Both company's stores use a form of DRM to prevent the sharing of applications, and neither offer a way to make source code available. The result is that both are incompatible with open licenses like the GPL.

So, for now, it looks like popular open source apps such as VLC will not be available in either store, forcing users to find them elsewhere. Not only will that hurt users and developers of these apps, but it will hurt Microsoft's platform as well.

A Lack of Choice

Microsoft has struggled to keep up in the mobile arena, and recently partnered with in a bid for greater success. This will surely raise its mobile platform's overall profile virtually overnight; whether that lasts, however, will be determined by the decisions the two companies make moving forward.

It's difficult to see how excluding open source applications--and even proprietary apps that include some open source code, libraries or documentation--could be a smart move for Microsoft. Rather than alienating developers and users, one would think it would want to be as inclusive as possible to ensure the widest appeal for its platform, which must compete with the that is Android.