Red Herring: Exit Interview: Jeremy Allison

“Q: How long did you consider it before
resigning?

“A: I found out about the deal about five days
before it happened. I feel like this whole thing is a personal
failure. When I first heard I was excited, it was groundbreaking
and [I thought] Microsoft was taking open source seriously. The
more I looked at the patent provision, the less comfortable I got.
I really, really want to like this deal. [I told them] ‘tell me why
isn’t a GPL section violation’–meaning you have to pass on the
same rights to the software that you received. You cannot say that
my customer and I are exempt and anyone that they pass the software
to is not exempt. [They] got more and more technical about it but
it looked like a patent license without actually using the hideous
words, it was just legal sophistry. It was playing with words to go
around the intent of the license…”

Complete
Story