Via LWN, Microsoft now has 2 approved Open Source licenses. They don’t seem like very Microsoft-like licensed, which tends to be very long winded (then again, the same can be said for some Open Source licenses).
The two licenses are:
They seem like quite straight-forward licenses, except that I’m having a bit of trouble understanding what “If you bring a patent claim against any contributor over patents that you claim are infringed by the software, your patent license from such contributor to the software ends automatically.” means. I wish that lawyers could start using language that is easier to understand for non-native English speakers.
I think it will be interesting to see whether they’ll actually release anything useful under these licenses. I read the announcements from their Open Source portal via their RSS feed, and so far it’s just been marketing speak, and the software they have featured so far is rather dull, unless you are the type of person who would find wiki’s written in .net or IIS extensions exciting 
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October 17th, 2007 at 10:20 am
My interpretation of this was “if you sue us for infringing your patents, we won’t let you use any of ours”, but I”m still stuck on the “your patent license from such contributor” bit.
October 17th, 2007 at 11:49 am
I am a non-native speaker as well but I think it means that if someone wanted to attack the code uder such license because it, according to someone, incorporates some patents, someone would lose all patents licences from the creator of the code. Which seems fair to me.
October 17th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
Jonathan,
It’s not because you’re a non-native English speaker. That language is convoluted and confusing for me as well. It basically sounds like a threat, though… “If you sue us, you have to stop using our software, or we’ll sue you too.”
October 17th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
That clause is actually relatively simple. Both licenses have a “Patent Grant”: each contributor to the software grants everyone a patent license to any patents you’d otherwise infringe.
The “patent claim” text is saying, “If you sue another contributor for patent infringement, your patent licenses from them are revoked”. The reason you’d want to revoke their licenses is so that the contributor can use that patent to defend themselves.
October 17th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
I wish that lawyers could start using language that is easier to understand for native English speakers.
October 17th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
I’m in agreement with Wolfger and Dorian. Furthermore, I’m used to legalese (I’m acquainted with a few lawyers) and it’s just plain twisted.