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Microsoft set to reveal Windows source code in India (The Inquirer)
The Inquirer reports
that Microsoft is thinking about opening up Windows source code to a select
band of government bodies in India. "Other sources indicate that
Microsoft is already engaged in working out the logistics of sharing the
code and that Jason Matusow, the Vole's worldwide program manager for
shared source program, has been in India to work out the details of the
arrangement." Thanks to Jaye Inabnit
(Log in to post comments)
Microsoft set to reveal Windows source code in India (The Inquirer) Posted Dec 16, 2002 18:43 UTC (Mon) by rknop (guest, #66) [Link] It's pretty obvious that this is a response to India's declaration that they wanted to go with open source software.You can almost hear the Microsoft reps saying, "hey, we'll open the source to *you*. Once you've got the source, you've got all the real benefit of open source anyway, right?" Few people seem to realize that the real big deal with Open Source and Free Software isn't that it's zero cost. Of those few, many are under the misconception that the big deal with "Open Source" is that *you* get the source. That's minor, and indeed for many people irrelevant. The big deal is that *everybody* gets the source. That's where the security benefits come from; for most people, getting the source themselves is not as useful as the world having the source. Equally important is the licencing. You get the source, and you aren't restricted by it. This will be in stark contrast with any "source viewing" agreement Microsoft makes with the Indian government. Unfortunately, I suspect that the spin doctors will manage to conceal the fact that the essential point and purpose of using Open Source in the first place is completely undermined by any proprietary limited source agreement. -Rob
Microsoft set to reveal Windows source code in India (The Inquirer) Posted Dec 16, 2002 19:09 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] > It's pretty obvious that this is a response to India's declaration that> they wanted to go with open source software. Richard Stallman was doing a tour of India, setting up Free Software > the big deal with "Open Source" is[n't] that *you* get the source. That's Well said. Ciaran O'Riordan
Microsoft set to reveal Windows source code in India (The Inquirer) Posted Dec 17, 2002 3:40 UTC (Tue) by a_hippie (guest, #34) [Link] Two items stand out in my mind as significant. The first is that theperson(s) who get that *free* code will have to take stringent precautions to protect that code. The second is that M$ will not give the source code to anyone, ever; M$ will only give parts of its code to those dumb enough to sign M$'s non-disclosure agreements. My hope is that India will recognize the trojan-source and "just say no."
Reveal Windows source code . . . Posted Dec 16, 2002 19:46 UTC (Mon) by Rootman (guest, #4530) [Link] An oft quoted Fark cliche from General Ackbar "It's a trap!"How much you wanna bet there will be mysterious system calls implanted in the code that once revealed and somehow leaked to the Open Source movement (however benignly or treacherously) will end up in some code and allow MS to sue for infringement? Extreme caution will have to be exercised to determine exactly where patches and additions come from after the source is leaked - I give it 48 hours before the source hits the web. I believe the true motives of the MS camp can be viewed in the gifts recently bestowed on the Indian government, $100 million USD for health and $400 million to push MS software.
Reveal Windows source code . . . Posted Dec 16, 2002 21:12 UTC (Mon) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] How much you wanna bet there will be mysterious system calls implanted in the code that once revealed and somehow leaked to the Open Source movement (however benignly or treacherously) will end up in some code and allow MS to sue for infringement?Maybe I don't understand what you mean when you are talking about "system calls", but assuming that you are talking of the source code (as opposed to binaries), I'm sure there are already cases when proprietary code is used in free software. Those who want to harm free software can do it already. In fact, those who want to harm free software are exactly those who already have access to the proprietary code. Those who implant it into free software will get what they deserve. Those who accept code without understanding it will get the same. I personally don't accept any "misterious" code into the free software I maintain (except binary-only firmware with permission from the copyright holder).
Reveal Windows source code . . . Posted Dec 17, 2002 10:33 UTC (Tue) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link] I imagine he's referring to something like, "to call the (internal, undocumented)windows system call WinXYZt, you first have to set the parameter DWORD dwMagic to 3^(the real parameter + 2)", and the only place you can see it is in the source code opened by M$... so, if you can call WinXYZt, correctly, from any FS/OSS, you disclosing secret stuff covered by the NDA...
Reveal Windows source code . . . Posted Dec 17, 2002 16:00 UTC (Tue) by Rootman (guest, #4530) [Link] Exactly - trip some lever here, set some pointer there and then hold your tongue just right to eek out a feature that everyone else got to by another route. I just worry that someone tells someone tells someone else that claims to have engineered it (and hasn't) and a programmer puts it into a great project like Samba. MS gets wind of it by their evil minions watching through a debugger and WHAM! The lawyers descend.I've just seen too much deviltry by MS - and believe me I am not a MS hater - I've just remember a lot of the shenanigans they have pulled. Especially the ones they had the gall to pull while under investigation for their monopolistic practices.
Reveal Windows source code . . . Posted Dec 19, 2002 4:18 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] I see. My point still stands. Sources of proprietary software are not guarded like top-secret data. Such sources can be found on the computers connected to the Internet. It's trivial for somebody who has access to the proprietary code to copy it. The trap exists already.
Reveal Windows source code . . . Posted Dec 19, 2002 14:35 UTC (Thu) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link] I doubt that anyone working on Samba has signed a NDA with Microsoft. The only one that could be sued is the signer of the NDA that leaked the information.
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