[Pc_Support] eWeek says this is first time Microsoft will use Open Source ... WTF?

[Bryan J. Smith]

Is Peter _really_ this clueless, or did someone else write
this?
  http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1859439,00.asp  

There has been countless Open Source (let alone UNIX) code
used in Windows projects.  More recently in the last decade
or so  have been the 4.2BSD IP stack,  zlib (LZ77
compressor), MIT Kerberos, OpenSSL and literally _dozens_ of
other, open source projects.  And that's _not_ looking at
Interix either (or POSIX compatibility for that matter), I'm
talking about the _core_ Windows libraries and subsystems
that Win32 program suse.  Microsoft continues to ship Windows
with not only the legacy code, but even _updates_ to various
open source libraries and other codbases.  And those were
clearly "embrace, extend, extinguish" moves.

Noting from the article ..

  'Asked by eWEEK what Microsoft will give back to the 
   open-source community for the MPI component, which is
   licensed under the BSD and not the GNU General Public
   License (GPL), Faenov said all fixes will be given back,
   while "we'll probably give the changes back as well."'

Is eWeek this NAIVE?!?!?!

Anyone remember what happened with MIT-licensed (BSD-like)
Kerberos?

Microsoft _promised_ exactly that, even in writing with
copyright holders, and it was held up *2* years (not until
almost 2001, 2 years after Windows 2000's release in early
1999).  And when it was _finally_ released 2 years late, it
no longer bore the MIT license, but a MS EULA forbidding use
for many things.  That finally changed because Microsoft was
legally bound by an agreement with the copyright holders, but
not before years of stalling (by a large company with lawyers
-- not ideal for the other side ;-).

This has got to be the absolute largely chunk of *SPIN* I
have ever read.  It's an insult to those of us technical, and
clearly written for the CIO who eWeek wants to portray
Microsoft as a "friendly face."

I hate people who demonize Microsoft.  I personally and
professionally _defend_ Microsoft regularly.  But this is
media/PR junk that is _wholly_incorrect_, _untruthful_ and as
a published, technical author myself, is pure _marketing_
disgused as an article!


-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)