Matusow's Blog : Shared Source Programs

OSI Approves MS Licenses

jasonmatusow — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 07:38:40 GMT

Today the news hit that two licenses from Microsoft were approved by the Open Source Initiative as official open source licenses. The licenses were submitted back in early August and a good deal of discussion and work has been going on since then.

Jon Rosenberg, who is a really sharp guy and was a colleague of mine when I was working on source licensing issues, has been driving the effort. You can read some comments from him up on Port 25 today. I know

I think this is a very positive thing, and am glad to see it come to fruition. In 2001 we started down the path of learning from open source, and thinking deeply about what it meant to work with open source development for Microsoft. In retrospect, we were kind of dumb in that we decided to tackle the most complex issue first. We immediately looked at Windows source code. It showed our inexperience in thinking about source code licensing issues. The code base was so big, and took so much time for devs to ramp up on even small sections of it, that it had limited utility to see the code. It was not until we had tools, and all sorts of additional elements in place that such a large code base became useful. Even then, it was not open source - it was Shared Source. We were very careful about what language we used.

But then we looked at all sort of models - reference code, full mod rights/full distribution rights but don't take anything back, fully collaborative development, reciprocal licensing and grant-back assignments...all then coupled with differing investments in associated developer support, headcount, tools, etc. etc. Over time, a pattern formed and now our product teams have a full set of choices about how to work with source licensing that best works with community and still meets the needs of the business.

I think the guys in our OSS labs, up on Port 25, out on Codeplex, and the teams working on licensing issues are doing great things. We have well over 2000 OSS projects to date, and more than a few have strong communities with great project leads.

I think this news today is a really good step. Congrats Jon - and thank you to the OSI for the considered discussion and substantive feedback over the years (and particularly in this final stage of the process).

Microsoft OSS Web Site

jasonmatusow — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 20:01:23 GMT

Today Microsoft launched its new open source web site. Starting in 2001, we began thinking long and hard about open source from the perspective of it as a dev model, a business model, a licensing model, and a philosophical approach to software. Like anything - you look at it through your own perspective and we realized that there were things we agreed with and others that we did not.

Working with developer communities was something that we had done for a long time, and fairly well. But there was clearly so much more to learn and opportunities for us to experiment with different approaches. Looking back on it, it seems a bit odd that we chose to tackle the hardest problem first - Windows source code - rather than the edge cases with tools and resources. But, that is the benefit of hindsight talking. For 6 years we have been sharing source code, kicking off projects, experimenting with licensing models, funding projects, contributing to projects, taking contributions from others, launching tools (GDN Workspaces -painful- and then Codeplex), and establishing collaboration relationships with OSS companies. In that time, we also formed an OSS lab at Microsoft that has done some great work and continues to build bridges between OSS projects and MS dev teams.

Now, they have launched www.microsoft.com/opensource. This will be the place where information about the various activities is aggregated. Other resources that have been spun-up over the years still exist:

· Port 25 – Open Source Software Lab at Microsoft

· Codeplex – Microsoft’s open source project hosting site

· Shared Source – Microsoft’s set of programs for sharing source code with customers, partners, governments, researchers, etc.

· Microsoft Open Source ISV Forum – offer for OSS ISVs through Microsoft Partner Program

I am sure the launch of this site will kick-off a whole new round of discussion about MS and open source - but that is exactly what it is supposed to be about. The conversation continues.

Grab Bag Today - More on Open XML, Iron Projects, IBM's Spec Pledge

jasonmatusow — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 22:14:00 GMT

A couple of things to pop up on my blog today:

Stephen McGibbon wrote a blog posting this week about Open XML and his participation in Portugal. There has been commentary about this up on Groklaw and Stephen addresses those issues directly.

[Adding to this post] Doug Mahugh has posted on the recent INCITS Executive Board decision about the Open XML Ballot. Doug is commenting on a posting from Andy Updegrove.

If you look to much earlier blog postings by me, you will see that I was invovled in the process of getting IronPython pulled into the Shared Source program. Jim Hugunin has been a great addition to Microsoft and the dynamic languages team. Their latest cool thing has been the work they are doing on IronRuby which I believe is under the development lead of John Lam at MS. Back in April their work on IronRuby became public at MIX (John's blog entry here), and as of earlier this week, the first code release is available (John's blog entry here, actual code drop here). I don't think it is up at RubyForge yet, but I believe that is their plan. No matter what - this is really cool to see the continued push for dynamic languages support in .NET and the great work with the community that these guys are doing.

Finally, something else that I have been meaning to comment on and have simply been lazy in getting to. Earlier in July, IBM announced its Interoperability Specifications Pledge to some fanfare online. I applaud their move to this newer language and updated list of specifications. People have a very short memory and there were some comments (Matt Asay for example) about how MS should do this too. We have been doing this for the past year - just check out the Open Specification Promise and the dozens of specs listed there. But - far be it for me to claim credit for this as there is a history to the concepts that tracks back to IBM and SUN first. Both of them had released a Covenant Not To Sue for specifications before MS released its OSP. In fact, we read their language very carefully as we approached the drafting of the OSP. The whole point here is to create an environment where a specification may be implemented by anyone, no matter what development model or source code license they may choose. This can happen in such a way that the patents necessary for implementation are a) available for use at no charge and in no conflict with various licensing models, and b) are retained by the rights holder so they may be used in other ways potentially for revenue-generating purposes. The OSP, or CNS, or ISP - all amount to the same conceptual approach which is the idea of enabling implmentations while still respecting IP rights. You should read the language around these things carefully as there are differences. For example, we though it was important that our OSP extend to both full and partial implementations of a spec while IBM limits theirs to only "fully compliant implementions" (check the definitions section at the bottom of the page). I don't believe this means that all specs should automatically move to this model - but it is one more choice in the spectrum of approaches available to all technology firms. In general, this is a really positive thing.

FoxPro Going to CodePlex

jasonmatusow — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 18:56:00 GMT

I just saw that Microsoft is moving FoxPro to the CodePlex site. In other words, as the company has made a decision not to move FoxPro beyond the 9.0 version it will enable the dev community that is passionate about the technology to continue to work on it in a collaborative environment. I think this is very cool for many reasons. Technology progresses, and as some technologies meet the natural end of their lifespan in terms of market opportunity (from the vendor perspective), that does not mean that it is the end of the lifecycle for those that use it. I was deeply involved in the Y2K issue and saw the reality of this issue.

I don't have much time to comment on this, but just thought it was worth calling it out.

Thank You For The Feedback

jasonmatusow — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 09:26:00 GMT

Most of the time I try to respond to the comments that come into my blog. There has been a rush of comments since the linking of my posting to a few news articles.

1) Thank you for the comments - I know many of you are skeptical about this process, and a few are even outright hostile. I will be going through all of the postings in detail and pulling out the themes and ideas throughout the feedback.

2) I will continue to have an ongoing dialogue with a few key community members and these comments will inform those discussions. I will make sure your voices are heard as we go through our decision making.

One thing that jumped out at me about many of these postings is the sense that a lack of trust in our motivations is a key factor for you all. I am unclear as to why then it is a problem for us to clarify something so that motivations are not an issue. Unless I have been really not paying attention, we have been incredibly direct in how we have talked about OSS issues ever since May 2001. At the time we were clear with our concerns as well as our aspirations, and we were clear about our approach to source code licensing. Ever since that point we have done nothing except consistently deliver on those plans and become increasingly more open and willing to receive community feedback. I don't expect a cookie from anyone for doing the right thing - but it would seem to counter balance some of the concerns raised in the comments to my previous postings.

Starting in 2001 - we launched Shared Source with 6 separate offerings (some reference only, some full modification/redist terms). Since then we have grown to having >600 source releases servicing well over 2 million developers. CodePlex has taken that to even greater heights. In Dec. 2003, we stated unequivocally that our IP portfolio was open for licensing to anyone, and that academics (for example) had royalty free access to them. We also put in place an unprecedented IP indemnification policy for our customers and partners. We have had a steady increase in our amount of community interaction and transparency through the >6K bloggers at Microsoft, sites like Channel 9 and Port 25. There are technical collaborations in place with hundreds of commercial companies including OSS providers like JBOSS, SugarCRM, XenSource, Zend, and now Novell. We have stepped up in the standards and specification arena with the availability of our Open Specification Promise and its application to 38 web services specifications, virtualization technology, and SenderID. There were significant concerns about ODF/Open XML compatibility and we launched an open source project called the Open XML Translator that has received broad recognition and acclaim as a quality community program. And just this week we announced the creation of a new Alliance meant to facilitate better communication and testing to draw a community of vendors together to work on interoperability issues. Additionally, we have been spinning off advanced technologies from our research labs into new startups and small enterprises to create opportunities for others through innovation (known as IP Ventures). All of these offerings are global in nature and receive sustained commitment from us.

But, for all of that - we are still going to be building and selling our products. We will be competitive in the marketplace. We will continue to build our technologies to be high value solutions for our customers. We will also value the IP generated in that process. The real question becomes, how do you balance that IP strategy so that it is good for the community, overall industry growth, etc. while also providing a reasonable return on investment. I am at TechEd ITForum this week, and to walk the show floor it is pretty obvious that all vendors are in this exact same boat, no matter what kind of software they produce.

Again, please keep the input coming. I will be working on the covenant issue until we arrive at some sort of resolution.

And Now, For My Next Act....

jasonmatusow — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 19:27:00 GMT

Years ago, it was suggested that there was a civil war in Microsoft based on open source. There allegedly was the Star Wars–inspired rebel alliance of openness fighting against the forces of closed. Coming out of that set of accusations, I was always a bit curious as to what role I was assigned. Should I have strapped some cinnamon rolls to my head and found a large gelatinous blob to chain myself to? Or run around with a black cape and really nasty emphysema?

Or – as it turns out, deal with the fact that Microsoft is a complex organization with the ability and desire to think through hard issues and learn lessons over time?

Back in the early 1990s MS began sharing source code with development partners and OEM customers, but we lacked a strategy for broadly sharing code. Shared Source was born of the fact that we needed to pull those elements together and respond to our customers and partners, along with a number of other voices, who were pushing us to clarify what we thought about open source software.

At this point, we are getting close to a hundred source code releases and have succeeded in delivering source code to more than two million developers worldwide. Beyond that, Shared Source will expand at an increasing rate. Product teams are broadly evaluating how we can engage development communities more effectively through source licensing. With the release of the Microsoft source code licenses in October, we made it easier for our product teams to share more code. Also, the simplicity and predictability of the licenses for the development community will make it yet more attractive for our teams to engage.

I’m pleased with the work done over the past 5 years by a community of hundreds within Microsoft. I’ve been just one piece of that larger puzzle, and now it is time for me to take on a new set of challenges. As of this week I’m taking on a new role as a Director in the Corporate Standards Strategy Team. I’ll be looking at the issues surrounding standards from strategy, policy, and communications points of view.

If you believe IBM when the say open source is open standards is open source is open standards is open source is…then I guess I’ll be doing much of the same work I have been. Or, if you look at it more closely…but that will be coming in future blogs.

Bill Hilf will be the Shared Source guy for Microsoft going forward. He was the MS architect behind the Microsoft/JBoss relationship. Bill runs the OSS lab at Microsoft and was one of the leads for IBM’s Linux strategy before coming to Microsoft. My colleagues (Charlie, Chris, Jon, Deena, and Dawn) who have been critical to the long-term success of Shared Source will continue their great work as well. In short, the company has expanded Shared Source year over year for 5 years. I look at all of that as phase 1. Phase 2 will be all about reaching across communities and technology types in new and compelling ways.

I’ll still be opining about OSS, particularly as it is so closely related to what I am going to be doing in the standards space. I’m looking forward to stepping back into a vertical learning curve and getting my brain around a new set of complex issues.

Oh yeah. By the way, Luke, I really am your father <inhale> <exhale> <gasp>.

New Shared Source Release - MBS Solomon

jasonmatusow — Wed, 02 Nov 2005 13:39:00 GMT

Once again my friend Matt Asay is putting on a strong show at OSBC East. The OSBC conferences have been interesting to me because of their focus on those that are building businesses around OSS. In my keynote on Wed. this week I will be taking a look at our lessons learned from OSS and will play with the Kraus’ long tail theory a bit.

I will also be announcing the first foray into Shared Source from our Dynamics folks. News first- then my take on it.

The News

The Microsoft Business Solutions Solomon team is posting the source code to their Business Portal Lite technology which enables multiple browsers to be used as a thin-client interface connecting the Microsoft Business Solutions Business Portal and the Solomon ERP system. The portal provides time, expense approval, alerts and project profitability tracking and reviewing functionality. The advantage to using the Lite solution is that you can access the Microsoft Solomon back-end through Safari, Firefox, Mozilla and other non-Windows browsers.

The Solomon group has a strong community of partners and customers right now, with more than 600 certified partners servicing more than 15,000 customers. This release enables the certified partner community to build a common set of technologies allowing them to service customers’ heterogeneous environments.

We have a few partners and a customer already lined up for the pilot – Altara, Queue Associates, and Omnicom Group.

The code is available under the Microsoft Permissive License (Ms-PL) announced last week at EuroOSCON.

My Take

Microsoft has built its business on its ability to create economic opportunity for its partners. Our services, software, and hardware partners number in the hundreds of thousands of companies. The release of the Business Portal Lite project is one more step in this line of thinking, and another great example that there are lessons to be learned from the OSS dev/business models.

Because this source release, and community development effort are targeted at a specific set of partners – this will be a “walled garden” project. The project on GotDotNet Workspaces will primarily be for certified partners but if there are customers interested in participating they will do so as an invitee by their integration partner. The source license will provide those partners with the ability to take the code and do what they wish with it – but the core project with the MS lead will remain on the GDN site.

To me, this project provides us with a great learning opportunity to understand the reaches of a limited group working towards a common goal within the context of a collaborative development project. David Dennis and Ed Hughes from the Microsoft side will be working closely with the Solomon partner community to gather feedback on the pilot and look for new ways to continue evolving that community. I want to wish them the best of luck on a great new project.

As usual, more information is available here – www.microsoft.com/sharedsource

New Shared Source Releases

jasonmatusow — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 13:37:00 GMT

In conjunction with the news today about the licenses - we are also announcing the availability of 8 Visual Studio 2005 stater kits under the Ms-PL. Also, in Nov., the CE team is going to release the second version of our Bluetooth wrapper. There are more than 80 Shared Source releases - go check out www.microsoft.com/sharedsource for more info.

Shared Source Licensing

jasonmatusow — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 10:52:00 GMT

UPDATE - I'm adding some good blog discussions below based on this news.

Open source licenses are source code licenses. Shared Source licenses are source code licenses. Shareware licenses are (at times) source code licenses. And what is a source code license? It is a way for a software creator to place usage terms on their property.

Source code is property.

How the creator of the software chooses to release their source code has been a very active point of discussion in the industry for years. Today, Microsoft is simplifying its source code licensing so that developers working with our technologies will be able to focus on developing great software rather than understanding a license. Our source code licensing needs to be simple and predictable.

There is no “correct” way to license source code. It is the choice of the author (individual or organization) to choose the license that works best for them. If you would like to release your code under terms that stipulate only people with purple hair who own three-legged dogs can use your code – so be it. Your potential community may be limited, but that may be what you are looking to accomplish with the license.

Today, we are announcing the availability of three new template Shared Source licenses. In this way, all of Microsoft source code releases will be under consistent terms, and thus more easy to 1use and to understand. The licenses are each 1 page or shorter. They are written in simple terms that non-lawyers should be able to follow. They are also reflective of the most modern thinking regarding source code licenses within the legal community.

The three licenses are: (check out www.microsoft.com/sharedsource for more info)

1) Microsoft Permissive License (Ms-PL)

2) Microsoft Community License (Ms-CL)

3) Microsoft Reference License (Ms-RL)

The Ms-PL is the least restrictive of the Microsoft source code licenses. It allows you to view, modify, and redistribute the source code for either commercial or non-commercial purposes. Under the Ms-PL, you may change the source code and share it with others. You may also charge a licensing fee for your modified work if you wish. This license is most commonly used for developer tools, applications, and components.

The MCL is a license that is best used for collaborative development projects. This type of license is commonly referred to as a reciprocal source code license and carries specific requirements if you choose to combine MCL code with your own code. The MCL allows for both non-commercial and commercial modification and redistribution of licensed software and carries a per-file reciprocal term.

The MRL is a reference-only license that allows licensees to view source code in order to gain a deeper understanding of the inner workings of a Microsoft technology. It does not allow for modification or redistribution. This license is used primarily for technologies such as development libraries.

Microsoft has a “spectrum” of licenses under the Shared Source Initiative. But, just as with other individuals and organizations we too have seen the proliferation of source code licenses become problematic. We had 10+ Shared Source licenses and as more and more product groups sought to use source code releases as a means to work with developer communities, this number was only going to rise further.

3 is better than more than 10.

I’d like to thank two great attorneys for their work on these licenses. Steve Mutkoski and J.D. Fugate did a great job of pushing for simplicity and clarity. These guys deeply understand the nature of source licensing and the issues facing developers needing to work with the code.

Commentary - some good, some bad - but all interesting takes on the same thing.

Danese Cooper – http://danesecooper.blogs.com/divablog/2005/10/simon_phipps_eu.html
Tim O’Reilly – http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/10/new_source_licenses_from_micro.html
Slashdot - http://developers.slashdot.org/developers/05/10/19/1530216.shtml?tid=109&tid=8
Joi Ito - http://joi.ito.com/
Matt Asay - http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/
Stephen O'Grady - http://www.redmonk.com/sogrady/

Windows Template Library

jasonmatusow — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 11:09:00 GMT

The project leader for the Windows Template Library project up on SourceForge dropped me a note the other day. In case you are interested, the WTL project just released Beta 1 of WTL 7.5. Here are the links.

Project link: http://sourceforge.net/projects/wtl

Download link: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=109071&package_id=117803&release_id=361783

Good stuff guys!

Shared Source - More Dev Toys

jasonmatusow — Fri, 03 Jun 2005 05:55:00 GMT

There are groups all over Microsoft that are posting source for interesting little bits and pieces. These are all licensed for commerical or non-commercial modification and distribution. These came to me courtesy of Josh Ledgard. Check them out and enjoy.

I'm going to leave in the comments about the nature of "community" on each of them. It is interesting to see the split between participants and downloads (presumed users of the binary only).

VBCommenter Insert XML comments into VB code and generate the XML file when the project builds. This is probably the most mature of the projects with over 30k downloads and I’m going to estimate around 20 contributors who have submitted some code. Really about 4 non-MS people contributed very significantly and are listed as project admins. #4 on the list of GDN workspaces by their ranking system. This one is interesting, because it pairs really well with a non-MS OSS project called NDoc that takes these XML files and generates some really good HTML documentation for the code.

VSTweak Think TweakXP, but for hidden Visual Studio specific settings and registry keys. 8k downloads and one key contributor from the community here that added an entirely new section to the tool.

VSWindowManager Enables users to save window layouts in VS and reload them at a later time. Also does some cool stuff like automatically changing window layouts when you switch from Design to Code views to give the editor more space. 5k downloads and only 2-3 minor contributors from the community.

OnlineSearch Right click on a keyword in the editor and launch an MSN search for that keyword. 2k downloads and no contributors.

VSMouseBindings An often request and often cut feature that lets you assign VS commands to any of the mouse button inputs. Most commonly used to navigate backwards and forwards in the code view with the back/forward mouse keys. 2k downloads and no contributors.

VSBlogger .NET User Control and a VS Add-in which will allow you to subscribe to and read blog postings from within Visual Studio 2003. 500 downloads and no contributors. License. (Uses a different one from above. Its more recent)

VSCMDShell A toolwindow for VS that combines Cmd.Exe functionality with the ability to call VS automation commands. This functionality actually shipped in the first Alpha of VS 2005, but we cut the feature due to lack of demand and its dubious quality. I took the concept, talked to the developer, and have been working on my own implementation knowing we had no intention of ever shipping the feature. 3k downloads and 2-3 minor (bug fixing) contributors from the community.

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Bluetooth Wrapper

jasonmatusow — Thu, 26 May 2005 21:18:00 GMT

During my blogging hiatus in May there was a cool release from our embedded folks. Here is the description and a link or two:

Windows Embedded Source Tools for Bluetooth Technology

Developing for Bluetooth technology (exposing Bluetooth services, enumerating devices or services, and connecting to services) can be a very time-intensive process. The Windows Embedded Source Tools for Bluetooth Technology program provides a Win32 API Wrapper that developers can expose in Visual Studio .NET or the .NET Compact Framework. Exposing the Win32 API Wrapper reduces the amount of code needed to develop for Bluetooth Technologies and helps make it easier to create compelling Windows Mobile and Windows CE Bluetooth applications.

Benefits

The Windows Embedded Source Tools program for Bluetooth technology benefits licensees and the larger Windows Embedded and Windows Mobile community by providing:

•	Free Source Code Access - Provides access to a managed class library for Windows CE 5.0 and Windows Mobile 5.0 developers.
•	Faster and Easier Development - Spend less time writing the underlying Bluetooth code and more time focusing on innovating applications that support Bluetooth technologies.
•	Innovation - The range of Bluetooth-enabled services and solutions that can be easily created with the Windows Embedded Source Tools for Bluetooth Technology is limited only by the imagination of the developers who use them.
•	Collaboration - Connect with fellow developers in the Channel 9 Bluetooth Development WiKi. Here is a direct link to the license and the project download.

WiX - heading towards 150K

jasonmatusow — Thu, 26 May 2005 09:34:00 GMT

Kudos to Rob Mensching and his great Shared Source project, Windows Installer XML - otherwise known as WiX. SourceForge.net statistics came back online recently and it turns out that more than 145,000 folks have found WiX to be interesting. Even more impressive is that I’m running into people who are telling me that this little utility is significantly changing their businesses for the better. I had the president of a database technology vendor tell me recently that WiX has enabled them to have a Windows product for the first time. We’re hearing from large corporate development projects and individuals alike that WiX is opening up the door to apps that install more cleanly while reducing the cost of development.

If you are building an app to run on Windows you’ll be happy you checked out this project.

This posting is provided “AS IS” with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Visual Basic Power Pack - Shared Source Licensed Stuff

jasonmatusow — Wed, 25 May 2005 00:08:00 GMT

Here is the Visual Basic Power Pack which consists of seven custom controls written in Visual Basic .NET 2003 and licensed under a Shared Source license. The controls provide enhanced user interface elements and enable you to create more interesting and more colorful client-based applications.

Microsoft Developer Powertoys - Shared Source Licensed Stuff

jasonmatusow — Wed, 25 May 2005 00:05:00 GMT

I've been meaning to blog this for a while. Josh Ledgard has been doing some great work with the developer community. He hosts the Developer Powertoys blog which is really worth checking out if you haven't seen it (and if you are a developer of course). This blog is consistantly among the top 5-10 most active blogs on the MSDN server.

Our more permissive licesnes are being used by an many more groups than I had realized - which is great. I'll be posting links to more and more of them.