[ale] pigs do fly

[Michael B. Trausch]

On Tue, 21 Jul 2009, Tim Watts wrote:

> On Tuesday 21 July 2009 5:21:45 am Michael B. Trausch wrote:
>> (most of MS'
>> products are open source if you have enough money).
>
> Whoa! Surely you misspoke. Any basic definition of this term means that I can
> freely access, modify and share the source code. Sure, I can get the MS source
> with enough money, but I can't share it with anyone without huge legal risks.
> I'm not sure I'd even be allowed to modify/build/deploy it in my own company
> (i.e. they'll sell you the code for debugging purposes only). How does that
> qualify as open source?

No, I did not misspeak.  "Open source" and "free software" mean two very 
different things; all free software is open source, but the inverse is not 
true.  All open source means is that the source is available to someone to at 
least view; this is why one should say "free software" when that is what they 
mean, and if necessary additionally qualified with a reference to that 
definition.  I've heard people use "software libre" to say the same thing, 
less ambiguiously, which also works.

Microsoft calls their entire family of source licenses "shared source".  Some 
of them permit modification, some do not; same goes for redistribution, 
re-licensing, etc.

Now, it should be qualified:  large customers receive source code under a 
highly restricted source license, and can redistribute internally.  While 
open, it is neither unrestricted nor externally transparent.  Still, it is not 
completely closed by definition, because if that were the case, Microsoft 
would not release the sources at all, to anyone.

> But more on-topic: I agree that this code deserves an unbiased review. But I
> also think that, given MS's long history of undermining interoperability and
> cooperation and their ruthless market behaviour, their contributions should be
> regarded with more circumspect than others. It's not paranoia when they really
> are out to get you :-)

Well, all that aside, I should hope that all contributions to the kernel are 
reviewed with the same scrutiny; it doesn't matter if you're Microsoft Corp. 
or IBM, Alan Cox or Steve Maguire.  The code should be evaluated for exploits, 
incorrect usage, and so forth, all the same.

 	--- Mike