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Microsoft Trying To Look Open Source With CE
MajorBlunder writes "There is an article at ZDnet about Microsoft opening up the source code for Windows CE. I really don't care to guess what demons of Redmond are thinking, but this certainly puts some power behind the whole Open Source concept. "
Looking deeper into the story, it appears that MS is more concerned with appearances (that is, looking like it's embracing Open Source, at least at some level) rather than actions. I'm guessing only "selected" developers get the source -- at which point, so what?
You are certainly correct in assuming that Microsoft will act in Microsoft's best interests, but in this case I think that you are seriously mistaken in what their best interests might be.
The fact of the matter is that Windows CE is going no where in a hurry. The Palm OS is creaming it for handhelds, and if it loses any more of the embedded market then it will be the first program in history to actually have negative marketshare. The only people interested in Windows CE are the people that Microsoft is paying to use it.
Needless to say, there isn't much of business model in paying your customers to use your product.
That's the whole point of this article. Microsoft can afford to give away the source code to Windows CE. Heck, they can even license it in such a way that it is basically free to use. What they can't afford is to be a non-entity in what is poised to be the next big thing. Hand-held and embedded devices are poised to become a market that is an order of magnitude bigger than the PC market. Microsoft has to have an OS that contends in this space even if they have to pay people to use it. After all, in the long run they can always recoup their money by selling development tools, or by charging small licensing fees. Licensing fees of less than a dollar a processor could be worth billions if Windows CE ran on every single one of your kitchen appliances, your car, your pager, your cellphone, your toilet, and your pet AIBO.
Microsoft is finally coming to the realization that being the king of the desktop does not mean squat when it comes to PDAs and embedded OSes. They are faced with actual competition in this arena, and they are being handed their head. What's worse is they have very little leverage in this industry. No one cares if Office 2000 runs on their cell phone, and there are plenty of embedded OSes that are either free or ridiculously inexpensive (Linux being one that comes to mind). So Microsoft has to do something, and lowering the price and offering some access to the source code is a fairly obvious move. Their only real alternative is to give up this particular market as a lost cause.
What you can bet that Microsoft won't do is release Windows CE under a license that would allow someone to fork the code base. I completely agree with you there. They are certainly not going to use a license like the GPL or BSDL. They probably won't even use a license as free as the Netscape Public License, but they will instead probably opt for something like Sun's Community Source License (or worse).
Read the article. MS is focussing on giving away WinCE for free. They may give away the source, but that's doubtful. If they do give away the source, it will probably go out to a limited group.
Why bother? There is too much publicity about companies that chose Linux because it was "Free". not "Open Source". MS Sees opportunity, they can capitolize on "Free" cause they hardly make any money on licensing. So this definately won't grow to the regular Wins because they make most of their money on those from licensing.
We need to get more companies to emphasize "Open Source" when they discuss their choice of Linux for embedded systems.
chris
-- I need more coffee. It's Monday. There is no such thing as enough coffee on a Monday.
I briefly worked at a company that writes WinCE compilers and build tools for Microsoft. Microsoft outsources these projects to other companies. Compiling a WinCE kernel requires many batch files and a custom IDE called Microsoft Windows CE Platform Builder to edit the (ugly) config files. The Platform Builder IDE is based on the source code for Microsoft Visual Studio 5.0 (yes it's old code). This Microsoft C++ code was literally the worst code I have ever seen/debugged! I'm not exaggerating. I'm talking about C++ classes with 50+ public methods and 20+ public data members! Microsoft has no concept of modularity or data encapsulation.
cpeterso
You have been able to get the source for CE for a long time. An "evaulation" version of the Windows CE source comes with our MSDN disks. Of course, you still have to license it if you want to do anything with it, but the souce *IS* already available and has been for at least a year.
If you really want a true open source OS for your Windows CE machine, take a look at <a href="http://www.linuce.org">LinuxCE</a>. A port of BSD is also up and running on the same devices.