Microsoft Vs Free Software

MicroSoft has an official corporate policy forbidding its engineers from writing FreeSoftware.

Of course this rule bends whenever they need someone with enough stature.

However, plenty of FreeSoftware out there supports MicroSoft's systems.

This leads to the ironic situation that a SoftwareEngineer working on a project that MicroSoft endorses could then go to work for MicroSoft, and be forced to stop working on the project that benefits MicroSoft.

>sigh<

--AnonymousCoward

I'm afraid that you're just way way wrong there. One of the C# rss aggregators - RssBandit? - is written and maintained by DareObasanjo? who is an MS Program Manager. FlexWiki is written and maintained by MS people. The GotDotNet workspaces hold many free systems started and worked on by MS people. It may be true that you have to have enough stature to get away with it but it's being got away with so often that it seems that 'enough stature' equates to being alive. Sorry about that.

C'mon people. Apply a modicum of critical thinking. If MS is so stupid how come it's in the position it is with the staff it has (e.g. WardCunningham)? If it really is that stupid then the rest of us are underachievers of some size.

>sigh^2<

-- svs

AntiMicrosoftBiasOnWiki

>sigh^n<

RssBandit? has a BSD license. FreeSoftware -- Free as in Speech -- has a specific meaning -- GnuGeneralPublicLicense or compatible. If there is software that is currently being actively maintained by a Microsoft employee that is licensed under the GPL, some examples would be helpful. WardCunningham's own FIT is GPL, however it belongs to c2 and it is unclear what Ward's ability to contribute is at this point. --StevenNewton ''I'm using FreeSoftware as defined in the first para of the link in the first sentence of this page. If that's not what was meant then could someone refactor? --svs

You may be confusing FreeSoftware with CopyLeft. The FSF considers anything with the BSD license to be non-copyleft free software; see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html.

Perhaps he meant "Free" as in "Free Fall"?