Windows Interface Source Environment (or WISE) was a licensing program from

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

which allowed developers to recompile and run Windows-based applications on

UNIX Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

and

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...

platforms. WISE SDKs were based on an emulation of the

Windows API The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is Microsoft's core set of application programming interfaces (APIs) available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. The name Windows API collectively refers to several different platform implementations th ...

which could run on Unix and Macintosh platforms.

History

WISE was issued in 1994. WISE

software development kit A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific to ...

s were not directly provided by

. Instead, Microsoft established partnerships with several software providers (which needed to have access to Windows internals source code), which in turn sold WISE SDKs to

end-user In product development, an end user (sometimes end-user) is a person who ultimately uses or is intended to ultimately use a product. The end user stands in contrast to users who support or maintain the product, such as sysops, system administrat ...

s. A few software providers provided WISE SDKs or emulators, mainly: *

Mainsoft Mainsoft is a software company, founded in 1993, that develops interoperability software products for Microsoft Windows and Linux/Unix platforms. History Founding Mainsoft was founded in 1993, mainly to propose integration products between Wind ...

developed a product called Mainwin, which provided an implementation of MFC on

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

platforms. * Bristol Technology Inc. developed Wind/U, which ran on top of Motif. *

Insignia Solutions An insignia () is a sign or mark distinguishing a group, grade, rank, or function. It can be a symbol of personal power or that of an official group or governing body. On its own, an insignia is a sign of a specific or general authority and is ...

provided an emulator called '' Softwindows.'' *

Locus Computing Corporation Locus Computing Corporation was formed in 1982 by Gerald J. Popek, Charles S. Kline and Gregory I. Thiel to commercialize the technologies developed for the LOCUS distributed operating system at UCLA. Locus was notable for commercializing si ...

provided an emulator called ''

Merge Merge, merging, or merger may refer to: Concepts * Merge (traffic), the reduction of the number of lanes on a road * Merge (linguistics), a basic syntactic operation in generative syntax in the Minimalist Program * Merger (politics), the comb ...

.''

Unfair use of Microsoft dominant position

The WISE program, which was discontinued shortly after its inception, was seen by some as a

Trojan horse The Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending before the war is concluded, ...

market. Companies which provided WISE SDKs needed to have access to Windows source code, which made them dependent on Microsoft's good will. In 1999, Bristol Technology Inc., a software company which provided a WISE SDK, sued Microsoft, arguing that it illegally withheld Windows source code and used its dominant position with Windows to move into other markets. A ruling later ordered Microsoft to pay $1 million to Bristol Technologies.

Source code leak

To be able to develop WISE SDKs, software providers needed to have access to

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

internals source code. In 2004, more than 30,000 source files from

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), releas ...

and

Windows NT 4.0 Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, which was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail ...

were leaked to the internet. It was later discovered that the source of the leak originated from

, one of the WISE software providers.

References

Windows emulation software {{Windows-stub

History

Unfair use of Microsoft dominant position

Source code leak

See also

References