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Microsoft To Share Office Source Code
I_Love_Pocky! writes "According to this article, Microsoft is going to give its source code for Office 2003 to more than 30 different world governments. The purpose? So they can inspect the code for security flaws."
Not only security is the purpose of making it available, but also so that governments can adapt file formats for cross-software compatibility. Now I'm wondering, what will happen if a government wants to adapt this document format to some opensource program, which happen to have a license that requires to donate all adjustments to the code to the opensource community... I'm pretty sure Microsoft will not allow this, will it ?
- Leon Mergen
http://www.solatis.com
Interesting . . . wonder how long it will take to leak out of one of these offices and wind up on file sharing sites?
I didn't realize there was even one world government. I have no idea how they could manage 30 with overlapping jurisdictions... ;)
On the flip side, how many goverments keep enough trained programmers to effectively search through so much complex code?
Support more choices in goverment-Vote 3rd party.
Will the real world governement please stand up!
What a rotten party, have we run out of beer or something?
Maybe Rob could build this into the core of /. as a spell checker.
And exactly how many of those governments are going to waste their taxpayers money debugging the code for MS, when the license under which they've seen the code, doesn't allow them to do anything with it?
<TIN FOIL HAT>
and what happens when the members of a gov IT team that's licensed this code, then want to use and contribute to an Open Source project that better suits their needs -- hey! they can't! You've signed a prescriptive NDA!
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Only 30 eh? It doesn't mention anything about M.S. letting the US government see the code. Think they might still be a little bitter with that whole "You have a monopoly. We can't let you do that..." thing? Or do you think M.S. is afraid the Department of Homeland Security might issue another advisory saying that Office 2003 is insecure and everyone should switch to Open Office.
"Don't sweat the petty stuff and don't pet the sweaty stuff." -- by an Unknown Wise man.
Love this part:
Put identity in the browser.
Programmers in 30 countries all seem overcome by fits of laughter.
http://www.22balmoralroad.net/ http://www.tinynetworks.co.uk/
1. We give source code for Office 2003 to more than 30 world governments.
2. They show their brightest computer programmers this code.
3. Trying to comprehend the source (written in typical Microsoft Quality) the programmers' heads implode, causing death within 2 hours.
4. With all the programming talent taken care of, we get all the world governments to outsource their internal I.T. operations to us.
5. We take over the world!
Murray Todd Williams
I'll believe it when the government of Randomistan announces that they received the source code and build tools, and have compiled a version that bit-for-bit matches the retail CD.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Alos, are any of these governments developing countries? Or southeast Asian? In other words is Microsoft entrusting the code to any governments that seem to take a blind eye to software piracy?
Isn't one of the main arguments against Windows that its closed-sourcedness makes it harder for security holes to be found and fixed? To me, it looks like Microsoft has taken the first step in recitfying this problem.
When (not if) the source code is leaked, then how long will it be before MSFT claims that office code was integrated into OpenOffice. How much in royalties will they demand?
Ha, ha! Nobody ever says Italy.
If the government of a country has the source code of the software to examine for security flaws, doesn't this give MS a defense against liability from future lawsuits? For example, if the UK government gets to inspect the source code, continues to use MS-Office, and then has a major problem due to hackers hacking MS-Office; MS can say that the software was given a clean bill of health by the British government, so MS shouldn't be held liable.
I know that no defense is necessarily bulletproof, but this is just going to give MS's legal dept. more ammunition so that that MS can get away with writing sloppy code and not be found as grossly negligent.
* what is 'required' to agree beforehand with? ..and how will this agreement effect ones ability to work (with other 'source code(s)') in the future to come?
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
If anybody develops for OpenOffice or any other office suite I would not even get in the same room as the code. If you look at the code and develop for OpenOffice then Microsoft will probably come after you saying you stolen their code because you read it and it gave you the ideas and means to do the programming. Be very, very, very careful - why would a proprietary company want people to see it's secrets that has been its cash cow for the past 4 or five years. I think they are gearing up for an attack on open office - now that we have seen part of the agreement between sun and them - why would open office even have to be mentioned in the agreement - it has nothing to do with them. I smell something rotten in denmark.
That's exactly what I was thinking.
If I was a software developer, I wouldn't want to go anywhere near that code. You can be sure that anybody who views this code will no longer be able to work in software development. After you view that code anything you write that works with msft files, will be considered a stolen idea.
Besides, who needs it?
If you cannot compile the given source to a fully working Microsoft Access (or whatever source is provided), how can you be sure that the program you buy from the store contains the same source code?
You can't, since you most likely can't compile the given source, and keep on using that compiled version!
This is just smoke and mirrors. Now Microsoft can say their code has been provided for auditing by some instance, so it's got to be safe. However, there is no guarantee that the defects found will be fixed at all, and that the fixes will ever be found in the actual product. There is also no guarantee that the software you obtain from the store is the same as that for which the source was provided.
You can easily implant backdoors to the supposedly "audited" source code: just don't give the newly modified source code with the backdoor back to auditing...
I do not moderate.
Other commentors have opined that this is a clever Microsoft strategy. Perhaps. I have my doubts.
First, they're implicitly acknowledging the security arguments in favor of open source. What will their corporate clients think? Like _they_ trust the gov't to vet their code for them. Doing this will only strengthen the demand on a number of fronts to see the Windows source.
Second, the only way for two people to keep a secret is if one is dead. I don't care what those EULAs say, if you distribute some of the most valuable closed source in the world to 30...30!...gov'ts, someone's going to leak it. Remember the .bmp buffer overrun? I wonder what's going to flow from this.
Stop learning! Only you can prevent esoterrorism.
From the article (emphasis added by me)
The new initiative is an extension of Microsoft's Government Security Program, which allows the governments of more than 30 countries to examine most of Microsoft's underlying source code, or software blueprint for its flagship Windows operating system.
What's the benefit in looking at "Most of" the code and seeing if it is secure?
Absolutely nothing at all, apart from Microsoft getting an NDA signed on your behalf by your Govern(e)ment without any consultation with the public.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
I don't know about the rest of the world, but generally People Working At Governments aren't exactly the best and brightest or the best motivated workers. Let's call them Very Good at being Mediocre.
Imagine the following:
Boss: Jim, you're a programmer right?
Jim: uh, right
Boss: Management told me to inspect some code for bugs. I tossed it to the printer. Can you mark all the bugs with magic marker?
Exercise caution when modding this message up: the author acts like a jerk when his karma is excellent.
If a government is going to have to go through all the trouble of inspecting code for security flaws, why not just inspect open source software and at least be able to have a return on investment?
It's one thing when the burden of providing secure code is shared between developer and user in the case of open source software since the benefits and rights to the code are also shared. But in the case of proprietary commercial software, I expect this burden to be on the vendor. The "privilege" of inspecting the source code is really just asking customers for free quality testing. Moreover, if the situation gets to the point that security inspections are needed, then you've chosen the wrong vendor.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
This is not nearly enough to satisfy governments. First of all, code that they don't compile themselves is not guaranteed to stem from the same set of sources. Second, the source code to the OS, and to the compilers is needed as well, because, hey, what does that black box kernel, dll, or compiler toolkit add to the pristine source?
Responsible governments would either avoid closed-source products completely, or they should require a complete source code system that they could bootstrap themselves. No hidden binary at all!
Would Microsoft provide such a complete, source code system that could bootstrap itself? It was reported many times earlier that they are having a helluvatime to maintain their own compiling environment. Would they be able to package it in such a way that non-Microsoft personnel could do something with it...
... assuming that they were sincere, and not just pulling a cheap PR stunt?
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
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Hang on a second. I thought that even if you let other people review your source code, they're highly unlikely to do so. Isn't that one of the arguments that the anti-OSS crowd march out all the time? Now, Microsoft are doing it, and they're telling people it's for security purposes. Aren't they conceding that this argument is flawed, if they themselves can see some merit in doing so?
Coming up in the news, Microsoft will announce it will start making good design choices, writing good documentation, publishing their binary file formats, and giving away their flagship software for free. For the government. Foreign ones, even. Probably.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!