BSD and MIT license "compliance" with the MS-PL

[saulgoode at flashingtwelve.brickfilms.com]

Quoting David Woolley <forums at david-woolley.me.uk>:

> saulgoode at flashingtwelve.brickfilms.com wrote:
>
>>
>> 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
>
> I don't think that it needs to permit everything that the parent
> permits;

I agree. My wording was incorrect. The intent was "i.e., it should  
permit the actions that the other license requires be permitted".  
Nonetheless, the real issue is that the MS-PL has a requirement that a  
patent grant be provided, making licenses which don't require such a  
grant non-compliant.

> Also, the MIT and BSD licences in your title are so permissive that
> they will only really be compliant with very similar licences, although
> most other licences will be compliant with them.

I consider this to be very problematic, this notion of "compliance"  
between licenses -- which creates an entirely different set of  
restrictions on the usability of MS-PL code in Open Source projects  
than does a requirement that licenses be "compatible".

I don't wish to rehash old discussions, but I was unable to find this  
issue addressed previously (other than a couple of complaints during  
the approval process that the concept of one license complying with  
another was rather nonsensical).