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MS To Work To Make .NET Run OSes Beyond Windows
Wattsman writes "Looks like Microsoft is taking a new approach. From Linux Today, Microsoft has announced that will release software that will allow non-MS operating systems to run .NET web services. Ballmer specifically mentions that Linux is one of the platforms."
Many security people, including Bruce Schneier consider SOAP to be a horrible idea. Think about it. Your simple stateful packet filter (i.e. linux 2.4 kernel) will no longer be enough to build a firewall. If applications use XML over port 80 as an API, we will have to put application level proxies on things that used to be simple services. All firewalls will have to include an analytical engine as strong as that of an IDS for each service they want to run. That makes them much more expensive and complex.
Complex firewalls generally aren't as trusted as simple ones. Things are going to get ugly, and SOAP won't help.
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
I suspect you're right. On the other hand (and speaking as a guy with very precious knowledge of the NET platform), I wouldn't be surprised if there are elements of the system that simply don't make sense for Linux, or that would require a herculean effort in order to implement. And even if that's not the case, it would be a convenient excuse for MS to not even try a full implementation.
This is why I'd rather see a decent API set released for public consumption, so we could get folks interesting in building their own implementations busy. However, that's never going to happen. According to Ballmer, "...our overall strategy is not to get [non-Windows based] Web sites over to Windows, but we will provide a way for those Linux servers to use .NET." In other words, they can't allow competing implementations to pop up, or they run the risk of being hoisted by their own collective petard.
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Tunneling over HTTP? SMTP?? WTF for? I've heard people say "so they can get around proxies". Ummm, hello--if I'm blocking it I want it blocked.
The article I read said something about a "SOAPAction" header that you could filter on. The trouble with it was three-fold though:
1) Even the article claimed it's usage wasn't widespread.
2) There didn't seem to be any requirement that the header correspond to reality.
3) What if I want to have security based on the parameter values, not on the name of the method?
What's worse, even a system admin rarely knows all the processes that are running on a Windows machine. There'll probably be SOAP servers embedded in Note-freaking-pad. Say goodbye to any sense of security...
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MS To Work To Make .NET Run OSes Beyond Windows
.NET are all new and shiny--but what do they provide? Don't confuse the shovel with the ditch, as I read somewhere recently. Updating your shovel with no benefit to either the shoveler or the ditch is just technological masturbation.
Wouldn't that be Gates' wet dream come true? I assume you mean "....NET Run On OSes Beyond Windows" though.
In any case--what's all the hubbub? I just finished reading an article about SOAP. Sounded pretty neat. About as neat as when I was reading about RPC several years ago. And still no real difference than just plain old "networking".
When I download my mail using an IMAP "FETCH" or POP3 "UIDL" how is that any different (besides generality) than a "remote procedure call" or "server object access"? Answer: It ain't. Yes, generality is important. No, it isn't a "breakthrough" or a "revolution". It certainly doesn't need to be invented (at least) 4 times (RPC, CORBA, XML-RPC, SOAP).
Sure, SOAP and
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324006
Ah yes, Java, Office, IE, NT...
.NET for Linux), is if they opened the source, and kept it open, so that if there were any features that were not implemented with full parity, the OSC could fill it in, and if MS breaks something ("accidentally", or otherwise), it can be fixed, and if MS drops support at a later date to force people to migrate to Windows because their data is held captive in a proprietary format, the format can be reverse-engineered and the customer could at least contract a rogue developer to write a conversion tool.
.NET.
Produce software for other platforms to get people "hooked on" proprietary file formats. Support the other platforms as good as necessary, (often not as good as the native platform, some features missing, some features don't work the same, perform poorly, not fully compatible, some features just plain broken) then when their data is captive, and unmigratable, fuck em.
Office for Macintosh, IE for just about anything other than Windows, NT for Alpha, PPC, and MIPS.
The ONLY way Microsoft could be trusted (by a Linux shop wishing to adopt
But it's not likely we'll see an open
I can't believe people still fall for that crap.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
This is the standard M$ move ... Then, slowly, they will leverage the desktop to work into the server market.
.NET in general is not the standard MS playbook.
.NET is an attempt to have his cake and eat it too: They can move to cross-platform server space and still "own the platform", as well as leverage the Windows monopoly to get people there.
.NET allows the "Application" group to divorce itself from the Windows codebase. The problem is, they have just about zero credibility on Unix and with ISPs/ASPs. By doing a soft rollout, they can work the kinks out of .NET on Unix while the Microsoft legion charges ahead and develops on Windows. Then, when the breakup happens (maybe sooner than originally planned!), they've already got a cross-platform product which has been tested and somewhat deployed.
You describe the standard MS playbook. But,
Ballmer has the government to the left of him, and a seriously depressed stock value to the right of him, and
If they get broken up by the government, or voluntarily split to raise the stock price,
Just add the client pieces, and then it's business as usual - it makes breaking off the application group from the OS side much easier.
Hell is freezing over.
Embrace and extend, embrace and extend, embrace and extend....
As the Talking Heads said so well:
"Same as as it ever was, same as it ever was..."
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Even though there are a number of Microsoft-ism function calls as part of the .NET framework, the majority are pretty generic. The parts that implementors of .NET on other platforms will have problems with are the System.WinForms set of classes. However, even for this, much of the code that was developed as part of the Wine project could be used, since Winelib isn't as platform specific as the Wine standalone executable is.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
This news is reaaly five months old, this just confirms what all the Tech press was saying back in October when MS invested $135Mus in Corel.
.NET for Linux?
BYTE:Analyzing Microsoft's Corel Investment Strange Bedfellows: Curiouser And Curiouser
ZDNet: Microsoft
WIRED: Corel, Microsoft form alliance
Work for Change & GET PAID!
Yeah, if the President of the company doesn't know that HAL stands for Hardware Abstraction Layer, how good can it be?
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crazy dynamite monkey
Yeah, that's what I thought too.
Office isn't bad software - I'm waiting for the day after the breakup when Windows and Office are made by different companies - the applications company will want to make software for Linux. Then MS won't be able to leverage its Office monopoly to backup the Windows monopoly and vice-versa. Pray the appeals court sees the light...
I tried the latest version of StarOffice. Saves files as Word docs in formats newer than my copy of Word. It saved me the trouble of buying/acquiring Powerpoint, since the presentation software is an exact ripoff of Powerpoint.
If you're a corporate user, or somebody else who has to pay full price for software, I just can't see how you can justify buying MS Office - it's $599 for a legit copy. The costs to convert to StarOffice would have to be cheaper.
The above post is more than a little paranoid. But the paranoia makes sense, given previous behavior by MS.
Standards "extensions", "copy protection", Allchin's recent comments about the need to "educate" legistalators, the Java breakage, FUD, and all the other standard Microsoft tactics mean that any "support" for anything that MS provides is often a cause for concern.
You don't see a hundred posts about how IBM or Oracle or Sun has nefarious intentions whenever they do anything Linux-related because they don't have the same track record as Microsoft does - none of them are saints, but at they don't center their business on anti-competitive tactics.
"Let's just buy the stupid software and get this thing running now!"
Too bad that the opportunity costs will be once again, an unstable OS.
"M$: Some of our protocols are just inherently incompatible with Linux/Unix. We cannot make Linux less prone to crashing when running .Net services. That's the developers of that OS's problem, but WinNT, Win2k, and WinXP run .Net services wonderfully!"
and the worst thing is that that acronym expansion isn't even right. :)
back when MS was trying to push NT as a cross-platform (x86, Alpha, PPC, etc), HAL stood for Hardware Abstraction Layer.
"If ignorance is bliss, may I never be happy.
-- Veni, vidi, dormivi
Um, thats great and all, but .NET != SOAP. SOAP is just one teeny little piece of the whole picture.
I sig, therefore I am.
Well, not everyone wants to program his documents...
(I'm using \LaTeX{}, too, but I wouldn't expect others to do the same)
BIND supports the DNS "SRV" extension and Dynamic DNS, has done so for quite some time.
For sure BIND 9, probably also recent versions of BIND 8.
The most telling part of the article is that Steve Ballmer hasen't seen the movie '2001 A Space Odyssey'. He and everyone at Microsoft thinks that HAL means hardware abstraction layer :-)
This will be just another embrace-and-engulf move to try to polute other platforms in addition to making the transition away from other platforms to windows easier. A smart move on their part, but bad for folks in the trenches.
I went to the forbes site and looked at the list of fortune 500 companies, and then checked at netcraft to see what they were running as web servers, and then tallied up the first 100. 55 - Netscape Enterprise, 26 - IIS, 15 - Apache (I didn't count Walmart). Of the first 50, only 2 sites were running Exchange.
.Not will probably make it due to monopoly influence, not, of course, on its own merits. It'll be interesting to watch Microsoft's virus problem mushroom like a nuclear bomb...
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Ballmer doesn't know his own products.
AFAIK, it is never Hardware Application Layer
I wish this mattered, but no one is left who believes M$ knows what they're talking about, anyway.
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hawk, ducking & running
I personally am more interested in using XML-RPC with Zope, but the fine folks at PythonWare have a sample implementation of the Soap 1.1 protocol (or so they claim). Take a look at it here
Yes, but what they'll end up with is *nix prices and MS stability.
John
John
* They will release binaries that harm your system integrity, by either sending MS information about your systems, opening up specific ports, or some other similar mechanism.
Hate to break it to you, but they already do this.
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I purchased Office 97 Pro a few years back (granted, I got a student discount 'cause I was taking a graduate course, but I still paid $150+ for it).
Why? Because it's what everyone else uses. We use it at work, friends use it at home, etc., etc. I'd tried for years to get compatible applications for my NeXT, and never succeeded much, so...gotta bite the bullet. And, truthfully, it's a damned good set of programs. Once you get past the occasional heinous bug.
I've played with StarOffice, and it just wasn't there yet (this was over a year ago, I think). Dunno about the Corel offerings.
true, true.
they're doing the same thing with Windows Media Server.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
Yeah, but if they do find this out, they won't publish the results or allow the results to be published by a third party. (I'm thinking here of the story last week that MS SQL runs faster on NT than on 2000 but that MS won't let the professor publish his findings.)
According to Steve Ballmer's bio, his degrees are in mathematics and economics. Gates and Allen were/are the geeks. Ballmer's a suit. This would explain his mangling of "hardware abstraction layer".
He probably thinks Hackers was a better movie than Antitrust, too. (Which is true, but in the same unfortunate way Howard the Duck was better than Battlefield Earth.)
We're not scare-mongering/This is really happening - Radiohead
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Office for Mac is already crippleware.
MS Access? Visual Basic support? not that I or anyone I know gives a crap about that, but these are bullet-points that are on Windows, not on Mac.
You also forget the HISTORY of Office for Mac. It has been "used as a club" quite effectively in the past. Don't let their marketroids fool you. The second they feel Apple isn't playing nice anymore (OpenStep for Windows runtime?), Office will be swinging down on someone's head.
Java - MS isn't yet finished with java. Why let a little thing like a $20M judgement stop them?
I wasn't specifically referring to IE on Mac, how 'bout IE Solaris? Aren't there also some Windows only features of IE?
Samba - MS has broken Samba with service packs in the past. Some claim that was intentional. Truth be told, if you're integrating Active Directory Win2k networks with Unix, Samba isn't as full-featured as a lot of NT admins would like. Authentication is broken because of Microsoft's intentionally broken Kerberos implementation.
How about another example? How about C++? Is programming for Windows actually coding in C++? Or is it more accurately described as Writing in MFC? I'm not personally a Windows coder, but I am constantly hearing comments about how MS's implementation of C++ is not really object oriented, and obviously not portable, of course, which was the original intent of C in the first place, right?
My point is simple: Microsoft has no lasting need to provide support for any OS other than 'doze, and any hardware other than x86. They may do it on a temporary basis for the purpose of pushing other players out of a market space, or getting customers committed then hanging them out to dry, but in the long run, they want Windows everyware. Microsoft's long term goals do not include writing software for every platform out there. That's too expensive. It's much easier to make every platform out there theirs.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Don't be impressed, and more importantly, don't be fooled. .NET IS the platform, stupid! They have just altered the game a bit, but the strategy and the aim is still the same - vendor lock-in and world domination. It doesn't matter how and under what operating system you develope for .NET. Even if you run Linux locally, you are still developing for and under .NET. The stakes are even higher this time, considering it isn't just a local operating system, but a global internet-wide platform.
.NET is an openly specified standard, it may as well be Windows to me.
Unless
Java: Yes, Microsoft tried to embrace, extend and extinguish it. And they failed miserably. There are still plenty of pure Java apps that work cross-platform.
.net for alternative platforms. But it's not like this is going to allow them to take over the free software market.
.net takes off, I'm sure within a matter of months someone will reverse engineer the protocols and file formats and write an open source clone that the community can use to connect to .net services. Samba allows us to interconnect Windows and Unix file and print services, without any help from MS. Why would .net be any different?
Office: Word and Excel started out on the Mac, and Mac versions of Office are still every bit as good as their Windows counterparts. Office 2001 has been a huge cash cow for MS, and they've committed to port to OS X. It's highly unlikely that they'll be cancelling support or making crippleware versions of Office for Mac any times soon-- the market is just too lucrative.
IE: IE for Mac is arguably the best web browser on the market. I use it on a daily basis, and I've rarely had problems with it. It's head and shoulders above Netscape for Mac, and is in some ways better than IE for Windows.
NT: yes, there were perfunctory attempts to make NT cross-platform, but those died pretty fast. And it's not like Microsoft had anything to gain by screwing over the PPC or the Alpha-- they don't have a major stake in the x86 market. The simple fact was that x86 was cheapest and had the largest market share and most mature base of compatible hardware. Supporting the other platforms simply wasn't worth the effort.
Now, with that said, if I were a Linux user I would be extremely suspicious of running Microsoft products, because you're right-- they probably will produce half-assed versions of
In addition, the Open Source community is amazingly good at reverse-engineering closed protocols and writing compatible Unix versions. If
Anyone who believes Microsoft will allow Linux to ride .NET in "First Class" is fooling themselves. We won't even get a *seat* in "cargo".
Sure, there will "be" some support for Linux. One only has to remember Microsoft's other "efforts":
1) Office on the Mac (think it's reliable? Send your resume out from it, without proofing on the Windows version..)
2) Streaming Media on UNIX. They even had a Linux binary, remember. It was so clever of them to trumpet "crossplatform support", while withholding minor features like the CODECS needed to play video!
3) IE For UNIX. Stop laughing... I have this friend who says he knows someone who once had a neighbor who downloaded it. Don't laugh -- IE is now required by companies with lazy QA departments and HTML coders with dyslexia. My credit card company's onliine application pages have *broken HTML tages* that render a blank page in Netscape. They won't even fix something that simple... but they will miss the point by saying "we're following the marketshare of Linux closely". Grr...
They can't even properly support HTML. They go out of their way to hide service packs for Windows, so you have to use Windows Update which of course mandates IE (it's HTML, but structured so if you don't use IE, there's no fallback rendering of the page... not even an FTP-like list of files).
They're trying to give the peception that this thing is as inevitable as anything they do. It will be vaporware long after the mainstream press reports on this as if it already happened...
Heck, the open source community stands a good chance of getting to .NET before Microsoft does. After all, what is .NET running applications over the Internet with SOAP.
It might come as a surprise, but the open source community is well on it's way to having application servers that are .NET compatible right now. Apache's working on SOAP, Ximian is working on SOAP-based SOUP, there are SOAP clients and servers for every scripting language that runs on Linux, and the list goes on and on.
Ballmer has to mention that these services are available for Linux, otherwise the folks in the media will realize that the Open Source community is building the infrastructure without Microsoft's help. At least this way Ballmer can pretend that the Open Source community is following MS's tail-lights.
See, I firmly believe that MS took to heart the idea that 'the browser is the OS.' Certainly they've been working to kill off Netscape and Java for years, it's so threatening. But at the end of the day, even they know that the real two big monopolies are Office and IE. Windows is very nice, but is ultimately expendible. .Net is an attempt to combine these two monopolies in order to preserve them and in hopes that it will be more a monopoly than the sum of the two parts.
.net client software on it, and it alone. This drives people to their OS, to use their apps, with their browser.
.Net is sufficiently portable to let MS take over two whole markets on it near-instantly if they desire, then use those to harm the OS. (eg the shenannigans they pull on the Mac side with Office)
.net to other platforms. They may no longer have any real reason to conduct shenannigans, but their software is more compelling to users than an OS is. If they withdraw from a platform, that platform will lose all the users who use .net, and the network effects will seriously damage it.
.net clients - which is largely IE - working on Linux and the Mac. But most of it will not be released unless they feel that they have to. Their software may be crap, but they're very smart guys, and it'll take decades or a sea change on the scale of the entire microcomputing revolution to dislodge them. OSS is certainly not big enough, and the Internet has proven not to be either. So you get an idea of how big a change you'd need.
So, assuming that MS retains Windows, they'll keep the
If an insanely compelling alternative OS comes out that can't be competed with,
If MS is broken up into an OS company and an Apps/Internet company, the latter is still in a position to dominate the market by porting
I suspect that MS has been working to get
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
This would only surprise me if they released source code. My guess is one of the following:
* They will release source code, but it's just a repackaging of the currently-available SOAP stuff for Linux
* They will release binaries that really, really suck, so they can say "Linux sucks"
* They will release binaries that harm your system integrity, by either sending MS information about your systems, opening up specific ports, or some other similar mechanism.
Call me paranoid, but if its anything else, I will be truly shocked and amazed.
Engineering and the Ultimate
Yes, I read all that as well (after posting the first response).
However, it isn't just Python that is lacking decent SOAP tools. Apparently it is quite difficult to get any two SOAP tools to interoperate. Python's SOAP tools are just especially non-interoperable :). In the meantime XML-RPC works today, and SOAP will almost certainly be available for Python if and when SOAP actually becomes an important protocol.
The fact of the matter is that Microsoft is not going to be able to keep .NET a Microsoft only incantation, and I would bet that they won't even be substantial front-runners.
Ballmer can pretend that Microsoft is simply being magnamanious, and giving the tech to Linux and these other OSes, but that's not even remotely the case. Microsoft is building their next big piece of tech on a fairly open set of protocols, and the Open Source community is happy to take their research and turn it into working tools.
Wait, let me guess:
1. They open up - "see, they're trying to sucker us in, to extinguish us"
2. They keep things closed - "see, they're trying to tie us in to one platform"
Will you guys ever ne happy with what they do? They're trying to run a business, not a community.
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Do you have a fucking clue what .Net is?
.NET.
.NET servers can be running linux.
Subscription based service in which the server does most of the processing, and a client interface makes the user feel just like they are using Word on their own machine.
This is largely created because new computer sales are slowing down and M$'s revenue stream is slowing proportionally. Also, M$ is totally pissed off about copies of their software, particularly in Asia. If people want to use M$'s software, they will pay a subscription fee and use
And, according to M$, the
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"In the spirit of frankness and directness of the 21st Century, I never saw the movie," he said. "To most people at Microsoft, HAL stands for hardware application layer."
That explains everything.
They want linux support on the servers. They are not going to support .NET on linux clients.
.NET server, but only Windows can be clients. Then, slowly, they will leverage the desktop to work into the server market.
This is the standard M$ move. They will allow anyone to be a
You can note the recent incompatibility with name service in Windows2000 to try to leverage Windows into the DNS server market.
It's simple: Microsoft is simply deploying .net technology for Linux in order to take over the Linux market. It's the old "embrace and extend" strategy. First they will embrace Linux, get a lot of people hooked on .net technology (which will be forced on people through Windows licensing requirements on manufacturers), then they will come out with incompatible technology that requires changes to the Linux kernel. Since so many people will be using .net, the major packages will be forced to mold the kernel to Microsoft's specifications. If they don't, then the kernel will have to split because of the public outcry.
And thus it's done: Microsoft will have taken over Linux. They will have taken control of the kernel.
And if you believe any of that bullshit above, you may be ready to join the Slashdot "inner circle". :)
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I also suspect that this will go much the way of support for Alphas has... the first version or two will support non-Win2K, tying companies into support agreements they can't get out of. Then once they're bound, make the new version Win2K+X only. Watch ASP's convert against their will.
Don't bother developing .NET for Linux, we'll do it. Really, we will...
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