For Approval: Microsoft Permissive License

[Donovan Hawkins]

On Fri, 28 Sep 2007, Jon Rosenberg (PBM) wrote:

> I have a few new alternatives below for a rename of the Microsoft 
> Permissive License on which I would like to again ask the community for 
> feedback:
>
> Microsoft Free Reuse License
> Microsoft Open Code License

Calling something the "So-and-so Free License" or "So-and-so Open License" 
are basically generic, so you can use them on any license which is free 
(per the FSF) or open-source (per the OSI) without confusion. No one 
really has expectations for these names. But "Free Reuse" and "Open Code" 
stand out as trying to say something, though I'm not sure they succeed or 
accurately describe the MS-PL.

I have nothing to say against these names per-se. More like I find myself 
trying to parse them over and over looking for further meaning that I 
can't quite find. What sort of reuse? Isn't "open code" just the same as 
"open source"?


> Microsoft Simple License

Given the confusion on this license list I'm not sure it qualifies as 
simple. Short perhaps, but not necessarily simple.


> Microsoft Public License (One reservation that my colleagues and I have 
> about this one is that most licenses with the word 'Public' in the name 
> are reciprocal. Hence, using this name for our non-reciprocal license 
> might generate confusion.)

There are a variety of licenses with "public" in the name on the FSF's 
site and I don't see an obvious pattern forming about them. Some are 
permissive, some are copyleft, some are weak copyleft, and some are GPL 
incompatible. There seems to be plenty of room for the MS-PL under the 
"public" label.

I would say that "public" evokes much the same idea as "open" really: that 
the license is placing something out there for the public to use in some 
way. The CMPLT license I am working on uses "public" for the 'P', and it 
is not copyleft either. I would vote for "Microsoft Public License" from 
the ones on that list.

Convieniently enough, it would still be called the MS-PL.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Donovan Hawkins, PhD                 "The study of physics will always be
Software Engineer                     safer than biology, for while the
hawkins at cephira.com                   hazards of physics drop off as 1/r^2,
http://www.cephira.com                biological ones grow exponentially."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------