Slashdot Mirror
On Microsoft Porting to Linux/Unix
skubalon writes "Mainsoft confirmed today that they are indeed porting Microsoft's apps to Linux. The story was first reported in Paul Thurrott's WinInfo yesterday. Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player will be among the first apps to be ported." On the other hand we have this submission:rendell writes "According to this story on Beta News, Microsoft is denying the rumors that they were in the process of porting some of their software to the Linux platform. Especially focusing on the rumor that the main project was Office." So - who knows? My analysis: Microsoft is correct - /they/ are not doing the porting. Mainsoft however, appears to have the powers to execute the porting.
I've tried M9, M14,16 and a couple of other Mozillas. Hows about they actually deliver a product. At this rate Microsoft could take the IE5 code, audit it, scrap it and completely rewrite it for every one of the Unixes before Mozilla 1.0 sees the light of day.
Given that Mozilla has gone from Zero to M18 in the same time that MS goes from IE 5.0 to 5.5, I think that remark is way off target. And given enough memory, Mozilla runs very nicely - if it makes your system page to disc you are SOL anyway, and that is true for any system with 64MB or less. I have no complaints with M17 on Linux or M18 nightlies on Windows NT with both systems having 128MB of RAM. Hell even the Flash plugins work in Mozilla now. The memory requirements will drop after M19 when the optimization is done.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
I'm all for this kind of thing. There are a bunch of areas where linux is dragging behind a LOT. Media is my primary concern. As of now I have yet to see a quality linux program play videos. If there is such a beast out there, it's almost impossible to get working. And if you get it working, many features are missing or crappy (a la fullscreen) XMMS is a wonderful program, much better in my estimation than any offering for windows.
Bottom line: Sound we've got down... video, we need all the help we can get.
______
______
everyone was born right-handed, only the greatest overcome it.
http://leftorium.net
I've also used MainWin in the recent past (6 months back) and I can attest that it hasn't gotten any better. In fact, it ships to developers with a ported version of IE, which I can also tell you SUCKS. Its slow as hell, crash-prone, and doesn't adapt to whatever window manager you're using, which is to say, it either compiles looking like Motif or Win32. No choices there. As if that's not bad enough, its really, REALLY bloated, since it has to duplicate pretty much an entire OS. It kind of reminds me of Netscape 4, to tell you the truth.
/.'s readership knows: separate form and function. But then again, with windows, they amount to the same thing, don't they?
MainWin is one of those things that you use when you want to 'rehost' (they don't even call it porting) an in-house application of some sort. Nobody who's really serious about porting tries to use it to port an app. Apparently the rocket scientists over at microsoft didn't learn the basic rules of development that 90% of
Your mom doesn't care if she runs Office on Windows or Linux. You could easily persuade her and many other Windows users to switch to Linux!
As other people have pointed out.. the actual* **********
press releases say they are porting it to UNIX.
They don't mention Linux specifically as the
target platform. I think we are jumping to
conclusions.
*********************************
Microsoft supports MacOS and to continue there support (natively) for MacOS X (which runs on BSD), they must make apps. for *nix
Well, this isn't technically true. MS could program in Carbon (clean subset of old MacOS) or NextStep aka Cocoa and these all include libraries and frameworks etc etc.
Mac OS X is NOT *Nix - not in the sense you mean here. It's a super-set of Mach/BSD. POSIX, X-windows and CLI apps should run all on OS X to varying degrees - but apps programmed assuming/using Mac OS X do not flow so easily back down the path to *nix variants.
=tkk
Bill Gates - Creationist?!?
>Microsoft is in business to make money.
How does Microsoft make money from Internet Explorer?
I guess with a nick like this, it might be hard to judge fairly...
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
I found this unfinished press release poking blindly around the Mainsoft press release directory. Enjoy!
/etc directory and spread around the file system.
Mainsoft announces major breakthrough in porting Windows functionality to Linux
San Jose, Calif - April 1, 2001 - Mainsoft, the leader in common code-base cross-platform solutions for the enterprise, today announced a major breakthrough in porting Microsoft Windows functionality to the Linux Operating System.
The first breakthrough is a patch to the linux kernel, kernmem.sys, allowing any linux machine to display important debugging information any time an application needs to. This is an important first step to porting other Windows applications, as it allows any user to immediately see when an application has requested the system to be rebooted.
"Windows has had this functionality for a long time." said Yaacov Cohen, president of Mainsoft. "In the Windows world, this feature is known as the Blue Screen of Debugging". He continued, "We feel this has been a missing feature of Linux since its beginning, and will allow normal users of Windows to feel comfortable that Linux now behaves like a real Operating System."
The second breakthrough is the porting of the registry to Linux. The registry will obviate the need for hundreds of configuration files in the
"With a working registry in Linux, we can replace all those antiquated file and user permissions and SUID bits that clutter up the Linux system." said Miguel De Icaza, Linux pundit "Now every Linux system will be as secure as a Windows machine, allowing consumers to feel safer about automatic registration and other new Microsoft technologies."
The largest breakthrough is the porting of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack to Linux. Containing the most widely used applications on computers today, the Entertainment Pack will bring Solitaire, Minesweeper, and Yambo to Linux.
"These productivity applications account for more than 50% of all CPU time used on Windows machines" said Rob Malda, Chief Productivity Application Tester at slashdot.com. "With these applications now available on all Microsoft Linux compatible distributions, productivity will soar".
Future enhancements to Linux will include the return to the Single User - Single Machine philosophy which fueled the explosive growth of the PC market in the 1980's. Removing the ability to have more than one user logged into a machine at any single time makes more efficient use of the resources of that machine, and simplifies licensing of future applications under the M$GPL.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
I knew that it was available for Solaris, but I'm not even gonna touch trying to add cruft to my box to run Solaris binaries... it's slow enough as is.
I like Netscape 4.7 -- it's fairly fast (faster than Mozilla and every other browser I've tried), and the mail client, while a bit ticky, is the best of a bad lot. But, Netscape 4 is nearly dead from age, and doesn't support enough new stuff (and some stuff (like CSS) is broken enough I have to work around it when I making a site).
IE 5 for the Mac (while a bit slow), is also very compliant to most of the latest stuff, and has some quite nifty features that I'm already taking advantage of (like the Auction mananger).
I hate to say it, but IE is moving along much faster than anything else I've seen, at least on Mac/Windows. The Solaris port may be three versions out of date, for all I know.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
At the risk of being a little off topic, referring to one of the joke headlines above, I wonder how many open-source and FSF people support Buchanan. As a guy who seems like a populist, I would think he is the most likely candidate to diminish IP protection or jettison it altogether. Thoughts?
are you running libc5 netscape on glibc system ? libc netscape used to crash alot on my glibc 2.1 system untill i installed glibc netscape from unsupported directory on ftp.netscape.com.
-- http://electronicintifada.net --
3. See #1 (by the way, have you ever tried to write a web page for IE, then with Netscape? Netscape makes life really, really hard. And it displays them better, too. Mozilla displays them as well as IE, however. Almost.)
DONT MAKE YOUR WEB PAGES WITH FRONTPAGE (EXPRESS)
DONT MAKE YOUR WEB PAGES WITH FRONTPAGE (EXPRESS)
Lars -
Why would Microsoft need MainWin? I thought they'd just add the IE code to kernel.
I personally hope they will port the apps. After all I want my Mom to use linux too :)
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
I've been using Netscape for about as long as I've been using Internet Explorer in Windows. Apart from the fact that Win98 does everything it can to get Netscape to crash, it runs better than IE and seems to cooperate effectively with my local proxy server. When I decided to dual boot with Linux, I was glad that Netscape was there for me to use. Also I don't like the way IE is 'integrated' into the OS. When Netscape crashes, that's all that dies, when IE crashes, so does the system.
PS. Have you ever tried to visit www.netscape.com in IE?
LOAD ".SIG"
PRESS PLAY ON TAPE
About the security problems.. unclick the checkbox that allows sites to identify me, its checked by default.
Run MP7 and run a sniffer on incoming and outgoing traffic. Any erronious ip's that show up that arent what you're connecting to intentionally, use ipchains to nuke. Its awesome seeing the trojan programs being DENIED and LOGGED.
Sniffers are fucking cool, just for interests sake, run Ethereal next time you start up Netscape 4.7x
Lars -
try MpegTV (aka mtv), its commercial (10$) but works great for vcd's
you can find it on www.mpegtv.com
-- http://electronicintifada.net --
-legolas
i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...
heh dont hope for too much, i talked to this guy that tested ie on hp/ux (yes there are ports of ie to hp/ux and solaris) and he told me that it made his window menager (cde??) crash all the time....
-- http://electronicintifada.net --
One of the Windows 2000 developers called Windows 9x a "toy operating system".
Seems like not only do the tentacles on the octopus that is Microsoft not know what the others are doing, but they agressively don't give a shit!
Lars -
That'd be interesting if Microsoft made better products.
Daily Comic Strip http://www.pentasmal.com
I had to use MainSoft Visual Source Safe on Solaris at work last summer, and although I don't know, I'm guessing that it uses the aforementioned Win32 API emulator for *NIX. Ugh. It made Windows apps running on Windows look like a souped-up Apache server. I have never seen such bloated software in my life.
Microsoft, if you're listening, DROP MAINSOFT. I'm sure there are graphics libraries out there licensed compatibly with you. The amount of cash it will cost to pay programmers to port into those libraries is under Bill Gates's couch. And they'll run 5 times faster - no exaggeration there.
Or you could put some cash into WINE development and then have nothing to do but push your apps on Linux users....
grep -ri 'should work'
Some Odd Photos
I think I fall in the next class of people that Linux folks should be targeting: computer savvy professionals, capable and willing to work with new tools, can deal with file translations, etc., will evangelize useful tools to friends & colleagues. But I am not interested in playing with something like that for its own sake. I've got things to do, and need tools to do them.
:) and assorted freeware.
:)
For both personal and professional work, I need MS Office, a stable browser (read: IE 5.0), Mathematica, Igor Pro, Adobe Illustrator, a PC-only optics app, Starcraft
A couple of those I could get by with using substitutes, but most of it is necessary and not available for Linux. If Office & IE get ported, half my reasons for not using Linux are gone.
But until Linux solves my problems, and doesn't constrain me by its problems, it's of no use to me.
The hard-core geeks use Linux. But IMHO, if Linux is too much hassle for us mid-level geeks, who are willing to endure new problems and pain for neat (useful) tools, no way will the masses use it, who have much lower thresholds for dealing with pain different from what they are already used to.
ShoutingMan.com
uuh, i just hope solaris port of ie is like 100x better than hp/ux port, because from what i heard is that ie used to crash window menager on a friends hp/ux system.
-- http://electronicintifada.net --
if microsoft does port to linux, i hope they port outlook express w/ vba scripting...now all can share in the fun! FP!
Thanks, I didn't know that (ooh...and it's up to date). If I can get Office, then I'm halfway there :)
As for the whether the Linux crowd should "chase" after users like me (as others commented on) -- if Linux supporters want to see their OS remain a niche item for l33t d00ds, that's fine. But if they want to expand the market, they need to give consumers solutions.
ShoutingMan.com
When someone disses a major product from a different section of their own company, my first thought is they have some sort of juvenile ego issue. I translate his statement as, "Those Win98 guys were picking on us Win2k guys, so I'm gonna say petty things to outsiders to get even. Nyah nyah nyah!"
But perhaps he is just being honest.
ShoutingMan.com
However, do you think that the existence of Linux Office might entice business users of Linux (by that I mean, people who use Linux as a desktop OS in the workplace) to keep from switching to StarOffice or KOffice? Quite possibly.
Interesting point. There's another spin on this software lock-in: most likely, in order to get the best features in the quickest time frame, you're going to need Windows.
Plan to take over the world:
1. make sure Office has near 100% market share
2. make sure Office works best on Windows
3. laugh evilly (i.e. "muhahaha") because you've now created MORE demand for Windows rather than less.
Oh, it will definitely manage to panic the kernel. But as usual, seeing as how GNU/Linux is open-source, said problems would be fixed very quickly.
Now, Microsoft could ostensibly release service updates that actually cause crashes (though this sounds a bit absurd, even if it came from Microsoft), but again, said bugs they were exploiting in the kernel would be fixed.
As far as I'm concerned, were that to happen, it would be a good thing, since they'd be helping the kernel become more stable. Of course, if Microsoft managed to find a bug that was more of an architectural flaw, and thus couldn't be easily fixed, then we should still be congratulating them, for much the same reasons.
Even worse, the app that is supposed to report the death of Netscape goes on to cause the death of Windows. Now that is top of my long list of Netscape complaints, just above abysmal handling of HTML/CSS.
Opera and IE can do it, why not Netscape?
And who knows - perhaps the IE effort, starting from practically scratch (no Win32 API for Linux), might release a finished product before Mozilla! *grin* *ducks*
"Life is like a sewer - what you get out of it depends on what you put into it" - Tom Lehrer
besides the UNIX and OS/2 stuff, doesn't that describe WinNT/2k/etc.?
-legolas
i've looked at love from both sides now. from win and lose, and still somehow...
I was contracting there and saw it running on the programmers system. Not a MS project, just running code. I have been told parts of office have been done the same way. I think the impact on the free office apps is the big danger. fuzzy1
We create our society every time we interact with each other. What kind of society did you create today?
The sig is *new* only after I found people kept trying to call me flamebait
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
This has got to be the old tried and tested vapour-ware technique. If MS can string it out long enough it will put people off buying other office suites for linux while waiting for MS. It worked with killing OS/2 while everyone waited and waited for Win95. Problem (for MS) is that StarOffice is a free download and it reads MS file formats, so there's nothing to gain by waiting for MS Office for *nix.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
Mainsoft has already ported apps before to unix. We have at work a program make my Mainsoft that runs win32 apps under unix. I don't know much about it. It was shown to me when I talked about this post at my job, and they showed me Microsoft Source Safe, which ran about 4x slower on his 500mhz then on my 300mhz.
Well Shit, here I was thinking that LCARS could support damn near anything!
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
If they can sucessfully push media player it means that the WMA format gets closer to the status of de facto standard. One that MS is able to control and leverage.
And IE is basically a vehicle for pushing proprietary extensions to HTML et al. That strategy helps MS steer the web a little better. It's common knowledge that MS had long envisioned something akin to the internet; they just thought it would happen later and be a proprietary network of their own (MSN). They quickly realigned themselves to the reality but they've never really ceased efforts to put the internet under their thumb.
So this could be a way of covering their bases.
Internet Explorer is coming to deliver a GOOD web browser for Linux!
Sorry, but I've always found Internet Explorer to deliver a much better browsing experience, with far more reliability than Netscape.
Netscape on Linux, and Mozilla, I've always found to be a huge steaming pile of crap
"Information wants to be paid"
I wonder how their applications division will fare when they're not able to tweak the OS to benefit them...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Mathematica for Linux has existed for quite some time now. We used it at the last company I worked for. Check it out.
"Anyone that has ever gotten an idea based on any of my work and done something better with it-good for you."--J.Carmack
It's no wonder that /. chose to use Bil-locutos as the mascot all the M$ announcements. It would appear that M$ is trying to assimilate everything into it's domain by planting it's malicious codes into every single OS hence turning them into M$ drones...
On a brighter note now we can see the beloved BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) on your KDE/GNOME/X11 without having to switch over to M$ Win-dohs!
For me, I'll be keeping my Linux a virgin & not let M$ defile it thank you!
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Their agreement with SCO might prevent that. I remember something about when they sold Xenix to SCO, they signed some kind of agreement that would keep them out of the Unix OS business. OTOH, Linux Is Not UniX?
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
So, once they've gotten that far, it's just a minor step to port it to Linux, right? And heck, if you can port something like IE, you already have to have widgets, a registry, a lot of Win32 stuff, etc. With that base set of requirements already taking care of, shouldn't that make porting the rest of Microsoft's app that much easier?
Well, according to Mainsoft's site, they're working with M$ to do this port, so it's kind of funny to see that M$ thinks otherwise...
But this isn't such a big deal, if you think about it. Most Linuxers who are interested in Office-like suites (I'm not, and I guess lots of /.ers aren't either), are more likely than not ex-Windowers. They knew pretty well what the trade-off was when they switched to Linux; do you really think M$ porting to Linux will make them change their mind?
Conversely, do you really believe that someone who uses computers mainly because of M$ Office will suddenly install Linux just because they can get the same apps? Of course not, they'll just stick to what they already have.
Face it, we're all just lazy. We just go looking for alternatives when there's something we want badly and can't have, be it tinkering with source code, freedom to share stuff with friends, or some killer app. That's what brought us GNU, Linux, *BSD... You didn't change OS because you could get all the same stuff, you changed because you could get stuff that was more important to you than what you left behind.
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sig is gone.
> Yes I hate Microsoft as well, but at least let them bring something out before we hound them.
I don't see why this is strictly necessary. MS has made vapor announcements many times over the years, and has pre-annonced products as part of cooridinated FUD campaigns designed to impact competitors' products. I think that it is perfectly fair to criticise any announcment based on the merits of the announcement and the intended product.
Isn't Office their main cash cow anyway? Why should they care if you're running Office on Win9x, MacOS, or whatever? If you're running Office of any flavor, they're making their money. Office is to Windows as blades are to a razor.
_/_
/ v \
(IIGS( Scott Alfter (remove Voyager's hull # to send mail)
\_^_/
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
"Who cares? Exactly who is going to buy MS Linux?" I think that people like me are interested in such a thing. Show me an OS that is more stable & friendlier than Win98, but still lets me use the tools I need, and send files to people I need to, and I'll show you a new convert. MS may realize this; they may also see an untapped revenue market for selling apps (office, developement, web design, etc.), and they may even be able to sell their Linux "upgrades" for a profit too. Will this come to pass anytime soon? Doubtful, but I think that if MS really wanted to, they could pull it off. Sic those eager beaver 'softies on the problem, with some fat bonuses for rapid milestone completion, and juicy stock perks in a new MS-Linux division, and you'll see it get done in a year or two.
ShoutingMan.com
Seems like they do the same thing.
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Mainsoft Corporation, the leader in common code-base cross-platform solutions for the enterprise, today announced that Microsoft Corp (NYSE: MSFT) has signed an updated contract with Mainsoft securing Mainsoft?s Professional Services and the right to use MainWin' to port Internet Explorer technologies and potentially other technologies to UNIX platforms.
Nowhere, save at the very end, do they mention porting anything to Linux. At the end the sentence is very general:
To date, the company has deployed more than one million end-user licenses of MainWin. For example, some of the leading business applications re-hosted to UNIX and Linux with MainWin include: Microsoft Internet Explorer; Microsoft Outlook Express; Computer Associates? OpenRoad; Alcatel?s X-Vision Enterprise and Magic?s Enterprise Edition V.8.
They don't specify which apps of MS (if any) are actually being ported to Linux, but still, we can always speculate.
I wonder, however, just how wise an investment this will be. According to the WinFormant article yesterday, MS will be using the platform in the same way they use Office on the Mac: as a means to transition people to Windows. But, for the most part, Linux is used on desktops by those transitioning away from Windows, not towards it. Taking this as true, one wonders what the use would be in porting only the IE apps at first. Perhaps it is a means of getting us to use MS software for free, then shelling out the cash later when the Office apps come.
But that doesn't make much sense either, since by the time Office for Linux comes around, many more people will be using Star Office and its competitors than today.
Very odd, but I guess that if you have the cash to burn like MS does, you don't care and only want market share.
Actually I can see a few ways they would attack this issue. A module to provide some compadibility and a rewrite of the loading code, along with changing there memory management some. Rewrite the code that provides memory access...
/win16. Actually I believe some company is already working on this.
:)
You dont need the linux kernel to provide most things if there is a way to let the windows code handle them. Could write a module to allow windows protected mode drivers to interact with the hardware. You would not need linux to provide anything except limited boot ability and fat32. The rest could be handled in windows. (you might use some sort of kernel level wrapper so you could avoid rewriting drivers).
This might actually be LESS work than trying to port the win32 api to X then write a bunch of new software to emulate a lot of functionality windows currently provides. (example, hardware configuration via some sort of gui. They would need to write new software to handle working with current tools)
Heck if they wanted to bad enough, they could use some sort of dos vm in kernel space. It would not have to be like dosemu but instead, it could provide a layer of compadibility so they would not need to rewrite that much. (this could handle things like binary loading,.. hardware access.. etc. They might rewrite the filesystem code to make use of the linux fat32 driver)
Either way, I dont think microsoft would come close to attempting any of this. I can see however a linux vm within nt much like how nt used to handle os2
Sorry if Im not making any since or if I'm rambling... Im pretty tired.
Urgh, bed time
Luke
First aol is porting to linux and now microsoft... its time to be afraid very afraid!!!
You cant be talking about the speed at which pages are loaded because IE had a clear advantage in that department. And the vast majority of the time I can End Task IE and continue working.
--I live off the Flamebait moderations.
Discussion Never Hurt Anyone.
Libertarians
Actually I could see microsoft writing a vm (much like how NT handles os2/win16) for linux. If they did this, I would not expect much more than fairly limited console binary support (again, much like how NT handles os2 :).. actually I think they finally got rid of the os2 compadibility in 2000.. )
Luke
Woah, 2.3MB for a freecell game.
Yup, that would be a Microsoft product.
-Brandon
If the browser compatibility of their web page is anything to go by, lets pray their ability at porting apps is superior to their web design. Did anyone else notice the everything-is-left-justified effect on that press release page under Netscape? Wouldn't it be interesting if nobody has drawn attention to it yet because most of the people are actually using IE, which displays that page properly! Of course, the obvious conclusion to draw is that they are devoted to IE compatibility only, and don't give a flying rat's shiny little bum about Netscape compatibility.
/* Linus is The One
It's still there. They just removed the documentation.
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Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if MS is porting Office to Linux. Will they release it when it is done, probably not. Why? Simple, they don't need to yet. MS still has a huge portion of the office market and until they think that they are actually being challenged on that front they don't need to worry about releasing their office product over to other systems. It is still good to have an ACE up the sleeve though. If they are porting Office over right now, when something like StarOffice, or if WordPerfect makes a miracle comeback and starts to eat up their market AND they can trace the loss back to Linux, then they release the product and try to kill the competing office product. Or if the DOJ gets their way and the Surpreme Court (SC) hears the case, AND if the SC decides that they do need to be broken up then the non-OS portion of MS can release the product and make more money on OSes that compete with Windows.
It is smart for them to port. It is smarter of them to allow someone else to port for them. And it is even smarter to hold back that which could potentially hurt them until it can help them.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
Check out www.interix.com and your local OS2.EXE binary. Windows Ten shipped seven years ago.
Hopefully I've convinced one person how silly this MS Linux postuation is. (grin!)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
But it certainly wouldn't be better if we all had to drive on separate highways.
"If one is really a superior person, the fact is likely to leak out without too much assistance" -- John Andrew Holmes
Ironic that while Apple have opensourced QuickTime server, and ported it to Linux, they havn't produced a player. Windows Media Player is a nice client app, but just think how much money they make from liscencing their server streams. No mistake, MS already have their next revenue stream in sight, and it's the net. Not the clients, but the servers.
I think Nader is much more likely to revise IP law to reduce the power of corporations.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
Yes, in theory it would be possible to get IE for Solaris (x86) running on GNU/Linux (x86)...
/dev/socksys socket interface as used by the Lachman STREAMS
based networking implementation. /dev/spx STREAMS device (limited server support).
There's a tool named iBCS (Intel Binary Compatibility Specification Module) which together with all the right libraries could probably get that monster running on GNU/Linux...
Now, I don't know if this is enough... but this is what iBCS does:
Emulations provided:
* Sparc Solaris * i386 BSD (386BSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, BSDI/386) - very alpha, very old.
* SVR4 (Interactive, Unixware, USL, Dell etc.)
* SVR3 generic
* SCO (SVR3 with extensions for symlinks and long filenames)
* SCO OpenServer 5
* Wyse V/386 (SVR3 with extensions for symlinks)
* Xenix V/386 (386 small model binaries only)
Subsystems emulated:
* SYSV IPC
*
* BSD and Wyse V/386 system call socket interface.
*
* XTI/TLI transports for TCP, UDP and related protocols - client only (outgoing connections). Accepting connections untested.
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Ner lbh sebz gur HFN? Gura lbh'ir whfg ivbyngrq gur QZPN!
I don't think they could do this. The DOS layer only provides file access and some limited hardware access. You can't even address all of the memory. All of the networking, most of the device access for ports, sounds, etc is handled by the Win32 layer in the GUI. Under Linux, all of this is handled by the kernel *at the DOS-equivalent layer*.
To rewrite Windows so that all of the device drivers, the networking and the hardware access must now happen right down at the kernel level would be a complete paradigm change and IMHO a waste of time.
Far better for MSFT to port the GUI to X, or even provide a display system which isn't X but which sits on top of the kernel in a similar way with the Win32API built in to it.
Hmmm, that sounds more plausible.
dave
Microsoft probably sees the browser as the most important client-side component, and they'd be right if they do. If Microsoft successfully gains control of the browser market, then it won't even matter what OS you're running anymore. They'd still have us all locked in, even if we're using Linux. They'd be embracing and extending our free software platform!
If IE gets ported to Linux, Mozilla will have to seriously improve its development efforts to be competitive. So far we've gotten away with sitting on our laurels while the competition stayed away from our turf. We can't let that continue, or all the gains that GNU/Linux has made over Windows will not even matter anymore.
+++
+++
NO CARRIER
netscape is quite capable of taking down X. I haven't seen it happen yet with 4.74 but it's happened to me with 4.72 and previous every once in a while. The machine was still quite alive though, just had to ssh into it.
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FYI: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/download/ie5.h tm
take a look in the drop down box,
IE5 + Outlook for Solaris and HP-UX.
i doubt they would be free apart from ie and wmp. i would rather use ms word than that crappy star office but if it's not free, it's not an option. sad, but true. probably some people would buy ms office for linux.
but why would ms allow porting? then people would stop using windows and get free linuxes and just buy the office, to get things cheap (and stable). it would be the beginning of the end of windows. and they know it.
ound the message used repetitively over and over still nothing grows silen
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Daniel Zeaiter
daniel@academytiles.com.au
http://www.academytiles.com.au
ICQ: 16889511
OpenBSD: Provide a stable environemnet.
and gnu/linux doesnt ??? and when it comes to solaris, linux is always going to beat it on low-end hardware (x86) so as private person you will never need anything better than gnu/linux , netBSD or FreeBSD
-- http://electronicintifada.net --
I'm using the HP/UX port of IE5 - and I must say it's pretty impressive. At least as stable as Netscape (not saying much admittedly...) - there are still some rough edges in areas such as java support and PNG displaying, but overall, it's almost as good as IE5 for Windows, which is IMHO (please don't flame me!) currently the best browser out there.
.mailcap for mimetypes, but there are shell scripts you can change to select newsreader, mailer etc, and you can configure "Helper Applications" a la Netscape.
Implementation-wise though, it's a complete mess. Lots of random files, most of which I'm clueless as to what they do.
It doesn't seem to interface at all with
It does use a Windows registry for it's settings, so hacking config files to make it do what you want is nigh-on impossible.
I've heard that it's terrible as a remote X-server application (uses X at the lowest pixel-by-pixel level only), but running locally it's pretty good.
well not on my system. it does crash like 1-2 times a day (usually because alla java popups coming up while i'm surfing pr0n :) but it never takes down window menager with it....
-- http://electronicintifada.net --
What has gotten MS where they are today? The strength of their platform (API's Apps, dev tools etc).
Australian? Join EFA
aha! The same reason that Rational Rose 98i for Unix is slow as hell... looking forward to those stupid "RPCSS ServiceMain() failed (14)" errors, or whatnot... :oP
It's ugly and slow (NFS and X11 notwithstanding, now)... oh well, the old Rose saw fit to emulate a Motif look within platforms that HAD the Motif runtime and the lot!
(Of course, I only know Rose is a freaking pig because I (used to) have to support it for SunOS and HP-UX)
--
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Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
Take a look at the registry on any windows machine. There's a LOCAL_MACHINE hive for global settings, a USERS hive which contains registry settings on a per user basis, and a CURRENT_USER hive, which points to one of the users in the USERS hive.
Who else can see an "Office for Linux" that require you to run as root? (or at least have write permit where the program is installed...)
There goes every security benefit of a real multi user system,... out the window.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Read that press release really carefully, you know, like a M$ Drone would, and then ask yourself this question: "Is it possible that M$ is porting their apps to all the "closed" (drone-safe) unix Operating Systems, and not to the various open flavors of Linux?" Remember, they did port IE to HP/UX, and there's no chance in hell of running that port on a Linux box. Remember, this is M$, yer gonna get a binary, that's it, no recompiling, no fixing some stupid mistake that got by M$ QA, just a binary. Like many of the posters today, I too would like to have IE5 and Office on my Red Hat Workstation, but I think we're getting are hopes up too high once again. And this is coming from an old Amiga hack! :-)
The question is whether and in what form they will release those products, or how else they will use them. They might, for example, ship substandard versions of IE simply to have an argument for management of the form "yes, you can standardize on IE, it runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Solaris". Or they might want to harm third party office suite efforts (open source or proprietary), for example by giving pre-release demos, maybe releasing a so-so version of Office, etc.
You can bet that whatever Microsoft will be doing with these ports, it will be done to increase their business and harm competitors, including Linux and Mozilla, and push their proprietary protocols and formats. Altogether, I think it's best not to get distracted by Microsoft and ignore what they are doing. If writing Gnome Office or KOffice was a good idea a week ago, it still ought to be a good idea today.
Do you think a Linux Office would significantly decrease the sales of Windows? Honestly. It might make a dent, no more.
However, do you think that the existence of Linux Office might entice business users of Linux (by that I mean, people who use Linux as a desktop OS in the workplace) to keep from switching to StarOffice or KOffice? Quite possibly. Compatibility is important when a lot of your co-workers and clients are using Word and Excel.
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My guess on what will go down:
Press Release
Redmond WA
Today Mircosfot Announced that they would port the best selling office automation package known as Microsfot Office [tm] to the Linux operating system....blah blah blah
Press Release
Redomnd WA
Today Microsoft said they had stoped production of the much awaited Linux version of Microsoft Office. Comapny officals claim that the many versions of Linux make it difficult to provide a stable product and that the development team had problems using the avalable development systems...FUD...FUD...FUD...Linux Bashing...more priase of w2k...stuff that will scare a PHB away from Linux....FUD...
IIRC Mainsoft created the win32->solaris bridge that gave us great innovations as "IE 4 for UNIX".
Nothing against mainsoft, but IE for Solaris is the BIGGEST pile of crap that I have ever seen on a UNIX system, perhaps unless you count staroffice. (heh, the irony)
Now, I honestly think, that if you have to compare browsers on (speed / features), IE comes out on top for Windows (no exp with the mac version, but I've heard good things).
If mainsoft does a REAL, non-wrapped port, then personally I predict that this will be a BONUS to using Linux, and a better argument to get the home users to put it on their desktop.
After all, when I talk to people about using Linux on their desktop, their biggest complaint is that they use a lot of windows programs, one of the bigger choices is IE. Windows Media Player, personally, I could give a shit about.
Although, my other expectation is that they will release this version and never release again.
However, if this only tides the masses of users who are stuck with netscape as a 'stable' choice until Mozilla becomes more mature, I'll be happy.
The point is, is that inadvertantly, MS is doing us a favor. Whether they want to, know they are, or whatever.
Let's do the embracing and extending this time.
-Erik-
It does make sense for MS to port Windows Media Player to Linux since most streaming media on the net supports Real Media, or Real and WMP, but rarely WMP only since it is not available on all major platforms. As far as IE and Office, don't bet on it.
You should really read most of the posts here before you post 95%+ of ye are just recycling what everyone else is saying. Who Cares MicroSoft are Porting...It really effects you that much that when microsoft move wmp and ie that you have to run, no walk, the the nearist internet connection and d/l it? Then use it for the rest of your life? Condemed to use MS Produce as there is Absolutly no other alternates? GROW UP. And as for Office ...I See No Mention Offically It's Being Ported.
And What's With the un-said ideas that microsoft might release a ver. of linux....would it be linux anymore? methinks NO
And as far as I'm concerned microsoft can continue releasing Buggy Products...Its sooo good i can live nicely on them..for a student
godammit why cant /. support the í chr. in user names?
Look at Office 2001 for the mac, you can see what I mean. Mircosoft knows Mac users dont' like Microsoft. So they are downplaying everything that says Mircosoft. It's totally carbonized, etc.
Rembember what Office for Mac was like between 1995 and Jobs striking the deal with Microsoft? A mere recompile using the weak Mac support in the MFC libraries.
Given that there's nobody in the Linux world with sufficient authority to make that kind of deal with MS that Jobs made, why would MS give us anything better than the Mac had before the deal?
And for all you doubting thomas's. Interenet Exploer 5 for MacOS is the most standards compiant browser on the market. I'd execpt no less form Microsoft on a linux port.
And Internet Explorer 5 for Solaris is as non-standards-compliant as IE 5 for Windows, and is as unstable as a four-legged stool with only two legs left.
Steven E. Ehrbar
Leaving apart the fact that all those apps are not really being ported to linux, let me tell you what I think.
Of course I'd like to use IE and Office under linux (I've come to like IE recently at work) but I think there are yet other apps no one has mentioned that would make my life easier were they going to be ported to Unix/Linux.
I'm thinking of MS Reader. If I had MS Reader for Linux, I could run it on an iPAQ after exorcizing it from this CE/Pocket PC thing. My company is into ebooks, and I have resisted until now to buy a (windows) PDA, but I'm realizing I will have to sooner or later (even just to test the books), so I'd prefer to be able to install linux on it without loosing the ability to read ebooks on MS propietary format.
FATAL EXCEPTION....
admit defeat, live in decline, be the victim of our own design
To tell you the truth, as much as I dislike Microsoft, Internet Explorer is my browser of choice, and I would be happy to see it on my Linux desktop.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
Office 6 for the Mac (the last version prior to Office 98) was one of the worst Microsoft products ever released, as well as one of the worst Mac products. I can't prove this of course, but I suspect that the atrocious quality of Office 6 had something to do with the precipitous decline of Apple several years ago (not that Apple didn't do plenty itself).
Anyway, Office 6 was not updated for years. It appeared that Microsoft had completely abandoned Office development for the Mac.
Until Microsoft made a deal to invest in Apple, have Apple drop its patent lawsuit against Microsoft, and have Apple adopt IE and marginalize Netscape. Then, as if by magic, Office 98 appeared on the scene as a generally superb Macintosh application (not that it doesn't have some warts).
Coincidence? What do you think?
Of course Mainsoft has the power. It has full access to the source of windows (98|2000). But who actually wants such a bloated product like IE or Windows Media Player under Linux?
We don't need those. We have Mozilla and StarOffice to slow down our system
CU
--mj
I'm dying to see Internet Explorer on Linux. I'm not a great fan of the program, but being realistic: making webpages in Linux is a hassle because you can only test in so many browsers. Using Windows for web development offers the chance to test your pages in any remotely popular web browser, were as in Linux we have Netscape, Mozilla and a couple of *nix browsers that nobody uses.
Having IE for Linux should also stimulate competitive efforts from both the Mozilla and the Konqueror guys to stay on the leading edge of web browsing.
In any case, I can't see a situation where Microsoft software dominates the Linux desktop. This considering that these days people's prime motives for migrating to Linux seem to be a hate for Microsoft, either technologically or idealogically. I know I couldn't sleep at night knowing I was an IE and Office user on Linux!
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"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Come on, do you people really believe there are hundreds of hidden APIs that only Microsoft knows about? Get real! Most of these so-called 'undocumented' APIs come from programmers forgetting to log certain changes or new implementations being made after the MSDN/WinAPI books go to press. At any rate, the Windows API along with COM is a very flexible and extensible architecture that really does work pretty well. In my line of work developing RAD applications, there is literally no other platform besides Windows, simply because the tools and interfaces for that type of work don't exist on Linux.
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"My kernel can beat up your kernel"
"I use Windows 2000. Get over it."
Natural != (nontoxic || beneficial)
Regardless of who is doing the porting, Microsoft apps for Linux sounds a little shady. Think about it: MS has got a pretty good stranglehold on the desktop market, and one of thier primary up-and-coming competitors is Linux. Now, does it sound like a terribly astute business decision to port your applications (which are what lock users to your OS) to your competitors' platform?
The only way I can see this making any sense is if MS has resigned themselved to being split into MS/OS and MS/Applications as per the initial DOJ v. MS ruling.
What are we missing? What am I missing?
--
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex—but Congress can. – Cullen Hightower
Not true. Microsoft could end up with a VERY closed source distrib. Think about it. Windows currently runs on top of dos. Even Windows ME runs on dos (although better hidden)... What if microsoft ports windows directly to the linux kernel, using a few binary only modules to allow windows full access to everything that would be provided by dos. (kernel level access to hardware for example)
/windows/kernel. They could even modify the kernel to use /windows/win.com as the initd (yes, I know they could not use the real win.com :) ..) They could even go as far as running the entire thing from a fat32 partition...
The only part that would be under the GPL would be the kernel it self. (after all, linux is only a kernel... the software running under linux != linux)
Microsoft could take this to the point of having a pretty powerful version of windows. Not only that, but the kernel it self would continue to be maintained for them.. for FREE by the rest of the community.
I don't think this day will come.
But if it did, rather than extending windows to take advantage of using a linux kernel, they COULD make the difference between windows on dos and windows on linux so small that the user would never know. They could have the windows portion handle EVERYTHING that is currently handled in windows... leaving linux in the position dos is currently in... (loads windows) well you get the idea.
Scary, I can see windows loading from the kernel as if it was a initd binary/script.
Only two things would be needed to get a ported version of windows to boot. The linux kernel could be placed somewhere like
This way they would provide NOTHING to the community, while still giving them an edge. (Hey look, where using linux technology.. no need to use linux anymore because you get both windows AND linux right here. What do you mean big ol DOJ? We are embracing and extending our competitor.)
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Luke
Luke
for the possibility that windows media player may be ported. i have found no other comparable linux app (for features/performance).
eg on my p450 (tnt1 card) downstairs, windows media player can run mpeg1 fullscreen perfectly, bilinear filtering, etc. on my linux celeron 533 (tnt2 ultra card) upstairs, gtv gives atrocious quality with the vcd (mpeg1) standard, and god forbid should i try to doublesize it.
ill be waiting mainsoft, or for some other linux developer to deliver a well done implementation of what is to me an essential program.
"This has been tested under Red Hat 6.0 using KDE and is available in RPM format only, under the x86 architecture, using kernel 2.2.x and glibc 2.0 and above." - it happens with so many closed-source linux products it's not even funny. What about BSD? BeOS? Amiga? Solaris? V2_OS? It's still closed source. If you can live with having non-Free software on your computer, why aren't you using Windows?
icqqm [ICQ:11952102]
I hope that mainsoft can do a good port of IE since Netscape sucks (fonts sucks, rendering sucks and java sucks) and mozilla is to big and too slow. And at last I would be able to watch any movie format and codec.
Maybe this is Microsoft preparation for the split and entering a really competitive enviroment?
Mainsoft makes a product called MainWin, which is an implementation of the Win32 API. They aren't actually modifying Microsoft product code to port it to Linux, they are just creating a compatible API layer and working to make it compatible enough that major Microsoft apps will run on Linux. It's no different than WINe.
- "It's just a matter of opinion!" - PRIMUS
I used to think like that. I used to hate Microsoft in every single way, but after growing up a little more and maturing in my head more I can understand a lot of their concepts, ideas, and ways... Do you really think Microsoft is going to completely ignore Linux? They're not a stupid company (Well, that's debateable). They're going to be smart enough to see the avalibility with Linux and be able to cash in a little. They see this little competitior in the ways gaining a huge following and gathering more momentium. They see the dollar signs pouring in too. Why not port some applications people are going to want to use instead of losing the market to others? If MS does establish a role as a domininate commercial application vendor for Linux, they still aren't going to take much control because they can't control the operating system.
Who's the black private dick, who's a sex machine for all the chicks?
Given that Microsoft will eventually start porting apps, the question becomes: does this really benefit the *x community?
Sure, Linux users will be able to open up Word documents and Excel spreadsheets.
Sure, Solaris users will be able to use Windows Media Player.
But The OS is where the money is. Why would Microsoft port enough applications for Linux to become viable as an end-user desktop? I reason that they wouldn't. Hell, they might even keep the releases on *x one step (in features and bug fixes) behind the Windows releases.
I've tried M9, M14,16 and a couple of other Mozillas. Hows about they actually deliver a product. At this rate Microsoft could take the IE5 code, audit it, scrap it and completely rewrite it for every one of the Unixes before Mozilla 1.0 sees the light of day.
Fist Prost
"We're talking about a planet of helpdesks."
-Jaron Lanier
This is a major contract for them, but I have my doubts on their ability to produce. First, it won't be done in the next few years. I mean, you don't just port apps as complex as what Microsoft puts out to another *platform* in a few weeks. I also have to wonder about the quality once it will be done - if they "do it right", a proper port could take 3-4 years.. which means whatever they're porting now could very well be out of date. They'll need continual contact with MS to keep their code up to date.. that's alot of extra work for both of them.. adding a huge cost.
Finally, what if it fails - what if a bug-ridden copy of MS Office ships under the linux banner? MS people will *OF COURSE* run to get the first copy, first release, of it. And they'll be very disappointed with what they see. They won't see this as a failure of Microsoft, who has provided a perfectly working copy under Windows, but as a failure of Linux for not supporting their favorite app "the way they wanted it to".
I disagree .. Microsoft wouldn't even think about using GNOME for their software .. they'd just buy out Troll Tech and use that ;-)
I can just imagine how shitty Microsoft's distribution of Linux will be. Umm, we all know that this is their eventual plan, yes? Embrace, extend, then break compatibility.
They can do whatever they like. Access to their source is protected under the GPL. They can make as many changes as they like, but at the end of the day, all the code belong to the community. Debian, Red Hat, etc can just merge in changes or, worst case, create an "MS Linux compatibility layer."
- Scott
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Scott Stevenson
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
How well will IE and WMP interact with other programs/daemons (esd and RealPlayer come to mind). Also, will changes need to be made to the kernel and/or X to accommodate Microsoft programs?
I see no mention of Linux in the press release. Methinks no one should get too excited until they tell us they're doing it for more than HP/UX and Slowaris, er Solaris, two Unices that they do mention in the press release. Doesn't sound anything like "Microsoft is porting apps to Linux" to me.
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the amazing bc
latin/funk flugelhorn & trumpet
webnaut, music junkie, sysadmin from hell
the amazing bc
just another guy doing IT
webnaut, music junkie, holes-in-head
MSFT realizes that linux known as a stable and reliable OS so they must riddle it with their buggy and crash-prone products to dissipate that "pesky rumor".
Wow! You look at Office 2001 for the Mac, but remember that's their 4th go at it. It was a well-known fact amongst Mac techies that people who complained about their Macs being "very slow", "very unstable" either:
- Had old hardware and/or
- Had loads of crappy system extensions or
- were running MS Office, exclusively.
In doing major software installs, nearly all the problems you got had something to do with M$ software. Sometimes in the weirdest possible ways.
I often wondered whether Office for Mac was just a clever ploy to hinder the acceptance of MacOS.
I have a Mac here (next to Solaris and Linux Box),
and I won't allow any M$ software near it. Still.
Don't believe them! Ever!
We don't need them, after all.
Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) announced that they will be porting Office to Linux today, assuring that every processor will be able to run Office.
"Not only will desktop computers be able to run office, but now we can run Office on anything from web servers to toaster ovens. This is a great day for the consumer, and great day for businesses. Imagine, while you wait for your bagel to toast, you can be working on the latest version of your financial analysis," quipped Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.
However, he declined to comment whether this constituted a tacit admission that Microsoft's own IIS server was losing ground to Linux-based servers running Apache.
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So since Windows Media Player is getting ported... it obviously can't keep the same name so I guess it goes from W(i)MP to L(i)MP?
__
Of course this means that they only can distroy files of a single user. But how many users do YOU have in your Linux box? Most desktop machines are used by single user and therefore all the important files are owned (and writeable) by that user. Executing code from unknown origin is always a huge security risk.
I would think that their first target would be porting the Windows Scripting Host and Outlook.
Think of all those poor Lunix users who have been left out in the cold every time a new virus appears. Now they, too will be able to gripe with the MicroSurfs around the water cooler...
I used to sit there and wish that Microsoft would port their apps to Linux. They make good software, but I dont like the OS. So now that they are finally doing it, I could care less. First I wanted IE, but now there's Mozilla/Galeon doing my web browing, and then there was Outlook Express, but Evolution is gonna be here pretty quick, and Pine still works for me. And Office - Star Office is just as good (slow tho), but now that it's being GPL'd, it'll get better.
I don't think Microsoft has a chance in Linux anymore. If they would have done it a year ago, it would have been great, but now... Who cares? By the time they get all the apps ported, all the good stuff will be done with Gnome, Star Office and everything else, that we wont need their apps.
-Brandon
Internet Explorer and
:P
Windows Media Player will be among the first apps to be ported."
Now Windows Media player can fsck up the configuration of all my other media players on _both_ the OS's I run at home.
Thanks guys
Steven
-- I have marked myself unwilling to moderate-- I don't have other accounts to artificially inflate the karma of
The Microsoft applications that have been released for Mac OS have not been very consistent in quality. The applications that has been built from the ground up to be Mac apps, like Office 98 and IE are great. However, some other applications are just ports of Windows programs, like Windows Media Player 6.3 which is slow, takes no advantage of graphics hardware and crashes a lot. (Although, perhaps it's too much to expect an application that starts with Windows to run well on any other platform). I guess that the situation will be simular on Linux/UNIX. If Microsoft wants to create great applications for these platforms they can but unfortunatly they will probably just do quick ports of IE and WMP to persuade content provides to use these propriety formats.
Somewhere in the heavens... they are waiting.
Assume for a moment that someone with the Win32 and Office source code is porting the office apps to Linux (and pretty much only Linux86, maybe LinuxAlpha if you're lucky, but you get the same horrible 32 bit kludging you do in NTAlpha). Assume it's Mainsoft. They're still doing it with Microsoft's permission, and M$, unlike IBM of old, is a company with a vision. The Office group does not crap on the OS group.
If you or I were given all this source code and told "port Office to Linux" we would run away screaming in horror and hide under our beds for a year. Perhaps if we had enough intestinal fortitude we'd identify the APIs that Office uses that aren't supported by Wine and implement those. Licencing would be a bitch, of course.
This isn't what Mainsoft are doing. They're porting Office without benefit of Wine. Remember that Microsoft wants you to buy Office, but most of all they want you to buy Windows and Office.
My predictions:
Office for Linux will be slower, uglier and less stable than the Windows version;
when Office for Linux crashes it will take down the OS. Don't say it can't be done - remember that the smart guys at Microsoft figured out an unknown weakness in the Linux TCP/IP stack for the Mindcraft tests;
Microsoft will blame it on Linux and offer "competitive upgrades" to W2K.
You just see if I'm right!
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E_NOSIG
Disclaimer: I'm sure this had been said again and again, but... Windows 2000 and the sales they wish to achieve hindered by the use of Linux (which isn't even really an issue) set aside, Microsoft is not a stupid company. They -- or better put, their marketing analysts and Bill Gates -- know the two key parts of the booming Linux audience -- those using it in an office, for networking purposes and the younger crowd using it strickly for fun, often in groups. Are those using it for web servers going to want to pay for the Linux version of when they almost always have access to a seperate computer, runnning Windows? Do they expect the younger crowd to pirate, or to actually go out and buy something from a company they had zero respect for that would be anything other then dependent on WINE (last time I checked, this was the case for another big company and their programs -- porting a Windows application to a true Linux one requires a lot of resources as everything change. I am thinking these two customer base issues are definately on their mind. Anyway, we hear too many complaints about people getting all hyped up about linux becoming the desktop operating system that sits directly next to Windows in terms of sales. If you are in your Microsoft bearing environment that requires you to use Microsoft Office and Microsoft protocols then go ahead and do so on the company provided computer. Save running Linux for when it makes more sense. And don't bullshit yourself thinking you're locked into one environment (for whatever reason) and must integrate all the great things from another.
Seriously- to hell with that! If a runner went around kneecapping everyone else in the race would you give him the prize? Even if you did, would you cheer when he showed up at another race?
I can tell you one condition under which I'd start using Internet Explorer. That condition is if IE was seized by the government, nationalised, perhaps turned over to the United Nations and henceforth developed and maintained by a multinational standards body- sort of 'if there really is going to be only one way for the world's citizens to communicate and do e-commerce, let's give them a voice in how it's made'.
Failing that, you go to hell and you die! I don't care how much worse other browsers are after they've been kneecapped or rendered forever unable to get financing. I've a right to make decisions that affect me, and I REFUSE to cooperate in giving power to what, in so many ways, is my most intractable competition. This is somewhat indirect- if I was a smalltown newspaper editor rather than a hacker and musician and writer MS would be more _directly_ my competition- but it's like Wal-Martization, I have _no_ valid role to MS other than as a passive consumer. I imagine I'm supposed to get the money to buy MS products from working AT Wal-Mart: lord knows it's certainly not by writing a web browser, word processor, spreadsheet and selling it to anybody.
On the other hand, if I wrote a game, MS might _buy_ me, and presumably this would come with a salary capable of paying for more Microsoft Products. Unless they only gave me stock options and I had to get a job at Wal-Mart to pay for the Microsoft Products ;P
Seriously- to hell with you and your Internet Explorer! You're really stupid if you don't understand questions of consequences when they are _so_ obvious. Perhaps you don't remember a computer industry that wasn't composed of Microsoft and its servants? Funny, I remember an Internet that is composed of more than Microsoft and its servants. We're looking at it- for now.
They may not be doing this in-house, as an official project, but they most likely are giving the official go ahead to have this done.
To be honest, I don't think there will be any serious fall out from this except small start-ups might go with a Linux system and those Dell PC's shipping with Linux will be more appealing.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
Unfortunately, most Linux users will try and completely avoid .NET because they want to stay in control, not give away more. It was probably one of their reasons to run Linux in the first place.
This may not be so bad. Personally, I like IE over Netscape. It's stable (on my system, at least) and it's more polished. I prefer to use IE when I'm in Windows over Netscape. I wonder how they can make an IE port to *nix stable though. What about all of the secret API code that's used in Windows? Once it's ported, does that mean the *nix version will have less functionality?
And Media Player is equally good news. There are many times I've had to reboot into Windows if I needed to see a particular video.
No flames please, I'm just being honest.
This is just a vapourware attack on their competitors, just like .NET, just like the X-Box, just like everything else they've ever done. Don't kid yourselves people, if Office ever natively runs on Linux, it will be using WINE.
I'm working with a company developing an IE plug-in and we noticed in our install logs that a machine at microsoft.com running IE on Linux downloaded and ran(!) our COM object. We had been scratching our heads over that one. Steve
I happen to know that Microsoft has a secret project to going port Win32 to a clean room, portable, SMP non-GPL kernel. The goal is to run Win32 executables in a stable, network-aware environment. In addition to Win32 the kernel will support UNIX and OS/2 personalities.
I'd tell you the name of this project, but then I'd have to kill you!
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Perhaps, but in the end have you considered that this will give MS even more leverage to promote their own "standards" and ignore the W3C?
First I would like to say that this is not intended to be flamebate. Linux has a been and will always be about choice. One of the nicest things about linux is that you are not tied to one application just because it is the only thing available. Even if MS does does ports their apps to linux, users will have the choice to install and use it if they want to.
Secondly one of the biggest problems facing linux as a viable desktop is the lack of a familiar and compatable office suite. Windows has an approximately 90% share of the market. The vast majority use ms office as well. If MS could port their office apps to linux then users would have familiar and 100% compatable office application. This would help to bring more useres to the linxu community which would help to persuade vendors to include better linux support. Of course it owuld not be open source, whcich is less than ideal, but it is tolerable. Even if you feel strongly against closed source software you would still havea choice.
The second thing that this could help bring linux to the desktop is a good web browser. In all honesty IE out performs Netscape in many ways. Again this woule help bring more users in.
That is my 2 cents
jombi
There are a number of issues involved in porting Windows apps to any sort of Unix platform of course, but I'm particularly curious about two, for now.
First, the registry. Obviously there's no registry in the sense that Windows has a registry. There are all sorts of options, gconf springs to mind. Naturally MS won't use any of them, or any other pre-existing utilities or libraries for Unix. MS's porting to Unix will be as self-contained as physically possible, much like StarOffice. So my assumption is there will be a central MS registry that all the ported apps can access. The interesting thing is, this means (Unless they move to a binary or encoded registry) that non-MS apps will also have access to it, which could make for some very interesting hacking.
The other issue that springs to mind is the fact that the vast majority of MS's development history hasn't involved actual multi-user OS's such as Unix. So will they bother taking advantage of that power, possibly implementing user-specific registries, will it only function for the user that installs it (Like StarOffice), or will it be global and blind to which user runs it? I don't really know what to predict here, but my instinct is that they will follow StarOffice's lead, and tailor their apps to function specifically for the user that installs the app. This will fall into line with Corel's blasphemous one-user Linux distro nicely, I imagine, but again, I'm not sure what to think.
I would love to have a WORKING browser.
I would love to be able to listen and watch windows media.
I would like to have a CHOICE to use IE or NOT use ie.
I just so happen to enjoy the browsing experience of IE
I would love to be able to do this without launching VMWare or dual booting. It lets me stay inside of my favorite OS!
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The real reason I like IE is that it is so fast on Windoze. IE *will* loose this speed if it ports to Linux as they can't tie it into the OS. Personally as a web designer I have high hopes for galleon. Just give me HTML4 CSS2 JavaScript and Java - nothing more, then I'm happy.
Not to say they are the best/worst, but the only reason we needed to own any Intel hardware was to run Visio, Project and Access. It would be a great deal easier to plan business ops around Macs and Linux if they had these apps.
"If MS does establish a role as a domininate commercial application vendor for Linux, they still aren't going to take much control because they can't control the operating system."
.NET strategy, as well as AOL/Netscape's strategy, controlling the browser platform is all that matters. At least as far as the client platform is concerned. It surely is not lost on them the massive amounts of Mozilla development that have gone into the platform aspects of Mozilla development. For that matter, their .NET plans explicitly state that they will support any and all existing and future devices. That I am sure also includes OS platforms.
.NET services will work on any platform those clients happen to be using. The OS is, or will be, almost irrelevant in the software as service environment.
You forget the the most important lesson that Microsoft learned from Netscape: "The Browser IS the Platform." How slowly Microsoft learned that lesson almost cost them everything. I don't think they will make that mistake again! One can argue that the entire antitrust case wouldn't have happened if that had seen that sooner and not had to really cut off Netscape at the knees to protect their position.
For their
Their big competitor now is AOL and they are not going to cede any platform to them. They also need to be able to go into any client and say that their
nice try, but urban legen' don' breed in these parts.
Go Kathryn Thurber!
Sounds like the apps department are trying to make some more money as a seperate entity now they don't have to remain faithful to the microsoft O/S's. It won't be as good though, unless they put the evil kernel hooks in like in windoze.
It's the apps that make Microsoft rich. Office is the big bread winner, and if they ported it to Linux they'd add a couple million potential customers to their revenue stream.
The last time a checked, Office comprised something like %40 of their revenue.
This will be interesting. The thing is, while there are still better apps, Microsoft's non-Windows offerings are actually respectable. Still not the best out there, mind you, but still leaps and bounds better than their Windows counterparts.
Take Internet Explorer, for example (before I begin, let me state for the record that I'm a Mozilla guy myself). We all know about the latest round of Embracing And Extending done in IE5.5/Windows. However, currently IE5/Mac is quite nice. It's very close to full CSS1 compliance (it's not quite there, as they claim, but the only non-compliance I've seen yet is thay they don't support all the border types around boxes). The standards-compliance is second only to Mozilla's. It's fairly stable (it crashes me more than Netscape does, but not as much as the latest Mozilla builds; then again Mozilla is still in-development software so that's forgivable).
Even Office is actually usable on MacOS (and I use Office/Windows quite often, so I'm familiar with the usability nightmares on that platform), though I still prefer AppleWorks. OE's not bad, though I prefer PowerMail, and so on and so forth.
Why is this the case? You'd think that if the lowly porting teams could make decent software, the mammoth WIndows development teams could do even better. My personal view is that the ports are better because they don't have an OS monopoly to leverage, so they know they have to make software that would actually stand a chance in a competition based on merit. Contrast this with the Windows development team, which we already know makes a poor product (I work with developing Windows every day, and there are parts of that OS that I could have done designed better back in high school, and implemented not long afterward).
So the ports to Linux just might work out. I'm willing to withhold judgement until I see the stuff, anyway. I doubt that Microsoft is trying to sabotage Linux; they're merely hedging their bets. Office is their major moneymaker, and if Windows dies (and I doubt it's got ten years left, not after the DOJ rulling) they need to have Office on whichever platform wins the ensuing chaos. As MacOS and Linux are the two biggest contenders, they need Office on both, just in case.
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A Dick and a Bush .. You know somebody's gonna get screwed.
War is necrophilia.
1 Look at netscape. Need I say more?
2 Because they are on the linux system, they will not have the windows advantage. So instead of using all the tricks built in to windows to develop programs, they now are in a whole new realm, lacking the proprietary code needed to make many of their products the way they are. So... What do we get out of this? Developers for windows will be able to use the linux programs to see how to do specific tasks without having to deal with all the microsoft-specific code.
why Office 98 for the mac is one of the best programs that Microsoft makes!
MS can *easily* create modifications to the Linux source to 'better' support the aps. And they can make the source available, ala GNU, right out of ftp.microsoft.com and at www.microsoft.com/linux/downloads, and they don't have to provide *anything* else. They can create their own Win32GNU layer, obfuscated or whatever, they can change it as often as they wish, and they can muck with Linux *all* the time.
M$ can release Office 2K+1 next year, on Linux, alongside the source and the Linux release; by the time people actually finish reading through the source for Win32GNU, 2K+2 is released, with Win32GNU2, and Win32GNULIB, etc.
Nothing has to change from their current model, especially if they don't get broken up.
They will have a stranglehold on *2* OS markets!
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
The comments that "a Microsoft spokesperson" made can be boild down to "Linux can't do it and dosn't have the users".
Reality is of course Office applications are not complex and quite frankly my Commodore 64 could do it and software exists for the Apple ][ along the same lines.
The comments are flat out insults....
Linux not only can do it... it dose it...
As for the users... I've found Microsoft will say that of anyone they compeate with...
The reality... software companys have done well with a small user base by simply providing a quality product in the past. The total user base is a great deal largger today than it once was and while Linux may still look small comparied to Microsofts marketshare it's pritty good compaired to the numbers from systems in the 1970s/1980s.
Maybe you can not afford to throw huge amounts of money develuping software for Linux. But then if you are doing something simple like office you don't need to.
What the Microsoft spokesperson won't say is that Linux users as a rule don't want anything to do with Microsoft products in the first place. They don't want to admit a larg body of users find Windows to be useless. They don't want to admit that Linux users would not buy Office if it were ever produced...
I think the main part is correct... it's a rummor...
The Mainsoft artical talks about porting IE to Unix... It dose not mention porting Office nore dose it mention porting to Linux...
Linux is mentioned in the "About Mainsoft" area but this dose not mean Microsoft has any intrests where Linux is conserned..
Mainsoft seems to be a profesional "quick port" company that basicly slips the software into a Windows emulation for pacaging into Unix platforms.
I would like to state this is a bad thing... It encurages software develupers to write software for Windows and then just MainSoft it to Unix. This will produce less than effective results on Unix and generally drag Unix systems down.
You should talk with your IT manager about the dangers of using emulated pacages. Ask him if he'd run Windows software under emulation on the servers or workstations? Point out that it's no diffrent if the emulation is part of the pacage.
It's not a real Unix solution if it's running in emulation
I don't actually exist.
I don't understand what all the fuss is about. Here's why.
/. two stories (aside from the *unconfirmable* WinInsider "scoop") is Office mentioned. Internet Explorer is not part of Office.
/. stories is there mention of ports other than Solaris and HP-UX, so far as I can see. I've not used any of the ports; I've heard good and bad things about the latest port of IE 5. It would seem that YMMV.
1. This is not Office.
Nowhere in any of the articles so far referenced in these
2. Internet Explorer already runs on Unix.
It has done, on at least Solaris and HP-UX, since 1997 with IE 3.0. Mainsoft was the solution provider for that port, and ports since, too. Nowhere in any of the articles referenced in these two
3. My take on this:
It seems to me that this is nothing more than Microsoft confirming to Mainsoft that they (Mainsoft) will continue to be contracted to port IE for the near future, at least. That may mean IE 5.5 ports to Solaris and HP-UX; it may even mean ports of IE 6, when that becomes available.
But *nowhere* in any of these articles, so far as I can see, is there a *mention* of porting Office, or indeed of porting *anything* to a platform other than Solaris or HP-UX.
If you want my opinion (and hey, you probably don't, but this is my post), then I think this is nothing more than a small company (Mainsoft) trumpeting its own success so it can feel like it's playing with the big boys.
Cheers,
Alastair
-- "I believe the human being and the fish can coexist peacefully." - George W. Bush, 29 September 2000
Because they paid a fortune to MSFT to use the actual source code for Windows (similar to what Citrix did with NT) and because, unlike WINE, MainSoft is a for-profit operation (I know, it's shocking) and they charge, according to a self-described MainSoft port-ware user yesterday, upwards of $20,000 just to get started.
The real question is: how much is WINE helping MainSoft??
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
First off there are allready a few Office type pacages for Linux.. Not Microsoft Office.. but Star Office and so on...
Now there is Gnome Foundation.. add to that KDE Office and you have two perficly good open source Office pacages... and then there is Star going open source of course...
Linux users as a rule hiss and spit when they hear "Microsoft". They as a rule don't want anything to do with Microsoft.. the evil empire...
Yes Microsoft IS in this game to make money. Sounds greedy dosn't it? But we all gota eat right?
And thats why I wonder what Microsoft is playing at when I hear Microsoft is writing Office for Linux. Becouse let's face it.. even Microsoft knows they WILL NOT make ANY money trying to sell Office to pack of Microsoft hating "Zellots"...
That is unless Microsoft has some underhanded plans....
But having read the articals I'm convenced Microsoft plans nothing of the sort... They don't want anything to do with Linux... Mainsoft would like to do the porting... Microsoft dosn't want to... and personally I don't think we want anything to do with Mainsofts ports sence they arn't doing real ports but running emulation...
Might do better selling hotdogs at a Vegan convention...
I don't actually exist.
One year ago, I really wanted to have media player under linux. Now xmms is a nearly perfect music player, and several video players are getting better every day.
If Internet Explorer is really more stable than netscape, as several windows users are telling me, IE may be interesting. On the other hand, until IE for linux is available, mozilla may be more stable, too.
Note: While this is bound to result in some highly critical comments, it is not intended to be flamebait but a serious question
If this is true - something lots of folks joked about but never really thought would happen, then what is to prevent another event happening that no one has ever thought Microsoft would do - creating their own distribution of Linux. There are tons of reasons why they might not want to to this, but just to hedge their bets against the court rulings, what would prevent the Applications division from say, making a version of their apps compatible with Linux and the OS division making an MS Linux distro. True, the source code for the linux distro would be mostly open source, but the Office elements and any proprietary additions they made would not have to be opensource. With their marketing muscle (ie cashflow) if MS waded into the Linux market they would probably dominate it in very short order...
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Why do you worry about it?
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Having used MainWin to port an relatively large (300,000 lines) Windows application to UNIX, MainWin's Win32 API implementation at the time was pretty damn lacking. Actually, I found it to be a bit of a pain in the ass.
... else ... endif preprocessor mess throughout "lower-level" parts of the code. Yeah, MainWin made the task a lot easier, but then again, our code was really pretty high level. We didn't really use anything that I would consider low-level, but we still had to kludge things up. Microsoft's code is pretty much known to use undocumented APIs and other such mess---that's why MainWin needs the Windows source code to even do the port. If we had a bit of difficulty porting our Windows program, I can't even imagine the nightmare of porting a Microsoft application.
It's been two years since I've used it (I left that company) but some things that stick out in my mind were that the resource files were somewhat different under MainWin. (We wrote a pretty crazy Perl script that modified the Windows resource file and covered up those differences.
I also remember lots of ifdef UNIX
But in the end, you really should have separated your user interface from the rest of your code. Then, doing a port is just a matter of hiring some people to make a new GUI for each platform. That's (usually) not so difficult. Motif (Gtk+, Qt, whatever) code for UNIX, Win32 for Windows, MacOS for Mac. Of course, Microsoft certainly didn't consider cross-platform code when they wrote (or bought) the Office products.
Come on, do you people really believe there are hundreds of hidden APIs that only Microsoft knows about? Get real!
Exactly! Microsoft would never lie to us little consumers. NT Workstation and NT Server are completely different operating systems, too!
Most of these so-called 'undocumented' APIs come from programmers forgetting to log certain changes or new implementations being made after the MSDN/WinAPI books go to press.
I wonder how you know this? Do you work for Microsoft? Even if you did, then that would work against you. It would mean that the truthfulness of everything you say is immediately suspect.
At any rate, the Windows API along with COM is a very flexible and extensible architecture that really does work pretty well.
This is a non-sequitur. We were talking about undocumented APIs, and then you start fawning about how "flexible and extensible" COM is.
In my line of work developing RAD applications, there is literally no other platform besides Windows, simply because the tools and interfaces for that type of work don't exist on Linux.
In other words, Microsoft can't have any hidden APIs because you really like the Windows development tools?
Your pro-Microsoft rant is pointless and your argument is pathetic. Perhaps you should contact the Wine developers and ask them if there are any undocumented Microsoft APIs. They should know, shouldn't they?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Yes. Remember, just because you port them doesn't mean you release them (right away). Figure it this way: Microsoft will do whatever they can to stifle Linux on the desktop. If, despite their best efforts, they fail, they want to have something to release so that they don't lose their influence. If Linux never takes off, then they're out the money that they spent to port their apps to Linux. That's a drop in the bucket, and insurance money well spent.
To within half a percent, pi seconds is a nanocentury. -- Tom Duff
The only mention of Linux in that article is in the "About Mainsoft" section. Microsoft isn't targeting Linux in particular. I can't see how Microsoft can deny that they're working on this. This press release has as its source "Microsoft Corporation."
Note that the only product specifically mentioned in either press release is Internet Explorer. That doesn't mean that they're not working on ports of Office or other applications (I suspect that they are), only that they're not yet ready to announce them.
It's interesting to note that the discussion on this thread is mostly limited to paranoid fantasy of Microsoft's plans to undermine Linux. I suspect that if they were trying to do that, it would be very obvious. It's more likely that Microsoft sees Linux as a growing market in which they can sell their products.
I find it amusing that, if Microsoft announces a product under development, this community starts making snide comments about vapor ware. But if you learn about a project that Microsoft has not yet announced, you start your little paranoid rants about why Microsoft didn't announce the project. I think you just like bashing Microsoft because they're an easy target (kind of like hitting the side of a barn with a basketball from 10 feet away) and it's considered cool by mush-minded ACs. You goofballs (and the Linux community in general) would be better served by examining the current state of Linux with a critical eye and helping to move it forward rather than taking mostly unintelligible and entirely ineffective potshots at a company that's done much more good than harm to the computer industry over the past 20 years.
I have no huge love for Microsoft, although I do use their products (mostly successfully) on a daily basis. But then, I don't hate the company either. I seriously believe that computers would not be as widely used today had not a company pushed them as hard as Microsoft has. That doesn't excuse their more predatory policies, but it does put things in perspective. Plus, I've made piles of money writing software for and supporting MS-DOS and Windows.
I'm hoping to make piles more writing software for and supporting Linux.
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.
...I'll point you to my earlier comments on this subject, the last time news of this was mentioned.
Comments?
-TBHiX-
look, this isn't about MS Office, this is just about Internet Explorer (which already has been ported to Solaris and HP-UX IIRC). M$'s main purpose is not to let people use Linux, but draw people away from it. Paradoxically, that does mean porting IE to Linux because that becomes the bridge.
Unless M$ does indeed get split into two compainies, M$ will always push people towards Windows rather than empower them to use Linux. This is because "Linux desktop monopoly" is a complete oxymoron. So there is no reason to start airing absurd fears about M$ dominating the Linux application market. As another poster pointed out, the current news is not that much different from WINe. Hardly a threat.
If M$ did get split into two companies, then the applications group (who would inherit Office) would indeed be free to port to Linux because that would be a new source of revenue - suddenly it becomes a win-win situation instead of a lose-lose. But that would actually *increase* the Linux desktop market share and so that would be a good thing.
JOIN !LINK CLUB!
Don't blame me - I voted for Howard Dean. http://dean2004.blogspot.com
"skubalon writes "Mainsoft confirmed today that they are indeed porting Microsoft's apps to Linux."
Only one product(MSIE) was confirmed as being ported to *nix from the Press release. Not the multiple products the above quote misleads you into thinking. There's a possibility for others to be ported, but nothing is confirmed from that Press Release.
..!!in an intastella burst i am back to save the universe!!
Did you know that a $600 Office suite makes more money than a $70 OS? Especially if it comes bundled with a PC? And that the costs of production, IE packaging and shrinkwrap, is about the same for both?
<BR>
<BR>M$, because it will have the source to Linux, will be able to make lots of money selling Office, as well as muck around with basic compatibility of MSLinux, and keep other people out with their 'open source' but proprietary changes. Nothing stops M$ from changing the Win32API every year!
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
The Facts: - M$ already ported Media player (1.5 year ago, but didn't release any codecs), sorry, all links dissapeared +-1 year ago from their website - M$'s port of IE for solaris sucked big time, done with help of the same company... - M$'s main money comes from the office products My conclusions: - M$ is already being split internally. (legal issues),and someone at M$ who likes Linux and got at the top during that process - M$ is porting their "better" apps to linux. IE5 is not bad at all, Office runs kinda stable on my win98se (that's the only thing that runs stable ;-)
- Staroffice is slow, wp pritty buggy, and both can't handle M$ file formats like they should. -> A lot of people will jump to M$ Office for linux (if not as buggy as IE for Solaris)
- Netscape doesn't support all current standards, and Opera is still beta, and has a lot of problems with java script. IE doesn't support all standards, but a lot more than NS.
My conclusion is M$ smells money at the linux side. A lot of people already use linux. This number will keep growing. Against the time it starts getting competing their end user OS's, they want to make sure they have the Office monopoly.
About media player: M$ is trying to make ASF the standard video compression method for the web, and with realplayer recently ported to linux...
I thing M$ finally used its brains. I am only not certain if they took the right guy's to port it (see IE 4 solaris) If it turns out to be good, M$ benefits. If it turns out to be bad (crashes a lot, buggy), they can blame the other company, and blame linux. MS benefits too.
It seems to me this is a win-win situation for M$.
640K should be enough for everyone - Bill Gates
funny thing is that with all the anti-ms sentiment around here, you would think people would be more skeptical. Frankly, I'm kind of ashamed of the Slashdot crowd for not being their usual skeptical fiends. Let's face it; everyone around here really secretly wants to see IE on Gnome. *devilish grin* turn flamethrowers on CRISP.-
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the amazing bc
latin/funk flugelhorn & trumpet
webnaut, music junkie, sysadmin from hell
the amazing bc
just another guy doing IT
webnaut, music junkie, holes-in-head
I believe that not only MS$, but Sun, IBM and anyone who's focus is on marketshare $, is ehading in this direction. Apparently, bandwidth and the ability to distribute advanced code at 0 cost was all the 'big boyz' needed to try and return us to the centralized cerver world. Why? Control of the dollars and information. How to fight it? Don't buy non-open source tools, encrypted data players, or store your files on someone else's hardware. Do - support open software development efforts, teach and lend support to anyone trying to learn the basics, and choose your file formats carefully. Otherwise, we all get what we've chosen, despite our whining!
Wasn't IE so tied to the OS that one without the other was like oreo cookies without the white stuffing? Hypocrites. Explain THAT to the judge....
There are two kinds of people in the world: Those with good memory.
Given that Microsoft will eventually start porting apps, the question becomes: does this really benefit the *x community?
Not particularly. The apps will be large and unwieldy, and X doesn't fare well running large and unwieldy applications. See: Netscape 4.x
Sure, Linux users will be able to open up Word documents and Excel spreadsheets.
Which means the situation will remain the same. See: StarOffice, Gnumeric, KOffice, AbiWord(?)
Sure, Solaris users will be able to use Windows Media Player.
This is probably the only major impact, in terms of what isn't already available for Unix. Lots of websites are using Windows Media exclusively for their streaming, which is unfortunate for anybody that doesn't have Win9x. So getting more exposure for the player would be good. Maybe it'll be better than RealPlayer. Eh.
But The OS is where the money is.
Not even slightly. Have you gone out to a software store recently and compared the price of Win98 to the price of the various distros of MS Office? MSOffice has, for the last several years, been the single most profitable application for MS as far as end-users is concerned.
Why would Microsoft port enough applications for Linux to become viable as a end-user desktop?
This will happen with or without them, and they should be smart enough to realize that by now. Maybe they decided to give in and get their foot in the door before Linux becomes a viable end-user desktop without them.
I reason that they wouldn't. Hell, they might even keep the releases on *x one step (in features and bug fixes) behind the Windows releases.
They'll probably do that anyway. Most commercial vendors that maintain Linux ports do. See: Corel WordPerfect, Borland whatever-that-program-was, etc.
Right. But I was wondering whether or not I can hide a First Post without getting modded to death (which I was for a couple of time :P))
Mode (3) smart-aleck mode. Press * to return to main menu.
Is it just me? Microsoft in no place seems to be denying the port of Internet Explorer and their Media Player. What they're saying is that office will not be ported to Linux.
So while the rumors were in part wrong, we have on one side Mainsoft saying that they are not porting office but IE and Media player and on the other side MS only saying that they are not porting Office...
Microsoft did not deny the possibility that some of its apps would be ported, they only said "WE are not doing it" and "not Office".
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear"
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
Hmm.. MS announces the 'Death of the Desktop' and a concentration in Internet-based systems from now on.
Linux has the ailing Netscape browser in AOL's loving embrace, and Mozilla trying to surround it's sleak rendering engine with so much Stuff it's silly
Microsoft has, to be honest, a wonderfully full-featured browser in Internet Explorer.
Now, putting these together wouldn't it make perfect business sense to begin trying to port IE to Linux? With a 'Browser on every desktop' MS can begin to control the flow of development of the Internet to an even more remarkable degree, introducing closed protocols secure in the knowledge that it'll be only the most fervant OpenSource 'zealots' who'll object to them now.. after all, you can see them from the nicely stable Linux desktop you heard so much about before you left Win98..
Control is a wonderful thing. Add spin to taste...
404 Not Found: No such file or resource as '.sig'
Woohoo! Finally!
Although we will probably never get it, but 'Woohoo' nonetheless.
Couldn't care less about the Office package. Not only that they will hardly be able to make it at least partially stable, Linux already has Office software like StarOffice, KOffice and whatever the Gnome people are planning.
Corel. Corel has/had a lot invested in Linux. Their CEO resigned, and they're on pretty shaky ground right now.
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Insert Witty Sig Here
Mozilla milestone M18 released!
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Computers are useless: they can only give you answers. -- Pablo Picasso
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.
Will wonders, er...romors never cease?
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Die hard linux users should fear this for one simple reason. People will use the MS port(s) and thus make Linux just another market for MS to win over. The did it with Apple. MS Office , IE, heck even basic early on was all MS. So linux will be "tainted" with MS users. The real fun is in watching Linux Jihaders as they see thier perfect OS become just another commodity in the mass market ocean. "your just another victim just another victim"
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
- More money for open source projects :)
- Linux/*BSD won't be considered just a geek OS
- pr0n avalible in WMA is viewable by us
- More programmers for *nix
- More support (hardware) for *nix
- Red Hat stocks may soar
Bad?
- People who don't understand computers nor the reason for open source will use *nix because they wanted a free (as in beer) OS. /.
- Wine will be less useful
- More trolls will be at
The Reason?
- Microsoft supports MacOS and to continue there support (natively) for MacOS X (which runs on BSD), they must make apps. for *nix.
This may not be so bad. Personally, I like IE over Netscape. It's stable (on my system, at least) and it's more polished. I prefer to use IE when I'm in Windows over Netscape. I wonder how they can make an IE port to *nix stable though. What about all of the secret API code that's used in Windows? Once it's ported, does that mean the *nix version will have less functionality?
Ah. Someone who hasn't used IE on Solaris. Having sat on console on an UltraSparc and fired up IE out of curiosity (may trample me into the ground) and watched it chug and creak and roll around a little rendering a page, and seemingly slowing down the X server at the same time and using 95% of the machine, you can keep IE for Linux. Meanwhile I would recommend Mozilla M9 over it for speed and functionality :-)
Of course if you are interested in speed you'll use Mozilla M18 nightlies which are a lot faster than M17 already. IE on Linux will almost certainly run through some sort of porting library interface and will suffer because of it. MS won't care because the same machine with MS Windows and Linux will run IE nicely under Windows and like a dog on Linux, thus proving to the world at large what a wonderfully speedy system Windows is and how much Linux sucks. There is no mileage in a fast version of IE for Linux until MS gets split in two (and jumped up and down on, lost, found, subjected to public enquiry [Ed - we've had that], lost, found again, buried in soft peat and recycled as firelighters) :-)
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Apologies to D.Adams :-)
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
New Amiga-based PDA announced.
Microsoft Funds "KDE Foundation".
Linus Torvalds admits: "I run Win2K".
Pat Buchanan to nix Copyright Law: Geeks vote for Pat!
UI Expert proves: Vi is better than Emacs.
Finally free: the Linux Kernel is BSD'ed
etc, etc, et-freaking-cetera...
engineers never lie; we just approximate the truth.
Many Linux users use Linux at home but at work they use Windows on the desktop. System Administrators, even if they run Linux servers, have users that run Windows. Windows is completely dominant on the desktop.
Why in practical terms is Windows so dominant on the desktop (forget about unfair competition for a moment? The answer is that Windows is basically a platform for running Office. Almost every business runs Office. That's how work is done. And, frankly, Office has gotten a lot better in recent years -- so most people don't want to switch.
MS realizes they have a winner in Office so they want to extend its reach. If they port it to Linux they will sell more copies of Office -- and, they think, bring more people to Windows. What it actually will do is remove the greatest barrier, in the business world, to running Linux on the desktop. Tell people: what if I could set you up with a desktop where you could continue your work as normal except few reboots and no BSOD's?!? You would get a good reception as long as you made X start on boot, and you provided some basic training. Now, you've got Linux/Samba/Apache on the server, and Linux/Office on the desktops. That would be a huge step in the right direction.
MS is banking on their ability to continually improve Office and make a product so good that it will stay dominant, even as Linux ascends. Of course, that battle's outcome is far from certain given all the promising developments lately.
Now my Linux installation will be my full-time work-and-play system. All I was lacking was IE.
Now hiring experienced client- & server-side developers
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
One wouldn't need to buy MSLinux!
One buys MSOffice for Linux; it comes with 'libraries' which would supplant, modify, and mess with *any* Linux distro, in the name of 'compatibility'. In all fairness, M$ would be compelled to release the source, according to GNU license. But it doesn't have to be prompt. It doesn't have to be pretty. It doesn't have to be useful.
So in the end, *all* Linux users who would use MSOffice would be liable for this 'virus'
The nick is a joke! Really!
GPL Deconstructed
What matters is that there are plenty of rumours floating around that they are or might be; what better way to scare off anyone who was considering writing, say, the killer Office app for Linux? They kill two birds with one stone with just one rumour; firstly they scare off any potential OfficeApp competition (who would risk developing an Office suite for Linux if there was a chance that it would be squashed instantly when Microsoft Office for Linux is released?), and secondly, they keep Linux from competing with them - since a real (decent) Office Suite for Linux would make Linux more a viable competitor for Windows, then as long as there isn't a killer Office Suite for Linux, this potential competition is lessened.
And they can do all that just be spreading a few rumours. It could well be that they do have a secret group writing the Linux port of Office 2000 - but only if Linux does become a real competitor to Windows on the desktop will we ever find out for sure, since MS would only ever admit it if Windows sales were falling so badly that they instead try to use Office as their main revenue generator. But whether or not they are, the effect on competition is the same.
Look at Office 2001 for the mac, you can see what I mean. Mircosoft knows Mac users dont' like Microsoft. So they are downplaying everything that says Mircosoft. It's totally carbonized, etc.
I'd expect the same with a linux port. I'd assume the first version would be just a MainWin "port". But then a linux ap division. Which I hope is as talented as their MacOS divsion. Thier 2nd offering of Microsoft products would use all gnome services, bonobo, corba, gtk. etc.
And for all you doubting thomas's. Interenet Exploer 5 for MacOS is the most standards compiant browser on the market. I'd execpt no less form Microsoft on a linux port.
Regardless of who is doing the porting, Microsoft apps for Linux sounds a little shady. Think about it: MS has got a pretty good stranglehold on the desktop market, and one of thier primary up-and-coming competitors is Linux.
.NET all this would become clearer to you.
.NET family exist on every platform can only be a plus.
If you had focussed on any of the articles on MSFT's
In MSFT's vision of the future, all apps are hosted on the server and rented by clients. To do this clients will need browsers, audio and video players, libraries, etc that can view MSFT proprietary content. Since most of these hosted apps will use client side scripting and advanced DHTML/XML techniques making sure that browsers that can access all the
Who cares if a few of the desktops run Linux? MSFT's major money makers have always been the Office line of products. If browsers are provided so that Linux users can now buy office licensees then this can only improve their bottom line.
The Queue Principle
But what good is Media Player without codecs? or Internet Explorer without ActiveX plugins? Would I use Media Player if it couldn't play anything that xanim couldn't? I doubt it! Would I use Internet Explorer if it couldn't do flash? Not a chance.
Granted, I think its a good thing, but unless everyone else adopts it.. and unless Mainsoft releases a public SDK (that doesn't suck) for the both of them.. its not really going to be worth using.
Now if I could just play Sorenson and DivX without bastardized win32 'emulation'..
I bet the products will be buggy to make users frustrated ;). Aren't most of the Mac port products were ok?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
This is nothing but bad for Linux. Now that there will be popular, well known Microsoft apps such as media player and IE for Linux who is going to use the alternatives (expecially with IE)? You can make all the software you want, but if no one is going to download it because there are Microsoft versions, why bother?
:P ), remember that AOL is coming to Linux.
And if you don't think that many people will use Microsoft products because they know the free opensource versions are better (other than IE
I'm sure they could get the real specs to the WINE crew and get it finished in a short time.
On M$ case, you asked :
"What are we missing? What am I missing?"
So, here is the answer -
1. Bugs
2. Bloatedware
3. Crappy programs that crashes.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
With IE on linux this gives linux an edge as a web design platform now you have a
The number one web server out there
The number one browser out there
Well, I agree to most of this. But especially the last release of the Windows Media Player (v7) has some serious security problems. So "under certain conditions he's providing information to sites so they can identify them." Data like connection time, IP-Number, client-version, client-ID, date, protocol and also the globally unique identifier (GUID) are submitted. (To be fair you have to say that you can switch the GUID transmitting of, though it's not the standard.) In the MediaPlayer are also some switches activated that allow access from the internet to your own box. (most of this is from c't, a german computer magazine (www.heise.de/ct).
:-)
Well, have fun
bye
--mj
Wine already runs Office '97, Internet Explorer 5.01, and Media Player 6.4 to varying-but-generally-usable degrees. So the developers don't *need* MS help, but it would be nice...
Media Player 6.4 already plays many formats (including WMA audio) under WINE. Video is a bit of a stickler because of some tricky semi-documented DirectDraw features, but it's coming. And progress is happening on QuickTime Player too - one Wine developer has it playing videos now but hasn't submitted his patches back yet.