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To me it sounds more like "This is my ball and I decide who can play"

"If MS-PL is an open-source license, just state that, list and shut up."

The whole point of the list is for them to discuss the proposal, in which, they are defining, is it an open-source licence. It's funny how these things work, I know, it can tax the dumbest of people.

The whole point of the list is for them to discuss the proposal, in which, they are defining, is it an open-source licence. It's funny how these things work, I know, it can tax the dumbest of people.

Reason why we're buzzing about this is because OSI list is clearly revealing many people stating MS-PL should be rejected because... it's by Microsoft. If it was discussion on legal-basis only, we wouldn't be chatting about it. As MollyC stated, this would be a political reason, not based on merit.

And yes, it's always wise to read the article we're talking about before starting to type. I know not all of us could be wise... but...

Yes, that's the OSI's job actually. But thanks for mocking it.

the bottom line is that this is 'just another licence'. whatever Microsoft's agenda may be, it's up to the developers to use it or not. as long as the licence follows the criteria's set by the OSI for approval submission then I see no problem.

developers have been perfectly capable to decide between open source licences sofar, I doubt that will suddenly change should Microsoft's licence be approved. some people seem to think that developers just google up 'licence' when they're ready to distribute their code and choose whatever pops up first. you really don't licence your hard work on a whim.

... actually, when we were discussing licensing on our project, my boss really did do that -- according to him, Google told him that the GPL v3 was the 'best' license.

People just choosing whatever license they've heard good things about without taking the time to read and consider the license is probably much more common than should be.

Almafeta wrote:
-"... actually, when we were discussing licensing on our project, my boss really did do that -- according to him, Google told him that the GPL v3 was the 'best' license. "

nothing wrong in googling up licences. choosing a licence for your own hard work without reading it is another matter entirely, and I don't think that is common at all.

not that you do either, it's not hard to see where you are trying to go with this.

... I was going somewhere with it?

What "people", Almafeta? Do you know _all_ people personally to make such generalizing statements? I don't think so. And exactly what do you mean by "much more common"? How common is "common"? Can you give us some statistically verifiable data to support your claims?

Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that. - H. Simpson

the bottom line is that this is 'just another licence'. whatever Microsoft's agenda may be, it's up to the developers to use it or not. as long as the licence follows the criteria's set by the OSI for approval submission then I see no problem.

Well, for a start, the OSI were going to cut down on the shear number of licenses being submitted to the OSI by various companies, not just Microsoft, just to muddy the waters and get code flowing in their direction.

The OSI should be telling Microsoft that there are a great many licenses that already exist that are OSI approved, and they should just use one of them.

Microsoft has done nothing to help the OSI, or be supportive of their efforts in the past, so I fail to see why Microsoft should expect a free ride.

Edited 2007-08-18 23:47

Not quite, things are seldom so easy and transparent. The problem - as I see it - is mostly that MS already talks about being open source, and providing open source tools and apps, and whatnot, seemingly being deliberate in not differentiating between what licenses they use and what licenses are generally used in FOSS development. The reason for that is probably a PR and marketing one, that is trying to mix and blur the meaning open source among the MS customer base.

It doesn't seem to be much, but if you take it as a defensive move, it's not such a bad idea really.

I really don't see an objective issue with refusing to listen to an almost (I'm being nice) criminal company from the perspective of OSS.

Chris is trying to choose the only winning move: "Not to play." Microsoft is playing games and I believe OSI is small enough, young enough, and run by smart enough people to breaks its own rules and not play this hand.

Objectivity and unbiased opinions are for people who can't learn and abstract, not to mention impossible goals.

"Convicted of being a Monopoly is an admission the company is criminal."

You might want to research the difference between "criminal" law and "civil" law before speaking on this topic again, lest you continue to look uneducated.

Oh, and "convicted of being a monopoly" is a meaningless phrase.

Edited 2007-08-19 04:54

The "informal" definition (New Oxford) of the adjective criminal:
"informal (of an action or situation) deplorable and shocking : he may never fulfill his potential, and that would be a criminal waste."

He's plenty close enough, regardless of the legalese.

"I really don't see an objective issue with refusing to listen to an almost (I'm being nice) criminal company from the perspective of OSS."

You're not being nice, you're being discriminatory. IF MS follows the process and the rules, their past behavior is somewhat irrelevant. OSI's job is to verify and certify Open Source licenses. They just can't reject it out of hand, that shows they are not objective, and it undermines efforts to get everyone, including MS to play by the rules. Getting MS to play fair with OSS is a goal I can get behind. That way everyone wins.

"Objectivity and unbiased opinions are for people who can't learn and abstract, not to mention impossible goals."

That's pretty closed minded, and a bit retarded as well. For an organization like OSI, they have to be definition of objectivity, or they are useless. These issues are not abstract, they affect the way thousands of people and organizations do business everyday.

The license and the license' owner should both be under investigation. If Microsoft is going to happily give up all ownership and claims to ownership (including trademarks) then we can evaluate just the license.

Sure, no problem, the license should be evaluated and passed if it meets OSI's criteria, but it should also not be denied because of who made it, if that is the only reason

Objectivity and unbiased opinions are for people who can't learn and abstract, not to mention impossible goals.

By that logic, people who are able to learn should always form biased opinions. Except that the definition of "biased" means being unable to learn to see things in new ways as new situations present themselves.

Sorry, I just don't buy your twisted argument. Microsoft's past behavior should not be the basis of refusing to review their license request. As other people have noted, just letting them create an open-source license does not immediately mean that thousands of developers are going to flock to it. Now I'm not saying they should approve this license or not, as I myself have not reviewed, it but I am saying that it should at least be looked at carefully before being rejected.

If OSI were to reject the MS licenses for political reasons, then they would reveal themselves as a political organization and lose all credibility. If they reject the licenses they better have sound reason for it. From reading the OSI discussion list for both MS-PL and MS-CL, it looks like both are on the way to being approved.

And there was no "attack" on DiBona or Google. DiBona decided to inject politics into the debate, so he left himself open to likewise response. Regarding Google's use of open source licenses, one issue (I don't know if this is what Hilf was referring to) has to do the fact that Google uses tons of GPL in its products, releases those products to the public for use, but doesn't release their own code because the proucts are web apps rather than local binaries, which one could argue goes against the spirit (if not the letter) of GPL.

Edited 2007-08-18 22:15

"If they reject the licenses they better have sound reason for it."

Oh, you mean, like, a bunch of already existing OSI-approved licenses with the same features that can be used by Microsoft's license? Funny how Microsoft insists on having their own little license, don't you think? Almost, like, they're trying to be... oh, I don't know... political when it comes to licensing issues.

"DiBona decided to inject politics into the debate..."

What "politics", Molly? What politics has to do with the facts that to this day Microsoft continues to spread misinformation about the nature of open source software, especially that licensed under the GPL (an OSI-certified license, by the way), even as they seek OSI's approval of their license?

This is a company well-known for its opposition to all things open source, and now all of a sudden they want to be approved by the very entity they've spent years badmouthing. Interesting.

"Oh, you mean, like, a bunch of already existing OSI-approved licenses with the same features that can be used by Microsoft's license? Funny how Microsoft insists on having their own little license, don't you think? Almost, like, they're trying to be... oh, I don't know... political when it comes to licensing issues. "

From reading the discussion list, I don't think that will be an issue. For one thing, MS's license include patent coverage.

Personally, I think the "non-proliferation of licenses" thing is bull. If a party feels that existing licenses do not meet its needs for whatever reason, and creates its own license that meets all of OSD guidelines, and submits it for approval, then OSI should approve it or they should prove to the party that some other license fits their needs. The OSI doesn't know all of the needs and nuances that a party might want, so it would be difficult for them to tell someone that some already approved license fits their needs.

But even putting that aside, if the party submitting the license can come up with even one scenario for which other licenses either do not suffice, or do not deal with the scenario as well as the proposed license does, then OSI should not reject the license on the basis of non-proliferation.

Anyway, many of the existing licenses aren't in use at all, while MS's are already in use. If OSI is concerned about license proliferation, they should reject one of those old licenses that nobody is using to make room for new licenses that are in use.

But let's get down to brass tacks. MS haters, such as yourself, can't find any real reasons to reject these licenses, so you're grabbing the "non-proliferation" thingy for dear life, so desperate you are to find any reason at all to reject these licenses. That is quite clear. But unfortunately for you, I think this is such a high-profile case, that OSI wants to approve or to reject the licenses based on the licenses themselves, not based on politics, and not based on some declaration that other licenses suffice. Even in the mailing list, there is debate as to what the non-proliferation thing actually means, and it appears that no license has ever been rejected on that basis. Suddenly doing it for MS's licenses would look mighty suspicious (and a bit too convenient for MS-haters).

Also note that OSI members themselves were calling for MS to submit MS-PL earlier this year, so it would be problematic for them to now say that other licenses suffice for the needs that MS's address.


"This is a company well-known for its opposition to all things open source, and now all of a sudden they want to be approved by the very entity they've spent years badmouthing. Interesting."

Huh, I thought you guys wanted MS to start moving to OSS. Guess that was a bunch of BS. MS-haters moving the goalposts, as usual. (BTW, your statement that Microsoft is against all things open source is propaganda, nothing more; or how do you explain the many projects MS has already released the code for, including important things such as the DLR?)

What are you going to do when these licenses get approved, cry?

Edited 2007-08-19 06:55

I might be missing something, and I hope someone will read this post buried so deep down on the discussion and clarify this: in practical terms, how is the MS-PL different from the CDDL, which is already OSI-approved? I'm truly surprised that so far NO ONE brought up the obvious similarities to the CDDL!

1) License covering the code in question but allowing mixing with other licenses: both check
2) Patent coverage: both check
3) Copyleft: both check
4) Unambiguous language: CDDL has the edge
5) Shorter expression: MS-PL has the edge, but this isn't such a crucial advantage
5.1) Shorter than the GPL: both check (yeah, I included this point tongue-in-cheek-ly )
6) Recognition and broader understanding by the community: CDDL has the edge, as it's based on the very well known MPL and extended not to be explicit about Mozilla
7) Regarding new versions of the license: CDDL is extremely explicit about this
8) Amount of code already covered by one of those licenses (call it the "battle- & time-tested" point): CDDL clearly has the edge, by a wide margin

So, again, what is it that MS-PL brings to the table? Being a handful of paragraphs short? While still carrying language many (read the comments to this very news post, as the ones on the OSI list and the Linux.com article) considered ambiguous?

The OSI doesn't know all of the needs and nuances that a party might want, so it would be difficult for them to tell someone that some already approved license fits their needs.

Well, if the OSI reviews the terms of the new, requested license, they should get a pretty good idea of whether an existing license meets those needs, shouldn't they?

If there are some other licenses that look very nearly identical to the MS-proposed one, then any nuances between it the MS one should be apparent based on MS's license description. But the idea of MS creating a license that looks just like an existing one, but where the important nuances are simply left out only to be "found out about later", or are only known about by the highest-ups of Microsoft's legal team, is intolerable.

Considering that the license proliferation project seems to have been active in OSI since 2006, I don't really think it is "bull", or has anything to do with MS specifically, especially their recent submission. Let's not discount its importance just because you think someone is an MS-hater.

Funny how Microsoft insists on having their own little license

I am not sure that there are many OSI licenses that grants patent and copyright protection. MSPL is, at least uncommon, if not unique. That justifies its existence.

What politics has to do with the facts that to this day Microsoft continues to spread misinformation about the nature of open source software, especially that licensed under the GPL

That is politics.

What Microsofts, or anyone elses preferences about OSS have to do with license submittion process ? If there are regulations, they should apply equally to everyone, regardless of who they like or like not. There are no "good and evil" here.

"Oh, you mean, like, a bunch of already existing OSI-approved licenses with the same features that can be used by Microsoft's license? Funny how Microsoft insists on having their own little license, don't you think? Almost, like, they're trying to be... oh, I don't know... political when it comes to licensing issues."

Sun has it's own license, CDDL. Apple has it's own license, MIT has their own license. X11 has it's own, 3 versions now of the GPL, there's the LGPL, Apache has their own license. There may be too many licenses, but many organizations have wrote their own, and had them passed. Not passing MS's license for no good reason other than, there are existing licenses, go use one of those is just political nonsense.

Companies like to define things in their own way, it gives them that feeling of control that companies love. If it gets MS to start playing ball, let them have their license. It doesn't hurt anybody.

If OSI were to reject the MS licenses for political reasons, then they would reveal themselves as a political organization and lose all credibility.

Before you go crucifying the OSI for something you don't even know happened, I have to remind you that microsoft is a software company turned political organization (see link).

http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=18098&comment_id=24...

Why the double standard MollyC?

"Before you go crucifying the OSI for something you don't even know happened, I have to remind you that microsoft is a software company turned political organization (see link).

http://www.osnews.com/permalink.php?news_id=18098&comment_id=24.....

Why the double standard MollyC?"

This isn't a double standard. If OSI wishes to approve or disapprove based upon the views of one of Microsoft's competitors, do you even realize how OSI would have no credibility anymore? Do you realize that OSI would just be seen as a mouth piece for Google? Can you even fathom the PR gift this would be to Microsoft?

What is a double standard is how so many people cry and whine about freedom of choice, yet really we see honestly that their version of freedom means to disallow anything Microsoft....and this makes you different than what you accuse them of being how?

IIRC, FSF doesn't agree with the OSI's existence, because they believe Open Source != Free Software.

>IIRC, FSF doesn't agree with the OSI's existence, because they believe Open Source != Free Software.

This wasn't my question!

My question is:
If OSI only start their approval process for licenses submitted by the license author than why do they start their approval process for GPLv3 even if it wasn't submitted by the author (FSF)?

I can't answer because … http://opensource.org/approval does not mention the process you are talking about, so I assumed you're ill-informed.

You may be right. But I, like DiBona, just hate to see OSI being used to enable its most vicious competitor.

I agree with you 100%. Microsoft's intentions are really irrelevant in this matter. The focus should be on the merits of the license itself and whether or not it meets the standards of OSI. It shouldn't matter whether the license was submitted by Microsoft, you, me, or somebody from a small town in the middle of no-where Kansas. Saying, "This license is not really valid because it was submitted by Microsoft" is in and of itself not really a valid statement and shows a decision based off of nothing but emotion.

If, as the article says, the MS-PL licence is very similar to a previously-approved licence, why can Microsoft not use that licence with an exemption clause?

From a business perspective, it's usually best to have had a say in the writing of a license you're using.

From a legal persepective, when you add on extra conditions to a pre-existing license, you're adding a layer of confusion that could lead to trouble.

Additionally, 'BSD license' doesn't describe just one sort of license, but a number of closely related licenses, since nobody owns a copyright to the 'BSD license' (despite its being associated with a commercial term, a 'BSD license' is more of a concept of a certain kind of permissive license than it is a license in and of itself). Calling the MS-PL license a BSD license, while it would be correct in spirit in that it's about as free as free software can get, would not be technically correct, since the MS-PL's patentlefting clause adds in a layer normal BSD licenses don't have.

Besides, there are several different sets of expectations when people say 'BSD,' which might spread confusion if they linked the two in people's minds -- and when it comes to legal issues, Microsoft runs a very tight ship (which is probably why they're not marketing the MS-PL as a BSD-like license).

That said, I believe MS has used the BSD license in the past...

That said, I believe MS has used the BSD license in the past...

AFAIK, they have, and even complied with requirements to credit the authors where needed when that version of the BSD license has been used.

Microsoft has lots of MS-PL projects.
According to Bill Hilf's post to the cited discussion list http://www.nabble.com/RE%3A-For-Approval%3A-Microsoft-Permi... :
"There are already several hundred community projects that use these licenses, including over 150 Microsoft projects."

A very prominent recent example being the DLR (Dynamic Language Runtime), that allowed Moonlight (Mono's implementation of Silverlight) to be created so quickly. Also, IronPython and IronRuby code are released under MS-PL.

Lot's of MS-PL and MS-CL projects from both MS and 3rd parties can be found here:
http://www.codeplex.com/

IronPython is on CodePlex (http://www.codeplex.com/IronPython), but IronRuby will be put on RubyForge in the next few weeks.
MS also has some projects on SourceForge.

Edited 2007-08-18 22:04

Heh.

Just look at the number of GPL projects on CodePlex.

Well at least Microsoft was nice enough to allow license selection.

Mhmm, nearly 12% of their hosted projects.

"Mhmm, nearly 12% of their hosted projects."

How are you guys determining the number of GPL projects on CodePlex? I must be blind, but I can't find anything on there that searches by license.

Edited 2007-08-19 00:56

Where did you get that number?

I dont disagree that it might be accurate but I couldnt find it myself.

Anyway, there are 82,700 GPL/LGPL combined projects on SourceForge, some being mixed with other licenses.

I was hoping to find some basis for those numbers on CodePlex, but it's a little tricky, MS hate citing their sources.

(site:codeplex.com/*/Project/ "Microsoft Permissive License")
Gives 338 hits in Google. Do we subtract the 150 claimed by Microsoft? or do we take that as an additional 150 ontop of our 338 figure?

(site:codeplex.com/*/Project/ProjectPeople.aspx Microsoft)
Gives 1070 hits in Google.
Ah, a problem, site copyright notice. But at least we have a total for projects.

Looking at the Microsoft user profile gives us ~180 projects they coordinate on the site.

So I guess their figures are psuedo-real. Assuming MS pick MS-PL for all their works, 338 - 180 = 158 projects using MS-PL. Maybe that is several hundred to them, but meh.

There are very good and big projects released under MS-PL. I know because I use some of them. We're not talking about silly nift libraries: we're talking about complete CMS systems, languages and stuff. Can't say if they are several hundreds. I can say there is tens of thousands of $$ in work there.

I've also stumbled into many projects not coordinated by Microsoft which are using MS-PL.

Are you assuming that every MS-PL project is hosted on CodePlex?

You're welcome to provide numbers outside of the scope of codeplex.com, but as it stands:

Sourceforge has 1 project.
Berlios.de has 0 projects.
Ohloh.net has 0 projects.

After that, I thought it pointless to go find individual sites for additional +1s.

I guarantee that if it passed OSI, maybe even if it doesn't, they will. They're not stupid. They'll at least offer some projects they don't believe will sell. Good ideas might be visual studio (which they only sell now in order to not anger customers who already paid, and to keep Borland fro suing) or MSN messenger.

But I doubt you'll see anything that they're charging for now or believe they could charge for later. Keep in mind, I'm not sore about this, it's just part of reality for Microsoft: They have a business model to follow.

Does anyone know if MS offer any actual code under PL?

IronPython is under the Ms-PL:

http://www.codeplex.com/Wiki/View.aspx?ProjectName=IronPython

From IronPython's site:

IronPython is a new implementation of the Python programming language running on .NET.

So it is a re-implementation of a Free programming language running on a non-Free platform? gr8. Does it run on Mono as well?

Yes. The Mono project regularly refines its infrastructure so that the major .NET languages will run on Mono. IronPython is one of the main languages they test compatibility with. The IronPython developer community has assisted with this.

So, IronPython is a Free reimplementation of a Free programming language that runs nicely on a Free platform. And it's from Microsoft. Live with that.

But thing is, those hastily repeated "Free"s in that sentence don't share the same meaning.

Yes. And it's faster than CPython. Unfortunately it doesn't have all of the native python packages that were written in C as far as I know. But this is not the only thing they have opened up on there.

Don't expect the Windows Kernel to appear on CodePlex anytime soon, but don't mock a small team's hard work either. Unless you have invented your own free programming language or can even demonstrate knowledge of how much work is necessary to implement one, you just look like a greedy freeloader.

don't mock a small team's hard work

True.

I appreciate these kind of efforts as much as the next guy, but I am still a little perplexed about the decision to re-implement the language and duplicate efforts instead of improving CPython for the benefit of an even broader audience. However, I also realise there might have been perfectly good reasons that are not very obvious for a by-stander like me. Maybe C# makes it possible to maintain a smaller but equally functional code-base than C or brings higher performance in particular cases, maybe CPython did not suit theirs or others particular needs in terms of Windows platform integration? The benefits seem to outweigh the consts. I don't know, I use neither CPython, IronPython, .Net or Mono for my cross-platform programming and I don't really care about Windows. What does IronPython do that CPython does not?

I can only hope that being a Free cross-platform python application programmer has become easier and more interesting with their efforts, because this I do care about, and if so, I congratulate them. Judging from your user name, I guess you do to :-)

I find it a little odd though that IronPython started out as GPL and ended up with the Microsoft-PL and hope the implementation is not part of a embrace-and-extend strategy. Maybe someone with specific insight into these matters could elaborate a little.

Unless you have invented your own free programming language

It seems to me that they didn't either

or can even demonstrate knowledge of how much work is necessary to implement one

Dude, you are seriously expecting me to be able to convey that in a post on OSsews? I can only say that I know enough programming to get a vague idea of the gargantuan efforts involved, but too little I guess to easily see that their efforts were really necessary in the first place.

you just look like a greedy freeloader.

C'mon. Cool down. A freeloader is someone who uses something repeatedly without contributing even though he or she could. I can't see how I qualify as one in this case.

I may be grumpy, but not a freeloader.

Yes, IronPython runs on Mono very well, and it did so for more than a year now.

Details are here:
http://fepy.sourceforge.net/doc/ironpython-mono-report.html