<CT> Re: Our Rights.
- From: Paul Neubauer <vakko@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: calmira_tips@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2001 19:06:19 -0500 (EST)
On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, David Burgess wrote:
>
> At 14:45 15/03/01 -0500, you wrote:
>
> >I think it is time to start considering our rights as a windows 3.x
> > [...]
>
> At one stage, the release of the Win3 source was one of the carrots which
> MS was offering in last year's dispute with the Department of Justice. I
> haven't heard any more, so it looks as though that particular avenue is dead.
I'm not so sure I'd want source. Yes, it'd be nice to have and maybe
we could see that some stuff was inspired or we could point and laugh.
But the _actual_ _full_ specification would be useful, source or not.
The WORST part of my job is "make X work like Y" specifications.
I'd rather have a real spec. -- it can be stupid, but at least not
"make X like Y" becasue inevitably the customer wants some feature
of Y in the new X that you (I) have managed to never even see.
Doing things like emulating or replacing win3.x does not have the
"moving target" problem of 9x/ME or NT/2000 or "XP"
(Run XP and make your PIII slow as an XT, invasively! =<:o)
Win3.x does however have another problem.. the same one that the
FreeDOS have (had?) which is we aren't sure we're even SEEING the
whole target. Even getting source doesn't solve this, at least not
as easily as a good spec. Source can be clever (or just bad) and
non-obvious (I mainatin Forth based stuff, I have threatened severe
injury to some who claimed certain things were "obvious"..)
The other gotcha with source for Win3.x is not just which win3.x
(I'd assume the most desirable would be WfW 3.11, not sure about
win32s) is the license. Microsoft is not about to GPL even
"obsolete" code.. and I'd doubt they consider a BSD-style license
either. While there are other choices (Artistic, for example) I hardly
expect Microsoft to use them, even if the programmers and techies
approved it.. it's the lawyers.. and that then pretty much means
some form of license too restrictive to be useful to anyone outside
Microsoft other than pure academics.
--
Vakkotaur vakko@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Paul Neubauer, N9IOG
Ned Flat: "Why are you acting like this?"
Yakko : "We're not acting. We really are like this."
Wakko : "Aren't we lucky?"
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