windows open source?

Microsoft also wants to open source, how do people think

On July 26 this year, in Portland, the United States, the "2007 Open Source Conference (OSCON)", Microsoft Open Source Strategy director Bill Hilf announced that Microsoft is about to bring its "open source license" to the OSI ("International Open Source Promotion") approval application. For the announcement, Tim O ' railly, one of the leaders of the Oscon Congress and the open source movement, said: "This is a long waiting, huge earthquake." In fact, this announcement immediately caused the positive and negative reactions in all aspects, Tim is welcome, HILF said that Microsoft is sincere, sincere (good intentions). "We made a mistake in dealing with this matter," Hilf said, as someone immediately asked Microsoft to put forward a "legal action" on the so-called "patent infringement" of Linux users.

All along, Microsoft and open source is incompatible, fighting constantly. The advent of the open source era has made Microsoft love and hate, and Microsoft is also actively examining the threat of open source to Microsoft. 6 years ago, Microsoft proposed "Shared Source License" ("Share source License"), to curry favor with the international open source world, but by the international open source people called "only see, do not touch the license", there is no real value.

By the end of 2005, Microsoft had divided the "shared-source license" into three (actually five), namely: Microsoft Permissive License (MS-PL); Microsoft Community License (MS-CL), (3) Microsoft License (for short ms-cl), Microsoft Reference License (for short ms-rl). (1) MS-PL, the most lenient, allows users to see (view), modify (Modify) and distribute (redistribute) source code, whether for commercial or non-commercial use (purpose), similar to BSD license, (2) MS-CL, allow users to see (view), Modify (Modify) and distribute (redistribute) the source code, but require the user to ensure that any larger "works" containing it must also be issued under this license, similar to the GNU GPL license, (3) MS-RL, allowing the user to see the source code, But not allowed to modify and distribute, only for reference. Therefore, Microsoft called him "Microsoft Reference license". Two other licenses, called: (4) License (MS-RL).

(1) MS-PL, the most lenient, allows the user to see (view), modify (Modify) and redistribute (redistribute) source code, whether for commercial or non-commercial purposes (purposes), similar to BSD licenses; (2) Ms-cl, Allow the user to see (view), modify (Modify) and distribute (redistribute) source code, but require the user to ensure that any larger "works" containing it must also be issued under this license, similar to the GNU GPL license; (3) Ms-rl, Allow the user to view the source code, but not to modify and distribute, only for reference. Therefore, Microsoft called him "Microsoft Reference license".

The other two licenses, called: (4) MS-LPL; (5) MS-LCL, which "L" means "Limited" (restricted), requires that the source code (after compilation) be run only on the Windows platform. Obviously, (1), (2) will certainly obtain the approval of OSI, and (3) must not pass the examination of OSI. (4) and (5) two, a little possibility, it depends on the OSI is not on the Windows platform "spared". Think carefully, Microsoft's license is really open enough, the source code all let you (usually the government, the school) to see what you can say. We should see that (3) MS-RL license (the so-called "Microsoft Reference license") is the bottom line of Microsoft, can not retreat, otherwise, Microsoft is not Microsoft.

In recent years, Microsoft uncharacteristically has not only begun to collaborate with open source, but has also opened its own unique standards to open source organizations, giving the green light to the open source community. Why does Microsoft do that? Microsoft's "Software licensing license" will not change the way people think about open source.

On the second question, July 31, the famous BBC News professional critic Bill Thompson gave a positive answer. However, in the article "The Long Hard Road to open source" (refer to: original), Thompson points out that Microsoft is by no means likely to accept the philosophy of free/open source software. "Open source is just a methodology for software development, and free software is a social movement, free software is an ethical imperative, because only free software respects the freedom of the user," says Richard Stallman, the founder of Free software. Weighing all the benefits, Microsoft will never give up or assign software copyright to Stallman said free Softwore Foundation, Microsoft will only allow users to view, modify the source code, or even freely spread it.

The article then on Microsoft's complaint Novell Linux infringement of Microsoft patent issues, from another point of view, in the era of highly developed Internet, with the development community is becoming more and more important, countless cutting-edge software developers are active in the ubiquitous Internet-inspired network open source community, Contains endless source of creative thinking, in this, even Microsoft can not be belittled. There is no doubt that this is one of the major incentives for Microsoft to move to the open source world.

In the end, we call for Stallman's free software movement to build the software that shapes our lives.