IS MICROSOFT SECRETLY USING OPEN SOURCE?

[jwb@example.com (Jim Breen)]

From: HPCwire <hpcwire@example.com>
Subject: 9343 IS MICROSOFT SECRETLY USING OPEN SOURCE?

[Apologies if you have seen it before.]

Jim
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IS MICROSOFT SECRETLY USING OPEN SOURCE?                              06.18.01
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Lee Gomes Reported For The Wall Street Journal Online: Microsoft Corp., even
while mounting a new campaign against open-source software, has quietly been
using such free computer code in several major products, as well as on key
portions of a popular Web site -- despite denying last week that it did so.

Software connected with the FreeBSD open-source operating system is used in
several places deep inside several versions of Microsoft's Windows software,
such as in the "TCP/IP" section that arranges all connections to the Internet.
The company also uses FreeBSD on numerous "server" computers that manage major
functions at its Hotmail free e-mail service, whose registered users exceed
100 million and make it one of the Web's busiest sites.

Microsoft acknowledged its repeated use of open-source code Friday, in
response to questions about the matter. Just two days earlier, it had
specifically denied the existence of any such software at Hotmail.

"Open-source" programs, such as the popular Linux operating system, are
typically free and allow users to view and modify blueprint-like instructions
known as source code. The growing popularity of such software is among the
most potent competition for some of Microsoft's products, and for a new
technology it has proposed called Microsoft.NET.

In recent statements, Microsoft executives have argued that open-source
software is dangerous to companies using it, in large part because of the
licensing provisions that accompany the software. Microsoft Uvae President
Craig Mundie, for example, said in a recent speech that all open-source
software "has inherent security risks and can force intellectual property into
the public domain."

FreeBSD used on Hotmail?

But Microsoft's statements Friday suggest the company has itself been taking
advantage of the very technology it has insisted would bring dire consequences
to others. "I am appalled at the way Microsoft bashes open source on the one
hand, while depending on it for its business on the other," said Marshall Kirk
McKusick, a leader of the FreeBSD development team.

While not as well-known as Linux, FreeBSD has a strong following in the
technical community. Much of Microsoft's use of the software at Hotmail was
uncovered Thursday evening by Trevor Johnson, a FreeBSD developer in Los
Angeles who used standard Internet monitoring tools to check on the computers
at Hotmail. Johnson said he acted because he was skeptical of Microsoft's
claim, in a Wall Street Journal article Thursday, that there was no FreeBSD
left at the service.

When Microsoft moved to buy Hotmail in 1997, it was already running on
FreeBSD, and continued to do so for several years, a source of some
embarrassment to Microsoft. The company had earlier said, though, that it
removed all FreeBSD from Hotmail last summer, and even has a lengthy technical
paper on its Web site describing the transition.

But Friday, Microsoft conceded FreeBSD was still being used at Hotmail on
machines that track advertising and that run a crucial Internet function known
as "DNS hosting." A Microsoft spokesman said he couldn't explain why Microsoft
had given out incorrect information on the topic.

The spokesman said FreeBSD was still in use simply because the company had yet
to switch the machines over to Windows.

But one employee of the Redmond, Wash., company said Microsoft has
deliberately kept FreeBSD in parts of Hotmail because of its technical
superiority over Windows in important functions and furthermore had decided to
actually increase its reliance on FreeBSD. Many of the company's Web sites
went down much of a day in January, and this person said FreeBSD was judged to
be better than Windows at helping to prevent a recurrence of the problem.

On Friday, several FreeBSD volunteers combing through Microsoft products,
including the new Windows 2000 operating system, found numerous instances
where Microsoft had made use of their software -- something perfectly legal
for it to do. The Microsoft spokesman, in acknowledging that fact, said it
didn't contradict the company's many recent anti-open-source statements. He
said that's because Microsoft's main objection has been to Linux, which has a
more restrictive licensing arrangement than FreeBSD.

Microsoft, though, hasn't previously suggested that there were benign forms of
open-source software, and while singling out Linux for special criticism, has
tended to criticize all open-source with the same broad brush.

In its campaign against open-source, Microsoft has been unable to come up with
examples of companies being harmed by it. One reason, said Eric von Hippel, a
Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who heads up a research effort
in the field, is that virtually all the available evidence suggests that open
source is "a huge advantage" to companies. "They are able to build on a common
standard that is not owned by anyone," he said. "With Windows, Microsoft owns
them."

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-- 
Jim Breen  [jwb@example.com  http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/]
Visiting Professor, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of 
Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Japan
+81 3 5974 3880         [$B%8%`!&%V%j!<%s(B@$BEl5~30Bg(B]