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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."

22 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe they fear... by sacarius1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    SCO will sue them? :)

  2. 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 Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      I know that one is a little of an extrapolation

      Your use of the word extrapolation is a bit of a stretch.

    3. Re:And people wonder why ... by killjoe · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually it brings up an interesting point. If the license is public (kind of) then why can't anybody submit it? The OSI is supposed to judge the license itself not who wrote it or why. I am also curious to know why MS told them to drop it. Why harm would it have caused them if it was approved?

      --
      evil is as evil does
    4. 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!

    5. 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

    6. 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.

    7. 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.

    8. Re:And people wonder why ... by Russ+Nelson · · Score: 5, Informative

      That's exactly what it was. John wanted to know if we would approve the licenses, because as far as he could see, they are approvable. Looks like it to me too, yet .... we'd prefer to have the steward submit the license hence my request that he withdraw them.

      --
      Don't piss off The Angry Economist
    9. Re:And people wonder why ... by Secrity · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Organizations don't have to be an international standards body in order for people to respect their standards. There are many organizations, such as the ARRL and EIA/RETMA, that work this way, and some eventually gain status as an international standards body. Many engineering associations, such as the IEEE and SAE; and equipment manufacturers associations, such as ECMA, have gained international standards body recognition. If enough of the right people respect OSI standards, the OSI could also become an international standards body.

  3. 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 gdamore · · Score: 5, Informative

      Have you looked at the license. I confess I had not before I read this,but then I check it out at http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/li censingbasics/communitylicense.mspx

      The license itself is short and sweet, and easy to understand. Or at least so I deem, but of course IANAL.

      I have no idea what software Microsoft has licensed under this license, but a casual read of it looks like the license should be certifiable by OSI. As far as I can tell, the only potentially confusing issue is the patent retaliation clause.

      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. Probably they just don't want to be recognized for giving source away even when they do so. Heck, they might be worried that it would scare off investors who consider Microsoft's IP portfolio as a reason for buy MS shares. :-)

      Now, it probably is a Good Thing that it isn't blessed, because the last thing we want is another viral license that also happens to be incompatible with GPL. (The patent retaliation makes it GPL-incompatible.) Life is hard enough figuring out Open Source license as it is.

    2. 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. Re:I wish they had evaluated it. by mabhatter654 · · Score: 5, Interesting
      problems I see.

      #1...MS requires the license to USE the software. Most of the others only require the license to reproduce or modify + distribute software. They demand something, however small, just to USE the software as it's given to you. It's an EULA, not a license. Notice they think you don't have the right to even PREPARE deritive works without permission.

      Section 3 part A looks simpler than GPL, but combine with part C looks like BSD... except Microsoft always keeps it's mits in your work and all the work that follows. Where as BSD and GPL the orginal author's say ends as long as your new copy follows the rules. And again, they following users would appear to be required to accept Microsoft's EULA as well. GPL binds no progam license to any company in this manner.

      And of course, Microsoft has a more restrictive patent clause than even GPL 3. Where as GPL 3 says you must ensure you have patent rights, and grant rights to downstream users, it doesn't try to take away from you for suing somebody. I know there was talk, but it's not in the license. Microsoft removes your license if you think you need to sue them.. or even counter/cross sue in defense of them sueing you! So if this was to become widespread, anybody that MS sued would loose all rights to the 'community' software when they tried to defend themselves.

      I do notice 1 glaring ommisson for a microsoft license... They didn't leave themselves the right to revise/extend/revoke the license at will they usually include in every other license they write. I guess they're not all bad.

  4. Microsoft's possible fear by jkrise · · Score: 4, Funny

    Upon audit, the license was found to contain non-final wordings.

    --
    If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
  5. Why MS don't want OSI's Blessings by EqualSlash · · Score: 3, Funny

    Apparently, the MS word spell-checker doesn't recognise 'OSI'.

  6. Re:A quick rundown-- by John+Cowan · · Score: 3, Informative

    What I was thinking was that the license is a decent license no matter who wrote it, and worth approving *because* of who wrote it. Nelson pointed out a potential issue, and I withdrew my recommendation, but not the judgments it's based on -- I stand by those.

  7. 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.

  8. Re:damage to OSI's credibility by Russ+Nelson · · Score: 3, Informative

    Actually, I don't remember asking Microsoft what they thought. Perhaps Bill Hilf is remembering something that didn't happen. According to TFA, he was pretty hazy about John Cowen's name.

    Anyway, we certainly would have evaluated them had John not withdrew the approval request. Approval was just not the best of all possible courses of action, which is why we asked him to withdraw.

    --
    Don't piss off The Angry Economist
  9. Re:Depends on your definition NOT! by John+Cowan · · Score: 4, Informative

    "Open Source" is not a trademark, nor is "open source", for various technical reasons. "OSI Approved" *is* a trademark, and you can slap it on your software if you are 1) making source code available and 2) using a license on OSI's list.

    A license doesn't have to be OSI-approved in order to be an open-source license. An OSI-approved license is one that is an open-source license in the judgment of various people, not just the OSI board members.