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Microsoft Releases FlexWiki as Open Source
davemabe writes "Microsoft is apparently releasing its FlexWiki wiki implementation as an open source project. FlexWiki is the software used to run the wikis over at Channel 9. My question is: Is this software as good as the ever-extensible Kwiki implementation?"
Sheesh, RTFA and click on the SF link.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html
GPL Incompatible due to patent clauses. Draw your own conclusions...
Does RedHat "Open Source" everything they do? Why yes, actually. I'm not aware of any product they sell that isn't "Open Source".
I'm not totoally sold on Microsoft releasing this software as open source. It was written by David Ornstein, who works at Microsoft. While this tool is used internally at Microsoft, and I'm sure MS has the rights to the software too, I just don't think it's fair to David to classify this as a Microsoft Product.
BTW, David's weblog has a bunch of info on FlexWiki being posted to SourceForge.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Depending on where you read, it is released under either the IBM Public License or the Common Public License, which superceded the IPL and which is simular to the LGPL. It is approved by the OSI as an open source license and the FSF as a free software license. However, it is incompatible with the GPL because of some clauses about patent restriction. The FSF is not opposed to these clauses in principle - in fact they are concidering putting something simular in the next version of the GPL. But as things stand now, any IPL or CPL code cannot be combines with GPL code (unless of course, the author dual licenses the code under both).
Personally, I tend to side with the FSF when some software developer invents his own open source license which has not had the same legal scrutany of existing licenses, is incompatible with existing licnenses, causes fragmentation in potential codebases, and then accuses the FSF of being inflexible when they try to help the developer resolve these problems. I mean what is the the FSF foundation expected to do - change thier license according to the whims of every new license that comes around? It is the newcomers that are causeing incompatibility not the FSF.
But the CPL is becoming very popular among business, is a very fair Free Software license, has had the scrutiny of IBM lawyers, and does include some good ideas that are not in the GPL. So I really hope that the FSF makes it a top priority to work on the new version of the GPL which solves the patent-based conflicts with the CPL and other licenses.
I've got copies download of the source code that were hosted on GotDotNet.
This might be Microsoft's implementation of FlexWiki (FlexWiki is a BSD license type, if I remember correctly) but FlexWiki has been available for a while.
My reality check bounced.
Does everyone realize that his name isn't Clippy? His name is actually Clippit.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Finally, a good wiki, before the release of this, I couldn't find a wiki if I wanted one *sigh*. MS needs to just buckle down on getting the little jpeg issue under control.
Honestly, if you are looking for wiki software, there is lots of great stuff out...
OpenWiki -- Windows, easy to edit, featureful, fast, good. My favorite.
http://www.openwiki.com/
PHPWiki -- Cross Platform, easy to setup, fast.
http://phpwiki.sourceforge.net/
KWiki -- The king of Wiki's!
http://kwiki.org/
Imagine I add code to Apache that contains a patent I hold. Now, I wait a few years for it to become popular, and then start suing left, right and centre).
You can't do that under the GPL. By attempting it, you've given up your rights to distribute the software.
The GPL's wording on this is, IMHO poor. But the subtlety of the wording is very very important, and may provide better protection than the CPL... (which I haven't read)
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
"7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. . . ."
The odd part about this is that 1. if you contribute the patented code and don't implicitly grant license to use it, you violate the GPL and are guilty of copyright infringement.
More interesting, and this is where it might beat the CPL (or at least your example), is in situations where somebody notices a patent violation in a GPL'd product which they didn't write, there is absolutely no way they can profit from exploiting the patent while simultaneously allowing the software to be distributed.
This is a double-edged sword, and, IMHO a very sharp one. There's no incentive to persue patents on GPL'd products... except to stop their distribution and hold the author of the patented system guilty of violating the GPL.
Now the patent holder might persue the author punatively, but the copyright holders will probably not care.
The GPL is tricky and subtle.
IANAL of course.