Special Treatment

Special Treatment

Posted Oct 17, 2007 19:37 UTC (Wed) by RussNelson (guest, #27730)
In reply to: Special Treatment by ncm
Parent article: OSI Approves Microsoft License Submissions

Compelling reasons for approving these licenses:
  o They don't force you to sue somebody in a particular courtroom.
  o They don't allow Microsoft to change the terms of the license
    (unlike the GPL or a LARGE number of other open source licenses.)
  o They contain a patent peace clause.
  o They contain a mandatory patent license from each contributor (so
    you can't sneak patented code into a project and then try to sue.)
  o The two licenses differ only in the one reciprocal clause, so if
    you understand one license, you understand the other.
  o The license applies equally to every party -- there is no
    "Original Contributor" like in the MPL.
  o The warranty disclaimer uses generic language which should be
    effective everywhere rather than ALL-CAPS US LANGUAGE.
  o Succinct good.

I don't see any evidence for your "gaming" of OSI by Microsoft.

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I'm not familiar with any open source license that allows Microsoft (or the copyright holder)
to change its terms unilaterally. Even the standard GPL option (not part of the license)
doesn't let the FSF change the terms; it lets the FSF offer new terms, like a very limited
one-sided form of the BSD license.