VOGONS


First post, by P4R4D0X

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Finally Microsoft did something awesome! Custom license so so it's not that all great but it might be good for documentation. DOS version is 1.1 and 2.0 and Word is 1.1a.
http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/microsof … -0-source-code/
http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/microsof … 1a-source-code/

Reply 1 of 5, by Jorpho

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Holy balls!

Except those versions are so ancient it hardly seems worth getting excited about, except in principle.

Reply 2 of 5, by Jarvik7

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Indeed. MS-DOS6.22 source code with a permissive non-commercial license would be amazing for dosbox/freedos/etc.
Nice to see Microsoft become a bit more "hip" though.

Reply 3 of 5, by sliderider

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Jarvik7 wrote:

Indeed. MS-DOS6.22 source code with a permissive non-commercial license would be amazing for dosbox/freedos/etc.
Nice to see Microsoft become a bit more "hip" though.

It's not a matter of being hip, it's a matter of them having all this code that they squeezed every last penny out of so they figured they'd release it for publicity purposes. Windows 9 is coming up soon, so they want the public to remember them for something good so they all buy it like good little minions. They don't want another mass rejection of a major release like with Vista and 8.

Reply 4 of 5, by Jorpho

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sliderider wrote:

Windows 9 is coming up soon, so they want the public to remember them for something good so they all buy it like good little minions. They don't want another mass rejection of a major release like with Vista and 8.

The number of "good little minions" who care about open source at all, much less open source from thirty (?) years ago, is a vanishingly small proportion.

Reply 5 of 5, by Jarvik7

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From what I gathered, Microsoft didn't proactively release this source in some marketing effort. Someone had a copy in their attic, asked for permission to release it, and got an OK.