a matter of fact.
In fact, they've been called on GPL violations (source distribution
obligations). By me. And Doug Miller backed down right quick to make
all fun-happy-joy. Can't find any specific mention (I'd posted a few
items to Bruce Perens's now-defunct Technocrat.net site). This is
close:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/06/03/0426234&mode=nested
The Internet Archive is blocked by Bruce's robots.txt, though I've just
emailed to see if he'll fix that:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://technocrat.net/959976884/
...and a /. followup:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/06/04/1556220
Some additional context:
http://www.cygwin.com/ml/cygwin/2000-04/msg00134.html
I tried to view the current SFU material and found that the download
site requires a Microsoft Passport registration. Naturally, being
occasionally sane, I don't have one. So determining whether or not
there's GPL'd code in SFU is somewhat restricted. OTOH, I've got a
freebie disk handed out at LWCE (shortly before the infamous photo of me
flipping off the MSFT booth while wearing a "No SCO" (circle-slash)
shirt....
> > > I can only wonder what would motivate someone to make such a
> > > statement as you did.
> > This presupposes that anyone has ever been told the truth about what M$
> > really does in its business
...this is all going rather wide of the mark for a simple and readily
verifiable statement.
> Okay - Microsoft has sold open source code under a proprietary license
> but they don't disclose it as open source and they don't publish the
> code.
The copyright statements are certainly present in the sources, and I've
got the 'strings' output to prove it. Whether they're present otherwise
in code or packaging materials I'm not certain, but I believe they are.
> This is simply a play on words - they're not an open source shop,
> period and they don't sell code as such.
"Open Source shop" isn't a thing. It's a process.
There are shops which participate in Free Software to greater and lesser
extents. Microsoft among them. It makes their anti-Free Software
vitriol that much more ludicrous.
Peace.
--
Karsten M. Self <kmself@ix.netcom.com> http://kmself.home.netcom.com/
What Part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
The nearer the bone, the sweeter the meat.
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature