Microsoft To Ban Commercial Open Source from App Store
by Denver Gingerich and Bradley M. Kuhn on July 7, 2022
Microsoft Will Even Prohibit Charitable FOSS Fundraising Through the
"Microsoft Store"
A few weeks ago, Microsoft quietly updated its Microsoft [app] Store
Policies, adding new policies (which go into effect next week), that
include this text:
all pricing ... must ... [n]ot attempt to profit from open-source
or other software that is otherwise generally available for free
[meaning, in price, not freedom].
Yesterday, a number of Microsoft Store users discovered this and
started asking questions. Quickly, those of us (including our own organization) that provide Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) via
the Microsoft Store started asking our own questions too. While
Microsoft has acknowledged the ensuing community outrage, they have
not clarified their policy. In the meantime, this clause reverses long-standing app store policies, and is already disrupting commerce
on their platform (with its tight countdown clock to implementation).
In particular, Microsoft now forbids FOSS redistributors from
charging any money for nearly all FOSS (i.e., "profit"). Since all (legitimate) FOSS is already available (at least in source code form)
somewhere "for free" (as in "free beer"), this term (when enacted)
will apply to all FOSS.
For decades, Microsoft spent great effort to scare the commercial
software sector with stories of how FOSS (and Linux in particular)
were not commercially viable products. Microsoft even once claimed
that anyone who developed FOSS under copyleft was against the
American Way. Today, there are many developers who make their living creating,supporting, and redistributing FOSS, which they fund (in
part) by charging for FOSS on app stores. We in the FOSS community
have long disagreed with Microsoft: we have touted that FOSS provides
true neutrality regarding commercial and non-commercial
activity--both are permitted equally. In short, our community proved
Microsoft wrong with regard to the commercial viability and
sustainability of FOSS.
Sadly, these days, companies like Microsoft have set up these app
stores as gatekeepers of the software industry. The primary way that commercial software distributors reach their customers (or non-profit
software distributors reach their donors) is via app stores.
Microsoft has closed its iron grasp on the distribution chain of
software (again)--to squeeze FOSS from the marketplace. If
successful, even app store users will come to believe that the only
legitimate FOSS is non-commercial FOSS.
This is first and foremost an affront to all efforts to make a living
writing open source software. This is not a merely hypothetical
consideration. Already many developers support their FOSS
development (legitimately so, at least under the FOSS licenses
themselves) through app store deployments that Microsoft recently
forbid in their Store. The well-known Krita painting software and
the video editing software ShotCut are both sold on Microsoft's app
store (and will both soon be in violation of Microsoft's terms).
Indeed, our own Inkscape project has unilaterally chosen to only
request, rather than require, donations from Microsoft Store users,
but this new term forces that decision upon Inkscape permanently.
These represent just a few examples of developers and/or
redistributors left out in the cold under Microsoft's new terms.
Microsoft counter-argues that this is about curating content for
customers and/or limiting FOSS selling to the (mythical) "One True
Developer". But, even a redrafted policy (that Giorgio Sardo
(General Manager of Apps at Microsoft) hinted at publicly early
today) will mandate only toxic business models for FOSS (such as
demo-ware, less-featureful versions available as FOSS, while the
full-featured proprietary version is available for a charge). Any
truly FOSS system is always "generally available for free"--since the developers do the work in public, and encourage others to remix and
rebuild the software into binaries for all sorts of platforms. These
are essential rights and freedoms that FOSS licenses give users and businesspeople alike. FOSS was designed specifically to allow both
the original developers and downstream redistributors to profit
fairly from the act of convenient redistribution (such as on app
stores). No company that supports FOSS and its commercial
methodologies would propose to curtail these rights and freedoms. So
we're left quite suspect of Microsoft's constant claims that they've
changed their tune about FOSS. They still oppose it; they've just
gotten more crafty about the methods of doing so.
Selling open source software has been a cornerstone of open source's sustainability since its inception. Precisely because you can sell
it, open source projects like Linux (which Microsoft claims to love)
have been estimated to be worth billions of dollars. Microsoft
apparently does not want any FOSS developers to be able to write open
source in a sustainable way.
Finally, this is a known pattern of Microsoft's behavior. Rolling
out unreasonable and unconscionable policies--only to "magnanimously"
retract them weeks or months later--is a strategy that they've used
before. Indeed, Microsoft employed this exact tactic when originally
creating their app store (then marked under the predecessor brand
name, "Windows Marketplace"). Initially, Microsoft banned all
copyleft licenses from its app store, and when the obvious outrage
came, Microsoft cast themselves as benevolently willing to amend the
policy and allow FOSS on the Microsoft Store. Of course, we again
(as we did then) immediately call on Microsoft to reverse their new
anti-FOSS Microsoft Store Policies and make it explicitly clear in
these Policies that selling open source is not only allowed but
encouraged.
Nevertheless, we're cognizant that Microsoft probably planned all
this, anyway--including the community outrage followed by their usual
political theater of feigned magnanimity. It seems this is just
Microsoft's latest effort to curtail the forms of FOSS activity that
don't directly benefit them. Microsoft may say that they love Open
Source, but only so far as they exclusively are the ones who profit
from FOSS on their platforms.
From:
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/jul/07/ microsoft-bans-commerical-open-source-in-app-store/
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