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| Someone suggests 2 MS licenses get OSI approval - Updated |
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Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 06:46 AM EST
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This is a very strange story. I don't know what to make of it, so I am putting it out there for the rest of you to figure out. CCIL's John Cowan has posted two Microsoft licenses to license-discuss@opensource.org, suggesting that they be given OSI approval. But he claims to have no connection with Microsoft, which raises some natural questions. UPDATE: Mr. Cowan has emailed me and says he has no official connection with CCIL either, so I have changed the title of the article.
"Microsoft is adding new licenses to its Shared Source Initiative which
I believe qualify as open-source licenses," he writes. The first is the Microsoft Permissive License (MS-PL) and the second is the Microsoft Community License (MS-CL).
Cowan says he believes the licenses should be approved by OSI even though they are
"basically similar to more widely used weak-reciprocal licenses, because
it is better to encourage Microsoft in particular to release under an
OSI-approved license than not -- I think it very unlikely that they will
go back and adopt some existing license." Others are not agreeing and are bringing up license proliferation issues as well as questions about his authority to act. The complete threads are here and here. I have written to Mr. Cowan and will let you know what I learn further.
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| Authored by: tiger99 on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 08:17 AM EST |
| Or for those who prefer, Corrections here please. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: tiger99 on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 08:20 AM EST |
It would be nice if you could try to make links as described below the edit
window, and remember to post in HTML mode when doing so. Thanks.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: tiger99 on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 08:43 AM EST |
| What I want to know is whether M$ have actually released, or even intends to
release, any significant code under either of these licences? I suspect it is
all merely FUD and astroturfing, amongst other things. They desperately want to
be seen to be the good guys (in Mass. for example), but have not the slightest
intention of releasing any code that might in any way be compatible with the
"hated" GPL, which they fear more than anything else. The sad thing is that
some people, decision makers for instance, may fall for the deception, as they
are already confused with the very big differences between open specifications,
open documents and open source. Now we have more stuff that is neither free nor
open, masquerading as both. Sadly the OSI, which no longer has much credibility,
may approve one or even both of these as "Open Source", but I doubt that the FSF
will waste any time on either of them, as they are not "Free". [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: blacklight on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 08:44 AM EST |
"Cowan says he believes the licenses should be approved by OSI even though
they are "basically similar to more widely used weak-reciprocal licenses,
because it is better to encourage Microsoft in particular to release under an
OSI-approved license than not."
Let's bring Cowan back to reality: either a license meets the OSI standards or
it doesn't. There is or ought to be no place for such a justifification such as
"the license does not meet our standards, but let's approve it anyway"
for whatever extraneous justification. Otherwise, OSI approval is not worth the
paper it is printed on. If Cowan was sitting on an OSI committee, my reaction
would be to call for his immediate removal.
---
Know your enemies well, because that's the only way you are going to defeat
them. And know your friends even better, just in case they become your enemies.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: sab39 on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 01:07 PM EST |
I'm beginning to get a little tired of Groklaw's black-and-white reporting on
MS, and I think it's particularly hypocritical to have an article questioning
the motives and character of this person on no other basis than he thinks MS
licenses might be Open Source, while at the top of the front page is an article
vilifying the mainstream press for character assassination. (I'm not suggesting
this is anything near as bad as was done to Peter Quinn, but it's a difference
in degree, not in kind).
By all accounts that I've read, these MS licenses *do* qualify as Open Source.
But Microsoft, which as an organization hates to admit that they have anything
to do with Open Source, will never in a million years submit them to the OSI for
approval. I've been hoping for a while that the OSI would find some way to get
around the fact that MS won't submit them, and approve them anyway.
Microsoft has released a number of small projects under licenses like these that
are perfectly acceptable Open Source (and Free Software) licenses. (One of the
benefits of standardizing on a small set, like they are now doing, is that there
aren't dozens of different licenses to approve, but only 2. They created 5
licenses total, of which the other 3 clearly aren't Open Source).
As I said in the subject line, Microsoft is a large organization. They do a lot
of bad things, but they also occasionally do good things. Treating every single
thing they do as bad detracts from Groklaw's reputation for fairness. And
besides, if we want to encourage them to change for the better, surely giving
them positive feedback when they do good things is the way to do that?
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- MS is a big company - Authored by: Ed L. on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 01:15 PM EST
- MS is a big company, there's the occasional good with all the bad - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 01:37 PM EST
- Even a blind squirrel gets a nut now & again.. - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 02:06 PM EST
- And just perhaps, some people have got a little tired of the way Microsoft acts. - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 02:51 PM EST
- MS is a big company, there's the occasional good with all the bad - Authored by: Steve Martin on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 02:54 PM EST
- MS is a big company, there's the occasional good with all the bad - Authored by: turbopro on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 04:27 PM EST
- MS is not anti-open source they are anti-GPL - Authored by: chriseyre2000 on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 05:17 PM EST
- MS is a big company, there's the occasional good with all the bad - Authored by: zcat on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 05:23 PM EST
- An apology from Microsoft might help. - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 10:32 PM EST
- Steve Balmer throws chair, talks of crushing opponents and that is not being community minded! - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 11:48 PM EST
- and I'm beginning to get a little tired.. - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 12 2005 @ 06:06 AM EST
- Issue #1: Ms-PL is not an OPEN or FREE source license - Authored by: AdultSupervision on Monday, December 12 2005 @ 09:46 AM EST
- MS is a big company, there's the occasional good with all the bad - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, December 15 2005 @ 04:53 PM EST
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 01:14 PM EST |
Encouraging Microsoft can be dangerous.
Accepting a Microsoft proposal that falls short of requirements could cause
numerous Microsoft employees to injure themselves while patting themselves on
the back.
---
Are you a bagel or a mous?[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: marcosdumay on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 01:28 PM EST |
People are forgeting that MS has two licenses, with almost the same name as
those, that only permits the lincesed software to run on Windows. For me it is
clear that they want to pass software at the more restrict licenses saying that
they are the more pervasive ones.
To make things worse, those licenses that are being submited are belived by a
lot of people - they have already being at slashdot and, I think, here too - to
comply with OSI (and FSF) standards. If the OSI refuses this license, it may be
only because they are redundant and they want to reduce the number of licenses.
If OSI can reject the licenses on a credible manner, I think they should. But I
don't know if they can, this may end as a very good (evil) play of Microsoft.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 01:57 PM EST |
... to release any of its own software under any license it likes (within the
legal framework.)
If those licenses are not liked by the programming
community, then the programming community will ignore the software. So where
would the benefit be to MS.
If MS want community acceptance then it
should submit the
licenses to the OSI and get them approved or otherwise.
Microsoft have
too much history in the market place.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Steve Martin on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 02:50 PM EST |
Mr. Cowan has emailed me and says he has no official
connection with CCIL either, so I have changed the title of the
article.
As always, PJ, you demonstrate your desire to
get it right. In that vein, might I suggest that, if Mr. Cowan has no official
connection with CCIL, it might be inaccurate to refer to him (as you do in the
article) as "CCIL's John Cowan"? Just a thought.
---
"When I say
something, I put my name next to it." -- Isaac Jaffee, "Sports Night" [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: PolR on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 05:10 PM EST |
Well, I think there are several separate questions here.
Licenses are legal texts. Either they meet the OSI definition of open source, or
they don't. If they meet the definition, they should be accepted, otherwise they
should be rejected. This has nothing to do with who is the author of the
licenses or what are the motives of the submitter and everything to do with
complying with what OSI professes it will comply with.
Then there are the motives of Microsoft as well as the nature of the software
they place under the licences. These are fair questions and they deserve
analysis. But they are separate from the determination of whether the licenses
are open source because the licenses must be evaluated on their own merits.
There is also the questions of why someone not affiliated with Microsoft would
submit the licenses and whether the OSI should initiate the examination of the
Microsoft licenses without being asked by a Microsoft representative. These are
fair questions too. But they are separate from the determination of whether the
licenses are open source. However the OSI may refuse to answer about the
licenses compliance if they find the submission is from an improper source. Such
a refusal to answer would not mean they reject the licenses, just that the OSI
would wait until they receive a proper submission before answering.
Finally the desire to reduce the number of licenses should not be a factor in
determining if a license is accepted or not. Compliance with the definition is
the only thing that should matter. Otherwise the definition is not fairly
applied to everyone and will loose all its credibility.
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| Authored by: Nick_UK on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 06:06 PM EST |
I am very wary of this.
Two points of interest.
a) They are very short for a Microsoft legal license. In
fact, the only free software license I have ever read
short is 'public domain'.
b) THERE IS NO CAPITALS EXPRESSING WHAT YOU CANNOT DO.
Beware Greeks bearing gifts...
Nick [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: grouch on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 06:10 PM EST |
Microsoft wants the word "open" associated with their name as much as
possible in order to take furhter advantage of those who are easily confused.
End of story.
---
-- grouch
http://edge-op.org/links1.html
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 09:33 PM EST |
why would anyone care how buggy/poorly coded software is licensed? I my self
have no interest in their code, too buggy - full of errors, not to mention NOT
FULLY DOCUMENTED! Sorry for yelling, everyone is missing the point. Quality
code that is shared openly has value (esp if based on an accepted standard).
Crud code has no value no matter how it is licensed.
Not logged in
DACII[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: johnwcowan on Sunday, December 11 2005 @ 11:03 PM EST |
First, I get my email at ccil.org; I have no institutional connection with
ccil.org, nor with ccil.com either.
The issues to me are "Do the licenses meet the OSI definition of Open
Source?" (I say yes) and "Is it expedient for OSI to bless them at
this point?" (on which I am willing to submit to the OSI board's view).
I continue to believe that the two licenses in question (the Ms-PL and the
MS-CL) do in fact meet the requirements for Open Source-ness. This is merely my
opinion, and I speak for absolutely nobody but myself, nor has anyone influenced
me improperly in this respect. I read the licenses myself after seeing a brief
notice about them in Dr. Dobb's, and came to my own conclusions. As for the
motives of the license author in publishing these licenses, I know nothing and
care even less.
The president of OSI has indicated that the OSI board probably won't even
consider these licenses for OSI approval unless Microsoft requests them, citing
process as well as copyright concerns. (If the licenses were approved, they'd
normally be placed on opensource.org, but Microsoft nowhere grants the right to
freely copy the license itself.) I see no point in my pushing for approval,
therefore.
Blacklight, Tiger99 and Tyro raise a point about OSD conformance vs. OSI
approval. If I didn't think the licenses were OSD-conformant, I would never
have proposed them. I do think that the OSI should not rule out approving these
particular licenses even though they are duplicative and not reusable by other
software authors than Microsoft, although in general I agree that at this stage
OSI approval should no longer be automatic for such licenses. Those of you who
saw Numb3rs recently now know that it's important to let your opponents make
small mistakes without losing everything.
(Thanks, Christophe. Glad to see you're still in there swinging.)
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 12 2005 @ 04:49 AM EST |
Maybe if we just give him the benefit of the doubt, he'll stop scourging God so
much. Or maybe go and do it in somebody else's province.
Attila does in fact appear in Nibelunglied as a gracious and pious Christian
king. I have heard (but never checked) that he was listed among the Saints
before the recent purge.
It all depends on your perspective. And what you enjoy being done to you, I
suppose.
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| Authored by: cybervegan on Monday, December 12 2005 @ 07:11 AM EST |
I can't help but think that things are moving on different levels here, out of
our view. After reading many of the responses below, I have a great feeling of
foreboding.
I *do* believe that Mr. Cowan acted autonomously, or at least *thought* he did.
I'm not saying that he was directly influenced, just that MS may very well have
expected *someone* to have done this, merely by not showing willingness to do it
themselves. This may be an extension of the blogger/leak disclosure method they
have recently been using, where they make just enough hints for a switched-on,
focused blogger to connect the dots, and publish before the mainstream press
notices; when the press eventually do notice, the "authority" of the
story is less because "it came from a blogger" (because the mass
public still trusts the press above bloggers).
I *hope* that the OSI will not (and think they should not) approve these
licenses for two important reasons: Authority and Proliferation. Both of these
points have been covered much here by many others; thankyou.
WRT Authority; I don't believe it is proper for the OSI to approve a license not
proffered to it by the licenses' authors. Approving it could harm the reputation
of the OSI.
WRT Proliferation; if these licenses do indeed duplicate other already
established licenses, then given the OSI's recent stand against proliferation,
they should reject it, though I'm not sure that their "rules" provide
for this situation.
The job of the OSI is not to make moral judgements, however, and this is where I
think the hidden motives may lie.
Could this be a play by MS to subvert the definition of Free and Open Source
Software? They could be trying to elevate the importance of Open Source over
that of Free Software (i.e. the GPL), or they could be trying to elevate their
own standing within the F/OSS movement to a level where they have enough
authority that they can then begin "helping" it to reform... and make
it more favourable to their goals.
Or, could they be trying to sow the seeds of unrest, by making it look like the
"party" can't agree on it's politics, so they can later point this out
at an opportune moment?
Worst of all - what are they doing right now that we *aren't* watching because
our attention is focused on this?
There are certain people I know, that I distrust, specifically due to their past
actions towards me; you learn by your mistakes. We distrust MS for similar
reasons - we have been given many, many reasons to do so.
regards,
-cybervegan
---
Software source code is a bit like underwear - you only want to show it off in
public if it's clean and tidy. Refusal could be due to embarrassment or shame...[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: jpetso on Monday, December 12 2005 @ 09:28 AM EST |
How about this is just a marketing "gag" to show the world
that Microsoft is wrong with their Anti-Open-Source FUD? I
mean, they preach more and more that only commercial
software can innovate, that Open Source will diminish
incomes of developers and hurt the software industry, and
you all know Ballmer's viral saying.
So if this guy gets OSI to approve Microsoft's licenses,
everyone can say "Don't try to contemn Open Source,
because you're doing it yourself, so it can't be that
bad". At least, that would be my theory for an independent
guy submitting these licenses by himself. Of course, this
doesn't mean that I think OSI should indeed approve them,
but hey, it's an interesting idea...
(Even if he tells otherwise in his reply, you still can't
dismiss my theory because if it's true he could never tell
it to the public ;-) [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 12 2005 @ 03:45 PM EST |
Having read both licenses, I fail to see reasons for they
not beeing considered by OSS, but IANAL, so...
On the other hand, there are a couple of ideas dancing in
my head.
- Microsoft may be willing to use OSS as a vector to
spread patented software. Remember they invented the "OSS
is like cancer" theory.
- I won't be shocked if this license is incompatible with
every other prominent OSS license, with maybe the
exception of Berkeley style. What could be the legal
result if code under this licenses is mixed with say,
GPL'd code?
- Maybe Microsft is just testing the waters, as is every
body doing right now. They must realize that Open Source
has its advantages (even for them): no support costs and
free patches from your users.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, December 12 2005 @ 10:27 PM EST |
FYI, Cowan has acceded to the advice of Russell Nelson and agreed to have
consideration of the two licenses deferred.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: dwheeler on Tuesday, December 13 2005 @ 12:16 PM EST |
| Others will disagree with me here. However, I believe that if Microsoft's
licenses meet the OSI requirements, then they should be granted recognition as
such.
Currently there are two problems: (1) The current OSI rules REQUIRE
that the license-creator submit their license to OSI, and (2) The current OSI
rules now have an additional stipulation on non-proliferation of licenses.
I
see no evidence that the current submitter represents Microsoft. Thus, I think
OSI should thank him for his submission, but tell him that the submission needs
to come from the license-creator. It's only reasonable; the OSI process
involves a discussion about the license impacts and intents, and that can really
only come from the license creator. It's only fair to the many others who have
submitted their licenses to OSI; use the same process.
If Microsoft submits
their license to OSI, then I think OSI owes the world an honest evaluation. And
that includes an evaluation of whether or not the licenses are sufficiently
different that they justify a new license. If they seem to be OSS but violate
the "non-proliferation" rules (which were established an issue BEFORE Microsoft
created these licenses), then they should say so, and try to work with Microsoft
to help them move to an essentially equivalent alternative. Will Microsoft
move? No idea. But OSI should be scrupulously fair.
I've met many of the
OSI members, and I think they would be able to do this fairly. Microsoft
competes with many OSS projects, but it also uses and supports other OSS
projects, and for its own economic well-being it has reason to help some OSS
projects. No doubt Microsoft is doing what it's doing for its own economic
gain, but the same is true of IBM, Sun, and just about any other company. So
show them them same courtesy.
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