Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
> ____/ Peter Köhlmann on Tuesday 10 July 2007 16:33 : \____
>
>> Mark Kent wrote:
>>
>>> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>>> Microsoft Says It Is Not Bound by GPLv3
>>>>
>>>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>>>| Microsoft cleared the air July 5 on its obligations to GNU General
>>>>| Public Licence Version 3 support, declaring it will not provide
>>>>| support or updates for GPLv3 under the deal it penned in November
>>>>| with Novell to administer certificates for the Linux distribution.
>>>> `----
>>>>
>>>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/zd/20070705/tc_zd/210987
>>>>
>>>> Funny company. It's desperate. 5 stages of agony... returning to denial.
>>>
>>> How can it not support what it's agreed to support, I wonder?
>>>
>>
>> How can you make them support it with a license which came into existance
>> *after* they signed a deal?
>> That would fly in no court of this world. You can't unilaterally change the
>> conditions of a deal and expect it to stay. And this is what the GPL3 tries
>> to accomplish, altering the conditions in a way which would make it
>> impossible for MS to fulfill the contract without violating the GPL3
>>
>> Guess the number of judges who would not laugh that out of court (any number
>> below 1 is possible)
>>
>> Anyone reading "MS is hooked" into that is on an extreme tour of wishful
>> thinking. The GPL3 is the exact tool MS needs to get out of that contract
>> scotfree anytime they want to
>
> You're actually quite right here. Novell suffers (or will suffer) a great deal
> here while Microsoft sees yet another malovolent plan sinking like a rock.
> Both of them lose. The FSF was very successful because it actually gave Novell
> a second chance. It was merciful. Eventually it was Novell's new 'partner'
> (not the FSF) that screwed Novell, throwing SUSE vouchers out of the airplane.
>
You should go back and look very carefully at the GPL. For the vast
majority of GPLed projects, they specifically note that the licence will
be updated, and that the latest version of the licence will be the one
which applies, as far as I know.
You cannot just wish this away because you'd like to, it's there.
This means that, as and where Microsoft made promises with respect to
GPLed projects, excepting the kernel which for some shortsighted reason
is specifically locked to GPLv2, most things are not, and any
committments made were made in the knowledge that this change not
only could be made, but as the GPLv3 was under discussion when Microsoft
made their committments, they knew very clearly just what changes were
being made.
They tried to get under the radar, and they failed.
--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
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|
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