They're involved in the distribution [LWN.net]

They're involved in the distribution

Posted Jul 9, 2007 1:01 UTC (Mon) by 3vi1 (guest, #39830)
In reply to: They're involved in the distribution by coriordan
Parent article: Microsoft's proclamation on GPLv3

Here's the part that confuses me:

Microsoft has more money than God. Some time in the future, they're going to see that the tipping point has been reached and Linux is going to overthrow Windows (assuming they don't suddenly do some extreme innovating in Windows and block us with patents).

Now, here's the most likely scenario for when that happens: Microsoft buys Novell lock-stock-and-barrell, and begins to hawk "Windows Linux" and takes back the market from Redhat, Ubuntu, Mandriva and the also-rans.

Yeah... that was supposed to make you mad. The real challenge is: how do you procede with the OS such that the market can never be dominated by one company?

That must be the goal, right? Everyone loved Windows before it was the 800lb gorrilla. Well... except us Mac and Amiga users. heheh

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They're involved in the distribution

Posted Jul 12, 2007 10:05 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link]

I don't see how that's terribly worrisome. The GPL ensures a level playing-field, or as close as we know how to make it anyway.

The thing which gives MS power today is that they *alone* can define, debug, change what Windows does. If Windows was available under the GPL then 95% of the political reasons for not using it would go away.

Longer term the technical reasons migth evaporate too, who knows ?

There's still the problmes of tivoization, webservices and patents. We're working on fixing those, GPLv3 is made primarily to combat these scenarios.

They're involved in the distribution

Posted Jul 12, 2007 16:36 UTC (Thu) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]

"There's still the problmes of tivoization, webservices and patents. We're working on fixing those, GPLv3 is made primarily to combat these scenarios."

Hmm. While I know some people think they need defenses against those things and want to protect their software's freedom with those defenses, it's harder to see how those defenses help in fighting Windows. On the contrary, by limiting the ways GPLv3 software can be used in products and services, they potentially give Microsoft unopposed access to certain markets.

Saying "we don't want those markets, because they inherently deny freedom to users" is fine, so long as you recognize that Microsoft will be perfectly happy to run to the bank with the added business.