2 ms·

> Is cross licensing really a big issue with closed source software? Sure is. Microsoft works with thousands of vendors every year. There are lots of different

by tomcam 3y ago

> Is cross licensing really a big issue with closed source software? Sure is. Microsoft works with thousands of vendors every year. There are lots of different terms under which they license software. It would not be that unusual for a game or utility or promotional item to be licensed for a version or so, and nothing after that. Very often these vendors vanish into the ether, and cannot be tracked down for any purpose at all, much less asking them to open source their software. Then, if you tried to ask them to open source, they might mistakenly see dollar signs and try to get money out of Microsoft when none is forthcoming.

cogman10 3y ago
> Microsoft works with thousands of vendors every year. There are lots of different terms under which they license software. This is a cart before the horse thing. How MS licenses software in the past has no bearing on adding a new open source license. The only time this would be a problem is distributing 3rd party source code. Which, AFAIK (and this is windows we are talking about) pretty much only happens in the drivers. Windows CE didn't come bundled with steam or really hardly anything. That was sort of the point of CE is it had almost nothing on it.