On Jun 22, 2005, at 2:50 PM, Jared Anderson wrote:

> On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 14:35:24 -0700, Kurt Granroth writes:
>
>> First, what do you mean by "mingling MS code and Linux code"?   
>> Would this be
>> Daniel taking MS code and inserting it somewhere in the Gentoo  
>> distribution?
>> Or maybe Daniel taking some Open Source code and inserting it into  
>> some MS
>> product?
>>
>
> I think it would be putting "Linux Code" or open source into "MS  
> Code."
>
>
>> Second, if either of the above happened, what could possibly  
>> result from that
>> that would be scary?
>>
>
> Patent and copyright *law* is the scary part.  Microsoft could  
> claim ownership of
> such code and exterminate (or more likely, "license") any project  
> that contains
> "their" code. Although it sounds absurd, it has happened before and  
> Microsoft has
> more re$ource$ to fight and win such a legal battle.
>

Well, let's look at this issue from a few different points of view.

First POV: Let's pretend that Daniel was a prolific Open Source  
developer.  Maybe a kernel hacker or maybe he contributed to other  
OSS or maybe he had a bunch of popular OSS apps of his own.  How  
could MS use that against the OSS community?

Well, once Daniel is in their employ, he could dual license all of  
his code to allow it to be included in MS products.  This, in theory,  
would make MS software better.  But it couldn't hurt the OSS  
community at all for two reasons:
1. His original code is still OSS so it will remain available
2. Since his original code was around first, there's no question as  
to its "ownership"

Second POV: Let's look at this more realistically and acknowledge  
that while Daniel created a kick-ass Linux distribution and has some  
great tutorials and utility apps out there, he is not a prolific OSS  
coder.  Therefore, if he was to insert any OSS code into MS products,  
it will be code that was never his in the first place.

This wouldn't make sense from the MS point of view for several reasons:
1. They wouldn't need Daniel at all to do this.  They could (and  
probably do) do this all the time without anybody knowing.
2. Why would they have a known OSS advocate try to circumvent OSS?  I  
can't think of a quicker way to raise the alarms

Basically, the addition of Daniel to the ranks of Microsoft may  
result some people to have a lesser opinion of Daniel himself, or  
maybe give some people the chance to say something like "Look at the  
proof that you can't make a living working on OSS.  One of the  
prominent OSS advocates has to work for MS"... but in the end, it's  
can't hurt the OSS community at all.

Now this isn't to say that Microsoft isn't a huge enemy of OSS...  
they certainly are.  And they will likely be using patent law against  
OSS in the coming years.  It won't be as a result of them hiring  
Daniel, though.

Kurt



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