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Microsoft Treating "Windows-Only" As Open Source
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sat Oct 04, 2008 11:22 AM
from the a-rose-v0.092-BETA-by-any-other-name dept.
from the a-rose-v0.092-BETA-by-any-other-name dept.
mjasay writes "The Register is reporting that Microsoft is hosting Windows-only projects on its 'open source project hosting site,' CodePlex. Miguel de Icaza caught and criticized Microsoft for doing this with its Microsoft Extensibility Framework (MEF), licensing it under the Microsoft Limited Permissive License (Ms-LPL), which restricts use of the code to Windows. Microsoft has changed the license for MEF to an OSI-approved license, the Microsoft Public License, but it continues to host a range of other projects under the Ms-LPL. If CodePlex wasn't an 'open source project hosting site,' this wouldn't be a problem. But when Microsoft invokes the 'open source' label, it has a duty to live up to associated expectations and ensure that the code it releases on CodePlex is actually open source. If it doesn't want to do this — if it doesn't want to abide by this most basic principle of open source — then call CodePlex something else and we'll all move on."
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Your Rights Online: OSI Asks Microsoft to Change the MS-PL 169 comments
Xenographic writes "The OSI has identified two significant flaws in the Microsoft Permissive License, and is unlikely to approve it as an OSI license in its current state. Specifically, the OSI is worried about the way the MS-PL is incompatible with so many other OSI-approved licenses and how misleading that makes the term 'permissive' in the license's name. Now the ball is in Microsoft's court and they can choose to amend or withdraw it from consideration. From the article: 'The MPL is also particularly restrictive, and is uniquely incompatible with the maximum number of other open-source licenses, [president of OSI Michael Tiemann] said, noting that in its examination of license proliferation, the OSI had encouraged experimentation with license terms to encourage new ones to be written that were better than what currently existed.'"
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This is microsoft trying to help kill open source? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is most likely a tactic to try to get people to associate "open source" with Microsoft and not Linux.
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:5, Insightful)
Their publicity agencies are here on Slashdot pumping that angle every day.
Bruce
Parent
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not a matter of ownership. Words have a particular meaning and this is a case of MS trying to throw its weight around to change the popular understanding of the meaning of "Open Source" to something that is favorable for them. Last time I checked, "Open Source" does NOT mean "something that is only legal to use on Windows".
Parent
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:5, Interesting)
Or Linux-only, or Mac-only, or Plan9-only. The point is that if someone wants to modify the code so it runs on an Atari 800, they're legally free to do so. Publishing the code, and saying, "You may do this, only, and no more", is certainly within their rights, but it ain't open.
Parent
Re:This is people trying to play with words. (Score:5, Informative)
The big difference in this case is that it affects how you *use* the software.
Many OSI approved licenses affect how you may redistribute the software, but none of them AFAIK limit how you may use or alter it.
Parent
Re:This is people trying to play with words. (Score:5, Insightful)
technically you are right about what licenses are. but what open source licenses all have in common is that they aim to make the software source code the most freely available to others, thus maximizing its utility, with the minimal licensing restrictions to achieve this goal.
Microsoft's use of "open source" not only goes against the spirit of FOSS, but also violates the basic definition of "Open Source" [wikipedia.org] used by the OSI:
5. No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups - The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.
6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor - The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.
8. License Must Not Be Specific to a Product - The rights attached to the program must not depend on the program's being part of a particular software distribution. If the program is extracted from that distribution and used or distributed within the terms of the program's license, all parties to whom the program is redistributed should have the same rights as those that are granted in conjunction with the original software distribution.
9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software - The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.
in the end, what "open source" means is defined by the community. it is what the community finds acceptable and conducive to the goals of the Open Source movement. if they decide that they are willing to accept Microsoft's definition of "open source" then the Ms-LPL can be called a genuinely open source license. however, that would require changing the current accepted definition of open source. but not only would that require arriving at a new consensus, but it would likely destroy the open source movement by undermining its original aim of fostering open collaboration and combat the increasingly restrictive IP laws and cultural attitudes.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
9. License Must Not Restrict Other Software - The license must not place restrictions on other software that is distributed along with the licensed software. For example, the license must not insist that all other programs distributed on the same medium must be open-source software.
Would you happen to know why this point was worded to be specific to other software, instead of applying to anything that might accompany the licensed software? I can say "this sofware may not be distributed with fur coats", and as far as I can see that's be perfectly OK.
Re:This is people trying to play with words. (Score:5, Interesting)
The OSD is related to what people had tried to do with licenses at the time. For example, there was Alladin Ghostscript, which prohibited its distribution on the same medium with software that wasn't freely distributable. And there was the Berkeley Spice License, for their electrical engineering software, which prohibited the use of the software by the Police of South Africa, and still did a decade after apartheid was over.
I was trying to define what was Free Software for Debian's social contract. FSF didn't promote a definition of Free Software at the time, although they'd published one in their newsletter a long time before. RMS even said in a personal email that he liked my definition.
Then 7 or 8 months after this was all written and in use by Debian, Eric Raymond brought me the news of the meeting where a bunch of people had decided to promote Free Software as Open Source, and asked me to work on that. So, I filed off the Debian references and it became the Open Source Definition, and I announced Open Source to the world, including here on Slashdot (and that announcement still survives online today). That announcement was the first real use of "Open Source" to the public.
Bruce
Parent
Re:This is people trying to play with words. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:4, Insightful)
A real open source license wouldn't do that
That's your opinion. As far as I'm concerned, open source means exactly that - the source is open. People seem to be intent on tacking on a whole load of 'moral' obligations that someone has to follow to qualify to use 'open source', when nothing could be further from the truth.
Definitely a very liberal sprinkling of "Open Source is our phrase, you can't use it" going around the comments on this article.
Parent
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the rights that are important. You're missing that entirely.
Bruce
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
By your definition, the latest feature films are "open" as well. After all, you can look at them. You can't copy them, distribute them, compile them, or anything else.
C'mon, we both know you're cleverer than this. We're talking about the definition of 'open source', not open in general and certainly not Software Freedom or copyright of any kind, which is what the article would like us to get incensed about.
I respect you and your work Bruce, but I'm going to have to disagree with you completely here - I'm not missing a damn thing, and I believe you're getting yourself lost in a moral definition of a very simple English phrase - the source is open and it therefore is 'open
You are missing a damn thing (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows is a very simple phrase. Trademarked.
Apple? TM
"Start me up"? That was restricted with Win95.
etc.
And Open Source MEANS something. The use of words to mislead a customer is why trademarks were invented.
If you bought a Sony product and found out it was a Latvian company called Sony making your LCD TV, that would be wrong. Not because they didn't sell you a Sony TV but that you thought the Sony was a particular company.
Same here.
Open Source defined by OSI in computer markets.
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:5, Insightful)
We need more than you think for something to be open even by your over-restrictive definition of "open". Consider that the report on the security of Sequoia voting machines has been supressed by the court [freedom-to-tinker.com]. In that case, the software was trade secret and all rights reserved. But what if it had been source code that was disclosed but still "all rights reserved"? Since that prohibits compilation and use, it would be difficult for security testers to legally do their work at all. Since it prevents derivative works and redistribution, we'd be unable to include code snippets in any report. We would be legally unable to modify the software for the purpose of testing bug fixes. And we'd be unable to distribute fixes.
The rights are a lot more important than you think. Even to have a kind of code that is disclosed mainly for the purpose of increasing trust, we'd have to design a license to convey significant rights, if the examiners were not to be placed at legal risk.
Bruce
Parent
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:4, Interesting)
My point was really that "open source" already conveys something far more simple than what you want people to read into it, and it's the simple definition that Microsoft are very obviously meeting.
Even with your more complex definition for the purposes of the OSI, the MS-LPL only fails on one count of 10, which is regarding being technology-neutral. We could further argue on how important to the issue that is but I think we'd be digressing even further from what I'm trying to say.
Parent
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:5, Informative)
As if that one count of 10 wasn't important.
At one point or another, my main coding platform was an Apple II, Commodore Vic-20, Commodore 64, PDP-11, VAX, Sun, SGI, PC Clone, and I've had a number of secondary coding platforms, including CHAP (something Pixar made), 6809, PIC, AVR, and so on. And all of the various operating systems for those things.
Any code that I have been given with platform restrictions, during that entire time, for various employers, is dead code today. No users, probably can't even be built if someone could find it, and I can't use it either.
In contrast, essentially all of the work I've done under an Open Source license is still living and has a vibrant user community.
You really need to think about this rights thing more.
Bruce
Parent
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem isn't that the code is built solely for Windows...there are lots of projects that are considered open source that are built for a single operating system. The issue is that the license expressly forbids developers to port the code to any other OS.
Call it what you will, but that ain't open source.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And for it to be made into a Cross Platform code tree, the source would have to be completely open which is not how Microsoft is publishing this stuff. Just because the code is (supposedly) available , doesn't make it open . There's a big difference there.
Re:Look but don't touch (Score:5, Informative)
That's not even the point. When someone says "open source", what do YOU think of? Let me tell you, it's not anything Microsoft related.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A case could be made that it's a trademark of the opensource initiative, and/or software in the public interest...
That Microsoft got their Microsoft Public License accepted by the OSI as an open-source license certainly indicates they know who defined the term... Then they go back and misuse it...
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:5, Informative)
Open Source is what is defined by the Open Source Definition.
A number of microsoft dweebs and/or campaigners would like to have it otherwise. But then Microsoft would like to have a lot of things. It's called corporate totalitarianism.
Bruce
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:5, Informative)
They weren't bastardizing the concept. They were working with the community to provide a definition big companies like IBM, Sun, or Microsoft, and lawyers could understand.
And in the past they even registered "open source" as a service mark for protection of the thriving community against dilution by people who wanted to twist the concept of open source.
To protect against companies who want to just make the source visible without actually opening it for others to use or change without undue restrictions protective corporate lawyers would normally demand upon (things like written approval).
Parent
Nothing new here. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While I appreciate the various efforts to define, evaluate, and compare open source licenses, I don't want someone to be declaring an absolute manifesto of what it is. I wouldn't have disagreed with your post if you said "to clarify, here is the Open Source Definition as defined by opensource.org" and "here is the mainstream recognition of what Free Software is according to the FSF." But treating these definitions as absolutes is taking it too far.
I've hosted and worked on many open source projects, and I'
Re:Nothing new here. (Score:4, Interesting)
OSI tried to register "open source" as a trademark, but didn't receive it. I don't think companies are legally bound to follow OSI's principles when describing something as "open source."
If they're using the OSI trademark or something along those lines, which Microsoft doesn't seem to be, it's a different situation.
Parent
quickly corrected (Score:5, Informative)
From http://www.opensource.org [opensource.org]
Emphasis mine.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nothing new here. (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Nothing to see here... (Score:3, Informative)
About CodePlex CodePlex is Microsoft's open source project hosting web site. Start a new project, join an existing one, or download software created by the community. More About CodePlex... Microsoft does not control, review, revise, endorse or distribute the third party projects on this site. Microsoft is hosting the CodePlex site solely as a web storage site as a service to the developer community.
In other words, developers can -gasp- choose the license they want. And they do, including MS. Also, it has nothing to do with the OSI since MS explicitly mentions it's 'open source' and not 'Open Source'(which seems to be hijacked by the OSI as a trademark?). open source != free(as in freedom) software.
Bad summary (Score:3, Insightful)
From the article:
Honestly, please read more than a paragraph or two of the article before submitting it to Slashdot. You can submit any code under any licence you like to CodePlex, and indeed encourages you to do so. Where's the problem here, exactly? That "open source" means different things to Microsoft than it does to some other people? That term means many things to many people, from the idea of being able to view the source of software but do little else with it, to the BSD/public domain-ish idea of all code being available for modification under virtually any terms. That's all this is. Nothing to see here, move along.
Codeplex is a joke (Score:3, Interesting)
What is Codeplex really about? It's a cheap form of recruiting developers to keep supporting the Windows platform by building better programs... as long as Microsoft gets a profit from it.
This is why using the GPLv3 is forbidden in Codeplex [milkingthegnu.org].
Like Organic Farmers (Score:3, Insightful)
This is, unfortunately, a prelude or realization that Microsoft can embrace/extend/extinguish the _meaning of the phrase_ "open source" just as well as it can anything else.
Sadly, the exact same thing happened to all the "organic farmers". Big companies started slapping "organic" on all their products because it would sell, irrespective of any meaning behind the words.
The only defense would have been to trademark "organic" / "open source" and have it be held by some public committee, but it's too late now.
nobody should be surprised at this. It is MS-SOP (Score:4, Insightful)
come on, are people really surprised that Microsoft is not only taking MS .Net to the world of Windows-only but also making sure anyone who uses their sites/services are Windows-only partners too?
Get real folks. With out a monopoly hold on the pre-load computer market, Microsoft would be dead meat. They know they need to make sure their customers do not have a choice to try another OS because they will not put their software on another OS. Remember, without Windows they are dead meat. Outside of one package, MS Office for Mac, they have never put their software on another OS with the intention of making a business profit from it. They put Internet Explorer on Solaris to kill off all the Win32-UNIX licensees and keep anti-trust judges from nailing them for it. When Palm had 80% marketshare and WinCE was less than 5% IBM, Sybase, and other dbase vendors released lite versions for the PalmOS. Microsoft released MS Access-lite for WindowsCE.
Miguel is an idiot for kissing Microsoft's ass every time they expose it to him. MS .Net was created to stop Java from taking Microsoft developers over to a cross platform API and software stack plain and simple. Anything "open" about it is a trick/game/hoax/etc because they own the spec.
Microsoft's business is to own/control all software development and make sure it is all done on Windows. This is a fact. Everything they do must first protect the Windows marketshare. This is reality. Open source is a threat to Microsoft when it runs on anything other than or along with Windows. Another fact. So cry all you want Miguel, you're an idiot for following Microsoft and playing the Pied Piper to those too naive to understand. IMO.
LoB
Re:haha (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think it is fair that you got first post, I wish I had got first post, my first post was going to be quite good. Someone (perhaps the shashdot editors should fix this). Maybe in retrospect I should have realised that an Anonymous Coward by nature would try to get first post, but I didn't, my hope was that the Anonymous Coward would change his behaviour this time so that everyone would get to read my post - but I guess the Anonymous Coward can't be trusted to do the right thing after all. Its a shame though. I really hope that from this chastisement Anonymous Coward will get message and change his spots. Irrelevant first posts are selfish and spoil things for everyone.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmmmm, I discovered something with the latest Ubuntu......I could install it within MS windows and run it.... like an application.
well hear this... (Score:3, Informative)
I hear there are no versions of the Linux kernel that run under windows.
From http://www.colinux.org/ [colinux.org] Cooperative Linux is the first working free and open source method for optimally running Linux on Microsoft Windows natively. More generally, Cooperative Linux (short-named coLinux) is a port of the Linux kernel that allows it to run cooperatively alongside another operating system on a single machine. For instance, it allows one to freely run Linux on Windows 2000/XP...
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That's the whole point, you're not allowed to do that.
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No, "open source" means no license restrictions on what you do with the code. If the license forbids you to run the code on another OS, or another pieces of hardware, it is not open. Neither is it open if you prevent the use of the code for a particular purpose. If you want to use the code to tabulate a list of people who you intend to round up, incarcerate, and incinerate, people will deplore your morals, but the OSS movement in principle defend your right to use open source code to do it (but does not all
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No, damnit.
Open source means that the source is open. That's it.
You could hypothetically define "Open Source" (with capitals) however you see fit, or be a lot more specific and refer to GPL, BSD, Creative Commons, etc.
However, in this case "open source" is very simply referring to software that has its source code openly available. You cannot simply redefine the meaning of already-existing words, especially when you're not using them as a proper noun. There is absolutely no debate to be had here.
Also, wh
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No, "open source" means no license restrictions on what you do with the code.M
Every single "open source" license out there completely contradicts your statement.
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OSI is not a governing body, so their opinion on the matter is largely irrelevant.
But... (Score:3, Informative)
Point understood, you have an example of a ruby-only site.
However, do projects on that site have a license explicitly forbidding you from re-implementing them in python or perl or C? I suspect no, that they would allow that even if they choose not to explicitly aid it.
In this case, MS's site is hosting code that not only is Windows specific, but forbids potential developers from even porting it to other operating systems. The former is hard to argue, the latter bit I understand raising some ire amongst Fr
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're an awesome enough hacker to take code written for Windows on x86 and compile it on a TI99/4A, then go to. The problem here is that the licence forbids it to be used on non-Windows platforms, not that it's difficult in practice to do so.