MS continued attack on OSD #6

[Sam Ramji]

Michael:

I'm not sure if you're saying you agree with B Galliart's concerns or not.

If you do, I'd like to understand your personal take on what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong.

My team and the company will do everything we can to avoid mis-using the "open source" term that, as we have agreed, applies to software licensed under the OSI-approved licenses, and refers to shared development, and not just "source availability."

I'm happy to have the conversation here or off-line, as you prefer.

I have said before, and will reiterate here:  the process that began a year ago when you asked me face-to-face to submit our licenses to the OSI has been a productive one; we are honored that the OSI chose to approve the Ms-PL and Ms-RL; and we intend to use those designations with care and in accordance with the wishes of the OSI.

Additionally you have my personal email and mobile number if you should ever wish to talk or raise a concern.

Sincerely,

Sam

Sam Ramji
sramji at microsoft.com
+1 (510) 913-6495

From: mdtiemann at gmail.com [mailto:mdtiemann at gmail.com] On Behalf Of Michael Tiemann
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 5:55 PM
To: Rick Moen
Cc: license-discuss at opensource.org
Subject: Re: MS continued attack on OSD #6

Rick, I don't understand at all what you are talking about.  I believe it is pure crap to set up a website that purports to host open source materials, and then populate it with things that are not such, especially things that are referred to as if they might be, and then leaving it only to the careful reader to not "well, that item cannot be open source because it violates OSD#6".  In my opinion this is a clear attempt to probe exactly how much crap they can get away with.  You seem to be saying "hey, the smart people know it's crap--no harm no foul".  B. Galliart is saying "the claims are clearly bogus.  We should hold them to account."

If I'm understanding everything here correctly, B. Galliart is on top of things.  Maybe I don't understand your complaint.

M
On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 7:56 PM, Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com<mailto:rick at linuxmafia.com>> wrote:
Quoting B Galliart (bgallia at gmail.com<mailto:bgallia at gmail.com>):
> The fact that the title needed to be corrected at all seems to
> indicate a need to be more alarmed than less.
/me showers B Galliart with magic perspective sauce, and points out that
he just used the phrase "a need to more alarmed" in connection to a
Slashdot thread prompted by a mistaken blog posting by a corporate
intern.  We both laugh and walk away, our day brightened by the comic
moment.  Exeunt omnes.


> Microsoft seems to go several step further than the QNX press release.
> It claims MSCompBio is open source.[2]
This is the same overblown reference to a puff-job marketing PDF we saw
before, and incremental antiquity has not piled noticeable merit atop
the earlier citation.

> Microsoft's own statement about the availability for Singularity[4]
> seems to imply that it is open source:
>
> "The Singularity Research Development Kit (RDK) 1.1 is now available
> for academic non-commercial use. You can download it from CodePlex,
> Microsoft's open source project hosting website, here."
Used cow food, sir.

"Available for academin non-commercial use" is as clear as one could
wish for.

One more time, sir, before I write you off entirely:

 People on this mailing list tend to have limited amounts of time and
 effort to devote to it.  Accordingly, your best chance at being taken
 seriously is to avoid exaggeration -- e.g., don't pretend that some
 college intern's screwup is anything like corporate policy -- and, avoid
 time-wasting rhetorical excess, and make very sure you include vital
 details like _why_ you consider otherwise apparently motley marketing
 fluff on the Internet to merit OSI's time and trouble.

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