Chrome uses Microsoft code

WHile Google has acknowledged that its Chrome Web browser owes a lot to Open Source projects, Firefox and WebKit, it failed to mention the input from that great supporter of open source... Microsoft.

Digging through the Chrome source code, Scott Hanselman, a senior programming manager for Microsoft, found that the browser uses a chunk of Microsoft code, called the Windows Template Library.

This is software for building a Windows user interface and it uses an abstraction layer so that the interface software can be employed on other operating systems.

It looks like Google just downloaded it from SourceForge.net and on the Chromium site, Google lists WTL 8.0 as included third-party software.

Google also apparently used an undocumented interface from Microsoft to get the feature working in Windows XP SP2.

Microsoft's Arun Kishan said the interface is "undocumented and unsupported" and "initially only intended for our own use" on a Microsoft forum posting.

Google said it disassembled the source code of Windows Vista to get the code working.