Microsoft's Open Source Trashware
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| I recently took a look at Microsoft's most active open-source projects and—
| there's no polite way to say this—they are all junk.
|
| [...]
|
| Now you may never have heard of this project, but I admit it does sound cool.
| That is until I looked closer at it and see that it's based on C#, WPF
| (Windows Presentation Foundation, formerly Avalon), WCF (Windows
| Communication Foundation, formerly Indigo), and .Net 3.5. In other words,
| it's an "open-source" program built entirely from Vista-oriented proprietary
| languages and frameworks. Is a project really open-source when all its parts
| are proprietary? I don't think so.
|
| [...]
|
| This isn't an open-source program. It's just a collection of semi-useful
| Microsoft specific blocks of code. For example, it includes some code to
| externalize routine exception handling tasks.
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http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2174730,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000616
Related:
Why, Why, Why OSI?
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| See? It doesn't say OSI can't discriminate. It can if it wants to, as far as
| the OSD is concerned. So Microsoft's representatives and defenders need to
| stop twisting the definition's words.
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http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070821170512281
OSI email group gets catty over Microsoft's Permissive License request
,----[ Quote ]
| Things got really interesting when Chris DiBona, longtime OSI member, open
| source advocate, and open source programs manager for Google, Inc. chimed in:
|
| I would like to ask what might be perceived as a diversion and maybe even
| a mean spirited one. Does this submission to the OSI mean that Microsoft
| will:
|
| a) Stop using the market confusing term Shared Source
| b) Not place these licenses and the other, clearly non-free , non-osd
| licenses in the same place thus muddying the market further.
| c) Continue its path of spreading misinformation about the nature of
| open source software, especially that licensed under the GPL?
| d) Stop threatening with patents and oem pricing manipulation schemes
| to deter the use of open source software?
|
| If not, why should the OSI approve of your efforts? That of a company who
| has called those who use the licenses that OSI purports to defend a
| communist or a cancer? Why should we see this seeking of approval as
| anything but yet another attack in the guise of friendliness?
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http://www.linux.com/feature/118677
Reverse-Halloween: The Marketing Checkbox Strategy
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| Getting Microsoft software licenses OSI-approved and similarly getting
| Microsoft's proprietary document formats approved at ISO are like painting an
| old Chevrolet.
|
| [...]
|
| This may be enough to satisfy the enterprise customer that he is achieving
| something different. Clearly, the substance is no different: it's a lock-in
| in sheep's clothing.
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http://fussnotes.typepad.com/plexnex/2007/08/the-marketing-c.html
Merging "Open Source" and "Free Software"
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| Of course, they are not. Other Shared Source licenses may very well be too
| restrictive to be considered Open Source. But, Microsoft may conveniently
| divert the attention from this little detail to the fact that *some* of
| Shared Source licenses are Open Source.
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http://www.libervis.com/article/merging_open_source_and_free_software
Microsoft not so 'open' after all?
,----[ Quote ]
| Head of open-source group says more than half of licenses don't pass muster
|
| [...]
|
| Michael Tiemann, president of the non-profit Open Source Initiative, said
| that provisions in three out of five of Microsoft's shared-source licenses
| that restrict source code to running only on the Windows operating system
| would contravene a fundamental tenet of open-source licenses as laid out by
| the OSI. By those rules, code must be free for anyone to view, use, modify as
| they see fit.
|
| [...]
|
| By his count, the OSI has rejected "two dozen" or so license applications for
| language that restricted the use or redistribution of software and its source
| code, even when the restrictions were written with what Tiemann
| called "moral" intent. For instance, the OSI has rejected license
| applications from Quakers and other pacifists who sought to prevent the use
| of software for weapons such as landmines.
|
| "I am highly sympathetic to that point of view," he said. "But the OSI is not
| in the business of legislating moral use. We allow all use, commercial or
| non-commercial, mortal or medical."
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http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9028318&intsrc=news_ts_head
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