Looks like Microsoft's recently released
Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool has used GPL code illegally. The tool, which has been pulled by Microsoft, allows end users to upgrade to Windows 7 in an easy way. Rivera states "while poking through the UDF-related internals of the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool, I had a weird feeling there was just wayyyyyyyyy too much code in there for such a simple tool. A simple search of some method names and properties, gleaned from Reflector's output, revealed the source code was obviously lifted from the CodePlex-hosted (yikes) GPLv2-licensed ImageMaster project." According to
Mary Jo Foley, a Microsoft spokesperson confirmed that Microsoft had removed the tool stating "Microsoft is looking into this issue and is taking down the WUDT tool from the Microsoft Store site until its investigations are complete. We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience."
Ed.Note: This is not actually part of Windows 7, it's a separate tool. And I don't see what would be so bad about releasing an app like this under the GPL... It'd be a good PR move and would help the Windows development community.
