OSI Asks Microsoft to Change the MS-PL

Xenographic writes "The OSI has identified two significant flaws in the Microsoft Permissive License, and is unlikely to approve it as an OSI license in its current state. Specifically, the OSI is worried about the way the MS-PL is incompatible with so many other OSI-approved licenses and how misleading that makes the term 'permissive' in the license's name. Now the ball is in Microsoft's court and they can choose to amend or withdraw it from consideration. From the article: 'The MPL is also particularly restrictive, and is uniquely incompatible with the maximum number of other open-source licenses, [president of OSI Michael Tiemann] said, noting that in its examination of license proliferation, the OSI had encouraged experimentation with license terms to encourage new ones to be written that were better than what currently existed.'"

Comments

Same question as always.

[khasim]

Why isn't there a chart of the various licenses ranging from least restrictive to most restrictive?

That way it would be easy to show where a new license fit in and whether it was actually needed or whether it duplicated an existing one.

It would also show gaps where licenses do not exist right now.

And best of all, it would allow you to draw a line and say "anything below this line is compatible with the GPLv2 (or v3)".

As the various laws change, the chart would have to be updated. But it would solve this issue with Microsoft once and for all.

Re:Same question as always.

[davidsyes]

But, a chart CAN be built. Not a spreadsheet chart, per se, but a view that is maybe hexagonal or octagonal in shape with colors (or for the color-perception-impaired, dotted/dashed/hatched lines) showing the increasing and decreasing danger zones are relative to the permissiveness intended by the license drafter, or show compatible licenses for those wanting boilerplate.

Heck, it could even be build in software, say in some CRM type of tool, where the user picks the language as it suits them, then the software uses an algorithm to display dubiousness, hostility, friendliness, and overlapping/"underlapping" or "conformal" lines of compatibility.

A scoring system could be built where the permissiveness ranks higher in bar and in some pleasing color and hostility ranks lower in bar and in some mean, rage or nausea-inducing color (red?).

Sample licenses and unctuous or uncouth or hostile licenses would be copied, verbatim, and snippets or whole paragraphs presented on screen to help TEACH software developers and license writers HOW TO THINK about not just their own coding or legalese-brandishing prowess, but to THINK about their target audience and community-building abilities.

If people can build "How to patent it yourself" and "Will Kits" in software, then some enterprising GEEK had better get on the ball and keep my idea from being patented by some profiteer who is unlikely to donate profits back to the community.

GOOGLE, are you listening? You wanna write one yourself, or donate money to a team that will do it? Your search engine alone could shortcut a lot of the work just by your inputting known, issued licenses and "agreements", matched with legal case history, pending cases, and settled cases, as well as whatever became cross-licensing deals when big companies clashed with each other, as well as whatever became of little guys run over by roughshod, steamrolling big companies.

Companies such as microsoft automatically can be initially regarded as hostile until their licenses are TRULY permissive. Not permissive in microsoft-speak, but in preponderance of licenses issued by OSI and the reception/perception of such licenses BY the end-users who actually read them and live happily with them, not live with them as a cost of doing businesses and a fear of avoiding courts or jail time.

Re:Double standard?

[someone1234]

The MPL is incompatible with the MPL (Mozilla Public License) too.
And, wonder what happens if it is used as a dual license option with BSD :P

what's incompatible?

[bcrowell]

Reading the license, it looks like a pretty ordinary, simple, GPL-ish license. IANAL, and I'm sure the OSI knows what they're talking about when it says it's incompatible with lots of other OSI-approved licenses, but after reading the article and the license, I'm still completely in the dark about why it's so incompatible.

Re:what's incompatible?

[trifish]

GPL and other govern only distribution not usage. Here is relevant part of GPL

This License explicitly affirms your unlimited permission to run the unmodified Program.

As a developer, I wouldn't touch a license that doesn't cover use. The disclaimers of warranties and limitation of liablities are an essential part of Free software. The GPL fails to bind the user to agree to the disclaimers and limitations and thus makes the developers and distributors subject to liabilities (because these things are implied by default under applicable laws).

Re:what's incompatible?

[recoiledsnake]

Sorry. I got confused between the two licenses they submitted to the OSI. The other is the Microsoft Community License.

This one does have a similar requirement to the one in the GPL that you mentioned.

(A) Reciprocal Grants- For any file you distribute that contains code from the software (in source code or binary format), you must provide recipients the source code to that file along with a copy of this license, which license will govern that file. You may license other files that are entirely your own work and do not contain code from the software under any terms you choose.

So, the MS-PL is like the BSDL and the MCL is like the GPL. The OP does not mention MS-PL. Maybe he was talking about the MCL?

Also, why is the OSI concerned about the "Permissive" in MS-PL's name when the license reads almost like the BSDL ?

Re:Double standard?

[iamacat]

GPLv2 itself is incompatible with all licenses existing before it was introduced - typical commercial license, BSD, public domain. Personally I would prefer return to founder's copyright and obligation for the author to release the work in a form conductive to creating derivatives (which would be source code for software, digital negative for photos...) after those 7 years or 14 after getting a renewal for a nominal fee.

But other than that, I don't see why Microsoft should be held to higher standard than FSF.

GPLv3 is MORE compatible than v2, not less!

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the main GOOD parts of the GPLv3 is that it's compatible with the Apache License now and I think some others, too.

The only new incompatibility I'm aware of is the GPLv2, and only if you hate the "or later" clause.

There's no good reason not to use it except FUD: I mean, you can word the "or later" clause to say "or any later version of the GPL approved by X" and all you have to do is have X's okay to allow for an upgrade. For Linux, it could be "or any later version of the GPL approved by Linus" and we'd still be at GPLv2, but Linus would have the option of going to GPLv3 with minimal pain if ZFS was GPLv3 and the wanted to add it to the kernel (or whatever).

And no, that doesn't retroactively pull the rug out from anyone. The licensee (NOT the licensor) gets to choose which license they want to choose out of all the available choices.

IANAL, but I got this information from people who are lawyers.

What does this mean?

[jamesl]

The MPL ... is uniquely incompatible with the maximum number of other open-source licenses.
The maximum number would be all of them.

Re:Google is your friend!

[trifish]

So, as you can see, GPLv3 is Apache-compatible, GPLv2 is NOT.

So the GPL no longer inisists that all portions of a GPL-ed program must be under the GPL?

Re:JFGI

[trifish]

If you quit being an ass and took five seconds to look for yourself

If you quit being an ass and took five minutes to read the GPL, you'd discover that the GPL is incompatible with all open source licenses.

Why you ask? Because the GPL requires that all portions of a GPL-ed program must be distributed under the GPL. Hence, if I want to incorporate code that is under the BSDL, (Apache License, or Mozilla, etc.), and distribute my code under the GPL and let others too, I can't do that (unless I own the BSDL-ed code). That's why GPL is called a viral license and that's why it's fundamentally incompatible with most open source licenses.

That negligible aspect you refer to doesn't make GPL3 anymore compatible than GPL2 was. The key aspects are still not compatible.

Re:Double standard?

[ozmanjusri]

I don't see why Microsoft should be held to higher standard than FSF.

They're not being held to a higher standard.

Microsoft's licenses govern the USE of software. FSF (and other FOSS licenses) govern the DISTRIBUTION of software. That detail is what creates the incompatibility and confusion.