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

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

#81

Post by loumf »

sremani wrote: post #54
masklinn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bell Labs was founded by Ma Bell, it's hard to top that and MSR does not come close.

are you privy to research in either of the organizations. I know its great to revere age old organizations but as we are speaking the best research is probably being conducted in a place we least expect. I am not privy to research at Ma Bell or only the published elements of Microsoft Research - so your reaction is more of an instinct than any factual basis.

Bell Lab's results are widely known. I'll just point to two: C and the Transistor, as being pretty hard to beat (there's much more).

In any case, the parent commenters point wasn't the difference in the two research lab's results, but the difference in philosophies between the labs and their respective parent companies.

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

#82

Post by dalek2point3 »

e1ven wrote: post #8
dalek2point3 wrote: post #3

just in case someone from MS is reading -- is it also possible to put this code under the public domain or at least under a free license? I'm very worried about the fact that some of this old code, though useless to MS at this moment, will be lost for follow-on use by folks today.

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 wo…

but, but -- you're assuming that what I want to do is build on DOS to do what DOS did but better. What if I wanted to visualize the code in some interesting way? What if I wanted to compare the first versions of Linux and DOS and compare them for their modularity and do a research project on how they affected productivity in firms? And these are only the use cases that I could think of while finishing my cup of tea ...

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

#83

Post by dalek2point3 »

logicallee wrote: post #57
shmerl wrote: post #43

is it useful for DOSbox?

Useful ? The next three weeks of HN will be: MS-DOS cross-compiled to JAVASCRIPT. MS-DOS running in pure CSS. Word for Windows as pure HTML 5 ( element). DOOM RUNNING NATIVELY on NATIVE MS-DOS on a PEBBLE.

brilliant, love it.

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

#85

Post by derefr »

bunderbunder wrote: post #70
spodek wrote: post #10

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 Softwar…

> Under what license? Can we view, modify, redistribute? Just speaking for myself, I come down pretty firmly in the "Don't know, don't care" camp for both questions. In a world where FreeDOS exists, there just isn't any practical value to having the source code to MS-DOS 2.0 available under a truly open license. That code's only interesting as a historical exhibit. If all we can do is look at it and go, "Huh, so that…

The important question, I think, is: can the FreeDOS folks read the MS-DOS source, and then continue to work on FreeDOS?

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

#86

Post by e1ven »

dalek2point3 wrote: post #82
e1ven wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wo…

but, but -- you're assuming that what I want to do is build on DOS to do what DOS did but better. What if I wanted to visualize the code in some interesting way? What if I wanted to compare the first versions of Linux and DOS and compare them for their modularity and do a research project on how they affected productivity in firms? And these are only the use cases that I could think of while finishing my cup of tea .…

Fair enough, those sound like awesome projects. The difference between the MS license and most OSS licenses is that this does not include redistribution.

I'm a proponent of OSS, and if MS wanted to release this under MIT that'd be great.. But I have a hard time thinking of projects that are stopped by the current license.

My guess is that creating a visualization would be a rather transformative use of the work - Redistributing your resulting visualization would likely be firmly in fair use territory.

Comparing the code for modularity is writing an essay. You don't need a redistribution license for the code to do that.

In any event, I hope they do eventually release using an open license. But as a fan of the history of our industry, I'm glad they released it at all.

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

#87

Post by derefr »

ct1 wrote: post #44
RyanZAG wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only are you not allowed to distribute it by the license, actually distributing it would get you sued for patent violation. Using anything you find in the code will probably get you sued for patent violation, too. EDIT: I can just imagine a future lawsuit: A: Did you read the MS-DOS source code released by Microsoft on XX? We have logs to show you downloaded it. B: Yes, but that has nothing to do with this lawsui…

MS-DOS is maybe the ugliest operating system I ever had the displeasure of using. There's very little to learn from operating system design point of view in there, and better sources are available under more permissive licenses -- ie open source licenses. It looks like a PR stunt to me.

Given Satya Nadella's CEOship, and the sort of guy he is, I'm fully ready to believe that this is the start of a wider code release. It'd make a bit of sense that they have to work through the licensing to release MS-DOS before they release the source to any products that use MS-DOS at the core of them--like, say, Windows 95.

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

#88

Post by [deleted] »

tanzam75 wrote: post #61
voidlogic wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't patents only last 15-20 years?

Right, any patents from 1983 and 1991 have expired. Besides which, I don't think Microsoft had any patents in 1983. P.S. Google Patents is useless for answering this question. "Referenced by" is included in the search, so any patent from 1983 that is ever referenced by a Microsoft patent (from any year) shows up in the results.

[deleted]

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

#89

Post by derefr »

breadbox wrote: post #31
herge wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can a license allow modification without redistribution?

It's sometimes hard to believe, but our current laws seems to allow that you can be forbidden from modifying a piece of software even for your own personal use.

I think where it would come into legal question is a situation more like "modifying our software, running the modified version on a server, and making a profit from the service that server provides." In other words, modifying for commercial use.
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