12.24.09
Miguel de Icaza: “We Have Removed All of the GPL Code” (MonoDevelop)
Summary: Moonlight “promise” full of legal holes and Novell’s Visual Studio surrogate removes GPL code
YESTERDAY we showed that Microsoft's “promise” to Moonlight has at least 10 holes in it and an ongoing discussion at LWN finds even more holes which are inferred from the original text of the “promise” (the FSF found the Mono “promise” to be unacceptable).
For the curious, Microsoft has posted the new “covenant not to sue” covering Moonlight 3 and 4. It is still quite narrow. “Microsoft, on behalf of itself and its Subsidiaries, hereby covenants not to sue End Users for infringement under Necessary Claims of Microsoft and its Subsidiaries on account of such End Users’ use of Moonlight Implementations to the extent originally provided by Novell during the Term and, if applicable, the Extension or Post-Extension Period, but only to the extent such Moonlight Implementations are used as Conforming Runtimes.” Microsoft can also discontinue it at any time.
They actually issued a press release just to promote this “promise”. It is apparently more important to Novell than promoting actual products, but then again, the news also had something to do with version 2 coming out [1, 2, 3].
One person has pointed out that Novell is in the process of removing GPL code as though it is not acceptable. From Miguel de Icaza’s blog:
* MonoDevelop code is now LGPLv2 and MIT X11 licensed. We have removed all of the GPL code, allowing addins to use Apache, MS-PL code as well as allowing proprietary add-ins to be used with MonoDevelop (like RemObject’s Oxygene).
So Novell has removed what Steve Ballmer called “cancer”, which is the same licence that Novell and Microsoft conspired to hack. Novell’s Banshee too is licensed under the MIT X11 (not just the Windows booster known as MonoDevelop). Is Novell still allergic to the GPL? █
kreshwolf said,
December 24, 2009 at 10:50 pm
I guess it is true, religious fanatics are the same the world over. This is clearly a case of the religious dogma of “Free” getting in the way of functionality.
This is the reason people run from Linux, it is the religious cooks and their visions of “Free”!
dyfet said,
December 25, 2009 at 6:40 am
Because free gets in the way of functionality is why more and more end users and enterprises use and demand free as in freedom software? Because freedom gets in the way of functionality is why Google chooses and uses GNU/Linux as it’s backend infrastructure, and much of the Internet relies on free as in freedom software to operate?
GNU/Linux would not even have existed without freedom, which ultimately includes the freedom to participate on an equal basis it’s development. That is an important part of how functionality arises from freedom in the first place. Freedom and user centered also always converge in the long run. Removing freedom means removing future development of functionality as well as dis-empowering users. It is a long-term way to reduce, rather than increase, GNU/Linux adoption, and we all know in who’s agenda this really serves, whether done by some proxy like Novell or by people who say freedom has to be sacrificed for functionality because they do not understand what either freedom really is or why freedom is essential for GNU/Linux to be successful.