Microsoft Seeks Open Source Certification

eldavojohn writes "Microsoft is applying for OSI certification for its Shared Source Initiative. The move is described in a blog post by an MS OSS lab worker: 'Today, we reached another milestone with the decision to submit our open licenses to the OSI approval process, which, if the licenses are approved, should give the community additional confidence that the code we're sharing is truly Open Source. I believe that the same voices that have been calling for Microsoft products to better interoperate with open source products would voice their approval should the Open Source Initiative itself open up to more of the IT industry.' According to PC World, reaction from the community has been mostly positive."

Comments

Re:source vs object code...

[RAMMS EIN]

IANAL, but (or maybe because of that) what you said doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

First of all, I see no conflict between

The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form.

and

(D) If you distribute any portion of the software in source code form, you may do so only under this license by including a complete copy of this license with your distribution. If you distribute any portion of the software in compiled or object code form, you may only do so under a license that complies with this license.


There is source code. You are allowed to distribute it. You're also allowed to distribute the software in compiled form.

Also, the requirement that you must include a full copy of the license if you distribute the source seems pretty standard and sensible. After all, if you didn't, how would the recipient know their rights and obligations?

Finally, the part about being allowed to distribute the object code under a compatible license also makes a lot of sense to me. I'd say, obviously, the license should be compatible with the present license. However, the license is allowed to be a different one, which is good if you're distributing the object code as part of a larger work.

In short, I don't see what you're complaining about.

Re:FAIL

[BlueParrot]

No. You can use LGPL code any way you want as long as the derivative work is also put under the (L)GPL. It is only if you want to use a different license for your own code that the dynamic vs static linking rule is relevant.

Re:FOSS Vs OSS

[byolinux]

I believe that when the GNU toolchain was being written one of the authors was worried that his current employer would claim it was derived from what they had been paying him to write so would claim it was their IP. As a result of these fears he quit his job and completed the project while not working. I have just looked and cannot find a link to back this up, so if anyone knows where I might have read this, please post a link here as I would love to read it again in case it inspires me to do the same thing.

Are you referring to Richard Stallman?

In January 1984 I quit my job at MIT and began writing GNU software. Leaving MIT was necessary so that MIT would not be able to interfere with distributing GNU as free software. If I had remained on the staff, MIT could have claimed to own the work, and could have imposed their own distribution terms, or even turned the work into a proprietary software package. I had no intention of doing a large amount of work only to see it become useless for its intended purpose: creating a new software-sharing community.

However, Professor Winston, then the head of the MIT AI Lab, kindly invited me to keep using the lab's facilities.

FYI, GNU is an operating system, just like Solaris and BSD. The fact that one piece of it can be replaced with Linux to make it far more useful doesn't make it any less of an operating system :)

Some of these licenses won't do

[Alwin Henseler]

From reading the higher modded posts on the previous story, I was surprised that few people seem to have bothered to take a quick look at these licenses. Let's give that a try-

Both the Microsoft Limited Permissive License (Ms-LPL) and the Microsoft Limited Community License (Ms-LCL) contain a clause like this:

Platform Limitation- The licenses granted in sections 2(A) & 2(B) extend only to the software or derivative works that you create that run on a Microsoft Windows operating system product

The Open Source Definition has this:

5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor

Either 5 or 6 look a like a clear contradiction to above clause. So IMHO, the 'limited' licenses shouldn't qualify for OSI approval. Then the Microsoft Reference License (Ms-RL) has this:

the Licensor grants you a non-transferable, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free copyright license to reproduce the software for reference use

(Emphasis mine). Basically a 'look but don't touch' license. Thanks to other commenters for pointing out Open Source vs. Free/Libre: this could qualify as Open Source, but definately does not qualify as Free/Libre software.

I don't see any obvious problems with the other licenses though. And 1 thing I do like: they're nice and short, so that you can actually read them, and (try to) understand what they say. As opposed to reading through the pile of legal mumbo-jumbo in common EULA's.

One final point I'd like to make: one shouldn't take a license and complain about whether it does or doesn't suit your purpose. Instead, start with what you want to do with your code, and use a license that best suits that purpose. For some funny, new app the GPLv2/3 may be good, but for an implementation of a low-level networking protocol, that you want to become the defacto standard, a BSD-style license may be more appropriate (so that it can be used by anybody, even hidden deep inside black boxes, but using your protocol). You might be worried about the exact purpose of these MS licenses, but they may also be a vehicle to have your code included in MS products (and help improve standards compliance/interoperability). Not to mention that it's zero problem to contribute things like small bugfixes to projects licensed under these.

So I agree very much with parent poster. Why complain about MS when you think they're throwing you a bone, and you don't trust it? Simply throw them a bone back sometimes, and see what happens.

Re:Like GNU before Linux?

[DaleGlass]

Never heard of this? LinuxBIOS

If you're going to say that hardware isn't open, that's solvable as well.