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Shared Source - More than Windows.

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Thanks for the feedback on the first posting with meat on the bones. I’m moderating the comments in an attempt to keep the spammers at bay – but I’m posting all comments, positive or negative to keep this a space of “open” thought. Sorry, couldn’t help myself.

I’m going to repeat myself for the moment; given some of the comments, this bears repetition.

Shared Source includes more than the Windows programs. Within a business context, Windows is arguably the most valuable intellectual property in all of software. We are sharing that source code with a great deal of care. Our reference license is not meant to be analogous to any OSI license. (The big hint was when we called it “Shared Source” instead of “open source.”) The dispassionate view of understanding how platform source code is used and how our customers and partners want to work with it was how we arrived at this approach. Thus, the fact that well over 99% of those developing on Linux will never wish to modify the source becomes an important data point. I give full credit to those who do – tackling a source base representing millions of lines of source is a major undertaking no matter what OS or app you are talking about.

Shared Source includes more than the Windows programs. The challenge for any organization (and Microsoft is no different) is in understanding what the collaborative development model can do for that specific organization. There is no one-size-fits-all approach.

Shared Source includes more than the Windows programs. Looking across the spectrum of technologies that we produce, there is an enormous opportunity to reach out more effectively to the developer community. We have engaged communities well for years; witness MSDN, TechNet, the Visual Basic dev community, etc. But we always have room to learn more and to improve. We are learning from open source and thinking deeply about how that model can either blend or, at times, conflict with what we are doing.

Shared Source includes more than the Windows programs. I have categorized our approach into four community-centric concepts:

  1. Supporting existing customers
  2. Encouraging new development
  3. Enabling academia and research
  4. Creating opportunities for our partners

Any source sharing we do falls into one of these broad categories. I dismiss the idea that, if you are not talking about a core asset or a platform technology, then there is no benefit from source code access.

Shared source includes more than the Windows programs. Developer tools, samples, snippets, app-layer technologies – all are fair game. I’m not interested in source licensing as a religious battle, nor am I interested in hamstringing my organization by limiting our approach to a single license or technology. Shared Source is predicated on a spectrum approach – licenses, technologies, and communities. The open source community would be really boring if there were only one project – an operating system.

 

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    March 14, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    March 14, 2005
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    March 15, 2005
    In a barely-related question: Is there somewhere a matrix available of what MS source-code is available, and under what license, to whom? For example, if I am interested in writing an XP video/display driver under the GPL (or some substantially similar license) (which I am), what source code can I look at without tainting myself, assuming I am not willing to spend outragous amounts of money, for someone who is not an academic nor corporate?
    What if (and this one is hypothetical), I'm a hospital, which wishes to verify a random subset of the code used in it's systems, and has money to spend on it? What code is available to me?
    I count 18 seperate shared-source programs on http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/Licensing/default.mspx, most of which aren't clear in the short descriptions who they're aimed at, or what source is available in which of them, under what sort of license.
  • Anonymous
    March 15, 2005
    I finally got a chance this morning to catch up with Microsoft's Jason Matusow, better known as Redmond's point person on all things open source, and one of the topics of discussion was the perception that Shared Source is just...
  • Anonymous
    March 25, 2005
    The Shared Source License distributed with IronPython 0.7 includes multiple references to the phrase "that read on." Though this phrase does appear in approx 130 patent-related found via Google*, I do not understand what it means. Can anyone help?

    *
    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=+%22patents+that+read+on%22+OR+%22patent+claims+that+read+on%22&btnG=Google+Search