SDL Copyrights

Question

I am building an updated SDL process for my company, and I am looking at can I adopt large components of the Microsoft SDL into it.  I am wondering if this is something that I can really do with the restrictions I see on the documents involved in the SDL; it seems I can't copy or redistribute the SDL documents provided by Microsoft, so if I want to copy parts of it or change things, I'm not sure I can really use any of that work in my own SDL. 

I was wondering what is the Microsoft recommendations on this - do I need to build my own SDL without utilizing any of the actual copyrighted material of Microsoft or are there parts of what Microsoft has provided that are freely available for me to use or as part of my MSDN licensing?

 

Answer 1

Good question, let us look into it for you.

 

 

Answer 2

Any result from your investigating?

Answer 3

David,

First, apologies for the delay in replying. 

We have been working with Microsoft Law and Corporate Affairs to assess our current license and to determine how best to satisfy your request.  I expect that we will have a solution very soon - within a few days.  When its ready, we will announce it here on the forums and on the SDL Blog.

Thanks very much!

Answer 4

Any news on this?

Answer 5

Hey David,

Good news. Not sure if you heard, but today Microsoft has announced that the entire SDL process falls under a Creative Commons license. More specifically, they have adopted the license that specifies Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share Alike (cc by-nc-sa) terms.

So you are welcome to use it as part of your own SDL process in your office.

For more information, check out http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sdl/archive/2010/08/26/microsoft-sdl-and-the-creative-commons.aspx.