The board of the Open Source Initiative (OSI) has approved two Microsoft
licenses that allow proprietary source code to be shared, a move that
is likely to inspire protest and spur controversy for die-hard open
source proponents. The Microsoft Public License (MPL) and the Microsoft
Reciprocal License (MRL), two of Microsoft's "shared source" licenses,
are now viable OSI licenses for distributing open source code alongside
more widely used community licenses such as the GNU General Public
License and the Mozilla Public License. Microsoft submitted licenses
from its Shared Source Initiative to the OSI in July [2007], an
announcement made at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. The MPL and
MRL are two of three licenses that Microsoft offers in its Shared
Source Initiative, which it has offered for about five years as a way
to share source code without having to work with open source
organizations or companies. The other is the Microsoft Reference
License, which is the most restrictive of the three and was not
submitted for approval. The MPL is the least restrictive of the Shared
Source licenses, allowing licensees to view, modify, and redistribute
the source code for either commercial or noncommercial purposes. The
license also allows licensees to alter the source code they share with
others as well as to charge a licensing fee for their work if they
choose. The MRL, which the company recommends for collaborative
development projects, carries specific requirements if licensees
combine their original code with MRL-licensed code. It does, however,
allow for noncommercial and commercial modification and redistribution
of licensed software. Red Hat executive Michael Tiemann, who also
serves as president of the OSI, said Tuesday that while some in the
community balked at the OSI accepting licenses from a company that
historically has not been open source friendly, in the end, the
licenses spoke for themselves. More Information
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