Microsoft Launches CE 5.0, OEM License
At its Embedded Developer's Conference in San Diego, Microsoft plans to unveil a commercial derivative license that will allow partners to modify and redistribute the CE 5.0 source code for use in their embedded systems with no obligation to share the changes.
Microsoft, Redmond, Wash., also said it will release CE 5.0 to manufacturing on July 9 and open up another 500,000 lines of code for commercial derivative licensing. The current licensing arrangement allows OEMs and partners to view roughly 2 million lines of the CE 4.2 code but they can't modify or redistribute it, executives said.
The new licensing scheme will allow partners to customize and redistribute more than 2.5 million lines of source code with no requirement to release it publicly, said Todd Brix, group product manager of the Microsoft Mobile and Embedded Devices Division.
Brix said Microsoft has offered commercial derivative licenses in the embedded device kit to select partners, such as Hitachi, but is now opening it up to all OEMs and partners building embedded devices.
"Customers see this as a competitive and preferred alternative to open source," said Brix. "In the past, [customers] just had source code for reference and debugging. Now [they] can alter that shared source code and ship it, and our OEMs don't have to share that custom IP [intellectual property] with us, their partners or customers."
Observers acknowledge that Microsoft's new commercial derivative licensing scheme is an aggressive tactic to extend its lead--and curtail the growth of Linux--in the embedded OS market. In February, Linux leader Red Hat joined forces with proprietary embedded operating system powerhouse Wind River Systems to develop Red Hat Embedded Linux for the device market after abandoning its own Linux embedded effort.
"It is a hybrid [licensing scheme]," said Rob Enderle, principal of Enderle Group. "Microsoft has been moving sharply against Linux and now is starting to take some aspects of open source that resonate with the embedded audience while being able to leave things out like the [General Public License's] sharing provision that scares the life out of the embedded vendors."
CE 5.0--formerly code-named Macallan--will include networking performance improvements, more than 60 production-quality drivers, Watson technology to remotely monitor device performance and Direct3D Mobile for gaming applications, Microsoft said.