Shared source: Get a limited peek at the Windows source code
Sanders Kaufman, Jr.
Published: 29 May 2003 14:19 BST
Network security has two sides: While you need to keep the wrong people out, you also have to let the right people in. To facilitate this, Microsoft has introduced the Shared Source Licensing Programs. These programs are designed to provide qualified organisations access to the Windows source code, while ensuring that code doesn't go beyond the licensee and into unauthorised hands.
The product/service:
MSDN Code Centre Premium is the product that Microsoft is offering to deliver the code as a service. This is an important concept because Microsoft doesn't actually want to sell the code to anybody. They just want to make sure that the people who need information about it -- be it raw code or debug symbols -- can get it. The Code Centre works from within MSDN and Visual Studio .NET. You connect to, and view (read-only) the actual C code used to build Windows 2000, XP and .NET. You can even set breakpoints and analyze memory with debug symbols that are downloaded as needed.
Addressing open source:
While not embracing open source, this program addresses the open source issue as it relates to Microsoft's business model. Making the source code available to the development community is open source's strength because it marshals the efforts of a broad range of creative people. Not making it available to the community, as Microsoft has always done, ensures monopoly control and higher profits.
Now Microsoft has weathered a hailstorm of lawsuits challenging its business model -- and forcing them to revise parts of it. The next logical step is for Microsoft to take the good parts of open source, while still holding on to its ability to profit from the code.
Proprietary, open source, or national treasure?
If you followed the last 10 years or so of lawsuits against Microsoft, you saw that some of them sought to have Microsoft release the source code to the Windows operating system.
This is because some folks (like RealAudio and Netscape) were having a hard time making their software work right on Windows all the time. They often billed themselves as "Windows-Killers"; however, there was evidence that Microsoft was doing the killing by changing its code.
At the same time, the open source community was thumbing its nose at Microsoft because while it enjoyed the input from armies of developers, Microsoft had to shell out dollars for its developers. Notably, the open source business model doesn't have the profitability that Microsoft's proprietary business model enjoys. Still, by making the code to applications like Linux available to everybody who wanted to see it, it enjoyed a trustworthiness that still eluded many Microsoft offerings.
The fact that Windows faces export restrictions (and open source does not) gives Microsoft's operating system the status of national treasure. As such, it is a serious blow to Microsoft to have to surrender its ownership of the technology, as so many civil suits have sought.
Security mechanism
In order to limit the extent to which the code gets distributed, there are several measures in place. It is kind of tricky to put stuff out on the wide-open Internet, and still keep the wrong people from getting at it. The mechanisms Microsoft uses are excellent models for folks who wish to implement their own national-security-level security.
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