Shared source

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Under the name Shared Source , Microsoft offers software licenses that allow insight into the source code . The shared source program was launched in 2001 in response to the success of free open source projects, particularly under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

concept

Microsoft gives its licensees the right to inspect the copyrighted source code of its software. With the "Government Security Program" (GSP) - part of the "Shared Source Initiative" - ​​Microsoft wants to improve the ailing trust of the governments in its proprietary products. According to Microsoft, open source is a threat to the entire software industry, whereas the company's own “shared source” license represents a good balance between users and software manufacturers.

After a reorganization of the shared source licenses, some of these licenses now allow considerably more freedom.

Licenses

Shared source as open source

criticism

The first shared source licenses were heavily criticized by the free software community, as they allowed insight into the source code, but all rights to changes remained with Microsoft.

Eric S. Raymond of the Open Source Initiative sums up Microsoft's shared source philosophy : “You have to pay for the privilege of seeing the source code of the software. Anyone who makes improvements is neither paid nor given any rights to their improvements. And if someone tries to use what they have learned while fixing Microsoft's bugs , they are violating Microsoft's intellectual property rights. ” In short: “ What is ours is ours. And if you cooperate with Shared Source, your contribution will also belong to us. "

OSI certification

This criticism was later only applied to some of these licenses, e.g. B. the Microsoft Reference License , which was not submitted to the Open Source Initiative. The Free Software Foundation Europe stated after a cursory analysis that the Microsoft Permissive License and Microsoft Community Licenses could possibly meet the conditions for free software . And in fact, after a revision and renaming to Microsoft Public License and Microsoft Reciprocal License, they were certified by the OSI. Also, Debian , which the licenses with its Debian Free Software Guidelines judged more strictly, taking programs that are under the Ms-PL. The Limited versions of the licenses (e.g. Microsoft Limited Permissive License ) restrict use to the Windows platform, so that these are not accepted as a FLOSS license.

Examples

The computer game Allegiance is an example of software that has been successfully released under a shared source. At the end of life of the product in 2004, the fan base was able to provide support itself in the future, as the source code was released non-commercially under the Microsoft Research Shared Source license. The gaming community thus took over the support and further development of the game as part of the FreeAllegiance project, which continues to this day.

Another example is the strategy game MechCommander 2, for which the source code was released as shared source in 2006 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Heise online : Microsoft: Only “Shared Source” ensures the freedom of users , May 18, 2001
  2. ↑ a b Heise online : Microsoft wants to simplify shared source , October 19, 2005
  3. ↑ a b Heise online : New wooing: Microsoft and Open Source , October 20, 2005
  4. ↑ OSI Approves Microsoft License Submissions
  5. ↑ Debian Packages: Packet ironpython
  6. ↑ allegiancelicense.txt ( Memento of the original from January 23, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Microsoft Research Shared Source license agreement ("MSR-SSLA") @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / freespacecombatgame.com
  7. ^ Bob Colayco: Microsoft pledges Allegiance to its fanbase . gamespot.com. February 6, 2004. Retrieved July 22, 2011: “ The release of the source code came in response to the enthusiasm of Allegiance's small-but-dedicated fanbase. Microsoft's Joel Dehlin commented that the development team has, "been amazed at the level to which some of the Allegiance fans have remained hard-core. We're astounded at the progress that has been made at creating new factions, hosting new servers, replacing authentication, etc. It seems that Allegiance hasn't really died. With that in mind, we're releasing the Allegiance source code to the community. " "
  8. ↑ Daniel Flesh Bourne: MechCommander 2 Shared Source Release ( s ) neowin.net. August 18, 2006. Retrieved December 30, 2012: “ This is the Shared Source release for MechCommander 2. This release contains all of the source code and source assets required to build MechCommander 2. This release can be used with the Microsoft XNA Build March 2006 Community Technology Preview (CTP). "