From: furballs@sequent.com (Paul Penrod)
Subject: Re: FCC will proclaim Microsoft is run by Communists! : )
Organization: Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 92 21:42:59 GMT

In article <1992Dec31.214648.549@cis.ohio-state.edu> cantor@iguana.cis.ohio-state.edu (scott eric cantor) writes:
>In article <1992Dec31.035545.3621@microsoft.com> philipla@microsoft.com (Phil Lafornara) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec29.194318.27886@spang.Camosun.BC.CA> dbarker@spang.Camosun.BC.CA (Deryk Barker) writes:
>>>bobatk@microsoft.com (Bob Atkinson) writes:
>>>:
>>>: I'm confused; perhaps you can help me out of my confusion.
>>>: 
>>>: 	1. You have DR-DOS6.0, a clone of MSDOS.
>>>: 	2. You buy Win3.1, an MS product that was designed to 
>>>: 		work with MSDOS. And indeed it does, as you note.
>>>: 	3. You find that Win3.1 doesn't work with DR-DOS6.0
>>>: 
>>>: Then: 
>>>: 	4. You complain to MS, not DR, about the problem.
>>>: 
>>>: See my confusion? Doesn't the problem have to do with the fidelity
>>>: of the MSDOS emulation done by DR-DOS? Or am I missing something?
>>>: I'd genuinely like to know...
>>>
>>>And if the fact that DRDOS's emulation is imperfect because of
>>>information held back by Mircrosoft?
>>>
>>
>>    Oh, this is rich.  The only way that DR-DOS could get perfect
>>MS-DOS emulation is if they had the source code.  This source
>>code wasn't provided to them by Microsoft.   Therefore, Microsoft
>>is a grand evil company for not turning over the hard work of
>>hundreds of engineers to their competitors.
>>    Makes sense to me.
>>
>>					-Phil
>
>	Isn't this the fundamental issue here?  Should Microsoft be required,
>urged, or forced into giving the OS source to other companies for development?
>
>I don't know, frankly.  Has Microsoft ever stated, "DOS is an open system that
>we want to be fully accessible at the source code level"?  If so, then the
>anti-MS side has a valid point to make.  If not, then it seems clear that it is
>not entirely unethical for MS App people to talk to OS people.
>
>

I don't ever remember Microsoft declaring DOS an "open" system.
Frankly there is not that much to DOS, so why bother ? At Unisys, I
had the opportunity to port DOS 3.3 to a specialized box there.
Yes, source code was provided for some things, like formatting and
other disk activities, but I would have preferred to write my own.
It was really ugly assembly, but it worked. Source code was not
provide for all of MS-DOS. There was no need to. I am sure that if
I really wanted to I could have gotten source for a price and a
disclaimer of support for it; since the implication is that I would
change the base code to fit the needs of the project. This is not
unusuall behavior and is pretty good common sense. Why fix someone
else's mistake?

Now, as to the ethics of apps and systems people talking. This is
an accepted practice for some time. As a systems programmer, I
talked to apps people at Unisys all the time. Does that mean Unisys
carries an unfair advantage ? How about IBM ?, How about DEC ? The
list goes on.

Frankly, just because apps are developed tightly to the OS, from
the same company, does not necessarily give them an advantage or a
better product. Excel is a good product. Quattro Pro is better.
Quattro does not come from Microsoft. Alot of times apps people
will try and take shortcuts to get the job done; especially if the
OS information is in house. Yes, they will use undocumented calls,
and live to regret it when the OS changes and they have to go back
and fix things. So you have a team of 100 programmers to develop
and product, and at least 50 of them doing maintenance afterwards
because they were lazy. Sounds like an advantage to me. :):)

JMHO...


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Xref: sparky comp.os.os2.advocacy:11230 comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy:3555