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Netstat -vat by Sean Michael Kerner (bio)

A command line view of IT



Microsoft's Open Source Sandcastle collapses

By Sean Michael Kerner on June 9, 2008 9:53 AM
msft.jpg
From the 'you gotta play by the rules' files:

The basic premise of all Open Source software (Open Source being software licensed under an OSI approved license and adhering to the Open Source Definition) is that the code is ..well..open and available to all.  Someone at Microsoft didn't think that applied to them when they loaded up the Sandcastle project on Microsoft's Codeplex site and listed in under the OSI approved Ms-PL (Microsoft Permissive License).

Simply labeling a piece of software as Open Source isn't enough - you actually have to adhere to the terms of the license - which requires that the code be open and available to all. Sandcastle which is a documentation compiler for managed class libraries did not have source code open and available for download.

To Microsoft's credit, when Sam Ramji who runs their Open Source Lab found out about the violation he took action rather quickly as he notes in his blog.

This is unacceptable and represents a violation of Microsoft's Open Source policy.  I take it extremely seriously.

I have directed the project to be unpublished from Codeplex immediately, including removal of the project's use of the Ms-PL.  If the team chooses to publish the source code and follow Microsoft policy, then the project may be re-published in the future.  If not, we will remove all references to Sandcastle from Codeplex.

I apologize to the OSI on behalf of Microsoft for this mistake.

While I applaud Ramji's quick actions - just to argue Devil's Advocate - I've seen plenty of projects on SourceForge, Google Code and other places that were set to be licensed under an OSI approved Open Source license that did not have code available. Typically those are startup/early phase projects where they are  soliciting interest and don't actually have code available. That wasn't quite the case here though and Microsoft does have  to prove itself to an overly suspicious Open Source community.

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4 Comments

Sean said:

I view everything MS does as an act thats true purpose is to disguise something else they are up to.

When a company gains as much weight as MS has they have to implement policies and procedures that will be beneficial to them 10 years from now as well as tomorrow. It's like reading the Art of War by Sun Tao.

Does anyone believe that MS makes mistakes like this? Can anyone believe that anyone makes a single move over there without a dozen approvals? And when has MS ever issued an apology this quick.

Do I sound paranoid?

This company has 10 billion dollars stashed away for rainy days. Yes, they make me paranoid. They are very smart players who have thought up more ways to benefit from these accidents than most of us can ever imagine.

Who knows, maybe this was an attempt to see how quickly this would be caught? Now they know.

June 9, 2008 1:12 PM
Hermann said:

I am living from MS's failures in teaching people how to use their ever changing pieces of SW.

But I am as suspicious as Sean and only can say: He put the words right out of my mouth

Always be careful on every step MS is taking and scrutinize their possible motives very carefully!

June 9, 2008 5:00 PM
Napoleon Courtney said:

Microsoft develops code for the products they sale if they're taking an approach like many Linux distributors, (e.g. Fedora with Red Hat's Enterprise Versions, or Darwin with MAC OS), then this could possibly help that company release versions of their software on a more timely basis, having a bunch of programmers all around the world working on open source versions of Microsoft code, but it is Microsoft after all. Proceed with caution.

June 9, 2008 5:16 PM
Duncan Bayne said:

It's actually perfectly legitimate for MS to release Sandcastle under the MsPL license without releasing source code, because the MsPL license doesn't _require_ software licensed under it to include source.

It's just that - as Microsoft has discovered - releasing an app under the MsPL license (or any OSI-approved license that doesn't mandate source availability) doesn't magically make it OSS. You have to release the source as well.

June 9, 2008 9:38 PM

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