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Microsoft Agrees to License Windows Source Code
msbmsb writes "Stepping away from previous tradition, "Microsoft Corp. said Wednesday it will license its Windows source code to comply with a European Union antitrust ruling." But in an effort to stop the cloning of the OS, developers will still have to pay an unspecified amount for the code. This is an addition to the "12,000 pages of technical documents and 500 hours of free technical support" to those who purchase a license."
Because they are abusing a monoppoly, even simpler because they have a monopoly. Because this monopoly is gained and maintained trough the code they created, don't abuse of your monopoly and drastic measures won't have to be taken.
They aren't forced to do anything. If they don't like the laws in Europe, they are free to trade elsewhere.
More likely though, they will lobby to change the laws because they don't want to lose one of their biggest markets.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Nicely played by Microsoft.
As usual - they're not giving what anyone asks for (afaik - noone actually wants to have to look at the internals of windows), they just want to get the documentation on the protocols used so that they can intercommunicate.
By offering to license Windows, Micrsofts "crown jewels", MS has done two nice things (for them).
1) They appear to be bending over backwards to meeting the EUs demands; and
2) They will manage to set any number of unreasonable licensing terms (both monetary and otherwise), to turn this into yet another profit center (and ensure that open-source can't use any of it...)
Imo, the EU should tell them that this is *not* what was asked for, and while it's nice and whatever, please just provide what you were asked for.
Otherwise please pass go, please pay $2million dollars.
This will have consequences on projects like Wine, Samba or ReactOS because some legal mechanism will be in force so that you can't look at the Windows source and rewrite it, let alone cut-n-paste it. What those guys need to do is ensuring any development is clean-room. What I see as conceivable is that someone (the FSF for instance) pays for one licence and the devotes some effort into releasing documents which describe accurately the internals in plain language. Obviously, the people who do this job must not contribute any code to any project.
"Why should any company be forced to reveal their trade secrets?"
Why should any murderer be forced to spend time in prison?
Answer: because they were convicted in a court of law (or, in Microsoft's case, courts) of comitting a crime and are now being punished.
"Is Blizzard going to be forced to reveal their source code so that we can write a better version of Gear?"
Hold off your whining until Blizzard is prosecuted for abusing monopoly powers.
Well, the artcile cleary states:
Microsoft is to open up the source code behind its server communication protocols, in an attempt to get the European Commission off its back.
I'm pretty sure this isn't Windows... actually, being a developer myself I KNOW this is not the Windows source code. It's just source code to the protocols. It's a great step forward no less, but anyway.
There will be no additional charge for access to the code.
Er... and the article summary states that developers will have to pay an unspecified amount of money... Ok...
RTFA! That's all I have to say. It's a really short article you know.
Ever hear of a "free" market? Does that concept ring a bell?
The problem with a monopoly is that there is no free market any more. The monopoly exerts too much control. So to get a normal, free market to function again, you have to control the monopoly.
Digression: Though corporations are legal persons, they aren't real persons. Therefore I don't give a rip about freedom for corporations. I care about freedom for real people - for human beings. If restoring human freedom requires restricting corporations, I'm for it. (And it's looking more and more like this is the case, and not just with monopolies like Microsoft.)
Shouldn't we hope that it doesn't leak? I don't really know much about it, but I'd imagine that Microsoft has patents and such all over their stuff. If it gets out, and similar looking code appears elsewhere (i.e. in open source code projects), couldn't there be lawsuits and accusations flying everywhere?
If I had the money and the knowledge to set up one of those internet money pools, I would try to pool together some money so that Codeweavers, or maybe even Cedega can get a copy of the code. I'm sure a this could go a long way to help linux acceptance.
The whole point of the EU's interoperability requirement was so that people could build compatible systems. Nobody want's to clone Windows (or at least that isn't an EU requirement). And just because somebody wants to be able to serve files to Windows desktops doesn't mean that they want to steal Microsoft's intellectual property. They just want to be able to support 90+ % of the systems out there. And maybe if MS hadn't broken the law, they wouldn't be forced to allow that. But they did.
Offering the source code with draconian licensing terms doesn't do it. They just need to release detailed specs for the bits of Windows that are required to interoperate with the system. That means the filesystem layout, networking protocols, and I'd argue, codecs that are 'built in' to windows enough that website dev's use them as 'always available' facilities.
And the specs should be made available for free. No restrictions on use. That's the whole point. If MS has the ability through its monopoly position to set de-facto standards, they should not be able to use those standards to further entrench their monopoly. A requirement to publish the specs would remove that incentive.
This offering is a big old red herring, and the EU should reject it.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...