Re: OT: Reasons why few takers on MS "Open Source"
On Friday 25 October 2002 11:06, Kent West wrote:
> I understand that one of the the reasons that Microsoft's "Open Source"
> program has had few takers is because Microsoft's license is "viral" (to
> borrow MS's term for the GPL); once you see their code, there's a risk
> that any code you develop thereafter could be "tainted".
>
> Does anyone have any links to more info to this effect, or have any
> opinions? I've basically told someone the above, and now need to
> document it somewhat.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Kent
I recall this discussion on slashdot and seem to remember that they pointed to
some other people's writeups on the situation.
The executive summary goes like this:
Programmer A sees the code to MS foo. A year later while working on a project
(open or not) he ends up implementing something resembling foo. MS now
claims copyright/trademark on the code.
This sounds reasonable until you realize that their code covers just about any
type of software you intend to work on later, especially if they are giving
access to the OS guts. That could stop you from working on any OS later.
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