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Microsoft Eases "Shared Source" Restrictions
An anonymous reader writes "In an effort to help device makers differentiate their products and compete more vigorously with Linux,
Microsoft is eliminating
major restrictions on the use of its "shared source" license for the
Windows CE operating system. The change, which accompanies the impending
full release of Windows CE 5.0, will counter competition from Linux
and is likely to expand Microsoft's slice of the roughly $1B embedded OS
market pie. Specifically, the new version of the Win CE Shared Source
license will, for the first time, enable developers anywhere in the
world to include modified Windows CE code within commercial products
without having to sublicense the modifications back to Microsoft.
Interestingly, the revised Shared Source terms are reminiscent of the BSD open source license, which permits the development of proprietary derivatives that need not be shared with the community, in contrast to the GPL, which obligates developers to make their modifications available to the public."
Furthermore, the software development process itself is accomplished with an inexpensive, $995 integrated toolkit which can even be downloaded on a 120-day free-trial basis as part of the Windows CE 5.0 "evaluation edition" before purchasing a license.
While I have never used Linux on a PDA (and probably won't) I can't imagine having the claim that $995 for development fees (after the trial period) is "inexpensive" especially when this is an obvious attempt to compete with Linux in the PDA market.
nothing says BSD is dying like MS moving in on your turf.
Doesn't mean anything. To get the benefits of "open source", you have to develop using the methodology, not just slap an "open source" license on it and expect it to magickly get better.
Disconnect and self-destruct, one bullet at a time.
Competition simply means Microsoft becomes more like the competition. ...more Unixey. ...more open source. ...etc.
However don't forget to read the fine print.
It's an irony. Microsoft counters the GPL with an even less restrictive license.
:)
Free Software will rule the world, and Microsoft will play multiple parts in making that happen.
If you look at Microsoft's Shared Source license page, there's a bunch of different programs for different pieces of shared source. link here. These shared sources don't seem to create an open community, because first it's not open, and it's not a community. Open implies free, and it's clear that these sources aren't complete. You're still stuck on Microsoft's teat for the remainder of the OS. And community implies a group of equal collaborative partners. As far as I can tell, the partners are not equal. Microsoft could decide to completely change the APIs one day and leave everybody in the dirt. By missing an open community, they miss the best feature of open source.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Why don't we wait with discussing this until the actual license text is available, so that we can see what the article is talking about?
Maybe, as the "the revised Shared Source terms are reminiscent of the BSD open source license" remark in the article seems to indicate, this is actually a free software / open source license. Maybe there are still some unacceptable strings attached. How are we supposed to think something good or bad about the new license just based on this article which is obviously written by someone who is not very familar with software licenses. (The article says about the GPL that it "obligates developers to make their modifications available to the public." That is incorrect. If you distribute a GPL-licensed program to someone, you have to make sure that the recipient can get the source code. You are however not required to make modifications available to the public. In practice, modifications are very often made available to the public, but this is an important distinction to keep in mind, especially when thinking about privacy issues, and also when thinking about commercial GPL licensing of software packages for the expected number of customers is small).
Under construction: swpat politics overview article
- Create bloat in disk and RAM usage
- Access NULL pointers to decrease stability
- Program major security holes into common apps like xterm
Let's level the playing field!To an individual developer $995 might be a lot of money, but for a software company that's not really all that much.
Try "predictably", or "obviously". Of course MS is going to go with a more BSD-like license, as opposed to a more GPL-like license. MS has always made it quite clear (through actions as well as statements) that they like the BSD-type open-source licenses, as it allows them to embrace and extend without breaching the license. (Thus far, they haven't really "embraced and extended" BSD code-- but they do use BSD's command-line FTP client code, and I believe BSD's TCP/IP stack? Or was the latter only in the past?) Anyone who thought that they would go for a more GPL-like paradigm was only fooling themselves.
Frankly, I think it's surprising that Microsoft is releasing any source code at all. I actually think it's a bit premature for MS to be doing such things. Here in the "trenches", dealing with tons of end users, all I see is Windows users to the left of me, Windows users to the right of me. I don't see Linux encroaching on Windows turf on the desktop-- and, in fact, I see Windows encroaching on Linux/Unix turf on the server side of things. (This frightens me deeply.) It is surprising that MS is scared enough of Linux and the open-source/free software movement to be releasing some of their source code while their market share is still so ridiculously high.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
I don't see your point. In order to develop for CE you have to use their development tools and libraries. When you develop for a Linux based PDA you aren't *TIED* to any specific toolkit.
Sure, you could use QT and pay if they charge (I don't know) but you could also roll your own and end up distributing it for free if you wished.
I can't tell if you are talking about Linux or WIndows CE, but the Windows CE Embedded Visual tools are free... both in obtaining and in licensing.a milyId=F663BF48-31EE-4CBE-AAC5-0AFFD5FB27DD&displa ylang=en
Check it out http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?F
Embedded Visual C++ and Embedded Visual Basic are included the last time I checked.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
I still can't use any of that windows CE code in my own program/xserver now can I? Whereas with the BSD licience I could borrow theor code as long as I kept the copyright notice.
The problem you and many others make is you look at these software prices through the eyes of an average programmer, coding stuff in his spare time. You have to realize that software like this is not targeted at such a person, but to companies that intend on developing products which are sold for profit. From that perspective, $995 is a drop in the bucket. It's less than the cost of paying a small group programmers for a day's worth of work.
more than 2.5 million lines of code...
Just what I always wanted in my embedded OS!
"In an effort to help device makers differentiate their products and compete more vigorously with Linux"
Why do device makers need to compete with Linux? Device makers need to be able to develop software that works on both for the biggest market share.
This license also induces MASSIVE FORKING. You will have no way of knowing that the version of Windows you use will work the way you expect. Millions of version of Windows CE will be created, each slightly incompatible.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
It's an irony. Microsoft counters the GPL with an even less restrictive license.
Despite the /. summary, the new license isn't really BSD-like. It's certainly a lot more relaxed, but it doesn't let you take the original code and do whatever you want with it. This is all about letting companies ship modified *binary* versions -- there's no way, for example, to make a complete fork.
Were this truly a BSD-style license, it'd be possible to take the code base and dump it wholesale into Wine, or a Wine-CE -- enabling perfect WinCE compatibility on the Zaurus, or even on Linux desktop systems. How much you want to bet that's not possible?
Plus, aren't there still per-copy license fees? Or has Microsoft already done the IE thing and dropped that to compete?
Quote:
... in contrast to the GPL, which obligates developers to make their modifications available to the public.
Erm, no. This has been said a billion times, and I suppose it will be said again. The GPL does not require you to give back your changes to the public. It does, however, require you to give the source code to whoever you in turn gave the program too.
Example: If I sell a modified version of the kernel to the Pentagon, I must provide the source to the Pentagon, but no one else. Not even the NSA, or some state gov't, etc etc. It is a very simple concept. (Ingenious when you think about it.)
Sunny Dubey
I can't imagine having the claim that $995 for development fees
You don't think that fully supported development kit for 995$ is cheap? It cost less than red hat ES 3. Development tool kits target production environments and 995$ is not a lot of money when it comes down to it. Especially since Windows CE is the thing on PDAs (Linux support is growing but slowly).
Not 5.0, but 4.2, I can say that a lame kernel is still a lame kernel, source or no.
I've SEEN Microsoft's source code (not kernel code, but their "example" code) and it is hideous. The most well known (to CE developers) was the infamous "audio hang" where if you spec'ed in an audio driver and you DIDN'T have a Codec on the board, the entire system would hang. And it didn't get any better (even after pointing this out to MS).
People say the learning curve is steep. They are correct. But not for the reasons you might think. It is steep because MS uses the SAME text in multiple different passes to build the OS. When you chat with them about problems they tell you to use the console (I don't think they did the GUI but as an after-thought).
Worse, try to explain to your application developers that "yeah, it looks like Windows, smells like Windows, has an API, but it ain't Windows". Then they get frustrated when things don't work the same or they discover (surprise!) that the API is limited (hey, I only got 32 Megs of RAM here, dude!).
What a hunk of junk.
IANAL, but I've seen actors play them on TV
I don't know about you but I haven't used too much WinCE software that was coded by software companies. Most of the stuff I used was coded by people doing so in their spare time.
Either you haven't used CE that much or we use different software.
...and allowing you to... embed it in things?
Okay, that makes a lot of sense from their perspective, but are we supposed to be impressed by this or something?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Thats just plainly wrong, please re-read the GPL! The GPL just obligates to make the source avaliable to every receipient of the binary, and enforces that you cannot change the license.
Thus, if you develop complex modifications for a GPL software, and your customer pays you lots of money for it, nobody is forced to give those modifications to the public.
GPL enpowers the customer, not the public. The customer gets the freedom to modify (or pay someone else to do it) the software, independently from the original vendor.
plim-plam-plompudding
As the owner of the copywrite of their code, they could do this even if they released it under the GPL.
What they would not be able to do if they GPLed a version of thier code is to fold contributions back into thier non-GPL versions.
The original poster linked you to a download for the old version, for some reason. Make no mistake, the latest dev tools are also freely available:
eVC++ 4.0
maybe it's not targeted at individual developers, but it's an artificial barrier to entry. it's like raising the rent of the building you own so minorities (statistically they make less per capita) can't rent an apartment from you.
Or like a hardware store raising the price of hammers so you would think twice about "doing it yourself" in favor of hiring a handyman.
analogies are fraud. take this with a grain of salt.
This way of thinking is very strange. If you're a company, then yes, but if you're an individual it makes no sense at all to count the hypothetical cost of everything you do. For some people like me, $995 is a very significant of money that I'd prefer to spend on a laptop, while a say, month of programming during the summer is not a cost, and maybe a benefit in terms of practice and satisfaction, apart from giving me something to do.
Also, not everybody who can write code has the ability of doing so in an commercial environment. People can perfectly have a completely different way of earning money, and may not wish to do programming professionally to avoid killing their hobby.
And anyway, this is free software we're talking about. I wouldn't write my own toolkit, I'd look at existing ones and choose the one that'd be easier to port to the required architecture.
Artifical barrier to whose entry? Microsoft's goal certainly isn't to deny as many developers as possible from developing on its platforms.
This is some FUD. You do not *need* to use Microsoft anything if you develop for CE...there are several third party toolkits as well as the Java Micro Edition.
However, Microsoft's tools are very good, and have classically cut develoment time significantly. We have one guy working in CE.NET doing the work that three guys did for our Palm OS port. Is that worth a one time charge of $995? Sure is.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
in contrast to the GPL, which obligates developers to make their modifications available to the public.
Once again for the slow learners among us: The GPL does not obligate you to make your modifications available to the public. The GPL only requires you to make the source code available to anyone to whom you provide a copy of the derivative work. If, for example, you modify GNU Emacs for your personal use, you do not have to publish your work.
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...but $5 says /.ers will still line up to take shots at MS for this move.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.