Submitted by The Microsoft Permissive License, one of two licenses the software maker submitted to the Open Source Initiative for approval as open-source licenses in August, is unlikely to be approved in its current form. There have been two principle objections to the license from the open-source community, Michael Tiemann, the president of OSI, told eWEEK in an interview here at the annual Gartner Open Source Summit on Sept. 20. The first objection is that the use of the word ‘permissive’ in the license title implies an expectation that the license does not meet. The second complaint is that the MS-PL is incompatible with a large number of other open-source licenses, he said.
Is the OSI blind for hate agsinst Microsoft.
For some time I have read at
http://www.pro-linux.de/news/2007/11677.html
that Eric Raymond plans to prevent, that the MS-licenses wouldn’t be OSI-licenses, because he is unhappy with Microsofts OOXML move (which is cpmpletly independent to the licenses – a complete different field).
And now I read this crap.
The first objection is the name of the license. Not the license-text is important. The name is the problem!!!
The second complaint is that the MS-PL is incompatible with a large number of other open-source licenses.
The GPLv2 is nearly with all OpenSource-licenses incompatible.
What is that a reason?
That is a bad decision of the OSI.
And it mostly damaged the good reputation of the OSI itself.
Pardon me, this is going to be a little bit offtopic (feel free to mod me down): Can someone tell me the differences in compatibility with other licenses between GPLv2 and GPLv3 (if, of course, there are any)?
edit: clarification (i presume)
Edited 2007-09-22 19:27
Why would it be unfair to consider a company’s larger strategic position when assessing a particular tactical move?
Microsoft’s history demonstrates a certain goal and their strategies support that goal. I think it’s perfectly reasonable that in the face of that strategy, the smaller individual, and sometimes seemingly unrelated moves get scrutinized more closely.
And just to ensure I get modded down, here’s a political analogy: Can you really say that George W. Bush performed his national guard duty, in the face of all the over whelming evidence, just because one of the single piece of that evidence turned out to be a mistake (even though it was never denied)?
Should we ignore the bigger picture because of a smudge?
The use of the word permissive in the license name is questionable, indeed. I can go with that.
But challenging the license on grounds of it being incompatible with too many other OSS licenses? Say what? Let’s keep firmly in mind what the FSF means when they employ the euphemism “license compatibility” with respect to the GPL. They mean that a GPL project may freely take from a more permissively licensed project. But the permissively licensed project does not get anything back in return. No consideration of reciprocation is ever given.
The GPL is my favorite license, generally speaking, despite its warts and the PITA it can sometimes be. Despite the roadblocks it creates to true collaboration between differently licensed projects. But let’s not forget that viewed from the standpoint of projects licensed under something other than GPL, the GPL is incompatible with the vast majority of OSS licenses.
IF OSI wants to exclude Mircrosoft’s license on those grounds, they need to reevaluate the GPLv2 and GPLv3 as well.
Edited 2007-09-22 19:20
These are two shitty arguments, as far as I’m concerned.
The first argument at least has some logic behind it, and even though I don’t find it a rather good argument, a point does get made. It is preferable if a license’s name corresponds to its content – but is that really that big of a deal? I mean, are ‘GPL’ and ‘MIT License’ descriptive?
The second argument is where they get really overboard. Incompatible? What? As if the GPL is compatible! Compatibility is a two-way street in my book, and in that respect, the GPL is anything but compatible.
Weird arguments.
Thom,
I really do see some merit in the first argument. Where as GPL and MIT are not really descriptive, those names are not trying to be. The use of the adjective “permissive” in the name of Microsoft’s license is likely *intended* to cause confusion. In the same way that OOXML (Office Open XML) was intended to be confused with Open Office’s XML format.
It may be too late for the OSI to fight license proliferation without being hypocritical. But I believe it is right for them to refuse to participate in a plot to interject further confusion into the OSS license landscape intentionally.
That said, their second argument is indeed a big, flying, turd.
“Where as GPL and MIT are not really descriptive, those names are not trying to be. “
I agree with you on MIT, but GPL? The name “General Public License” would seem to suggest “Public Domain”, which GPL definitely is not.
The name “General Public License” would seem to suggest “Public Domain”, which GPL definitely is not.
What straw man are you attacking? Not that I claim to be an expert on the GPL, but I think it’s terms do a decent job of keeping control of code and other resources in the public domain.
Just what do you think public domain means anyway?
“Public Domain” has a very specific and well-known meaning, and that is that there is no copyright and you may do whatever you like with the work, including slapping your own copyright on it (filing of the serial numbers, so to speak, and reselling it as original).
GPL does most emphatically *not* put code in to the public domain.
WRT the original objection, I don’t think the Public is likely to be confused with Public Domain very often because (1) most people just use the acronym, and (2) the word License implies that the work is not public domain.
“Public Domain” has a very specific and well-known meaning, and that is that there is no copyright and you may do whatever you like with the work
Yes I guess thats right, so the GPL takes a slightly different twist on public domain in order to specifically to avoid things like the example you gave below;
including slapping your own copyright on it (filing of the serial numbers, so to speak, and reselling it as original).
Actually that is incorrect. The GPL is an extension of copyrights, and has nothing to do with Public Domain, which means that the software (text, work of art, etc.) is not covered by copyright.
The “Public” in GPL (or MPL, or any other Public license) simply means that the license is available to all.
Correct, but I wasnt speaking literally. Just pointing out a similarity and a difference.
The second argument is where they get really overboard. Incompatible? What?
Not really. License proliferation is a big concern, and the OSI should have been reigning this in years ago. The Computer Associates license that is OSI approved is just one amongst a few licenses that should simply be struck off. It hasn’t just appeared out of nowhere with these Microsoft licenses.
Incompatible licenses build walls between open source communities, and doesn’t break them down. Quite frankly, I don’t think the OSI should be encouraging wall building.
I also believe that the OSI should just state what is on peoples’ minds. They are under no obligation to simply waltz in and approve new, incompatible and pointless licenses developed by a company who doesn’t have a track record with the OSI, isn’t sociable and can’t get along with its peers, and hasn’t helped the open source movement that the OSI has tried to help build either – quite the opposite, in fact. Many people seem to believe there is some sort of conflict there or something. There isn’t. The OSI owes Microsoft nothing. It is up to Microsoft to prove themselves.
As if the GPL is compatible! Compatibility is a two-way street in my book, and in that respect, the GPL is anything but compatible.
People are actually using the GPL.
Hopefully, all this will make the OSI function better as an open source organisation, and get companies, not just Microsoft, to prove their open source credentials first.
“The OSI owes Microsoft nothing. It is up to Microsoft to prove themselves.
…
People are actually using the GPL.
Hopefully, all this will make the OSI function better as an open source organisation, and get companies, not just Microsoft, to prove their open source credentials first.”
———
OSI owes Microsoft nothing, but they do owe themselves their own credibility. And they don’t appear to be making the arguments that you’re making. If your arguments are the real issue, let OSI have the guts to say that rather than hiding behing what appear to be BS arguments (I say “appear”, because as I said earlier, the article provides virtually no details).
You say Microsoft needs to “prove themselves”, well I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft has released lots more code under MS-PL than the total code released under many of the current OSI licenses, many of which were created for a single product or single group of related products, and are still only used for those products today. Obviously the amount of GPL code dwarfes the amount of MS-PL code, but the amount of MS-PL code dwarfes that of many OSI licenses.
There has been lots of code released under MS-PL (I just recently incorporated a MS-PL’ed zipfile lib into one of my hobbyist projects), including major code such as the DLR (which is one of the reasons Miguel’s team got Moonlight running so quickly). Other well-known MS-PL projects are IronPython and IronRuby.
Here’s the thing: The MS-PL code that is in use today is “open source code” whether OSI certifies it as such or not. Now, if OSI doesn’t want that code to have their impramature, that’s up to them, but Microsoft and others are releasing MS-PL code with ever increasing frequency, and it wouldn’t look good for OSI for there to be such a large and important set of open source projects out there that lacks OSI’s impramature. In such a scenario, the OSI “brandname” begins to lose relevance.
So, IMO, it would behoove OSI to have legit technical (rather than political) reasons to reject MS-PL, if they end up doing so. And maybe the reasons *are* legit, but we need more info regarding that.
But if the bottom line is indeed political (as you are saying), then OSI needs to say that explicitly.
(The problem with doing that is that certain OSI members urged the submission of MS-PL, so to now say that they reject it for political reasons leaves OSI open to the charge that this whole thing was merely a game; just a charade to get the opportunity to publicly reject MS-PL as an “open source” license.)
For my own part, I’m inclined at this point to believe that this isn’t political, that there is some technical issue at hand, but we don’t have enough info to know for certain either way. But we can still have fun speculating on both the technicalities and the politics.
Edited 2007-09-23 00:25
OSI owes Microsoft nothing, but they do owe themselves their own credibility. And they don’t appear to be making the arguments that you’re making.
I think they know what’s wrong, but because they want to try and appear impartial they’re not saying what they really think.
Here’s the thing: The MS-PL code that is in use today is “open source code” whether OSI certifies it as such or not.
Obviously Microsoft doesn’t believe that to be true, otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to get the OSI to approve their licenses.
So, IMO, it would behoove OSI to have legit technical (rather than political) reasons to reject MS-PL
Politics always comes into this with these organisations. The OSI isn’t a black and white organisation that polices licenses in a black and white manner.
Microsoft has never had any legit technical reasons for not cooperating with standards bodies, using other peoples’ standards properly or working with the wider open source community effectively and the OSI needs to take into account whether these licenses will benefit the wider open source community, or divide it. Quite frankly, it works both ways. There’s no conflict as far as I’m concerned.
Obviously Microsoft doesn’t believe that to be true, otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to get the OSI to approve their licenses.
Uh..what? How does that logic work..?
“Obviously Microsoft doesn’t believe that to be true, otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to get the OSI to approve their licenses.”
Uh..what? How does that logic work..?
Errrrrr, because they’re trying to get their licenses OSI approved. If they didn’t think that was important then they wouldn’t have bothered.
Didn’t think I’d have to explain that one…………..
“Obviously Microsoft doesn’t believe that to be true, otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to get the OSI to approve their licenses.”
Uh..what? How does that logic work..?”
“Errrrrr, because they’re trying to get their licenses OSI approved. If they didn’t think that was important then they wouldn’t have bothered.
Didn’t think I’d have to explain that one…………..”
——————————————————
Actually, you do have to explain it.
I said, “Here’s the thing: The MS-PL code that is in use today is “open source code” whether OSI certifies it as such or not.”
You responded to that with, “Obviously Microsoft doesn’t believe that to be true, otherwise they wouldn’t be trying to get the OSI to approve their licenses. “
So you are saying that Microsoft doesn’t believe that MS-PL code qualifies as ‘open-source’, therefore they submitted MS-PL for OSI-certification, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
The opposite is true: Microsoft *does* believe that MS-PL is open source (and many 3rd parties have said so too, including members of OSI itself), and therefore submitted it for OSI-certification.
Edited 2007-09-23 16:57
So you are saying that Microsoft doesn’t believe that MS-PL code qualifies as ‘open-source’, therefore they submitted MS-PL for OSI-certification, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Given the fact that they’re trying to get their licenses OSI approved, they obviously believe it lends them quite a bit of credibility to the point where they can label them and everything that they distribute under them as ‘open source’. Obviously OSI certification is important to them, regardless of whether anyone believes them to be ‘open source’ licenses or not.
It’s that simple.
The opposite is true: Microsoft *does* believe that MS-PL is open source (and many 3rd parties have said so too, including members of OSI itself)
Doesn’t matter.
Given the fact that they’re trying to get their licenses OSI approved, they obviously believe it lends them quite a bit of credibility
Ah, stop right there. Credibility is the keyword. They want the credibility of OSI behind them, but they believe their license is open source no matter. It’s not mutually exclusive like you are trying to make it out to be. Hence why I asked you to explain your logic.
You’ve got it wrong. MS knows that it won’t be officially considered open-source if it doesn’t have the OSI imprimatur. Therefore, it’s not “open-source” yet, at least not officially, even though it is potentially.
As far as your previous assertion that you are giving OSI the benefit of the doubt, that doesn’t come out in your posts. Most of them seem very critical of OSI, and certainly insinuate that MSPL *should* be accepted, and that OSI’s credibility is in doubt.
It is in fact your credibility that is in doubt. If you want us to believe that you’re impartial in this, you should respond to those posters who have clearly condemned the OSI already, asking them to wait until there’s more information.
The GPL is by far the most common Open Source license.
As far as compatibility with other open source licenses goes, contrary to your assertion the GPL is quite middle-of-the-road.
Another question raised was:
http://gplv3.fsf.org/wiki/index.php/Compatible_licenses
http://gplv3.fsf.org/dd3-faq
The GPL is compatible with a vast range of open source software projects … the overwhelming majority in fact.
I’m not sure, but I had heard that the same could not be said of the MS-PL. I must admit that in reading the MS-PL I can’t actually determine what any incompatibility might be.
Edited 2007-09-23 00:38
It’s incompatible with the GPL and the code can’t be ripped out of the file and put into another file under a different license. But the MSPL is a file-based license, so you could combine it with GPL files into a module if the GPL would have allowed combination. Basically the permissions that MS-PL demands run afoul of the permissions that the GPL denies.
Microsoft doesn’t want to give its code to the GPL crowd. It may be a move to weaken the GPL, but why should that matter? The key is that it seems to be an Open Source license under the OSD and the code could be quite useful in non-GPL Open Source projects running on Linux or elsewhere.
Because that’s the most widely-used FOSS license. It is also what prevents open-source from being co-opted by MS. MS is trying to divide the FOSS community to better conquer it.
These are strategic issues. Unless MS makes *very real* moves to develop trust within the FOSS community, then the community (which by and large is GPL-friendly) will not be fooled by this wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing.
Bear in mind that this is purely because of the intent of the “more permissively licensed project”.
That is what I never understood about recent whining from BSD-licensed projects. Apparently it is perfectly fine from BSD point of view for a commercial company to take BSD-licensed code and make it closed-source, and give nothing back, but it is not OK for a GPL project to do something more open than that?
Why do BSD-license proponents feel that is OK for commercial exploitation of their work, without any giving back, but it is apparently not OK for any attempt to ensure through licensing that the code remains forever open?
There is something decidedly suspicious about this position. There is seemingly an orchestrated pseudo-astroturfing campaign here … the thrust of which seems to be to come up with anything, anything at all no matter how bogus, to try to paint in a bad light any attempt to preserve open-ness of code in an on-going sense.
It is almost as if there is a huge push to undermine anything that does not allow open source code projects from being taken up as a closed source program at some time in the future.
I wonder who could possibly be behind such a campaign?
Are you implying that TdR is somehow acting in favor of Microsoft? That’s an amusing supposition, but doesn’t pass the sniff test. Theo also complains when companies use OpenBSD and don’t contribute back, so it’s not like he’s one-sided here. The reason it’s worse for the GPL is twofold: first, companies don’t like bad publicity, so they probably quietly deal with the issue if he ever raises it; second, as open-source licenses, GPL and BSD are “brothers.” They are both part of the broader Open Source community, so it seems like a greater betrayal of the spirit of the whole Enterprise for one side to take from the other without giving back. You almost expect betrayal from a stranger, but it hurts when it comes from family.
If TdR is so keen on getting contributions back, why doesn’t he just simply put that condition in his license? Why doesn’t he simply make a license which says “if you take this code & modify it, then you must give your modifications back”?
If he put that condition in his license, then he could complain without hypocrisy about lack of reciprocity with the GPL …
…
… oh wait.
Clue to TdR … if you just asked everyone equally exactly the same as that which you ask of GPL projects, then your license would in fact BE the GPL, and you wouldn’t have a problem.
Are you sure it doesn’t pass the sniff test?
I am still smelling something very suspicious about TdR’s position from where I sit.
Edited 2007-09-23 07:28
Ahem…this is about an *OSI* decision, not a FSF one. If the OSI rejects Microsoft’s license on the ground that they are not compatible enough, that has nothing to do with the FSF. The two organization are separate and – if I recall correctly – far from agreeing on philosophical matter.
“””
this is about an *OSI* decision,
“””
Of course. I referenced the FSF since it is the organization which trumpets the GPL’s wide ranging “compatibility”. I didn’t really want to imply that OSI did that, because I’m not sure that they do. At any rate, no matter who does or does not say it, the GPL’s “compatibility” is very one sided. In fact, I think it’s probably more accurate to consider the GPL *incompatible* with most every other license. To me, “compatibility” implies a two way flow of code.
That may be your definition, but it doesn’t appear to be the OSI’s. In any case, they seem to claim that the MS-PL is *less* compatible than the GPL. Of all the criticism I’ve read so far on this page, I haven’t really seen anyone contradict this (with clear arguments to support their position).
“””
“””
If the OSI is making that claim, then I would say that the burden of proof is on them. Molly is right, though. More detail is needed.
I like the OSI. But in a very real sense, it is their credibility, more than any license, which is really on trial.
To a certain extent. Microsoft’s credibility isn’t exactly stellar as far as F/OSS goes…
As you say, more detail is needed on the second point. On the first point, I totally agreee. Calling their license permissive does create an impression that it is permissive in the sense of a BSD license. This is intentionally misleading, in my view.
That type of behavior (which we had already seen with the choice of “Office Open” XML) doesn’t help MS’ case either. I don’t think it’s fair to put the spotlight on OSI’s credibility, considering MS’ long-standing efforts to weaken F/OSS.
Remember, this story is only going to be of interest to those who are interested in Open Source licenses. I personally believe that the OSI has a much better track record among members of that group than MS.
“As you say, more detail is needed on the second point. On the first point, I totally agreee. Calling their license permissive does create an impression that it is permissive in the sense of a BSD license. This is intentionally misleading, in my view. “
I don’t think it’s “Intentionally misleading” when the license is only 16 sentences long and can be read in all of two minutes. It’s not like it takes a long time to read the actual license itself, regardless of the name.
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/licensingbasics/per…
I think they should call it some nonsensical name like “Chocolate License”. I think it would be cool to see code with the heading, “This code is licensed under the Chocolate License.”
But I have a feeling that Microsoft will change the name to “Microsoft Public License”. Some might then claim that that name intentionally misleads people into thinking it’s like the GPL (like GPL has a trademark on the word “Public” or something), but there’s no incentive for Microsoft to do that since Microsoft has already submitted MS-CL (Microsoft Community License) which is more akin to GPL (in that it’s a reciprocal community license).
I don’t think it’s fair to put the spotlight on OSI’s credibility, considering MS’ long-standing efforts to weaken F/OSS.
Sorry, but OSI members making previous statements saying that they thought MS-PL met their criteria and publicly urging submission of MS-PL means that they invited the spotlight. If they reject MS-PL after urging its submission, they better have some damn good reasons, and they have not yet publicly released any. They knew the name of the license long ago, when they were urging its submission. They knew the text long ago when they were urging its submission. Their credibility is very much at issue here.
Remember, this story is only going to be of interest to those who are interested in Open Source licenses. I personally believe that the OSI has a much better track record among members of that group than MS.
OSI must have the fortitude to resist the temptation to play to their crowd. If they reject MS-PL for reasons that they would not have rejected other licenses, secure in the knowledge that the OSS community will give them props for it because many in that community hate Microsoft, then they are playing a very dangerous game indeed, and would have to be erased from the category of “independent impartial certification authority”.
You already see many here that support OSS and generally don’t like Microsoft that are questioning what OSI is doing here.
I don’t know how this group came to have authority on these issues, but with such authority comes responsibility. If they act irresponsibly, then their cred takes a hit and therefore their “authority”.
I look forward to hearing the details as to the incompatibilities and reasons as to why they are bad enough to warrant rejection of this license.
Edited 2007-09-23 07:16
The key word here is “if”. I see a lot of people here ready to jump the gun and decry OSI’s alleged partiality. The real issue is Microsoft’s superfluous license, which it has introduced as yet another “wedge issue” to divide and weaken the F/OSS world.
Remember, the OSI is ultimately the arbiter of what it considers open-source. If the patents element of the license makes it incompatible with a large number of open-source license, it is *entirely* legitimate for them to reject the license on these issues.
You, and others, are basically taking the initial position that OSI will in fact reject the license because they’re biased against Microsoft. That is as misleading as Microsoft’s attempt at creating confusion about what a “permissive” license is. It’s nothing but well-rehearsed doublespeak.
I’m not sure about this. I don’t believe Microsoft has any problem with FOSS itself per se, Microsoft only seems to have a problem with the GPL.
This is because, I believe, they think the GPL is effective in allowing FOSS code stay as FOSS code. It cannot be killed through Microsoft’s favoured tactic of “embrace, extend, extinguish” because once you extend a GPL work, you have to give the extensions back under the same GPL license, which effectively neuters the “extinguish” part of Microsoft’s method of eliminating competition.
Programs written under other FOSS licenses, such as the BSD license (and including the MS-PL), have no such defence against being “extended & extinguished” by a strong monopolist proprietary rival.
Therefore, I believe Microsoft’s current strategy in the anti-FOSS arena is to try to generate a campaign of “all other FOSS practitioners against the GPL”. Once FOSS is reduced to “any license except the GPL”, then Microsoft can embrace it, extend it in Microsoft’s own proprietary products and eventually extinguish all FOSS projects. But Microsoft has to get rid of the GPL first, in order for this strategy to work.
Edited 2007-09-23 07:43
The GPL is an integral part of the umbrella acronym “FOSS”, which means “Free and Open Source Software”. So if MS has a problem with the GPL, it follows that it has problems with FOSS. What they like is OSS, without the F. 🙂
I think MS is relatively okay with non-copyleft license, though it’s clear they’re not interested to use non-copyleft licenses that are GPL-compatible. In other words, they would like using BSD-licensed code, but they won’t release their code under the BSDL. Most importantly, they know that one of FOSS’ weaknesses is occasional internal strife due to tensions within the very diverse community. Their main goal is clearly to use these as “wedge” issues to divide the community. Reading from some of the comments here, it’s somewhat effective.
If OSI rejects the licenses, I predict that MS will use them anyway and this will blow over. It won’t be able to get that much mileage from it. The battle lines will remain pretty much the same. Plus ça change…
“Remember, the OSI is ultimately the arbiter of what it considers open-source.”
If they only want to be arbiters of what *they themselves* consider to be open-source, then their opinion counts for very little.
They purport to be something higher than that.
As evidence, I present this article:
——————————————————
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/21/1146259
“OSI To Crack Down On “Open Source” Abusers
… the Open Source Initiative is getting tough on any vendors who claim to be open source despite not actually using a license approved by the OSI. In his blog post, OSI president Michael Tiemann writes:
http://www.opensource.org/node/163
““Enough is enough. Open Source has grown up. Now it is time for us to stand up. I believe that when we do, the vendors who ignore our norms will suddenly recognize that they really do need to make a choice: to label their software correctly and honestly, or to license it with an OSI-approved license that matches their open source label.”“
——————————————————
Sounds like OSI is on a power trip (read the blog for further details), claiming that anything they don’t approve as open source isn’t just because they say so.
In fact, one of the commentors to Michael Tiemann’s diatribe speaks for rationality:
——————————————————
http://www.opensource.org/node/163#comment-137
“Submitted by sab39 on Thu, 2007-06-21 18:37.:
Michael, thank you for posting this. I agree almost entirely with what you say, I think it’s *extremely* important to reject attempts to co-opt the phrase “Open Source” to cover licensing terms that do not meet the OSD.
However, I disagree with your attempt to define “Open Source” as specifically “OSI Approved licenses only”. There are licenses that meet the OSD that are still in limbo in the OSI process, there are licenses that have been rejected for reasons that do not prevent them from actually being Open Source (license proliferation, for example) and there are licenses that have not been properly submitted for consideration at all, but still meet the OSD (I’m thinking particularly here of Microsoft’s Permissive License; generally regarded as meeting the OSD/DFSG but the OSI has thus far declined to evaluate it).
We *have* an Open Source Definition that has been tuned over many years now. I’m not keen on the OSI’s proposal to replace that definition with “it’s open source if we say so”.
——————————————————
OSI definitely considers itself, not just the arbiter of what *they* consider to qualify as “open-source”, but the defining, unquestioned authority as to what constitutes “open-source”, period.
Given that, they put themselves in a bad position if they reject MS-PL, a license that appears to meet the criteria of OSD, for reasons that fall outside of OSD (e.g. politics or what-have-you).
“You, and others, are basically taking the initial position that OSI will in fact reject the license because they’re biased against Microsoft. “
Go back and read my posts, and you’ll see that I’m taking the exact opposite position that you ascribe to me. The only reason I’ve continued posting on this beyond my initial two posts is to argue against the notion put forward by some that it would be fine and dandy for OSI to reject MS-PL on the basis of politics and/or without disclosing the details of any purely technical reasons. Neither of the two issues raised (the name and alleged incompatibilities) has anything to do with OSD. I have to assume that the undisclosed compatibility issues are so bad that they warrant rejection of MS-PL even though they have nothing to do with OSD. But we need to know the exact nature of the incompatibilities in order to be able to judge that.
Edited 2007-09-23 09:28
MS-PL is a very permissive license, to some extent more permissive than MIT/BSD (in the sense it grants more than they do) but also less permissive, because of the “you-lose-the-rights-if-you-sue” clause. Compared with GPL I don’t think compatibility can be an issue.
It grants more explicit rights than MIT/BSD, and is almost equally permissive and it is GPL3-compatible, without being “viral”.
The only thing I can see going against it is the fact Microsoft is behind the license. And considering MS-statements about Open Source being a cancer, and Open Source developers being communists, I can accept such an argument. But on technical merits solely, the license is one of the best I’ve seen so far.
“That may be your definition, but it doesn’t appear to be the OSI’s. In any case, they seem to claim that the MS-PL is *less* compatible than the GPL. Of all the criticism I’ve read so far on this page, I haven’t really seen anyone contradict this (with clear arguments to support their position).”
And I’ve yet to see anyone *support* this with clear arguments to support their position, including the article itself.
Nobody can contradict the claim because there’s been no evidence presented to support it. You can’t cross-examine evidence that has not been presented.
You appear to be ready to accept OSI’s decrees at face value, with no evidence required. But most of the other posters here want details. Once the details are disclosed, then people will at least be *able* to contradict them. I assume the details will be disclosed; if they aren’t, and OSI just declares MS-PL to be too imcompatible without releasing any supporting evidence, then they leave themselves open to charges of using “secret evidence” ala Kafka.
I don’t, however since they are the body MS submitted their license too, I imagine they know a lot more about licenses than you and I. Of course, I expect you to defend MS (or, more precisely, attack those who gets in their way), since that is what you always do.
Unless one simply parrots the MS party line, one must assume that OSI know what they are talking about. I mean, either they have credibility, or they don’t: if MS came to them, then it must think that they have credibility. If MS thinks they have credibility, then they must take their objections into consideration, if any. Otherwise, why even bother submitting the licences in the first place?
Oh, and by the way, I think it’s safe to say that the objections (apart from the misleading name) have to do with the patent provisions.
I am amazed at how someone (archiesteel) can be so blind by their hate that they would go to any length to defend everyone who is against the one they hate ( Microsoft).
Archiesteel really today you make me speechless.
The two reason sought by OSI are
1. Name
2. Incompatibility
If you take these two reasons then GPL has a name which it doesn’t stand for. Public license, hell no it is a strong copyright license. Not even close to public domain licenses.
GPL is also incompatible with many other licenses so is CDDL etc etc.
Please if you really want to defend OSI then defend with some integrity and honesty instead of being driven just by blind hate (or strong bias).
Edited 2007-09-23 08:00
Denounce Microsoft’s strategies, and you are branded a “hater”. That’s an ad hominem attack, i.e. a logical fallacy.
The rest of your arguments fail as follow:
“Public” doesn’t equal “Public Domain”. The GPL is, in fact, Public. *Anyone* can use it, as long as they follow the rules. Since it is open to all, it is correct – and not misleading – to say that it is a Public license. There is thus no confusion in the usage of the term, and other licenses have used it (such as the MPL and the QPL).
The MS license, however, is not permissive when compared to other permissive licenses, such as the BSD license. Therefore there is confusion.
In fact, both the GPL and the CDDL are compatible with many other licenses. The problem seems to be that the MSPL is much less compatible than these licenses – at least according to the OSI.
I am driven by neither, though you personally seem to have a strong bias towards MS, as well as a great loyalty to that company.
Tell me, since you seem so certain that the OSI is not credible, why should MS even bother trying to get their approval? Careful, arguing that position that might require some dangerous leaps of logic…
OSI *was* credible. This incident has certainly taken a heavy toll on their credibility.
Many people who dislike Microsoft are also amazed by the reason given by OSI to revise the license. Read the comments from the start.
I think permissive is less strong word than public. Public means usually available to anyone without conditions. But GPL has a strong set of conditions. I feel MS-PL is certainly more public than GPL.
Anyways if someone selects a license based on the name, then they are a moron in the first place.
That’s circular logic. If they were credible, then one should assume that they are right until futher details are available. One who argues otherwise, given the little detail we have, is simply exposing their pro-MS bias for everyone to see.
A couple people expressing concern is hardly what I’d called widespread outrage against the OSI. I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that.
That is *not* what public means. Public means open to all. The GPL *is* open to all, therefore the GPL *is* public, like all other “public” licenses.
“Public domain” doesn’t even enter into it, because it’s
.
Irrelevant. It is open to all, as opposed to an exclusive license, which is only open to selected entities.
That’s completely besides the point. The MSPL is just as public at the GPL, because both are open to all. The issue is not whether the MSPL is public or not, but if it is “permissive” as other licenses commonly described as such are.
Words have meaning, don’t try to make them say what they don’t.
Before calling anyone a moron, you should first learn what the words you argue about actually mean.
Edited 2007-09-23 08:36
Check the comments here and on slashdot, this is the first time I see people talking in favor of a Microsoft license instead of OSI. If that doesn’t ring a bell then I don’t know what it will for you. But then again, expecting you to see things objectively is a pipe dream:)
Here is one nice comment that explain why permissive is the correct word and why OSI is making a joke of itself:
—
The first complaint is a joke.
Permissive is a definitive term.
1. Granting or inclined to grant permission; tolerant or lenient.
2. Permitting discretion; optional.
3. Archaic Not forbidden; permitted
Granted in terms of Normal MS licenses it is more permissive. But its not called the Microsoft more permissive than usual license.
The second is an even bigger joke. Open source licenses need to be compatible with other licenses to get approved now?
—
One more comment
Even more amusing, if the license were “compatible” with other licenses, why would they even need to make their own license? Obviously you would expect there to be something present that isn’t available in existing licenses…
Edited 2007-09-23 08:46
Hum, who cares? I make my own opinion based on the facts that I’m presented with, not on the opinion of others. That would make me a sheep.
You miss the point. Other licenses are already know as permissive. Calling this license permissive may create confusion with those licenses.
They don’t, but when they’re incompatible with too many licenses, as seems to be the case, then it can become a problem.
Irrelevant. You can make a new license that is compatible with existing licences.
Another good comment for Archiesteel from our dear slashdot (about GPL incompatibility):-
If you quit being an ass and took five minutes to read the GPL, you’d discover that the GPL is incompatible with all open source licenses.
Why you ask? Because the GPL requires that all portions of a GPL-ed program must be distributed under the GPL. Hence, if I want to incorporate code that is under the BSDL, (Apache License, or Mozilla, etc.), and distribute my code under the GPL and let others too, I can’t do that (unless I own the BSDL-ed code). That’s why GPL is called a viral license and that’s why it’s fundamentally incompatible with most open source licenses.
That negligible aspect you refer to doesn’t make GPL3 anymore compatible than GPL2 was. The key aspects are still not compatible.
Edited 2007-09-23 08:50
Of for goodness sake.
[sarcasm]Poor BSD developers … they toil away, write code, and it is taken by GPL folk and they never give stuff back! That nasty GPL is soooooo evil and viral and communist because the code will forever be open that way.
What is actually good is for the BSD-licensed open source code to be taken up by commercial interests and made into a proprietary closed-source product (say OSX for example), and hence become forever closed source. That isn’t viral at all. Those nasty GPLers are ripping BSD-folk off, but we need to be nice to those wonderful commercial folk when they do the same thing as allowed by our license.[/sarcasm]
Oh puuhhhhleease! You astroturf people can’t honestly expect anyone to actually fall for this nonsense, can you?
Edited 2007-09-23 10:38
Too bad the comment makes a false statement.
It’s not. In fact it’s compatible with many other licenses.
Sure you can. That’s why the GPL and the BSD are listed as compatible by the FSF.
I you’re going to let others think for you, CrazyDude, you should first make sure that they’re not making false statements, it would make you look less of a fool.
If you decide to distribute your software under a license based on the license name then you are a MORON. Period.
If you decide to use a software based on the name of it’s license, then you are a MORON. Period.
There isn’t much to argue there man. Only a moron would care for a license name as compared to the license contents.
OSI people are making an ass of themselves due to their Microsoft hate. As ESR himself pointed out that he wants to reject Microsoft licenses because of OOXML. Funny!
If the name is misleading, then OSI has *every* right to ask MS to change it. Neither you or MS has *anything* to say about this.
In fact, if I was OSI and I had any hint that MS was trying to put my credibility in doubt, either directly or through its band of proxies, then I would reject MS’s licenses outright, i.e. you don’t respect us? Screw you.
Unfortunately the article is too light on details to be able to make a meaningful analysis. We need to know what exactly the alleged incompatibilities are.
Michael Tiemann himself had previously stated that he thought that the MS-PL license in met the OSD criteria and he urged its submission for OSI certification. But now he brings up issues that don’t deal with OSD criteria, per se (because theoretically, a license could have a “bad” name and be incompatible with many other OSI licenses, yet still meet all OSD criteria). But in order to speak intelligently on this we need more details.
Edited 2007-09-22 19:23
I had expected the MS-Pl license to be accepted without a hitch, since it is quite permissive. Not as far as MIT/BSD but none-the-less still quite permissive.
I agree that we can’t analyse the situation yet, since the article contains virtually no technical details.
Taking a look at MS-PL http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/licensingbasics/per… does not show anything which gives me second thoughts on accepting the license. It is more permissive than GPL and less than MIT/BSD (but much closer to MIT/BSD than GPL).
I’m surprised.
EDIT: MS Community License is more tricky but still quite easy to accept according to OSI-rules http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/licensingbasics/com…
The only reason for not accepting them is the duplicitous behavior of Microsoft in regard to FLOSS.
Edited 2007-09-22 20:14 UTC
Which I personally also find a lousy reason, but at least it’s a reason I could understand.
I hate it when people beat around the bush. I wish the OSI as a whole was just honest and up front about it: we don’t want Microsoft licenses OSI approved, because we hate Microsoft. At least then you could accuse them of having balls.
I agree that the OSI should be honest.
They should say something like, we think Microsoft are using misleading words, and by the way, we think that Microsoft hates everything we stand for and would like to destroy us so we find them hard to trust.
That would be refreshing.
I don’t know, I think you’re assuming many things here. After all, maybe they’re rejecting the licenses because they don’t thing are open enough to receive their approval?
In that case, it wouldn’t be because they don’t like Microsoft, but simply because they see Microsoft’s effort for what it is, i.e. another attempt at weakening the F/OSS movement. Because make no mistake – you and others may not care about politics, but MS does. A great deal, at that.
After reading the article, I note that it states “but that alone is not a reason to condemn a license that is trying to build community.”
It seems fundamentally wrong to me to view a license as a builder of a community. I have no problem with a company trying to build a community, but a license does not seem like the proper way of doing it.
There are always going to be people against a said license for one reason or another. If you follow politics of the software world, forgetting the commercial world for sake of example, there seems to me to be two camps: ‘Free’ and ‘Open’.
The Open camp has a plethora of licenses (OSI lists them) and compatibility is often a major issue, which leads us to the Free camp, which is basically FSF adherents.
RMS (free) and ESR (open) both seem to criticize the other. Outside and to many inside, both seem to be essentially the same thing.
I am not sure a license truly built these communities. I would hope any community does not make the corner stone a piece of legal documentation.
“We’re not the Judean People’s Front, we’re the People’s Front of Judea!”
RMS (free) and ESR (open) both seem to criticize the other. Outside and to many inside, both seem to be essentially the same thing.
“We’re not the Judean People’s Front, we’re the People’s Front of Judea!”
emmmm yes, but, by the same token….
“He is NOT the messiah, he is a very naughty boy !”
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Yes. Egomaniacs. Richard disguises the fact better.
It seems that the apple of discord here is the MsPL’s ‘patentlefting’ clause, which is pretty much what makes it incompatible with typical BSD derivatives, the GPL, and pretty much every other license I can think of.
Out of curiousity, does anyone know any licenses that it is compatible with?
The patentlefting is not a problem at all. It is explicit in GPL3 and MS-PL, whereas it is implicit in GPL2, MIT, BSD and some other licenses.
IPL and CPL also contains explicit “patentlefting”.
Come on…
OSI is trashing its credibility by asserting such weak pretests to reject MS license. It had no problem in approving any silly paper submitted.
But most of all, there is concrete risk to split open-source community, by trying to separate people working on MS technologies from others. If “open-source” means anti-Microsoft, I, for one, don’t care to be part of this s***.
It’s clear that OSI is just defending the big guys who opened their pockets to flood money to their puppets (Torvalds, Raymond, Stallman, you name it…). The fact that Microsoft started to fight these people on their field by starting to release open-source software, started to make IBM and Google nervous and to fear Microsoft can benefit from OS the same way they do. Hence, any pretext is good to kick them out, even when that means trashing your credibility.
So you mean OSI has problems with “Permissive” word while “SS”tallman have been abusing the word “freedom” for years without anyone complaining?Plese, give us a break!
They’re so afraid about MS improving its relationship with open-source people that they don’t even care that Microsoft playing nice with OS means more credibility for OS world. Unbelivable.
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You were doing really well until you got to the delusional part which I have quoted. Torvalds, Raymond, Stallman? They are not a clique of conspirators. That list reads more like guest stars on Celebrity Deathmatch.
If the license meets OSI criteria, it should be approved. If the OSS definition has problems, as OSNews user Butters has observered in recent weeks, that definition should be revisited and existing OSI certified licenses reevaluated.
That said, considering the source of this license, I don’t mind the OSI being especially vigilant to ensure that Microsoft dots all their i’s and crosses all their t’s regarding its approval.
You were doing really well until you got to the delusional part which I have quoted. Torvalds, Raymond, Stallman? They are not a clique of conspirators. That list reads more like guest stars on Celebrity Deathmatch.
I didn’t say they’re conspirators. They just got their pockets filled by u-know-who. That matters when you have to decide. There’s nothing conspire against because, luckily, not all of us eat food they cook.
(as a side note, I’m a bit upset so many developers got exploited to defend interests for u-know-who, but this is definitely another story)
If the license meets OSI criteria, it should be approved. If the OSS definition has problems, as OSNews user Butters has observered in recent weeks, that definition should be revisited and existing OSI certified licenses reevaluated.
It’s pretty obvious license meets OSI requirements and pretexts against that are just too weak to be real. But you cannot ignore those are infacts just pretexts.
That said, considering the source of this license, I don’t mind the OSI being especially vigilant to ensure that Microsoft dots all their i’s and crosses all their t’s regarding its approval.
Vigilant? lol Yeah, let’s say… vigilant.
As I wrote, OSI not only trashes itself by this decision but also take the bigger risk to split open-source community by threatening that “if you’re with Microsoft, you’re not open-source, in any way”. I wouldn’t take this risk but, obiouvsly, OSI is willing to afford this risk to keep Microsoft out.
I wouldn’t be suprised if next round of OSI rules and requirements would include that you cannot be open-source if name of your company starts with “M” and ends in “icrosoft”.
>I didn’t say they’re conspirators. They just got their pockets filled by u-know-who.
Don’t be shy, say it!
Linus Torvalds get paid by Transmeta for a long time and now from the Linux Foundation
Richard Stallman lives from the money he as made by selling Free Software and give some courses, the MacArthur award and he gets paid to held speeches.
For Eric Raymond i wasn’t sure but on his homepage he wrotes “I do consulting under the Thyrsus Enterprises service mark.”
Where is the problem?
By the way, RMS is definitely not a “OSIs puppet”.
>As I wrote, OSI not only trashes itself by this decision but also take the bigger risk to split open-source community
Nothing new. The OSI has already split the Free Software community 1998.
You just have to look at all this flame wars on all the news sites etc. We really don’t need a discussion about MS licenses to split the community. This already happens many years ago. But it’s not necessarily a problem.
Edited 2007-09-22 21:07
Don’t be shy, say it!
I already said that earlier. A few key figures get their pockets filled in order to be pastors for thousands of sheeps.
By the way, RMS is definitely not a “OSIs puppet”.
Never said that. OSI is a puppet itself, as we are witnessing. RMS is just a puppet of people paying his bills. That’s not OSI.
Nothing new. The OSI has already split the Free Software community.
You just have to look at all this flame wars on all the news sites etc. We really don’t need a discussion about MS licenses to split the community. This already happens many years ago. But it’s not necessarily a problem.
When you have rules, you always got splitted. But I didn’t mean that. If OSI proves that rules they set are just fog in order to kick out the ones they don’t like (regardless actual merit or compliance), it would just position itself as defendant of Linux-open-source.
Be aware that there are thousands of Windows open-source developers. I don’t think it would be sane to make them feel they’re class-B citizens in OSI because that would of course led the creation of a “W-OSI”, where they could still be class-A citizens.
While I have my own reserves to the whole OS community, there’s no reason to do that. Unless you want to defend non-W big guys.
…the *vast* majority of which use the GPL, BSDL, MIT or other real open-source/free software licenses. Why should they care if Microsoft’s licenses are rejected? You’re not making any sense.
As for Linus, Stallman and Raymond, I missed your conspiracy theory, but I’ll wager that you’re talking about IBM. Did I win? It’s easy, nowadays whenever MS apologists want to defend their favorite monopolist, they simply say “b-b-but IBM”, just like Republicans blame everything on Clinton…
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No. I don’t know who. Spell out your accusations explicitly, please.
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Just to be clear, when I say “vigilant”, I’m referring to the OSI’s desire for the license name not to be intentionally misleading and confusing. We have *enough* license confusion as it is. The OSS definition may not have been crafted to deal with that particular abuse. But I would support the OSI in blocking that attempt at creating unnecessary confusion; Changing the license’s name to something more accurate should be trivial if Microsoft is sincere in their desire to have the license approved.
As to objecting to the license on the grounds of its incompatibility with other OSS licenses… I’ve already covered that in this thread. That I would not consider vigilance. I would consider it a major change of venue.
I agree with you that we must not custom-tailor the OSS definition to exclude individual players. We must stick to our basic principles.
Or, to state it in a more whimsical and moralistic way, “we cannot triumph over evil by becoming evil”.
Edited 2007-09-22 21:02
No. I don’t know who. Spell out your accusations explicitly, please.
I have no “secret news” to tell: we all know who’s funding most OS projects (and why, and how, and who). I already named two of them in my post, perhaps most important ones. When Big Blue stated they were going to “invest” 100millions in Linux, did you think it was for marketing maybe? lol
Changing the license’s name to something more accurate should be trivial if Microsoft is sincere in their desire to have the license approved.
I don’t get the point. “Permissive” term is just a simple term. Plus, that license is *actually* very permissive. This is just a pretext and you know that. You should demand that OSI used no pretexts: today they do against Microsoft, tomorrow it could be against you.
As to objecting to the license on the grounds of its incompatibility with other OSS licenses… I’ve already covered that in this thread. That I would not consider vigilance. I would consider it a major change of venue.
Yes, we mostly agree about almost anything in this story. But I’m just upset that OSI tries to fool me, while you don’t look too upset about it.
I agree with Tom: if OSI wants to play politics, they should have balls to do that.
You’ve got it backwards. Open Source doesn’t mean anti-Microsoft, rather Microsoft means anti-Open Source. This much has been clear for years (thanks in part to Microsoft upper management’s own declarations).
MS isn’t any friendlier to F/OSS nowadays – it has simply decided to wage a PR war to make it appear as if it was. On the core issues, they haven’t made any significant movement towards open source. They have simply paid lip service to it.
Rubbish. The day MS Office runs on Linux, and supports ODF, then we’ll be able to talk seriously about MS “playing nice with OS” (by OS, I assume you mean Open-Source…you should use FOSS, or at least OSS to avoid confusion). Until then, it is only natural that FOSS advocates continue to view MS with suspicion – to do otherwise would be incredibly naive.
How do you know the intentions of Microsoft? You seem to be so perspicacious. Microsoft is a huge organization with over 80,000 people (maybe about 10,000 devs). They don’t necessarily have one viewpoint. And it’s a very team-based culture. What works for one team (CLR and other dev tools or web-based technologies) would not work for other teams. Office is a highly successful commercial product that is produced by a relatively small group of people (you’d be surprised at the size of the WinWord team). Why should you reject the whole company from Open Source when it’s obvious that the community can benefit from the parts that are interested in the source. This isn’t the way to grow the community and strikes me as unreasonable.
Because I’ve followed the computing scene for decades, and I understand basic economics.
I also don’t call myself “PlatformAgnostic” when virtually *all* my posts here are about defending Microsoft.
I am, thanks for noticing.
It doesn’t really matter what dev #8947 thinks about upper source. As in any corporation worth its grain of salt (and MS certainly is), strategic decisions are made by upper management – and Microsoft’s stance towards open-source is a profoundly strategic issue for the software giant.
Well, that’s because you’re parroting MS’ PR message, i.e. that *they’re* the victim. The reality is that MS, as a company, has been *very* hostile towards F/OSS, and I for one am not convinced that it has suddenly become F/OSS-friendly because of a few timid gestures. Given its past (and present, with regards to OOXML), MS is going to have to do a lot more to gain any kind of trust with the community.
To be absolutely honest, I admit that up to this point, I had no idea about the terms of the MS-PL. Now, having read it, I can hardly understand the OSI decision. I’m not a MS fan, but there’s nothing really wrong with that license. It’s short and straightforward, and I fail to see which points of the OSI definition it doesn’t follow.
When I first heard of the MS-PL I was pretty sure that it would break the 10th point of the definition (10. License Must Be Technology-Neutral), but it’s not the case.
Heck, even being a happy Linux user I must admit that I kinda like the license… I can’t really understand why they’re rejecting it. Doing it just because MS is “evil” is childish and stupid. It’s a freaking license: it can be good or bad, depending on how you evaluate it. Given that we know how the OSI should evaluate licenses ( http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd ), this rejection makes no sense, and harms the OSI public image.
Edit: I always considered myself more an “open source fan” than a “free software fan”. Now what should I do? It’s clear that I can’t really trust the OSI, because they’re basing an important decision on facts that have nothing to do with their own principles. Sad…
Edited 2007-09-22 20:51 UTC
>I always considered myself more an “open source fan” than a “free software fan”. Now what should I do? It’s clear that I can’t really trust the OSI, because they’re basing an important decision on facts that have nothing to do with their own principles. Sad…
I would recommend to go back to the roots and to support the Free Software movement.
I think its important Microsoft is getting into open-source. I’m not sure it needs a license. Although if they wanted a ‘permissive’ license they could use a common open-source one.
Although really if the name is a bid deal I can’t see why a simple change to “Microsoft Not-Permissive License” rather than have a License that contains subterfuge in its description.
I’m sure Microsoft will work hard on a revision to improve its next license submission, so it is more compatible with other licenses.
All of this is only a problem, if its not want Microsoft wants…Unless someone is trying to say Microsoft *wants* a license that even the description contains subterfuge that isn’t compatible with other open open-source licenses.
Otherwise I look forward to a successful resubmission.
Edited 2007-09-22 21:14
Although this is not the final decision, if we take the current news though as final this does great discredit to OSI, and I am quite sure there will be many out there that will use this opportunity to their advantage. For the OSI to have credibility they should simply have looked directly at the language as if they were blind to who submitted it. But over the past month or so we have seen time and time again that the language of the license is meaningless as people are evaluating solely on who the company is.
Put it this way, a competent judge should evaluate any case based solely on the facts, not on their opinion of the defendant. At Nuremburg even they based judgment on the facts, even though there would have been no argument to summary execution for all. But this was and is how things are suppose to work. The OSI should be no different if they wish to claim themselves as an independent body whose desire is to base judgment upon merits only. Sadly, if this is how they decided for these reasons the OSI ceases to be independent. The result will be that any OSI detractors have all they need to question the credibility of not only OSI, but OSI approved licenses
Richard Stallman.
If the pillar that is/was the Opensource initiative crumbles because it can’t decide whether to invite the Evil Empire to its party, well, who does that leave?
Only the Free Software Foundation is committed to a (yes, somewhat idealistic) platform that maintains its dignity and its integrity.
This appeals to the idealist in me. It all seems to say “RMS was right! The 4 freedoms are the end and the beginning!”
If Microsofts license preserves the 4 freedoms, then I doubt you would see the FSF falling over itself to NOT approve it as a free software license. If it does not (and I have not actually read the MSPL, so I don’t know) then who cares about it?
Incidently, does anyone know if the FSF has commented on this license?
>Incidently, does anyone know if the FSF has commented on this license?
FSFE has commented it back in 2005: http://mailman.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2005q4/000120….
(It looks like a quite positive statement)
>If Microsofts license preserves the 4 freedoms, then I doubt you would see the FSF falling over itself to NOT approve it as a free software license.
I agree. But FSF doesn’t care that much about “approving” licenses. They look at license only if it is necessary for themself or if someone especially ask them. So if you want to know more just write a mail at licensing(at)fsf(dot)org and i’m sure you will get an answer and they will list it at their list[1] as Free Software license or non-Free Software license after they have made a decision.
The FSF always said that it is not about “anti-MS”[2]. Also the FSFE stated[3] that it is not against MS and that they would even help them if they make a step toward Free Software!
[1] http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/
[2] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/microsoft.html
[3] http://www.wsa-conference.org/video/greve.mov
Edited 2007-09-23 09:41
Lets not forget MS is about making compatible things incompatible .. to lock people into their platform .. they are not into making things compatible … there is no logic in a two way street .. especially in the case of the MS winblows dudes .. secondly .. open-source was defined by the linux dudes .. they can define what constitutes open-source .. if the only goal of a MS-PL license is to contaminate the open-source movement on legal grounds and to make people think the OSI is being childish for not accepting a MS license (MS’s PR trial part X to try to make linux look like the bad guys .. so they end up looking .. see how nice we are …
reading between the lines .. line of thought .. at ripping all the people off .. especially in the case of vista .. which really sucks .. but ok never mind that for now) that is a very good ground to reject a license .. so not to associate MS bullshit licenses with pure open-source … which doesnt have evil intentions .. lets not forget MS doesnt have and will never have good intentions .. like a wolf in sheeps clothes .. never does .. forget your open-source efforts MS .. you are not a credible partner in open-source .. for a long time so .. in my opinion … look at how they try to push their OOXML crappy format .. which is not being accepted by ISO as it is not enough compatible with ODF .. which it needs to be compatible with .. ODF is ISO standard .. it wouldnt make sense to make another format ISO standard if it is not compatible with another ISO standard .. now would it .. but MS is not interested in making OOXML compatible .. they are only interested in having it in the ISO standard .. because then they can continue their current behaviour forcing their winblows platform on everyone .. in government circles and on the civilians who need to be able to send ISO standard documents to their goverment or being able to read em .. MS is only using PR to get what they cant win over with their old strategees … enough for now …
Cheers,
Johnbon
It’s really funny, that an organization actively advertising trash like The Open Software License (http://opensource.org/licenses/osl-3.0.php) has such concerns about another software license, just because it is issued by Microsoft…