Visual Studio now includes GPLv2 code, derived from the libgit2 project. They are also collaborating with GitHub over the project. Did hell just freeze over? I don’t think so, as I explain in InfoWorld today, but it’s definitely part of a cooling trend in Microsoft’s war on FOSS which could eventually lead to a Hadean skating rink.
For those who are interested, they have been able to do this because libgit2 adds an extremely broad exception to GPLv2 that defines a clean project boundary absolving Microsoft from any need to apply the GPL to other parts of Visual Studio or Team Foundation Server. I view this as another manifestation of the trend toward the middle ground of open source licensing, although as with LGPL this remains a “strong copyleft” license, just with a limit to its scope.
Package management in Perl and Linux may have seeded their existence, but app stores have been hostile to open source and failed to pass on software freedom to users. But that could be changing, and today’s exemplar could be … Microsoft. Read on in InfoWorld today as I lay out the groundwork for the discussion Amanda Brock and I will lead at FOSDEM.
The open discussion that the Vert.x community ended up having because of Tim Fox’s original announcement and the ripples it caused has produced fruit, in the shape of a proposal to join Eclipse. During the journey, there was a helpful exploration of the options open to a community like theirs – my summary is on InfoWorld.
Finding the missing details of the zero-day exploit that made the US government tell people to disable Java in the browser was hard. There were plenty of people echoing the advice and commenting on it, but no-one much explaining the problem and in particular why the US government didn’t rescind its advice when Oracle quickly patched the problem. So I went digging; the results are in InfoWorld.
By poaching the key developer from VMware, Red Hat has made a chess move derived from extensive experience of open source. It’s gained control over future development of the Vert.x project, triggered a move to independent governance, and negatively framed VMware. This is the 21st-century equivalent of a hostile takeover, as played by experts. Read the full story on InfoWorld.
Business service providers are unlikely to just cut you off on a whim. So why do the terms of use all cloud providers impose leave them with an unquestioned right to do so? The answer is that the legislative environment makes it happen, and is becoming more extreme all the time. They can be struck with copyright notices, patent actions, legal investigations and even direct government requests, and they want to make sure when it happens, they have no liability. Read all about it on InfoWorld.
Has Microsoft got a problem? The extensive new features in Samba 4 make it a viable, license-free, security-certified alternative to Active Directory, and make OpenChange a viable alternative to Exchange. What’s more, Microsoft has participated in testing to make sure they work as advertised. This could be the open source identity solution everyone has been waiting for.
None of this could have happened without Microsoft’s European anti-trust conviction in 2004 and the subsequent purchase of the documentation on behalf of the Samba team in 2007. Could this be the first time an anti-trust settlement has done more than just fine the victor? My piece in InfoWorld has more.
All views expressed on this blog are those of Simon Phipps and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other entity, including current and former employers and clients. See my full disclosure of interests.
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