On 2008-03-06, Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Microsoft Singularity: What is the mess we've been handed?
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
>| I'm totally tortured with agonizing over Microsoft's Singularity. See, I have
>| a standing moral obligation with myself as follows: If Microsoft ever
>| released a purely Open-Source or Free Software system - as defined by the
>| Free Software Foundation, the Open Source Initiative, or common conventional
>| wisdom - I have said (and will repeat here) that I would download it, try it
>| out, review it, and possibly adopt it, to be treated no different from
>| software from, for example, Red Hat Inc. or BSD.
>|
>| But I'm poring over the license, and this seems like it doesn't qualify. It
>| seems to be proprietary with the extra feature of being able to see the
>| source, and modify and redistribute it only in the interests of academic
>| research, with the stipulation that:
>|
>| * It allows no "activity which purpose is to procure a commercial gain to
>| you or others." Does blogging about it on a website with ads count? Does
>| publishing an ebook hacking guide count?
>|
>| * "That Microsoft is granted back, a non-exclusive, irrevocable,
>| royalty-free, and sub-licensable license to, for any purpose, reproduce,
>| publicly perform or display, install, use, modify, distribute, make and
>| have made, sell and transfer modifications to and/or derivative works of
>| the Software source code or data that you provide to Microsoft through
>| the CodePlex tool or otherwise make directly available to Microsoft."
>|
>| [...]
>|
>| Seriously, it could just be the case that Microsoft really wants to do the
>| right thing, but has no idea how to go about it. But common sense is telling
>| me that that's a thin defense. Microsoft has two licenses approved by the OSI
>| (MS-Pl) and (MS-Rl); and it only takes a minute to research the Free Software
>| Foundation's philosophy.
>|
>| Microsoft knows damned good and well what an open source license looks like.
>| And I guess I can't kid myself about that fact, as hard as I would like to.
> `----
>
> http://penguinpetes.com/b2evo/index.php?title=microsoft_singularity_what_is_the_mess_w&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
>
>
For crying out loud... Singularity is a research project - it isn't
meant for commercial use at all. Probably never will be. The only use
it really has is that ideas from it MAY find their way into MS products
- and they are just protecting themselves in case some of those ideas
that creep in don't originate from them. If people don't want to
participate in the project, they are free not to.
If what you want is a project that may actually be useful at some
point, and that is under a real "free" license there is always Cosmos:
http://www.gocosmos.org
Same basic concept as Singularity - but, under a BSD license. They even
say that if you've looked at Singularity code, then you shouldn't contribute
to the project (well, sort of).
--
Tom Shelton
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