Microsoft funds Apache
News Many of Microsoft's attacks on open-source software have been aimed at the General Public License (GPL), which has a reciprocity provision: if you make a change to a GPL project, then distribute software employing that change, you must share the...
[July 28, 2008, 10:49]
Why Microsoft Had to Support Linux in Virtualisation
Blog By now, you've probably caught up with the news that (apparently) hell hath frozen over, and Microsoft has contributed GPL code to the Linux kernel. In addition, this isn't the first instance of Microsoft redistributing or contributing GPL code...
[July 21, 2009, 9:13]
Microsoft allows GPL
Blog The OSP was criticised for barring commercial applications, and not allowing GPL licences. Groklaw has the text from Microsoft's OSP FAQ that clarifies the GPL is covered. Along with its surprise funding of Apache, Microsoft has updated some...
[July 28, 2008, 17:32]
Sun lowers barriers to open-source Java
News Sun plans to announce on Thursday a programme that grants access to its Java Technology Compatibility Kit to anyone with an open-source Java project that is based substantially on Sun's open-source Java software and governed by the General Public...
[August 9, 2007, 9:01]
GPL loses ground in open-source development
News Over the past year, the GPL v3 has moved past the Mozilla, MIT and Apache licences to the number-five spot, behind the BSD licence. The GNU General Public Licence is falling in popularity, looking at all the versions of the GPL as a whole...
[July 1, 2009, 17:37]
Free Software Foundation denies GPLv3 forking risk
Talkback That will never be the job of the GPL, thats the job of the BSD/MIT/APACHE/X11 Licenses. "What if the next versions of GPL will allow incorporating code into proprietary programs? No chance in hell, that this i going to happen.
[March 25, 2005, 10:17]
SCO to attack validity of Linux licence
Talkback Let SCO take the highground and remove all the GPL software from its products. I am curious how long will SCO survive without gcc or samba or apache.
[August 20, 2003, 14:57]
No need to burn books you can't read - DRM and public libraries
Blog Comment In a government funded digitisation project a few years ago we developed a GPL-licenced open-source tool for a web based and MySQL-driven issue tracker, and the BL approached us on this with interest.
[October 20, 2008, 8:34]
Eben Moglen: GPLv3 set for success
News I predict that within the first year of adoption of GPLv3 there will be a net uptake by parties currently not using GPL that will be great in magnitude," Moglen told an audience in San Francisco on Tuesday at the Open Source Business Conference.
[May 24, 2007, 11:40]
Google 'guarantees' Android compatibility
News Although the base of the stack falls under the fully open-source GPL licence, many parts fall under the Apache licence, which allows companies to modify the code into a proprietary form and not have to feed it back into the wider Android community.
[November 13, 2007, 7:02]
Gates wades into open source debate
News Open-source supporters point out that the GPL allows companies to write and sell proprietary programs that work with GPL-licensed code, as long as the software doesn't contain GPL code. But if you say to people, 'Do you understand the GPL?
[June 20, 2001, 8:42]
Free software's white knight
News There are a fairly large number of reports to the FSF every year about people who are not abiding by the terms of the GPL. Read Moglen's thoughts on the GPL 3 process and licence in our February interview with him on the subject.
[March 15, 2006, 12:20]
Microsoft, Red Hat argue open source
News Our concern about the GPL is strictly the fact that it creates its own closed community," Mundie said, referring to the licence's requirement that new software being added to a GPL-governed program must also be governed by the GPL.
[July 27, 2001, 10:45]
Microsoft meets Red Hat
News Even though Microsoft has embraced the ideas of having an active developer community, it has long criticised the GPL that underlies Linux. The license requires that software derived from a GPL program also be covered by the GPL, a provision...
[May 11, 2005, 9:05]
MySQL sheds light on open-source rift
News In MySQL's case, the Swedish company uses the General Public License (GPL) to cover its database software and the supporting libraries that other programs use to interface with the database. An essential difference between the two licences is that...
[March 15, 2004, 7:35]
Final GPLv3 draft leaves Novell in the clear
News We believe we can do more to protect the community by allowing Novell to use software under GPL version 3 than by forbidding it to do so," the foundation said. The GPL is the most widely used licence in the free and open-source software realm...
[June 4, 2007, 8:39]
Sun: Open-sourcing Java is 'done'
News Instead, Phipps had to satisfy himself with an exhortation by Richard Stallman, the visionary who launched the Free Software Foundation and wrote the initial General Public License (GPL) that now governs open-source Java.
[May 10, 2007, 11:43]
Will open source be a Real success?
News Under the GPL or close equivalent, developers generally are free to modify the software however they like. The first is a modified GPL-type licence. Apple offers its source code under the Apple Public Source License, a rough equivalent to the...
[July 30, 2002, 14:24]
GPLv3 draft a week away
News A major revamp of the GPL is scheduled for public release next week, a move that's expected to kick off a long and vocal debate over the key foundation of open source programming. For example, there might be penalties prohibiting use of GPL...
[January 11, 2006, 15:35]
BBC opens up its code
News A variety of licences is used, although most of the code is available under the GPL or LGPL. The projects that have been released are, unsurprisingly, mostly concerned with the production and delivery of video content, although some Apache modules...
[July 13, 2005, 17:35]



