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."

Comments

Just one thing

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Just one thing

[Kobayashi Maru]

I wouldn't say useless. Being able to see how the program reads and writes a file is much more useful than trying to guess what that program is doing. The open source community has done a good job guessing... imagine how much easier their jobs would be if they could observe the precise behaviour of the actual program.

Re:Just one thing

[kfg]

File formats, codecs and *APIs*.

We don't need to see the code, we just need to know what goes in and what comes out documented. Then we can write our own damned code to do it which will be untainted by MS's code, of little return value to them, and allow us to compete directly.

Which is why you won't see it happen other than under duress.

After that seeing the actual code is just like seeing MS in its underwear, fun to point and giggle for a little while, but after that more and more disquieting and revolting.

KFG

Re:Just one thing

[Entropius]

No, they're not right.

The "Americanism" that you refer to (that the GPL supposedly violates) is the belief in individual liberty coupled with civic responsibility--the idea that, if it doesn't infringe on anyone else's personal rights, you have the freedom to do what the hell you want and the duty to use that freedom to benefit society as a whole.

OSS is thus right in line with the original American values. As long as it doesn't mess up anyone else, the KDE developers can do whatever the hell they want with their computers: they choose to write code on them and give me a copy, so I can post this here.

Now there is a trend toward the reliance on the law, on legally-binding agreements and codification, rather than on a shared duty to be benevolent, to make people play nice. Whether this is a good thing or not is a discussion for another time, but it is certain that large organizations--chiefly, corporations and IP-holders--can make greater use of this new reliance on contracts than individuals can.

The GPL is simply a creative rechanneling of this current trend to protect individuals--who would like to protect the altruistic and hackable nature of their products--rather than those who wish to profit from them.

I wish the GPL didn't need to exist--that developers could release software with a statement to the effect of "I'd like this code to remain open and distributed free of charge. Please do me the respect of acknowledging me as the original offer, and of honoring my wishes for this work." But since, in today's climate, people (read: corporations) are bound not by honor and ethics but only by law, the OSS community needs the GPL to *protect* the original American values inherent in open source software.

Re:They just want free development

[Reenigne]

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.

Re:Finally!

[shigelojoe]

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.

Re:Finally!

[iabervon]

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.