Enterprise Source Licensing Program Expanded

In response to requests from large enterprise customers, Microsoft is expanding a pilot of the Enterprise Source Licensing Program to approximately 1,000 of Microsoft’s U.S.-based enterprise corporate customers who have at least 1,500 Windows 2000 licenses. The program gives qualifying customers access to the Windows source code for Windows 2000 Professional, Server, Advanced Server, and Datacenter; the new Windows XP; and all related service pack releases.

Why License Source Code?

A Microsoft customer in the financial services industry indicated that his company could use access to the Windows source code to better understand the technology and better integrate in-house applications with Windows 2000. For example, access to source code could help developers correctly use and exploit APIs, particularly if an API did not appear to be working according to documentation. Access to the source code could also help the company document bugs and make feature requests to Microsoft.

Realistically, few customers have development staff with the time for the nontrivial task of walking through the Windows source code. However, large corporations and government agencies have traditionally required access to source code for their key line-of-business software, including operating systems, databases, utilities, and custom applications. As a minimum, the source code was held in escrow as part of a disaster recovery or business continuity plan.