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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.
Wouldn't this cause the trial penalties to be further delayed? I mean delaying plays into MS hands as it gains further marketshare. How long would it possibly take to have an indepedent team verify MS's claims it cannot offer a stripped down Windows?
Wow! If windows releases it source i dont doubt that it will get leaked to the public... imagine that, windows could be in some serious trouble! if the programming public has been able to support linux for all these years, why wouldnt they be able to do the same with windows? imagine how cool that would be if there was 2 versions of windows... windows xp(or whatever) and open-windows (sounds cool too)... this has potential to be a very interesting situation... ms could lose a lot of money if this happens
spend money here
just ask *explicitly* for a buildable source tree.
then build it, it would pre pretty simple to figure it out.
"Contrary to popular belief, UNIX is user friendly. It just happens to be selective on who it makes friendship with"
Not going to rehash all the "It'll take years to understand..." comments, that's obvious enough. So what does all this mean? Insert IANAL disclaimer.
Source released openly: What the states are asking for. This really won't get them anywhere. MS has been declared a monopolist, and going back like this is akin to going back to the murder scene for more evidence after the killer's been convicted. It doesn't do them any good other than to cause MS nightmares about their IP being compromised. Needless to say, MS hates this idea. Expect to see a scathing rebuttal within a couple of days. (Historical note: This is what one prosecutor did in the DeCSS case... put the code in as open/unsealed evidence, making it part of the public record. oops!) OSS advocates would love this idea, but without the compilation capabilities, it doesn't do Joe Sixpack any good unless MS accepts patches submitted by the public and makes them available for download.
Source released under seal: Same as an open release, but the source code doesn't get published, and only those people approved by the court get to see it. Takes even more time, more money, and accomplishes just as little. Only here, MS doesn't have to lose sleep over IP loss, just take care of a nasty migraine. Joe Sixpack gains nothing.
No release: Obvious victory for MS, but the case moves on faster than it would have otherwise, which (as we all know) MS does't want. Joe Sixpack doesn't get anything here, either.
I suspect that one of these choices is incorrect. Correct.
Could the states higher experts, possibly former MS employees to guide them through the code or would that be seen as a conflict of interest since the technical experts in question are former employees? There has to be a lot of people who have worked with the windows source code over the years.
Why stop at the "prove it" reasoning? What if our national security depended on opening Microsoft's code? The Edge Report has posted an interesting article talking about the national security implications of closed source software. While the infiltration of Microsoft by Al Qaeda may have been only a rumor, the article explores a world where this could happen. And guess what? We're living in it. It closes with a powerful statement: "Closed source software vendors, in the name of National Security: Open your Code!".
http://www.edgereport.com/article.php?sid=135
--
(paraphrasing)
M$' biggest problem with releasing the source code would be getting rid of all the damning comments... i.e. "This breaks DR-Dos", "This breaks Wordperfect"...
Acquiescence leads to obliteration
It would take a week or so, max.
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.
If Microsoft claims it doesn't know where all of the source code is stored (yeah, right), that's not a problem. The Marshals can seize the entire Redmond campus just as easily as they can seize a few server rooms. They should be able to seize the computers and media from all offices within a week or so, then they can sort it out back in the lab. Microsoft can easily afford to replace all of those computers. (The contents are another matter, but they'll have to request copies from the Marshals.)
Think this is unrealistic? Ask any victim of a BSA raid - and they've only been alleged of doing something wrong. Microsoft has had its day in court, been found guilty (and this verdict has been sustained on appeal), and is now being told to sustain its claims during the penalty phase.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
...I think it's safe to predict the winner of this year's obfuscated C contest.
Actually, a friend of mine who works with Microsoft has told me at length of strict standards for appearance and organization of code that they hold every single department to--as well they should. Chances are that a piece of Windows or Office code would in fact be extremely legible.
The coolest voice ever.
Being modular is part of the problem. The entire help system, the file system explorer, large parts of applications and so on are all reliant upon the HTML rendering engine of Internet Explorer.
Honestly, Microsoft should just remove iexplore.exe from the system and say "There we've removed IE." and leave it at that. Instead they are arguing semantics with people who are technically incompetent.
I also don't see an argument for why we need a diversity of operating systems. Or rather, why you feel we don't already today have a diversity of operating systems. Linux is available, so is various forms of MacOS, BSD and so on. Fact is there is probably a wider variety of operating systems available today than at any other time in the history of personal computing.
The fact that not all of these operating systems are on equal footing in terms of hardware and software support is a result of effeciences of scale. The scale argument is the reason against diverse operating environments.(I include the hardware in along with the OS)
Actually, MSFT has allowed portions of source code to be accessed by some companies. It is a matter of record.
Look at the lawsuit filed by the British company Bristol (and subsequently either settled or decided in MSFT's favor, I forget which). From what I read in the news, it seems that MSFT was providing source code to Bristol, but then stopped doing so at some point, for some reason or another, at which point Bristol decided to sue Microsoft to force them to continue to provide the source code.
I am sure that Bristol is not the only company that MSFT was/is providing source code access to.
--something witty
let's be honest, the states AG's are just slimeball politicos owned by companies who weren't good enough (as evaluated by the market/customer) to compete with msft. make no mistake: their "remedy" is nothing short of nationalizing windows.
Nobody has said they have to release their source to everyone--just the court. Or does that amount to being admitted as evidence and, thus, part of public record?
I remember a review of the source code in the DeCSS trial allegedly preserving the source forever in public records (heh). Can anyone explain the ramifications of allowing government analysts to examine the code? Can a NDA be used in this case?
One of the reasons that I became a lawyer was to avoid ever having to hire one. -SPYvSPY
If they are being asked to reveal their source code in an effort to disprove their earlier testimony, can't they plead the 5th to avoid self-incrimination?
... all the cool kids are doing it.
Plead the fifth
This is the CRIMINAL anti-trust case, not the civil anti-trust case that MS tried to get dismissed by having the education market handed to it.
This is action is also being taken during the penalty phase after conviction of criminal charges. That eliminates any legal presumption of innocence - the legal burden is now on the convicted party to prove innocence, not the state to prove guilt. (That's also why it's so hard to get convictions overturned even when new evidence is discovered.)
As for the bench warrant, all it requires is that the judge believe that the most expedient way to resolve the matter is to seize those servers. I doubt there are many experts who would look at Microsoft's performance during the trial phase and not foresee months of stonewalling unless the experts had full access to all source from the first day - and that would require seizure. I would expect many experts would make this a condition of serving in this role, to avoid wasting their own time.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
The HTML control isn't the issue. It's the fact that they took "Windows" functionality and pushed it into "IE" DLLs.
For example, if you wanted your app to have a "coolbar" style toolbar, you had to have IE installed to get the updated version of comctl32.dll. That feature had nothing to do with IE, but MS tied the two together.
Microsoft did things like this intentionally to encourage users to install IE, and also to prevent someone coming along and asking them to remove IE.
(However, IIRC the original judge said that if you removed the icon that was good enough for him.)
But that's not what would happen. What you'd see would be:
* The AOL-Netscape pack (Netscape+CD burner+WinZip+Java)
* The Sun bundle (Netscape+several Java utilities)
* The IBM solution (Netscape, IE, IBM Java, Eclipse, several IBM addon utilities)
* Microsoft Plus (everything that they stripped out)
Each would run at anywhere from free to $50.
Consumers would have the choice of using one or all of these addon packages.
I see a large benefit.
Of course, it's not so simple. Many Microsoft applications are component based and most of the components are shipped with the OS. The actual application is often a thin shell that wraps the components. This basically means that Microsoft has many advantages over their competitors. (Think service packs, install-time quickness, better OS integration, etc.)
[BLOCKQUOTE]If you followed the lawsuit at all, you'd know that the original basis of the argument was the setting of the default browser - not the inclusion of web libraries. Had Microsoft allowed the IE icon to be removed, none of this would have occured.[/BLOCKQUOTE]
Well yes, I agree, but only kind of. The default/icon issue relates to something MS had been doing for years: exercising strict control over what OEMs could and couldn't install and how they present MS's OS. This was understandable, I think, as MS didn't want the OEMs installing something that would _appear_ to come for MS and hurt their image (say, replace solitaire with strip poker, as an extreme example).
The lawsuit was precipitated by MS _continuing_ to excercise this level of control with the introduction of IE.
I made the KDE argument in support of the idea that the browser could be an integral part of the OS (I'm talking in terms of feel, not files). If this argument holds water, then the real issue would be whether or not MS has the ability to control the look/feel of its products when filtered through vendors. I believe a company has this right; whether or not the KDE developers choose to excercise it is irrelevant.
RC
Why the hell don't we see shitload of Windows-based software then?!
Because most universities are research institutions, not application developers. And, (at least here at the University of Idaho) most software development is done for major contractors like HP, or the DOD and would be of little use to desktop users.
This is getting further and further off topic, but there're actually some fascinating studies going on here using modified kernels of both NT and Linux related to security. One professor has a series of functions hooked into all system APIs, and then monitors those API calls to see how the OS behaves during different types of attacks. (DOS, break-ins, whatever) Then the OS can automatically attempt to compensate for what it *thinks* might be an attack.
Anyway, enough OT for now...
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
There's buildable and there's legible. I can see MS complying with the letter of such an order by running the source code through obfuscate.pl and delivering *that*. Sure, the code is FUNCTIONALLY the same, but you waste State money trying to decypher the source code.
Finding God in a Dog
If a component the application relies on can be used w/o invoking the application, then it's fair to argue it's not part of the application. Where a component starts life isn't particularly relevant except as history/philology.
I remember the days where some PC apps had their own TCP/IP implementations built-in. Then, a bit later, most of them started to use winsock, which became a dll eventually. Now it's a system wide resource.
Or to continue the car analogy: many of the electrical components of a car could have their own battery, but didn't -- because the battery/alternator system that supported the electric ignition was already there. This served as a good platform for adding other electric/electronic devices to the car. And yet replacing the starter motor does not mean that I have to replace anything else. Can you say the battery/alternator is PART of the starter motor? Or Headlamps? Dashboard electronics? Radio?
Generally useful pieces of applications will tend to migrate outside the app -- because programmers know it's better to reuse rather than reinvent (if you can understand the API, anyway). The HTML renderer is an important system component now. The IE application is not. If the analogy doesn't demonstrate that clearly, the actions of the 98Lite team do.
Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
What stores do you shop in? Fry's has (on the shelves) Windows 2000, 2000 Pro, 2000 Server, XP Home, XP Pro, and Me. Best Buy and Circuit City have mostly the same (they didn't have 2000 Server IIRC). Even if you don't want to count the different flavors of the same version, that is 3 different versions that are easily available at the store.
... it was called Win32. The fact that they broke the API repeatedly, and every different patch level of every different version of Windows caused new and different bugs in Win32 does not make me feel even the slightest bit confident that XP is going to make this any better.
.NET (another new platform). MS will make sure that you always need to have OS specific hooks and code paths to work reliably across the commonly used versions of Windows.
And outside of stores, there are all of the different embedded versions of Windows, etc. MS has had one platform for the past 7 years
And XP is supposed to be phased out within 2 years for the next version of Windows that will be all
What I am saying is that this would have to apply to everyone then. nVidia would have to release the full schematic on their premiere GPU's. IBM would have to not only release source code for every piece of software, but for all schematics for the hardware they build too.
Oracle, (I am pretty sure they don't have it open source but I could be wrong, so don't flame me for this one) would have to release the code for their database manager.
GM would have to release the exact process in which they mold their engines.
ID Software would have to release the full source for every single FPS they make right at release like everyone else. (Not that they don't already but they do it eventually down the line)
I mean screw Viagra and Coke. Their products are consumed into the body. They rlease the exact recipe to the FDA to make sure no one is internally harmed by toxic chemicals they maybe in said products. That is a given.
Closed source OS code does not really harm anyone in a severe way that it would be dangerous to ones life. The only thing it causes is frustration among those who want it open. That is a fact. It is closed. So what. Who honestly cares!? If Linux is the more efficient and precise of the two sets of code. Then it will eventually prevail.
OS's are like cars in one aspect. Take Ford. They have been around longer than anyone person who reads this site. They have some of the best advertising and marketing strategies. Now lets say they build shitty cars. An individual will only buy the shitty car for so long before they realize that this company over here. Saturn. Makes better cars, that don't break down. That run forever maintenance free, etc. Granted they might not have the marketing and strategy but eventually people will switch to the better car.
Frankly, I think the code should remain closed. If it becomes open. What if it becomes better than your precious Linux. I mean what if with a few minor tweaks from Slackware Kernel Gods, the windows source code out preforms and destroys Linux. What then? Would you all switch to a Windows Distro? Since it turned out to be the better of the two because it was released open source. What about Linux? What about all you stood for?
Leave it closed. Let the competition flow between Open and closed source. Lets have a little fun and MS bash! Fuck the code. Only reason anyone would want it would be to get the code for the API. After that it would all be down hill. Linux wins, game over!
On a side note. I believe that Win98 could not run without IE at all. Hence they would have to trash 98. NOt every WinOS. NT and 98 are completely different. Some visual similarities but completely different OS's all together.
~Admrlnxn
"I got your mom in my trunk"