Open Source should sue Microsoft

[x1a4]

The Open Source Community should file a joint Complaint with the Courts, and demand its Code back.

Microsoft is violating the GNU General Public License by adopting code released under GNU, and are making it closed source. :KS

[bruce89]

Who should sue them, the FSF?

The FSF have been a bit annoyed with them recently, and I think it's got to lawyers.

By the way, nouns don't have to have capital letters in English.

[SunnyRabbiera]

nahh, let MS wreck itself on its own...

[x1a4]

Who should sue them ? .

The Open Source Community. Contributors to open source code.
Major class action suit, with number of complainants growing all the time.
In a true spirit of open source some people contribute code, others propaganda, some money, others still donate time towards whatever needs to be done.

[Tux Aubrey]

And ten years after the apocalypse, BSD emerges from the wreckage?

I think even MS are starting (in a small way) to see the folly of software patents and the Mutually Assured Destruction mentality.

Don't feed the lawyers. It just encourages them.

[BoyOfDestiny]

The Open Source Community should file a joint Complaint with the Courts, and demand its Code back.

Microsoft is violating the GNU General Public License by adopting code released under GNU, and are making it closed source. :KS

Do you have an example this? MS fears the GPL like the plague (and yes, that makes me like it even more ;). They don't want to give code back, they just want to leech, GPL makes that a no no...)

MS has used BSD code and made it closed, Apple too, but this is perfectly acceptable under that license.

Rant/Advice:
If you really want to hit MS where it hurts, don't buy their stuff (or pirate it either!). Windows being ubiquitous and leveraging that with products like Office and it's formats lock people in. Now that OEM's offer Linux, and you can still run some windows apps if you need to via emulation or a compatibility layer like wine... Just don't use their stuff. That's all it will take.

You'll see companies start to offer ports more and more in that case. Recognizing there is more than one OS that needs support. Back in the day this was normal: amiga version, c64 version, dos version, win version, apple ][ version, atari, etc. There used to be more choices than Apple/Win (would you like proprietary or proprietary ;) ). Now there are more, and likely more to come as a result of that. BSD and Solaris come to mind...

So OEM supports, plus drivers, plus awesome free software, plus ports (i.e. Flash, some ID games, come to mind...) more goodies come, the less "only works on Windows" or "Windows version of the software is the best", the better for any users (heck even Windows users, they might have to start competing again, like how Firefox caused MS to make a new internet Explorer, the IE6 team had been disbanded even...)

:guitar:

:popcorn: