Dissecting Microsoft's Proposed Policy To Ban Commercial Open-Source Apps (techcrunch.com) 51
Microsoft caused considerable consternation in the open source community over the past month, after unveiling a shake up to the way developers will be able to monetize open source software. From a report: There are many examples of open source software sold in Microsoft's app store as full-featured commercial applications, ranging from video editing software such as Shotcut, to FTP clients such as WinSCP. But given how easy it is for anyone to reappropriate and repackage open source software as a new standalone product, it appears that Microsoft is trying to put measures in place to prevent such "copycat" imitations from capitalizing on the hard work of the open source community.
However, at the crux of the issue was the specific wording of Microsoft's new policy, with section 10.8.7 noting that developers must not: ...attempt to profit from open-source or other software that is otherwise generally available for free, nor be priced irrationally high relative to the features and functionality provided by your product. In its current form, the language is seemingly preventing anyone -- including the project owners and maintainers -- from charging for their work. Moreover, some have argued that it could hold implications for proprietary applications that include open source components with certain licenses, while others have noted that developers may be deterred from making their software available under an open source license.
However, at the crux of the issue was the specific wording of Microsoft's new policy, with section 10.8.7 noting that developers must not: ...attempt to profit from open-source or other software that is otherwise generally available for free, nor be priced irrationally high relative to the features and functionality provided by your product. In its current form, the language is seemingly preventing anyone -- including the project owners and maintainers -- from charging for their work. Moreover, some have argued that it could hold implications for proprietary applications that include open source components with certain licenses, while others have noted that developers may be deterred from making their software available under an open source license.
I propose to ban commercial virus-prone software (Score:2, Troll)
Microsoft has had 25 years to get their act together, and their OS is still a security nightmare. I posit that it should be banned, because enough is enough, and the stakes are a lot higher than they used to be.
Will I be listened to you think?
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Looks like you are new here based on how recent your user id is.
This has already happened. Its just that bans don't work. You younglings keep forgetting that. If software will work, it will be written, because writing software is a form of free speech and its legally protected.
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his user id is older than yours, seems like you're the new one.
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Re: I propose to ban commercial virus-prone softwa (Score:3, Funny)
Actually they do a reasonably good job of security lately. Probably the worst offender there right now is apple, who is increasingly relying on app whitelisting over writing a secure OS.
Re:Intent of the change (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft misses the lessons of The Cathedral and The Bazaar, thinking that defeated their business model and knocked much of their management into needed retirement.
It's OK to sell support. It's OK to back developers, who need to eat. The code is free. Sell backup support, upgrade notifications, integration support, amalgamations of integration (not the code itself).
Microsoft thinks like a publicly traded corporation. They still do not understand the competitive free software and free patent and free invention rubric. This said, I concede that they're trying to do so, and free software developers should not profit from free code, rather, the services mentioned, the added value of an object called support. Voluntary contributions to developers? SURE!
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Yes, good point... the support provided by a developer is impossible for MS to directly measure, but has value. While nobody likes the crap often found on the store, being paid OSS software... even if available elsewhere... is not the way to define crapware.
Seems fairly reasonable to me (Score:3)
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In theory, a standardized upgrade method, and standardized terms as far as how many machines you can install it on etc, is a great feature. It means you can buy a new machine, and in one click have it up and running with your setup. Whether MS gives that experience, I don't know, but it works great for Android and Apple.
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they're trying to keep the store from being flooded with low quality OSS knockoffs.
Well, not quite. I think the aim is to protect consumers. But low-quality knockoffs? If I download some OSS code and build a binary from it, the quality will be as high as the quality of the code I downloaded, no?
But consumers can still get suckered by: A.) scammers charging $30 (or some other ridiculous amount) for an app that contains 90% or more free code; B.) scammers inserting malware into OSS code (keyloggers, stealing data, time-bomb ransomware, etc.
It's just unclear how they intend to enforce this p
Re:Seems fairly reasonable to me (Score:4)
M$ BAD LOLOLL (Score:3)
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They "just" missed a clause excluding significant contributors from the new policy. Getting the phrasing correct will probably be a fun exercise.
The policy itself is necessary and not partifularly nefarious.
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Just ignore the app store, like everyone does already, and you're fine.
Quite frankly, if they absolutely WANT to have yet another product fail because of "my way or the highway" hubris, when everyone knows that there are not only better but also more flexible alternatives, I'm not holding them back.
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I might be a fool...and that's okay.
But I love it when I can find something I need on the Microsoft Store. It's way better than looking for software elsewhere, and needing to determine if I'm downloading the real version of the software, or if it's fake/malware.
I don't need to worry about the updates, etc.
My experience with the Microsoft Store is that it is easy and painless. I wish they had more stuff there.
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Isn't that the point that on the MS store.. or off it... the "real" version of something is a nebulous concept.
Re:M$ BAD LOLOLL (Score:5, Interesting)
The alternative is quite easy... Instead of banning anything, just require transparency.
Sure you can take some open source software, compile it and ask for $5000 but you also have to declare where the code is from, who wrote it and that it's available from elsewhere. You would then have to justify why someone should pay you instead of downloading the free version.
If they provide value add such as support or convenience then it may well be worth paying instead of downloading the free version yourself.
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Why should you have to track a moving target of something "being available elsewhere". This week, maybe you're the only vendor. Next week there are 20 sellers. The week after, 10 of them are out of business and 5 more rose up. Why is it your problem what other people are doing in the market?
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Because if it's open source and you didn't develop it yourself, then it's available from the original location where you got it from. Provide a link to the original provider, no need to keep track of any other distributors.
If distributors actually provide a useful service, the original author might link to them (including you). Perhaps the original author doesn't have time to support end users and is quite happy to let third parties do that.
MS has an app store now? (Score:3)
The key question is probably "why"...
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It's convenient for the users if you can find what you need in a known location with a standardized upgrade process.
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I'm sometimes taken there for device drivers and codecs. It's a way to get you to shop around for moneyed products while taking care of normal OS business. In short, yet another spam vector.
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The Microsoft Store has existed for quite some time. It's largely been a flop because most people prefer to download and install software themselves directly from the original author.
My guess is someone took the Visual Studio Code source code, rebranded it, packaged it up, and started selling it on the Microsoft Store. Or at least attempted to do so. This new clause would enable Microsoft to take down dumb things like that and reject submitted software that is their own code without the risk of incurring
Re: MS has an app store now? (Score:4, Informative)
The biggest problem with apps installed via the ms store is their dependency on th store itself to subsequently work at all.
Last year, I accidentally borked the store-app/framework's permissions while trying to get WSL2 to work properly with an ext3-formattet usb drive (a feature that only "officially" worked in 'insider' builds of Win10, but could theoretically be retrofitted by hand if you copied specific files from 'insider' Win10 & changed permissions in *exactly* the right order).
It turns out, there's literally no official way to repair "borked store" besides a) reinstall Windows, or b) wait until Microsoft pushes out a major update that reinstalls store.
For almost a year, every store-installed app was broken & crashed on launch. Store itself would run, but crash if I tried to install or remove any store-installed apps. Eventually, ms did push out a big scorched-earth update that fixed it... but it was frustrating as hell in the meantime, and it seriously pisses me off that there's no way to force-reinstall store if it gets corrupted between major updates.
Re:MS has an app store now? (Score:4)
In principle there are some benefits to having an app store. The apps are vetted, so the user gets the same kind of protection that mobile app stores offer. It also means a unified payment system that doesn't require giving your details to every single developer.
The apps themselves are more limited than normal Windows apps. They have less access to the system, have to request permissions etc.
Obviously it's Microsoft so the implementation leaves a lot to be desired.
No GitHub Copilot (Score:4, Interesting)
If that wording was taken literally, it would also mean that subscriptions to the Microsoft-owned GitHub Copilot could not be available for money in Microsoft's app store -- because that would be profiting on open-source software.
Someone's Paranoid Drama (Score:3, Insightful)
This "news" article is someone's paranoid reaction.
It says 1) if you make this for free and distribute it for free, dont try to sell it here. and 2) if you make something that has something valuable your price needs to be in the reasonable range of what other things like it go for.
Neither of these keep a FOSS maintainer or developer from selling the product's premium features *IF* those features would be sold in other distirbution channels. You cant give everything away on myfosswhatever.com and then try to charge windows users $5 through the store. You CAN charge people for extensions in functionality or premium offers or whatever.
99.95% of people would never have a question over this - if you are a FOSS maintainer, you are maintaining the F in FOSS. If that means "fee" to you, then its not FOSS as the rest of us know it and you aren't a FOSS maintainer :)
For projects that give away most of it on a FOSS basis and then have charged extensions, this language doesn't stop that. It's hard to see any genuine controversy here other than "Its Microsoft, ERMERGERD they must be doing the evilz!"
Re:Someone's Paranoid Drama (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Someone's Paranoid Drama (Score:2)
But if a cost is assigned to it. It isn't available for free and the MS verbiage doesn't apply
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Fine, then this is FFOSS. The FSF doesn't define the universe of where FOSS software can be distributed. Microsoft has its own interest in avoiding a store filled with payware which is unrepackaged or barely repack
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All of which are meaningless requirements. I mean if "you" don't charge elsewhere, but you get your wife on the store to charge $10 for it, that's ok now? And what is "reasonable" anyway? Having utterly meaningless rules that allow drones in MS to arbitrarily ban you, is an awful idea.
There needs to be a donation system. (Score:5, Insightful)
First, It's about time Microsoft starts doing something about these open source scam forks in their store. I've talked about this for years in my journals on Slashdot and it's a practice that's got to be stopped.
On the other hand, there needs to be a sanctioned system in place that allows OSS to take in some form of a donation. The main reason that paint.net has a cost on the store was because Microsoft wouldn't allow the donation button in the app unless it pointed to their store and Microsoft took a large cut. I get why Microsoft wants to have that since it pays them (and the credit card processing fees) as well as makes it easier to actually donate since the store handles the transaction rather than a third party like Paypal, but if they really want to make the store the de facto place to get apps, they need to allow concessions such as reduced fees for non profit app developers.
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Define "scam fork".
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When a "Developer" gets a open source app, publishes the app on the store under the original app name and bundles the install with extras, The extras being adware, spyware, or malicious code.
The Microsoft store was notorious for this years ago. If you searched for any open source app, chances are it was on the store by some unknown developer that repacked it. It appears that Microsoft has cracked down on this recently since the store seems to be much cleaner than in the past.
I don't see the problem. (Score:2)
attempt to profit from open-source or other software that is otherwise generally available for free, nor be priced irrationally high relative to the features and functionality provided by your product
If I write a new app that's not already generally available, then Microsoft does not ban me.
If I don't charge an irrationally high price, then Microsoft does not ban me.
The way this is written,
If I make a copy-cat app that is already generally available as OSS, then Microsoft bans me.
If I make a copy-cat app and charge an irrationally high price, then Microsoft bans me.
You see these two things on Amazon all the time. A knock-off product with nearly the same name and also commonly available products with rid
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And some mindless undergrad in India can take your BSD licensed software and dual license it too. Your point? Microsoft hasn't defined dual licenced software as magically no longer OSS either.
Re: I don't see the problem. (Score:2)
That's why you license the "free" version using something like the Affero license (which is basically GPL3 + anti-Tivoization rules), or even a "non-free free(-ish)" license that allows unlimited free use by individuals, but prohibits redistribution in modified form... then license the version on the store under a normal commercial license. If the aforementioned "guy in India" tries to sell your app, you have the same legal recourse as ANY copyright owner.
Things CAN get messy with community-developed softwa
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So in other words... if Linux was invented today, you would hard ban it because it's a copy cat of UNIX. Do you really want some mindless drone in the bowels of Microsoft determining what is a "copy cat" and what brings value to the table? Whicih apps provide value in their developer support, and which ones were churned out by some under grad in India? Nobody likes the store full of crap, but defining paid for OSS software as definitionally crap, is just plain stupid, bizarre, wrong and dumb.
Possible workaround? (Score:4)
For ultra-small projects (one or two owners) ... the owners normally hold the copyright to their codebase. So they could just relicense (i.e. dual-license) their software, so the version in the App store is not open-source.
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And if it's BSD license, any Tom Dick or Harry could take the source and dual license it. This observation doesn't really add anything to the conversation.
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Tom, Dick or Harry in your example above will get the boot from Microsoft for using open source code.
But any codebase owner (proprietary or open source) can just tell Microsoft the code in their app is NOT open-source licensed. And they would be correct.
One Sentence for the Microsoft (Score:1)
Get on your knees and blow me. If you interfere with my person or property you will be killed in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Code. Consider yourself forwarned and govern your actions appropriately.
I don't get it... (Score:2)
developers must not: ...attempt to profit from open-source or other software that is otherwise generally available for free
the language is seemingly preventing anyone -- including the project owners and maintainers -- from charging for their work.
Hang on though... if you're charging for your software, it's not open source, is it? I know Wikipedia isn't always correct, but the definition there says "Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution
What am I missing?
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What is in the store isn't source code though is it? It is a compiled piece of software. The source code should be made available but it may take a bunch of steps to compile it into anything useful for the end user.
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Don't use it. (Score:2)
What if we all just decided to not use the MS Store? As far as I know it's not really popular and users still go to websites and download and run executables to get software installed. Aren't we just helping the MS Store grow? Keep OSS software off the store completely so it can die a quiet death and be forgotten.