The big news today at EuroOSCON is the fact that Microsoft has posted new source licenses, and a couple of them might actually be OSD-compliant!! You can see the licenses here. They'll also be releasing some source today under these licenses.
Jason Matusow announced the news in Amsterdam, and Steve Ballmer will also be talking today about them.
The licenses have not yet been submitted to License-Discuss for review and possible OSI approval. Apparently Larry Lessig has reviewed them and says they're good.
So, have we won yet? Well, let's review. The FOSS movement is supposed to be about establishing a level playing field. The OSD is supposed to set standards for characteristics of licenses that allow that level playing field to be set up. So "getting" FOSS licensing is an important first step. It's certainly a far day from 2002, when this article said Microsoft was going to start up an open source practice real soon now.
But its something. Undeniably something.
These are interesting times, no doubt about that...time will tell.
Well that's certainly inane; is there any code being released under those licenses? Anything I may have heard of?
Posted by: Dave Lightman | October 19, 2005 at 09:56 AM
Not yet, it seems (I'm with you on this aspect of the whole announcement). Still, have a read of the licenses and see what *you* think.
Posted by: Danese Cooper | October 19, 2005 at 10:04 AM
But I guess that's my point: I'll read the licenses when they actually have some applicability to relevant code. This is like some zen platitude: if a license is announced that doesn't protect and code, does it matter?
Posted by: Dave Lightman | October 19, 2005 at 02:25 PM
Hello! Recently has read in news that re-testing
of Large Hadron Collider will be conducted :(
Me it is terrible :(
Posted by: WegreeFeect | October 30, 2008 at 06:14 PM