Microsoft Bans Open Source From the Windows Market 566
Blacklaw writes "Microsoft has raised the ire of the open source community with its Windows Marketplace licence by specifically refusing to allow software covered under an open licence to be distributed. The licence, which anyone wishing to distribute Windows, Windows Phone, or Xbox applications through the company's copy of Apple's App Store is required to agree to, is the usual torrent of legalese — but hides a nasty surprise for those who support open source ideals."
"We own it" (Score:5, Insightful)
A "nasty suprise" ? (Score:3, Insightful)
It may be nasty all right, but it's certainly not a surprise, just Microsoft business as usual.
More of the Same (Score:2, Insightful)
But I suppose now I will have the 'mandated by Microsoft' attacks because I stated the obvious and get modded down. So be it. Someone has to speak up and state what everyone is thinking.
I wonder (Score:4, Insightful)
If this is really the case ?
Having RTFA , It appears that they mention specifically the GPL. It does not however mention other Open Sources licenses.
If this is really true , then you can expect it to be quite some time before you find many software packages you would think ... forget it ...
might appear in a short time in the market place. Emulators for example - most of the ones we all use are covered by Open Source
license - so dont expect ports of your favorite Open Source projects to appear on Windows Mobile 7. ScummVM , MAME
You would be developing those from scratch - and these are projects that took years to come into fruition.
Microsoft would be making a huge mistake banning outright Open Source - and no matter how much they hate it - its an ecosystem they cannot afford to ignore - especially when they are trying to woo developers away from Android.
N.
Re:Hahahahaha !! ok fire justifications ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:GPLv3, bleh (Score:5, Insightful)
What does the term "not limited to" mean to your legal expert opinion?
How is the GPLv2 not covered by:
again in your expert legal opinion?
This is good for Android. (Score:4, Insightful)
This is good for Android more than its bad for Microsoft. Their goal seems to be making all apps costing money to avoid having a store like Androids where you can find both free excellent apps and very good paid apps living side by side.
Im not sure this will work out as planned because tons of developers wont help if you dont have the userbase to support them.
Source code? (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps Microsoft doesn't want to be burdened with hosting the requisite source code on their servers since they would be required to under the GPL.
Re:Hahahahaha !! ok fire justifications ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The justification is very obvious: Microsoft doesn't want to violate the GPL. Since it feels that it cannot redistribute software in a manner that would comply with the GPL, it will not redistribute that software. This is how the GPL is *supposed* to work.
STOP IT (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:"We own it" (Score:3, Insightful)
Doing that makes way more sense than banning open source from their store, but it's in a similar vein.
They don't want to be hit with daily copyright infringement lawsuits from the morons who buy Xboxen, claiming Microsoft is misusing the video/3d content they created.
By the same token, they don't want to get into situations where they're getting sued for failing to provide source on request from people or paying legal staff to determine how to handle the myriad of open source licenses out there. This has the nice side effect of not encouraging open source (knife the baby, etc).
(FYI I'm a registered Microsoft hater)
This isnt surprising, nor is it particuarly evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically what Microsoft is banning is code covered by licenses that contain terms that would subject Microsoft code to the license or that contain terms that are incompatible with the Microsoft Windows Phone DRM and lockdowns (i.e. any license where its a violation to distribute the software in a way that cant be copied or modified or whatever)
In simple terms it says that any code covered under a license that is incompatible with the marketplace rules is not allowed in the marketplace.
The same thing happened with a GPLv3 app in the Apple App Store, it was removed because the GPLv3 is not compatible with the App Store DRM.
The sign of evil, you got to look deeper (Score:2, Insightful)
Evil triumphs, when good men do nothing. Note what this says, evil is not just what you do, it can also be what you don't do.
A LOT of people have been finding excuses for MS for why not to do this, basically because it would mean a little bit extra work.
Yes indeed, picking up someone who has fallen is extra work so that is a reason not to do it. But it makes you a pretty mean spirited person.
MS COULD comply and simply do a tiny bit of extra work and thereby showing it is NO longer the bitter enemy of open source that is claims not to be.
So, we got the same MS apologists claiming that since MS stated open source and the GPL are no longer its enemies who should forgive all past crimes. But the first chance MS has to go the extra mile and SHOW its changed nature, it doesn't.
And it is NOT like it is really all that hard, they could simply put in their TOS that it is up to the developer that they include the source code. Same as nobody is going to go after the Piratebay if an ISO of Ubuntu violates the GPL. There are lots of ways to work with the GPL and MS and Apple have shown their true nature by refusing to do so. Yes, it costs them a bit more. Being good often does. It is that extra step you have to take to get out of a blind person's way that show the difference between a social human being and an asshole.
So, MS still up to its old tricks (and the best trick is the trick where you do nothing and still achieve your goal). I am not surprised.
Re:Actually, it's about GPL3 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:someone, please explain this to me (Score:4, Insightful)
This makes no sense to me at all. Why would the status of the source code for software distributed through the app store interest Microsoft?
It makes sense if you suppose that one of the prime directives Gates issued to Ballmer on handover was:
1. Confront and eradicate open source wherever it gains a foothold regardless of the cost or collateral damage.
A few of the innumerable examples:
* Microsoft expending credibility and undermining ISO by forcing through MOOXML
* Microsoft killing off the low cost netbook market in order to prevent Linux distribution
* Microsoft planting a mole at great legal risk to end Meego and QT development by Nokia
* This one, Microsoft not allowing distribution of open source applications through its phone market
Its nice that nearly all these efforts have backfired and just served to inspire the community to greater efforts. I expect this one will backfire in a major way by preventing any open source community from forming around Microsoft's phones. So much the better I say.
Re:someone, please explain this to me (Score:4, Insightful)
Can you host Open-sourced apps if the store adds DRM to them or doesn't bundle the code in with the app?
Open source licenses do not require that the source code be bundled with the app, merely that it be available on request. I don't know about your DRM point, however I do know that pointing to Apple and saying "they do it too" is a logical fallacy for justifying evil. So is "you made me do it", which is what arguments revolving around the possibility of being sued for violating terms of an open source license amount to.
Re:someone, please explain this to me (Score:4, Insightful)
I do know that pointing to Apple and saying "they do it too" is a logical fallacy for justifying evil.
You seem to be forgetting precisely why Apple does it too. Its because the authors of GPL software went after them. It isnt that Apple didn't want GPL software in the App Store, its that they got more grief from the copyright holders than it was worth.
This idea that Apple is "evil" because they are disallowing GPL software is disingenuous at best. It began with GPL authors being the ones that disallowed their applications on the app store, so Apple says "We want to deal with only one entity, and entity that owns all the rights to the program. That GPL license just causes us grief. If you have the right to relicense it, then we can do business, otherwise we can't."
Re:"We own it" (Score:2, Insightful)
I would call it a tin hat moment but they are indeed, cameras.
You cover that thing and unplug it when not in use right?
- Dan.
Never attribute to malice... (Score:4, Insightful)
anything which can be explained by stupidity. Or, for that matter, planning.
I suspect it's rather simpler than "Micro$oft hates GPL!!11oneone", and has nothing to do with any particular hatred of the GPL and related licenses.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, you're building an apps store in the style of Apple. It's going to look all pretty, it's going be dead simple to download anything, people can submit apps, they go through an approval process, they go on the store. Installing is a matter of "click once", and that's about the only thing you're going to make visible to the end user.
You anticipate having thousands of apps sooner rather than later, so the complicated part isn't going to be the website. It's going to be putting together the business logic and processes that drive it.
The problem with something like the GPL is that all of a sudden, your process for accepting for approval, approval itself and distributing software suddenly becomes a hell of a lot more complicated because you now need to keep track of whether or not an application requires the source code to be made available. Remember the GPL applies to anyone distributing the software, so you can't just palm this back to the developer. You now need a separate interface to your apps store from the developer site which allows downloading source code where available, you need to keep track of which apps have which licenses - and you need to track which licenses specifically state "You must distribute source code".
Unless you took this into account when you designed the apps store and the processes behind it (which is likely if you're Google, but vanishingly unlikely if you're Microsoft), you now have a problem. Your entire process is set up on the assumption that you are under no obligation to distribute the source code for apps, this throws a spanner in the works. What is the cheapest, quickest, easiest solution?
1. Ban licenses which demand you distribute source code such as the GPL.
2. Go back and rewrite all your processes to account for licensing issues. Any software developed around those processes will also need changing.
TL;DR : More likely that Microsoft don't care enough about F/OSS to bother accounting for it in their processes for their app store.
Completely erroneous bullshit. (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft is a corporation and thus it has only one mandate: to maximize profit.
Completely erroneous bullshit.
Re:Perhaps "We restrict it" (Score:4, Insightful)
The BSD license software can be relicensed in a way that is compatible with their requirements.
As is pretty typical, this is a GPL problem, not an OSS problem.