Microsoft Treating "Windows-Only" As Open Source 383
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."
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, 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.
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:2, Interesting)
It used to be registered as a service mark of the Open Source Initiative [opensource.org].
However, I believe the trademark registration was allowed to lapse in 1999. It is a shame, because this is the type of confusion that the trademark and trademark law should have prevented.
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].
Re:Nothing new here. (Score:1, Interesting)
Open Source must conform to the Open Source Definition [opensource.org], which lists ten points. Free Software must respect the Four Freedoms [gnu.org] that the FSF enumerated.
Who says?
The FSF? And who elected them to be the open source police?
They're just an organization that's trying to force their beliefs and definitions on others. And there are a few things that I disagree with them on and I'll be damned if they're going to force their values on me. I even avoid their stuff so as to distance myself from them.
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.
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:2, Interesting)
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
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.
Re:This is people trying to play with words. (Score:3, Interesting)
I am supporting it but stating that, in my opinion, there is nothing that we can do.
You're wrong. Amusingly so in that the slashdot post itself points out what "we" did, and that it got MS to change something.
So what exactly makes you think we can't do anything about it, when in fact, we did?
Accepted by whom? There is no legally binding definition that everyone must accept and use. The one that you and I accept means nothing to those that do not want it to be recognised.
This is not necessarily true. Were MS to continue to call something Open Source, when it isn't, they could be open to a lawsuit for fraud, and I think they'd have a strong chance of losing. This isn't a situation where it lies in a fuzzy no-man's-land of ambiguous wording. It clearly lies outside of the predominant understanding of the term, and does not fall into some other alternate meaning.
MS cannot just arbitrarily redefine words and have them legally stick. I can market butter as "healthy" because that's fuzzy. Is it lower salt than normal butter? Isn't that "healthy"? Or even, doesn't the body need fat and salt? So a half-pat of my extra salt and fat butter actually is healthy! And so on. But I can't take butter, label it as "diet cola" and sell it.
Re:Nothing new here. (Score:3, Interesting)
It is possible to have disclosed source code with "All Rights Reserved", such that nobody would ever have rights to compile the code.
"All rights reserved" has a very specific meaning with respect to copyright, and not being able to compile code isn't included among those.
The phrase is actually shorthand for "all copyright rights reserved", and nowhere in 17 USC is "compling" mentioned as a form of copyright infringement.
It's exactly the same as MLB or the NFL trying to convince you that you need "express written permission" to copy a portion of the broadcast of the game. Those entities would like you to believe that their copyright rights can allow them to do that, but that's not the way it works. The same is true for "all rights reserved". Damn near every book published today says "all rights reserved" on the copyright page, but that doesn't change the fact that you can copy snippets of the book for your book review, or even copy every page of the book...as long as you don't distribute that exact duplicate, you are 100% within your rights.
Re:Nothing new here. (Score:2, Interesting)
'Open Source' is different from 'open source'. Just because a non-profit organization steps it and tries to redefine English phrases doesn't mean the rest of the world has to follow it.
Hmmmm.... can't redefine English phrases? Ever hear of "pro-choice"?
Re:There is no problem here (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nothing new here. (Score:3, Interesting)
The capital letters are not significant, if it says it's open source it has to have the rights specified by the OSD.
Says who?
Re:Look but don't touch (Score:3, Interesting)
And what's wrong with that. If you know anything about true communism, you will understand that it is actually a very sound and well thought out idea. The only reason it has always failed so horrifically badly is because of the greedy ass-hat morons that always try to implement it!
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:3, Interesting)
This is interesting. How would we classify the earlier IBM OS source, MVS, VM, etc , they were "open"? They are now used for example on x86 systems. I changed and tested a lot in 70's and 80's - found a couple of bugs. Of course you were on your own if made some changes which didn't get implemented to original. BUT you couldn't sell it, just nothing preventing showing the changes to someone and they adapting the same changes - we did that a lot even between competing companies / corporations.
It was nice as long as it lasted, many ways as good as GPL, BSD, etc (created a lot "synergy") and in some ways even better, better documented, heh!
Re:This is people trying to play with words. (Score:2, Interesting)
My definition of OPEN SOURCE is that the source is available for viewing and personal use. This is closer to the original NETSCAPE version of OPEN SOURCE than the FSF version.
Frankly, Open Source is whatever the author wants it to be. I think there is only one thing that can determine if the source is open. That is if the source can be examined and recompiled to fix bugs, in line with the original license of the program. I know that this is not a universally held view, but I am sticking to it.
Darryl
Re:This is microsoft trying to help kill open sour (Score:3, Interesting)
But, it gets to the matter of what "Open Source" is. I believe that you are promoting the idea that "Open Source" just means "Source", without the idea of "Open".
As an example, is Windows "Open Source" or not? It can be argued that Windows is, because source is made available. Therefore, for some, it is open, and that is the end of the discussion.
You can substitute VMS in there (I had it on micro-fiche), or any number of other programs.
However, consider what "Open" means -- if the software is platform-locked, it isn't Open in the sense that it can provide a base that lives longer than its platform (imagine a world in which PostScript use was locked to the LaserWriter -- no LaserWriter would mean no PostScript).
In order for this Openness to exist for programs, there must be certain conditions: source must be available, there cannot be a platform lock-in, and there cannot be a usage lock-in (among some other characteristics). Bruce tried to define those necessary pre-conditions in his definition of "Open Source".
Call the variant "Source Available", or something, but please do not dilute the concept of "Open Source".
Yep, both sides (Score:3, Interesting)
If anything, it is the Free Software movement that has attempted to redefine Open Source as something other then open source. Words have meanings, and FOSS != open source, not for most people on the street. A judge or jury is going to have a much easier time making the connection to the availability of source code as open source, then showing them the 10 or 9 commandments of the FOSS movement.
Microsoft is no more guilty of misusing this term then Sun, IBM, Apple or any other large software company. They all use fine print to limit customers and leverage their proprietary code. I would think that Apple is the most egregious party when it comes to making an ill gotten buck off of FOSS. IBM and Sun actually give back some of their work to the community.
Maybe a better term for 'Open Source' would be 'Open Development' or maybe we should just recognize that there are lots of different licenses and stop crying when someone doesn't use the one we like.