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[FYI] Open source terror stalks Microsoft's lawyers
- To: debate@lists.fitug.de
- Subject: [FYI] Open source terror stalks Microsoft's lawyers
- From: "Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>
- Date: Mon, 25 Jun 2001 20:52:43 +0200
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/19953.html
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Open source terror stalks Microsoft's lawyers
By John Lettice
Posted: 25/06/2001 at 15:50 GMT
When Bill Gates last week urged businesses to have their lawyers read
the GPL before using open source software, it turns out he was
speaking from a position of knowledge. Knowledge of having lots of
lawyers, anyway, because Microsoft's legal team have clearly given
themselves the most awful fright by reading the blessed thing.
[...]
Microsoft is discharging its obligations, as it should do. But why is
it ranting on at imaginary monsters, telling developers they can't do
what they'd never dream of doing anyway, and rejecting responsibility
for a bunch of stuff that nobody would ever dream of holding it
responsible for? Maybe the monsters aren't so imaginary, and a lot
closer to home than you you might think.
Think lawyer. Think lawyer thinking about developers. Other people's
code gets into products. Other people's code has got into Microsoft
products in the past; plagiarism happens, and there is absolutely no
way any senior Microsoft manager could swear an affidavit saying that
it never happens, and never will happen. This is not a criticism of
Microsoft, the same applies to everybody, but think lawyer thinking
about this.
And also, maybe, think Posix. It's been alleged to us that the NT 4.0
Resource Kit includes Posix utilities subject to the GPL. Were this
the case, this would raise the question of why source for NT 4.0 has
not yet been published under the GPL. If the lawyers haven't
considered this one already, we're sorry to have scared them even
more, but over all these years, with all of these people, there must
be many such questions for Microsoft's lawyers to worry about.
If someone within Microsoft or contracted to Microsoft could be
legally deemed to have the authority to accept the provisions of the
GPL while incorporating GPL code into Microsoft software, then
Microsoft would be bound by the GPL. Some punk could force them to
GPL WinXP. It's even conceivable (well, if you think lawyer hard
enough) that some of the many open source sympathising grunts in
Redmond could plant the code deliberately. And you thought we were
joking last week (Commie cell in MS secretly pushing GPL to
customers).
[...]
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