So I had a closer look in the GPL. It's nice that we have an intellectual conversation about its details, but I don't think that Microsoft will care very much about them. That company has a history.
Muli Ben-Yehuda wrote:
You need to look deeper into what "derived work" means in theI might not have read the license too well. Could you show me where that is stated. What I found was (after section 2c).
GPL. In this specific case, it means that unless you cripple the
kernel (for example, by taking the scheduler and moving it to user
space completely), you just can't do it.
"These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works."
And here comes the question of what "reasonably independent" is. "Derived work", as I've understood it so far, is taking some source code and making changes on it.
But please do agree with me that better cases than ours have lost in court with the right lawyers on the other side.
My original argument was that if Linux becomes too popular, bad things may happen. And if "Microsoft Linux" would be marketed agressively, it would be the first time most people would ever hear about Linux. (Most people are "your grandma").Assume that Microsoft released some link library in closed form. Then they released Office for this special Linux edition, and made sure they use this special library. Now they can sell Linux like any other operating system. No, they are not selling the OS, they are only selling their own link library. Which means that they can take any open distro, put their library on, and resell it, with copyright restricted on this tiny library only.
All true, so far. So what? they are not "subverting" Linux, they just
compete under the rules of the game like everyone else (in this case!)
and good luck to them. Your original argument was completely
different, remember?
There would be one version of Linux, being distributed for money by Microsoft, with less and less open software on it, and then there would be "those guys" who play with something that "looks like Microsoft Linux", but you can't run anything on it, and nothing works with it.
Now what happens when everyone thinks that Microsoft invented Linux? (as most of my non-computeroid friends think that the idea of Windows was invented by Microsoft)
You can rule out every scenario I bring by showing that it's not 100% with the licence, but if we realize what has already been done by Microsoft and friends, and where it got them -- are we really out of danger?
Eli
What if ...
Microsoft dusted off Xenix so that it worked with ext2 and Linux elf executables (BSD can do the latter). They then have a proprietary Torvalds clone. Next, they take the Xenix cc and related tools and build their own libs, so's and executables. What's Open/GPL/whatever remains so. Their own stuff (e.g. MS Office) as adapted remains theirs.
They no doubt have the wherewithal to port much of their standard GUI & apps to X (if they haven't already done so [Mac?]), leaving both KDE and Gnome in their dust.
The whooppee part about it, is they can start peddalling their *ix native MS Office clones to all of us, putting Codeweaver/Wine/Crossover Office out of business, and "solving" the Hebrew desktop hassle overnight. (You don't have to like the MS GUI+bidi paradigm, but since we're all very familiar with it [Yuk! I prefer QText, but ...], MS will win.)
The next step, would be to make sure that their Office stuff does NOT work properly under Linux, but all the free stuff works under their *ix. (Their pedalling usage of non-standard HTML pages under IE shows that style of thinking, so I'm not being over-imaginative or paranoid.)
It's a bit depressing, but realities are what they are.
Daniel
The point is, that they are completely "Linux compatible" bypassing all the GPL and related hoopla.
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