Hm, since the term "security" has proven to be exactly the opposite of the terms "Windows XP" or "Internet Explorer" in the modern language :

http://www.mozilla.org/

http://www.opera.com/

MicroSoft's Methods of enforcing Mal-/Spyware infested Software by disabling access to critical System features or updates after sufficient saturation of the market is nothing new.

They've pulled that stunt numerous times in the past, in order to push their security- and privacy risks onto the Users.

Opera is my first choice, and always will be (as long as it stops constantly crashing!  >:()

So if Microsoft abandon support for Windows 9x, it wouldn't really hurt to release the source code for it, would it? ::)

No, I didn't think so either!  ;)

If they won't support it anymore, this means they can't expect to make any more profit on it, can they?  So it wouldn't hurt them to make it open source now.  Give somebody else (pref. the younger generation like myself)a chance at learning operating system code, but maybe Bill wouldn't like it if we came up with something that maybe better as a competing OS!  ;)

First time i hear 'beos' and 'very nice os' in a single sentence.

...used BeOS only for a short time, but kinda liked it :)

I actually still have some original Media, but my Hardware is too new for the good old stuff, just like OS/2. Otherwise, I'd have an Installation of those still running.

I still have my copy of OS/2 Warp 3 (and a machine on which to run it).  The only time I ever saw it crash was when I had the wrong driver installed for a piece of hardware.  It certainly was a poster child for the fact that good ideas and great pieces of software engineering don't always make it in the marketplace.

If you want a good laugh at Microsoft's expense, do some research on all the ideas that Microsoft engineers swore up and down could not be achieved when OS/2 was a joint IBM-Microsoft project that IBM engineers subsequently incorporated into the OS once Microsoft was out of the picture.

Yes I remember BeOS, but never really got the chance to experience it as such.

But it would be nice for Microsoft to release obsolete software as open source, what good is it for them to hold onto?  Surely it can make the computing industry a better place to let others have a go at making operating systems and giving users a wide choice.  But Microsoft or Mr. Gates will never see it that way.

@patience - would love to help out on an OS, but I'm kinda doing that already at university.  It would be a little time consuming trying to work on 2.  ;)

I'm planning on improving on JavaOS and building a complete revamped operating system from Java 2, with some friends for university, for a software engineering project.

wrote on 25.09.04 at 12:01:04:

Hm, since the term "security" has proven to be exactly the opposite of the terms "Windows XP" or "Internet Explorer" in the modern language : http://www.mozilla.org/ http://www.opera.com/ MicroSoft's Methods of enforcing Mal-/Spyware infested Software by disabling access to critical System features or updates after sufficient saturation of the market is nothing new. They've pulled that stunt numerous times in the past, in order to push their security- and privacy risks onto the Users.

there's also a important URL, where you'll find the most effective IE patch for us win9x users  :D
http://www.litepc.com/ieradicator.html