Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Planning on Opening Up More Source
mhh5 writes "It's a bit surprising, but it looks like Microsoft is considering making some of its code open source. Obviously, Microsoft's OS or Office are not going to be opened, and it seems like Microsoft is just trying to get more developers, but it's a interesting change of policy."
Any program MS could open the source to other than Office or Windows is almost completely useless. What would be much better is if they opened the file formats. Then maybe we could have proper .doc readers and writers.
Microsoft finally takes a step in the right direction, and you still critisize. Give them them the credit they deserve, it may not be much, but it is better than them raping the world.
Why can I not mod a message to crap?!?
This argument sounds familiar somehow. The counter-argument went something like: if you don't like the terms, don't use it.
It's pretty obvious, and the Slashdot post mentioned it also -- to get more developers. The Windows operating system is unique, in sense that it is very user-friendly and everyone's software runs on it. The reason why Microsoft does not port software to other operating systems is common sense -- Windows is nothing without the software that it has, but that rule applies to any other operating systems as well. That's why Microsoft gives away development tools, because they want people to develop code under Microsoft's name... and this is no different. When people take Microsoft's opened source code and change it around, they are only helping Microsoft's opened source code and Microsoft themselves. It's not really about Microsoft making more money directly, but they will get more developers once everyone starts seeing their technique of programming and that will get them money in the long run.
Just my two cents, heh.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
A step in the right direction? This? No, this is not a step in the right direction. This is them releasing a bunch of code under a GPL-incompatible (and certainly BSD-incompatible) license. The code is open, certainly, but not free. Which means that while we can possibly submit patches, etc, to Microsoft, we cannot fork it or even use small pieces of it (even if they were written by someone else in the community) in our own code.
The GP was absolutely right: they just want free development. They hope that we will hack their code, but it's still their code. All of it. You can't reuse it. You can't change it. You can't fork it. It's absolutely useless. Even studying it is dangerous: if you looked at their code and then implemented something free (as in freedom) that did the same thing, they could probably claim that you're violating their IP/copyright because your code isn't "cleanroom".
Open source non-free software is very dangerous for the community, because we cannot use it, or be inspired by it -- and yet it's there, like Pandora's box, waiting to be opened. And since so many people confuse open source with free, it isn't long before some well meaning coder takes a bit of their code, edits it, and submits it somewhere else.
They have just forced us to be even more vigilant. Don't you see that we get nothing at all? No rights? No freedom? But they get everything. Our manpower, our mindshare, everything. For nothing.
This is worse than not good. It's evil. A perverse bending of the free software model.
I was going to make a crack about how obvious this comment was, but you got me thinking about the success of Micro-Soft's marketing campaigns.
Micro-Soft has managed what seemed to me to be an impossible task; turn the obvious security advantages of Open Source into a debate about who has the better security. There are actually people out there convinced that Windows' security is superior due to the success of their marketing, contrary to all reason and evidence.
Micro-Soft have managed to turn TCO into a debate about which is cheaper, Windows or FLOSS, despite the fact that it is blindingly obvious that the cost of Windows is a gazillionfold.
Perhaps your comment is the first of many, as "Micro-Soft supports Open Source" and "Shared Source and Open Source are the same thing" become the new frontiers in their reductio ad absurdem marketing campaigns that seem so successful with the gullible.
This argument sounds familiar somehow. The counter-argument went something like: if you don't like the terms, don't use it.
The reason people are pointing out the trap in MS's devious "Shared Source Initiative" is that a lot of trusting people won't realize that they don't like the terms (ie: they fall for the trap), and will use it. Unlike your "let the buyer beware" attitude, some people actually don't like the idea of other people being scammed, and will voluntarily do something to help them before it's too late.
I think this whole "Shared Source" concept is one of the worst things Microsoft can do. In fact, even responding to Linux as a credible threat is the worst thing they can do. By admitting that Linux is a credible threat, they've convinced the world that Linux might be a product that's useful for something. If they simply continued to carry the tagline of "Linux is older than Windows and has little to show for all that time. We don't consider them a competitor," the big execs with $$$ wouldn't take Linux very seriously. The shared source concept only makes it worse by stating that "There may be something to this Open Source thing."
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
WIX & That Other Microsoft One are released under the CPL.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
Do you have any legitimate reason for disliking the CPL, other than the fact that MS uses it?
Don't be so antagonistic about topics you clearly have no clue about.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Of course, not everyone is going to listen to Microsoft when Linux is being discussed. Slowly, more and more people are going to catch on that Linux is worth a second look, and Microsoft would look foolish (well, more foolish than usual) if they kept on insisting that there are no pros to using Linux.
One example of how this PR strategy has failed recently is the current situation of the Seattle Mariners. I know, I know, a professional sports analogy; don't worry, this will be painless. Anyway, during the 2000 through 2003 seasons, the Mariners won 60.6% of their games (393 out of 648); by all accounts, this was a very good team. But there were issues mounting behind the scenes. Players were getting older, and money was being wasted on players that had already passed their peak. Regardless, the Mariners front office kept reassuring fans that the team could compete. Sabermetricians (people who study baseball statistics) predicted that old age would end up biting the Mariners in the ass, but fans didn't believe that a team that had done so well recently would do so poorly now. Well, the Mariners are almost halfway through their season, and they have won only 41.4% of their games (29 out of 70). They have the worst record in their division, the second worst record in their league, and the fifth worst record in all of Major League Baseball! Still, the front office denies that there is anything seriously wrong with how the team is being run and maintained. Now the fans *know* that the Mariners are too old to play well, pay too much to crappy players in an attempt to improve their team, and that the front office is going to bullshit their way out of doing anything meaningful. By staying the course and saying that nothing serious is wrong, the Mariners front office is going to lose a lot of business and a lot of respect.
I'm not the kind of guy who would normally give free advice to Microsoft, but sometimes it's better for the emperor to admit that he's not wearing any clothes.
Just which product(s) will be shared source might be of interest to some pundits(I predict IIS being among the first ports on the server side, if it ever happens, simply because there is less server market share to lose there, they're already way behind apache, oracle web server, ibm web server, zeus et al... Windows Media Server is also a candidate, simply because they are licensing it as part of a larger product, but not selling it directly, in a marketspace where the competitors are much more expensive, but offer much more features{real} or are free{apple/darwin streaming server}). On the desktop I have a harder question, is this source thing just an attempt to blindside consumers? They could always say they are open sourcing word viewer after all... Nothing says they have in mind to open the source of a product that actually reads a specific Microsoft format, or that said product has to be unencumbered(patent-wise). Microsoft has always been a master of the "give with one hand take away with the other" I predict more of the same, just where is my only question. Let's not get carried away at least until they have named those products, and listed their intent as regards to data formats et al contained in there.
Why is this important you ask? Well let me put a hypothetical case:
1) you have the source code to office
2) the office file format is encumbered
3) you use the source code to do anything with regards to that file format(read, write, export, clean up, syntax-highlight it doesn't matter)
4) you are in violation of their patent, and can(and likely will) be dragged before a court
It doesn't matter that they opened up their source in this case. Should anyone who hasn't been following, that means that open source benefits end users most when linked to open formats. What this smells like to me, is a PR move related to stock valuation, they announced they would follow the trend, but without naming the products, to gauge the impact on stock price, and they are evaluating which product will be released, based partly on market reactions. If their focus groups say "bad juju" they'll pull up something like ms dos 2.11 or microsoft notepad, and claim they open-sourced it to encourage innovation in the text space
[sarcasm]implying that they are leaders in the text-only field[/sarcasm]
There are a lot of technologies that Microsoft started, like WMI, that would actually benefit from an influx of third party developers, actually, the number of technologies at Microsoft that wouldn't grow with an influx of third parties is actually pretty close to zero.
However, if we want our computing to be unfettered, we have to keep insisting on what's really important, and not be swayed by Microsoft's "No" "No" "Maybe" "Yes but only if you give me the Moon first" routine. The data on our computers, belongs to us, the computers, they also belong to us, the software on it provides a useful service, it is true, but it does NOT grant control to Microsoft over that, and we need to react forcefully to anything that lessens our control over our property.
That worked until other computer giants started pushing Linux. When Microsoft says something's not serious, but IBM spends a billion dollars marketing it, Oracle says it's their preferred platform, and Dell sells it on their big machines, it's pretty clear that Microsoft is failing to understand customer requirements. "Everybody else is talking about Linux, but Microsoft doesn't seem to know anything about it" leads to "Microsoft is not keeping up to date on technology". Of course, if everybody else weren't talking about Linux, Microsoft would have just kept saying nothing about it.
Sample Code is released to show how to use APIs. It is open source in the sense that you download and modify the source code, but the build isn't useful for distributing in its own right, unlike a TRUE Open Source project.
True Open Source projects tend to be portable between platforms. Many projects on SourceForge can be built on Win32, Linux and Mac OS X.
But what can Windows Template Library (WTL) and Windows Installer XML (WiX) be built on?
My perception is that Microsoft's open source initiatives are simply a means of encouraging use of the Windows platform. They're making available source code to show how certain things can be done, thus giving developers an example of how routines should be written, but also meaning that these "open source" offerings are little more than extended sample code that you expect to get with a Visual Studio install.
When Microsoft says something's not serious, but IBM spends a billion dollars marketing it, Oracle says it's their preferred platform, and Dell sells it on their big machines, it's pretty clear that Microsoft is failing to understand customer requirements. "Everybody else is talking about Linux, but Microsoft doesn't seem to know anything about it" leads to "Microsoft is not keeping up to date on technology".
Keep in mind that Microsoft was in the perfect position to portray IBM as a mainframe "has-been". They could have easily targetted IBM directly with a campaign stating that IBM is attempting to bring back the days of Big Mainframes. IBM even makes it easy with their special versions of Linux that run on big iron!
Microsoft could then point out that Oracle is also a "has-been" that failed to take the top TPC against SQL-Sever. Thus they're jumping on IBM's bandwagon of selling their products to a small niche market of Linux lovers.
While all of that may be stretching the truth, it would still keep Microsoft from having to say anything about Linux other than "it's a toy created by a bunch of hackers." Thus Microsoft's mistake was in attempting to attack Linux directly as if it were backed by a company. Linux doesn't actually have a company to attack directly, so it was about as effective as bombing Internet nodes. Had they gone focused on Linux's corporate support infrastructure, they could have effectively dismantled Linux's Enterprise attempts without directly killing Linux. (A bit like bombing the internet nodes to Washington DC. Far more focused and effective.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I've always wondered who came up with the idea of the Windows registry in the first place. It gathers the system and program settings in the same place, making it impossible (to users) to separate the two. In addition, the registry grows like a black rubber sack full of waste food in a hot day, and is about as nice to use - programs typically scatter their settings all around the registry, and because the thing is so large, searching it with regedit is slow. All in all, another amazingly bad idea from people who brought us Edlin.
On the other hand, in Linux, you simply open the text file /etc/programname, and make whatever changes you please. Most Linux config files also contain plentifull help in the form of comments.
I don't quite understand why you think that the config files in Linux are unstructured. They are of the form key = value, and every line that starts with # is a comment. Simple and usable.
As for installation process, I think that writing "apt-get install programname" is about as easy as it can get, and certainly less of a bother than the installation routines in Windows programs, but to each their own...
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
The media (amongst others) will pick one and then the two terms become one in the same in the eyes of everyone except the geek sector. We end up looking like we're quibbling over the semantics of two things that most people will consider to be identical. For example, "I can see the code, what's the difference?"