For Approval: Microsoft Permissive License

[Chris Travers]

On 9/28/07, Philippe Verdy <verdy_p at wanadoo.fr> wrote:
>
> I'm sorry if this irritates you. But Micorosft is very active worldwide
> into
> protecting its trademark, and finances several actions against those that
> abuse its name, or pretend acting in the name of Microsoft for delivering
> pseudo-secure products.



The above issue is entirely different.   I don't see how this concern of
yours stems from it.  I have had to deal with legal threats from parties
seeking to overextend trademark issues before (i.e. use trademarks to
monopolize add-on documentation markets for specific software projects), so
although IANAL, I have a pretty good idea of where the lines are.

Basically if I say, "LedgerSMB runs on Microsoft Windows 2000, XP, or (with
some extra effort) Vista," this is not a trademark violation and Microsoft
cannot prevent me from saying so.  After all, I have just stated a fact, and
specified a factual product relationship.

If I refer to WIndows + MinGW as GNU/Windows, I don't know if I am violating
any registered or common law trademarks of the FSF, on the other hand (might
depend on context).

In short, stating "This product is licensed under the Microsoft Permissive
License" is not going to violate any trademarks provided that the product
really is licensed under the pomised license.  If a false representation is
made about the license to that effect however, there might be an issue (of
diluting the Microsoft Permissive License common law trademark).

Now, if Microsoft were to require a "Microsoft Shared Source" logo to be
included in works under this license, and if they required following a
(subject to change) trademark license to do so, you would have a point.
(BTW, I saw at least one open source project try, unsuccessfully, to pull
that sort of crap.)  But at the moment this is not an issue.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
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