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Paul Thurrott, the author of the Wininformant piece, askes a good question in as to why Mainsoft needs a copy of the WinNT source code if it's only porting IE.

I wouldn't consider that a particularly good question; the question was

One might wonder why Microsoft would need to supply the jealously guarded Windows source code to a company that was simply porting old versions of IE and WMP to other operating systems.

to which the answer is very simple: Mainsoft is not a company that is "simply porting old versions of IE and WMP to other operating systems".

Mainsoft is a company whose product is a library to implement the Win32 API atop other operating systems. The "MainWin: How It Works page on Mainsoft's Web site says

MainWin Architecture Overview

The MainWin libraries consist of two layers that sit directly on top of the UNIX operating system:

MainWin Win32 subsystem

The Win32 subsystem is a low-level implementation of the Windows 32-bit interface (Win32) on UNIX. This thin and efficient layer sits close to the low-level UNIX service layers such as POSIX, Xlib, and OpenGL. This layer provides Windows graphic services, window management, NT kernel (thread and synchronization objects), networking, and Windows GL (graphic layer) support.

Windows NT Services

The Windows NT Services consist of millions of lines of Windows NT4 source code which have been rehosted on UNIX. The MainWin Win32 layer has allowed us to port large portions of Windows NT run-time support with minimal code modifications. Having the actual Windows NT source code running on UNIX assures you of the highest level of Windows NT compatibility for your applications; and allows the same source code to run correctly on both UNIX and Windows.

(Note that Windows NT isn't just a kernel, it's a complete OS and window system/GUI; the stuff being rehosted is presumably large amounts of userland code.)

I'm also not sure why Thurrott thought the fact that Mainsoft had access to NT source code was some Deep Dark Secret that his informant had revealed to him, as per his comment

And they even mention having access to the Windows 2000/NT 4 source code, a tidbit that was also divulged to me in Israel.

given that there's a press release on Mainsoft's site, linked to by an item on Mainsoft's home page , that says

Sunnyvale, California August 27, 1998-Mainsoft, the market leader in extending Windows APIs to UNIX, announced that it has signed a new WISE agreement with Microsoft, giving Mainsoft access to Windows NT source code up to and including Windows NT version 5. The WISE Agreement provides Mainsoft with the sources necessary to continue development and support of MainWin through the next generation of its Windows on UNIX..

(I'm also not sure why he speaks of "old versions" of IE and WMP being ported; another item on Mainsoft's Web site says

Same-day release of Windows and UNIX versions of Internet Explorer 5.0

On March 18, 1999, Microsoft simultaneously released Windows and UNIX version of Internet Explorer 5.0 with Outlook Express. Rather than rewrite the code for the UNIX version, Microsoft chose to use MainWin to rehost the source code on UNIX. Using MainWin, Microsoft was able to ship the UNIX version of this complex and technically advanced release of Internet Explorer on the same day as the Windows version.

which would seem to imply that the version of IE 5 that was ported to UNIX was about as far from "old" as one could imagine; no, they may not have ported IE 5.5 yet, but, at the time they ported IE 5.0, it was as new as you can get.)

Methinks Thurrott should, before he speaks further on this topic, spend an hour or so browsing the Mainsoft Web site, at least if his goal is journalistic accuracy rather than journalistic excitement (you can often write far more exciting stories if you're not constrained by such boring mundane restrictions as a requirement to have what you say correspond, to some extent, to reality).

Paul Thurrott, the author of the Wininformant piece, askes a good question in as to why Mainsoft needs a copy of the WinNT source code if it's only porting IE.

I wouldn't consider that a particularly good question; the question was

One might wonder why Microsoft would need to supply the jealously guarded Windows source code to a company that was simply porting old versions of IE and WMP to other operating systems.

to which the answer is very simple: Mainsoft is not a company that is "simply porting old versions of IE and WMP to other operating systems".

Mainsoft is a company whose product is a library to implement the Win32 API atop other operating systems. The "MainWin: How It Works page on Mainsoft's Web site says

MainWin Architecture Overview

The MainWin libraries consist of two layers that sit directly on top of the UNIX operating system:

MainWin Win32 subsystem

The Win32 subsystem is a low-level implementation of the Windows 32-bit interface (Win32) on UNIX. This thin and efficient layer sits close to the low-level UNIX service layers such as POSIX, Xlib, and OpenGL. This layer provides Windows graphic services, window management, NT kernel (thread and synchronization objects), networking, and Windows GL (graphic layer) support.

Windows NT Services

The Windows NT Services consist of millions of lines of Windows NT4 source code which have been rehosted on UNIX. The MainWin Win32 layer has allowed us to port large portions of Windows NT run-time support with minimal code modifications. Having the actual Windows NT source code running on UNIX assures you of the highest level of Windows NT compatibility for your applications; and allows the same source code to run correctly on both UNIX and Windows.

(Note that Windows NT isn't just a kernel, it's a complete OS and window system/GUI; the stuff being rehosted is presumably large amounts of userland code.)

I'm also not sure why Thurrott thought the fact that Mainsoft had access to NT source code was some Deep Dark Secret that his informant had revealed to him, as per his comment

And they even mention having access to the Windows 2000/NT 4 source code, a tidbit that was also divulged to me in Israel.

given that there's a press release on Mainsoft's site, linked to by an item on Mainsoft's home page , that says

Sunnyvale, California August 27, 1998-Mainsoft, the market leader in extending Windows APIs to UNIX, announced that it has signed a new WISE agreement with Microsoft, giving Mainsoft access to Windows NT source code up to and including Windows NT version 5. The WISE Agreement provides Mainsoft with the sources necessary to continue development and support of MainWin through the next generation of its Windows on UNIX..

(I'm also not sure why he speaks of "old versions" of IE and WMP being ported; another item on Mainsoft's Web site says

Same-day release of Windows and UNIX versions of Internet Explorer 5.0

On March 18, 1999, Microsoft simultaneously released Windows and UNIX version of Internet Explorer 5.0 with Outlook Express. Rather than rewrite the code for the UNIX version, Microsoft chose to use MainWin to rehost the source code on UNIX. Using MainWin, Microsoft was able to ship the UNIX version of this complex and technically advanced release of Internet Explorer on the same day as the Windows version.

which would seem to imply that the version of IE 5 that was ported to UNIX was about as far from "old" as one could imagine; no, they may not have ported IE 5.5 yet, but, at the time they ported IE 5.0, it was as new as you can get.)

Methinks Thurrott should, before he speaks further on this topic, spend an hour or so browsing the Mainsoft Web site, at least if his goal is journalistic accuracy rather than journalistic excitement (you can often write far more exciting stories if you're not constrained by such boring mundane restrictions as a requirement to have what you say correspond, to some extent, to reality).

This looks interesting.

With this demonstration application you'll see, first-hand the native Linux performance with full Windows functionality available only by using MainWin. We want to take this opportunity to thank Microsoft Corporation for providing the ORIGINAL source code of FreeCell for Windows game.

As has been previously mentioned the company MainSoft has a product called MainWin which is simply an API wrapper library similar to WINe.

Thus it stands to reason that instead of trying to port the existing Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player code, they'll add functionaliy to their wrapper API's until MSIE and Media Player compile with no dependency problems.

Of course, references to C:\ drives and forward vs. backslashes will need to be fixed. From the looks of it this is no different from a *nix version of the Cygwin Project.
The Queue Principle

As has been previously mentioned the company MainSoft has a product called MainWin which is simply an API wrapper library similar to WINe.

Thus it stands to reason that instead of trying to port the existing Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player code, they'll add functionaliy to their wrapper API's until MSIE and Media Player compile with no dependency problems.

Of course, references to C:\ drives and forward vs. backslashes will need to be fixed. From the looks of it this is no different from a *nix version of the Cygwin Project.
The Queue Principle

Mainsoft confirmed today that they are indeed porting Microsoft's apps to Linux.

Did not, at least not in the press release referenced in this article, where Linux is only mentioned in the "About MainWin" section, which I take to mean only that Microsoft's apps could potentially be ported to Linux.

Did you even *read* the article?

Mainsoft has been working on Windows-to-Unix solutions for some time, and the company has worked with Microsoft in the past, porting Microsoft's DCOM technology to Unix.

Did you go to Mainsoft's web site?

That should answer your question...
--

As someone else noted: read this.

MainWin is recognized as the premiere choice for creating UNIX versions of Windows applications. How do we know that? MainWin has been used to create the UNIX versions of some of Microsoft's most popular applications. These include Microsoft's Internet Explorer for UNIX, Microsoft's Outlook Express for UNIX, and Microsoft is using MainWin to provide DCOM on UNIX. Among the hundreds of Mainsoft customers who rely on MainWin for their cross-platform development and Computer Associates chose MainWin to rehost its next-generation enterprise and information management solutions on UNIX.

So from what I can gather, these are the geniuses that brought us Unix IE. Yup. Just look at the explosion of IE users on Unix. If they do just as good a job on Office, then MS better watch out or their OS market will disappear overnight!

My favourite part is how they say their software isn't a Windows emulator. They just build every single DLL that you'll ever need into a Unix library. And probably a registry too, for good measure.

And you thought administrating Windows was bad enough on a Windows box...

--

Hal Duston
hald@sound.net
If Al Gore invented the internet, why is it named after George W. Bush?

Hal Duston
hald@sound.net
If Al Gore invented the internet, why is it named after George W. Bush?

Hal Duston
hald@sound.net
If Al Gore invented the internet, why is it named after George W. Bush?

Hal Duston
hald@sound.net
If Al Gore invented the internet, why is it named after George W. Bush?

From:
http://www.mainsoft.com/press/pr -internetexpl.html
Microsoft has been distributing Internet Explorer for Solaris and HP/UX since 1997 by utilizing Mainsofts MainWin product to port Internet Explorer technologies to UNIX. In this new contract, Microsoft has engaged Mainsofts Professional Services organization to assist in maintaining and updating Internet Explorer for UNIX. This support service allows Microsoft to most effectively benefit from Mainsofts extensive cross-platform application development expertise with proven methodologies, best practice tools and professional skills honed during hundreds of successful porting projects

mainsoft.com

"MainWin is the answer for being the first in the Linux market with industrial-quality, mature applications."

<snip>

"MainWin is Mainsoft's Windows platform for UNIX systems including Linux. MainWin includes the implementation of Win32 APIs and Windows NT-based services on UNIX. Through strategic agreements with Microsoft, Mainsoft has access to source code for Windows NT® and Windows 2000®. Mainsoft has incorporated several million lines of original source code for Windows NT into MainWin."

<snip>

"No development required. Instead of taking months to rewrite the code, take days to rehost it on Linux using MainWin. MainWin provides native Linux performance with full Windows functionality."

<snip>

"MainWin is more than a porting technology: MainWin is a full Windows implementation on UNIX, allowing you to rehost your entire Windows application code base on UNIX."

<snip>

"MainWin for Linux is now in limited beta release, with general customer availability scheduled for early first quarter of 2000."

Wow!

"Mainsoft has incorporated several million lines of original source code for Windows NT into MainWin."

Now, that's good news...

t_t_b
--
I think not; therefore I ain't®

Click here.

Seems they left the door open with the "other unixes" wording in their press release.

No, it's not (the suite you're thinking of is Wind/U); neither is it built over MainWin or WINE. It would be even slower if that were the case.

"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS

MS won't be happy about making a version of office which will fall into the hands of linux and BSD *nix types.

Yes, they want everyone to use their software, but on their terms

and as much as us independent, liberty-for-all linux-types want linux to be mainstream, how many of us are ready for MS on linux?

MS won't let office run on OS X in a way that can be easily stolen. Expect it to rely on BLUEBOX (classic os 9) or on new OS X quartz/carbon.

However, there are MS official versions of IE5 and office.

look at www.mainsoft.com They have exclusive licensing with MS... They ported the win32 api to unix and have made native versions of IE and office. So, it IS possible, just not cost effective. (mainsoft doesn't do free software yet.)

Close. Except MS didn't port the Win32 API, they used MainWin from MainSoft.

More info can be found here.

It's not unlikely that Windows apps will be ported to Linux. Seeing as Linux is the 'thing to do' (stamp Linux on anything and it'll sell).

This is ESPECIALLY true now that Mainsoft have released MainWin for Linux (basically a complete port of Win32 to Linux - includes COM/ODBC/MFC etc). This is the porting tool Microsoft used to get Internet Explorer and Outlook Express on Slowlaris a HP-UX.

Ofcourse, I'm refusing to use any Offfice product on Linux until X has antialiasing :P.

BTW, these people who thinks MS Office is 'bloated', should try Star Office. 30 second load time comapred to 2 second load time....not to mention the way it pretends to be a shell...

I suspect that they are preparing as a commercial product a UNIX porting layer (similar to Wine) which will allow Office and other MS products to run.

Mainsoft - the folks whose MainWin product was used for the IE4 and IE5 ports to UNIX - already have MainWin for Linux in "limited beta release". It implements an API that is "tightly controlled" by Microsoft, namely the, err, umm, Win32 API and various Microsoft APIs atop it.

I suspect that they are preparing as a commercial product a UNIX porting layer (similar to Wine) which will allow Office and other MS products to run.

Mainsoft - the folks whose MainWin product was used for the IE4 and IE5 ports to UNIX - already have MainWin for Linux in "limited beta release". It implements an API that is "tightly controlled" by Microsoft, namely the, err, umm, Win32 API and various Microsoft APIs atop it.

I suspect that they are preparing as a commercial product a UNIX porting layer (similar to Wine) which will allow Office and other MS products to run.

Mainsoft - the folks whose MainWin product was used for the IE4 and IE5 ports to UNIX - already have MainWin for Linux in "limited beta release". It implements an API that is "tightly controlled" by Microsoft, namely the, err, umm, Win32 API and various Microsoft APIs atop it.

Actually I believe that they used one of the commercial Win32->UNIX porting products (either Bristol's Wind/U or Mainsoft's MainWin)

They used MainWin for both IE4 and IE5.

I believe that one or the other if not both of those now have Linux versions of those products

Mainsoft have MainWin for Linux in "limited beta release".

Actually I believe that they used one of the commercial Win32->UNIX porting products (either Bristol's Wind/U or Mainsoft's MainWin)

They used MainWin for both IE4 and IE5.

I believe that one or the other if not both of those now have Linux versions of those products

Mainsoft have MainWin for Linux in "limited beta release".

Actually I believe that they used one of the commercial Win32->UNIX porting products (either Bristol's Wind/U or Mainsoft's MainWin)

They used MainWin for both IE4 and IE5.

I believe that one or the other if not both of those now have Linux versions of those products

Mainsoft have MainWin for Linux in "limited beta release".

With the radical redesign of OSX, it would make sense from a technical standpoint to make an OSX-specific port (probably with Carbon, since that would take the least effort). ... Anyway, writing an OSX port would involve doing a lot of UN*X-ish code.

I thought the whole point of Carbon was that it was a modified version of the MacOS Classic API; would that not mean that an OS X port to Carbon would involve doing little UNIX-ish code, if any?

This means that after the initial effort of doing an OSX version of Office, it would be a relatively small effort to do versions for other Unices, including Linux.

Presumably you mean "to other Unices that support the Carbon APIs"; the only such UNIX I know if is, err, umm, MacOS X....

If they didn't use Carbon, they'd presumably use Cocoa, in which case it might involve doing some more UNIX-ish code, but would also presumably involve doing a lot of Cocoa code that wouldn't Just Port to a UNIX/X system.

What I'd like to see is a port of all the Win32 APIs and DirectX to Linux.

Such as MainWin for Linux (although I see no sign that MainWin implements the DirectX APIs)?

...that Mainsoft is porting WinMain (or at least is rumored to) to linux (can anybody confirm/deny this?).

Yes, MainWin for Linux "is now in limited beta release, with general customer availability scheduled for early first quarter of 2000." (The page in question even offers a MainWin-based port to Linux of one of the main productivity applications that comes with Windows.)

...that Mainsoft is porting WinMain (or at least is rumored to) to linux (can anybody confirm/deny this?).

Yes, MainWin for Linux "is now in limited beta release, with general customer availability scheduled for early first quarter of 2000." (The page in question even offers a MainWin-based port to Linux of one of the main productivity applications that comes with Windows.)

Hell, they'd probably go to the trouble of writing their own toolkit.

Only if MainWin (which is what was used for the IE 4 and IE 5 ports to various UNIXes) won't do the trick. (I.e., they may just let Mainsoft write the toolkit in question for them, given that Mainsoft have already done so....)

Hell, they'd probably go to the trouble of writing their own toolkit.

Only if MainWin (which is what was used for the IE 4 and IE 5 ports to various UNIXes) won't do the trick. (I.e., they may just let Mainsoft write the toolkit in question for them, given that Mainsoft have already done so....)

Hell, they'd probably go to the trouble of writing their own toolkit.

Only if MainWin (which is what was used for the IE 4 and IE 5 ports to various UNIXes) won't do the trick. (I.e., they may just let Mainsoft write the toolkit in question for them, given that Mainsoft have already done so....)

At the Linux Expo in New York this year a friend and I stopped by the MainSoft both. One of their guys was telling me that they have access to the windows NT source and with it they wrote a program that will let you compile your windows program to *nix. They even said M$ used it themself to write the IE port for Solaris. So if you think IE for Solaris is slow, Office will probably be also. (I never tried it myself). The software looks like it might be good for small programs, but I bet it runs big ones (like M$ Office) like crap. Here is a link to a link to there website; http://www.mainsoft.com

At the Linux Expo in New York this year a friend and I stopped by the MainSoft both. One of their guys was telling me that they have access to the windows NT source and with it they wrote a program that will let you compile your windows program to *nix. They even said M$ used it themself to write the IE port for Solaris. So if you think IE for Solaris is slow, Office will probably be also. (I never tried it myself). The software looks like it might be good for small programs, but I bet it runs big ones (like M$ Office) like crap. Here is a link to a link to there website; http://www.mainsoft.com

Though from the last I've seen, they're still working on the Win32 implementation

Or Mainsoft is, with MainWin for Linux (Mainsoft's MainWin is what Microsoft used to port IE5 to UNIX (and IE4 before that).

Though from the last I've seen, they're still working on the Win32 implementation

Or Mainsoft is, with MainWin for Linux (Mainsoft's MainWin is what Microsoft used to port IE5 to UNIX (and IE4 before that).

Though from the last I've seen, they're still working on the Win32 implementation

Or Mainsoft is, with MainWin for Linux (Mainsoft's MainWin is what Microsoft used to port IE5 to UNIX (and IE4 before that).

Please. This doesn't make any sense.

The compatability library that the Solaris IE
is based on, from Mainsoft, hasn't yet been ported to Linux yet. It has been
annouced, but not completed.

I have serious doubts that MS ported it to WINE
or any other win32-on-unix system. You might ask your 'informants' just what this port was based on.

Once Mainsoft has completed the Linux version of their product, then we might see Internet Explorer for Linux. At least, at that point, it's no more than a recompile, so they have no good technical reason -not- to release a Linux version. The decision they make, to or not to, will be purely strategic (undermine Linux as a viable platform by withholding MS products vs. hold the browser market and control of the de-facto web APIs... tough call... )


--Parity

check it out

MainSoft
Chili!Soft

Windows networking code is anything but posix compliant.

As far as I know, the POSIX standards for network APIs (e.g., P1003.1g) are still drafts, so, arguably, NO networking code is "POSIX compliant"; has the standard been approved yet?

Microsoft has decided to call their network api "windows sockets".

They decided that ages ago; it's BSD-like, but has some of its own stuff (e.g., I think it lets you start a host name lookup without waiting for it to finish, and to wait for it to finish later, and, I suspect, to wait either for it to finish or some other event to come in, so you can handle other events while you're waiting).

The aim of this project, at least in part as I understand it, is to write an api for linux that will allow the use of "windows sockets" code on posix compliant systems.

If it works on POSIX-compliant systems, it's not an "API for Linux", it's an API for POSIX-compliant systems - or, rather, for systems that provide a networking API that looks like the POSIX/POSIX draft one, which would include but not be limited to UNIX.

Or, perhaps, it's for systems with a UNIX-style network API, rather than the (still apparently in draft form, as per the above) POSIX network API.

Of course, MainWin already has support for Winsock, according to this page on the Mainsoft site, so it's not as if that's not already available. And it supports more than just the sockets API; I rather suspect you'd need to support a heck of a lot more of the Win32 API than just the Winsock calls to port the server applications you mentioned, so I rather doubt that there's some project to deal only with Winsock.

After reading the MainWin overview on MainSoft's site, it is obvious that it is just another Win32 emulation layer, similar to Wine for Linux or Wabi for Solaris. Of course, they state on their page that MainWin is not an emulator. But all it does is to translate Win32 API calls to something that runs under Linux. The calls are executed in the MainWin layer (thanks to the Windows source code that they can use) or translated to Linux system calls. By the way, MainWin is already available for many UNIX systems, and they are just adding Linux to their list.

How is this different from Wine? On the negative side, it is closed source and probably quite expensive. On the positive side, the fact that they have access to the Windows source code means that they might be more compatible with all the undocumented Win32 features that are used by some MS applications.

I don't think that there is anything really exciting about this announcement. Win32 emulators have existed for quite a while on various UNIX systems, and all of them have their drawbacks. This one might be better in some areas and worse in some others, but it will never replace a native port of the applications to Linux.

If MicroSoft (not MainSoft) starts publishing press releases encouraging developers to work only on Win32 because it is portable to all environments including Linux, then we may have something to respond to. But I don't think that any serious company would stop porting their products to Linux because some small company provides a (closed and expensive) emulation layer for Win32 apps.

After reading the MainWin overview on MainSoft's site, it is obvious that it is just another Win32 emulation layer, similar to Wine for Linux or Wabi for Solaris. Of course, they state on their page that MainWin is not an emulator. But all it does is to translate Win32 API calls to something that runs under Linux. The calls are executed in the MainWin layer (thanks to the Windows source code that they can use) or translated to Linux system calls. By the way, MainWin is already available for many UNIX systems, and they are just adding Linux to their list.

How is this different from Wine? On the negative side, it is closed source and probably quite expensive. On the positive side, the fact that they have access to the Windows source code means that they might be more compatible with all the undocumented Win32 features that are used by some MS applications.

I don't think that there is anything really exciting about this announcement. Win32 emulators have existed for quite a while on various UNIX systems, and all of them have their drawbacks. This one might be better in some areas and worse in some others, but it will never replace a native port of the applications to Linux.

If MicroSoft (not MainSoft) starts publishing press releases encouraging developers to work only on Win32 because it is portable to all environments including Linux, then we may have something to respond to. But I don't think that any serious company would stop porting their products to Linux because some small company provides a (closed and expensive) emulation layer for Win32 apps.

does anyone else see a contradiction here?

A contradiction between "thin and efficient" and "several million lines of Windows source code"? Perhaps the "thin and efficient" layer implements very low-level Win32 operations, and the "several million lines of Windows source code" make those Win32 calls (and undocumented Windows calls implemented by MainWin, if any), so that most of the environment consists of said Windows source.

Does it use a toolkit?

No.

Does it even use X?

Yes. For details on those last two answers, see Mainsoft's "MainWin and the X architecture" white paper.

Think of it as containing its own toolkit, whose API looks suspiciously like the window-system part of Win32....

(No, I have no idea what rule they used to insert registered-trademark symbols into that white paper; of whom is "Window Manager" a trademark? :-))

It is interesting that they don't mention WINE as competition. Normally ZDNet not mentioning the Open Source product wouldn't surprise me, but this *is* a Linux article.

I think it's more a case of ZDNet continuing to illustrate that they are not concerned with journalism. Even google turns up hits on their site for Wine, but the last one by Mary Jo is from December, 1998 ... And it's doubtful whether a zdnet type can remember that long. At least they toned the press release down a bit, and ran it through demoronizer, though.

For instance, the subheading of the press release is: "Mainsoft? Corporation First to Address Market Demand for Applications on the Linux Operating System" - Which actually reflects as doubly disingenuous of Mainsoft, as Corel has been doing much work on Winelib *and* using it to port all of their applications to Linux. (not to mention Netscape, Star Division, etc, who have supported Linux before any "HOT IT INDUSTRY" trade mag had ever mentioned Linux)

This brings to mind some comments Mary Jo Foley made in an article where the "HOT IT INDUSTRY" trade mags were holding a Slashdot bashing. She said that it was weird how Slashdot would "slant" things, eg., they would pick out the parts that made Microsoft look stupid, rather than hightlight the article a real -journalist- would.

I get the idea that her idea of a real journalist's job is to further polish and sensationalize press releases and product announcements so as to better fit the audience the magazine targets. Fun stuff, those editorial policies.

Apps?

"They", in the sense of "Mainsoft", sell Visual SourceSafe for UNIX, which is Microsoft's source code control system rehosted to UNIX using Mainsoft's MainWin product - MainWin isn't an app, it's libraries and the like to let you build Win32 apps to run on the UNIX-compatible OSes on which MainWin is offered.

Internet Explorer was ported to various UNIX-compatible OSes using it, as were a variety of apps - none of them looking like they'd be the Top Ten Shrink-Wrapped Windows Applications at your local computer store (they're more specialized) - as seen by checking out Mainsoft's press releases. Those applications don't all come from Mainsoft and don't all come from Microsoft; they come from a variety of vendors.

Microsoft is likely willing to spend an awful lot of money on "market research". At this point, they are probably just trying to find out how viable a platform Linux is.

Microsoft may or may not be spending money on this; MainWin is a product of Mainsoft, not Microsoft, so all Microsoft may have done is said "we won't yank your license for the Windows source in MainWin if you do a Linux port", they haven't necesarily contributed money or other resources to this.

(It is interesting to note that they don't already have an x86 UNIX in the list of platforms on which MainWin is available, so, if they port it, Linux may be the first UNIX-that-runs-on-a-PC on which MainWin is available.)

My question is this, though: what underlying toolkit will they use. Will it be based on raw Xlib (good for speed)

Probably. I don't have IE-for-Solaris (the port of which was done with MainWin) handy, but I don't remember it being dynamically linked with any toolkit libraries (although I also don't remember whether it was dynamically linked with Xlib, so that doesn't by itself prove anything). The UI of IE-for-Solaris is somewhat Motifish, but looks different enough that it's unlikely to be Motif. I suspect it's neither GTK+ nor Qt, either - I seem to remember the bevels on the scrollbars being narrower than those of Motif, GTK+, or Qt.

They're extremely unlikely, I suspect, to use KDE or GNOME - not all Linux systems necessarily have those, and they don't require either of them for IE/Solaris, so MainWin doesn't require them.

FreeBSD is more of a standard *NIX, than Linux is.

In what sense?

I was recently informed that Hotmail which is owned by M$ runs FreeBSD. I originaly thought that Hotmail ran Solaris and HP, which was why M$ ported its IE to thoses platforms

I'd not heard that Hotmail ran HP-UX, just a mixture of Solaris and FreeBSD.

I'd also not heard that this had anything whatsoever to do with Microsoft's choice of platforms to which to port IE; the impression I had was that some customers wanted to standardize on one browser for all platforms in the company, including their UNIX boxes, and that they ported IE to the platforms that would help them the most in getting those customers to choose IE.

The choice of platforms probably also depended on the platforms for which Mainsoft's MainWin "Win32-atop-UNIX" platform was available, as that's how they did the port; it doesn't appear to be available on any x86 UNIX, just AIX on RS/6000's, HP-UX on PA-RISC machines, IRIX on SGI MIPS machines, Solaris on SPARC machines, and Digital^H^H^H^H^H^H^HTru64 UNIX on Alpha. Whether this is the result of Microsoft not wanting competition on PCs or not is an interesting question, to which I don't know the answer.

"Microsoft is the epitome of innovation and product quality."

I really don't think Micros~1 "does" anything but Win32. Therefore I doubt if they have Linux developers doing this and figure they have a porting layer of Win32 APIs mapping Win32 to GNU/Linux APIs.

...or mapping Win32 to UNIX/X APIs (given that GNU/Linux APIs are largely the same as those on other UNIX-flavored OSes).

In fact, that is what they did for the Solaris and HP-UX ports; they used Mainsoft's MainWin, as I mentioned in another comment. Presumably Mainsoft's stuff can be made to work on Linux, as well.

Rather than rewrite the code for the UNIX version, Microsoft chose to use MainWin to rehost the source code on UNIX.

The same was true of IE4, according to stuff on Mainsoft's site.

I saw something ages ago on, I think, Microsoft's Web site indicating that they were developing a Win32-atop-MacOS package and getting third parties to do Win32-atop-UNIX packages; they were, I think, pushing this as a way of getting app developers - or, at least, custom in-house app developers - to write Win32 apps and to get them on other platforms with those packages. I don't know if that's the way they do MacOS ports of their own apps.