The program comes after two years of a Shared Source initiative that allowed developers to view and toy with CE source code, on the strict proviso that no derivative works would be commercially distributed.
The new CEP will give Microsoft partners full access to Windows CE source code and will permit them to modify the code and commercially distribute those modifications in Windows CE-based devices, for the first time, Microsoft said.
ARM Ltd, Bsquare Corp, Hitachi Ltd, Mitsubishi Electric Corp, MIPS Technologies Inc and Samsung Electronics have all signed up, Microsoft said. The initiative is open to members of Microsoft’s developer, silicon, embedded and integrator partner programs.
Device manufacturers will benefit from being able to bring differentiated CE-based products to market, Microsoft said. This should make vendors more interested in choosing CE over competing platforms.
But one drawback is that any modifications made to the OS will have to be returned to Microsoft on a royalty-free basis after six months, according to reports. Some observers have said this means Microsoft basically gets free R&D for CE, reports said.
Microsoft launched its Shared Source initiative in 2001 in response to the growing threat of open-source operating systems and software, such as Linux. There are currently eight Microsoft products that have Shared Source-based licenses available.
Source: Computerwire
