The Open Source Initiative has approved two of Microsoft's licenses. This is important because it gives them legitimacy in the open source community. The licenses were formally known as the Microsoft Permissive License and the Microsoft Community License. They have now been renamed, respectively to:

The OSI stated that the "decision to approve was informed by the overwhelming (though not unanimous) consensus from the open source community....Microsoft didn't ask for special treatment, and didn't receive any."

If you have never read the licenses before, you are likely to find them refreshingly easy to understand. For instance, here are the rights granted in a key passage from the Public License:

  • Copyright Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free copyright license to reproduce its contribution, prepare derivative works of its contribution, and distribute its contribution or any derivative works that you create.
  • Patent Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, each contributor grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license under its licensed patents to make, have made, use, sell, offer for sale, import, and/or otherwise dispose of its contribution in the software or derivative works of the contribution in the software.

It is not quite plain English, but it is admirably close to that estimable, if frequently elusive, standard. The rest of the license is short, and generally easy to understand.

The OSI is worth a few moments of study. It has, for instance, produced a definition of the distribution terms for open source software. That document is called The Open Source Definition and includes the following:

  • Free Redistribution: "The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale."
  • Source Code: "The program must include source code, and must allow distribution in source code as well as compiled form."
  • Derived Works: "The license must allow modifications and derived works, and must allow them to be distributed under the same terms as the license of the original software."

As you can see, the OSI actually does write documents in plain English, an achievement which is always worthy of respect. Overall, the acceptance of Microsoft's licenses by the OSI is good news for Microsoft developers and the software community in general.