eWeek: Microsoft clarifies exec’s open-source concerns

“Microsoft Corp. representatives assert that Platforms Group
Vice President Jim Allchin was “misunderstood” when he expressed
concerns last week about the long-term industry effects of
open-source software.”

“Jim was not misquoted,” a company official said, referring to
an interview in which Allchin was said to have warned that “open
source is an intellectual-property destroyer….”

“Microsoft representatives told eWEEK Tuesday that Allchin was
primarily concerned about the impact of the GNU General Public
License, the widely used statement of open-source terms and
conditions introduced 10 years ago by the Free Software Foundation
Inc.”

“In other words, Microsoft representatives warned, “anyone who
adds or innovates under the GPL agrees to make the resulting code,
in its entirety, available for all to use … [which] might
constrain innovating stemming from taxpayer-funded software
development.”

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