

Was Microsoft's recent code "donation" forced by the GPL? - bensummers
http://passthesource.org.nz/2009/07/22/donating-code/

======
forkqueue
The GPL can't force them to work on getting the code included in the mainline
kernel.

They did this for one reason plain and simple: competitive advantage over
VMWare.

------
ErrantX
Yes. Question: does it matter? Not really, im sure this happens all over the
place - M$ are just high profile.

I dislike the mud slinging paragraph at the end of the post - I dont see the
relevance.

~~~
jm4
You're right. It probably does happen all the time. Just last week in one of
those GPL vs. BSD threads someone posted a link to a story about how the
author of CLISP was more or less coerced into using the GPL license. In any
case, through coercion or not, releasing Linux drivers under the GPL is
probably the right thing to do. Many users are strongly against loading
proprietary binary blobs into their kernel. Still, not all vendors open source
drivers so that ones that do could potentially enjoy a competitive advantage.

~~~
jrockway
To be fair, the CLISP guy seemed to want to GPL his stuff towards the end of
the thread. RMS was, as always, heavy-handed and mentioned legal action before
even asking, "hey, do you want to GPL this"? That says nothing about the GPL
and a lot about RMS' personality.

The end result is that CLISP is one of the better CL implementations, and
seems to have a pretty decent following. I don't know if it was like that
before it was GPL'd or not, though.

~~~
startingup
For good or ill, GPL _reflects_ RMS' personality, in much the same way start-
ups reflect their founder's personality. GPL is a polemical, political
statement, not just a software license. That reflects the fact that RMS is a
moral philosopher, not just a programmer.

This is not to say that we should _judge_ GPL by RMS' personality - GPL, just
like companies people create, will stand on its own; all I am saying is that
GPL is strongly influenced by the personality of its creator.

~~~
ErrantX
Agreed. Stallman strongly believes stuff should be free (not a bad atitude)
and so the GPL tends to force things to be free in sequence.

Personally I find the GPL distasteful; because it locks you in. Frustrating
(and I cant help feeling causes substantial code duplication for some projects
that dont want to use GPL code)

(disclaimer; Im not personally a fan of Stallman, so I might be a bit biased
over it)

~~~
xiaoma
" _Personally I find the GPL distasteful; because it locks you in. Frustrating
(and I cant help feeling causes substantial code duplication for some projects
that dont want to use GPL code)_ "

Were there any licenses prior to the GPL that didn't do that? Surely you
couldn't just take a piece of IBM or AT&T's code and put it into your programs
with no strings attached. That era was before my time, so please educate me if
I'm mistaken.

~~~
ErrantX
well it's before mine too so I have no idea :)

------
stonemetal
Of course not. All the reports I have seen say it is driver code. Therefore it
very well could have been a Nvida style Blob driver if they wanted to keep the
source buttoned up.

~~~
hyuhgtf
And enterprise Linux suppliers/users are going to just certify/install a
binary blob from Microsoft into the kernel?

~~~
eru
Perhaps. Perhaps not.

Most enterprises already run binary blobs from Microsoft, as MS distributes
nearly all of its software that way.

------
thras
They just did another GPL release to integrate their Live tools with Moodle. I
think that somebody decided to change policy.

------
hs
freedom that contains coercion is ironic

~~~
callahad
It depends on whose freedom you want to promote. The GPL is for protecting the
freedom of software recipients. The BSD license if for protecting the freedom
of software developers.

