For Approval: Microsoft Permissive License

[Tobia Conforto]

Nils Labugt wrote:
> tir, 21.08.2007 kl. 17.56 -0700, skrev Michael R. Bernstein:
> > This ignores the role of the word 'only'. This means that MS-PL is
> > incompatible with every other license, even the BSD license.
>
> If both a) BSDL requires that that its license text be included
> verbatim and that even a license text containing similar terms would
> be an insufficient substitute; and b) including the BSDL text along
> with the MS-PL text would cause the license (terms) the work is
> licensed under to differ from the MS-PL; are true, then the MS-PL
> would seem to be incompatible with the BSDL. My guess would be that
> a) is true, but I doubt b).

They might both be true (IAANAL), but that will not a practical problem
for BSDL and MS-PL projects.  It just means that files (or classes, or
single functions) originally under MS-PL will always be under MS-PL, and
files under BSDL will remain under BSDL.  Right?

The practical incompatibility seems only to be with licenses that
require the whole work to be placed under specific additional terms (GPL)
and, as already said by others, it looks ominously like a design goal.


Tobia