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Microsoft once again offering pseudo-open source on CodePlex
Microsoft has been criticized in the past for how it manages CodePlex, Microsoft's "open source project hosting site" (emphasis mine). This time, as The Register reports, Microsoft is hosting code that can only be run on the Windows platform.
This is not, of course, a violation of open source. Plenty of projects on Sourceforge will run on only Linux, or some other operating system.
No, the problem here is that Microsoft is restricting these projects to Windows by license, and not merely be technical capability.
In at least one instance, that of the Microsoft Extensibility Framework (MEF), Microsoft switched the license from its Windows-only Microsoft Limited Permissive License (Ms-LPL) to the Microsoft Public License (Ms-PL), an Open Source Initiative-certified license, under pressure from Miguel de Icaza and "community feedback." The reason given for putting the code under the MS-LPL in the first place is lame, however:… Read more
