Microsoft reverses ban on open source software sales

Date:
Wed, 20 Jul 2022 14:05:10 +0000

Description:
Following developer fury, Microsoft has gone back on proposed policy to ban the use of open source software.

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Microsoft has done an about-turn on its decision to ban the sale of open source software in its app store following uproar from the developer community.

The change follows a recent report that the company was set to delay the introduction of new rules that would ban open source software on the
Microsoft Store, which had initially been planned for this week.

But following significant protests, the move now appears to have been cancelled for good. Microsoft Store policy changes

Microsoft Store General Manager Giorgio Sardo took to Twitter to announce the companys decision to backtrack.

"Last month, we shared a few updates to Microsoft Store policies to help protect customers from misleading product listings. We heard your feedback, and today we made a change to policy 10.8.7 and 11.2 ," he said.

To clarify our intent, we removed the previous mention to open source
pricing. We're committed to building an open Store and enabling dev choice
and flexibility.

Sardo had previously revealed that Microsoft was in limbo in a Tweet dated July 8 2022:

On June 16, we shared a policy aimed to protect customers from misleading listings,in effect from July 16. In listening to dev community,we got
feedback it could be perceived differently than intended.We'll delay enforcement of that policy until we clarify the intent.

Despite the changes, the company has stood its ground when it comes to
browser engines: only Chromium and Gecko shall be supported (as well as the now discontinued EdgeHTML), meaning that any other engines, like Apples WebKit, will not be supported. Read more

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developers

The changes were intended to tackle scammers, who would reckpackge
open-source apps for a profit, but legitimate developers will have been hard done by under the proposed changes with potential financial implications.

In his series of three Tweets, Sardo asks that any intellectual property concerns about an app be reported directly to Microsoft . Check out the best laptops for programmers or the best Linux distros for developers

Via BetaNews



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/news/microsoft-reverses-ban-on-open-source-software- sales/


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