Microsoft Finally Open Sources Windows 7 Tool 284
Jan writes "Microsoft has
open sourced the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool by releasing it under the GPLv2 license. The code is now available on CodePlex, Microsoft's Open Source software project hosting repository, over at wudt.codeplex.com. The actual installer for the tool is now again available for download at the Microsoft Store (2.59MB). (Microsoft previously took responsiblity for the violation.)"
Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
Because heaven forbid the alternative: that they were informed they did something wrong and then voluntarily did the right thing, regardless of how enforceable the license is.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Their legal department would have told them that they could either release the code or agree a compensation settlement with the copyright holder. Download managers are not core technology for Microsoft and there is nothing to be lost from releasing the code, so they did that.
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'Microsoft voluntarily do the right thing', ha. It probably had to go through 12 committee layers just to make sure it can't be used on any OS other than Windows and must not benefit anyone who does cross platform development. Because of the GPL, they probably had to run it through another 12 committee layers to clean up the code. This took loads more expense and effort than they probably wanted to put into it and you can thank the GPL for that. It's probably on
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<spit/>
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Why is this modded troll? It isn't just a random flame. Microsoft has long and well established history in this department and it is perfectly valid to doubt anything that appears to be a deviation from it.
Last I checked Microsoft is run by the same anti-competitive CEO who refers to the GPL as cancer.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Interesting)
Two words: Vista Ready.
Mart
Re:Good. (Score:4, Interesting)
Because heaven forbid the alternative: that they were informed they did something wrong and then voluntarily did the right thing, regardless of how enforceable the license is.
[citation needed]
No really, is there a citeable example of MS ever having acted like that before?
I suppose there must be, but all I can think of is stuff like Stac which took losing a lawsuit to convince MS to do "the right thing."
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All I can think of is Stac vs. Microsoft was over 15 years ago.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it would really be nice if that were the case.
I have long held a more or less neutral opinion on Microsoft for a very long time, until they pulled all those OOXML stunts. Since then I have become aware of more and more of their evil scheming to ruthlessly achieve their goals that I simply cannot believe in a good Microsoft any longer. I'm not even out there looking for stuff about Microsoft, I just happen upon it from time to time and each time my opinion is confirmed more and more.
There may well be individuals in Microsoft who want to do the right thing - sadly none of them seem to be able to exert any power whatsoever. And while you might argue with me that this incident proves me wrong, from past experience I must still believe it more likely that Microsoft is acting out of pure self-interest.
Microsoft needs to be boycotted at all costs. This company can not be allowed to continue to exist while one evil scheme after another is revealed with nobody doing anything about it.
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"A company is not a conscious entity and acts of capitalism are not "evil" on their own."
Actually it is an emergence consciousness like an ant colony or... a human brain. As for acts of capitalism being "evil" on their own, you need to back that up.
"You have witnessed Microsoft make money in a society based around the freedom to make and lose money."
I'm not sure which society that is. This society is based on freedom from government oppression. Capitalism is a tangent and this society won't lose what it is
Re:Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
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First of all, yes, a company is an emerging conscious. That's the reason why we have the entire body of corporate law in the first place. If you don't believe me, ask a lawyer who specializes in corporate law. Anyway, you don't really believe that Microsoft isn't a conscious entity yourself, since you've said that Microsoft has been witnessed 'making money" and "further it's [own] agenda". You can't your cake and eat it, too.
I'm all for capitalism. After all, I'm an anarcho-capitalist. There is nothing
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We have no reason to believe that Microsoft is being honest of their own accord here because their track record speaks for itself. If what Microsoft did to the ISO committees on OOXML and ODF isn't illegal, it's downright dishonest and unethical.
You seem to forget that what MS may have done in OOXML pales in comparison to what IBM and Sun did. IBM and Sun stacked more comittees, wrote more responses for said committees, paid astroturfers, got employees to blog against it while all but hiding their identiti
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The problem is that it's also been morally defined now that it's the moral responsibility of executives to look after the best interests of the company and by extension shareholders. Turning down a lucrative weapons contract wouldn't well represent the interests of the shareholders.
If executives are supposed to be responsible for their share holders, shareholders don't vote on most individual actions and a company is ammoral then you've got a problem since it's nobody's responsibility.
You could say it's th
Re:Good. (Score:5, Interesting)
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I believe the most serious challenge proposed to free-software licenses is that since the software is distributed to the public for free there can be no damages resulting from infringement. If accepted, that line of reasoning would lead to a judgment of willful copyright infringement, as you say, but without any compensation required of the infringer. This would effectively render the software public-domain (which doesn't seem like a bad thing to me, but then I have a fundamental disagreement with copyright
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Well there is still the issue of punitive damages, which would make the code not quite free. Also, the fact that the code is being used for commercial purposes may affect the amount of damages rewarded. If someone took the poem that you put on your website, included it in a book and started selling it, you could collect damages even though you were giving it away for free.
I would liken that to "attack" not defence (Score:3, Interesting)
I see you like the play of devil's advocate.
This goes against the spirit of the GPL.
However, in legal perspective (IANAL), I don't think it will work out like that. You see, either you accept the license (GPL) and you get to redistribute the software under the GPL license.
Or you don't accept the GPL license, in such case, copyright would still be with the original copyright holders.
Now, any works under copyright doesn't have to have been sold yet. You can always discuss the price with the copyright holder f
Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
It is good, but I'm uncomfortable with how this whole thing unfolded. It reads like, "Woot... caught em! Engage the GPL virus! F-U Microsoft!" As if a battle was won and they're over there shaking their heads about having lost something.
Open Source is not supposed to be a punishment you get slapped with. It's about availability, encouraging development and creating better software. Let's not jeer too much, eh?
Re:Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
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You must be new around here.
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You stole my line!
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He reproduced that line lawfully under the SML (Slashdot Meme License).
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asking, not implying: is this supposed to be under GPLv3?
I give up (Score:2, Informative)
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"The Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool allows you to create a copy of your Windows 7 ISO file on a USB flash drive or a DVD. To create a bootable DVD or USB flash drive, download the ISO file and then run the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download tool. Once this is done, you can install Windows 7 directly from the USB flash drive or DVD."
Source: http://wudt.codeplex.com/ [codeplex.com] from TFA.
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Source: http://wudt.codeplex.com/ [codeplex.com] from TFA.
Ya know, I've created more bootable (and/or non-bootable) CDs and DVDs than I care to count. I've also created (almost routinely) bootable (and/or non-bootable) USB hard drives drives, USB flash drives, flash memory cards, and SSDs.
I've read the two stories, the two respective articles, visited any links provided, re-read your quote, and I still don't know WTF this tool is supposed to do.
Is it a download tool (ftp, wget, fetch), a CD mastering or burning tool (cdr
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It's mostly a bit of 2-4 wrapped in a fancy GUI.
Here's some action packed screenshots of the tool in action. See page 2 for action packed screenshots of doing it from the command line instead.
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2009/12/-the-usb-flash-drive.ars [arstechnica.com]
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This takes an ISO and will burn it to a DVD or create a bootable USB drive (DVD size or bigger).
Remember that windows XP by default does not have ISO CD/DVD burning installed, so if no CD/DVD burning software was installed, this will help create a bootable disk to use.
The tool works by:
Start tool, pick the ISO file, pick where you want to burn it DVD/USB drive.
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I took a quick look at the article and I have no idea what this tool is supposed to do. I couldn't even venture a guess. So some tool that I know nothing about and have no idea what it does now has the source code available for it. I think the term "underwhelmed" would apply. What exactly is a USB/DVD download tool?
Read TFA's discussed last weekend [slashdot.org] link.
For a company (Score:5, Insightful)
For a company that believes so strongly in the inviolability of Software licensing, it's nice to see them practice what they preach when it comes to the rights of others. Fair play to Microsoft for meeting it's requirements, and score one for the GPL and Open Source.
How will Microsoft spin this? (Score:2)
For a company that believes so strongly in the inviolability of Software licensing, it's nice to see them practice what they preach when it comes to the rights of others. Fair play to Microsoft for meeting it's requirements, and score one for the GPL and Open Source.
Yes, it is good that Microsoft did the Right Thing here and opened the code under the GNU GPL. But color me pessimistic. I'm somewhat concerned that in a few months, we'll hear lots of hay being made from this - and it won't be good for F/OSS.
Microsoft is trying to kill Linux and pretty much all "Free / Open Source" software. One wedge they have continued to use is "the viral nature of the GNU GPL is evil", spreading misinformation like "if you use GNU GPL tools to build your software, you will need to publ
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The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. ...
I must be getting old (Score:4, Interesting)
Now it's Microsoft publishing GPL licenced-code. TWICE (the other being their contribution to the kernel)
Pigs expected to fly next week.
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I mean, other than all the community goodness and hacker ethics and what-have-you, we DO want to actually make a living by FOSS, no?
Plus, it is kind of ridiculous for Microsoft to continue their claims that the GPL is not enforcable, or viral, or financially unprofitable when they use it themselves. These do sound like successes to me
Eee strategy (Score:2)
...and FOSS being the sane choice for the most hostile company towards it doesn't qualify as success? Do I need to remind you of their past EEE and FUD strategies against it?
The strategy against Xandros on the ASUS Eee PC amounted to slashing the price for an OEM Windows XP Home license on the smallest laptops and keeping it around long into the Vista era. Or what am I missing?
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The bigger news here (Score:5, Insightful)
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Microsoft has open sourced portions of their code before, that really isn't newsworthy.
But have they GPL'd anything before?
Seems like anytime they comment on open source, they make sure to give love to BSD and tell everyone that the GPL is the devil - or at least ebola since they are fond of the gpl-is-viral meme.
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"The news here is that Microsoft kept the open source tool instead of replacing it with one of their own."
I think you are jumping the gun on that conclusion. Of course they are keeping the tool for the moment. But no doubt they are moving at corporate speed to develop a replacement immediately! They should begin hiring people to do it sometime in the middle of next year.
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Finally? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's been, what, a month since they were informed of the lapse, and less than that since they acknowledged the error?
Show a reasonable amount of patience.
/. Bias (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't help but notice the "finally" in the title.
Really slashdot, can't you post any MS related story without personal bias?
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You must be new here.
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You stole my line!!!
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New here?
Vaguely related questions... (Score:4, Interesting)
1) What programs do people here like for applying .ISO images to USB drives in Windows? Is this one "locked" to Windows 7 ISOs or can I use it to, say, put Puppy Linux onto a USB drive? I tried to install this one to find out but it's telling me "This application requires the Image Mastering API v2" and I don't want to put too much effort into this if it isn't for general use.
2) Anyone know how to do the same thing in OS X? I tried using Disc Utility but it will only let me a) burn ISOs to CDs or b) apply Apple .DMGs to drives. I tried mounting the ISO and using that as a source to create a DMG and that worked, but then when I went to apply that DMG to a disk it gave up at the last minute. (Sorry, that machine is at home, I don't know the exact error message. It basically said "Sorry, can't" after I clicked 'restore'.)
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All this little MS app does is format you drive, mark the partition as Active, and extract the Windows 7 ISO to it. You can do it manually just like that if you wanted.
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UNetBootin doesn't work well with Mandriva One 2010. Or at least not for me. Of course, Mandriva One is a hybrid ISO. If you use their "Seed" tool (essentially dd), it will boot nicely off a stick.
unusual trend. (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft's been doing this a lot lately (a lot being relative to their past conduct).
It's good that they're doing good and paying down their negative karma, but sometimes I wonder if people are deliberately infecting their sources with GPL'ed code just to make them cough it up once it gets published. A windows 7 tool getting fingered for a GPL violation so quickly makes me think that the exposure had a bit of inside help.
Time will tell.
Kudos to Microsoft though if their efforts are sincere.
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"It's good that they're doing good and paying down their negative karma, but sometimes I wonder if people are deliberately infecting their sources with GPL'ed code just to make them cough it up once it gets published."
Yeah because that keeps happening agai.... wait this is the first and only time its ever happened? Shit, so much for that theory.
MS has only GPL'd code twice and the last time was because they wanted some stuff in the kernel so their virtualization would work better.
A better way to look at it. (Score:3, Funny)
You're standing in line thinking that the guy next to you, Steve, is a pretty normal guy; perhaps you don't like him a lot, but he seems to keep to himself. Suddenly Steve turns to you and junk-kicks you right up in your man business. When you come to several minutes later, Steve apologizes profusely. Apparently there was a mix-up which unfortunately resulted in your swollen nuts. Wanting to make things right, Steve allows you to junk-kick him in his man business.
I think it is safe to say Microsoft is doing the right thing allowing you to junk-kick their man business.
PSSHT to all you who don't like copyright (Score:2)
There are two kinds of people who don't like copyright (as a general concept) (1) Those so prolifically and amazingly creative that they put very little value in any one thing they create, and (2) Those who are so incredibly lazy or uncreative that to get anything they have to rely on others to do it for them.
People in category (1) are incredibly rare. Lots of people THINK they're in (1), but most of them just produce a hell of a lot of useless crap, kindal like that Shampoo guy. I've never encountered an
what is that very faint... (Score:2)
what is that very faint oinking sound I am hearing. OMG I see pigs fly in the distance!
Re:PROOF! (Score:5, Informative)
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Microsoft does not write all of its code itself but sometimes misappropriates GLP code for specific tool[s]...
FTFY
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Indeed, something similar happened when at I was Sun. With modern servers you just have to have an IPMI client for remote lights-out management. The most popular one is IPMItool, an OS product that got support on Unix-like systems early on. But somebody managing a remote system might well be running Windows. IPMItool will run on Cygwin, but Sun can't redistribute Cygwin, so they needed to provide customers with a native Windows version. For that, they hired a software consulting firm to make the port, then
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Or it's proof that they made some changes so that the tool uses public API's instead of private windows internals and instead of just throwing it out the door, tested the changes made.
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Wouldn't changing the code at this point still be a violation of the GPL? They released a certain version containing GPLd code, they need to make /that/ version available, right?
Obviously there are plenty of other reasons it's likely to take a week to do anything at a megacompany like Microsoft.
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If they did make changes to how the tool works with Windows (changed to using the same public API's normal people have to for instance) presumably they are no longer distributing the infringing product. As such I don't think they would have to release both, just no longer distribute the first release.
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It doesn't matter if they continue to infringe. They have already committed copyright infringement at this point. They didn't distribute with accompanying license terms or with a notice that those they distributed to were entitled to the source upon request or distribute the source itself.
Distributing the source for the binary as distributed would bring them closer to the spirit of the license but there is nothing they can now to change the copyright infringement. It's like a murderer regretting the killing
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Re:PROOF! (Score:4, Insightful)
This third party code would have been produced under contract as "work for hire". Presumably, the contract stated that the third party had to assign all rights to the code to Microsoft, like any other work for hire, and that the end product must be wholly assignable.
Most likely, the third party actually violated their contract with Microsoft by creating a work that uses GPLed code.
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It does surprise me that Microsoft would hire out for little tools like this. Unless, it's in payment for some other more 'serving' task(s). Like how they hired Mainsoft to create Internet Explorer for UNIX while at the same time they just about quadrupled the cost of licensing their Wi
Re:PROOF! (Score:5, Interesting)
I've seen some of the Windows Source code when I worked there. Trust me, it's WAY more professional than the Linux source code.
Microsoft's problem with code quality isn't the engineers - they're the same as everywhere else. In Windows 2000, they set out to eliminate BSOD, and they mostly did. In XP SP2, they set out to make it secure, and it's better.
The problem is no one asks them to do the right things.
Anyway, trust me - it's very professional, clean code, nice design, and not filled with hacks like the Big Global Lock that used to be in the Linux kernel.
Re:PROOF! (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm sure Microsoft's source code looks much more professional than the Linux source code. The company probably has rigid coding standards that all programmers must adhere to. Not only standards that have to do with the kinds of constructs you are allowed to use, but how the code must look, how many spaces to indent, how to format your comments, and where to put comments. In other words they probably have a 'grammar police' for code. (Do they still use Hungarian notation?). OTHO the Linux kernel was written by coders from ALL walks of life with different views on how to write code. There is only a very loose coding standard for the kernel, if Linus can read it and understand it, it gets used as is.
Does this make Microsoft source code work any better than Linux? No. Does it make it more supportable (for the programmers actually working on it)? Probably. But the people working on the Linux Kernel are used to the hodge-podge of coding standards in use. Still it could make it harder for someone to break into kernel support.
BTW, I've heard of some diehard Mircosofties getting windows tats. Wonder if Linux coders have a Tux tat. (yuck).
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BTW, I've heard of some diehard Mircosofties getting windows tats. Wonder if Linux coders have a Tux tat. (yuck).
I have a co worker that got a fedora [wordpress.com] tattoo a little while back.to add to his Red Hat [redhat.com] tattoo. A quick google search shows that some people get Tux tattoos [flickr.com].
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I think your comment about asking the engineers to solve the right problem is very insightful.
But I'm curious - did Windows have more fine-grained locking than a single kernel lock at the time Linux introduced SMP support with 2.0? I can imagine Windows may well have been better re locking scalability back then. Both Linux and Windows have been using increasingly fine granularity locking over the years, which is nice. It's somewhat frustrating that the Big Kernel Lock is still hanging around but at least
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filled with hacks like the Big Global Lock that used to be in the Linux kernel
The spinning hourglass begs to differ.
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Anyway, trust me - it's very professional, clean code, nice design, and not filled with hacks like the Big Global Lock that used to be in the Linux kernel.
Bad example. Just about every uniprocessor-developed OS had a Big Global Lock until they went multi-cpu - and even then it usually took a few releases before it was really eliminated. I would be hugely surprised to find that the Win9x series didn't have one too. When did the linux kernel deprecate it? Like a decade ago?
Re:PROOF! (Score:4, Informative)
Depends on your definition of "deprecate" and "decade". As late as last year (2008) [kerneltrap.org], the kernel people were still working on removing it.
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Well, your definition of deprecate obviously doesn't match anyone else's.
Hint: Deprecate is not a synonym for remove.
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"Microsoft's problem with code quality isn't the engineers - they're the same as everywhere else. In Windows 2000, they set out to eliminate BSOD, and they mostly did. In XP SP2, they set out to make it secure, and it's better."
So in 1999 they set out to eliminate the BSOD but they failed. Then they blamed the failing on third parties... when the reality is that Microsoft is responsible for the fact that hardware drivers are maintained by thousands of third parties in the first place. In XP SP2 they set out
A peek (Score:4, Interesting)
As opposed almost everyone fussing about "teh M$" and nuances of "freedom", I decided to take a look as see this professionalism.
The first, the first, line I read had a pre-processor no-no. Here:
#define ReleaseStr(pwz) if (pwz) { StrFree(pwz); }
You can read all about it here: http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/misc-technical-issues.html#faq-39.4 [parashift.com]
Here's how it doesn't work:
if ( something )
ReleaseStr(pwz)
else
foobar;
So there. The code might look professional. It might but it doesn't mean that it is.
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Maybe it was an auto-converter's version of ON ERROR RESUME NEXT.
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Frankly, I find htat hard to believe.
Letter overflow!
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Nah, just one of those "off by one" bugs.
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Actually, it is. They're using C, and unless I'm more mistaken than usual, they're doing all these copies with strcpy() which copies as many bytes as you give it instead of strncpy() which copies up to n bytes, where n is one of the function's parameters. Simply changing from strcpy() to strncpy() with n fixed to the size of the buffer (with room for the terminator) would probably get rid of 90% of the overflows. If I can figure that out,
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Thank you; I sit corrected. However, if they are, as you say, using functions that don't allow unbounded copying, how do you explain all the buffer overflows. Granted, my programming skills are way out of date, but from where I sit it looks as though using copy functions with built-in bound-checking should prevent them.
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You apparently have never worked in a large company before. There were probably 27 meetings before someone high enough up the food chain stuck their neck out to say "ok". We're talking about opensourcing code from a company that generally doesn't do it. Legal was involved, top executives were involved, someone had to talk to PR about spinning a press release, etc etc. This isn't like some dev got emailed and said, "Shit! I better get that posted right away!"
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This is PROOF that Microsoft KNOWS they are producing bad code. They put something out there, and then when they had to open source the code, they were all like "Well now everyone will see how bad our coding is, better take a week to fix it up before releasing it to the public!"
Having been involved with open source at Microsoft, I'd guess that the real reason for the delay was to "scrub" it to make sure that no intellectual property was inadvertently being given away.
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You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
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or at least code they don't want shown to the public /* This chunk written by Sir_Sri ext 1111 e-mail ... */ //coudn't get this sh*t to work right, used a hack but if you swirl the mouse around counter clockwise 7 times the program always crashes // Sir_Sri is an idiot, incompetent and has been moved away from coding into marketing, he won't touch this again, I fixed this crap up for him Bill ext 1, office 1 e-mail 1@microsoft.com.
Mod parent down (Score:3, Informative)
It's a tool to download Windows 7 into a USB drive, hence it's a tool FOR Windows 7. Shortening it to "Windows 7 Tool" is just common English usage -- that's just like saying a drive for reading CD-ROMs is a CD-ROM drive. Get over it.
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Not really though. It's not a Windows 7 tool. You don't really use it from Windows 7.
That is like a calling a Windows tool to install a Linux iso to a usb driver a "Linux tool." It's not a Linux tool. It's a Windows tool used to do something with a Linux iso.
Yes, it runs under Windows 7, I'm sure... but it's really meant to help install Windows 7, as I understand it. "Windows 7 Tool" implies that it's included in Windows 7 or used by Windows 7, not used by older OS's in order to install Windows 7.
Re:Misleading (Score:5, Funny)
"Microsoft Finally Open Sources Windows 7 Tool" and
"Microsoft Finally Open Sources Windows 7 Too!"
I spent the first 30 seconds in shocked disbelief as I tried to remember anything else they've open sourced.
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You downloaded the tool (a.k.a. application), not the source code.
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It's been snowing outside where I live. Does that count?