> On Thu, 26 Sep 2019 09:02:44 -0700 (PDT) > "Rodney W. Grimes" <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > 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. > > > > One of those 'trade secrets' includes the _NSAKEY, which is still in > modern windows releases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSAKEY
Well since that is out in the public now it is no longer a TS, but I am sure there are other little bits of code in there that still exist today in current versions of windows that MS would not want you to know, or are only avaliable under a NDA license terms. But, yes, NSAKEY is a good example of what would be a TS type of item. -- Rod Grimes [email protected] _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
