RE: Microsoft begining to open source Windows 2000?

[Wayne.Brown@altec.com]

No, the Linux way is to send the patch to everyone else who's developing or
testing the kernel.  Even if Linus doesn't accept it into the "official" kernel,
there's nothing to stop you (or anyone else) from using it yourself or
distributing it to others.  The Microsoft agreement prevents you from changing
the source, and if they decide to ignore your bug report, there's nothing you
can do about it.  Oh, and you have to pay (at least 1500 licenses' worth) for
the "privilege" of doing their debugging work for them.  That's about as far
from the Linux way of doing things as you can get.

Wayne




Venkatesh Ramamurthy <Venkateshr@ami.com> on 03/08/2001 10:04:25 AM

To:   'Alan Cox' <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
cc:   linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org (bcc: Wayne Brown/Corporate/Altec)

Subject:  RE: Microsoft begining to open source Windows 2000?



My initial thought after seeing this article was that microsoft was testing
its waters on open sourcing. If i have 1500 licenses then i would get the
source. If i find any bug in thier source , i  would report to microsoft or
send a patch and they would put it in thier next version. Is this not the
same way Linux Kernel is developed?. Only thing microsoft does not want to
immediately go full open sourcing and get embarrased at the hands of linux
people.