Microsoft Puts SourceForge Clone Into Beta

M$ Mole writes "Microsoft is working hard to build their .NET community and has released the beta of an online software project management site. The service being provided is very similar to SF.net, but problems are arising around Microsoft's license, which (originally) granted all rights to the software place on the server to Microsoft. MS has back-pedaled a bit since their 'beta' license and is working on a new, more "acceptable" license."

Comments

This is nearly a month old!

[sheldon]

Wow is this old news day, or what?

This controversy erupted nearly a month ago.

A number of us in the Windows community balked at the initial licensing. The lead developer of the GotDotNet workspaces actually joined into the conversation trying to defend the team's lawyers. It appears that the initial licensing was written with a heavy emphasis on CYA, without much thought to whether or not people would agree to it.

Microsoft listened to our arguments, and adjusted the licensing to be friendlier within a day or two. I still think it's rather ridiculous language but it is similar to that found at sourceforge.net and even such places as yahoo, etc. Why lawyers feel they need permission to redistribute stuff that you obviously uploaded with the intent of redistributing is beyond my ability to rationalize.

Anyway, I'm surprised it's taken this long for this to hit /., usually anti-MS news is posted quickly, and the good stuff, like the release of Visual Studio .NET, is ignored.

Re:This is nearly a month old!

[vinsci]

For more information on the Microsoft license that exludes open source development and specifically GPL and LGPL open source, see this article by Bruce Perens.

Sourceforge License

[jefu]

The applicable part of the sourceforge terms of use seems to be:
the submitting user grants SourceForge.net the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed, all subject to the terms of any applicable approved license.
( Perpetual?? Does this bind someone to a timeframe that even Disney would drool over? At least it doesn't say "throughout the universe".)

First, I think (NBAL,YU (Not Being A Lawyer, You Understand)) that most open source licenses give users approximately the rights listed there in general - and since they are saying that their rights are still subject to the terms of an "applicable approved license" so I'm not sure (AIAAL (Again I Aint A Lawyer)) that they're claiming that much. And I suspect that a part of that license (reproduce...publish...display...) is really there to cover them in the case that someone puts something on sourceforge and then wants to take it back and then sue sourceforge for having shown it around. (BAISIANNBALA (you figure it out this time)).

I'm still staring at the MS license (interesting that its not clear right up at the top of the gotdotnet site pages that MS is actually gotdotnet) and the "explanations" offered to see if I can figure out what it might actually be saying (BAISIANNBALA). It does look though like you're giving MS a whole lot more power over your work than you're giving sourceforge.

What about Ol' Bill's 'Open Letter'?

[Komodo]

It's usually instructive in situations like this to consider the historical context of the issues. Here's the original 'Open Letter' from Bill Gates to the hobbyist community

The background here is that a lot of people pirated Bill's Altair BASIC program, and Bill wanted to know where good software was going to come from if people didn't get paid for it.

It may not have been legal or ethical for hobbyists to pirate Altair BASIC back in 1976, but very soon thereafter, Free Software gave us an answer and an alternative: share the source, and the software grows even in the absence of monetary incentive. It is immune to the type of 'theft' that Bill was whining about. 26 years later, we have seen that Free Software isn't just surviving, it's thriving.

Now, along comes GotDotNet, which looks suspiciously like an emulation of Open Source practices... except that the AUP includes a few serious distinctions. One is the assignment of certain important rights to Microsoft that basically let them do whatever the hell they please with the sweat of your brow. Here's a quote of (what looks like) the original license from the discussion at Activewin.com: (Link to the full thread)

By posting Your Stuff, You grant to Microsoft, under all of Your intellectual property and proprietary rights the following worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty free, fully paid up rights: (1) to make, use, copy, modify and create derivative works of Your Stuff; (2) to publicly perform or display, import, broadcast, transmit, distribute, license, offer to sell, and sell, rent, lease, and lend copies of Your Stuff (and derivative works thereof); (3) to sublicense to third parties, including the right to sublicense to further third parties; and (ii) You agree You won't commence any legal action against Microsoft or any Participant or Visitor for exercising any of these rights.

Second, You also agree that You will not use the Workspace for any commercial purposes whatsoever. And last but not least, You agree that Microsoft may remove at any time, without notice, the Workspace or any posting to it.

Note the specific lack of compensation for the original programmer (unless you consider the use of GDN itself to be sufficient recompense, but I'm pretty damn sure that GDN isn't going to be buying your groceries and paying the rent). One must ask - if nobody pays the users of GDN, where will the good software come from? Nothing about GDN sounds like hiring programmers to 'flood the hobby market with good software'. It sounds ripping off the community to serve MS's shareholders (eg, Bill).

So what's the point?

I propose that the fundamental corporate culture of Microsoft embodies Gate's attitude as reflected in the 1976 'Open Letter'. This culture is allergic to piracy, because a consumerist revenue cycle is necessary to improve the software.

The Free Software movement has thoroughly refuted Gate's thesis, by making itself independant of the revenue cycle (and therefore is not harmed by 'piracy' as it is usually understood).

Microsoft's obsolete culture cannot change to adopt Free Software practices - the assumptions that Free Software threaten are the very core of their business. If the company were rebuilt from the ground up on Free principles, the entire culture would have to change - essentially resulting in a totally different company that happens to have the same name.

Since Microsoft cannot adopt free software practices, Microsoft can only regard Free Software as a competing producer of software, taking market share away from them, and therefore, a deadly threat.

Since Microsoft itself regards Free Software as a threat, it seems to follow that nobody else who depends on revenue streams to survive, would ever want to use a system that resembles a Free Software ecology (like GDN), as they would deprive the producer of that stream.

Producers of free software should similarly be suspicious of a system governed by a legal agreement written by someone who considers them to be a deadly enemy.

Therefore, Microsoft's own pseudo-Free intiatives (such as GotDotNet, the Shared Source license, and the Software Choice initiative) are probably (a) Shams that will perpetuate Microsoft's revenue stream at the expense of the rights of members of the community, and/or (b) exceedingly stupid mistakes on Microsoft's part.

In the absence of further evidence (especially since GDN is slashdotted and I can't read the text of the new license), it is impossible to tell to which degree GDN (or any other pseudo-Free effort by Microsoft) will be (a) or (b). In either case, it seems imprudent for users or programmers - whether they produce in open or closed software - to place their trust in these intiatives.

I wonder, as an aside, if Bill himself ever paid anything to the original inventors of BASIC, a pair of researchers at Dartmouth University. So I wonder if Bill's logic reflexively implies that he stole BASIC from Kemeny and Kurtz. Gee. Where will the good ideas come from? Oh, wait academia has been going as a not-for-profit institution for centuries. You may have heard of some of their other 'products' - the theory of universal gravitation, electricty, the rabies vaccine...

Whats wrong with M$?

[angel'o'sphere]

he service being provided is very similar to SF.net, but problems are arising around Microsoft's license, which (originally) granted all rights to the software place on the server to
Microsoft.

SourceForge has changed the license terms long ago. Not sure if they got changed back ...

However: if you host a project on SF you grant SF to use your code for any purpose. Without the need to message you, to contribute or whatever.

Just read point 6 of the license: http://sourceforge.net/docman/display_doc.php?doci d=6048&group_id=1

angel'o'sphere

C# vs Java

[Marc2k]

And the last time I checked Sun's JVM does not include an Application Server(ie like ASP.NET).

Agreed, but the openness of the language and the Java community allows for others to come up with even better solutions. Downloading the J2SE sdk and Tomcat is cheaper than buying Visual Studio .NET from a development standpoint.

I agree with your first statement, at my work though, we're all running Win2k with IE 5.5, and certainly no .NET CLR. Granted installing it is trivial, but when the number of workstations is in excess of a few thousand, this becomes a pretty big headache. Also to take note of is that if you've already got a Java devel squad, why switch to .NET? Learning C# wouldn't take that long, sure, but the entire point of .NET is that you can maintain a heterogenous project composed of different languages. If you're not taking advantage of MSIL (MSIL, bytecode, what's the difference?), then why switch to .NET? Ubiquitous runtime environment? Yeah, Java has that. Plus the JVM is ported to other platforms that .NET is not yet. Even when [if] Mono hits primetime, it will be a while until [if] they get Windows.Forms working. Slower runtime than native compiled code? Yeah, they both got that.

So while we're talking Java, where's the gain?

Re:gotdotnet.co.uk running ... Linux

[TimSneath]

I work in the .NET & Developer Group at Microsoft UK. For the record, there is no UK version of GotDotNet - this is just someone cybersquatting. Check the whois record at Nominet.uk. There's no need for a UK version of course - this is a worldwide community site.

Interestingly, I notice that someone's registered slashdot.org.uk... :-)

Tim