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Microsoft stealing code from Linux: Absurd or Plasuable. Hear me out!

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Kintaro:
I have the theory of a few of the reasons why Microsoft would be stealing code from Linux. Also I have a theory of the actions Microsoft have taken which would indicate that they are up to something involving the theft of code from Linux and parhaps other projects.

The good thing about Linux is it develops fast, it evolves fast. Every day Linux is improved and every day it gets better with performance. Linux 2.6 premption easily makes Linux faster on the desktop than most other Operating Systems, along with other constant improvements in memory, disk, IO, hardware, TCP/IP, and nearly everything else. It is the constantly evolving nature of Open Source that gives it a major advantage over closed source software.

The constant modification by a not-so-closely-knit team of developers with the Linux kernel has its major downfall as well: The code is not as well organised or neat as closed source or simply more closely-knit development of software. This is where Microsoft have an advantage, and it is the reason why Microsoft probably would not use the Linux Kernel or even their own fork of it for their Operating Systems.

Microsoft would probably like to borrow code and innovations from Linux to keep their Operating Systems secure. In fact if you read about Service Pack 2 you will find many of its security enhancements have been in Operating Systems such as OpenBSD and Trustix Secure Linux for many years now.

Microsoft want to remain closely knit and have superior quality of code compared to Linux with their kernel and other operating system features. However their is no reason at all they would not desire the proformance and constant improvments of Linux. If you think Open Source doesn't innovate you should look at the type of changes to Linux that are made once in a while that bring new fundamental differentiation from the stardard way of doing things that give it the edge is has in proformace.

Linux is not the only Operating System that has this edge, I could mention FreeBSD and OpenBSD. However FreeBSD and OpenBSD are under the BSD licence so Microsoft can use their ideas and even direct snippets of source code without breaching the licence.

The signs that Microsoft are quite possibly using Linux code is quite clear. They have been hiring many Linux developers and other Open Source related people. Some would say this is simpily their way of keeping a close eye on competition, they are not wrong. They want to keep a really fucking close eye on Linux.

Here are some facts:
* Microsoft brought a source Licence for UNIX from SCO.
* Bill Gates funded SCO's FUD claims against Linux.

Bill Gates probably wanted the court to deem Linux being a deriative of UNIX so that SCO owns it, so that Microsoft can freely use Linux code without fear of conviction because they own the UNIX licence from SCO which allows them to use the code that SCO own. Hence, it would allow Microsoft to legally violate the GPL which protects the Linux code in the United States.

Microsoft are not only well known for "borrowing code" but Bill Gates in fact once said in an interview that his best resource for learning about programming was "taking code written by computer science students from University and College trash cans".

Who can see my point here?

It looks bloody obvious at what they are trying to do here. I don't think Microsoft will crush Linux like they could for as long as they can keep taking ideas from it. I think what would be needed to protect Linux is if the United States Government ammend the constitution to protect Open Source software from patents, and many other claims.

What do you think?

H_TeXMeX_H:
As long as the code has a copyleft license, wouldn't this prevent M$ from using it in Window$, unless they make it free ? Or is it that most Linux code is not copyleft ?

I know the Kernel is copyleft, but everything other than the Kernel might not be ?

piratePenguin:

--- Quote from: H_TeXMeX_H ---As long as the code has a copyleft license, wouldn't this prevent M$ from using it in Window$, unless they make it free ? Or is it that most Linux code is not copyleft ?
--- End quote ---
Yes, but how do you prove that they're actually using the code and infringing the licence?

--- Quote from: H_TeXMeX_H ---
I know the Kernel is copyleft, but everything other than the Kernel might not be ?
--- End quote ---
Most (possibly all) of the GNU stuff is too (that includes bash, gcc, glibc, emacs, gnome, gimp, etc.). Some bits of some programs/libraries mightn't be. But if they're not, the developers chose the licence they used, so there's no problem with Microsoft using it.

What about the leaked Windows 2000 source code Kintaro? Surely there wasn't any GPL-licenced code in that?

http://gpl-violations.org/

noob:
easy way. if some big government agency needed to investigate it, they can ask microsoft to give them a copy of the source code and they refuse, or delay, they have somthing to hide.

H_TeXMeX_H:

--- Quote from: piratePenguin ---Yes, but how do you prove that they're actually using the code and infringing the licence?
--- End quote ---

They'd have to seize a copy of the suspected code from M$ and look for similarities ... in some cases, if they used the exact same code there is a chance that programmers may have included functionless code for identification purposes (what are these called again, they have a specific name, I forgot it). Of course, if M$ is careful they can easily employ a bit of reverse engineering and make it far more difficult to proove their guilt. (they could write the code from scratch, having the inspiration of looking at the stolen code)

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