Tax .Net...

[jappilas]

ovvero una parte presa da un redazionale di osnews di qualche giorno fa, che mi ha fatto preoccupare un po... (anche il resto dell' articolo cmq) O_o

anche la parte in cui disquisice sulla gpl... è davvero così secondo voi?
http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5963&page=1

Tax .Net
If Microsoft can control the hardware it means they make money from it, it doesn't matter if you are running Windows or Linux, MS will still get their pound of flesh. Microsoft are and always have been in it for the money, this ensures that even if Microsoft loses their Operating System dominance they'll still make plenty of money. Of course other Operating Systems will need to access the hardware to operate and this will be arranged by licensing a piece of Microsoft code. Run Linux and you'll not only pay the hardware tax but you'll also pay Microsoft more for the pleasure of running Linux.

Having said that this may prove problematic for Linux. If running an OS involves adding NDA's code to the OS, BSD licensed software will not have a problem, they can work with closed source code. Linux on the other hand is covered by the GPL, the GPL like any other license has terms and conditions which you are not free to break. If running on MS hardware requires including NDA'd closed source code this may break the GPL and Linux may not legally be able to run on a Microsoft computer[7]. This will not be the fault of Microsoft, it will be the fault of the GPL - free software is not quite as free as one might think, if the GPL was truly free there would be no terms and conditions to break [8] and there would be no problem. I expect this will not really be a problem however, the answer will be a binary driver of some form, but again you'll have to pay Microsoft for it.
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[8] The GPL is Free as in "out in the open", it is not Free as in "unrestricted". This difference is not made clear by the FSF.