Interesting Microsoft license clause re open source

[Chloe Hoffman]

Please excuse cross-posting.

In light of recent discussions regarding license incompatibilities, thought 
members of these list might be interested in this explicit statement of 
incompatibility in a new beta license from MS, a license which allows for 
the limited creation and distribution of derivative works. Comments?

(c)   Open Source.  Recipient’s license rights to the Software are 
conditioned upon Recipient (i) not distributing such Software, in whole or 
in part, in conjunction with Potentially Viral Software (as defined below); 
and (ii) not using Potentially Viral Software (e.g. tools) to develop 
Recipient software which includes the Software, in whole or in part.  For 
purposes of the foregoing, “Potentially Viral Software” means software which 
is licensed pursuant to terms that: (x) create, or purport to create, 
obligations for Microsoft with respect to the Software or (y) grant, or 
purport to grant, to any third party any rights to or immunities under 
Microsoft’s intellectual property or proprietary rights in the Software.  By 
way of example but not limitation of the foregoing, Recipient shall not 
distribute the Software, in whole or in part, in conjunction with any 
Publicly Available Software.  “Publicly Available Software” means each of 
(i) any software that contains, or is derived in any manner (in whole or in 
part) from, any software that is distributed as free software, open source 
software (e.g. Linux) or similar licensing or distribution models; and (ii) 
any software that requires as a condition of use, modification and/or 
distribution of such software that other software distributed with such 
software (A) be disclosed or distributed in source code form; (B) be 
licensed for the purpose of making derivative works; or (C) be 
redistributable at no charge.  Publicly Available Software includes, without 
limitation, software licensed or distributed under any of the following 
licenses or distribution models, or licenses or distribution models similar 
to any of the following: (A) GNU’s General Public License (GPL) or 
Lesser/Library GPL (LGPL), (B) The Artistic License (e.g., PERL), (C) the 
Mozilla Public License, (D) the Netscape Public License, (E) the Sun 
Community Source License (SCSL), and (F) the Sun Industry Standards License 
(SISL).

Click on Download at this URL to see the license in full -
http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/default.asp?URL=/code/sample.asp?url=/MSDN-FILES/027/001/516/msdncompositedoc.xml
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