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What??? Clearly you have no idea what you're talking about.

Oh OSS is a hard bunch. You should see what we do to traiters? :>

BTW hope the Nessus guys are feeling better.

You keep telling yourself that. Take a look at the "open source software" you claim they have no relevance to. The FSF's GPL is by a significant margin the leading license under which open source software is developed. The reasons are various, ranging from concerns of freedom to concerns about code reuse, but the net effect is clear: the FSF does matter and the GPL is here to stay.

Ultimately, open source software can exist only when programmers are willing to contribute to the community. Programmers will only do that when they feel they're contributing to an actual community, not doing free work for corporate America. That's why the GPL is so popular in the open source world. The very thing that corporations hate it for, its ability to ensure the freedom of the code, is precisely what has enabled it to thrive!

Sorry, but the GPL doesn't hurt corporate America a single bit. In contrast, IBM, Red Hat or Google couldn't be happier about the hoards of programmers that work for them for free. The GPL may shift the industry from selling software to selling services, but nonetheless it's megacorporations that run the business and not the small shops and individuals.

I'm not particularly interested in the question of whether it hurts or helps corporations, and I didn't say anything to support one argument or the other. What I said is that the feature that makes certain corporations hate it (and certainly many do), is precisely the feature that allows it to keep a thriving developer community intact.

Quite to the contrary.
The GPL has driven down the costs of software, so that the pockets of the rest of industry are not as deeply picked.
Props to RMS, viva le FSF!

The people who run Adobe Photoshop and Maya will be glad to hear that.

They sure will once Blender and Gimp start to take shape. No matter how you look at it, the end user benefits from open source in almost every way I can think of. a) you get to have a free of charge alternative of to your favorite commercial app and b) that software beeing so cheap puts pressure on the developers (of the commercial app) to improve it/lower the price?

See the pattern emerging?

In 100 years time, when all commercial software development is dead, people won't be able to get a job as a programmer and no-one will bother to learn how to write real code.

The vast, vast majority of coders write internal code that never gets sold on a shelf. Maybe 5% of the world's programmers work for companies like Microsoft putting out what you call "commercial" software. If they all died or their employers went out of business tomorrow the economy would be greatly effected, but the state of the craft would not be significantly changed. This is a specious argument.

Free software forces commercial developers to continually improve their products and reduce it's price until the commercial developers can no longer compete and either go out of business or become a service based company.

Yes, it's a shame what Red Hat has done to Microsoft, what those Gimp folks have done to Adobe... How sad to see their stocks prices take such a beating at the hands of those pinko commie coders.

Except as you well know, that hasn't happened. For a variety of reasons, the world in your mind is not the world that has come to pass. Make predictions if you want, but please don't pretend that your paranoid fantasies are already fact.

But what if it does? What if software does become a commodity? Lots of things become commodities, and the world is almost always a better place for it. It doesn't mean that innovation stops, it means that competition increases and innovation takes place on another level. Apple's leveraging of open Mach and FreeBSD and KHTML code is a perfect example, even if that's an all-software example and it doesn't make some folks happy - but not all leveraging will be pure software plays. A shop buying Linux servers instead of proprietary Unix is doing a similar kind of leveraging, getting more bang for the buck - and a more competitive marketplace - by choosing a more open platform.

In 100 years time, when all commercial software development is dead, people won't be able to get a job as a programmer and no-one will bother to learn how to write real code.

A state in which programmers cannot get jobs is one in which no software needs to be written. As longs as computers need programming, there will be jobs for programmers.

Commercial software development is hardly the biggest source of programmer jobs. Very often, code gets written not because someone wants a product, but because there is a problem that needs solving. For example, in the engineering world, code is written to, say, to predict the performance of a new engine. As long as there are new problems to solve, there will be jobs for programmers to write programs to solve those problems!

The very thing that corporations hate it for, its ability to ensure the freedom of the code, is precisely what has enabled it to thrive!

Code can't have freedom, people can. Until you understand some basic logic, then you can't be taken seriously.

"Freedom of code" is a perfectly valid statement just like "freedom of speech".

It doesn't mean the code has freedom nor the speech has freedom.

It means that speech are free (from restrictions) and code is free (from restriction).

That's why we are talking about "free as in free speech - not free as in free beer".

So rayiner's statement is perfectly valid from a logical point of view.

Whether you agree or disagree with rayiner is another matter.

Code can't have freedom, people can.

Which version of English do they use in your country? The very first definition for "freedom" on dictionary.com is:

The condition of being free of restraints.

Can a license ensure that the code remains in a "condition of being free of restraints"? Sure! Ergo, a license can, by definition, ensure the freedom of code.

Ah, the subtleties of the English language! The same word can not only have multiple definitions, but can be applied to a variety of subjects depending on context!

Actually, its not even that subtle. The claim that only people can have freedom can immediately be seen to be incorrect in the face of expressions like "freedom to roam" or "degrees of freedom", which can be as easily applied to animals, robots, and mechanical components as people!

Well, the licenses are worth nothing as long as Microsoft do not release anything under these licenses.

But it could be nice to see and touch some parts of the Windows source. Then we could fix the bugs in the desktop - I'd really like to do that

You are right, if they don't release anything, then there wouldn't be a point.

I think it would be good just to have the source available, so that there would no longer be any "secret hooks" for Office, or intentional breakages to stop competitors' products.

Viewable (even if it isn't editable) source code means that you can no longer hide behind a curtain, because someone might look one day.

"I think it would be good just to have the source available, so that there would no longer be any "secret hooks" for Office, or intentional breakages to stop competitors' products."

I hope they do so some of you guys will finally realize that neither of the above is true. The Office team at MS no more has access to the Windows source code than you or I do. The fact that they have an arsenal of MS Windows developers at their disposal certainly helps out quite a bit, but there are no secret hooks...they use published API's, and that's it.

I'm really curious...what kind of "secret hooks" could there be? Some "secret" hook into GDI to make clippy move around faster? <g>

Heck if I know, that's why they're "secret"

Haha. My point is this though...what kind of secret API's could there be? It would be in MS's best interest (not that they always follow that) to publish any API that gives developers an edge...they sell more Windows licenses if the software written for Windows (Microsoft brand or 3rd party) has an edge over other platforms.

Hell, nothing is "secret" with a decent decompiler.

Well, secret would probably be a wrong word. Undocumented is closer to the mark. And as the anti-trust showed, there is undocumented APIs - and they're being used (or have been used) in final MS-products (and certain products from MS partners).

This was proved during the anti-trust case.

When it comes to secrets, you might like to look at this link:
http://www.futurepower.net/microsoft.htm

Now, this is not true for older versions at least.

Cannot say about it for newer versions (XP and 2K3), but they were many hooks as late as in Windows 2000, as the leaked code showed.

What hooks? I'm not calling you a liar, I am honestly curious.

I don't have my old bookmarks at the moment, but I'm willing to search for the sites.

So far I only found this 3 year old article, which doesn't really say anything.

I'm posting the link anyway but it's not really worth your time, I'm afraid. You can mail me if you want to at kristian AT herkild DOT dk - since the threads tends to become quite unnavigable (if that's a word in english).

-Kristian

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20020410_edlin.html

I doubt that. If all the hooks were published, WINE should be emulate it perfectly without any issue. They DO use secret API's.

But it could be nice to see and touch some parts of the Windows source. Then we could fix the bugs in the desktop - I'd really like to do that

Who's we? You would be fumbling around for months just trying to figure out what's going on in the code base. It's like asking a VB programmer to fix some bugs in the linux kernel.

I would definitely spend some time studying the source before any modifications were made. But I wouldn't be fumbling around, that's for sure. I'm a lot wiser than that!

And I had absolutely no intention of messing with the NT kernel. I was talking specifically about the desktop itself - not the kernel. I don't know why you brought up the kernel.

It's like asking a VB programmer to fix some bugs in the linux kernel.

You're not a programmer if you use VB - and a VB programmer messing with the linux kernel? Now, that's something I'd like to see - it would be like a talking dog.

It appears to me that you think I'm some sort of "never-used-windows" linux teen geek, but I'm not. I'd be surprised if the windows api was very different from the windows api (which I do know my way around).

We == everybody who may have the skill and the interest to modify the source

. o O ( Now, that can't be too hard to understand )

If you're refering to Longhorn/Vista...MS has done a pretty good job of releasing the SDK's for a while now. There was longhorn.msdn.microsoft.com for quite a while (no longer around, replaced by http://windowssdk.msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/libra...)

They want other devs to start writing code against Vista as early on as possible, and from what I've heard from sources inside MS, the external SDK is very current.

As for the people, well that's one thing that there simply isn't really a feasible solution to. One of the perks for working at MS :-).

*LOL*

Handing Windows API over to the UN? That's what I'd call a major IP violation. Does "human rights" mean anything to you? Does "constitution"?

Come on. I'd like Windows to be completely GPL'ed but forcing MS to do anything is not the right way.

I no doubt know more about human rights and constitutional rights than you do.

As far as I can gather from your point of view it smells like nationalization.

You're talking like a neofascist or "good old" marxist. Choose whatever you prefer!

Have you ever heard of democracy? Your solution to force Microsoft to release code of any kind is utterly unacceptable.

It seems to me you are retarded or just a troll. Nevertheless, I will try to reply.

Anybody who does is tainted. Any code written after viewing somebody else's source runs the risk of being open to attack.

So how exactly did you friend learn programming? Is there another way than viewing someone else's code and learning from it?

Especially if the code is owned by a litigious, FOSS-hating corporation that has enough money to hire more lawyers than anybody else on the block.

Isn't it funny that you make a statement like [...] FOSS-hating corporation [...] in a news posting about Microsoft releasing FOSS licenses.

And, what is MS likely to "open source"? More things that lock programmers in to the MS way. "Here, use our install." "Here, use our APIs." "Sure, they only work on Windows, but they don't cost you any money."

I guess they tried open sourcing someone elses OS but found out it has laready been done.

Actually it's dangerous to look at source code from Microsoft. Usually this requires a NDA or an equivalent to a NDA (e.g. most "shared source" licenses used so far), and due to the terms of the "shared source"-licenses used, you will have to keep that person away from anything that competes or could compete sometime with anything Microsoft releases or might release sometime.

But the new licenses seems interesting. But I don't consider them much worth, until MS releases something major under them.

As far as I can tell, they might as well have used the LGPL or the GPL instead of creating their own half-crippled versions. But okay... one step at a time (seems reasonable to me, anyway).

was that a detailed analysis ?

I hope not. If that was a detailed analysis, I wouldn't want to see a sequence diagram from him, nor a domain model

Actually I see this as a response to all the (reasonable) critisism Microsoft has gotten the last few years. Especially the situation in Europe forces Microsoft to adopt to reality.

You can't embrace extend and extinguish the open source licenses. It just won't work as the world is today. Unless we forget everything we learned.