Microsoft to license Windows source code ?

[Guest]

What does that mean?

[rarsa]

As you don't include any refferences, only you know what it means.

I will venture disecting the the sentence semantically:

Microsoft : This is a software development company (mainly) that thrives on thrade secrets, closed source and software pattents.

License : To grant permission.

Windows source code : The code written by Microsoft developers (one would hope) that when compiled becomes an operating system controling a Personal computer.

So the phrase really means that Microsoft grants certain permissions to some people under certain conditions to do something with it's source code.

Microsoft has licensed it's source code since day one. It sure licensed it for the processor manufacturers to debug it. It also licenses it to driver developers to create more stable drivers. More recently it started licensing it to big corporate clients to identify vulnerabilities.

So, your 'subject' as you wrote it is not something new nor should be 'future tense'. Unless of course the news is about a new licensing schema.

[saintlangton]

I'm guessing Guest is talking about this:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/window ... 926,00.htm