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Microsoft Discloses 14,000 Pages of Coding Secrets
OrochimaruVoldemort writes "In an unexpected move, Microsoft has disclosed 14,000 pages of coding secrets. According to The Register: 'This is Microsoft's latest effort to satisfy anti-trust concerns of the European Union, which is possibly a tougher adversary for the company than Google.' The article mentioned that this will be done in three phases. 'Between now and June it will garner feedback from the developer community. Then, at the end of June, Microsoft will publish the final versions of technical documentation — along with definitive patent licensing terms.' Lets just hope those terms are pro open source."
Who stole the Heart of Gold !?
Unexpected, as in they told us very loudly that they were going to do it?
Unlike existing open source projects, these protocols/code/APIs have never been scrutinized by independent security experts. I'll bet this reveals hundreds of new attack vectors.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Unexpected, as in they told us very loudly that they were going to do it?
Yep!
They've told us a LOT of nice stuff they're "going to do" that they turned around and either didn't do or poisoned.
Embrace, extend, extinguish.
I'll believe it when/if it's finally done. (And even then I'll wonder what "gotchas" are included.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
they wiki it for easy access.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
MS has NEVER done anything yet that is pro open source. They have gone to great lengths to make sure that something has the appearance of such, but that it would not help. The only question should be, how far ahead is MS thinking? They have always been a pretty good chess player.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I have to admit I'm tempted to be interested in the Exchange stuff. The
company I work for uses it. As with most MS products it's not, um, horrible,
when it's working but it's a PITA to troubleshoot problems. The MAPI Tool for
looking at the "innards" is horrible. Maybe this documentation will at least
spawn some better third party management tools that I can convince my employer
to buy.
For now most pages (all?) are prefaced with: [This topic is preliminary documentation and is subject to change in future documentation releases.] I haven't had a chance to search out legalese to answer the summary's question on open source friendlyness.
I figure a "hope-for-the-best-expect-the-worst" attitude is the best way to approach this one...
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Can anyone (intelligently) comment on the implications for projects like WINE? It seems that having so much information released would benefit these efforts in some manner, yes?
The article links to:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/interoperability/default.mspx
where several documents in non-standard formats are describing how well ms are complies with standards.
Not to mention you have to buy a licence of M$ Office too read it.
M$ laughs EU in the face with this one.
No more comments.
So Microsoft finally releases a huge tome of secrets Microsoft uses to compete with other vendors on its closed system. After years of denying that, after years of keeping them secret from even the thousands of paying customers buying what they thought was equal access to the MS platform.
And somehow that admission that MS has been lying about something so central to protecting its anticompetitive abuses of its monopoly is supposed to reassure antitrust investigators?
--
make install -not war
Determine how much revenue your application generated in the last year. Send a check in that amount to Microsoft. See? Wasn't that simple.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
In addition, Microsoft will publish a list of the protocols that are covered by patents and will make available a list of the specific Microsoft patents and patent applications that cover each protocol. However, open source developers, whether commercial or noncommercial, will not need a patent license for the development of implementations of these protocols or for the noncommercial distribution of these implementations In other words if you're going to make any money off it you'll need to pay the MS tax.
the pages had for now was a bunch of disclaimers. Turns out this is just the
first page of each document. I, for the life of me, could not see a way to go to
the next page. The side table of contents doesn't work either.
But every doc is available as a PDF and you can grab whole sections in zip files.
I found it interesting that they chose a cross platform format like PDF and
didn't try to shove Word Docs at the world or their MDI(?) format, their supposed
PDF killer.
Anyway the legalese is vague and scary for now... Intellectual Property Rights Notice for Protocol Documentation
Copyrights. This protocol documentation is covered by Microsoft copyrights.
Regardless of any other terms that are contained in the terms of use for the
Microsoft website that hosts this documentation, you may make copies of it in
order to develop implementations of the protocols, and may distribute portions
of it in your implementations of the protocols or your documentation as
necessary to properly document the implementation. This permission also
applies to any documents that are referenced in the protocol documentation.
No Trade Secrets. Microsoft does not claim any trade secret rights in this
documentation.
* Patents. Microsoft has patents that may cover your implementations of the
protocols. Neither this notice nor Microsoft's delivery of the documentation
grants any licenses under those or any other Microsoft patents. However, the
protocols may be covered by Microsoftâ(TM)s Open Specification Promise (available
here: http://www.microsoft.com/interop/osp). If you would prefer a written
license, or if the protocols are not covered by the OSP, patent licenses are
available by contacting protocol@microsoft.com.
Trademarks. The names of companies and products contained in this
documentation may be covered by trademarks or similar intellectual property
rights. This notice does not grant any licenses under those rights.
Reservation of Rights. All other rights are reserved, and this notice does not
grant any rights other than specifically described above, whether by
implication, estoppel, or otherwise. * emphaisis mine
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Lets just hope those [patent licensing] terms are pro open source.
I'm going to hope for a pony too! A flying one!
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I've always wondered how much internal documentation Microsoft has generated for their products. Things like formal specifications, as opposed to "look at the source code".
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
It's a cook book!!!
...apologies to Rod Serling.
Article was missing the download link - here:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc203350.aspx
(captcha was "Empire" - ha!)
If the terms are a megalomaniac lawyer's dream that would cut the throat of all competitors so gratuitously that the EU is forced to declare Microsoft in contempt of reality and seize all of their money and property, then, yes, the terms would indeed end up being pro open source.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
People said this same thing when the Windows 2000 source code leaked. Nothing happened. Multiple problems with that theory but one of the biggest is simply that it is wrong. Lots of people have the Windows source code. MS has a license where universities can get a copy for research. One university I know that does is ASU in Tempe, Arizona. So this idea that only MS has ever seen the code is false, thus the argument is invalid, never mind the other problems with it even if it weren't.
Since "Pro open source" seems to mean "Can't cost anything, and can't put any restrictions on it other than requiring the code to be open." That is pretty much going to kill almost anything from being pro open source.
I imagine it'll be similar to MPEG-4 and such as it'll be an open standard with RAND licensing. What that means is anyone can get a copy of the standard and licensing to use it, and the price of that license will be reasonable and standard. However, that does mean you have to pay if you want to use it. I can't see them just wanting to give it away for free.
So if you are willing to adjust your definition of open source to accommodate things that are open standards, where it is open to all, but you do have to pay a license, then I imagine you'll be happy. However if you take the stance that it cannot cost any money, well then you are probably SOL.
Now the Innovative Open Source(tm) community will have something to copy!!!@!!
As we know, there are public standards. We also know there are some standards that are secrets. That is to say, they are used very publicly but the details are kept secret. And there are also public secrets. These are the secrets that were kept secret for shame and are made public.
But there are also secret secrets. The ones we don't know that are secret and should be kept that way.
(with apologies to Donald)
Most important part of this article:
In addition, Microsoft will release some 30,000 pages of documentation surrounding Windows client and server protocols.
Note: WILL not "HAS" and/or not "Will sometime soon". They could be delaying this just long enough to figure out how to break all the protocols on the new OS/on the next service pack.
If it's anything like the 6000 pages of OOXML (final version yet to be released, despite being ratified - go figure), I'll pass.
- customizing AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS for Windows Vista Ultimate?
- Hungarian Notation 2008 from Cosmonaut Charles Simonyi?
- A vastly more powerful set of MFC macros that will now make it possible to maintain different versions of an enterprise project code base from a single source file?
- 3D OLE Automation DCOM interfaces from the Visual Basic team?
- the difference between "Unrecoverable Application Error" (Windows 3.0) and "General Protection Fault" (Windows 3.1)?
- a detailed explanation of what each alternative does in the "Abort, Retry, Fail, Ignore" dialog?
The mind boggles at the possibilities.
... 13,999 pages of EULA and 1 page of secrets, well secret: "Have a well crafted EULA (see above)."
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I'm starting to think that this looks a whole lot like the 'we know there is source code from windows in your apps' thing. It might look good for MS to the EU, but it also looks extremely well for MS if they put in some legal clauses into the documents and twist their tongue around making it look friendly.
Could open up a whole new can of worms where they start taking out open source projects based on the fact that those people have SEEN the code.
What, didn't you hear? Docx is an open standard now! ISO said so! :P
No, I'm New Here
Wait...they released the source for minesweeper?
Everything you wanted to know about Windows 3.11 in 13,999 pages..... WFWG next!
Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!
...you still have to pay the $1.5 billion :)
I get sick of this "everything" must be Open Source and must be FREE BS. I took a great amount of time developing my skills as a EE and programmer. If I work hard and work out a way to do something that no one else can do, I'd LOVE to profit from it. Only an idiot would work that hard and give it away for free. I applaud the release of the data, I'm going to read the released docs and the licensing then decide then how and what I can do to increase the abilities of my code and how I can use it as leverage to increase my income. As for Apple? I designed one of the first digital EMG (muscle signals) machines on an Apple IIE. Sold well, worked well. Then Apple closed source and wanted BIG bucks to learn how to redo it for the LISA. Boom. Dead. Where was Linux? Still a wet dream with out a driver. And I know... This is /. before you spout off. view the bloody data. Sheesh.
...is 28,000 lines of code. I doubt if it will be terribly useful, although perusal of the document format could assist those who want to engineer a bit of cross-platform compatibility into their products, and need to vet what they've written against the MSFT code. So that could be useful, perhaps. Full-scale porting of any of the code is unlikely to profitable, so MSFT is safe in that respect. The risk to them lies more the potential for an easy path to alternate solutions.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
cannot be unseen! The goggles, they do nothing! We mustn't look directly at it!
The world is not yet ready to learn of the Ballmer Peak!
that they support opensource. Majority of their sales will be of "customized, supported, superior" versions which "need IP protection from patent trolls and so is not freely redistributable and modifiable. We regret that this has to be done this way, but you always have that (third rate) open source code...."
Or, they are buying time to sufficiently stuff more pockets, so that a few years down the line, the IP-protection agreement mentioned on http://microsoft.com/link=12345 (whatever that may contain at that point in time) becomes so important that "we have to take the painful but necessary step of closing certain parts of code under IP agreements with certain (read SCO-like proxies) IP companies that supply us some innovative improvements".
And without those innovative improvements, basically things won't work.
Finally, the next version of the OS or the Office Suite or the whatever SaaS-tool will be so compelling that these opened source codes are really of no use to the latest and most advanced "microsoft product and platform ecosystem"
To be taken with a fistful of salt.
You know, if they were to turn around one day and release Windows under a decent license, they could gaurantee Windows dominance on the desktop forever. Sure, they'd lose some control, but how much control do they really have anyway?
But you'll never convince the guys at the top of this. Some people are just plain limited.
expandfairuse.org
Open source promotes Competition.
Closed source promotes Collusion.
Slashdot = Sarcasm
I think you'll find may who don't agree. I've gotten in to this same argument many times before. Personally, I think open standards are open source friendly. You can get a license for them, distribute your program with full source included, with whatever mods you like, and so on. Only requirement is you have to pay licensing. I see no problem.
However I've found that view is not common in the OSS community. Many seem to think it is only truly open if you can have it for free. They seem to think the GNU/GPL idea is the One True OSSS(tm) and anything else isn't open.
So that's what I mean. I imagine MS's terms will be perfectly friendly to having the source code open, as it'll have to be that way if it is an open standard. You get the code for MPEG-4 or VC-1, for example. However I do imagine that, like those, it'll cost money. So while someone could buy a license and make something for Linux based on the code by paying the fee, they couldn't just take the code for free and use it to make something.
Secret #1: Use monkeys and typewriters wherever possible
www.isoHunt.com
Since the court wants the APIs and documentation for the APIs, releasing the code is just a noisy distraction. It's like the tobacco companies turning over several semi-trailers of papers when forced to publish specific pages and documents.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
to Spyglass (?): "sell" it for nothing and give a cheque of £0 to MS.
But bundled with your RedHat installation for the standard (or, if you want to be REALLY like MS, slightly higher) cost.
Without clarity over patents involved, those pages amount to a contract anyway. By using that stuff, you're signing the contract. The only thing is, you aren't getting to read the contract yet, until the patent issues are disclosed.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Every bit taken from Don Knuths "The Art of Computer Programming", volumes 1 thru 4. Microsofts patents are hopeful, considering that there is so much prior art floating around, and for such a long time.
The documentation that was characterized as an independent auditor as "designed to maximize page count while minimizing the amount of useful information".
Looking at the article in "The Register" (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/08/microsoft_posts_protocol_documents/), which states that "Microsoft today lifted the lid on 14,000 pages of sketchy versions of tech documentation for core software code. On show for the first time in public are underlying protocols for Office 2007, Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007."
They released "sketchy versions of tech documentation", did they? Is it just me, or do we have to get acutely suspicious at the mention of the word "sketchy"?
I mean, Microsoft has always been dead set against releasing any kind of specifications, and has repeatedly (and officially) claimed that such specifications were impossible, infeasible, or generally not available. Then, after being hit with a $ 600,000,000 fine they suddenly proved able to document the communication protocol after all, to the satisfaction of the Samba programming team. What are the odds that the current crop of Microsoft documentation is a useless, incomplete, obfuscated mess? After all, Microsoft's interest isn't so much to publish documentation, as in creating a PR image that it's doing so. And there's nothing like a hefty page count for doing that.
Therefore ... has anyone knowledgeable actually seen this documentation? If so what's the quality?
"The universe is driven by the complex interaction between three ingredients: matter, energy, and enlightened self-interest." -- Babylon 5
Not that I think Microsoft is anyone's friend, just pointing out that that particular argument isn't really very good.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
FYI, "To Serve Man" was a short story written by Damon Knight before it became a Twilight Zone episode. I remember reading it in the sixth grade.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Along with Microsoft's Coding Secrets, you can also buy....
...and many others!!!
Enrons's Guide to Business Ethics
Greenpeace's Tasty Whale Recipes
George Bush's Global Warming Solutions for our Time
Ron Jeremy's The Arguments for Abstinence
What about the 700 CSS testcases [msdn.com] they recently contributed to the W3C under the BSD license?
Yes, but apart from the 700 CSS testcases, what has MS ever done for OSS?If I use Windows 98
By default, these operating systems do not natively provide a version of the vulnerable component and are not affected. Just because A occurs chronologically after event B, doesn't mean that B caused A.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Don't look at it, Marion! Keep your eyes shut!
- The reason IE is quite fast is because it's just the bog-standard Windows HTML rendering component wrapped in a barebones toolbar.
- The reason Firefox is slow is because it wasn't designed to be superfast, it was designed to be easy to develop for and easy to port (the user interface is done in interpreted XML, for god's sake).
- The reason Opera is fast is because it's designed to be minimally resource intensive because the same codebase is used to develop the mobile versions of Opera (for smartphones, Wii, PocketPC etc.).
There are more than enough blatantly obvious reasons without having to resort to conspiracy theories.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
14,000 pages? I thought that was their non-disclosure agreement.
would there be problems if you read this and then worked on an open source project that covered a similar domain?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Are you mad? Samba fought long and hard to get those documents. MS fought back in all but appearance, to the best of my knowledge.
You might find How Samba was Written interesting.
Insightful gives Karma. It's the mods way of saying "That joke was good enough I want to hear more of them".
Oh and I suggest changing your settings to give Overrated and Offtopic +1 bonuses. Those should be ignored because of abuse due to lack of Metamoderation.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
OnCreate
OnDraw
OnMouseMove
BSOD
Serialize
If it took 'em 6000 pages to describe the useless OOXML spec, I wouldn't count on these 14000 being all that useful either (with or without patent roadblocks).
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
The secrets of how to write bloated, buggy code has been unleashed into the wild?!!? Oh, the horror!!!
...is you're fired.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
WTF does 700, or even 1000000 test cases have to do with "Open Source"?
Sure, they're apparently willing to work with some open standards, but it has absolutely nothing to show for Microsoft's open source efforts.
There's got to be some better examples than that, and WIX is a start...