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Comment by brvs | Hacker News Reader

I prefer to use proprietary and closed-source software. But to each his own, I guess.

So you don't care about backdoors, malware, who knows whatever else they may put in that code?

I would care if they were present. But I have no positive evidence that my computer is infected by any of that. I don't need to manually scan through C code to feel safe. Just like I don't have to watch my food being prepared to be sure it isn't being poisoned.

The point is that neither you nor anyone else could check for it if you/they wanted to.

Malware would have to be fairly stupid to reveal itself to the end user.

Although not agreeing with the GP, OpenVMS is closed source and has a pretty good record on security. Closed doesn't necessarily mean less secure.

Do you prefer to write it all from scratch?

Because you can't materialize a new closed-source operating system in time for a console lifecycle without basing it upon some open source one.

So you don't have much choice: it's Microsoft or open source, and guess what? Microsoft already have a console of its own.

Windows is not closed source. It's proprietary software, but the source code (especially for embedded operating systems and custom hardware projects) is readily available.

Does it contradict with anything I've said?

Actually, for the specific purpose that you're speaking of, I think yes, it does contradict your statements. If you were building a game console, you could probably get nearly immediate access to the Windows source code. They have it such that you can compile Windows with the kernel modules of your choosing, specifically for use in embedded hardware scenarios. And it's actually configurable to run on ARM, not just x86.

And I doubt they would actually prevent you from making your own competing console, because A) Windows is a separate division from Xbox, and B) Xbox is a lot more than just a console that runs Windows. Just because they make their own tablet computers doesn't mean they're preventing people from making tablet computers.

Good luck with that if you learned nothing from the PlaysForSure fiasco.

Windows is, by any reasonable definition, closed-source. It is possible (in some cases) to gain access to parts of the source code if you're an OEM, partner or large customer - but this is true of almost any software project, and such code is by no means readily-available.

If Windows doesn't count as closed-source software, then nothing does.

I have seen cases where the source files used to generate critical libraries had gotten lost by the company developing them. They continued to use the object files to link against them.

It would seem that you're conflating open source with free software. It is not the case that we can call all programs with readily available source code "Free Software", so we need an ability to make a distinction.I don't agree with Richard Stallman on a lot of things, but the necessity for a distinction between Free and Open is one of them. Frequently, people say "Open Source" when they mean "Free Software", and certain corporations say "Open Source" hoping you'll think "Free Software".

I would say Java is a good example of Open, Non-Free software. Oracle has made it very clear that anything Free in Java is only a Sun legacy, they would rather it weren't, and they'll chase down any lead they can to stop people from using the Java source in their own projects.

Given that the Windows source code is nowhere near as hard to obtain as you seem to think, I think it is more convenient to consider it as Open, Non-Free as well. You don't really need to be a partner or a large customer, just about anyone can get it with an MSDN subscription. A friend of mine had access to the Windows source for a research project he was doing in undergrad. He discovered a memory leak in the VC++ runtime and was able to patch it. He wasn't doing anything with operating systems specifically and he most certainly did NOT pay anything for this access. Their system for building set-top boxes and the like is completely based on recompiling the source code with your personal configuration of kernel modules you'd like to include.

I would contrast this with Adobe Photoshop as an example of very-Closed, Non-Free software. I'm not aware of anyone outside of Adobe receiving Photoshop's source code post v1.0. I've worked with a few 3rd party libraries, developed by one particular government agency, that I could not get the source code to as an employee of another particular government agency, no matter how hard I tried and how bad of a memory leak it had that they refused to fix.

I know it's cool to bag on Microsoft around here, and I'm not terribly fond of them myself anymore, but I'm not going to let myself be deluded about what one can be capable of on their software. You almost certainly have competitors building software on an MS platform and you should not make the mistake of assuming they're doomed from the start.

Open Source has a fairly well accepted definition that comes from the Open Source Initiative.

If Microsoft could call Windows 'Open Source' I have no doubt they would. Instead, they call it Shared Source (through their Shared Source Initiative, surprisingly enough).

Microsoft themselves don't consider it Open Source. The people that essentially invented the phrase itself don't consider it Open Source. I don't know why anyone else would.

> It would seem that you're conflating open source with free software

I'm really not. Windows is closed-source in that the source is not readily available - nothing to do with "Free"ness. Agreed that Java is a good example.

> Given that the Windows source code is nowhere near as hard to obtain as you seem to think

Perhaps it's easier than I'm aware. To my knowledge, the access routes are all through the Shared Source programmes, and they have specific eligibility requirements: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sharedsource.

So I expect we're just disagreeing about the extent to which code must be "open" to count as "Open" - I'd posit it being available for public access, but I could be convinced if it were available to all customers.

> I would contrast this with Adobe Photoshop as an example of very-Closed, Non-Free software.

Fair enough - there are examples of "more closed" software.

> You almost certainly have competitors building software on an MS platform and you should not make the mistake of assuming they're doomed from the start.

I'm certainly not making the assumption that using closed-source software is always a bad decision. There are obvious benefits to using open source, but it's not always possible, and in many cases doesn't make much difference. But I can't get behind the argument that Windows is "Open Source" in any meaningful sense - even Microsoft describes it as "shared"!

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