For Approval: Microsoft Permissive License

[Chris DiBona]

And by Personally, I mean "negative", and I'd assert that windows
refund day was a pretty positive thing :-)

Chris

On 8/17/07, Chris DiBona <cdibona at gmail.com> wrote:
> Actually, if you read my original email, you'll see that I don't have
> a lot of issues with the licenses themselves, outside of their
> redundancy. But I think that Microsoft's behavior deserves discussion,
> because the reality is that Bill's employer will use OSI's approval
> against it.
>
> OSI should not trade on its reputation lightly. Again, this is not a
> discussion about licenses but whether or not it is wise for OSI to
> enable its most vicious competitor.
>
> You may want to try to paint this as personal disapproval, but if you
> look on any search engine you would be hard pressed to find anything
> from me personally about Microsoft outside of windows refund day in
> 1998. Note that trying to turn this into a discussion about FSF or
> Google or me completely dodges the issue, so , you know, nice try and
> all. I'm more than happy to discuss Google's frankly incredibly
> awesome open source practices (including pr, press quotes, not
> creating new licenses, marketing and the rest) in a  different thread,
>
> Chris
>
> On 8/17/07, Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des at linpro.no> wrote:
> > Bill Hilf <billhilf at microsoft.com> writes:
> > > I'm unclear how some of your questions are related to our license
> > > submissions, which is what I believe this list and the submission
> > > process are designed to facilitate.  You're questioning things such
> > > as Microsoft's marketing terms, press quotes, where we put licenses
> > > on our web site, and how we work with OEMs - none of which I could
> > > find at http://opensource.org/docs/osd.
> >
> > Basically, Chris doesn't want the OSI do approve a license submitted
> > by an organization of which he personally disapproves, regardless of
> > the merits of the license itself.  Hey, I can sympathize - personally,
> > I really don't approve of the FSF, and I'd love to see the OSI turn
> > down the GPLv3.
> >
> > Except I wouldn't, really, because then the OSI would lose every shred
> > of credibility and quickly become irrelevant - just like it would if
> > it failed to carefully consider the licenses submitted by Microsoft,
> > or to approve them if they were found to adhere to the OSD.  I don't
> > want the OSI to lose its credibility and become irrelevant, and I
> > believe that both licenses submitted by Microsoft are OSD-compliant.
> >
> > > If you'd like to discuss this, I'd be happy to - and I have a number
> > > of questions for you about Google's use of and intentions with open
> > > source software as well.
> >
> > But Google is good!  Google can do no evil!  It says so right there in
> > the bylaws!
> >
> > *smack*
> >
> > DES
> > --
> > Dag-Erling Smørgrav
> > Senior Software Developer
> > Linpro AS - www.linpro.no
> >
>
>
> --
> Open Source Programs Manager, Google Inc.
> Google's Open Source program can be found at http://code.google.com
> Personal Weblog: http://dibona.com
>


-- 
Open Source Programs Manager, Google Inc.
Google's Open Source program can be found at http://code.google.com
Personal Weblog: http://dibona.com