What if... Windows went open source?
Submitted by srlinuxx on Thu, 03/13/2008 - 13:05.
When Microsoft talks about open source, people in the FOSS community tend to generally take it with a pinch - or more likely a kilo - of salt. Revealing the crown jewels of its empire - the Windows source code - has never ever been canvassed.
But, given all the pressure that Microsoft is under these days from different quarters, what if the company decided to reveal those jewels? Would it have any impact on FOSS? Would people in the FOSS sphere really care? Would it make a difference?
Microsoft's own people don't think much of the idea; general manager Bill Hilf was recently quoted as saying that open sourcing Windows was more hassle than it was worth and the company saw little to gain from releasing code.
But what do people on the other side of the industry think?
Window codes can be changed ? But they auto-update ?
Window codes are not hard to change. Dos is simple and hidden in Window operating system as well as their network operating system(BSD/NT). Registry sets up the port addresses and the file bindings(architecture) when you boot up windows.
Windows codes are straight forward with no file systems. You can add third party software in any directory, if they are monolithic. Windows does not use shared codes. Files are in binary codes.
Open source for windows is their binary codes, which you can use COBOL to disassemble, rewrite it and compile again.
But no one is foolish enough to hack windows; because their 25,000 programmers use auto-update to keep your computer running without errors. If you run into an unexpected error on internet; there will be an error report to Redmond headquarters. You reboot IE or windows to have the error fixed, either by restore to a given date or by auto-update on the next connection to the internet via ISP server in the .net strategy.
Linux open source is not compatible to windows binary codes.
We are stockholders of MSFT. Opinions here maybe biased.