I think open sourcing XP is a great idea. It works for all other open source software, so I cant see why it cant work for XP.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think the number of dedicated XP users, who will use no other OS, is probably not that many people, relatively speaking compared with the total user base.
Now if they’d just do this with 98 SP2 we’d be golden.
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If Microsoft made the source code for Windows public then HP (which bought Compaq, which bought DEC) would finally be able to prove Microsoft plagiarized the VMS kernel.
"It's dead, Jim."
What happened to all the zero-day XP exploits that were supposed to appear on April 9?
Slippery slope...
First, XP...
Then, when Windows Vista is no longer supported, there will be those who want to open-source that OS...
Then, when Windows 8/8.1 support has ended in a decade, there will be the same demands/requests to open source that code...
and on, and on...
Which would leave MS wondering what good it does them to continue creating new versions, or updating versions that would eventually become open source.
MS would not be able to compete against its own prior versions of Windows, so, eventually, no new versions of Windows would be developed, and all that would be left, is a Linux-like development/updating process, with millions of developers getting involved in changing/updating/messing-up, the OS. Then, the older versions of the open-source Windows XP would have support dropped, and the same would happen to the open-source Vista and Windows 8 and Windows 8, JUST LIKE happens with older versions of open-source Linux. So, what the heck would be different, if even the open-source versions of “Windows” would eventually lose support?
