[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/.