Go2Linux | Linux Operating System

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, explains us why Microsoft is tied by the GPLv3, even though they are doing its best effort to stay out of GPLv3.

Here is what Steven says.

"Microsoft wants everyone to understand that GPLv3 has nothing to do with the company, its Linux partnerships or anything else Redmond-based.

In other words, Microsoft is doing its best not be caught on the hook of GPLv3. Ah, Microsoft you'd love to be able to do that, wouldn't you?

Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's vice president of intellectual property and licensing, spelled it out: Microsoft is "not a party to the GPLv3 license, and none of its actions are to be misinterpreted as accepting status as a contracting party of GPLv3 or assuming any legal obligations under such license."

I'm no lawyer, but let me spell it out for Microsoft. In Section 0, Terms and Conditions, of GPLv3 we find that "to 'convey' a work means any kind of propagation that enables other parties to make or receive copies."

Moving along, we reach Section 3, where we find, "When you convey a covered work, you waive any legal power to forbid circumvention of technological measures to the extent such circumvention is effected by exercising rights under this License with respect to the covered work, and you disclaim any intention to limit operation or modification of the work as a means of enforcing, against the work's users, yours or third parties' legal rights to forbid circumvention of technological measures." "

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