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I'm no Microsoft lover, but it's amazing the comments people make about stuff without any clue.

This is standard C#/VB.NET syntax. For people not familiar with .NET languages....http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/def ault.asp?url=/library/en-us/cpref/html/frlrfsystem stringclasssplittopic.asp

I have done my share of kernel programming and I have always thought that it is pretty horrible that simple device driver bugs can take down the system. Almost all of Windows' Blue Screens are from bad third party drivers. Almost all of the oopses I have seen on linux are from device drivers for extra hardware (I mean drivers not for core common O/S features). On linux device driver debug still seems to be horrible; on Windows it is considerably better but still not as good as application debug.
With common user systems as cheap and fast as they are now, do user mode device drivers make sense? Is the performance worth giving up for the stability? Check out Microsoft's User-mode Driver Framework approach. Here is an old linux journal article on the subject. Does anyone know of other interesting examples of user mode device drivers on any operating systems?

Are you talking about the new Vista UI?

In that case, that's a visual style that's changing only the aspects of the UI Windows XP changed. Windows border styles and new flashy button hover effects, etc. Think of it as a different theme/skin, not a way for them to change the UI design guidelines. "OK" will still always be followed by "Cancel", group boxes will still group UI elements with a relation, menus will still be part of the applications and not the dsektop, combo boxes will still be recommended only in "little space" situations, and so on. :-)

Actually, Microsoft has released preliminary design guidelines for Vista, and I was surprised to see how much can be directly applied, and is even recommended to be applied like that, to Windows XP.

Also, even in Windows Vista, just like in XP, can you still apply the Windows 2000 look & feel via a flip of a switch. That if anything should show that all they're really doing are mostly just applying new skins to sell their product, and not coming up with new guidelines that indeed would alienate their broad customer base. If I'm at some user that have applied some simple settings, I often lose myself in thinking I'm working on a Windows 2000 workstation when I'm in reality on XP.

you answered your own question: to discourage people from reading it...

but what is really frustrating is not being able to SEE the license until AFTER PURCHASE; and then yes, it is in very inconvenient form during the actual install process; and that's after you've opened the product and voided any return/refund policy with the retailer.

but it's hard, darn near impossible sometimes, to find an EULA to software **before** you purchase it. and often, especially for consultants, it is important to examine a license before making decisions or recommendations.

microsoft has them posted (i was *shocked* to find).. they don't go out of their way to make it known, but they're there (for retail software). and only *two* clicks from their home page..
http://www.microsoft.com/legal/useterms/
their volume licenses are accessible elsewhere, but their oem/dsp eula's are a bit harder to track down.

how many other companies make it *easy* to find them before you commit to the purchase? not very many.

Think again. It clearly states here that you can only install on one desktop at a time. Don't tell me otherwise, tell the Microsoft rep that I had on the phone because I had previously installed the os on another machine 6 months ago - yet it still kicked out my online authentication. And this was the $300 Professional version.

You must still be using Windows 2000, which I also have.

The Eula is taken from the retail version, for additional verification you can look yourself here:

XP Home license
XP Pro Edition

I would assume since product activation kicked in this would be reduced, I still use Office 2000 over here which may explain why mine still says it, I can see issues of needing to call to activate the newer editions "Honest guvner, I'm at home now, its just my office machine got reinstalled 17 times last week, this is totally seperate"

Anyone care to check if newer versions of Office continue this "Use at home" tradition?

The Eula is taken from the retail version, for additional verification you can look yourself here:

XP Home license
XP Pro Edition

I would assume since product activation kicked in this would be reduced, I still use Office 2000 over here which may explain why mine still says it, I can see issues of needing to call to activate the newer editions "Honest guvner, I'm at home now, its just my office machine got reinstalled 17 times last week, this is totally seperate"

Anyone care to check if newer versions of Office continue this "Use at home" tradition?

Well, currently, even the best artificial limbs are a poor substitute for the genuine article.

That's the Genuine Advantage!

Actually they do! They even have a Knowledge Base Article on it. I'm still a little confused on why my modem speed matters when setting up Pregnancy...

I'll bet you won't find anything for free, but believe it or not, Microsoft bases its Operations Fraework (MOF) loosely on ITIL. Here's the overview: Microsoft Operations Framework.

It's not the end-all of systems management, but it's a whole lot better than no guidance at all. I'm still surprised at the skill level of some Windows system administrators...I thought the whole dotcom thing was shaking out most of them.

I'm far from a "grizzled old veteran", but I've been expsed to IT since the early 80s and have studied and worked on systems that are much older. Large-installation machines like the VAX/VMS and mainframe world revolved around procedures, which is one of the reasons uptime is so high compared to the commodity server world. ITIL tries to frame up those procedures into a usable model, and it mostly does a good job. The big problem, as mentioned by others in this thread, is that one of these things tend to happen: (1) No one buys into the "new order" and circumvents everything, making the whole ITIL thing a useless layer of paperwork, (2) One of the consulting companies gets their paws on your CIO. Your company then spends 7 figures on EDS/IBM/Accenture/ "consultants" who are "IT operations experts" that just graduated from college. (Have I seen this before? Naah. :-))

Actually, that's a pretty cynical view. Just be careful about screening anyone or any company/tool you bring in to help you out.

.. so, if harddisk storage is so important for Bill Gates, why do I have to jump through hoops to get Windows 2000 to see more than 137 GB?

I know!! 137GB's aught to be enough for anybody, right?

Ok. so you are talking about Lotus notes. Good to know.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=190146

This knowledge base article seems to suggest that it was possible in Outlook 98.

If you haven't heard of MAPI, it's worth a Google search.

--Sam
P.S a support call to Microsoft might reveal some workarounds, and they will then post a knowledge base article about it. ($35 only if they can solve your problem) You might make it clear that you consider it a bug (bugs are free).

After all, the Chair-man was supposed to be Bill Gates!

you can also try visiting

http://cancer.microsoft.com/

(except that this link GIVES you cancer)

Virtual PC lets you create separate virtual machines on your Windows desktop

It probably makes most sense for software publisher to assume responsibility. Thus would eliminate the need to license every corporate VB jockey and merely ensure that someone competent reviews the code before release.
(This is customary in many licensed professions. E.g: House remodeling projects are usually done by an unlicensed architectural designer and then just reviewed and stamped by a licensed architect.)

Actually, Microsoft offers their "Express Edition"s of most of their developer products as free downloads.

Visit the site for more information.

Check out this webcast from Microsoft. While not as in-depth as some of us would like, it has some good information on things you can do to prevent rootkit infection.

Also, check out SysInternal's RootKitRevealer. Not only is it a handy tool, but the page gives a pretty good definition of rootkits as they apply to Windows.

Install the Access based enumeration (ABE) update from microsoft. Your users won't see any directories of folders they do not have access to...

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windo wsserver2003/library/BookofSP1/f04862a9-3e37-4f8c- ba87-917f4fb5b42c.mspx

Well, it certianly is licensable. It also seems pretty well documented.

Well, it certianly is licensable. It also seems pretty well documented.

Depends what kind of clustering you're talking about.

Windows server supports three kinds of clustering currently, and HPC/Compute-Clustering is in the works.

An Overview of Windows Clustering:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windo wsserver2003/technologies/clustering/winclstt.mspx

What's New in Windows Clustering:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluat ion/overview/technologies/clustering.mspx

The simplest kind is called NLB (Network Load Balancing), which is used heavily to make easy web farms. It's a shared-nothing approach, where all the machines participating have a deterministic algorithm to decide which machine will respond, without communicating about it.

There's also Component Load Balancing, which you can think of as a mid-tier application-services level clustering. It's mostly used where you have a mid-tier set of COM+ serviced components, and you want to 'scale-out' that mid-tier.

Then there's what MS calls 'Server Clusters', which is what many people think of when the word clustering is used. This can be active/active, active/passive, or N+1. This is what you normally see when people talk about clustering a SQL server, or Exchange Server.

HPC (High Performance Computing) or Compute Clusters are a fourth kind of thing. This is often used to divide and conquer on very large research problems, or rendering farms (to make Shrek, for exmple). MS has traditionally not had anything in this space.

This fourth item is what TFA is talking about, the first three have been in windows for many years.

Depends what kind of clustering you're talking about.

Windows server supports three kinds of clustering currently, and HPC/Compute-Clustering is in the works.

An Overview of Windows Clustering:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windo wsserver2003/technologies/clustering/winclstt.mspx

What's New in Windows Clustering:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/evaluat ion/overview/technologies/clustering.mspx

The simplest kind is called NLB (Network Load Balancing), which is used heavily to make easy web farms. It's a shared-nothing approach, where all the machines participating have a deterministic algorithm to decide which machine will respond, without communicating about it.

There's also Component Load Balancing, which you can think of as a mid-tier application-services level clustering. It's mostly used where you have a mid-tier set of COM+ serviced components, and you want to 'scale-out' that mid-tier.

Then there's what MS calls 'Server Clusters', which is what many people think of when the word clustering is used. This can be active/active, active/passive, or N+1. This is what you normally see when people talk about clustering a SQL server, or Exchange Server.

HPC (High Performance Computing) or Compute Clusters are a fourth kind of thing. This is often used to divide and conquer on very large research problems, or rendering farms (to make Shrek, for exmple). MS has traditionally not had anything in this space.

This fourth item is what TFA is talking about, the first three have been in windows for many years.

Umm microsoft have had viewers for all of those for a long time.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/000/viewers.asp

Uhm, and VS2005 is free with the OS right? Why do you think OSX is so popular with indie developers? That's right, sherlock, the tools are free with the OS.

The free development tools for Microsoft are availible here for free, they include compilers, libraries, linkers for all the modern Microsoft supported programming languages. The only thing you can whine about is the lack of a IDE for them. However, some are availible off sourceforge.net anyway.

So, not really a problem.

Also, I see more indie developers on Windows for some reason (infact where I live, Macintoshes are barely known), but then this is just from people I know, met etc. So it's biased. Where did you get these statistics, that make you seem that you're implying they're official, from, anyway, any links?

"But with vista, the only thing new is the GUI"

This is the most blatently ignorant statement in this thread yet.

Please either STFU or educate yourself a little better before speaking.

95% of the changes to Vista are largely behind the scenes.

For a START look here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/

Those are the major surface level features that users will find. If you want to know what's going on behind the UI, check out the developers resources. Most of the features that were going to be part of the new file system ARE THERE in spite of not fully implemeting the new file system. They were just implemented differently using the functionality already existing in NTFS but underutilized till now.

Inded, OpenOffice 2.0 is a great product, I saw the release story sooner today at OSnews as I said here

Now I wonder the following, in about 6 months or so, Microsoft will "unveil" its new Office suite (it may be in a Beta), along with the new Windows Vista technology. What does this has to do with OpenOffice you may ask, well, as I can see right now in the OO.o document I am writting, the interface of OO is (as all the interfaces in ALL the OS right now) "menu" driven.

As stated on thi link the new version of Microsoft Office will have a completely different option selection approach, and after looking at some Windows Vista reviews it seems MS will make a lot of programs share this "Tab based" approach.

I have never liked the menu based interface (from ANY of the programs) where you have to navigate around 10x10x10 submenues to be able to find how to "crop" a part of the image (really try to do it in OO 2.0, just press PRINTSCREEN key then paste the clipboard to the OOo document and try to crop the bottom and top of it).

My point is, it seems (and I am just waiting for it) what will happen is that applications will try to catch on with this new "tab based" option selection interface, and the question will be Is OpenOffice.org going to change that? , or more to the point, will OpenOffice copy the new MSOffice options selection behaviour?.

That will be an interesting issue, when the new MS Windows Vista comes with these approach, It will be nice to see how does that "affects" the OpenSource software relases (Linux distros, OSS software on windows, etc). And then we will see the real "influence" of Windows and MS over OSS.

I hope Slashdot does not take this as trolling, I am glad OpenOffice has come to what it is (I used it sometime when it was StarOffice 5.0 and they gave freecd's[or at least I got one for free =oP]). [Un]fortunately currently I use Latex as text creating package, and I do not have a lot of touch with any kind of WYSIWYG office documents. But, I do have installed OpenOffice and it has come a very long way.

but someone might find it useful.

There's a transcript of the session here.

And as mentioned in the article:
A copy of the entire 45 minute interview can be downloaded (it's 21 MB) by clicking here.

The question in the article can be found 27 minutes and 13 seconds into the audio file.

And interestingly enough Ballmer was asked the following (at: 2:37)
"I have a question for Mr. Ballmer. If you attempt to thwart Google with your acquisition of the ???????*. How many chairs will Business Week report you as thrown?"

He responded with:
"I've never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life."

* I couldn't hear what was said, if anybody knows reply to this post.

What's going to happen when I'm trying to do something important? I mean, sometimes I like to play music while I'm doing other stuff like playing games. If I'm ripping/encoding, how much of a performance drain is that glitz and glamour going to be? How much of that crap is going to be loaded into memory when its minimized or not visible? Has anyone done any performance benchmarks instead of just ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the pretty graphics?

I mean, if vista requires 512MB of memory, a dedicated DX9 graphics card, and a modern Athlon CPU how much of that is left for me?

Note: I currently run XP on a Duron 900Mhz with a Voodoo3 and 512MB of RAM to surf the internet. Windows XP runs perfectly acceptable on this PC. I guess that means I won't be installing Vista on it :(

IE has never been anywhere but in user space. "Integrated into the OS" doesn't mean "runs in kernel space".

User space under Windows and Linux is different. Perhaps I should have constructed my post better.

From just last week A remote code execution vulnerability exists in the way Internet Explorer instantiates COM objects that are not intended to be instantiated in Internet Explorer. An attacker could exploit the vulnerability by constructing a malicious Web page that could potentially allow remote code execution if a user visited the malicious Web site. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could take complete control of an affected system. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin /MS05-052.mspx

I believe IE should not be allowed to provide/host any services under Windows.
Just my opinion though.

Enjoy,

Man, I hear your pain. My primary role is as a desktop architect.

You may want to take a look at the Windows Automated Installation Kit - It's a whole new way of deploying Windows in the Corporate space.

-Jar.

As already mentioned, that seems to just be a directory of screenshots

I think what you're look is an image previwe of each window that you can switch to.. Which sounds exactly like the Alt+Tab replacement powertoy for xp (found here)

Yeah -- Outlook isn't perfect but it's better than any OSS stuff. (Personally, I couldn't *stand* using a website for my calendar! Besdies, how does that synch with my phone?)

I quite agree with your points. There is a unsupported team calendar add-in to Outlook - it queries a number of calendars and then fakes up calendar view.

It works.. but there's a reason it's unsupported. It's free though.

If they want to push their licenses without questions on the code pedigree, maybe they should open up a project from scratch so it's "Shared Source" from the beginning. No question who wrote the code or which company they licensed/bought/stole it from.

This is probably why it's the Visual Studio 2005 starter kits that's being offered - basically demo code that can just as easily be written by a Microsoft MVP not employed by them.

You apparently haven't read up on Microsoft's Secure Development Lifecycle. Microsoft is now designing security into their products from the ground up. (http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/11/SD L/default.aspx)

Tell me... what are other software companies doing to improve their product security?

Microsoft is leaps and bounds ahead of most software vendors when it comes to product security. Go ahead, flame away at Microsoft. I'll agree there have been some colossal security screwups in Microsoft products.

At least they have a plan (and it's currently in place and working) to improve their product quality. What is your software vendor doing in that arena?

I guess there's a fourth license, although the article says they're limiting it to three? So I don't know where this one fits in; I didn't read it all carefully enough.

Anyhow, you can read the Microsoft Community License here. Basically, it looks like the Limited Community License without the platform restriction clause, and appears to have the same grant of rights! So it's a lot like the MPL. Yes, the patent termination clause probably keeps it incompatible with the GPL v2, although it may be harmonized with in GPL v3 (that remains to be seen), and it appears that even the FSF thinks it's a Free (libre) software license!

So at least one of the four I've read is good :) Again, IANAL, so get the advice of one if you need legal advice.

That chair must have had wings, because Ballmer just said "I have never, honestly, thrown a chair in my life". Also, Linux is more expensive and less secure than Windows (who knew?!? ;)

And if you think the EU, UN, US DoC or any other government bureacracy is any more or less likely to fuck things up, then you haven't been paying attention for very long.

It's not about competency per se. ICANN mostly does a good job on a purely technical basis; but then so do the actual root operators, and ITU in its own field also. The question is political control. Imagine the US president was an elected dictator. Congress, supreme court, state legislatures et al were all subservient to the president, who ruled by fiat. Would you be comfortable with that situation? (assuming you're american) Do you prefer checks and balances on the power of any one man to decide your fate? Most people would, and unsurprisingly non-americans don't like having their economic fate pretty much solely in the hands of a US government department, especially with all the talk of 'axis-of-evil' and the like.

Venezuela, Iran, Syria, Brazil, France, even Canada are all on the US government shit-list to different extents - is it unreasonable that they feel somewhat nervous about what the US government might unilaterally do to their ccTLD domains in the future? With a multi-country overview of the system, no one country could screw up another. That is the real goal, at least from the EU perspective. They want to keep ICANN, but just give more countries than the US influence in who the registrar is for any given domain. China and russia want to replace ICANN altogether with a UN agency, which I think is going too far; but I can see why they feel that way.

Do you mean in clients or servers? The DNS client doesn't know anything about roots, and just queries whatever server it's pointed at. A DNS server (even Windows) can trivially be configured to point at any root. Anyone running a DNS server who doesn't know how to modify root.hints should be banned from the Internet on principle.

I was thinking of both. Purely at the client end, people currently can add alt root hosts to over-ride or suplement their ISP DNS. Most people wouldn't know how, and very few care.

For company DNS servers, I know quite a few windows admins who run DNS for AD, but wouldn't know a cache.dns file if it bit them on the ass. There's plenty of misconfigured DNS servers that go straight to root because they've no upstream DNS caches (forwarders) that demonstrates that. (98% of root queries are unnecessary!) A Windows 2000-based DNS server follows specific steps in its name-resolution process. A DNS server first queries its cache, then it checks its zone records, then it sends requests to forwarders, and finally it tries resolution by using root servers. By default, a Microsoft DNS server connects to the Internet to further process DNS requests with root hints.... Windows uses the standard InterNIC root server. Also, when a Windows 2000-based server queries a root server, it updates itself with the most recent list of root servers. Roots that list ICANN's file are the default, and it takes an admin with a clue to change that. I agree that DNS admins *should* know about how DNS really works, root and all, but from the amount of misconfigured sites I've been to, they're a lot thinner on the ground than we'd like.

ISPs hopefully know what they're doing, but very few implement the alt roots at the moment. China could mandate their own ISPs use an alt root that overrides the defaults, which solves internal DNS; but that doesn't solve the problem for people hosting outside the country, or indeed people trying to find chinese websites elsewhere in the globe if the ICANN approved registrar differs from the chinese internal one.

Of course, we don't want a root split. We don't want different roots that point to different registrars for a given ccTLD or gTLD, with ISPs using a root based on political affiliation. But if the US gov isn't prepared to loosen its control of ICANN a little, that's what may eventually happen, which won't be pretty for anyone.

I'd much rather have a more accountable ICANN, or at worst multiple roots that peer each others files; but that doesn't solve the problem of what happens when they disagree.

"It's not all that hard to buy an AMD64 machine with Windows XP"

It's not all that hard to buy an AMD64 machine with Windows XP 32-bit Edition. This of course renders most 64-bit goodness moot. I have yet to see a machine in any of the major high street and online shops (read: where most people still get their PC's from) that ships with XP x64, I guess because it's only available in it's 'Professional' flavour - not the shockingly different 'Home' flavour.

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition.

Don't expect the majority of people to be properly 64-bit enabled until Longhorn and a bit (for OS turnover in the consumer world). One of the umpteen LH flavours is sure to support your nice juicy new processor.

One question, are "modern Pentium 4 chips", "64-bit capable"? And to what extent? I wasn't aware any of the P4's were in anyway 64-bit (atleast no corny dun-dun-dun-dun adverts on TV bragging about 'Intel 64-bit technology' yet)

But instead of having to actively re-render the filters each time you want to make a change, as you would with Photoshop, you can just adjust the filter's settings in realtime (or close enough to realtime)

This doesn't really contradict your post, but I thought I'd clarify: Photoshop does have adjustment layers which act similarly to Aperture's non-destructive editing. But since they were 5 or 6 versions into their product before they thought of non-destructive editing, they still use destructive editing for the bulk of their processing (filters are a good example). Also, Photoshop rasterizes the RAW image on import (via camera raw), so using an adjustment at that point is just non-destructivly editing the rasterized copy of the RAW image.

Apple has the huge advantage of hindsight over Adobe. Microsoft has used that same advantage to create a tool that supports both rasters and vectors (both the simple Illustrator kind and the complicated Painter kind). It will be interesting to see how the market shakes out over the next couple years.

TFA says:
The first new license, the Ms-PL (Microsoft Permissive License), follows the lines of the open-source BSD license.
ScuttleMonkey repeats this:
The first license format, Ms-PL (Microsoft Permissive License), is similar to the BSD license
However, the comparison is misleading. One key aspect of the BSD license is that it does not restrict under what licenses the software or derivative works may be redistributed. By contrast, section 3(D) of the Ms-PL begins:
If you distribute the software or derivative works in source code form you may do so only under this license...
This is a copyleft license, at least so far as source code distribution is concerned, so it is not a BSD-style license.

The Ms-PL does *not* have a platform restriction. See: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/li censingbasics/permissivelicense.mspx

The Ms-LPL *does* have a platform restriction. See: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/li censingbasics/limitedpermissivelicense.mspx

Your comments seem to confuse the Ms-PL and Ms-LPL. "L" means "Limited," ie. platform restriction.

The Ms-LPL is the Ms-PL with the addition of a Microsoft platform restriction. The Ms-PL doesn't have any such restriction.

The Ms-PL does *not* have a platform restriction. See: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/li censingbasics/permissivelicense.mspx

The Ms-LPL *does* have a platform restriction. See: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/li censingbasics/limitedpermissivelicense.mspx

Your comments seem to confuse the Ms-PL and Ms-LPL. "L" means "Limited," ie. platform restriction.

The Ms-LPL is the Ms-PL with the addition of a Microsoft platform restriction. The Ms-PL doesn't have any such restriction.

2. Grant of Rights

(A) Copyright Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, Microsoft grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free copyright license to reproduce the software, prepare derivative works of the software and distribute the software or any derivative works that you create.

(B) Patent Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, Microsoft grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under licensed patents to make, have made, use, practice, sell, and offer for sale, and/or otherwise dispose of the software or derivative works of the software.

However, these nasty little restrictions stand out in section 3, which limit the rights granted above:

3. Conditions and Limitations

[...]

(D) If you distribute the software or derivative works in source code form you may do so only under this license (i.e., you must include a complete copy of this license with your distribution), and if you distribute the software or derivative works in compiled or object code form you may only do so under a license that complies with this license.

[...]

(F) Platform Limitation- The licenses granted in sections 2(A) & 2(B) extend only to the software or derivative works that you create that run on a Microsoft Windows operating system product.

So no, that doesn't look GPL compatible to me. The platform limitation is a deal-breaker. Perhaps the software developed on it would only be of use on Windows [TM], anyhow, but the restriction certainly isn't GPL-compatible by my reading. There are other restrictions, too, of course, but they're fairly normal things like terminating your license if you sue Microsoft [TM] and not granting you the use of Microsoft [TM] trademarks.

Next, we have the Microsoft Limited Community License.

It seems to have the same grant of rights as in the first one, so that's good. But there are limitations. More limitations than the last one, apparently. Not so good.

(A) Reciprocal Grants- Your rights to reproduce and distribute the software (or any part of the software), or to create and distribute derivative works of the software, are conditioned on your licensing the software or any larger work you create under the following terms:

1. If you distribute the larger work as a series of files, you must grant all recipients the copyright and patent licenses in sections 2(A) & 2(B) for any file that contains code from the software. You must also provide recipients the source code to any such files that contain code from the software along with a copy of this license. Any other files which are entirely your own work and which do not contain any code from the software may be licensed under any terms you choose.

2. If you distribute the larger work as a single file, then you must grant all recipients the rights set out in sections 2(A) & 2(B) for the entire larger work. You must also provide recipients the source code to the larger work alo

2. Grant of Rights

(A) Copyright Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, Microsoft grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free copyright license to reproduce the software, prepare derivative works of the software and distribute the software or any derivative works that you create.

(B) Patent Grant- Subject to the terms of this license, including the license conditions and limitations in section 3, Microsoft grants you a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free patent license under licensed patents to make, have made, use, practice, sell, and offer for sale, and/or otherwise dispose of the software or derivative works of the software.

However, these nasty little restrictions stand out in section 3, which limit the rights granted above:

3. Conditions and Limitations

[...]

(D) If you distribute the software or derivative works in source code form you may do so only under this license (i.e., you must include a complete copy of this license with your distribution), and if you distribute the software or derivative works in compiled or object code form you may only do so under a license that complies with this license.

[...]

(F) Platform Limitation- The licenses granted in sections 2(A) & 2(B) extend only to the software or derivative works that you create that run on a Microsoft Windows operating system product.

So no, that doesn't look GPL compatible to me. The platform limitation is a deal-breaker. Perhaps the software developed on it would only be of use on Windows [TM], anyhow, but the restriction certainly isn't GPL-compatible by my reading. There are other restrictions, too, of course, but they're fairly normal things like terminating your license if you sue Microsoft [TM] and not granting you the use of Microsoft [TM] trademarks.

Next, we have the Microsoft Limited Community License.

It seems to have the same grant of rights as in the first one, so that's good. But there are limitations. More limitations than the last one, apparently. Not so good.

(A) Reciprocal Grants- Your rights to reproduce and distribute the software (or any part of the software), or to create and distribute derivative works of the software, are conditioned on your licensing the software or any larger work you create under the following terms:

1. If you distribute the larger work as a series of files, you must grant all recipients the copyright and patent licenses in sections 2(A) & 2(B) for any file that contains code from the software. You must also provide recipients the source code to any such files that contain code from the software along with a copy of this license. Any other files which are entirely your own work and which do not contain any code from the software may be licensed under any terms you choose.

2. If you distribute the larger work as a single file, then you must grant all recipients the rights set out in sections 2(A) & 2(B) for the entire larger work. You must also provide recipients the source code to the larger work alo

This is definitely caused by this:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/server/evalua tion/news/bulletins/extendedsupport.asp

Many workplaces were practically forced to upgrade to XP, since 2000 would no longer be supported. And it seems they held on until the very end.

Forced upgrades => more users of XP => more users of IE 6 => browser statistics go up.

AFAIK, any university can receive the source code to MS Windows under a restrive, look but don't talk, touch, or take license / NDA like the Ms-RL. Here is a list of colleges that do. But, I wouldn't touch that code with a 15 foot stick. I don't want to know what their source does in case they ever decide that something I am doing was "inspired" by it.

Microsoft has only released licenses, not any code under any of these licenses.

Incorrect, they do so and have done so for years.

I could be wrong... but no part of 'release' means 'to the world at large'... Microsoft has been making the Windows source code available to various colleges and companies for years under rather tight control because they don't want (for obvious reasons) the world at large to have access to it.

Don't believe me? Just take a look at a list of current licensees.

OK so 98% of my userbase uses Windows. 2 % use Linux.

I can write Windows drivers for my device and keep 98% of my userbase happy. I can write Linux drivers for my device, and keep 2% of my userbase happy. If the cost of writing that Linux driver is more than I would make back in profits, why would I ever do it?


A sale is a sale is a sale.

Because you SELL hardware or support, not dirvers. Look at ATI, Nvidia and IBM.

Becaase you can make BOTH Windows drivers AND Linux drivers.

You may do it for bragging rights, protection from vendor lockin or because Linux is VAR friendly. You may have to support it for government contracts. You know, people do make money selling Linux, or at least try.

You will do it because your main competitor supports Linux and is now able to get into every large datacenter doing clustering, LAMP, etc that you have just been locked out of.

But I don't buy your profits argument. Security of your IP is a matter of driver arch, engineering and legalese so that shouldn't be an issue. You are in business for profit, not just marketshare, right? An unhappy customer is still a customer (with the potential to becoome a happy one.) If you have 98% of your (potential) userbase and your company is barely profiting, support for Linux is probably not your problem (but can be a possible solution.)

Additionally, there is a fixed engineering cost for driver development, namely the care-in-feeding of the engineers to do the work. If you aren't supporting the driver for people who bought your product (seen it with driver developers,) then the margin of profit on that sale is greater. If Linux is not your primary market, release scheduling is not a factor (seen that one too.) Alternatively, you can give your spec to an F/OSS developer and have them support it.

However, when my market is bringing in X kilobucks for each %, I will look seriously at fringe markets. If my company's userbase is bringing in enough money per user, I'll jump through serious hoops for 2% more. A sale is a sale is a sale.

Who modded this tripe informative? What do you call http://support.microsoft.com/ ? The Microsoft knowledge base? Microsoft Services ( http://www.microsoft.com/services/microsoftservice s/default.mspx )? Windows Update? Granted, their phone support is expensive, but it exists. Whether Linux is better supported than Windows is an open question, but the quote above is laughable.