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

They're involved in the distribution

Posted Jul 12, 2007 10:05 UTC (Thu) by ekj (guest, #1524)
In reply to: They're involved in the distribution by 3vi1
Parent article: Microsoft's proclamation on GPLv3

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.

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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.