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

Double standard?

[Macthorpe]

the OSI is worried about the way the MS-PL is incompatible with so many other OSI-approved licenses Like the GPLv3, then?

(I have karma to burn, apparently)

Re:Double standard?

[Macthorpe]

And, wonder what happens if it is used as a dual license option with BSD :P Theo implodes. Or explodes. He plodes, anyway, in one direction or another.

Re:Double standard?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, anybody can troll and get karma bonus by using the magic phrase "I have karma to burn".

Re:Same question as always.

[mmcuh]

Because you can't say that a given license is either more or less permissive than any other. It's not a total order. Take GPLv2 and GPLv3 for example. If either of them were strictly more permissive, you would be able to relicense from one to the other. But you can't since the GPLv3 prohibits you from using patents to close off the code, and GPLv2 prohibits you from adding any new probihitions. Or take the XFree86 license and GPLv[2-3]. The XFree86 license requires attribution to a greater extent than the GPL, while GPL requires other things that the XFree86 license does not. Neither can be said to be "more permissive", because they require and allow different things.

I'm shocked

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Something from Microsoft is "uniquely incompatible"?

Re:what's incompatible?

[squiggleslash]

Normally I'd say the parent AC is engaging in flamebait:

OSI is looking for any excuse to reject this license.

especially with the usual digs at the GPL (funny how the second oldest free software in common use is the one everyone blames for incompatibility with the new licenses that came out in the last five to ten years.)

However, in this case, the "any excuse to reject this license" claim may well be right. Eric S. Raymond, on the OSI Board's blog, has somewhat unhelpfully suggested that he's leaning towards wanting the licenses rejected for reasons other than their compliance with the open source definition, namely Microsoft's entirely unrelated OOXML activities.

I'm not sure the OSI is being smart in associating itself with that view.

Re:what's incompatible?

[MrCopilot]

I'm still completely in the dark about why it's so incompatible.

The snag is right here.

This license governs use of the accompanying software. If you use the software, you accept this license. If you do not accept the license, do not use the software.

This is where the incompatible part is. 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.

Now that is what I call Permissive. MS-PL is not a license it is a EULA. It is not permissive.

Other than that, I am actually surprised at how Open this "License" is. Baby Steps to open source. I particularly like this bit, which I thought I'd never see from MS.

(B) Patent Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license under its licensed patents to make, have made, use, sell, offer for sale, import, and/or otherwise dispose of its contribution in the software or derivative works of the contribution in the software.

Under Conditions and Limitations:
(B) If you bring a patent claim against any contributor over patents that you claim are infringed by the software, your patent license from such contributor to the software ends automatically.

Great First Draft. Tiny bit of tweaking and I would not shy away from code covered under this license.