Novell worries that GPL 3 could foil Microsoft pact

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I've come to the conclusion that...

...a lot of people, including the management of Novell, haven't, until recently, taken the GPL seriously. After all, in the public perception, it was written by a long-haired commy-hippy freak and why would anyone take anything written by anyone like him seriously? All a lot of people, especially those of the source-code-ought-to-be-top-secret persuasion, have seen is that there's this pretty cool source code sitting around that's not locked in a vault and it's finders-keepers.

Sorry, Novell, but those of us who write GPL-ed code do take it seriously. When I stick a GPL notice in my code, I mean it--I want other people to use it, to play with it, to expand on it, and to improve on it (nah...it's my code and therefor, by definition, perfect :-)). Even you, Novell, are welcome to use it--under my terms and conditions. And implicit in my terms and conditions, as stated in the GPL, are the philosophies of "play nice" and "don't screw people".

It don't know if Novell gets those philosophies; for sure, Microsoft doesn't.

Posted by: Henry Miller   Posted on: 05/29/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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