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Microsoft Bans Open Source From the Windows Market
Blacklaw writes "Microsoft has raised the ire of the open source community with its Windows Marketplace licence by specifically refusing to allow software covered under an open licence to be distributed. The licence, which anyone wishing to distribute Windows, Windows Phone, or Xbox applications through the company's copy of Apple's App Store is required to agree to, is the usual torrent of legalese — but hides a nasty surprise for those who support open source ideals."
The justification is very obvious: Microsoft doesn't want to violate the GPL. Since it feels that it cannot redistribute software in a manner that would comply with the GPL, it will not redistribute that software. This is how the GPL is *supposed* to work.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Basically what Microsoft is banning is code covered by licenses that contain terms that would subject Microsoft code to the license or that contain terms that are incompatible with the Microsoft Windows Phone DRM and lockdowns (i.e. any license where its a violation to distribute the software in a way that cant be copied or modified or whatever)
In simple terms it says that any code covered under a license that is incompatible with the marketplace rules is not allowed in the marketplace.
The same thing happened with a GPLv3 app in the Apple App Store, it was removed because the GPLv3 is not compatible with the App Store DRM.