Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 1 Apr 2003 20:44:24 -0800 (PST) | From | William Scott Lockwood III <> | Subject | [Off Topic] Re: [ANNOUNCEMENT] Microsoft to GPL its source code |
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This would have been more entertaining had you at least hacked the headers to make it look like it came from a @microsoft.com email address. :-)
On Wed, 2 Apr 2003, William Gates wrote:
> > > > > We have recently chosen to open up our source because it makes good business > sense for us at this time. Here are some of the reasons: > > The availability of the source code and the right to modify it is very > important. It enables us to tap into the unlimited programming resources > available to tune and improve our software products. > > The right to redistribute modifications and improvements to the code, and to > reuse other open source code, permits all the advantages due to the > modifiability of the software to be shared by large communities, communities > we learned that we need to embrace, under certain conditions. > > The point that differentiates open source software licences from our past > licenses is modifiability. In substance, the fact that redistribution rights > cannot be revoked, and that they are universal, is what attracts a > substantial crowd of developers to work around open source software > projects, and we welcome them. > > We have decided that we would like help to improve the quality of our > products, and to improve their functionality. Which, once more, will cause > more and more users give the product a try, and probably to use it > regularly. > > Now this is only a temporary GPL. We have slightly modified our licenses to > open the source for a limited time period. One the time period expires, all > rights to the code, as well as deriviatives, revert back to Microsoft. > > William Gates > > _________________________________________________________________ > Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail > > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ >
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