Microsoft's New Permissive License Meets Opposition

seven7h writes "Linux.com currently has an interesting story regarding Microsoft's new Permissive License, which they are currently trying to get certified by the OSI (Open Source Initiative). What I find interesting is not just that this has received a lot of criticism and opposition, but that one of the key opponents is Chris DiBona, open source programs manager for Google, Inc. Microsoft's strategies of creating open source like programs (ie Shared Source) has been called into question and whether the open source industry should become associated with Microsoft. This looks like it may be something to watch as it could allow Microsoft a foot in the door into Linux/Open Source, or define a line between Linux/Open Source and Microsoft."

Comments

What others are finding at fault...

[dclozier]

Groklaw has had a discussion about Microsoft's open source license.Here's one of the quotes from there.

Michael Tiemann, president of the non-profit Open Source Initiative, said that provisions in three out of five of Microsoft's shared-source licenses that restrict source code to running only on the Windows operating system would contravene a fundamental tenet of open-source licenses as laid out by the OSI. By those rules, code must be free for anyone to view, use, modify as they see fit.

"I am certain that if they say Windows-only machines, that would not fly because that would restrict the field of use," said Tiemann in an interview late Friday.

Re:Microsoft already has a foot in the door to Lin

[Midnight Thunder]

Abide by the GPL and anyone can play.

The GPL is not the only open source license out there and each license type offers particular limitations and freedoms. One of the best know alternatives is the BSD license which allows people to publish source code, but from what I can tell the main requirement is to keep the license and have attribution.

If we are talking the Linux Kernel then we are indeed talking GPL, but Microsoft is free to license their code as they see fit. As long as looking at the source code does not prevent you from writing a clone with independent code, this it is a good first step.

One other thing to note is that open source is not necessarily the same thing as a no cost solution.

Re:This is where the OSI fails.

[Omnifarious]

This seems like a nice idea, but there are too many dimensions of variability for a simple one-dimensional line like you're talking about.

Perhaps a tick-mark table like one of those market-speak product feature comparisons might work better. It would be good to have licenses categorized in some way.

I think it is a very reasonable thing to require that any Open Source license submitted by Microsoft allow the code they release under it to be distributed in conjunction with GPL code. Microsoft should not be permitted to divide the community with a license, even if it does meet the Open Source definition.

Now that Microsoft has begun their divide and conquer strategy, I would make this requirement of most of the other industry players as well. History has show that there is a good chance that Microsoft would get puppets to do their work for them if their license was refused because it was from Microsoft. Microsoft's overall strategy and history are well known so I think it is perfectly reasonable to ensure that they are forced to play nice in this way.

Re:Microsoft already has a foot in the door to Lin

[Allador]

And what exactly does this story, or the submission of two licenses to OSI have to do with Linux or the GPL?

You know that Linux and the GPL does not represent open source, right? For example, there is BSD style open source, and Mozilla license style open source, and Educational Community style open source, there are purely NASA-style open source and a host of others?

In fact, when I read the OSI front page, I see this:

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) is a non-profit corporation formed to educate about and advocate for the benefits of open source and to build bridges among different constituencies in the open-source community.

One of our most important activities is as a standards body, maintaining the Open Source Definition for the good of the community. The Open Source Initiative Approved License trademark and program creates a nexus of trust around which developers, users, corporations and governments can organize open-source cooperation. Nope, nothing in there about Linux or GPL.

So what do they (Linux and GPL) have to do with the topic, the article, or anything at hand?

Re:This is where the OSI fails.

[TheRaven64]

I think it is a very reasonable thing to require that any Open Source license submitted by Microsoft allow the code they release under it to be distributed in conjunction with GPL code. Why? The OSI and FSF have approved a number of licenses that are incompatible with the GPL, including (off the top of my head) Apache 2, CDDL and MPL. More accurately, the GPL is incompatible with these, since it requires that all code in a project have the restrictions imposed by the GPL, but no others. You can mix APSL and CDDL code in the same project, for example, but you can't mix either with the GPL.

GPL prevents exploitation of programmers

[e2point71828]

"It's an effort to split the open-source community into two camps, one around the GPL and "ideology," and another around the BSD and MS licenses and "pragmatism." In time, Microsoft can just grab all the code from the BSD and MS license camps, incorporate it into its own products, break compatibility, and walk away from the whole thing. At the very least they get a lot of work done for free, at the most, they've killed the GPL, which is open-source's main weapon against proprietization."
Well said!

IMO, the major difference between the GPL and "more liberal" licenses is the fact that with GPL licensed code, nobody can walk away with your code, modify it and sell it without showing the code. They *have to* give the added code back for everyone.
With BSD-like licenses, they can simply steal your work and you cannot do a thing about it.
With the GPL, it is now possible to take a corporation (however huge) to court over non-submission of modified code. In short, the GPL *protects* the programmer *and* the user from any single evil commercial entity robbing the good work.
No other license than GPL does this one thing so well.

One other pertinent point is that if you are a programmer of one open source project, you are most definitely the user of a few other open source projects. If they were all (or most) rebranded (cosmetic changes) and sold in competition to the original code, you have the user freedom problem yourself.

So, if A uses B,C,D and B and D are rebranded, A cannot use the good features added to B and D because it is proprietary and probably locked in to the underlying platform as well!
Now if A also were to be rebranded, B,C,D cannot use the good new features of A.
Eventually, A,B,C,D all stand to lose and the corporation wins just as they would in closed source scenario. A will be happy ONLY IF B,C,D are GPLed. Likewise for B,C,D about A.

This discussion is far from complete or perfect, but at least think well about this. Programmers who are lazy enough to accept the "shared" and "permissive" licenses without properly thinking of the possible consequences, are doomed to feel robbed and cheated eventually.

This *isn't* reverse-FUD. Think carefully, search online.
For example, OS X uses BSD code and sells more than any of the BSD code contributors can sell BSD individually or as a group.

As a programmer or a small team, you simply have no resources to match the marketing and sales tactics that earn the corporations their billions. Your BSD-licensed code has no chance to fight a re-branded *cosmetically* improved version of your product, sold in competition to your own.

That should clearly explain why the GPL is better - with the GPL *everyone* earns, even the corporation, but it *keeps them honest*.