Microsoft mulls changing Windows Phone Marketplace terms to add more..

[JMH]

Microsoft mulls changing Windows Phone Marketplace terms to add more open-source licenses

As headlines rolled by over the past couple of days claiming Microsoft was banning free and open-source applications from its Windows Phone Marketplace, I sat back and waited.

I was waiting to see what Microsoft officials would say, if anything, about the terms and conditions detailed in its Application Provider Agreement for the phone Marketplace. According to that document, brought to light this week by a Red Hat evangelist, apps licensed under the GNU GPLv 3, GNU Affero General Public License version 3, the GNU Lesser General Public License version 3, and “any equivalents to the foregoing” are banned from the Windows Phone Marketplace. (Apple also has banned GPL’d software from its own App Store.)

How could Microsoft officials — at least some of whom are attempting to court the open-source development community — reconcile this ban with Redmond’s supposedly more open-source-friendly stance?

Microsoft mulls changing Windows Phone Marketplace terms to add more open-source licenses | ZDNet