new Samba license? (was Re: [Mono-list] Samba Implications?)

[S11001001]

Brian Crowell wrote:
>>Microsoft can't just make Samba illegal... can they?
>>Are they saying that no one can use Samba ever again?  I can't believe
>>that such a license is possible.
> 
> It is, since Microsoft does own the patents. This is the very reason that
> free software organizations frown on patents; their express purpose is to
> grant the owner "the right to exclude others from making, using, offering
> for sale, or selling" the patented invention.
> 
> I've noticed this is part of a recent trend of gleeful revenge from
> Microsoft. When Sun prevented Microsoft from shipping new versions of the
> Java runtime with Windows, Microsoft countered by not including a Java
> runtime at all. It's dirty, but you have to admit, Sun did get what it asked
> for. Now the states want Microsoft to license its proprietary technology to
> competitors, and so Microsoft will comply, but with its own retaliatory
> twist. The states are getting what they asked for -- just not what they
> intended.
> 
> It's brilliant. Devious and twisted, but brilliant.
> 
> For its own sake, Samba can still switch licenses. I hear X11 is popular
> these days...  :P

More specifically, M$ is banning "IPR Impairing License"s. From the new license:

QUOTE
1.4 "IPR Impairing License" shall mean the GNU General Public License, the
GNU Lesser/Library General Public License, and any license that requires
in any instance that other software distributed with software subject to
such license (a) be disclosed and distributed in source code form; (b) be
licensed for purposes of making derivative works; or (c) be
redistributable at no charge.
/QUOTE

Ignoring the blatant, upfront attack on GNU licenses, M$'s attempt to define 
copyleft is way off course; not even the GPL places any restrictions on 
"software distributed with software subject to such license".

Hmm, this could be read a couple of different ways... ;)

-- 
FORTRAN, "the infantile disorder", by now nearly 20 years old, is hopelessly
inadequate for whatever computer application you have in mind today: it is
too clumsy, too risky, and too expensive to use.
		-- Edsger W. Dijkstra, SIGPLAN Notices, Volume 17, Number 5