For Approval: Microsoft Permissive License

Matthew Flaschen matthew.flaschen at gatech.edu
Sun Sep 30 02:52:15 UTC 2007


Jon Rosenberg (PBM) wrote:
> Thank you to everyone who provided feedback on the proposed license
> names and thank you especially to Martin for pointing out the
> potential conflict with the Microsoft Open License name. Given that
> our goal in renaming the licenses is to reduce confusion, I think
> that using this name would take us in the wrong direction. 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

These are both okay.  Neither "Free Reuse License" nor "Open Code
License" has an clear established meaning (except that Open Code License
would probably be assumed to be OSD-compliant)

> Microsoft Simple License

I recommend against this, as it sounds too much like an unrelated,
previously submitted license, SimPL (which I believe is still under
consideration but will probably soon be approved).

> 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.)

This would be my first choice.  The term Public is accurate, since the
license does flow from Microsoft to the general public.  So many
different licenses use the word "public" that it doesn't carry any other
implicit meaning.

Matt Flaschen



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