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Windows XP source code has leaked

gizmodo.com.au

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Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#71

Post by mindfulhack »

mindfulhack wrote: post #31

My immediate thought is whether researchers or investigative journalists will find cold hard US government backdoors. This is potentially big.

I'll reply with my own doubt myself:

There's a possibility the leaked files are tampered from the original code anyway, i.e. backdoors were removed before being initially leaked. Rationale being that Microsoft / government wanted to control the situation long-term by letting something tampered be what leaks out underground instead of the 100% full thing.

Torrent poster also discusses that possibility: https://www.reddit.com/r/windowsxp/comments/iz46du/the_windo...

Nonetheless, it's interesting if anything plausible is found.

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#72

Post by de_watcher »

anfilt wrote: post #20
cjones26 wrote: post #11

I wonder how this will affect other projects, such as ReactOS and Wine. Exciting.

It's radio active for those projects if some reason they tried using this info.

That's so sad that we have to waste time implementing bug-compatibility with the proprietary software.

There should be some law about interoperability.

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#73

Post by balola »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #39
wheresmycraisin wrote: post #12

> Would you believe more than 1% of computers worldwide are still using Windows XP? Probably higher -- XP is still popular in China and supported by third party companies there.

What's the demographic that's using XP in China? I find this super interesting...

Form my experience, mostly government and state-owned companies, which account for a big part of China's paid software market. Even some Shanghai government systems support only IE6 to 8, some only love IE11.

Most state-owned banks too, popular browsers are all duel-engine. There's little to no incentive to change what's working, and customers experiences don't really matter.

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#74

Post by Kliment »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #39
wheresmycraisin wrote: post #12

> Would you believe more than 1% of computers worldwide are still using Windows XP? Probably higher -- XP is still popular in China and supported by third party companies there.

What's the demographic that's using XP in China? I find this super interesting...

Industrial equipment control computers mostly - the computer is part of the machine and cannot be upgraded. You see this quite a lot outside China too.

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#75

Post by Answerawake »

codegladiator wrote: post #49
fimdomeio wrote: post #43

Forgeting about legality for a moment, this is great. Windows XP is probably the greatest operating system if you factor usability and how many people it has reached. It was also from a time where people still did not expect proprietary operating systems to be actively working against you. So it's great that this source will not be forever lost.

> proprietary operating systems to be actively working against you Where is this happening ? Are we expecting this now ? What did I miss

Windows 10 telemetry, secretly turning on auto updates even after you turn it off and correct me if I am wrong, even if you disable the update service or add the urls to the hosts file it now "mysteriously" undoes that stuff over time.

Windows 10X will probably have some more goodies.

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#76

Post by dehrmann »

kbenson wrote: post #37
dehrmann wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting that "open-source" doesn't imply a license to use the software in any way. You can put up a project on Github with "all rights reserved" (though you obviously grant Github rights to distribute it when you upload it).

You are mistaking "source code available" for open source, which means a specific set of things, and does ensure you can compile and run the code.

I chose the most literal definition because it's complicated. Debian calls it "free software," but that has its own issues because there's "freeware" where source might not be available and the license isn't permissive. Then there's the JSMin "no evil" (unless you're IBM, its customers, partners, or minions) license.

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#77

Post by rblatz »

jononor wrote: post #58
codegladiator wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> proprietary operating systems to be actively working against you Where is this happening ? Are we expecting this now ? What did I miss

The amount of user data collected in Windows 10 for example. Next to no user benefits, just value extracted for Microsoft. Automatic updates on reboot. For example when someone giving a presentation or class has to restart their computer for some reason (quite common in Windows still, or one just ran out of power). Boot up the computer, people waiting impatiently - and then have to wait for 5-30 minutes for the compu…

I go months without needing to reboot windows, and have for over a decade. Typically if I need to reboot it’s due to an update or software that requires a reboot to install.

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#78

Post by dgellow »

etaioinshrdlu wrote: post #41
dgellow wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be really bad for these authors to download or look at leaked code. That's exactly how you get yourself in legal troubles. That's why they have policies to not look at any leak, and even with this ReactOS and Wine already had their share of controversies in the past.

But realistically, how will they know if some random Wine contributor is "inspired" by leaked code? It seems like it would just go undetected.

Both ReactOS and Wine are open sourced, Microsoft engineers and lawyers look at their code. That's not a hypothetical situation, it happened in the past, the most recent news event on this was: https://www.theregister.com/2019/07/03/reactos_windows_resea....

With the risk of copyright infringement you want to be sure that you're taking active measures to defend your position in case you're facing legal charges.

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#79

Post by Flockster »

cblconfederate wrote: post #65
xyproto wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then Windows 7 came along and nobody said Vista was the good one.

i think the consensus is that windows 95, XP, 7 were the least troublesome versions. I still think 7 > 10

And all forget that 8 even existed.

Re: Windows XP source code has leaked

#80

Post by heavyset_go »

sdfsdfh wrote: post #25

Creator of the torrent posted on reddit about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/windowsxp/comments/iz46du/the_windo...

Wait, so is this something new, or just a re-release of whatever was going around on the net for years that was called the WinXP source?
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