Microsoft Source Code Offer is “Poisoned Honey Pot,” Say Rivals

Microsoft’s offer to release its source code in response to the European Commission’s (EC) 2004 antitrust ruling against it is nothing more than a “poisoned honey pot,” according to a rival, Reuters reports.

That accusation was filed by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and Samba, a group of developers that maintains open source software by the same name, in a confidential filing to the EC, according to Reuters. That filing was in response to a commission-sanctioned questionnaire designed to gauge the industry’s view on Microsoft’s source code offer, Reuters reports.

The Samba open source software allows users of non-Windows-based computers to interact with Windows servers and clients as if they were running on that program, Reuters reports.

FSFE/Samba opened its filing to the public after Microsoft released its own.

“The source code reference is a poisoned honey pot, from which free software operators shall stay away as much as possible,” the FSFE/Samba filing read, according to Reuters.

Microsoft said its offer was meant to solve many of the software industry’s issues, but was never intended to address the problems between it and “open source groups” like the FSFE or Samba, Reuters reports.

Within its filing, FSFE/Samba said that people may inadvertently put themselves at risk of trade secret infringement by using Microsoft’s code to compose similar code of their own, according to Reuters.

For background, read Microsoft to License Windows Source Code, EC Denies 2nd MS Deadline Extension and MS: EU Riding ‘Roughshod’ Over Its Defense.

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