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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.
String.
Or a stapler maybe.
NO WAIT!!! - a hot glue gun! It's gotta be better for geeks - it plugs in.
Although if it's on paper, they could rub their feet on nylon carpet then hold them together and static will do it's magic, baby...
Ok, ok. You might think my answers are silly, but then - so is the question. Like it would ever happen.
The Mothership
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...
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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.
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
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Lets just hope those [patent licensing] terms are pro open source.
I'm going to hope for a pony too! A flying one!
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
It's a cook book!!!
...apologies to Rod Serling.
Not really. With the exception of a few bits of Microsoft-written software, most Windows software is written against published APIs with the occasional work-around for bugs in the APIs. WINE 'just' needs to implement the already-public APIs (including replicating bugs) and code will work. The WINE team only need access to secret APIs if code has been written using them.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
I believe Wine, ReactOS, and MingW are using MSDN and "clean room reverse engineering" to develop (meaning a group writes documentation, another group implements). And they are well making sure that no code in the trees are taken from the leak of the Windows 2000 code a few years ago, and no code is written via direct reverse engineering Windows. This information MIGHT be helpful, but Microsoft is unpredictable when it comes to enforcing its patents and loves them. If I were on any of these teams, I would advise to stay away from this documentation until it is cleared with FSF that the licence is compatible with GPL (which I highly doubt it will be).
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.
Your UID suggests you signed up within the last day or so. You don't get to make those jokes yet.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
- 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.
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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.
The world is not yet ready to learn of the Ballmer Peak!
For open source one should be using the definition from the Open Source Initiative (OSI) since it's a term used to indicate software that has been released under a software license compatible with the definition from the OSI. Note the very first criteria from the definition, "The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.".
The same goes for "free sofware" which uses the definition from the Free Software Foundation. On that page it is explicitly stated that, "Thus, you should be free to redistribute copies, either with or without modifications, either gratis or charging a fee for distribution, to anyone anywhere. Being free to do these things means (among other things) that you do not have to ask or pay for permission."
For "open standard" one could look to the definition by the European Commission (IDABC programme), which most importantly includes: "The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a nominal fee.".
It should be clear now why the bit about "licensing fees" (or royalties or whatever) is exactly the problem and would prohibit such software from being referred to as either open source or free software. Once I receive software or a specifications document I should be able to distribute it without asking or paying anyone for permission.
Note the difference between paying a one-time fee for receiving and paying fees on distribution. See also the article "Selling Free Software".
Perfect is the enemy of done.