Microsoft funds questionable study attacking GPL 3 draft process
A study (PDF) funded by Microsoft and carried out by Harvard Business School professor Alan MacCormack aims to determine what kind of features and protections developers want in version 3 of the widely-used General Public License (GPL 3).
Context & Ripple Effects
The FSF put out the third discussion draft of GPLv3 in March 2007, and Microsoft has spent the run-up working against a final version — as far back as November 2005 it was framing Linux as anti-commercial. The new move is academic: Harvard Business School's Alan MacCormack runs a developer survey, Microsoft-funded, asking what protections developers actually want in version 3.
Ars Technica frames the study as attacking the draft process itself, but the syndicated pickup is broad — All about Microsoft, ZDNet and Download Squad all carried versions on or about May 22, with the companion finding that developers don't want the GPL covering patent deals. Microsoft also confirmed the same week it will not sue over Linux patents and has 'no immediate plans' to litigate, which reads as one coordinated posture rather than separate events.
First-order effects
- Microsoft gains an academic counterweight to the FSF's draft process: a Harvard-branded survey arguing developers don't want GPL-covered patent deals lands just as the third draft is being discussed, giving opponents of the draft's provisions citable evidence rather than only vendor rhetoric.
Second-order effects
- The FSF now has to defend the legitimacy of the draft process against a funded study rather than a direct competitor, splitting the discussion over whether MacCormack's findings reflect developer sentiment or sponsor intent — and the patent-deal clause becomes the specific battleground where that fight plays out.
Third-order effects
- If vendor-funded research becomes a standard instrument for steering license drafting, the GPL stops being a community-authored document negotiated in public and turns into contested regulatory territory — with Microsoft's parallel signals (alleged Linux patent infringement claims, a declared refusal to sue) suggesting the endgame is commercial licensing terms, not litigation.
The trend: As free-software licenses became commercially decisive infrastructure in 2007, large vendors shifted from dismissing them to funding research and public campaigns aimed at shaping their terms.