Moodle plug-in is the first time Microsoft has simply opted for GPLv2
The release of Linux hypervisor drivers by Microsoft on Monday was as interesting for paving the way for Microsoft to use the GPLv2 as it was for supporting more Linux distros on Hyper-V. The question was, would Microsoft now feel free to create more GPLv2 open source code? Today we have the answer. Yes. Microsoft has now released its third bit of software under the GPL: a plug-in that integrates Microsoft’s Live@edu collaboration tools with the open source course management system Moodle.
The previous GPLv2 tools both involved making Linux work with Hyper-V, and given the nature of the software, GPLv2 was more-or-less mandated. So the Moodle plug-in could be the first time that Microsoft has voluntarily chosen the generally accepted open source licensing model instead of one of its own home-cooked OS licenses.
Moodle says it has more than 30 million users around the world. This plug-in integrates Windows Live services with Moodle including Outlook Live for e-mail, Office Live Workspace for sharing documents, Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live SkyDrive for file swapping. Google Apps has long been integrated with Moodle and indeed, one of the areas where Google Apps is making big inroads is in education. This is problematic. Microsoft doesn’t make a killing on education — it offers its most favorable pricing to this market segment. It knows that whatever technology a student learns on will be ingrained into that student forever.
Google fairly well owns the Moodle crowd. Indeed the project has been involved in Google’s Summer of Code 2009. This is a community service project where 1,000 students participate and are tasked with writing code for various open source projects — including Moodle. Students are paired with a mentor from the participating projects and are pumped up to become open source developers when they enter the workforce.
While Microsoft’s GPLv2 add-on is hardly going to cause mass conversion of students into Microsoft fans, it is a proactive move on Microsoft’s part that targets the demographic that Redmond really needs to woo. And now we’ll see if more GPLv2 code emerges from Redmond, too.
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