On Fri, Oct 02, 2009 at 08:15:07PM -0500, J Sisson wrote: > > And if enough people petition Microsoft, we can get them to release Windows > 7 source under the GPL. > > Reality called...your request to ignore it was denied.
Actually, we *could*. The problem is the definition of "enough". I'm
sure that if you got 100% of the Windows users in the world to do so,
Microsoft top brass would be hard-pressed to avoid acquiescing.
Meanwhile, I'm sure that if you got 1% to do so, it would raise some
eyebrows at Microsoft, but utterly fail to get MS executives to put a
moment's thought into making that kind of licensing change, except
perhaps to laugh at it. The problem is figuring out the exact threshold,
somewhere between 1% and 100%.
In other words, to quote an old off-color joke:
"We've already established you're a prostitute, my dear. Now we're
just haggling over the price."
--
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
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