Looks like the 32TB size reported is the total size of all the various Windows installation images, prior to de-dupe. 8TB after de-dupe. Not a very useful figure, however.

https://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=420025#p42...

Compressed, it is ~8TB. Fully expanded it is ~32TB. I think the bigger issue is not the final size, but that internal Microsoft material - particularly source code - has escaped into public FTP. That, to me, is the main thing, right?

C.

Windows sources have escaped before. I doubt that Windows is buildable outside of Microsoft (and the bits are definitely not signable, since you need access to a key vault for that).

Useful for research, and finding security issues. Not much else.

Might be helpful to the reactos and wine folks if unofficially.

Actually the opposite. They can't work in the project of they've seen the actual MS code even if they write their own code.

Ah well, if there's a rule...

Why is that?

You can break patents without ever knowing the patent existed. So looking at this code wouldn't trigger a new patent problem.

And simply looking at some code, closing it, then later writing code that does the same functionality is not breaking copyright. So looking at this code would not trigger copyright.

Clean room reverse engineering. The idea that, if you build something with a specified interface (Windows API in this case) without prior knowledge of the implementation details, and you haven't broken any patents in doing so, then you haven't broken copyright either and you are free to do business. This is a gross oversimplification. See Intel vs AMD case for more details.

Clean room is a defense against copyright and not patent, AIUI. For patents it doesn't matter if you knew someone had patented it.

Not a lawyer, though, but a quick search confirms this.

>Compressed, it is ~8TB.

But what data does this 8TB refer to specifically? Is this the source + all the windows builds from a plethora of sources? Did you download 8TB of data from BA and expand it to 32TB or was this a figure provided to you by one of the raided hackers or their associates?

>think the bigger issue is not the final size, but that internal Microsoft material - particularly source code - has escaped into public FTP

Happens regularly, although usually it's MS employees leaving stuff in public FTPs or inside released ISOs, updates, whatever. redmond\ domain is huge and the (accidental or not) leaks never stop.

It's ~8TBs of deduplicated Windows installation media. The Shared Source Initiative material only amounts to ~1.2 GB, if that.

It's 32TB of deduplicated data. You've to download the whole 32TB actually