Re: Not "Satanism;" realism.

[Steve Cohen <stevecoh@mcs.com>]

Brett Glass wrote:

> At 12:51 PM 1/2/99 -0600, Steve Cohen wrote:
>
> >Well, I can see your point, but it does seem a bit farfetched to me.  I can't
> >think of a single piece of currently GPL'ed code right now that Microsoft would
> >want to make the effort to make a clean-room copy of, since, in many cases
> >these are reinventions of things Microsoft and other commercial developers are
> >already selling or aren't interested in selling.
>
> Microsoft has already incorporated programs derived from open source software
> into its operating systems -- both Windows and NT. How much of Microsoft's
> TCP/IP stack was clean-roomed from Linux? We will probably never know, but the
> fact that NT has been susceptible to many of the same DoS attacks
> that plagued old versions of Linux raises some suspicions, at least in my
> mind.

OK, I'll concede that Microsoft may have clean-roomed the TCP/IP stack code.  But
wait.  Was this clean-rooming or "clean-rooming" i.e. copying the code and lying
that it came from a clean room.  You'd seem to be implying the latter here by your
mention of similar bugs.  So the problem isn't that Microsoft has deeper pockets,
it's that they have fewer scruples.  Anyone can copy code.  Is your complaint about
GPL that it can't be enforced?

> >Of course that wouldn't apply to some new "killer app" that someone would
> >hypothetically invent now and put under the GPL.  My sense though, is that
> >corporations who are writing these kinds of apps now are not putting them under
> >the GPL.  With a few exceptions like Netscape (or Mozilla which still isn't
> >GPL) many of them remain closed-source.  Let's not confuse the stated
> >intentions of Richard Stallman with what is actually happening.
>
> Many of the stated intentions of Richard Stallman *will* actually happen if
> we embrace the GPL.

You've not answered my point.  Most of the things Microsoft might be most interested
in copying are not protected under the GPL.  You've not proven that using the GPL
anywhere leads inevitably to using it everywhere.