SFLC: Microsoft violated the GPL

sdtimes.com

3 points·dp619··5 comments

Meh, when has the SFLC ever been helpful, rather than a bully. Bully for the good guys, yeah, but they're still lawyers/bullies.

...and the SFLC putting out press releases like this when Microsoft was trying to do the right thing is not helping.

FTA: "The important thing to note from a perspective of freedom is that this software, whether it is released properly under the GPL or kept proprietary in violation of the GPL, is a piece of software designed to convince people to give up free virtualization platforms like Xen and KVM, and [to] use Microsoft's virtualization technology instead," Kuhn added."

I think it helps a lot. It helps to put the contribution in perspective and it digs up a fairly plausible reason why microsoft would make some of their code available under the GPL to be placed in the linux kernel.

If they'd do the same in reverse - release code that would allow windows to be better virtualized under xen or vmware - then I would be impressed (and surprised).

Microsoft used GPLd code which it shouldn't have used in the first place. That's the reason why they released the code for some linux drivers. They did a mistake, but corrected it anyways.

It's a stretch to say they used GPLed code.

They wrote a kernel module that is unavoidably tightly coupled to the Linux kernel, which means that it must be GPLv2 as a derived work. They appear to have intended to release it as GPLv2, it just took a while.

The GPL does not require them to release the code on the internet publicly, just to release it under the GPLv2 to people who have received the code in some form (binaries) when they ask for it. Someone asked for it, and they provided it. They were decent about it.

The only real 'violation' is that they didn't initially release the binary with GPLv2 license text. I forgive them.

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