About time - Windows Source

They did release source for Windows CE a while ago.

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"I would defend the liberty of concenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent."
Arthur C Clarke

Why is the windows source never leaked?
I mean if you count the number of UT2k3 leaks, and then think that there work many more people on windows...

Because Microsoft has the Legal Team from Hell(tm), and anyone who even thought about leaking the Microsoft source would pay for it for the rest of their lives (imagine how much value Microsoft could attribute to their OS source, then think whether you''d be able to make that in your entire life).

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The wind shear alone from a pink golfball can take the head off a 90-pound midget from 300 yards.
-Six String Samurai

quote:

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Original post by Mordoch Bob
Because Microsoft has the Legal Team from Hell(tm), and anyone who even thought about leaking the Microsoft source would pay for it for the rest of their lives (imagine how much value Microsoft could attribute to their OS source, then think whether you''d be able to make that in your entire life).

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only losers get caught

It can happen so easily, like "whoops now I accidently left my portable with the windows source code on in a public place while I was gone" or "huh? where''s my DVD with the windows source code gone?"

MS-DOS 6.2 source got leaked recently.

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Total Instant Messenger. It''s better than AOL.

quote:

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Original post by nes8bit
MS-DOS 6.2 source got leaked recently.

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Total Instant Messenger. It''s better than AOL.

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I wouldn''t necessarily say recently.. I saw it over a year ago.

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Kevin "Khawk" Hawkins
CEO and News Director, GameDev.net
Software Engineer, Raydon Corporation
Author, OpenGL Game Programming
Developer Diary

I think the catch is that you can''t re-use the code in anything licensed under the GPL or similar licenses. Which makes it rather worthless.

Resist everyone

What are you guys talking about? I''ve got the windows source right here...

.elendil67

leaked or officially released source of microsoft windows == VERY BAD.


Hear me out; Microsoft may release the source for experts to examine, but then those experts will never be able to work in Operating System development ever again. Why?

Microsoft still retains any patents and copyrights on that code, and you know damn well if these people work on OS''s later on with ideas of their own, Microsoft can claim that the ideas were stolen from their source, and they can shut down development of rival OS''s this way.

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Original post by Lode
Why is the windows source never leaked?
I mean if you count the number of UT2k3 leaks, and then think that there work many more people on windows...

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I almost wonder if the second leak wasn''t intentional. From what I gather the first leak made the game look bad, so it almost makes me wonder if they decided that it was in their interests to have a better leaked version so that they could at least salvage the situation a bit. (This is just speculation on my part, of course.)

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FaceHat Software -- Wear the hat.

Yeah, it is surprising that it hasn''t been leaked, even accidentally at some point in time for any of the versions. I''m willing to be that any one computer only has an extremely small portion of it at a time though.

I don''t think there is a way it could have been leaked. I mean there are ways, but it would be very hard. A company as big as Microsoft would have firewalls and sniffers in place. Just like at my work center, they can pretty much track anything you do on the network. So if they see windows source going out to someplace they would be very suspicious and someone would be in deep doo-doo.

I don''t think you''d be able to get the source on a laptop. i''m sure they have the source on a mainframe or some large supercomputer type thing being monitored all the time.

I recall news in the last year or two of MS getting hacked by Russians. The word was that they grabbed the source code to one of the office products. I haven''t heard anything since. I''d be interested in taking a peek at DOS 6.2. Got any urls?

I''m sure their employees have to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements before employment. And besides, having a job at MS is a very good thing, and not many people are willing to give that up to hear some lamers tell them, "oh d00d, uR kewl 4 givin out the windoze source, u roxx0rs!".

My best mate works for Microsoft (in Ireland) at the moment. I''d guess that one reason they don''t have too many problems like this is their excellent coporate culture/company vibe - MS, believe it or not, is a great place to work. I know a lot of folks on these boards don''t like MS for various reasons, but they ceratinly treat their people well, have good working environment, etc. I know several people that have worked/work there, they all loved it. Far as I recall, MS also came second or third in some UK list of the top 100 companies to work in. That said, I imagine if you did engage in that level of sabotage, they''d go through you like the wrath of God, and rightfully so. And yes, naturally you have to sign NDAs - same as most software companies.

Of course, the main reason the source has never been leaked is probably because it''s very rarely all in one place. Think about it - the various Windows as a whole are an utterly massive set of systems, worked on by thousands of engineers, all working on different modules/areas. I''d speculate that it''s very rare for all the code for the entire OS to be in the same place at the same time - there''d be no reason for it, and if it was it certainly wouldn''t be accesible to the average Joe Engineer. Obviously it could be all backed up in the same place(s), but that''s probably secured up the ying-yang.

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Original post by LessBread
I recall news in the last year or two of MS getting hacked by Russians. The word was that they grabbed the source code to one of the office products. I haven''t heard anything since. I''d be interested in taking a peek at DOS 6.2. Got any urls?

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no urls but i remember my dad talking about those russians who hacked MS. at the time i didnt really know what MS was (i dont think i even knew bill gates ran it, i just knew that they "made" mcm, but even that was wrong, they published mcm [motocross madness]), and i didnt know really anything about computers =D

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Sam Johnston (Samith)

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Original post by Lode
Why is the windows source never leaked?
I mean if you count the number of UT2k3 leaks, and then think that there work many more people on windows...

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this is probably newbish and stupid and hypocritical considering my last thread, but thats life . anyway, what is a "leaked" version of a program? is it a copy that someone stole from the developers? (thats what i take it to mean but im not sure thats what it does mean)

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Sam Johnston (Samith)

They have release some preliminary pseudo code as part of the deal:

while (1)
if (memory_available() > 0)
{
allocate_large_chunk();
}

-=Lohrno

EDIT: Edited for extra } . o o O O (No wonder I keep getting errors)

[edited by - Lohrno on August 6, 2002 8:22:11 PM]