Microsoft's New Permissive License Meets Opposition

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Abide by the GPL and anyone can play.

The GPL is not the only open source license out there and each license type offers particular limitations and freedoms. One of the best know alternatives is the BSD license which allows people to publish source code, but from what I can tell the main requirement is to keep the license and have attribution.

If we are talking the Linux Kernel then we are indeed talking GPL, but Microsoft is free to license their code as they see fit. As long as looking at the source code do

It is interesting that you mention the GPL, because that is exactly the target of this initiative by Microsoft. Remember, Microsoft isn't opposed to BSD licensed code, because they can use it all they want. They are only opposed to the GPL, which would force them to 'give away' their source code. That is what they called 'communist' and 'viral.'

Now, if you look at the license, it is indeed an open source license, and it can be used in conjunction with the BSD, Apache,or MIT licenses, but not the GPL . Thus, Microsoft creates this license, releases sufficient open source code to make people think twice about using the GPL (extend), and then once the GPL is dead, leaves the open source world (extinguish).
This is a very clever move, aimed at dividing the open source camp from the GPL camp. Currently they are divided in ideology but largely united in practice (as RMS says). Microsoft is aiming to divide them in practice as well. Personally I don't think Microsoft is willing to release enough code open sourced to make a difference, but time will tell. The next few years will be very interesting.

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Now, if you look at the license, it is indeed an open source license, and it can be used in conjunction with the BSD, Apache,or MIT licenses, but not the GPL.

The OSI doesn't even correctly track the licenses that it has "approved" already.
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/category [opensource.org]
How about a diagram showing the progression of license restrictions? Hmmmmmm? That way you could look at the chart and SEE where a specific license falls.

It would also show any holes that are not covered by a license yet.

Then it would be easy to draw a line and say "anything below this line is GPLv2 compatible". Or GPLv3 or whatever.

Instead we have licenses that effectively duplicate each other. And we argue over whether Microsoft's proposed licenses are "okay" or not. Instead we should be able to look at the proposed license and see exactly where in the matrix it falls and whether it is filling an existing void. Or simply duplicating an existing license's restrictions and grants.

Where's the structure?

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This seems like a nice idea, but there are too many dimensions of variability for a simple one-dimensional line like you're talking about.

Perhaps a tick-mark table like one of those market-speak product feature comparisons might work better. It would be good to have licenses categorized in some way.

I think it is a very reasonable thing to require that any Open Source license submitted by Microsoft allow the code they release under it to be distributed in conjunction with GPL code. Microsoft should not b

I think it is a very reasonable thing to require that any Open Source license submitted by Microsoft allow the code they release under it to be distributed in conjunction with GPL code.

Why give them the opportunity to complain of unfair treatment? Or that the OSI is showing favouritism to the GPL? By all means let's not approve any licence that explicitly prohibits bundling with other open source licences. Add to that the notion that we have too many licences anyway, and MS might have difficulty showi

I think it is a very reasonable thing to require that any Open Source license submitted by Microsoft allow the code they release under it to be distributed in conjunction with GPL code.

Why? The OSI and FSF have approved a number of licenses that are incompatible with the GPL, including (off the top of my head) Apache 2, CDDL and MPL. More accurately, the GPL is incompatible with these, since it requires that all code in a project have the restrictions imposed by the GPL, but no others. You can mix APSL and CDDL code in the same project, for example, but you can't mix either with the GPL.

...but not the GPL.
No license but the GPL can be used in conjunction with the GPL. Heck, not even different versions of the GPL can be used with the GPL!

There are some "compatible" licenses, but that's merely a euphemism for relicensing. If a license allows to to relicense the software under the GPL, then it is compatible. If the MIT license, for example, said that you couldn't file off the license, then it would no longer be GPL. The GPL is a members only club.

There are some "compatible" licenses, but that's merely a euphemism for relicensing. If a license allows to to relicense the software under the GPL, then it is compatible. If the MIT license, for example, said that you couldn't file off the license, then it would no longer be GPL. The GPL is a members only club.

That's not really accurate. What the GPL says is that the whole work must be distributable under the terms of the GPL. Neither the MIT, BSD or any other license I know lets you "file off the license", in fact it very clearly says The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. [opensource.org] It is simply that the MIT license is very permissive and lets you distribute it in a way that gives you all the rights of the GPL.

Think of it this way, you're building a house and the BSD parts say you can use them in any building. The GPL parts say the whole house must be blue. Is that ok? Yes, because you can simultaniously fulfill the conditions of both licenses by building a blue house. You can't paint the BSD parts red anymore, but the BSD parts are still BSD parts. It is illegal (criminal offense) to replace a BSD license text with a GPL license text, unless you're the copyright holder. But as part of a house, the house needs to follow the rules of all the parts.

Of course the kicker is that the GPL says you can't add no more restrictions (good or bad), so you can put MIT code in GPL projects, but you can't put GPL code in anything but GPL projects. But that they can be distributed under the terms of the GPL is substantially different from them being relicensed to be GPL code.

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It is interesting that you mention the GPL, because that is exactly the target of this initiative by Microsoft. Remember, Microsoft isn't opposed to BSD licensed code, because they can use it all they want. They are only opposed to the GPL

That is true historically ; it is fast becoming false. When Microsoft was an 100% closed-source shop, it obviously wanted all open-source code to be BSD. So it could use it and give nothing back. But now Microsoft sponsors quite a lot of open-source projects (for example,

And what exactly does this story, or the submission of two licenses to OSI have to do with Linux or the GPL?

You know that Linux and the GPL does not represent open source, right? For example, there is BSD style open source [opensource.org], and Mozilla license style open source [opensource.org], and Educational Community style open source [opensource.org], there are purely NASA-style open source [opensource.org] and a host of others?

In fact, when I read the OSI front page, I see this:

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit corporation formed to educate about and advocate for the benefits of open source and to build bridges among different constituencies in the open-source community.

One of our most important activities is as a standards body, maintaining the Open Source Definition for the good of the community. The Open Source Initiative Approved License trademark and program creates a nexus of trust around which developers, users, corporations and governments can organize open-source cooperation.

Nope, nothing in there about Linux or GPL.

So what do they (Linux and GPL) have to do with

IMO, the true Microsoft open or shared source initiative would be to open the source code of any popular and widely used *existing* application like
Internet Explorer source code .Net Framework Virtual Machine / MSIL source code
Win32 API source code
NT Kernel source code
Indexing Service source code
And if I am not asking asking too much,
Windows Automatic Updates and Windows Firewall source code.

Till even one of these sources is made open, no amount of press is going to make any open source community member fee

because any time Microsoft even tries to do anything even reasonably associated with open source, the OSS community shits itself and starts with all the Admiral Ackbar "it's a trap" crap. They don't even get a chance.

Well, when the guy with the hammer keeps hitting you in the head instead of fixing the hole in the roof, the next time he shows up you start thinking about calling the cops, even if this time he's carrying some nice roofing tiles.

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any time Microsoft even tries to do anything even reasonably associated with open source, the OSS community shits itself and starts with all the Admiral Ackbar "it's a trap" crap. They don't even get a chance.

Yes because as everybody knows, if there's one thing that can stop a multi-billion-dollar corporation in it's tracks, it's a bunch of whiny geeks!

I mean, how on earth can a company with $7B to spend on research hope to accomplish anything when anonymous people on message boards start criticizing them?!?!

Got a clue for you: if MS *REALLY* wanted to play nice with the OSS community, they would. Yes, there would be complaints and verbal attacks, but eventually the community would accept them.

Just remember -

Just remember - it worked for IBM (who at one time held the exact same position.)

Actually, most of the flack IBM caught was for being stuffy corporate drones - all the straight faced guys in perfectly pressed black suits, white shirts, and black ties. They were generally considered to be more laughable than nasty - the big, slow, heavy dinosuar in the world of fast, sleek mammals.

Completely different creature.

AT&T was the evil one in the view of most of the people in the tech community. Remeber that t

They don't really have a foot in the door, because any time Microsoft even tries to do anything even reasonably associated with open source, the OSS community shits itself and starts with all the Admiral Ackbar "it's a trap" crap.

Microsoft says that Linux "violates" how many Microsoft patents?

Microsoft paid how much money to SCO for a license Microsoft doesn't appear to use?

Microsoft arranged for Baystar to invest how much money in SCO?

And the list goes on and on and on.

Microsoft can, at any time, download the source code for almost EVERYTHING in "Linux". And they can write whatever apps they want that "interoperates" with whatever in "Linux". And they can release it under whatever license they want.

But we aren't seeing that, are we? And the reason is that Microsoft's goal is to find some way to cripple Linux as a competitor. That's it. That's all it is.

So we should be wary of any and all "changes" that Microsoft wants. Keep the distinct and separate from Linux.

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You just not supposed to see it. Do you think they are running their Oracle Servers on Windows 2003? I have actually been in the Hotmail server room, guess what. It's all Solaris on Sun in the backend. Has to Patents, whats stopping them from adapting open sourced code now and using it? They have to admit that they can't seem to get Vista off the ground. The market for it isn't there as long as XP or Linux is around. Bad Press from the real Press (not a bunch of whinny jerks on slashdot) hasn't been helping

Microsoft can, at any time, download the source code for almost EVERYTHING in "Linux".

What's so magical about Linux? There's other Open Source OSes you know. Whenever there's a discussion about numerous tools/apps that implements the same functionaly, it is considered good to have plenty of choices. Whenever kernel is mentioned, it is considered goot to have only Linux. I thought the former was one idea behind Open Source, to have diversity and choice?

They don't really have a foot in the door, because any time Microsoft even tries to do anything even reasonably associated with open source, the OSS community shits itself and starts with all the Admiral Ackbar "it's a trap" crap. They don't even get a chance.

Microsoft has a well-earned reputation of foul play, and has been convicted of monopolistic practices in both US and European courts. As a result, all of their actions are assumed to be part of some nefarious plot, a position which has been correct

I mean do I need to wear protection with this license?? Wait a minute... I think I know that answer to that one... :-)

Yes, most assuredly - Microsoft Software is the main source of ITDs (Internet Transmitted Diseases) and STPs (Software Transmitted Patents).

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That's why anytime that I read or use anything related to microsoft I'm fully outfitted in tinfoil and duct tape. That way while not a fool proof solution I'm at least using safer practices with regards to doing it and let's face the real facts here, abstinence just isn't a realistic option sometimes.

I was going to write about the whole license, but my only criticisms are in section 3 of this license, so I'll only write about that.

Section 3

Part A.

I wouldn't add this clause, but I have no problem with it, I just think that it is redundant.

Some may argue that MS is just being explicit to protect their asses, and we'll get back to that later.

Part B.

FUD possibility: The patent clause only covers contributors, it doesn't include users. The community has every right to reject this license if it is handling

I think MS is really trying to get involved with open source programmers with this license (as opposed to feigning).

I generally agree with this stance, but I also believe that those who point to the poisonous relationship MS has had with open source (or anyone else), over the years are quite correct to sound the warning.

Historically, Microsoft has often had alternative (often dishonest), motives for initiatives they put forward. Usually these revolve around dividing and conquering markets. The most likely ulterior motive here is to divide the OS community by carving off the GPL and FSF people (the only license the MS-PL would not play well with), and to maginalise individuals like Richard Stallman in particular.

I predict that if the MS-PL license is accepted and MS becomes part of the OS community, from that day forward the general understanding in the press/media will be that there are two different camps of open source. "Serious" (business-related) open source, and "Flaky" (left-wing FSF open source). The very fact that the second group is open about the ideological basis of their movement will work against them as it does in the political realm as well. Both camps are actually just as ideologically based as each other, but only the FSF is up front about it.

While this over-simplification of the field into two camps may be spurious, Microsoft is driving public perception here as they always do. All those folks that have never really thought seriously about open source at all will suddenly "discover" it because MS is into it, and their perception of the playing field will be defined by Microsoft's participation and seen through the Microsoft "lens" on open source.

I would expect all the major tech media outlets, especially the mainstream/popular ones, to jump right on this interpretation, in the same way as they jump on all Microsoft pronouncements. I also can't think of a single reason why any of MS's Enterprise customers or any large corporation for that matter would not also be happy in that camp. Even great open source supporters like IBM would probably much rather prefer it if the FSF were "just a bunch of kooky hippies" that no one had to worry about anymore. This kind of perception could be hugely popular , and not just with Microsofties.

As a long time left-wing kookie hippy I am not in favour of this, but I can certainly see how wildly popular this could be to large chunks of the open source community. This is classic Microsoft divide and conquer stuff and I can't see any reason why it won't work like a charm.

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I predict that if the MS-PL license is accepted and MS becomes part of the OS community, from that day forward the general understanding in the press/media will be that there are two different camps of open source.

If only we should be so lucky! But no, I'm afraid that the media and general public will keep doing what they have always done: bundle everything under one big "open source" hat. The distinction eludes them and Microsoft is all too happy to seed further confusion. Because MS wants to blur the line

Well it's clearly an open source license, and a fairly liberal one at that. No problems there, and it would be capricious and dishonest for the OSI to deny the MS-PL the OSI certification - and in a realm based mostly on 'shut up and show us the code', the OSI, with no code to show, is lucky to have what credibility it currently has, so it really shouldn't be blowing it on some anti-Microsoft stunt.

Then again, I take issue with your last statement in some ways, because my spider sense is tingling with this

See, the license is GPL-incompatible. In fact it's about the most liberal GPL-incompatible license going, suggesting that the incompatibility is it's key feature.

This is an interesting point, yes. The other side of that coin, however, is that it's patent considerations (I think?) that make it incompatible, and Microsoft as a company have been trading a lot on the idea of patents recently, so this could also fit into that whole strategy.

"Shut up and show us the code" is the way these things go, though. T

It's the inability to license the code under anything other than the MS-PL that's the incompatibility (while allowing it to be mixed with more or less any other permissive-licensed code). That's the clause that looks like it's aimed purely and squarely at the GPL.

The patent clause looks like it might be compatible with GPLv3.

by Kadin2048 ( 468275 ) * writes: < slashdot...kadin@@@xoxy...net > on Saturday August 18, 2007 @03:26PM ( #20279343 ) Homepage Journal

See any of the many comments above. It's GPL-incompatible, almost certainly by design (since they basically make it as liberal as possible, but stop *just short* of GPL-compatibility).

It's an effort to split the open-source community into two camps, one around the GPL and "ideology," and another around the BSD and MS licenses and "pragmatism." In time, Microsoft can just grab all the code from the BSD and MS license camps, incorporate it into its own products, break compatibility, and walk away from the whole thing. At the very least they get a lot of work done for free, at the most, they've killed the GPL, which is open-source's main weapon against proprietization.

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It's an effort to split the open-source community into two camps, one around the GPL and "ideology," and another around the BSD and MS licenses and "pragmatism." In time, Microsoft can just grab all the code from the BSD and MS license camps, incorporate it into its own products, break compatibility, and walk away from the whole thing.

Dude, that community has been split along those lines since well... since the GPL was created. And while BSDs has their place in the server room, Linux is crawling into all so

"It's an effort to split the open-source community into two camps, one around the GPL and "ideology," and another around the BSD and MS licenses and "pragmatism." In time, Microsoft can just grab all the code from the BSD and MS license camps, incorporate it into its own products, break compatibility, and walk away from the whole thing. At the very least they get a lot of work done for free, at the most, they've killed the GPL, which is open-source's main weapon against proprietization."
Well said!

IMO, the m

IMO, the major difference between the GPL and "more liberal" licenses is the fact that with GPL licensed code, nobody can walk away with your code, modify it and sell it without showing the code. They *have to* give the added code back for everyone.

The LGPL would serve the same purpose, without making any claims on code not written by the original author.

With BSD-like licenses, they can simply steal your work and you cannot do a thing about it.

Some developers don't consider it stealing -- they released the code knowing full well this was a possibiltiy. Each developer has to make their own choice. Many developers live in both worlds: They write proprietary software for a living, and also write and use open source.

Programmers who are lazy enough to accept the "shared" and "permissive" licenses without properly thinking of the possible consequences, are doomed to feel robbed and cheated eventually.

I often see the opposite problem: Programmers who are lazy and default to GPL when they should use something like the LGPL.

From what I read in the article, this "Ms-PL" is just a generic copyleft license with built a built in grant of patents and no-warranty clause. Other than the fact that the license was written by Microsoft, I don't see anything possibly controversial about it.

If this was a run-of-the-mill copyleft license, then precisely for that reason it would be controversial, since one of the OSI requirements is that a new license bring something new , or else this is just license proliferation for no reason. But any

The pattern of Microsoft's development and distribution strategies has historically been to create a sickness - in the form of a defective technology - and present itself as the only cure. One of the best examples of this perhaps might be MS getting into the antivirus business.

That said, if Microsoft were to release code under an OSI approved license, it would be foolish to choose not to use it on ideological grounds alone.

Forget revolution, insurrection is where it's at. The more open code the better.

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Isn't that what REALLY all software development houses do? I can't name the number of times a sales guy would come back and say something like "I told company XYZ that our product ABC does 123"... and it didn't. Sometimes not even close. As the code monkey we had to do our best to match it... that was our job after all.

The license meets every criteria for "Open Source" that OSI has published, and MS is following all the published procedures for approval. They have no choice but to approve it, unless they want to lose credibility, and change "Open Source" to mean "whatever they happen to like", rather than "a license that meets this specified list of objective criteria". All of the objections raises are very pointless. For example, there was the objection to how it does not get along with some other licenses. Hello! The same thing applies to many of the already-approved licenses. The objections from the Google guy are even worse--they don't seem to have anything whatsoever to do with the stated purpose of OSI. He's just using the mailing list as a soapbox.

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One of the functions of the OSI is to limit the number of licenses that programmers need to learn how to deal with. Unless a clear and convincing argument is presented for a new license, that alone should suffice for rejecting it.

OTOH, I must also admit that I am suspicious of this license in particular *BECAUSE* it comes from MS. MS is a company with a history, and not one that would cause one to wish to associate with them. This could, possibly, be as open as it superficially appears. But it could be

Well, maybe they can reject it on the grounds that there is another licence, proposed by the same entity, that have almost the same name and is as far from Open Source as one can get.

If that is not enough, they can notice that the entity proposing both licences has an historic of misleading the public against Open Source.

The license meets every criteria for "Open Source" that OSI has published, and MS is following all the published procedures for approval.

They have no choice but to approve it, unless they want to lose credibility, and change "Open Source" to mean "whatever they happen to like", rather than "a license that meets this specified list of objective criteria".

I agree in general though I would state there are instances where a license could meet every criteria but still hurt Open Source in general, I feel that's part of the reason that we have a credible organization like the OSI to give approval.

All of the objections raises are very pointless. For example, there was the objection to how it does not get along with some other licenses. Hello! The same thing applies to many of the already-approved licenses. The objections from the Google guy are even worse--they don't seem to have anything whatsoever to do with the stated purpose of OSI. He's just using the mailing list as a soapbox.

He does seem fairly biased but I do think some of his objections have merit. For instance the term "Shared Source" can cause confusion, if Microsoft does get approval it's possible that they may start taking about their "Shared Source" licenses, and mention this partic

We don't need more licenses. Don't we have enough?

What's wrong with, say, BSD instead of the Permissive License? And why shouldn't we have other vendors going all "me too" and saying we need a set of Google, Apple, Sun, Intel, HP, Lenovo, Joe's Smoked Meats & Fishes brand open source licenses? If all they become is a rubber stamp that says "this license fits a set of criteria you can read on our website" instead of "this license is actually useful and contributes something" then I might listen.

And I'

Yes. We could replace all these articles with one general "Open Source community X doesn't like Microsoft's thing Y" or Slashdot could write nice template "Open Source community ${community_name} doesn't like Microsoft's thing ${microsoft_thing_name}" I think it would save some time. Slashdot could even add cron job to publish such article every day and dupe every saturday.

"1. The license only applies to works created to work on the windows operating system. As far as I know no other Open Source license is limited to a particular OS."

You're showing your ignorance. MS has 5 shared source licenses.
MS-PL, MS-CL, MS-LSL, MS-LCL, MS-RL. You're referring to the MS-LPL and MS-LCL, which are not on the table for OSI approval. Only MS-PL and MS-CL are at issue.

I am pretty sure that this license (or at least some software under the license) will not be accepted by Debian, which is slightly stricter than the FSF and the OSI. If the software includes a trademark, it must be included when distributed in either modified or unmodified form.

No, a trademark notice .

A trademark notice would be something like "Windows is a trademark of Microsoft."

Which is totally different than actually using the trademark itself.

Groklaw has had a discussion about Microsoft's open source license [groklaw.net].Here's one of the quotes from there.

Michael Tiemann, president of the non-profit Open Source Initiative [computerworld.com], said that provisions in three out of five of Microsoft's shared-source licenses [microsoft.com] that restrict source code to running only on the Windows operating system would contravene a fundamental tenet of open-source licenses as laid out by the OSI. By those rules, code must be free for anyone to view, use, modify as they see fit.
"I am certain that if they say Windows-only machines, that would not fly because that would restrict the field of use," said Tiemann in an interview late Friday.

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Um, the three of the five licenses that you refer to are NOT on the table for OSI approval. MS has only submitted the two licenses that most agree are open source licenses, i.e. the MS-PL and MS-CL (not the MS-LPL, MS-LCL, and MS-RL). Groklaw was spreading FUD by talking about licenses that are not even being submitted to OSI.

by logicnazi ( 169418 ) writes: < gerdes&invariant,org > on Saturday August 18, 2007 @02:30PM ( #20278871 ) Homepage

I don't like MS much but I have to say I'm on their side in this matter. They are submitting licensees for approval not asking OSI to support or approve of their broader business model. OSI needs to present itself as an impartial organization that will render fair objective verdicts about whether a license counts as open source whoever submits that license .

Besides, I think it creates all the wrong incentives when we give MS shit for improving its relation with open source. Admittedly maybe I'm a bit influenced here by this post [tirania.org] by Miguel de Icaza's blog but I do get the sense that MS is being treated worse just because they are MS. Of course it's only natural for people in the open source community to want to get back at MS when they can given how MS is treating them but in the long run I think giving them grief over their attempts to open source stuff just contributes to the perception in MS that open source software is a fanatical rabid anti-capitalist movement not reasonable people making software they can work with and make compromises to.

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To clarify I'm reacting against the attitude displayed in the linked article. I have no idea whether this truly captures the attitudes or complains of the people mentioned or the OSI.

Also I agree that there are genuine issues with the MS license that make it problematic to use. I fully support attempts by the OSI to work with MS on these issues but these problems don't mean it isn't an open source license, only that it could be a better licences. Naturally I hope MS can be persuaded to change the terms b

I definately agree. Especially since the push of Microsoft toward more "open" models is often coming from within, that is, from the developers, engineers, architects, etc that see the world from a different perspective as the managers and shareholders. Many of em are trying quite hard to improve things, convincing their superiors and risking (to some extent) their "reputation", so to speak.

Don't quote me, but if I remember well, I think I read a post from Scott Guthrie (one of the main guys in the .NET stuf

OSI needs to present itself as an impartial organization

The OSI's impartiality and pragmatism will be its downfall. Like the sky-diver without a parachute, the OSI will keep saying "it looks OK so far" until it's too late. Microsoft isn't just any old party.

There is a fundamental difference between the normal FOSS world and Microsoft's world: the first is cooperative, whereas MS is competitive, or even combative.

Microsoft consorts with open source (but not with Free Software) because it can see a way to

While I mostly agree with you, I also see where those who are highly suspicious of Microsoft (whether inside or outside of OSI) are coming from. Everything that Microsoft has ever done with respect to open source or open standards has been with the goal of slowing the adoption of and/or co-opting open source and open standards. "Embrace and extend" was official Microsoft strategy - take an open standard, develop some proprietary extensions to it, and make that the version Windows uses, putting the rest of

Ohh I agree completely with you about the need to be suspicious of MS. Of course submitting the MS-PL to the OSI is a move on their part to sell more software, probably by encouraging more open source programmers/users to move to their platforms rather than going to linux.

I just don't think any of this has any relevance to the current issue. Yes, redhat, IBM and all the other open source vendors ought to be watching out for MS (not that they are all good either) and the FSF might want to make strategic mo

DiBona needs to recuse himself from this process. He lost the privilege of speaking for the larger "community" when he went to work for Google, which are now competitors to Microsoft. So far in that thread he has done nothing more than to complain that Microsoft's license is GPL-incompatible. As far as I know OSI and the FSF are still two distinct and separate organizations. Either the license is valid as far as the OSI's guidelines are concerned and it gets accepted, or it contains some sort of evil claus

Miguel deIcaza has been layout almost word by word what many Microsoft employees have been saying.

Miguel deIcaza has always been a fan of Microsoft technologies.

Miguel deIcaza is working for a company with a vested interest in the success of Microsoft.

How much trust can *you* conscientiously lay on him?

I for one, think his words are not worthy of trust anymore. He may be a good coder who did some good work on some Free Software, but he's basically wearing the one ring.

The role of the OSI is to certify licenses that comply with the OSI guidelines for open source licenses. I understand that people don't trust Microsoft. Either do I. However, to reject a license based on who is proposing it rather than the content of the license would put lie to "open" in open source. Eventually Microsoft will adapt, and that will involve working with the open source community. They will also continue to compete.

Microsoft isn't like the Borg; there isn't one hive mind but rather thousands o

>there isn't one hive mind but rather thousands of individuals, some to are more friendly to open source than others.

I would like to see some evidence of this myth. Can you provide a link to the blogs of some MS employees who disagree with their corporate policy on anything?

>This creates internal frictions within the company in terms of determining strategy.

Again, where did you get this notion from? Can you provide some links please.

>However this is not a good reason to reject good licenses.

The lic

Chris DiBona of Google Inc. has asked the question if the OSI license submission ment that Microsoft would "stop using the market confusing term Shared Source." While I disagree on several things, I think this question deserves a reasonable answer. Rather than answering the question, instead Bill Hilf provided the excuse that "the reasons we continued to call it the 'Shared Source' program was to acknowledge that these licenses had not been approved by the OSI." [1]
.
Based on what was said by Bill Hilf, a project covered under MS-CL or MS-PL should be referred in Microsoft marketing as a "Shared Source" application. But with the Sharedpoint Learning Kit, covered by the MS-CL [2], the term used by Microsoft is "open source application." [3] Independent of approval by the OSI, Microsoft has already pre-approved it's use of "Shared Source" and "open source" as interchangeable terms in a way that appears to be an attempt to purposely confuse. This could even be seen as a method to disrupt the moment that the previous open source terminology had gain in the popular press. Regardless of the intention, Microsoft's use of SS and OS as interchangeable terms is not consistent with Bill Hilf's claim.
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So, this leads back to DiBona's question which is still left without a reasonable answer. Will Microsoft stop using the marketing term Shared Source as a method to confuse? If Microsoft is serious about working with the OSI, why is SS already used as an interchangeable term before the OSI has even approved the licenses?
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[1] http://www.crynwr.com/cgi-bin/ezmlm-cgi?3:mss:133 8 5:200708:mkohfpmjekmjelobgffa [crynwr.com]
[2] http://www.codeplex.com/SLK/Project/License.aspx [codeplex.com]
[3] http://www.microsoft.com/opensource/choice.mspx [microsoft.com]

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"What I find interesting is not just that this has received a lot of criticism and opposition, but that one of the key opponents is Chris DiBona, open source programs manager for Google, Inc. "

From reading the OSI discussion list [nabble.com], DiBona is virtually the ONLY person raising criticism and opposition. This summary is widely innacurate.

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(I posted this at Linux.com, as well.)

This license is full of technical problems, the least of which is the attempt to eliminate the MIT/BSD license "ambiguity" about whether alternative licenses can be used with it.

It may sound like I'm biased, but, like most Microsoft products, it attempts to enable a quick and simple implementation by implementing the obvious, but wrong elements of the theory.

Start with the name.

Permissive? Relative to the license, it is not permissive at all. No other license can be mix

(Think of how it would be if someone with a strong personality like Theo, but lacking the commitment to freedom, were to release something like openbsd under this license.)

I am sick of seeing people write things like this.

The only thing Theo lacks a commitment to in this context is being a member of Stallman's infernal cult. "Freedom," in the FSF's usage of the word is a euphemism; you're free to do exactly what Stallman and/or his appointed mouthpieces say, and only what they say.

You're a brainwashed dron

Microsoft has made incredible sums of money from their monopoly control of desktop operating systems. Linux represents the greatest threat to their monopoly that's ever come about. Their continued domination (and pocket stuffing) depends upon Linux (or any other competitor) being destroyed or sidelined.

Microsoft has a long history of anti-competitive behavior - look at how they've dealt with Stacker, Lotus, Netscape, DR-DOS - the list goes on and on. This is their history, and provides a good indication of their future behavior.

Now they're trying to make nice, put on the "open source" show and offer to interoperate with Linux? They're going to lay down their knives and cuddle up to the biggest threat to their continued domination?

Anyone that believes that Microsoft is sincere in their offer to open source their code - or work along with Linux - is (pardon me for being so blunt, but) a deluded fool. They'll prevaricate and make false offers as they try to find a chink in the armor - then they'll move in for the kill. Remember, they offered deals to Stack, Netscape, etc, etc. and every time it ended up badly for their "partners". Why believe that this time will be different? They're just trying to use the OSI rules against open source - will stupidity allow the MS camel to insert its nose into the open source tent?

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-- each clause of the actual licence [microsoft.com] before pontificating total nonsense. That so much utter twaddle is being spouted is a very sad commentary on the state of literacy in the US.
( Sadly, in much of the English speaking world too. )

1. Definitions. [ ... ] A "contributor" is any person that distributes its contribution under this license.

This infers that the 'people' who contribute to the original are neuters. Thus presumably mindless & unable to contribute anything of an intellectual nature. A better

Welcome to the World of Open Source! Everyone is welcome to come join in the....

What? Microsoft is coming? Hey, can you go flip the sign to "Closed" for a bit? No, they're already here? Ummmm, yeah I guess, well... we don't really want THOSE people in here though. I mean, they don't think like we do and will just stink up the place.

Look, we only serve GPL here buddy. You wanna buy some GPL, or you wanna go sit in the BSD section over there behind the curtain?

The nerve of some people! Thinking they c

Why is Parent offtopic??? GP makes a relevant - though possibly inaccurate - comment about TFA, and P tries to correct that alleged inaccuracy.

Even if MS released software under GPLv3, I wouldn't touch it. I'm sorry but I do not care to use anything MS.

I would say that's really a rotten reason, but you don't have a reason there.

I use software because it either does what I want it to do, or I can fix it to make it do what I want it to do. I took over maintaining and fixing XEmacs a decade ago for this very reason.

I despise KDE defaults, but I can configure it to do what I want and look how I want. But most important, it has the features I most want (multiple desktops and internationalization) already working fine.

I cannot do any of the above with Micros

There is a room full of people and you are standing next to the door leading out of the room. When the first person exits the room you attempt to shake hands with that person, but instead of shaking hands, the person punches you in the face. When the next person comes out, you are wary, but go ahead and attempt to shake hands. This person slaps you across your jaw. This continues for 20-30 people. Now, do you go ahead and treat each person coming out of the room as an individual and continue to attempt to s

If it gets approved, my guess is that they will loudly say that MS-PL is an approved open source license. Then they will release code under the MS-LPL license. Most people won't understand or see that extra L, and assume it's similar.

Of course, the MS-LPL is one of the worst licenses you can get (It can only run on MS Windows etc). They will purposefully confuse people with the distinction.

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Most people don't care about most things. It's China's right to pass whatever laws they want - it's their country. And most of their people won't care about politics. I'll still be worried and complain.

MS are trying to muddle the whole open source issue. Managers etc do read about Linux and Open Source from the Financial Times etc. MS wants to confuse the issue at that level, and make it appear that they are participating.

Ask yourself why MS is doing this. Why release the MS-PL and MS-LPL, with such s

Ask yourself why MS is doing this. Why release the MS-PL and MS-LPL, with such similar naming to the GPL and LGPL, but making the MS-LPL an awful license.

Because they have a business to run. And they want to release some code in a reasonably open, BSD-style license, and they want to release other code in a way that is still reasonably open, but keeps it on their platform.

I cant think of a more reasonably way to do that than what they've done. The MS-PL and MS-LPL are identical (to my quick read at least), except the MS-LPL restricts it to the Windows platform. Again, their code, their right. Would you like someone trying to tell you what kind of license you can release code you create under?

And to say that MS-PL and MS-LPL are 'purposefully similar' in name to GPL and LGPL is just being either disingenuous or ignorant of the facts.

Let's look at some of the more popular, well known licenses supported by OSI, and how similar they are to the GPL and LGPL:

From Open Source Licenses by Category [opensource.org]:

GPL
LGPL

MPL - Mozilla Public License
CDDL - Common Development and Distribution License
CPL - Common Public License
EPL - Eclipse Public License
ECL - Educational Community License
APL - Adaptive Public License
OSL - Open Software License
QPL - Qt Public License
LPL - Lucent Public License

Now lets look at the MS licenses [microsoft.com]:

MS-PL
MS-LPL
MS-CL
MS-LCL
MS-RL

And you know what? Either phonetically, visually, or statistically (length, similarity of characters in similar positions, etc), the MS license abbreviations deviate farther from GPL and LGPL than do the other open source licenses supported by OSI.

The MS- in the front of each really distinguishes them. Maybe twitter would like to chime and and suggest that they should all be M$-.

About the only similarities are:

They all end with 'L'. But this is true for pretty much every license at OSI, so nothing unusual there.

One of MS's licenses ends with PL. So do a great number of other licenses at OSI, nothing unusual there.

MS has adopted a modifier pattern to their licenses to make some of them 'Limited'. MS-PL and MS-LPL, MS-CL and MS-LCL for example. This is similar in style to what FSF has done with GPL and LGPL, though its arguable that the 'Limited' has a nearly opposite meaning of what the 'Lesser' in LGPL has.

So in short, when looking at the license abbreviations, compared to the population of other OSI supported licenses, we see that the MS licenses vary far more from the GPL/LGPL than other OSI supported licenses do.

Based on this, it appears that, quite the opposite of your claim, MS went out of their way to make their license abbreviations easily distinguishable from the GPL and LGPL.

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Quite a lot actually. There's the summer of code, there's their code hosting service, there's what they contribute to various open source projects. Hell, they finance over 90% of the Mozilla Foundation, so most of the advances in Firefox are some attributable to Google.

Now, DiBona is still wrong on this - he's using the OSI license approval process to make a political statement. But, Google's done a lot for open source.

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Submission: Microsoft's open source license meets opposition