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Microsoft 'Shared Source' Attempts to Hijack FOSS
aacc1313 writes "An article that details how Open Source is being hijacked by Microsoft and the sort via 'Shared Source' licenses and how Open Source licenses have become so much more confusing. From the article, "The confusion stems from the fact that Microsoft's 'shared source' program includes three proprietary licenses as well, whose names are similar in some ways to the open-source licenses. Thus, while the Microsoft Reciprocal License has been approved by OSI, the Microsoft Limited Reciprocal License (Ms-LRL) is not, because it allows users to modify and redistribute the software only on the Windows platform" and "The 'shared source' program was and is Microsoft's way of fighting the open source world, allowing customers to inspect Microsoft source code without giving those customers the right to modify or redistribute the code. In other words, "shared source" is not open source, and shouldn't be confused with it.""
I'm sorry, but I'm a "Free Software" with "Free" meaning "Freedom" advocate. The "Open Source" advocates like ESR are idiots. "Open Source" is a trap. Just ask anyone about the IBM BIOS and "contamination," the tricks phoenix had to play to take an API set embodied in published source code (IBMs BIOS in the tech manual) and create an independent implementation of it.
Having access to the source is "open" by any use of the english language, so Microsoft is correct when they say their "shared source" license is "open source," because the source is open for inspection, but that doesn't mean you are free to do anything with it.
In fact, you are probably less free over all because if you sign the requisite EULAs to gain access, any knowledge you acquire from the source is tainted and you may find yourself a copyright infringer simply because you viewed the "shared source" and had the audacity to write code elsewhere that may have had similar applications. Which is, of course common, because people who have expertise in one area tend to be more valuable continuing.
The "open source" movement without an expressed freedom to learn is a trap. ESR and their ilk are either too stupid to realize this or have an ulterior motive. Access to the source does not make better programs, freedom and collaboration does.
If you download and use Fedora Core, aren't you a beta tester for Red Hat Enterprise Linux? And if you fix a bug in Fedora Core, something which Red Hat financially benefits from, do they pay you money? For me, the answer is Yes and No, so I don't see a difference between the Open Source model and Microsoft's Shared Source model, in this respect.
I'm with FSF about this one. The "open source" term made it all less clear what this whole movement is all about.
Rrrright. But using a definition for "free" that no normal person would think of with makes it crystal clear...