I’m sure most of you have heard about the new Windows Store that Microsoft are looking to launch alongside its newest operating system – Windows 8. Last week Microsoft gave us a look at the new Windows 8 Store and along with that they started a new contest for the developers who want their apps to be featured first when the Store is officially released alongside Windows 8 some time next year.
We also discovered that Microsoft will have the ability to remotely delete apps from your PC, but now something new has been spotted in the ULA. Microsoft have decided that they will also allow open source apps onto their market. This is a big win for the open source movement.
The section that we’re looking at clearly states that apps released under a license from the Open Source Initiative (GPL, Apache, etc.) will have permission to be distributed via the Windows Store. What’s more it also says that the OSI license will trump the Microsoft Standard Application License Terms, namely the the restriction on sharing applications.
“Your license terms must also not conflict with the Standard Application License Terms, in any way, except if you include FOSS, your license terms may conflict with the limitations set forth in Section 3 of those Terms, but only to the extent required by the FOSS that you use. ‘FOSS’ means any software licensed under an Open Source Initiative Approved License.”
“If your app includes FOSS, it must not cause any non-FOSS Microsoft software to become subject to the terms of any FOSS license.”
This is certainly a bit of a U-Turn from Microsoft, but then again they are also probably trying to distance themselves from Apple somewhat and trying to become buddies with Android developers again. Microsoft hasn’t really made a big deal about it, they just suitably slipped this nugget of information in there thinking that nobody would notice it.
This certainly is great news for everyone. It’s good for Microsoft because they will get more apps on their market, it’s good for consumers because they will have more apps available to them and it’s great for developers who will have access to the 400 million plus PC’s that will run Windows 8.
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