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A Slightly-Softer Microsoft Shared Source License

Posted by timothy on from the just-initial-here-and-here-and-here-and-here dept.

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.

3 of 342 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Microsoft? by agentZ · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  2. An inch. by DarkVein · · Score: 4, Informative
    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.

    --

    I'm as mimsy as the next borogove but your mome raths are completely outgrabe.

  3. Download the ASP.NET Starter Kits and Take A Look by Carnage4Life · · Score: 4, Informative

    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