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Did anyone check out the Linux Foundation's reply to Austin LUG guy?

Talk about snide. I'd expect such hostility from Microsoft, but evidently such FUD tactics are not beneath the Linux Foundation either.

Maybe this is their way of trying to put an end to the hobbyist Linux crowd.

Basicly, the microkernel is a horrible example of bondage and discipline programming. In order to solve the low level problem of stray memory references, the professors from academia have come up with a low level solution, using the Memory Management Unit, (MMU) to prevent these errors. Unfortunately, this "solution" does high level collateral damage. By breaking the OS into a lot of little pieces, the u-kernels intoduce inefficiency. By putting constraints on how OSes are designed, ukernels make design, coding, and debugging more difficult. All of this to do checking, that at least in theory, could have been done at design, compile, or link time.

This error is basicly caused by wishfull thinking. The u-kernel advocates wish that Operation Systems design were less difficult. To Quote Torvalds:

So that 'microkernels are wonderful' mantra really comes from that desperate wish that the world should be simpler than it really is. It's why microkernels have obviously been very popular in academia, where often basically cannot afford to put a commercial-quality big development team on the issue, so you absolutely require that the problem is simpler.

So reality has nothing to do with microkernels. Exactly the reverse. The whole point of microkernels is to try to escape the reality that OS design and implementation is hard, and a lot of work. It's an appealing notion.

In 1992, Tanenbaum said "LINUX is obsolete" and "it is now all over but the shoutin'" and "microkernels have won". It is now 2008, and the micro kernel advocates still have nothing that can compete with LINUX in its own problem space. It is time for micro kernel advocates to stop shouting.

No version of Microsoft Windows has ever shiped with a network stack derived directly or indirectly from BSD. Some network applications, notably ftp, did.

MS Windows with a BSD TCP/IP stack.

Since you speak with such authority ("no version ever"), then you must be a long-time Microsoft systems programmer? One of greater knowledge of this subject than Mr. Adam Barr?

There's a good rundown of the situation here. What's funny is that Microsoft actually paid for BSD code.

Actually, microsoft didn't even write their own, they bought a modified form of the BSD stack from another company. See here for more.

What's this with Microsoft paying SCO a fortune for a Unix license and then snuggling up and making peace with Sun a year or two before Longhorn, the "next generation of Windows" is expected?

MS's use of BSD code isn't news http://austinlug.org/archives/alg/2002-05/msg00606 .html and they sure have a habit of usurping more good software than they write.

Maybe there is a relationship between Longhorn and Solaris 10.

Heck, if Sun open sources it, MS can later change license and claim everyone is stealing from them. U.S. copyright will certainly accomodate retroactive litigation by then.

I only hope Sun realizes that few companies survive such relationships with MS!

Yes, a wacko theory but we have at least a year to wait until it can be proven or disproven.

MD

The author of that story is Adam Barr. (Any relation, Joe ?) He worked for Microsoft for 10 years and wrote a book about the experience . . . titled . . . wait for it . . . . "PROUDLY SERVING MY CORPORATE MASTERS." No, I did not make that up. If I had tried to make that up, it wouldn't have been that funny. Check out Adam Barr's web page, at . . . you guessed it: http://www.proudlyserving.com/

BSD licensed code is also in ftp.exe. BSD defenders would offer that as evidence that work done under the BSD license helps make the world a better place, because now MS saved money and has a better ftp. Those who prefer the GPL over the BSD license would offer that as evidence that work done under the BSD license can make the world a worse place -- someone who buys windows cannot get the source code to the ftp.exe on their own machine. THis is the same old argument we've been pounding to death on this list.

The arguments of both sides of this flamewar apply anywhere BSD code is found in windows. You can confirm the existence of such code my mounting a windows partition and executing this command:

# rgrep -r -l "The Regents of the University" /dos

Furthermore, far from there being "no truth to this," MS's Proud Servant himself admits MS used BSD code for the TCP/IP stack, specifically for NT 3.1. MS engineers did not seek out BSD code on the BSD web site; they bought the code from a third company, Spider, that had copied and modified the BSD TCP/IP stack.

So not only did Microsoft re-distribute BSD licensed code . . . THEY PAID FOR IT. That is so funny, I think I have to take a break from writing this and get a drink.

... or you can read about it in Barr's writings here: http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2001/ 6/19/05641/7357

Perhaps you should tell that to the guy who wrote the windows stack. He's posted before saying that it is not bsd.

Better double check that.