Licensing is the easy part [LWN.net]

Licensing is the easy part

Posted Jul 30, 2007 20:11 UTC (Mon) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953)
In reply to: Licensing is the easy part by jsarets
Parent article: Microsoft trying to get code open-source certification (LinuxWorld)

The shared source license is for registered partners only, not the general public and not any company. Think along the lines of middleware developers not in competition with Microsoft that are personally selected by Mircrosoft, like say Citrix. In addition IIRC the license also states that they cannot alter the code, only examine it and IIRC the source isn't available in program files but through a secure web portal that allows you to look at it but not copy it.

Personally I think if they qualify it as an open source license they have a very simple definition of "open".

(Log in to post comments)

Licensing is the easy part

Posted Jul 30, 2007 21:03 UTC (Mon) by jsarets (guest, #39560) [Link]

You have a point about the availability of the works. Copyright licenses
can't compell anyone to distribute anything; they can only impose
conditions on distribution. Microsoft could put code under the GPL and
only distribute it to their bestest friends, or not at all.

But once the code has been distributed, for example, to Citrix, there is
nothing in the Ms-PL or Ms-CL that says they can't distribute it to the
general public. I guess Microsoft could come to an "understanding" with
Citrix that they won't redistribute, at the risk of jeopardizing the
enforceability of their licenses.

The cat's out of bag already in some cases. For example, Mozilla is
using IronPython and IronRuby under the Ms-PL as language frontends to
Tamarin, the ECMAScript virtual machine contributed by Adobe. So it
seems that the code is getting out there and that free software projects
are using it in ways that Microsoft might find unsavory.

The rest of your comment seems to refer to the Ms-RL.