Re: [ox-en] Why is Microsoft Attacking the GPL?
- From: Graham Seaman <graham seul.org>
- Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2001 06:15:54 -0400 (EDT)
On Tue, 3 Jul 2001, Raju Mathur wrote:
Hi Stefan,
Bryan has missed out one important (IMHO the most important) result of
MS' FUD campaign: the splintering of the Free Software/Open Source
community.
If you examine MS executives' earlier statements about Open Source
software, most (not all) of them fail to clearly distinguish between
the GPL and other Free Software licenses, lumping them all into one
category and damning them.
That no longer seems to apply - they now seem quite specific about
attacking the gpl. Maybe the high-ups just realised how much
bsd code there is in windows?
Now, I don't know whether this is
deliberate or accidental, but the effect it is having at the
grassroots is that the non-GPL license advocates (of which the BSD
license advocates constitute the largest part) see this as unfair,
since, as Bryan pointed out, MS' basic grouse is with the GPL.
The BSD advocates are hence tending to take attitudes ranging from,
``Yeah, we must do something about this'' through ``We are safe, so
let's not get excited'' ultimately to, ``MS is right, the GPL is a
virus, and this is a good time to kill this heathenish license once
and for all''. I've seen enough about this on mailing lists which I
subscribe to to be extremely concerned at the trend things are taking
within the Free Software community.
There have always been people like this (ie. your third group) in the BSD
community. I think they are a minority. Similarly within other groups, eg
among the (perl) Artistic License supporters. I'm pretty sure
the majority (your first and second groups), won't find themselves
actively supporting M$. So I can't see this as a big change.
I fear that the GPL/GNU/Linux advocates are about to be isolated in
their own community, ending up as a vocal group which slowly gets
silenced in the morass of FUD and license envy generated by both its
detractors as well as one-time supporters.
I don't think this is so likely. Apart from anything else, there are
also commercial pressures on people to use the gpl: much free software
developed in companies is under gpl because it stops their competitors
simply remarketing it as closed source, which the BSD doesn't. I'd see
the more worrying side being M$' pressure on the US government to ban
the use of the gpl for government-financed code - presumably that
would also include universities. That needs to be stopped.
best wishes
Graham
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