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The two weeks before the Labor Day holiday here in the U.S. are a traditional slow news period. So the wings of the open source software (OSS) blogosphere are spending it getting all twisted in a knot over Microsoft again. This time the issue is Microsoft’s application to have two of its Shared Source licenses approved as compliant with Open Systems Initiative (OSI) rules related to the definition of OSS. The two Microsoft licenses are described here at the opensourcelegal.org web site along with the dozens of other available OSS licenses. Obviously I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the legal opinion but it looks pretty straightforward.

As the linked legal list illustrates, Sun, IBM and others have similar licenses. A similar list at the OSI (opensource.org) web site illustrates that IBM’s and Sun’s are already approved through the OSI process. So, why the fuss? Well because it’s Microsoft of course.

For starters, it’s probably best to stick to the actual OSI site to follow the discussion. Other blog entries pro and con on this subject do not necessarily accurately reflect what is being said at the official OSI discussion site.

At the OSI site, there’s a thread for each license. Microsoft in the persons of Jon Rosenberg (Director, Microsoft Source Program) and Bill Hilf (VP, Platform Strategy within Tools and Server group) has proposed, others have weighed in yeah or nay, and the Microsoft representatives have responded. With the exception of one Micro-basher, it’s all pretty civilized:
-- Microsoft explains why the licenses are similar to existing OSI licenses and why they are different and therefore needed.
o The PL is similar to BSD and Apache 2.0 but with stronger copyright clause according to Microsoft.
o The CL is similar to the Mozilla Public License but cleaner as to what is derived, they say.
-- Some genuine concerns are raised about
o wording (some call licenses such as Sun’s and IBM’s “vanity” licenses)
o OSS terminology (the implications of the terms viral and permissive)
o a desire to more clearly distinguish these licenses from others already approved (at least one supporter objects to it as to similar to other already approved licenses but recommends OSI approval simply because it gets Microsoft into the game)

Despite the impression that the blogosphere is giving, the one Micro-basher actually participating on the official site has some pretty weak objections. He or she objects to the term “shared source” among other things. Why the writer does not have the same objection to the terms “free software” competing with “open source software” is not clear (not even debatable in this context according to the Micro-basher). And of course, if Microsoft had used the term “open source…” instead of “shared source,” can you imagine the howl that would have caused from the Micro-bashers.

The OSI Micro-basher is even complaining about where Microsoft places the license text on its web site. Wow, what a stretch but Microsoft—in the spirit of community—has said it will consider segregating the texts.

Challenged to defend a weak discriminatory position, the Micro-basher instead introduced an old allegation. He or she implied that the ex-State-of-Massachusetts politician that tried to freeze Microsoft out of Massachusetts IT procurements using a 2003 planning group called the IT Commission, run by IBM, was forced out of state government somehow by Microsoft. Although it has nothing to do with OSS licensing, just for the record the politician resigned following Boston Globe stories about his expense report practices. (I am not commenting on whether the Globe stories were accurate or not.)

If like me you really want open choice, you quickly find that the tables have turned and this debate at the OSI site is just the latest example. A small portion of the OSS community is against choice (and against Microsoft for whatever reason) and the entire movement is in jeopardy of being tarred with that reputation. Microsoft under emerging new management is more for choice than the OSS community that started the push to choice originally. As I have written elsewhere, this change is happening because Microsoft is pragmatic not because it has fundamentally changed. Microsoft sees the IT industry moving away from any great dependence on software development models and towards software as a service. So it wants to reap the benefits of getting the OSS community to do a lot of its R&D, just as IBM, Sun and others already have.

Posted by dennisb in OSS Culture |Digg This|Add to del.icio.us

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