Windows 8 Store Will Allow Open Source Apps 333
MrSeb writes "Some interesting legalese found in the recent publication of the Windows Store Application Developer Agreement could signify a very big win for the open source community. The section in question states that apps released under a license from the Open Source Initiative (GPL, Apache, etc.) can be distributed in the Windows Store. Further, it says that the OSI license will trump the Microsoft Standard Application License Terms, namely the the restriction on sharing applications. As for the reasoning behind this big about-turn, it could be down to Microsoft trying to soften the blow of its Android patent litigation — or maybe Redmond is just trying to differentiate itself from Apple, which famously restricts open source-licensed apps from being sold in its iOS and Mac App Stores."
And yet (Score:3, Interesting)
I would have to say that any OSS developer, if not any developer, that works on MS is just plain foolish.
Re:Microsoft and open source (Score:2, Interesting)
Apart from those, are there actually open source projects that can compete with proprietary counterparts? Especially on less popular niches like industry products or games (even though games is a popular niche, but there still isn't any good open source games or game engines).
Re:Microsoft and open source (Score:3, Interesting)
As of Gnome 2.0 and KDE 3, Linux was more than capable of providing an acceptable desktop user experience, especially Ubuntu's releases. Unfortunately the very latest releases don't support my Logitech Track Ball, so I use an older 10.04.1 release which still has a couple glitches with the trackball support as well, but I can't fault Linux as a whole for me wanting to use a 12+ year old "mouse".
Open Office/Office Libre are more than adequate for the vast majority of home users. The extra "features" in the official Microsoft Office product line are wasted disk space for the majority of document editors. I can't speak to spreadsheets, as that's never been a technology I made much use of, and I've always preferred other tools for diagramming. Open Office does a perfectly acceptable job of editing and presenting overheads, the only non-document-editing requirement I've ever had for an office package. As to "slow" -- what are you running -- a P3?
Eclipse is actually a more functional and better designed IDE than Visual Studio. However, Visual Studio doesn't compete with Eclipse, it competes with Mono, and the Mono environment for Linux is little better than a workable beta in need of huge performance tuning and scalability efforts, so Microsoft wins the C# market by default as they'd always hoped and planned.
I can see how a video game console has anything to do whatsoever with desktop and server operating systems. Honestly. I can see your point. It's called FUD, and it's uselessly off topic.
But you keep drinking the Microsoft kool-aid, while I sip the coffee of open source. We'll both have our thirst for tools and technology satisfied in the end.
You are not the customer (Score:1, Interesting)
With the app store model, you are not the customer.
You are not even the product. You're just a dumb bitch who's going to bend over and take it up the ass for $0.99 at a time.
Then don't make the broad claim (Score:3, Interesting)
There are some issues with a very specific open source license and the Apple App store.
In practice I have seen no issue. However, as you note there's a potential problem only with a specific license (the GPL) which certainly dismisses the original claim that Apple disallows open source apps from the app store. You'd have to make the claim Apple disallows GPL apps from the app store, but you can't even make that claim since it is not true to date.
All apps in the app store have a non-obtrusive DRM in them, this means you canâ(TM)t hand someone a copy of the free app you downloaded.
Sure you can, you can send them the source. However this is not an Apple issue. This is technical issue related to redistribution. Again Apple is not stopping you from doing anything, it's the terms of the GPL if anything.
a version of the GPL license specifically dictates you canâ(TM)t block the user's ability to redistribute himself.
Once you have the source you can re-distribute to anyone.
Re:And yet (Score:4, Interesting)
While I agree to a degree, I have to point out that my open source applications run on Linux, Mac and Windows because I ACTUALLY care about customer freedoms. Why SHOULDN'T I accept patches to get my code running on windows?
I wouldn't call that foolish. I'd call it: Complete & total disdain of any OS loyalty whatsoever. If every dev worked this way there would never be a situation where you're forced to stop using the software you want/need just because you have issues with the underlying OS.
At the end of the day, there's a Windows user who tripple-boots Linux & Mac too, and he wants to use the FLOSS software I wrote for use with Linux on Windows. I believe it would be foolish to limit my exposure & thus donations. In fact, I think it foolish to ignore significant market segments altogether for trivial reasons. Even more foolish would be to fragment the user base and cause a fork due to my own OS preferences.
I'm not saying I'm going to distribute my applications in the Windows 8 store, but if anyone else wants to, and they can satisfy the AGPLv3 requirements, have at it.
Re:Apple does not disallow open source apps either (Score:2, Interesting)
No, GPL was DESIGNED to cause this EXACT 'problem'.
It is 100% intentional. Again, it was DESIGNED to NOT ALLOW for working with things like the app store. For fucks sake, GPLv3 discussions were recently enough that you should fucking KNOW this is an intentional design by GPL ... you know ... the whole anti-tivoziation thing ... which again shows it was DESIGNED to restrict itself from being used in these situations.
Apple did not INTEND to cut GPL software off and in fact there are several GPL software packages ON THE APP store, but only because the original copyright holders (the authors) are allowed to put it up there and are not bound by the GPL restrictions themselves.
I'm fairly certain that Apple does not give one flying fuck about what happens to GPL software on their store, considering they use GPL software themselves (well, at least till the can get away from it).
I'm not 'blaming' anyone for it, I'm simply pointing out GPL is working AS DESIGNED and that Apple didn't actually make any effort to restrict open source since you know ... GPL (and similar copyleft licenses) are the only licenses effected in the way you speak of. Pretty much every other license, OSS or otherwise, doesn't have any problem.
GNU and the GPL has been around since Apple was still selling 8-bit computers.
You need to check your dates and stop being such an ignorant douche.
GPL was created in 1989, at which point Apple was using 68000 processors, which are most certainly NOT 8 bit.