WiX on Slashdot, why is OSS@MS part of Shared Source?

It doesn't surprise me that Stephen's article "Perspectives on the Shared Source Initiative" was picked up by Slashdot. Stephen writes really well and Open Source at Microsoft is a fun topic. People always seem to like to peer into what they believe are paradoxes to try and puzzle out a solution. Anyway, two things caught my attention.

First, the main text of the Slashdot article had a string of words that just made me smile.

there actually are some projects under the OSI-approved licenses, for example the WiX Toolset, which is a good example of a successful open source project by Microsoft.

I'm not sure how many people agree with the comment but, at least, there were no Slashdot comments (that I saw) arguing that the WiX toolset is not a successful Open Source project. That made me happy. After getting beat up for quite a while that the WiX toolset could never be a real Open Source project because it started inside Microsoft, it is nice to see that perceptions can change.

Second, there is a comment on my previous blog entry (I saw some echoes of it in the Slashdot comments) that Open Source at Microsoft is "diluted by the whole Shared Source confusion." I thought about that comment for a bit and realized that I really didn't have a good answer. But I do know who would be able to answer the question, Jason Matusow. I'm certain Jason has an answer for this question, so here's an attempt to get him to answer it either in my comments or in his blog.