Russia has MS sourcecode

DrWho, same thing existed for Atari. I went to one of those club meetings with a guy who was a member. I thought they were too geeky for me to join. Only went once. A few people were into things other than pirated software, but everyone else (like me) just wanted to see who had a new supply of games.

In that day, (early '80's) I joined every Commodore club within a hundred miles of home. I'd do a little presentation at a club meeting, showing my custom made Kernel ROM and my 1541 disk drive enhancements. Almost every person would want the same things done to their own C-64. My hobby became a real money making business. I burned my own custom Kernel ROM's and sold them nation wide.

That was a fun time. With "Fast Hack'em" and a few other programs, games from Electronic Arts and other companies became "Freeware".
Gads, I loved that little C-64. It could do things that even the mighty IBM PC couldn't do.

But today we don't have computer clubs where software is copied.....we have web sites that share software with the whole world. How times have changed.
Want something? Just download it!
I'm absolutely not advocating piracy.....I'm just saying that it certainly does exist.

fseal said:

It's probably true to some extent, but that article is sensationalist at best...

Microsoft has shared the source with tons of governments and private industry partners in part or whole. In fact they made a pretty big deal about it when they started their "Shared Source Initiative" some time ago in an attempt to balance the need to be more open while not allowing the commercial fragmentation of the OS.

And Governments pretty much demand access to the source to ensure that AMERICA is not spying on /them/ through their use of Windows :)

Microsoft can probably spy on anyone using the software if they wanted to, Im sure not all details are released. No one knows what microsoft is hiding and what they are keeping secret from the public if there is anything significant at all.

Kari said:

Something to do with this: Redmond man with possible link to Russian spy ring deported | KOMO News - Breaking News, Sports, Traffic and Weather - Seattle, Washington | Local & Regional?

Microsoft is not very bright hiring someone like that anyway, just the fact that he is an immigrant should throw red flags up in my opinion. Not saying that they cant hire them, but they should have to go through extensive screening for reasons just like this. Seems like common sense to me.

Bootz said:

Microsoft is not very bright hiring someone like that anyway, just the fact that he is an immigrant should throw red flags up in my opinion. Not saying that they cant hire them, but they should have to go through extensive screening for reasons just like this. Seems like common sense to me.

mickey megabyte said:

Bootz said:

Microsoft is not very bright hiring someone like that anyway, just the fact that he is an immigrant should throw red flags up in my opinion. Not saying that they cant hire them, but they should have to go through extensive screening for reasons just like this. Seems like common sense to me.

Please explain...

are you suggesting that all immigrants are potentially dodgy, but all natives are absolutely safe and secure?

if so, please explain.