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Microsoft, OSI Discuss Shared Source Licenses

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the show-me-yours dept.

linumax writes "While Microsoft Corp. has publicly said it has no immediate plans to submit its newest Shared Source licenses to the Open Source Initiative for approval, the company met with the OSI board this week to discuss the matter. Ronald Mann, a law professor at the University of Texas in Austin, said two of the new licenses, the Microsoft Permissive License, which is modeled on the existing BSD license, and the Microsoft Community License, based on the Mozilla Public License, appeared to satisfy the Open Source Definition administered by the OSI."

4 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. Oh? by Nimrangul · · Score: 2, Interesting

    And what ever happened to trimming down the number of licences that the OSI backs? I thought they were trying to trim it down to the GPL, BSD and MPL?

    --
    I'm sick of following my dreams - I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
    1. Re:Oh? by NutscrapeSucks · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "Defend" is the wrong term here. OSI has no trademark on the term "Open Source" (and you've admitted that), so what you are really trying to do is claim the term so that you are able to trademark it in the future. In order to take possession of the term, you need to be universally accepted as the arbiter of Open Source certification, and that means treating MS & Sun on an equal basis as the FSF.

      Regardless, Open Source was intended to be an ideological program, so I'm unclear on why the market implications of too many licences is even a consideration.

      --
      Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
  2. still incompatible with the GPL by User+956 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It is pretty obvious that this license is not GPL compatable, and I am no lawyer. All you have to do is read it. These two provisions make it impossible:

    Notice of any changes or modifications to the Original Work, including the date the changes were made.

    Any modifications of the Original Work must be distributed in such a manner as to avoid any confusion with the Original Work of the copyright holders.

    A software licensed under the GPL does not have to provide notice of any changes made from the original work. SO this makes it non-compatable.

    I would probably say MS-PL's philosophy is: "You can do anything you want with this, as long as it does not dilute our empire"

    --
    The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
  3. License madness by Johann · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why is it necessary for every podunk company to create their own freakin' 'open source' license. There are already many to choose from, just use an existing one? Why reinvent the wheel and make it even more confusing for people to use your lame-ass software.

    People are worried about Linux 'forking' into multiple incompatible systems (like UNIX supposedly did). I'm more worried about the assinine growth in 'OSL-compliant' licenses.

    Can't we all just use the GPL or LGPL?

    --
    "You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Chief Brody