Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 28th Jul 2009 21:33 UTC
"Microsoft violated the GPLv2 when it distributed its Hyper-V Linux Integration Components without providing source code, says the Software Freedom Law Center. The violation was rectified when Microsoft contributed more than 20,000 lines of source code to the Linux community last week. The drivers are designed to improve the performance of the Linux operating system when it is virtualized on the Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V hypervisor-based virtualization system."
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Member since:2007-02-17
True, GPL is not cancer. GPL is HIV. You innocently link with another program for fun and next thing you know you are forever infected and with no hope of ever being clean again.
Sorry, but you analogy doesn't apply. In software, static linking with any outside code (GPL licensed or not) means that you include that external code within you own product.
In order to do this leaglly, one would have to comply with the license terms of the external code no matter what they were ... the GPL itself has nothing whatsoever to do with this, as this requirement is just plain copyright law. There is even a term for it in the text of copyright law ... it is called "derivative works". Within copyright law definitions, this term means any work that includes part or all of an earlier copyrighted work.
Look it up:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work
A derivative work pertaining to copyright law, is an expressive creation that includes major, copyright-protected elements of an original, previously created first work.
Under this definition, in law, Microsoft's HyperV product is a derivative work of the GPL code it includes within. Therefore, under the law of copyright, Microsoft is required to obtain permission from the authors of that GPL'd code before Microsoft may use it in HyperV.
The authors terms for allowing this are conveniently pre-explained to Microsoft in a document called "GPL v2".
Edited 2009-07-29 05:01 UTC
Member since:2009-04-24
Member since:2006-01-19
"with no hope of ever being clean again."
Sorry, but that is not true.
Once you remove all bits of originally GPLed code from your product, you no longer need to abide by the GPL, as your work no longer is derived from a GPLed work.
If you use a GPLed library, all you have to do is taking a not-GPLed library with similar functionality or write your own library.
In case of Microsoft, all they would have needed to do is write a clean-room, binary compatible replacement for Linux which does not contain any GPLed code.
And Microsoft is still having this option.
Member since:
2008-02-26
True, GPL is not cancer. GPL is HIV.
You innocently link with another program for fun and next thing you know you are forever infected and with no hope of ever being clean again.