Can I has Windows 7 source code? Please? The popular OS reaching end of support on January 14 has meant that some circles have been able to hog the spotlight.
Group like the Free Software Foundation, who publicly requested Microsoft to open source Windows 7 shortly after the operating system hit retirement. And now the organization is taking things a step further with its next move.
The FSF mailed Microsoft a blank hard drive, which they say the company should use for copying the source code of Windows 7, and then send it back to the organization.
As explained:
“Microsoft can free Windows. They already have all of the legal rights necessary or the leverage to obtain them. Whether they choose to do so or not is up to them. We’re ready to give them all of the help we can. All they have to do is ask.”
But do they? Do they have all the legal rights necessary, or the leverage to obtain them?
Even if they did, it’s not like the software titan would hand over the keys to the 2009 operating system to the open source community just like so. Even if it never fails to send a message at every turn that it loves the open source world.
And this is the very angle that the FSF is playing at:
“We want them to show exactly how much love they have for the “open source” software they mention in their advertising. If they really do love free software — and we’re willing to give them the benefit of the doubt — they have the opportunity to show it to the world. We hope they’re not just capitalizing on the free software development model in the most superficial and exploitative way possible: by using it as a marketing tool to fool us into thinking that they care about our freedom.”
Yeah, right.
Of course, there is also the small matter of extended support that Microsoft has got going for Windows 7. These custom patches are still offered to enterprises that are paying for them, and the company plans to release these updates for three more years.
Fat chance, Windows 7 going open source, particularly in these circumstances.
Your thoughts? What do you make of this move? Theatrics? Or should Microsoft really go a step further to engage the open source community in this fashion? Let us know.
