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License Details Hint MS Undecided On Suing Users of Its Open Source Net Runtime
ciaran2014 writes With Microsoft proudly declaring its .NET runtime open source, a colleague and I decided to look at the licensing aspects. One part, the MIT licence, is straightforward, but there's also a patent promise. The first two-thirds of the first sentence seems to announce good news about Microsoft not suing people. Then the conditions begin. It seems Microsoft can't yet bring itself to release something as free software without retaining a patent threat to limit how those freedoms can be exercised. Overall, we found 4 Shifty Details About Microsoft's "Open Source" .NET.
So just like Mono, then?
Why do people want to take proprietary languages and libraries and use them on open source projects?
.net and mono and other Microsoft-derived stuff in Linux a long time ago. Why is there this interest in commingling the Microsoft way with the POSIX way when there are so many POSIX tools already available? I don't understand this choice. It's literally giving ammunition to the party that at one point had a declared interest in trying to replace all UNIX and UNIX-like OSes with its own commercial platforms. Why make it easier for that to happen by developing with their technologies?
I remember some interest in
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Open Source Software by Facebook like React also includes some pretty weird PATENTS clauses.
Some devices require all third-party applications to be verifiably type-safe CIL compatible with the .NET Compact Framework. This means you won't be able to use IronPython because it and other DLR languages rely on Reflection.Emit, which was omitted from the Compact Framework. Nor will you be able to use CPython because standard C is not verifiably type-safe. Windows Phone 7 and Xbox 360 XNA come to mind as examples of such platforms.
I don't mean to start a religious war, but this one of the key reasons that not all open source software is free(libre) software. Sure you can see the code, you can even run the code, but MS isn't promising you a license to use their patents.
Despite the fact that every other big software company is doing the same or worse. If you take a whizbang feature from Java and use it in Python, you're more likely to be sued by Oracle than doing the equivalent getting you sued by Microsoft. Seriously people, the level of chickenshit that formed the foundation of the Oracle-Google lawsuit would make a chicken house unusable for 5 generations and you don't see the level of "ZOMG TEH JAVA IZ RADIOACTIVE" from the people criticizing Microsoft.
The Gates/Ballmer era is over. Get over it. The petty bullshit about Microsoft makes you sound like someone who is still fighting the PPC/x86 fight.
Specially when there is no shortage of high quality languages and run-times to chose from that do not come with a loaded gun pointing at your forehead.
On some platforms there is in fact such a "shortage of high quality languages and run-times". Which other languages that you mention worked on Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7 back when those were current? A few years ago, before Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, and Xbox One came out, people were demanding ports of phone apps to Windows Phone 7 and ports of games to Xbox 360. All XNA games for Xbox 360 and all third-party apps for Windows Phone 7 were required to use .NET.
Well,, Microsoft is talking about open sourcing aspects of .NET.
Apparently they can't decide what that actually means.
There's definitely something there.
It means, as usual, Microsoft is trying to get people to use their technology while holding a threat over them. If they're not open sourcing in any meaningful sense of the word, they should be honest about it.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Yeah, MS spent a copious amount of dollars developing a clean, efficient, and practical framework. They're being generous by not only continuing to develop it with all sorts of modules and internal testing, but expand it to other platforms.
And here you are whining that they won't let you butcher the code they wrote and reuse it for your own purposes like it was your own stuff?
You need to get your head out of your ass. Seriously, I've never heard anything so self-entitled in my life.
All Open Source licenses come with an implicit patent grant, it's an exhaustion doctrine in equitable law.
The problem is not patent holders who contribute to the code, you're protected from them. It's trolls who make no contribution and then sue.
Of course these same trolls sue regarding proprietary code as well.
Bruce Perens.
You won't get sued for using C#. You may get sued for stealing their work and pretending it's yours, though.
. Which works fine until you run into Quebec and it's 9.975% sales tax rate. Or like you said, it's probably a good idea to always use long because $10 million isn't that big of a number.
Looking around I don't see any reference to a standard Money data type in Java. Some people have created their own implementations using BigDecimal underneath, some of which require calling functions just to add numbers, but I don't see anything that comes standard with Java. Please point me to the documentation if I'm wrong.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
section 10 that "No provision of the license may be predicated on any individual technology or style of interface."
They should look at the annotated definition.
10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral
No provision of the license may be predicated on any individual technology or style of interface.
Rationale: This provision is aimed specifically at licenses which require an explicit gesture of assent in order to establish a contract between licensor and licensee. Provisions mandating so-called "click-wrap" may conflict with important methods of software distribution such as FTP download, CD-ROM anthologies, and web mirroring; such provisions may also hinder code re-use. Conformant licenses must allow for the possibility that (a) redistribution of the software will take place over non-Web channels that do not support click-wrapping of the download, and that (b) the covered code (or re-used portions of covered code) may run in a non-GUI environment that cannot support popup dialogues.
Section 10 deals with how the license is signed and not the technology used in the code.
As always the un-annotated version is open to interpretation. Your interpretation just slants toward bad things happening.
Nothing in the OSD is clearly stated
Sorry but that annotation states clearly that section 10 is about the license and not code content.
we would have used 1, 6, and 7
Secion 1 is about bundling as in you can't distribute along with another package. Section 6 is about discrimination in fields of endeavor as in you can not use this code in a specific industry. Section 7 is about redistributed without the need for execution of an additional license. None of those sections have anything to do with modifying the code.
we decided two sections were sufficient to make the point that the OSD isn't supposed to approve of suing people who reuse your code.
And you were incorrect in that section 10 does not state what you represent it to state.
Those are the standards they claim to be living by, so those are the standards we judged their licensing on.
You are basing your standard on your interpretation of of the OSD instead of doing due diligence and digging further to understand what OSD really means by those few words. The fact you misinterpreted the statement is not Microsoft's issue. It is your issue. That is not what I would call journalistic entirety.
Section 3 is the only section that talks about distributing modified code. Had you stopped there we would not be having this conversation. Even then your case is weak. Microsoft is allowing the code to be modified and redistributed. Microsoft is just putting certain restrictions on it. Is there anywhere that OSD states restrictions are not allowed?
I wouldn't bet the farm on specialized Microsoft libraries, but .NET itself is 15 years old now, and has a track record of its own apart form other failed or mothballed MS initiatives.
Well, I use Python on a regular basis, I'm well-known in my circles as the guy who exploited vulnerabilities in the radio software and bootloaders of 4 Android phones, and broke the RSA protection on the RAZR V3. I also worked on the early iPhones and developed a way to dump and decrypt bootloader blocks by manipulating the kernel page tables once we had temporary root.
https://web.nvd.nist.gov/view/... references my code and an exploit I discovered and was also widely used.
I've been mentioned in a book, invited to security conferences, and written piles of kernel-level and below code. I wouldn't call myself a dumbass, and I don't know many who would. Python's indentation still sucks my ass. Maybe my brain is just programmed to want structure in a way that's more flexible, I don't know. But I fucking hate it. I stumble across it frequently and get highly annoyed with its constraints. I think those are definitely valid complaints, even if they may only apply to me. Flexibility wins.
You're also a closed-minded dick.
This lack of clarity allows for ridiculous interpretations, such claiming that nothing in sections 1, 3, 6, 7 or 10 prevents developers from reserving the right to sue people who modify their "open source" software.
I never said that. I just said they said that 1,6,7 and 10 say nothing at all about modifying the code or suing people for modifying the code. Those points are all about licensing and distribution. You are making the ridiculous interpretation that those clauses have anything to do with modifying the code.
so if you pick one point and I'll respond to it.
Ok. I pick point 10 since it was in the original post.