Star Singularity RDK 2.0 Initial Release
Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 18th Nov 2008 06:45 UTC, submitted by pablo_marx
Microsoft Microsoft has released an initial release of version 2.0 of the Singularity operating system (research development kit, as it likes to call it). Singularity is a microkernel research operating system, where the kernel, drivers, and applications are all written in managed code. Singularity is released under a shared source academic license, and you can do whatever you want with it, except making money (simply put).
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Rahul
Member since:
2005-07-06

Non commercial use restrictions are incompatible with open source

http://opensource.org/docs/osd

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Thom_Holwerda Member since:
2005-06-29

That depends on your definition of open source. I find "please do not make money with out stuff" not all that different morally than "whatever you do with our stuff must remain available to us".

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segedunum Member since:
2005-07-06

"whatever you do with our stuff must remain available to us".

Correction: Whatever you do with your code must remain available to everyone, not just us. You would have thought people would have grokked this by now. Apparently not.

The reason why Microsoft has non-commercial restrictions is two-fold:

1. They want to make it as difficult as possible for you to get their code running and integrated with other platforms (our platform only please), and even if you do, it can only be an academic exercise.

2. They don't want you using their code to create something new that will ultimately compete with software and products they're producing.

It kind of negates the point of open source software really, since there is little if any motivation for people to put code in as all you'll be doing is working for Microsoft for free.

If you think these two positions are comparable then you have a somewhat warped view of the reality of the situation.

Edited 2008-11-18 12:45 UTC

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Rahul Member since:
2005-07-06

There is one clear definition of open source which is the one that I referred to. There is a very obvious legal and moral difference between restrictions on commercial trade and reciprocal licenses.

http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses/NC

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klimg Member since:
2007-08-03

There is no law against releasing non open source software yet afaik.

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Rahul Member since:
2005-07-06

That is completely missing the point. OP claimed that the software is open source when it is not. Law or not, is irrelevant.

Reply Parent Bookmark Score: 2