Judge Says Microsoft Must Give States Windows Code 610
murphro (along with many others) writes, "Reuters is posting a story describing how the Judge has ordered the release of Windows code to the states seeking antitrust sanctions. I doubt it will actually happen (because MS will fight it this to the end). But if it did, do you think we commoners would ever see it? And if you did get your hands on the code, what would you do with it?" Here's the Yahoo link. (The same Reuters story is on dozens of other sites, too.)
Hmm... (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe line my birdcage w/ it?
Hopefully not. (Score:5, Insightful)
I may be wrong but...... (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's what Novel, AOL, Lotus (IBM), ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Didn't an NT fix pack a while ago prevent Lotus Notes server from working? What's this about Netscape era seiniew? There's got to be current things that are more than just screwups or inside jokes. MS has a long track record of this sort of thing.
Now, the only question is; Can the source be siezed to prevent modification? Is it too late already?
As useful as... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:lol (Score:4, Insightful)
Derek
Things I'd do with windows to make it awesome (Score:1, Insightful)
#2: Have a logger folder, that keeps track of when files get moved and changed, and backs up files in cache format when replaced. This way if you get a virus(or spyware), you can just delete a level of folders and be back to your last OS state. Also if you overwrite a critical file you could always get it.
#3: Do the same thing with DLL files as registry. Make DLL files chained valid with the program that created them. So one program can't invalidate another program by modifying the DLL
Then I'd probably like some more customization, like a copy/paste ring. But I wouldn't code this shit, I mean seriously, the time for work on this junk is over and the monopoly is in place. Once the big guy takes over you just have to trust that they'll altruistically build their code.
If I were Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
Source code is also no good if it can't compile and be run. Do the state experts have the necessary compilers to do this? I bet it's not a vanilla MS-C or MS-C++. And we all know that you can't trust the compiler [acm.org].
If you suspect that someone is untrustworthy then asking them for their written documentation of their untrustworthyness cannot be trusted.
HA! They should use that as a defense!!
I'm guilty but you can't take my word for it, I'm a liar.
Re:Of course IE can be removed... READ! (Score:5, Insightful)
The most damning evidence that a browswer doesn't have to be so close to the kernel (in the kernel???) is IE for Macintosh. Its a damn fine browser that is nothing more than a standalone app. Sure, Microsoft bitches that IE is needed for product updates and help, but that is -- again -- only by MS design. Apple, Debian, Mandrake, et al have all shown that updating can also be a stand alone application. And Gnome and (I assume) KDE have shown you can have HTML help with a regular app browser.
The contention that IE is neccessary for the OS to run properly is true, but only because MS specifically designed it that way. I've always found the arguement "hey, we're guilty but we can't seperate IE from the OS because its too deeply tied together" the same as Firestone saying "hey, we know we produced crap tires, but we shouldn't have to change the way we made 'em because that would require retooling the tire production line."
Can of MS worms (Score:3, Insightful)
At least two issues come out of this with regards the case though:
Re:what would we do with it? (Score:1, Insightful)
I've rebuilt my kernel, and lost my zip-drive and CDR support along the way, oops. I'll search the net for non-existant support sites....
Windows has got it made with their windowsupdate.microsoft.com website. I mean I like to program and all, but I just want to update my OS, not become a kernel hacker. While you linux losers are sitting their "make menuconfig;
If Linux developers would get off their asses and made the OS easy to use for EVERYONE not just kernel hackers, the linux world would be alot cooler.
Tom
Significance of XP embedded? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:BFD. (Score:2, Insightful)
If that's really the whole source code, how come this hasn't cropped up on warez site, or various underground trading methods?
I mean, that'd be rather nice bartering material for some people I know.
Re:lol (Score:3, Insightful)
govt should be able to regulate as long as you agree with it...
Isn't that sort of the point of an elected government?
What would I do with it? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:what would we do with it? (Score:3, Insightful)
what good would it do? (Score:3, Insightful)
Even the win95 codebase must be millions of lines of code, it would take 10 years for anyone to actually go through and map out what everything does. (Heck, rumor is that microsoft left mysterious code in win2k because even they weren't sure what it did, so as not to accidentally break anything)
Additionally, is it a question of 'can they do it with the current code base without breaking anything', or 'can it be done with modifications to the OS code'? If its the latter, then the obvious answer is YES! Source code isn't set in stone, and in the end anything can be done. Its like someone asking "Can Linux run without RAM?", currently no, but the kernel could surely be changed to run off the HD completely (why one would want to do that is another story).
Not Public Yet (Score:2, Insightful)
FEDERAL RULE OF CIVIL PROCEDURE - RULE 26(c)
(c) Protective Orders.
Upon motion by a party or by the person from whom discovery is sought, accompanied by a certification that the movant has in good faith conferred or attempted to confer with other affected parties in an effort to resolve the dispute without court action, and for good cause shown, the court in which the action is pending or alternatively, on matters relating to a deposition, the court in the district where the deposition is to be taken may make any order which justice requires to protect a party or person from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue burden or expense, including one or more of the following:
(1) that the disclosure or discovery not be had;
(2) that the disclosure or discovery may be had only on specified terms and conditions, including a designation of the time or place;
(3) that the discovery may be had only by a method of discovery other than that selected by the party seeking discovery;
(4) that certain matters not be inquired into, or that the scope of the disclosure or discovery be limited to certain matters;
(5) that discovery be conducted with no one present except persons designated by the court;
(6) that a deposition, after being sealed, be opened only by order of the court;
(7) that a trade secret or other confidential research, development, or commercial information not be revealed or be revealed only in a designated way; and
(8) that the parties simultaneously file specified documents or information enclosed in sealed envelopes to be opened as directed by the court.
The tables have turned. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The tables have turned. (Score:4, Insightful)
Um, only if you receive your livelihood from slashdot and also had reason to believe that a failure to vote "correctly" would impact your career. The issue is not that Microsoft tells its people about a poll. The issue is, Microsoft can -- implicitly, at least -- coerce them to vote a certain way.
Piece of cake (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Here's what Novel, AOL, Lotus (IBM), ... (Score:5, Insightful)
NT4 SP6 caused Lotus to stop working because it prevented non-Administrators from opening a Winsock connection.
This security access problem also caused issues with a great many other applications, not just Notes.
It was also fixed within a day.
There is an old saying, "Don't contribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence." It continues to amaze me how whiners continue looking for ghosts in the shadows instead of just understanding the technical issues, realizing people make mistakes and moving on.
how about this (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Wine (Score:4, Insightful)
Or it could be the disaster that kills Wine / Linux. IFF the WinSource is handed over for technical examination, it will certainly be in a VERY controlled environment and, most likely, subject to non-disclosure agreements or court orders. If copyrighted code from Windows wound up in any part of Linux, then Microsoft would have legal justification to sue distributors everywhere to block all distribution. Followed by suits against every name in the contributors list for the infected projects.
Out-thinking Microsoft is one thing. Stealing their shit is something entirely different.
Of course, it may be different in your universe.
It should become public information (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:what would we do with it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Kernel HOW-TO [linuxdoc.org]
CD Burning HOW-TO [linuxdoc.org]
ZIP Drive Mini HOW-TO [linuxdoc.org]
Now my first impression after reading your post, what benig so open minded about things, is that these HOW-TO's are most likely not for you. Much in the same way that Windows based OS'es are not for all of us (Read: Choice!).
However, you're not limited by that, wanna try Linux? Buy a distro, Redhat, Suse and Mandrake are all quite mature, quite *graphically* configurable and meant for end-users (Read: Binary Updates). Additionally if you spend the few bucks, (certainly not nearly as much as XP), you get something in the realm of 30 days technical, live installation support - I know many people who have used these services and been quite happy.
So as to maintain the topic thread, I would also suggest that you're miles off topic as MS releasing the source to a fellow such as yourself would make no difference whatsoever. Additionally, there is a huge difference between configuring a kernel, which is what you need to do and kernel hacking which is most certainly something you could never do
As for your final comment, agreed Linux should be easier for everyone, admittedly the community is not there yet. However, the above mentioned distributions have come a long way in the last year, patience. If you want easy and *NIX then don't be cheap, buy a Mac.
God, I can't believe I just did all that for such a trollish comment...
Re:Hopefully not. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It should become public information (Score:2, Insightful)
Once the corporate secret is public knowledge, it can be used by wine/samba/openoffice/whatever for higher compatability rates
Not that easy, I'm afraid. You say that you couldn't use the code directly, which is certainly true, but it goes deeper than that. If you so much as looked at the Microsoft source code you wouldn't be able to contribute to Samba/Wine/whatever (I believe that the Samba group actually put out a statement to that effect) because Microsoft lawyers would come down on you like a ton of bricks, and with some justification. They'd claim that the GPL'd code you wrote for whatever Open Source Project was based on theirs in that you discovered how to write it by looking at how they'd done it. Notice that in order to download the WinCE source that they've made available, you need to have a Passport to identify you... Anyway, it shouldn't be too hard for them to notice the patch that suddenly makes Wine work 100% or whatever.
The only way around this AFAIK is the way that Compaq (I think?) used to clone IBM's original PC BIOS: a clean-room implementation whereby you have one group of people who study the original BIOS, or in this case the MS source code, and who document every single function call etc. extremely thoroughly; this documentation is then given to a second group who have not seen the source at all and who re-implement it based only on what the first group have told them about it. Long, difficult, tedious, painstaking, but fairly safe...
In your dreams (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Of course IE can be removed... READ! (Score:0, Insightful)
That's what us Microsoft sympathizers were saying all along.
CP/M - Nasty price tag. Let's use MS.
OS/2 - Nasty proprietary lock-in. Let's use MS.
Novell - Nasty IPX protocol. Let's use MS.
Borland - Nasty non-standard widgets. Let's use MS.
Netscape - Nasty document.layers DOM. Let's use MS.
Now that all competition has been eliminated and we've freed ourself from all of these evil, expensive, nasty vendors, we'll just sit back and wait for the utopia Microsoft promised to us!
For today, we celebrate the 20th glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology. Where each worker may bloom secure from the pests of contradictory and confusing truths. Our Unification of Thought is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people. With one will. One resolve. One cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death. And we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!
Re:what would we do with it? (ReactOS!) (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The tables have turned. (Score:2, Insightful)
Marketing may vary, of course. Never hung 'round the marketing folks. *shrug*
Re:Next Automakers and then.... (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the tenets of capitalism is that there is no barrier to entry into the market and that a company should be able to compete on their own merits. Should a company be so successful that it attains monopoly status, that's perfecctly legal and fine.
However, when a company uses it's monopoly in one market to force it's way into another market, that's another thing. It's illegal and helps to create a barrier to market entrance for other smaller companies.
Microsoft has created a huge barrier to entry into various markets. Just try and get a browser developed and hope to have a marketshare of greater than 1%. Opera, OmniWeb, iCab, Konqueror. All very good, very compelling products, but they don't come bolted on to Windows, so where's the compelling reason for the average consumer to spend the time downloading the file or even pay for the product? There isn't one. M$ has made sure of that.
M$ should hand over the source code. Experts should figure out whether or not IE can be seperated from the system and have it still work. Right now consumers do not have a choice of browsers in any real sense. They get IE and there is no real reason for them to use anything else as it is an extra expense and/or big hassle from their point of view.
The government doesn't want to tell M$ how to do business, it just wants to set up rules for them to follow so that some semblance of just competition is restored to the marketplace.
M$ didn;t get where they are today by creating new, exciting or innovative products. They got there through rehashing other companies' products, marketing said products better than anyone else and generally intimidating anyone who chose to step into the ring with them.
What would be the punishment for non-compliance? (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's say that Microsoft simply does not comply with demands from the states when they finally make it past appeals (if they ever do).
What would be the punishment? Not being able to sell software in some states? Customers will demand it. More new penalties? That only means more trials, which will take even more years.
Meanwhile, Microsoft will be able to actually have the law changed in their favor, and only release source code long after they abandon the platform.
So what is a realistic punishment that will actually survive to have an impact on Microsoft if they don't comply with a request to release the correct source code?
:^)
Ryan Fenton
Who'll have access to whose source... (Score:2, Insightful)
I think their legally intelligent enough to see the probable inevitability of their source being subject to an external review, due to all the legal battles going on over monopolistic actions and such, and that's really the main reason their launching a FUD campaign against the practical legalities of the GPL. So that when their blatant disregard of the GPL license is finally public, they can claim the license holds no legal grounds and all actions against them opening up their source due to heavy inclusion of GPL code should be dropped.