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 (opens in new tab) to announce the company’s 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 (opens in new tab),” 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 Apple’s WebKit, will not be supported.
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 (opens in new tab).
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