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• March 28, 2002 •
Yesterday, Microsoft announced the availability of source code to universities and other academic organizations. The Shared Source CLI source code implements the ECMA Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) and C# standards. It is available on the Microsoft® Windows® XP and FreeBSD operating systems.
"The academic community plays a critical role in the software ecosystem as the launching pad for the next generation of developers," said Eric Rudder, senior vice president of the Developer Platform and Evangelism Division at Microsoft. "Academia has delivered many breakthrough innovations through pure research. With the Shared Source CLI implementation, we hope to see great innovation around .NET technology."
The Shared Source CLI implementation is available for download today on the Microsoft Web site at MSDN. In addition, Microsoft is pleased to offer research grants to a limited number of academics who want to make early use of the Shared Source CLI implementation for teaching or research purposes. Details of the grant program, including information on how to apply, are available at Microsoft's research Web site.
This seems to be a feeble attempt to gain some support in the academic community, where the true open source Linux operating system is enjoying a dominating lead.
The code Microsoft released cannot be used for any commercial purposes. For more information on this and other restrictions, see the license agreement.
More information on Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative is available at Microsoft's Shared Source Web site.
