Microsoft's position isn't anti-open-source, it's against their competitors (esp. GPL)

Posted Aug 14, 2007 0:51 UTC (Tue) by brouhaha (subscriber, #1698)
In reply to: Microsoft's position isn't anti-open-source, it's against their competitors (esp. GPL) by epa
Parent article: Two Microsoft licenses submitted for OSI approval

Yes Windows includes the TCP/IP stack taken from BSD, but it is rather a stretch to call it open source code.

Au contraire, that's a perfect example of the difference between "Open Source" and "Free Software". Open Source allows users to do almost anything they like with it, other than removing copyright notices. That includes turning it proprietary. Thus Microsoft's use of BSD code is fully within the Open Source paradigm. The original BSD code is still Open Source, but Microsoft's derived code is not.

Free Software, on the other hand, is based on licenses that require the preservation of freedom, and don't allow third parties to turn it proprietary.

Microsoft's position isn't anti-open-source, it's against their competitors (esp. GPL)

Posted Aug 14, 2007 2:23 UTC (Tue) by josh (subscriber, #17465) [Link]

Those terms do not mean what you think they mean.

Both copyleft licenses (such as the GPL) and non-copyleft licenses (such as the BSD licenses) qualify as both Open Source and Free Software.

Totally untrue

Posted Aug 14, 2007 2:28 UTC (Tue) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link]

Open Source allows users to do almost anything they like with it, other than removing copyright notices. [...] Free Software, on the other hand, is based on licenses that require the preservation of freedom, and don't allow third parties to turn it proprietary.

Um, no. This is the different between a copyleft license (e.g. the GPL) and a non-copyleft permissive license (e.g. the X11 license). Software under both types of license are considered free software and open source by the Free Software Foundation and the Open Source Initiative, respectively.