GPLv3 Sabers Rattle

Bar fights are as nasty as they are predictable. I won't discuss the carnage aspect, leaving it to say that in my youth I saw a few and escaped the raging insanity with my skin in tact and a whiskey in hand.

Bar fights are as predictable as a politicians broken promise. They typically start with a slowly heating argument, originating from something as inane as baseball statistics or an inebriated glance at the wrong woman. Words get louder and more personal, with the parties escalating bravado to save face and intimidate rivals. When one party reaches a certain level of anger, they drop their voice a couple of octaves, and utter a poorly masked threat. Inevitably the challenged party will do something stupid, like stick their chin out another inch, and the fight begins.

Such is the dance between Open Source, Microsoft, and SAMBA. Microsoft has made the threat, and SAMBA is the Open Source chin target practice for Microsoft's right-hook legal team.

The Open Source community released the third version of the GNU General Public License ( GPLv3 ). Development of GPLv3 was delayed as the community responded to the Microsoft/Novell deal, fearing how Microsoft might co-opt Open Source and seeing an opportunity to kick Steve Ballmer in the economic crotch.

When Microsoft and Novell consummated their relationship, many feared that Microsoft would use the arrangement to stifle Open Source. The theory was that Microsoft would use their alleged patent claims against one or more Open Source packages to ensure that Open Source distributors entered into licensing agreements and thus would pay a "Microsoft tax" for Open Source software.