Posted by: Anonymous
[ip: 211.133.182.141]
on August 19, 2007 12:21 AM
This license is full of technical problems, the least of which is the attempt to eliminate the MIT/BSD license "ambiguity" about whether alternative licenses can be used with it.
It may sound like I'm biased, but, like most Microsoft products, it attempts to enable a quick and simple implementation by implementing the obvious, but wrong elements of the theory.
Start with the name.
Permissive? Relative to the license, it is not permissive at all. No other license can be mixed in -- no perl artistic license, no GPL 1, 2, or 3, no Apache 1 or 2, no Mozilla, no BSD/MIT, not even a plain "Do with it what you want and I don't give a wooden nickel!" one liner license. At this point, I'm not sure even public domain source could be mixed in without opening a project that uses this Microsoft Permissive License up to lawsuits.
Relative to the source code, it is way too permissive. Anybody can join Microsoft's commune, so to speak. Anyone that can bring all contributors to the table, anyway. It's all a ("happy?") playground where everyone plays under the gentle gaze of the original authors who claim the original copyright of the original source code. For practical purposes, forks won't work well.
Freedom and openness are _not_ permissive. We are clear, are we not, that the GPL is by no means permissive? You are allowed to use the software only under the principles of protecting everyone's freedom to use the software. That gives project leaders the authority to maintain their natural stewardship over the project while allowing _freedom_ minded individuals and groups to join in. One way they can join in is to fork the project, but the license provides the framework for a clean fork.
Even the BSD/MIT licenses are not truly permissive. The apparent ambiguities allow room for project leaders to maintain their projects, and allow room for clashes to result in project forks.
The BSD/MIT licenses also technically allow "darkening" a fork, where a user refuses to pay his natural duty to the community by contributing back his or her changes. But the license provides no inherent leverage for the dark forks to use against the open forks. The license also allows the natural consequences of darkening a fork to occur. (Darkened forks naturally tend to wither away.)
Again, the apparent permissiveness is in comparison to the radical pseudo-traditional idea that source code should be closed.from public view. (That was actually very permissive, because whatever was done was done behind closed doors, and the guy with the biggest pocketbook got to play with whomever whenever with relatively few social consequences.)
Other than the name, the terms of the license are inverted. The limitations are stated after the grants, which is going to make for some really difficult-to-untangle legal arguments.
The use-at-your-own-risk warning almost appears to not be there, which is probably appropriate for Microsoft's sales machine, but is not at all appropriate for the end users.
The grants are not complete. The patent protection clause is a club, not a shield.
The above is just a start. Like I said, it is a typical product of Microsoft, implementing the wrong stuff simply, to sell to the unwashed masses.
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Posted by: Anonymous [ip: 211.133.182.141] on August 19, 2007 12:21 AMIt may sound like I'm biased, but, like most Microsoft products, it attempts to enable a quick and simple implementation by implementing the obvious, but wrong elements of the theory.
Start with the name.
Permissive? Relative to the license, it is not permissive at all. No other license can be mixed in -- no perl artistic license, no GPL 1, 2, or 3, no Apache 1 or 2, no Mozilla, no BSD/MIT, not even a plain "Do with it what you want and I don't give a wooden nickel!" one liner license. At this point, I'm not sure even public domain source could be mixed in without opening a project that uses this Microsoft Permissive License up to lawsuits.
Relative to the source code, it is way too permissive. Anybody can join Microsoft's commune, so to speak. Anyone that can bring all contributors to the table, anyway. It's all a ("happy?") playground where everyone plays under the gentle gaze of the original authors who claim the original copyright of the original source code. For practical purposes, forks won't work well.
Freedom and openness are _not_ permissive. We are clear, are we not, that the GPL is by no means permissive? You are allowed to use the software only under the principles of protecting everyone's freedom to use the software. That gives project leaders the authority to maintain their natural stewardship over the project while allowing _freedom_ minded individuals and groups to join in. One way they can join in is to fork the project, but the license provides the framework for a clean fork.
Even the BSD/MIT licenses are not truly permissive. The apparent ambiguities allow room for project leaders to maintain their projects, and allow room for clashes to result in project forks.
The BSD/MIT licenses also technically allow "darkening" a fork, where a user refuses to pay his natural duty to the community by contributing back his or her changes. But the license provides no inherent leverage for the dark forks to use against the open forks. The license also allows the natural consequences of darkening a fork to occur. (Darkened forks naturally tend to wither away.)
Again, the apparent permissiveness is in comparison to the radical pseudo-traditional idea that source code should be closed.from public view. (That was actually very permissive, because whatever was done was done behind closed doors, and the guy with the biggest pocketbook got to play with whomever whenever with relatively few social consequences.)
Other than the name, the terms of the license are inverted. The limitations are stated after the grants, which is going to make for some really difficult-to-untangle legal arguments.
The use-at-your-own-risk warning almost appears to not be there, which is probably appropriate for Microsoft's sales machine, but is not at all appropriate for the end users.
The grants are not complete. The patent protection clause is a club, not a shield.
The above is just a start. Like I said, it is a typical product of Microsoft, implementing the wrong stuff simply, to sell to the unwashed masses.
joudanzuki
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