Microsoft has long been an opponent of open source software and
advocate of privately, commercially-produced programs. The company
stunned the software world this month when it announced a
partnership with Novell to work on interoperability between its
operating system Windows and Linux, the best known open source
system.
As an offshoot of that deal, Microsoft pledged not to take suits
against individual developers. "These are individuals who are
creating code, contributing code, they're not being paid for that
code. They're not creating it as part of their job," said Microsoft
general counsel Brad Smith at the time.
Now the Software Freedom Law Centre has warned, in an open
letter to developers, that the pledge is "worse than useless". Not
only does the pledge only apply to single developers working in
isolation – the opposite of traditional open source working methods
– but it can be revoked at any time, the group warned.
"The patent covenant only applies to software that you develop
at home and keep for yourself; the promises don't extend to others
when you distribute," wrote SFLC chief technology officer Bradley
Kuhn in the letter. "You cannot pass the rights to your downstream
recipients, even to the maintainers of larger projects on which
your contribution is built."
"Microsoft has explicitly reserved the right to change its terms
at any time in the future. A developer relying on the pledge could
wake up any day to find it revoked," said Kuhn. "A careful
examination of Microsoft's Patent Pledge for Non-compensated
Developers reveals that it has little value."
Kuhn went further than saying that it had little value, though.
He said that the pledge was dangerous. "It's worse than useless, as
this empty promise can create a false sense of security. Don't be
confused by the illusion of a truce; developers are no safer from
Microsoft patents now than they were before," he said.
The SFLC advises open source software developers and is funded
through public donations and through the Open Source Development
Labs, a non-profit open source advocacy group.
