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Windows CE going Open Source?
Pseudo Nim wrote to us with an interesting editorial from IT Director. Citing internal sources inside of Microsoft, the column claims that due to fear of competing with Linux in the embedded space, the WinCE folks are considering open sourcing Windows CE. I don't know how much stock I place in the rumours, but it's a very interesting proposition.
MS has a strong opportunity here to squash the growth of Linux into the mindspace of PHB's and daytraders. People who know very little about technology, and wouldn't know a FAT from a hole in the ground, only have the somewhat ephemerally defined concept of "open source" to explain the ravishing success of Linux they keep hearing about in PCWeek, Salon, what have you. They don't know why Windoze Suxx or why Linux Rulez, but they do have a feeling that open source has something to do with it. What has kept MS from open-sourcing macro-Windows? Primarily their fear of two things. Firstly, they want people eating out of their hands for upgrades, and secondly they want strict control over the tree so that they can push out system-level support for the latest version of BackOffice and their productivity apps, which combine to almost all of their revenue. But CE sucks, even from Microsoft's perspective. None of the really cool products that Microsoft makes can run in a CE environment. CE simply is not a money maker. Rather, it is a blockade against the PalmOS people, Linux, and any other vendor of embedded OSs that might someday trump Microsoft if average people ever get tired of desktop PCs. IOW, Microsoft doesn't care right now about controlling CE. It doesn't do them very much good. Open source CE! Of course! It will 1) supplant Linux in the minds of PHBs - "Why use open source Linux (a hacker's toy) when you can use open source Windows!" 2) improve the quality of CE while the desktop market still dominates. When/if palmtops and embedded systems ever really become the jazz, all MS has to do it snatch up the now lean-and-nimble CE, put stronger central controls in place, and ride that puppy down the road to riches. If MS wants to kill Linux's entry into the palm space, and probably it does, this seems like an excellent way to do it when combined with proper marketing.
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
They changed their terms when it came time to release a public beta. As far as I know, their "alpha" testing group was still considered part of the "internal" group and still subject to their NDA.
I guess it's possible I missed something.
You can't diminish the legal force of the license agreement by wishing it away.
Perhaps you can comment on this section of the GPL and how it would apply to GPL'ed code used internally:
Nowhere does this section anull the user's license to copy or modify the GPL'ed software for their "own" use. It simply prohibits distribution.Unfortunately, the GPL doesn't explicitely say what constitutes as "distribution," whether it be a company's conscious act of releasing a work or making the program available in /usr/bin for users of a particular system. It does say this: Each licensee is addressed as "you". There is no mention that the licensee must be a natural person. If a person downloads a GPL'ed program while at work, they are acting for the Company, thus the Company is the one that downloaded it. Thus, to me, internal distribution does not qualify as distribution under the terms of the GPL, as the application remains in the posession of the same entity at all times.
As you may or may not be aware, when legal ambiguities arise in contracts, they are automatically interpreted against the contract.
You've raised a fair point.
I'm starting from the position that any individual is a legal entity, and passing from any individual to any individual is 'distribution'.
Do you, or anyone, have _legal_ backing for the viewpoint that anyone working for a corporation is not subject to the obligations of an individual, or responsible for those obligations? This is a _very_ important point, I think. It is possible that under some interpretations the legal system regarding this is fatal to all free software, and that the only option will be outright defiance of the legal system.
So, the Big Question:
If a corporation's employee downloads and works on a GPLed program, does the license apply to the person, or are the conditions of the license said to apply to the corporation itself, and all employees of the corpration have no rights under the law as individuals, and no ability to enter into contracts as individuals?
This actually strikes a lot deeper than just the GPL, and I'd be very interested in what a real lawyer would have to say off the record about it.
You, Fastolfe, may have just killed Linux >:)
If your interpretation is correct, it is trivially easy and permitted for any corporation to do anything they want no matter how proprietary to any version of Linux or any software that is GPLed, restrict the information tightly, and then release only rigidly completed products without room for hackers to contribute anything. It also means any corporation can do this and keep a moving dev target internally, legally forbidding any communication with the outside world, making it impossible to interact with the corporate-controlled dev target.
How does it feel to have killed the GPL and Linux? If you're wrong and I am right, then the longheld belief that no company can take over Linux stands unchallenged. If you are correct, we have no recourse in the legal system at all, and Linux can be forcibly forked and taken over as long as it is done by a corporate entity acting (as you explain) as one entity.
Could we have a LAWYER please offer an opinion on this? Fastolfe has opened one _hell_ of a can of worms here. Is this in fact a fatal loophole, or not?
I apologize for the spiteful remarks about you killing Linux. I was upset. This could indeed kill Linux- but it's not you doing it, or me, it's the legal situation of what a corporation is, for which neither of us are to blame. :(
I am very sorry for sassing you in that manner, because it's really no joke.
Love it or hate it, the fairly hefty memory requirements of WinCE over PalmOS have the merit that the machines are more powerful than the PalmComputing brethren. This makes it vastly more likely that WinCE computers might be able to run Linux and actually have storage space left to hold utilities.
Supporting X, or even NanoGUI, would be rather challenging; it would be more feasible to try to provide the basic "Text Mode Console."
It wouldn't be something to run ApplixWare on, but it could be a nice way of Coding On The Road...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Okay, let's look at it logically. Linux is going to be the big thing for embedded systems. Linux is competition for Windows CE. The reason Linux is going to be used in so many embedded devices is because the source code makes it easy to port between devices.
This does not imply, however, that Microsoft will open up the source code to any that wish to see it.
Microsoft makes its money by selling software, not services. Software, not hardware. This is why Microsoft *inherently* cannot put products under the GPL-- they don't make the bulk of their money from support, hardware, or banner ads.
If Microsoft were to put Windows CE under an Open-Source license (be it the BSD license [never!] or the GPL [when hell freezes over and Satan sells hot chocolate]), people would simply embed it in their products and never pay Microsoft a dime. So nix anything that falls under "Free Software" or "Open Source" definitions.
However, what if Microsoft put it under a license similar to Sun's "Community Source" license? They still get money for the commercial applications?
Doesn't work. Companies wouldn't want to hassle with the entirely weird licensing ("Said program may be distributed under the SCSL unless at least three customers of company using said program are large slugs that breathe dryer lint, as defined in Section 2, subsection a, paragraph iv"). The only benefit is portability, and Linux has a *huge* headstart on that.
Microsoft isn't open-sourcing anything any time soon. It's not possible under their business model-- maybe it's outdated, but it's worked for them so far.
WinCE is already much more open than Win98 or WinNT. You can buy a source license for WinCE at a price that real people can pay... I believe it's something like $899, give or take a digit. Similar access to the WinNT source costs a few orders of magnitude more, and usually involves someone's immortal soul.
Don't flame me, I'm not trying to equate this with Linux, it's not "free" in any sense of the word. I only mention it because it shows that Microsoft is comfortable letting outsiders see their WinCE code, unlike most of their other products. So maybe this rumor is more plausible than it initially sounds.
MSK
WinCE is a nice platform and I, for one, would enjoy working on an open source version. But open-sourcing CE cannot happen for one simple reason: The minute you open up this code, the TWIN and WINE projects almost instantly become 99.9% compatible with Windows.
WinCE is a subset of the Win32 API, but in the key areas of controls and the GDI (the key to the Windows look & feel), it's almost all there. What isn't there can be easily extrapolated from the core.
People inside MS might advocate this strategy to assure their slowly dying project doesn't dissapear into the myst, but the layers of corporate structure will never take the *major* risk this strategy entails.
hmmm... if these rumours turn out to be true that could be a good thing. As someone who has tried both PalmOS and WinCE for a long period of time, WinCE is actually the better of the two (even though it IS made by Microsoft). But how likely is it? Microsoft is built on the foundation of proprietary source code, despite the recent rumors (Ballmer's comments, etc). I won't look for Microsoft Open Source ANYTHING anytime soon! --- "Progress is the God of the Machine"
-rt-
** Evil Canadians are taking over the world. Learn about the conspiracy
First of all, MS releasing source is very unlikely to happen. Second of all, even if they do release it, it will most likely be under some kind of restrictive license (a la SCSL), which does not qualify as open source. The bad thing is that *they* will call it open source and media (i.e. ZD Net) will not have a clue to figure out the difference.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
I'd have to agree.
For some reason, people see "embedded RTOS" and assume it's great for all embedded systems.
Now I've never done embedded systems such as PDAs, set tops, etc but I have done machines and instrumentation. That's where it's *really* useful.
ABS system in a car: real-time, unless you're an idiot.
Robotic factory machines (which I've done): real-time. You don't want that gripper to grip a little too early/late or you'll risk damage. You have to make sure that the analysis you're doing from sensor input (load cell, etc) doesn't screw up your timing. Priorities are your friend.
PDA/set-top box: Traditional OS. Real-time will give you no advantage.
Well, unless someone can give me a good reason. Remember that I've never done a set-top or PDA before. I may be missing something.
Windows CE's problem is the fact that it's not optimized for the average user to utilize efficiently on a day to day basis.
... it's fast, efficient, and easy to use ... then take Windows CE, it's slow but powerful in some respects but it wants to be a mini-desktop.
... but not enough to have me use it everyday, or even once a week. I only use my CE device for very specialized tasks such as remote .doc file editing or dialing in to get email when I MUST get email. (I have a Casio A-20 w/ PCMCIA modem etc.)
... soon to be replaced by my Palm IIIx wish I should get from UPS today!
Take the example of the PalmOS
I honestly think that as long as Windows CE contains "windows", it will never do much against PalmOS, EPOC, or any of the other truly embedded OS.
Don't get me wrong, there are some good things about CE
When it comes to true PDA functions like schedule, phone lists, etc., my Palm Pro wins every time
I've been looking at potentially buying a PDA myself. The main reason is to help organize my workload.
But the secondary reason is to have something to play with.
The Palm is cheap and it works.
The WinCE devices are more expensive, more powerful, and much cooler to play with.
Thus personally I think it would be cool to have a WinCE device. Somehow the appeal of being able to play Doom and MP3's on a PDA does something for me.
But in the real world, we go back to my initial desire to simply have something to keep track of my workload. And for that the Palm is simply much better suited. The display can be read outdoors, the applications are much simpler and easier to use.
And it costs about half what a CE device would run, along with being smaller.
And that is why the Palm computers sell, and the WinCE ones do not.
The PDA market is a fickle one. It's been around for over 10 years already, and the only successful entry in that time has been the Palm.
I just don't think having the source code to the OS is the issue. Sure then maybe WinCE might appeal to a small niche of developers. But the device still won't have the mass appeal that the Palm has.
It goes against everything that MS culture is based on. It simply doesn't make sense for them, they have lousy support, they are moving towards a leasing scheme for software licensing (pay-per-use is more likely than opensource) and they are too paranoid and they think they have something worth stealing.
A Linux version of Office comes out before an opensource version of windows does.
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
Take it from a developer who supports all Win32 platforms from NT Server down to various WinCE devices.
We have encountered all kinds of issues over the past two years:
- UDP sockets set to non-blocking block anyway on recv()
- connects to *non-existent* local TCP ports succeeding!
- WaitForMultipleObjects hangs forever even with specified timeout.
- Waiting for process to terminate by waiting on its handle doesn't work
These are just specific issues I recall off the top of my head.
Believe me, we have tons of #ifdef _WIN32_WCE occurences.
The overall user experience is that hangs are frequent.
So? The GPL is not, nor should it be, the baseline for open source licensing.
There is no violation.
Microsoft can "secretly" (or publicly for that matter) port the hell out of GPL'ed tools, mangle them, and use them throughout Microsoft in binary-only form and they wouldn't be doing anything wrong.
The reason they are in the clear is they are not DISTRIBUTING these modified versions of the GPL'ed software. They are using them internally for proprietary projects, which is perfectly fine, legal, and even desirable.
This may be a more important decision than most people would guess.
Embedded systems are more then just a market segment. If information technology continues to advance itself and permeate our lives as it has so far, embedded systems will become the only market.
Consider the popular sci-fi future, where computers and IT are ubiquitous. Comptuers are everywhere. In your phone. In your car. In your fridge, your desk, your chair, your wallet, maybe even your body. Can it get any more embedded then that? Is IT likely to stop before it reaches this point, or one like it?
I don't think so. I think the logical progression is for IT to become omnipresent, like the written word is today. Computers will be everywhere -- embedded in our lives.
The software that drives those embedded systems could well determine the future of our civilization as we know it.
It has been demonstrated many times that Open Source Software does well on projects of this scale and impact, and that the benifits in terms of freedom, security, and trust are often overwhelming. While corporate might is not something to be ignored, OSS has both practical and political advantages that only a fool would ignore. It may be that the almighty buck cannot fight OSS well enough to win.
If that is the case, then it follows that if WinCE is closed source, it will fail. If it is open, it stands a chance (a chance -- no more, no less) of being a core part of the future of the information age.
If all systems are embedded, and MS is not a part of that, then MS will quickly die, very like so many big mainframe vendors did when micros took over.
This decision could be more then simple politics. It could be bigger then the industry. It could well impact the universal communication medium of the forseeable future.
Is this an extreme case, a maximzation of possible influence? Yes, it is. I am taking this to extremes to demonstrate a point. This may be no more then a small pop in a sea of noise. However, it has the potential to be a shot heard 'round the world.
Something to think about.
It is interesting, living in these times.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
"Free for non-commercial use" is way old, but doesn't provide the kind of freedom open source gives you, since you are still dependend on a single company for commercial support.
Alladin Ghostscript is a lot more free than that, though. You are free to make money using Alladin Ghostscript, and even distribute it commercially under some circumstances. The _real_ win with the Alladin Ghostscript license is the time-out clause. After some time it reverts to a true open source license, which mean your dependency on Alladin isn't forever.
MS aren't up against Palm OS. They know very well that the system they are up against is "Epoc" and not Palm OS do you want to know why?
All the mobile phones from all the major manufacturers will run Epoc as their operating system in the future.
MS know that palmtops and phones will merge into personal communication devices and it's Epoc that's driving this... Wince just doesn't stack up against Epoc and MS know it.
http://www.symbian.com/
Deleted
> So we, the open source community, spend our time and effort developing tools and MS packs them up and sells them
Of course Micorsoft may not get the results they're hoping for (they rarely do with anything they try anymore). After all, when a Windows administrator realizes that s/he's using Linux compatible tools to do his/her work under Windows, s/he may well ask what the money spent on Windows is actually providing.
And of course, it also lowers the retraining cost of converting over to Linux.
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
With the Handspring Visor shipping yesterday, the new TRG palm compatible unit shipping in December, and 3com lowering prices across the board, the deathnell for wince has sounded.
You can now get a very nice entry level Palm for around $156, and a very nice high end unit for anywhere from $220 (palm IIIx) to $249 (visor deluxe).
These amazing little things just dissapear into your life as an indespensible tool. The darn things are so usefull, reliable, and unobtrusive you forget they are even computers. The three pilots I have owned (I keep upgrading and selling to friends) have been MORE reliable then the paper franklin planner they replaced (as the pilot almost always survives a drop, and the planner would often pop it's ring clips and spread my pages all over the street).
Wince devices, on the other hand, retail for 2 to 3 times the price of a palm unit, have a (well deserved) reputation for being poorly designed and nearly useless in the real world, and have little to no third party software support (relative to the Palm devices, anyway).
Microsoft has blown it too many times... they cannot seem to comprehend that a PDA is not and should not be some sort of ultra small laptop. They only stayed in the game as long as they have because of the massive amounts of $$capitol$$ being hemmoraged by Microsoft, and because 3com was trying to offset terrible losses in other divisions by gouging on the price of the very successfull Pilot.
That was then, and Palm was winning hands down. Now:
1) The palm OS is available and affordable to third party hardware makers. Already, prices on Palm hardware are half what they were, and very usable units are quickly approaching the $100 level.
2) Companies and developers, such as Philips, are sick of pouring money down a rathole, and are abandoning the platform.
3) The potential customer base has seen three versions of wince, none of which have been particulary usefull for a pda platform. All have had SERIOUS problems with desktop synchronization, resource consumption, backwards compatibility, and usability.
"Game over man". If this story is true, it is Microsoft trying a last minute punt to transition away from PDA's and into real time operating systems (where developers are smart enough to demand exclusively open software).
Bill Kilgallon
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
> They picked a super competitive market, no wonder they are worried.
Weren't they making noises last week about starting to push WinCE as a server OS, as a way of finding a niche for it since it doesn't have legs in the embedded OS market?
--
It's October 6th. Where's W2K? Over the horizon again, eh?
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Of *course* that's what he wants. But is that what he'll get? I doubt it. First of all, if it's even open source, it will not be *free*. You'll be able to patch it for Microsoft, but not use/redistribute it yourself.
Who's going to just give their code away for free, with no retribution? Not me, I want something in return for my work. I want total redistribution rights, to begin with.
So MS will open source CE, and it'll be a dismal failure. Berst will then write an article pointing out that all the hype about Open Source was wrong. *sigh*
-Brent--
You are perfectly right that if nobody wishes to take these ports/manglings public, they're free and clear.
You're totally wrong about internal use- there is no concept of internal or external in the GPL, nor is there any concept of boss or subordinate. It concerns itself entirely with legal entities, as in people, and _pointedly_ avoids any further distinctions.
As such, if everybody at Microsoft wants to pass binaries and source around among each other (or binaries and make source available if requested), they're golden, they can do that forever, entirely compliant with the GPL.
BUT!
ANY INDIVIDUAL who has the binary or source has full rights to distribute it anywhere he or she likes, warez groups, the front page of Slashdot, sky's the limit! EVERY single person working with or using such tools has the full unrestricted privileges under the GPL, explicitly spelled out as equivalent to anybody else. Their employment is irrelevant and does not enter into the contract at all- the license agreement specifically authorises EVERY ONE of them as a legitimate redistributor free to redistribute any way they see fit compliant only to the constraints of the GPL.
Any restrictions that curtail these rights are not compatible with the GPL and are not tolerated- if you can't work with the GPL as written it's not allowed to work with it at all. If you are not being allowed to share your source with the outside world if _YOU_ so desire, then you're not allowed to work with the source at all...
So, there are two possibilities. Either ANY of the people working on such a project are entitled to share it with us outside world people anytime they feel like it (and if they don't _want_ to that's OK too, but no coercion!), or they are violating the part of the contract stating that the GPL is incompatible with other outside restrictions being put on. There's no two ways about it.
So, then... Microsofties, which is it? Do you feel like filling us in on what's happening to any GPLed source you might be working with? It's your privilege to decline, but if you feel like sharing, not only will you be doing a nice thing for us, you'll be proving to the world that Microsoft is not violating the GPL by illegally and against the requirements of the license agreement restricting you from exercising the rights granted you under the GPL >:)
So how about it? Are you being allowed to obey the requirements of the legally binding license agreement, or are you being forced to break the law by threats of punitive action? >:)
- MS WinCE team has concluded that open source development tools are superior to MS' WinCE development tools
- MS is secretly funding ports of these tools to CE
The author then asks whether MS will take the next step and open-source WinCE, and answers his own question as "unlikely".Christopher A. Bohn
cb
Oooh! What does this button do!?
It wont be open source like we know and love.
:)
I'd be amazed if there werent terms like Sun's community liscence, to prevent it working well with other OS's, and to prevent bits being borrowed from WinCE by Linux and the BSD's.
Yes, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt as to whether there'd be anything worth taking
Epoc forever!
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
last week some time, there was one of those instant poll thingies so beloved of us all on CNN. The question was which PDA OS do you use. The answer, overwhelmingly (at the time) was Palm.
Microsoft do not dominate the PDA market. Anything they do, therefore, is solely to beat Palm. And I'm sure lots of geeks know about palm beating.
and it's really quite simple. Ignoring Linux completely, there are a LOT of really really good RTOS and non real time embedded OSes out there. For free. And they are already mature.
... back to work. argh.
Take OAR's RTEMS for example. It's small. It's quick. It has an IP stack. It runs on everything. It supports Ada. It supports multiple procs of different types. It's been around a long time.
CE has only 1 "feature" to make it stand out from the pack (IMHO) and that's the fact that the API tracks another non-RT os. Big deal. I don't think this has been enough to really launch it into it's target market yet.
I mean, good grief, look at the number of COMMERCIAL real time OSes out on the market right now that have been around for longer than CE. They picked a super competitive market, no wonder they are worried.
speaking of embedded
dv
"There's no secret. You just press the accelerator to the floor and keep turning left." -- Bill Vukovich
...To Microsoft. They really don't care about "Open Source", they just want to cash in. So they'll figure out some way that they can be able to say that it is Open Source, without the actually disadvantages of open source. (Which means letting others freely use the code) Then when they fail to take over the market *still*, they'll just cry that Open Source really doesn't work.
If I know Microsoft, they'll want to keep their Monopoly, even if they open the source code. This isn't going to be like Linux, where all distributors have an equal field. Even if MS allows redistribution, they'll be very convincing that you'd better use their version, or it *may* be incompatible.
Yes, the same argument about whether it's a good idea to split Windows up into mulitple closed source companies. No difference with Microsoft.
-Brent--
You have to be kidding. Why would this be a violation if MS is secretly, publicly, or not at all porting GPL code from a UNIX platform to the Windows CE platform? That doesn't mean they take the code and incorperate it in their work, it means they get more, and supposedly better development tools on one of their platforms. MS would do this secretly because they've accepted the role as anti-open source (which I think was forced on them, btw). If they 'embraced' open source in publicly by doing the porting publicly, wouldn't every slashdot zealot automaticly claim this proves open source (and likely I'd guess they'd mean GPL open source) is superior?
They're likely not doing the porting just for internal use, because they want others to develope for CE so its superior on embedded applications. MS already has development tools, but 3rd party groups may not want to pay for them, etc. Microsoft is merely using the tools at hand, and one of them is open source. The more choice for developers, and the more freedom, the faster and more successful a platform evolves. Thus, automaticly creating FUD (the propiganda that MS might be intentially breaking the GPL, though without any hint of proof, or an argument for it) is just useless.
Anyways, I assume MS will silently get the open source development tools ported and public, and do their best to make it look like it comes from a 3rd party. That, or they neglect the idea entirely.
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
I agree with several of your points, but please:
> Nobody wants or needs to run multiple apps on a PDA at once.
We've heard that argument on the desktop in the '80s; it was wrong then, and it still is wrong today. While you might not feel you need multiple windowed apps visible at once, you very well need all sorts of background processes. Once you start differentiating between "real apps" and "background processes" you paint yourself into the Mac Desktop Accessory corner. After establishing that your device really MUST do more than one thing at once, do the right thing and multitask properly. It can be done very efficiently in little memory. Multitasking isn't what bloats OSs.
I think a lot of people confuse lots of onscreen windows--a busy interface--with multitasking. You can still have a simple, highly focused GUI on top of an agressively multitasking OS.
> Nobody want's or needs a "voice recorder".
Which "nobody" is that? Certainly not this one. That's the one feature I hate the Handspring Visor for not having. Just because WinCE devices have recording and are bloated doesn't mean recording implies bloat--except for the created data files, I guess. I often find myself in traffic trying to graffity in a reminder on the Pilot; a nicely integrated voice recorder would be SO much nicer. Depends all on how you integrate it into the whole.
If I interpret the GPL correctly, you are not allowed to work with GPLed code if you are under legal obligation that prevents you from fully upholding the provisions of the GPL. Either you are legally able to distribute what you have with complete freedom, or you don't have legal permission to be working with the GPLed code at all. That means if there is an NDA or contract involved, it does not mean the (nonsensical) result that you are compelled to break the other contract: it means that you are not permitted to work on the GPLed code under those conditions. ;P :)
So if you have reason to worry about this, get yer paws off the GPLed code 'cause you aren't contractually allowed to work freely
But that's not Open Source, of course.
Bruce Perens.
I can certainly see them making it "free" like IE to capture the market, with fairly generous source code licensing to manufacturing partners (it's not that hard to get the WinCE compared to, say, the Win2000 source code). This could help convince some manufacturers, but I think that opening the source would be a little dangerous. It would be too easy to clone the APIs and the interesting parts of the system. Of course, it would force Palm to, basically, do the same thing, just as they hit Netscape.
They'd also run into possible "dumping" laws in the antitrust world, since it would be SUCH a transparent attempt to cut off the PalmOS's lifeline.
--JRZ
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
I think that if we look at what could happen with this we'd find it would have some major effects through the open source community :) :)
Microsoft will have to lure the typically open source developer to even spend the bandwidth to download it, much less develop it.
This is well within their means -- in fact probably would be cheaper for them to bring out a few hunder OSS developers than paying for in house development
The major problem is not from that - but from the media hype that would ensue.
The major argument against 'open source' is that it's not commercially backed -- if Microsoft releases something that they are calling open source, regardless of it's actual license (I'd die of a heart attack if I saw wince under the GPL)
As the media says, "Microsoft is doing Open Source, you should too" the open source craze could get magnified by a thousand times, and Microsoft could shoot themselves in the foot with this. That would rock.
Of course it could just be another method to show that Microsoft is better than *nix/open source software/et al. because they have their own open source.
Either way if this actually happens some serious changes will occur in the community -- I'm hoping Microsoft shoots themselves
-= Making the world a better place =-
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
I would be curious to know what aspect of OSS they are trying to benefit from. Are they interested in seeing WinCE ported to lots of different architectures? Do they just want users to fix their bugs for them? Or do they just open source hype?
I agree with the other commentators that we would most likely see a SCSL-type deal.
Possibly they want to use the hype to steal mindshare from PalmOS? "We're open source, PalmOS isn't!"?
Dana
Lets assume Microsoft does open source Windows CE. What do we gain? We'll be able to ead the source and see what it really does, and maybe us programmers can fix the occasional bug in our own personal copies.
Will we be able to create our own distributions of Windows CE? Almost definitely not. Will we be able to fix the the underlying architecture problems? Very unlikely. Open source doesn't mean we can do what we want with it, just that it's also available in a alternative format to binary.
So what we would gain with an open source Windows CE is the ability to see what the OS is really doing, which is very useful for application developers.
I've got a Casio E-100 and love the hardware to pieces. Unfortunately, Windows CE drags its otherwise speedy 131 MhZ processor to almost a standstill. It's so bad it can't be anything but an architecture problem.
Check out the Linux port to Palm-sized and handheld PCs. It shows great promise of being able to replace Windows CE on handhelds soon.
LinuxCE.