[LINK] Credentica Sold to Microsoft

[Craig Sanders]

On Sun, Mar 09, 2008 at 11:54:00AM +1100, Roger Clarke wrote:
> Kim Cameron wrote on Saturday, March 08, 2008 4:25 PM:
> > If anyone harbours any lingering concerns about OSP, I would be happy
> > to help dispel them.

issues i'd want 'dispelled' include:

 - incompatibility with the GNU GPL

 - revocation clauses in the software license

 - patent licenses and, of course, revocability clauses in the licenses

 - discrimination for/against particular kinds of uses and/or users
   (e.g. for schools only; for home/personal use only; not for
   for-profit use; etc)

if it's not irrevocably free and open, for any use, by anyone or any
organisation, then it's not free or open at all.


Microsoft has lots of pseudo-open stuff but when you look at the
details of any such license, it is immediately obvious that any alleged
'open-ness' is either marketing fluff with no substance whatsoever or,
at best, the barely plausible minimum that MS can claim conforms to
various legal obligations (laws, anti-trust decrees, etc).

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>

"Skepticism's bad rap arises from the impression that, however necessary the
 activity, it can only be regarded as a negative removal of false claims.
 Not so... Proper debunking is done in the interest of an alternate model of
 explanation, not as a nihilistic exercise. The alternate model is rationality
 itself, tied to moral decency--the most powerful joint instrument for good
 that our planet has ever known."
         [Stephen Jay Gould, from Michael Shermer, "Why People
          Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition &
          Other Confusions of Our Time, p. xii)]