States Demand Windows Source Code

Zeb writes: "Looks like the states who are continuing the anti-trust case don't believe MS' claim that they cannot provide a stripped down version of Windows. They want MS to release the source code so they can verify MS' claims . Maybe MS shot itself in the foot here?" The Register has a story as well.

Comments

Quitcherbitchin

[AnalogBoy]

Microsoft Research Source Code

So...
Quit.. Yer... BITCHIN.. If you REALLY want to look at/dis MS source code, perhaps you should just go to school. About 2 years into it perhaps you'll realize you're taking life a BIT too seriously.

From the page:
Microsoft® makes source code to Microsoft operating system products like Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows CE available to universities and other "not-for-profit" research institutions at no charge. Currently, there are over 100 universities worldwide with our source licenses.

Re:Quitcherbitchin

[Anonymous Coward]

More from Windows Source Code Licenses:
(thanks AnalogBoy for a link)

Features of the Source License

• No cost
• Intellectual property created with the use of source code is owned by the university or author, depending on the policies of the licensing institution.
• Source licensees can share source or other source-based work with other source licensees.
• Source is licensed to the requesting organization, not individuals to insure broad internal access.
• No employment restrictions as the result of viewing or using the source.

Here's a list of Windows Source Code Licensees:

Arizona State University, Boston University, Brigham Young University, Brown University, Capitol College, Cogswell College North, Columbia University, Cornell University, Eastern Kentucky University, Evangel University, Florida Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Howard University, Lamar University, Louisiana State University at Shreveport, Loyola College in Maryland, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, McGill University, New York University, Oregon Graduate Institute of Science and Technology, Princeton University, Rice University, Saginaw Valley State University, San Jose State University, Seattle Pacific University, Stanford University SUNY/Stony Brook, Texas A&M University, The Johns Hopkins University, University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of California at Los Angeles, University of California at Riverside, University of California at San Diego, University of California at Santa Cruz, University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Florida, University of Houston at Clear Lake, University of Idaho, University of Illinois, University of Kentucky, University of Memphis, University of Michigan, University of Notre Dame, University of Rochester, University of Southern California, University of Southern Mississippi, University of Texas at Austin, University of Virginia, University of Washington, University of Wisconsin, Vanderbilt University, Walla Walla College, Washington University, Wayne State University, Western Illinois University, Brandenburg University of Technology, Budapest University of Technology, Carlos III University of Madrid, Czech Technical University, ETH Zentrum, Hebrew University, Humboldt-Universität, INRIA LORRANE, INRIA RENNES, INRIA RHONE-ALPES, INRIA ROCQUENCOURT, KAIST, Keio University, LAAS-CNRS, Lancaster University, MS Institute (MS Australia), National University of Singapore, Queensland University of Technology, Slovak University of Technology, Technion, Technische Universität Darmstadt, Technische Universität Graz, Technische Universität Hamburg-Harburg, Technische Universität München, Technische Universität Wien, Tel Aviv University, Trinity College Dublin, Universidade de Lisboa, Università di Genova Università di Milano, Universität Kaiserslautern, Universität Karlsruhe, Universität Zu Köln, University College London, University of Aarhus, University of Aizu, University of Cambridge, University of Cape Town, University of Kent, University of Linz, University of Oslo, University of Patras, University of Salford, University of Southampton, University of Tromsø, University of West Bohemia

Maybe I don't understand something here...

There are lots of people all over the world who have access to Windows source code, right? "Intellectual property created with the use of source code is owned by the university or author", right?

Why the hell don't we see shitload of Windows-based software then?!

It is possible to remove IE!

[a3d0a3m]

It is possible to remove Internet Explorer completely from most windows operating systems. Take a look at IEradicator. I have used 98lite with very good success in installing a stripped down version of windows 98 on my mother's old computer.

Here is a quote from their website about IEradicator: "IEradicator is tiny, script that uses the Windows setup engine to surgically remove Internet Explorer versions 3 through 6.0 from Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Millennium and Windows 2000(sr1)."
You can download it from the company's website for free. It used to remove the entire HTML rendering engine but their current version leaves this in. If you want, you can buy the full version which will remove that too, effectively completely removing internet explorer from windows.

Adam

Re:windows "source code" is likely useless

[Virile Garbageman]

You can certainly remove IE as a program, since it's just a container for the browser components. However, Microsoft has integrated these same components deeply into the OS so that Help, installation wizards, and other types of content and documents (Word, Excel) are rendered using the same engine. It's certainly modularized, but to remove the browser component would have farther reaching effects on the OS (as well as many third party applications) than many want to admit.

Re:source code

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. Source code for NT 3.51 and 4.0 was available to some universities and corporations (if they paid for it). I was a cs grad student at Stanford, and they had access to portions of it. The NDA for access to it was longer than some of my books!

IIRC, AT&T had access to it, but was involved in a lawsuit with MS over it. I don't recall the details.

Re:windows "source code" is likely useless

[TheAwfulTruth]

Duh! Why the hell write every damn program that uses a rich interface from the ground up? You realise that hundreds of smaller companies and coders (myself included thank you) are using the embedded IE control because we don't feel like taking 10 years out of our lives to rewrite an HTML control for every app? It was an easy and convienient way to get rich content onto apps easy and quickly. OF COURSE it was done on intentionally! What were they supposed to do, build in netscape?

Re:windows "source code" is likely useless

[Kraft]

Even if it did exist, what would programmers say other than "yes, with enough hacking, we can separate this out"?

Yeah, but.....

Didn't the 98lite team succeed in seperating IE from Windows with IEradicator?

Here's what they say:
The removal process is elegant with all COM servers politely being asked to de-register themselves from the system registry using their inbuilt deinstallation routines before being eliminated from the hard disk. IEradicator then pulls out the cleaning gear and gives the registry a good polish before returning control back to you. The MS HTML Engine (shdocvw.dll and mshtml.dll) is left on the machine to provide needed functionality for other applications that render HMTL (e.g. Outlook Express) or that launch a mini-browsing window (e.g. Winamp's Mini Browser, Netmeeting's Online Directory).

IEradicator gives you a leaner, faster desktop by eliminating all desktop web-integration including active desktop, single click, image previews, file/folder information, and custom backgrounds.

Re:Compile it

[foobar104]

Oh, and me without any mod points.

If the court orders this and selects competent experts, they aren't going to wait while MS prepares a very special set of media. They will send in Federal Marshals to take control of the MS servers containing all source code for anything that ends up on the Windows OEM disc and copy *everything* on them. MS won't regain access to its systems until the experts can build the Windows OEM disc on their own systems.

You've been reading too many newsgroups. What you describe is seizure, and it's completely inappropriate in a civil matter. In order to get authorization to send in federal marshalls to seize property like that, a bench warrant must be issued. To get a bench warrant, the judge has to be convinced that there's evidence there that's relevant to a criminal investigation and that couldn't be gotten any other way.

In other words, if a judge believed that Microsoft's computers had information on them about who mailed Anthrax to those senators last fall, and that judge believed that Microsoft had been given an opportunity to turn the evidence over and had refused or that the evidence was in danger of being tampered with or destroyed, then and only then would you see a bench warrant issued for the sort of seizure you describe.

This is completely different from any action taken by the police in cooperation with the BSA. In those instances (like the Rotter raid last year), the police were convinced by the BSA that criminal activity was taking place, that the activity was very significant, and that any approach other than seizure would result in evidence being destroyed.

Re:Over and over again...

[IDIIAMOTS]

BeOS included a built-in browser at a cost of $0
OS/2 Warp included a built-in browser at a cost of $0
Netscape used its other revenue streams to fund Netscape distribution for free to educational institutions and individual users

So what has Microsoft done differently by including IE in Windows?

Re:I think the exchange would likely go more like.

[DoctaWatson]

You don't think that obstruction of justice and contempt of court would be an incentive for MS to be more compliant?

Stripped down windows kit exists - win XP embedded

[Anonymous Coward]

uSoft currently sells a kit that breaks WinXP into about 11000 components. It certainly allows you to build a version of XP w/o IE (or any other thing you can or can't imagine)

Re:Over and over again...

[maddman75]

The issue isn't that simple. If you think an OS is a few tiny utilities and a kernel, then yeah, maybe MS violated laws continuously for decades. If you think an OS is the tool set used by people to get what they want done, then it seems pretty clear that most if not all software is "part of the OS".


You don't seem to define an OS very well. What's the difference between an OS and an application? By your definition there is no difference.

An Operating system allows programs, hardware, and users to interact. That's it. Everything else is an application. Most of what we think of as 'Linux' is applications. IE, notepad, paint, wordpad, scandisk, all applications.

I think developers should be wasy of developing Windows software. After all, if your software becomes popular enough Microsoft will make a clone and give it away.

Re:You guys are retarded. Leave Microsoft alone.

[tweek]

The reason people are making a fuss is that the wrong antitrust argument was presented to the courts. I've given up on this whole thing. The real argument and UNDENIABLE proof of abusing the monopoly (remember kids: monopolies aren't illegal. Abusing your monopoly power is.) power against competitors was the bootloader issue.

The OEM license agreements were the proof and the smoking gun.

Re:Not only that..

[spectecjr]

For example, there is a 'standard' API call to refresh a window - but IE doesn't use it - it uses a different publicly undocumented call. (Anyone who's used IE under VNC will know what I mean - VNC hooks into the standard API for screen updates.. when you use IE and scroll the screen, the VNC client doesn't know that the window has changed.)

Why is this? Because doing so gives IE some advantage over other (non-MS) programs.

Uh, no, it doesn't.

IE just paints outside of the WM_PAINT handler sometimes. You can do that you know - the call is GetDC. Or GetDCEx if you need better control.

Not to mention that IE doesn't paint directly to the screen. It paints to a memory DC first for compositing, and then paints the memory DC to the screen.

Just because the VNC client isn't complete, don't start claiming that "IE uses undocumented calls" -- because it doesn't.

But tell ya what, prove that it does, and that it's not a bug in VNC, and I'll eat my hat.

Simon

Re:Who modded this down?

[dasunt]

I remember a case from way way back ago, concerning a game console that had been reversed engineered so that a third party could develop games for it without having to license the technology.

However, when such games ran, the startup automatically triggered a screen that said something to the effect of "This game has been officially licensed by Somecompany".

At trial, since the console manufacturer failed to show that there was a way of booting a game without that text, they lost the case.

Now there is something remotely similar to the MS case here. MS is claiming that there is no way to deintegrate IE. *However*, they have failed to prove this. True, its proving a negative, which is difficult (at least logically, legally is another story), but MS will be on weak footing until they show the source code to someone else and let them try.

Oh, and IANAL.

Re:Can't they plead the 5th?

[drik00]

I dont believe so. The way that I understand it, the source code is seen as evidence, whereas you can only pleade the 5th Amendment in personal testimony.