[ Thanks to Grigor Gatchev for this
link. ]
“Should we congratulate the new Microsoft premise to offer
freely documentation about its protocols and interfaces, and to not
sue developers who use it to create code for non-commercial goals,
even if they violate Microsoft patents? Yes, I think–even if
cautiously. It is falling short of the freedom we are used to, but
is a step in the right direction. Unless it is a part of some
sinister plan, we should commend Microsoft for it.“Whether this premise is actually useful in the FOSS world,
however, is a completely different question. The legal foundation
of FOSS are the FOSS licenses. A contribution is only useful to us
if it helps creating software that is under a FOSS license…”