Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

I wonder if they deleted all the "fucks" out of it. The Win2K source code was good for a laugh.

Download link: http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/microsoft-research-lice...

You may use, copy, compile, and create Derivative Works of the software, and run the software and Derivative Works on simulators or hardware solely for non-commercial research, experimentation, and educational purposes. Examples of non-commercial uses are teaching, academic research, public demonstrations, and personal experimentation. “Derivative Works” means modifications to the software, in source code or object code form, made by you pursuant to this agreement. You may copy and refer to any documentation provided as part of the software.

You may not distribute or publish the software or Derivative Works.

You may not use or test the software to provide a commercial service unless Microsoft permits you to do so under another agreement.

You may publish and present papers or articles on the results of your research, and while distribution of all or substantial portions of the software is not permitted, you may include in any such publication or presentation an excerpt of up to fifty (50) lines of code for illustration purposes.

This is a cool historical artifact, and I'm glad MS released it.

I don't think there's much to gain in releasing it under a broader license - I would imagine that most programs that would need to expand or otherwise build upon this code would be better served by using one of the modern clones, such as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDOS

They have a modern toolchain, are actively in development, and seem like they would be much easier to add features to, if one found themselves with such a need.

Under what license?

Can we view, modify, redistribute?

No one wants to get sued for these things, or being found to violate some end user license agreement with some other Microsoft software.

On the other hand, I'd love to find out that people viewing this code contribute an improvement that no one in Microsoft saw in decades that helps them improve something today, leading them to soften their stance on Free Software and copyright.

We can dream.