Larry: I really don't want to dive into this swamp, but I am concerned that no one be misled by your comments.
I'm sure that you are accurately reporting the approach Microsoft takes to dealing with open-source code with its products and its programmers, and I suspect you are accurately describing the sad muddle of misunderstanding that this has likely, and unfortunately, created in its technical staff about these issues. But your comments on (1) re-release of code under GPL somehow affecting previous releases of that code under other licenses, and (2) copyright potentially covering concepts (algorithms) as well as expressions are simply complete nonsense. Copyrights cover expressions, concepts/mechanisms/algorithms are covered, if at all, by patents. (There is an increasing incidence of corporate-driven royalty-free patent licensing arrangements with constraints that look a lot like the GPL, but that's another story.) Code is often, these days, released under multiple licenses; it is up to users of code to choose the license that best fits their needs, and to abide by its terms. There are, as you note, a wide range of approaches to these issues among major software vendors. The fact that IBM, for one example, which sells a huge amount of proprietary, closed-source software, also employs people to work on Linux and other GPL codebases, might lead the rational observer to think that Microsoft's position is not conservative, but hysterical. Microsoft has every right to take that position, but others are well-advised not to be swayed by Microsoft's extremism on this issue. Most of my friends at Microsoft are honest enough to admit that the point of their activity, like those of most corporations of any kind, is to make money. Sometimes this means working actively with standards efforts, sometimes it means ignoring them, sometimes it means subverting them. Sometimes it means publishing accurate specs, sometimes it means keeping them closed, sometimes it means changing them arbitrarily. In any particular case it all depends on the perception of what will bring in the most profits. And that's fine (at least as long as it's legal). Since I work for an institution that doesn't make money (or hardly any) by selling software, my motivations are different. I like software based on openly-developed, well-specified standards because it makes my job easier, permits me to think more about architecture and implementation and less about IPR arrangements, and IMHO leads to more robust systems. Sometimes that means buying commercial closed-source software, sometimes it means choosing or writing open-source software instead. I hope we can understand and respect each other's motivations and points of view without using words like "bigotry". - RL "Bob"
