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License Details Hint MS Undecided On Suing Users of Its Open Source Net Runtime

Posted by timothy on from the full-of-shift dept.

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.

13 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing new here by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So just like Mono, then?

    1. Re:Nothing new here by Sarten-X · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They just have to claim No True Scotsman first.

      Break any rule in the Microsoft-written standards (possibly even to provide better compatibility with Microsoft's own runtime, which is not required to comply with the written documentation), and now you're not a ".NET Runtime"... just something real close. Since the MSDN part of the description itself is dynamic and hosted by an interested party, there's precisely nothing preventing Microsoft from "clarifying" features in the documentation, with the side effect of changing the legality of other implementations.

      The promise not to sue would be a good thing, but from a legal perspective, the license is a landmine. Words like "all" are scary in such a license. Now, if it said something like "a substantial majority" or "a reasonable amount", that would give a judge the room to declare an implementation to be close enough, then I'd be far less paranoid about this.

      Yes, Microsoft killed my Pappy. Why shouldn't I be worried when that smoking gun is still pointing at me? As the author of your linked article said:

      Sure, we do stupid stuff sometimes, usually because someone in one org isn't talking to another org, or some marketing vendor overreaches, every big company makes these mistakes.

      I'd say that a weak protection falls into that category. Some group successfully pushed to open the runtime, but the legal team in charge of the license language doesn't understand why the GPL and BSD licenses are appealing to open-source projects. It isn't because of the promises made by the authors; it's because in the event that a lawsuit does happen, the defendants have very clear ammunition in the license ready for use. This doesn't provide that reassurance.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
  2. Same question as I had more than a decade ago by TWX · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why do people want to take proprietary languages and libraries and use them on open source projects?

    I remember some interest in .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?

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    1. Re:Same question as I had more than a decade ago by tepples · · Score: 3, Informative

      Why do people want to take proprietary languages and libraries and use them on open source projects?

      For two reasons. One is to run the proprietary software on the free platform, much as Steam games run on Valve's Debian-based Steam OS or other Windows desktop applications run in Wine. The other is to run free applications on an incumbent proprietary platform. With .NET in particular, there have been a couple widely used platforms that use the CLR as their only runtime environment, such as XNA on Xbox 360 and Windows Phone 7. The same is true of the Java platform, which all third-party applications for a J2ME phone were required to use.

    2. Re:Same question as I had more than a decade ago by Marginal+Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      at one point

      There's your answer right there. Maybe things have changed. If you see this as a war (e.g. "ammunition"), you're absolutely right: why give aid and comfort to the enemy? But if you see .net as having some sort of technological benefit, and you see the war as having been fought and lost by the enemy who has capitulated by releasing .net as open source (I know, I know, with strings attached...) then there's no longer any need to keep fighting the war.

      In that vein, I see no need to boycott clothing produced in Viet Nam. That war was over long ago. If the clothing has benefits and can be used under acceptable terms, then why not? Alternatively, if you find the terms unacceptable, don't buy the clothing. But the war of the past doesn't much enter into it at this point. Enjoy the benefits of peace. (That said, I know that's easier said than done for those who still suffer from PTSD. ;-)

    3. Re:Same question as I had more than a decade ago by ckatko · · Score: 3, Insightful

      In other words, developers want something that works everywhere, and .NET is the best of the only, crappy, solutions we have available.

      It's much harder (and hugely risky) to make a brand new, gigantic project for cross-platform software, than it is to re-implement someone's existing framework. If you don't have money to burn, nobody is going to do that. What if you commit 5 man-years of effort and then nobody uses it? People usually prefer incremental expansions to existing frameworks. Didn't we just have a thread on re-inventing the wheel?

    4. Re:Same question as I had more than a decade ago by TWX · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Clothing produced in Vietnam is a good, once it's sold the original producer has no say over what happens to it.

      Software produced by a corporation is intellectual property. It is not usually sold, it is licensed. The original producer usually retains some say over what happens to it, far beyond the realm of simply protecting it from unlicensed duplication.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    5. Re:Same question as I had more than a decade ago by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Informative

      As somebody who uses .Net for web development, I am actually very disappointed in the fully open source alternatives. Lack of Unicode support (very important on the web), lack of consistency in the language, The fact that they are interpreted languages (compiling the code catches huge classes of bugs that you don't even have to think about leaving your mind free to worry about other things). All of these are huge problem with all or most of the open source alternatives.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    6. Re:Same question as I had more than a decade ago by jez9999 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Why do people want to take proprietary languages and libraries and use them on open source projects?

      Speaking for myself - because C# w/ .NET wipes the floor with the competition, including Java. New, useful features being introduced regularly. Properties, lambdas, LINQ, web frameworks like OWIN that aren't massively over-complicated, etc.

      --
      == Jez ==
      Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
  3. It is open source, it isn't free by bulled · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  4. So worried about Microsoft by MikeRT · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  5. Shitty Deal? by Njorthbiatr · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  6. Re:Oh yes, we read the annotations by jklovanc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?