Would seeing Microsoft source help?
 

"The best would be if the Windows API would be fully
documented, so Wine could be a perfect "clean-room"

taken from "The Wine FAQ" www.linuxdoc.org

I was reading some of the stuff about wine and i was wondering if this is one of the main reasons for bugs on linux , and also what does "reverse engineering" actually do ? do they hack windows OS in order to get informations, how legal is that ?thanks for any replys ( just discovered free books atwww.linuxdoc.org really cool )

If the M$ APIs were as fully documented, and everyone equally supported, as should happen, then Wine would be much farther along. Some are more equal than others -- that's just the way of a very competitive world. Not to mention the various word processors and spreadsheets and other software, that people try to develop for cross-platform use. For instance it would be very nice if the Word .DOC file was fully documented. Then it would be easy for a Linux user to create a document in Kword, or abiword, etc., and have if go easily into Word. And vice versa. The RTF standard is fairly well doc'd

As it is, the Word format, and others, need to be reverse engineered. Now, the way that most developers will say that reverse engineering works is they take a file and parse through it, make a single change to that file in some software (i.e., Word), then parse through the file again to detect changes. That takes a very long time, but is very legal. We won't even talk or think about industrial espionage, which is very illegal.

There is also a possibility to disassemble a program and lerarn how it works. But it's illegal. That's why Wine developers cannot disassemble Windows.

Darn! Can't they do it somewhere where it's legal/nobody cares about that? You know, countries like the the former USSR, where 99.9999% of all Windoze installations are pirated! :D

reverse engineering is only restricted in certain countries. for example MPlaye has just started supporting RealVideo files from reverse engineering the realplayer binaries, whic is totally legal in hungary, where MPlayer is written.

If they reverse engineered Windoze, it would defeat the purpose of developing Wine. M$ could claim that they used parts of the code, and regardless of the legality of reverse engineering the program, could sue to have it barred or force royalties...

By doing it the legal way, the ensure that Micro$haft can't get a piece of them, or force royalties for the software...

In most countries reverse engineering is legal in some cases. Those case are described, of course.

Re: Would seeing Microsoft source help?
 

When I first read this title, I thought you were going to either post the code or a link to it. I was thinking that wouldn't be a good idea publicly displaying Winbloze code on here. But I was also thinking that it would be cool to see what the hell it looked like.

Anyway, FREE ANYTHING RULES! Especially books!

well - if seeing m$ code might help then here it is:

/* Source Code to Windows 2000 */
#include "win31.h"
#include "win95.h"
#include "win98.h"
#include "workst~1.h"
#include "evenmore.h"
#include "oldstuff.h"
#include "billrulz.h"
#include "monopoly.h"
#define INSTALL HARD

char make_prog_look_big[1600000];

void main()
{

while(!CRASHED)
{
display_copyright_message();

display_bill_rules_message();
do_nothing_loop();

if (first_time_installation)
{
make_50_megabyte_swapfile();

do_nothing_loop();

totally_screw_up_HPFS_file_system();

search_and_destroy_the_rest_of_OS/2();

make_futile_attempt_to_damage_Linux();

disable_Netscape();

disable_RealPlayer();

disable_Lotus_Products();

hang_system();
}

write_something(anything);
display_copyright_message();
do_nothing_loop();
do_some_stuff();

if (still_not_crashed)
{
display_copyright_message();

do_nothing_loop();

basically_run_windows_3.1();

do_nothing_loop();

do_nothing_loop();
}
}
if (detect_cache())
disable_cache();
if (fast_cpu())
{
set_wait_states(lots);
set_mouse(speed,very_slow);
set_mouse(action,jumpy);
set_mouse(reaction,sometimes);
}

/* printf("Welcome to Windows 3.1"); */
/* printf("Welcome to Windows 3.11"); */
/* printf("Welcome to Windows 95"); */
/* printf("Welcome to Windows NT 3.0"); */
/* printf("Welcome to Windows 98"); */
/* printf("Welcome to Windows NT 4.0"); */
printf("Welcome to Windows 2000");

if (system_ok())
crash(to_dos_prompt)
else
system_memory = open("a:\swp0001.swp", O_CREATE);

while(something)
{
sleep(5);

get_user_input();
sleep(5);

act_on_user_input();
sleep(5);
}
create_general_protection_fault();

I actually saw the code to explorer one time

It was a beta release of IE.

I was looking at local files and folders when I noticed that the view source option was still active.

LOL

there it was, the source code for IE. There was an area of the code that was commented out, it was the code to enable playing sound files directly from explorer. I enabled the code and it worked. They disabled it because it conflicted with the media player.