Microsoft tonight issued an update on the reports that the company used open source code in their Windows 7 USB/DVD tool, illegally.
Neowin originally reported earlier this week that Microsoft had pulled the tool after complaints by Rafael Rivera over some of the content of the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool.
Microsoft issued the following statement regarding the reports:
After looking at the code in question, we are now able to confirm this was indeed the case, although it was not intentional on our part. While we had contracted with a third party to create the tool, we share responsibility as we did not catch it as part of our code review process. We have furthermore conducted a review of other code provided through the Microsoft Store and this was the only incident of this sort we could find.
Microsoft also confirmed it will be making the source code as well as the binaries for the tool available next week under the terms of the General Public License v2. The software giant also said sorry, stating "we apologize to our customers for any inconvenience this has caused." The tool allows end users to upgrade to Windows 7 in an easier way.