前段时间有件事情在自由软件社区中闹得沸沸扬扬。那就是Samba开发人员Jeremy Allison离开Novell，加入Google。可以说，Jeremy Allison是自由开源软件社区中的领袖人物之一，有他合作开发的Samba自由软件是一套非常重要的网络通讯软件，负责Linux和微软操作系统之间的沟通。他表示，他离开Novell的原因就是对Novell-微软的合作表示不满，因为这个协议对使用Samba代码的用户不公平。
下面是redharring杂志对他的专访：
By Falguni Bhuta Jeremy Allison is a hero in the open source community these days. After spending two years at Novell, he decided to leave the Waltham, Mass.-based software company for reasons of principle right after the Linux-vendor signed a deal with Microsoft (see Microsoft, Novell in Linux Pact and Open-Source Guru Goes to Google). The agreement will allow Microsoft and Novell’s customers to use the other firm’s intellectual property without being sued. As a result, Microsoft will pay Novell $400 million. However, Mr. Allison and other open source believers argue the pact violates certain rules of the GPL (GNU General Public License), a popular free software license.Mr. Allison is best known as the co-creator of the Samba project, which lets Linux and Unix servers talk to Windows servers. Mr. Allison contends that the deal does not give equal treatment to all users of the Samba code.
Before he starts a new job at search engine Google Tuesday, Mr. Allison answered some questions from Red Herring. Q: Why did you decide to leave Novell so abruptly?A: The resignation letter I wrote said pretty much why I was resigning. The fact that it [involves] Microsoft is completely irrelevant. I’m leaving Novell out of respect for the terms of the GPL. [Novell has] argued with me that it strictly doesn’t violate the terms of the GPL (General Public License) and Microsoft’s lawyers have gone over that very carefully. But it obviously is a violation of the intent of the GPL, which is that everybody has the same rights to the software and nobody has privileged access. Q: How long did you consider it before resigning?A: I found out about the deal about five days before it happened. I feel like this whole thing is a personal failure. When I first heard I was excited, it was groundbreaking and [I thought] Microsoft was taking open source seriously. The more I looked at the patent provision, the less comfortable I got. I really, really want to like this deal. [I told them] ‘tell me why isn’t a GPL section violation’—meaning you have to pass on the same rights to the software that you received. You cannot say that my customer and I are exempt and anyone that they pass the software to is not exempt. [They] got more and more technical about it but it looked like a patent license without actually using the hideous words, it was just legal sophistry. It was playing with words to go around the intent of the license. Q: Do you think you could have made a difference?A: I wanted to like the deal but I should have complained earlier, and that’s my failure. I let it go and when the actual event itself happened, I watched it on streaming webcam from England, I realized how damaging it was. I have an incredible objection to Microsoft saying ‘Buy Novell and leave everything else.’ I thought [Steve Ballmer] insulted the Novell people. He basically said if you buy anything else you will have to look at serious IP issues. He issued a threat at the event.
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