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: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: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.