Source Code Escrow

Makarand writes "According to this article in The Economic Times (India) Software companies in India are embracing the trend where source code for the software being bought or sold is kept safe with an escrow agent with carefully drafted agreements. This allows the buyer to get hold of the source code in cases where software was licensed from a start-up which has now folded or a breach of contract regarding the maintenance services that were agreed upon can be proven. The source code is automatically released upon the occurrence of any of the events mentioned in the escrow agreement and the buyer will be able to study the source code and continue to provide support services for the software bought without relying on the employees of the software supplier."

Comments

Re:source code escrow not very useful

[Apreche]

You're right, except for one thing. The reason microsoft doesn't want its source code disclosed is to protect its proprietary properties. For example, NTFS. Right now we only have NTFS read only, and we can write ntfs by actually using microsofts ntfs.sys file. With the source code there would probably be an NTFS kernel patch inside a week that worked perfectly.
Other things that microsoft would like to protect are:

a) obvious security holes that anyone who looked at the code could pick out
b) the source code to IE, so people don't release a patched version that doesn't suck.
c) DirectX, so windows will always remain the system to play games on. Imagine if we had the directx source. Within a couple months there could be a stable linux fork of directx and all windows games would work perfectly in linux.
d) Secrets. There are all kinds of things that windows could be doing that nobody knows about exept for one guy at MS who coded it in. If the source was open ./ers would comb it over with the finest comb and uncover all of ms dirty secrets if any. Maybe there's an algorithm that is patented by someone else. Maybe there's some hidden precursor to some spyware or some DRM. If the source stays secret they can't get in trouble for what is or isn't in it.
e) The #1 reason is really money. If the source for windows was open it would be just that much easier to get free copies of windows. Even better than that, they would get Windows Lite. Just like everyone uses Kazaa Lite. If the source for windows was open there would be a no IE no Media Player stable version roaming the net. People would switch to it so fast. MS would lose all its revenue from desktop OS licenses.
f) File formats. If we had the source to office the doc file format would be wide open among others. Presently doc files are supported for importing/exporting in non MSOffice word processors, but it never goes quite right. Justification is missing, or fonts break. With the file formats open nobody would have a reason to use office.
g) Driver database. This kind of goes with the NTFS thing I talked about, but windows has a huge database of device drivers in it. With access to the source for all these drivers linux or any other OS (SkyOS or BSD) would have equivalent hardware support to windows.

If you get the games (directx) and the hardware support, there just wont be a reason for people like me to dual boot anymore. If MS opens its source people will look at it and fork it and pieces of it. They wont maintain and develop it. They will chop it to bits and turn lead into gold. Thus being the end of Microsoft's monopoly.

Their source code isn't some secret ingredient. It's the only thing seperating them from certain doom.