So it appears that quite an interesting legal battle has popped in relation to Microsoft and it’s open developer community, which Will Watts neatly summarizes in this article at The Register. Through this article you can link to email discussion that has taken place about this over the last few years, which the developer – who is now being sued by Microsoft – has posted on the web. It’s quite an interesting read, and for full disclosure I don’t quite understand all the technical jargon that is riddled throughout it. But as far as I can tell from the emails, here’s what has happened.

A while back Microsoft opened up some APIs that tie to Visual Studio Express, so developers could create new services on top of it – wikinomics in action.

Jamie Cansdale did just that, and created TestDriven.Net, which was very well recieved by the community.

Microsoft then gave him an MVP award, which is awarded to “exceptional technical community leaders from around the world who voluntarily share their high quality, real world expertise with others”.

So far, so good. Then Microsoft executive Jason Weber starts sending Jamie emails about his “hack” that’s in TestDriven.Net, saying that it violates the licensing agreement, and asks him to remove it.

Jamie expresses disappointment, and asks what specific license he was contravening, because he really doesn’t think he violated any of them (or hacked anything for that matter).

Jason says he’s not a lawyer, and can’t comment on the license, then talks about some reverse engineering clauses, and “additional terms that are relevent to your hack.”

Jamie says Jason must have misunderstand how his “hack” works – noting that Jason references the access to native APIs, which Jamie says he didn’t do. Jamie also noted he had a lawyer go through the license with him, and in the lawyer’s opinion the license wasn’t breached because there was no “reverse engineering or decompilation.” He then adds he’s reluctant to remove the support as Jason is requesting, because he doesn’t understand the reason – and can’t justify it to his users.

Eventually Jamie relents, and says he’ll drop the support for the Express SKU as requested, provided an acceptable announcement can be drafted for his users. In turn, he asks Jason to explain Microsoft’s position, and why the unit testing is an integration that is not appropriate for Express SKU users – which sure seems like a reasonable request.

Jason happily does just that, and starts the explanaton with After speaking with Jason Weber from Microsoft I realized that by adding features to Visual Studio Express I was in breach of the Visual Studio license agreements and copyrights.

For those playing along at home, you’ll note Jamie has been asking what license agreements he is breaching, Jason said he couldn’t comment on the license because he’s not a lawyer, provided no other explanation, and is now referencing himself as the source that Jamie is supposed to have for the fact that he’s breached the license.

Not surprisingly, Jamie wasn’t too pleased with this – and calls the wording totally unacceptable, and reminds Jason he doesn’t believe he’s violated any licenses, and asks – again – for the basis Microsoft has for asking the support/ hack be removed.

Jason again says it’s because Jamie was in breach of the license, and – again – doesn’t say how. Can you see a pattern developing here?

So Jamie’s still perturbed, and Jason asks what he wants to to. Jamie suggests bringing Craig Symonds into the discussion, and having him CCd on the emails as he’s reluctant to have a fruitless discussion over licences without anything new being added to the mix. Sounds reasonable again.

Jason tells him Microsoft’s position hasn’t changed, and that Craig Symonds is a very busy executive, so they’re fortunate to even get a 30 minute call with him, and Jason will remain the prime point of contact. Apparently, adding Craig to the email will provide “no value.”

So that covers about 15 months, and takes us through to March 2006. Then things start getting a little nasty.

Somewhere admist some fairly amicable emails, Jason responds to Jamie’s queries about what the hold up is on renewing his MVP affiliation – and tells him he just wasn’t able to award it again based on Jamie’s current actions and community participation rate. Uh oh.

A couple of days later Jason says he’s starting to question Jamie’s commitment towards reaching an amicable solution. Double uh oh.

Jason then lays out in an email on April 22nd all the things Microsoft will not allow Jamie to do, including the fact he can’t get into the VSIP program until Jamie conforms to the license agreements. On cue, Jamie reminds Jason he still hasn’t been given an adequate explanation for how he’s in violation of the license.

The rest of 2006 is fairly uneventful as Jamie grudgingly shuts the hack/extension down. Then in February 2007 Jamie – again – asks Jason for an explanation of exactly how he violated the licenses and copyright rules, so he can explain it to his users that keep asking him why TestDriven.Net doesnt work with Express anymore. Again, seems reasonable.

Jason eventually responds, and tells Jamie they discussed at length why what he did violates the license terms, and Microsoft doesn’t think it’s productive to rehash the discussions. I remind you again, this is the same Jason that started out saying he’s not a lawyer, and that he can’t really speak to the licenses, and resisted overtures to get other people involved.

Then Vikki Collins pops up out of nowhere, and tells Jamie he’s being considered for an MVP award for his extensive online work in the Visual developer .Net communites. You know, the same communities Jason said Jamie wasn’t doing enough in, and couldn’t be considered for an MVP because of it.

Interesting. About a week later, Vikki Collins tried to recall the message. Even more interesting.

Then, in April of 2007, Jamie decided to re-enable the hacks/extensions/innovations in question. Jason’s upset, and now the lawyers are involved (see here and here). Funnily enough, in that first letter the lawyers sent, the second page goes on and on about how “clear” the client made their case to Jamie last year.

Now I’m not saying Jamie is right or wrong – truthfully, I have no idea, and we are not privy to exactly what was said in the various phone calls and meetings, among other things.

But from the email train that he’s posted, it seems Jamie – in his opinion – took the open APIs, used them within the confines of the boundaries the license set, and achieved MVP status because of it by creating something that the community quite likes.

He was then asked to take them down, and had his MVP status taken away, even while others in Microsoft were telling him he was being considered for MVP. He eventually took them down, and all it seems that he was asking for the entire time was a clear, coherent explanation that both he and his users could understand. At least via email, it seems he never got it.

This might not have been the best way for Microsoft to handle this no matter what the “truth” is, and it could lead to press like this (to quote how Will Watts ended his article):

Meanwhile, a quiet word in the ear of any earnest young programmer who is considering downloading a copy of Visual Studio Express and slaving deep into the night, striving hard in the Microsofty ways, in the hope one day of earning the glorious rank of MVP.

Do ya feel lucky, punk?