One million customers in government, partner companies and academia are now participating in Shared Source, the program that allows non-Redmond engineers to view the Windows source code, Microsoft said yesterday.
The one million figure is a regular milestone statistic Microsoft brings out to demonstrate uptake for new products, only this time Microsoft revealed the statistic on the eve of the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco, California.
Microsoft is a gold-level conference sponsor and the head of Shared Source, Jason Mustow, is scheduled to speak on the commercial advantage of open source.
Shared Source was effectively introduced in 2001, as the Enterprise Source Licensing Program for Windows 2000 and XP. That program was subsequently expanded to bring in support for more platforms and make code available to a larger number of users and partners.
Microsoft said the program provides customers with a better understanding of Windows code. However, Shared Source is also regarded as an attempt to counter the growing popularity of open source and Linux software among customers.
Currently, code for Windows 2000, XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows CE 3.0, and elements of ASP.NET and Visual Studio.NET has been released. Microsoft also claimed yesterday the C Sharp programming language and Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) are available under Shared Source, but the specifications for these technologies are actually freely available separately, having been ratified as standards by the European Computer Manufacturers’ Association (ECMA).
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
