Vole posts tool as Open Sauce

MICROSOFT HAS posted its latest version of Windows Installer XML as open source.

In a seven day period that the Vole signed a peace treaty with the forked tongued Sun, the software giant seemed to embrace its other nemesis - the Open Source community.

The code is WiX, for Windows Installer XML. It is used for building Windows installation packages from XML source code. Vole posted it on www.SourceForge.net which is a Web site that provides free hosting for open source software development projects.

Microsoft admits that it is the first time that it had posted a project under the Common Public Licence which was written by IBM.

However, a Microsoft spokesman said this did no mean it would be rushing to make all its software open source. Microsoft has released source code under various "shared source" licences, in the past all of which Microsoft wrote.

While Microsoft says it might consider releasing software under the Common Public Licence, it has no plans to use the GNU General Public Licence, under which Linux is distributed.

Microsoft decided CPL was the best license for WiX, the spokesvole said. µ