PowerShell Specification Licensed

The specification for PowerShell, Microsoft’s object-oriented command-line interface scripting tool for managing and configuring Windows, will be added to the Microsoft technologies available under the Microsoft Community Promise (CP) license. This means third-parties can use the specification to implement PowerShell on other platforms such as Linux, OS X, or even Windows Embedded Compact. The availability of PowerShell on these platforms could enable organizations to leverage PowerShell knowledge and commands to manage all of their deployed devices regardless of the OS. Although some PowerShell commands require an implementation of the .NET Framework, it is not necessary to implement the PowerShell specification.

PowerShell Language Implementations Permitted

PowerShell is important not just because it is a powerful, object-based scripting language for Windows, but also because it plays a key role in managing Microsoft server products such as Exchange Server, Operations Manager, SQL Server, and Virtual Machine Manager. All of these products have PowerShell cmdlets (commands) for managing and configuring the server. For each, PowerShell also provides a snap-in or module to register the server-specific commands with PowerShell. PowerShell supports remote operations, such as the ability to look at another computer’s event log or Registry, and with a feature called PowerShell Remoting, it leverages the Web Services for Management (WS-Management) protocol and the Windows Remote Management service for interactive (1:1), fan-out (1:many), and fan-in (many:1) remote administration.