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
Related:
My resolve to treat Microsoft like any another license submitter is being
sorely tested.
,----[ Quote ]
| They haven't stopped at pushing a "standard" that is divisive, technically
| bogus, and an obvious tool of monopoly lock-in; they have resorted to lying,
| ballot-stuffing, committee-packing, and outright bribery to ram it through
| the ISO standardization process in ways that violate ISO's own guidelines
| wholesale.
|
| [...]
|
| This is not behavior that we, as a community, can live with. Despite my
| previous determination, I find I'm almost ready to recommend that OSI tell
| Microsoft to ram its licenses up one of its own orifices, even if they are
| technically OSD compliant. Because what good is it to conform to the letter
| of OSD if you're raping its spirit?
`----
http://opensource.org/node/192
Microsoft's newest Halloween documents
,----[ Quote ]
| * Microsoft is trying to look like it's all about interoperability
| through futile projects like Mono, Moonlight, and patent agreements with
| Novell and also-ran Linux vendors. But these deals are really nothing
| more than a way to tax open-source innovation to ensure open source is
| hobbled by Microsoft's fees.
|
|
| And so on. Microsoft is much more open about its intentions vis-a-vis open
| source. That doesn't mean it's any more supportive of open source. It just
| means that it's getting easier to glean from public documents how the company
| feels about open source.
|
| We don't need Halloween Documents to read the tea leaves on Microsoft and
| open source. We just need to pay attention to what the company is doing. In
| the open. On an increasing basis.
`----
http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9808283-16.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=TheOpenRoad
Halloween XII: What’s really behind those Microsoft licenses?
,----[ Quote ]
| Given the OSI’s stated desire to reduce the number of open source licenses,
| not increase them, I asked the OSI board why they had approved it. “We won’t
| approve licenses that are too similar to existing licenses”, board member
| Russ Nelson responded in an email. However he praised the licenses for being
| simply written, for addressing trademarks and patents, and for not naming a
| specific jurisdiction.
|
| Is that enough to differentiate them? Not according to Greg Stein of the
| Apache Foundation, who is opposed to the creation and use of new licenses
| when existing, popular licenses already do the job. “License proliferation,”
| he writes, “slows development and discourages usage by making it more
| difficult to combine and remix code.”
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=423
Reverse-Halloween: The Marketing Checkbox Strategy
,----[ Quote ]
| 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.
`----
http://fussnotes.typepad.com/plexnex/2007/08/the-marketing-c.html
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?
`----
http://www.linux.com/feature/118677
Merging "Open Source" and "Free Software"
,----[ Quote ]
| 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.
`----
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."
`----
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9028318&intsrc=news_ts_head
Is Microsoft Hijacking Open Source?
,----[ Quote ]
| What really worries me is what looks like an emerging pattern in Microsoft's
| behaviour. The EU agreement is perhaps the first fruit of this, but I predict
| it will not be the last. What is happening is that Microsoft is effectively
| being allowed to define the meaning of “open source” as it wishes, not as
| everyone else understands the term. For example, in the pledge quoted above,
| an open source project is “not commercially distributed by its
| participants” - and this is a distinction also made by Kroes and her FAQ.
|
| In this context, the recent approval of two Microsoft licences as
| officially “open source” is only going to make things worse. Although I felt
| this was the right decision – to have ad hoc rules just because it's
| Microsoft would damage the open source process - I also believe it's going to
| prove a problem. After all, it means that Microsoft can rightfully point to
| its OSI-approved licences as proof that open source and Microsoft no longer
| stand in opposition to each other. This alone is likely to perplex people who
| thought they understood what open source meant.
|
| [...]
|
| What we are seeing here are a series of major assaults on different but
| related fields – open source, open file formats and open standards. All are
| directed to one goal: the hijacking of the very concept of openness. If we
| are to stop this inner corrosion, we must point out whenever we see wilful
| misuse and lazy misunderstandings of the term, and we must strive to make the
| real state of affairs quite clear. If we don't, then core concepts like “open
| source” will be massaged, kneaded and pummelled into uselessness.
`----
http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1003745
|
|
