Comments on: Microsoft's pseudo-open source: open trap for open-source developers?

Microsoft has open sourced some code. Or has it?

[mattflaschen]

Assume good faith

Make no mistake. This license isn't open source. But I don't think it's a trap either. I also don't see how it's that different from Rotor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotor_%28software_project%29). It's obviously risky to rely on this code when implementing an alternative (even if you try to refrain from copying). But I'd rather see it as a step on Java's path (remember that Java had been available under a read-only license for a long time before it went GPL) than a trap.

[PACSferret]

Perhaps a challenge for version control guys......

Hey Matt.. in your scenario - it will only take one Mono developer (e.g.) to sign the license to give MS a way in. But what if the VC system (SVN in Mono's case, I believe) has a legally watertight (difficult, but not impossible) mechanism to show that that developer hadn't touched the element of code under question? I'm very much a casual SVN user and certainly no legal expert so I'm very much outside my comfort zone here.

In the world of patents say in parmaceuticals, is such non-contestable record keeping a cornerstone of patent activity?

[mattflaschen]

Not really proof

That wouldn't really be proof against a copyright infringement charge. Microsoft could just claim the developer that read the .NET source secretly sent the patch to the developer that committed it. Revision control systems can't do anything about this. Also, patents are a totally separate issue. Mono may already infringe Microsoft patents (/some/ of which are licensed through ECMA). That doesn't require that the code is similar, only that it operates the same way as a patent specifies.

[bloke12]

SCO Failed?

You write that SCO eventually failed. You are wrong. The SCO debacle, as poorly organized and as pathetic it was, was unbelievably successful for the enemies of OSS. SCO, using FUD, turned corporations away from Linux, won ("extorted") money from unknowledgeable users, and was a thorn in the movement for years.