Microsoft Found to be a GPL Violator, Again?

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2009-11-07 21:26:16 UTC
Modified: 2009-11-07 21:26:16 UTC

Summary: GPLv2-licensed code finds its way into Vista 7, based on one source

JUST months after Microsoft's last GPL violation (namely Hyper-V [1, 2, 3]) it allegedly gets caught lifting GPL-licensed source code from its anti-GPL site and onto Vista 7, assuming the allegations out there are true.

While poking through the UDF-related internals of the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool, I had a weird feeling there was just wayyyyyyyyy too much code in there for such a simple tool. A simple search of some method names and properties, gleaned from Reflector’s output, revealed the source code was obviously lifted from the CodePlex-hosted (yikes) GPLv2-licensed ImageMaster project. (The author of the code was not contacted by Microsoft.)

Microsoft will probably attempt to save face very shortly. ⬆

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Microsoft Found to be a GPL Violator, Again?

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