A Slightly-Softer Microsoft Shared Source License 359
RadBlock writes "Microsoft Watch has a story on a recent change in Microsoft's shared-source licensing... I guess the main difference is that programmers do not have to send back any changes made to the source code. But they can't combine any of the Microsoft code with other software. Here's the full text of their new license agreement." The article claims that Microsoft is "inching closer -- at least in spirit -- to the GNU GPL" with these license tweaks, but it doesn't look that way to me.
The problem with the "spirit of the GPL"... (Score:1, Informative)
Within the software industry, the recent clash of source-code licensing philosophies has proponents of commercial software and open-source advocates frequently at loggerheads. Both commercial and open-source software models, however, have demonstrated value for various sectors of the software market, which has determined that multiple licensing and distribution models should coexist in healthy competition. The market, in fact, is driving both camps toward a middle ground where the most beneficial aspects of both philosophies are embraced.
In May 2001, Microsoft® responded with a Shared Source Initiative (SSI) to provide source access to a broad range of customers, partners, independent developers, researchers and other interested individuals, while preserving the intellectual property rights that have sustained innovation throughout the industry over the past quarter-century. The SSI framework supports a spectrum of licensing programs, each tailored to the source-access needs of a specific constituent community. Meanwhile, prominent open-source developers began to adopt certain commercial distribution methods in their own pragmatic migration toward the middle. These developers commonly rely on open-source licenses, like those based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) license, that place few if any restrictions on licensees' subsequent use of licensed source code, including its use in commercial software development.
Free software distributors, by contrast, use the highly restrictive GPL, which was created by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in furtherance of its philosophy that software should not be subject to ownership, and thus that commercial software is inherently immoral. The GPL governs distribution of some popular free software, including Linux. The GPL may be beneficial to noncommercial developers and certain licensees in other contexts, but several of the license's terms and uncertainties should raise red flags for commercial developers considering its use.
Because many businesses may not understand the GPL and its potential implications, Microsoft offers this document as a checklist and to provide important background information. Most or all of the following questions will be familiar to those who have examined the GPL. Many of them have generated considerable debate even among open-source and free-software advocates. Comments in this document are based on GPL Version 2, Lesser General Public License (LGPL) Version 2.1 and the GNU GPL FAQ page (www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl-faq.html).
The GPL is a complicated agreement. To understand your potential rights and obligations, you must interpret the various provisions of the license and apply them to your particular circumstances. Microsoft recommends that you obtain legal counsel as appropriate. This document does not and cannot offer legal advice.
1. Have your lawyers read the GPL (and the LGPL)? Because the GPL is so frequently misunderstood and because it attempts, under certain circumstances, to impose significant obligations on licensees and their intellectual property rights, no responsible business should use GPL software without ensuring that its lawyers have read the license and explained the business' rights and obligations. They should also review and explain the Lesser General Public License, or LGPL, a related license that is sometimes used with open source libraries.
2. How are you using GPL software and what obligations does it impose? The obligations associated with the GPL vary substantially depending upon the way in which GPL code is used. Even limited or relatively obscure uses (e.g., including a few lines of GPL code in a commercial product or linking directly or indirectly to a GPL library) may have a dramatic effect on your legal rights and obligations. To understand the potential implications of the GPL, you need to have a detailed understanding of your use of
As I read it... (Score:4, Informative)
I see no reason why combining MSSL and BSDL code would be forbidden.
Re:Microsoft? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Closer to GPL (Score:3, Informative)
Please see the GPL FAQ [gnu.org].
An inch. (Score:5, Informative)
An inch is how much of a stride? How many strides is Shared Source Initiative/License from GNU/GPL?
This is a pretty big step for Microsoft. They are, to a legal extent, relinquishing complete control of the source. Now you can maintain a private fork of the SSL source. (isn't that a nice abbreviation?) You won't have to report every little tweak you make to Microsoft.
On the other hand, MS could be bowing to simple reality: they don't have or want the resources to administer 900,000,000 variations on patches, developers keep private trees anyway, companies do not like dishing out their private modifications to potential competitors. Even so, they've bowed to reality. If they keep bowing to reality, they'll eventually hit something near the BSD license, and do a lot of good when they start getting close.
Re:Rights? (Score:2, Informative)
It's simple. Microsoft is offering a license agreement which you may choose to accept. That agreement grants you certain rights to Microsoft's intellectual property. The terms of that agreement were recently changed.
The intellectual property in question is contained in software. When software is used, it is "online".
Hence, this information affects your rights online. Hope that helps.
Re:Rights? (Score:1, Informative)
Can you-- indeed, can anyone-- clear this up for me, please?
Well, I suppose I could give you the answer that EULA's are legal documents, like contracts, and like any contract, require you to change your behavior, or at least require you not behave in certain ways.
However, this behavior sometimes interferes with what many consider a basic right: the right to use data on your own hard drive however you like, much like you can arrange papers in your desk drawer however you like. Or other rights, like the right to share knowledge with someone else.
If you don't think these are "rights", then, well, there's not much more to be said. Some of us do. To each his own. Maybe you call them something else.
But you know all that stuff, since you've posted questions like this before. So I assume you're just "stirring the pot". I'm sure you have your rebuttals ready.
I have come to accept, over the past several years, that the Slashdot idea of "rights" is wildly different from my own. This bothers me deeply, but I see little point in arguing about it in broad strokes.
Hmm, I thought that all of us were "Slashdot" .. I guess you are a disinterested observer? But whatever the case, I'm sorry that this has effected you "deeply" for "several years" .. someday you may realize that some people believe in things that seem pointless or illogical to you.
Until then, don't let it get you down too much. (Sometimes constantly fighting against something makes you look too much like what you're fighting against!)
Re:Closer to GPL (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Microsoft would never consider a GPL-like appro (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know what their bottom line looks like, but they seem to have been rapidly expanding and releasing new and improved products over the last few years, so it seems to be working well for them. I also think this is a pretty reasonable model for developers of library software - the benefits of Open Source, and the ability to actually profit off of your labor too. So while I agree that in general the GPL is probably too restrictive for businesses to feel comfortable with (they tend to feel more comfortable with BSD licenses - it's free, use it as you please, give us a nod for giving it to you), there are cases where it has been used successfully by profitable businesses.
Re:As I read it... (Score:4, Informative)
2. That you are not allowed to combine or distribute the Software with other software that is licensed under terms that seek to require that the Software (or any intellectual property in it) be provided in source code form, licensed to others to allow the creation or distribution of derivative works, or distributed without charge.
3. That if you distribute the Software in source code form you do so only under this license (i.e. you must include a complete copy of this license with your distribution), and if you distribute the Software solely in object form you only do so under a license that complies with this license.
Explicitly written to exclude the GPL and similar licences which demand source availability for any derivatives. Looks extremely compatible with the BSD licence, as far as I can tell.
This seems a lot more than "inching closer" to me. Can anyone point out some restriction I'm missing? The only question is just what the phrasing in clause 2 means. If you group it like:
That you are not allowed to combine or distribute the Software with other software that is:
a) licensed under terms that seek to require that the Software (or any intellectual property in it) be provided in source code form,
b) licensed to others to allow the creation or distribution of derivative works, or
c) distributed without charge.
Then it's pretty restrictive. But you can also read it as:
That you are not allowed to combine or distribute the Software with other software that is licensed under terms that seek to require that the Software (or any intellectual property in it) be:
a) provided in source code form,
b) licensed to others to allow the creation or distribution of derivative works, or
c) distributed without charge.
Herein lies the problem with not writing licences in legalese. The same sentence can be read either way, and the former is far more restrictive than the latter. Optimistic people will read the latter, but perhaps Microsoft are holding the former as a hammer to use in the future?
Re:Absolutely one step closer! (Score:3, Informative)
What the hell is this supposed to be? Argument by search-and-replace? I really don't mind if people disagree with me; I wouldn't bother posting these things if I did. But at least have the common courtesy to read and understand what is said before attempting to refute it. It's really the least you could do.
The GPL is viral, as everyone knows by now, because introducing it into a project as part of a linked component means that the entire project must carry the GPL; it is not possible to use the GPL for library X and use some other license, or indeed no source code license at all, for the body of your program. The GPL itself prohibits this. So when the GPL is introduced to a project, it spreads to encompass the entire project. Ergo, viral.
If I were to send you a document in Microsoft Word format, nothing at all would happen to any of the other documents on your computer. You would still be free to use SurfWriter or what-have-you to create other documents. Saying that Microsoft Word is a viral format because you have to use it as a common medium of exchange is equivalent to saying that the English language is viral because you have to use it to communicate when that is the only language spoken by another party.
Does that clear it up? GPL: viral. Microsoft Office file formats: not viral.
Re:Closer to GPL (Score:3, Informative)
No, I guess that is really just too complicated...
Download the ASP.NET Starter Kits and Take A Look (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft but this is not an official endorsement nor rebuttal of the claims in the article. I'm simply pointing people to where they can verify the claims in the article for themselves
Re:The problem with the "spirit of the GPL"... (Score:4, Informative)
By this mean, you would also attribute the text to the creator.
Sadly Slashdot didn't seem to catch this one ... (Score:1, Informative)
Lets all give them much respect.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,109857,t k,dn031803X,00.asp [pcworld.com]
AC
It _is_ free software (Score:3, Informative)
The clauses about not using Microsoft trademarks, marking modified versions as such, and not suing people over software patents are entirely reasonable. Requiring that the user indemnify Microsoft against lawsuits from third parties relating to the user's distribution of the Microsoft code is a bit iffy (RMS says 'requiring indemnities is highly obnoxious') but again, it just has the general aim of avoiding harassment by lawyers and probably isn't that big a deal.
The only unusual clause is the one that says you may not distribute the software 'with other software other software that is licensed under terms that seek to require that the Software (or any intellectual property in it) be provided in source code form, licensed to others to allow the creation or distribution of derivative works, or distributed without charge'. Now does this 'with' refer to derivative works, or does it include mere aggregation?
If the 'with' refers to creating derivative works, then it isn't really any worse than the GNU GPL, which excludes all other licences except itself.
It's a bit obnoxious and stupid, sure, but not enough to make the software non-free. After all a strong copyleft licence other than the GPL, call it the Stupid Public Licence or SPL, is considered a free software licence, and it doesn't allow combining with _any_ other software unless it happens to also be SPL-licenced. Microsoft's licence is no worse than the putative SPL.
If the 'with' is attempting to restrict mere aggregation, then it probably is enough to make the software non-free. You could not put Microsoft's code and gcc on the same CD. Interestingly, since it forbids distributing 'with' software whose licence requires it to be 'distributed without charge', you might not be able to put the software on the same CD as other code from Microsoft - since I'm sure that many of their programs like Internet Explorer have terms which say you may distribute, but only without charging a fee.
Microsoft should clarify whether clause 2 in their licence refers to creating derivative works, or attempts to restrict distribution that is even within smelling distance of GPLed code.