Last week, Within Windows noted something suspicious in regards to Microsoft's use of the GNU's General Public License (GPL): "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. (The author of the code was not contacted by Microsoft.)"

Redmond remained quiet until yesterday, when the company pulled the tool in question from its servers.

The Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool webpage now brings up the following error: "Sorry, the page you are looking for cannot be found. You can try searching our site using the Microsoft Store search box above, or you can browse our site using one of the links below." We contacted Microsoft and indeed it seems the two stories are closely related, though whether the software giant is actually violating the GPL, a widely used (including by the Linux kernel) free software license, is not confirmed. "We are currently taking down the Windows USB/DVD Tool (WUDT) from the Microsoft Store site until our review of the tool is complete," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. "We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience."

Coincidentally, yesterday we ran a story in which we explained that Bradley Kuhn, the technical director of the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), has published a helpful set of guidelines about the most productive way to respond to a suspected violation of the GPL. The guidelines caution against jumping to conclusions, since GPL violations are extremely common (Kuhn finds one a day) and encourage free software enthusiasts to give violators the benefit of the doubt, so that's what we're going to do for Microsoft. The fact the company pulled the tool doesn't bode well, so we'll have to watch closely to see what the company puts back on its servers.

When you purchase Windows 7 from the Microsoft Store, you have the option to download the Windows 7 .ISO file or the compressed files. The Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool not only allows you to download Windows 7 from the Microsoft Store but it also lets you put the files on a USB Stick or DVD. To create a Windows 7 bootable DVD or USB flash drive that you can use to install the operating system, you would download the .iso file, and then run the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool.

In May 2007, Microsoft funded a questionable study attacking GPL 3 draft process. In April 2008, Bill Gates publicly stated Microsoft disagreed with the GPL. Most recently though, in July 2009, Microsoft contributed Hyper-V drivers to the Linux kernel in order to improve the performance of running virtualized Linux guests in a Windows host environment and also opened its Linux Hyper-V drivers under the GPL.