The Open Source Initiative have announced the approval of a pair of licenses from Microsoft. The Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL) and the Microsoft Reciprocal License (Ms-RL) are:
…refreshingly short and clean, compared to, say, the GPLv3 and the Sun CDDL. They share a patent peace clause, a no-trademark-license clause, and they differ only in the essential clause of reciprocation. (slashdot)
This is another step on the road to open source for Microsoft, a road already mapped up with projects like Wix, an open source licensed packager for Microsoft Windows systems. Hopefully these new licences will mean that more projects native to Microsoft platforms (such as those at codeplex) will use an open source licence.
Personally I’m a little worried about the Ms-RL’s use of the word “file,” a technical term used without definition, which a sufficiently well paid lawyers could probably cause problems over: “What if it’s in an email not a file?” “What about when it’s embedded in hardware” etc. But them I’m not a lawyer, so I may have the wrong end of the stick.
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