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MS Proposes Disclosing Windows Source To India
raghuram writes "Interesting news from Economic Times of India, I found an interesting story, Microsoft Planning to Share Code with India." He excerpts from that article: "Microsoft has already made a proposal to the ministry of information technology (of India) for sharing the Windows source code with one government body. The nature of the body has not been spelt out; it will presumably be worked out after discussions between the company and the government officials. Interestingly, the offer comes at a time when state governments are showing interest in rival Linux operating system as the latter's source code is free and downloadable from the internet."
I give them 6 hours before the source is leaked and we can peruse (and be horrified) at our leisure.
Dyolf Knip
I'm sure M$ is just covering their ass and giving an excuse to foreign governments not to switch to Linux. Of course, if makes you wonder if India can be convinced to leak it. It would only take one person and one copy....
It sounds like Microsoft is running scared now. They realise that India is a powerhose because it has way more people (population) than the United States.
India seems to be tilted toward linux right now and if the linux movement there gets into full swing, the momentum will be very, very hard for Microsoft to stop.
I hope the Indians look to the long terms effects of the windows and linux paths, as opposed to short terms benefits.
Sweet: If Windows source is made available in India and becomes available worldwide.
Sour: If Windows source is already available to selected developers right here at home, why hasn't someone leaked it?
My understanding of "Shared Source" was that Microsoft shows you theirs if you promise not to tell what it looks like. I naturally assumed that with the code being such a closely held secret, that it would be on the newsgroups before you could say groups-dot-google-dot-com.
But then, it may just be my ignorance showing... I'm just a VB coder staying away from the bleeding edge -- in order to provide my clients with code that works the same way each time.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's important to use the "free software" expression instead of "open source".
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
... they aren't willing to share source code in the U.S. for "security" reasons, but they are willing to pass on the source code to a country in the midst of a volatile conflict with a growing nuclear weapons program ...
...
and so now it's friday the 13th per GMT. maybe this is a fitting time to run the story
when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
The real reason is to make sure that developers who see their source code can't later work on open-source projects without "polluting" the open-source project. I will never look at M$ source code, for that, among other, reasons.
But could you imagine the damage if M$ was successful in claiming that their code ended up in a linux kernel? Or apache? or php? or perl? or gcc?
These are all for good reason. Not only will one massive lost market initate several others, but India also represents a leading software high-tech zone that Microsoft does not want to lose. Think of the number of Linux programmers that would be learning to work on a real platform in five year if the government does not 'sell out' to this US monopoly.
I can't disclose really any more than this, but expect more concessions from the Redmond Giant before all is said and done. Hopefully India's Linux initiatives have not been just to facilitate dealing with M$.
Microsoft's dike is springing many holes. Thiy might fill this one, but products like the one below will be taking serious bites out of MSFT in the coming months...
http://www.distrowatch.com/review-xandros.php
Hunger is the best sauce.
if this may be related somehow to this recent announcement regarding IBM's recent software initiatives in India. On a slightly related question, how would any of this relate to the recent rumors of both IBM and MS vying to purchase Rational and Borland? My take is this: IBM may be the number 2 software vendor, but as a company MS knows they could be choked on for breakfast in terms of sheer scale as reflected in US dollars. Upon reading about the recent sentiments in India, my vote goes with Big Blue.
C|N>K
If it is a precedent being set, then it could very well be how the population of an entire country operates.
Most people think that 'operating systems' are something that are confined to the workings of computers. History, however, would point out that the term 'computer' used to refer to a person, whose job was to compute (with an abacus or something). Similarly, an 'operating system' also affects how people perform their jobs... Have you ever had somebody tell you something like 'OK, so click Start, Programs, Office, Word' And without thinking, you go through a set of motions that are nearly instinctual? That's an example of how people use operating systems to communicate information and tasks to other people.
I digress a bit. The way I see it, the United States has sort of a 'protective ward' or 'shield' against this kind of stuff, because the USA has a 250+ year old operating system which the federal government uses. The code? Written down in the US Constitution.
Anyhow, the way I see it, you are right, sharing the source code of their OS with a government does seem like its setting a bit of an odd precedent. As far as I can tell, it's sort of like saying, 'OK, we'll organize your billion people just like we organize our files on a supercomputer.' And every person gets a profile, access, authority, and authentication to certain network resources (can you say access control lists (ACLS)?). Hmmm.
It seems to me that it's suggesting a rather Brave-New-World-esque operating system for India. Very, very weird precedent.
I doubt anyone has access to 100% of the source. I am just guessing, but, you probably would only have access to the portion you are supposed to work on, it must consist of thousands of discreet elements, and if you leaked one they wouldn't have very many people to look at to figure out who had done it.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
If you want to look at the source to ensure yourself that there is no NSA/CIA/M$ malware or trojans there, how do you know you are looking at the right thing? Will M$ actually let you USE the source and create your own certified Win distribution? Using your own trusted compiler?
Don't think so.
)9TSS
Unless microsoft plans on releasing the source code for every windows update patch as well, they will still be able to maintain as much control as they have always had (re: too much)
By this gesture MS is acknowledging that the source code is important. Hopefully India is smart enough to see that MS offers the source as a last resort where as Linux offers the source code (plain and simple).
There are 3 sources bases which can plausibly be called the windows source. The original source based which started with DOS and windows 1 and went on up to windows 95 and Windows Millenium. The 'portable windows' CE which is its own code base. And the NT code base which is the one people would want.
It might make a lot of sense for MS to give out the source to the windows 95 codebase, as it is old and decrepit and would cost more to understand than to reimplement.
Windows CE has a very small market and giving out the source base might be its last gasp.
Some are actually easier and faster to install. I installed a distro called Lycoris the other week that has a similar approach to Lindows. I'm not saying this is the way to go, but it was really fast and simple to install, and the PC looks and reacts similar to Windows XP, but costs $0.
In other words, my computer illiterate Dad could use it.
If Windows didn't already come pre-installed (due to the monopoly factor) then people like my Dad probably would be considering the free alternative if he was made aware of it. Fact is that I don't know ANYONE that has purchased Windows at full price, for personal use. It's always bundled or corporate.
Why has the Windows Source Code, arguably the most valuable piece of source code in history, never been leaked?
;-)
I'll give you some answers. I won't go into details of me personally, which you hopefully understand after reading this but here's the few personal things I _will_ say:
- I worked for M$
- I was not a developer
- I had full access to the source of a Windows version (it was not an NT/2K/XP variant, the source was available to everyone on the M$ network who knew where to find it)
- this was several years ago, things have changed, no doubt
Now, back to answering your question. First of all, some common sense answers:
- because it would be illegal?
- because they are not anti-M$?
- because it doesn't occur to them that it would be a 'good thing' to do?
I'll take your suggestions backwards:
Microsoft's security is just that good?
Obviously not.
People are too scared of Microsoft to do it, even with anonymizing technology?
Exactly, I think your question answered that already quite nicely when you said "arguably the most valuable piece of source code in history"
with all that in mind someone would consider:
- who would want to risk a reasonable career, for exactly what?
- who knows if my access to the source is watermarked?
- as someone suggested with the analogy of the Coke formula: is it really that unique that it's worth risking anything for? (believe me, it's not. In fact you CAN look at large pieces of M$ source, just go download a DDK)
Now, from what I have seen, there _is_ some evidence that could have helped the DOJ case regarding the non-competitive stuff with DR-DOS which can be found in the source.
This may have been a valid reason for someone to leak it, but the question is, would you trust the government or anyone enough to protect you so that you can continue the live that you want to have, after you did?
Or even more importantly, should the government be able to get and find this information by it's own, legal, resources?
I think it's a tough choice to risk an already way too short time as a productive developer to deal with lawsuits and what not.
Just a few thoughts
(I trust Rob to provide the "anonymizing technology")
It appears that all Microsoft were doing (.Net this .Net that) was to distruct competition from what they really wanted - introduce more anti-competitive practices through discount deals for SMEs, taking over Borland, bribing Indian govt, Palladium...If that wasn't the case they could have made .Net server released perhaps.
Is full-blown war with OpenSource/Linux/IBM/Sun... just starting?
Remember, Microsoft invented "embrace and extend" and FUD.
Perhaps the former, but for the latter, you can thank IBM. They perfected FUD in the Mainframe market when the finally had some competition in the form of a disgruntled engineer, Gene Amdahl.
Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
but who can guarantee me that the binaries don't have those backdoors and trojans.
Take that one step further and read Ken Thompson's masterpiece Reflections on Trusting Trust
Do you care about the security of your wireless mouse?
I am very curious. How do they manage to maintain it ? how much spaghetti the code is ? what is the internal coding style ? what design patterns do they follow ? how componentized really is ? how much is it tied to the 80x86 architecture ? how much does the API resemble the APIs of MacOS ? what pieces are left from the original Windows ? is it only asm and C/C++ or there is Pascal in there is well ? How well does it compare to Linux when it comes to coding techniques ? what versioning system do they use ? how much of it is hacks ?
Of course, this is my scientific interest as a programmer to other people's work, and since Windows is a very important piece of software, I would like to see the internals of it. I don't care of repackaging and selling it, because I already have a working O/S that's fine for me: Linux. And I don't think that the open source Linux would gain anything from the Windows source code...
It would seem that this 'open source' move is an attempt to silence the remaining critics who say that access to the source is more important than the $$$ that MS is throwing at them.
The sad thing is that this isn't comparable to having the Linux source. Very few will have access to it and those that do will only be able to look at it, rather than being able to modify the OS itself and redistribut it.
Basically the only benefit you get is the ability to look for bugs and trojans to make sure that you aren't being spied on. That is certainly reasonable for a government to want to do, but it is only one of the many benefits of true 'open source'.
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[By all means correct me if i'm wrong on any of this...]
/. story, or possibly a story somewhere else, quote that the Indian government was embracing Linux because of ability to access some portion of the networking code that they couldn't access in windows because of its closed nature?
Well if i'm not mistaken, didn't an earlier
Appears to be just another Salvo in Operation Vindaloo (tm) (Bills wooing away of Indian developers from non MS projects...or attempt at any rate). First he donates a massive amount of money to fight AIDS while at the same time offering to give away windows (or was that sell at a reduced cost). Now, its sharing source code. Anyone want to place bets on what hes going to do next?
--- I was far from home, and the spell of the Eastern sea was upon me. -Lovecraft-