OSI Approves Microsoft Ms-PL and Ms-RL

Russ Nelson writes "In a board meeting held October 10th and announced today, the Open Source Initiative approved two of Microsoft's software licenses: the Microsoft Reciprocal License and the Microsoft Public License. These licenses are refreshingly short and clean, compared to, say, the GPLv3 and the Sun CDDL. They share a patent peace clause, a no-trademark-license clause, and they differ only in the essential clause of reciprocation. Of course, Microsoft is not widely trusted in the Open Source world, and their motives have been called into question during the approval discussions. How can they be attacking Open Source projects on one hand, and seeking not only to use open source methods, but even to use the OSI Approved Open Source trademark? Nobody knows for sure except Microsoft. But if you are confident that Open Source is the best way to develop software (as we at the Open Source Initiative are), then you can see why Microsoft would both attack Open Source and seek to use it. It is both their enemy and their salvation."

Interesting Years Ahead

[pembo13]

This is going to be quite interesting to see. One can hope that good things will come of this, but I honestly don't see it. Luckily, I'm not in a position whereby my mistrust will affect the outcome negatively.

Market control, but the possibility for change

[DamnStupidElf]

Microsoft is a marketing company. They would much rather have Microsft Reciprocal Licensed Linux VistaXP Edition than GNU-Linux. They can always sell their branded products to clueless managers while scaring them with patent threats against the other guys.

Microsoft is also a follower. They typically are behind the bleeding edge of technology but always attempt to buy up as much as possible and claim they "innovated" it. Microsoft research is a big exception, and I wouldn't doubt that it's people from Microsoft Research driving the new licenses as well.

Microsoft is also not entirely stupid; they intend to attract developers with their licenses not to release any Microsoft products under them, but to bring open source development onto Microsoft platforms. That, ultimately, is a war that open source can only win by having a fundamentally better product. If Microsoft opens its documentation and internals to developers, most of them will see fewer advantages in pure open source/free software systems. All Microsoft has to do to keep making money is keep Windows shipping on every PC shipped in the world. Even if they're forced by the market to open source all of Windows, they will still own the trademarks (and patents) and probably still ship Windows on a significant number of PCs. Most home users don't give a shit what they run and will happily buy Microsoft, especially if their formerly Linux-enthusiast friends now see Microsoft as an open source company.

In the end, cooperation really is the goal of free software/open source anyway. Destroying Microsoft would be a net loss for everyone. Microsoft slowly converting to an open/free development model is a scenario in which everyone wins. Who will care if they run Linux or Windows if both support Posix and Win32 environments using the best elements from each kernel? To be honest I don't think this is very likely; it's much more likely that the Next Big Thing will push the operating system question into the realm of questions like which general purpose sorting algorithm is the best.

Re:Not OSL.

[swillden]

"You can't use this code to build a TiVo." (My paraphrase.)

s/paraphrase/misstatement/

GPLv3 does not restrict anyone from using covered code to build a TiVo.

It does, however, refuse to grant permission to distribute such code in a TiVo.

So, now that they have these licenses...

[hasbeard]

does anyone have any guesses as to what software/code they will be willing to release under these terms?

definitions

[niteice]

Ms-PL: BSD-like
Ms-RL: GPL(2?)-like

It'll be interesting to see what the FSF has to say on these.

Re:easy answer

[CastrTroy]

Same way Sony can tell people that even copying a CD for use on a personal MP3 player is pirating, while at the same time selling VAIO computers that rip CDs, and portable music players that come with software that helps you rip CDs, as well as selling CD burners, and blank disks to copy CDs onto. They are such a big company, that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. What's good for one department isn't always good for another department, and sometimes the needs of different departments within the same organization clash.

Re:How? Simple

[UncleTogie]

It's not a 'someone'. Microsoft has 80k employees. No doubt some of them would like to use any tool (even a chair) to beat you senseless and some who no doubt would share their source with you without a second though. The fact that Microsoft has enabled the latter is, at least somewhat, commendable.

Dang literalists. /me sighs. Fine. Take 2, for Skippy here.
Old and broke:

I have no problem with someone learning to use a hammer. I DO have a problem with it if the only reason they're learning to use a hammer is to beat me senseless with it.

New hotness:

It's {arguably} laudable that Microsoft would create these licenses. However, given their present demeanor towards FOSS, the timing of such work in this area could be construed as somewhat suspect.

Howzat?

Re:Not OSL.

[molo]

I think one of the most stringent set of license requirements in the community is the Debian Free Software Guidelines [debian.org]. After reading the MS-PL and MS-RL, it seems that it would meet the DFSG. I'm sure there will immenently be debate on the debian-legal list where this will be hashed out in much more depth. If both OSI and Debian accept the license, I'm pretty sure it will be safe to use, modify and distribute software under this license.

-molo

Re:easy answer

[GPL Apostate]

The GNU project has tended to embrace and extend things. Not to the point of extinguishing them (except for classic UNIX, to a large degree.) But many people write shell scripts that traditionally run under /bin/sh but include bash extensions that make it impossible to run them under regular /bin/sh on other systems. The GCC contains extensions that don't deprecate and aren't flagged when the -pedantic switch is set. As a consequence C code is written that won't compile on other than GCC, and the developers aren't even made aware of this. The codebase slowly becomes GCC compilable only. All of this can be researched by anybody interested enough to look into it. The GNU project is an extend/embrace/extinguish operation, much like Microsoft.

It's about patents

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a way for MS to get some amunition against patent litigition. Just release the next Windows SDK with some core code licensed under the new MS-PL, make a huge "MS now Open Source" new splash, and wait until the first company that has a Windows product tries to sue them for patent infringement and welcome them with a big fat grin.

From the license:
(B) If you bring a patent claim against any contributor over patents that you claim are infringed by the software, your patent license from such contributor to the software ends automatically.

gnu may embrace and extend but not extinguish

[acidrain]

The GNU project has tended to embrace and extend things. Not to the point of extinguishing them.

Yeah, like almost any project that implements a standard. At some point they will add something... Ok...

The GNU project is an extend/embrace/extinguish operation, much like Microsoft

And now you contradict yourself in your conclusion. Anyway, if you want to avoid compiler dependency *you* should be testing on more than one from the start. Anyone who knows to complain about compiler portability should know that.

A one page, understandable OS Licence?

[timrichardson]

I think the Microsoft licences are really impressive. Short, easy to read, and it seems obvious to me why they were approved. These Microsoft licences would be a good first read for someone trying to understand more sophisticated licences, like GPL v2 or v3. In fact memo to myself to carry out that exercise, to see what the value-add of the GPL v2 is.
Perhaps the challenge should be to find an even short and simpler OSI compliant licence.

The licence is there, anyone can use it. I wonder how much barrier there will be to using a licence with Microsoft in the name, just because of that.