microsoft A month ago, it introduced a series of restrictions on its digital store to curb exorbitant prices and charging for free apps. The corporation’s intentions may have been good, but it ended up being criticized for taking very drastic action on a problem with more edges than meets the eye.

It seems that the Redmond giant has tried to contribute to the fight against one of the main problems facing open source: parasitism. Basically, it’s when someone takes free and open source code developed by someone else and makes money off of it without giving anything in return. The most extreme cases are those free apps that are then sold by a third party and not by the original developers. Unfortunately, the original developers can only request the withdrawal of the trademark, if they have it registered.

Sadly, parasitism, which in not a few cases leads to fraud from a moral point of view, is something that is very widespread and has caused many to end up disillusioned with free software and open source, so as a possible measure of support against this practice, the principles of the Microsoft Store changed to prohibit the sale of free and open source applications. However, if parasitism is something that has accompanied open source for a long time without being resolved, it’s probably because it’s an intractable problem.

On the one hand, we have legitimate open source projects that are based on others that are also open source and free, while on the other hand, there are applications that can be obtained for free from official websites and are paid in stores. mainstream such as Steam, the Play Store, the App Store or the Microsoft Store itself. A clever example of this is Mindustry, a game of this type tower defense and published as free software which can be obtained for free on its official website and which is paid on Steam. Here, both forms of distribution are behind the original creators of the app, so the paid versions of Mindustry exist to contribute to the sustainability of the project.

Mindustry is a video game published as free software that can be free on its website and paid on Steam.

After the uproar caused by the changes applied to the Microsoft Store a month ago, the company released its first clarification two weeks later that it would not ban open source applications. It recently completed a correction to change the orientation of its policy.

Giorgio Sardo, general manager of applications, partners and commerce at Microsoft, said this through his twitter account that “to clarify our intention, removed previous mention of open source pricing. We are committed to building an open store and allowing developers choice and flexibility. If there are any concerns regarding the app’s intellectual property, please report it here“.

The official documentation of the Redmond giant collected the following updates regarding store policies:

• Update to 10.8.7 and remove language related to open source or other freeware.
• Update 11.2 adds a link to Microsoft’s online breach reporting form.

Apparently, the company is about to focus on IP infringement instead of outright banning the sale of open source applications. Does this mean it is possible to clone Kdenlive again and later sell it under a different name? If one literally understands what the company publishes, it is logical to think so, although it is always better to look at the rules of the trade, the latest version of which will take effect on August 18, 2022, at least in the United States.