[Gllug] Microsoft was distributing Ubuntu

Andy Smith andy at lug.org.uk
Mon Jun 25 09:23:59 UTC 2007


On Mon, Jun 25, 2007 at 10:06:33AM +0100, Peter Cannon wrote:
> Andy Smith wrote:
> 
> > 1. Why would Mark Shuttleworth be concerned that Microsoft (or anyone) is
> >    promoting Ubuntu, as long as the promotion was factual?
> 
> I didn't say he was I was just wondering really considering he has just 
> told MS to go swivel over patent agreements.

Your words:

"I'm wondering if the offer was withdrawn at Mr Shuttleworths
request"

Why would he make such a request when the promotion and distribution
is acceptable under GPL?

It seems incredibly unlikely that any Linux distribution would
attempt to prevent someone from distributing and promoting them
where legal; why bother, no matter how sour relations are?

> > 2. Why do you feel that distributing GPL software or even selling
> >    distributions of it would be "getting the GPL slightly wrong"?
> >    Hint: Microsoft has distributed GPL software before, and may
> >    still do so.
> 
> I don't the article does, quote The part Microsoft got wrong is it says 
> the license is "Free" and "No limitations".
> 
> Didn't you read it?

Yes *I* did.  Why wouldn't Microsoft just change the description in
that case?  You implied that there was some issue with the GPL that
would prevent Microsoft distributing such software.

It's fairly obvious that they just don't want to promote Linux for
business reasons, no big drama.

> > If you actually read the links you give, you will see that the
> > Microsoft site merely pointed to C|Net so they weren't distributing
> > it or offering "download space" anyway.  But if they did, so what?
> 
> Um I'm confused what are you saying?

I'm saying that when you ask "what if Microsoft distributed and gave
download space to Linux".. that it is in this case a purely
hypothetical question with no relation to the event at hand since in
this case Microsoft is doing neither, contrary to what your post
implied.

> I'm obviously agreeing with you in the paragraph below

Now that you have snipped all context, yes.

> if there are errors then they are errors reported by slashdot!!

"slashdot may contain errors, don't blame me for copying them" ???

> the post I made was pretty much verbatim apart from one or two
> thoughts and a question of my own.
> 
> But hey if it makes you happy to make out the original post was all my 
> own work and was a load of tosh then I'm glad to have helped brighten 
> your day. :-)

It was a load of tosh you copied verbatim from a source of much
tosh, without bothering to find the few parts of it that were
factual.

Andy
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