Looking forward to everyone’s
comments on the attached message below
Regards.
---------------------------
Fouad Riaz Bajwa
FOSSFP: Free & Open Source Software Foundation of
Pakistan ®
From:
fossfpo@websouls04.futuresouls.com [mailto:fossfpo@websouls04.futuresouls.com] On Behalf Of Frederick Noronha (FN)
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2005
9:01 AM
To: bytesforall_readers@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [bytesforall_readers]
FSFE: Early comment on new Microsoft Shared Source Licenses
Would you believe this? FN
-------- Forwarded Message --------
To: press-release@fsfeurope.org
Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] Early comment on new
Microsoft Shared Source Licenses
Date: Wed, 19 Oct 2005 13:44:07 -0200
[for immediate release]
FSFE: Early comment on new Microsoft Shared Source Licenses
"Since we so rarely have opportunity to say
something positive about
Microsoft, let me begin by congratulating
them", says Georg Greve,
president of Free Software Foundation Europe.
"Microsoft finally seems
to have made a step forward on their long march
towards giving their
users freedom: of the five licenses published, our
cursory first
analysis suggests that two of them indeed fulfill
the Free Software
Definition."
According to FSFEs first glance, the "Microsoft
Permissive License"
(Ms-PL) and "Microsoft Community
License" (Ms-CL) both appear to
satisfy the four freedoms that define Free
Software. In particular:
The Ms-CL also appears to implement a variation of
the Copyleft idea,
which was first implemented by the GNU General
Public License (GPL).
Given previous Microsoft statements about the
Copyleft approach and in
particular the GNU GPL as 'viral', 'cancerous' and
'communist', seeing
Microsoft now publish licenses applying the very
same principles seems
quite an evolution.
Naturally, it is not the publication of licenses,
but the publication
of software under a Free Software license, that
gives people freedom:
It is indeed not very useful if every company,
administration or
author publishes their own license; so it would
have been preferrable
if Microsoft had made the decision to use the GNU
General Public
License (GPL) and Lesser General Public License
(LGPL) for its Shared
Source program.
Far more than 50% of Free Software worldwide is
published under these
licenses, they are very well-known and people
trust them for good
reason.
"Microsoft has walked a mile and is now
standing mere inches from the
GNU (L)GPL: We fully understand that Microsoft is
first trying to get
the nail of its little toe wet in the Free
Software community, and we
welcome that," continues Greve. "But in
the course of time we would
prefer to see Microsoft join the large global
community of commercial
GNU (L)GPL vendors."
"For now it will be good if Microsoft starts
relicensing its portfolio
under the Ms-PL or Ms-CL; but we still have to
warn people to be
careful about the 'Shared Source' label and look
at the specific
licenses: The other three licenses of the Shared
Source program are
clearly proprietary and obviously do not qualify
as Free Software."
Greve finishes.
The Free Software Foundations will need more time
to study all these
licenses and their interactions with other
licenses in depth, so this
is not a final evaluation -- and the final
evaluation may as well
reveal problems that were not visible at first
sight.
Microsoft still has a long way to go, but for now
it seems they made a
step in the right direction, and the Free Software
Foundation Europe
hopes they will keep it up.
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE),
founded 2001, is a
charitable non-governmental organisation dedicated
to all aspects of
Free Software in Europe.
Access to software determines who may
participate in a digital society. The the Freedoms
to use, copy,
modify and redistribute software - as described in
the Free Software
definition - allow equal participation in the
information
age. Creating awareness for these issues, securing
Free Software
politically and legally, and giving people Freedom
by supporting
development of Free Software are central issues of
the FSFE.
Further information about FSFE's work can be found
at
http://fsfeurope.org,
get active yourself at
http://fsfeurope.org/contribute/.
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