Bonum Certa Men Certa

Groklaw on Microsoft's GPL Violation and Microsoft on the GPL

Summary: More insights into Microsoft's "hell froze over" moment

INITIALLY, GROKLAW responded very skeptically to Microsoft's loadable module for Linux. As we shall show later on, it may as well be a Trojan that inserts Microsoft APIs (or hooks) into the heart of Linux, just like Mono. As more details unfolded, e.g. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], Groklaw's editor became aware that Microsoft's announcement was a PR charade over what used to be a GPL violation. Responding to Microsoft's denial of violation (at Heise), Groklaw quotes:



"Stephen merely called the situation to Microsoft's attention" and that Microsoft have made the right decision to open source the Hyper-V drivers. Hemminger says "once Microsoft was aware of it, they were eager to resolve" the problem, which he discovered in March 2009.


Pamela Jones adds: "I see. So eager it only took 5 months to actually do it." Later on she linked to the SFLC's side of the argument, quoting:

The violation was rectified when Microsoft contributed more than 20,000 lines of source code to the Linux community last week....But Ramji said Microsoft was going to release the code under the GPL anyway.


"Cough.Sputter," remarks Jones. "Stop! If I laugh any harder, I can't breathe. Seriously, folks, if Microsoft was already talking about it months ago, why violate the GPL? Duh."

“This viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization making use of it.”
  --Craig Mundie, Microsoft
The pro-Microsoft spin will no doubt live on regardless. Sam Ramji was probably lying on Microsoft's behalf or at least trying to embellish this by making it look like Microsoft was all cuddly and open. Ramji has a history of playing that role [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. Here is the Microsoft enthusiast Gavin Clarke interviewing Ramji after Microsoft had attacked GNU/Linux with plenty of FUD (May 2007). Ramji said: "The reason we disclosed that [Microsoft claims Linux violates 235 patents], is because there was a request for transparency following the Novell deal last November. This was a response to that transparency."

"Transparency," eh? So attacking GNU/Linux is now "transparency"? Especially when the patents are ones that either don't exist or Microsoft refuses to disclose? This is "transparency"? We also wrote about that interview in [1, 2, 3] where it was mentioned for other reasons.

While on this issue of Microsoft supposedly "warming up" to the GPL (simply because it has no other choice), let's use a quick reminder. As an obligatory insight from Microsoft, here is what Craig Mundie told the The New York University Stern School of Business about the GNU GPL: "The GPL mandates that any software that incorporates source code already licensed under the GPL will itself become subject to the GPL. When the resulting software product is distributed, its creator must make the entire source code base freely available to everyone, at no additional charge. This viral aspect of the GPL poses a threat to the intellectual property of any organization making use of it."

He added: "The GPL asserts that any product derived from source code licensed under it becomes subject to the GPL itself. When the resulting software product is distributed, the creator must make all of the source code available, at no additional charge."

This is deception, it's FUD, it's Microsoft. It almost implies that no money can be made because of the GPL, despite obvious contradictions and business success stories like Red Hat.

Here are some more of Craig Mundie's views on the GPL. Yes, Microsoft truly "warms up" to the GPL... like it is "warming up" to ODF... warming up like a blazing fire.

"There's free software and then there’s open source... there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with."

--Bill Gates, April 2008

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October