By Winston Chai
Monday, January 26 2004 07:26 PM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,39166038,00.htm

India may soon become the latest Asian country to gain access to the source code of Microsoft's Windows operating system (OS).

According to Peter Moore, Microsoft Asia-Pacific's chief technology officer, the firm is currently in open discussions with Indian authorities on the possibility of joining Microsoft's Government Security Program (GSP).

The Redmond, Wash.-based company launched the GSP in January last year to provide international governments with the highly-guarded inner workings of its dominant Windows OS. The move is largely designed to alleviate concerns about potential vulnerabilities within the Windows source code and hidden backdoors which could allow outsiders to retrieve confidential information from government IT systems.

"Providing both source access and technical information to national governments and international organizations about the Microsoft Windows Platform, the GSP better enables government customers to design, build, deploy and maintain secure computing environments," said Moore.

Besides allaying security fears, industry observers believe the GSP could also be an attempt to combat the spread of Linux OS, which has an open source code policy and has been steadily gaining momentum among regional governments.

In Asia-Pacific, Microsoft has already signed a GSP agreement with China, one of the strongest proponents of open-source software. Besides the mainland, the software giant has struck similar arrangements with Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia.