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Microsoft License Goes to OSI But Not From Redmond

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the heeeey-batter-batter dept.

An anonymous reader writes "eWeek is reporting that a Microsoft Shared Source license, the Microsoft Community License, was submitted to the Open Source Initiative for official approval, but it wasn't Microsoft who submitted it. The license it appears was submitted by John Cowan, who is a programmer and blogger and who also volunteers for the Chester County InterLink, a non-profit founded in 1993 by former OSI president Eric Raymond and Jordan Seidel. Needless to say, the OSI contacted Microsoft to see if it should evaluate the license anyway, and was told to drop it."

10 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. And people wonder why ... by Achromatic1978 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    ... certain elements "don't take open source seriously". What was the point of this, other than a stupid prank that no-one but a few geeks will laugh at?

    What next, are "we" going to start submitting bogus press releases, and trying to hold Microsoft to them? (I know that one is a little of an extrapolation, but not a huge deal.)

    1. Re:And people wonder why ... by sumdumass · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What if this wasn't a stupid prank. What if it was just someone trying to prove to some one else that microsoft's opensource license isn't opensource.

    2. Re:And people wonder why ... by mabhatter654 · · Score: 5, Insightful
      there is probably some provison that the licensor would have to guarantee that the license wouldn't change over it's life... most importantly couldn't change without notice. Things like BSD, GPL, MPL, AFSL all have standardized offical versions and either no change or methods of change defined right in the license. Example: Typical GPL is version 2 dated 1991. We all know exactly what that means. If you make any changes to that you MUST call them out and notice them from the published version. MS has no "standard" license to reuse over and over.

      Microsoft licenses aren't worth the bits on the screen.. they can be changed at will by Microsoft and "paper" versions don't count. MS refuses to version or date their licenses.. it's all a game to them. If OSI was to approve a MS license, MS would have to guarantee that it wouldn't change without notice.. and they flatly refuse to do that!

    3. Re:And people wonder why ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And what if it's the exact opposite? Maybe there is "GASP" and actual independent developer that wants to license something not made by microsoft under this license and wants to be sure that it IS OpenSource!

      BSD Licensed != Berkley University Code
      MIT Licensed != MIT University code
      GPL != FSF code

    4. Re:And people wonder why ... by John+Cowan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The practical problem with a 3rd party (like me) submitting someone else's license is that if the OSI wants changes, the 3rd party has no authority to make them. It makes sense to deal directly with the license author.

      I don't speak for the OSI, Microsoft, my employer, or anyone but me.

    5. Re:And people wonder why ... by Richard_at_work · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Why does one body get to decide whats opensource and whats not? The OSI is not an international standards body by any measurement.

  2. I wish they had evaluated it. by shaitand · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Undoubtedly the reason it was submitted is so that the license will be officially recognized as not achieving OSI compliance. I don't think they should have asked Microsoft at all.

    1. Re:I wish they had evaluated it. by SeaFox · · Score: 4, Insightful
      In most other respects, it looks like a simpler version of the GPL, including being viral. I can't imagine why MS wouldn't want it blessed by OSI.

      Microsoft seeking OSI certification would be admitting that Open-Source is a viable alternative way of writing software. It would be placing a certain amount of respect and recognition to other open source licences if they seeked an equal certification for their own.

      That and, as someone pointed out earlier, they don't want their license being offical stamped non-compliant, makes it a lot harder to argue that they do release software as "Open-Source" for the PR department.
  3. Depends on your definition by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The OSS zealot of open source is "Source code that anyone can get for free." However a more literal definition might be "Source code that is available to others than the people that wrote it." Just because someone doesn't give you their code for free, or allow you to do what you please with it doesn't mean that it isn't open. There are many open standards like that. They are open, in that anyone can get them, but you've got to pay for licensing.

    However that's not really relevant here. MS's Shared Source license isn't OSS and they don't bill it as such. It's there so that certain groups, mostly governments and research institutions but also software partners, can get a license of MS's code to look at. They aren't licensing it for resale, it's for research and testing.

    In the case of the Community License here it would mostly be for companies wishing to make extensions to MS software. If you wanted to make something that needed source access (for example Diskeeper back in the NT 3.1 days) and waned to sell that, you'd need to get this particular license.

    None of their Shared Source things are shall-issue. You contact them and talk about why you want it and what for. If they like that, they'll discuss costs.

    MS has no interest in its licenses being used by other people. They aren't in the business of writing a license for everyone, or dealing with potential fallout of that. It is for them to license their software when they wish to do so. Thus they aren't interested in the OSI picking it up. It doesn't benefit them at all to have a standard made of it.

    Nothing is stopping you from using it as a reference for writing your own license, of course.

    1. Re:Depends on your definition by MrMr · · Score: 3, Insightful

      However a more literal definition might be "Source code that is available to others than the people that wrote it." Just because someone doesn't give you their code for free, ....

      But with that definition all source is open; If I want to look at the Vista code I just buy this company called Microsoft, and all its code is available to me.