Linked by Thom Holwerda on Wed 18th Jul 2007 22:09 UTC, submitted by Kishe
Microsoft says software that's licensed under a new version of a popular open source license isn't covered by the patent protection deal it recently signed with desktop Linux distributor Linspire. In a posting on its Web site, Microsoft said the Linspire client software protected by the patent deal doesn't include any parts of the distribution that "comprise or include Foundry Products, Clone Products, GPLv3 Software, or Other Excluded Products." The document was published on July 5, three weeks after Microsoft struck a deal with Linspire through which Linspire's customers are indemnified against Microsoft's patent claims against Linux users.
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Member since:
2007-02-17
We are already at this point. The largest chunk of any Linux distribution is actually GNU software. Up to about a quarter of the code in a Linux distribution, maybe a bit more, is GNU software.
The GNU foundation is the author of the GPL license.
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
The GNU foundation has just gone through the process of writing the GPL v3 license, so you can bet their own software will go under than license.
GNOME is GNU software. It doesn't matter about the kernel or KDE, we are already at the point where it is just not possible to make a functional "Linux distribution" without GPL v3 software making up a large chunk of it.
Edited 2007-07-19 00:58