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."

Comments

Re:Why is parent flamebait?

[Vexorian]

Hmnn I didn't know releasing a couple of minor projects with open source licenses was considered a pro open source step.

Has anyone seen this documentation?

[golodh]

I am asking if anyone has seen this documentation because I'm afraid that, Microsoft being Microsoft, this so-called "documentation" will be of the same type as the "documentation" that Microsoft tried to foist off to the the EU in its dispute about documentation of its client-server communication protocol.

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?