Taiwan Asks Microsoft To Open Windows Source

Andy Tai writes "According to this China Times article (in Chinese), the Republic of China government has asked Microsoft to open Windows source code. The official, Lin Jua-Cheng, in charge of the 'e-government' initiative, says many other countries have also sent similar requests to Microsoft. Lin explains that without Windows source code, the government cannot add custom firewall functionalities to Windows based systems in wide use, and that is very bad for the information security of Taiwan. Microsoft refused to publicly release the source in the past using reasons of copyright protection, but Lin emphasizes this request is reasonable since it is based on (government users') necessity." Read on for a bit more, too. (Can anyone suggest an online Chinese English translation engine that produces other than gibberish?) Andy continues "Lin points out that GNU/Linux systems, because of their freeness and high security (due to the availability of the source code, which can be modified to add firewalls and other security measures), have become widely used in government computer systems (especially in militaries and intelligence agencies) of many nations and the Pentagon, the FAA, and the air force of the U.S. Lin says the government cannot rely on a single vendor, and to promote the alternatives, the government has set up a 'Free (libre) Software Steering Committee' directing government efforts. The two aims of the ROC government's current software policy is making Windows source code openly available and the development of Free (libre) Software in Taiwan."

Comments

Lame

[PtM2300]

If you ask me, this request is quite lame. Microsoft has created a product, and the government of China can use it if they so desire. If they need it to create a firewall-type software package for their machines, why not ask Microsoft to create that instead? Something just seems overly fishy here. Besides, an external firewall would most likely provide better control and better performance for all users.

Re:don't beleive the hype...

[SirSlud]

> You have to trust someone at some point.

Of course, but you'll find people want to trust groups of people more than one person.

If _everybody_ is using a compiler, you can trust it. (or trust that if there is a backdoor, _everybody_ has the backdoor, so you're still on a level playing field.)

But not _everybody_ is using windows to install custom firewalls. The trust can't come from a wide community of users, so it has to come from examining the actual construction of the product itself.

People don't trust a company nearly as much as they trust groups of people who should have already encountered the problems youre attempting to avoid should a problem in the product exist. Since that is impossible (or at least difficult) with respect to Windows as a custom firewall platform, because of the lower visibility of use and the lesser amount of people using it in this fasion, I'd realize I had no groups of users to trust and this I'd only trust the innards of the product once I could examine them myself.