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Microsoft's current FAT file system licensing program could hobble the development and free distribution of GPL-licensed software, says an open-source legal advocate. However, licensing terms that were once published on Microsoft's website, which have since vanished, would have been compatible with the GPL.
The U.S. District Court in Washington will review on Sept. 11 the state of the Microsoft Communications Protocol Program, which is Microsoft’s program for licensing more than 200 proprietary protocols for server, storage and security services.
Microsoft partners think it's great that the vendor has been aggressively battling software piracy. But some partners say the task of ensuring that their clients are in compliance with Microsoft's Byzantine software licensing structure is steadily growing more difficult.
Microsoft Corp. may be trying to make it easier for delinquent corporate customers to "true up" their volume license contracts. But CIOs who have tangled with Microsoft on licensing issues said this latest program does little to tackle the real issue: the difficulty, short of buying Microsoft's most expensive class of license, of staying compliant.
Truth can, indeed, be stranger than fiction — as is evidenced by a May 14 letter on software-licensing policies that was signed by both Microsoft and Linux Foundation officials.
We’ve been having a discussion on the meaning and impact of Microsoft’s TomTom suit, and there seems to be quite a bit of suspicion and angst over Microsoft’s patent and licensing tactics. However, I believe if one wants to see the Microsoft of old, the better place to find it is in the netbook market.
Open-source pioneer and Novell Vice President Miguel de Icaza Thursday for the first time publicly slammed his company's cross-patent licensing agreement with Microsoft as he defended himself against lack of patent protection for third parties that distribute his company's Moonlight project, which ports Microsoft's Silverlight technology to Linux.
