For Approval: Microsoft Permissive License

Nils Labugt elabu at online.no
Sat Aug 18 10:23:06 UTC 2007


lør, 18.08.2007 kl. 01.34 -0700, skrev Michael R. Bernstein:
> As far as I can tell, the MS-PL and MS-CL licenses aren't even
> compatible with each other, in either direction.
> 
> When we talk about 'license proliferation' as a problem, it's important
> to note that aside from the annoying confusion that the number of
> licenses per-se engenders, the real problems are side effects such as
> immiscible codebases.
> 
> This Highlander[1] requirement deliberately and explicitly cranks the
> imiscibility up to eleven, for no good reason I can see.
> 
> In the spirit of license-discuss, where it is not uncommon to suggest
> general improvements to submitted licenses even if they are not strictly
> required for OSD-compliance, I want to know if Microsoft is willing to
> improve these licenses by changing 'you may do so only under this
> license' to 'you must do so under this license' or similar phrasing in
> order to leave the door open for compatible licenses and dual-licensing.

Some of us wants to license our code under a permissive license, and
also wants our code to *remain* under a permissive license. Isn't that a
legitimate wish?

There seems to be an attitude of many around here that one should go to
great lengths to satisfy those who wants strong "copyleft" terms, while
a desire to prevent others from adding new restrictive terms is frown
upon. And this license permits linking to code under different licenses,
doesn't it? Unlike GPLv3.


Nils Labugt





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