BSD and MIT license "compliance" with the MS-PL
saulgoode at flashingtwelve.brickfilms.com
saulgoode at flashingtwelve.brickfilms.com
Wed Apr 15 20:53:18 UTC 2009
I have a question about the terms of the Microsoft Public License
(MS-PL) and the license's compatibility with various other
OSI-approved license. The section of the MS-PL which I find confusing
is 3D) wherein the condition is stated, "If you distribute any portion
of the software in compiled or object code form, you may only do so
under a license that complies with this license."
It would seem to me that for one license to "comply with" another, it
should meet the criteria of that other license; i.e., it should both
permit the actions that the other license permits, and restrict the
actions that the other license restricts (indeed, I would consider
such conditions to be one and the same, merely a matter of the how the
requirements are worded).
Since one of the criteria of the MS-PL is that a patent grant be
provided to recipients of the software, and since neither the BSD or
MIT license provide such a grant, would not this suggest that neither
of those licenses "comply with" the MS-PL?
I realize that cross-compatibility is not a requirement for license
approval by the OSI, but I still would be interested in hearing
opinions on this.
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