Not to mention the TCP/IP stack they lifted from BSD years ago
No problem. Someone has to have sympathy for the devil.
Under the BSD license, they were allowed to. As long as you credit the BSD devs when you use their code, you're in the clear.
Absolutely. Originally though, IIRC, the credit was pretty well hidden. The folks who first figured it out had discovered the fact that it responded to specifically crafted packets in exactly the same way that BSD did. Them was some serious nerds with lots of free time!
As for this story...ESR is making much fuss about nothing. MS didn't intentionally put the code in the app; the previous ownership did. Now that they know this, you can be assured ESR's code will go out the window.
ESR is a huge self-promoter. No doubt about that. As for the code disappearing... Well, you know Microsoft. They patch things into oblivion, but seldom actually remove anything.
Oh, and I do get tired of ESR parroting his expertise. This is the guy, after all, that predicted MS would be in serious financial trouble by 2002. After I read that interview, I've taken his words with a grain of salt ever since.
Yeah, well you know, it is entirely possible that Bill could drown whilst swimming in a lake of money. :-) That would probably put some pressure on MS stock.
Actually, my comment was more bait for our resident troll than anything. The BSD license lets anyone use any of the code as long as credit is given. It makes sense for folks who need a network stack to make use of it, since it is well known and works.