Microsoft will thursday announce plans to provide customers and third party software developers with greater access to the source coding and details of MS products. In other words people can get limited access to the source.
 The move comes in recognition of the increasing demands of customers to see the underlying code of programs that are used in business-critical situations. |
It also signals a softening of Microsoft's stance against "open source software" or software that is available to anyone, free. Microsoft has no plans to place its products in the public domain, Craig Mundie, senior vice-president, said on Wednesday. However, in an address scheduled to take place on Thursday at New York University Stern School of Business, he will describe the new "shared source philosophy" as a "balanced approach that allows us to share source code ... while maintaining the intellectual property".
Nice move because I think many programmers want to work on the coding to help microsoft. Perhaps they can build a more stable kernel so windows doens't crash that often, or create better driver support etc. I know many people are against MS but now they can help them
Source: Financial Times
