Comments on: Libyan Dictator Warns Against Facebook, Microsoft Bans OpenSource

By: Richard Chapman

Richard Chapman — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 06:01:15 +0000

“I think that article is just a little misleading.”

I believe this is a new Microsoft TE (Technical Evangelist) talking point. I’ve seen it too many times in relation to this move by them to be statistically insignificant. The key word is “misleading”. It’s getting a lot of visibility in the comment sections wherever Microsoft’s latest attempt at hurting FLOSS is covered.

By: WMDKitty

WMDKitty — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 07:47:27 +0000

Goddammit, Microsoft — you finally put out an aesthetically pleasing, user friendly, and stable OS, and now you pull this shit?

What the hell?

By: Mikko

Mikko — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 02:04:29 +0000

wp7 is more locked in than ios from apple

By: andrew

andrew — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 17:48:04 +0000

I think that article is just a little misleading. They aren’t banning open source software. Just one particular license, GPLv3. It seems that GPLv2 may still be ok. LPGL is most definitely ok. BSD, Apache, and other OSS licenses appear in the clear as well.

By: richardrob

richardrob — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 17:44:38 +0000

I suspect the Microsoft thing is the result of overzealous and ill-informed lawyers worried about liability. If the terms don’t change in the next week or so we’ll know this is deliberate.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:33:55 +0000

Mr Ed, I’m not sure I get your point. The GPL license does not require an entire company or its products to follow the license, only specific pieces of software. The app store in question is a vehicle for you or me or others to distribute apps for various platforms. Micorosft is telling you that if you want to develop an app for the Windows Phone (for instance) you can’t distribute it via their store to the customers if it uses GPL.

There can only be one reason to do that: To stifle OpenSource. That is an evil act.

Or is there something I’m missing here?

By: Mr Ed

Mr Ed — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 16:11:31 +0000

On the open source front, Microsoft is not distributing software distributed under GNU General Public License. They can’t or don’t want to meet the terms of this license agreement so they are opting out.

Just because they are evil doesn’t make everything they do evil.