For Approval: Microsoft Public License

Tue Oct 9 20:23:36 UTC 2007

Russ Nelson wrote:

> There's been a huge amount of discussion of this license, some of it
> prompted by the name.  Now that that has been changed, if there are
> any remaining objections, please post them under this thread.

I had a question that I hadn't seen answered.  The major exception (other than name) that I saw was that MS-PL was "uniquely incompatible".  Had that been addressed and what does that mean?  From a personal/immediate standpoint the other OSI license I would want to be compatible with MS-PL is the NOSA license.  I would hope that there would be no conflict with permissive licenses.

________________________________

B Galliart wrote:

>Next, I feel the OSI needs to make a clear distinction between
>approving the MS-PL and MS-CL from approving all projects that are
>covered from them.  The application of the licenses are not done in a
>vacuum and I believe there exists a problem that I would like to dub
>the "Kosher Cheeseburger issue."

...

>There are Codeplex projects that, while covered by MS-PL or MS-CL, do
>not honor the true spirit of Open Source definition.  For example,
>PowerToys for Visual Studio is one of the first Shared Source projects
>promoted by Port 25.  However, modifying the project requires first
>downloading, installing and using the Visual Studio SDK.  After
>accepting the SDK's license, there are limits placed on modification
>and redistribution of the project.

There shouldn't be any difference in this scenario if the PowerToys for Visual Studio was licensed LGPL as opposed to MS-PL (or CL).  The fact that it is something for Visual Studio implies that whatever requirements for creation of a VS plugin/component/addon (like the VS SDK) would also be needed for modification.

Does that mean that LGPL is not an open source license?  Or that no open source plug-in for a closed source product using some kind of SDK is itself open source?

> Therefore, I feel allowing MS to rubber stamp
> such a project as OSI approved would be damaging to the true spirit in
> which the Open Source definition was written.

In the example above, I would assume I can use any of the code in PowerToys in my own project (if my own project has a license compatible with MS-PL) without any VS SDK dependency unless that code segment uses something out of the SDK.  Those pieces are likely tightly coupled to Visual Studio and would need refactoring anyway.

In what way is this not open source?

The question I have above is "is my project going to be MS-PL compatible?"  Something I will have to pass through our legal department for any of our work and contributions under the JHUAPL Open Source Agreement but as a private contributor something I would want to know as well for the other OSI approved licenses I might like to use.  "Uniquely incompatible" is a problem if it includes permissive licenses.  Not a problem for me personally if it only incompatible with copyleft licenses.

There are some of us that do open source using Microsoft technology.  Your objection is pretty much asserting that no one using the .NET framework is doing open source because we have dependencies on the redistributable framework that some folks have to download and click through a EULA with limitations on the granted rights.

Nigel

ObDis:  IANAL and do not speak for my university.  The opinions expressed are my own.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nigel Tzeng

Chief Scientist, Command and Control Group
Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
11100 Johns Hopkins Road, Mailstop 17-S242

240-228-1464 (DC)
443-778-1464 (Baltimore)
Nigel.Tzeng at jhuapl.edu
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.opensource.org/pipermail/license-discuss_lists.opensource.org/attachments/20071009/79f3611a/attachment.html>