A [M]$nake in worm’s clothing

Well, would you believe it…

Microsoft, who believe Open Source is a cancer and anti-capitalist, are pronouncing through their oh-so-mighty PR machine that they are Opening up .Net.

I’m sorry but it’s wrong and is a trap that any would-be Open Source programmer/contributor would be well advised to steer clear of. You see the license they are using to “open up” their source code is actually rather restrictive:

  • You can look at the source true,
    • But only after telling them who you are
  • You can suggest changes/patches etc but only via M$,
    • No community involvement/peer review
  • You can not re-distribute or use the source in anything else.

If you were contribute software to an Open Source project, like Mono or Wine perhaps, after having seen this Microsoft code, the Open Source project could be attacked by M$ any time in the future. They could claim the project contains their copyrighted material or their IP.

Steer well clear of this stuff.

It might appear that the worm is turning, but don’t believe it for one minute.

It’s not a worm, it’s a deadly snake…

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4 Comments

  • As somebody who programs with .NET occasionally I think it is great news. Being able to debug into the .NET framework will be a big help.

    It is unfortunate that you can’t celebrate something that a lot of open source advocates have been asking for for a long time.

  • Alan Lord says:

    Hi Jack and thanks for commenting.

    As I said, it isn’t released as Open Source. And that places a tremendous burden on any one who is, or might be in the future, an Open Source contributor/project owner.

    Microsoft has proven time and time again, that they “hate” open source with a passion and will go to extreme lengths to try and stop it’s incursion into what M$ clearly believes is their own private monopoly.

    Any one who “might” contribute to Open Source projects would be well advised to not look at the code and not sign-up to the license. By doing so they will be leaving themselves wide open for accusations at a later date.

    This could, if M$ decide to use it, provide them with significant ammunition to go after Open Source projects for Copyright or IP infringement.

    You don’t really think they are doing this for altruistic reasons; do you?

  • >You don’t really think they are doing this for altruistic reasons; do you?

    Yes I do. Microsoft has always been very good at listening to what developers want, this is just a part of that.

    Microsoft is never going to be a hair shirt Open Source company, but I still think that they should be applauded for opening up a key platform. A lot of developers will thank them for helping to reduce the stress of writing code.

  • Alan Lord says:

    “Microsoft is never going to be a hair shirt Open Source company, but I still think that they should be applauded for opening up a key platform. A lot of developers will thank them for helping to reduce the stress of writing code.”

    Only those who have no interest whatsoever in Open Source development… Or don’t mind being liable to lawsuits from the world’s largest law firm 😉

    The man behind Mono (the Open Source, cross-platform, application framework that allows .net applications to work on Linux and Mac), Miguel de Icaza, has just told all the contributors to steer well clear of it: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2007/Oct-03.html

    “But like Rotor, the license under which this code is released is not open-source. People that are interested in continuing to contribute to Mono, or that are considering contributing to Mono’s open source implementation of those class libraries should not look at this upcoming source code release.”

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