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."

Comments

Woah, SEVERAL XBOXES?

[kahei]

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?

And another thing!

[kahei]

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.

Re:Playing catch-up again, and failing

[sdnoob]

Hey, at least they're using the right web server to host the site:

http://www.windowsfordevices.com/articles/AT5277 795134.html

GET /articles/AT5277795134.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.windowsfordevices.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US) Gecko/20060313 Firefox/1.5.0.1
Accept: text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,tex t/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Keep-Alive: 300
Connection: keep-alive

HTTP/1.x 200 OK
Date: Wed, 24 May 2006 09:06:50 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.20 (Unix)
Keep-Alive: timeout=5, max=100
Connection: Keep-Alive
Transfer-Encoding: chunked
Content-Type: text/html

and look who's address space it's in:

results for 216.218.185.157
LinuxDevices.com HURRICANE-CE0557-1A1 (NET-216-218-185-152-1)
                                                                    216.218.185.152 - 216.218.185.159

Re:Who has the copyright?

[killjoe]

I think it's vile that MS is encouraging communism in young people. It's just not right to encourage such anti capitalist, anti American behavior amongst young people.

Re:Playing catch-up again, and failing

[killjoe]

In the greater conversation of innovation in the IT industry MS is the guy who says...

me too!.