News about Microsoft and

sundialsvcs · 03-27-2018, 01:16 PM

I suspect that the thorny problem is going to turn out to be that the "various contributors" never sold or permanently-licensed their copyrights to a recognized legal entity which now owns them and which therefore has the legal right to change the license terms governing them. The litmus test is customarily that "money," or other "consideration," changed hands. No money did. People made contributions but did not receive compensation. A contract was not entered. I'm not sure that there is any legal entity which can change the license terms without mutual consent.

Which of course does present a problem for the corporations in question, who do invest millions of their own dollars into these projects in exchange for what they can leverage out of them, and which as a matter of course require legal protection for their interests. ("Nothing's free.") These cats invest not only source-code but very considerable amounts of their own money in keeping these projects running smoothly for the rest of us. So, it's a legitimate legal question, but not an easy one with an obvious solution. What we've done here is "without precedent."

cynwulf · 03-28-2018, 02:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ntubski

Hmm, so when you said:

"rejection of GPLv3 itself" meant something different than 'not wanting to change projects to GPLv3'?

The key phrase there is "such as Linux".

ntubski · 03-28-2018, 07:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cynwulf

The key phrase there is "such as Linux".

I remain puzzled. Could you elaborate, please?

cynwulf · 03-28-2018, 08:22 AM

I'm puzzled that you're puzzled. The companies involved can only apply this to their own code. If they want the benefits of GPLv3 termination, they could simply relicense their code to GPLv3...

https://www.redhat.com/en/about/pres...urce-licensing

Quote:

To provide greater predictability to users of open source software, Red Hat, Facebook, Google and IBM today each committed to extending the GPLv3 approach for license compliance errors to the software code that each licenses under GPLv2 and LGPLv2.1 and v2.

ntubski · 03-28-2018, 11:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cynwulf

I'm puzzled that you're puzzled. The companies involved can only apply this to their own code. If they want the benefits of GPLv3 termination, they could simply relicense their code to GPLv3...

Ah, well it was a bit puzzling that you said "such as Linux" when you really meant "not Linux".

By the way, this might be relevant: https://www.redhat.com/en/about/gplv...ment-statement

Quote:

The large ecosystems of projects using GPLv2 (and versions 2 and 2.1 of the LGPL) would benefit from express adoption of the cure approach provided in GPLv3. One way to achieve this is for projects to switch to GPLv3 or LGPLv3, but in many cases, this is impractical, inconsistent with upstream license obligations or contrary to the general preferences and expectations of participants in these projects.

dbeuscher · 04-08-2018, 07:53 AM

This is a Trojan horse. (in the classic sense, not in the "virus" sense. Read the article.

http://mrco.ent.sirsi.net/client/default/

YesItsMe · 04-09-2018, 08:23 AM

Microsoft open-sourced their Windows 3.x file manager under the MIT license now.

cynwulf · 04-10-2018, 09:20 AM

A recent article on how MS are still attacking free software by utilising patent trolls.

http://techrights.org/2018/04/10/mic...nd-indirectly/

rob.rice · 04-13-2018, 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hazel

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts!

in this case it's

Beware of Geeks bearing gifts!