Yes, You Can do Open Source on Windows Phone

by Gianugo Rabellino on March 08, 2011 09:38am

Recently there were a number of discussions about the wording of the Windows Phone Marketplace Application Provider Agreement, in particular around Excluded Licenses. At that time we clarified that it is possible to publish Open Source applications in the marketplace as long as they are published under a "permissive" license such as Apache or BSD.

I am now happy to announce a development on that front, which underscores that we are not just listening to the community and reviewing the current agreement, but also trying to respond with more clarity. Today the Windows Phone team announced the following:

"We understand the desire for clarification with regard to our policy on applications distributed under open source licenses.  The Marketplace Application Provider Agreement (APA) already permits applications under the BSD, MIT, Apache Software License 2.0 and Microsoft Public License.  We plan to update the APA shortly to clarify that we also permit applications under the Eclipse Public License, the Mozilla Public License and other, similar licenses, and we continue to explore the possibility of accommodating additional OSS licenses."

Thanks,

Gianugo