A Slightly-Softer Microsoft Shared Source License

RadBlock writes "Microsoft Watch has a story on a recent change in Microsoft's shared-source licensing... I guess the main difference is that programmers do not have to send back any changes made to the source code. But they can't combine any of the Microsoft code with other software. Here's the full text of their new license agreement." The article claims that Microsoft is "inching closer -- at least in spirit -- to the GNU GPL" with these license tweaks, but it doesn't look that way to me.

Comments

Re:Microsoft?

[agentZ]

I don't know about the exact text per se, but the Microsoft speaker today at the Open Source in eGovernment conference in Washington DC did refer to the ASP license, that it was less than one page, and did allow user's more freedom with the code, specifically the ability to use the ASP licensed code in their own projects.

An inch.

[DarkVein]

The article claims that Microsoft is "inching closer -- at least in spirit -- to the GNU GPL" with these license tweaks, but it doesn't look that way to me.

An inch is how much of a stride? How many strides is Shared Source Initiative/License from GNU/GPL?

This is a pretty big step for Microsoft. They are, to a legal extent, relinquishing complete control of the source. Now you can maintain a private fork of the SSL source. (isn't that a nice abbreviation?) You won't have to report every little tweak you make to Microsoft.

On the other hand, MS could be bowing to simple reality: they don't have or want the resources to administer 900,000,000 variations on patches, developers keep private trees anyway, companies do not like dishing out their private modifications to potential competitors. Even so, they've bowed to reality. If they keep bowing to reality, they'll eventually hit something near the BSD license, and do a lot of good when they start getting close.

Re:Microsoft would never consider a GPL-like appro

[Fnkmaster]

Aha, my friend, you've forgotten one very important example. Why do I think it's important? Because they've made a model that's worth following. That company is TrollTech, better known as the authors of the Qt toolkit. They seem to be quite well with their model, which basically amounts to releasing their library code under the GPL, and making it available as a standard commercial library for a fee. That means if you want to write Free Software (err or rather, anything GPL-compatible and Free, I guess) you can use their library under the terms of the GPL. If you want to write commercial software, you can write commercial closed-source (or whatever other commercial model you are using) software, you just have to pay for developer seat licenses. Makes perfect sense.

I don't know what their bottom line looks like, but they seem to have been rapidly expanding and releasing new and improved products over the last few years, so it seems to be working well for them. I also think this is a pretty reasonable model for developers of library software - the benefits of Open Source, and the ability to actually profit off of your labor too. So while I agree that in general the GPL is probably too restrictive for businesses to feel comfortable with (they tend to feel more comfortable with BSD licenses - it's free, use it as you please, give us a nod for giving it to you), there are cases where it has been used successfully by profitable businesses.

Download the ASP.NET Starter Kits and Take A Look

[Carnage4Life]

Why not download one of the ASP.NET Starter Kits and check it out yourself?

Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft but this is not an official endorsement nor rebuttal of the claims in the article. I'm simply pointing people to where they can verify the claims in the article for themselves

Re:The problem with the "spirit of the GPL"...

[Yokaze]

How about just posting a link to the source (The GPL Analysis FAQ original [WORD])?
By this mean, you would also attribute the text to the creator.