Microsoft has recently submitted the Microsoft-created Shared Source licenses to the Open Source Initiative (OSI). If the OSI considers that the Shared Source licenses meet their definition of open source, these will become "official" open source licenses. Microsoft has also created an open source information site within Microsoft.com.
Vijay at the Iqubed Blog takes an open-minded and optimistic viewpoint on these developments:
"What we can say is that Microsoft is starting out on a journey which it doesn’t know where it will take them to. All we need now is Microsoft is stop the IP Patent claims on Linux and trying to sign Patent Protection deals with various Linux vendors!"
A more cynical person might argue that Microsoft actually does know where it's going with this, and that it isn't doing this as part of some new-found support for free-and-open-source (FOSS) licensing.
Microsoft's comments and actions on FOSS in the past can at best be described as confused, and at worst a deliberate attempt to undermine the legitimacy of FOSS. High-level Microsoft staffers have accused GPL, the most widely used FOSS licence, of being a "cancer". Last year claimed that the Linux operating system infringed 235 patents (although it hasn't substantiated this). Along the way, Microsoft has also sent out messages of support to FOSS.
Taking a step back, there are many things about FOSS that should appeal to a software company like Microsoft. From a commercial viewpoint, Microsoft's latest initiatives are unlikely to simply be because the software giant is now benevolent to the FOSS community. Microsoft may have also come to appreciate that the FOSS concept offers a way to produce high-quality software - which it can still package and sell - in an efficient way.
Rather than having to reinvent the wheel when it writes a new piece of software, by using FOSS code Microsoft can start with software at an advanced stage of development and work from there. Of course, if Microsoft benefits from freely available code, it cannot withhold that benefit from others, but that's the way that FOSS works.
Back to Microsoft, I'm keeping an open mind about its latest open source initiative. Let's judge the company by its actions from now on.
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