Microsoft bans open source from the Marketplace

[dfkt]

http://www.thinq.co.uk/2011/2/17/mic...e-marketplace/

Take it with a grain of salt...

[CrowdAds]

[selectortone]

Microsoft sells closed-system products to sheeple. That's its business model. Trouble is, the world is pretty much populated by sheeple.

[WalkGood]

[12:26] <WalkGood> ms is certainly helping they're competition

[kasrhp]

Hmm, I don't like it. Let the market speak for itself. There are free alternatives to all microsoft products, yet they still make serious $$$. Open up the Marketplace too.

[medion]

The problem with open source isn't that it's free (as not all open-sourced software is free), but rather, it has to be released under its own licensing agreement, usually the GPL. However, these external licensing agreements conflict with the licensing agreement that MS grants when allowing someone to distribute their works via the marketplace.

The obvious answer to this is to allow for side-loading of apps or for a 3rd party marketplace, but MS doesn't currently allow that.

[kasrhp]

This article thinks a little differently.

http://www.wpcentral.com/microsoft-b...lace-not-quite

[Jacob]

Originally Posted by medion

The problem with open source isn't that it's free (as not all open-sourced software is free), but rather, it has to be released under its own licensing agreement, usually the GPL. However, these external licensing agreements conflict with the licensing agreement that MS grants when allowing someone to distribute their works via the marketplace.

The obvious answer to this is to allow for side-loading of apps or for a 3rd party marketplace, but MS doesn't currently allow that.

So you can add an app, and release the source yourself, as long as you don't licence it?

[saratoga]

Originally Posted by Jacob

So you can add an app, and release the source yourself, as long as you don't licence it?

You'd basically have to dual license your code, so you'd have a header explaining that you get to choose between GPLv3 and some proprietary license for use on the marketplace. Of course for this to happen you have to actually own all the code in question.

That said, it sounds like this is just GPLv3, which is not very widely used, so its not a big deal.