[lug] Microsoft outlaws open source with .NET

[D. Stimits]

Terry Branaman wrote:
> 
> If they are really worried about "potentially viral software", what about
> Visual Basic for Applications?
> 
> It also raises some interesting questions (though I haven't seen the text of
> the new license) -- is Microsoft trying to say that nobody can access a web
> site if the user is running Linux (or their PDA or phone uses a version of
> Linux)???? Or that you can't load the Mobile Internet Toolkit and Perl on
> the same machine?

Wouldn't it be funny if, due to antitrust problems, the courts forced
them to follow their license, and therefore to remove VBA. But more
seriously, I have to wonder if the whole antitrust thing is really
completely over...doing this with current antitrust problems, combined
with MS having named linux as a competitor, I have to wonder if the
courts will get a chance to see this and consider it before everything
is said and done.

D. Stimits, stimits at idcomm.com

> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lug-admin at lug.boulder.co.us [mailto:lug-admin at lug.boulder.co.us]On
> Behalf Of Ken Weinert
> Sent: Friday, July 06, 2001 8:40 AM
> To: BLUG
> Subject: [lug] Microsoft outlaws open source with .NET
> 
> Here's an excerpt:
> 
> The license for Microsoft's Mobile Internet Toolkit, which is in its
> second beta release to developers, says that it may not be used with any
> software under the Free Software Foundation's General Public License
> (GPL) and six other forms of "potentially viral software." That language
> refers to open source code's freely available and shared code licensing
> agreements. The wording of the license cites the Linux OS and the Perl
> scripting language as examples.
> 
> Full article:
> http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2781638,00.html
> 
> --
> Ken Weinert   kenw at ihs.com 303-858-6956 (V) 303-705-4258 (F)
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> Acronym -- IICIL If I Change I Lose
> 
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