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Tim Thorpe (Blog) - July 10, 2006 7:35 PM

11 comment(s) - last by greyammit.. on Jul 14 at 1:24 PM

Could an Open Source OS offering help Microsoft?

Microsoft employee Ryan Rogers recently posted an entry on his MSDN blog questioning the possibility of Microsoft releasing an open-source software (OSS) version of the Windows operating system. In the entry Rogers speculates that Microsoft might benefit by opening the source to OSS developers for them to take a look at and build on. He bases his opinion on the challenges the software company faces in terms of software as a service, Web 2.0 and the decline in motivation for customers to invest in a proprietary OS.

Rogers sees open source operating systems such as Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris and others gaining ground and may in the long term threaten Microsoft’s dominance unless the company is “able to do something significant.” Rogers also speculates that shipping an OSS version of Windows would bring serious competition to the OSS operating system market and may even bring OSS enthusiasts to Windows. He writes that windows could greatly benefit from an unconstrained community of developers that could review and improve upon the windows code that Microsoft has written and the critiques that OSS brings with it.

In the closing of his post Rogers goes on to envision what such a release might look like from the company. Rogers envisions that it wouldn’t be a full version of the windows code that would get release but rather a developer optimized version absent of the thrills of the OS such as Windows Media Player, Outlook Express and other integrated software and asks if developers would be interested in such a release.

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the dumbest question i have seen lately...

By kattanna on 7/11/2006 4:09:26 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
Rogers envisions that it wouldn’t be a full version of the windows code that would get release but rather a developer optimized version absent of the thrills of the OS such as Windows Media Player, Outlook Express and other integrated software and asks if developers would be interested in such a release

LOL..that is the dumbest question i have seen in a long while...

Gee..would the world like to have a CLEAN OS free of unneeded clutter...

RE: the dumbest question i have seen lately...

By RandomFool on 7/11/06, Rating: 0

RE: the dumbest question i have seen lately...

By kattanna on 7/11/2006 5:01:34 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
I don't see a question anywhere...

read the last line of the quote

Parent

I believe it...

By stmok on 7/11/2006 4:30:22 AM , Rating: 2

...when I see it.

Its a known fact that open-source people don't trust Microsoft. They'd rather come up with compatible solutions than use Microsoft's implementations under their conditions.

MS employees may have good intentions with their ideas, but its the people above them that really triggers off the trust-factor.

Take for example: Bill Hilf, the man in charge of MS open-source research Lab. (Its a place where they study how to kill open-source).

His employees say they want to work with the open-source community, (see the Port 25 website), but then he pulls off a real boner and says: Most open-source code is terribly inferior to commercial software code .

There's a general rule in this world...If you wanna work with people, you don't piss them off or publically undermine what they stand for.

Oh <b>This </b>will never happen!

By vingamm on 7/11/2006 8:20:56 AM , Rating: 2

Not that is does not make since, but M$ will milk that cow till it's dry. If they are just now getting to the point where they Think That OS Operating systems are a threat. Let me put it to you this way. I work in a lab right now that is entirely RHEL 4 Rev 3 and Fedora Core 4 and there is no chance of that changing. We are about 75/25 Linux. I am not saying I do not like Windows. Linux is just making up serious ground and a lot of it has to do with it being more stable and flexible. Some say price but really if you are using Redhat Enterprise you are paying close to the same price for licensing. So for us that is not really a consideration.

Nah.

By Webgod on 7/11/2006 3:56:42 PM , Rating: 2

With Microsoft going on about reducing "the attack surface" of Windows by closing ports, building in the software firewall, etc., this would only enlarge an attack surface by making the code available to anyone. Hackers would have a field day.

I guess I'm confused

By Saist on 7/12/2006 2:06:49 AM , Rating: 2

I'm guess I'm confused by anybody from Microsoft mooting the possibility of open-sourcing anything that is critical to the company, but I think it is designed to be confusing. There is a strong difference between Open-Source software, and Free-Software, and I personally think Microsoft is playing on that difference.

Consider for a minute that Microsoft is the entity responsible for declaring that GPL code is Viral, and that the GPL is communistic. Forget everything else, that was the company line when talking about Linux and FOSS projects like KDE or GNOME. However, contrary to Microsoft's wishes, consumers saw past the deception and chose Linux for what it was good at. High performance and high stability.

Eventually Microsoft figured out that bashing the Linux users and Open-Source developers directly wasn't working. All the "Get the facts" campaign was doing was causing consumers to scratch their heads and wonder what Microsoft was smoking.

Since then we've seen a slow and subtle disruption of Open-Source software by Microsoft Windows, and I think the mooting of an Open-Source Windows plays into this.

What has to be understood is that Open-Source software is not necessarily Free-Software. Basically, the tenent of Open-Source software is that the source code needs to be readily available for 3rd party review. Just becuase you can get the software source code... does not mean that you are free to modify the source code.

That is what Microsoft terms Shared-Source. You can look at it, but just don't change it. Microsoft already sponsers several Open-Source projects that do qualify as Open-Source since the source code is available. However, Microsoft tries to do everything it can to avoid the GPL or a Pure-BSD license.

What I think Microsoft wants to do is subvert the purpose of Open-Source software and began to promote it's own version of Open-Source software. Think for a second about what would happen if Microsoft counted the Linux arguments made by IBM and Novell by saying that developers had access to Windows Source code as well. The average consumer would be lead to believe that Open-Source software is identical.

That disrupts the current purpose of the Free Open Source Software movement which is to promote computer freedom. You are not tied to one vendor, and you are not locked into one system, and you are allowed to make the changes that suit your own operational needs.

If Microsoft can successfully sell it's perverted version of Open-Source software while still keeping the DRM tied into the system itself... I would say that computing enthusiasts would rapidly become a dying breed. There wouldn't be a place for people to do what they want to with their computers.

Now, as to how the FOSS communities and business associates would combat Microsoft's perverted Open-Source objectives, I don't know at this point. It might be in the interest of the FSF, IBM, Novel, RedHat, Ubuntu, and other Linux based companies to consider forming a neutral foundation to trademark the term Open-Source and defend the term against Microsoft.

The competition is good.

By fus1on on 7/12/2006 10:20:10 AM , Rating: 2

Despite the politics surrounding MS and Open-Source, I think that both sides benefit from the tension. The innovation from the FOSS community is obviously affecting MS and causing it to rethink its position and to innovate (even if you don't necessarily think it's going far enough, it IS moving...). Conversely, the FOSS community is also spurred on by the desire to create quality software that competes with what MS (and others) sell. The end result is that the people have more and better choices. I think this is competition that is beneficial for all.

It's also useful to keep in mind that just as there are good people in the FOSS community, there are also good people in MS. It's easy to villify a faceless corporation, but I applaud the many MS employees that put forth their best ideas and code, and try to influence their employer to open up a bit, for everyone's benefit...

My 2 bits.

Don't see it

By Trisped on 7/12/2006 3:02:02 PM , Rating: 2

He says that open source OS and software is becoming more prevalent, but of all the people I know running computers only one runs Linux, and he doesn't even know how to do half the stuff he wants.

Open source programes are a little more previlent, but you still find many close source versions.

He is just testing the waters. If they are really good they will thing about it, but they still have more to lose then to gain.

Anyone hear of ReactOS?

By greyammit on 7/14/2006 1:24:32 PM , Rating: 2

I've not played with it but looks interesting.
You can download VMPlayer from VMWare and a live ReactOS VM image from VMWare as well. I'm sure Microsoft will continue to keep shooting theirself in the foot until they have nothing to stand on.
I already recommend friends and family to use OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird, ClamAV, AVG, Filezilla, Ubuntu. So many great projects out there. Just a little knowledge and you can do about anything you want with nothing but hardware costs.
The Open Source Community seems to have stepped up to the plate and they are creating great useable programs. I am constantly amazed by the varity and quality of what I find on sites like sourceforge. There are a lot of talented, driven programers out there.