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Microsoft Treating "Windows-Only" As Open Source
mjasay writes "The Register is reporting that Microsoft is hosting Windows-only projects on its 'open source project hosting site,' CodePlex. Miguel de Icaza caught and criticized Microsoft for doing this with its Microsoft Extensibility Framework (MEF), licensing it under the Microsoft Limited Permissive License (Ms-LPL), which restricts use of the code to Windows. Microsoft has changed the license for MEF to an OSI-approved license, the Microsoft Public License, but it continues to host a range of other projects under the Ms-LPL. If CodePlex wasn't an 'open source project hosting site,' this wouldn't be a problem. But when Microsoft invokes the 'open source' label, it has a duty to live up to associated expectations and ensure that the code it releases on CodePlex is actually open source. If it doesn't want to do this — if it doesn't want to abide by this most basic principle of open source — then call CodePlex something else and we'll all move on."
Open Source is what is defined by the Open Source Definition.
A number of microsoft dweebs and/or campaigners would like to have it otherwise. But then Microsoft would like to have a lot of things. It's called corporate totalitarianism.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
They weren't bastardizing the concept. They were working with the community to provide a definition big companies like IBM, Sun, or Microsoft, and lawyers could understand.
And in the past they even registered "open source" as a service mark for protection of the thriving community against dilution by people who wanted to twist the concept of open source.
To protect against companies who want to just make the source visible without actually opening it for others to use or change without undue restrictions protective corporate lawyers would normally demand upon (things like written approval).
Code with source-code available but without the particular set of rights defined in the OSD is called "Disclosed Source Code". It is possible to have disclosed source code with "All Rights Reserved", such that nobody would ever have rights to compile the code. Thus, it makes sense to have a name that is specific to the rights attached, not just the fact that there is source code. That's what "open source" and "Open Source" mean. The capital letters are not significant, if it says it's open source it has to have the rights specified by the OSD.
Bruce Perens.
From http://www.opensource.org
Emphasis mine.
That's not even the point. When someone says "open source", what do YOU think of? Let me tell you, it's not anything Microsoft related.
The big difference in this case is that it affects how you *use* the software.
Many OSI approved licenses affect how you may redistribute the software, but none of them AFAIK limit how you may use or alter it.
If I were to rewrite it today, it would say what you can do, rather than what you can't. But it's held up really well. There is a tremendous amount of software conveyed as having that particular set of rights, and it touches everybody's lives daily. I can't complain :-)
Bruce Perens.
As if that one count of 10 wasn't important.
At one point or another, my main coding platform was an Apple II, Commodore Vic-20, Commodore 64, PDP-11, VAX, Sun, SGI, PC Clone, and I've had a number of secondary coding platforms, including CHAP (something Pixar made), 6809, PIC, AVR, and so on. And all of the various operating systems for those things.
Any code that I have been given with platform restrictions, during that entire time, for various employers, is dead code today. No users, probably can't even be built if someone could find it, and I can't use it either.
In contrast, essentially all of the work I've done under an Open Source license is still living and has a vibrant user community.
You really need to think about this rights thing more.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.