WiX Project Lead Interviewed On CPL Licensing

comforteagle writes "After Microsoft released WiX (Windows Installer XML) under the CPL I found it odd that so many interviews following were with almost everyone but the project lead. So, for your Friday enjoyment I've posted an interview with Rob Mensching, Wix Project lead, who sheds a little light on what's going on behind the scenes at the Shared Source Initiative from the ground." Mensching explains: "My bosses were not involved in the decision which license should be used for the Windows Installer XML toolset. I worked with members of the Shared Source Initiative team who understand the details of the various licenses available to share source code. They listened to my requirements and found that the CPL seemed most appropriate for the toolset."

Comments

German

[Anonymous Coward]

Next time, ask around to see what a name means in other languages before you choose it for an international project... You don't want to name your project "WiX" in Germany.

Re:German

[mocm]

"wichsen" (sounds like vixen) means to polish, but is usually assotiated with polishing a certain body part. Wichs (or Wix) would be the noun.

Re:German

[Anonymous Coward]

"Wichsen" is manual stimulation of the male genitals, usually masturbation. If someone introduced you as the "Leiter des WiX projekts", that would mean you are the leader of the masturbation project.

Re:German

[neglige]

You don't want to name your project "WiX" in Germany

No, but boy will this be fun (see other posts for translations) :)

Now, your installation can be "hingewixt" quickly on your "wixed" system. Many people already suspected that everything from MS is "abgewixt". But, best of all, as it is free (as in speech), anybody can "wixen", and everyone can share the "wixe" and knowledge about "wixen".

Thank you, Microsoft, for making tech-talk on public transit so much more... interesting.

Re:German

[Hank Powers]

The same applies to Google's Orkut service. Orkut is the Finnish for "orgasms".

Re:German

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it's a social networking service, isn't it?

Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Has Microsoft ever done ANYTHING that /. has approved of?

I sure if MS released the source code to Windows 2003 under the GPL tomorrow /. would find some nefarious plot behind that too.

-Cecil

Re:Microsoft

[rking]

Has Microsoft ever done ANYTHING that /. has approved of?

Didn't they kill clippy?

XML based MSI

[sweet cunny muffin]

For anyone wondering, this is basically an XML wrapper for the MSI.

MSI files are binary databases that you had to edit with a nasty tool called oracle. The whole thing was counter intuitive. I could never understand why the MSI wasn't XML based from the start. It was written when MS was XML mad, after all.

This is brilliant. You can now work with a text source file format for the MSI.

Other Microsoft Shared Source Licensing Programs

[crem_d_genes]

Mensching: "I am not well versed in all of the licenses used by the Shared Source Initiative. As I described above, I went to the Shared Source Initiative team with the goals of my project and we agreed that the CPL was an appropriate license for the Windows Installer XML toolset."

Other types of shared source license programs at Microsoft, and further links in the Shared Source Initiative.

Why can't windows have decent package management..

[autopr0n]

MSI installation on windows is a huge step up from the old setup.exe situation, but it isn't that often used.

What I'd really love to see on windows is something where windows tracked the 'lineage' of every file (and reg key) on the system. So, when you want to get rid of a program, you're able to remove everything the program touched, save files you've copied over to another location.

It's easy to get software installed on windows, now they need to work on a method to get everything removed, especialy spyware...

Interesting Interview

[Slugworth01]

Based on the interview, Rob seems like a typical developer. Answers to questions are short and sweet, no marketing buzzwords. Does seem to have a lot of M$ religion though.

This is being handled by M$ in a most interesting way; most likely all be design. This is not (IMHO) a project that escaped from Redmond, they have a plan in mind. The question is - is this a "hip fake" to the OSS community to fool everyone while they finalize their master plan of world domination of all computers everywhere, or is it an example of M$ recognizing the value of OSS and using it when it makes sense?

Re:Interesting Interview

[shione]

I like that guys edge too, most notably at the part where he said "My bosses were not involved in the decision which license should be used for the Windows Installer XML toolset. I worked with members of the Shared Source Initiative team who understand the details of the various licenses available to share source code. They listened to my requirements and found that the CPL seemed most appropriate for the toolset."

and then "As the project administrator of the Windows Installer XML project, I consider it my primary responsibility to build a community focused improving the Windows Installer XML toolset. To create that community, the members must first trust that the project is going to continue. If someone doesn't yet trust that the Windows Installer XML project is going to continue but is still interested, then I would suggest he or she wait and watch. I've found the only way to build someone's trust is to continually demonstrate your good intentions and apologize for any mistakes you might make along the way.
"

Good to see he has a lot of confidence in OS. :)

Re:Interesting Interview

[r.jimenezz]

What I think this gives Microsoft is an excellent opportunity to get its feet wet with a truly opensource licensed project that doesn't impact their bottom line.

It is a well known best practice to never adopt a new business process, technology or in general any dramatic change in a thorough, one fell swoop fashion. Instead, pilot projects and gradually-phased programs give you the chance to gauge the effects of your decisions while you go.

With WiX, I get under the impression MS gets to see how does it feel like to handle an open source project and maybe find a way to prepare to get revenue out of it (don't see it happening yet with WiX but they can learn for later)

Not oracle

[News for nerds]

but Orca

Re:Not oracle

[CdBee]

Orca - you culd have a whale of a time making killer jokes about that

oh.. wait...

Tons of Free code at M$

[troop23]

I know most /.'s will find this hard to believe but M$ has always provided a huge amount of source code in an open source fashion. Just visit MSDN and you'll see of examples of free sample code. Then go to the code center where you can find tons of free demonstration applications that you can use to build your own app. For example the company I work for has used User Interface Process Application Block for .NET and Exception Management Application Block for .NET from their patterns and practices site to form the basis of an Enterprise scale business application. Of course the code is generally sample applications for Business purposes. But code like this has been available from M$ since before the internet boom.

Re:Open ? Ohh yeah Major U turn ... NOT

[JohnQPublic]

So you needed a license model that does NOT allow sharing between REAL open licenses but looks open enough.

The Open Source Initiative thinks the CPL is "open". It allows derivitive works, grants no-royalty patent licenses to recipients (although only specifically for the program they receive), and allows source redistribution. It doesn't require source redistribution, but then neither do several other "open" licenses.

So what's the problem?