Microsoft to Open Windows to Please European Union

[On the Road]

BRUSSELS, Belgium - Microsoft Corp. said Wednesday it will license its Windows source code to comply with a European Union antitrust ruling. The source code provides the building blocks of the operating system that competitors need to make products compatible with Windows.

The company's chief counsel Brad Smith said called the move "a bold stroke." Microsoft has refused to license the source code in the past. Software developers still will have to pay for the code, which open source advocates will not be allowed to "publish for free," Smith cautioned. The company had "just started to provide this information on both sides on the Atlantic" and regulators "want to see all the details," Smith added.

In March 2004, the EU executive levied a record euro497 million ($613 million) fine against Microsoft, ordered it to share code with rivals and offer an unbundled version of Windows without the Media Player software for what the court saw as an abuse of the company's dominant position in the industry.

---snip

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060125/ap_on_hi_te/eu_microsoft

This is big news. Glad some governments still remember why monopolistic practices are bad and have the will to oppose them.

[reprobate]

1. IMO, the beginning of the end for MicroShaft.

Want to bet it'll be ont he web in a week?

I know next to nothing about programming so correct me if I'm wrong, but with the source code open to anyone won't the virus coders and hackers be able to code for almost any malicious thing they want. And if that's so, who will want to pay for such a dangerous operating system?

I think I'll stick with OS X thank you very much.

Micro$haft's business practices are much like Bush's political practices. They've never invented anything themselves, always bought it or stole it. No innovation, just piratization.

[AndyTiedye]

4. Open Source is More Secure - More Eyes on the Code

> with the source code open to anyone won't the virus coders and hackers be able to code for almost any malicious thing they want.

If the source is open to everyone, then the holes in the code will be found and fixed a lot faster.

Holes in closed-source code are often only fixed when someone starts exploiting them.

[Penance]

6. Much of the Internet is already open source

Most of the webservers you visit run Linux, which anyone can get access to the source code for. The operating system that OSX is based on, the BSD family of Unix systems, is open source. One of the most secure general-purpose O/Ss around is OpenBSD, which is completely open source. In fact, if you want to take a look at the source code for the underpinnings of OSX, it's downloadable from Apple's site. Who would want to pay for such a dangerous operating system?

[Solon]

7. Dude, hate to tell you this...

But the only thing that is really closed sourced about OSX is the interface. The kernel and Darwin code you can download and view at your leisure. There is even, and this has been true for months, an x86 port of Darwin for you to download here.

Also, somewhere around 60% or more of internet servers are Linux based, using Apache as the web server software. You can download the sources for both here and here

[reprobate]

10. Yes, I know that OS X and Linux are open source, my point was that

there are so many exploits extant for windows which has been a closely held code until now.
Withe the code so easily accessable how many more will we see shortly after it's released, and how much more difficult will they be to stop? I don't know, just thinking out loud. But there have been so many as it was, I wonder what the future holds under the new circumstance.

[Solon]

11. Actually, I don't think this will change much, in many ways...

it could be a bad thing, for example, any Open Source developer would never even speculate as to what is in this code, for fear of lawsuits from Microsoft. Also, they already have a "Shared-Source" initiative with some of their development partners for years now. NDAs are attached to those, and they have to pay licensing fees, obviously. However, in this case, the only difference I can see is Microsoft having less choice as to who they can share the source with, but they still get to make money off of it. Plus it is only to be used to improve interoperatiblity with non-Microsoft systems.

Actually, one thing I think Apple is doing with switching to x86 archetecture that is bad is trying to keep it a little too tied to specific hardware. Due to the *nix nature of OSX, plus the access to the low level source of it, both current hardware vendors plus the OSS community can write drivers and keep systems stable. They can keep the proprietary interface(very pretty:)) etc, and market the OS as an alternative to Windows. Do that and they can easily capture at least 30% of the Market share by the time Vista comes out. Though if they build intel machines that are comparable to Dells in price, that would help too.

Hell, I'd buy OSX if I didn't have to buy a whole new computer, why should I have to anyways? Most likely someone will come out with a crack to allow it to run on ALL x86 systems within weeks of release anyways. Then I'll buy it, they will still get either way.

[reprobate]

13. Re: crack for OS X on x86 systems.

I agree that there will be such a crack. There are already emulators that allow Windows to run on OS X systems, like Bochs http://bochs.sourceforge.net/getcurrent.html. So it shouldn't be long before we see the reverse.

I have even seen it speculated in the Mac press that Apple will issue one itself on a future ipod update. Can't verify the truth of that, but Jobs is smart enough to see the market out there.

[Democrats_win]

2. T-Shirt: Microsoft is easy

[pinniped]

3. These chumps are also dragging their feet on the settlement from 2001.

Funny how the main USDOJ case was settled immediately after the * mob stole the presidency.

I'd say it was time to implement that $1,000,000.00/day fine but I'm sure that got scrapped, too.

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. Wow!

They'll still hold the copyright on it and aggressively pursue copyright issues, but still, wow!

This is pretty huge. That the EU could tie closed source to anti-trust is a significant development.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

8. Once it's done, it'll be published on usenet within a week.

Guaranteed.

Jeez, it's the quintessential wet dream of every hacker on the planet. And if you think there are Windoze virii out there NOW, just wait a bit.

With any luck this will mean they'll publish the full specs on the NTFS file system at last, thus giving Linux developers more than a half-assed understanding of it.

[Solon]

9. Yes, finally, no more Captive NTFS!!!!

To be honest, it doesn't matter to me, I gave up on Windows months ago. The last straw was when I swapped my old DVD-ROM and CD burner(two separate drives BTW) for a DVD burner that does it all. I guess after the replacing of my graphics card, adding a hard drive, and swapping those two drives out, in addition to the newer sound card, was it. Windows DEMANDED re-activation due to hardware changes. I knew that this would eventually happen, but goddamn, I waited on the phone for a half hour to reactivate it, then just hung up(It wouldn't allow me to do it online), said "Fuck this" and wiped my already dual-booting system(second hard drive, remember?), and wiped the system and put Ubuntu Linux on it. I build my own computers, and I upgrade them gradually, getting new soundcards or graphics cards when I can afford it, right now the major upgrade I need is CPU/Motherboard/RAM, the only things I buy at the same time.

[0rganism]

12. Why would they even bother? Just get away from the MeSs altogether

The EU was Linux's shining hope. Still, maybe after the EU system analysts take a peek at the Windows source, they'll be so horrified they'll jump right back to Linux for all things official.