Monday, June 28, 2004

Open source from Microsoft

This is an interesting tidbit, the Windows Installer XML (WiX) toolset has been released as Open Source on SourceForge.net.

This is a first for Microsoft. I don't have much faith that this will start a cultural shift at MS, as proprietary software (and destroying competitors) is too baked in to the company (IMHO) to be changed in anything less than decades. But still, I have to respect Rob Mensching's attempt to improve installation on windows ('setup' as he calls it).

Having written the installation for CF on Unix and then being forced to maintain it for years, I was always obsessive about making it a nice experience. Things like making sure you could always install over the top of the current or any previous versions. Things like making sure uninstall always removed everything so you could install clean.

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