Microsoft Reduces Shared Source Licenses

UltimaGuy writes to tell us eWeek is reporting that Microsoft will be reducing the number of licenses that it will use for its Shared Source Initiative. Instead of more than 10 different licenses they are aiming for just three core licenses. The first license format, Ms-PL (Microsoft Permissive License), is similar to the BSD license while the second, Ms-CL (Microsoft Community License), is based on the Mozilla Public License. The third format, Ms-RL (Microsoft Reference License), "has no open-source alternative and is a reference-only license that allows licensees to view source code in order to gain a deeper understanding of the inner workings of Microsoft technology."

Comments

FSF Europe's comment

[hkl387]

Free Software Foundation Europe has already released an early comment on the issue, cautiously welcomming some of the new licenses:

http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/ 2005q4/000120.html

Code Review

[Cardoe]

We probably will see a bunch of shared sourced or open sourced Microsoft apps in the next few years but there are a couple of considerations that must first be evaluated. First Microsoft is a large corporate entity with a certain culture, that culture needs to be changed. We're slowly seeing the changes today. You can see this when a guy at the bottom contributes to an open source project and his boss' boss' boss' boss' boss goes on record with the media saying that "Open Source kills babies". The evolution in their corporate culture is slowly happening but stills needs some time to trickle upwards. Right now the execs see open source as the new catch phrase and are trying to show off that they know what it is and they are catering to customers. (i.e. the hiring of Daniel Robbins, of Gentoo Linux fame, for Linux projects).

Secondly they need to go through a massive code review for two reasons primarily because the legal team knows Microsoft is everyone's favorite (easiest??) target for a lawsuit (this doesn't mean a victory... just to initiate). They need to know where every single line of code came from and what are their rights to that code before they can open the code up. Because you know the first thing the lawyers will do is try to find someway to sue them for stealing source code. They need to guard themselves against "SCO vs IBM" type lawsuits.

The other reason they need to complete this code review is because they need to track down and fix as many of the security holes in their software that they can do in a reasonable amount of time. Otherwise this code will be used to ferret out security holes and we will see a new wave of security issues like no one has seen before, because admit it, Microsft products do run on the majority of machines today. The media will portray this as Microsoft handed the hackers the tools and Microsoft will see a lot of their business dry up because companies won't know if they are safe if they go with Microsoft. Once they release this cleaned up code, they will be able to smuggly throw it in everyone's face saying "See we're not so bad after all."

Yeah, they don't seem bad.

[pavon]

I don't see anything in the Ms-PL and Ms-CL that would prevent them from meeting the definition of Free Software, so I would definitely expect them to get on the list. I was also pleasantly surprised to see how short and straight-forward the actual texts of the licenses are.

The limited version of the licenses (Ms-LPL, and Ms-LCL) are definitely not free software as the limit their use to a single operating system, and of course the Ms-RL isn't even close to being free software, so it won't be on there.

As for GPL compatibility, that is a more difficult question, and is more dependent on legal details than differences in philosophy. IANAL, but I'd guess that they are not GPL compatible because of the Patent Litigation Clause:

(D) If you begin patent litigation against Microsoft over patents that you think may apply to the software (including a cross-claim or counterclaim in a lawsuit), your license to the software ends automatically.

This is a restriction that is not in the GPL, and the GPL has a clause that you cannot place any restrictions on the user beyond what is listed in the GPL. It should be noted that the Free Software Foundation is not opposed to a clause like this, and are in fact considering adding one to the next version of the GPL.

So, by my interpretation, they have technical incompatibilities with the GPL which may go away with the next version of the GPL.