One more ZDNet article with BillG hammering Linux and Open Source.

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2777283,00.html

(an excerpt)

Linux and open source

ZDNet -- Can you clarify Microsoft's position on Linux and open source? There has been a lot written about it in the last week. What's Microsoft's objection to open source and Linux?

BillG -- I don't want to dwell on this. Craig Mundie (Microsoft's senior vice president of advanced strategies) is the expert. There is this whole history that free software is developed often in the academic environment, where basically government money funded that work. And then commercial work is done. TCP/IP came out of the university environment. Now, 90 percent of the implementations you buy are commercially tuned and supported. And then the companies that do that commercial work pay taxes, create jobs, so the government keeps funding more research, primarily in universities. So that ecosystem where you have free software and commercial software, and customers always get to decide which they use, that's a very important and healthy ecosystem.

ZDNet -- How does the GPL (GNU General Public License) factor in?

BillG -- There is a part of open source called GPL that breaks that cycle--that is, it makes it impossible for a commercial company to use any of that work or build on any of that work. So what you saw with TCP/IP or (e-mail technology) Sendmail or the browser could never happen. We believe there should be free software and commercial software; there should be a rich ecosystem that works around that. There are people who believe that commercial software should not exist at all--that there should be no jobs or taxes around commercial software at all. And that's a small group, but the GPL was created with that goal in mind.

And so people should understand the GPL. When people say open source they often mean the GPL. When someone asks a question, "So what about open source?" do they mean open source or do they mean the GPL? We believe in that ecosystem and having the mix of free and commercial software.

ZDNet -- What's your position on publishing source code?

BillG -- We have no objection to people publishing source codes. We do that ourselves under certain terms. Some of our source codes are out there and very available, like Windows CE. Some generally require a license, like Windows itself. We have no objection to free software, which has been around forever. But we do think there are problems for commercial users relative to the GPL, and we are just making sure people understand the GPL.

Unfortunately, that has been misconstrued in many ways. It's a topic that you can leap on and say, "Microsoft doesn't make free software." Hey, we have free software; the world will always have free software. I mean, if you characterize it that way, that's not right. But if you say to people, "Do you understand the GPL?" And they'll say, "Huh?" And they're pretty stunned when the Pac-Man-like nature of it is described to them.

ZDNet -- Does Microsoft plan to make more of its source code available to customers? You already do that with Windows; do you plan to expand that in any way to the applications?

BillG -- We keep making it easier and easier, and anything people want source code for, we'll figure out a way to get it to them. It's kind of a strange thing in a way because most commercial customers don't want to recompile kernels or things like that. But they want to be able to know that things can be supported.

We have some very cool tools now where we don't have to ship you the source. You can debug online, through the Internet. So it means you don't have to get a bunch of CDs. If you really want it for debugging and patching things, we can do that through the Internet. That's a real breakthrough in terms of simple source access. I don't know that anyone has ever asked for the source code for Word. If they did, we would give it to them. But it's not a typical request.

So who wants to go ask for the source code to word then? I mean we have Bill's word that they will give it to us.

Brent Norris

Executive Advisor -- WKU-Linux

[ . . . ]

Hey, Bill, here's my address, can you ship me the full source to Word?

;)

:    __o
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Funny but by giving it to you they could really screw you when it comes to opensource work. If you think the GPL is viral you havn't seen "shared source".. at least the GPL only applies to derived works.

Gerhard

--
Gerhard Mack

[email protected]

<>< As a computer I find your faith in technology amusing.

Here's the kicker. I went to Microsoft's site and tried to find a copy of their Shared Software License or some approximation thereof. All I found was a bunch of Craig Mundie's blathering and some critiques of the GPL:

http://www.microsoft.com/business/licensing/sharedsource.asp

How can we evaluate if there is any point in asking BillG for the Word source code if they won't even show us the blighted license? What I suspect is that there IS no "Shared Source License." And, even if there were, Microsoft doesn't want anyone to see it because that would allow a direct comparison with the GPL, LGPL and so on. Heaven forbid that apples should be compared to apples!

What they appear to have is a hodgepodge of different ways of "sharing" source code. Here's an excerpt from:

http://www.microsoft.com/BUSINESS/licensing/sscommitment.asp
--------------------------------------------------
Some examples of Shared Source already being implemented at Microsoft:

Research source licensing. For nearly a decade, Microsoft Research has licensed Microsoft Windows source code to more than 100 academic institutions in 23 countries. For more information, see Microsoft Research University Programs.

Enterprise licensing program. Source code for Windows 2000 and subsequent releases of Windows is available for licensing at no charge to more than 1,000 enterprise customers in the United States. We also have a pilot program expanding the ESLP to 12 additional countries.

ISV source licensing. We are developing a program for licensing Windows source code to top tier ISVs (independent software vendors) for development and support purposes.

OEM source licensing. Windows source code has been licensed for years to leading OEMs to assist in the development and support of their consumer and server products.

Windows CE source code access. We are licensing Windows CE source code through Platform Builder 3.0 (generally available to all developers). Microsoft will be broadening and adding to the community support mechanisms through the Platform Builder Program. In the second half of this year we will offer academic site licenses for Windows CE source code.

Expanded level of Windows CE source access. Additionally, we have announced an expanded level of Windows CE source access to, (i) our leading silicon vendor partners via the Windows Embedded Strategic Silicon Alliance program, and (ii) our leading system integrator partners via the Innovation Alliance Program.

Sample code. Over the years Microsoft has made millions of lines of source code freely available to developers through resources such as SDKs, DDKs, and MSDN. Check out the MSDN Online Code Center.

.NET Framework submitted to ECMA standards body. We have announced that the specifications for the .NET Framework have been submitted to the ECMA standards body, enabling others to implement and evolve this technology in a platform-independent manner so that it is can be rapidly and widely adopted on an industry-side basis. For more information, see ECMA Standardization.

These Shared Source programs will be joined in the coming months by programs covering additional products and technologies. The realization of our .NET vision will rely heavily on the Shared Source philosophy. We also plan to introduce a Shared Source license crafted to the needs of our customers and partners in governments around the world. This government source license will be similar in nature to the license we offer our large enterprise customers today. Still in the works are new source sharing ideas for our ISV partners as well.
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My interpretation of this excerpt is that Microsoft figures out what rights it wants to allow each of these categories of developers/users and then incredibly restricts the freedom of anyone who sees their code to change, port or use the code in any way at all. My impression is that they are happy to have grad students look at the NT code, because they want really smart people to get used to using NT all the time and then graduate and go become Microsoft borgs.

What I imagine happens is that if you ask for source code, they decide whether they want to show it to you, then they make you sign away your life (such as freedom to work on any code vaguely like the code they're going to show you) and then they sue you into bankruptcy or out-of-court settlement if you breathe in a way they don't like.

I'd be happy if Bill and his merry band proved me wrong, but I really doubt that'll happen.

Miles

It would be great to see the "Shared Source" licenses that Microsoft has made people sign. It would be especially interesting to compare the agreements that were given to the various classes of licensees:
University Research Departments, ISVs, Enterprises and so on. Then we'd be able to have a somewhat more balanced public discussion of that includes the problems with Microsoft's licenses.

Perhaps some of you work or study at institutions or companies that have copies of some iterations of the Microsoft licenses. If so, perhaps you could post them on the web and send the URLs.

Miles

It would be great to see you learning WTF "offtopic" means and taking the advocacy crap to the places where it belongs.