Microsoft Corp has decided to post the source code to both VB Script and JScript, its version of JavaScript, on its http site, according to our sister publication, Client Server News. It’s going to dub the pair ActiveX Scripting (how clever). Redmond’s
already promised VBS to any Windows ISV who wants to use it as its scripting language, but posting the source opens the door to non-Microsoft ISVs using it, Unix houses in particular. All they have to do is figure out how to make it work on their hardware. VBS code is missing a few critical pieces that are in full-blown Visual Basic, like support for specific CPUs. VBS doesn’t need CPU support since it’s a scripting language, not an application development environment. Redmond would love to see VBS become a common scripting language in the industry (it’s going to propose it to both W3C and the IETF as an Internet standard), but has no interest in supporting anything but 16- and 32-bit Windows on all platforms itself. (Microsoft has promised a PowerPC Mac version presumably out of charity.) That leaves Unix folk and others the option of supporting VBS if they wish, using the free source code. The hook, of course, is that if a Unix program supports VBS then the same script can be used for a program across multiple operating systems and hardware platforms, a time and money saver for ISVs.
