Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft WiX Code Released to SourceForge.Net
nberardi writes "On Monday, April 5, 2004, as part of the Shared Source Initiative, Microsoft released the source code for the Windows Installer XML (WiX) developer tool to SourceForge under the IBM Common Public License or CPL. The WiX project is the first Shared Source Initiative to go "public" on Source Forge rather than a Microsoft site. It is also the first to use an externally created Open Source license. Microsoft supports the idea that a software developer should be free to choose how they license their work and for the goals of WiX, the CPL was the right fit. Is this another ploy from Microsoft to not look like the bad guy, or do you think they are embracing on the Open Source movement?" Slashdot and SourceForge are both part of OSDN.
I thought April 1st was 4 days ago?!
Someone send Lucifer some mittens and one of those funky Russian hats... Must be mighty cold down there right now...
Hate me!
Neato. =) Even though I don't use XML.... why not Windows Media Player?
They can embrace it all that they want AND extend it... developers and end-users will win in the end when it comes to open source.
This license reads more like the BSD license, with all its "the code is out for everybody to grab and hide" kefussles.
Open Code + bug fixes + hidden extensions == incompatible again.
Doing the Right Thing should not be preempted by making a buck.
This means nothing. MS is simply trying to look good, and it's well worth it to improve their image, which I fear has suffered of late... (funding SCO).
They just want all the programmers that use source forge to be able to use their installer and write windows programs. It's a smart move, and it's only an *installer*, no big deal...
I'm not the biggest MS-basher by a long shot and even I felt it necessary to try to find out who forced them to do this. Didn't find anything, though. Can't believe this wouldn't have been court-ordered, but doesn't appear so!
Is this another ploy from Microsoft to not look like the bad guy, or do you think they are embracing on the Open Source movement?
Oh, you'll have some conspiracy theorist claiming its a money-saving move to make sf pay for all the bandwidth of d/ling the source! So, not only are they the bad guy in this scenario, but they also are using open source to bring open source down!
If MS open sourced all their apps, there would STILL be a large "we hate MS" movement on slashdot... mostly from people that haven't used windows since Windows98.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
... there *must* be something in for Microsoft for them to release the source of something. Maybe it is just a sad attempt to show that their code is not as nasty as what other programmers saw a few months back when the Windows code was leaked. Or maybe there is some ploy in here in order to make $$$ but it is so sneaky that we have not figured it out yet. As far as I am concerned, this seems to be some strategic move...
...join them... ... and attack later from the inside...(maybe?)
errera hunamum ets
Why is it all professional ice skaters are choosing to go to hell now? This is realy going to throw someones metrics off.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
hardly hurts M$ now, does it !
$ strings FTP.EXE | grep Copyright
@(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
I like how MS as made embracing a noun.
The plan is embrace, extend, then conquer. By creating their own open source license, they're already in step 2.
who are those slashdot people? they swept over like Mongol-Tartars.
OTOH, I expect several hundred postings, all the rough equivalent of:
This seems like a bigger deal for SourceForge than Microsoft, does the Forge become a default meeting place for all developers?
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
I applaud any open source release. Here's to you Microsoft(R).
We look forward to more (real) open source contributions!
Of course it's a ploy. But if the Big Bad Wolf, needing to make friends with a few of the forest's other creatures, offers to make you a nice lunch and can prove -- via a reasonable license -- that it's not poisoned, well, then eat up and say thank you.
...
Nothing's changed. But the software is useful and it's nice to know that public opinion can hold some sway over Microsoft, however tenuous
Chr0m0Dr0m!C
Is this another ploy from Microsoft to not look like the bad guy, or do you think they are embracing on the Open Source movement?"
Yeah, that's why people diferentiate between "Open Source" and "Free Software". Open Source implies, sometimes falsely, what Free Software explicitly states. One project of SF does not make you a proponent of Free Software. Let's wait and see how MS follows this up.
However, it is interesting if you want to see what MS code looks like. I wonder if they spent weeks cleaning it and going to code reviews to make sure it is a good example of MS software.
"I, John C McCloy, is in business... to make money"
Microsoft making a Sourceforge project account??
That makes the new calculation to Armageddon, what, next week?
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
Back in the day, way long ago, AT&T was a greedy monopoly. Then, realizing it was a monopoly, AT&T invented lasers, transistors, Unix and a bunch of other stuff. But, they were a greedy monopoly first. Then, they became a benevolent monopoly, which we broke up so that we could have lots more phone ads, calling plans, and more expensive phones than ever.
If MS does morph into a benevolent monopoly like AT&T of old, should we break it up just for market's sake?
This is my sig.
... but that doesn't make *him* any better, right?
What is to be understood here is that MS has an interest in there being a lot of free/cheap easy-to-install programs for their OS. Now that they've released WiX, less companies will be willing to pay for, say, InstallShield(/whatever) and as there a more programs that will use WiX, the feel of the OS-operation will be that it is more harmonious. How many times have you installed programs that have crap-ass installers an didn't have proper uninstall features? Think of the poor saps who don't know shit about how Windows works, who've tried their luck with those?
Less hassle for the end-consumer will mean that less people drop away from MS-products.
has always made a point of not liking "the viral nature" of GPL.
So, this could actually be an honest experiment to see what they can gain from the OS-development
model, and not even pretending to be anything else than what they are, a company trying to make
profit.
Lemon curry???
Embracing is a noun, genius.
Fr33 s0ftw4rez kidz spellz 3V3ryth!ng 4ll phucked-up. Scr3w j00z l4m3rz!
Much more detailed information available at MSDN.
1. Embrace
2. Extend
3. Extinguish
4. ???
5. Profit!
It is nice to see Microsoft open sourcing code under what appears to be a reasonable license.
However, could there be a piece of software less useful to the Linux/UNIX/etc community? We already have a bunch of mostly incompatable ways to install software.
Still, it could prove useful for open source developers targeting the Windows platform, and may provide a boost for cross platform tools such as GAIM.
Some open source projects (e.g. Apache httpd) already distribute their software in MSI form. I wonder how they create their packages - this could be a way for their developers to use less closed source software.
I'm still tending towards the "another ploy from Microsoft to not look like the bad guy", but I am a cynic.
Microsoft releases an installer on SourceForge under not GPL, but CPL, which skimming it quickly, sounds similar to a BSD license. The installer is designed for Windows which would, I would assume, be useless to other operating systems.
So what is it good for? Perhaps marketing? "Microsoft DOES contribute to open source! We are good!" -- perhaps a cover-your-ass attempt if some OSS does make it big, Microsoft might say "Windows makes OSS easier to install!"? Don't know, don't care.
Oh, it's just 100,000 nerds stampeding to get l33t3 Microsoft code in order to search through it to find secret Windows exploits to be had. *sigh*
:)
Funny thing is 95,000 of those don't know C from php from COBOL from ada.
Anyway, should be interesting to see what becomes of this
I can't believe I'm seeing the names "Microsoft" and "SourceForge" in such a context! If it was still April 1st (it isn't, is it? I lose track of time when reading Slashdot) I'd wonder if this was a joke.
1) Microsoft wins by getting people to develop their software for free.
2) Microsoft wins by getting "good press" for having released something in their Shared Source Initiative program.
3) Microsoft wins more "good press" by placing the released application on SourceForge (the well-known bastion of Open Source developers).
4) Microsoft wins because it persuades people it is playing nice, people let their guard down, and then Microsoft slowly spreads their foul seed....
Can an 800 pound gorilla known for deceit and the ability to subtly infiltrate and influence almost any industry it touches really be trusted?
------- "One of the joys of travel is visiting new towns and meeting new people." -- G. KHAN
I'm no Microsoft basher, but I'd love to hear their explanation for such a mood change after attacking open source, and specifically, the GPL so harshly.
They should at least have the decency to explain why they think their old views are wrong.
It seems that Microsoft finally is coming to realize the power of open source software. After all, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
Microsoft knows that their power lies in their broad userbase. By holding out this "olive branch" to the OSS community, they are preventing an embarrassement, especially in circles where OSS is finding more and more acceptance. For example, the city of Munich switched to Linux over Windows. Now OSS advocates have one less argument in their toolkit.
From now on, no one can accuse Microsoft of being completely closed source. Not that it really matters in the big picture, because their major applications are closed source, anyway.
There's always the possibility that this will get yanked like nullsoft's WASTE (secure file sharing). In this case, I suppose it is very unlikely.
All things considered, we should welcome Microsoft's foray into OSS cautiously, who knows what their motivation is...
when does it run on linux?
I don't have time to look up the part of the EULA, but doesn't this violate their own EULA for visual studio if it was written with that? Isn't there some part that said that the end user couldn't open source what they create?
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
MS is opening some of their code using the same business model as IBM. That is, release source code that doesn't contain any core IP or doesn't compete with your other money-making products.
(that sums it up, I think)
My money is on there being ulterior motives. I won't claim I know what they are but I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be part of some greater M$ plan to bring Linux/Open Source down.
"Slashdot and SourceForge are both part of OSDN. "
about 90% of the advertising on slashdot these days is microsoft FUD. in fact im looking at a banner right now for "increase your TCO use micro$oft!".
its not they haven;t noticed slashdot by now.
Microsoft looks at FOSS as a bad corporate strategy that will never earn them any money, and that will never make the best software in the world. But they aren't stupid: They do observe that quite a lot of good software is being made under open licenses.
Through making their installer a part of that, they make it easier to deploy good, free software on Windows. This is, in other words, a win-win-situation for Microsoft AND its customers. And even FOSS developers. And other developers (except those making propietary installers, of course).
Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you
First they ignore you... Second they laugh at you... Then they fight you... And then you win
Technoli
There is no source code in the project files...
Grass-roots web hosting.We are poor colleg
A token effort to try to get on the good side of developers, after recent shames (SCO fiasco, antitrust issues, etc).
Then you have to wonder about motives. Two main ones immediately spring to mind....
1) They decided to spring something, and so decided to release the least part of the recently leaked win2k source code, since it was leaked anyway (not having downloaded it I dont know for sure, but it seems likely), or...
Theyre deflecting the attention from a recent happening. The Sun deal, perhaps?
The project was created on April 1st, althought it only made it to /. today ...
-- Manik Surtani
Realplayer is teh sukc. I mean, who the hell would want to use Realplayer except those stupid enough to fall for a clever salesman in a broad tie?
The developer has more information as to what WiX is in his blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/robmen
so
plan a) 1000s of eyes are going to find bugs for MS so their installer can be improved. good
business.
plan b) 1000s of eyes don't trust their purity if they look at the code, bugs don't get fixed in the installer, opensource proven again to be bad, ms still better(tm). good business.
and the other side of the coin, now it will be easier to create software that will install on ms, so why bother learning the complex and difficult rpm or deb formats, ms install is right there, complete with 10 different free guis to setup.
ms gets more software to install on it. good business.
bosun round: perhaps someone will port apt-get or yum features to MSInstaller, dll hell either gets fixed or goes away.
failing to see where this is a 'bad idea'(tm) for ms
This is a nice start, but I hope Microsoft and the Judicial system dont think that by sharing 1 piece of code, they are not considered a monopoly anymore. I think they should have done this a long time ago.
Microsoft is not going away.
Open source is not going away.
Open source will never own the desktop (but continues to get better).
Microsoft will never own the server (but continues to get better).
Microsoft is learning from open source (openness leads to collective code quality).
Open source is learning from Microsoft (non-geek resources lead to ease-of-use in UI).
This is the way it has been and the way it will be. Customers of both camps will benefit. Zealots will be eternally unhappy waiting for the open-source rapture.
I know this is the source for a Windows Installer program, and as such really isn't useful on any other platforms; but does the lisence allow for development on other platforms? From what I've read, it seems similar to the BSD lisence - does this mean a 3rd party company could come along (the developers of InstallShield, perhaps?) and use this code for thier own products?
RaGe
We're all just noise on the wires..
I feel lulled into a nice warm false sense of security...
I wouldn't touch this code with a pole of any length. Section 4 is one extraordinarily draconian provision. It basically states that if you make a commercial application using this software, and then Microsoft gets sued because of its original contribution, you have to pay all of Microsoft's legal expenses.
And yes, I'm fully aware that this license was created by IBM.
Who in their right mind would ever base a derivitive work on anything covered by this license? It's completely insane. Treat this software as you would treat misappropriated Microsoft source code: don't even look at it.
My dislike of Microsoft comes from their business practices. Crushing Netscape, RealPlayer, Wordperfect, Eudora, etc etc by levering their monopoly position on the desktop has nothing to do with closed or open source software. Watch their conduct in the coming search engine wars -- they will tie everything in with the OS in the name of "innovation" and "helping the end user" but in the end it's really just a ploy to exterminate Google and Yahoo. Just as IE was a ploy to exterminate Netscape.
What's the difference between IE's integration into the Windows shell and Konquerer's integration into KDE?
I don't see the big fucking deal. I run Windows XP at work yet--gasp--choose to run Firefox. Believe it or not, Microsoft isn't holding a gun to my head...
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
It is German for W*nk...
Timo's Audio Software http://www.esseraudio.com
So I went to the SF project, and there's only one file, binaries-2.0.1605.0.zip. And it's downloading freaking SLOW. And somehow I think I'm not going to find a whole lot of source code in here.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
Oh man, that really made me laugh. Job well done.
A few years ago (8), I took a democracy studies class from a guy that not only was an election judge during Taiwan's first democratic elections, had been president of UWF.
During this particular class we discussed the difference between a mob and democracy... of note was a certain event at the University that sparked an actual demonstration/sit-in around the doors of the admin building. The issue was fairly minor, but was the straw that broke the camels back - like "no more 25 cent sodas" or something...
There were MANY issues with the administration, so they came out and made a big deal to conceed to the mob. A mob likes appeasement. The mob, unfortunately missed the fact that - while conceding on this issue, they were able to keep the "real" issues from becoming concessions. The inflamed mob was appeased on a relatively minor issue and got to feel like they won, when - in reality- they lost on several MUCH more important issues.
I believe small acts like this will not only give appeasement to much of "the mob", but will also strengthen their foothold - no different than free computers + windows XP for schools.
meh
After all, OSS "hurts" a company, right?
And we all want to see "M$"--by the way, 1998 wants its moronic term back--hurt because everything they do is Bad(tm)...right? At least, that's what Slashdot tells me.
no, but it probably won't steal your domain name either.
Yup. They did the same with Internet Exploder, if you recall. Of course, that was a rather more important product for most users, but the principle's the same.
"My strength is as the strength of ten men, for I am wired to the eyeballs on espresso."
They should change that name especially for Germany. Because in German "Wix" sounds like "Wichsen" which means to jerk off. So noone will take this serious.
Is it just me, or are there no actual source files released? The only downloads I can find are binary only. This seems like an attempt to get some P.R. out of making something freely downloadable, which they do all the time anyway.
MOD PARENT UP!
Microsoft can use or make OSS when it fits a larger profit-driven strategy just like IBM, Apple, Red Hat, or any other business.
For great justice.
It's actually always been my fear that M$ would jump on the OS bandwagon. Imagine for a moment the multi billion dollar company pushing their OS product and selling support for it vs. RedHat or even IBM. They've proven time and time again that they can market better than anyone else around.
If the approach that makes OS software great was applied across the board to M$ software, everyone here would have a lot more to whine about.
If it doesn't come directly via the Windows line, and I doubt it ever could politically, then watch out for a M$ Linux distro through some other company or means. They could easily do it, and with the licenses' blessing. Then twist it however they wanted via marketing and legal wrangling. Be very afraid.
They never cared about the source outside of the control it gave them. If there's another easier way to get the same thing who thinks they're really going to care. Heck they've got the resources to maintain Windows, a Linux distro, a FreeBSD distro, anything they want.
You know how everyone says the RIAA could have benefited so much more if they would have embraced file-sharing? Maybe this is Microsoft comparing their situations. Keep their business model, but remain flexible enough to hold up to the changes they need to make.
I can see a lot of benefits to Microsoft doing something like this.. maybe they're just seeing them too.
What a reversal. What a change. What's going on?
Seriously... why would Microsoft do this?
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
..tactic of some sort. I wonder what they're really up to WRT this.
the Borgs were assimilated by penguins?
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
But what do you mean by circumcized people just don't know what they are missing or unable to give to a woman?
Microsoft demonstrates once again that there are intelligent people working in Redmond. They realize that the general public, and even the business community, do not yet understand what "free software" is. So the time is right for them to step in and shape the definition - - using "friendly" words - - to make them look like good buddies to end users. Clearly, Microsoft wishes not to be known as monopolists who keep their code secret in order to keep market dominance. "Sharing" sounds so much better . . . .
It's only funny until someone gets hurt. Then, it's hilarious.
Imagine if Microsoft weren't a monopoly. Theoretically, if you owned an OS in a competitive market you would want more software choices. In other words, if Windows had an alternative, they would have to make their barriers to create software on it to become more loose. Best way to come up with the most software for your OS is to make development on the OS free. But that won't happen (yet). So if MS actually has competition, they would make it easier to release software for windows. Expect MS to open source more apps which encourage development on Windows as Linux gains more ground. If the world embraces open source, MS is going to have to open more and more...
This looks interesting, although I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. I wouldn't dwell on the open source aspects of it too much. It's a tool, not a product. Extending it will just give them more reach into other systems, or like Mono let others do the porting work for them.
Microsoft has a released other tools for free to developers such as the Embedded Visual Tools for handhelds and phones. It was part of the larger effort to get a large software base for their CE platform when palm was the leader. It's so bug ridden they should release that to open source.
Then there was that browser they gave away for free, and Services For UNIX, event Dakimakura pillows in Japan.
Still it makes me wonder how for off this prediction is that says Microsoft will produce software for Linux in 2004. It's always fun to go back and see what people thought was going to happen.
MS, as a corporation is amoral. Note that they are not necessarily imoral. They do not have a moral besides making money, like any other corporation. They don't care about movements, comunity or any other thing unless it makes money for then. If they are opening source, it is becouse they think it will make money, either now or in the long run.
So this news is good news, it means that Open Source is *the* bussiness model to go, since all the major corps are going for it (IBM, Novell and, bite me, MS).
- no sig.
They're a business and they will do what makes sense most for their shareholder responsibilities. Perhaps they envisage this being a lower costly solution. Let the community deal with the support issues and covering the areas they've saved money by not going all the way with documentation, etc.
This is essentially what they've done with WTL (Windows Template Library), and I find the solution as a developer satisfactory, although the documentation and library testing (WTL7.1 collides with a bug in atlbase.cpp under MSVC6/ATL3) lacking by my MSDN trained expectations. WTL is of course an example of where having the source makes up for some of the defficiencies in documentation.
By releasing something under a true open source license, and calling it "Shared Source", they help to confuse the uninformed about exactly what Shared Source really is.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
They released the Win2k source some time ago after all, remember?
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
What is the purpose of modding funny posts down as overrated? If humor is not your kind of thing, just set a negative penalty on "funny" in your preferences. You might say "but it's not THAT funny" or "it's not MY kind of humor", but if you take a good look you see that the vast majority of "funny" posts have also been modded as "overrated". Maybe Over/Underrated moderations should also be meta-moderated?
Btw, anyone knows if -1,Overrated on a +N,Funny comment decreases karma? (since Funny doesn't increase it)
Disclaimer: I'm not the OP.
The CPL is not an open source license at all, as can be witnessed from its use on Eclipse. Use the GPL of the LGPL where appropriate (or BSD at a push) or nothing. I'm rather suspicious of the use of the CPL by IBM in Eclipse.
The lack of a GPL avenue for Eclipse has really halted its use within many open source projects of all kinds that are primarily GPLed. Notice that Eclipse has not been integrated into any desktop environments at all, even where the licensing is not a problem. So will be the case with this meaningless bit of tosh.
is it just me, or have they only posted binaries up on the site? what's the point of that then?
*missing something* ??
If you could take the windows installer files I (assume) this creates and actually know the format and how it works, you could port the shells of it over to linux and use it to intercept installations, wine's windows installer then taking the tasks of putting short cuts in the right place etc?
I am NaN
They do release some other source code publicly. But they've been trying to create a sourceforge-like community on gotdotnet.com with little success. Most of the free code uploaded by developers is "Here's how to save a text file" level stuff. This may be an attempt to get the community more motivated to work directly with them. If this code isn't .Net (which I haven't checked) then they have no other site of their own to share it with the community - other than a zip download from MSDN, which would do little for 2-way communication.
Developers: We can use your help.
Instead of actually discussing what the source code is or the technology behind it...the rest of the Slashdot discussion here will be about Microsoft's "motivations" for releasing it and what their plans "really" are.
Has anyone here who's posting actually downloaded it and tried it yet?
If you were a monopoly, wouldn't you want to make it easy for developers and users to use a good installer. This project serves two purposes. One, installers pose little to no risk for Microsoft. Second, it looks good to the public, without it really meaning anything. If no developers jump to it, they still get good PR. If developers jump to it, people will find bugs and fix it for them. The project is a "rope-a-dope" tactic. Nothing to see here and just ignore it.
who the hell moderated this interesting? its a joke you dimwitted asshats
TIAEAE!
Bill Gates: Your friends up there at the sanctuary website [indicates sourceforge] are falling into a trap.
Linus reacts. Bill Gates notes it
Bill Gates: As is your open source community
Bill Gates: It was I who allowed the Open Source Community to know the source code of Windows Installer XML (WiX) developer tool. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of my best Coders awaits them.
Linus' look darts from Bill Gates to Steve Ballmer and, finally, to the Tablet PC in Bill Gates hand.
Bill Gates: Oh...I'm afraid the Trusted Computing Architecture will be quite operational when your friends arrive.
To be continued
You think MS can be trusted? Or might there be some other code in there (even if just xml) referencing ideas, algorithms, etc ... That's been discussed before, you know the consequences, not nice to find out the hard way..
Is this another ploy from Microsoft to not look like the bad guy, or do you think they are embracing on the Open Source movement?
Can't you guys just once take something at face value instead of trying to find ulterior motives for everything? If it's damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't then why even bother?
Seriously, the only people who spell it "M$" are 13-year-old pimple-faced social rejects who think using Linux and bashing Microsoft makes them cool. The parent poster obviously has no real-world opinion and is just caught in a fantasy world and as such, should be moderated down.
Guess they can't run their own server - instead eat up everyone else's bandwidth on sf..
bastards
Wouldn't a good way to ensure a common installer be to have autoconf be able to do dep resolution, then write a GUI for it? Then the developers would only have to use autoconf and know that their source tarball would work on any platform. Is it as simple as that?
Words that come to mind:
*Trojan Horse - in its original sense
*Strategic Move
*Distraction Tactics to assuage the roars that are sure to ensue after the release of the first Phoenix TCPA bioses.
*Some Microsoft developers appreciate the power of collaboration?
*Vitiate what people understand free software to be by mudding the waters even more. At the next Linux conference, Microsoft will proudly display that they too are contributing to open source. I can just see it now: "We use open source where it makes sense and make use of proprietary best practices to lead the world to a new paradigm of openness, yet realiably supported for the one and only company that you should trust". In other words, newspeak.
I wish to be proven wrong. If a Microsoft employee reads this. Prove us wrong and we'll welcome you. Compete on the strengths of office by providing a documented, free and open XML schema for Office. Make it easy to import openoffice documents by MS Office. While you are a it, open Source CIFS under an OSI approved license.
Then, I might begin believing.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
He's got a blog online, where he talks about the installer, release on Sf etc.
http://blogs.msdn.com/robmen/
If its OSS what does this mean then?
$ strings wix.dll | grep Copyright
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
I don't think anyone can be sure why MS released this code, but wouldn't it be great to embrace their code and "extend" it to run under say KDE and install rpm, .deb, or whatever package mangler is cool today? It would probably be alot of work and not the best way to install apps on a *nix system anyway, but it would be a novelty to run MS code to install apps on my Linux box.
It also might make Windows users a little more comfortable to see a familiarish looking/feeling install process.
-Lod
ITS AN INSTALLER
An Installer for WINDOWS apps on a WINDOWS OS....
THINK ABOUT IT
This is just a ploy to make them look like they are contributing to OSS and to get people to work for them for free. In the end, it only benifits Microsoft. How is this truly OpenSource?
The only thing available for download are just binaries, but where is the (open?) source?
By the way, the first thing that could be done is to port the application to other operating systems and M$ could then say "we are cross platform"
First I told myself: good one, but after that realized that it's not 1 April anymore...
It's bussiness. People seem to forget that the reason big companies are in bussiness is to make money. Period. Small companies often are idealistic, but that just dies out, by necessity, in big companies. So MS does what it thinks is best to make the most money. Currently, that's a closed source model. Now there has been a lot of activity with open models, some of it even making money. So MS is, of course, going to look in to it and work on contengiency plans.
I mean if someone could show them a sure way to double their profits (and sustain that increase) by going open source, they would, quite quickly. Right now, nobody knows how an OSS bussiness model will really work out. Maybe it's just a fad that dies out. Maybe it lives on, but it far less profitable than CSS. Maybe it because the next huge thing and those that fail to embrace it die. Nobody knows, so MS is, quite reasonably, testing the waters.
Comparing the two companies is like comparing apples to... rocks. AT&T had the monopoly of providing a service into people's homes and businesses. They owned the wire that got themselves into the buildings and it was impossible for a competitor to build a competing network. Also, owning both ends of every communications channel meant it was easy to artificially keep prices high for both sides and not allow connections to any other provider.
Microsoft also has a monopoly, only on the desktop. But they can be replaced by a competitor. They have a lot of leverage but do not own the end-to-end of every computer network. Breaking the company up to make competition out of itself would not be equivalent at all to letting each baby Bell control different area codes. Among other things one of the baby Microsofts could rise to monopoly status again.
Developers: We can use your help.
If this doesn't include windows O/S source code, or some other major piece of software's source, it's kinda moot to even anticipate that M$ will be moving ANYTHING of real value to open source. For example, who's to say that the source here looks anything like what M$'s other projects' source looks like? They probably hired some OSS people to do it in the first place (anticipating an OSS release one day), so that nothing internal would get out.
On that note, what would you expect to see if you could see Win2k3 source? As I recall, win2k was something like 35 million lines of code -- good luck compiling that! It probably looks like any project that size designed to cope with so much -- tons and tons of patches, kludges, and other WTF's. The biggest testament to how hard it is to write/maintain something like that is that no one else has made a win32 o/s clone that sells, to my knowledge.
stuff |
Is this another ploy from Microsoft to not look like the bad guy, or do you think they are embracing on the Open Source movement?
This is just the first step before they "Extend" Open Source...
Really... I mean, it is nice to hope that the giant evil creature has had a change of heart, but I don't think the grinch's heart has grown three sizes this day.
IMHO, it boils down to MS with one hand behind the back holding one thing, and the other hand waving all over the place whilst Ballmer dances around on stage in his MonkeyBoy best screaming "Shiny!! Shiny! Look over here! Shiny!!!"
MS has as much admitted that they really cant beat an open model, and I do really imagine that at some level there are people within the corporate structure that are starting to question the "Way we've always done things" as those things are starting to not work quite so well...
But releasing one tool to Sourceforge is NOT a turnaround, nor is it even a first step. Hell... just look at SCO/Caldera... went from a bonafide Linux distributor to all out enemy of "All We Hold Dear and Self Evident"[TM]{Patent Pending}.
"Our funds have never taken part in toxic or death spiral convertible financings of any sort" -BayStar's managing partne
Get it thru your thick head that Microsoft has been convicted of illegal monopolistic practices. This is just like the difference between your mom and a convicted kiddie porn maker opening a child care center.
What is so frigging hard to understand about that? Microoft has been convicted of leveraging their monopoly to enter into new fields. Here they are doing something new (for themselves) again. Of course it is ugly. If you can't see that, you are blind.
Infuriate left and right
C'mon, the project was registered 6 days ago, there have been no commits, no bug reports, no patches, no support requests, niente, null, zero. Where's this healthy community?
;-)
It's an XML-based installer generator, I made one for myself in Perl in several hours and it does the job pretty well. I can't see the big deal here.
Why don't they release the source code of the infamous IE, my day to day nightmare? No one knows how this (IE) thing works, and when it doesn't, it says "'undefined' is null or not an object". Why don't they make it open source? Because it could possibly get to run on other platforms, and M$ is making money given that IE runs only on Windogs.
Bleah... I hate it so much that I prefer to stay an anonymous coward
So, some proprietary code was open-sourced. Great, let's rejoice a bit and then, quick, let's resume our everyday life :
You are losing your time speculating/bashing/praising this move from microsoft....
If you really want to do something to really help OSS,
stop talking and write some code !
(Quoting from Rob Mensching's blog) ....the documentation leaves much to be desired.
First of all, I would say that the WiX toolset is pretty close to Beta2 quality....
Yup. Sounds like most open source projects I know!
C-x C-s C-x k
Now ya know
Interesting. I think this is a good example of Microsoft testing the waters. I don't think Windows will ever be open source, but this is certainly a good start. Just think how great it would be for a company like microsoft, if they worked with open source developers the way IBM does.
I wonder what the open source landscape would be like if Microsoft were not regarded as the great satan.
It would certainly be interesting.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
All this conspiracy, "black-helicopter" rubbish being posted suggests no one has even read the lead developers blog. I quote:
"Now, let's talk about why WiX was released as Open Source. First, working on WiX has never been a part of my job description or review goals. I work on the project in my free time. Second, WiX is a very developer oriented project and thus providing source code access increases the pool of available developers. Today, there are five core developers (Robert, K, Reid, and Derek, thank you!) regularly working on WiX in their free time with another ten submitting fixes occasionally. Finally, many parts of the Open Source development process appeal to me. Back in 1999 and 2000, I did not feel that many people inside Microsoft understood what the Open Source community was really about and I wanted to improve that understanding by providing an example.
After four and a half years of part-time development, the WiX design (and most of the code) matured to a point where I was comfortable trying to release it externally. So, last October I started looking for a means to release not only the tools but the source code as well. I thought GotDotNet was the place. However, at that time, none of the existing Shared Source licenses were flexible enough to accept contributions from the community. Then, in February, I was introduced to Stephen Walli who was also working to improve Microsoft's relationship with the Open Source community. Fortunately, Stephen was much farther along than I and had the step-by-step plan how to release an Open Source project from Microsoft using an approved OSS license.
Today, via WiX on SourceForge, you get to see the results of many people's efforts to improve Microsoft from the inside out. I'm not exactly sure what is going to happen next but I'm sure there are quite a few people who are interested to see where this leads. Personally, all I hope is that if you find the WiX toolset useful then you'll join the community and help us improve the toolset."
I know that it's not GPL, but that doesn't bother me because it's free, it's good and if I really really wanted to (I don't) I could look at the source code.
So, given that WiX (from the blog) looks somewhat complicated, what compelling reasons are there to move to it?
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
The CVS repository contains a bunch of DLLs in the bin directory that are required to run the program, but for which no source is provided.
AFAICT, this is in violation of SourceForge use policies.
...what I was trying to get at is that there may be a more elegant (read: less error prone) way to seamlessly install programs (pretty much everything these days on Windows is Miscrosoft Installer wrapped in something like InstallShield).
A few times I've had program installs crash out and it can leave things in a slightly messy state.
Don't get me wrong, the wine project (and the reactos project) and the crossover office company have both done an astounding job of getting so many complex programs to run, just maybe this could be another string to their arrow, their own clone of microsoft installer to make things quicker and easier.
I am NaN
it's source code to a freaking Windows installer?
this seems to have as much to do with embracing open source as allowing free downloads of WMP does, i.e. nothing, it's just another MS program they want you to use on their OS.
He's the one behind the SourceForge release. Here's the part on the idea behind, from his release comments
Now, let's talk about why WiX was released as Open Source. First, working on WiX has never been a part of my job description or review goals. I work on the project in my free time. Second, WiX is a very developer oriented project and thus providing source code access increases the pool of available developers. Today, there are five core developers (Robert, K, Reid, and Derek, thank you!) regularly working on WiX in their free time with another ten submitting fixes occasionally. Finally, many parts of the Open Source development process appeal to me. Back in 1999 and 2000, I did not feel that many people inside Microsoft understood what the Open Source community was really about and I wanted to improve that understanding by providing an example.
After four and a half years of part-time development, the WiX design (and most of the code) matured to a point where I was comfortable trying to release it externally. So, last October I started looking for a means to release not only the tools but the source code as well. I thought GotDotNet was the place. However, at that time, none of the existing Shared Source licenses were flexible enough to accept contributions from the community. Then, in February, I was introduced to Stephen Walli who was also working to improve Microsoft's relationship with the Open Source community. Fortunately, Stephen was much farther along than I and had the step-by-step plan how to release an Open Source project from Microsoft using an approved OSS license.
Today, via WiX on SourceForge, you get to see the results of many people's efforts to improve Microsoft from the inside out. I'm not exactly sure what is going to happen next but I'm sure there are quite a few people who are interested to see where this leads. Personally, all I hope is that if you find the WiX toolset useful then you'll join the community and help us improve the toolset.
or do you think they are embracing on the Open Source movement?
Oh yeah, right. Come on. what kind of stupid question is that?
Use Nullsofts NSIS instead. Has always been free and SMALL - its not the bloatware of the windows installer or installshield for that matter, which add a ton of crap your C drive which are not related to the actual program being installed.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Development Status: 4 - Beta
Why is this still listed as a beta? I thought it was the source of a finalized product that had already been used in multiple installations... Did I miss something?
---- scrm
"Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out."
Linus: NOOOOOooOOOOoooOOOoooOOOooOOooooo........
Way to go robmen!
Slashdot and SourceForge are both part of OSDN.
Who's the bad guys, again?
Brainwash!
I used to be an absolutely staunch Microsoft and Windows supporter in the days when they promoted their O/S as an enabling platform that allowed many competing products to co-exist and compete for a user share e.g.
MS Office vs Corel Office vs Lotus Office etc
Internet Explorer vs Netscape vs Mosiac (oops IE again!)
and many other competing products.
Were the other applications much worse than MS's software - yes in some cases - but in other cases they were better. The reason that the other suites vanished is because MS used their position as vendors of the operating system to an unfair advantage to bundle MS applications at rates that were unsustainable for 3rd party vendors then having wiped out most of the competition they hiked the prices up again!
Look at a typical PC today. Apart from (say) a virus scanner and DVD/CD burning software the vast majority of the software will be MS owned and controlled. So having created a true monopoly, MS hikes up prices, adds 'features' like DRM that many users do not want then and add hardware keyed software protection measures to protect this monopoly.
Cobblers to this - I want a choice!
Don't get me wrong, I have spent most of my current IT career using MS O/S's but I am getting to the stage where I cannot justify using Windows for my own use and promoting this monopoly. My home PCs all have Windows/Linux dual boot on them and I will be moving over to pure Linux on 2/3 of the machines in the near future.
The only reason for one PC remaining on Windows is that my 4 year old daughter's favourite software (PC play and Learn - which is Macromedia Authorware based) will not run on Linux except by using a Crossover Office plugin and even then not in an acceptable fashion. Please, please Macromedia port the authorware runtime to Linux!
Bottom line - MS *IS* holding a gun to your head. What they want you to believe is "Pay our inflated monopolistic prices or stop using your PC!" (and most of Joe Public out there genuinely believe that).
I can understand MS copy protecting their applications such as Office, Developer Studio etc since there are suitable alternatives but not the operating system (if you want to use Windows software). This is especially nauseating when they drop support for earlier O/S versions after a fairly short while...
Is their open source offering a good thing? Absolutely.
Has the Leopard changed its spots? Of course not.
This hasn't cost MS a bean in real terms and has gained them some qudos by contributing to an open source project. They are, of course, the same greedy monopolistic empire that they always have been (IMHO of course!)
For goodness sake lets promote Linux usage as much as we can (in schools and workplaces) and perhaps we might be back to the position in which Joe Public has a real choice sometime soon.
Sorry about the rant but I think it is important.
an XML parser/compiler for building installer binaries? Oh yeah, I can use that for.. uh.. something...
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
Subject should read decrease instead of increase. Oopsie.
Hate me!
"Menu shortcuts setup..."? ok, for what? KDE? Gnome? Fluxbox? Afterstep? The reason there is no universal "installer" is that there can be no assumptions made about how a person chose to configure the system, since the advantage here of course is having a CHOICE. It's a bout having the FREEDOM to configure things the way that works best.
Of course you are also free choose Redhat/RPM and install software which makes assumptions based on that Redhat system and how someone at Redhat decided your system should be configured. That's perfectly acceptable.
If you want full freedom and flexibility, source code is the only way. For me personally, building from source works best for me, you however are free to CHOOSE whatever works best for you. But PLEASE don't say that every UNIX system out there should conform to meet some standard so that a single software installer will function correctly on all of them. Now THAT is is just ridiculous.
My suggestion. Develop your software. Use standard tools like autoconf, automake, etc. Then allow distribution maintainers to develop packages based on your source distribution. If you want to push the process along, for something like gentoo you could very easily write a small ebuild and submit it to them to include in portage. It's also fairly easy to make RPMs.
or do you think they are embracing on the Open Source movement?
Uhm... does that really require an answer?
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Well, the reason why it won't be fixed is because they have something against funny comments. Taco whined about how he didn't think funny comments were funny for the longest time, and then he switched the metamod to be harsher on funny comments, and then funny comments no longer get the author any karma ... of course, he could just set his options to give a -5 to funny comments, but for some reason he thinks that his opinions should be pushed onto everybody else.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Christians have a funny habit of saying their place where evil people go after they die freezes over (I guess opposed to the usual fire and grimstone) whenever an unusual event occurs.
If Jesus weren't nailed to a cross about two thousand years ago (it must be true: it was in a movie!) and he had some sort of divine power of immortality, I'm sure he'd be telling all of us that Hell has, indeed, just frozen over.
By the way, is up down and down up now?
On vit, on code et puis on meurt.
Is this the begining of: 1. _E_mbrace 2. _E_xtend 3. _E_xtinguish strategy? There's my tinfoil hat....
Konquerer's integration into KDE does not lever KDE's monopoly as does IE in Windows simply cos KDE never was a monopoly. Meaning includes context; simple facts are worthless without a reasonable interpretation.
Any corporation that had a near monopoly position would be doing a dis-service to their shareholders if they didn't take advantage of their near monopoly position in every way possible.
Fact is business is 'war by other means' & the whole point of a market economy is for those with a comparative advantage to use it to get ahead - having a near monopoly is a comparive advantage.
BTW in industries with disproportionatly high fixed costs, the best way of cutting costs in the economies of scale of a monopoly. Of course I'm not saying that is or is not the case in regards software development, I'm just pointing out that monopolies arn't always bad for customers. Public Utilities that have disproportionatly high fixed costs, like electricity, gas, telco, water & sewage utilities will always be most efficient with 100% of the market. Which is why govt monopolies are best in these fields.
The license looks good, but the code is C#.
Maybe the Mono folks will be interested.
Think maybe the /. editors were abused by people with a sense of humor when they were kids?
nizzle = friend, nigger (non-derrogatory), bro, dog
fo' fizzle, my nizzle. for sure, my friend.
Why do people get surprised when corporations behave according to the profit motive?
If we want to see more Open Source behavior out of Microsoft, then we need to find ways to motivate them.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10)'
Isn't this a little late for April fools day?!
Microsoft releasing an OSS project hosted on SourceForge indeed....
hahahaa
Yes, it appears that is all you know about Bush.
Holy Shit? The evil empire doing something "cool" like this? Naw, I'm betting they are simply paying some lip service... "See, we're not so bad; we even contribute to your sourceforge." But I'm a cynic. Judge for yourself.
but for some reason he thinks that his opinions should be pushed onto everybody else
He acts like he runs the place.
Interesting. Sounds like he did this more on his own accord than from prodding from Microsoft.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"
Microsoft has actually been sharing source for about 13 years.
but if you accept that open source software is changing and going to further change the industry, than Microsoft is going to have to shake hands with it at the very least. Microsoft doesn't exactly strike me as the kind of company to release many projects using an open source liscence, and they certainly won't do anything unless there is profit in it for them, but I can see a future where Microsoft will, at the very least, begin being more accomodating to the open source community.
Microsoft didn't get to where they are today by being closed to change. Yes, when your on top and control the operating system that most of the world uses, you're perspective tends to be a little bit different than when yuo're the new kid on the block, but it should be becoming appearant to MS that open source is not just a fad, and it should also be apearant to them that it is not something that they can easily make go away, and so they're going to have to develop a buisiness strategy that doestake it into account.
My take on this is that they're testing the waters. See the general reaction to this, and learn some lessons for the next open source release. It's going to be interesting to see how this develops.
"Wixen" is the German slang word for "masturbate". The prefix "wix" is used to devaluate something. "The WiX code" means something like "the f*cking code".
that there are no files being released and that the project's homepage goes to Rob Mensching's blog?
Come on now, even asking if Microsoft is turning a corner in it's shady history is laughable. Geesh. This is going to be used for PR purposes and obviously has no effect on it's persistant protection of the Windows monopoly other than to ride the wave of the advantages of appearing to support open standards and open source.
Remember XML? Boy, they held that flag way up high and then went and patented their XML....
Again, it is Microsoft.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
This is news to everybody in Linux community. Parent poster is very smart. Please recommend immediately for taking over Linux kernel 2.6 branch.
Fixed-line phone service has plenty of competition; mostly from cell phones, but also from various internet-based alternatives. Do you really think these alternatives would have been developed (or offered as cheaply) if AT&T still had a monopoly over phone services? Even when AT&T's monopoly was strongest, you could still use telegrams, short wave radios, or the postal system to communicate with people.
The situation is similar for Microsoft now. There is competition for Windows, but it is just as difficult to find a substitute for Windows as it was to refuse to have a home phone when AT&T had its monopoly. You needed a phone because people expected to be able to call you; you need Windows because people expect you to be able to run Windows programs or view Windows files. We saw what prices and practices AT&T could get away with when it owned all the wires used for the majority of communication; and we are seeing the same sort of things now that Microsoft controls the workings of the majority of computers.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
So if Ballmer throws Gates into the Grand Canyon, does that mean Ballmer gets a free pass to heaven?
Over the year Microsoft has learnt more and more to embrace Microsoft.
You need people like me so you can point your fuckin fingers and say, "That's the bad guy." So what that make you? Good?
A Company as large as MicroSoft cannot just go "Open Source" as easy as that. If they did choose to do so and this is hardly proof that they are turning a new leaf it would take some time.
I would think once they realize that getting into software services vs their current model and can still make money they might embrace open source.
And if that ever did happen KDE/Gnome might have to look over their shoulders.
You have to understand they are trying to change. This small task is just the beginning of a list of things they'd do before you'd reaccept them. If you can't make a list of things they can do to redeem themselves you hate them too much.
This is like the day that spam made its debut and the Internet was forever deflowered. With this act, Microsoft just did the same to Sourceforge, and there's nothing anyone can do. So which corporation will be next to exploit the Open Source community's main repository to make themselves look good? I shudder at the thought of where this is going.
Wow, even the blurb is trolling.
How is this going to impact InstallShield, Wise and NSIS... It's going to be tough to get people to pay $2k for a wizard or fancy interface, but they'll do it (look at MSSQL) ...and how long will it be until you see comparable tools that're open source (look at GIMP)...
and MSI is already a bit more robust than NSIS... I think my friend said it best, "Everything has it's place."
MSI has it's place as an installer for people and teams that need the robustness of advertised features and merge modules and transforms... ...but your average developer who's targeting all the way back to Win95 or even NT4 isn't going to want the overhead of dealing with an MSI installer...
It's just like .NET apps... Sure they're lightweight and powerful, only if you ignore the huge overhead cost up front in putting the system in place. It's not going to change much, the place it's going to have the biggest impact is in encouraging Linux/Apache/MySQL/Perl-Python-PHP development groups to toss in a WiX installer for an easier Windows port of the software...
and why didn't Rob throw up the source code?!? D'OH!!
Microsoft controls the workings of the majority of computers
The majority of computer chips in the world are running I-TRON, a tiny OS for embedded systems. Most servers run a flavor of Unix. Only on desktops, a large fraction of the majority of computers, does Microsoft hold a monopoly. Just because desktops are the most visible computers, and most of those are running Windows, it does not follow that "Microsoft controls the workings of the majority of computers."
Developers: We can use your help.
Ah, this is a great news.
If this gets ported to other OSes, it hopefully makes it easier (even marginally) to port windows software to other OSes. Maybe Linux software get similar installation procedure that Windows have. This would make easier for people to change from Windows to Linux.
We don't need any "conspiracy black helicopter rubbish" to know that Microsoft is working hard to kill open source. I don't question the low-level reasoning behind open source, as I have been using it for over a decade, but Microsoft releasing WiX under an open source does not make up for a long history of illegal and unethical behavior that is still going on!
Every once in a while, I wish I could look at microsoft and say: "Boy, that's a nice company that seems to have their head on straight.",
... but time and time again I become even more dissappointed.. This seems like a step in the right direction if Microsoft is releasing some code, but then I think of Gate's DRM crap... *sigh* it's dissapointing.
or observe the politics of the U.S. and think "Hey, that's a good idea to do that.."
or look at strange legal issues such as SCO's and think "Hey, that's kinda dumb, glad the legal system will just toss it out"
or maybe even think "I'm a customer, the vendor won't assume I'm a thief from the outset" *cough* *MPAA*
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
. . how long until it's ported to Linux?
I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
Considering the disproportionate fixed costs in the Telco business, it would cost just 1c a minute if a firm had the economies of scale that comes with 99.9% of the market.
Take the cell phone business, whether a nationwide firm has 30% of the market or 90% of the markets, relatively speaking the costs arn't that different.
This is where govt utility monopolies are the go (like Singapore Telecom), one gets the economies of scale of a monopoly, but without the private shareholder pressure to maximise returns, plus the politicians put their re-elections at risk if phone calls go up to much in price.
Or rather, Trolltech is. If you want to write a closed-source app for, say, Sharp Zaurus, they will leverage their monopoly by making you pay hundreds of bucks per developer for embedded Qt license.
That's all interesting and everything, but it's a little too late for me. Sometimes I do wonder what it would be like... Anyway, I don't have a woman so who cares.
Have any of you actually gone to browse the CVS tree and judge WiX on it's own Merits?
:D
As a developer who uses several different languages and platforms, and occationally uses C#, I'm happy to see this come to pass. Creating installation packages for windows has always sucked. Nullsoft's NSIS has helped alot, but using the tool that Microsoft uses internally means the playing field is level.
Now if they would opensource their forked copy of Perforce
If you've read anything about this, you would have seen that this is a Microsoft developer who created Wix in his free time. Anything you create on your own time, no matter who you work for, is not the intellectual property of your business; it is yours to do what you want with it. It looks like that is exactly what this guy and his buddies are doing. Sure, it's an app designed to run in a Windows environment, but is it the IP of Microsoft? I haven't really found anything that says it is, I just see that this guy works for MS.
So, is it really MS that is finally putting out open source, or is it just one of their employees with a sight for the future?
geek n performer who performs morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken
I thought, this is interesting, I'll check it out.
But I'm curious as to what the terms of the license are.
On the project info page, there's "License: Common Public License" with a link.
I click the link, foolishly expecting to see, perhaps, a copy of the Common Public License.
Of course, that doesn't happen. I get a list of every other project that also uses the Common Public License. Useful, that.
So, SF, WTF?
People do some research before you name your software projects! Wix (wichs, same pronunciation often even spelled wix) means "wank" in German.
I remember there was a car that couldn't be released in the German market because it was called "Mist" which means as much as "crap" there.
...who thinks that someone should fork this immediately, just for shits and giggles?
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
May the source be with you.
Use the source, Linus.
The idea of open source is a great one, but I swear, those with the loudest mouths about it usually aren't even contributors (developers, doc writers, etc.), they are people with way too much damn time on their hands. They are the equivalent of the mainstream press's talking heads. They really don't add any technical prospective, just a bunch of heated debate based on weak facts. I think these people are some of the biggest reasons open source has been relativly slow to acceptance. Because a select crowd of loud mouths make the whole community look like a bunch of zealots.
The real answer to this is to write a Unix backend using the very format published by Microsoft.
I read the license the same way: you must release the code if you distribute binaries. Just like the GPL...
#include"iostream.h"
using namespace std;
int main(){
cout"Microsoft is Full Of Shit";
return 0;
}
I think my source code is more useful.
No. Isn't the CPL a viral licence??
The real info can be found at the programmers weblog ....
Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset has released as Open Source on SourceForge.net
_Microsoft_ releases _Source Code_ under an _IBM_ license and places it in _public_ servers which were basically created to host open source projects - many of which directly or indirectly competing with microsoft's comercial produts: _Sourceforge_ which belongs to a company that trades in the nasdaq as _LNUX_.
Inquiry: is this what humans call irony?
Maybe so. But I don't think dismissing the good intentions behind open-sourcing WiX is very constructive.
Thank you, this thread is really drawing the negative mod points away from the other posts. Let's do some more. Moderators? You hearing this? YOU BUNCHA CHICKENS!!! Bet you don't have the guts to mod me down! Hah!
ROFLOL
me: whipes tears from eyes.
After a pretty stressful day I gotta say thanks. That quote was awesome! Unfortunately, your post is at it's limit so I couldn't mod it up.
More important than any companies bottom line is the usefulness of technology, and if it can't interoperate then it's all pointless. Imagine having to buy a TV specific to your cable provider??!??!
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
Yet, regardless of his intentions, I believe his project will die as a public OSS project. Most FLOSS people won't allow themselves within ten parsecs of Microsoft code--and with good reason. Part of me wants to think MSFT is just looking for something--anything--they can get inside the OSS communities as some sort of trojan horse so they can pull a SCO later if necessary.
I'd rather just be able to use my computer how I wish without getting all political. I don't want to perceive MSFT vs. FLOSS as a war. I don't want to feel indignation every time billg opens his mouth, but he leaves me no choice.
This man represents at least one miniscule demographic within the Beast of Redmond that doesn't see through Ballmer's intolerant eyes. There's a chance (albeit slim) for Microsoft yet.
I say wait and see.
These things are operating systems:
Red Hat Linux
Debian GNU/Linux
Gentoo Linux
Slackware Linux
FreeBSD
Windows XP
Mac OS X
These things are kernels:
Linux
the NT kernel
the FreeBSD kernel
All of the things in the first category have standardized, robust, simple ways of adding software. These include RPM/yum, deb/apt-get, and Portage. All of the things in the second section do not have standardized ways of adding software to them, because they are just kernels and can be incorporated into many different types of operating systems. Bitching about the lack of one way to get software for operating systems that use Linux kernels is like complaining that Mac OS X doesn't use the FreeBSD ports tree, or that you can't install WinAMP on your X-Box. If anything, Linux-based OSs have much more robust package management than windows.
I just realized that this guy (Rob Mensching) was the grader for my CS153 class at the University of Missouri - Rolla. It's cool to see some of our alums doing good things...
Seriously - while RPM / deb / portage is good enough for most apps, most closed source apps (and some others, eg openoffice.org), want to have their own custom installers. IMHO the best thing to do would be to get a standard thing like RPM / deb / etc, with all the Good Things of all systems. But assuming that even if it is standardised big corps won't use it, a standard installer binary would be the next best thing.
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Let me express my thanks to all open source developers who brought me freedom of choosing not to use microsoft products at all.
There you are, staring at me again.
What if it gets ported to Linux, BSD, or another architecture? Could we have a consistent cross-platform software management utility? It's like the perfect thing at the perfect time... it must be a late April fool's joke. Someone at /. fell asleep on April 1st and decided to pull a late one.
Hypocrisy is the 8th deadly sin.
If you take a look at the page, you will note that they only have to produce one package-- the tar.gz QT static download for all Linux people to be able to install and use it effectively.
The RPMs, Debs, and the shared QT version of each one provided by Opera is more for the users' convenience than a necessity.
"I filter at +6, and have yet to miss out on an important comment." (#822545)
They are adapting to consumer desires... this as a good thing. At least it better than them trying to take the RIAA approach and contributing to SCO.
Ploy.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
First guy: Um ... what's that, Bob?
... reboot itself ... erase itself ... infect itself ... hell, it can practically steal itself.
... it released itself? (laughs maniacally)
Second guy: It's the source code to the Microsoft Windows 2000 operating system.
First guy: Well, what can it do?
Second guy: Why, it can break itself
First guy: How did it get here?
Second guy: Maybe
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
...good intentions behind open-sourcing WiX...
Huge assumption on your part.
So how does Windows use WiX? Is it the functionality that you can get to via Add/Remove Software on the control panel or the code used by "Installshield"? Is it the code that processes *.msi files? Windows could use some help from open source in the software install department.
Pass it over to me!
gewg_
The architects/coders in Redmond might be 4th class, but their PR machine is amazing.
gewg_
Nobody said it had to be GPL to be acceptable, but the CPL isn't even compatible with the GPL!
It seems to be a minor technical issue, here's the text from GNU:
So it "shouldn't" be an issue, but as soon as you actually mix GPL and CPL you start running into trouble. Why else do you think SWT-Qt never got released?
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
I don't really think that they are trying to be the "good guy" or trying to embrace the open-source movement -- they just know that hardly no one that is a big Linux developer visits the Microsoft website often, and well, has anything to do with it in general. What better way to get the word out fast than to give it to an open-source website? Besides, it'll look good to the EU on how fast it is spreading. I'm sure they would be pretty angry if Microsoft released some source code to the world that never spread.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
Well that's the point, maybe they'll do it more often. Would there have been anything that wouldn't make you question their motives? Judge the project, not the company. Or else we shut up and don't use it. See? Democracy in action.
why run from Vincenzo?
It makes good sense for outstanding corporate citizens to embrace and extend the OpenSource way - but why the CPL ? Does that make tactical sense ?
Who Dares, Wins !! www.bengalinux.org
Face it, microsoft employees are part of the open source generation just like everyone else. Many of the people I know that took offers at Microsoft actually use Linux.
As much as some people want to paint the picture of Microsoft as symbolic of whatever, the people that work there are just like everyone else and they're moving up the ranks as we speak.
Perhaps I should have qualified that by saying "the good intentions of the developer". His good intentions may not translate to them being Microsoft's good intentions.
Microsoft only does that which benefits Microsoft, and if that happens to be at the expense of someone (anyone) else, it doesn't matter.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
...but just like IBM, they will eventually (finally) realize what they need to do to recuperate their public image and do it. There may not be an altruistic motive (it's more likely that they're getting tired of paying out $1B here, $2B there, $750M here, $610M there), but it will be a welcome change nonetheless.
Of course, IMO, their image will never be fully reformed until they start releasing product for Linux. It's large enough on the server side to make a solid business case for that development, and the Linux market now has customers that are willing to pay for software.
Hopefully we see some code from redmond which is actually worth using (hopw about the source code to Internet Explorer for example, then mabie we can enhance it so that all windows users can download the new IE7 (containing both new MS code and new hacker-made code) with, for the first time, Mozilla-like levels of Standards Complience.
On the other hand, there is abouch as much chance of Microsoft allowing a truely standards complient version version of Intercrap Exploder to exist as there is of Metallica releasing every song they have ever written under a musical equivilant of the GPL.
Report bug in Slashdot FAQ.
Your bug:
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Date: 2004-04-05 08:27
Sender: jamiemccarthy
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Try posting something other than jokes.
Slashdot FAQ:
If You Can't Be Deep, Be Funny: If you don't have something truly developing to the topic, some humor is welcome. Humor is lacking in our lives and will continue to be promoted. Remember though, what rips your sides out may be completely inane to somebody else.
Since the bugfix/workaround is to avoid posting jokes, FAQ shouldn't encourage to do so.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
From SourceForge Forums:
By: Rob Mensching - robmen
releases partially restored 2004-04-05 12:58
I have begun the process of getting the C++ source code into CVS. The project should be operational again without the Server CustomAction binaries (those will come on tonight or later this week). Also, there is now a dependency on the MSI SDK (mergemod.dll). Documentation will be updated appropriately.
Doesn't a dependency on non-free s/w disqualify this project for hosting @ SF?
Q: What kind of babies does Steve Ballmer produce? A: Developers developers developers developers!
Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
But I can't help but be very suspicious. I mean they did a similar thing when Apple was on the rocks. And many feel that move was simply to keep up a very niche company and its market in order to point to the fact that M$ had not be come an "absolute" monopoly.
Now we see M$ settle with Sun for 1.6 billion. Why? Could it be they there Karma in the courts may be running thin? Could it be that with all the negative press they are getting they are worried about "consumer confidence" and its impact on their market position?
Add the EU slam. Sure a meager ~613 million, but theirs that damn "api" thing that could pull some leveragable teeth out. Not to mention the fact that the EU said to offer a version without the media player embedded... And they said something to the effect that many similar things couldn't be done without crippling the OS... Like IE! If they could do it with the Media Player then why not the browser? They would rather not answer that question. Not to mention they said that under oath.
My first impression to the statement "or do you think they are embracing the Open Source movement?" Embracing the OSS movement..? HELL NO! Sure a knee jerk reaction but let's not forget the M$ axiom. The 3E's:
Embrace
Extended
Extinquish.
I can't help but think that this is indeed another "ploy" to look as though they want to play nice. Perhaps they're are being nice, but I'm not buying it. They have to do alot more than release some XML installer code to convince me of that... Playing nice that is.
Playing nice isn't "ever" a motive for M$ unless "they want something". So they used the CPL. Keeps them safe and makes them look magnanimous.
Let's not forget the twisted line of companys and affiliates that trace back to M$ regarding SCO. Let's not forget their recent rush to PATENT such things as the "virtual desktop pager". Let's not forget their statements about the GPL being "viral" and "un-American". If anything is viral it's M$' license, patents, copyrights. And more over their legal team, in which they often use as a very big hammer to pound the dissentors into submission or just simply mortally wound them and stand back to watch said company bleed and go fallow.
I'm sorry. I just can't get all warm and fuzzy about M$ just becuase they release a measly installer on Sourceforge. Looks nice (kinda) but is hollow as far as I'm concerns.
Beware Redmondians bearing gifts.
Instead of having a 'sucky' unzip the zip installer for FireFox can we have a decent one now?
... right?
(Hint: WANK!)
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
From the Source Forge page:
"The Windows Installer XML (WiX) is a toolset that builds Windows installation packages from XML source code."
Who is really going to be interested in this? As I understand it, most open source work is geared towards Linux and BSD and most of the developers are likely to be using systems other than Windows. What personal itch can developers scratch as a result of this move by MS? If they laid the operating system code open, there might be more incentive to look at the code and work on it but I can't see the attraction of laying open code for an installer on an expensive, buggy, closed operating system. MS must have a reason for doing this so what are they playing at?
Strangely enough, it doesn't seem to have any bugs!
It's called having an opinion different from yours.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Windows Installer has many benefits
None for me.
Windows Installer supports installation rollbacks, so failures restore the system exactly back to the state before installation began.
Which is crap. I don't need that. I'll remove that is to be removed thank you. I don't need megabytes of bloat on the harddrive with copies of everything that went before.
There is also built-in package repair because Windows Installer keeps track of installed components.
Which always amounts to reinstall everything and reboot.
Your statement that Windows Installer adds a ton of crap your C drive which are not related to the actual program being installed is also unproven.
If you don't know this simple fact you are not really competent to comment at all. I track installs, and i noticed it everytime they use the bloatware installers such as Installshield.
If you want small and fast installers with tools such as Inno Setup, by all means go ahead and use them, but they do make things more difficult for network administrators.
Ghost a standard image and install from there, no need to uninstall anything.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating