Forget what software they released, Microsoft is adopting the Apache license!
Big news today around Microsoft releasing even more software from its stack as open source. Specifically Microsoft is open sourcing ASP.NET MVC 4, ASP.NET Web API, ASP.NET Web Pages v2 (Razor) all with contributions. Frankly, in and of itself I don’t think this is such big news. Microsoft has been shifting its view towards open source for some time now. The CodePlex project, Node.js and Hadoop support in Azure, Github hosting, etc., there is actually a long string of open source friendly moves by Microsoft. What sets this one apart though is that Microsoft is releasing this software under the Apache 2.0 license!
Truth be told, Microsoft has released some software under an Apache license before. But think about it, Microsoft releasing significant software under Apache. To this day whenever I write about Microsoft and open source, I still get plenty of comments from people who think that Microsoft is the anti-christ to open source. They haven’t forgotten Steve Ballmer saying Linux is a “cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.” To give Steve his due he also questioned open source security back in 2003. With this weeks study on open source vulnerabilities that I wrote about yesterday, I don’t see anyone apologizing for demonizing Ballmer back then for saying that.
On the software released today another interesting thing in Scott Guthrie’s post announcing the release was the fact that Microsoft is actually incorporating a number of open source components in the software. Among the those integrated are jQuery, jQuery UI, jQuery Mobile, jQuery Validation, Modernizr.js, NuGet, Knockout.js and JSON.NET as part of it. Now lets give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt. The fact that they incorporated open source technology into the software may have in fact forced them to then release the software as open source. But in any event it is the thought that counts.
It is certainly an interesting time for the open source software and technology world. We worry about Apple and Google becoming monopolistic, Microsoft contributing open source code, what could be next? There is hope for everything from finding the cure to cancer, world peace breaking out and even Bill Gates and Larry Ellison going sailing together!
