Wednesday, 29 August 2007

FSF Says Microsoft Not Exempt From GPLv3

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has said that Microsoft is not exempt from the General Public Licence version 3 (GPLv3)...

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has said that Microsoft is not exempt from the General Public Licence version 3 (GPLv3).

Once this happens, the Redmond, Washington based sogtware behemoth will be forced to provide a royalty-free licence for its intellectual property to developers and users of all Linux distributions. The FSF considers Microsoft's refusal a copyright violation.

"We will ensure that Microsoft respects our copyrights and complies with our licences," the FSF said in a statement.

The claim is similar to earlier statements by the open source advocacy group claiming that Microsoft is a distributor of Linux code and is therefore subject to the GPLv3.

Last year Microsoft tied up with Novell in which Microsoft purchased 70,000 coupons for Novell's SuSE Linux software and patent licence and these coupons are now being distributed to Microsoft customers.

So the confusion arises: if Novell supports and ships the software then which company distributes the software?

Microsoft insists that it is Novell, but the FSF argues that Novell is merely acting as a fulfilment agent, as proven by the USD 240 million that Microsoft paid Novell for the coupons.

The FSF opposes Microsoft's patent pledge that is limited to SuSE customers. The promise divides the open source community between those who are willing and able to pay for the licence and those who are not.