Sunday, April 15, 2012

Microsoft doesn't make complete source code available


He move would greatly expand the availability of the company's source code to businesses, governments and schools. Microsoft office 2007 doesn't make complete source code available. It withholds source code related to code that's licensed from third-party companies, certain cryptographic code, and intellectual property that Microsoft determines gives it a competitive advantage, said Matusow.

The program isn't a full open-source offering; select customers can view the code but they cannot change it or share it with others. Those customers can also examine Microsoft security documentation the company doesn't otherwise share, visit Microsoft's headquarters, speak with Microsoft developers and perform their own tests on the code. Microsoft does allow modification and redistribution of specific products, such as its ASP.Net development software and Windows CE operating system, under a separate program.

Simon Phipps, chief technology evangelist at Sun Microsystems, one of Microsoft's chief rivals and a key proponent of open source, said Microsoft's shared-source program can't replace a full open-source approach.

"Shared source isn't about collaborating and inventing and supporting software like open source," Phipps said. "It's code that Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007 thinks isn't worth stealing, so you can look at it but you can't create derivative works."

Microsoft says 2,000 organizations are eligible to take advantage of the shared-source program. Companies must have 1,500 seats of Windows under an enterprise licensing agreement to qualify for the program. An offshoot of the shared-source program, called the Government Security Program, makes source code available to 59 governments around the world, and to the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Community, Matusow said.

The expansion of the program underscores Microsoft's efforts to embrace open-source concepts that underlie the popular Linux operating system, Apache Web server software and MySQL database, and that allow source code to be viewed, modified and redistributed by developers large and small. By contrast, Microsoft has traditionally retained tight control over its source code. But growing popularity of open-source software, especially among government agencies, has forced Microsoft to open its software vault, if only a bit.

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