[ILUG] Windows to go opensource

[John P. Looney]

On Tue, May 09, 2000 at 11:51:54AM +0000, Caolan McNamara mentioned:
> Personally I reckon that the source to windows is of limited use to 
> anyone, a massive hodgepodge of tightly interlocking components numbering 
> a truly ludicrous number of lines will be very difficult to read and 
> understand. What would be of much more use is that all interfaces are 
> clearly defined and documented, the code to samba might be of some use, 
> but to force MS to release the new smb API and be forced to stick to the 
> published API for any new versions of samba that they sneak out the door 
> would better satisfy the major gripes against them from a coding and 
> interoperability point of view.

 You don't think that they would just release a new version, citing
"performance reasons" for not keeping backward compatibility ?

 If every major PC vendor shipped their own version of windows (as Compaq
do currently), Microsoft couldn't introduce "Value added tech", as the
Unix companies did in the 80s - because it wouldn't work on a Gateway PC
for instance.

> The same holds for the office suites and other technologies. Of course 
> the other set of issues which such as buying technologies and sitting on 
> them 
> (VRML, Where is DimensionX nowaday eh?) frightening venture capitalists 
> into not supporting startups in areas of tech that ms has expressed an 
> interest in , licensing technologies from other companies and using 
> market share to destroy the interoperability with the original version 
> (realplayer), bundling deals (Dell/Compaq) and all the rest are probably 
> of more importance than some archaic gently rotting codebase.

 Hmm...very true...

> Indeed being forced to document all interfaces (in the AT&T breakup 
> style) would be of benefit to MS themselves, bring a bit of structure 
> into their code. You can see the lack of internal documentation and 
> direction and even internal interoperability rattling around in the 
> internals of their own office formats, we can usually get a really good 
> chuckle once or twice a week when another obscenity come to light.

 That'll take a while. But a POSIX-style document for Windows would be
very welcome to a lot of developers...

Kate

-- 
"The fool must be beaten with a stick, for an intelligent person 
the merest hint is sufficient"                -- Zen Master Greg