Kind of interesting
http://tech.monstersandcritics.com/news/article_1326936.php/Microsoft_claims_exemption_from_GPLv3
Personally I think MSFT should say, you know what, fine we won’t play here, then go work with the BSD folks like Apple did. Stallman would be standing there with no one else to play with. Long term I see a space for the UNIX-ish Operating Systems but I also think that whomever MSFT embraces will be the primary winners there. Teaming up with Apple on it is just goodness, get the artist and the engineer together more often.
Nearly everything MSFT gets into in the OS space becomes the de facto standard due to overwhelming deployment numbers. I fairly regularly hear people complaining about MSFTs LDAP and Kerberos implementations but it doesn’t matter, they are the most used, most deployed versions out there now.
One thing I find interesting is the whole “going after MSFT” aspect of GPL yet two of the largest computer companies most in bed with GPL/GNU are the two companies that beat everyone else out in the number of patents granted every year. How do the people in charge of the Open Source stuff in those companies deal with the fact that their companies want to patent everything coming out their doors? Just seems interesting to me.
The fundamental issue here is how patents are granted and enforced. Patents were intended to be implemented for intellectual property concerning the manufacturing of tangible goods. This includes processes used in the manufacturing of components for and completed assemblies of said tangible goods. Patents were not intended to be used for such ridiculous ideas as “one-click” buying.