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Bruce Perens: Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle? (IT Management)
Bruce Perens looks
at Microsoft's sponsorship of Apache. "For a decade, Microsoft
was open source's worst enemy, combating it at every turn. But last week
Microsoft joined the Apache open source project as a platinum sponsor,
promising to put $100,000 per year into a project that beats its own IIS
(Internet Information Services) in the market. Microsoft also made some of
their patents available for use in GPL software like Linux without a
royalty. Has Redmond given up the fight? Or is this just their latest
strategy? "
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Bruce Perens: Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle? (IT Management) Posted Aug 1, 2008 21:00 UTC (Fri) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link] Sorry, but this may be the most scattered and unfocused bit of writing I've ever seen from Bruce. The commentary here on this site last week was better.
Bruce Perens: Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle? (IT Management) Posted Aug 1, 2008 21:47 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Sigh. The content on Datamation is written for normal folks, not alpha geeks. There has to be a lot more explaining. So, there is a lot more "big picture" in that piece than appeared in last week's display here on LWN.
Bruce Perens: Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle? (IT Management) Posted Aug 1, 2008 22:05 UTC (Fri) by davidw (subscriber, #947) [Link] > But Microsoft is only joining Apache to be interoperable Microsoft is not joining the ASF: http://grep.codeconsult.ch/2008/07/26/hey-el-reg-microsof...
Bruce Perens: Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle? (IT Management) Posted Aug 1, 2008 22:20 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Microsoft is becoming one of three platinum sponsors. Which is a very select group indeed. I would assume that we will them trying to get developers through the ASF process as well.
Bruce Perens: Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle? (IT Management) Posted Aug 1, 2008 22:25 UTC (Fri) by davidw (subscriber, #947) [Link] They only way that they can become members is by going through the same process as everyone else - it's not that different from Debian, although it's more of a "do-ocracy". Part of the "process" is doing a lot for open source projects, so if Microsoft people actually start contributing a lot to open source projects... great. The risk that they will somehow numerically overwhelm the ASF strikes me as very slight indeed.
Bruce Perens: Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle? (IT Management) Posted Aug 1, 2008 22:39 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I'm not concerned about their technical people on the project. More with what they do with Apache software outside of the project: in the market, with regulators, etc.
Bruce Perens: Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle? (IT Management) Posted Aug 1, 2008 22:48 UTC (Fri) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link] I guess I felt like this is almost all background explanation, with little insight about what their angle might be on this beyond "don't trust them". But I certainly understand the "written for normal folks" aspect. :-)
Bruce Perens: Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle? (IT Management) Posted Aug 2, 2008 4:25 UTC (Sat) by erwbgy (subscriber, #4104) [Link] I think this article is clear and well written. It is important to articulate the arguments for free software is a simple, accessible way for the many people in management and IT that don't "get it". I will certainly be using it as a reference for discussions within the organisation I work for. Thanks Bruce.
Bruce Perens: Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle? (IT Management) Posted Aug 1, 2008 22:26 UTC (Fri) by salimma (subscriber, #34460) [Link] If Microsoft decides that it needs some open-source cred, cozying up to the Apache Foundation is probably a good move: like the Free Software Foundation, it's an umbrella organization backing a lot of open source projects; unlike the FSF's GPL, Microsoft has less of a problem with the Apache License, which lets them create proprietary derivative products. The only directly-competing product from Apache is the Apache web server; having it run better on Windows will be a good PR for Microsoft (just like they actually helped Mozilla developers prep Firefox up for Vista). Getting Apache developers' input into what they perceive to be the technical shortcomings in Windows would probably be worth the investment in itself, too.
Royalty free patent peace for GPL software from Microsoft? Posted Aug 1, 2008 22:36 UTC (Fri) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link] Microsoft also made some of their patents available for use in GPL software like Linux without a royalty.Is this really true? As far as I can see there wasn't actually any real update to the Open Specification Promise. There was just one blog post by the Associate General Counsel for Intellectual Property Policy at Microsoft (which I assume can be considered legally binding on Microsoft - at least I hope so). But that "clarification" only seems to say that accidental "non-conformance" of compatibility doesn't immediate mean termination of the OSP. And there was the extra FAQ section added about the GPL. But again that FAQ entry seems again a little vague, especially because the FAQ entry immediately before that one actually says: "we cant give anyone a legal opinion about how our language relates to the GPL". So did any of the issues pointed out by the Software Freedom Law Center in their analysis Microsoft's Open Specification Promise: No Assurance for GPL actually get resolved now?
Royalty free patent peace for GPL software from Microsoft? Posted Aug 1, 2008 22:41 UTC (Fri) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] I don't think what has changed is good enough for SFLC to opine that you are safe now. But the FAQ change is significant.
Royalty free patent peace for GPL software from Microsoft? Posted Aug 1, 2008 22:45 UTC (Fri) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link] Could you explain a bit how the FAQ entry is both significant and not enough to provide safety for GPL software developers/projects/users? The OSP FAQ seems to say both yes and no at the same time to the GPL. That seems a little odd. How should one interpret this?
Royalty free patent peace for GPL software from Microsoft? Posted Aug 2, 2008 6:03 UTC (Sat) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] Microsoft has published in an official document the following statement:The OSP provides the assurance that Microsoft will not assert its Necessary Claims against anyone who make, use, sell, offer for sale, import, or distribute any Covered Implementation under any type of development or distribution model, including the GPL. That's a legally binding promise, and it provides a legal defense for anyone who relies on it, even if Microsoft later tries to take the promise back. There is a separate statement saying that they aren't sure that the promise is "consistent with open source licensing, namely the GPL". Doesn't matter. As far as I can tell, the language above at least suffices for GPLv2: someone who relies on the promise also relies on that promise being available to all downstream parties. For GPLv3, IANAL so I'm not sure, but it seems good. My guess is that after being burned so many times by patents themselves, Microsoft prefers to rely on their head start and the huge size of the spec, rather than fear of patent lawsuits, to maintain their Office near-monopoly, and the promise is just to get governments off their back.
Royalty free patent peace for GPL software from Microsoft? Posted Aug 4, 2008 10:56 UTC (Mon) by mjw (subscriber, #16740) [Link] There is a separate statement saying that they aren't sure that the promise is "consistent with open source licensing, namely the GPL". Doesn't matter. As far as I can tell, the language above at least suffices for GPLv2: someone who relies on the promise also relies on that promise being available to all downstream parties."available to all downstream parties" seems the key issue. Even for people using free software licenses that don't enforce this (how else are you going to make sure your end-users can actually freely use, study, improve, share and redistribute your work). The GPL is special in that it tries to legally enforce that "the chain cannot be broken". I hope your reasoning is indeed correct and that this statement can be seen as an irrevocable legally binding promise on Microsoft. Maybe I am too much of a cynic. In the past Microsoft seems to have used ambiguity to not make any meaningful promise. But you are right that just taking the literal wording of the second FAQ entry seems pretty explicit. I would still feel better if they didn't preface it with the claim that they "can't give anyone a legal opinion about how our language relates to the GPL". If they could remove that earlier (confusing) FAQ entry that would be great.
Bruce Perens: Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle? (IT Management) Posted Aug 2, 2008 7:14 UTC (Sat) by JoeF (subscriber, #4486) [Link] "IE is derived from Mosaic, the original Web browser, open source with a license similar to Apache's." Sorry, Bruce, but as anybody who knows this piece of history knows, that's just plain wrong. Mosaic was _not_ open source. Mosaic was licensed to a couple of companies, MS not among them. MS then bought a license from Spyglass, one of the Mosaic licensees. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_%28web_browser%29
Bruce Perens: Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle? (IT Management) Posted Aug 2, 2008 7:21 UTC (Sat) by jdahlin (guest, #14990) [Link] Most of the code inherited from Spyglass were eventually removed and rewritten, it appears that IE7 is no longer containing any code from that.
Bruce Perens: Microsoft and Apache - What's the Angle? (IT Management) Posted Aug 3, 2008 6:21 UTC (Sun) by psuresh (guest, #53229) [Link] The importance of free software licenses has come to the fore once again. So the medicine is GPL. Commercial giants like M$ are waiting in the wings for taking control of open source projects as and when they think these are effective alternatives to their proprietary ones.Apache is but one example as to why we should go for free software licenses.
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