"Acting on the advice of the License Approval Chair, the OSI Board today approved the Microsoft Public License and the Microsoft Reciprocal License. The decision to approve was informed by the overwhelming (though not unanimous) consensus from the open source community that these licenses satisfied the 10 criteria of the Open Source definition, and should therefore be approved."
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Member since:2006-01-16
All these rabid anti-MS shenanigans are pretty funny though. It's much like one of these crazy old men who spout a lot of insane ideas and implausible stories that you wouldn't take seriously even for a second but you still listen because, face it, it's damn entertaining.
Well I just had a laugh on you but ok 
The "convicted criminal" might not be 100% true in legal sense although I think certain issues in Denmark might come close to being "criminal-like" wouldn't you agree?
In any case they are convicted of law-breaking, that's enough for me or any employer to not give a job.
But all this aside, if you consider a "entity" which on one side just got OSI licence approved, and on the other shouts "PATENT WAR ON OSS" (yeah I know, "just linux" but let's wait...) then how could you support it or even think it's aiming for "greater good" ?
How can you expect them to go positive on OSS with this kind of backstabbing? Seriously.. some people.
Edited 2007-10-17 10:04
Member since:2005-08-18
I honestly wouldn't know. I guess dylansmrjones can enlighten us on that.
Well, obviously a lot of employers have no problem with MS's law-breaking, contract-breaking or copyright/patent infringements.
I have no delusions of MS aiming for some greater good (I'm pretty sure they're not) but that is of no relevance for whether their license meet OSI criteria or not. The OSI criteries does not include anything like "you must not be a bad guy" or "if we dont like you we can refuse".
I find it somewhat hypocritical that those opposed to this (like ESR) had apparently no problem with approving the OSI licenses of CA or Sybase etc.
I have no expectation of them "going positive" on OSS (whatever that really means) but again that does not matter.
Also note that OSI have no affiliation with FSF and does not have to comply with FSF's "moral" guidelines or ideals.
Member since:
2005-08-18
I'm not one of them but I'll bite anyway.
This is the dumbest comparison in this thread. Seriously. I'm not even going to try to refute it since it falls on its face all by itself.
If it's a good petition then it's a good petition. You shouldnt shoot it down just because of who made it. Granted, you should look more careful at it but that is exactly what has happened.
Btw, nice try pretending your post is not about the OSI approval of the MS license.
I don't know what to make of this statement. Of course there have been lawsuits against them that they have lost but so has pretty much every big corporation. I'm pretty sure that most, if not all, of them has been civil lawsuits anyway, not criminal ones, and losing a civil lawsuit does not make you a criminal.
Of course they can't be trusted. That's not the point.
All these rabid anti-MS shenanigans are pretty funny though. It's much like one of these crazy old men who spout a lot of insane ideas and implausible stories that you wouldn't take seriously even for a second but you still listen because, face it, it's damn entertaining.
Edited 2007-10-17 09:55