Why should they be allowed to copy the code? Thats just plain cheating.
Actually they don't want the code they want specifications. But once you have seen the code you have legal liabilities if you come up with something "too close" to the MS code.
If they want to make programs that are more compatible with thier OS's, and they don't like the documentation, then the source IS the solution though.
Professor Neil Barret was the one who rejected the documentation. The EU courts chose him from a list provided by
Microsoft of people acceptable to them to review the documentation. Microsofts own chosen expert says they have not complied.
The source is not the solution. It is a method of Microsoft saying we don't want to spend the illegally acquired billions making documentation so we will transfer the costs to other companies while leaving them legal traps that we can use later against them.
Now I am not a programmer but consider this. If a given Microsoft program using a given protocol sends data in 128 bit chunks anyone studying that program will think that the spec
requires 128 bit sizes and will code like that. Later they may find that other Microsoft programs use different sizes of data chunks because the actual specification is 64 bit to 1024 bit. Because they don't have the actual specifications they can't know that and can't choose a size that is most efficient for their own code.
Microsoft can also at that point change anything they want and point the finger at the other guy when things go wrong because by definition what they
do is the spec.
Think of the Windows metafile bug just recently revealed. Anyone trying to deduce a specification from code would have implemented the same flaw. Presumably it was not part of the specification and would not have been produced by someone actually working to spec.
Anyhow, after reading all of that it seems to me to be another case of: 'You just can't please some people'.
In this case Microsoft can by
obeying the court order.
People will always dislike Microsoft becuase, well, they just want to. At its core, it's not logical.
Just like people will always hate the guy who mugged them. Hating criminals is pretty normal. Seems pretty logical to me.
What if they get source? And 10 years of support to read it? People will still hate Microsoft.
For the legal remifications, time will tell; life will go on.
Legal ramifications is exactly where the problem is.
To use the MS source you need to establish a team that
only studies the source and
produces documentation (which Microsoft says that they cannot do themselves) which an entirely separate team has to use to then make your program compliant with the spec.
Those programmers who studied the MS code are now "contaminated" and are pretty much unable to ever again work in the area that the code they studied covered. The area that they obviously were expert in or they wouldn't have been hired to do the study in the first place.
Now if 3rd party companies can produce documentation from the code why can't Microsoft? Why should other companies be required to spend the money to create documentation that Microsoft has been ordered to create? I would guess that the Microsoft license to the code will prevent companies from sharing or selling that documentation so that the other companies can't combine efforts.
I hope that the EU imposes the fine and tells Microsoft that the fine will increase if they don't OBEY THE LAW. Sooner or later Microsoft would have to obey the law because the expense of breaking it would finally be too great.
If Microsoft truly cannot produce the documentation what does that say about the quality of their code? If they can't do it with internal resources then it is time to hire an outside firm to do it for them and to then require their coders to adhere to the documentation that is created.
There are many other industries in the world where one or two companies rules a market, and you never hear of them. As for OS's, I've used many, and don't dislike any of them. They all have their places and strengths.
Because those companies don't systematically break the law to maintain the monopoly?
Using your monopoly in one area to extend it into other areas is the crime that Microsoft keeps being judged guilty of.
Here is the method.
1/ Company X produces a new product and creates a sales niche.
2/ Company X grows that niche until Microsoft says "there is good money there and
it should be ours"3/ Microsoft goes to PC companies that have bundling agreements with Company X and says "here is our version of Company Xs product". If you bundle their product with your PCs instead of ours you will find the price of Windows (and Office if also bundled) goes up enough to compensate us for the
losses.
4/ Company X finds themselves cut off from being bundled with PCs. Since Microsoft makes similar agreements for prime shelf space in retail stores many of those retail stores will either not be able to dedicate space to both products or will be forced to display it in hard to find locations.
5/ Company X is now back as a niche product or destroyed without regard to who had the better product.
There are other methods.
For example you may have heard of the Microsoft Windows beta that would crash with an error stating that the DOS was incompatible. The beta checked for DR-DOS and crashed if it was found. Not because of actual incompatibilities but merely because it was detected. The result was that companies who were using the beta to develop programs compatible with the next version of Windows wouldn't support those programs if you used Windows on DR-DOS, after all DR-DOS was incompatible with Windows and any problems caused were Digital Research's fault not theirs.
The next phase was to combine the OS and the OE (Operating Environment), not because they needed to be combined but to kill off DR-DOS which is exactly what happened.
Kill any company that threatens the monopoly or who is in a market that Microsoft can add as yet another monopoly. Which is exactly why they want to exclude Open Source. Steps one to 5 only work in the market Microsoft is used to. The Open Source community works outside those rules and is pretty much immune to the normal Microsoft tactics. The only ways Microsoft currently has to fight them is FUD (which they are doing) and keeping them from connecting into the dominant Microsoft systems.
Next for Microsoft will be using software patents (which Microsoft is a proponent of though they formerly opposed them as stifling innovation). The FAT patent is likely to be the first one used, at least until it is defeated in court and it will be at great expense.
Topic: Microsoft offering Windows source code (Read 12069 times)