Will Microsoft Open Windows Source Code? (No!)

mTor writes, "Cnet.com is reporting in this story that Microsoft is willing to open the source to Windows to settle its case with government. " Personally I think this would be pretty sweet. It'd definitely be a boost for projects like WINE. Wonder what license they would use? *grin*. CT : several folks sent us this Yahoo story where Bill denies the cnet story linked above.

The code is right here!

See, Windows is launched by a boot loader that executes win.com on top of the DOS shell. Here's the code:

void main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
// 10/10/90 - borgnum11034
// Hey Bill, are you sure you want to display
// that shitty animation for 30 seconds??
// It doesn't even do anything...

// 08/01/95 - godtoyou
// WTF is this CRAP doing here!? You guys
// never even BOTHERED to check the loader!?
// OH GREAT... we've got to SHIP with this
// you know!? You're all FIRED!

LoadAnimation();
Animate(30 /* seconds */);

}

A Boost for wine?

I don't think so. The WINE folks would have to comb through so many neck-deep piles of garbage in the code that they wouldn't know what to do with it. If the goal was to develop a windows-lookalike, I think it would be much easier to start from scratch and cut the cruft. Unfortunately, since WINE is trying to run applications that run specifically with that cruft, they'd probably have to surf the largest dumpster of source code that has ever existed - Windows.

What gets me about WINE is that it's probably not realistic to expect that everything will work perfectly ever, because there are so many programs in windows that actually DEPEND on legacy bugs in the windows API. For example, I've spoken with some lotus developers, and the cc:Mail that was originally developed for windows 3.1 that many corps still use depends on some bugs in the windows API. The kind of stuff Microsoft can't fix, because if they do, it will break applications.

What kind of project would PURPOSELY put bugs in their code? I think that that's what you're up against when you take on Windows.

I don't mean to slam the WINE guys, I think they're doing an abso-fuckin'-lutely fabulous job. They've got way more guts as coders than I'll ever have to take on that beast. :)

Even if it's true...

...and I'm deeply skeptical that it is, who's to say they wouldn't retain a few undocumented calls for their apps?

sure why not

As has been stated somehwere else, i think on firingsquad.com, they'd probably open source win9x and keep nt (and win2k) to themselves, after all win9x is what they're getting sued over and they're moving away from it anyways

Wow..

Upon reading the article, I find myself plagued with a coupld doubts.

They mention opening the source code Windows; not necessarily making it Open Source(tm).

Which could mean several things. You could download and hack and recompile, but it means nothing if it isn't M$ certified, for example. Or it might need to pass some tests or follow some guidelines.

Or you may need to pay some sort of license fee to get to the source; no one said it would be <em>free</em>, just that they would be willing to open the source/make it available.

All 35 million lines of code...

But this does mean one thing. WINE could get a substantial boost, if it were legal to use the source. Which means, perhaps, that Office would run natively on x86 systems, and with some level of emulation on non-x86 systems.

Or an X layer could be grafted into Windows itself, and provided as a modified binary, assuming the code/system was conducive to such an endeavor.

Oh joy, and would the DirectX libraries be included in this deal? Would that mean an OS version, perhaps OpenX libraries, could be provided for x86 Linux, WinNT(finally!), and even non-x86 Linux systems?

Would this mean we could actually remove all traces of IE from Win2k and Win98?

Could we build a WinX layer atop BSD, ala Apple's OS X? Could this be ported to other architectures?

Heck, could we do interesting things with Darwin, WinFreeOS, SGI's JFS and OpenGL?

Perhaps I'm being too optimistic here =)

-AS

Re:How about which versions on windows?

I am right now about 80% certain that if they open source any source code, it will be the Windows 9x source, which means NOTHING TO ANYONE anymore at this point, since that entire architecture is basically dead.

Windows 2000 is based almost entirely on Windows NT 4.0, so you can bet they're going to avoid releasing any of that. Remember that this lawsuit was about Windows 95 and 98. Now that the lawsuit has dragged on what? 3 years? its now pointless, because Microsoft has had it in the plan ALL ALONG to migrate their users to Windows NT-based technology.

Bear in mind that Windows 95 and its successors are nothing more than stopgaps to get mainstream developers writing Win32 code so that they could announce one day that Windows NT (aka Windows 2000) is now the ordained successor to the Windows line. They could never have gone from Windows 3.1 straight to NT because Win16 code does not run well on NT. But now that they've got every Tom, Dick and Harry writing Win32 code, the time is ripe for them to declare Windows 2000 the successor and that is what they have done (this was announced sometime shortly after Windows 98 was released for those who haven't been paying attention.)

So now that this lawsuit is about Windows 9x, and Microsoft has been VERY, VERY careful about AVOIDING bringing Windows NT or Windows 2000 into this lawsuit, I can be at least 80% certain that what Bill Gates is talking about making open source is the dead as a doornail Windows 98 source code. Big floppy donkey dick deal.

Take a good look at LyX

Check out LyX [lyx.org] - basically a WYSIWYM GUI front end for LaTeX. Once you wrap your mind around a few powerful concepts, it is MUCH easier to use than Word.

From the Lyx.org page:

LyX is an advanced open source document processor running on many Unix platforms. It is called a "document processor", because unlike standard word processors, LyX encourages an approach to writing based on the structure of your documents, not their appearance. LyX lets you concentrate on writing, leaving details of visual layout to the software. LyX automates formatting according to predefined rule sets, yielding consistency throughout even the most complex documents. LyX produces high quality, professional output -- using LaTeX, an open source, industrial strength typesetting engine, in the background.

If you can't tell yet, I like LyX. Powerful, open-source, and easy to use. What more do you want?

And what about zillions of Microsoft Patents?

What possible use is free access to the open source monster that would be Windows unless there is a responsible license that includes the right to practice all those patents?

The native WinNT API _IS_ mostly undocumented

> Please name some of these undocumented API calls.

Under NT, that is easy:

Inside the Native API [sysinternals.com]

Inside Native Applications [sysinternals.com]

Cheers

99 Trial balloons

This is nothing but a trial balloon (no pun intended) to see if opening the source would get MS out of hot water. BillG has learned from the master (BillC) that you can say anything and deny it later, saying "That depends on what your definition of "open" is."

So, make a (fake) offer to open the source, and see what happens. If it looks like it would work, you add it to the "possible strategy" list.

Now, if you think they'd open Win2000, you're foolish. They would release Win95 if anything. However, realize that most software runs on Win95, and that with the Win95 API/Bugset, Wine could run almost anything that didn't directly access hardware; i.e. anything that WinNT can run. Even is the Windows code weren't OSS, it would still be enough to clean-room Wine even faster.

However, I won't believe this until I see the codebase on sourceforce.com...

Re:Even if it's true...

Please name some of these undocumented API calls.

Do you believe Jeremy Allison (SAMBA developer)? Wham [deja.com], Bam [deja.com], thank [deja.com] you maam [deja.com].

keep dreaming

Think about it. Everyone who is realiant on Microsoft now...they'll be incredibly screwed when the Windows source code is released. Open operating systems have had the benifit of being examined by many hackers for security flaws. Windows has had so many security holes exposed just from reverse engineering...I couldn't imagine what the source code would expose.

Go ahead Microsoft, I dare you.

numb

What would be more interesting to me...

Given the choice, I would rather have Microsoft open source Office, rather than Windows. Personally I think that's their real monopoly. The only thing that keeps people on Windows are the applications, and Office is by far the biggest reason.

Say what you will about Microsoft, but Office is a great product. There is nothing even close to comparable. I know a lot of you people are of the mind that "Hell, I can write letters just fine using BogoOfficePerfect!", but if you want to do a complex document beyond the "Hi mom" level, the power of Office really shines.

If you don't like Office, then you haven't learned to really use Office.

--

Re:What would be more interesting to me...

Sorry, but I am not a savage. I use WYSIWYG tools. When someone bolts a civilized interface on TeX, then we'll talk. Until then, I have work to do.

Now, This is not to say that the output from TeX can't be much better than Office; just that the inefficiency of the interface makes it not worth it for 99.99% of document creation. If you are creating a complex mathematical textbook, by all means TeX is your tool. But if you're creating a business plan with imbedded charts, financial model spreadsheets, etc., well... let's just say it's not worth some slightly better-formatted paragraphs.

--

Re:What would be more interesting to me...

Also, when was the last time that you saw Explorer embed a Word document? In a frame? How about PostScript or PDF? Spreadsheets?

IE has already been doing this for years.

But onto you're main point... I have high hopes for KOffice, but what kills me about them is their absolute stupidity (sorry, but it has to be said) when it comes to their stand on compatibility with Office. Unless they've changed their mind recently, they've gone on record saying that compatibility is not a priority. This is just ludicrous. The industry standard document interchange format is Word. Period. Not providing compatibility is not just shooting your foot, but blowing your whole leg off.

Now, what might actually save them is that Microsoft has made noises in the past about moving to XML as the Office file format. If that happens, it will be a lot easier to import Office docs into KOffice. But until that day, they need to change their attitude or KOffice will have very little penetration in the "normal" world.

--

What the heck is going on?

Another version of this article was posted a bit ago, and then removed. Find it here:

http://slashdot.org /article.pl?sid=00/02/17/1942208&mode=thread [slashdot.org]
------
-Everything has a cause
-Nothing can cause itself
-You cannot have an infinite string of causes

New Microsoft License Revealed

Feb. 18, 2000 - Microsoft announces the availability of Windows 2000 Source Code under the new "Nopeekie" license.

According to Steve Ballmer, the "Nopeekie" license improves upon the popular GPL license, which is used by a competing operating system, Linux.

"Basically, we take the existing GPL and twist it to serve our needs, I mean our customers' needs more fully.
This is the way it works: We will be providing the source code for Windows 2000 on every cd we sell. This will please shareholders and brokers and keeps our stock price up, I mean keep our customers happy.

The "Nopeekie" protects us in the following way. Under the "Nopeekie" license, the customer is not allowed to actually look at the software. They can use the source in any manner in which they do not have to look at the source.

We knew enforcement of the "Nopeekie" license was going to be a tricky procedure. But luckily I personally came up with the winning solution.

In order to lower legal fees and improve our bottom line, our "Nopeekie" license will not be enforced in the traditional legal sense. Basically, we have negotiated a long-term contract with a fellow from New Jersey, a Mr. Soprano, to head an enforcement task team. Mr. Soprano will work directly with me in regards to this endeavor. He will hitherforth be our new Senior VP of License Enforcement and Piracy Prevention.

We immediately expect to increase our sales 50% over the next four quarters as a result of this. We also expect that 100% of our proprietary source code will remain safe in the hands of Mr. Soprano and the "Nopeekie" License."

So there you have it. It looks like a serious challenger to Linux and the GPL is stepping up to the plate, baseball bat in hand. What are you gonna do about it?

Tom S. From CNET.

Original Thread

If anyone is interested, the original Microsoft Open Source thread it can be found right over here [slashdot.org]. There were about 50 posts on that one.

Kurt, Your DB move failed again.

Re:Who cares?

I really don't care if Windows is free to use. I would still use Linux because I feel that my learning reached a wall in Windows. There is much to learn in Linux and that is what I like. Not to mention I can surf the net, do papers, and all the other things I need to do as a student in Linux.

The reason I care about Windows being open sourced is not so it can be made into a competing OS to Linux. I care about it being open sourced so that I needn't dual boot simply to see Windows Media Files. I don't want to boot into an inferior OS just to call my freinds over the net. I think Linux has come a long way as far having the essential applications that Windows does, but the open sourcing of the code would speed this greatly, especially if the IE and WMP code were with it. If nothing else this would boost WINE to a grand level, something I would much like to see.

For these reasons I am not interested in seeing programmers use their valuable time trying to refine an obscene amount of code to make it a worthwhile OS. I want them to spend a smaller amount of time adding to what we already have.

Unfortunately...

This would be a great thing for some people (although fragmenting Windows even more would be a pain in the ass), but think about this : A great deal of Windows code doesn't belong to Microsoft.

MS has NDAs with hundreds of companies, ranging from Apple (Sorenson codec, anyone?) to Intel to Unisys. Hell, I think I've heard there's some Berkely code in Windows that's legally undisclosable.

If they disclosed only what they had written, you'd have a pretty incomplete picture, which may or may not be useful.

Just something to think about.

An Evil Plot ;-)

Gates knows that open source hackers wouldn't be able to resist looking at Win source. So MS dumps miles of poorly documented spagetti code on them, resulting in real open source projects being delayed for years due to Win source induced trauma.

It's MIND SHARE that counts

Dammit, I'm tired of this "Take over the world" mentality. I don't particularly care if linux has 2% or 20% of market share.

Maybe not, but I bet you would care if Linux suffered massive brain drain, developer migration to another OS.

You want drivers for that brand new GeForce 65535? Sorry, there's no interest. And you can forget about the vendor releasing one anytime soon--there's nothing in it for them to make a few scattered hackers happy.

You want DSL? Sorry, your ISP only allows Windows. Linux is only used by hackers and frankly, we don't want to provide tech support.

You want the latest release of Debian on CD? Sorry, Cheapbytes went out of business because everyone uses Windows now. Not to mention that Debain is losing package maintainers left and right, the maintained package count is down to a record low of 522.

Exaggerated maybe, but my point is that though market share is nice if we want corporate interest, but much more important for the free software community is mind share.

Licensing Windows

Companies can already license Windows source code. We did it at Unisys for our CMP group. They need to hack away at NT4/Win2k to get it to support Dynamic Partitioning (where memory, hard drives, processors, etc. can be moved to other OSs running at the same time on the same system), multi-processor support with linear performance increases, and other main frame like features. The big drawback to their current license is that you can not work on another OS for five years. Ouch. There are several other restrictive aspects of the non-disclosure agreement but this one is the toughest to swallow. It is the one that MS would have to give up to satisfy the goverment.

Yes, but what is the OS?

Up until now, Microsoft has called everything the OS. Will this change? Will IE suddenly be merely an application?

More importantly, what about the dev tools? If "Windows" is open, but COM is not, this doesn't really mean much.

This story is bogus

Bloomberg originally ran this story, saying that Bill Gates said he would ``do our absolute best to achieve it" (meaning a settlement). The interpreted that to mean opening up the Windows source code, and ran the story. Here is the links where Bloomberg admits that Microsoft completely denies this story. contains [bloomberg.com]

Who cares?

Dammit, I'm tired of this "Take over the world" mentality. I don't particularly care if linux has 2% or 20% of market share. I just like to use linux because as a developer, it kicks tremendous ass. Windows, on the other hand, might kick ass if you spent several thousand dollars on development tools, but it still wouldn't be as cool as linux.

For 99% of people, the computer is to get something done. If you can get your job done, and work with other people, then who cares what OS you're using? Just use the one you like most! For me, that happens to be Linux.

So basically, who cares if a bunch of hackers improve Windows? If it was GPL'd today, it would probably take 2 years of hacking at least before it even approached linux in terms of stability.

Not Entirely...

They interpreted this to mean 'opening up the Windows source code'...

After the on-camera portion of the interview was completed, Gates was asked whether the company would be willing to open the Windows source code in order to settle the case, and Gates said ``yes.'' He then added, smiling, ``if that's all it took.''

"source available" is not Open Source

please Please PLEASE do not confuse "I can read the source code for Product Foo" with "Product Foo is Open Source". I can read the source code for Java, but I'd be in a world of pain if I did anything with it that Sun didn't like. Especially if I wanted to sell it.

Microsoft now denying this

ABC News is re porting [go.com] that Microsoft is denying Gates ever said this. From the article: "Microsoft Corp. strongly denied that Chairman Bill Gates had told Bloomberg Television in an interview that he would be willing to open the Windows operating system source code antitrust suit with the U.S. Justice Department. "Bill did not make any of the comments attributed to him about the settlement," Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan said. "The comments they said Bill made are just not true."

Less in my mind

We're talking about ridiculous amounts of code here. IF it was open sourced most people/"hackers" wouldn't even be able to compile it. It would take a huge amount of concerted effort to release a *fixed* Windows.

The problem with this in my mind is that the majority of Winusers are very apathetic towards their OS. They don't get bug fixes, hell a lot of them don't even know what that means. If Windows code is released it's available for the scrutiny of people who want to do damage. These people.....should they exist and find/take advantage of the weaknesses in Windows code could take out a lot of users at the knees.

I hear a lot of people say that security through obscurity doesn't work but in this case I have to insist that when you take away the obscurity you show all of the flaws. It really hasn't seemed that hard thus far to find security problems.....imagine it multiplied on this scale.

Microsoft recants open source offer

It turns out that MS is NOT offering to open source Windows. I got this from MSN Investor, a site that requires a login, so I'm posting the relevant part of the artcile here:

Microsoft denies Gates offered to open Windows code
February 17, 2000 08:38 PM
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp.MSFT on Thursday strongly denied that Chairman Bill Gates had told Bloomberg Television in an interview that he would be willing to open the Windows operating system source code to competitors to settle an antitrust suit with the U.S. Justice Department.

"Bill did not make any of the comments attributed to him about the settlement," Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan said. "The comments they said Bill made are just not true."
_____________
I'll bet / with my Net / I can get / those things yet.

Could this make Windows more of a threat to Linux?

What happens if Windows goes Open Source, an entire legion of pissed off Win32 hackers goes to work on it and it becomes stable and secure, and starts winning back market share from Linux?

Another good question: Would this be a bad thing? Real competition would probably improve Windows AND Linux.

They cant open source their OS code!

When people ask if I am ever going to cut my hair short (My hair is currently below my shoulders, and growing), I respond by saying 'I'll cut my hair when Microsoft goes open source!'.

This is not good. Nope. Not good at all.

JB