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Microsoft Agrees to License Windows Source Code

Posted by samzenpus on from the say-ahh dept.

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."

6 of 423 comments (clear)

  1. Ok.... by Tragek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'll admit it, I'm shocked. However, I have to ask the question? What is this going to change?

  2. Is this the beginning or end of windows? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Once this hits pirate land, are we in for more trouble than good?

  3. Will it compile? by ptaff · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The question is will it be complete and compile? Don't they have to hide parts of Windows that are licensed from other companies?

    Windows will still be distributed as binaries, having this source code does not give any guarantee about what's really running on your system.

  4. Not sure of that... by meringuoid · · Score: 4, Interesting
    If they publish XP but not Vista the usefulness will be limited.

    Ever been annoyed at having to keep a FAT32 neutral-zone on your dual boot system because nobody's yet worked out how to write to NTFS without wrecking everything?

    That's the kind of thing this will hopefully lead to. It's all about interoperability. Unfortunately, knowing MS, the terms and conditions will be fricking deadly, and no open-source coder will so much as look at MS code for fear of contaminating themselves legally, so we shouldn't get too optimistic...

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  5. Already been done (sort of) by stikves · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually, Microsoft is already licensing the Windows source code. However the significance of the new event is, they will not be choosing the licensor (at least not as much as before).

    For a list of microsoft shared source licencing programs look at http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/Li censing/default.mspx. You'll see that the top item mentions "access to Microsoft Windows® source code for internal development and support purpose". And as far as I know there are already many utility producers (Symantec, WinInternals, etc) that can access NTFS source codes.

    Anyways do not keep your hopes too high. As you can see there are many shared source licenses (some are even like BSD), however Windows is not becoming "Open Source" soon.

  6. DEC did the same thing with VMS by maynard · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Long ago Digital used to provide the source for VMS on Microfiche so that they could comply with government and business security requirements without really giving up control over their OS crown jewels. Looks like this is a similar move by MS. It's similar to a the legal strategy of information overload - dumping tens of thousands of irrelevant documents into the hands of the opposition to force them to waste time and resources looking for that needle hidden in the proverbial haystack.