Slashdot Mirror
Will Microsoft Open Windows Source Code? (No!)
mTor writes, "Cnet.com is reporting in this story that Microsoft is willing to open the source to Windows to settle its case with government. " Personally I think this would be pretty sweet. It'd definitely be a boost for projects like WINE. Wonder what license they would use? *grin*. CT : several folks sent us this Yahoo story where Bill denies the cnet story linked above.
> it was less that Apple did not liscence it than
> that Microsoft did not bother finishing the
> port.
> Windows NT _ran_ on the PowerPC for a short
> while but not anymore now that MS decided they
> really didn't want to bother with a PPC NT.
No, it was finished. NT4 shipped with a full PowerPC port, along with the Alpha and MIPS ports. However, the port was funded by IBM, not Microsoft, which is how Microsoft's business model works (Microsoft will only fund development for platforms with established market share, like the Intel x86).
When IBM decided the PowerPC wasn't going to gain enough market share to challenge the Intel x86, it pulled funding (just as Compaq, faced with the IA-64, recently did with the Alpha port). Without an established installed base for the PowerPC, Microsoft decided not to pick up funding for the port. If Apple had decided to license NT rather than buying NeXT, Microsoft almost certainly would have funded continued development of the PowerPC port (with all of the Mac developers/supporters at Microsoft, it would have been relatively easy).
> Not anymore
> HAL is dead
Nonsense, the underlying NT architecture is the same as it always was. There aren't any non-Intel ports at the moment because the only viable 32-bit platform is the x86, and it currently looks like IA-64 will be the only mass-market 64-bit platform. If something else does well enough, you can bet NT will be ported to it.
If you're so intellectually feeble that you unconditionally believe any opinion you hear, you probably should keep yourself locked away.
I, for one, am perfectly capable of listening to the views of all sorts of nutters (including Linux and GNU fanatics), and am far more likely to chuckle at their ridiculousness than to agree with them.
I'm not saying windows is better, it just will never open source.. Frankly I couldn't give a shit if it does, there are alternatives, such as linux that will be a thorn in Microsoft's side for eternity.. Whether Microsoft had been put on trial or not, Linux would always continue to be.. And its causing people to recognize the problems in the computer industry, problems Windows has merely run over with its bulldozer, half-intentionally addressing but with one hand on the wheel and the other on its money, crushing its users with its bottlenecked approach to software development, wait.. wait... ummmm wait for Windows 2000, um 2002, um 2004? when will it be done? Never!! Why? because it started out a failure.. Code with bad design yields bad fruit, a good tree can not bare bad fruit just as a bad tree cannot bare good fruit.. Windows is destined to fail..
Let's go back 10 years ago when the world was doomed to pick windows for everything.. There are still some poor souls who think the best approach is to trust in Microsoft because after all its the one making all the money and has the most support.. Most support, is that an advantage? The problem is Windows hidden complexity incourages 1-900 support lines, training, certification (bogus credentials), numerous topical books that spout regugitated homogenized FUD, and transplanted microsoft support crews that spend the better part of their days twiddling their thumbs and cruising the internet with no intention of clearing up any problems for the companies that hired them to fix their "access" databases.. Microsoft makes most of its money from the bureaucracy that attempts to justify and support "its failing OS".. Microsoft makes money off of our ignorance about their OS!!! I think you'll find Microsoft is in a hurry to justify their position relative to the open source projects, knowing full well they are either the right or doomed. All an OS is is a layer between the applications and the hardware, and considering its better to create applications that are abstracted and portable, the applications that are portable tend to have less bugs.. The code that is portable usually has less bugs.. This would seem to imply that code written specifically for windows is more buggy than code abstracted and able to run on linux, windows, or whatnot.. This independence is what Microsoft loathes.. They are seeking dependence in every form of the word, and dependence spells "bugs".. Dependence means going backwards, seeking models that make code less portable.. One could take the approach that Microsoft is doing it better and nobody has the same technology, so the code written for Windows is supported by a superior interface and code base.. Optimal doesn't always imply portable code.. But then again Windows is not such a small kernel anymore.. Is a bigger kernel more optimal? Well its definately more abstracted (in the case of NT). The tug of war is between BIG OS with lots of features with applications that have a small set of features implemented using the multitude of existing libraries, and a small OS with applications that have lots of features or use libraries as well.. The only difference is Windows is a big kernel and Linux is small, Linux can be recompiled with different features in its Kernel, Windows Kernel is big because it must expect a lot of cases which is precompiled to handle, it can't be compiled specifically for the underlying hardware.. So windows suffers all ready.. And let's see, if the overlying inteface to linux becomes more standardized, it won't matter how you compile the kernel, any program compiled for linux will work on linux.. However because the Windows kernel is big, it means it can reconfigure itself while operating because its not statically compiled into a certain system configuration.. But then again is this was the purpose of Linux pmod's? About the only thing Windows has to score against Linux is its flexibility to run applications compiled for it, and some amount of explicit security maintained in NT (since applications have almost no direct access to the underlying hardware).. Technically, about the only thing that will keep Windows afloat is its claims.. But the applications running on Windows are more than welcome to be ported to Linux.. The more portable the code, the better chance of clearing up system dependent code, in other words BUGS!!! Optimizations will be only small deltas of change to the code.. If Linux attains some of the qualities Windows has like good threading.. That just means less qualities Windows can be jusified as superior.. Applications code is portable (hopefully) that means people have a choice, and no longer is it a battle between windows and everyone else, but merely a battle for independence of the applications from the underlying OS.. When that happens you will see Windows shrivel up and die, or not?? Who cares!!?? Microsoft's adavantage has always been to make people care about them, not let them care.. Make them!! Dependence is anti-freedom..
By open-sourcing the Windows APIs, you would institutionalise them, thereby destroying innovation and competition in this marketplace. What are the chances that people would develop for operating systems such as Mac OS X or Linux if they can write once on Windows and have the same (crappy) code run everywhere? People would not be able to push the boundaries as much, because the legacy windows code base could not easily be upgraded (since everyone would be using all those sneeaky undocumented API calls). In my opinion it would be a sad day for the computer industry if this happened. Microsoft would become all-pervasive and TOTALLY dominate the industry. At least now we have choices.
Now the facts prove it http://www.tpc.org/new_result/ttperf.idc
He's still the Chairman, the Man. That's why.
> Windows NT runs on the Power PC... Apple missed a grand opertunity to licence this if you ask me... (and yes I know that Microsoft no longer supports it but the fact is that due to the nature of NT it can ported to most any platform without much work... it's more about money and support costs and "having a market" that counts for Microsoft)
"Also, when was the last time that you saw Explorer embed a Word document? In a frame? How about PostScript or PDF? Spreadsheets?"
All of the above, except PostScript. Every day, for years. Get a clue. Where do you think K* got the idea?
People whine about Microsoft not innovating, but they did these features way before anyone else.
> What "market share" would that be? Don't more people use the Mac OS than use Linux? Ok.. so maybe in the future with linux controls more of the market... I would think that most linux zealots would hate the idea due to the threat it creates.. overnight Windows becomes the perfect OS.. humm...
Actually, it's Windows Millennium Edition (just in case there wasn't any confusion with Win2k).
ahahaha
Duh... A Mac costs twice what a comparable PC does..
Frames were in Word95, but seem to have disappeared starting from Word97. They are actually a hidden, undocumented feature (at least in Word97, I don't know if this is fixed in Word2k), apparently included for compatibility with old documents. I had to customize my menu to add the "Frame" option, and the help file doesn't mention frames. But they do exist, and are very convenient for positioning things (text boxes also work, but won't hold graphics or OLE objects).
Seeing as how the Linux community is _STARVED_ for a decent graphical web browser, wouldn't open src. Explorer be a more 'benevolent' gesture? But wait...what was I thinking. I.E. is seamlessly Integrated into the windows desktop in order to better facilitate the Microshaft experience. Thanks for thinkin' ahead Bill. phwew!
Didn't MS say that they would open their code a year or so ago in the DOJ case, and we fell for it then too? They haven't even opened MS-DOS for crying out loud. Anyone who believes for a second they will open the code in any respect has got to be smoking crack...
This post may be redundant, I didn't feel like checking 200 posts to see if this opinion had already been expressed...
Yes indeed...a linux version for every WINX release of Explorer. I'm sick of Netscape being a day late and a dollar short.
There was a cool article on it in Wired a year or so back.
Apps like word, excell etc make 20-30% of a new machine price (back when the average prices was like $2500). Freed from the OS, they can focus on things like SQL server and finally wipe pesky Oracle off the map.
Microsoft should "steal the fire" and get every pedant in the universe cheering them on with the new project. How they could do it:
Release on New Years day 2001, as Windows Millineium.
I want to open source my ass under the GPL how can I do this? thank you thanks.
So, W2K is released and no article appears on slashdot, but a false story about Windows+Open Source gets posted? Nope, no bias on Slashdot "Linux News for nerds. Open Source stuff that matters"
Styles in Word work soo much like good xml stylesheeted documents it seems almost prophetic that it has worked that way for so many years.
it is, but most Linux zealots have no idea what they're talking about - especially when it comes to Windows.
monkey see, monkey do.
This got moderated up? The dude went to the fucking mall and you moderated it up?
well there might be hell for a bit. but with the the examination of the code - you'll close holes faster. ie get the list of security flaws that have cropped up in Unix/Linux through the years. Examine the code for similar flaws, if this problem is present submit the fix and move on...
STAR (as in hot young actress) WARS
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episode iv
a story of tender love
it is a period of civil war. striking from a hidden base, the natalie portman fan-club has won its first victory against the evil open source empire.
during the battle, fan-club spies managed to steal secret plans to the empire's ultimate plot, the open-sourcing of natalie portman, a young actress with enough allure to turn women into lesbians.
attempting to set up a commercial deal with microsoft, natalie portman's agent, matalie portman, crosses paths with the open source empire's sinister agents...
*************************************************
open source man and a group of open source developers ram into the main headquarters of microsoft. they unboard their sky-blue cadillac and storm the building.
*************************************************
in new york, c3-esr and rms-d2 are making their way to a linux convention. c3-esr is carrying a radio, which broadcasts a special announcement about the attack on microsoft.
c3-rms: did you hear that? the open source empire has attacked microsoft! they'll be destroyed for sure! this is madness!
rms-d2: babble, babble.
c3-rms: there'll be no escape for matalie portman this time!
*************************************************
the open source developers and microsoft employees battle with cans of cheese whiz laced with flesh-eating bacteria. the battle is total carnage. the open source developers, quickly defeat the microsoft forces. as the main entrance of the building is cleared and the bodies piled along the walls, open source man makes his glorious entrance. he pauses to look around at the corpses and then continues on into the building.
*************************************************
c3-esr and rms-d2 pass by a pub. rms-d2 turns to enter the building.
c3-esr: wait a minute, where are you going?
rms-d2: babble, babble.
c3-esr: you can't go in there! we're already late for the convention! remember, we have to deliver our speeches about free software/open source!
rms-d2: babble, babble.
c3-esr: don't call me a mindless figure-head, you damn dirty hippie! now come on, before we are far too late!
rms-d2: babble, babble.
c3-esr: well, if you're buying...
c3-esr follows rms-d2 into the pub.
*************************************************
open source man is standing in an office. a random open source developer approaches open source man who is holding a microsoft employee up in the air by the throat.
random open source developer: natalie portman's street address is nowhere to be found.
open source man turns to the microsoft developer he is strangling.
open source man: where is natalie portman's agent? where is natalie portman's street address?
microsoft employee: i don't know anything about natalie portman. i'm just a programmer working on free development tools!
open source man: if this is free software... where is the gnu's head?!
there is a terrible cracking sound as open source man snaps the microsoft employee's neck. open source man throws the limp carcass against the wall.
open source man: commander, tear this building apart until you've found that street address and bring me matalie portman. i want her alive!
*************************************************
open source man and a group of random open source developers enter the office of some microsoft flunkie. two open source developers have matalie in custody. open source man approaches her.
matalie portman: open source man. only you could be so bold. the screen actor's guild won't sit still for this! when they hear you've sabatoged a registered actor's bid for a starring role in a commercial...
open source man: don't act so surprised, ms. portman. you weren't on any mission to land a starring role in a cereal commercial for a five year old boy this time. several phone calls were made to you by natalie portman. i want to know what street address she lives on.
matalie portman: i don't know what you're talking about! i'm a talent agent on an assignment to land a role in a closed-source software commercial!
open source man: you are natalie portman's agent and a traitor! take her away!
the open source developers lead matalie portman out of the office. all she can do is to shake her head. an open source developer leaves the office with open source man.
open source developer: holding her is dangerous. if word of this gets out it could generate sympathy among law enforcement agents.
open source man: i have traced natalie portman's business dealings to her. now, she is my only link to satisfying this yearning in my loins.
open source developer: she'll die before she tells you anything!
open source man: leave that to me! send a letter to her office then inform the screen actor's guild that she is taking an extended sabatical.
another open source developer approaches open source man.
open source developer #2: open source man, natalie portman's street address is nowhere to be found. a piece of paper was swallowed by matalie portman as she was being led out of the building.
open source man: she must have hidden the address in her digestive system. give her some laxatives and wait for the paper to pass.
open source developer #2: yes sir!
*************************************************
TO BE CONTINUED...
thank you
Whatever they say, Linux must be flexible to it.
Return to one OS near future.
your truly AC
more than 45 days?!
Pull off all her feathers, only the head and neck must be spared: then make a fire round about her, not too close to her, that the smoke do not choke her, and that the fire may not burn her too soon; not too far off that she may not escape free: within the circle of the fire let there be set small cups and pots of water, wherein salt and honey are mingled; and let there be set all chargers full of sodden Apples, cut into small pieces in the dish. The Goose must be all larded and basted over with butter: put then fire about her, but do not make too much haste, when as you see her begin to roast; for by walking about and flying here and there, being cooped in by the fire that stops her way out, the unwearing Goose is kept in; she will fall to drink the water to quench her thirst, and cool her heart, and all her body, and the Apple sauce will make her dung and cleanse and empty her. And when she roasteth, and consumes inwardly, always wet her head and heart with a wet sponge; and when you see her giddy with running, and begin to stumble, her heart wants moisture, and she is roasted enough. Take her up and set her before your guests and she will cry as you cut off any part from her and will be almost eaten up before she be dead: it is mightly pleasant to behold!
There is no benefit to opening the windows source code. First, there is no way that the current version of the source will be open. Second, WINE developers could not borrow or even look at the source. Do that and you risk a quick lawsuit.
Quit fixating on windows and fixate on office file formats and a replacement for X. It will be worth the effort.
I mean if they are going to "OS" windows, are they going to do the same for DirectX and IE because they are part of the windows OS.
Also who cares about them not opening Win2K 'cause the 32bit code is in 9x anyway and the networking code (hold back the laughter) is not needed and that is basicly the only thing that makes 2k not 9x.
This is all based on the fact of if this was a true and going to happen.
hmmm... mine doesn't do that. how do I turn that feature on? All mine does is preview html and image files.
Erm... yeah, for the same reason TransMeta won't release info about its native instruction set - this way they are free to modify how things happen w/o altering their public interface. At least in theory, anything and everything you could do (and should do) with the NT API is possible using the Win32 API. If there are things possible with the NT API which would not be possible via Win32 API or other aspects of the OS (or platform, whatever), you'd still have to show MS using these functions in a separate product to have a case.
Innocent 'til proven guilty, and past indiscretions don't *prove" that they've continued.
Here is an official MS link that claims that they will Open source Explorer. http://www.microsoft.com/release/OS
Why is uptime such a big deal?
Wow. Fat, bald AND impotent.
NT may need to go down a bit more than it needs to, but many Linux systems don't go down enough.
Your mom also goes down a bit more than she needs to. I can't say the plumber minds, though.
In my work we have both NT and LINUX servers, and every now and then I try to hack into them using easily dowloadable system scanners (SAINT,NESSUS).
And about half of the times I'm able to hack in into M$ boxes, while on linux boxes I've been successful only couple times.
Why? because for every information security hole M$ fixes, theres going to be another new one. Ergo securing NT and providing services, requires constant updating and scanning...
PS. If you just need a secure NT workstation, disable the server process, that way the NT is rather secure, since file sharing or remote connection doesn't work....
If you click on an HREF linking to a
Opening the source of Windows does something which I consider very imporant: It disallows MS to include 'hidden features' into their code as we have seen at DR-DOS. This protects the freedom of all computer users.
Today, you can still simply switch of your computer if you don't like to be 'profiled' by companies like Doubleclick and MS any more, but imagine a future where computers are build into your car, your phone, your fridge etc. where you simply can't switch them off any more?
So, I think, the solution to leave the wealth to Bill while he leaves us our freedom is a good compromise.
I would love to see how Windows NT is made.
If microsoft releases the source code. That means that people will find more exploits. And it forces people to upgrade to the latest operating system. Because i highly doubt microsoft would support the operating system after the source code is released. Another Microsoft Marketing Strategy.
Who cares? Wall Street would go ape shit, just as they did for RHAT, CORL, PERL, LNUX, and SCOC.
All Bill has to do is invite ESR back for another round of talks and then make a joint announcement. MSFT would gap up 900 points and Bill Gates would become the world's first trillionaire.
I'm only half kidding.
It's actually quite easy to turn it off.
Sorry, but I am not a savage. I use WYSIWYG tools.
The Savage is the one that uses the WSSIWYG tools, because he knows nothing. The professional knows what goes on behind the scenes and has no need for such eye candy. That's why you use VB, you fucking PHB-lamer, Frontpage-using, MS-zealot moron.
Your, "the hard way makes me superior" mentality is holding you back. There's a reason why desktop publishing and document processing is WYSIWYG.
Specifically a good grammar checker. . .
You didn't learn your grammer well enough in elementary school, little girl? You shouldn't be allowed near a typewriter if don't have enough faith in your ability (or lack thereof) to speak English "real good". You fucking moron.
It's more than Office that puts Windows on 90% of desktops... it's a big mean company.
You think that being a "big mean company" got MS where it is today, dipshit? Hey speaking of 90% of desktops, I can almost fit 90% of your mom's fat ass under my desktop when she's sucking my cock.
And the suits can deny what they want. If Bill was quoted off the record as saying he would open source it was because it has been on his mind. He may do it, and all the "Head MS executives" who say he won't will not mean shit. Mr. Gates runs that company and wants it to continue to succeed. It will if they open their source. If they lost 50 percent of the market they would still have the majority.
This does not deserve a 5, it's just a duplicate of something that has already been posted.
*snork* And people claim Linux is harder to use..
Consider: has Microsoft ever voluntarily done anything that wouldn't benefit Microsoft itself in the end? No? Than whatever in the world makes anybody think it'll be any different this time around.
If nothing else: consider the changing landscape of personal and corporate computing. In case nobody's noticed: the traditional "PC" is a dying breed. No, at first blush you might not see that right off, but look for the small signs. And then extrapolate. Then, unless you're so hopelessly blinkered as to be blind to anything non-Windoze-PC, you'll see it. Why do you think Microsoft is hedging its bets with investments in things like WebTV, cable companies, wireless carriers, ISPs and Java? Hello?
Releasing Windoze source--even were they to GPL it--is inconsequential.
As Joe Bob Briggs (?) used to say: I'm surprised I had to explain this.
Again, obvious trolling. If I write a 50 page document, I want to be able to efficiently find spelling and grammar errors. Reading a document through a couple of times statistically reduces spelling and grammar (to a lesser degree) errors.
Microsoft doesn't publish the kernel API, becuase if they publish it, it's considered "supported" and changing it will break applications.
Linux changes the kernel API with every major release, they couldn't give a shit if things break.
As far as unpublished Win32 calls -- it doesn't happen anymore because MS got sick of hearing people bitch. What is common is that they will add a new feature, a Microsoft application will use it, and they won't publish the details until the day the MS App is released. (Scatter-Gather IO and SQL Server, for example.)
Not providing compatibility is not just shooting your foot, but blowing your whole leg off.
It's closer to not even bothering to load the gun.
Hey, speaking of blowing, your mom's over tonight blowing cocks. She must've taken a quart of jizz so far, but she keeps gulpin' it down! What a fat pig.
People whine about Microsoft not innovating, but they did these features way before anyone else.
Hey, girly, I thought that "innovation" was part of the problem? Oh wait, MS stole the desktop from Apple and the Office suite from your mom. Man, she sure does suck a mean cock! You fucking moron.
I'm going to go spend some time listening to Moonies.
And then visit the Scientologists.
And hey, I hear they have great Bar-B-Q at the Aryan Nation cookout!
As I read the article "open the source code" seemed microsoft speak for "license the source code to competitors". Nowhere was it said
"open source" or "GPL". Agreed, Microsoft already licenses the source. So, they are offering in a
ridiculous publicity stunt to do nothing at all.
Completely typical and predictable.
Is this not the same nick that posted a thousand messages over in the Inprise/Delphi/Linux article a couple of days ago?
Can you imagine trying to get NT5 to compile on your machine? Proprietary source/build control system, proprietary make-equivalent, proprietary build and test scripts... they have never planned to build it anywhere else but Microsoft.
Besides which, how are they going to extricate the unencumbered source code they wrote from the stuff they buy, rent, or steal from other people? Mozilla was hard enough, from all accounts; MS is likely to be an order of magnitude worse.
Finally, it really wouldn't solve the problem. While a few groups might bother to flail away at released source code, MS would be busy adding more DLL's, yet more wonderful API's (you can never have enough, you know), and continuing to leverage their monopolies and "decommodifying" protocols to their hearts' content.
Still, it's not the same. Sometimes Word just does weird things and you can't figure out why. For example, I'm writing something (Word98, not sure about 2k) and I need to start a new page. I press ctrl-enter, enter a title and center it. The paragraph on the previous page then becomes centered also. Then I move that paragraph back to the left, and the next page also moves to the left. Apparently starting a new page does not start a new paragraph, and centering can only apply to a paragraph. But it's hard to see this without viewing any codes, and it's a frustrating problem if you don't know what you're doing.
Like BeOS like Darwin to say nothing of true OSS ...
A home user spending 1000$ on software every 2 years and a license for every machine is silly - which is why most people don't pay.
In fact MS just lost a court case in Africa in which numberous companies were using multiply installed software (one CD for the whole company). The court ruled in favour of the defendants who claime: "the software is simply too expensive and we are poor".
It's not so much that MS's best of line software is that baad anymore (NT has always been usable as a desktop OS with the right hardware) - it's that it's WWAAAYYY TOOO EXPENSIVE.
Another good question: Would this be a bad thing? Real competition would probably improve Windows AND Linux. NO it wouldn't be a be a bad thing, we DON'T want to bring LINUX to everyone, we want to bring GOOD cheap SOFTWARE to everyone. Also, with Wine, Twin, Twine, VwWare, FreeMWARE, ReactOS, Freedows etc, MS is attacked from all directions already... or??
My Windows 98 uptime is often a few months, and I am pretty harsh on it.
It's just in the configuration.
Most Linux zealots are too dumb to operate even the "easiest OS."
And this would be different from the current situation how?
There's been some cases where MS "cut off the air supply" (source code access) to companies that they didn't want to deal with anymore. There was a lawsuit about this recently involving a Win32-to-Unix porting company.
(For example, Unisys's deal may be at the expense of supporting certain hardware features in Linux or Solaris or Unixware.)
I would think that to satisfy the government, they would need to provide at least equal access to the source code. This means that competitors like Lotus and Corel have the same access as the MS Office group.
You guys need to get your stories straight..
Considering that Linux is essentially a clone of BSD UNIX, mapping Linux system calls to BSD system calls should be relatively easy to implement on BSD (or any UNIX). However, you still need all of the shared libraries ditributed with the Linux kernel (an entire distribution, sans kernel).
WINE is attempting to clone the Windows kernel *and* all of the shared Windows libraries (the latter constitute, by far, the bulk of the Windows platform). This is a huge, complex undertaking, on a completely different level to the Linux system-call mapping in BSD.
Bill Gates has reported today that the average uptime for a Windows 98 machine is 2.1 days. For NT4, it's 5.8 days. He said this specifically to disprove 1000 Slashdot Anonymous Cowards.
Please contact the mothership and get updated astroturfing orders.
does the alarm sound if you do an http post?
Maybe later it will be useful but why rush to be compatible with Word? KOffice is free and doesn't have to do what the market share dictates.
For now it does framemaker style DTP exports to HTML etc and - like all X/Unix apps that use PS/ghostscript - prints to PDF files. It does it all for free with no need for MS-Word, Adobe doo-dads or anything else. And it is gonna be a darn nice web page designer too ...
He never fully recovered from his assimilation.
Sorry, but this ain't a court of law.
And just cuz they haven't been caught this week doesn't prove they don't still do it.
We would then have winmodem and winprinter drivers in source form and could easily learn the protocols for talking to them. That would make it possible for competing OS's to drive the hardware that's actually in a lot of people's computers.
Personally I still use both Windows and Linux on my system. The only things still keeping me in Win9x at all is the amount of money I have invested in games for it, and the fact that my Parallel Port TWAIN scanner doesn't work in Linux. Get all those games to work on Linux (with Wine or whatever) in their ORIGINAL form. As nice as those ports to Linux are, they are pretty meaningless when you've already shelled out $50 for the product in Win32 version. If Wine could run all Windows 9x software well (even if it took some reasonable configuration) I promise I'd reformat my other hard drive and be another Linux-only user.
One other thing in my meaningless rant: why should we even care if Win2000 is OSed? Win2k is a SERVER OS, and as Linux has proven of late it is already capable of clobbering NT in reliability, so what good would being able to see it even do us? What the heck would we even want with a Wine2k? A bunch of emulated Server software that no one would bother to use anyway, since the Linux version is more reliable and less of a system hog. Win2k can't run most Win9x games, and considering that it won't be a desktop OS probably won't have any killer apps which won't be available in Win9x versions.
OK, flame away (wait, I didn't include an email addy, oh well better luck next time)
Say at the end of the day it would be of interest for some third party developers, but whoever is thinking of his or here "improved" private little Windows version ... not.
Nobody comes closer to success with software bursting at the seams with unimaginable numbers of obscure features than Microsoft does
what about emacs? =P
Good lord, you mean he's a heretic? Quick, burn him at the stake! Ours is the universal truth, and he mustn't be allowed to corrupt the purity of our truth with his heretical ideas!
If we listen to those who disagree with us, and allow ourselves to think, we might even change our minds! Oh, the horror of it!
yeah maybe now linux will have USB support and PLUG N PLAY support
...just out of curiosity, what makes you think that there are any hidden API's remaining in current MS platforms? Saying "well, they did it before, see, and so there's gotta be some", or, worse, "well, they're evil, hidden API's are evil, so they must do it...", or even, "well, if *I* ran MS *I* would do it...". I would really love to see any kind of proof that they exist (note that simply having a DLL w/an export that isn't in MSDN does *not* mean there are hidden API's...)
I think it'd be quite humorous if they released the source code... all the source files in one very large, flat, directory, having changed all the variable names and (non-exported) function names...and no makefiles... :)
And what we're supposed to do w/ that ? Bug hunting ? ... ...
Hmm... i suggest we use randomly chosen lines of its code in the fortune program
And also, the Murphy law would need a revision after reading that code
Goggle has a backup of this, here goes the link
I guess that this would help the Freedows project. http://www.freedows.org/ Anyone hungry now, or is it just me?
We are not forced to buy Microsoft products, We are not forced to use microsoft products, Not in the server area nor the desktop... This is totaly wrong of our gov. just because MS is big, doesn't mean it should be broken up. I'm a die hard linux user. But the fact that they want them broken up is WRONG. I think our gov is in the wrong, I think we should break up the gov if anything!!!!! They are the ones taking 40% of my money every year, they are the ones how don't let ele cars in the us, STOP THE GOV not microsoft. MS is just as geeky as linux people. Guess what the gov will do when (if it ever does) Linux gets everywhere, They have the power to stop that too... I say stop and break up the goverment NOT MS. If not for MS there would be alot of things we wouldn't have right now... I thank MS for everything they have done. But we need to stand side by side and say WE WILL NOT TAKE THIS, AND WE WANT WHAT WE WANT.
take a look at http://www.mackichan.com/ their scientific word is what you are looking for. it uses (La)TeX as backend.
Strange as it may sound it may be in M$ best interests to Open Source Windows. Please consider that Win 2000 will probably be the last 32bit OS for M$. Secondly consider that Intel will be rolling out its Itanium 64bit processor. Despite the fact that M$ acknowledges that it has not even an alpha version of Win 64bit code they insist that thay will have an OS ready for the Itanium introduction. Could it possibly be that M$ is planning to release a 64bit Linux version of its own. M$ did hire Linux programers. Why would M$ do this? They could focus on porting their apps to 64bit Linux in time for the Itanium rollout. File compatability wouldn't be a problem for M$ between 32 and 64 bit versions. Since many businesses use M$ office apps they would continue to do so because they are familiar with them. M$ can sure market office apps! Since the future is 64bit applications, M$ can afford to open 32bit Windows source code, effectively abandoning it. Improvements and bug fixes would be up to the Windows community. OEM provide most of the tech support for Windows now anyway. Open sourcing would get the DOJ off its back and avoid a breakup. It would also give M$ good PR and start to change its Evil Empire image. PS: I tried to create an account, but haven't recieved my password yet. My Nick will be Markar.
Good justification for an often-made claim.
he will open source some grits.
God forbid! GCC has some standards.
What bs. Milly, as the media called it WinMe, isn't some bastard OS. Wait.. isn't it linux that's the bastard OS? huh...
WinMe isn't bad, its not worth more than $45 upgrade, like win98 was to 95. Its stable, quick, and all around pretty good. Of course, I hate not having DOS, which is why I requested MS distribute DOS seperately again, which would be fine by me.
Oh.. and I've been beta-testing it for a while, for MS.. they asked and I figured.. why the hell not? If MS does need to fix bugs, why not try to help them.
TummyX is a well-known Microsoft F.U.D. master and Microsoft Lover. He won't acknowledge that you are correct if your statement does not advance the interests of Microsoft. Sometimes you just have to wonder about these people. Microsoft only *pays* some of the people to lie for them. Others get nothing and yet still do it. It makes me wonder about those statements on the stupidity of the masses, but I guess getting into that would just be mean.
A quote from the excellent "NT Insider" publication from OSR (from the "Using the NT API for file I/O" article dated 1997):
One of the most interesting things about the NT API is that it has never been comprehensively documented by Microsoft. This makes NT the world's only commercially available operating system with an undocumented set of native system services!
When I first saw the heading, I began to laugh :)
Just a note: both are changable.
He didn't say they were unchangable, he said that figuring out how to turn them off is a pain in the ass. And he's right. Word does number of things automatically as you type, and configuration options to control this stuff is scattered across multiple dialogs. Besides that, as far as I'm concerned, this stuff shouldn't be turned *on* by default, anyways. If automatic numbered lists aren't turned on, you can still create them manually, so you still get what you want. But when they are turned on, there are situations where you have to wrestle with it to *prevent* that automatic creation, and thus have a lot of trouble getting what you want.
So what if they open the source code? Those buggy lines of code have most certainly *not* helped the money making machine named Microsoft. It is their infallible selling ability that has made them what they are. I have been watching superior products like Delphi/PowerBuilder thrashed by a much inferior VB? Would situation be any different if Inprise/Borland had the source code? Absolutely not. It's not a fight between better/worse product. It is a battle between who can Sell the things. And by the way, even with the API hooks on NT, SQL Server has been crashing 4 times a month at my workplace.
Um, those are TPC figures, NOT ms compiled ones, ms has no control over the content therein. The others are older because no one had beaten them in that long. You really should read up on the topic before commenting. These are the must unfudgable benchmarks imaginable.
Dr. Evil, of course. "I'll call him, Wini-Me".
Yes. All the "Show/Hide" button in Word doing is turning on or off the display of special characters like end-of-paragraph, and little dots to indicate spaces. The symbol display in WordPerfect is (and has to be) in a seperate window because the codes it displays are far more details - beginning and end of bold / italic / underline text, changes in font, etc. It's like looking at HTML source rather than a rendered page.
What good would open sourcing MS's software do the industry? All it would do is allow MS to steal the best feature of Linux! The peer review, better security and stability advantages Linux and other open source OS's have would dissappear, making Windows the choice for your desktop and server (and anything else). Bad idea. Coward, Anonymous
Forget spaghetti code. I bet the Windows Source contains the _Snow Crash_ metavirus.
You can talk about the number of people running NT/Win9X, or MS software until you are blue in the face
Or at least "Blue in the screen". Crappy, overpriced POS OS!
then why do you not complain when other big companies change their minds about open-source software?? open-source voice-rec, corel, solaris 8 type stuff... and yet for microsoft its just fear.
It's top fucking secret!
It would be better if the Justace Department was to require MS to open and maintain open all of its internet/networking technologies.
WinX=Past
Internet=Future
Reply to 1.
Couldn't they create a Windows compatibility test like Sun does for Java (100% pure Java, etc.)? Or Windows Standard Base or whatever?
Reply to 2.
The document formats in Office 2000 are all XML based! Obviously they can still change the formats, but it would be easier to deal with these than a binary encoded format.
One thing that has always bugged me about this whole deal is that MS's monopoly was financed on the backs of weak-kneed companies. Not just small companies, but HP, Dell, you name it. All these companies "bought in" and essentially financed Microsoft's dominance. They should have stuck up for themselves and done something.
I believe that avoiding market fragmentation has actually been a Good Thing for office users. Now I think it is time to move on though. Open standards and open software may not always be technically superior but in the *long run* I think they are the best solution, at least for essential software like OSes, browsers, and so on.
-K
I to generally do not like the government mixed up in things either, but it is the government that grants them the copyright on their works in the first place, so they are mixed up in it from the start.
How, exactly, would microsoft do what they do without government enforced copyright exclusivity?
Bob Clip - friend of A Nony Mouse ~;-)
You don't port a kernel to an OS, you port the OS to the kernel...
Bill: We need more programmers! And more code! MORE CODE! We can open the source under the MSGL (MS Greed License) and get the linux zealots to fix ALL the bugs for us. And then we can use this strategy to fend off major penalty from the DOJ over our ability to innovate.
Steve: NO WAY. Our products are TOO good to release and let the linux zealots have access to our code.
Bill: My dear friend steve, you have yet to realize that you are a marketing genius, not a technical one. Our Operating System is not very good, and by opening it up everybody will start to accept M$ because we are now "open source" and we can steal the light linux has in the media.
Steve: I still don't understand, how can we use this stragegy in the long run to strong arm competitors, steal ideas, rape the horses and ride off on the technical geniuses and other people's ideas?
Bill: Simple. We don't open the underlying protocols like COM, Internet XXX-ploder, and most importantly - Microsoft Orfice. The applications are becoming far more important than the OS, and we can use our well established monopoly to continue to rape end users, small business, foreign countries, and most importantly - the government.
Synchronous IO patches are available for linux, and have been for some time. They're just not in the main kernel distro, because the vast majority of people will never want synchronous I/O, and so the onus is on the syncio maintainers to keep up to date with linux core changes, rather than the other way around.
... according to the Yahoo article: Asked specifically about the prospect of opening Windows source code, Gates told Time magazine in November: ``The only thing we know for sure would be bad for consumers is [...] anything that made it so that when people buy Windows they don't know what's in it.'' That's closed source to the T!! Slick Billy's good at stickin' the ol' hoofer in it.
Microsoft's intellectual property does no one any good on the open field. It took the chicago team years to put that together. It is millions upon millions of lines of code. Its not like you could just download it onto cd. Its gigs and gigs large. And we are not counting device drivers and the like. You couldnt build it with gcc.. it wouldnt even come close to working. You cant cross compile it. You probably need some weird internal version of visual studio. Who are you all kidding? The community just cant absorb the source code, paradigm, and practices into it, and chew on it for a few months and magically produce a better version of windows... The windows source code would do little to help the efforts of WINE or any other project. The source code is no doubt fragmented and parts may be in assembly. How much good does that do you? None. Well publised APIs are a better place to start in reverse engineering than with source code that has had as many hands in it as windows 95. They'd be better off porting office to linux. They make a macintosh port, so we all know its doable. Not easy mind you, but doable with the right librarys and controls. Open sourcing it would devastate windows users, and the central control of the "everyman's OS" is gone. It would practically halt the further development of the OS... lets face it, windows is a good thing for the industry and the economy. WIth the advent of the home computer, there is a market for a simple os. Microsoft can control windows 9x, and share the at home user base with macintosh. I guess my point it.. open source is not the golden touch everyone thinks it is. It is not going to fix everything that ails that OS. Hope for office for linux. Now there's a useful community benefit.
is and forever will be the leader when it comes to operating systems for both the PC and server markets.
"You want drivers for that brand new GeForce 65535? "
No, not interested. I check the Hardware Compatibility HOWTO before making any hardware purchases.
"You want DSL? Sorry, your ISP only allows Windows. Linux is only used by hackers and frankly, we don't want to provide tech support. "
I have DSL, and even though my ISP does not provide support for my platform I still demand they fix their service when there's a problem. Or I'll take my money elsewhere. I like to rub their faces in the fact that I'm more reliable than they are.
"You want the latest release of Debian on CD? Sorry, Cheapbytes went out of business because everyone uses Windows now."
Unlikely.
"Not to mention that Debain is losing package maintainers left and right, the maintained package count is down to a record low of 522."
Possibly.I'd download the ISO anyways (remember I already *HAVE* DSL) also, I run Slackware.
"Exaggerated maybe, "
Could be...
"my point is that though market share is nice if we want corporate interest, "
Maybe. Do I care if there's corporate interest? Not really. Some would argue that the core community isn't too crazy about all the money chasers showing up lately.
"much more important for the free software community is mind share."
I still have my mind. No releasing the source to Windows won't radically change my life. If it were to happen (unlikely too much incriminating evidence (that Billy himself wasn't even aware of when he made the unguarded comment!)) and someone else invested time examining it, and found some funny stuff, and I heard about it, I'd give parts a look I suppose. I feel that OSS projects have many features that make them attractive. OpenSource is just one. I'm sure the points you make are valid ones for some people. Opening the Windows source would be big. I doubt anyone could predict the effects it would have on the computer industry. I also don't think M$ has the balls to do it.
I was an Intern at Microsoft, I attended the company meeting this year. (lots of free food!) Steve Ballmer litterally stood on the stage and screamed: "Some people have been saying we are giong to Open Source Windows. Well I'm here to tell you will not opensource Windows in it's entirety or even in part." *applause*
:-)
Someone over there must be really really scared.
it was less that Apple did not liscence it than that Microsoft did not bother finishing the port.
Windows NT _ran_ on the PowerPC for a short while but not anymore now that MS decided they really didn't want to bother with a PPC NT.
> due to the nature of NT it can
> ported to most any platform without much work
Not anymore
HAL is dead
-ac
If true, this could be a shrewd marketing ploy to kill a tiny segement of the IT industry -- open source OS's in general... and it might work.
They may win an obfuscated code contest or two.
Not a chance. It violates too many of the rules. For example:
2) Your entry must be <= 3217 bytes in length. The number of characters excluding whitespace (tab, space, newline), and excluding any ; { or } immediately followed by whitespace or end of file, must be <= 1536.
Does anyone seriously think any single piece of Windows is this small?
6) The uudecoded ---program--- section must be able to be compiled cleanly by an ANSI C compiler, or if there are any compile errors, they must be documented in the ---remark--- section.
I'm guessing that the Windows source requires a specific version of MS C or Visual C++. It certainly is not portable. And I doubt they could figure out how to uuencode it before the submission deadline.
7) The program must be of original work. All programs must be in the public domain. All copyrighted programs will be rejected.
Do they accept GPL?
10) Entries requiring human interaction to be built are not allowed.
Do you think MS understands a build from the command line using make?
11) Programs that require special privileges (setuid, setgid, super-user, special owner or group) are not allowed.
This rules out the kernel of any OS.
12) Legal abuse of the rules is somewhat encouraged. An entry that, in the opinion of the judges, violates the rules will be disqualified. Entries that attempt to abuse the rules must try to justify why their rule abuse is legal in the ---remark--- section.
"Did not!" is not a very convincing argument.
I was just using OPEC as an example of collusion that brought higher prices -- but,
Well it's not so simple. There are a number of problems with rolling out alternative energy. The oil/gasoline industry isn't a natural monopoly per se, but the barriers to entry are extremely high because:
1) not only emphasis on competition to oil and gasoline, but emphasis on "clean"/environmentally friendly energy.
2) auto makers obviously being in the pockets of large oil producers. They, themselves, border on certain oligopolistic behaviors; though, unions partially spread the wealth..
3) cost of change over or having multiple sources of energy.
4) questions of efficiency of alternative energy(though, there are many factors in this)
5) There aren't many companies that want to take on OPEC. We'll likely see this last until the resource is gone -- and hopefully by then, they wouldn't have invested in all the different kinds of alternative energies.
Anyway, I was just using it as an example of price fixing. At least there are some "cheating" countries such as Saudi-Arabia and Kuwait to keep prices relatively down. The threat of alternative energy though, is relatively small right now..
Hello, Mike. I think you made a bad analogy here. In the world of computers, there are very good (read reliable, easier to use/maintain) competitors to Windows. Yet they have been harmed by the monopoly power of Microsoft, and will compete beter once there is some restitution from Microsoft to the industry, whether a breakup or a huge fee or an opening of the source. In the auto industry, and I have a few years in the testing field here, the elec/solar cars, etc do not perform anywhere near as well as the standard gasoline engined autos of today. They do not have the range, the powercurve, horsepower, torque or reliability. I can go roughly 600 miles on a 14 gal tank in my car, driving at a steady 75 mph. There is no option (yet).
I use Linux because from my perspective, it's a well thought out, usable, and elegant system. I would be very happy if Windows became, from my perspective, a well thought out, usable, and elegant system. Offtopic: Windows is probably the best thing that ever happened to Linux. Without Windows, would we have GNOME, KDE, etc?
It's not like it really matters who they release it to, even if it only officially goes to Microsoft competitors, it'll get out somehow. ;-)
Well, as they have worked so hard to establish in the ongoing trial Linux is a competitor and so I do not see how they can avoid releasing it to us. :-P
Admitting past indiscretions proves their guilt.
I think it'd be quite humorous if they released the source code... all the source files in one very large, flat, directory, having changed all the variable names and (non-exported) function names...and no makefiles...
You can take a look at the source code layout here: http://www.sysinternals.com/nt5src.htm
just how "integrated" is IE? :) I've always wondered if a programmer could actually be dumb enough to embed such a huge application into an operating system (especially as one as unstable as IE!).
They'll never release the source code. Their source code is likely to be extremely shoddy. Why risk ridicule?
Even for our average Office users the functionality and integration is NOT their for StarOffice (yet). Nor is it a money maker for Sun, nor will it be in the immediate future.
Say what you will about MS but they are a moving target. Unless Sun develops beyond the current Office suite they have no hope of catching them. MS is also very effective in getting the user base to upgrade, something few other vendors do well. As such Sun's job (or Corel's for that matter) is difficult at best.
Could someone unseat MS as the office suite king? Definately!! Will they is another question. They need a technically superior product (StarOffice does NOT qualify, WP is at least as good as Office though for word processing but loses it in every other category) and a sales force better than MS's.
In sofware the rule is not "build it and they will come", it is "sell and and they will come, then you can build it to fill in the feature set".
A banana should never taunt a 10,000lb hungry gorilla even if the banana is dressed like a penguin.
No, that's the real code name.
It will probably be marketed as "Windows 98 Third Edition." to prevent confusion with Windows 2000 and the upcoming Windows 2000 Consumer version.
Both MS SQL 4.2 and NT 3.1 are 7 years old at this point, so don't speak in the present tense. All of the single logon functionality that he is talking about is now widely used by third parties.
As for NT's wire protocols -- it's true that they aren't documented, but Allison did not claim that he required kernel API information to make Samba work.
Yeah. The problem with ms is that they corrupt the standards put forth which promote competitive behavior. With such a large market share, especially on the desktop, they can effectively subvert competition by using unfair controls as illustrated in the anti-trust suits.
What happens then, is MS becomes the standard and certain proprietary protocols / file formats / whatever, are only available on windows.
This is exacerbated by many companies apparently unwilling to make an attempt to support alternative operating systems, or who do, but make a half assed attempt (ie Real Networks).
Microsoft came into being through free market forces, but the question is, have they created unfiar barriers to entry? If so, hopefully the momentum of linux and other alternative operating systems will smash right through.
Hi, If anyone has a MP3 of this pleeeease post it. the story is at - http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,34424, 00.html
Yet even Oracle loses data in certain situations.
If MS -would- (and that's a big "would") open source the code to Windows, and it was under a GPL'ish license, that would be incredible. Assuming hackers could get their hands on it and start ironing out the "kinks", Windows might actually become useable and *GASP* stable.
Who cares if Microsoft want to Open their Source if they don't release it as liberated software, like Linux, under a Free Software license (GPL)?
Well you still get the Win32 API (common on both Win9x and NT).. just having API access means that Windows apps can perhaps run on Any OS... I would love to see it happen.. and I like Microsoft. What I invission it turning into is like the MS-DOS thing.. You have DR-DOS, and PC-DOS and them MS-DOS.. everyone would buy the microsoft varient because "people don't get fired for buying microsoft" Look at it this way... Corel Office and Smart Suite all both very good office suites (and to a lesser extent star office) and yet MS office still rules... and so I believe that MS windows would still rule... but it's still a good thing... perhaps in the future you can walk into a store and see (for example) IBM Windows, Redhat Windows, Corel Windows, etc. and have a choice of what Windows varient you could run. But Microsoft would still find a way to dominate perhaps... and maybe open source would be good for microsoft from a compatibility standpoint...being able to upgrade directly from any windows varient to MS windows would sure be a good selling point for Microsofts future windows versions..... interesting...
Yes, I thought of this too... However, as Microsoft has (convenatly) pointed out, Linux is a "direct" competitor to Windows and Microsoft. Since Linux "competes" with Windows, any source release to competitors would _have_ to include Linux based on Microsoft's own claims. And thus, the developers of Linux (read: all of us) would/should be given unrestricted access to the code.
;P
Things that Mirosoft would undoubtly NOT include (for various reasons):
- IE. After all, it IS a seperate program.. erm..
- DUN128. No export rules.. doh
- All Microsoft(tm) Encryption.. well, it never seemed to work ANYWAY (see BO).
- MS-DOS 7. Yeah, Windows is just a shell, after all, and DOS 7 would not be included.
So after all that is stripped out, whats left? A bloated, non-functional, ugly, tangled mess that would take longer to organize than Mozilla has taken to develop. Oh wait, that's the current development structure WITHIN Microsoft... nevermind..
Also they never said ANYTHING about restrictions on distribution and licensing.
Verbatim
'' delete the alternate control.
I just found an article on Yahoo that says this rumor is not true at all.
Check out the link
"Everybody knows the moon's made of cheese," Wallace.
Gates's remarks were taken out of context. The original story has been updated .
If people are to respect the law, perhaps the law should begin by respecting the people.
duh... :)
---------------------------
A wise man speaks because he has something to say.
A foolish man speaks because he has to say something.
____________________________
What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?
"Make me one with everything."
Someone will port the Linux kernel to it, and then Micro$oft will rule forever...
WHAT A F*CKING ...YOU CAN MODERATE AC UP!!!!!!
The real mnf999 always posts as anonymous coward
come on *that* insightful?
marc
The real mnf999 always posts as anonymous coward
My fellow Americans, should Microsoft release their source, we will have to take a pre-emptive strike against them, and remove them, along with all of the greater Seattle area, to Canada, so that we may save the way of life for every American.
The future is in your hands. Thank you, and God bless.
The GOOD NEWS:
The Windows 2000 source code ships complete and compressed on one single CD!
The BAD NEWS:
It's lossy compression
Without government intervention, we'd have only one railroad, one steel company, one oil company, etc. Go read up on the history of anti-trust actions and you'll understand that the government must intevene to prevent monopolies.
Phone service improved dramatically after the breakup of AT&T. (Which was a legal, government sponsored monopoly.) Remember when you couldn't hook up any device to the phone line unless it was made by AT&T? This included other vendors's phones and answering machines! And forget about using any modem not made by AT&T... (You may not be old enough to remember this, but I sure do.)
I recommend the recent book (past two or so years) on John D. Rockefeller and Standard Oil. Very interesting, particularly in light of the Microsoft trial.
Being a monopoly means never having to say you're sorry.
Microsoft says that Bill didn't say they'd open the source.
No you're wrong. There is no either, or argument for the free market. It's called balance. You're right that there are many government given monopolies, but there are and would be others without anti-trust legislation. Depending on the industry, there are many ways for a company to unfairly compete or increase barriers to entry. It's just a consequence of concentrated power and money.
A perfect example that no one can do anything about is OPEC. A colluding oligopoly. There are industries where events such as this occur privately and they should not be allowed to exploit their powerful situation. The same goes for some monopolies. It's anti-competitive.
In short, the competitive free market is the best solution.
If you actually READ the article you provided, you'd know that Bloomberg claims that Bill G. said (off-camera) that he'd open Windows' source to settle the lawsuit.
What you would see if that a very LARGE percentage of the code contains many delicate, carefully reasoned hacks and workarounds that are used to enable competing products. I've seen the checkin mail, and I have to say that I am blown away by two things:
Yes I do work there.
Oh you check the Hardware Compatability Howto, how brilliant.
Get the point: what happens when you want a new SCSI controller, but you have to settle for one that's a generation old and slow as molasses because Linux doesn't support ANY of the new ones?
Agreed. Example from my econ book:
"
4. Barriers to entry encourage rent seeking. Grants of special favor (protection from competition) will lead to resources being devoted to rent seeking - lobbying, campaign contributions, etc. Some or all of rent seeking will be inefficient, resources are being diverted from productive activities to potential wasteful activities. Could be an overall reduction in welfare for society from the inefficient allocation of resources, contributing to the allocative inefficiency discussed in #2.
Example: Suppose a city or state (or federal) government considers granting a limited number of licenses providing a seller with some exclusive right to sell liquor, operate a taxicab, operate a car wash, offer legal/medical services, operate a cable TV company, inspect homes, cut hair, tow cars for the city, etc. Suppose this is new legislation being considered and assume that the legal protection from competition is worth $100,000 over the life of the license. How much would individual sellers be willing to spend to get the license? Other potential suppliers would also be willing to spend that amount trying to convince public officials that they will best "serve the public interest", resulting in more resources being spent collectively than $100,000, resulting in economic waste
"
This means that since government gives monopoly and/or extra power to "special interests", there is a continued incentive to do so because of this. This is a type of government control that is not in the interest of consumers. There is some government control that is good such as in natural monopolies like some cable companies (you don't want companies constantly digging up the street to install lines to your house do you?).
Where you go wrong is assuming that a deregulated system will act itself to self regulate. Trust relationships come into play here to make sure that corporations play nice and don't leverage their advantages of being bigger to prevent other companies from competing.
Here is what the book says to fix this problem (ATC = Average total cost; MR = Marginal Revenue; MC = Marginal costs: P = Price; Q = quantity;)
"POLICY ALTERNATIVES WHEN ENTRY BARRIERS ARE HIGH
Economists suggest four policy options when barriers are high.
1. Restructure the industry to increase the number of firms - maybe. In some cases, it is possible that a single dominant large firm has a "natural monopoly", since it has significant cost advantages over smaller firms. ATC is declining over the entire range of market demand. In this case, breaking up the monopoly would actually be inefficient, since the result would be more, smaller firms with higher costs. As long as there is a theat of potential competition, low entry barriers, the market is contestable and therefore efficient and competitive. Examples: a) single drug store, hardware store, restaurant in a small town, b) ALCOA, c) Microsoft?.
2. Reduce artificial barriers to trade - tariffs, quotas, licensing requirements, regulations. Deregulate the industry, open it up to competition, e.g. trucking and airlines in the early 80s. In many (most?) cases, the source of barriers to entry is the government itself, since it is government that is passing laws to restrict competition - tariffs, occupational licensing, regulations, etc.
Example: tariffs are a barrier to entry, since they impose a tax on foreign goods, giving the domestic firm a cost advantage by protecting them from competition. Protectionism protects the domestic firms from competition. Domestic firms can be disciplined by foreign competition, serving the interests of consumers.
Special interest issue. Domestic suppliers are concentrated and well-organized, and consumers are poorly organized and widely dispersed. Special interest groups will take advantage of consumers, resulting in too much regulation/protectionism from an overall efficiency standpoint.
Reducing artificial barriers to trade is economically desirable, but may not be politically realistic/feasible.
3. Regulate the protected producer, such as a regulated utility (phone, gas, electric companies, cable TV), being regulated by a state regulatory agency. See page 277. Unregulated monopolist would produce Q0 units and charge price P0, (MR = MC) resulting in P > MC and P > ATC. Solutions:
a. Average cost pricing. The regulatory agency could force the monopolist (electric company) to charge P = ATC, which would be P1, resulting in Q1. Society is better off, lower price and higher output increases welfare.
Problems with Regulating utilities, monopolies:
a. Lack of accurate information. It might be hard to accurately determine P = ATC, demand and cost curves are not easily observable. Usual solution: Regulated monopolist is supposed to earn a "normal accounting rate of return", which would be the same as "zero econ profits." If the utility's returns are too high (low), its regulated prices/rates are too high (low), need to be lowered (raised). However, the protected monopolist would try to do what?
b. Cost shifting/inefficiency. Regulated utilities have a fixed rate of return by the regulatory agency. Therefore, they will not have strong incentives to operate efficiently. If it find ways to reduce costs, its profits will rise, resulting in a price (rate) reduction by the regulators to reduce the "excessive" profits. On the other hand, if its cost of production rise, it knows it can apply to the reg agency for a rate increase. Managers of the utility, undisciplined by the market, will be more likely to fly first class, attend conferences in exotic places, spend lots of money entertaining (maybe on regulators), give high wage increases, give jobs to family/friends, etc. "Shirking" behavior by managers - increase personal benefits and increase costs, resulting in inefficiency, higher prices, rates.
c. Special interest influence. Regulated firms will try to influence the political process of regulation, try to have regulators appointed who will be favorable to the monopoly. "Capture theory" - utility benefits from regulation if they can "capture" (persuade, bribe, or threaten) the regulators, so that the regulators are favorable to what the utility/monopoly wants. Inefficiency results because the monopolist controls (influences) the regulatory process in their favor. Also, incestuous, inbreeding behavior is common - ex-regulators may be hired as a manager or "consultant" of the utility, managers of the utility may eventually become regulators, etc.
Public choice theory of special interests again. Widely dispersed, poorly organized consumers are taken advantage of by well-organized, concentrated special interest groups - the regulated monopolist.
4. Have government-operated firms supply the market, e.g. US Post Office, Tennessee Valley Authority (electric utility), local public utilities, public schools, roads, fire and police departments, etc. However, the same perverse managerial incentives apply as in the case of a regulated monopoly - ignore efficiency, promote personal objectives, etc - because the govt-operated firm is insulated from competition - no direct competitors. No reward for efficiency, cost effective operation. In fact, there is a perverse incentive to fail - why?
Rationally ignorant voters-taxpayers don't have the incentive to monitor the govt monopoly. Result of govt operated business - less efficient, higher cost operation compared to a private firm. US Post Office vs UPS. Target vs Dept of Motor Vehicles.
Conclusion: Government intervention is a two-edged sword. If used judiciously and wisely, it can increase competition by enforcing contracts and property rights, prosecuting fraud, deceptive or misleading business practices, providing a minimal regulatory framework, impose standards, etc. However, it can reduce overall economic efficiency by erecting barriers to entry, granting special favors to protected indsutries/firms, etc. Organized special interest groups engaged in rent seeking, appealing to short-sighted politicians, taking advantage of rationally ignorant consumers/voters. Therefore, most govt solutions are not terribly attractive and are not necessarily superior to the market outcome.
The real danger is the "coercive monopoly", the firm that has some type of legal protection against competition that erects legal barriers to entry. A "coercive" monopoly by definition requires government intervention, since a private firm cannot coercively restrict competition. HIGH BARRIERS TO ENTRY usually require GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION of THE MARKET. True monopolies are a creation of the govt, not of the market. Policy conclusion, minimize government intervention.
Dynamic, competitive nature of the market is demonstrated by the composition of firms in the economy - of the 500 firms in the 1980 Fortune 500 list only half made it to the 1990 list. Constant change disciplines firms, successful firms attract resources to expand. The more the dynamic the economy, the less likely it is that regulations will be effective.
"
I bought my copy as a grad student - the student price is far far lower than $769 (I think I paid between $100 - $200). I've seen it on sale in catalogs at pretty good prices as well.
Well, you seem not to have read the posts Squirtle quoted well enough. You just don't mention two of Jeremy Allison's claims: first, that Microsoft SQL server, which is an _application_, makes use of an NT kernel call that used to be undocumented; second, that in implementing applications such as Kerberos 5 and Samba on NT, he has _needed_ to make use of the kernel interfaces.
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- Feature-complete drivers released by the companies themselves, because their business depends on us
- Applications released simultaneously on both platforms at the same level of quality (except ours would crash less)
- More development in general at all levels of Linux
I can't wait!Ugh. The marketing division at Microsoft is getting as bad as the programming division.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
"Ideas were long considered communal property" or however it said it... I like :)
Good link.
Sorry, I slipped and typed linux instead of windows. Regardless, all my arguements still stand and are true. As you may recall, I said in my original post that it is nothing new, that they already do it, so you dont need to tell me such thing. You are just reiterating what I already said. They are under no obligation to show the source to the linux community, in fact, I wouldnt doubt if they didnt. By only showing the source to other companies to build on, and release there own version (which is still windows), they are helping windows grow, and directly compete with linux. I dont understand why you think they are obligated to show the linux community the source code, especially if like you say, they consider linux a competitor.
Jeff Knox
Thanks dude, you just gave me a line to use the next time anyone at work (or in the family =P) gives me crap about my long hair. (not quite where you've got it, but it'll be there in a couple months)
"Fundamentalist forces are undermining the integrity of liberal and democratic political structures."
Yup, and what happened to the Unix world in the 90's as a result?
Survival of the fittest. May the best survive... but woe be if only one is left.
Ten different versions of Windows from ten different companies, hooray! You can bet your bottom dollar that all ten companies would strive to be as compatible and easy to support as possible, and the operating system would become a lot simpler by necessity.
Any company who sells an operating system which is widely regarded to be buggy and/or a pain to support, where there are other reasonably usable and compatible alternatives available, will be on the rocks very shortly. The only reason Microsoft has survived this long has been that there *haven't* been reasonably usable and compatible alternatives.
The source is the ultimate documentation. If I compile a copy of windows, and a Microsoft app doesn't work on the copy I compiled, but does on a binary copy I bought from Microsoft, then it's apparent they haven't opened the actual source to Windows, just something Windows-like. In other words, if the real source is truly available, there can no longer be any undocumented calls in Windows.
Is it just me, or did this article appear, disappear, and then re-appear?
The original story linked to a better article; it explained the situation better than the C|Net link.
please Please PLEASE don't confuse Open Source with GPL.
I wonder who Bill considers his competitors? Not me, I'll bet. This doesn't sound like they're going to give the source away, just let `competitors' have a peek.
Yes, but coming from a TeX and FrameMaker background, logical markup rather than physical markup (e.g., "section header" rather than "14 point Helvetica bold") is completely intuitive, and thus to me, styles have always made complete sense.
Word still has some way to go, though. When reapplying a paragraph style for example, I don't want it to offer to change the style definition to match the existing text. Can Word do hyperlinking like FrameMaker? My current techincal docs could really use that. And it would be nice if "update entire table" in a table of contents didn't reset the fscking font! I don't want my function names to be in small caps... And it would be really useful if it could perform a section sort. By that I mean sort the entire document (or part thereof), based on paragraph styles — each section (delimited by a given paragraph style) remains intact, but the sections themselves are sorted to be in alphebetical order, based on the text in the chosen style. Of course, vi-style editing keys would make my life a lot easier :-)
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
...use publishing software!
Sure, Quark is a major kick in the wallet, but there's other, cheaper packages out there that don't make you resort to sticks and rocks (e.g. LaTeX). For example, Adobe PageMaker is pretty decent. It's no Quark, but it's decent. PageMaker is not too expensive. Just sell some ads and pick up a copy or two. You should be able to get an academic discount.
Word is for writing reports and letters, and if you have graphical needs, seek other packages.
This probably would not be far from the truth.
They may win an obfuscated code contest or two.
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
Ooh! You've got a slightly faulty assumption there. TeX is a typesetting language. You use it to define what things *are* and what things look like.
PageMaker and Quark, while they have 'styles' which function similarly, are largely compositing programs. Most of what they do revolves around where things are placed on a page and how they interact with other things.
Layout is not the same as typesetting, though dtp has been blurring the lines for some years now.
At any rate, AFAIK there aren't any good Unix layout programs. Framemaker is more typesetting-oriented than layout-oriented. That's why it gets used more often for books or other large bodies of similar-looking papers and such.
(and don't get me started on why the gimp isn't ready for prime time....)
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Mankind has always dreamed of destroying the sun.
Releasing the specs does not make it an open implementation. Third party implementors will always be a generation behind Microsoft. Microsoft is free to release an incompatible version at any time, or make changes to the specs with out any consultation with any third party vendors. Those vendors would then be screwed. Microsoft can release changes to the specs to its internal developers long before they are available to the rest of the world, giving the internal groups a huge jump on the rest of the world. In addition, Microsoft's changes to the spec does not have to be made for any other reason than their own narrow interests - a change could be made simply to make the lives of third party implementors difficult, not necessarily for any specific technical reason. Unless there is a cooperative process to develop specifications the fact that they eventually get published does not make them open.
...if you are talking about a licence good enough for a blessing from opensource.org. Not gonna happen, ever!
I can only imagine what a Microsoft "Generaly Availible Source" (nicknamed GAS)licence would look like. It would likely contain things like...
We own and retain complete control over any work derived, created, or concieved by anyone who has ever looked at any portion of this source code. By looking at this source code you agree to comply with the new world order. Did we mention we included a small part of command.com in the EULA? Your soul is mine.
Then all they would have to do is lobby to pass the Microsoft Millenia Copyright Act (DMCA^H^H^H^H MMCA)to legalize shrink wrap licences. Then all software would belong to them.
OK, OK fair enough, Richard Stallman would be exempt.
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
>They have a large R&D labs and could turn out an
>amazing amount of wonderful code if they were
>just taken and shoved into the light kicking and
>screaming.
I love that mixed metaphor. I'm going to have to rip it off sometime.
Tis true, tis true! I shall go as well.
Weirdly, though, the mainstay of Office, Word for Windows, has glitches that have propogated from waaaay back to today. The Master Document feature is a classic case in point. Every tech writer who's ever written a manual in Word has wished the damn thing worked reliably. Sometimes, Master Document's great. Other times, it surreptitiously and irretrievably munges the master document and all the subdocuments. If MS knows why, they aren't telling, and the Office applications team certainly don't seem to be in a hurry to fix this, either.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
I use WYSIWYG tools. When someone bolts a civilized interface on TeX, then we'll talk. Until then, I have work to do.
Me too, and ditto for millions of TWs everywhere, which is why so many of us who are hip to Linux wish there were a freeware WYSIWYG interface to TeX. I want to do the stuff that PageMaker, Quark, Word, and FrameMaker do, but I don't want to be in markup hell trying to do it -- I'm on deadline!
When there IS a front-end to TeX like the one described above, look out, Adobe.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
Microsoft completey denies those statements were ever made.
here
Funny that reuters and slashdot just posted opposite stories.
-Rich
1. Even if they open source Windows, they will still sell their own proprietary version and guess what... their office apps will only run on their version.
2. It's not the OS, it's the APPS that count. Have then open source Office and then they might loose their grip (over document formats and the endless upgrade).
1. If Microsoft is broken up, there will be a company that will be completely dependent on revenue from the Windows operating sysems. I don't see such a company changing its business model so as to free the source and become a services company; the change is too drastic. They would fight toothe and nail until the bitter end.
2. If Microsoft is NOT broken up, and the source to Windows is opened, the whole of Microsoft will still be focused on developing for Windows only. They would still employ most of the people who work on the code. There will be other distributions, but the Value-Added Official MS version would still be bought by lots of people and corporations. Basically, Microsoft could continue to bundle features into Windows and sell it, unhindered by accusations of monopoly.
Case 1 provides lots of innovation bearing competition for the personal computer industry. Case 2 just shifts the balance a little bit and even opens up the door for more anti-competitive practices. I sincerely hope that the government doesn't settle for a second rate solution.
I'm guessing Microsoft will do what they did with the Caldera case, basically Caldera had to keep hounding Microsoft for all of the Win 3.x code. Finally when the courts forced them to release the last bit they refused to give to Caldera, they found the "smoking gun" as it were.
Do you honestly think the DOJ would be able to tell if the entire code base was opened? Besides, with Microsoft being Microsoft, they will most likely only release a small part of an old version of windows, and say "Look, it's Windows source code!" Never mind it's source to Win 1.X. *sigh* I'll be so happy when this case is done with and the judge makes his decision.
"If you insist on using Windoze you're on your own."
I agree. In fact, by releasing the source code to windows, Microsoft would have the ability to sue anyone who wrote some sort of compatable system, such as Wine.
IBM tried this itself in the early 80s when they created the first IBM PC. They released the full specification to thier BIOS makeing it difficult to find engineers who had not seen the code to create a clone of it.
THier computer was almost entirely off-the shelf parts to begin with, so this way, they have a legal means to stop anyone from re-creating their computer.
It would be very difficult to finish the Wine project if this were to happen.
So if you're making "flow" style documents, why the heck would you want WYSIWYG?
WYSIWYM tools like LyX are far easier. They take care of the formatting for you. Office just makes it easier for you to screw things up.
Oh yeah, I remember why I installed Linux in the first place. Try installing Win98, then MSOffice and then upgrading to IE 5.0. Now run Word. Gee, aren't illegal operations fun? You'd think (if you were a naive newbie) that since they are all MS products they'd work fine together...
I think that we should discern from antificial market forms created by government intervention and judicial intervention based on principles of fair trade. Government intervention is such behaviour as was very popular in Asa before the collapse, and which your bastard US Government has been using to screw over our agricultural markets. This is in contrast to judicial intervention in the name of free trade. If only the judges could expel Clinton on the same grounds, world trade would be in a far happier state.
Adam Smith himself believed that the worst enemy of capitalism was a successful capitalist - and this is Microsoft. Particfularly when their success is build on corporate muscle, marketing and crap and certainly not technology or 'innovation'.
Compliments to you for having the balls to sign a name to potentially contentious comments.
Believe with me, my saplings.
Isn't this case all about the consumer version of MS Windows, aka:9x versions? This is where they have a monopoly and where they have leveraged that monopoly. They are just getting started with NT or Windows00 as they now call it. Just like when they signed the Java license with Sun and that 1994 Consent Decree, Microsoft is not going to kill their own baby (reference to QuickTime from the court documents). I was pissed when the case in 1994 was taken from Judge Sporkin and signed and I will be WAY PISSED if anything less then a major reconstruction and major sanctions are applied.
Bill and Steve are no fools and lets hope the DOJ isn't this time around either.
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
One of the main issues with running Win32 apps in OS/2 is that MSFT moved just a few of the applications resources into the 1GB address space. You see, currently OS/2 ONLY supports 512MB of addressing within each application/process. The new Aurora kernel gives OS/2 up to 3GB of addressing and there all ready is talk of getting MS Office apps running native in OS/2 by using the Project Odin dll&exe conversion tool. This is very much like the Win16 code MSFT gave up to IBM when they split. MSFT is willing to give up the Win9x code because Win00 (sucky names IYAM) is where they are going. I say, don't deal and blow them into tiny pieces. So small and weak that they won't be able to put Humpty Bill back to gether again. That includes busting MS Office up or making two companies, each with the source and each competing. IMHO
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
My biggest question, apart from what dirty diapers will be aired, uh, what portions of the OS will be exposed, is:
:-)
Will M$ ever accept a single mod suggested by anyone else or will it just be Bu$ineSS aS USual!
OpenSource is more that just putting the code out there (since it doesn't have to be ther real code or the current code,) OpenSource listening to some unpleasant truths about the quality and quantity of code that M$ has produced to date.
My advice would be to handle it like a baby's diaper. You KNOW what its full of. You know where it belongs. Just put it there and shut the lid
Maybe M$ will get smart, put their billions of dollars of investment in their cash cow, uh, operating system, out to pasture, become an application company and build their business around Linux, but I wouldn't hold my breath (unlike during the diaper disposal.) Not as long as there's a dollar to be squzed from the wallets of the gullible.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Who knows? This may bring about more good to Microsoft, too.
- Millions of eyes will be trained on Windows bugs, and what may not itch some microserf will mightily itch someone else...
- Microsoft may see that there are better OS cores (did I hear someone say "kernel"?) than what it currently offers... So, who knows, it may churn out Microsoft Wine
... - This may signal a new beginning of absolute interoperability; software could run easily on much more platforms...
- Some zealots could even port Windows for the Macintrash...
- Or why doesn't Microsoft realize that it could benefit from OSing it's OSs? It could concentrate on lucrative application markets, and leave the debugging of the software running the servers to the people who have a bigger stake at having it bugless...
Now, I suppose that all Billy Boy would need to do to do that is to stop listening to the lawyers and the MBAs and the marketroïds for 5 minutes...--
" It's a ligne Maginot-in-the-sky "
Either way, whether Microsoft opens it or not, this clearly shows that the weight of the idea behind open-source software has on the largest software company is far from being negligible.
--
" It's a ligne Maginot-in-the-sky "
Doubt about a gazillion of security holes. Number of people who can actually find one is limited, and many of them could have looked into the code for long time under certain NDS and so on. They did pass quite some of outside scrutiny, including by government agencies.
So it would be fun to take look, but I doubt it will just fall apart...<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Sold here . Who cares about the source code?
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
Microsoft would be willing to open the source code for its Windows software to competitors...
:(
They agreed to source it to competitors, not the average Joe. That means you and I never get to see it
Poopdick.
Of course they're willing -- because it wouldn't do a damn thing. The only people who would care about OpenWindows are techies like us. It would probably make Microsoft even stronger.
----
"Oh, bother," said Pooh, as he hid Piglet's mangled corpse.
Worlds largestBSOD?
Word could never have "Reveal Codes" because there are no 'codes' in Word -- every style is a property of either a character or a paragraph object. Show Paragraph Symbol let you see where paragraphs begin and end, if it's non-obvious in your document, you can also show the style name to the left of the text.
This, IMO, is the Right Way to design a GUI word processor.
I had the same experence as you using WordPerfect for Windows (5.1 and 6 - it might have changed by now) -- deleting a block of text would turn my whole document into 24 pt Bold text, just because I accidentially deleted the </B> <FONT> 'code' which had stupidly wrapped paragraphs. WP is only usable with "Reveal Codes" on, which is hardly WYSIWYG -- you might as well just write HTML.
I guess I had the opposite e
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Word includes a PageMaker-like drag+drop interface (that is too retarded to be worthwhile) -- this replaces the old Word v4/5/6/95 'frames' option (also totally broken).
If your documents are complex enough to need this feature, I'd suggest getting a program that can really handle the job.
(While on this topic -- have you noticed how totally braindead Word's drawing tools are? The sad thing is that when I got Mac Word v4.0 as a student many years ago (for $35), it came with a free copy of "SuperPaint". SuperPaint kicks Word 9's sorry drawing tool's ass from here to Sunday, and it's a 10 year old program.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I'm not going to flame you -- OS/2 is an OK system, not great. It's lacking even when compared to WinNT in certain departments.
However you have to understand is that one reason banks use(d) OS/2 extensively is because IBM tied a bunch of mainframe SNA freindly applications in with the OS in the early days. Back in the old days, this was considered quite a feature because it allowed you to do client-server stuff with your mainframes. It also gave a lot of people the feeling that IBM wanted to turn your personal computer into a 5250 terminal, and wanted to crush the PC Server market to protect their profit margins.
Now that IBM big iron talks TCP/IP, HTTP, ODBC, JDBC, XML and so on, and even runs Linux in a VM, why would anyone bother with a SNA-based client application? And without the special application support, why bother with the 'deviant' OS? (to quote an old dilbert strip)
I hate to say it, but at this point OS/2 is essentialy 'legacy' (which means that if it's working, don't replace it). They really ought to release the source and let the people who really care take a crack at it.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
When Win95 was released, IBM said that if they had source code access (as they did with Win 3.x), it wouldn't be a problem to get it running on WinOS2.
I don't know if IBM would bother at this point, but it would be nice if Microsoft allowed a source release of the versions of OS/2 it co-owns (v2.0 and below). This would allow IBM to open source most or all of the later versions.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Like I said -- "Legacy" -- Not good enough to deploy more of, but good enough not to replace. Hopefully there aren't any *new* applications being rolled out that require SNA on the client or a gateway box.
Customers who still rely on OS/2 for this purpose would probably love to have the source code.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
WinWP 5.1 was advertised as WYSIWYG. I really ought to go download a eval of WP 8 or 9, because on further reflection it's unfair to comment on a 7 year old version of the software. They may well have solved the "dangling tags" problem to my satisfaction.
But like you say -- different strokes for different folks.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I was making the assumption that "new app" wouldn't be 3270-based. Of course, in some cases it will be, in which case use your existing SNA or twinax or whatever.
In most cases, a TCP/IP network won't be a "new network" -- it's already been paid for, and if WWW browser clients are acceptable, they've already been deployed. Which puts an intranet application on equal footing as a SNA/3270 terminal app deployment-wise, and probably with significantly lower training cost.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
The answer to that is to stop avoiding alternate fuels and electric cars and such. Car makers have been foolish to stay with only one fuel type as it lets control out of their own hands. The consumer has been foolish for not forcing car makers to give us more choices. Luckily many solutions already exist and hopefully some executives someplace will get some nerve and change the balance of power. Choice is always power.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
'Destroy the universe?!?', you say? yes. This MS-will-have-the-world stuff is all wrong. It leaves out the other, more important part of their plan - to reclaim their we-can-destroy-more-universes-than-anyone-else-wit hout-anyone-noticing title, which was first beaten when I proved young Cohen wrong repeatedly in math one day. This is made possible by sliding, the act of passing into another dimension, and green paint, which simplifies things quite a bit.
It's getting late, I've most likely confused the simple-minded conformists enough for one day, and the force field power supply is ready to die, so I must rest for coming days...
Really ? You remember what happend in Unix world during 80s ?
Windows is way more stable than Wine ... so your comment is well ... pointless ?
Well, it might but I surely hope that we will not end up with "... a move that would allow competitors to create and sell their own modified versions of Windows."
Think about it - 10 different versions of Windows from ten different companies ? This is recipe for disaster ( specially for software developers on Windows - support nightmare)
Microsoft's monopoly of the Windows OS is just about the only thing keeping other PC OSes alive. Today, it's a choice between Windows, Linux, NetWare, BeOS, *BSD, OS9, Solaris, etc. because if anyone wants a piece of the action, that's what they have to do.
If any company could sell a version of the OS that runs 90% of the applications, then your marketplace competition would be a choice between Windows, Windows, Windows, Windows, Windows, Windows, Windows, Linux, NetWare, BeOS, *BSD, OS9, Solaris, etc. Guess which ones are going to get squeezed out.
Acually I think they just lost the source code
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
> we shouldn't let them push us into inferior, proprietary standards.
Sorry, you're much too late.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
WINE
Is
Not an
Emulator
They ain't gonna open surce nutin'.
The wonders of OLE2 make it possible :-)
:-)
Words docs simply open as an OLE object.
You can open Word docs in Wordpad for that same reason... ahh everyone knows this already
--
Leonid S. Knyshov
Network Administrator
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
Er... this is dumb
Despite the costs, companies will adopt Windows 2000 over the rival, freely available Linux operating system because of the service and technical support that exists around Windows, Willingham asserted. "I don't know of any organization that is going to put a 'mission-critical' application on an OS without a company to stand behind it," she said.
I'm surprised this fluff piece was posted and not the other article.
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"War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left"
"War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left"
Steven Wright
That might be a bit hard since the rumor/comment was only about the source for win98. It usually helps to think/read before posting.
They never said which version they'll opensource! Imagine if its Windows 1.1 or Windows 3.1 :) hehehe
--
GroundAndPound.com News and info for martial artists of all styles.
The industry wants CSS, SDMI, etc. The industry loves DMCA and UTICA. The industry is stupid. Period. And we shouldn't let them push us into inferior, proprietary standards.
But chances are i won't change your mind. Oh well, no matter. At least the Library of Congress realized that ASCII Text is the best format for exchanging many documents (now we just have to watch out for Micros~1's Dread Questionmark Disease)
-----
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perl -e'$_=shift;die eval' '"$^X $0\047\$_=shift;die eval\047 \047$_\047"' at -e line 1.
Here's the URL to the article on ZDNet about the 63000+ bugs in Windows 2000.
4 36920,00.html
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2
Microsoft Office is their Cash Cow. Who cares about the Operating System? It's just a delivery mechanism anyways. I'm sure that the Guys over at Applix (Hey Bernie, Norm) and at StarOffice/Sun would love for M$ to open the Office Suite up but I think we'd have a better chance of seeing M$ relocate to Antartica than for them to open up Office.
On a side note, the article was very poorly written with many spelling and grammar errors. Oh well.
-- DuckWing
But you will only be able to use the resulting product in this place.
The software will not be legal in the rest of the world...
-------------------------------------------- Se você consegue ler aqui então fala português. Óbvio
I don't necessarily agree with this point. Microsoft has _thousands_ of developers already working on the Windows code base (much more than a few select people), yet the code has not "escaped." Yes, this is a possibility when another company is allowed to develop it's own Windows product, but that company also has the same interest as Microsoft in keeping that code base secret (probably b/c they'll have to pay a large amount of money to get the license). First off, you don't allow any developer full access to the code, and second, you tightly monitor your office environment. For example, at the Microsoft office my friend worked at, an alarm would go off if you connected the Microsoft internal LAN to an outside Internet connection.
From my interpretation, it's not "open source" per se. What would happen is that Microsoft would sell of licenses to use their source code for Windows. Corporations (not individuals) could purchase these licenses and use them to market their own branded version of windows.
This wouldn't be much more of a security risk because you would actually have to purchase a very expensive license to look at the code. Your average hacker/cracker still would not be able to get their hands on the code. Keep in mind that Microsoft has licensed it's code out before to other companies, though not to sell their own version of Windows, without the rest of the world being able to view it.
Thus, to summarize, I think this could only improve the security of Windows, as many more developers would be poring over the code. Also, the security risks would be minimized because you would actually have to be a developer at one of the licensees in order to view the source code. Then, eventually, the Windows code base could reach a point where it could be completely open sourced without the entire Windows population suffering a host of security exploits.
Unfortunately, you are being a bit too optimistic. Porting DirectX or Office 2000 would mean porting COM, which as a binary-level specification leaves quite a bit lacking. COM, from the level of calling conventions and method vtables up to the interfaces that are part of "standard" COM were designed with Win32 in mind--for instance, multithreading is pervasive in COM applications, whereas in Unix we are still developing based around the more flexible but less intuitive "many small tools which work together" paradigm.
What all this means is simply that porting COM to Unix (or even x86 Linux) would be a waste of man-hours and the cause of untold amounts of woe due to bugs and security holes.
The only project to benefit directly from the opening of the Windows source would be WINE; everybody else could play cut-and-paste (or glance-and-type if Microsoft's license is unduly strict), and their products may end up the better for it. But the majority of the source would go to waste, while at the same time placating DoJ and allowing Microsoft to proceed with its plans. Whatever they may be.
From the Yahoo article: "... Gates told Time magazine in November: ``The only thing we know for sure would be bad for consumers is ... anything that made it so that when people buy Windows they don't know what's in it.'' "
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the problem with proprietary software that people don't know what's in it?! If the Windows source was open, people could begin to fix a few of the bugs that have been around since the earliest versions of Windows, or better yet, improve WINE to the point that we don't have to use Windows at all.
- Chris
I can't believe you even spent time typing that. It really doesn't seem like it could be worth the effort. Even if you had just cut and pasted I doubt if it would've been worth the effort...
First consider this, say that MS was to actually release the source to Win2k (all 60 million lines of it), the newlines alone would make up around 4.8 MB of the code.
;)
No matter which version they would release, I'm quite sure that the code would be so large, and so needlessly complex (in a disorganized sloppy kind of way) that there would have to be an open source project just to clean it up. Plus, the years of crud thrown on top of an already weak foundation, I can't imagine.
It would most definitely be a boost to projects like WINE. It has the protential to help ALOT of companies. Will it happen? I doubt it. MS has always been abount closed source. For while, they didn't even like thier employees writing any sort of software unless it was company related.
The bottom line is, if they do it, I'm using it as my entry in the Obfuscated C code contest.
--
AdamX
"A witty saying proves nothing." -Voltaire
Open sourcing win9X would do nothing! It would include 0 drivers! Most (if not all of the drivers) are NOT the proprty of MS. And how about all the little things tehy include? This cade CANNOT be unencumbered tomorrow.
--dave
www.whizziwig.com
From the KOFFICE FAQ:
- There is a filter manager for KOffice that allows the development of filters for different formats. However, many of these file formats aren't documented or are poorly documented, making filter development not an easy task. E.g. the MS-Word format partially contains binary object code, making it very difficult to parse. If MS-Office should offer XML as a file format in its next versions, this will be much easier.
So, KOffice can handle any file format that someone writes a filter for. So, yes, compatibility is not their priority, but they support it if you want to make it your priority. Scratch your own itch.There's an ASCII, an MIF and an RTF filter in the KWord source tree, but the latter ones are not very functional. Werner Trobin is working on an import filter for WinWord 97. However, a corresponding export filter is not likely ever to be written.
Look, barf, bury it.
Not much delay.
"an 8.5x11 word 2000 document"
Ideally MS would use something more like the BSDL so that other companies that make proprietary OSes (like Be) could add support for Win32 software.
--
This space unintentionally left unblank.
Unfortunately Microsoft's definition of open source will almost
certainly not match our definition. They're "open source" license
will more likely be along the lines of Sun's Community License.
It will not help in the creation of WINE for the same reason that
Sun's Community License has not helped in the creation of a GPL'd
Java.
Copying any code from the copywrited Sun JDK is illegal, and GPL Java
programmers are better off not even looking at it, lest they are
accidentally influenced by what they've seen.
I can see the headlines now:
*Open Source code Discovered in Windows 98: Linux Developer Alleges License Violation
* $3 billion R&D from Microsoft devoted to Ripping Off Linux Source
This may seem unlikely until you consider a tool like Interix, which provides Unix scripting tools on top of NT and 98. It would have been tempting to say the least, for the MS developers to use some existing code and recompile for their platform without checking the license.
With all Microsoft's screaming about piracy and licensing, it would be ironic if it could be shown that they blatantly violated the most popular license on the planet.
P.S. This is pure speculation - I have absolutely no evidence that Microsoft has any GPL'ed code in their sources
P.P.S. s/license/licence/ where appropriate
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
MS releasing code in the open would be absolutely useless to any projects; it would even be worse than useless. They are not likely to put it under GPL, and if it isnt under GPL, even _looking_ at that code will make you legally unable to work on the project anymore. Clone projects like WINE must be clean room implementations or they risk getting sued out of existence.
The best thing for everyone would be if Microsoft kept their code in a dark basement in Redmond until they disappear.
"The only thing we know for sure would be bad for consumers is anything that blocks us from being able to innovate Windows or anything that made it so that when people buy Windows they don't know what's in it."
Wait, I'm confused. Someone explain to me why leaving Windows closed is going to help people know what's in it. And someone please explain to Bill that open source enables innovation.
It cracks me up that he has adopted the position that Microsoft is interested in what is best for the consumer. What is best for the consumer is to have the best software without having to sacrifice money or freedom! Let's see how long this "selfless interest" would last if they weren't bringing in truckloads of money.
He should just come out and say, "The only thing we know for sure would be bad for Microsoft is anything that blocks us from being able to make money off of the consumer, including letting people know what's in Windows."
100+ for Windows 2k.
God knows how much for "Insert M$ Product here"
Well, it's been established that there is no way in hell this is ever going to happen. And, saying that the world spun backwards for a while and my armpits stopped sweating, that they opened their steaming, putrid black hearts and did release the source. What would you want to do? Where would (heh) YOU want to go today? Would it really be so useful? Would it bring so much benefit? Do you realize that by the time coders took the time to debug that bastard, what a huge mess they would have? Besides that, Windows2020 would have already come out, leaving their work to be shamed for the next millenia. You have to look at the aspects of what IS Windows, say that actually do release the source.
Internet Explorer - Someone mentioned this earlier. Do you actually think they would let the IE5 source in Mozilla's hands? Now, considering the leap from IE4 (Cuh-rap), this would be a threat indeed. Beware lynx, beware! (Evil, satiracle laughing ensues)
Office 2k (or 98) - Someone else mentioned this as well. This could be their open source baby alone and the world would stop. Like the guy before said, say what you want, Office rocks my damn socks. If you don't like it, then you haven't learned it correctly. There is just too much good here to pass up. Piss on Windows, I want the Word source =)
Outlook Express - In the realm of Internet Explorer, one of the coolest and easiest email readers. If they released Office you would have Outlook, but it's baby brother is still neat. I would love to see this under any *nix, and I know for a fact it would beat the crap out of Nutscrape Mail.
Anyway, I thought that it might be interesting that even if they did just release "bits" of the code (say the TCP/IP stack for example), that people could at least understand how it got so bad.
And besides, didn't they release the Win3.1 code? Hell yeah, you better be watchin out for my ereet port of that! (more evil laughing, more strange stares, Obi goes back to the dungeon from whence he came.)
Obiwan Kenobi
He's the most one-note MS-boosting OSS-attacking zombie on the entire Internet. And I'm sure he's getting ready to respond that someone has to balance out all the one-note OSS-boosting MS-attacking zombies on Slashdot. Bullshit. Go play with the Office paperclip and let the rest of us use the software we want to use, Tim.
here's the link from LYCOS: http://news.lycos.com/headlines/Technology/article .asp?docid=RTTECH-MICROSOFT-L AWSUIT&date =20000217
Right, but Word's not really _designed_ for that, is it? It's a word processor, not a layout engine. If you want that, then you go Quark or Adobe (or LaTeX, or, God forbid, Microsoft Publisher).
I don't think it's fair to lambast Word for something it wasn't really designed to do. Having said that, Word 97/2000 do offer precise positioning of frames (you have to turn off snap-to-grid), text flow, and graphic anti-aliasing (for bitmap formats, not vectors [dunno why]).
-- "I believe the human being and the fish can coexist peacefully." - George W. Bush, 29 September 2000
Not completely true... it is possible to change this. You have to adjust the MIME type definition for .DOC so that IE doesn't load it inline (when installed IE sets this property to true for all Office documents).
See My Computer -> View | Folder Options.
-- "I believe the human being and the fish can coexist peacefully." - George W. Bush, 29 September 2000
The sad thing is, you probably consider yourself a free speech advocate, too :)
/.? You're fooling yourself if you think /. matters to them. I doubt they even care that much about Linux, to be honest with you; Linux is a convenient buzzword to pull out at the trial when they're bleating on about how much competition there is in the market, that's all.
Just because TummyX likes Microsoft doesn't mean he's spreading FUD. I've never seen him claim anything that either I didn't already know or that couldn't be backed up by searching MSDN.
Do you _really_ think Microsoft _cares_ about
-- "I believe the human being and the fish can coexist peacefully." - George W. Bush, 29 September 2000
It doesn't really matter. Microsoft makes more money from sales of Office than it does selling copies of Windows. Opening the source code would only strengthen their position, since their OS would become more stable and powerful from volunteer work.
well, it seems that the OSS movement could(long in the future possibly) engulf the Evil Empire ;)
-niteq
Well then why doesn't everyone use a Mac as Office is available for it. It's more than Office that puts Windows on 90% of desktops... it's a big mean company.
While Micro$oft says that this may be a settlement for the antitrust case, this may actually have the opposite effect. Much of the new Linux userbase has been those that are sick of the close-sourced model of Windows. These people (who often don't know that much about it) see Linux as the alternative that will give them the freedom to change what they want to (although, often without the technical ability to do so). If Microsoft actually does release its source code under a decent license, although I can't imagine this happening, those people who might have chosen Linux would instead stay with Windows.
Now, I hate M$ as much as the next person, but this could be just the thing that would give them back the "good guy" label that would keep its more skeptical users content.
- vir sine vestibus
Come on. And I want to embed a spreadsheet? And I want to EDIT WYSIWYG? Welcome back to reality, where desktops can handle 2000lb monsters.
Assume, for a moment, the licensing problems can be satisfactorily resolved (whatever that means).
Then, for opening the source to work, it would be necessary to open all current and future Windows source. And, further, future source would have to be released on a timely enough basis that MS apps couldn't derive a significant advantage in using any new APIs. Note that it is not necessary to have "secret" APIs. It is enough to have exclusive early access to them.
Even given that MS would put forth a "good faith" effort, implementation would be a nightmare for all involved and oversight an even bigger one.
It therefore seems to me that a structural remedy (at a minmum of breaking up MS into an OS company and an applications company), is the best (and simplest) action to take.
Personally, given the power, I would also invoke HUGE penalties against the company and consider jail time for some of the people who were (ahem) less than forthcoming in the hearings...even those on videotape.
Why do you want to embed a spreadsheet for gods sake? I mean you can represent tabular data without embedding a giant excel sheet into your giant doc file can't you. I hate it when people send me crap like that.
Face it if you are sending to document to somebody else you don't need them to edit the thing. Just output it into html or something send it.
Most people use word as their email editor in outlook anyways. You think your typical windoze clueless luser can grasp the complexities of word templates? Yea I don't either.
War is necrophilia.
In wordperfect you can put formulas in your table cells you don't need to embed anything.
Either way I still don't get it. You create your business plan using excel. If you want it to look pretty because you want to show it to the bank you export it something and doll it up and print it. Once you have your numbers together you just want to print it nice. Why does your banker want to fiddle your numbers in you word document?
War is necrophilia.
They would be making an insufficiently peer-reviewed codebase public. They have been developing this stuff in private for years. That's years and years of shoving pure ugliness under the rug. If they open source it, several gazillion security holes are going to become immediately apparent. Over Linux and xBSD development lifetime, I will agree (for argument's sake if nothing else) that a comparable number of security problems were created. However, those problems tended to be patched not too long after coming to somebody's attention. Microsoft on the other hand very likely has only been fixing holes for which exploits have been propagated. I'll even give them the benefit of the doubt and assume their code audits have nipped SOME potential nasties in the bud. Nonetheless, the resulting open codebase will bear more than a passing resemblance to the Communicator source that the Mozilla team chucked in the ashcan. It will be good for projects like Wine but I'm going to feel genuinely sorry for all the harried sysadmins this could create.
Your code mess idea has merit but they can make it nastier still. After massaging the code to your specs, they could run it through a compiler pre-processor like a certain "open source" video card manufacturer. I like the idea of all the variable names being replaced by hex pointers....hell the FUNCTION names could also be replaced by hex pointers.
The one feature of WordPerfect that I love, and that has quite possibly kept me from switching away from it, is the "reveal codes" option. Say what you will, but the difference between the power with and without that is like the difference in power between a purely WYSIWYG interface and a "tags-on" view ala HotMetal (which, IMHO, is one of the best out there).
-Sam Black
Good point but I think there is a slight difference.
MacOS had dedicated hardware. Most linux installations, I'm assuming, runs on the same hardware as Windows. Also when the MacOS came out it had/(still has) some advantages from big company (Apple) and better UI.
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
I know exactly what you mean.
I've really given up on moderator ratings. Inconsistant at best.
A better post would have been "Microsoft has many different code for OSs; Win98, NT, ME, 2000. Which OS source code could be released?" or "They could release the code but still have very strict limitations on how one could use it. eg: Royalties, how much can be changed, part of a expensive dev membership"
The surprise isn't how often we make bad choices; the surprise is how seldom they defeat us.
This would be awesome! I mean, who wouldn't want their own personal build of w2k? I wonder if it builds in gcc *grin*
Coudn't agree more...especially if you do math, so much better then word.
Even for just writing a letter, just use the letter template and its done before word has started. Word has templates but it always screws up where to put stuff.
If Microsoft were to attempt anything like this to get the DOJ off their back it most certainly would not comply with the Debian Free software guidelines Don't even bother hoping for GPL. expect to be able to read the code and have a good laugh but don't count on being able to use it. Second it is my understanding that non-GPL code is not permitted in the linux kernel. So even if the license did allow use no good would come to linux.
distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes!!!
Actually with Win2k you'll notice that it's a Business Operating System, meaning that most home users wouldn't need this OS on their desktop. So one would ask, why would businesses be going to the mall buying their OS?
Everyone forgets that Win2k is Windows NT 5 just renamed. It's a pretty big upgrade from NT4 to NT5 tho.
How much does it cost? Will they license it to anyone who pays the ransom? If they license it to a company does that mean that every employee on the development team who sees the code can't work on another OS for 5 years? Just purely out of curiousity.. what are REALLY GOOD reasons to want to license the windows code that microsoft would just immediately say yes to?
How we know is more important than what we know.
Sometime ago, a judge found that non-compete agreements that some employees must sign were invalid because 5 years is just too long a time in the IT industry.
Forgive me my lack of legal knowledge, but wouldn't that also apply to garbage like this? I mean, the relationship isn't exact, but the same reasoning must surely follow for both cases?
"Tax preparation software eliminates errors your[SIC] may make...." From IRS home page.
It's my understanding that Microsoft do still licence their source code to Citrix. I'm unclear regarding the business arrangements. You need source code to build products such as MetaFrame or Terminal Server.
While MSDN does cost lots of money, much of it is available for free at the Microsoft web site.
See msdn.microsoft.com.
Be sure to download the Platform SDK.
They don't need to be able to win a court case though, just convince a judge that someone may have used the source code, and stop them from shipping their product until they prove they haven't used Windows code. Look at the recent Playstation emulator bother, and the injuctions that Sony has got.
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
Say what you will about Microsoft, but Office is a great product. There is nothing even close to comparable.
Yes and no. The features are brilliant, I've never seen a product that compares to them I'll agree. But they're poorly designed. I made a document with some long string cells in Excel97, and saved it as a 95 sheet. It warned me I'd lose some formatting features, but I never worry about this message as I don't mind losing formatting, but when I reloaded the document, it had truncated the string cells to 256 chars. The fact that (a) Excel97 appears to be the first Excel that allowed you more than 256 chars in a text cell and (b) the warning I was given for data truncation referred to "loss of formatting" did not impress me.
but if you want to do a complex document beyond the "Hi mom" level, the power of Office really shines.
Try and write a book in it, using advanced kerning and the like. While you find Office has a lot of bells and whistles, and is great for the level of presentation you need to do in a work environment, for high quality desk top publishing stuff, you need a stronger class of tool.
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
"Asked specifically about the prospect of opening Windows source code, Gates told Time magazine in November: `The only thing we know for sure would be bad for consumers is anything that blocks us from being able to innovate Windows or anything that made it so that when people buy Windows they don't know what's in it.'" Okay, so, um... With out the source, how do I know exactly do I know what's in it?
Dionysus vs, Socrates! The greatest battle of all time!
.. who was interviewed an advogado (posted slashdot y-day? day before?) made the claim that with his wiz bang pentium-3, he could re-tex and xdvi preview changes in a 50 page document almost as quickly as a WYSIWIG machine.
Bollocks, as the WYWSIWIG program never makes syntax errors, but he at least thinks so. But he's biased.
Johan
Framemaker kicks ass :-)
RFC1925
I think you are out of line by criticizing the amazing work that's been accomplished by the KOffice team.
Getting back to the main thread, its a shame that M$ denies they are willing to open source windows because its the most sensible, most feasible and least disruptive remedy possible. It directly addresses the root of M$' anti-competitive behaviour, frees up OEMs and other vendors from undue pressure from Microsoft, and forces them to conform to standards. Without expensive and blunt government intervention, I'm sure dozens of MS employees will spin off their own companies to produce a better, cheaper Windows. And it leaves Microsoft in place as a *ahem* premiere software developer.
It would also mean the Gates wouldn't get richer off baby-Microsofts that the government would break off.
I hope the slashdot community becomes vocal advocates of this solution.
funny... I don't recall actually seeing the ability in Explorer to *open* a document for *viewing* only in the *same* exact window that you've been using for *everything* else. That's my point. If you can, then hey, great. But I don't trust the stability of Microsoft's implementation of it; that's not to say that the current state of KDE's implementation is any better, *but* they don't claim in ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM that it's even close to ready for mass use yet. Unlike Microsoft.
I think that you have a good point BUT I do have to point out KOffice and the GNOME-Office suites. Now, they're not perfect by far and maybe they don't offer all of the features of MS-Office (yet) but they have the *ability* to do so via the OpenSource development model that they use. Not only are they nearly as functional, but in some cases they actually work *better* than their MS-equivalents.
Example: PowerPoint only creates presentations that will work correctly with IE4.x or higher; KPresenter creates (albeit static) presentations you can even view with G!zilla and/or KFM, Konqueror, mozilla, IEx.x, NSx.x... any web browser that supports images, basically. I like that.
Also, when was the last time that you saw Explorer embed a Word document? In a frame? How about PostScript or PDF? Spreadsheets? Microsoft is going to have to worry about people wanting these cool features- I already show them to my friends and they drool, because they want a desktop that can do what mine can.
If you don't like Office, then you haven't learned to really use Office.
Hmmm... How does that saying go?
80% of users only use 20% of a software's capabilities
AND, where I work, it's more like 90% to 2%.
Wow! Looks like cnet got cracked...shesh! I wonder if they're going to blame it all on the DoS folks.
*grins*
MS...Open Source..
It does. Select OPTIONS from the TOOLS menu. Under the VIEW tab, select the formatting marks that you want to appear.
I don't know why all so many people are complaining that MS is just doing this to benifet themselves. OF COURSE thats why they'd do it. They're a business. There sole purpose for existance is to make MONEY. They aren't people who do this on their free time and have day jobs. If they just Open sourced windows to benefit the computing community, people would like them more, but it would kill their business. Pure Open Source is not making anyone money. Sure Linux has some obscene portion of the server market, but is Redhat making billions of dollars like you'd expect? No, I think there still in the low hundred millions, or lower. And why not? Open Source is okay for the software, but it is a dumb-ass business model. A large company can buy one copy of Linux and install it on all their servers. Half the time they won't even need support from Redhat because their own IT guys will be able to fix a lot of the problems. On the desktop, you have make even less money. The average windows user spends something like 5 bucks a year on support, most of it on long distance calls to Seattle. I personally have never called technical support, and most windows users don't. The less knowledageable asks a friend because they wouldn't under stand tech-support anyway. Business users call their IT guy, and knowledagble people look it up on the internet. So your market for making money is reduced to the 1% who know enough to follow orders from the techsupport guy, is willing to pay for support (these days, most support in the form of e-mail is free) instead of asking a friend, and doesn't know enough to find it on the internet. 10 years ago you'd have been laughed out of business school if you'd come up with the "charge for support, not the product" model!
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
I didn't see in the article that it would be open source. It said they would open it to other companies. That doesn't mean open source. It may just be that it is given out to other companies, but they can't release the source.
- I like pudding.
WP 5.1 was about as far from WYSIWYG as you can get. (I used things like XyWrite and Wordstar and for-cryin'-out-loud Electric Pencil before that, so it's not completely as far away as you can get, but close.:) We, ah, won't discuss WP6. WP7 and WP8 will let you run Reveal Codes and see your page layout, so I don't see why you wouldn't consider this WYSIWYG just because you can see what steps the program took to give you WYG. Perhaps we're just coming at this from two different directions, and that's fine. I can certainly make my way around Word, and when I'm there I like having Show Paragraph available to show me some how I got to where I am, but I learned WordPerfect first and still know it best. (Plus, it's available for Linux, and that's where I spend most of my time these days.)
--
Someone you trust is one of us.
One thing I want to know is what's Micro$hafts LEGAL trademarked "Windows" software? As everyone knows, we have "Windows95" and "Windows98." We have "Windows NT" et al. and "Windows 2000." Then alas, we have what started it all, Windows >= 3.11. Weren't these _versions_ trademarked as "Windows" with a version number following? Since we moved to 9x and NT, M$ has trademarked the name "Windows 95", "Windows 98" and such. Now is Billy gonna release the source for Win3.11 based on a technicality? I think that if this "open source" option is truly explored by all parties, a lot of clarification is gonna need to be made. Call me a little paranoid ....
mrBoB
-- The meek shall inherit the Earth. In very small plots, about 6 feet by 3.
Can you IMAGINE the amount of code you would have to sift through, just to try to fix a simple thing??? We're talking thousands of pages, easily. Probably take a week to build, too. Open Source windows _could_ be a good thing, but it's gonna take a helluva lot of dedicated individuals to pull of any major enhancements.
Snorp
If you notice bill says "If that's all it took" as a joke. I think he realizes Microsoft would be in a better position if the OS was free. As you say, in a few years Windows would be vastly more secure and stable, due to more people fixing things. The market is changeing and don't think Microsoft won't change to meet it. They still have plenty of Apps and "software solutions" to sell and think about new companies like All Advantage, that make money based on the number of "eyeballs" looking at there viewbar. Well, micorsoft has 95% of the market. And they really shouldn't hurt too much from not making money from the Os. Let's face it, you don't have to pay for it now, I'm using WIN98 se and didn't pay for it, it's registered along with everything else I have. If you have to pay for anything, sorry, you're not part of the "in" crowd then. I laugh at all the complaints about microsoft I see on /. because they have $0 of my money and I use tons of their products, and I even prefer some of them! Visual Basic gives me massive control over windows already, now if the OS code was open?? Sweet Candy Ass! Just think of the distribution channel that macroshaft owns, and doesn't use to full potential! I'm mean, that's all the Aol/time warner/glowfax megacorp merger was all about wasn't it? A really big distribution channel? I look for macroshaft to buy a broadband player soon, it's the future, and bill will be a part of it, he's a smart guy, really. And on that note, I'm out of Bacardi.........
you're all figments of my deranged imagination
This guy is actually funny, and the bits that could be considered offensive usually aren't that bad.
Next time you're about to assign a point to some moronic kharma fag just because he said "I'll know this will get modded down, BUT..." remember the Open Source Guy.
"Therefore, most govt solutions are not terribly attractive and are not necessarily superior to the market outcome."
This line is an illogical conclusion given that the trust department and the legislative government are separated entities. Why do you think Microsoft lobbies in the legislative government to reduce funding for the trust department?
First, you take measures to deny lobbyists favors (brought on by campaign contributions and gifts) from the government. The legislators then do not have clouded judgment through greed and may regulate the trust and criminal departments properly. This top down approach would then bring an incentive to other departments that may be corruptible to actually bend to the will of democracy because the legislators would not have that incentive to break the law or make up the law as they go along.
The above is, of course, a normative statement. Considering the factors involved, it is something to work towards, but not necessarily meet because we're talking about reality here.
> what makes you think that there are any hidden API's remaining in current MS platforms?
I take it you have never written a NT device driver, but here is the proof:
Inside the Native API
Inside Native Applications
> I would really love to see any kind of proof that they exist
When NT 4 starts up, chkdsk is a native NT app. HOW could it be a win32 app, when win32 hasn't been loaded yet?!
Cheers
You have a probably logic error in line 3. :-)
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
In this Yahoo article, Microsoft corp.
Denies That Gates Offered to Open Windows Code
``Bill did not make any of the comments attributed to him about the settlement,'' Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan said. ''The comments they said Bill made are just not true.''
so--where did these comments come from?
I am Bill of Borg--we will be assimilated.
oh wait--I mean 'you' will be assimilated. not we...
Interested in the Colorado Lottery or Powerball games?
check out http://colotto.com
Windows Millennium Edition is not based on Windows2000. It is not based in any way on the Windows2000 code base.
WinME is a direct extension of the old 9x code. It incorporates some of the UI changes made in the Win2k UI and MSDOS mode is gone. Other than that though, it is Win95 version 3.
--Ruhk
404 Error:
I guess I wasn't that clear...I've been up for close to 40 hours now. I meant it would be an incredible assest to use Windows code as a reference...WINE is an emulation (duh...I'm tired), and has different needs than a native OS. I'm just hoping that if the developers of WINE can get their hands on the code, it will take some of the guess work out of how to structure WINE, making it more efficient and less crash-prone. Cutting and pasting the MS code, I agree, would be an incredibly dumb idea...I don't think they'd even attempt that.
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
But like Rob said, think of what this would do for projects like Wine! And, holy shit, OS/2 and other OSes could have ten times better emulation support than they currently do, making it much easier for users to experient with other OSes. Any source they release can only help us...I hope this for real...
At the very least, it would be amusing to actually see what has been causing some of these BSODs all these years...
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
I'm going to invite flame here, but I think OS/2 is still a viable OS. It doesn't have the support base of Windows or the serving muscle of the *n*xes, but it does make a pretty stable frontend with a number of development opportunities. It's still used in many banks and a has a small but fiercely loyal consumer following. I think IBM will take the time to build in support for Win9x apps...it would greatly increase their app base and extend OS/2's viablity as an OS.
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
Wow, now I feel like a real doosh...I'm going to bed...
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
Real and hard competition is the only way to fix any industry. The harder companies fight and claw with each other, the better it is for the economy and consumers. Like the poster above i suggest you read up on trusts and their effects.
Ya, plus any claim to security would probably be washed down the tubes. Probably something similar to when id released the quake source code...it was not designed to be as secure as possible but the only way people found out about the holes was a source code release. Of course after a few months and patches it would be pretty secure, i'm sure, but until then would be a nightmare.
ZDNN reports that this is not true.
4 40749,00.html?chkpt=zdnntop
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2
I know this is vastly off-topic, but how did you deal with the memory-space issue? Linear style partitioning or pseudo-allocation? Active VM or abstraction layer? I had an argument just today (with one of the Parsippany engineers, no less) about how this could be done on IBM midranges without dipping into the LIC for help..
.sig: Now legally binding!
I'm not sure what you mean. A preprocecessor should recognize comments and treat them as comments. I had commented out LARGE_BUGS to imply that to fix bugs between w95 and w98, they just commented out that line and let the #ifdefs in the other files take care of the rest.
--
The shareholder is always right.
Oh, is that why win98 was less buggy than microsoft intended it to be?
--
The shareholder is always right.
But MacOS is still with us, and with the current linux enthusiasm, I expect that it will take *decades* to fade if the enthusiasm suddenly stopped growing for any reason.
Asked specifically about the prospect of opening Windows source code, Gates told Time magazine in November: ``The only thing we know for sure would be bad for consumers is anything that blocks us from being able to innovate Windows or anything that made it so that when people buy Windows they don't know what's in it.''
That's classic.
A high-profile BSOD
With the recent announcement that all code to Windows will be open to the public, it will be necessary to make a few restrictions to make code readable to the "average programmer" (after all, we are Microsoft, creators of easy-to-use products).
Please observe the following guidelines carefully:
All source files must be palindromic. If it is not possible to turn a file into a palindrome, it will be split into multiple files.
Whenever possible, letters must be changed to nUmb3r5 and v0w3ls wI11 b3 c4pI741z3d. This should enhance our already-strong popularity with clueless script kiddies.
File extensions are an obsolete way of identifying the language a source is written in, so we will be moving away from that strategy. Remove the last three characters from every file's name; a replacement method of identification will be specified later.
There are so many conflicting standards of data compression (or at least there's one, and it's not ours), so all source will be distributed in uncompressed monolithic blocks.
We have shown our support of Assembler through the multiple ways of declaring assembly blocks that the Microsoft compiler supports. Recode all inefficient blocks of code (addition, subtraction, etc.) into assembler using Microsoft-style #define blocks.
Thank you for your attention. The manual conversion of the source into a readable format may take time, delaying Windows 2000. The public will not be informed of this, and several more Golden Masters may be necessary. Also, distribution of code modified from its original form will have to be prohibited.
Where is my mind?
mfspr r3, pc / lvxl v0, 0, r3 / li r0, 16 / stvxl v0, r3, r0
Check out Project Upper/Mute, an all-around awesome compiler fra
The way that I see it though if they open the source and put a restrictive license around it, just move WINE development servers somewhere that licenses are unenforceable. Somewhere like Mongolia or anywhere else that has more liberal policies about software.
First of all, I think the Gates comment shouldn't be taken at face value. It strikes me as just being a flip comment, "off the record", so-to-speak.
Another alternative is that it's just Gates performing a little media manipulation (after all, it's what he's good at). Bear in mind that all the buzz has been about breaking up Microsoft, not open sourcing Windows.
And which Windows? And the entire code base? Or just part of it? Which part?
I can't see Windows 2000 being open-sourced in a hurry.
On a lighter note, can you imagine running lint (or your favourite code checker) on Windows source? *shudder*
Cheers.
There is only one (big) problem with that plan: Win2k is over $400. M$ is writing the successor to Win98 (code named Millenium, IIRC).
The real problem with switching to an NT only OS is games. Games (and DirectX) don't like the atuhoritarian control that NT's HAL has on the hardware. Let's face it; the HAL, while a good idea in theory, was implemented badly. Sorta like most things M$
.
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
Microsoft previously has rejected any suggestion that it disclose the Windows blueprints to competitors, one of the remedies against the company that the government has considered.
What competitors? They've basically knocked mac os out of the market, same goes with O/S2 and any unix flavors well you mention unix or linux to a regular person and they will just flinch beyond all control because they won't have their pretty little start bar.
Please name some of these undocumented API calls.
Windows has a heck of a lot of applications (including low level system tools) for something that's got these "hidden apis".
you're full of crap.
APIs are only APIs when they're documented. If there's a DLL shipped with windows that exports a DoEx function, that's not an API just cause it's exported. The reason being is that it's not part of Win32 as Microsoft sees it, and is NOT garunteeed to be supported in future versions of Windows. These exports are usually documented by 3rd parties (and they are free to do so).
the problem is that if the WINE people just copy and paste MS's code into WINE we run in to the same unstability that we had before. they need to be careful that they use MS's code as a reference and not copy paste at all. this might speed up WINE development, but at what expense?
holt
Now Micro$oft is trying to spin the thing. Over at ABCNews they have an article from Reuters saying that "Bill did not make any of the comments attributed to him about the settlement, ..." Bloomberg has issued a "correction" saying that the release should have read, "Bill Gates agreed with the statement" that Microsoft would be willing... Huh? He didn't "say" it he just "agreed" with it? Sounds like someone got caught "floating one". Read about it he re.
Every change is not progress, but there is no progress without change.
You must not do any major 3d rendering tasks as Blender is FAR FAR from being in competition with the more prevalent 3d packages (such as 3D Studio MAX as you mention.) I use 3d Studio Max for simple titles for tv segments, and I tried blender... not comparable... maybe one day, but Kinetix isn't sitting still while open source development continues so while blender will improve, so will 3ds... and 3ds isn't even considered the best 3d package (it is the only commercial package I have used tho so I can't comment on any other ones)
Gates previously has rejected any suggestion that Microsoft share the so-called source code to its flagship product (emphasis mine)
Ah, see, that's why Windows is so screwed up. They don't really have any source code, only "so-called" source code.
Asked specifically about the prospect of opening Windows source code, Gates told Time magazine in November: ``The only thing we know for sure would be bad for consumers is anything that blocks us from being able to innovate Windows or anything that made it so that when people buy Windows they don't know what's in it.''
But when people buy Windows now, they don't know what's in it, so what's the difference? :-)
An addendum to the story: According to this story on ZDNet (which also ran the open source Windows story earlier), Microsoft is denying that openning up the code is an option.
For some odd reason, the "submit story" link wasn't working as of 9:15pm PST - so I was unable to submit this as a news update.
Spin, spin, spin. If they attached some blades to Redmond it'd be an aviation hazard.
threadeds blog
In wordperfect you can put formulas in your table cells you don't need to embed anything.
I'm not talking about simple adding of columns or whatever, I'm talking about very complex financial models, which is what spreadsheets are for. Why would I use a word processor for doing the job of a spreadsheet?
You create your business plan using excel. If you want it to look pretty because you want to show it to the bank you export it something and doll it up and print it. Once you have your numbers together you just want to print it nice. Why does your banker want to fiddle your numbers in you word document?
That's not the point. A financial model is a living document; it's constantly revised as you learn more about your assumptions. It contains assumption statements, growth models, income statements, cash flow statements, balance sheets, etc projected over multiple years. The business plan, on the other hand, is the "big picture", and contains only summaries of the financial model. When I embed linked cells into my business plan, and I update the financial model, the document is automatically updated to reflect the most current information.
It's about using the right tool for the job. A spreadsheet is about manipulating complex formulas, and a word processor is about producing documents.
Now, as for sending it anywhere, the point is not whether the receiver needs to modify it, the point is why should I have to do an extra step? Why not just send the original? Also note that I don't have to send the spreadsheet along with the Word document. The Word document contains a copy of the spreadsheet cells, so you don't need the original spreadsheet.
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Well, I have to agree with that. Master Docs in previous versions of Office have been, well, a little flaky. I will say this... I haven't played with them yet, but it looks like Master Docs have been overhauled in Office/2000. The interface has been greatly simplified, so it wouldn't surprise me if they've (finally) fixed it.
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Make a link to a .doc file, click on it, and it will open up for viewing in your browser window exactly as if it was web page. Works fine.
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Sometimes it's easier to see those sort of weird problems if you switch to "normal" view rather than page layout view. But I agree, that's a case where it's non-intuitive.
pause... Actually, I just tried it in Word2K and it appears to be fixed.
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And it would be really useful if it could perform a section sort. By that I mean sort the entire document (or part thereof), based on paragraph styles -- each section (delimited by a given paragraph style) remains intact, but the sections themselves are sorted to be in alphebetical order, based on the text in the chosen style.
Good God, it actually can do that, I just tried. What you do is go into Outline View, select the text, and select Table->Sort. Unbelievable.
Not to turn the discussion into a Word tutorial, but you can change the Table of Contents styles by changing the "TOC#" styles. For example, "TOC 1" corresponds to "Heading 1". That's why rebuilding the TOC changes the styles back.
Word does support Hyperlinking, at least as of Word 98 (I think).
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Why do you want to embed a spreadsheet for gods sake? I mean you can represent tabular data without embedding a giant excel sheet into your giant doc file can't you.
Because you want the tabular data to automatically update in your Word document when you update the spreadsheet. This is great for, say, business plans when you are embedding summary information from a financial model spreadsheet.
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How much stuff would you actually be able to use, a lot of stuff has to be NDA.
Oooo, I like! I get into a fit every time I use MS Word. Why? Because after several years of writing structural HTML and then applying CSS that describes the appearance of that structure, trying to do things any other way seems extremely foreign.
It wouldn't be so bad if the Word default was to assume next to nothing, but it's forever doing things I don't want it to do. I want things to come up when I explicitly say so, and not at other times, darn it! If I want it otherwise, I'll define my own styles that say what I want. I don't want crappy MS assumptions getting in my way!!!
Constitutionally Correct
Not only that, the Win NT source is already provided to some academic institutions. I know a prof who has a copy. According to MS, it requires 6GB of disk space just to compile.
I'm sure they require some sort of nondisclosure agreement in these cases also.
Even if MS made the source to Win 98 available to everyone, it probably wouldn't be in directly compilable format, and if it was, the license would probably prohibit you from modifying the source in any way.
IMO, this would be a major ripoff for consumers if it was part of the settlement. I think the government should stick it out to the bitter end.
I don't think it'll ever happen...
I *HOPE* it never does. It's bad enough supporting a Microsoft flavored OS - let alone "BOB 98" or "IBM 2001" or any number of the new "Windows" that would be floating around out there.
As much as I dislike some of the ways Windows works - it would be totally unmanageable to have it open sourced where anyone could roll their own!
*shudder*
I doubt it, another post was right on target. If they release the source it would be a disaster for them. A few curious people would look at it, a few other people with special interest would look into it (wine, samba, etc), M$'s commercial competition would look at it, but how many of all the people looking at it would be real developers that would submit patches, etc?
So, M$ would lose all the "advantages" of closed source development, get a lot of derisive laughter (at their bad code), but none of the benefits of open source. They might attract a bunch of people who might otherwise make screen-savers and VB recipe organizers, but will that help?
Hell, it might even open them up to lawsuits from people like Real Networks, and all the others who had bumped heads with M$. Giving them the code to prove M$ did something in the OS to damage their products.
The current Slashdot moderation system is made by gay communists!
Paperclips are for two things:
- Holding sheets of paper together
- Shorting the solenoid on the doorlocks on my van when I lose the keys (er, careful...)
I'll be damned if I'm going to let some inane animated happy-go-lucky screen widget tell me how to do something in office. Honestly, have you ever tried to actually _use_ a wizard in Office? One of the most dain bramaged elements of the whole thing, IMHO.
Apparently, off camera he said he might open up the source code, "if that's all there is". Still makes me skeptical though.
Even if this were true (and it's looking less likely), which Windows would they open source? My bet is Win98, which is very soon to be replaced by Windows ME (dumb name). And eventually the old consumer windows products will disappear in favor of Win 2000 derivatives. I'm sure those will never be opened. So the most we might get out of this is an obsolete and dead-ended code base that will do nobody any good.
No sig? Sigh...
> "A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing what he
> reads." --- The Fifth Commandment of the
> Pentabarf
That reminds me...today is fridsay...
I will have to remember to partake joyously
of a Hotdog today.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Well if it was someone would come out with a "new" windows in a week with half the lines of code and be stable
The very reason that many people join open source communtiies is so that they can work with what they love. programming is what these people love to do and untill now the UNIX clones have had the market for these people. With the opening of Windows source code it is entirely conceiveble that support for the open source movement will dimisish is support of developing Windows clones. Since Microsoft already holds most of the home user operating system market, people who could sell knock-off versions of Windows would have a great economical advantage. The thing that scares me the most is that people lose sight of the fact that the whole reason that we do what we do with open source is because the source has never been closed, it was not opened to remain the dominate figure in the market, but rather as a moral choice and that if people do lose sight of these fundimental reasonings, that our cuase might be thrown to the way side in favor of the almighty bick.
cool..
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Plus, if they released it everybody would find out it's been programmed in BASIC.
But it would be an interesting reading experience.
bun-fhuinneog agam!
I can see it now.
Step one: send Windows source over to linux machine somewhere. (Think: PR)
Step two: write small perl script to remove all comments, tabstops, spaces and carriage returns, where possible.
Step three: run it through some "new" proprietary CABing compression, with compress turned off, that no current windows has (includeing 2000, which will eventually include support for decompressing the files, but it will be hidden away, and hard to understand how to extract the whole source tree instead of just a single file)
Step four: make sure that the new de-cab 2000 program cant read the directory tree, just "decompress" the files into c:\, so you're left with one HUGE mess in your c drive. But just for kicks they will make it also change some windows\system files, and force you to reboot after extracting them.
Step five: stick them SOMEWHERE in the help database, then make the homepage 404 so no one can find it.
I can just see it now. News papers around the world will report on how a supper rich nice guy is giving it all away - out of a desire to do something for humanity...
Tokyo Joe
By Reuters SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp.(MSFT.O) on Thursday strongly denied that Chairman Bill Gates had told Bloomberg Television in an interview that he would be willing to open the Windows operating system source code to competitors to settle an antitrust suit with the U.S. Justice Department. ``Bill did not make any of the comments attributed to him about the settlement,'' Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan said. ''The comments they said Bill made are just not true.'' The suit by the Justice Department and 19 states is in a mediation phase and both sides have been instructed by the mediating judge, Richard Posner, not to talk to the media about details of the case. Just hours after Gates unveiled Windows 2000, the latest version of its flagship product, Bloomberg quoted Gates as saying, ``Microsoft Corp. would be willing to open the source code for Windows software to competitors to settle the antitrust case filed by the U.S. Department of Justice.'' Bloomberg later issued a correction saying that the release should have read, ``Bill Gates agreed with the statement'' that Microsoft would be willing to open the Windows source code in order to settle. Cullinan emphasized that Gates had made no comments about opening the Windows source code. Windows accounts for about 40 percent of the Redmond, Wash.-based software company's revenues. ``He just said that we would be doing our best to settle the case,'' Cullinan said, adding that such statements were the company's routine way of answering questions about the antitrust suit. Microsoft planned to make a transcript of the interview available on its Web site later on Thursday, Cullinan said. The Justice Department has argued that Microsoft abused its monopoly in computer operating systems to crush rivals and stifle innovation, charges that the court has largely agreed with. There has been speculation that the Justice Department could seek a break-up of Microsoft, a move the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant vigorously opposes. Another solution would be to open the Windows source code, which would let other software developers, including Microsoft competitors, create and sell their own versions of Windows, analysts have said.
Never go out to fight for freedom and justice wearing your best trousers.
I'll be willing to bet that if this happens, we'll see MS releasing the code for 95/98 only. This will allow them to divest themselves of supporting previous versions on the basis "It's now open-source and everyone's working on it", and will let them focus on Win2k only.
It's a good business move, because they look like the good guys for promoting open-source, but it's no loss to them at all, as they don't really want to have to support 95/98 any more and this gives them a valid reason to withdraw official support.
That's just my opinion though.
Subby
I agree that at the moment there are fewer applications on the shelf at CompUSA for Linux.
There are, however, many more applications available FREE online which are in the "Heavy Duty" catagory. TeX, blender, Gimp..
Some will argue that MAX and Photshop are "better"...whatever...But the price advantage is still there.
Your wallet stays open. Our source remains closed. We are MSFT
I am absolutely certain MS cares.
MS is an example of triumph of marketing over engineering. Any dissenter must be attacked and discredited by the MS Parrot-Troopers, because MS cannot afford to have public perception turn against it.
Let's face facts: Linux/Gnome + Staroffice is indistinguishable from MS+Office for the AVERAGE user. MS needs to do all it can to prevent the majority of users from realizing this, and ceasing to PAY MS.
Your wallet stays open. Our source remains closed. We are MSFT
That makes a lot of sense. Think about it... they'd be the laughing stock of the whole computing community if they Open-sourced Windows 2000.
Why am I even doing this?
Gates: ``In order to have the great reliability that we promise with Windows, you can't have all these variant versions where somebody has gone and tinkered with source code here and tinkered with source code there.''
seriously though... I seriously doubt this will ever happen, but if it does the big things I think would be a benefit from it. 1) Source to Internet Explorer. The only thing I miss about switching to Linux. 2) The Samba team will have full access to Windows to iron out all the little kinks in Samba. 3) The Wine team will greatly benefit from this. 4) Direct X compatible Linux... The only reason this is of use is that I don't think many game developers are going to go the OpenGL route, and if we could do a DirectX/OpenGL wrapper or something similiar we could greatly simplify game ports to Linux. I don't think it will ever happen though. And really who needs it. Linux has made such great strides because of the developers behind it. Most have worked on their particular projects from scratch, or backwards engineered whatever they had to. The release of Windows code would make for a fun ongoing /. topic. I can see all the developers now posting code fragments and making fun of them. It could prove my theory though.... Windows was written in Logo. Them turtle graphics are slow!
Honestly, there's very little in Word95/97/2000 that I couldn't have done way back in the Wordperfect for DOS 5.1 era. All Microsoft's done is make it easier to learn, and easier to get frustrated with when Word decides it knows what's best for you, and that what you're attempting to do is wrong. I know customers are screaming that they want products that do what they MEAN, not what they SAY, but when the product refuses to listen and you want a SPECIFIC thing to happen, it gets frustrating quickly.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
> If you don't like Office, then you haven't > learned to really use Office Heh - I've been hearing people say this about vi and troff for years :)
>> But it also does tons of crazy stuff automatically with no obvious way to turn it off. Auto indenting and auto numbering mainly.
:)
> Just a note: both are changable.
He didn't say they were unchangable, he said that figuring out how to turn them off is a pain in the ass.
Actually, if you'll note, he did say they were unchangable - 'no obvious way to turn them off'.
Besides that, as far as I'm concerned, this stuff shouldn't be turned *on* by default, anyways. If automatic numbered lists aren't turned on, you can still create them manually, so you still get what you want. But when they are turned on, there are situations where you have to wrestle with it to *prevent* that automatic creation, and thus have a lot of trouble getting what you want.
I agree, but you have to realize, that's us talking. The big guys would rather make things easy for the people who don't know what to do than for people who can easily figure it out. Is it harder for you to turn off a feature, knowing where/how to look, or for someone who's never used a computer to figure out how to use the feature if it's turned off? Some people like the autonumbering - I would if I were making a massive list of things and didn't want to bother with counting and indenting...
everything has it's uses, and you're not going to like every feature... take it with a grain of salt!
> If you don't like Office, then you haven't learned to really use Office.
Let's look at Word, as that's the Office app I'm most familiar with personally. It's quite nice, sure. It's pretty powerful, no doubt. But it also does tons of crazy stuff automatically with no obvious way to turn it off. Auto indenting and auto numbering mainly.
Just a note: both are changable. Check the AutoCorrect Options... go through all the option dialogs and fix whatever you find you don't want... auto indenting and numbering are there. Actually, auto indenting is part of the paragraph settings in the ruler...
In this case I hate to say but the person you replied to was right. If you know how to use Word, it's a good product.
...but it was taken down immediately. Now my post isn't on this thread. The source was from Bloomberg the first time.
/. story on this subject
Here is the link:
first
"Being alive is a crock of shit." --Kilgore Trout
Did you check your own link in your post? Funny that you still got a four...
.....Jaxn
I wonder if anyone who moderated this up bothered to follow the link?
"Being alive is a crock of shit." --Kilgore Trout
Was I the only one who noticed that the head of software development (Gates) was interviewed, but not the CEO (Ballmer)
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
Bill gates resigned as CEO, and therefore probally doesn't have the power to push this through, even if he wanted to. This would be greatly interesting, and I wonder if caldera would make a distro of windows (OpenWindows?)? they already have companies with DOS and Linux versions that you can get free (www.lineo.com) What I'm thinking is that bill gates isn't in power any more (or not as much power anyways), so I'm not really sure he can do what they are talking about. (If he's got the shares of stock, anything's possible in that case) This could backfire, and it probally will eventually because it looks like he's stealing someone's idea and basically is. We could have a contest to repair segmentation faults and the memory leak error! Of course, this could also be a step in the evultion of software. with a commercial software company as big as M$
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
Gates emphasized that Microsoft's ``closed'' code makes Windows more reliable.
Reliable? What kind of Windows are YOU running, Mr. Gates? If this is reliable, I'd HATE to see unreliable...
and since when does open source lead to unreliability?
-- Dr. Eldarion --
Can something this big & cruft-ridden succesfully go from closed-source to open source?
One of the biggest things an open source project needs to grow is dedicated coders. jwz, in the infamous mozilla resignation letter, complains "The truth is that, by virtue of the fact that the contributors to the Mozilla project included about a hundred full-time Netscape developers, and about thirty part-time outsiders, the project still belonged wholly to Netscape -- because only those who write the code truly control the project."
Now seriously -- If you look long enough in the win2k code base, you'll probably find code from DOS 1.0, more than 2 decades old. Who can get excited about that?
You can be sure that if they do open the source, there'll suddenly be a new release, without open source, designed to break compatibility with what they provided open source for.
You know, if Windows went open-source and outside people started working on it and DID improve the OS, HOW would that be a bad thing? Wasn't the whole idea of Linux to make a BETTER OS, not trying to put M$ out of business?? Frankly, development aside -- Win2000 is probably the best OS out there....it runs a hell of a lot more stable than my Linux box -- I really don't know what other improvements COULD be made to it (aside from some new drivers for my USB scanner--which NEVER worked in Linux anyway...) to improve the OS.
GCS/MU d-- s+:+>: a--- C++++$ ULSX++ P++ L+ E---- W+++$ N+++>+ o- K w@ O- M-- V- PS@ PE++ Y+ PGP- t--- 5-- X R++
Is this supposed to say linux?.
Amazing magic tricks
Myself, not trying to be anal either; Linux has been developed for 10 years and will continue to be developed - it gets an update several times a week, however Windows was apparently had very little development and has subsequently been updated every 6-8 months with mediocre 'service-packs' which do little, if not hinder the performance of the O/S.
Im just another Windows system administrator who's f***ed off with it......
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Perhaps this means we can make something decent out of wholly inadequate code.
My Question here is:
Is it worth anyones while to attemp to adapt, implement or use code which is obsolete and over five years old?
Many Software companies release the source code now when their products become obsolete or are superceded on the merits that they no longer make revenue from them.
My last point: surely Windows 'security' has common traits throughout the versions 9.x > NT > Win2k. So surely they wouln't want to give away any code secrets to what 'security' there is in Win2k by releasing itscounterpart 9.x code...!
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Thanks but no thanks. I have no desire to debug that monster unless someone pays me well for the effort.
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No Zen is good zen
>but I think we'd have a better chance of seeing M$ relocate to Antartica than for them to open up Office.
Well, just think of it, no governments to pester them about their monopolistic behaviour, it'll be perfect for them
(And I'm sure good ol' Bill Gates can take care of the Greenies, they pose little threat to his dominance =P )
--
It is unlikely that Microsoft can and will release the Windows source code. Microsoft has contracted out and incorporated so many other companies' code into windows that for the source to be released they would need their approval or remove the code all together. I believe that Microsoft has once again spoke without thinking first. Suprise, suprise.
This is particularly true since Matthias Ettrich was the original author of Lyx, and has since ported it to KDE (Klyx). I've never understood why they didn't use that as a base rather than starting from scratch.
Maybe the people who take over the source will have the balls to kill WinME and the bastard of a OS that 9x is/was.
Poor old Adobe. FrameMaker kicks (kicked?) major ass over Word or any other GUI tool for editing complex documents.
Anyway this is great, First they say:
San Francisco, Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Microsoft Corp. would be willing to open the source code for its Windows software to competitors if that was all it would take to settle the antitrust case filed by the Justice Department, Chairman Bill Gates said.
Then they say:
A Microsoft spokesman denied that Gates said the company would be willing to open its source code. ``He did not make any of the comments regarding source code that were attributed to him,'' company spokesman Greg Shaw said. ``He says what we've said all along, that we are doing our best to settle this case, and there is nothing new about that.'' ``We stand by our story,'' said Matthew Winkler, Bloomberg News editor-in-chief.
Huh? Last I checked the uptime across our Open Sourced environments vs. our MS environments was something like, Linux @ 240 days and NT @ 7 days. This is pretty usual for us. How could they possible claim to be more reliable? More reliable than what?
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
If microsoft dumps its piles of "crappy" source code on the rest of us, its just going to slow down progress. I say let them keep their source code and their WindowsXXXX or whatever. It can only be a step in a backwards direction.
It is now time to move on away from the archaic Wintel PC and to faster processors (AMD,Crusoe) and better operating systems (Linux, FreeBSD, etc...).
Even if they did release it they would probably fill it full of more crap first so in the end the stuff would be practically indecipherable.
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
www.npsis.com
Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
www.haidacarver.com
"Gates emphasized that Microsoft's "closed" code makes Windows more reliable."
I am sure glad they don't open source it, if it is this reliable closed source, it won't even boot under an Open Source model. Thank God they are keeping it closed. Thanks you Mr. Gates for putting code correctness and reliablity before poltics, marketing hype and the pursuit of money.
You got to love that Gates, putting reliablity, stablity, security, design, code corretness before they give into market and govement presure to release under a model that has be prove to destory reliablity. I am surpise they can even get that Linux or FreeBSD junk to even compile, being open source and unreliablity and all! Do you know that the Linux OS doesn't even have a linux.exe? It is called something like vmlinuz, how weird is that?
(If you haven't firgured it out by now this is a joke and not meant to be taken serious)
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
While Mr. Coward makes valid points, I have to partially agree with SpaceCadet. Software is unlike anything else, in that no one company can control all 'code resources,' as one could with steel mills, oil fields, or telephone cables. The software industry is totally different, in that it can take care of itself better than any other industry. However (marketing aside, and looking from a server OS point of view), as Linux proves, it doesn't necessarily take something bigger to beat something big.
www.umr.edu/~tcaton
Remember when id released the Quake source code, and all of the cheating issues that were possible because of Quake's security through obscurity model? I think there is a very high chance that the same sort of problems would occur if the source code of windows was released. that is all
I know what Windows API's look like. I don'wanna see the source!
Congratulations on a reasoned and reasonable assessment. Being a monopoly in and of itself is not illegal, of course, only the abuse of monopoly power is illegal.
OK, so Microsoft is considering releasing their source code. Doesn't mean that they're going to go GPL with it.
Think about it for a sec. Windows is Microsoft's flagship project. Whether you'll admit it or not, Windows is popular, and that brings in more money for the boys in Redmond. Do you honestly think that Gates would say "Hey, let's open source this," and risk losing millions (or billions) of dollars?
I do think this would be great for Microsoft's PR. They agree to release their code, thus getting people to think "Wow, they've released the source code...they aren't so bad," and also making Windows seem like a less-buggy OS...if they decide to accept patches from the software community.
If Windows does release their source code, don't expect it to be shipped with the GPL. You may think Bill Gates is a moron (and hey, some instances have proved that he's a few fries short of a Happy Meal), but he's not that dumb.
--
The real Raunchola isn't cool enough to have any imposters
Wasn't MSIE claimed to be required for the os to run?
Doesn't that mean that to defend itself, the OS became all that accesses the internet too?
Billy Gartes(name changed to protect the innocent...) announced yesterday that they will be releasing their last stable source code of Windows... Only problem is...it was Win 3.11 :)
That'll be good. Win9x - well the important bits like the kernel and GDI etc etc - is written in Intel x86 assembler. I foresee that it will be a challenge to port it to a Sparc box.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
As someone in Troia said, just before Greeks broke out of the horse: "timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes" which means - I fear the Greeks even when they bring presents. I think the source code to Windows (in what incarnation still remains to be seen, maybe they think to release Windows 3.0 code) is important, but the internal file format of Excel/Word/etc... would be necessary as well - that's another key pillar of MS stranglehold.
With the new push in UTICA and other licensing laws how much would this really help. Sure we would have the source code, but what could we legally do with it.
Personally, I wouldn't use Framemaker for magazine-type stuff, but if you don't want to start in with LaTeX, Framemaker might be right for you -- and it has Linux support!
. . . which is more than can be said for Quark . . .
I have no
The only significant loss I see is it makes reverse engineering really easy to their competitors. It would put WINE a lot closer to running MS Office and Mozilla could probably learn a lot about HTML rendering from the IE source.
Henry Fnord
Yes, but will they open the source to Internet Explorer (since it is an integral part of their OS)?
Also, what about all the previous iterations of the Windows OS? I think some competitors would like to see the various tricks Microsoft has used in the Windows code to disable competing products?
And, if they open the source & competitors can resell it, how is Microsoft going to make any money?
I expect that MS will only do this with an immunity agreement & a retention of the full rights to the software made from the source code. I doubt Microsoft's license will be remotely compatible with the GNU GPL.
--
He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
What he said is that Win98 really has many big bugs ... the comment is a "bug" so to speak --cus anyone knows Win98 has tons of big bugs :D ok this was a silly post...but whatever :D check out my website if you can... and maybe help me with my linux port if you like :D
If Windows is as addictive as cigarettes, does it also cause impotence? Bill Gates would know
What I'd really like to see -- and I've been saying this for years now -- is for Microsoft to give us all:
equal access to the source code and
COMPLETE and ACCURATE documentation for the entire Win32 API.
I'd be happy with that. Let them put reasonable restrictions on it if they want. Hell, nobody wants to take their code and build on it anyway.
marc
The real mnf999 always posts as anonymous coward
Well, I can't answer for Oracle specifically, however.... what it comes down to is this. When you complete a WRITE operation, and the system comes back and says "Yes, I successfully wrote that." Then it had better be committed to disk. You can't do that today with Linux. Sure, the WRITE can fail, the point is that it doesn't say SUCCESS unless it has been committed to disk. (Note: This also requires you to turn on synchronous disk writes on your hardware... some hardware configurations will do caching, and this can create problems as well.).
The original article gives quite a different impression than cNet. For one, it quotes a spokesman from MS thusly:
For two, Bill says if that's all it takes
Amen! Market share doesn't mean squat to me either. In a twisted sort of way Microsoft is actually making my business easier. The more they charge for a Windows 2000 license, the less money that my competitors will be able to allocate to application development and programming, things that matter.
I also hope that Microsoft slaps new restrictions on the licenses. For instance, when my competitors merge, it would be way cool if they could not legally transfer the licenses to the new entity. The fact that they would have to repurchase same gives me a big rush.
I also want to recognize the brilliant marketing and sales forces of Microsoft. That you guys can persuade my competitors to pay for software that can be had for free blows my mind. I wish you continued success, and please jack up your fees and make your licenses more restrictive. Every little bit helps!
Then it wouldn't be "open" would it? This has actually long been an idea of a lot of ppl i'm sure (myself included.) The implications of an open source MSwin are actually staggering. Think about it: the security of a linux/unix box and the 'ease of use' of a win platform. What? no, i wouldn't call it a mac, why do you ask? (last sentence was sarcasm :)
If windows is open, does it really matter if IE is an app? A large part of many a win programmer is the whole "they give is the alphabet with out the vowels" argument. if true, i bet we'll see better products for the win platform.
YHBT HAND
cat
I'd definately get a laugh out of it if that happened - well for a while anyway ............
Reliability? I've been working with Win9x (no Linux, for I have a WinModem and no money) for 5 years and I think that reliability is the last thing that Micro$oft should be talking about. Opening the source on this would be the best thing they could do: it would probably end up earning them more money in the long run.
Open source = fast bug fixes = stable OS
Pretty simple, ne?
______________________________________
____________________________________________
___
I'm an exhibit on the mounted animal nature trail.
As I understand it, there are two basic breakup plans:
1) Break MS into an applications company and an OS company. This would require constant policing as MS-OS continued to assert that this or that was really part of the OS. This is the nightmare scenario for those who think government can do no good, because it involves bureaucrats in software development.
2) Break MS into parallel competing firms, each with ownership of the code. In this case, the urge for the firms to collude would be incredible. But assuming they could overcome it and compete, the expectation would be that one firm would overtake the others for the new dominant force. All you'd really expect is a period of chaos and then a new monopolistic equilibrium.
If MS seriously put current and future versions of Windows into Open Source (as we understand it), then there could be ongoing competition for quality and speed-of-release. MS would certainly have the upper hand in that competition. So long as it could keep winning that competition, it would continue to have a head start in application development.
But, let them have Office if they lose a grip on the OS. As another poster pointed out, Office is one thng they've done very well, but it doesn't have as strong network-effects monopoly as the OS.
Visual Basic and VBA, on the other hand, are a threat. Can't wait to see how those work out.
The most worthwhile (from an antitrust point of view) part of opensourcing Windows is that other developers could develop fully compatible OSs pretty easily.
If there was any practical way to allow freely-distributable, modifiable, and resellable source code, while still retaining for the developer of any flavor of Windows the right to charge for executable... [ugh, what a horrible clause that was] ...that could provide a wonderful incentive, both for MS, and other developers.
I don't see how it could happen, though. What's to stop someone changing how the "Start" button looks on some version, and then distributing their "version" for almost free?
The idea is that, unlike a regular lawsuit, where the guilty party is forced to compensate the damaged party in some way, in antitrust cases like this, the goal is to reorganize something so that the guilty part can't continue to exploit monopoly power.
So, if the DOJ liked thought that making Windows opensource would remove chances for future monopoly power, and could convince the right judges of that idea (damned unlikely), issues of who's been damaged in the past are moot.
``The only thing we know for sure would be bad for consumers is anything that blocks us from being able to innovate Windows or anything that made it so that when people buy Windows they don't know what's in it.''
Uhm...isn't this a contradiction? Opening their source would somehow block their innovation, but keeping it closed will let customers know how it was put together and how everything works? First, they could be in control of what makes it into the main releases of Windows (end of 'we can't innovate' argument). Who knows? Maybe they could get some of those crazy bugs out of their product if they open sourced it? Also, this 'one product to do everything' attitude they seem to have has GOT to stop. There are many places using Windows (banks?) who could really benefit from their own proprietary OS, as the mainstream ones might not get what they need done quite the right way. Having the source for Windows might be beneficial to them. IMO, there are many many more reasons for them to open the source than there are reasons to keep it closed. Or maybe, in the end, they want an open sourced solution to beat them?
"Going to church makes you no more a christian than sleeping in your garage makes you a car." --Loosely paraphrased, Ga
Yeah, it must have been my blinding brilliance. ;-) (And atrocious speling ;-)
____________________________
He who fights and runs away,
I think this will give MS a long time to play. As anybody knows that now their major revenue is from MS Office. If they were to open source Windows. This will increase the life of Windows by quite a bit. And also help others write WINE type emulators which will let their software go into other markets. Linux will be a good place for them to be. Ofcourse they don't have an immediate pressure on them to do this but after three years who knows ;-).
Judging by previous experiences, lies FUD and mind control it is very hard to assume that anything good can come out of opening Win32 source if it ever happens. I can't see MS simply opening their source without a catch. I think if this ever happens they'll accomplish several of their goals. Make a deal with government (and have no strings attached to them this way), so far it's been very blind (the fact that UCITA is even being considered is rediculous, and a good example). Their other goal is screw up you and everyone else like they've been doing so far. Remember what happened to Win 3.11 when 95 came out? If they'll open some 98 code, and government leaves them alone, that would be equivalent to opening win 3.11 code -- irellevant because of W2K and constantly changing APIs! Remember what happened when IBM tried to keep up with the API in OS/2? 98 will soon be history just like 3.11 is. I would rather like to see them open sourcing IE than any of their OSs. Would make more sense according to the trial too.
Regardless of the best OS, Licensing practices, Open Source...I support what the customer want's. That way I get PAID. I try to steer them toward a better product. But Alas, as a government contractor, I've found out the hard way that M$ has a powerful sales/marketing influence and that is that! The reality is Bill Gates has made a lot of money for me!
What's in it for me? Opening up the Windows sources, even to read, doesn't really help us all that much. And they're not going to do it either. We need a fully documented API, so that WINE can emulate it, not an example of how to code it.
GenerateRandomCrash();
Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
Actually, you're pretty much blaming the wrong people... why don't we have electric cars all over the place right now? Well, because whenever someone invented something to make alternative ways of powering cars better, the oil industries offered enough money for the inventor to sell, and then closed the project down, which means none of these devices ever got developed any further.
Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Most "damaged parties" want money or stock in Microsoft. Settling with 50 states and several corporations will effectively dismantle Microsoft anyway. Sun, Netscape, etc. will all soon own a piece of Microsoft. They will have the source code anyway: why would they settle for "just" the old source code (win3x, win9x), when they will be getting the old code and all future code(win2k, winME, etc) due to ownership of controlling shares of Microsoft. For all you crazy linux hackers :) gnashing your teeth in anticipation of the source... well you guys were not named as damaged parties and will never put your grubby paws on Windows source code.
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
Cool, maybe the rootkit project will get finished now ;-)
I'm about friggin' time they have a positive article about Microsoft. But I've been reading comments that about 70% of all the servers world wide runs on Linux. Right? Since now MS has their OpenSource thingie(or whatever the fuck they call it) what will they do now?
Now, what would be wrong with that? My gosh, people might find out the truth! Then they might see why people run Linux, that woud just be terrible. The worst scenario, Windows computers everywhere drop out leaving those with "secure" operating systems stil standing. All of these "hacker script kiddies" that get the label of some great cool monkey by some teenage crowds are now seen as fools taking advantage of other fools. Yeah, some businesses might be severely damaged, but Microsoft gets the label they should have. Everybody switches to a "secure" OS, and the world is one step coser to reality.
Aliens... If I were them, I'd stay well away from Earth.
good point... I meant "BAD" from the viewpoint of competition. Lack of competition is almost guaranteed to be bad for the consumer. (compare NT before the OS/2 fiasco and after - NT moved sluggardly before, but once there was the OS/2 competition, NT got way better very quickly.) While I sometimes get paralyzed from too many choices (just which distro should I run??? :) overall, I think competition spurs innovation (I'm not looking for a "MS doesn't innovate" rwar here! whether they innovate or aquire and steal others innovations, the innovations exist) - Al -
I agree that M$ would probably Open Source Win9x and keep Win2000 to itself. After all the desktop is where they have the monopoly. Besides 32bit computing has a short life expectancy with the introduction of Intel's Itanium chip. Interestingly M$ has no 64bit OS, not even an alpha version, but expects to have one in time for the Itanium introduction. Perhaps M$ is going to save developer costs by porting to Linux 64bit. It would explain the Linux programers at M$. By open sourcing Win9x M$ can abandon it to the Windows programing community to improve and debug. It can still assure itself of profits by selling apps, specifically Office products. M$ Office is the defacto standard in the business world. File compatibility between 32 and 64bit MS Office apps shouldn't be a problem for M$. Please note that M$ will only Open source if it has to and it is in the best interests of M$.
"Open code, in other words, can be a check on state power." -Lawrence Lessig
After reading the article, it says that Microsoft is willing to open the source to their COMPETITORS. I don't think the average Joe will be able to get their hands on it. I don't think they will be doing the Open Source fundamentals, plus they probably will charge a fee if you request a copy of the source if they decide to open it up. However, it would make interesting bedtime reading. Thank God, for my super fast wide carraige dot matrix, I wonder how long it would take to print?
Is to relese the win32 source code. Just think about it.. it will just reveale further how unstable and bad the windows os really is. One thing for sure is how this woud impact on businessess running NT servers on the web. Release the source code: give hackers a huge advance in exploiting NT security holes. Now i understand why, quote MS said in the CNET article: "Microsoft's closed code makes Windows more reliable". Hehe. Release the source code, and let all the IT managers that chose to run NT really know that they bet on the wrong horse.
-- Emacs is a nice OS - but it lacks a decent editor
Peeve: It's not an OS. It's a platform, e.g. a consistent set of facilities that applications developers can rely upon.
Anyway, COM is spec'd and so is DCOM. There are lots of 3rd party implementations, for example, there is the Haskell and Oberon COM support.
For specs, see http://www.microsoft.com/com/resources/specs.asp.
This is an unfortunate example of comments being misunderstood by people with limited understanding of the underlying issue.
The Win32 API is the definition of Windows. It's what people write software for (including Microsoft). The undocumented NT APIs are designed for developing emulation subsystems (e.g. Win32, POSIX, OS/2, Interix), not applications. An application that used the NT APIs wouldn't even run on Windows 9x, so wouldn't be terribly useful.
In some cases, Win32 APIs simply provide a consistent interface to NT APIs which may change over time (in other words, the microkernel design allows Microsoft to change the implementation of the OS without changing the interface to it). In other cases, the NT APIs have no practical use for anything other than the development of emulation subsystems.
It would only make sense to publish the NT APIs if Microsoft planned to let other companies write subsystems for NT. This would probably be a bad idea, and would require them to freeze and document all of the NT APIs (providing more work for them, and limiting their ability to modify the NT OS).
Post 1:
So... kernel calls themselves are undocumented, since MS wants everyone to use Documented API's to communicate with the kernel instead. I really hate it when abstraction is used - damn those evil MS people. Note that he has no reason to believe that these calls would improve performance over the Win32 API, and certainly none to believe that these calls are being used in an unfair manner...
Post 2:
Um, hello? NT 3.1? The good old days, eh? This does show (probably) that this stuff *did* occur, but it doesn't bear any real relevance to today... MS was burned when the first round of hidden API calls were discovered, and it's possible they cleaned up their act.
Post 3:
First off, if we conceed that, just maybe, NT's networking protocols are part of the OS (or at least part of the platform), then these aren't hidden API's at all, but are rather simply exported functions that are called within a coherent product. If *not*, then I guess I'd need more information to understand why Jeremy Allison needs to call the kernel functions directly and why the Win32 API is insufficient for his needs.
Post 4:
Ah yes... more about that one call in NT 3.1... and an unspecified reference to an unnamed call in some version of NT (I don't doubt that this exists, but there's not much info here). The rest is just more about how, yes, we've got this "Win32 API", but I want to use the kernel's calls directly. I'm not going to tell you how or why, but I do...
I don't know... while these seem to indicate that, yes, there were a couple calls (perhaps more) that were undocumented in previous versions of NT, it gives us no reason to believe that this practice continues, or that it was even abused in more than two instances.
Oh, and, while it probably didn't exist then, just for kicks LsaLogonUser
Congratulations, you have found SlashDot's gateway to parallel universes.
In that universe, Cowboy Neal posted the story with a very sarcastic tone, which lead to so much trolling that SlashDot crashed, causing Andover.Net shares to plummet, triggering a panic effect in tech stocks...causing a huge stock market crash that destroyed the US economy.
Luckily, before some nut managed to detonate the entire world's nuclear stockpile, CmdrTaco activated the time portal he got at a Slider's convention...jumped to a universe where the story had not yet been posted...and thus was able to post the story before Cowboy Neal and save humanity.
Just be glad you didn't have to see the universe where JonKatz posted it...[shudder]
One word: Framemaker
GUI, great layout ability, perfect for long complex documents.
I have seen the light, and I'm not going back...
For a complex document, you don't use Office, you use LaTeX. It's much more powerful, the output looks better, and you can use emacs or vi to edit it instead of the 2000 lb monster that is Microsoft Office.
Looks like someone didnt read the article. They will not Open Source the linux source code, they will license out the viewing of the source code to other companies. You wont be able to just go download it. In fact, they already do this to embedded companies that need to modify the source code. And the license will be very strict, like an NDA.
Jeff Knox
Chris DiBona
VA Linux Systems
--
Grant Chair, Linux Int.
Pres, SVLUG
Co-Editor, Open Sources
Open Source Program Manager, Google, Inc.
Ignore this talk about Microsoft voluntarily opening the source code to Windows, and hope it never happens. Here's why:
- Settling the case this way would mean dropping all of the judge's Findings Of Fact, because the court case would be rendered null and void. Microsoft could turn around tomorrow and go back to its old thieving ways, and the only legal recourse would be to start another antitrust lawsuit all over again.
- Putting control of the distribution of Windows source code directly into Microsoft's hands would be like asking the fox to guard the henhouse. Who knows what sorts of restrictions they could put on their source code release to make it irrelevant and useless?
- Nothing in the CNet article mentions 'open source' specifically, and you've got to believe Microsoft isn't going to be so cavalier about giving up its crown jewels. Maybe Gates would choose two specific companies to give the code to, for two hundred fifty million dollars and one Non-Disclosure Agreement each...
- Or maybe the code to Windows 2000 will be offered, a month or two after Windows 2002 is released...
- And who says that Microsoft would accept any bug fixes or other enhancements to go back into Windows?
In short, this is just noise from Microsoft to make them look like helpful conciliators and to make the government look like heartless bureaucrats. Don't believe it, and don't read too much into the news story.
Firstly, I don't care how much you try and claim otherwise, FrameMaker will always be more than a mere word processor. Find me a word processor that has the functionality of FM, and I may start using it...
Secondly, why not take your money, go buy your monitor and memory, and then download a free copy of FrameMaker for Linux. It's a beta, and the license expires at the end of 2000, but that should be enough for you to decide if you actually want to spend the money on the full product.
http://www.adobe.com/products /framemaker/fmlinux.html
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
I agree. My first thought was: "What kind of liscence would MS use?" How MS opens the source is going to greatly affect the software industry. If they choose something so restrictive that one couldn't even use it to improve other projects like WINE, then what good would it do?
--mere mortal--
First we had marketing FUD. Then we had investor-targeted FUD. Then we had legal FUD. Then we had spin-the-results-of-the-failure-of-legal-FUD FUD. Why should we be surprised to have make-unlikely-statements-off-camera-then-deny-it-o n-camera FUD?
Bloomberg is a generally reliable source. And it is a pretty tech-savvy company.
Microsoft is an unreliable source. And Bill Gates is a very bad liar (probably the real reason he turned those duties over to Ballmer).
From the above, one might conclude that MS really is willing to open source (in the sense of letting people see it, not in the GPL sense), except for one fact: It's so unlikely.
Why is it unlikely? Well, consider this: There are four possible settlements (which can, of course, be combined into a large number of permutations) --
From history we know Microsoft probably prefers the first. The Justice Department has been burned this way before and may be reluctant to accept it easily.
Of the remaining choices, breaking up the company results in massive gains for stockholders. The final two choices are probably the death knell for Windows (and, therefore, MS).
If you discount the Br'er Rabbit strategy ("Please don't throw me into the breakup briar patch, Mr. DoJ"), it seems unlikely that Microsoft would choose the paths most likely to provide outside competition for the Windows-compatible OS market when the breakup path allows stockholders to continue to own the monopoly, while introducing the benefits of competition between the Baby Bills.
The only person who might prefer open source to the breakup scenario might be Bill himself. If you look at MS as a big playground for Gates, breakup would mean going back to a much smaller playpen. You don't suppose he could have let his real hopes slip to Bloomberg's reporter, then gone back to Ballmer and lied about it, do you?.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
I believe that mandating Microsoft open up the Windows source in any way is bad for Microsoft and, more importantly, bad for the industry as a whole. Like it or not Microsoft has done a lot to bring computing to the common person and, with that, has grown the industry. Anything that would undermine Microsoft does threaten the industry as a whole.
The solution, in my opinion, is to put in place a standard for the Windows API and executable interface (similar to POSIX). The standards should be overseen by the industry. Microsoft can be a member of that organization that sets the standard. This would allow Microsoft to continue to operate with their main product line but takes away the unfair advantages that they allegedly have in their application development. More importantly, since the standards are open anybody can use them. This means that the barrier to entry into the consumer desktop market is dramaticly reduced because anybode can take advantage of the vast set of applications that already exists in the Windows world. Now competition for the desktop market can take place on a level field.
Remember, it is not the Microsoft programs that we want openned up, it is the interface. We can write our own programs--and we will be much more pleased with our own open code than any code from Microsoft.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. --Albert Einstein
Well, if win9x and NT were OSSed then what about win00? Win00 is "mostly new code", so that means what? Windows is a dead end now anyway... X-box is what MS will really be pushing on coned-sumers, er, consumers. =)
I personally would like to have wine running win9x apps optimized to run on my SMP machine! =)
There's been loads of disappearing stories over the years here at Slashdot, such as the one revealing collusion between Microsoft, the NSA and the KGB, and the fascinating interview with an alien escaped from Area 51 (itself a prime subject of disappearing stories). Unfortunately, for various reasons, these stories were deleted, and to all intents and purposes never existed.
Hang on, there's someone at the door. Excuse me while I become an unperson...
Ford Prefect
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
If Microsoft can release an OS with the functiality of windows and the rock-solidness of Linux, more power to them!
Why in the world would you want to restrict OS evolution just because it isn't Linux? Remember, it is about the people who work with computers, not about the linux jihad.
... Or you can just click on the 'show/hide' button on the toolbar and the codes are revealed. This works in Office 95 & 97 too I beleive. Am I missing something?
Microsoft Word totally chokes on long documents with lots of equations and included figures, and is ridiculously slow compared to the competition on linux (Framemaker and TeX derivatives like Lyx and kLyx and LaTeX).
For my economics class, I created an 8.5x11 word 2000 document that was litterally full of equations (real equations using the equations builder tool), and didn't have any problems whatsoever. Can you elborate on 'totally chokes' ?
Zontar The Mindless,
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
adding to collection
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
The problem is that Office is heavily dependent on OLE, COM and the registry. Do you really want to port that junk from Windows to your operating system?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
If this turns out to be true... This would ultimately be a good move, for M$, consumers, Linux, and everybody. It doesn't sound like they would open source Windoze, just license the source to competitors. With 100M+ lines of code and 65K+ bugs, this is probably the only way they could debug it. We might get a fairly stable Windoze release and a company like Corel could license the code and create a "Virtual Windoze Machine" for Linux to run win32 apps, probably even faster than a native Windoze box.
If it was me making the choice as to what M$ was going to have to do to avoid being broken up I'd force them to release all their source code under a true opensource license (ie it must get the approval just as any other OSS license has to) and preferably either under GPL or BSD. GPL might be best in this case as it'd help keep fragmentation down but it isn't needed as once the source was open anyone could make things compatible. Releasing only Windows allows them to simply rename the product. Releasing only the OS allows them to simply recatagorize large chunks of the code. We have seen companies prosper with all OSS'd code so there is no reason M$ couldn't. They have a large R&D labs and could turn out an amazing amount of wonderful code if they were just taken and shoved into the light kicking and screaming. They'd probably come out stronger as it'd force them to make prices more affordable and fix their support (which honestly sucks) -- they already charge enough for their support to make a large profit off of it if they tried. The new commercial could be, "Where do you want to go today, call us and we'll show you how." M$ almost missed the Internet, will they miss opensource? Linux may catch up some with Windows it's true but Windows would also catch up with Linux. Imagine tomorrows students having such a wide list of OSS OS's to study from. It can't do anything but make tomorrow's computing better.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
Yeah but...If all the current linux developers (and that's the mind share you are talking about) go to Windows and actually *improve* the software, why would you have to remain hung up on linux?
As soon as linux stops being the Best Tool for the Job, it should get kicked to the curb and nary a glance back at its sorry ass.
Patch Windows bugs and holes in few days? Who do you think will be looking at this code? It will take at least 5 years for hackers to comprehend it, followed by a several emergency cases of severe vomiting. Eventually, they "might" start fixing it with medical permission.
:)
How large is the source code for Win2k?
Millions of lines? I can't see it as worth
the effort for the Open Source community to
bother with what is probably an intractable
morass of buggy garbage.
It'd be MUCH more useful to force them to
accurately publish their API, and split them
into an Apps division and an OS division, with
the Apps division using the same documentation
as everyone else.
As with Mozilla, the world doesn't really want
to share responsibility for a project which
wasn't theirs to begin with and was arguably
ruined before the world ever got access.
I, for one, will be VERY displeased the only
remedy forced on MS is to open their source.
This measure would be woefully inadequate on
its own.
PeterM
We don't need office, we need file compatiblity! I'd be perfectly happy using Star Office, Koffice, or Word Pefect. I just want the files to be compatible!
I think the light was in the emergency room after you went into shock from the price tag.
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
I would hate to be the peon who just got hired to be a code jockey... then when the boss hands me the following assignment, I would quit:
"Dear Scott,
Please go through the 10 million lines of windows source and remove all comments describing our techniques of making competitive software function less efficiently.
We will be making our code open source, so we need to use numerical codes to mask our policies... The 4000 page code manual will arrive shortly, please replace comments with the appropriate alphanumeric codes.
Thank you,
Mr. Pointy Hair"
If it is anything like the geek code, we could see some really neat comments coming out of Redmond.
-S
Scott Ruttencutter
We Apprentice Developers and Designers
Actually, historically most monopolys have only come into existance when the government gave them the exclusive rights to provide a service. Ie.. local cable companys, local phone service, etc.. Only recently have these areas been opened up by the government to competitors. The free market is the best solution.
I don't do (MS) windows. In DOS 2.0 there were several vital system calls that weren't documented. These included:
Undocumented API calls used by standard Microsoft utilities are patently unfair and create an unlevel playing field. I would agree with you if they weren't being used, but I suspect little has changed over the years.
Windows Millennium will be a lite version of Windows 2000 and will be based on the Windows NT architecture.
Riiight.
Windows 95 was going to be the last version of MS-Windows based on DOS.
Well, then the Win95 OEM Service Releases came out, but those didn't count (they were just for OEMs, after all), and don't worry, those are the last based on MS-DOS.
Okay, so consumer demand has forced us to release another version of Windows95, now called Windows98. But this is the last version of MS-Windows based on MS-DOS, we promise.
Well, in the interests of making things as easy as possible for everyone, we are going to release a "Second Edition" of Windows98. Last release based on DOS. This time, for sure. Cario, I mean NT 5.0, I mean Windows 2000, is finally going to migrate all of MS-Windows onto the NT code base.
Okay, so the fact that half the DOS and Windows software in the world doesn't run on Win2K means we are going to release "Windows Millenium", still based on Windows95, and still having real-mode DOS code at the core of the system. But this is last time, really!
Anyone else starting to see the pattern here?
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
No, and even if that was true, it'd be a sign of quite how far wrong Microsoft had pitched it.
Let's look at Word, as that's the Office app I'm most familiar with personally. It's quite nice, sure. It's pretty powerful, no doubt. But it also does tons of crazy stuff automatically with no obvious way to turn it off. Auto indenting and auto numbering mainly.
Now, I'm a university student living in halls and there's a fair number of people here who know I'm a reasonably friendly soul who understands the computers. So I get asked to help people reasonably often. Same at home - I help my parents and sister when they get stuck and I've helped several members of our church learn to use their computers.
These people are farm from idiots, but Word will catch them out fairly often - and the amount of daft playing you have to do to defeat the automatic systems is crazy. It slows people down and causes real heartache, along with forcing people to learn how to work round features. And I don't think I'm the only one here who'd say that any feature most people have to work around should be considered a problem.
Word is powerful, sure - but most of that power's in directions which no-one except nerds like us and technical reviewers ever use. Which gets it high scores from the magazines and our respect (well, mostly) but which cause problems for everyday users.
The problem, to put it simply, is that Microsoft don't seem to know who actually uses it. Tone it down a long way and it would be a better program for 90% of its users, along with being cheaper, faster and more stable.
Greg
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Unless there is a cooperative process to develop specifications the fact that they eventually get published does not make them open.
Oh, you mean like the ActiveX Working Group?
Well gee, ain't that the darndest thing...
Simon
Coming soon - pyrogyra
I think you are 100% right on the money about the importance of the Office monopoly.
I disagree that it is beause Office is so good at complex tasks. Word at least is really terrible for any kind of document that has complicated layout. Aside from awkwardness, I've had documents that whose layouts were totally rejiggered every time I saved them. Other vendors talk about rendering Word docs with fidelity, but Word itself is horribly inconsistent.
The problem is that as bad as Office is, other packages trying to emulate Office tend to be worse. Nobody comes closer to success with software bursting at the seams with unimaginable numbers of obscure features than Microsoft does. They're the best there is at that paradigm. The problem is that paradigm is inherently flawed.
A better paradigm is to build a nicely integrated set of small, special purpose tools. This, for example, has been the great strength of the Unix command line. However, nobody has yet come up with a working GUI model that allows small components to be knit together simply and intuitively (OpenDoc was going to be it but Apple blew it when they gave up trying to change the world).
Mark my words. When Bonobo and DCOP based office apps start getting to release quality, the blood of the office suite vendors will run in the streets.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I'll be damned if I'm going to let some inane animated happy-go-lucky screen widget tell me how to do something in office.
I should have clarified.
I don't mean this for you or me, who hate such things (I haven't used any version of MS Office in 4 or 5 years), but for the kind of people who actually like that crap. The kind of people who would get frustrated at not being able to press enter twice. A little pop up that says, "Hey! you don't need to press enter twice" when you try to do it (making sure it doesn't steal focus of course).
As for the "learning wizard" I mean an interactive tutorial that shows how to do something and says, "now you try it." Those people will get pissed off and give up upon seeing a whole document like the current LyX tutorial (<nasty>god forbid they should learn to read before writing something...</nasty>) explaining the methods in LyX. You sort of have to trick them into learning. They won't know how long the tutorial is, and they won't mind once they're actually doing it.
After that crap is over, the way LyX works is already quite neat. Whenever you select a menu item or button, the status bar briefly shows what you did and the key-combo for it. Eventually the key-combos will be stuck in your mind and you'll rarely have to take your hands off the keyboard.
Oh yeah, another thing LyX needs is a more effective way to handle multiple open documents. Not MDI! We must let that horrible interface die. I prefer multiple windows (browser-style) but will happily settle for tabs. Actually, I like how tabs are used in Lotus WordPro, allowing one to quickly go to specific parts of one document.
Ok, I'll stop rambling...
Damn, I was gonna say that :-)*
However, I wouldn't imagine the average (as in "not you or I") user would be happy writing TeX code. Fortunately, there's LyX, which is absolutely fantastic. It does need a few things though. Specifically a good grammar checker and a nice wide range of templates for traditional office stuff. So far it's most useful for academic stuff and I've used it extensively for that.
I think the KDE guys should be concentrating on LyX rather than KWord (ho-hum, seen it before). One nice thing would be making it easier for new users to pick up. As much as I hate to admit it, a "paperclip" would be useful to quickly explain why you can't press the enter key twice, etc. How about a "wizard" tutorial instead of the text document (typical users *hate* that kind of stuff)?
Oh well, I've ranted enough.
Hold on!
I use Office to create a school newspaper. I've been doing it for three years, and i've learned how they say i should do it. You know what i've learned over the past few years?
If you're doing anything where formatting really matters, Office sucks. The text frames can't be positioned absolutly, the text doesn't fill in around them very well, nor around other objects. The picture scaling leaves something to be desired-- and that thing is antialiasing. Don't even get me started on how the formatting is attached to paragraphs.
I know how to use Word. I've looked up all the documentation and tutorials i could and i found that there is are two ways to do what i want to do; one of them's LaTeX, the other's QuarkExpress. Word just doesn't cut it in publication.
-BenC
I'm not saying that TeX doesn't have it's place, but it's ridiculous to compare the two products. Office is an excellent tool for the business desktop, and TeX/LyX are very clearly not.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Because the people who run mainframes usually have 30 year old applications that they rely on a daily basis, and which are based upon SNA/3270?
The company I work for is like that, and while it could theoretically replace it's SNA network with TCP, it needs a business reason for doing so, and so far there isn't one.
If you've got a huge investment in SNA/mainframe, and you need to develop a new app, are you going to spend $x to develop the app, or $x + $y to develop the app plus a new network?
We could use every app we've got using TN3270 over TCP/IP instead of a 3270 emulator over SNA. However removing the SNA equipment and replacing it with TCP equipment costs money, for no benefit to the client.
Applications which require TCP/IP do of course use the TCP equipment & network, but here is a small fraction of the SNA network at the moment, and will be for at least the next several years.
Total, idiotic, bollocks.
I've run large, significant, commercially important databases on Linux since kernel 1.2. I know a lot of other people who do, too. The critical things you need for an on-line transaction processing system are up-time and reliability. If you put in a Linux server you know it is just going to run; none of my database servers has ever had a software failure in four years. I've had a dead hard disk and a sticking processor fan, but never a software failure.
As far as transactional integrity goes, any serious database system has a begin/commit mechanism; it's not an operating system issue.
Now, sure, if I ran my databases on A/S400 I would get at least as good reliability; I might on AIX or Solaris. But Windows NT does not even begin to cut it as a database server.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
True, Open Source is not equal to GPL, but it is a superset. If you are going to talk about Open Source on Slashdot, you won't be speaking the same language unless you are talking about the Open Source Definition. If Open Source ever means anything besides this, then I'm going to start only calling it Free Software.
I think that is was something like $1 Million for NT4 and $1.5 million for Win2k. There were some limits on the number of users.
Yep, it means that every employee on the development team who is licensed to see the code can not work on another OS for 5 years. That includes Unisys's mainframe OS.
MS let us have the source because we are offing them a chance at real enterprise computing. We make mainframes that have decade long uptimes and are trying to bring some of that stability to Win2k. MS (and Intel to some extent) really needs a hardware vendor to make a super Wintel box. MS can not hope for Alpha anymore so CMP (and a few other similar architectures out there) are their best bet. Big Bill mentioned this program directly at the Win2k release party in SanFran. It is a pretty big deal at MS. They are really hopeing this will be the Unix killer.
The again...this thing supports running SCO UnixWare already and Solaris for x86 port is in the works. Even a Linux port is in the discussion phase. I am trying my best to get on that project!
-- soldack
I will try anyway, though. Our system supports up to 64 GB of RAM which coincidentally is the limit of addressable space on Intel's 32-bit processors. The normal 32-bit limit is 4 GB but Intel added Physical Address Extensions to give you 36-bit addressing, hence 64 GB, limit. NT4 did not support this but Win2k does. The standard virtual address space for NT4 is 4GB with 2GB for the system and 2GB for user space. NT4 Enterprise allowed you to make that 1 GB system and 3GB user. Win2k's support for PAE (not on by default) gives varying levels of support, depending on the version of Win2k. DataCenter will support the full 64 GB. The support comes in three forms:
Give that, our hardware can limit the OS's "view" of memory and make some OS changes to allow for physical memory reservations. This system of limiting and reserving is part of what allows us to move memory between systems. Also, even the "physical" address may not be real addresses in this system. This means that there could be a Win2k virtual to physical mapping and then a lower physical to real physical mapping. There are also designs to allow OSs to communicate through memory while running at the same time on this system.
A lot of the Dynamic Partitioning stuff is still being designed by us. Since it involves Windows source, Microsoft has to approve of our designs and the changes we make.
-- soldack
Microsoft could quite possibly manage to get the court to open-source Windows with some sort of quasi-open license, that makes the government happy, without being really open. Almost certainly Microsoft would limit the right to produce derived works.
On the other hand, if the code can be seen, so can Windows' inner workings. So even a license where you can view the code, but not produce derived works, could be enough. For the purposes of WINE for instant, while being able to reuse actual Windows code might be useful, simply seeing it would be enough to make development much easier. And it does still stop Microsoft from using hidden APIs, and a raft of their nasty tricks.
Problem here would be proving your code was not derived from the Windows source. If fact, having the source code available may give Microsoft a bit of a club. Imagine suddenly, six months after the source was released, a company released Losedows2000, Windows but better. Microsoft get an injuction on them, claiming they've stolen Windows code. Nine months later, they're declared innocent, but Microsoft have Windows2001 out, and no one wants Losedows any more. Or, alternatively, imagine something like this happening to WINE, a project Microsoft previously couldn't touch.
Whatever happens, the chance of seeing Windows under the GPL have to be about nil.
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
The only thing that keeps people on Windows are the applications, and Office is by far the biggest reason.
.docs all the time and assume that I can read them, so I have to have Word, so I have to have Office, so I have to have Windows; and you're naive if you think that's going to change." It's hard to underestimate how strongly this argument influences the business world. My boss here at the ISP I work for is blessedly clueful and fully understands the evils of M$ and the merits of the Open Source way; and yet he fiercely advocates this position (much to our continuing dismay).
I don't agree that it's Office the program that keeps people on Windows. Rather, it's the file formats that Office uses (Word doc, Excel, etc.).
Very many conversations I've had with business types who want to defend M$ end with this assertion: "People send me Word
One of M$'s many abuses is the way they make the Office file formats a moving target. They used to keep them secret, in fact, but even if they're published, you never know how they're going to be changed in the next release (you do know that they will be changed). This way they guarantee permanent incompatibility with anyone else's products, and that's why everybody thinks they have to pay for Office.
Thus I don't agree that the software product called Office is all that great. It's exceedingly bloated, filled with features that most users never need. But it produces the files they want.
If a remedy in the anti-trust suit is going to be focused on Office, then it should require M$ to adhere to an open standard on file formats. That's the only way there can be real competition in office software.
I rather doubt that the government will ask for that, though, because the suit was more about bundling Explorer, throttling Netscape, and all of the exclusionary agreements. Office was mentioned in the suit, but it was not an important part of it.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
I don't follow your logic here. If I can look at the Windows source and the WINE source for, say, GDI.EXE, and they don't look a bit like each other, I think I can conclusively prove that the two works are independent. Or am I missing something?
This would be especially true if you use a "clean room" technique where the people writing the WINE code are working from documentation of GDI.EXE provided by another set of engineers who describe in detail what it does, but don't pass any source code to the people actually doing the coding. Then the coders can swear in court that they have never seen the source, therefore even if it's a workalike it isn't derived from the Windows code and is therefore legal.
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Someone you trust is one of us.
I agree that styles are a Good Thing, but I still think Reveal Codes is the one WordPerfect feature that Word should have. I can't begin to count the number of times it's shown me where I made a mistake like, oh say, changing my text to 30-point bold when I didn't mean to.
:)
Not only that, I've used it to do exact placement of frames and graphics on a page. Something like Pagemaker would do a better job of this, but since I had WordPerfect for my hammer, all of those documents I did looked a lot like nails.
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Someone you trust is one of us.
Not really. First of all, Windows is a huge piece of software, and developers haven't had the chance to get aquainted with it as it has developed, like the Linux developers have. I would expect that when a developer did find a bug, it would be a monumental task to find what section, let alone what line of code, caused the bug. I think it would be a few weeks or monthand every minor one will be
Also, the statement that every minor bugged would be plugged soon after it popped up is in essence probably true. Some developer somewhere would fix the bug. But that doesn't mean that it will be truly fixed. First off, consumers aren't likely to apply any patches from anyone other than Mircosoft, or perhaps another big name software company. And I don't think even MS has the resources to compile bug fixes from around the world and distribute a patch within a day. Secondly, the average Windows user is used to updating their system once every couple of years, not every day. So while the bug fix is being propagated around the world, many many systems will still be vulnerable.
Yes, Office is a great product.. But think about this: BSD, with little headway and open kernel internals, managed to build a binary emulation layer for Linux. We have a huge headstart with Wine. If they open Windows 95, how long before Linux/BSD + X is running Office 100%???
Opened Office will only allow us to knock off one application. Open Windows, we can knock them all off.. Want to run a Notes client? Outlook? Sure!!
.sig: Now legally binding!
#define LITTLE_BUGS
#define MEDUIM_BUGS
// #define LARGE_BUGS
#include <win95.h>
#include <w95plus.h>
#include <ie5.h>
--
The shareholder is always right.
This wouldn't be much more of a security risk because you would actually have to purchase a very expensive license to look at the code. Your average hacker/cracker still would not be able to get their hands on the code. Keep in mind that Microsoft has licensed it's code out before to other companies, though not to sell their own version of Windows, without the rest of the world being able to view it.
I know Microsoft licensed it's code to Citrix at one point. They don't anymore. Do they still do this for anyone? I dunno. I do know about MSDN. Microsoft Developer Network CD's contain a lot of stuff that your 'average hacker' probably DOES have access too. If you work at a Fortune 500 company then you almost definately have access to a stack of MSDN CD's (a very convincing reason to switch to open source if there ever was one IMHO.) These discs give companies an 'edge' because they've paid good money for the latest information and development tools for Windows that Microsoft is willing to release (stuff that your 'average' hacker and non-hacker can legally get for free when it comes to open source.) The thing is, not all hackers work out of their basement with Linux boxes...some actually work for companies that will have access to this code should it become available Many will not hesitate to make that code availble to 50 of their closest friends.
If Microsoft actually makes the source available to more than a few select people it will escape. The saying "information wants to be free" isn't just wishful thinking. It's a statement about something observable that just happens on it's own.
numb
This is only true for the VERY short-term. Within a few days, all of the major holes will have been plugged, and every minor one will be plugged very soon after it pops up.
The only difference between an OS that starts out open (like Linux) and one that opens after eight years of development (like W95) is how many bugs there will be to fix in that short period.
I haven't been regularly reading Slashdot lately so I don't know if this link was ever posted...blah can't find the link... It was on ZDnet and called Win2k Bugfest or something like that about a week ago. It exposed an internal Microsoft memo about 63,000 known bugs in Win2k. The author of them memo asks his employees "Would you pay $500 for software you knew had that many bugs?" Did anyone else see this article? I did a search on ZDnet for "bugfest" and it turned up nothing.
The reason I bring this up is that Windows has no small amount of known bugs. We know from experience that the holes in open OS's get fixed quickly. But that's because they've been exposed and fixed all along the way. Will the holes be found and fixed as quickly when they are exposed to so many eyes all at once?
Windows was NOT designed with security in mind any more than it was designed to be a stable operating system. It was designed with making money as the focus. It was kept closed. Maybe we should be optimistic and assume that Microsoft had the foresight to think something other than "security through obscurity is good enough?" I'm not a betting man, but I'll buy you a Guinness if I'm wrong.
numb
For example, they could release the Win95 code now, then decide to release Win2000 with a few 'fixes' so it no longer runs normal Window software (actually, they are basically doing this anyways). We now have Win95 code (woohoo), but its useless. They goverment might even say, "hey! release win2000 code now." And of course M$ complies, but only after a couple court injunctions, +/- 2 or 3 years, etc.
In the end, M$ would get off scott free (and I feel sorry for Scott), consumers end up paying more to upgrade all their software to use the newest M$ OS (btw, don't forget Win 3.1... anyone still run programs from that?), and M$ gets even more money then they were before.
The one way around this that I can think of, is that gov. requiring M$ to use something such as CVS (no M$ crap where they might alter and hide code), and a required check for compilation check (that is, compile the code from CVS, and do a checksum to see they are indeed the same thing).
One last point, don't forget, normal M$ code is crap (consider MFC for a ms or so). If they are required to share code, one can only imagine them obscuring code even further (if this is possible). Remember when Netscape opened their source code? Granted, there would be more reason to look at the source code -- but it won't be an easy task.
Plus, who decides whats part of the operating system? Do device drivers count? Do they finally admit Windows is really just a shell on top of MSDOS 7, in which case they only release MSDOS? Etc.
Example: PowerPoint only creates presentations that will work correctly with IE4.x or higher; KPresenter creates (albeit static) presentations you can even view with G!zilla and/or KFM, Konqueror, mozilla, IEx.x, NSx.x... any web browser that supports images, basically. I like that.
:).
:|
:P
Well that's the cost of using DHTML and other cool things, webbrowsers not bothering to support newer standards. I wouldn't be suprise if Microsoft started making more use of VML, which again, is a standard that other browsers refuse to support (hell, none even support XML like IE).
Also, when was the last time that you saw Explorer embed a Word document?
Uh, today? It's been done FOR YEARS. IE has been an OLE container since IE3, and OLE and VBX etc has been around since the very early nineties. COM/OLE is one of the key technologies that makes up modern Windows. BTW, can you embedd KDE's media player into a website? You can with media player
In a frame?
Uh, ofcourse, why would that make a difference? It's just an object in the HTML DOM.
Here's a few links to images to demonstrate the power of COM and IE. Tis quite shocking how many people still think Windows is in the win2.0 days
Example 1
Word document inside IE. Notice how IE's menus are integrated with Word's menus. MS Word is acting as an ActiveX Document in this example.
Example 2
Excel document inside IE.
Example 3
PDF document inside IE
I don't have an example for postscript cause I don't use it, or know of a viewer for windows. But you get the idea...it's not that difficult to add support.
Note that the opposite is generally true, eg. you can host IE inside Word & Excel to display HTML/XML etc. I don't think ADOBE's pdf viewer is an OLE container, but they could make it one.
Microsoft is going to have to worry about people wanting these cool features- I already show them to my friends and they drool, because they want a desktop that can do what mine can. No they don't, cause they came up with this kind of stuff and implemented it before Linux did, and have made it basically upbitquous(no sleep, bad spelling) in the windows world. This kind of thing is an extension to java applets - but it's been done by Microsoft in client side apps (well before the WWW become popular). Now you know, care to show your friends this?
problem is price means very little when the product is of good value. at work we use cool edit pro. it's current price is meaningless because of the productivity we get out of it. if an open source alternative can't match it's abilities or ease of use, then it's not an option at all.
The kernel APIs aren't part of Win32. The other APIs aren't documented, therefore aren't part of Win32. I'm sure Star Office exports many functions in it's DLLs, but I don't see Sun documnting them - and how dare they use those functions!
If you could prove to me (source code would be nice) that MS uses these 'secret' apis in order to gain an advantage over a compeitor please do.
Let's face facts: Linux/Gnome + Staroffice is indistinguishable from MS+Office for the AVERAGE user. MS needs to do all it can to prevent the majority of users from realizing this, and ceasing to PAY MS.
;)
True, but the average ser uses many applications based around Office/Windows etc - since they are all extensible products.
And the average windows develop would tell you star office has a long way to go to catch up with Office
Didn't you think the "correction" sounded more like someone caught in the act? He "agreed" with the statement, but he didn't "say" it. Crap. Bill's starting to act more like a politician every day this trial goes on.
Every change is not progress, but there is no progress without change.
I felt exactly the same way when I switched from Wordperfect to Word after the WP 6.0 fiasco (what a piece of garbage THAT thing was).
I was incredibly frustrated until I figured out how Styles work in Word. Once you've got the philosophy, the lightbulb flashes and you realize (I know, I know... you're not going to believe this) that Reveal Codes is not necessary, and is in fact a kludge to make up for an inelegant interface. Wait! I can already hear your complaint, because I was saying many of the same things before becoming a believer and understanding the power of Styles. It may be the Borg implants, I'm not sure. :)
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Actually, I agree with you. I think there are two kinds of document publishing: "flow" style (like word), and "markup" style like Quark, PageMaker, etc.
For doing newsletters and that sort of thing, a markup-style tool works much better. Flow-style works better when you're doing reports, business plans, and such when you're less concerned with where stuff ends up on a page, but more concerned with the big picture of sections, headers, footers, etc.
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Apple would be dead today if Microsoft suddenly dropped support for Office on the Mac a few years ago. But Apple is a niche player for a whole slew of reasons that we don't need to rehash for the n'th time.
The point is that what made Microsoft was having all the best applications written for Windows. An Office suite is the core application set for any operating system (and recently, a browser can be added to that list). What if Office was available for BeOS, as an example? That would instantly make it a useful platform for probably 85% of the market (particularly business). As it stands, what you can do with BeOS? Not a whole helluva lot, which is why it languishes in obscurity.
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The only difference between an OS that starts out open (like Linux) and one that opens after eight years of development (like W95) is how many bugs there will be to fix in that short period.
Not that I think anyone should spend the effort to fix W95. Spend your effort improving Linux, instead.
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
For my economics class, I created an 8.5x11 word 2000 document that was litterally full of equations (real equations using the equations builder tool), and didn't have any problems whatsoever. Can you elborate on 'totally chokes' ?
Sure. It took my former collaborator 2 weeks to print his thesis, with about 15 color figures dropped in. He couldn't even EDIT the thing with the figures in place. This is on a Pentium Pro 200 with 64 Meg Ram.
Any document of substantial length (let's say more than 10 pages single spaced) with more than about 5 figures causes a chokedown. I can write documents of ANY length with LaTeX - heck - I can write a 100 page novel with a figure on each page. My system sees the same load as it does for a simple text editor.
Heck, go type a letter into Word (a one page letter) and compare the time it takes to AbiWord on similar hardware. Then back the hardware down to a 486 and repeat.... Word is a total PIG. You like that little Office toolbar ?? M$ would have you believe it is to provide widgets for launching Office software so that you don't need to use the Start Menu. It really is an app that PRELOADS all the libraries Office needs. Otherwise it would load slower than emacs on a 2000 RPM ide drive without DMA ! The choice therefore is to occupy a substantial portion of your RAM continuously rather than have EVERYONE realize what a complete waste the software is !
Say what you will about Microsoft, but Office is a great product. There is nothing even close to comparable. I know a lot of you people are of the mind that "Hell, I can write letters just fine using BogoOfficePerfect!", but if you want to do a complex document beyond the "Hi mom" level, the power of Office really shines.
Office is NOT a document creation tool. It is good letter writing software. TeX is a document creation tool. Adobe Framemaker is a document creation tool. Microsoft Word totally chokes on long documents with lots of equations and included figures, and is ridiculously slow compared to the competition on linux (Framemaker and TeX derivatives like Lyx and kLyx and LaTeX). Office is, however, a monopoly, and that makes SOME people think it is the greatest innovation since sliced bread. It is not. It will wither on the vine within five years as valid competition emerges on a non-Microsoft OS. A monopolist has no incentive to make good software - they merely need to make software good enough to prevent people from seeking alternatives - and incompatible enough that EVERYONE NEEDS to have access to it. Is there ANYONE who regularly exchanges documents that doesn't HAVE to have access to Word. No !! That is the problem. I write with LaTeX - but I am not a LaTeX bigot. There is lots of good document creation software out there. Word is NOT one of them.
Today I spent much of the day typing a protocol into Word because UCSF distributes their forms in Word format. Painful, to say the least. Even if LaTeX is less than intuitive on lots of things, at least it is consistent, and does not crash without explanation.
Obviousman is obviously not obvious enough
But does anyone here really even want the source code to Windows 3.11?
Even if they did open source the code to Windows 2000, and even GPL it, how many endusers would use any version OTHER than the MS version? They seem to have faith in that company.
Frankly, I don't see that any of the proposed solutions to the MS monopoly will do anything to solve the problem. Even if you break them up into divisions Windows still dominates, and if they opened the source Windows would continue to dominate, AND it would be less buggy.
Call me an old dinosaur cold warrior, but I like having an enemy and knowing who it is.
Ignore Alien Orders
So either they had already sold a ton of them by 5pm, or they didn't get that many of them, or I missed a separate display where there might have been 1000 boxes stacked up in another part of the store.
In any case, I didn't witness any hordes.
Ignore Alien Orders
Microsoft has a right to keep its code closed source. The only things it should be required to keep from doing are integrating software into the OS without giving the user to the option to either unintegrate or replace it with a 3rd party app and they should have to document all Win32 API's they make. Just my $.02
Bill says a flip comment off the mic and this creates a media firestorm suggesting Microsoft is willing to open source Windows.....ahhh allow competitors to view their source code. The company realizes this could be used in their favour as the latter is already standard practice so they vehemently deny any such statement hoping that the government prosecutors will see this ass an easy way out. Rather than break up windows we will force them to allow competitors to view their source code.
.furthering their stranglehold on the industry. Even if they posted their source code for Win2k for all to read it would only help them!!!
Even assuming that everyone is considered a competitor. This would not be a huge benefit to the industry. Microsoft would continue to dominate with perhaps better third party compatibility..
I don't see any solution to microsoft dominance in the short term. Perhaps Linux in the long term.
no sig.
If they open Win9x, it will take 2 years for anyone to wade through that crap code, by that time, its the next generation, (or the next half generation from M$) and things have moved on. THe code will be so out of date it won't be funny.
Just three more hours seapeople and you can finally take me away from this crappy God Damned planet full of hippies
Sheesh, Go read the moderators guidelines.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
Win32 API's that were kept secret to kill a competitor? Try the network API's that MS witheld from Netscape when Win95 came out. That was phase one of killing Netscape. Now I'll grant you that Netscape shot themselves in the foot with 4.x, since it sucked, but they still should have had the API's. Microsoft just wanted to kill them on the road to browser dominance, and this was one of the tactics. Read Judge Jackson's legal papers, you'll find it there.
Windows
Is
Not
Endurable, Efficient, Enjoyable, Effable, Enough, Etc
--
He lives in a world where those who do not run the client software of the omnipresent meme are unacceptable.
MySQL is in NO WAY comparable to a REAL SQL backend, such as SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase, or Informix. Neither is Postgres. Now, Postgres may be a cool system, but when it comes to *SQL*, it has some major issues (no outer joins). MySQL just doesn't compare because it is hardly full featured in terms of SQL support, transaction support, etc. Furthermore, you would NEVER run a database on Linux because there are problems with synchronous IO in the kernel. Transactional Integrity is a 100% MUST HAVE. XA support is a MUST HAVE. If you run a business without these things BUILT IN, then you should be fired. It is impossible for you to look your client in the face and say "I can guarantee the integrity of your data and your transactions with my Linux-MySQL solution." Why? Because they DON'T SUPPORT IT. What you MAY support in the FUTURE, has nothing to do with what you DO support RIGHT NOW. rant off.
true or not i'd like to see it happen. it would bring the open source 'movement' to the forefront as well as address many of the issues that have plagued MS in the areas of security, bugs, ect. I mean, with so many of the PC users on a win platform, it could solve a lot of problems that might take years (or a clever hacker) to discover.
--
--
fat lenny's gonna lick your brain today.
I read many comments referring to the 'average' and 'non-technical' user, and how Linux and it's apps would be difficult to install/use/maintain. And to some extent this is true. But then again, these are the same users who who have trouble installing/using/maintaining MS products. Let's face it, the 'average Office user' has a long way to go to catch up with Office. Shoot, lots of them would be better off using Notepad, lol.
Quomodo cogis comas tuas sic videri?
I've argued this point for months - and as I see it it's a double-edge sword.
:) will find and fix bugs in Windows. And submit those fixes back to Microsoft. Now, instead of having to debug Windows, MS "just" needs to qualify fixes. So what if 90% are no good? The other 10% make Windows more solid.
Picture this: MS allows source to be downloaded, but still requires a binary license to run it. So you're free to look at the sources, free to compile them, but you can't legally run that version - and you certainly can't sell it.
Sure, there's lots of individuals who'll build their own version, and won't pay for the binary. (like you don't already have 15 licensed copies from buying hardware, eh?)
So maybe MS loses revenue from a million or so copies. So what? It's not going to hurt their bottom line much at all.
Few companies - and no big companies - will build their own versions and run those sans binary licenses. And most people will still buy a binary with their new Dells, Gateways, and Joe's Hobby Shop Computers...
So Microsoft still gets tons o' revenues.
Anyone that tries to build their own and sell it gets hauled into pirate court, just like now...
BUT - and it's a big but - what does opening the source do for Microsoft and Windows?
Well, say you're building an app (or a device driver)... and under some bizzare circumstances it fails... In the past you'd poke and prod and eventually make things work - but without necessarily knowning why. There's lots of Undiscovered Country in there! Far too many projects I see enter poorly, partially, or just plain undocumented areas.
So now, you've got this almost-working app... but now you can trace into the source code and figure out exactly why it's failing.
Result: more solid apps.
And some people (lots no doubt!!
Now imagine: Windows 2003... Sold by a company with the arrogance of Microsoft, the -uh- aggressive and successful marketing of Microsoft.
And because of all that peer review and user-submitted bug fixes, the rock-solidness of Linux.
Why would (most people) choose anything else? How would another OS compete? really compete...
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
-ajw-
void main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
LoadAnimation();
Animate(30
}
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
I don't think so. The WINE folks would have to comb through so many neck-deep piles of garbage in the code that they wouldn't know what to do with it. If the goal was to develop a windows-lookalike, I think it would be much easier to start from scratch and cut the cruft. Unfortunately, since WINE is trying to run applications that run specifically with that cruft, they'd probably have to surf the largest dumpster of source code that has ever existed - Windows.
:)
What gets me about WINE is that it's probably not realistic to expect that everything will work perfectly ever, because there are so many programs in windows that actually DEPEND on legacy bugs in the windows API. For example, I've spoken with some lotus developers, and the cc:Mail that was originally developed for windows 3.1 that many corps still use depends on some bugs in the windows API. The kind of stuff Microsoft can't fix, because if they do, it will break applications.
What kind of project would PURPOSELY put bugs in their code? I think that that's what you're up against when you take on Windows.
I don't mean to slam the WINE guys, I think they're doing an abso-fuckin'-lutely fabulous job. They've got way more guts as coders than I'll ever have to take on that beast.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
...and I'm deeply skeptical that it is, who's to say they wouldn't retain a few undocumented calls for their apps?
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
As has been stated somehwere else, i think on firingsquad.com, they'd probably open source win9x and keep nt (and win2k) to themselves, after all win9x is what they're getting sued over and they're moving away from it anyways
Upon reading the article, I find myself plagued with a coupld doubts.
They mention opening the source code Windows; not necessarily making it Open Source(tm).
Which could mean several things. You could download and hack and recompile, but it means nothing if it isn't M$ certified, for example. Or it might need to pass some tests or follow some guidelines.
Or you may need to pay some sort of license fee to get to the source; no one said it would be <em>free</em>, just that they would be willing to open the source/make it available.
All 35 million lines of code...
But this does mean one thing. WINE could get a substantial boost, if it were legal to use the source. Which means, perhaps, that Office would run natively on x86 systems, and with some level of emulation on non-x86 systems.
Or an X layer could be grafted into Windows itself, and provided as a modified binary, assuming the code/system was conducive to such an endeavor.
Oh joy, and would the DirectX libraries be included in this deal? Would that mean an OS version, perhaps OpenX libraries, could be provided for x86 Linux, WinNT(finally!), and even non-x86 Linux systems?
Would this mean we could actually remove all traces of IE from Win2k and Win98?
Could we build a WinX layer atop BSD, ala Apple's OS X? Could this be ported to other architectures?
Heck, could we do interesting things with Darwin, WinFreeOS, SGI's JFS and OpenGL?
Perhaps I'm being too optimistic here =)
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Check out LyX - basically a WYSIWYM GUI front end for LaTeX. Once you wrap your mind around a few powerful concepts, it is MUCH easier to use than Word.
From the Lyx.org page:
If you can't tell yet, I like LyX. Powerful, open-source, and easy to use. What more do you want?
What possible use is free access to the open source monster that would be Windows unless there is a responsible license that includes the right to practice all those patents?
> Please name some of these undocumented API calls.
Under NT, that is easy:
Inside the Native API
Inside Native Applications
Cheers
So, make a (fake) offer to open the source, and see what happens. If it looks like it would work, you add it to the "possible strategy" list.
Now, if you think they'd open Win2000, you're foolish. They would release Win95 if anything. However, realize that most software runs on Win95, and that with the Win95 API/Bugset, Wine could run almost anything that didn't directly access hardware; i.e. anything that WinNT can run. Even is the Windows code weren't OSS, it would still be enough to clean-room Wine even faster.
However, I won't believe this until I see the codebase on sourceforce.com...
www.eFax.com are spammers
Think about it. Everyone who is realiant on Microsoft now...they'll be incredibly screwed when the Windows source code is released. Open operating systems have had the benifit of being examined by many hackers for security flaws. Windows has had so many security holes exposed just from reverse engineering...I couldn't imagine what the source code would expose.
Go ahead Microsoft, I dare you.
numb
Given the choice, I would rather have Microsoft open source Office, rather than Windows. Personally I think that's their real monopoly. The only thing that keeps people on Windows are the applications, and Office is by far the biggest reason.
Say what you will about Microsoft, but Office is a great product. There is nothing even close to comparable. I know a lot of you people are of the mind that "Hell, I can write letters just fine using BogoOfficePerfect!", but if you want to do a complex document beyond the "Hi mom" level, the power of Office really shines.
If you don't like Office, then you haven't learned to really use Office.
--
Another version of this article was posted a bit ago, and then removed. Find it here:
http://slashdot.org /article.pl?sid=00/02/17/1942208&mode=thread
------
-Everything has a cause
-Nothing can cause itself
-You cannot have an infinite string of causes
Feb. 18, 2000 - Microsoft announces the availability of Windows 2000 Source Code under the new "Nopeekie" license.
According to Steve Ballmer, the "Nopeekie" license improves upon the popular GPL license, which is used by a competing operating system, Linux.
"Basically, we take the existing GPL and twist it to serve our needs, I mean our customers' needs more fully.
This is the way it works: We will be providing the source code for Windows 2000 on every cd we sell. This will please shareholders and brokers and keeps our stock price up, I mean keep our customers happy.
The "Nopeekie" protects us in the following way. Under the "Nopeekie" license, the customer is not allowed to actually look at the software. They can use the source in any manner in which they do not have to look at the source.
We knew enforcement of the "Nopeekie" license was going to be a tricky procedure. But luckily I personally came up with the winning solution.
In order to lower legal fees and improve our bottom line, our "Nopeekie" license will not be enforced in the traditional legal sense. Basically, we have negotiated a long-term contract with a fellow from New Jersey, a Mr. Soprano, to head an enforcement task team. Mr. Soprano will work directly with me in regards to this endeavor. He will hitherforth be our new Senior VP of License Enforcement and Piracy Prevention.
We immediately expect to increase our sales 50% over the next four quarters as a result of this. We also expect that 100% of our proprietary source code will remain safe in the hands of Mr. Soprano and the "Nopeekie" License."
So there you have it. It looks like a serious challenger to Linux and the GPL is stepping up to the plate, baseball bat in hand. What are you gonna do about it?
Tom S. From CNET.
Kurt, Your DB move failed again.
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
I really don't care if Windows is free to use. I would still use Linux because I feel that my learning reached a wall in Windows. There is much to learn in Linux and that is what I like. Not to mention I can surf the net, do papers, and all the other things I need to do as a student in Linux.
The reason I care about Windows being open sourced is not so it can be made into a competing OS to Linux. I care about it being open sourced so that I needn't dual boot simply to see Windows Media Files. I don't want to boot into an inferior OS just to call my freinds over the net. I think Linux has come a long way as far having the essential applications that Windows does, but the open sourcing of the code would speed this greatly, especially if the IE and WMP code were with it. If nothing else this would boost WINE to a grand level, something I would much like to see.
For these reasons I am not interested in seeing programmers use their valuable time trying to refine an obscene amount of code to make it a worthwhile OS. I want them to spend a smaller amount of time adding to what we already have.
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
This would be a great thing for some people (although fragmenting Windows even more would be a pain in the ass), but think about this : A great deal of Windows code doesn't belong to Microsoft.
MS has NDAs with hundreds of companies, ranging from Apple (Sorenson codec, anyone?) to Intel to Unisys. Hell, I think I've heard there's some Berkely code in Windows that's legally undisclosable.
If they disclosed only what they had written, you'd have a pretty incomplete picture, which may or may not be useful.
Just something to think about.
Gates knows that open source hackers wouldn't be able to resist looking at Win source. So MS dumps miles of poorly documented spagetti code on them, resulting in real open source projects being delayed for years due to Win source induced trauma.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
Dammit, I'm tired of this "Take over the world" mentality. I don't particularly care if linux has 2% or 20% of market share.
Maybe not, but I bet you would care if Linux suffered massive brain drain, developer migration to another OS.
You want drivers for that brand new GeForce 65535? Sorry, there's no interest. And you can forget about the vendor releasing one anytime soon--there's nothing in it for them to make a few scattered hackers happy.
You want DSL? Sorry, your ISP only allows Windows. Linux is only used by hackers and frankly, we don't want to provide tech support.
You want the latest release of Debian on CD? Sorry, Cheapbytes went out of business because everyone uses Windows now. Not to mention that Debain is losing package maintainers left and right, the maintained package count is down to a record low of 522.
Exaggerated maybe, but my point is that though market share is nice if we want corporate interest, but much more important for the free software community is mind share.
Companies can already license Windows source code. We did it at Unisys for our CMP group. They need to hack away at NT4/Win2k to get it to support Dynamic Partitioning (where memory, hard drives, processors, etc. can be moved to other OSs running at the same time on the same system), multi-processor support with linear performance increases, and other main frame like features. The big drawback to their current license is that you can not work on another OS for five years. Ouch. There are several other restrictive aspects of the non-disclosure agreement but this one is the toughest to swallow. It is the one that MS would have to give up to satisfy the goverment.
-- soldack
Up until now, Microsoft has called everything the OS. Will this change? Will IE suddenly be merely an application?
More importantly, what about the dev tools? If "Windows" is open, but COM is not, this doesn't really mean much.
The cake is a pie
Bloomberg originally ran this story, saying that Bill Gates said he would ``do our absolute best to achieve it" (meaning a settlement). The interpreted that to mean opening up the Windows source code, and ran the story. Here is the links where Bloomberg admits that Microsoft completely denies this story. contains
Dammit, I'm tired of this "Take over the world" mentality. I don't particularly care if linux has 2% or 20% of market share. I just like to use linux because as a developer, it kicks tremendous ass. Windows, on the other hand, might kick ass if you spent several thousand dollars on development tools, but it still wouldn't be as cool as linux.
For 99% of people, the computer is to get something done. If you can get your job done, and work with other people, then who cares what OS you're using? Just use the one you like most! For me, that happens to be Linux.
So basically, who cares if a bunch of hackers improve Windows? If it was GPL'd today, it would probably take 2 years of hacking at least before it even approached linux in terms of stability.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
They interpreted this to mean 'opening up the Windows source code'...
After the on-camera portion of the interview was completed, Gates was asked whether the company would be willing to open the Windows source code in order to settle the case, and Gates said ``yes.'' He then added, smiling, ``if that's all it took.''
please Please PLEASE do not confuse "I can read the source code for Product Foo" with "Product Foo is Open Source". I can read the source code for Java, but I'd be in a world of pain if I did anything with it that Sun didn't like. Especially if I wanted to sell it.
ABC News is re porting that Microsoft is denying Gates ever said this. From the article: "Microsoft Corp. strongly denied that Chairman Bill Gates had told Bloomberg Television in an interview that he would be willing to open the Windows operating system source code antitrust suit with the U.S. Justice Department. "Bill did not make any of the comments attributed to him about the settlement," Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan said. "The comments they said Bill made are just not true."
We're talking about ridiculous amounts of code here. IF it was open sourced most people/"hackers" wouldn't even be able to compile it. It would take a huge amount of concerted effort to release a *fixed* Windows.
The problem with this in my mind is that the majority of Winusers are very apathetic towards their OS. They don't get bug fixes, hell a lot of them don't even know what that means. If Windows code is released it's available for the scrutiny of people who want to do damage. These people.....should they exist and find/take advantage of the weaknesses in Windows code could take out a lot of users at the knees.
I hear a lot of people say that security through obscurity doesn't work but in this case I have to insist that when you take away the obscurity you show all of the flaws. It really hasn't seemed that hard thus far to find security problems.....imagine it multiplied on this scale.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
It turns out that MS is NOT offering to open source Windows. I got this from MSN Investor, a site that requires a login, so I'm posting the relevant part of the artcile here:
Microsoft denies Gates offered to open Windows code
February 17, 2000 08:38 PM
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp.MSFT on Thursday strongly denied that Chairman Bill Gates had told Bloomberg Television in an interview that he would be willing to open the Windows operating system source code to competitors to settle an antitrust suit with the U.S. Justice Department.
"Bill did not make any of the comments attributed to him about the settlement," Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan said. "The comments they said Bill made are just not true."
_____________
I'll bet / with my Net / I can get / those things yet.
_____________
I'll bet / with my Net / I can get / those things yet.
--Dr. Seuss
What happens if Windows goes Open Source, an entire legion of pissed off Win32 hackers goes to work on it and it becomes stable and secure, and starts winning back market share from Linux?
Another good question: Would this be a bad thing? Real competition would probably improve Windows AND Linux.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
When people ask if I am ever going to cut my hair short (My hair is currently below my shoulders, and growing), I respond by saying 'I'll cut my hair when Microsoft goes open source!'.
This is not good. Nope. Not good at all.
JB
Feed The Need[goatse.cx]