Welsome to Europe! We punish success!
WTF?
A graduate of the UK school of blather, I suppose.
If you "make products compatible with Windows", that doesn't make you a "competitor".
People have been making "products compatible with Windows" for a long time without access to the source code for Windows.
I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it will be to deal with Microsoft's code for Windows. The sheer volume will be almost impossible to deal with. Further, by this time, the code will be so full of kludges and inactive code that it's going to cause enormous confusion in anyone who tries to decipher it.
I went back a while ago and looked at the source code for one of my old Windows apps, thinking I might get back into the business and update the application. I wrote this thing myself, with no other programmers involved. It's been 10 years since I finished the last version.
After several hours of study, I decided that I'm definitely done with coding. At one time, I could go back into the code and work with it, but I knew it then like the back of my hand, and could keep virtually all of the variables and routines in my grasp.
Windows, since the first version, contains so much code, written by so many people and teams, that it's going to be impossible to comprehend. Microsoft isn't all that terrific about transparency in its code, and I've worked with some Microsoft-originated stuff. Further, their need to maintain backwards compatibility (all the Win 3.1 apps I wrote back in the 90s still run perfectly in XP) means that there is lots of old crap in the current versions.
Good luck!
Since when is this about releasing code? I thought MS was only supposed to release full API specs to allow for compatibility. Forcing them to release code sounds quite anti-capitalist.
In other news, the courts ordered Ford to turn over all schematics and blueprints to GM and Daimler-Chrysler in order to ensure all cars can drive on the same road.
You boys should be jumping for joy, this is how you've claimed your freeware clones were so superior - because the code was open. Now that Microsoft is opening theirs more you're whining? Ha, obviously because you know your beloved clones are about to be seriously marginalized.
As for me, I'm against it, secrecy is an additional layer of security, and without the EU and other socialists pushing open source on us all this never would have happened.
Good move by our European brothers and sisters.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")