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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."
... I think I'm going to have to say "fat chance". I don't believe that MS will reverse its stance on security-through-obscurity... not even at the request of a nation.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
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It isn't surprising to me that Microsoft won't open the source. I've even asked them a few times, and they just won't budge!
I am highly dubious that the person quoted here is smart enough to write any kind of a firewall, much less a ruleset for linux or Windows. ... which is all secondary to the point i am going to make:
In W2k and later, the entire network stack is completely pluggable. You can insert any layer you want to that sits between NDIS and a protocol driver, and you can create other layers as required. I'd be very surprised if they couldn't do everything required with windows exactly as it sits today.
I think this is just making political noise, and not based on any shred of technical accuracy.
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I guess the obvious answer would be to use something other that Windows. I hear this Finnish kid is working on something.
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.
If Microsoft actually goes along with this, will it mean that I'll be able to buy a CD-ROM of the Windows source code for $0.99 or whatever on the streets of China? Probably. Which makes me think that Microsoft isn't ever going to go along with this.
For those going on about the Chinese spy plane incident, rampant mainland Chinese software piracy, etc...
Taiwan is not China. Taiwan is a very urban, very modern nation which participates fairly in the world economy. Much of the technology used in America and throughout the world is manufactured in and imported from Taiwan. Though "officially" it is a Chinese province according to the US government, Taiwan and China have a very antagonistic relationship with one another -- Taiwan wants independence from China and is basically already fully independent in every way except in name. China considers Taiwan to be a 'rogue capitalist province' and the two governments hate one another (going back to the battles between the Chinese nationalists and communists early in the 20th century).
In fact, the US (if I understand correctly) has a very unusual agreement with Taiwan to jump to their defense if they should ever be invaded by China, even though at the same time the US also officially supports the "one China policy."
It is entirely possible that Taiwan wants to enhance its information security to protect itself from mainland China.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Microsoft products should never have been chosen for government implementation to begin with.
(Can anyone suggest an online Chinese English translation engine that produces other than gibberish?)
Here's a translation:
- We would like Microsoft to open the source code for Windows.
- We would also like the drug companies to develop a cure for cancer in the next year or so
- It would be ideal if the Israelis and Palestinians could come to some sort of agreement
- We propose that all record companies make their content available for free, so that all consumers who like the songs will send in a reasonable payment for each song, while consumers who don't like the song will delete it.
All completely reasonable propositions !
The posting refers to Taiwan, not mainland China. Taiwan, also known as the "Republic of China", is not the same country as China, also known as the "People's Republic of China". The former is a peaceful democracy, the latter is a belligerent, brutal totalitarian regime.
In case of fire, do not use elevator. Use water!
Remember, folks. Taiwan is the Republic of China (ROC) and mainland China is the People's Republic of China (PRC).
This is dealing with the ROC, not the PRC. The PRC claims the ROC is a renegade province, the ROC is just sitting back with the US covering its ass waiting to be able to truly flip the PRC off.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
What does this question mean for what we understand by "Open Source"?
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Honestly, I don't think the article is as straightforward as it seems. We must ask, why even ask that of Microsoft? I believe the answer is politics. Somehow, there is a struggle going on over there, dealing with which road to take technically. I think Microsoft is probably over there pitching and wooing as hard as it can, but Taiwan laid down the guantlet: open up or your out.
I would also assume that Microsoft has its supporters in governemnt, and this official is simply trying to keep the argument on it's technical merits so as not to upset any politicos. It's framed in such a way, that it's essentially a state-security issue: if Microsoft doesn't open the code, then we are more open to [Chinese] hacking and snooping. Who can argue they're not in favor of a more secure state. Actually, very, very smart on this official's part. Played this way, it appears as though it's Microsoft's problem and not about any particular government official.
There are probably many other culture differences that we cannot even begin to understand.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The Federal Ministry of the Interior in Austria is the first government body in Europe to be granted the source code for Windows XP under Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative
This was a publicity stunt from someone who wanted to plug Linux. There are thousands of source licensees for Windows, and I wager the government of Taiwan is one of them. Maybe this person's particular firewall project didn't get a source license -- not to mention how it didn't need one, as MS's network stack is absolutely pluggable and documented in the SDK -- but this doesn't immediately translate into a mandate for MS to give the code away and satisfy one person who could easily vote with his feet and use FreeBSD+netgraph, OpenBSD+ipf, or Linux.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Look. You may not balance your checkbook every month. I know I don't. I DO trust that my bank will do the arithmetic correctly most of the time.
However, would you like to get a bank statement that just list your beginning and ending balance?
Not me and I doubt you would accept it too.
While I don't check the arithmetic usually, the bank knows that I CAN CHECK it any time I want. Thus, they work to make sure that there're no problems.
Similarly, knowing that the source code is visible makes the vendor think carefully about what to put in it in the first place. And that's worth a lot.
"More famously, there was a version of a very popular C compiler that would put in a back-door whenever it noticed itself compiling a common bit of Unix login code,"
Nope. This was a theoretical attack presented by Ken Thompson. It was never out in the wild, to the best of anyone's knowledge.
The point still remains that you can't trust code unless you can personally verify it at any level, because the moment you give any important code trust, the code can potentially use that as a way of subverting the entire system.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
"Why the hell should I be forced into forking over more cash when I can just do the goddamn work myself."
This breaks your entire rant right there. If you were getting more value for doing the work yourself, you would've already chosen that path. By saying that the money spent is a smaller cost than the personal time needed to master the concepts and develop the software, you are making an economic decision. The type that drives forward the economy. Why eat out when you can cook at home? Why buy carrots from a store when you can grow them yourself?
You have to specialize at some point, otherwise you'll end up being a person who is ok or decent at many menial tasks, while not really enjoying the benefits modern society has to offer. If you're whinning about how expensive something is when you can do it yourself, you're only trying to distract us from the fact that you haven't done it yourself! Actions do speak louder than whines.
Before you whine about trust, you should understand the economic underpinnings of these decisions. Since software is digital, the cost is all in the creation phase. You should tell your government to look in to escrow software development. Have a fixed dollar value attached to projects + the condition that it be GPLed upon release, then drum up the funding for it. Some company wanting to make money will invest time in it to reap the money returns, and the government gets software that it can again set contracts on ("we now need to to collate documents. We'll give $4,000 to anyone who gives us this feature").
You could take the alternate route that customers enter in to a limited-trust scenario. Complete access to source code, provided they do not provide it to anyone else. This lets clients pick over everything, while keeping the accountability that would allow a traditional software company to continue to sell the software + support to other people until the escrow method becomes more popular.
If today's software companies were to just give away everything as you state, they'd die. When you develop some great algorithm that suites a problem, you've done the work. When someone else comes along and copies it, you have no way of recouping the cost of the work because the copy cost is 0. Without some sort of escrowed payment system and trusted-client relationship for these innovations, software development would mostly grind to a halt.
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Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Pretty entertaining reading...
Bruce
Bruce Perens.