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Comments: 218 +- News: Microsoft Makes Second GPLv2 Release on Wednesday July 22 2009, @09:10AM
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angry tapir writes "Microsoft has made its second release under the General Public License in two days with software for Moodle, an 'open-source course management system that teachers use to create online learning Web sites for their classes[, which] has about 30 million users in 207 countries.' It comes on the heels of Redmond contributing drivers to the Linux community. No reports as yet on dropping temperatures in hell."
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Inspect thoroughly (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Inspect thoroughly (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing subtle about it.
Parent
Microsoft altruistic? No... (Score:4, Funny)
But you did it this time.
Parent
So that's their plan.... (Score:5, Funny)
1) Release code under GPL
2) Pigs fly and spread pig flue
3) ?????
4) Plague!
5) Robo-ballmer rules the world
Re:So that's their plan.... (Score:5, Funny)
I don't like your sig. Please change it.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
1) Release some code under GPL
2) Say GPL is good in certain cases
3) Tell CEOs that MS supports GPL, but realizes it is not good for operating systems or office suites
4) Keep the profitible part of the business in tact
5) Profit!
Re:So that's their plan.... (Score:5, Funny)
Haha, get real.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
There's no profit in working for free and giving away your work (The 0th Rule of Acquisition). Perhaps Microsoft's big plan is to make up the loss by offering support contracts?
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Microsoft would be glad to spend a hundred million dollars to make GPL'ed software a "NO-NO" in big business.
But the only GPL'ed software that would become a "NO NO" in this case would be their own. Moodle wouldn't be effected in the least bit by Microsoft disallowing anyone to use their Live plugin.
If they can give away their source for free... not sue any of their users... but sue anyone who uses their open sourced software for patent violations (and actually win the case) then that will make anyone in the business world pretty much immediately remove any and all GPL software from their systems.
I'm pretty sure that such a tactic wouldn't hold up in any court. Secondly, if what you claim was true any and all GPLed software would have already been removed from the business world after the successful TomTom suit over the FAT support in the Linux kernel, but amazingly it hasn't been.
Re:So that's their plan.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sue for what? They can't sue you for anything if they themselves release it under a license that says you can freely use, modify and distribute the source code. This imagined case would be thrown out of court.
Parent
Bravo (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Bravo (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Bravo (Score:5, Insightful)
Moodle is a preexisting OSS project, this is just a plugin for making Windows Live web services work with it. This does suggest that MS doesn't think that they can kill moodle; but it isn't their offering.
Actually, it might lead to courses that use Moodle (my university does) to require Windows Live Messenger for each student. That means that Linux users, who otherwise could use the Moodle coursework, will now not be able to interoperate fully with the rest of their coursemates. This seems to me to be adding an option for a _dependency_ on Windows to Moodle. I am afraid that many courses will exercise that option.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The bits of WLM you would need can be used for Linux, can't they? Kopete and what's-it's-name-now Gaim lets you use that service just fine.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
what's-it's-name-now Gaim
Its Pidgin.
Not contribution; use (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an moodle plugin for microsoft's own groupware. Like their previous driver offering, it's not a wholehearted contribution to making an open source project better, but instead just a thing to make microsoft's own services work better when people need to use open source.
It's good to see a willingness to do even this much, but hardly a staggering change of heart. They've a long way to go yet.
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For a company so anti-open source, this is a staggering change of heart.
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So let me get this right, if you're not contributing in GPLv3 you're self serving and anti-FOSS?
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Mod parent up! And realize that Linux kernel is and will stay GPL2. Moron.
Re:Not contribution; use (Score:5, Informative)
If it was a big change, they'd go GPLv3.
Why? That would make it be under an incompatible license with what the original software is written under and as such no third party would be able to distribute it legally because of this incompatibility. Or did you not even bother to take the 2 seconds to realize this fundamental problem with your argument?
Parent
Re:Not contribution; use (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the original software (Moodle) is moving to GPLv3, while Microsoft has released their plugin under GPLv2 only which makes it impossible for anyone to legally distribute Moodle with Microsoft's plugin. Not only that, but Moodle had previously be licensed under GPLv2 or later, so using a GPLv3 plugin was always fine. So it would have been better if Microsoft had used GPLv3 instead.
Parent
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They're reaching out to the open-source world by Embracing open standards, they'll Extend the abilities of certain products and services but in a way that those benefits can only be reaped by people using their hardware/software to use them, and then they'll Extinguish their competitors because Microsoft is in control of the extensions to those services that people depend upon.
How does one "control" the extensions if they are also required to be licensed under the GPL as well? Aren't FOSS people always talking about how no one can have control over GPLed code since anyone and everyone can always grab the source and fork it?
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First, they introduce nice features that are confusing enough to use but simple enough that nobody feels like taking the time to improve upon them.
Have you even looked at their code to make such a statement? Doubtful.
Then, they release proprietary, closed-source "extensions" for their own tools to access the services and utilise those features with incredibly useful, simplified methodologies. Their tools then become the tools du jour and they make like bandits.
Which then begs the question of why even release anything under the GPL? They could have just gone straight to what you claim their ultimate goal is without having to release anything open source code. You're really grasping at straws here.
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Unlike Red Hat, Sun, Novel, IBM, etc which are just contributing to Linux and other open source through pure altruism!
Re:Not contribution; use (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft is a victim of their reputation, a reputation honestly earned by their past actions. When everyone who ever gets in bed with you turns up dead or with a story of barely escaping alive the next day, sometimes it's appropriate for others to label you a black widow and liken you to a praying mantis.
No one claims that anyone in the group you listed are contributing to open source purely because they are altruistic and without any self interest. But that's the point, everyone on your list 'plays nice' with open source because they have an interest in seeing it succeed. Microsoft, however, has never acted as if open source was anything but a despicable wretch deserving a slow painful death. Their own self interest, therefore, leads people to suspect that perhaps the apples they are offering are poisoned.
It's also important to note that in both of the cases where they've done this, the contribution wasn't a general "here's some improvements" code, it was "here is some code which would allow you to work better with our proprietary services, so more people would be willing to use those." Anyone who thinks that Microsoft would continue to maintain such interoperability code should it prove a disadvantage to MS should avoid real estate brokers with deals concerning bridges.
Parent
Re:Not contribution; use (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the change some of us wanted and I believe it to be a very good one! Why would anyone have the right to force Microsoft to contribute to open-source? What we really needed was compatibility. Nobody cares about the way Microsoft manages its code and nobody should have the right to bother them about it.
Parent
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Too bad open source has nothing to do with any of that.
Re:Not contribution; use (Score:4, Interesting)
Like their previous driver offering, it's not a wholehearted contribution to making an open source project better, but instead just a thing to make microsoft's own services work better when people need to use open source.
Microsoft is a corporation, after all, and I would be very surprised to see them expending resources working on open source projects that they do not actually use. This could be a gateway, a toe in the water, to starting open source projects, which then of course they would contribute to. But unlike IBM, (former) Sun, etc, Microsoft has no ties to existing open source software, so not contributing to the same isn't too surprising.
It's good to see a willingness to do even this much, but hardly a staggering change of heart. They've a long way to go yet.
I suppose you could say that. I think the point here is not that Microsoft is releasing something under an open source license, but that Microsoft sees open source as a viable approach to softare development and a real business force. Typically we expect the company to brush off open source as "anti-American" and offer pricey, Windows-only alternatives to whatever the demand might be. But now they are admitting, in a business sense, that the open source market exists and is worth working with. Sure, they're doing this to increase interoperability with their existing, closed-source projects... but that's more than just a token move.
Parent
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But now they are admitting, in a business sense, that the open source market exists
I'm with you so far
and is worth working with
Ahhh... I'm gonna have to disagree with you there, sport. Microsoft sees open source as existing, and wants to co-opt it, just like the co-opted the browser market, they're trying to do it with the search market, the office software market, they tried to do with Java... they're only playing nicely with open source in order to lock it into their proprietary identification servers. Trying to leverage their LiveID inertia to gain access to another market, and hopefully end up with de facto c
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Like their previous driver offering, it's not a wholehearted contribution to making an open source project better, but instead just a thing to make microsoft's own services work better when people need to use open source.
But when IBM contributes code to Linux and other open source projects it's not because they just want their services to work better with open source and thus make more money for themselves?
Re:Not contribution; use (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Not contribution; use (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not about a willingness to do anything. Microsoft's goal, like that of all corporations is to make profit for its shareholders. It's not about good or bad intentions, so please stop trying to interpret it in that context. The general public should be pretty pissed if corporations like Microsoft decided to have a "change of heart" and focused on making things open instead of making money, because each member of the general public could very well be partial owners of those corporations.
The thing we actually should want to see is a situation where it makes more sense for Microsoft to promote open source. An example of such a situation is if the rate and state of development for Linux demonstrate how well open source models can work. It would be unreasonable and unrealistic to expect to see Microsoft promote open source out of a sense of nobility.
Parent
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I'd say that public stigma has had a whole lot more to do with anything than "can linux make money". There's never been a question that having more programmers at your fingertips (if it's an interesting project, etc) than you can afford to hire is extremely valuable.
uh, the driver release is an ANTI-Linux move (Score:5, Interesting)
Not everyone was fooled. Apenwarr [alumnit.ca] wrote about it, for one.
This is still Microsoft, folks. It's always a trap.
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I also believe that tit-for-that is one of the most winning strategy in the prisonner's dilemma game. They'll have to do a lot more effort before I consider them worthy of trust.
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of course, the host operating system has to stay current, and with Micro$oft already pressuring vendors to stop making XP drivers, its the host operating system that becomes important.
Read toby's comment and follow
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of course, the host operating system has to stay current, and with Micro$oft already pressuring vendors to stop making XP drivers, its the host operating system that becomes important.
Important for what exactly?
Imagine a world in which Windows becomes little more than a BIOS for Linux. Do you really think Microsoft will be able to charge a lot of money for that?
Microsoft has been able to monopolize the market because they controlled everything. But their fortress is crumbling. The fact that they are rele
No reports as yet on dropping temperatures in hell (Score:4, Informative)
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Whoa did you see that? It looked like a hog that had taken flight!
Maybe it was just Homer Simpson's pig roast gone awry again.
We were thinking of using Moodle (Score:5, Insightful)
AS far as I'm aware, the only thing they have for Moodle is a Windows Live Plugin, that lets you do Windows Live Searches and have some sort of MSN Messnger functionality.
This isn't Microsoft caring about GPL or whatever, it's about a small project that gives them more hooks into more websites. It gives people learning to use the web in a formal environment MORE Microsoft.
Again, this one is mostly to benefit MS (Score:2)
Obviously this is to help locking the users since early on to MS services. Not evil in itself (and I suppose that either google has the same thing or is thinking in doing the same). But it mostly benefits MS, not Moodle.
Maybe Part of A Larger Strategy ("The Cloud") (Score:3, Insightful)
I think this is part of a larger strategy to point people to thier Azure "Cloud" platform.
Microsoft will probably "open source" more of thier software if it serves the purpose of exposing Microsoft to more people.
If you expect them to one day open source any of thier major technologies (e.g. DirectX, Windows or SQL Server) you will be waiting a loooonnnng time before this will happen.
They will probably open source enough of the "connectivity" type of software to provide a "path of least resistance" to interoperate *into* the Azure platform.
Of course the Azure platform is *not* open source which means you will be *locked-into* thier technology. So sure, you may have open source client code at your disposal but it eventually will lead into a locked platform.
As a company they want to grow beyond "PC on every desk, Windows on every PC, on every phone, console, toaster, gerbil" - that's too limiting now, they want to be the central hub of the Internet and fully exploit "the cloud".
As a bonus everyone moves to a rental model (like the mainframes of years ago) - you don't own anything, you are bound by *thier* "terms and conditions" and you perpetually keep paying for stuff.
This is a corporation's wet dream.
In this case "It's a Trap" may be justified.
Or I am just paranoid and drink waaaayyy too much coffee.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
However an open-source client to their software means they cannot hide how to interoperate, and they cannot prevent other software from using this code. I suspect it does not cover a lot of the interoperation, but the code is probably also a big help for reverse engineering.
Microsoft could compete without shenanigans if they would document how to interoperate and license that information for everybody to use. Releasing this information as open source licensed code is a good way to do it, as the documentatio
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Moodle is GPLv2, so the plugin must be GPLv2 also or it won't be compatible with the existing software.
Re:v2? why not v3? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm, this is interesting. The more cynical part of me wonders why, and can't help but recall the protections against patent litigation built into GPLv3, and notably missing from GPLv2...
What's interesting about it? The Linux kernel is GPLv2 so a GPLv3 driver is unlikely to make it in. Moodle is also GPLv2 so it's perfectly logical that they'd release their plugin that works with it under the same license. Did you forget that whole big thing about GPLv3 being incompatible with GPLv2? In fact, it would be stupid on their part to release source code to work with programs under incompatible license terms which would disallow anyone from legitimately being able to distribute it.
Parent
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Ballmer eats fluffy bunny rabits
AFAIK he doesn't, I do. I love rabbit, especially fried. Frodo and Samwise eat fluffy bunny rabbits, too.
Ballmer shoots puppies. [nocookie.net]
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And, if they are changing, it takes a long time to reverse a reputation as bad as the one they have.