Brad McCormick wrote: > I think that Microsoft should be required to disclose all their > APIs and make the source code and all internal documentation > available to all interested parties before it reached alpha > test stage and that the information should be kept up > to date in real time.
This concept is also known as Open Source. Unfortunately, M$ has declared Open Source to be evil communism, and strictly rejects this concept for M$ software. (That's understandable, because this would be the end of M$.) Anyway, it is interesting to note that currently there's a debate in Germany over whether the German parliament should switch from M$ to Linux (for security reasons, e.g. no N$A trapdoors hidden in the code), and under pressure of this, M$ has offered to provide the source code for verification purposes to the parliament (not public, of course). But then, how are the parliament's experts supposed to check whether the presented WinDOS source code (millions of lines of code) actually corresponds to the compiled object code ? Btw, a German computer magazine found out that the member of parliament (a software engineer) who posed as "impartial expert" in this debate, has been paid by M$. So much for M$ transparency... > The Frito Lays and Kenneth Shills of this world > will sooner or later find a way to deploy transparency > to deceive us and make a "killing" -- with the > well-meaning help of the George no-Bushido's of this world. And <<make a "killing">> can be taken literally at least in some cases -- e.g. the Unocal-Bush-Carlyle-BinLaden-Taliban connection. Umm, yes, the Unocal HQ is also in Houston, TX. Makes the Enron scandal look like peanuts. (see e.g. http://www.thedubyareport.com/bushbin.html ) Chris
