Jeremy Allison, the creator of the open source Samba applications, has announced he is leaving Novell at the end of this month. Samba allows Unix machines to connect to the proprietary, closed source Microsoft networks.
Earlier, Novell has signed a deal with Microsoft. Allison wrote “that even if it does not violate the letter of the license, it violates the intent of the GPL license the Samba code is released under, which is to treat all recipients of the code equally”. Allison added: “Until the patent provision is revoked, we are pariahs….Unfortunately, the time I am willing to wait for this agreement to be changed …has passed, and so I must say goodbye.”

A man with such a high sense of morality must be congratulated. There are so many among the people I know who would find a way to justify undefendable behaviours by their employer, even if this means twisting their own values.