Microsoft Establishes 12 Principles for Windows Development

[Halo]

WASHINGTON—Microsoft has announced 12 principles by which the company will guide its development of the Windows desktop platform, starting with Windows Vista and beyond.

At a New America Foundation Policy Luncheon at the National Press Club here, Brad Smith, Microsoft's senior vice president and general counsel, outlined the principles and discussed lessons Microsoft has learned over the past 10 years based on antitrust battles, regulatory scrutiny and fierce competition in the operating system and software market in general.

The 12 Principles
@ eWeek (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1991325,00.asp)

[Mada_Milty]

The 12 Principles
@ eWeek (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1991325,00.asp)

The unwritten clause: We will adhere to these principals while maintaining profitability.

[Halo]

Dunno Mada, I think the company has to do something otherwise it will never be out of court, altho what company's arent out of court these days with IP rights issues.

Those 12 sound on face value to be sound.. but its the usual case of lets see them in practice first.

[bigbazza]

Surely this is the biggest leg-pull of all time. It's not April Fool's day is it?

IF M$ adhere to these 12 principles, they may as well make all their programs shareware. Bazza

===

The 12 Principles
@ eWeek (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1991325,00.asp)

[Bill_Marsden]

I can't see it, the web site is down. The up side, I got to report some spam on another thread. Wondered what that stuff looked like on here, same as on my email. Big surprise...

[AbbySue]

I got to report some spam on another thread. Wondered what that stuff looked like on here, same as on my email. Big surprise...

If I wasn't already busy deleting spam from a different user in the lounge you never would have seen the one you reported!;) LMAO

Thanks Bill!:)

BTW...limks down for me too...get a message that something behind the scenes isn't working.

[Halo]

Should be up now, just tried the link :)

[AbbySue]

Should be up now, just tried the link :)

That it is, thank Halo.:)

[Bill_Marsden]

And it's down again, and I missed it.:(

Opps, spoke too soon, didn't realize the other link worked.

[Bill_Marsden]

Personally I would love to see M$ do what it says there. It would go a long way to cleaning up their reputation. An older middle age geek like myself has a long memory, I go back before DOS existed. I remember a lot of their shinanagins.

Honor and integrety are more than words.

[prometheos]

Microsoft getting religion? Doesn't this seem a bit familiar - politicians get principled at election time, career criminals find Jesus at parole time and terrorist rebels "allow" a ceasefire just before they are eliminated. I do believe that the Microsoft management has glimpsed into the future and they have seen their ghastly demise. With the current spate of gross errors that have been reported on, it's no wonder that Mr. Gates has decided to abandon the big ship. Also, with the news that Microsoft has re-written and abandoned Mark Shavlik's original fine work, Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer (MBSA) version 1.2.1, he decided to drop a bomb of his own. Mark announced that he would make "free" to the public 3 of his security products. You've got to chuckle a little bit, because Mark Shavlik, is a major dude in the world of security and ironically he was one of Microsoft's own. He used to be a Senior Systems Designer and Windows NT Kernel Development Project Leader in the Microsoft Systems Group. As AbbySue might say - "*THUD*". The free progams are:NetChk Analyzer for Microsoft ( GUI that scans and reports on needed Microsoft Program patches ) NetChk Analyzer( command line version) and NetChk Protect, a GUI that scans for both Microsoft and non-Microsoft applications and deploys needed patches .
So what does all this mean? WGA. --- Yes, I've said it - WGA. It's of grave concern to the entire security community that the internationally respected and massively influential company, Microsoft has perpetrated such a colossal and fiendish reversal of ethics. Some might even add that Microsoft has become an evil empire. I don't personally believe that, but thanks to Mark Shavlik, I can now get my Windows Updates from Shavlik Technologies, LLC.

I've just found out that Shavlik has lifted download restrictions. As of Monday July 24, anyone can download NetChk Protect. Previously, email addresses on public ISPs were blocked. You need to give an email address in order to receive the 10 activation licenses. With those 10 free licenses, you update one machine but NetCheck will then scan your network for the 9 other licenses and update those machines as well. This means that you may only have to download once, then deploy to the other machines. This is great for SOHOs. This might even be great for MajorGeeks. What do you say AbbySue? Maybe if you get some time away from that script monster that you're working on, you could check out NetChk Protect:).
http://www.shavlik.com/netchk-protect.aspx
(http://www.shavlik.com/netchk-protect.aspx)

[Rikky]

At least they're for net neutrality,in principle,I'll look forward to seeing how the others pan out

I wonder:confused: if windows will be bundled with less microsoft programs and more third party programs e.g Firefox instead of IE will the end consumer pay less for windows:confused: me thinks not:)