Salon.com Technology | Microsoft says penalty will let hackers run wild
Many Microsoft witnesses, including Chairman Bill Gates, say that Microsoft is unable to make a modular Windows because the different features — like the Internet browser and media player — are dependent on each other.
This is a contrived limitation, as I hope the judge realizes. Analogous comparisons are easy to come up with: one of the big automakers claiming their cars won’t run correctly without their own brand of audio equipment comes to mind.
The best outcome of this is for MSFT to be required to publish accurate, up-to-date API information to allow extensions and enhancements to Windows, regardless of their origin. Claiming this opens up the OS to crackers and other miscreants is ridiculous: it’s much more likely some whitehats will plug the holes MSFT’s own developers have missed.
I think the real issue is that there’s something to hide. If you ask a child what they’re doing and the answer is “nothing,” any reasonably perceptive parent is immediately suspicious. For an organization with MSFT’s social history — abuse, intimidation, and poor hygiene — to claim that making information available will lead to more problems is hard to swallow.
Of course, how accurate and up to date will it be, assuming the states are granted this remedy? Given MSFT’s penchant for “innovation” I would doubt the API specs would be accurate after 30 days, and then it’s back to the old game of catch-up.
It seems to me that MSFT is the only OS maker of any size who doesn’t have an Open Source entry: even Apple, long a defender of closed development, has essentially freed the core of their OS technology, retaining only the GUI elements as proprietary.