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PUBLIC WARNING

The website listed at domain name http://specops.jeff.net.ru/ is no way affiliated with Specops Laboratories, Philippines; the unscrupulous owners of the aforementioned website are infringing on our copyrighted material and have no authorization to represent our company in any fashion.

We believe that the purpose of this web site may to mislead the public and to defraud unsuspecting persons. We are now conducting an investigation to determine the person(s) behind this fraud and we will be seeking assistant from legal authorities in the appropriate jurisdiction. If you have any information about the person(s) involved in this fraud please contact us at info@specopslabs.com

Oh, and it seems that the Turbolinux guys had it coming to them, according to this letter of intent:
http://www.specopslabs.com/content/turbolinux-loi. pdf
Poor guys...

I wonder what IBM would say...

http://www.specopslabs.com/partners-stratigicpartn ers.htm

The story behind David reads like an adventure novel: In July of 2002, news of SpecOpS Labs' discovery was leaked from Oracle-Philippines to Microsoft in Redmond WA. Microsoft immediately relayed a communiqué to an Asian based Private Investigator requesting detailed info on the SpecOpS Labs Platform; days later, news of the investigation was intercepted by a friendly asset and delivered to SpecOpS Labs. In August, the Philippines' top computer scientist & MIT alumni scrutinized the David blueprint and certified its validity; a few weeks later, a high-ranking ASEAN IBM Official learned of the discovery and its certification and requested a meeting with SpecOpS Labs.

PROJECT DAVID about to resign. Ladies and Gentlemen, we are proud to announce the end of the Project David joke. SpecOps, a Phillipines company, decided that it wouldn't be a good thing to show what's under the hood of Project David AKA CrossOver Office. The David Technology section is temporarily disabled, as well as the David Technology Validations and the David Development Plan. The SpecOps engineers are asking for more time to find and remplace all wine occurence to david. Chief architech said by the end of the year there shoudn't be any trace of WINE or Crossover Office inside the code. Then the CD will be released as a binary app. for $39. Technical support will be done through the WINE mailing list. Please be patient. Project David is about to be a nightmare for Steve Ballmer.

Their market strategy page
Objectives

By the end of the first 12 months of operation:
Develop a client base of 75 White Box System Builders and 1 Major Strategic OEM
Sell and Ship 30,000+ copies of the DAVID Middleware
Generate a gross revenue of US$ 1,000,000.00

And the Contacts page gives one address only:
PHILIPPINES
Summit One Office Tower
530 Shaw Blvd.
Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila 150

The screenshots were taken by SpecOps Labs staff; Flexbeta does not have actual access to the Winbridge application.

Believe me... take a look at their Marketing Strategy!

http://www.specopslabs.com/market.htm

Cheers, Matt.

However: A lot of calls take weird undocumented arguments that only Microsoft applications use. And from experience in system call interception, if you don't pass them along, the applications don't work. So someone reimplimenting the system calls will have a fun time reverse engineering those weird arguments. (Or, "reverse engineer" them from the leaked source code)

But the major implication of this approach is that you won't get the licensing cost savings, as you will still need a licensed copy of the Win32 layer. Ignoring the EULA conflict issues (running Win32 not on the NT kernel), this will kill any cost advantages.

Check out their entire website and you'll descover the following on the page Our Market:

Our Market

Our Market content here.


Project David is a fraud!

Here's the bandwagon... you know what to do...

This would dissasemble the x86 windows binaries, rewriting any low level OS library and hardware access code, emitting Linux compatible executable binaries. This could be done both Ahead Of Time, before execution, and Just In Time, during execution. Caching the resulting rewrite on disk would speed up execution a lot.

A neat trick if possible. However Soft Labs would have to reverse engineer a hell of a lot of Microsoft's OS to manage it.

Not only do the links under Project David not work, if you click on Our Market you get this
Hahaha!
They used some crappy template and when you click on market it has a single line that states "Our market content here"

If your going to make big claims for God's sake make sure your webpage is done. I think we can safely say:
"Move on nothing to see here"

"Move on nothin to see here"

SpecOpS Labs is developing a Systems Level product called David . The primary purpose of David is to
provide a platform, which will serve as a viable alternative to the MS Windows Operating System.

Our first release of David, version 1.0, will be a Middleware program that will sit on top of the free and
open-source Linux operating system, and enable it to seamlessly run most Windows applications. Working in the
background, David will enable users to run their favorite programs with the look-and-feel they are familiar with.

*COMMENTED OUT*

The next generation will, in effect, incorporate the operating system into the web browser, virtually eliminating
the need for an operating system eventually, except to boot the computer and launch the browser.

*END COMMENTED OUT*

David will be configured to be made available for installation either through the internet or from a compact disk
or DVD. It may either be pre-installed by OEMs, or may be easily installed by consumers themselves in plug-and-play
fashion.

*COMMENTED OUT*

David will be distributed to consumers in five releases. See the Information Memorandum within the Investor
Relations section for detailed information on each scheduled release. The David V 1.0 architectural framework has
been validated, prototyped, and copyrighted and has entered the full design and development stage.

*END COMMENTED OUT*

Running Windows Applications on Linux. Most of the popular software applications such as Word,
Excel, Quicken and PageMaker are designed to run exclusively on the Windows OS;
that is, Windows applications cannot natively run on the Linux operating system.
However there are three alternative methods of running Windows applications on
the Linux OS. These three methods include:

• Porting: which requires recompiling the application source code to run on Linux;
  
• PC Emulation: commonly misunderstood as Windows Emulation;
  
  
• Re implementation of the Windows Environment Subsystem
  
  *COMMENTED OUT*
  
  the David Technology
  Link describes the simulation of the Windows Environment
  Subsystem. For a detailed explanation of the other 3 methods,
  click on the Our Market
  - Competitors section of this website.
  
  *END COMMENTED OUT*
  
  

SpecOpS Labs is developing a Systems Level product called David . The primary purpose of David is to
provide a platform, which will serve as a viable alternative to the MS Windows Operating System.

Our first release of David, version 1.0, will be a Middleware program that will sit on top of the free and
open-source Linux operating system, and enable it to seamlessly run most Windows applications. Working in the
background, David will enable users to run their favorite programs with the look-and-feel they are familiar with.

*COMMENTED OUT*

The next generation will, in effect, incorporate the operating system into the web browser, virtually eliminating
the need for an operating system eventually, except to boot the computer and launch the browser.

*END COMMENTED OUT*

David will be configured to be made available for installation either through the internet or from a compact disk
or DVD. It may either be pre-installed by OEMs, or may be easily installed by consumers themselves in plug-and-play
fashion.

*COMMENTED OUT*

David will be distributed to consumers in five releases. See the Information Memorandum within the Investor
Relations section for detailed information on each scheduled release. The David V 1.0 architectural framework has
been validated, prototyped, and copyrighted and has entered the full design and development stage.

*END COMMENTED OUT*

Running Windows Applications on Linux. Most of the popular software applications such as Word,
Excel, Quicken and PageMaker are designed to run exclusively on the Windows OS;
that is, Windows applications cannot natively run on the Linux operating system.
However there are three alternative methods of running Windows applications on
the Linux OS. These three methods include:

• Porting: which requires recompiling the application source code to run on Linux;
  
• PC Emulation: commonly misunderstood as Windows Emulation;
  
  
• Re implementation of the Windows Environment Subsystem
  
  *COMMENTED OUT*
  
  the David Technology
  Link describes the simulation of the Windows Environment
  Subsystem. For a detailed explanation of the other 3 methods,
  click on the Our Market
  - Competitors section of this website.
  
  *END COMMENTED OUT*
  
  

...my investment money?
I mean with a page like this I can trust them right?

You know, they DO have place holders. I guess it's better than all the fake links they have around the site.

I hate to reply to myself.. but according to their development plan http://www.specopslabs.com/david_development.htm#d evelopment they're nowhere near finished.

"Phase 4

Engineering and
Development
" is at 0% for example..

and these two phases are complete:

The purpose of Phase One was to document a theoretical model of David. The theoretical model is primarily a mathematical flow chart description of how David and its component parts operate, accompanied by an artist's concept sketch.
Certified -
100% Completed

The purpose of Phase Two was to build a business case out of the theoretical model. The business and system requirements are analyzed and defined. The deliverable was an architectural framework that documents what David will do, including the functional requirements of each software component.

"

so yippiayee, they've so far calculated that there is a business need for this 'holy grail' and they somewhat know where it would sit at.