Will Microsoft open source Internet Explorer ?
Will Microsoft Open Source Internet Explorer?
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: Will Microsoft Open Source Internet Explorer?
#2Wouldn't be a bad idea.
Re: Will Microsoft Open Source Internet Explorer?
#3Is there some indication that this could happen?
Microsoft has track record by not making smart choices.
Re: Will Microsoft Open Source Internet Explorer?
#4Interesting question. I know there is a lot of links between the core Windows OS and IE, so there would be certain parts that would need to be kept open source. Mind you, Chrome has the same issue (Chrome is not open source, Chromium is, which Chrome is based on.) Some parts of Chrome are closed and possibly not even owned by Google (Flash is one i can think of).
Re: Will Microsoft Open Source Internet Explorer?
#5Is there some indication that this could happen? Microsoft has track record by not making smart choices.
Other than the recent open sourcing of .NET?
Re: Will Microsoft Open Source Internet Explorer?
#6It is a good idea but a little late. It this had happened five or ten years ago it could have lead to a standardization of web-browser code. As it stands now, if I wanted the source code to a web-browser I would stick to WebKit or Gecko.
Re: Will Microsoft Open Source Internet Explorer?
#7Interesting question. I know there is a lot of links between the core Windows OS and IE, so there would be certain parts that would need to be kept open source. Mind you, Chrome has the same issue (Chrome is not open source, Chromium is, which Chrome is based on.) Some parts of Chrome are closed and possibly not even owned by Google (Flash is one i can think of).
This is the -rather interesting, if you ask me- list of differences between Chrome and Chromium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_%28web_browser%29#Dif...
I see it lacks a mention to the embedded PDF reader which, if I remember correctly, is licensed from Foxit.
Re: Will Microsoft Open Source Internet Explorer?
#8Is there some indication that this could happen? Microsoft has track record by not making smart choices.
Their choices were smart by shareholder standards.
Re: Will Microsoft Open Source Internet Explorer?
#9I would lean towards "no" but on technical grounds. In terms of PR/marketing it would be a great move and if Microsoft's recent moves are any indication it is not something behind what the company, today in 2014, would consider.
IE is not a stand alone browser. IE is built on top of dozens of different Windows components. In order for IE to be open sourced you would have to open source a large chunk of Windows itself, the two aren't that inseparable.
You could definitely open source the UI, but the UI in IE is fairly light weight, most of the actual useful stuff is not within it and providing the UI source would likely not really offer much.
Another useful question to ask is, let's say they do open source all of the components, then what? Windows enforces Microsoft signing and other checks on internal components for security reasons. So if you compiled a new copy of e.g. http.sys you likely couldn't install it anyway.
Plus they'd have to audit the heck out of the code before doing so for IP issues. It would be very easy for every patent troll to point at lines within IE's code and then sue.
Re: Will Microsoft Open Source Internet Explorer?
#10Is there some indication that this could happen? Microsoft has track record by not making smart choices.
Their choices were smart by shareholder standards.
Not necessarily. Because the underlying rendering engine of both Safari and Chrome are open source, there exists a pool of software developers outside the company that are familiar with code. This means that there are people that these companies can hire who would be productive from day one. You cannot say this about Microsoft. How many people are familiar with the inner workings of trident outside of Microsoft?