No future in proprietary software (ZDNet) [LWN.net]

No future in proprietary software (ZDNet)

Posted Dec 4, 2002 21:25 UTC (Wed) by mnummeli (guest, #8374)
Parent article: No future in proprietary software (ZDNet)

I think that Microsoft can ensure better publicity and still keep on with $$$$$ flooding in, if they release a Linux distribution on their own and/or release a competiting open source Unix-kernel and software related to that. Why this? For many reasons. People already know, that Microsoft has many years' experience with OS'es + other necessary software widely used. If Microsoft gives the opportunity for people to view and alter the source code under GPL-type-of licences (restoring trust in them, because then people would know they are not hiding anything like 'secure audio paths', trapdoors ...), and also offer firms the possibility to buy an advanced server with full support (like RedHat is doing right now with Linux), it would also keep them on top level of computer software business.

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No future in proprietary software (ZDNet)

Posted Dec 4, 2002 22:55 UTC (Wed) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link]

Microsoft is bound by contracts and cannot open the source code for the software without permission of the copyright holders. Even if they decide to open source e.g. Internet Explorer, they'll have to strip parts copyrighted by third parties. Netscape did it with Mozilla. Sun did it with OpenOffice.

Even if the copyright on the closed source software is abolished, Microsoft may still have contractual obligations that would survive the abolition.

Even if Microsoft releases some software under a free license, most of their software will remain non-free. I don't think that releasing "Microsoft UNIX" will make people trust them. I just cannot imagine Microsoft abandoning all their codebase, including MS Office and MSIE, in favor of their new free OS. Microsoft is not Apple - it's a software company, and their main asset is the existing codebase.

No future in proprietary software (ZDNet)

Posted Dec 5, 2002 10:44 UTC (Thu) by mnummeli (guest, #8374) [Link]

Does Microsoft Internet Explorer have parts which have
been copyrighted by third parties? Never heard of such
before.

RTFH (read the friendly Help screen)

Posted Dec 5, 2002 17:54 UTC (Thu) by Medievalist (guest, #8395) [Link]

In Internet Explorer, select the "Help" menu from the top menu bar, then select "About", then look at all the pretty licensing information.

For even more, move the binary to a more capable OS such as ancient, doddering Unix or fresh, half-baked linux :^) and do a "strings" command on it.

Windows itself contains code from IBM, Shiva, Symantec, and many others... as well as some BSD code and implementations of reverse-engineered algorithms derived from Apple and Stac products.

Microsoft pays other companies to provide things like antivirii, disk defragmentation, remote access services, etc. that they are unable to create themselves (within their artifical time constraints for release, that is). Some of these things (like the disk defragger) could easily be "unbundled", others (like Shiva's RAS) have become pretty deeply entangled in the windows code-base.

--Charlie

No future in proprietary software (ZDNet)

Posted Dec 6, 2002 14:36 UTC (Fri) by robot101 (subscriber, #3479) [Link]

Did you ever hear of a company called Spry and their browser called Mosaic? Microsoft "Give us your browser and make it do what we want and we'll give you a cut of all the sales from it." Spry "Great!"... except MS didn't sell it... they gave it away. Sucks to be Spry... =)

Like most good Microsoft software, possibly excepting Word, they didn't write it, they just bought or stole it. DOS, NT, IE, Visio and FrontPage come to mind, and I'm sure they've done the same while trying to enter the 3D graphics software market.