Shared Code for fighting OpenSource

Do you remember the Government Security Program, GSP, from M$? Yes, a pretended 'goodwill' proposal for providing national governments " with controlled access to Microsoft® Windows® source code and other technical information they need to be confident in the enhanced security features of the Windows platform".

Well, here you have the first update to the program, making an important part of the source M$ Office productivity suite's code available. There are people out there thinking about this Shared Source initiative just as a means of fighting the commercial threat of OpenOffice, one of the OpenSource productivity suites that is gaining acceptance as mainstream productivity software.

The situation of the software giant is not an easy one: on one hand, the pressure from the regulators still continues, due to the monopolistic position of the conmpany in the software makers industry; and, on the other hand, the suspicioun of the existance of a back door access in the M$ products source code, have not dissapeared within the european governments.