Full disclosure, I work for Microsoft.
The GPL is not the only open source license. It may screw up certain commercial usage, but it never stops users from forking the software. This Microsoft license does.
The GPL has a few problems, but non-commercial causes are just noxious.
Who exactly can use a non-commercial piece of software? Presumably, universities can. Can a government research lab use it? How about a military research lab? What about a contractor doing military R&D? If Exon-Mobile uses this to search for oil, is this research (thus non-commercial)?
Any clause which is likely to give your lawyer a headache trying to interpret it is probably a bad license.
The GPL has some ambiguous bits (like its interaction with interpreted code eg Python bindings to MySQL and Javascript libraries in the browser) but it's not as ugly as the term Non-Commercial.
If the JS engine mixes interpreted code with the proprietary DOM, how does that work?
How about LGPL works?
But you're right - it's usually pretty clear if you think about it. There will always be edge-cases, but unlike non-commercial clauses the edge cases aren't that common.
If you distribute GPL code you then become subject to its restrictions and must provide the code.
If they were banned because of the GPL the company was doing its own stupid rules completely unrelated to the restrictions imposed by the GPL. If they weren't then it shows the difference between the GPL and the non-commercial use term of this particular MS license.
For MS and a surprisingly small (in terms of total global economy) number of other businesses selling closed source software (or software dependent on other non-Free software components) the GPL imposes very real restrictions.
I would argue that they are in no way arbitrary but have a clear purpose and objective to further increase the amount of Free software in the world. You may or may not support or want to assist this objective but it certainly doesn't feel arbitrary to me (I've taken the 'capricious; unreasonable; unsupported' definition of arbitrary from Dictionary.com as my interpretation of your meaning).
Edit/reply:
Can't reply to you for some reason. No citation but you have missed my point. I wasn't comparing Open Source Industry to closed source software industry but really the software industry to ALL Other industries (and individuals) in the world. Basically software consumers rather than producers (of which closed source companies like MS form a large part).
There is basically no disagreement about what counts as an open source/free software licence. This licence is not that.
It is damaging to the ideas of FLOSS to allow stuff like "shared source" to be called open source.
EDIT: Removed reference to "open source" being trademarked, it is in fact not, apologies for the confusion.
A trademark does not take ownership of general words or phrases from the people.
If you allow stuff like "shared source" to be called open source, you reduce the term to a meaningless buzzword, like how the term "open" is frequently abused.
citing trademarks is a heavy handed approach, but many parties with a profit motive don't care about anything except strict legality.
This is relevant in particular to this blog because Microsoft has a history of attempting to change what the term means
Also, is "open source" really trademarked? Wtf? That's like a beef promo organisation trademarking "well done".
Except when that trademark is "Windows" or "Office" or "Word".
