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

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muzzy:

--- Quote from: H_TeXMeX_H ---they could write the code from scratch, having the inspiration of looking at the stolen code
--- End quote ---


Oh dear, boys, this would not be a copyright infringement! What's up with this intellectual property crap here? I thought the pro-linux front was pretty much against software patents and legal protection of "mere ideas", and now we're talking about copying of ideas, by *gasp* looking at someone else's work! If Microsoft wanted to do that, they could easily do it cleanly, one group reading linux sources and writing a spec, another group implementing it. Where's the problem?

Aloone_Jonez:
The GNU/Linux community are also against proprietary licenses so they invented the GPL to prevent companies from taking their code and relicensing it under their proprietary licence. I'm agree with them, I'm not against proprietary software but I agree with the GPL and see it as a good thing.

In some respects interlectual property is rubbish anyway, if you wrote a program for Redhat then went to work for Microsoft and wrote a program for them to accomplish the same task, my guess is the source would look pretty similar so how could they prove they hadn't stolen the Linux code?

I think the WINE community should've taken advantage of the Windows 2000 source leaks more because they could've made WINE 99% Windows compatable. Microsoft couldn't have sued because the GNU community wouldn't have coppied the code directly (if the Winblow$ code is as crap as the say, they wouldn't have wanted to anyway) they would've just just reverse engineered the operation of all the APIs and data structures which is legal in the EU anyway.

Pathos:
using the win2000 code would have been cheating.

Microsoft would never use GPL code cause it would destroy them if they got caught. I bet there are plenty of hackers analysing windows components for some evidence of it and they haven't found any yet.

Imagine if gpl code was found and a judge ruled that windows software must conform with the standard?

I work for a software company at the moment and the rules are as strict as they get. no internet or transferable media everything must go throught the legal department. I can't even get the ms virtual desktop manager.

Aloone_Jonez:

--- Quote from: Pathos ---using the win2000 code would have been cheating.
--- End quote ---

I didn't say they should directly use it - there's a big differance between looking at some code to gain an understanding of how it works and directly ripping it. Here in the EU you can reverse engineer software leagally if it's just for compatability purposes so reading the Win 2k source then writing a Linux implemention of all the APIs wouldn't violate this law.

Pathos:
I never said it was illegal I said it was cheating. Only a cheat would look at the source :)

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