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Windows Source Code Proposal Confirmed
ChipX86 writes: "We've all heard the rumors about Microsoft proposing to open source Windows. Now it appears to be confirmed. This article on MSNBC says that Microsoft would '... provide open, timely and complete access to the parts of the Windows operating system code used by independent software companies to design their software applications to run on Windows.'" From the sound of it, this seems like more of a delay tactic than a straight proposal, but interesting nonetheless. (How open is "open," by the way? What about "Timely"?)
Jamie was talking about Mozilla, but I think his point applies even more to Windows. Open source isn't a magic bullet that will suddenly make quality code out of the mess that is win32. The whole design is broken, from the fat32 filesystem, through the layers of legacy interface, to the thousands of haphazardly organized system calls.
I'll be sticking with Unix, thank you. It sucks, but at least it doesn't suck that much...
If Microsoft's strategy for dealing with the DOJ were distilled to instructions like those on a shampoo bottle, it would read "confuse, delay, repeat". :-)
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
we can argue semantically as to whether or not "keiratsu" refers to an economic model, but what i am talking about is how japan, south korea, indonesia, and most of the other asian countries built up heavy industry after ww2.
all of asia realized they needed to modernize as quickly as possible, and so the various gov'ts provided direct and indirect support to people who were willing to create large, industrial conglomerates- keiratsu in japan, and the chaebol in south korea. similar to nationalized or partly gov't owned companies in many other asian countries.
consequently, you see the rapid rise of huge conglomerate companies invested in multiple nonsynergistic industries, with the gov't directly supporting those companies through partial ownership (hence direct investment to purchase capital equipment) and other perks like tax breaks or high import tariffs to block foreign competition.
the problem though, with anything the govt touches (or feeds directly) is it tends to become inefficient and dependent on gov't handouts. in this case, companies with gov't funding or support were expected to take up part of the burden of social services- lifetime employment and housing subsidies for its workers, which until very recently were the norm in japan, s korea, and elsewhere.
furthermore, in attempts to build up certain industries which a particular country felt was vital (like automobiles in south korea) a company would keep pouring money into particular divisions that kept losing money and had little to no chance of ever catching up with foreign competitors.
adding to this was that many companies were not willing to compete with one another, preferring to expand into product lines that had no native equivalent. korean companies would try not to hurt each other overly much, the japanese companies would deal only with japanese suppliers, etc. even if americans or europeans offered lower prices on raw materials, japanese would only deal with japanese, or they would expand (vertical integration) into southeast asia. this still happens all the time, but its getting harder to do (because of, as you mentioned, globalization)- and many japanese companies have realized that they simply dont know how to produce the raw materials they need at internal prices competitive with those they might get outside their companies.
the long-term result is an underlying weakness in a country's economy- this is the stuff macro hedge bets are made of, like soros and his friends deflating most of the southeast asian currencies, which forced rising interest rates, which killed property speculation and crashed the stock markets simultaneously.
you and i are both right. in the 80s many american companies werent producing good products. and business cycles do go up and down. but you ignore the difference between a hard fall and a soft one- if asian companies had been more efficient in the first place, they would not have suffered nearly as much as they did in the transition between good times and bad.
and the underlying cause of the inefficiency is the ideas supporting keiratsu- companies overly dependent on government support and nationalistic or overtly chummy business practices. it allows for rapid expansion and the creation of whole industries in a country that didnt have them even 50 years ago, but it comes with a price.
unc_
His post was one of the most accurate I have seen on slashdot for a while.
What you are conveniently editing out of things John, is the *history*. Yes, I'm sure Netscape can implement NTLM over raw sockets *now*, but not back in the NT3.5 timeframe that they needed to in order to compete with MS.
The SSPI functions *WERE NOT DOCUMENTED* until NT4.x or so. Delay in documentation whilst your own internal teams have full access is usually enough to ensure dominance of your application over the competitors.
This is a completely obvious truth that cannot be denied. I've been up to Redmond, I *know* how this works. You may be able to fool non-programmers John, but not those of us who have to deal with MS documentation (and lack thereof) on a daily basis.
Case in point, the password verification API called on change password on domain controllers. This was only *finally* documented after I revealed it's existance on the 'Net and posted sample code for it.
The Novell integration group at MS had been using that API for *years*.
There are too many of these inconvenient peices of historical evidence for you to keep denying them. Of course you can claim "it's documented now" and I fully expect you to. That's not the point. How many years did MS developers have access *before* it was documented ?
Regards,
Jeremy Allison,
Samba Team.
I think one idea Microsoft may be seriously considering is to produce TWO different versions of Windows 98/ME/2000.
One version will be the same as the current Windows 98/ME/2000, with Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, and other Microsoft "enhancements." The other will be akin to the original release of Windows 95; it will use the Windows 98 or 2000 base (including the ACPI Plug and Play), but will lack Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, etc.--essentially a "Plain Jane" release.
The "Plain Jane" release version is intended for OEM's, who can load whatever enhancement they want (Netscape Communicator/Netscape 6.0, RealPlayer 7.0, QuickTime 4.0, Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0, etc.) and have rights to even change the Windows intial startup screen to look different (it'll say "Windows 98" or "Windows 2000 Professional" but you'll also see logos for the OEM and the other add-ons the OEM preloads). Don't be surprised that the "Plain Jane" Windows 98/ME/2000 will be sold to OEM's at a flat cost of $29.95 per copy.
Hmmm....
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
NTLM RPC API Essential for doing DC operations to manage domain accounts. With this Samba could eliminate the need for NT Server. Still undocumented.
I'm pretty late posting this and it's nested pretty deeply so I don't really expect anyone to read this much less moderate it but here it is anyway...
This is the perfect time to sue Microsoft to get the needed api information. Think about it. Little open-source developer (with the help of the EFF) goes after big bad 800 pound Microsoft to get a little itty bitty piece of information that would benefit all mankind. With the opensource world, the DOJ, and needless to say, the supreme court watching carefully. Should they try to put up any meaningful kind of a fight the negative publicity and probable negative legal fallout for Microsoft would be astounding.
Just sue for one little piece of information, get it, and the floodgates will open. Microsoft would never dare hold anything back after that.
--
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
For years, whenever hidden APIs have been mentioned, MS has claimed that "ALL the APIs have been published." In the unlikely event they were telling the truth, They are offering nothing. On the other hand, If they were lying, Then why should I beleave the new list is complete?
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
You comments distort the truth almost to the extreme. You claim that keiretsu are a failed economic model. In fact keiretsu isn't a failed economic model; it isn't a economic model at all.
The whole thing about the Japanese and the Americans in the late 70s and early 80s is that *America* was producing absolute crap, while the Japanese focused on quality, and sold them at low prices (with a little help from home of course).
The main problem is that domestic American products were substancially inferious to imported goods. Take automobiles for example. I wouldn't want to own let's say a 1986 Chrysler Laser. It just doesn't run as good as let's say a 1984 Toyota Corolla.
The last decade witnessed the largest turnaround in American manufacturing since the last world war. No longer does American companies settle for inferior products. Look at the cars that Chysler makes today and compare it to the junk it made 14 years ago. Lee Iccoa did make his mark by the emphasis on quality, and many American companies followed suit.
The problem with keirusu is not that it doesn't work, because it works and it works very well in both the short and long run. The problem with keirusu is the affect it has on the consumer markets.
Put it this way. Almost all keirusu would have a balance sheet firmly in the black. However, to achieve this and also achieve penetration pricing on significant breath of its product mix would require pricing the profit making products to include a very large profit margin to fund the products on promotion.
This is what Japan did, and still does. Sony sells products in America with higher quality (in regards to competing American brands), at relatively reasonable prices. However, at home, back in Japan, the CPI is much higher and subsequently, the Japanese pay more money on average to live, than let's say Americans.
Some American companies cried foul and took out their lawyers (typical American reaction) accusing Japanese firms of dumping. Most imported products however, do not sell below production costs, and dumping legislation is only a tactic domestic companies use to *protect* their market. In fact Americans do the same thing abroad.
The problem is that putting a strain on your own economy to expand operations in another economy works well if your own economy is very strong. However, as anyone who has taken econ101 knows, there is this nasty pest called the business cycle, and because of this things get very complicated. So complicated in fact that tiny changes in the economic climate in either the home or expansion economy can cause widespread havoc on the cash flow of large corporations, since it is the large corporations that tend to run into cash flow problems when economies turn sour. When not just one, but many operating markets turns sour due to volatile stock markets and the numerous problems in the finance sector (as with the just-passed Asian Economic Crisis), you can be pretty sure that back at home in Japan they really weren't happy campers. Couple this with the fact that the economy was already in a slump due to the severe stagnation of the European markets and the American economy then just on the brink of a comeback.
The problems that you tried to associate with keirusu is actually not their fault at all. In fact the problem is globalization. In fact it has happened more than 70 years before. When Wall street went down in the early 20th century, the impact was felt all over the world.
You can compare extensive global economic interdependancy to Microsoft Windows. Sure its great and it gets things done quite well, but there are many things added on only as an afterthought. Think of a virtually non-existance security system for a operating system that was designed for '95 and you get the idea.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
Why do we need to get a tag for our cars? And why does some silly piece of metal or some little sticker cost $40? I can see the value of the tag if our cars get stolen or for identification purposes for a cop, but why $40? and why renew it every year? You know why? Revenue...they want YOUR money.
... unless you are an investor. Corporations only care about people with money. The government may not always have your best interest when they take 20% of your earnings, but they aren't out to take ALL of your money either. This however, is the entire premise of business. Get all of the consumer's money, using any means needed. The only thing that stops them is government. What do you think all that fine print is about? That's the stuff they don't want to tell you, because they are after your wallet, but Uncle Sam tells them they have to tell you. Reality check. We are living in a fairly good balance of government and business. Get used to it.
You're damn right they want your money. Most systems require revenue to operate. It doesn't cost $40 for the tag. BUT. That money pays for other systems to operate. And there are other costs that it pays for, services for you. Not just the ACTUAL tag. Why does a stamp cost 33 cents? Obviously that piece of sticky paper doesnt cost that much. It pays for them to bring your mail to your house. Think before you flame, dude.
All of you praise the government because they're doing this to MS, well what they are doing is illegal and unethical. The last time I checked the country was built on capitalism and free enterprise. That means NO INTERFERENCE by the governemnt. Hence PRIVATE and FREE. If microsoft dominates the OS market, well good for them, and you know what?? THEY WORKED FOR IT.
Last time I checked, this country hasn't functioned on pure market economy for a LONG time. Public schools, social security, and medicare are all not included in a market economy. Remember Standard Oil and more recently AT&T, I think that history without contest that they were absolutely taking advantage of their situation and that the government was in the right to intervene. I think if Mr. Rockefeller was still around today, you'd be paying a good bit more than a buck and a half for gas. The government is attempting to protect citizens from greedy corporate bastards. If you can think of a better method of doing it, please. Be my guest.
Every week I work hard for my money only to have the government take an illegal portion of it. Oh, I know you'll say but its in the constitution. How many people do you know that can go in your pay check and take out money, other than yourself? The government is doing what normal citizens cant do legally, and frankly Im tired of it.
Don't like it? Then vote for someone who can generate revenue without taxes. Or better yet, run yourself. If you can propose a better solution that would work, you'd have a my vote in a second. Do you honestly think that the government just takes all that money for no apparent reason? News flash, your police, your fire department, your EMS, your 911 system, your sewer system, your park service, your roads, your FDA, your FCC.. et cetera, et al, are ALL paid for by that chunk outa your paycheck. Bitch all you want, but the government is doing you a service in the end. It may not be perfect, but the government is of the people and by the people. You don't like it? Do something about it.
So stop whining about some company doing god, if linux really wants to take over the market, and the companies that make linux really want to make a difference then they need to come together to form one company, instead of 10 different ones, and make a linux package that has the usability and user friendliness comparable to windows
Would you make up your mind, please? In the last unorganized paragraph you have been spouting your anti-government blather in favor of competition and choice. And then you about face and suggest that Linux drop the choice of multiple distros that give people the choice to choose what suits them best, in favor of an all encompassing distro. I think not. Please check your posts for consistency.
Let me point something out to you, which you may not have previously considered.
CORPORATIONS DO NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU.
This could end up opening up Windows to major virus attacks. Open sourcing a program/OS is good only if you their is a community of programers in the real world willing to improve the code on their own time. In other open source programs (linux, apache, sendmail) security flaws are addressed quickly, and fixed. This is because their is a large informed community that wants to improve the program for their own use. However the majority of the Windows community is uninformed at best, and have little or no knowledge of computer programing. Even if their was a large pool of programers willing to work on the source code, Microsoft doesn't have the mechanisms in place to implement their bug fixes.
dont_forget
I said it so you don't have to.
The thing is, having a monoply isn't illegal. Abusing a monopoly is, which Microsoft has blatantly done. The fact that people just accept the ILUVYOU virus is proof. Here's how splitting it in half will help:
- On a Windows box, using any software that isn't made by Microsoft is a hinderance. It runs slower (see Netscape vs. IE), isn't as "integrated" (drag MS Word text into Eudora? Not likely.), and doesn't come "built in" (thanks, Compaq! Could you tell me what web sites to see too?).
- Splitting the company in half will force them to no longer tie software in with their OS. Opening parts of the source gives people more of a chance, but I highly doubt we'll see a true competitor to Office on Win systems anytime soon, as long as it's all one company.
- If the company is split up, only one of them will be allowed to say they "promote innovation for the benefit of consumers" and the other one gets to ridicule them for feeding us bullshit.
Where's President Taft when you need him...
------------
"Okay, who taught the cat how to type ctrl alt delete?"
You folks have to look at the REAL effect this is going to have on the world. You'll have to realize that while everyone who reads /. knows what open source source is actually all about, the vast majority of the general computer using public does not.
;-)
While this (microsoft's half-assed open sourcing scheme) isn't exactly the greatest thing to ever happen to the computer using public, the true value is that it opens Joe Schmoe's eyes to what open source is all about. More people will have a slightly larger interest in "this new fangled open source thingamijig."
I reall don't care what MS does/impliments because i don't use windows...but i have the nagging feeling this may actually enlighten some people and increase that "other" operating system's user base.
Thoughts...commments?
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
What parts would these be? Something good I assume. Like maybe those MSN channels. Sure would like to see the source code there. How about that Outlook code; I mean, I have like 50 iluvyou viruses (virii? virons?) on my linux box, pine didn't trigger any of them. I felt left out.
(b) Neither this country (US) nor any other has actually ever functioned as a purely economic "free market" society, for the simple reason that such societies cannot function.
(c) The market is not a governor, it's a tool. There are values other than economic value. One of the roles of government -- perhaps its greatest role in the 21st century -- is to ensure that other human values are not subsumed into and subjugated by economic values. It is good to be prosperous. It is not worth the price of your soul to be prosperous.
By no means do I believe that government is always the guy in the white hats, or that government suffers from no venality, corruption, or stupidity, or that a functioning and free society requires checks on the government. All these are true. But it is intellectually disingenuous to claim that the only options are "no government" and "all government".
Elsewise, why can't I shoot you driving down the street? You're not on your property, and hey, I own the gun and bullet -- why can't I do what I want with them?
The government is not "normal citizens". It is (in theory) an agency for the common will of those citizens. Of course it has abilities and powers different from an individual. It has restrictions not found on "normal citizens" as well. So what?It seems a large fraction of slashdot readers believe that any government is automatically bad government. I'm sorry, but they're wrong. Government has a role to play ... a part of that role is exactly to ameliorate the excesses of private industry.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Businesses might be happy, because they can write programs that further extend their tentacles into the system, but hackers will still be disappointed. And Windows will be as unstable as ever.
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
However, here's a small look at Windows' hidden APIs:
These are really things you would think would be readily available to other developers. they are not. It pisses me off being a shell developer and not knowing what function to call to get something to work (even though I know the functionality exists, since I see it every day).
IMO, I really think this would help. However, MS will find a way to make it really hard to find anyway. For instance, just publish the API that gets revealed right along with the current API. "Huh? That's what I'd expect!" Okay, answer me this: How in the world are you going to tell the difference and find new functionality which you really didn't see before? There's probably around a few thousand functions hanging around in the Win32 API, and it'll be pretty difficult to find that hidden API you were looking for a year ago. And by the time you find it, it will most likely be obsolete due to a new operating system.
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
Keiretsu is a business concept barrowed from Japan where a number of companies (who are not competitors) have a common interest and therefore form an association to leverage mutual business development and cross sales. These associations rarely have the formality of either a partnership or joint venture, and are often founded on bonds of family or traditional alliances from the past. Kiretsus can manifest themselves in a number of ways, including preferential rates, cross referrals, exchange of competitive and market intelligence.
I see this as the future (actually, the present if you look at their posessions and investments) of Microsoft, should it be forced to split.
Much more information on Keiretus is available at http://www.corpwatch.org/ trac/feature/planet/japan_k.html
Also see http://www.businessforum.com/keiretsu.ht ml
http://www.redherring.com/mag/i ssue51/american.html
---
icq:2057699
seumas.com
This is just Microsoft scrambling to do anything to deflect the coming storm. They lost in court and here rather soon they are either going to be broken up, or face heavy sanctions.
If they were to actually release the code in some way, it would be nothing more than a trap. Old scratch may be the craftiest devil of all, but the imps at Microsoft sure give him a run for his money.
At this point in the game I wouldn't do anything other than ignore this. They've been intentionally leaking rumors about opening up the source code for windows for a long time now. Anything they say to the media is soley to manipulate public opinion.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
does anyone else remember something from history class, about the civil rights movement?
it seems to me that when the supreme court finally got around to racially intergrating public schools, the legalleese included the term "in due time," which some schools interperted as "years from now." these schools managed to keep intergration on the bottom of their to-do lists for a very long time.
now don't get me wrong. i'm not saying that this microsoft bull is nearly as important or as vicious as the antiblack sentieent held by the courts and schools of that time, but the tactics imployed certianly do smell familiar.
Second, regarding the proposed solutions. I'm sure it might have benefits, but it still misses the core of the problem. MS's monopoly is in *DESKTOP OS*. They are leveraging this monopoly as we speak to promote their server OS with Kerberos as well as with applications and protocols. This is less important from most peoples' points of view, where servers are ignored unless they're down, and even then it's a clueless "my computer's broken". We at slashdot know better. Allowing MS to leverage its current desktop monopoly to get a server monopoly in the future could have horrendous impact on computing in the long-term.
Breaking up a desktop OS corp separate from the server OS corp would probably be far too difficult and expensive. Making source available under NDA or without allowing redistribution of modifications would wouldn't necessarily solve the problem. Making it available as free software is just not going to happen. What we need to do is force all MS desktop OSs to be standards-compliant whenever possible, and force all non-standard protocols and APIs (and fileformats, etc) to be open and non-obfuscated, for at least a few more years. (It'd be great to do that for *all* MS products, but they don't have a monopoly in any others, so perhaps it wouldn't be fair. Feh.) Maybe that's just about as unlikely as freeing the source... but if it or something more drastic doesn't happen, I think MS is going to continue fucking its customers in the ass for quite a while longer.
My first choice would be splitting MS into a systems company and an applications company. I'm happy (and very surprised) that those seem to be the two options that the court is seriously considering.
I've been generally impressed by the rulings of Judge Jackson in this case. I knew he knew what he was doing when during the course of the pretrial hearings he was told that it would be impossible to remove IE from Win95 without completely crippling the system, and he went home and did it himself, then returned to the court with harsh words for Microsoft. He was not also terribly impressed by the way they broke a consent decree arrived at in an earlier case. I don't think he's going to be bamboozled by their bafflegab.
My initial impression that Judge Jackson knew what he was doing was confirmed by the fin ding of fact and then the dec ision. The proposal to split up Microsoft into two companies is also well-considered.
While I generally am leery of government interference in business, this case clearly involves blatant antitrust violations and is precisely what the Sherman Act was drafted to prevent.
As for Microsoft's whining about "innovation," and how this damages their right to "innovate," I hardly see how ripping off betas of your competitors' products, reverse-engineering them, then sending out goons to force computer manufacturers to use them constitutes "innovation." At most it is an "innovative" form of racketeering.
To be honest, I don't think the remedy goes far enough. I'd like to see Microsoft split up into about a dozen corporations. However, I'll readily confess that this is based more on blind hatred and animosity toward Microsoft than any valid legal reasoning.
After all, they are the enemy.
WIN 98 SOURCE CODE REVEALED:
/*
TOP SECRET Microsoft(c) Code
Project: Chicago(tm)
Projected release-date: Summer 1998
*/
#include "win31.h"
#include "win95.h"
#include "evenmore.h"
#include "oldstuff.h"
#include "billrulz.h"
#define INSTALL = HARD
char make_prog_look_big[1600000];
void main()
{
while(!CRASHED)
{
display_copyright_message();
display_bill_rules_message();
do_nothing_loop();
if (first_time_installation)
{
make_50_megabyte_swapfile();
do_nothing_loop();
totally_screw_up_HPFS_file_system();
search_and_destroy_the_rest_of_OS/2();
hang_system();
}
write_something(anything);
display_copyright_message();
do_nothing_loop();
do_some_stuff();
if (still_not_crashed)
{
display_copyright_message();
do_nothing_loop();
basically_run_windows_3.1();
do_nothing_loop();
do_nothing_loop();
do_nothing_loop();
}
}
if (detect_cache())
disable_cache();
if (fast_cpu())
{
set_wait_states(lots);
set_mouse(speed, very_slow);
set_mouse(action, jumpy);
set_mouse(reaction, sometimes);
}
/* printf("Welcome to Windows 3.11"); */
/* printf("Welcome to Windows 95"); */
printf("Welcome to Windows 98");
if (system_ok())
{
bsod(random_err());
crash(to_dos_prompt);
}
else
system_memory = open("a:\swp0001.swp", O_CREATE);
while(something)
{
sleep(5);
get_user_input();
sleep(5);
act_on_user_input();
sleep(5);
}
create_general_protection_fault();
}
(Thanks to the 4 Guys from Rolla)
Now I can improve my code by reading the work of masters! Begone, bugs!
Any proposal to open Windows source code, even one that would be much more significant than Microsoft's, would ultimately only help Microsoft by making their APIs and software even more entrenched. Their proposal is by far the sweetest deal for them. In fact, it doesn't even represent a big change from existing practice: almost any Windows software company can get lots of Windows source code anyway if they ask.
The only way I can see to get Microsoft to document their APIs and to ensure that they aren't holding back is to break them into multiple OS and multiple application companies and to limit the ability of those companies to establish exclusive contracts with one another.
Microsoft hates that because it would finally bring up their costs to everybody else's: their current approach has allowed them to cut corners on interoperability and documentation, which saved them money and cut time to market, while at the same time excluding competitors. It's been a sweet deal for them, and it is precisely this conduct that needs to be addressed. A breakup with operating restrictions would create the economic necessity for Microsoft to do this. Any other remedy will just let them weasel out and involve endless debates among regulators and Microsoft about the intricacies of software design. In fact, we tried that before and it didn't work.
Stop me if I'm wrong, but I don't think MS is talking about "open source" in any sense; they're talking about opening the Windows APIs, i.e. giving outside developers the same access that the Office developers have. The press constantly confuses "open source" and "open APIs", in their attempts to stupidify news about the MS case.
From a purely selfish perspective (i.e. not considering whether the government has a right to interfere at all,) this is probably my second favorite remedy. My first choice would be splitting MS into a systems company and an applications company. I'm happy (and very surprised) that those seem to be the two options that the court is seriously considering.
MSK
Under the proposal, Microsoft would be required to provide open, timely and complete access to the parts of the Windows operating system code used by independent software companies to design their software applications to run on Windows.
"See we're giving our competitors exactly the same information our own apps developers have!" This is, to say it politely, bullshit. The Win32 API specs are carefully crafted to be incomplete. They tell you just enough to get locked in to Windows, but not enough to actually make a product that would compete with Microsoft. The apps developers in Redmond have direct access to the OS development team and can obtain detailed specs on DFS/COM+/LSA/ADSI/DHTML or whatever new whiz-bang technology is needed to beat the competition.
Several people (Andrew Schulman 1995, et al) have suggested for a long time that a Chinese Wall should go up between the Apps team and the OS team. All communication that goes over the wall should be made public.
My background is security, so I can give you some classic examples of almost-but-not-quite documented APIs that cripple attempts to compete with Microsoft:
Microsoft will only release enough information to ensnare users into the Windows environment. To publish API information that would give a competitor an advantage would be over their dead body.
'The DOJ plan would effectively reduce Windows to a small core of low-level functionality that performs only the most basic operations.'
-- MICROSOFT LOBBYING PAPER
Basic operations? You mean like acting as a virtual machine to run programs on, and controlling the computer's resources? It's funny because the DOJ has to tell Microsoft how to write an operating system.
--
share and enjoy
I know all of you Open Source, anti-Micro$oft people are having a field day, but have you thought of the downside to this?
If the Windows API's are open to everyone, someone could use them to put a program into an innocent looking e-Mail that could be opened by a Macro reader in Outlook, and could then go through the system, ruining any kind of mpeg or jpeg file.
I think all you open source people really have to consider the security risks that could come up if just anybody was allowed to look into the guts of the otherwise safe, stable and secure Windows Platform.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.