3 ms·
Well, if they're profiting by serving copyright or copyleft code up for others to use after stripping the associated licensing I would think they're in a bad pl
by jleyank 4y ago
Well, if they're profiting by serving copyright or copyleft code up for others to use after stripping the associated licensing I would think they're in a bad place. Unless their side effect is (again?) to break GPL and other open-source licenses?
I would think this a risk that commercial customers would want to avoid - getting something GPLv3 or other "infecting" licenses contaminating their product due to a developer cutting/pasting code. I also think that Microsoft would not be interested in getting a result that code was obvious and so could not be protected by patent or copyright.
Anybody using FOSS should be (vaguely) concerned about this kind of legal battle. Would hate to see Linux or GNU damaged to MS's gain.
- imtringued 4y agoGPL or AGPL doesn't infect anything. You choose what license you want to use. If you violate the GPL license by including GPL software in your application then you must remove the GPL software as you do not have the right to copy it in that context. If your application is written by exclusively copying GPL code, then obviously the entire application will be under the GPL license because you didn't write any of the code.
- visarga 4y agoGetting 1-2 lines of code at a time does not "contaminate" the project, unless you get 100x that in a row and all from the same source. They are almost always generic codes, short and doing just one simple thing. What kind of GPL project is largely contained in a single line or two? It's more like using words from the same vocabulary, not like quoting paragraphs from a novel.