> On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 8:36 AM Michael C Robinson > <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Is it possible to get the source code to Windows 9x and ME since > > Microsoft isn't supporting it anymore? > > One would want to get the source code and then open source it of > > course. Even Windows 3.1 and Windows 3.11 is closed source. Surely, > > Microsoft could release pre 9x Windows? It wouldn't hurt Microsoft at > > all since Windows > > is squarely NT based now where many modern systems won't even support > > DOS let alone DOS based Windows. I realize it would probably be very > > expensive to get Microsoft to cough up the source code, but has anyone > > even looked into this? > > > Richard Stallman apparently broached this subject to a Microsoft vice > president when he visited there to give a talk. > https://stallman.org/articles/microsoft-talk.html > It might happen someday.
My general feel is "not going to happen" there are probably things MS considers trade secrets buried in that code and no way in H*ll are they about to put TS at risk by releasing the code without a disclosure enforcing licenses. Yes, there are people who have access to this source code, no I am not one. It may be ancient code, but a TS is a TS and if you go release it as open source it is no longer a secret and your now out any legal path to enforce your TS. -- Rod Grimes [email protected] _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
