Fox in the hen house? Discuss.

As the Microsoft Permissive License wends its way through the Open Source Initiative approval process on the OSI’s License-Discuss Mailing List, the question of whether or not Microsoft’s intentions are even genuine and honorable enough to deserve a fair shake has become a topic in itself.

Google’s Chris DiBona, a longtime OSI member, spells it out rather clearly:

I would like to ask what might be perceived as a diversion and maybe even a mean spirited one. Does this submission to the OSI mean that Microsoft will:

a) Stop using the market confusing term Shared Source
b) Not place these licenses and the other, clearly non-free , non-osd
licenses in the same place thus muddying the market further.
c) Continue its path of spreading misinformation about the nature of
open source software, especially that licensed under the GPL?
d) Stop threatening with patents and oem pricing manipulation schemes
to deter the use of open source software?

If not, why should the OSI approve of your efforts? That of a company who has called those who use the licenses that OSI purports to defend a communist or a cancer? Why should we see this seeking of approval as anything but yet another attack in the guise of friendliness?

Taking a road too high for many, Matt Asay responds echoing Voltaire (or not):

I really, really don’t understand this. I understand that Microsoft has a history of aggression against open source, as Chris DiBona wrote recently on the Open Source Initiative’s (OSI) license-discuss e-mail list. I compete with Microsoft and have for many years. I get that Microsoft has been bad.

But discrimination is explicitly against the OSI’s Open Source Definition, as Bill Hilf noted in responding to criticism from Google’s Chris DiBona on the e-mail thread:

You’re questioning things such as Microsoft’s marketing terms, press quotes, where we put licenses on our Web site, and how we work with OEMs–none of which I could find at http://opensource.org/docs/osd. If you’d like to discuss this, I’d be happy to–and I have a number of questions for you about Google’s use of and intentions with open-source software as well. But this is unrelated to the OSD compliance of a license, so I will do this off-list and preferably face-to-face or over the phone.

["Oh, snap!"-ED]

I understand that Microsoft may be using the OSI’s license approval process to its own ends, and potentially ends that may be anti-open source. I’m still not sure, however, that it’s appropriate to treat an incoming license from Microsoft any differently than one that comes from Linus Torvalds.

And finally, OSI President Michael Tiemann, weighs in with What I Learned from the Libertarians:

The Open Source Definition is an attempt to define properties of software licenses that not only encourage a more efficient and innovative software development model, but also a powerful notion of rights that transcend a single actor’s ability to game the system with strategic behavior. As the OSI continues to evaluate licenses for approval, as we continue to categorize licenses to diminish risks of proliferation (an unintended consequence that could itself become a device of strategic behavior), and as we continue to act as stewards of the OSD, you should evaluate for yourself whether the definitions, processes, and decisions we’ve created are sufficient to protect the community from adverse take-over. Your vigilance, your participation on our mailing lists, your voice on our blogs and in our board meetings is vital to protecting your interests as more and more people take an interest in open source–even those who might be considered criminal. And please: be liberal, both in your participation and in your willingness to consider new ideas, and be respectful. Nobody has a monopoly on the truth.

Sounds like Microsoft may in fact get a fairer hearing than some feel they might deserve.