This move is a brilliant strategic move by Microsoft. On the other hand, it generates positive publicity because few reporters understand the subleties of software licenses. On the other hand, this move ties the licensees to Microsoft without giving anyone the possibility of competing against Microsoft. In fact, the "Shared Source" license basically prevents anyone who has had access to the Microsoft code from working on a similar code by a competitor. Brilliant, brilliant.

The Microsoft bulletin says the only way to ward off this attack is to "make sure you have no trusted publishers, including Microsoft." [...] In a recent financial statement, Microsoft revealed for the first time that desktop Windows makes a profit margin of more than 85 percent. To put this in personal terms, for every dollar you spent licensing the OS last year, Microsoft spent less than 15 cents on all Windows packaging, marketing, and, oh yeah, improving the product. [...] Setting aside just 1 cent of each dollar would create a fund of $29 million a year. That'd pay a lot of outside security auditors, don't you think?

It will take years for total information awareness to get beyond the prototype stage. But if a working system ever does get up and running, you won't have to be Philip K. Dick to imagine the possibilities for mischief, especially if carelessness, to say nothing of malevolence, enters the picture. But not to worry. "The privacy of individuals not affiliated with terrorism" will be protected via "technologies for controlling automated search and exploitation algorithms and for purging data structures appropriately."