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Microsoft Launches First Shared Source Contest
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has launched its first-ever shared source programming contest. With several XBox 360's and an HDTV on the line, hackers will download 120-day trial versions of Windows CE and associated tools, and create 'cool, real-world' apps using designated shared source components. Judging criteria include originality, real-world practicality, feature-extension of the Shared Source components, project documentation, and a short video that demonstrates the successful operation of the project. The Grand Prize is a complete Xbox 360 dream setup consisting of the Xbox 360 console, a 34-inch HDTV, games, and accessories. Three other winners will be awarded Xbox 360 game consoles."
work for us without working for us
Give out development kits for the XBox 360. That would spur a lot more cool shared-source development.
They've invented the Summer of Code but without all that, you know... money
Who has the copyright of the applications?
-- (:> jms cs.vu.nl (_) --"---
This seems like another bad-copy of something Google is doing.
Google Summer of Code: practically any open source project, involving any components you choose, $4500
MS Summ3r 0f C0d3: their shared source project, involving components they choose, some electronics that don't pay rent or tuition.
Gee, what a deal.
Error 407 - No creative sig found
See this link
Microsoft Corporation sponsored an international competition, titled Windows Embedded Student Challenge 2006. This contest was first organised in 2004 and has been held ever since. Due to the involvement of Microsoft, the competition attracts huge interest from the student community.
As part of the contest, the organizers (Microsoft Corporation) propose a theme for the competition and expects participating team to design and build projects in line with the theme. To help the design and implementation, it provides free hardware and software tools. The hardware platform is an x86 derived single board computer, called Ebox. The software tools includes the Windows CE RTOS development suite.
Participants are expected to design their projects around the Ebox and WinCE RTOS.
This year around 230 teams sent proposals to the organizers, out of which 200 teams were selected and were provided with the abovementioned tools.
Out of these 200 teams, about 185 teams sent final reports which were evaluated by a team of judges to select the top 30 projects. The list of these top 30 teams together with their reports is available here.
This year, the theme for the contest was "Preserving, Protecting and Enhancing the ENvironment".
The teams are supposed to follow eligibility rules as listed on the WIndows Challenge website. One assumes that teams that do not meet the eligibility criterion, will be inelligible?
Also, since this is a Microsoft spondored project, it is obvious that Microsoft's motive is to try and popularize the use of WInCE RTOS amongst the student community. The choice of Ebox is only to allow the operation of WInCE RTOS. It could as well have been any other hardware platform.
It is therefore natural to expect that a participant would develop a project that would justify the use of Ebox and WinCE RTOS. Or am I too naive to assume that?
It is worthwhile to note that the Ebox is a serious piece of hardware. It is an Vortex86 200 Mhz processor based, small foorprint embedded system with a serial port, a parallel port, 3 USB ports, an ethernet port, AV'97 audio, PS2 mouse and keyboard ports, VGA port. The Ebox consumes about 10W of power in active mode.
I was a mentor to a team from NSIT, which in my opinion implemented a wonderful project (which btw, is being patented now). Unfortunately, the judges did not deem the project as worthy of selection in the final 30 list.
My team brought to my notice that some of the teams did not meet the eligibility criterion. They also mentioned that many projects seemed very trivial for an Ebox. Many infact do not need any RTOS at all.
I then decided to read all the reports and make an assessment about such projects, which, in my opinion do not justify the use of an EBox and WinCE RTOS. My brief report about such projects is available here.
Read it for yourself and make your own judgement. If you would like to read my team's report for comparison sake or otherwise, send me a mail at dvgadre@gmail.com and I will be more than glad to mail you a copy.
I have brought this to the notice of the organizers of WESC'06 but they have decided to ignore my feedback and go ahead with the contest as per the schedule.
I guess its bye bye future Microsoft contests, as far as I am concerned.
Dhananjay V. Gadre
Props to GNAA
That a "Xbox 360 console, a 34-inch HDTV, games, and accessories" is closer to "okay (or even feh)" than a "dream setup"?
Seems that the prizes are kind of cheap. I'm pretty sure Microsoft will get some pretty decent code out of this (or, if not code, ideas), but is only going to give something away as a token gesture.
Just another step in the devauluation of programmers and IT folks, I guess.
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
It will be assimmilated.
Despite comparisons to Google's Summer of Code (which is far more generous to the community on the whole) this is in fact a smart move for Microsoft. They get code on the cheap, and PR at the whole time.
If I ran a business like Microsoft, I'd be doing the same type of things.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
They must be targeting folks with pirated copies of visual studio...
When will you complete it? Is there enough money left in your trustfund to support you once you've completed the course and can't find a job, or will Pizza Hut take you back?
rules
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
Seems Microsoft is pushing REALLY hard these days to gain dominance in the mobile phone and small devices market. Well, I'm not going to help them. You know what will start to happen if they get to dictate the standards.
Me, I'll go with JavaME. There are over 300 million Java enabled phones in the world, and 60% of new phones sold come with it preinstalled. There were a lot of prizes to be won at the this years Java One. Sony Ericsson and Motorola among others encourages people to use JavaME.
I tried developing for it a couple of years ago, and it was not pleasurable back then, mainly because of incompatibilities between devices. It looks much better these days, and if you use Netbeans you can build applications just with drag and drop. Remember than Carmack got started with developing for mobile phones because the wide availability of free tutorials and tools for J2ME.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
FtFA: "Acceptance of prize constitutes permission for Microsoft Corporation and its agents to use winner's name and likeness for advertising and promotional purposes without additional compensation unless prohibited by law."
You might find yourself the unwitting spokesperson for the new XBox 360 Boonga Boonga clone!
--- We are not in the 8th dimension. We are over New Jersey.
All of this Microsoft opensource stuff is hollow.
How about they "share the source" to the Xbox 360 filesystem, or publish an SDK or Linux distribution, jees even evil Sony managed that?
How about not trying to patent the FAT filesystem, or opening up the specs to NTFS?
How about giving us the source to WGA, or stop crippling your free Visual Studio Express?
Yeah, make us create stuff to help sell or fix your products, but don't give anything back.
#include <sig.h>
odd that they would announce this the very day google announces the summer of code winners...
http://kered.org
rhetorical rhetorical rhetorical, damn content checker ;)
They can have my command prompt when they pry it from my cold dead fingers.
Exclusive Mr. Fusion prototype..
A method for the dead to feed off the living springs to mind...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Lordy lordy, it would take me YEARS of work at a regular job to afford these kind of luxury status symbols! But now Microsoft is giving me a one-in-a-million shot at joining the middle class -- and I might just be lucky!
No, seriously, I know.
But listen, while you're here, buddy *hic* what about FlexWiki? I'm talkin' about the honkin' big Microsoft open source Wiki project here. I mean, what I'm sayin' is... *hic* why's it so worthless? When it oughta have so many resources behind it, and when MS (and me, too) could really do with a wiki written in C# as opposed to PHP? Wouldn't ya think they could just take a few guys aside, give'em 6 months to come up with a good wiki? And yet here we are. Here we are, buddy. Bartender! Another glass of C# for my freind here! And go easy on the XML this time, huh?
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Speaking of which, am I the only one who see's the PS3 as the world's greatest way to sneak Linux in the backdoor into homes? Imagine the possibilities of turning a PS3 into a fully functional desktop, except with the massive horsepower of the Cell architecture behind it. The possibilities could be endless.
Now Microsoft, my dear fellow, here's a thing: one doesn't create cool, real-world apps on a 120-day trial version of an OS. It simply isn't done. Oh, how I wish it were; but as it's not, it just isn't.
Now, I realize this is all part of your 'capture markets that everyone actively avoids' strategy.
Having advanced into the 'phones that stop you from playing music' market and the 'OS licenses that suddenly cut out because you didn't keep on paying' market, you're now charging into the 'writing software for environments which you have so little interest in that you need a time-limited trial version' market.
Tally-ho, eh?
Splendid stuff but to be quite honest I'm not at all sure you know what you're doing!
Anyway toodle-pip. I have the Duke of Guernsey coming over for Quake. Quake 2, that is -- old Guernsey isn't quite on top of the trends, I fear! Splendid chap nonetheless. Anyway I must dash. Fucktard.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Taken form Google Summer of Code Policy:
"In addition, all program participants agree to cooperate with Google's publicity efforts, without further compensation. This includes the agreement to use their name, address (city and state or country only), likeness and project deliverables for publicity purposes, where legal, for this or similar future programs, and to use the statements made by, or attributed to, the participants relating to Google and any and all rights to said use, without further compensation."
All open source movement is Communism!!
Donate free food here
I thought the XBox couldn't do "proper" HDTV formats so why waste the money on a HDTV prize ;)
I mean, MS are currently trying to save money!
liqbase
SoC: - mentoring by an open source organisation - $4500 and 500 to an open source organisation MS: - 4 Xboxes Cheapskates.
From TFA: "Create your cool Windows CE project using 120-day free evaluation versions of Windows CE and its development tools, either or both of the designated Microsoft Shared Source components, and your own programming ingenuity".
So, you complete a great cool project, everyone gets to use your code... and then! You Pay Microsoft for continued use of the tools used!
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
"How about they share the source...publish an SDK...not trying to patent...opening up the specs...giving us the source...stop crippling your.."
Nothing wrong with asking MS for free stuff (except maybe the social embarrasment of begging), but why the howls when you think they are doing the same thing to you?
"Yeah, make us..."
Perhaps you have the MS brain chip implant, but speaking for myself: MS cannot make me do anything. By the same logic I cannot make MS do anything they don't want to do.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Grand Prize is a complete Xbox 360 dream setup
...Connected to a networked 2-terabyte RAID array that has what MS developers have access to -- every 360 image ever made or currently in development, plus most of the competing current-gen game titles for other consoles!!!!
Whoa, a 3 GHz dual-core from AMD with 4 GB of RAM, a studio-sized display, audiophile surround sound stereo setup (not computer speakers!) and their secret DirectX for Linux drivers shared-source for my unlimited personal use, and "perfect" (their inhouse) XBox emulation software with shared-source drivers, plus their SUPER-secret makefiles for compiling it native for Linux !!!!!
Now that's an Xbox 360 dream setup!!!
--
Of course, equally cool, you can buy a Wii, which even has motion sensing shit (no surround sound though, I don't think.)
While it is quite crippled, Visual C++ Express is quite useable after installing the XP Platform SDK and wxWidgets. I'm working on a project at work using that as the Windows compiler (most of the work is being done on OS X and Linux).
i n-visual-c-express.html_ Setup_Guide
Here's a good tutorial on making Visual C++ Express useful:
http://xurble.org/weblog/2004/10/using-wxwidgets-
http://www.wxwidgets.org/wiki/index.php/MSVC_.NET
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
Offer prizes with kiddie appeal to get the young 'uns in. Get formal agreement to a Shared Source NDA, so Microsoft have a paper trail for future use.
Then, if at some future date, one of these bright sparks decides to do some open source coding, or even just to work for anyone who dares compete with microsoft for that matter, MS can say: "That's our IP! They signed an NDA!" and steal the rights to the code.
Not of course that they'd be unprinicpled as to do anything like that. Why, I bet it never even occured to them...
Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
Microsoft is finally waking up and seeing that they actually have to change their ways and act like they're part of the community and not just dictating the software and services they provide down upon everyone. Acting more like google and apple might actually draw in the more open-source oriented developers, who have prefered these other companies in the past because they get given a little and can contribute a little in return.
:)
I think Sun has the best model set up, with Java and Netbeans etc, but Microsoft should really be trying to compete with this so they have more products to offer the end user, instead of alienating people and pushing them towards opensource.
Anyway, good to see Microsoft starting to adapt to the way Software development is starting to work now.. they're only a few years late
Will program for karma.
On the other hand, Linux is free and there's stuff like the WRT54g to run it on. So who is the target audience for this contest? Do they just want to get professional set-top-box developers exposed to their DVR stuff?
This would actually make sense if they were targeting existing customers. But who do they expect (or hope) will spend 4 months coding furionsly on some cool project, only to lose access to the development tools when it's all over?
"Yeah, make us create stuff to help sell or fix your products, but don't give anything back."
Uh, huh. So can I put you down as a non-compete? One down three thousand to go. TV and console, here I come.
Mod Parent GNAA Troll
120 Days of coding at maybe 1-2 hours a day... thats about 200 hours which = about a month or so of my time.... for a GIANT HDTV & an xbox that cost m$ probably way over 100 bucks to make! WOW!! where do i sign up?? they don't pay me nearly that much here in mexico!!
May I sell my code to somebody different than Microsoft afterwards? Or does "shared source" mean what I expect, that all of you belong to Microsoft, including house, wives, children?
lol theres not even free binaries for their proposed toolchain (trial version rofl...) not to talk about free as in freedom source code for it... and besides that if i want to "share my code" i am going to GPL it.
...but MS would NEVER do this.
A WMV clip of Steve Ballmer screaming Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers!
Fourth prize:
Slashdot lameness filter for posting Ballmers' quote in caps, thanks guys!
Welcome to Microsoft "you code we take" shared source competition. You know the program, we hand over some pathetic prize and then we get a billion dollar idea that you can never claim ownership of, thanks to our geat and wonderous butt shafting license called "shared source". Thank you for turning up now everyone bend over and start coding,
An XBox dream Setup ? Wooaaw, what a reward...
I guess they've finally realised that after two decades of copying Apple, and giving the world Microsoft Bob as their only real innovation, their R&D department might need a bit of help...
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
This is my first post, so I am only just learning to use the site. However this sounds really interesting.
Sounds like someone is quite bitter about their own project idea being shot down.
I'm not a big fan of MS nor this project. I don't see any gain from beating up entries from other teams though.
All I get from reading the article on your web site is the smell of sour grapes.
Yep, I never spell check.
More incorrect spellings can be found he
So what's the license that comes with this?
;-)
Do I have to sign an NDA to use it? If so, I can't share my knowledge without MS's permission.
Does anything I write belong to MS? I'm not crazy about the idea that I'll have to pay to use something that I wrote.
A bit of digging didn't turn up the license that I'll presumably have to agree to by clicking on something (or maybe just by downloading something).
No, I don't trust MS's lawyers.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
They electroshock their PR department awake and tell them, "Do some studies! Burn some mid-night oil at the library of Human Psychology! Figure out how to combat this Open Source thing! Get ON it!"
So they did, and this is what they came back with. . .
"Open Source is a big and real threat, but only if people believe that Open Source is a worthy thing. So we tried to shape public opinion on the matter. First we tried trivializing it, and that sort of worked for a while, but then people began to catch on. So then we tried vilifying it, and that also seemed to work for a while, but again, people began to catch on. So then we tried to own it, but our agents at SCO didn't perform up to our high standards. (And they will be sorely punished for their failure!)
"So now we've grudgingly come to realize that Open Source is here to stay. (Our head PR manager will be missed, but his final contribution to our department by writhing and gasping on the floor while holding his neck has been a great motivator!) --So, while whistling quietly as the ocean water rises in Vista's hold, we present to you, my Lord, the following bold plan. . .
"Knowing full well that people over time are increasingly going to choose Open Source as a major part of the code running on their machines, (drum roll, please. .
What the average consumer truly wants is to be aligned with good ideals. --And they're even willing to pay for it! So we've coined the new 'Shared Source' phrase which our test groups indicate actually sounds friendlier and warmer than 'Open Source'".
Yes. Breathe deeply. It's all going to be okay. No need to panic. We're still on top of the game. Balloon Ball, Balloon Ball, Balloon Ball. . .
-FL
Does someone who works on 'shared source' end up polluted by their access to MS source code? Can they no longer contribute to competing open source projects without being accused of stealing MS IP?
If so, it's a pretty lousy deal. Give away your code for free to Microsoft. Make it unavailable for use in other contexts, and give up your freedom to contribute *other* code to other projects.
All for a chance at a free Xbox?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
bend over, grab your knees and hold your breath. frankly, MS attempt is rather pathetic. Just use BSD or apache license and get over it.
"For DOG THAT IT IS."
why was that so funny? i don't know..
There is something else about Microsoft's let's-pretend-to-be-like-them-and-divert-public-op inion strategy that worries me.
... "OpenWord"? Or "OpenExcel"?
We have "Open Source", and then Microsoft comes out with "Shared Source". "Hey, let's fool people into thinking that we're just like the good guys!" says Microsoft. The average Joe is not going to know the technical definition of "open".
But what if Microsoft decided to abuse the term "Open"? Just as in the past companies have marketed their Things as "Thing-o-matic", and then "Thingtronic", then "Microcomputer Thing", then "Laser Thing", then "Internet Thing", then "Thing.com" and most recently "eThing" and "iThing", what if Microsoft came up with new products called
We can't stop them from using the term "open" since it's not something that can be trademarked. (Nor can the term "windows", but we never got to see a US court come to that conclusion.) No one can sue Microsoft for calling it "OpenExplorer". Heck, knowing Microsoft, they could probably even come up with "OpenWindows", and then when someone tried to sue them for using a previously used trademark, Microsoft might say, "But Your Honor, we must have the right to this trademark or else it would waste our 16 man-hours invested in this product, causing ruinous collapse for American economy!"
We could always say, "Well, you don't have the Official Approval of the Open Source Initiative", but when it comes to marketing, I don't think PHB's will care to figure out who OSI is.
Right now, I think the only thing stopping Microsoft is their pride, since using the word "Open" in a product name would be like admitting defeat. But I wouldn't put it past them.
Am I just getting worried over nothing?
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
Heck, knowing Microsoft, they could probably even come up with "OpenWindows"
Yeah, but why would they want to name their OS after its security policy?
But seriously, yeah, I think you're being paranoid, as most technical people would know the difference, and it would gain so much bad will (since it's basically false advertising) that it would negate any gains they could make from it.
The mistake you're making is in believing your ideology is universal, rather than restricted to a tiny, but vocal, minority of computer users. To the average computer user, it is not a matter of 'good guys' and 'bad guys', but rather a question of which tools provide the most value for the lowest price. In most cases, the answer is closed source software, with a few exceptions like Firefox.
I was a computer nerd growing up, and things like open source were important to me. However, fate has taken me in a different direction, and being a university student in a non-technical subject, I can see that to those who are not computer nerds, which is most people, a concept such as open source is completely meaningless. Even amongst the ones who care enough about Microsoft to either admire or dislike it, and dislike it, the reasons have nothing to do with whether the source is open or closed.
It's fairly obvious that Microsoft's 'shared source' is an attempt to get young programmers, especially students, interested in developing on the Microsoft platform, rather than on Linux, which is fairly dominant in certain educational areas relating to computer science. I don't know if it will work or not (I suspect not), but to the overwhelming majority of people who simply use computers to get work done, it won't matter one way or the other. What will matter is if a new 'killer app' comes along, and it's only available on a non-Microsoft platform. As long as Microsoft holds a dominant market share, this is unlikely to happen.