Microsoft to share Windows code with India

["Ashish Kotamkar" <ashish@mithi.com>]

Microsoft to share Windows code with India
The Economic Times, India   DECEMBER 13, 2002
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/comp/articleshow?artid=3110
2968

Microsoft is virtually doing the unthinkable in India — it is planning to
share the Windows source code. Not with one and all, as Linux does, but with
a specific government body which, in turn, will share it with others for the
purposes of e-governance and education.

Microsoft has already made a proposal to the ministry of information
technology for sharing the Windows source code with one government body. The
nature of the body has not been spelt out; it will presumably be worked out
after discussions between the company and the government officials.
Interestingly, the offer comes at a time when state governments are showing
interest in rival Linux operating system as the latter's source code is free
and downloadable from the internet.

When contacted by ET, Microsoft India president Rajiv Nair was somewhat
cagey. Although he didn't deny the move, he merely said, "We are evaluating
the idea (of sharing the source code)." However, sources in the company said
that MS is already in talks with the government to work out the modalities
of sharing the source code. It's learnt that MS worldwide program manager
for shared source program, Jason Matusow, was recently in India to work out
the modalities.

Microsoft is exceedingly secretive about its Windows source code — the
company has so far shared it with only a few big clients and developers. In
Asia. MS has shared the Windows source code with select clients in Japan,
Korea and Singapore. What appears to have persuaded it to extend the same
privilege to the Indian government is the growing attraction here for the
Linux OS, which is seen by some state governments as a cheaper alternative
to Windows.

Microsoft officials are, of course, playing down the Linux threat. They
insisted that Linux wasn't a big issue while selling to the governments in
India. Says Peter Hayes, industry vice-president, Microsoft Government: "OS
software is merely 1-3% of the total cost of an IT project, and studies have
shown that total cost can be lower with Microsoft technologies compared to
Linux.” The open source software has been grabbing headlines recently as the
debate on open versus proprietary software has gained momentum in government
circles here.

Says MS boss for shared source program, Jason Matusow, "There has been a lot
of hype about open source code in the software industry as well as in the
media. Linux might grab headlines, but being able to look at source code
doesn't bring any benefits to an average end-user, though it might increase
the trust level.”

The basic idea behind open source is very simple. When programmers can read,
redistribute, and modify the source code for a piece of software, the
software evolves. People improve it, people adapt it, people fix bugs. While
open source community believes that this process produces better software
than the traditional closed model, proponents of proprietary software argue
that this model can't work in the commercial world.

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Ashish Kotamkar (ashish@mithi.com)
Mithi Software Technologies Pvt. Ltd. (www.mithi.com)
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