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Microsoft's CLR - Providing a Break from HW Vendors?
"It seems to me that once the CLR has matured enough, there won't be a need for Microsoft to wait for others to innovate on the hardware front and start offering its own hardware (and charge whatever it wants for it) to go with future versions of Windows.Net. Worst still, 99.99% of the population will not be able to say no to this strategy since they'll have no choice but continue using the Windows monopoly in order to run their favorite apps."
Jamie comments: I don't think it's about hardware innovation, or beating Java. It's about absolute control.
The big money over the next decade will be in transforming the computer into an entertainment device. AOL Time-Warner sees a computer as a revenue producer, with the unfortunate ability to copy digital works. They and the other five media giants want to put a stop to it; Microsoft and Intel will find it very profitable to help them.
One good step along the way is to give the computer a common interpreted language to run everything. We're there already. And when developers have to code to a virtual machine, not the actual bare iron, then whoever writes the virtual machine holds all the cards. And since the authors of the virtual machine will make a lot of money by enforcing intellectual property rights, the arms races are all over: copy protection is absolute, DeCSS won't compile, unauthorized MP3s won't play.
Of course developers rarely write on the bare metal anyway: we write to APIs, we write scripts, we write code that doesn't (need to) run in the CPU's supervisor mode. We're used to surrendering the ultimate control over the machine to the operating system, or to be more precise, to the BIOS that decides how and which operating system to run.
If we surrender this control, though, we'll find ourselves with a monopoly operating system that makes it impossible freely to write code for. (And it's not hard to cut off Linux and every other rogue free OS at the knees. The day that every motherboard's BIOS uses strong crypto to demand the master boot record be signed with a secret key known only to Microsoft is the day that Linux becomes a thing of the past.)
Naturally, to prevent you from firing up GCC and doing a rogue compilation of DeCSS or Lame or other unauthorized code, the operating system will have to stop you from running anything that isn't written in its language for its virtual machine. Requiring code to be signed by a central authority will make its first appearance as virus-prevention but its real purpose too will be control. Universities will be able to buy special licensed exemptions, at least until corporations decide universities are hotbeds of piracy and theft. At which point your alma mater begins teaching Computer Science 101 (and 201, and 301, and 401) in C#.
My prediction is that, unless antitrust legislation in the U.S. gets some teeth between now and then, the PC will become a Gameboy within fifteen years. Enjoy computers while they last.
While I absolutely despise the approach Microsoft takes toward software development, I can safely say they won't ever get "absolute control" over it. Yeah, they're big, they're rich, they're formidable, but they're also bumbling and very error-prone, as we all know from leaked e-mails, virus reports, etc.
The worst thing I see happening is a sort of class society, with Microsoft developing code for its circle of businesses, and everybody else in a sort of underground. Black market code, if you will. I very seriously doubt that things will come to, say, Microsoft getting the USGovt to pass a law forbidding software development by unlicensed, uncertified developers, and then fixing the game so only Microsoft developers can be easily certified.
Lately democracy seems to be based on the skybox, the Happy Meal box, the X-box, and the idiot box.
Running Windows under a VM is probably the best way for Micro$oft to ensure that Windows will get slower as hardware gets faster.
Bus isn't that about what the WinNT HAL was supposed to do? It *did* facilitate porting to Alpha, MIPS, and PowerPC as well as the expected x86 architectures. (That is, until MS decided they didn't want to support more than one architecture.)
I assume a lof of that capability is still around under the hood. The old NT way of porting required a recompile, with an intermediary code step (like java's JVM language) it shouldn't really be too hard for MS to implement.
± 29 dB
Why is control of the only layer that makes a difference evil when done by M$oft but innovative when done by Sun and Netscape?
(Java, the browser as a platform (see Judge Jackson's findings of fact) I have to admit that M$ is not being so obvious of their intentions, if that is what they are.
If they ever went to the extent of only allowing a Microsoft operating system from booting there is nothing stopping people from building their own computers. That's how it was done back in the day and if we are forced to do that again, we will.
Why design new hardware-independent platforms? Instead, big companies should try to hold each other's hands and use the existing ones, and improve them. Few good standards can't hurt anybody, can they?
;)). Although, as witnessed, Java is a bit too slow, even for a simple Office application (my Linux dual Celeron with 256 megs swap all the time with StarOffice). Well, atleast they would get the usability issues fixed!
Alas; the fight for power seems to distract big companies from thinking consumers' (and their customers') best. Instead, they all stare at their own navels.
I just wish this huge gap between Sun and Microsoft wouldn't exist, and they would work in cooperation to develop something like Java-Windows (huh, what a totally pervert thought, actually
__
Zarathustra.fi
Modern man has no goal, no aim, no ideals.
I doubt this would last for long. There are still a lot of companies that make hardware that is non-windows (i.e. Sun, clones) that will be able to provide motherboards to the needy PC market... Sun itself doesn't like selling PC's, but there will surely be tons of Sun clones (since the chip is open-architecture) available. Even if this fails, the original PC chip of "today" can still be licensed "tomorrow", and Microsoft's strategy will fail since people don't HAVE to buy the latest thing, especially if it's worse AND more expensive.
stuff |
CLR makes it feasible to make non-Dell/Gateway/[insert major vendor] PCs perform slower. (Remember the ATI driver/Quake3 thing?)
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
When did Microsoft stop porting it's OS's for other CPUs anyways? I was running NT4.0 on a RISC processor (don't ask which one, I only operated the thing) and the thing hauled ass. I know it can run pretty hot an an AS/400.
I suppose it's because they sleep with Intel though, just like my company sleeps with IBM.
Stupid OS/2s!
"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."...Tyler Durden
First, I agree with most of what you're saying, however, I believe ultimate control (the kind you're mentioning above) will be impossible.
We're humans and part of nature as a whole (without sounding too hippieish), that being so, we'll *find* a way around just about anything you or *they* can put up against us.
You mentioned the BIOS as an example, look what Phoenix Co. did with their Phoenix BIOS, making a chinese wall (or whatever it's called version) that did the same thing essentially as the original proprietary BIOS of the time.
All's I know, NO company is EVER going to control all the hardware... regardless.
...but this scares the hell out of me.
I always thought that as long as there are a few free software developers out there M$ couldn't be an absolute monopoly.
I guess the only way to be free in the computing world will be to keep your old hardware and miss out on the new stuff.
Good thing my DVD player plays MP3 discs, and my Dreamcast is working at the moment.
Get your Unix fortune now!
The problem with Java is that that it was supposed to be write-once, run anywhere. Instead, it's become write once, debug everywhere. If M$ is going to try to follow the same path, they need to avoid the pitfall of platform incompibilities, IMHO.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
As we can see with Sun's use of the name Liberty Alliance, if a company can see profit in giving users what they want, they will.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
Getting all languages to link does not need an interpreted pseudomachine infrastructure. All it takes is a calling standard that the compilers all use and an object language that allows things to be linked. VMS has had this for decades. It is convenient, but hardly revolutionary for Microsoft to finally be doing something that VMS was doing in 1976, and is doing still on the world's (arguably) fastest iron (Alpha).
The calling standard approach gives NO slowdown, and reduces code entropy slightly. I would be amazed if Microsoft used an interpretive approach, since that typically costs orders of magnitude in speed, and their code bloat already penalizes them grossly.
1. Who spends more money? Businesses or consumers? Businesses. Why the hell would MS want to transform a device for doing work into an entertainment machine? It just doesn't make sense. Think of it this way: Businesses buy pens, not crayons. I bet you see a lot more pens sold.
2. The CLR is just a collection of library code that developers can use or choose not to use. Think STL for many different languages. Already the CLR has support for many languages.
3. An evil empire built by Microsoft does not really benefit them in the long run. Microsoft is in the business of making money, not taking over the world.
I would expect to see a story with FUD like this in the Weekly World News next to Bat Boy's latest adventure, not in a respectable technical publication.
Why does everyone have to see the evil in whatever MS does?? True, they have done some evil things in the past, but can't people see that the CLR is part of an effort to accelerate interoperability of software that we developers will be creating in the future, regardless of what language it's written in?
I'm tired of reading about how everything M$ does is evil...they are a corporation, and they have their best interests in mind, just like other corporations(i.e. Sun). Let's stop focusing on the negatives and start focusing on the positives, like the fact that MS and Sun have done alot to work together to further the standardizion of the SOAP protocol!
Attention all planets of the Solar Federation! We have assumed control! - Neil Peart
...follows the all-mighty rule of the buck. Regardless of marketing, or monopolistic practices, or government intervention, the day Microsoft begins to really push it's own hardware locked into it's own software will be the day the current H/W retailers begin the anti-MS push. Besides, with current hardware at the current point it's at, there isn't a huge reason for a majority of users to change their systems, different OS or not. Microsoft is their own worst enemy remember; the more stable and secure they make the current version of Windows, the less likely their new OS will succeed.
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
When I was in high school, we were spec'ing out Alphas for the school file servers. The problem with the Alphas? No software. You could only buy them as File and Print servers.
J++ looked like it was going to change things. If you wrote Java code, it would in theory, run anywhere. If you wrote J++ code, it would run on any Windows. Given the Windows Everywhere initiatives (the separate NT, Windows, and WinCE lines), J++ would have given Microsoft that platform independance.
MS wanted to split from Intel years ago. Everyone thought that Intel was dead after the Pentium. RISC processors were blowing them away, and Intel's CISC ISA was holding them back.
Well, Intel figured out how to build a RISC processor with a hardware decoder, Windows NT took off faster than expected, the 64-bit Alpha version never shipped, and now MS/Intel split a HUGE monopoly.
This gives their Windows Everywhere initiative some teeth. They are pushing Win32 APIs everywhere, but you need to code differently for the Xbox, Win32, or WinCE. Sure the APIs are the same, but not the compiled version.
The CLR means that Windows is Windows, and Windows code will run there.
Look at UNIX, there has been decent source compatibility, but no binary compatibility (until the recent Linux emulation everywhere). Outside of software distributed in source form, nobody supports every Unix, just the 1-3 that are profitable for them.
Source compatibility helps, but isn't enough. The CLR gives a form of binary compatibility.
Sun could have had this market with Java, but they fucked up. We'll see what happens.
MS won't be able to do that without a major compatibility break, and they've just barely thrown off (or started to throw off) DOS. Their grip on the upgrade cycle has already started to loosen with Windows XP. You're acting as if MS will break into your house and force you, at gunpoint, to install XP 3.0. Don't be stupid.
And you can always get a Mac or something.
Eventually the CLR will replace Microsoft's platform revenue stream.
Right now they get a nice chunk of money every time somebody buys a PC. Windows is one of the most expensive components of a desktop computer.
If you look far enough down the road, Linux on the desktop is a reality. So they know that the OS monopoly is coming to an end. It is time to start getting a new monopoly ready to take its place.
They will ride this gravy train as long as they can, and then they will concede the OS market and start charging the same per-computer tax for the CLR. They won't care what OS is running underneath it. The OS will become a low-margin commodity, and they may even just starting giving Windows away for free. The profit margins will simply be relocated upward to a higher layer of this new and thicker notion of a platform.
BTW, don't even think about suggesting that Java will win because it was here first. Java is to the CLR as Lotus-1-2-3 was to Excel. Some people innovate. Other people specialize in refinement and broad market penetration.
Eric Sink
Software Craftsman
Got me!
:)
Thank God for Ctrl-Alt-F1; login; killall mozilla-bin.
To quote M.C. Hawking, "Ha ha ha, that's some funny shit."
"The big money over the next decade will be in transforming the computer into an entertainment device."
..coupled with..
"And it's not hard to cut off Linux and every other rogue free OS at the knees."
*Please*.
Entertainment device? Big money? Bringing Linux to its knees?
Again. *Please*.
You show me the corporation that's going to run mission critical systems on 'entertainment devices'.
It's that time of the month again, I guess. (Once a month, there's usually a story on Slashdot that's nothing but complete and utter FUD. This is it, boyos. So lap it up.)
People are always assuming MS is going to pull some crazy crap using its monopoly power.
It does of course, but nothing like what Jamie is thinking. Whenever it does try something bizarre, like making MSN only work with IE, people call them on it. And they stop.
And if they pulled something like this, they'd have to. The DOJ isn't going to sign off its case without some sort of oversight.
And I think the oversight committee might have a problem with
"Proposal 1A: Drop support for any PC that's capable of booting a non-MS OS."
These stupid ideas only serve to make the real ones look silly.
Why should Jamie get to post moderation free, Katzian garbage like this? Put it in a comment like everyone else.
.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
Depite what MS try to said, .net platorm is exactly the same as the Java platform.
.net is that it does not deal of the wide platform spectrum that Java already have : cf. JavaCard, J2ME, J2SE, J2SE, ....
;)
.net has manage to do yet is to fully legitimate Java and help the wide acceptance on server side (and recently the restart of the client-side) ! Just because you do not have to do the evangelism jsut because MS done it.
.net come from the fact that MS is pretty in late about 4year. Just thingk, .net is two year old project (named cool) and is not even yet at final state. Benchmark are forbidden and unofficialbench shows that it si dog-slow and thread crash sensitive.
...) they've tried to force user migration to complete new platform.
... and with full object programming technics and polymorphism ?
.net is nothing new and just a funny thing without any real inovative stuffs inside but toys features.
the C# language is pretty the same as the Java language, the
Even if there are little difference these are insigifiant ones.
People with good Java skills and that also have experience on MS.net can confirm all my statements.
The problem of
MS already done a standard process to ECMA for C# and the core IL, but *forget* to standardize the APIs
In other words, MS can change the APIs without notification and break any compatibility without breaking any standard !
What
The problem with
HAving trashcan'ed all their legacy technologies (DNA, MTS, DCOM?, VB
How a VB user will react with no more goto's, fim's var's,
This is a plain ne world and thinking of a sleek migration is either stupid or idiot.
My forecasting on MS.net is that it will never take of from 20% share within the next 5 years. In worst case (if MS never manage to fixe issues on VS.NET and MSIL) MS could just simply from shares and never skyrocketeer at all.
Anyway for a Java user
1. Business money has only taken Micorosoft so far. Without the consumer markets, they would just be like another *NIX shop, cruft into a limited market with little room to grow into new markets. When you capture the consumer market, that is when things start to open up. With having the consumer market, companies don't have to worry about training their staff. It is expected of the day one to know how windows works.
2. Never give into the they support everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach. They eventually weed out the stragglers and force the populace to use the rest. They did it with the NT architecure support, Windows CE, and don't be fooled into thinking they will kepp CLR around on most platforms with most languages a second longer than they need to dominate and control the masses.
3. There are no rich slaves for a reason.
Bye!
be serious.
. . . then they are quite capable of doing it all on their own. NT, so I am told, should be no harder to port than Linux. It is just a matter of doing to work to make the port happen. They don't need CLR or .NET to make it happen. In fact, it makes it worse because you have to port the kernel, the old Windows libs (for backwards compatibility), AND the new .NET libs.
Not a typewriter
I've actually been thinking about all of this (especially in relationship to Microsofts .NET) and it makes sense. With Windows finally approaching a 'coming of age' (hmmm) they are manouvering themselves into a very marketable position. Suffice to say I think .NET and SOAP applications together with the CLR will succeed where java failed in many respects - Microsoft have taken their time with .NET and ensured that they have services and languages that take full advantage of a lot content distribution.
:)
At the same time this can be a sad thing given MS's track record of snuffing out ANY competition with ruthless business tactics. Given the fact that there should be more healthy competition in the computing market place I still however look forward to having a shot at CLR/.NET content delivery (ducks bricks..)
Considering their movement into the home market with XBox and other soon to be released peripherals (think WinCE mobile phones and to a certain extent: "Content delivery anywhere, on any device" a la "Antitrust". If they are the communications vehicle for Fox/AOL/Time Warner/Sony (you name it) they place themselves in an incredibly lucrative position and the framework libraries are absolutely priceless for quick and easy movement of content.
The CLR has a lot more to do with this strategy than a generic java clone - I'm sure its the content delivery mechanism for ruling the subscriptions of the future. Mind you the content will probably be served from Linux/FreeBSD with Apache/PostgreSQL!! - only way to guarantee good uptime
Microsoft needs the hardware vendors as much as they need MS. The CLI would be irrelevant (or another toy for early adopters) if it were not for the fact that ~90% of computers bought will ship with it.
What they are trying to do is: beat java not in the language-design arena (where they can't win since Sun is better than Microsoft at this), but at the runtime/platform level. Expect to see press releases about how the CLI is faster, how it supports more languages, etc. All this to address Ballmer's concern: Developers, developers, developers.
They have a pretty plausible chance of succeeding, since their monopoly nullifies Sun's 'first-mover' advantage in this area. They will be able to get a greater installed base for their VM than Sun has from the get-go due to their relationships with OEMs and the upgrade treadmill they will be forcing on their corporate customers with their new licensing.
Does this mean that Mono is now a force for good, protecting us from the Powers of Darkness getting absolute control, or are the still vile traitors helping the Beast conquer the world?
It's very plausible that the CLR is how MS plans to insure it's monopoly in what's becoming the commoditization of the operating system and the diversification of computing platforms (set top box, PDA, cell phone, etc..). Java and Linux run on just about anything, that is: Linux running on about any hardware, and Java running on about any operating system. MS usually "get's it" and twists "it" to their advantage. It doesn't surprise me that they would "get" WORA as well as the fact that their OS needs to run on diverse hardware. Think back to Shared Source, or any other good idea that MS took and bastardized for their own use. People that think MS will obsolete themselves forget that MS is not what IBM was. MS has hoards of cash; lots of savvy, aggressive, very bright business people; and an army of programmers. If they "get" anything they have all the resources they need available to them to capitalize on it. If you think the gov't is going to actually do anything to stop them, get real.
This is why I keep repeating the fact that us Free Software and Open Source hackers need to stop following MS and others, and jump ahead. Why didn't Gnome or KDE leap ahead in terms of UI like (arguably) OSX and XP have? Because we were to busy copying Windows and UNIX. I'll get flammed for this but, why must Linux be so UNIX like? It's a kernel, the rest of the OS could become anything we dream up. Why aren't we setting the pace and doing the innovating? Why not dream up an entirely new set of operating system metaphors?
Stop following, start leading.
In all free market systems the large one competitor gets the demand for competitor b-infinity raises. Natural market pressures have prevented Microsoft from running Windows on my iBook, in addition I have no doubt that Sun/Apple and virtually any other company that is profitable based on being Microsoft's antithesis, is going to be part of this grand illumanti strategy of taking over the world. No the sad reality is that, stealing is bad. Napster was fun while it lasted, but in the end you have to pay for copyrighted material, you have to pay for software. You will find copyright protection appearing on *insert os here* near you, if it is to become a consumer os. And I assure people will always have to write code utilizing "the actual bare iron" how do you think linux was developed? Microsoft's CLR is just a cheesy attempt to rip off Java's popularity and it's not working to well. I took one look at C# laughed really hard and started writing in Java & Delphi again. The true uber hackers are the basement tinkerers that no one know are just absolute geniouses, even if you are Microsoft, not all the smart people that know how to hack the stuff you write will work for you. It's just that whole anti-establishment thing.
There are two things that prevent Windows from migrating to other hardware platforms. One, Windows needs to be ported to other cpu architectures. Two, tons of software needs to be either ported or compiled for alternate CPU architectures.
So, if the CLR stuff takes off, a lot of software would be available for a variety of platforms because Windows would be able to 'compile' it into native code for whatever CPU to run under Windows for that architecture. Then, MS could charge outrageous fees to manufacturers of CPU architectures that wanted to be able to run Windows. Something to the effect of.. "How much would you pay us to port Windows to your platform so you could market a product that was compatible with all software compiled as CLR?"
Another variation would be MS manufacturing a computer or CPU that could run CLR natively or would have the most optimized instruction set for CLR. Then, MS could easily market this CPU as being the fastest for executing CLR compiled programs. Of course no other manufacturer would be able to duplicate this easily without paying large licensing fees to MS.
Choose? M$ doesn't give you a choice.
3. An evil empire built by Microsoft does not really benefit them in the long run. Microsoft is in the business of making money, not taking over the world.
No, they don't want to 'take over the world' they want to take over the OS, computer, consumer device, media and content, media and content delivery, media protection, and Internet business[es]. Bill Gates' dream is to have you buying everything from them except groceries.
See the above point I made. They are in the business of making money by taking your choices away.
Get your Unix fortune now!
Lay off the crack pipe dude. The CLR was invented for platform independance (so it runs on PocketPC as well, oooh), not total world control. Sure it will increase MS market share, but I seriously doubt it will prevent you from implementing DeCSS or writing an MP3 player (seeing as how that would be an amazing feat of code parcing on the part of VS.net to prevent).
Now as how it will compare to the Java VM, if it performs as well as the MS VM does it will be a hell of a lot faster.
- WeaselGod
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet turbines
Java would have been godsend for Microsoft, addressing all these problems, but they didn't control it and it would have given people not only hardware independence but also Microsoft independence.
Technically, there are no significant differences between the CLR and the JVM. The CLR isn't any more or less powerful than the JVM, it won't run much faster or slower, and it won't be any easier or harder to implement. You already have Java compilers for the CLR, and you will see C# compilers for the JVM soon. But Microsoft controls the evolution of the CLR, and that is what matters to them. While Microsoft will probably implement the ECMA standard, they will extend the CLR and libraries in numerous proprietary ways, and that will give them exactly the control they want.
and how microsoft completely missed it?
Hi, we've got CLR machines here to replace your dedicated lisp machines.
1. They already have the consumer market.
2. How many people ran NT on a different architecture? Sun just stopped supporting Solaris on x86 and I bet a lot more people used that.
3. I'll give you that.
why don't you post in the comments like everybody else? oh yea, it's so you won't get modded down as a troll, as any user would if they responded with such misinformed tripe with no facts to back it up.
you could always mod yourself up, as everybody knows by now the editors mod comments in this supposedly self-regulated model of free speech.
This is just wrong. Hardware is hardware and has no idea what seqences of instructions do. They execute an instruction, then another, then another. You put your code in memory and feed the CPU the address of the code. You can always go under the operating system (stick in a boot disk that loads the OS on top of something else). There's no way a machine could block "illegal code".
Now, maybe a chip that only executes signed bytecode could do something like this. But then development would be essentially impossible and there would be no programs for that achitecture (and if you give developers the private key, it will be public in seconds; hell I'd do it!!).
My other car is first.
Company Money = MS Office
MS Office = MS Windows
MS Windows = MS Hardware
Microsoft currently has driver signing, which menas they will soon if not already, decide which hardware will, and which hardware will not run on your system. By them controlling which hardware can run on the OS, Microsoft can influence the decisions of hardware manufacturers on what to produce.
Lets say there is the CD Bruners from the Ukraine that does not stamp id's on them. Ok, microsoft could see this driver as not allowed. Any driver installed that supports this directly or as a surrogate will need it to be verified before being installed.
How does this effect you? The same reason why Compaq is selling the Alpha off; If it doesn't supprot windows, how can we make money off it?
Bye!
How about interperted languages atop that "trusted language". I'm sure someone could/has write/(written :) a DeCSS in scheme.
My other car is first.
2's the big thing. Why should we use something when Microsoft controls the implementation, anyway? That's just standing still on the carpet waiting to get it yanked out from under you.
CLR is actually a nice technology, but it seems to me using open-source implentations of it are the only way to go if you're going to use it. They did at least submit the important material to ECMA.
DNA just wants to be free...
Their browser team has gone all native on them, then. As long as the Mozilla browser is open source and free for anyone to take and adopt, it doesn't matter diddly/squat what AOL tries to enforce in the Netscape browser suite.
AOL is another matter, and they certainly do have a tighter rein on things in their walled garden, but they have done nothing to prevent the rest of us from living happily on the outside yet.
- jon
Ganymede, a GPL'ed metadirectory for UNIX
i was just about to post this myself.
when has slashdot ever been respectable? when it was a college toy before they sold it to VA?
i guess that well researched story yesterday about yahoo "ads as news" (when the ad was marked "ADVERTISEMENT") was a shining example of respectability.
Definately. All the money is in businesses and what do businesses use?
Windows for workstations. *nix for servers.
Sure there are plenty of NT/2K servers out there, but *nix still has that market. The CLR gives Windows the chance to say, "Hey, it'll run on your hardware, its just as stable (laf) and its fully compatible with all your workstation apps."
- gtaluvit (prnc. GOT-tuh-LUV-it)
In the 1960s, the Burroughs line of mainframes had very good security for the time. This was accomplished in a large part by requiring everything to be compiled with the Burroughs Algol compiler. If one could escape enough to execute a single arbitrary machine instruction, the system could be broken into.
It sounds like this is deja vu all over again.
Are you guys going to start selling hard copies of this drivel at supermarket checkout counters?
Well, there isn't a huge company with a monopoly on operating systems trying to squash it.
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
1. Full-power, expensive operating systems become a niche market and more consumer-oriented targeted platforms on the level of TiVo or Palm become the norm. Microsoft and Apple have a big advantage in this scenario due to their code bases, and you would see a market of 3-5 manufacturers of appliances including MS and Apple.
2. General purpose operating systems based on free software become the norm for home use, opening the field to many competitors with an eventual shakeout to who knows who. Advantage: PC makers.
3. Microsoft lowers its OEM pricing for the Windows environment and provides it through a Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory licensing scheme with multiple distribution companies who resell it to home PC manufacturers. Ironically, this is one of the proposed Justice settlement schemes before Bush gave the farm away. Some or most of the current PC manufacturers survive in this scenario and microsoft becomes like a utility: profitable and boring.
personal attacks hurt, especially when deserved
I'm a disgrunted MCSE that didn't like the early retirement of the NT 4.0 certification. We were under the impression that it would last until the NT 6.0 certification process, but that didn't happen. I don't like Microsoft.
HOWEVER.
They do play games (Windows isn't done until 1-2-3 won't run, the DR-DOS Win3.1 beta fake error, etc.), but less often then you think. Half the games that they play stem from the fact that their employees don't look outside the Microsoft bubble.
Though I can't find it now, on MSN's Canadian Xbox page, they claimed that it was the first console to support 4 players. This is a company that is SO huge that adventuring to the rest of the tech world involves looking at other divisions. When they break standards, half the time I doubt they realize it. When they do things based upon their bastardized standard in another program, they may not realize it.
It's a large company, they can't act as a single mind despite what Slashdot thinks.
Alex
OB Hardware Q: What good would a Linux BIOS do? Could someone write/draw one in the linux community? Would it enhance the Linux capabilities, perhaps even encouraging a unified GUI? Just perhaps to make one last, desparate attempt to compete with the dragon on it's own terms before it swallows the world?
The CLR also incorporates some other innovative features - the ability link packages based on the signature of that package, not the package name, allowing side by side execution.
Also, the CLR is closely tied to the .Net framework, which is far ahead of the Java class library as you may mix and match classes across various languages. Note this does not mean you can just compile different languages to the CLR, but reuse code at runtime from code written in other languages.
Frankly the rest of the comments here are rants, I don't think many readers here understand the .Net platform.
If we assume that economy wil be in slump for next 5 years like economists are stating..
..but whenever you can use Java at low cost then Java will find a home..
..
Then the real money to be made is in enterpise OS and and enterprise server software that runs on Current Hardware, not New Hardware!
This measn that those companies supporting those software initiatives with lower cost win in the next 5 years..
European Businesss has already voted for Linux over MS..Asia and Afica are next in placing their money in Linux
Java will not necessary win or lose here
Notice how quick JBoss has caught on within the business community as is implemnting new Java standards faster than Sun's iPlanet..example JBoss has JXM and iPlanet has yet to implent it
If a company in an economy downturn..I will pick the lowest cost solution and that is not MS!
Don't Tread on OpenSource
The big money over the next decade will be in transforming the computer into an entertainment device
Wrong. The big money over the next few years will be in transforming computers into usable devices. The first steps are being taken now (with "internet appliances", TiVOs, etc), but computers are still way too complicated for the average Joe. The big money will be not in helping Average Joe to learn Linux, but in creating something he can use to accomplish simple, everyday tasks.
No, seriously, I just come here for the articles.
Huh? No, this is Slashdot...
Pedro Côrte-Real.
People get into trouble whenever men perform homosexual acts on each other!? Why havent we nuked San Francisco for peace on earth? Oh! I'm hard. Gotta go; watch yourself!
What does their lack of backwards compatibility have to do with anything?
Is it a ploy to make money? Of course it is.
Does it really matter? No, you can set Word to save to Word 95 format and you won't lose anything important. You can even download a free 2000 viewer if you want, and cut and paste into Word 95.
Would MS provide these things if they were a crazy, unrestricted monopoly that would do anything to grab cash? No, they'd encrypt
MS is like some inkblot where everyone can project their own little "gotta stand up to the man", "slippery slope" fantasy world view.
Want to fight MS? Help make Linux good. Quit whining.
.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
- Microsoft do not make the majority of their money selling a copy of pre-installed WinXP and Office standard on your home gaming laptop. See (*).
- Why is it more profitable to help AOL/TW to become a media monopoly than to make your own?
- Why should Intel want to make it harder to sell their CPUs for anything but entertainment boxes?
Shit! I didn't realise Java was actually a secret mission to take over the world! Lucky you warned me. Of course*some* hardware will end up this way. I know a few undergraduates who can build simple computers. Can you? Good. Welcome to the free market. Along with open software will come open hardware.. oh look, like the PC basically is now. Oh no, we might have to have an OpenBIOS, a clone.. like Compaq made around 1982. Or worse -- we might have to REFLASH a BIOS... like I have to do on my Alpha to boot Unix instead of NT. That'll be hard. Yeah, if you insist upon assuming there will be only one hardware platform. Rather than the dozens there are today, and always have been. Yeah, we could have a fascist dictatorship. Is the day that I realise that the Free computing community, contrary to all my existing beliefs, are incompetent, and incapable of creating their own BIOS. Oh, and it's the same day that every company willingly changes to NT. I know, hard for many Slashdotters to believe, but computers aren't just for Quake, web browsing and e-mail. So, a machine on which no developers can develop software. Yes, kill the software market in one fell swoop. That's going to happen. Oh, I see, so it will no longer be possible, say, to write a competing Office suite, as Microsoft doesn't want to hurt Office sales? The reason Microsoft is so powerful is because it's so easy to develop on top of the Microsoft platform. Just as the "PC-compatible" hardware is widespread because it's open and cheap. Microsoft aren't going to cut their nose off to spite their face. As well as all companies who need to develop software, as well as government bodies... otherwise software can't actually be developed. How clever. It's like... enabling anyone to write software in the first place. I never learnt computer science with a computer, let alone a real programming language. Perhaps you are thinking of software engineering? If you mean "the PC architecture as we know it" -- *shrug* it wasn't very good anyway. Which may be annoying if you're written all your software in x86 assembler. Otherwise, bring on the new, open devices. Oh, just be quiet.Do some research on the subject and come back and join the discussion. The original author was correct - .Net supports multiple languages (support driven by independent vendors).
The tenor of your comment seems to be par for the course on /. lately - reactionary and ill-informed.
Given that most Slashdotters seem to have no real knowledge (certainly Jamie does not) of Microsoft's ultimate goal with .NET, here it is in a way that you can understand:
It's really that simple folks. (More or less)
To address the question directly, MS knows that allowing "in the cloud" access to user data won't happen if WinTel is the only player, and have developed the CLR to:
Be OS and hardware independent:
Do you really think MS would put together a deal asking Corel to create a "Linux.NET" distro if MS wanted to keep a lock on the platform?
Be language independent: /. crowd bending over backwards to learn VB so that they can support .NET for Linux...
After all, I can't really imagine the
Bullet-proof Windows:
Hey, combine the ease of interpreted language programming (VB) with the power of binary exxecution (C++), while ending "DLL Hell" and keeping idiots from using CreateThread() in their VC code (always use _beginthreadex(), btw).
Add performance to other MS products:
Microsoft SQL Server.NET will use the CLR for queries instead of T-SQL... not only will you be able to write queries in any CLR-supported language, they will all JIT to binaries. Ahh, the speed of C++ extensions with almost no effort... (MS to ORACLE: all your bases are belong to us!)
As for MS producing hardware... WTF? With Intel working (lol) on IA64, why would MS be worried about harware companies driving Windows? And for the unaware, virtually no video card fully supports DX 7, let alone DX8. Who is driving whom?
And finally, what is this FUD concerning "total control"? MS has no plans to get rid of Win32/64. The only runtime I know of that takes control away from developers was created by Sun Microsystems.
(Java is a replacement for C/C++, and doesn't have an equivalent to iostream.h?! No local file access?! WTF!)
1. vb types (com components) could not talk to c++ com components.
2. clr is the only way to compete with all of java's features.
3. cuts ms's dev costs because clr is a higher level than assembly and has a library that all plug in languages can instantly use.
j. herber
The way I see it, the reason M$ has such a strong hold on the desktop, is that everybody waits till M$ get it right and then try to reimpliment it.
The stratigy I propose is just too jump the gun on M$ and give the people INOVATION. But if only it were that easy. We really need to unify all open source OfficeSuits to allow a common format for data exchange, to break the hold that Word, etc have on the desktop. Among many other things.
But most of all, why not a Multi Platform runtime standard for Linux/*BSD/BeOS. The execuitable is only compiled to a CLR, and make DLL's for windows that will auto convert the CLR to use the native M$ gui, and libs for GNOME and KDE, to do the same.
The desired end result, would be to write a App/Game on my PS2 running Linux and be able to run it on on my Dreamcast running *BSD, or even dare I say it, my mothers P166 running win95.
Not till then do I feel that the desktop will be more open to Linux. If their software runs just as well under a Free, Secure platform called Linux, what need will they have to buy the Propirety, Virus-writer-friendly OS called Windows.
We could then work unitedly on one or two Word processers, that world run on multi platforms, and OS's. We could unite the efforts of KWord, OpenWriter, and AbiWord. We could use KDE or GNOME without flamewars, or we could work on a united gui.
I guess what I am really trying to say is to, GET OVER IT, and set the lead for M$ to follow.
There is nothing stoping us taking back the desktop, if we dont mind getting our hands dirty.
BTW: if anybody would like to help undertake such a project, please let me know.
This is all about being able to get MS software on as many computers as possible. MS is seeing that there is a slowdown in the PC market. The non computer enthusiast is happy with his P3 1Ghz and will be able to surf the web for a very long time without needing an upgrade to windows. MS wants new markets. With CLR Windows could provide the virtual machine for that embedded chip in your stove so you can pull up recipes you did in Office. .Net and internet based applications MS probably plans on having us subscribe to pretty much require platform independence.
The day that every motherboard's BIOS uses strong crypto to demand the master boot record be signed with a secret key known only to Microsoft is the day that Linux becomes a thing of the past.)
Not going to happen, unless the US goes to war with China. Most MoBos are made in Taiwan or Southern China, and you can bet your sweet lilly that the Chinese government (or the Japanese for that matter) is NOT going to give MS the power over every PC in China (or Japan).
So in the free world, you will always be able to buy a free and open PC. In the US, well it might go as you say, but hey, that's only the US.
The big money over the next decade will be in transforming the computer into an entertainment device.
Well, that's ONE of the things the computer will become, but the computer is evolving and transforming in a lot of other areas as well. Robotics, niche-manufacturing, traditional manufacturing , astro-physics, bio-technology, precision guided weapons/war machinery, virtual robotic control, communications, aerospace and fluid dynamics, chemistry and molecular design.
To say that the basic use of the computer will become to titilate the masses is IMHO limited thinking. Sure, there will always be a market for consumer devices, and content that plays on them, but to extend that to Microsoft taking over the BIOS of every computer made is just plain silly.
Perhaps there will be a fork in PC manufacturing. There will be a consumer device made which will basically be a PC with an idiot interface that makes it look like it's not a computer (hey, didn't Apple do that like, 18 years ago), and then there will be high-end, high performance "Workstations" made for academic, scientific and industrial/commercial applications.
Because I doubt that NASA are going to be using C# and Windows to build life-support/mission critical software on the next Space Shuttle or International Space Station.
>>
I am the director, and this is my movie
For smaller, commodity systems though, you are spot on. The unix vendors will always be a camp divided, needlessly thrusting small incompatibilities into the development cycle. Maybe Linux on x86 will simply borg the other commodity unices and solve this problem in an indirect fashion, but even then linux itself is splintering in a frustrating fashion.
I think a lot of folks here have been focused on the Linux/desktop issue for so long that they're not understanding what really drives Microsoft: $$$$. (Well, I assume everyone *knows* that... but not sure how many understand it.)
The CLR has two implications.
The first many have commented on... hardware abstraction. Applications compiled for the CLR will be able to run on a wide-variety of different (but similar) platforms... but is this really of long-term value? Are there a lot of applications begging to run unmodified on your enterprise server AND your Palm? Doubtful. Hardware abstraction makes good engineering sense in the sense that it saves future development, but I don't see it as much of a market-stealing development.
Will Microsoft have an advantage over Intel? The ability to move away in the future? Newsflash, it already has that advantage. x86 is, for all intents and purposes, an open standard implemented by a variety of hardware manufacturers (down to AMD and Intel at the top-end.. for now). How will CLR give it more of a death-grip? As someone else said, this aspect of the CLR is equivalent to the HAL.
No, I believe it's the second implication that Microsoft really cares about: multiple language interoperability.
The market Microsoft is going after with CLR is really the enterprise computing market. There is an awful lot of existing business logic written in a wide range of language offerings, and the value in capturing that market is huge. Microsoft is making this move on the basis of a prediction on where enterprise software is headed over the next 5-10 years.
Different pieces of logic (within different systems) are begging (so M$ believes) to interoperate within a single application server, within a single runtime. XML/SOAP/Web services is a basic solution for cross-process interoperability... but what's going to run on the *back* end? Within the same process, with shared rules for security/type-safety, object/thread pools, garbage collection, and shared state?
Java threatened to be the default language to which business logic/applications/"Web services" were about to be built with... which obviously would represent a threat to Microsoft's position. Microsoft made a valiant effort to head this off with COM/COM+, but quickly realized that the fundamentally C++ nature of COM+ was making it not attractive enough for business developers.
The introduction of CLR is trying to change that. Multiple languages, multiple types, multiple run-time semantics... standardized in to one run-time. C++ objects making calls on Java objects making calls on COBOL logic...
.... that's the vision of CLR, and why the focus of the CLR paper is about the language features of the CLR, *not* the 'generalized hardware' nature of the hardware.
um. i don't quite understand the rant and rave response from jamie. i think the original question boiled down to what is the different between the CLI (its CLI now, not CLR) and the JVM.
.NET to unix (mono and the incredible ximian guys!) and pretty soon there will be a CLI for linux.
.NET/J2EE battle is going to be awesome! ;)
i'm no ubergeek, but my understanding is virtually nothing!
already there are iniatives to port
and possibly more competitive than the JVM, is that the CLI already has bindings for a host of other languages.
anyway. being as non-technical as i am, that's about the most i can answer you! hopefully some of the more hardcore of the community could add to what i'm saying.
although, being an geeky analyst - i feel this
Is it really paranoia? If MS combine this programming platform with the recent patent of a Digital rights management operating system where basically any form of reverse engineering violates the DMCA we may have a situation in a few years where Linux may just be starved for drivers, etc. There is a summarised discussion on the patent at Kernel Traffic (issue #148)
.Net and whatever else MS has cooked up recently makes it this way or not, I can see a time where important parts of Linux are illegal (perhaps distributed P2P?) because of the increase of patented / protected material. What would have happened if the original IBM BIOS was not reverse-engineered?
Regardless of whether this patent and
This is plain dumb. Microsoft likes having broad hardware support for their platform. Driver Signing is about trust, and with almost every trust system in windows there are three settings: Ignore, Prompt and don't warn/do it.
No problem - the business version of the entertainment device is the "work device". It's got Microsoft Office and Microsoft Messenger and not a whole lot more - doesn't come with solitaire, can't install any games on it or any other non-productive applications. Most businesses would love to buy a fully locked down computer.
There's a lot of money to be had in taking over the world.
yeah but we still have the option of not running the microsoft OS.
in the "future" as described above we're stuck in microsoft.
conclusion: we should become more aware of the efforts at open or GNU hardware.
of course rogue hardware is easier to crack down on with government bought help . . .
And this would happen without anyone batting an eyelash, I'm sure. DOJ would be happy with it.
I don't think so. And even if the situation came to pass:
A: It would be easy to remedy this situation, and it would be remedied via antitrust action (though perhaps some group would need to be formed to validate and sign OS booters from open source vendors).
B: The market would supply a vendor who produced equipment to run other OS's.
This is the problem with the "slippery slope" style of arguing. You don't try to evaluate the problems with some projection, you just view it as some inevitable consequence of something reasonable. Everything gets bent into some crazy, hypothetical world where nothing is as it is now.
Here's a projection: Linux will overcome MS by providing a better product for free. Seems a lot more likely than Jamie's scenario.
Why can't this be the topic of our anti-MS conversation: What can we do to make Linux better?
...
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
This sounds like something that OpenBOOT already provides. Microsoft is reinventing the wheel... poorly. FORTH forever!
http://ultratechnology.com
So, C++/C can be slow too...hmmm...
Enough said.
The VM thing keeps appearing in discussion of .Net
....
technology.
Now before somebody starts accusing me of being
pro Microsoft, let me say I have used Linux,
installed it several time, recompiled the kernel...ect.
Now returning to the VM thing, and that is the place
where I believe Microsoft outdone Sun. There is no virtual
machine. Everything runs on the machine NATIVE code. The
first time the program starts up it is translated,
into NATIVE code. So the only thing that (will be)
slower is the FIRST and only the FIRST start up of
the program.
So again to iterate the issue, there is no Virtual
machine. Everything run on native code.
Now another couple places where Microsoft again
outdone Sun (and must note, all because Sun sued
Microsoft, for all the right reasons though).
The common language run time is a standard and can
be implemented else where (Mono comes to mind).
The thing that converts to native code (JIT) is also can
be made for specific platform. Meaning some company can make
there own VCR and JIT for it and whatever program was made
will run on the VCR (if you do not like VCR in the example
replace it with something else)
So what stops Microsoft from taking over the world,
well that's the scary thing: almost nothing
The poster's original question seems to be a reasonable, thought-out question about the implications of VMs in software development.
Too bad it's followed by 4 paras of paranoid rant, which is what people are replying to, by and large. Why doesn't Jamie just post in the forum, like the rest of us proles? Even if I'd blocked him from my view of Slashdot (which I haven't, although looking back over the stories...), this would slip through as a rider on Cliff's story.
[anyway, what is the benefit to BIOS makers and motherboard manufacturers of limiting their market? The degree of support for overclocking in existing mobos and BIOSes shows that they don't care what their large partners think (Intel, AMD)]
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
If it takes 15 years, they've already lost.
Within 15 years, we should have molecular assembly, which will make much of this academic.
Randall Randall.It'll be more worrying if they can manage to do this in 4-5 years.
Property law should use #'EQ, not #'EQUAL.
WTF indeed! Java applications have both! Ever hear of the java.io package?
Would you really want Java applets, downloaded from an arbitrary Internet site, to have access to your hard drive by default? (Signed applets can do such things, by the way.)
Java is infinitely preferable to C#+CLR, simply because there is no platform lockin, or vendor lockin (you can get great JVMs from IBM, for instance).
I'll start seriously considering C#+CLR when the Mono runtime exceeds the performance of Linux JVMs on the same box. I expect that to happen...never. ;-)
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
I am sure this feature could be added to the JVM but Sun seems obsessed with the proliferation of the Java language itself.
My prediction is that, unless antitrust legislation in the U.S. gets some teeth between now and then, the PC will become a Gameboy within fifteen years. Enjoy computers while they last.
Game Boy is a bad example. The Game Boy Advance is an open system, fully documented to the point that anybody with GCC can write software and run it on the GBA without taking a vow of silence or paying the big N. The only things the GBA checks before running your code are 1. the very simple checksum on the header and 2. a bit pattern that produces the Nintendo logo but is legal to copy under the Sega v. Accolade precedent. So go get GCC for ARM and an MBV2 cable from lik-sang.com and get hacking.
$article =~ s/become a Gameboy/become an XBox/; and it becomes more accurate.
Will I retire or break 10K?
2. The CLR is just a collection of library code that developers can use or choose not to use. Think STL for many different languages. Already the CLR has support for many languages.
In particular, I was pleasantly surprised that it includes a primitive for making tail calls, and explicitly cites its necessity for beautiful-but-niche languages such as Scheme, ML, Haskell, (and Common Lisp). (See section 8.2 of the document.)
Lost in all this anti-ms sentiment is the fact that this is a really good idea.
As computers get faster and faster, the overhead generated by a virtual machine becomes less and less. If a standardized CLR existed (preferably one that was open, and not controlled by any one corporation), then all that would be necessary to have "write once, run everywhere" would be to have a hardware abstraction layer written for each hardware platform. Imagine how much easier it would be to code an operating system if you could use a javaish language instead of c and assembly.
Does anyone know of any open-source projects that are working on an open CLR and/or open OOP language? If such things existed, then instead of seeing the "WM of the month" we'd start seeing the "OS of the month." By making it easier to code OS's, we might start to see some innovation in the field instead of the stagnation we've seen for the past couple of years.
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
I like to associate myself with the /. crowd but these unsubstantiated musings are making us look intellectually void.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
If we surrender this control, though, we'll find ourselves with a monopoly operating system that makes it impossible freely to write code for. (And it's not hard to cut off Linux and every other rogue free OS at the knees. The day that every motherboard's BIOS uses strong crypto to demand the master boot record be signed with a secret key known only to Microsoft is the day that Linux becomes a thing of the past.) The thing I see that would prevent this 'absolute' control from happening has to do with profitable alternatives. If a company could make a profit from all the /. people who don't want Microsoft controlling everything and shutting down Linux, wouldn't they start developing a product for that group? I know I would - you would have no competition for those customers. A company would be able to establish a niche market for itself because of the number of people who desire something like this. Sure, Microsoft might control a majority of the systems, but I don't think they could ever achieve something like absolute control simply because the Microsoft solution isn't for everybody.
...oOOo..'(_)'..oOOo...
that's an exact quote from Prof. Phillip Christie, one of my profs and one of the authors of the Matlab software/CAD/Design toolkit. From what I've done in java (and the problems i've had) I wholeheartedly agree with him.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Why does Jamie feel his comments are so important that they *had* to go in the story portion itself? (Note this was another editor's story to boot.) Is he too important for his remarks to be in the comments area with all us other 'lowly' posters?
- St ill-Annoyed,
It used to be Timothy and Michael who were the worst offenders of editors using Slashdot for their own personal soapbox, but this takes the cake.
Post stories that are interesting, and if you must comment, get off your damn high-horses, and subject yourselves to the same moderation (and filtering) as everyone else.
I-Know-This-Will-Get-Mod'ed-Down-As-A-Troll-But
-Bill
SlashSig Karma: Excellent (mostly affected by moderatio
you fat sonofabitch i am glad you lost the election!
What took this realization so long to form? For any software developer your target market always has areas that you can't get to. These areas are systems running an OS or a platform you don't or can't support. A write once run everywhere system effectively gets rid of unreachable markets. Hence the emergence of Java in the middleware scene. You can get your middleware apps, hardware, and app server all from different vendors as long as it is J2EE compliant. As the Java 2 VMs speed up you're going to see a good deal more end user apps available because the people making them are going to have a wide market they can sell to. Microsoft now wants to do the same thing just with a Microsoft label.
.NET initive if Microsoft learning from marketing mistakes of the past. Instead of getting the OS onto different platforms just get the API onto different platforms and then make a way for people to write the software once so they can run it anywhere. There's no need to patch software in order to localize it, you just run the code which is compiled on the fly and runs.
Most of the Linux kids probably don't remember when you could get Windows NT for four ISAs. The problem was you could get Windows on an Alpha or PPC system but you couldn't find any software to run. The whole
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
...oOOo..'(_)'..oOOo...
This wont take off even if Bill sells his own teeth to help with financing. Since when is Microsoft (and USA with their congress for that matter) the center of the world? Has everyone forgotten with occured in China just the other week? Sure, MS can work their asses of and produce buggy software that will communicate with my DVD2 drive, remind me to check on my tires and keep an eye on whatever's cooking. So what?
Why cant Linux do this? If you have the hardware you just have to write the software, and even if you and I wont do it someone somewhere will do it. Creating a restricted format solely for the purpose of control is an incredible shortcut. Compare it to being able to drive freely on the road with the power to stop whenever and wherever you want, and sitting in collective buses taking you where you need to go with as little input from you as possible. Taking away the control from users and giving it right back to the factory, and dont get me started on how the internet would look like. Everyone using MSN Explorer with the only websites available for viewing approved by MS, Outlook in pure HTML for every spammers delight, free speech is what MS says, unknown levels of privacy intrusion monitoring (I trust the FBI to make sure MS doesnt break the law when all their files are stored on online Windows system that no one has the sourcecode for).
If this happens MS becomes the single most powerful corporation in the world. Think about it, they run - no, they CONTROL - the future. This wont take off, even a chimp understands how good open business works in a closed enviroment.
I'm tired of seeing Microsoft taking over the world, granted, they're already a huge corporation not to be ignored this wont go on forever. Through legislation, terrorism or free software they will taste the cold hard blade. A good product sells itself... how many XP ads have you seen today?
Anataka suki desu. Itsumo. Itsumademo.
Of course. For use, as you point out, in Java applications (and not applets). To be honest, though, while I have seen many an attempt to create cross-platform apps with Java, I have yet to see a major success. [Huge disclaimer: I am not a Java guy, I work with C++]
Java is infinitely preferable to C#+CLR, simply because there is no platform lockin, or vendor lockin (you can get great JVMs from IBM, for instance).
Read my post again. C# does not suffer vendor lock in (or platform lock in).
I'll start seriously considering C#+CLR when the Mono runtime exceeds the performance of Linux JVMs on the same box. I expect that to happen...never. ;-)
Wow! Looks like never is going to come around pretty quickly. Have faith in Mono... the boys from Xiamian are pretty sharp, not to mention that the CLR (CLI now, forgot) is compiled to native code (.NET Beta 2 CLI is faster than the MS JVM - arguably the fastest in existence).
Read the comment again. The poster is referring to the choice of whether to use MS's CLR, not what language to use.
In what way was the comment reactionary, BTW?
Did anybody else think it's nice touch of Microsoft to release this document in PDF (Portable Document Format) in stead of MS-Word (closed, proprietary, only to be viewed with our own software) format. Could it be? Are they actually starting to realize that some people don't run Windows?
I dont think MS can accomplish this with their current codebase. Its far to bloated and hardware dependant. The level of hardware abstraction that MS would be forced to do to keep backward compability is astonishing. On linux that has a slick small kernel its hard enough but think of the size of MS "kernel"? This would most likely make their OS significantly slower than *nix and others. A complete rewrite of the NT kernel would be a hefty task and is not likely in the near future.
HTTP/1.1 400
Someone's got to stop that evil genius, Bill Gates, and his minions! This looks like a job for Superman!
Good point. It's not like Microsoft can't afford to hire some more developers :) However they can't afford to alienate Intel, because MS's worst nightmare is Dell selling (and supporting) lots of Intel boxes running Linux.
Ignoring Jamie's dobie-on-crack-crazy rants for a moment, I do like this article for one reason:
FUD! Against Microsoft!
D'ya see it?! This sucker manages to plop a long-standing and very plausible worry right in front of Intel (and AMD) engineers, and in front of all sorts of techies that might have thought themselves exempt from the Microsoft borg onslaught. I mean, that was my first reaction... how would Intel handle being ditched by Microsoft? Does this risk give anyone else doing hardware a chill?
Do I think this is part of Microsoft's goal? Who knows.
Will the possibility affect my project designs and plans, or how I support other OS'es? Sure! Better safe than Borg/borked.
1. Consumers, that's a retarded question. 2/3s of the US economy is consumption. Capitalist economies typically devote more resources to consumer goods than capital goods. Business computers are capital goods.
To grow a command economy, you push capital goods to excess. Hence the aggrarian Russia become a major superpower from the time of the Russian revolution (1917) to rival the western world by the end of WW II and remained competitive until its economic collapse in the early 90s. Despite the ability to keep up militarily (technically consumer goods, as weapons and munitions aren't used to produce other goods) and in factories, they had bread lines and 10 year waits for autos. Why? If the rest of the world wants to destroy you, you spend on military first, keeping up second, and goods for the people 3rd.
Businesses spend money differently. Demand for capital goods is different from demand for consumer goods. Businesses will buy capital goods (like computers) at higher prices because they get a good ROI on them, and the opportunity cost of downtime and tech support is higher.
Consumers are willing to spend differently. They are more likely to be willing to spend 1-2 hours on tech support then spend $100 to avoid those waits.
Its about two things: market segmentation, money.
If Microsoft can get themselves 1% of the consumer non-food, non-rent economy (essentially becoming a government and enacting a tax), they will become MUCH larger than now.
If they can better split the business buyers from the consumers, they can maximize prices and therefore profits.
Alex
Thanks to a minute group of volunteers, there will soon be a spread of windows nt clones. One example is Reactos. This kernel, united with wine dll's emulation could be a viable alternative to microsoft-branded NT operating systems. Not to mention the already established use of Linux on the server side...
This scenario is unlikely, but I would point out how "easy to remedy" MS' current anti-competitive practices are. The problem with anti-trust action is that, by the time it happens, the damage is (usually) already done.
The best way to prevent this farfetched vision from becoming reality is a strong penalty in their CURRENT anti-trust suit.
Who did what now?
Sometimes there is an author that powerful. The Cultural Revolution comes to mind.
'The day that every motherboard's BIOS uses strong crypto...'
That's when I actually buy a Mac.
Do you really think Apple, Motorola, AMD and IBM would just sit there and watch? All of the above have platform producing capabilities outside of Intel and Microsoft.
Now that China has pretty much chosen Linux I don't think this will happen.
Giving up the worlds largest potential market just to please Redmond is very doubtful.
---- Smokin' another sig.
Sure, Microsoft might control a majority of the systems, but I don't think they could ever achieve something like absolute control simply because the Microsoft solution isn't for everybody.
Unless of course, the RIAA, MPAA, US Govt. et al. legislate Microsoft as the only trusted entity able to control content and keep the "pirates" from stealing it. This is the real danger. Everyone knows after all that Linux users are all "pirate" and thieves. Why else would they be using "free" software?
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
Typical really - instead of working as a community to develop a consumer ready alternative OS that offers a real alternative to the marketplace - that which Linux must be to dominate the desktop, we instead write other badly formed attacks on anything MS does and might do.
Paranoia bites deep - now we have the supposedly encrypting bioses etc ? please - if any of you RAN windows XP you would find out that WPA is not an issue and that this is a fully formed OS for the first time from MS - this should be a warning to open source.
Stop fighting, stop wanting MS to die (they wont you know) and start actually producing a viabl alternative for end users (and Linux is NOT there yet!)
If MS get smart and make their OS free then you guys are all 100% fucked.
The question is, though, are Microsoft doing this because they believe in it, or are they just doing it to stop Sun and Java eating their lunch? Do we really see Microsoft putting serious resources into software that enables people to use non-Windows non-Intel platforms, that would start to impact their current monopoly? Or are they trying to make the VM "market" currently owned by Sun fragment, to slow down the rate at which their Windows monopoly is eroded? Might we one day find that the Microsoft VM actually ends up working better under Windows and Intel than it does under Linux on an IBM RISC chipset?
Paranoia where paranoia is due: Microsoft are not trying to stop us "pirating" DVDs...they are trying to protect their Windows monopoly. Duh!
"Well, put a stake in my heart and drag me into sunlight."
The CLR is already being used to write applications that run on multiple platforms. For example the Compact .NET Framework runs on various of the cpus supported by Windows CE.NET. Now you can write an application for .NET and it will run in any system with a CLR.
.NET is better than any other Win32 apis.
This solves a practical problem: now you will be able to "beam" programs from Windows CE machines running on different CPUs. Also,
The CLR also helps the move to 64 bit systems. There are three integer types on the CLR: int32, int64 and native int (which is 32 or 64 depending on the machine).
The Mono project is building a free implementation of such a virtual machine (http://www.go-mono.com). We have a functional JIT engine, a C# compiler and many class libraries. So in the future you could even write applications on Windows and run them on Linux.
Miguell
Whether they acknowledge it or not, MS lives in close symbiosis with the vendors; every 2 years or so progress in hardware development produces faster PCs, and every 2 years or so MS produces a version of Windows, as well as applications, that serve to bring the speed of those PCs down to a sluggish sublevel of performance, the added bells and whistles effectively canceling out the performance gains. Users have been indoctrinated into accepting this cycle as natural, which is why users so often acknowledge the speed of Linux, BeOS and other OSes as wonderous, when in truth we shouldn't accept anything less.
In short, Microsoft boosts the new generation of speedy hardware because users "need" it. And speedy hardware boosts the new generation of Microsoft stuff because users "need" it. At the moment, that cycle is slowing down as users feel applications are fast enough for their needs. The recent improvements in performance have been almost entirely for the sake of gaming performance and multimedia: AGP, 3D instructions, HW-accelerated DVD playback, HW-accelerated sound, cooling supplies, cool cases etc. -- precious little of that stuff is for business tasks.
Everybody knows the upgrade cycle can't go on like this. And consciously or not, this game of leapfrog will be artificially boosted by .NET because this technology, by definition, will slow down your computer; similar to Java, it relies on bytecode that is compiled into native code on demand (Just-In-Time compilation). While some argue that this process can produce superior performance to traditional pre-compilation, in the short run it probably won't -- Java is a good case study here.
The fact that .NET could run on other hardware platforms is another possible sales-booster: a hardware-independent Windows would promote new types of hardware, freeing the burden of innovation from being completely on Intel, spurring competition, thereby potentially spurring more sales, etc.
Yes, we can cut MS a bit of slack here, right now, and assume that signing originated as an integrity improvement. However, you don't have to be as paranoid as some people here to envisage a situation where non-trusted code cannot be installed without breaking some support agreement etc., particularly in the corporate environment.
Actually, I'd better complete that statement/ramble and say that I think this is probably the right thing to do from an MS support PoV. The 'remedy', if required, would be to allow other support organizations to certify their own combinations of drivers.
It already exists. It's called POSIX. I think that the purpose of the .NET initiative is to undermine POSIX, upon which modern Unix variants are based. Unix constitutes the single biggest threat to Microsoft in the server space. Circumventing the entrenched POSIX "monopoly", and attempting to cajole everybody into making themselves dependent on Microsoft's own platform (look, we're hardware-independent too, and we have a single standard GUI!), would give them the leverage they need to uproot Unix and make Windows (NT, XP, whatever) the leading server operating system.
[/wacko-conspiracy-theory]
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
YOU SAID - To grow a command economy, you push capital goods to excess. Hence the aggrarian Russia become a major superpower from the time of the Russian revolution (1917) to rival the western world by the end of WW II and remained competitive until its economic collapse in the early 90s. Despite the ability to keep up militarily (technically consumer goods, as weapons and munitions aren't used to produce other goods) and in factories, they had bread lines and 10 year waits for autos. Why? If the rest of the world wants to destroy you, you spend on military first, keeping up second, and goods for the people 3rd.
CORRECTION - the 1917 russian revolution was actually a disaster for the russian economy - in 1925 the country was in fact undergoing a famine and a decline in economic production to well below 1915 levels - in short the country was bankrupt and in anarchy, millions had died and more were dyine. Russia's economy only picked up after the Nazi's came to power and provided expertise and aid to use russia to secretely remilitarize and train troops for their aims - the whole revolutionn was a diaster and it can be argued that russia never achieved the level of growth the western economies talk about - central planning was a disaster on a massive scale and being based on statitics the only thing it produced was figures - and lets not forget the extimated 10 million who died in the period 1916-1939 - mainly russian peasants.
You analogy was a bad one - the russians spent so much money on military goods because the whole system was founded on bastardised marxism and the stalinist system of terror and power, the most guns etc - the system could not survive without control of the military and the military controlled the system (check out the downfall of Kruschev for a lesson on this) and to boot many of those military goods were sent overseas in an attempt to spread the revolution and to earn foriegn exchange - it was at no time a concern of the soviet political system to lower lines and produce consumer goods - in fact the argument was that luxuries and higher consumer standards wouod remove the spectreo of terror and fear that the people were ruled with.
Please dont attempt to make histrical analogies if you have NO idea what you are atlking about ! - the actual facts of the period you are talking about are totally different to what you were taught in high school.
Yes i do know what im on about - i have PHD in modern history and my thesis was on the russian revolution and its economic impacts.
I ran NT on a Motorola-branded PPC 604e (150MHz, IIRC) for the purposes of software porting (Motorola gave us the machine). It severly smoked my 200MHz Pentium Pro. I would've used it daily if not for the fact that there was virtually no software for non-X86 (and the CPUs at that time were too slow for realistic emulation). It even used PCI cards (seem to recall using a FireGL 1000 as the video card on that beast).
CLR reguardless of who owns it will succeed and fail based on developers. As Ballmer said "developers, developers, developers." The language is only a tool. Some tools are better than other, but they are only tools. I've seen programmers do amazing things with PERL and make it run really well. But I've also seen the same person do horrible things with Java and bring a netra T1 to it's knees. The same will happen with C#. If it makes it easier for a VB/ASP programmer make the transition to OOP/OOD and improve their skills, then it's good. There will be plenty of bad programmer building poorly designed and unstable systems with C#. The same thing happens with every language.
Microsoft is a relatively new company compared to ford, gm, or ge. Will they survive another 20 years? No one can tell. Will Java run it's course and fade away? Just like everything else, things have a life and eventually die. C# will go through a normal life cycle. Before IBM took a tumble and completely transformed itself, people thought it was invincible.
Does it really matter who wins when the rate of change accelerates every year? When most of us are six feet under, will it matter? Personally, I hope developers focus on good practices and do it for the pure love of it. That way it won't matter what language or platform they use.
I've written my first article in a planned regular column there, Writing Cross-Platform Software - Getting Started.
While it will be a while, I do plan a number of articles on virtual machines.
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
Matr1x IIII: The Underground. The year is 2050.
The United States is now known as The Microsoft United States Of America.
The ruler of the free world, Hillary Gates,
has recently been flustered over her ill attempts
to eradicate the Intellectualisticism Liberation Front,
the underground resistance movement that was founded
by Richard Stallman in the early 10's.
To make a long story short, the underground prevails in the distant future,
but only with a lot of lives lost.
Thats right, Microsoft is the one that calls the shots, not Intel. Back during the design of the Pentium Pro, which formed the basis of the PII and PIII, Intel wanted to implement a FPU that featured far more than 4 floating point registers. However, Microsoft refused to modify Windows to save those registers on a context switch. The result? Intel used only 4 FP registers which severely crippled its performance.
Don't deny the facts about Java. It sucks.
I think the main reason for CLR is that the x86 architecture is clearly on the way out, but it has not yet become clear what its successor will be. There are several candidates, and MS doesn't want to build and keep separate versions of their code for all of them, nor does it want to risk choosing a loser. So it designs a VM layer so that the only code that needs to know what hardware you have is Windows, which you buy with the hardware anyway. In any case where you don't know what the user will be using, introduce a layer of abstraction and you don't invest much in your guess. Of course, they've got code in many languages, so all of the languages have to target this virtual machine.
http://www.linuxbios.org/
Windows NT5 AKA Win2000 was being compiled and tested against every day during its development.
I realized about three seconds after I hit "submit" that it's not just the OS that would need to be portable; you also need to port all those Windows applications. So I guess if CLR caught on, Microsoft really *could* move away from being Intel-only.
Not a typewriter
lol.. my point was: When M$ makes your, er, their minds up, not even the gov't can change that.
/. will shut up.
Regardless if this is on topic, it's true.
Come up with ten reasons why I'm wrong, that M$ is a great company that loves to 'innovate' then I'll shut up. Hell if you could come up with 10 reasons why M$ does anything without a sneaky idea on the side... everyone on
Get your Unix fortune now!
Business money has only taken Micorosoft so far. Without the consumer markets,
;-)
Oh, please. If Microsoft hadn't filled the gap there would have been someone else.In the 80s there was a huge market for an operating system that had a shallow learning curve. Apple tried to fill this gap but didn't have the expertise needed (although their imagination level was pretty good - they stole some ideas from Xerox and pushed them further).
Basic economics: With no consumer market to sell your product to, there is no business market, and therefore no money. Business users are consumers, whether they are involved in the buying decision or not.
they would just be like another *NIX shop
*nix shops have come a lot further than microsoft did in the same time frame (ten years, now since the introduction of Linux and the real bootstrap of the OSS model, thank you Linus), I remember when microsoft started ('82~~) and then they were just a little startup shop ripping off others ideas (don't believe me? Go look for the earliest microsoft mentions on usenet (the google usenet archives are a nice place to begin - I remember, I was there doing CPM and Apple work and wondering who these MS vagrants were) or read Eric Raymond's Halloween documents at http://www.opensource.org/halloween/
Microsoft got where they are by three things:
1) Outright theft of ideas
2) Outright buying of others' ideas
3) a very good PR and sales dept.
4) A product that worked well enough to sell it to ignorant users, en masse.
Andy
agroz@2z.net
(not anonymous coward, just want to set the facts straight, and it's late and I don't want to go hunting for my slashdot psw - rarely post, it's more fun just reading
Microsoft is porting .NET to FreeBSD. How does that help them establish "Windows Everywhere"? They aren't suing or threatening Miguel for his Mono project: in fact, they seem to be encouraging it (or amused by it) judging by
the interview with him on MSDN.
C# is a nice, clean platform for Windows GUI development. And ASP.NET is cool enough to give IIS a feature edge (as opposed to a security edge) over Apache. Not that the Apache group couldn't create something like Tomcat to serve ASP.NET from Apache, mind you. .NET is, after all, an open standard.
Microsoft needs .NET because Microsoft's customers want an easier way to develop. Period. Apple developers love coding for Apple. Linux developers love, well, anything anti-Microsoft. And Windows developers--God help them--should be able to enjoy Windows development. Having actually written an app or two using the CLR I assure you that it is much more enjoyable than MFC.
IANAWT (I am not a Windows Troll). I am a BSD user looking forward to .NET on BSD. I am a Perl coder looking forward to Perl.NET. And yes, I use and code on Windows at work. And for these reasons, it's very cool to have .NET.
LimeWire. I had my doubts about cross-platform Java apps, but LimeWire looks sweet and does its job (too bad it's one of the ricketier Gnutella clients in terms of connection stability). It is open source, too, and will continue to improve.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
Never have moderator access when I want it.
Point 3 seems particularly important.
Bitter and proud of it.
I can't believe almost everyone missed this! Everyone thinks this is Microsoft's way of reducing Intel's influence. WRONG! This is the perfect way to MAINTAIN the Wintel hegemony!
The scream you hear every morning is the Intel engineer realizing he/she has to spend another day working on the x86 architecture. Everytime he/she pushes a polygon around on a cad system, he/she curses the baroque design decisions that were made 20 years ago. Intel tried to kill the x86 on multiple occasions (80860, 80960, etc) and failed miserably every time. Their most recent attempt, IA64, shares the same departure in binary compatability.
To wean the market away from x86, Intel has recruited Microsoft to create a language and development environment that generates architecture independent byte-codes. Intel rooted for Java in the early days, but now it is obviously a niche player. Microsoft thinks it gets a leg up on Intel but it is Intel with the most powerful compilers (check out icc) and the fastest hardware (Intel hired away all the Alpha engineers). Wintel lives on.
All -
I think we are suffering from a lack of understanding of the
While the CLR and the rest of the stack above it could easily be ported to another platform, without these two lower levels of the stack,
The parent comment is absolutely correct. MS has nothing to compete with J2EE: scalable, enterprise-ready server apps. MS wants this market and offers a sort of "upgrade path" -- why rewrite in Java, when you can stick with (more or less) the original languages and run everything on the CLI? Couple this with the necessity of running the vendor-side Passport COM object on IIS, and you have a two-pronged assault on the server market -- no one wants a hetergeneous server farm, so hey, if we've got IIS/Passport, and the CLI lets us upgrade existing code, let's do it!
It's no great conspiracy (at least not in the short term) -- it's just intense competition for a lucrative market.
I have converted the PDF to plain text. You can see it here. Not pretty, but readable.
Microsoft has a multi-prong approach. It is similar to Sun's Java write once run everywhere strategy, but with the benefit of history and money on its side.
.NET Framework (JFC/Swing) which will eventually replace the Win32 API. Once Microsoft ports the CLR to a new hardware platform or operating system, it is simple to also port the .NET framework. MS really doesn't need to port Windows unless it wants everything from the hardware up (as in JavaOS).
.NET framework in it's upcoming Windows .NET Server (aka Windows XP Server), and will have it included as free upgrades for Windows 2000 and Windows XP before the end of the year. This means that MS could potentially have tens of millions of .NET ready systems on the street before the end of the year. On advantage MS has is that in its first incarnation the .NET Framework just hooks into the Win32 API, giving them time to rewrite the entire Windows codebase (supposedly due with the Blackcomb release).
.NET Framework and eliminates Win32, their will be nothing stopping MS from porting Office to any hardware and/or OS platform on the market. 3rd party developers like Adobe, Macromedia, etc. can port their applications to .NET now with a tryed and true customer base, and once MS is ready, jump with them to other platforms/OS' with an almost minimal risk and expense. Instant application base. The first candidates are MAC OS X and Windows CE (.NET). Adobe for one will probably welcome having less codebases to maintain. Any port that makes economic sense to MS is a candidate, including Unix and Linux.
.NET framework. As new hardware or OS' hit the market, port. Where as Sun could port Java to any enviroment easy enough, it doesn't have the same application base as MS.
MS has the CLR (Common Language Runtime) and MSIL (MS Intermediate Language). This is nothing new, with CLR = JVM, and MSIL being javacode. Additionally MS also has the
So if this is nothing more than MS rehash of Sun's Java approach, what's the difference.
.
First MS has the advantage of learning from Sun's mistakes. For example C#, Visual Basic, & VC++ are not the only languages that can use CLR & MSIL. Any language can compile to MSIL, and MS encourages it, claiming over 20 languages from 3rd party vendors, including PERL and Java. Additionally MS supports both compiled and bytecode, with a built-in native code compiler as part of the framework. These were all possible with the JVM, but not advocated/pushed by Sun.
Second, instant market. MS is including the
Third. Applications. Microsoft has Office. Lets face it. People don't buy Windows for IE and Solitaire. Java never had a killer app.
Fourth. Inertia & Clout. Once MS ports Office to
Five. Future proofing. If the DOJ or anyone else causes problems, MS can easily port Office to Linux just by porting the
90% of the people here don't even know what .NET is or say they don't because it's Microsoft. On top of that everyone will say that it's evil just because it's Microsoft. If you want to form your own opinion and not listen to a bunch of angry children then maybe you should go buy one of the many $8 magazines that have the Beta DVD and try it out for yourself. I've been using Java for the last few years and I've tried .NET and I like alot of the stuff it has to offer. If you REALLY want to know make your own opinion. We all know what the Linux Community is going to say anyways.
Your a moron. There IS a VM, what component does garbage collection, threading etc.?
All we need is more morons like you so that M$ can keeps stealing technology of other companies and call it innovation.
As soon this would happen' I'd switch to Sun, SGI or Apple (anyway, this is the last choice that would be in question here). Anyway I would just avoid them as I did in the last three years.
But I feel lucky when I predict that Microsoft will fuck up. They're just to closed to make something like that open for others to use it.
CLR is just engine of C#>>>> C#???? just why in the hell would we need it???? When C# would became standard they would just make same shit they did in Windows. They'd add some essential parts, that would be proprietary Microsoft, and not known to others. The other monkeys supporting them, would just look bad and not effective.
So in my conclusion>> I'll never understand project Mono. And I really don't even care about it... since... gcc and java rulz. I'll not even bother to read the flaming of my comment.
AND If Microsoft only hardware could possibly exist I'd be rather joining bushmans in Australia, at least they will be probably FREE for next twenty years. Ahhhh, Some people are really lucky (alias Microsoft free) and I'm proud I'm one of them.
BUT I REALLY FEEL LUCKY.
Congrats to China and Korea... God, maybe I'll move there. At least they've got common sence to avoid stupid and too expensive licensing.
Microsoft fans>> Next time You must enter the license to take a leak, remember it's something like: FGH65-JHB76-HJB65-RT678-JHG65 and send $200 to Bill.
This are not words of some linux zealot.... It's just enough smart man to now how to spend his money, >>>>> original linux distro + Star Office > Next time You must enter the license to take a leak, remember it's something like: FGH65-JHB76-HJB65-RT678-JHG65 and send $200 to Bill.
This are not words of some linux zealot.... It's just enough smart man to now how to spend his money, >>>>> original linux distro + Star Office Windows with MS Paint included,
Pay less and You even get some support isn't that great?????
Respectable technical publication?
You must be reading a different Slashdot
It would take more than this. Don't like the BIOS? Roll your own. You'd need every single peripheral to require an authorisation token, just to operate the computer. I don't think the courts would wear a law that required all peripherals to require such authorisation.
No, really: Who *is* Jamie?
Multiple language support means jack shit to companies. They can use other languages now, but Microsoft shops stick to VB, and if they have a need, write some stuff in C++. It is cheaper for them to have fewer and more mainstream languages in their toolbox. A company will NOT change to Perl.NET or Python.NET if they are already strong in VB skills. Nor will they hire Perl programmers to program Perl.NET.
The multi language support is there to sucker non VB programmers into the Windows fold.
But the program code runs in the machine native
code, not being reinterpreted every time the
program has to ran. As opposed to Java VM which
does reinterprest the program code every time.
I have the right to act in my own self interest and, say, boycott any piece of software written by M$.
Just because what they do is sometimes legal doesn't make it ethical. And just because it's legal doesn't mean that I have to go along with it.
Also, if we stopped focusing on the bad things M$ does, we would not be able to learn how to use any of their crap software, since figuring out how to use it involves first categorizing exactly how it is broken.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
It didn't happen then.
I'm not worried now.
Read and learn!
http://www.jython.org/docs/subclassing.html
Actually, NexGen were the first to build a RISC CPU which decoded x86 instructions. Later on, AMD bought them. I don't know where Intel got the idea to start doing that...
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
Now Microsoft is smart, and I think they learned their lesson somewhat. They're not going to do anything blantantly monopolisitic like requireing all BIOSes to only be able to boot windows. They don't want to have to deal with another antitrust case, and they, and they surely don't want the DOJ to have killer arguments like, "Now, no new computer can run anything but Microsoft Windows," and, "All software on a Windows system must now be signed by Microsoft, thus giving Microsoft absolute control over the software industry." A case like this would make the current antitrust trial look insignifigant in comparison.
Oh yeah, IANAL.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/
It's windows media format, yadda yadda, but it contains a 30 minute interview with 2 topdevelopers / designers of the CLR and a 30 minute demo about how the CLR actually works. Great stuff for people who want to know more about the background of the CLR, the people behind it and the inner workings of the CLR.
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
Who in their right mind would decide that an application should be written in 5 different languages?
The people who have programmers fluent in one language, but want to use libraries written in another language?
I've worked in places before where it was hard to get hold of programmers fluent in the language we wanted. If we could have concentrated our programmers in the areas they were most fluent in and not worried about language interactions, we'd have been a lot better off.
My Journal
SSCA, or any other attempt at a closed platform to be sure we don't make copies unauthorized by content holders and proprietary software vendors. That could force BIOS and motherboard vendors' hands. It is not far-fetched, just look at what game console vendors already try to do to control the console and game markets, and DVD vendors already do. No matter how bad their security is, and how many technical hacks we can devise to make things work, if we don't win the war to educate the public then the law will always be against us.
If you find it improbable that a now open market will be closed, just remember the death of Macintosh's clones and BeOS.
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Amongst all the usual silly ms reactions, has there been anyone who has actually sat down and did a side by side comparison of .net and linux\gnome? Why is everyone worrying about MS winning by some little trick when one is about 10000 times better than the other (yes, .net is the better one, sorry but it is a plain fact). Really, do yourself a service and just take a look at them both. Then you can start worrying about linux, or do like some, and learn from it to make linux better. If they take the bios... where do you live!?
http://supportnet.merit.edu/m-winenv/t-intwin/text /features.html
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
It's all fine and dandy to be idealistic about freedom and the like, but a quick examination of society suggests that freedom means very little to your average consumer. What most people care about is convenience , the ease with which they can do their "thing." And Microsoft's CLR, while rough around the edges now, brings "convenience" to developer's lives.
I've developed a lot of code in the last couple of decades, and I gravitated to Java because it was an easy way to write GUIs. Sure, most of my work is the heavy lifting "under the hood" -- but it's the GUI that attracts users who buy product. You and I may love command-line environments, but that isn't what most people want or need. As one of my co-workers puts it, the GUI guys get all the glory -- and the CLR is a superior tool for GUI development.
Why use the CLR? Because unlike Java's Swing, GUI code written in the CLR is reasonably fast (through native widgets) and easy to use. The Visual Studio development environment takes most of the challenge out of GUI development -- and toys like NetBeans/Forte and KDevelop don't even come close to Visual Studio when it comes to easy development. The only advantage Java has now is portability...
The CLR has little or no affect on my engine development; I still write my code as portable C++/Fortran/whatever, and wrap it in a component architecture that can be dropped into a GUI. Microsoft has not made traditional compiled code obsolete -- what they've done is make MFC, ATL, and COM obsolete. In other words, Microsoft is creating a user-interface toolkit that can be used to wrap code that does heavy lifting. They're making it easy and efficient to write GUIs for Windows -- and that, my friends, is what is going to hurt Java and Linux.
The CLR isn't about getting rid of Intel, or platform independence; it's about attracting developers who write code that attracts user who sepnd money on Microsoft operating systems. The Linux developer community would be wise to spend more time on ease of use and less time tilting at windmills.
All about me
People will always, always try to break any kind of restrictive system placed on hardware they've paid for the privilege of owning. As long as we can purchase our own computer and take it back to our own home to hack away at it for as long as we like, there'll be people breaking operating system restrictions (or, indeed, a BIOS checksum to ensure you're only running windows -_- ).
It's nearly impossible (today, at least, and only as far as I know) to completely legislate electronics as complex as a microprocessor. As long as a restriction is a matter of getting a machine to voluntarily forego an action it's capable of (such as choosing not to play an unauthorized MP3) rather than not giving the machine the capability in the first place, there will be ways around it. This has been the basis of most software "cracking" for decades and will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future.
Man, don't I sound important. ^-^
Don't you all see this can actually PROMOTE some competition? Two years from now. There is an AMD's Hammer processor vs. the Intel's Itanium. Most released applications are compiled for (guess what?). And then what processor would you buy? The one that will work for you, i.e. have applications compiled for it. I remember trying to work on an WinNT/Alpha machine. NO software vendor would care to port to it, however simple that it should be. Any ideas why NT/Alpha architecture died? *grin*. This CLR actually gives the AMD's x86-64 a chance. And other possible processor vendors too.
.NET and Java are not as similar as you think.
Some points:
.Net. It's the mother of the battle between IE and Netscape.
.Net strategy is all about supporting the Windows price tag and wiping out other platforms. .Net is pitting itself against J2EE in the enterprise layer and continues to fight Linux and open source at the lower layers.
1. A JVM (or CLR) is needed to allow the creation of applications (as opposed to applets/ActiveX) that run in a security sandbox (as opposed to on the bare machine) with dynamic classloading and garbage collection. These things are indispensible.
Without a JVM (er CLR) Microsoft's developer base would continue its trend and dwindle to nothing except developers who couldn't adapt to Java -- i.e., lousy developers. I'll bet there is already a lot of that effect already. There has been a giant sucking sound in PowerBuilder, Visual Basic, and Visual C++ development as most of the prime developers scooted over to Java to see what was going on. I'll bet there are a lot of Microsoft developers out there working in Java who are now a version or two behind in their Microsoft development platforms.
Microsoft needs them back.
2. The CLR and C# are not about supporting platform independence, either at the OS or hardware layer. Please. It's ridiculous to think that Microsoft is going to do anything to undermine Windows. And Windows is not going to depart from Intel.
Anyone remember a little thing called the Alpha? What a catastrophe NT on Alpha was for poor DEC (now poor Compaq). Lots of businesses bought those cross-platform "Windows Alphas" too and they now regret it.
Nope. It's Wintel all the way for Microsoft for the foreseeable future.
Listen up Linux people. This is the same old trick.
Microsoft mouths the words "platform independent" and "open standard" to counteract their sales vulnerability to fears of vendor lock-in. Then the platform independent version just never shows up. It's always "in development by some third party" and never sees the light of day. Are you still waiting for the non-Windows version of DCOM and DNA?
This time, the chumps are the Linux community. Miguel De Icaza blew it with Gnome and now he's about to (help) blow it for all of Linux.
3. Java is an "open specification" but not an "open standard." That's a distinction that only matters to propagandists. Most people don't know the difference, so they complain noisily about the Java platform not being a standard.
In essence, with an open specification, anyone can write an implementation, they just can't change the specification. Sun's open specifications are extremely open to change though -- through the extremely open Java Community Process. The specifications are open to change but not hijacking.
Sun was very wise not to give up control of the Java specification. Had they ceded control to a standards body, Java would have been slowed down, absorbed, and fragmented by Microsoft.
Look at what has happened to HTML, the other major non-Microsoft platform. The W3C is now begging to get back in the game on HTML -- and it's their own game. Without Mozilla, the W3C would now be completely irrelevant. Microsoft would own the only meaningful definition of HTML (like they don't already).
4. Where's the source code?
With Java, you can look at the source code of all of the standard API implementations. It's gorgeous code that you can step into with your debugger. That will never, ever happen with Microsoft. It would undermine their ability to exploit hidden API capabilities to leverage their OS mononopoly against third party software vendors.
5. In the final analysis, the battle is between the J2EE and
Like Netscape, J2EE is in the driver's seat. It is hands down the most widely adopted, most diversely implemented platform to date.
This is not about religion. It's about money. The main thing people like about Linux is its price tag. Microsofts
.Net is not going to be on any other platforms or OSes any time soon. Please snap out of it. Linux people who fight Java and J2EE should reconsider.
JBoss on Linux is the open source platform of the future in my opinion.
Naturally, to prevent you from firing up GCC and doing a rogue compilation of DeCSS or Lame or other unauthorized code, the operating system will have to stop you from running anything that isn't written in its language for its virtual machine.
This paragraph is absolutely stunning. Since when has Microsoft overtaken Turing's work? Exactly how can a system solve this problem in computability (any by extension, halting).
The person who wrote this is not a computer scientist; rather, they are a computer hobbyist.
MS knows to very important marketting facts. #1, control the home market first, the business market will come without effort. That's how windows got so big in the first place. If you were around in the good old days you will remember how every business (100%) said Word perfect was the best word processor and no one would change. What happened? CEOs started using windows at home and bingo - businesses were forced to change. #2 Control the API. I personally witnessed Bill Gates say those exact words at a Microsoft Systems Engineer Employees conference. That is the reason so much effort has gone into DirectX, Win32, Speech, Crypto - everything - if MS controls it they make money no matter whose product is using it. My bet is MS would be happy if someone else wrote OSs and Office Apps - as long as it was running on MS controled CLR machines. As long as they get a piece of every pie they will allways be growing revenue.
All of the Java platform specifications are open specifications. They can all be independently implemented, but changing the specifications requires going through the Java Community Process.
.Net for standardization that Microsoft is being altruistic. Microsoft simply knows that they can dominate the standard in ECMA or ANSI and overrule the standard if it becomes a business necessity.
.Net would not even exist were it not for Sun's use of open specifications and its defense of Java's open platform business message.
.Net to be viable on FreeBSD. It will probably never happen. It's just Microsofts way of dividing the free Unix community, in my opinion.
In the current software economy, standards are no better than open specifications.
Look at HTML and you will see all you need to see about standards.
What matters more, the HTML standard or what Microsoft decides to put in Internet Explorer? Microsoft has effectively overruled the standard.
So please don't think that by submitting portions of
The Java specifications are immune to being hijacked by Microsoft while, at the same time, being very open to change by third parties. The CLR and
You will be waiting a long time for
Microsoft divides these three parties. Java unites them. With J2EE open source implementations like JBoss and the wonderful Apache and TIS, the free Unices have a complete, open source enterprise software stack.
Linux and BSD people, please stop fighting Java. It's the best friend you have.
Whats pathetic is that Windows NT (2000 and XP) can only run on little-endian machines.
Didn't MS submit the core of the whole .NET platform to the ECMA to be approved as a standard? I don't claim that MS is benevolent in all this, but if .NET was core to their fiendish plans to rule the entire hardware AND software industry, I wouldn't think they would submit the core parts of it to an international standards body where everyone could see how it works.
Despite the fact that Microsoft at large may be an evil goliath, there are still pockets within or affiliated with MS that do really good work. CLR (without all those other services MS wants to pile on top of it) is a *damn fine* architecture and a breath of fresh air (my day job is Java middleware development, so I know). Miguel de Icaza's Mono project thinks it's so good that they want this to be the basis of unix ("Let's Make Unix Not Suck"). Before you bash it, read the specs and technical articles. It's really nice. The trick is now how to keep Microsoft from perverting it to their own world domination ends. Having it be an official standard (ECMA I think) will help, and is something Sun hasn't done yet (though I can't bash Sun, they've been really great with Java and are slowing catching on to the OSS 'thang').
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
MS would like you to think that CLR would bring .NET to other plataforms. But think again. Where are the libraries that binds OS resources to your apps?. That's the real "meat" of having a plataform. Expect CLR ports to Linux and stuff but it would be so incomplete and broken that it would seen like a second class .NET -- And MS would love that. ( Want first class .NET ? - Buy Windows ). I love MS marketing ...
Apple......
/. "competition is a good thing". and brining back competition to the Computer market will be good for all consumers even if it is just another corperation making money.
Apple computer has a faithful bunch that keep it going. Steve Jobs has said that he does not want to restrict the user's ability to do what he/she wants to do on the machine, and has prooven it through the kind of software that they hand out....no copy protection built in.
I think that is MS ever gets to the point that people have to use an MS machine and can not just down load shareware from where ever they want etc, people will begin to look at the Mac as an alternative platform.
I think this is already happening now, but it is more because of OS X (what Unix should be...almost) than Media, but as the ott years of this century go on and move into the teens, media will be an ever growing battle feild...Apple sees themselfs as the way to keep people free from the corprate control that the RIAA/MPAA/MS/Intel want to place on us. of cource, this will be good for apple, but as we always like to say on
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
1. Who spends more money? Businesses or consumers? Businesses. Why the hell would MS want to transform a device for doing work into an entertainment machine?
One of the hallmarks of monopolies is to segment the market. You want all segments, not just the profitable ones. Total control is what you want. Of every segment. You also want as many segments as possibile, and for those segments to be a small as possible.
There is an important reason for this. When one segment is threatened by a competitor, then you can underprice competitors in that segment, killing competition, yet still have stellar profit from all of the other segments that you have monopoly lock in on. Just witness IBM's business in the 50's, 60's and 70's. Competition in entry level comptuers? Well, then sell them for below cost, but with just low enough memory capacity that the user will soon be back for a vastly overpriced upgrade. Who can fight this? Nobody. Competitors must actually make money on their entry level system. Competition on your game systems? Then underprice competitors and make money from business. A segment of business unprofitable? Then make it up from other segments who have no choice but to pay whatever you charge. Once competition in the unprofitable segment is eliminated, then go back to regular overpricing.
Based on the foregoing, let's consider. Suppose MS decides (or is forced) to unbundle IE. How long will it be free? Once there is no competition, a price will become attached to it. Even do it with good PR. Unbundled Windows is cheaper, thus benefiting consumers, just like the DOJ said. IE is seperately availalbe for a low price. (Of course, wanna bet that combined price goes even higher than today?)
3. An evil empire built by Microsoft does not really benefit them in the long run. Microsoft is in the business of making money, not taking over the world.
The kind of ambition to make money also tends to make one crave power. Often power and money go hand in hand. They can even be traded off to a certian extent like mass and energy. Taking over the world, or said differently, the pursuit of power, is directly in the stockholder's financial interest.
I disagree. An evil empire built by Microsoft directly benefits a very small group of people in the long run. Both in megalomanic ways and in financial ways. Power begats money, and vice versa. And they are addictive like a drug. Finally, surround yourself with yes-men, raise yourself to a different class than most people, and it distorts your entire view of the world. Taking over the world becomes your right, just as 100% of the market should be rightfully yours.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
I find it odd that the argument seemed to be that M$ is bad because it's trying to do what Java tried, and essentially failed. When Sun came up with their VM strategy, did the author react the same? Also, I think a big advantage of CLR over Java is that you can use any supported language; the interpreter simply puts it in a Common Language, so it doesn't matter what you're coding in now much.
I don't know if anyone noticed this, but it looks like Microsoft is writing reports with TeX and pdfTeX. (Look at the PDF's properties.) Anyone see the irony here?
Microsoft views porting their OS's to non-Intel chips a last resort -- they tried it and no one was interested. NT could be ported to just about anything given time but applications are still machine specfic.
.NET it's making less sense to develop software for x86 only, with the proper CLR/IL/NET porting -- Microsoft will be able to release IE, Media player, etc, etc all on just about any computer in the world.
That's what the CLR/IL are for.. there won't even be a question of what OS you use soon... with Java,
Well, for developer tools, both Borland's JBuilder (100% Java except the launcher since version 3.5) and TogetherSoft's Control Center (UML and lots of other things) could be considered successes.
(.NET Beta 2 CLI is faster than the MS JVM - arguably the fastest in existence).
What are you smoking? The MS VM is fast for an 1.1.x VM, but Java has moved miles since then: Sun's Hotspot technology makes JRE 1.3.1 fly, and IBM makes a very fast one, too.
>Java is infinitely preferable to C#+CLR, simply
.NET open.
.NET are an ECMA standard. You can choose not to trust Microsoft, and still look at the standards and see if they are worth using or not. This is what Ximian has done, and they decided the standards were worth using. If Microsoft then chooses to go off and violate the ECMA standard, that doesn't lock you into their proprietary version; you can still stick with the ECMA standard, and all the implementations that adhere to it, and tell MS to take a flyng leap.
>because there is no platform lockin, or vendor
>lockin (you can get great JVMs from IBM, for
>instance).
You couldn't be more confused about this issue. You have it exactly backwards.
I've been a Java developer for over four years now and although I trust Sun a whole lot more than Microsoft, the fact is, Java is a proprietary standard owned and licensed solely by Sun, whereas C# and the CLR are open standards managed by ECMA. Microsoft has been looking for a chink in Java's armor for years, and the only thing they could find was the fact that open-standards folks hated the proprietary nature of Java. So, they made the basic parts of
Java and everything about it are controlled by Sun. There is an IBM JVM because IBM licensed the rights to do so from Sun. Even a clean-room JVM implementation still has to sign a license with Sun to call itself Java, and has to be tested with the compatibility suite from Sun, which costs money and requires that the implementor sign a license agreement with Sun. Microsoft played games with their JVM and Sun sued them for breaking the license agreement, remember? Please explain how there is no platform or vendor lockin in this situation. So far Java has experienced vendor lockin, just to a benevolent vendor (so far). They have been good about allowing other vendors to influence the specs they publish, but in the end, the J2SE, J2ME, J2EE, and other Java specifications all come from Sun and belong to Sun 100%.
Oh, yeah, there's Kaffe, and GNU Classpath for Java, which are cleanroom implementations with no license and no permission to call themselves Java, and guess what, they are still broken, not compliant with even JDK 1.1, and have been under development for something like five years now. I dare you to try to get JBuilder running on them. I really, really wish them good luck, but so far they are a major disappointment.
On the other hand, C#, the CLR, and the core classes of
The real thing that people need to be concerned about is how objective and open ECMA is going forward. Microsoft has been known to try to hijack standards bodies before; if they can control ECMA, then they can claim that it's an open standard when in fact it would be a sham.
he is right, Bill Gates is working very hard right now !
Something that is completely documented via reverse engineering is NOT open...Fool!
Check your verb tense. "Something that is completely documented via reverse engineering" had been not open, but U.S. trade secret law states that once it's open, it's open forever, and any dissemination of the operations of the machine is free press. (This does not take into account copyrights on particular expressions of the operation of the machine or patents on making or selling such a machine.)
Will I retire or break 10K?
Microsoft wants portability of a platform that they can innovate with and control. I am sure that if Sun had allowed Microsoft to do their J++ extensions Microsoft would have had no compelling reason to go with their own technology.
.NET is a very good move for Microsoft.
Microsoft wants it to be easy to write Windows software for all the Windows platforms. This includes all the CE devices running on who knows which processors, and future consumer devices from phones to set top boxes. I don't think that means they want write once run anywhere. What they want is for developers to learn once and be able to leverage those skills anywhere (on any Windows platform)
The CLR gives them platform independence and compatibility with legacy windows technologies. Microsoft doesn't have to put everything into the CLR. Through PInvoke and COM interop they can simply leverage what is not yet part of managed code.
Which ever way you look at it,
However Sun would not accept that Microsof had compelling reasons to .
So, your code must produce the Nintendo logo when it starts? Why not just have that done by ROM then?
The code runs from the BIOS, but it reads the bit pattern from the cartridge, throws it up on the display, and then compares it to the stored copy in the BIOS. The Game Boy BIOS has done it this way since the GB Color. (The first GB BIOS, used in GB and GB pocket, contained a loophole: It read the cart once to throw the logo up, and then read it again when verifying the header. Some unlicensed carts would send all 0's to the logo-drawing code but then bankswitch in the logo before header verification; these carts do not work on GBC or GBA, both of which use the GBC BIOS.)
Why did nintendo do this? Any loose connection between the cart and the system shows a distorted logo, this system doubles as a way to detect whether something needs cleaning. It's also an attempt to force software houses whose lawyers haven't heard of Sega v. Accolade to become official licensed publishers.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I've been a Java developer for over four years now and although I trust Sun a whole lot more than Microsoft, the fact is, Java is a proprietary standard owned and licensed solely by Sun, whereas C# and the CLR are open standards managed by ECMA.
This is a trickier issue than you make out. To a degree you're right. Sun does, however, specifically allow clean room implementations of Java. It doesn't allow versions that don't pass the compatibility tests to call themselves Java. I do think the compatibility tests should be open source and freely available, but I don't have that much trouble with their stance otherwise. The JCP is an effective mechanism for moving the language and class libraries forward.
I disagree about the results of the JCP 'belonging to Sun' - they belong to the (ever widening) Java community.
Oh, yeah, there's Kaffe, and GNU Classpath for Java, which are cleanroom implementations with no license and no permission to call themselves Java, and guess what, they are still broken, not compliant with even JDK 1.1, and have been under development for something like five years now. I dare you to try to get JBuilder running on them. I really, really wish them good luck, but so far they are a major disappointment.
Yes, but is the lack of progress on the OSS VMs simply due to satisfaction with the free-as-in-beer commercial VMs?
On the other hand, C#, the CLR, and the core classes of .NET are an ECMA standard. You can choose not to trust Microsoft, and still look at the standards and see if they are worth using or not. This is what Ximian has done, and they decided the standards were worth using. If Microsoft then chooses to go off and violate the ECMA standard, that doesn't lock you into their proprietary version; you can still stick with the ECMA standard, and all the implementations that adhere to it, and tell MS to take a flyng leap.
Great, in theory. Microsoft has already made noises about 'licensing' issues, so we'll see where that leads. Further, Microsoft did not make big chunks of .Net ECMA standards, including the entire GUI framework. So much for cross-platform GUIs...which are working quite well these days in Java.
The real thing that people need to be concerned about is how objective and open ECMA is going forward. Microsoft has been known to try to hijack standards bodies before; if they can control ECMA, then they can claim that it's an open standard when in fact it would be a sham.
Sun is claiming that eventually it will open source Java. That will be desirable once Java is mature and well established.
In the meantime, to me the important things are that Java is here, functional, and cross platform today - and I'm not furthering Microsoft's computing agenda or monopolies by using it.
In fact, I would argue that Java's widespread adoption among developers is the strongest thing it has going for it. It is also very widely used as a teaching language.
299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
> Microsoft is porting .NET to FreeBSD. How does that help them establish "Windows Everywhere"?
.NET is the next generation of Windows, therefore...
.NET is basically the return of the mainframe, and your PC is supposed to be the dumb terminal that logs on to the mainframe. If the OS market goes to hell, MS wouldn't mind, as long as all those new linux users sign on to MSN. As far as MS is concerned, money is money. Having millions of monthly-paying subscribers to MSN can make up the pain of a dying OS market. MS won't care if you log in on a linux machine, a Gameboy, an XBox, or an X-Terminal. Just show them the money.
Because
".NET everywhere" == "Windows Everywhere"
Hardware has become commoditized. MS is trying to squeeze the last drops out of the OS golden egg while it lasts, but that market is also being commoditized by linux and *BSD. MS needs a new revenue source.
That's why the push for "software as a service". Right now linux users aren't renting MS Office on the XP plan. However, if they could be convinced to log in to MSN, and run MSWord or Excel or Access for a monthly fee, Microsoft gets a cash flow. If e-vendors are willing to give MS a cut of every purchase by passport users, then MS indirectly make money off those passport users, even if passport is extended to every OS.
I see the battle for OS sales as fighting past wars. I think Microsoft is trying to re-write the rules to make it a brand new game and give themselves an advantage.
How can we fight this ? I know this sounds luddite, but I think that e-commerce has to be given a punch in the gut to slow it down. MS wants to convert the internet into a giant electronic shopping mall, where they own the mall, and collect rents/commissions from all the vendors. And probably charge shoppers for parking while they're at it.
If e-commerce flops, if broadband remains a dream for many people, then software-as-a-service flops. Also all those glitzy e-commerce sites with their Fuckwave/Slash webpages won't make enough revenue to pay the rent to Microsoft, because people on dialup modems won't wait for the cutsie presentation to finish. What we really need are more dot-bombs to scare away business from the internet. The only way to get big business to leave the net is to convince them there's no money in it.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
More likely it's actually VHDL in a text editor, except for the minority doing PD (physical design, i.e., layout) who may actually work with polygons (in layout or in block diagrams). I consider myself lucky to be in the VHDL majority.
They have always taken the position that any programming that needs to be done for users _must_ have direct access to the OS. The difference between the JVM and CLR is that the CLR is bound very tightly to Windows.
.NET Framework for Linux, Unix, and maybe even some other OS's, but they will do it the same way as it was done for Windows. It will be very tightly bound to the machine and have subtle differences.
.NET wouldn't even exist had they done this. But fear, ego and poor business practices overwhelmed Sun and with Bushy in the Whitehouse, MS is going to get off easy.
.NET is a dirct threat to Java, your kidding yourself.
Now I absolutely expect either Ximian or MS to create a CLR and
So it will 'seem' that the CLR runs on many platforms, but headaches will arise when coders try to migrate code from Windows to Unix or Unix to Windows. They get the marketing push for being cross-platform, but in truth it's only 90% code-safe cross-platform.
Now this isn't so bad from some people's point of view. If you can move 90% of your code to different equipment, that's a win in most CEO's minds.
This all goes back to my theory on Sun and Java's failure to stomp Microsoft out of the picture. Had Sun gone the other way, allowing Java to be bound very tightly to Windows, and maintained an open vein of $$$ from MS to Sun, things would be different. They could have basically beaten MS at their own game, letting MS develop the tools and the perfect JavaWin VM, then built their business around Windows _and_ Java.
If you don't think
Maybe Sun should start giving away voting machines.
This isn't the same as the halting problem, as any good computer hobbyist should know.
The CLR uses something called "verifiable" code, which can be checked algorithmically to be "safe", i.e. no pointer arithmetic, full type safety, no system calls etc. It's quite a strong condition, since code can be "safe" but not "verifiable". OTOH, any "verifiable" code is provably "safe". Proving code to be "safe" is hard (as in halting-problem hard) but the CLR doesn't need to do that.
As long as you only run "verifiable" code the CLR effectively controls all access to the system. So the paragraph is absolutely correct in that you could deny all "native" programming tools and only run verifiable code in the CLR. At that point DeCSS et al are screwed because you can enforce system-level encryption, no access to raw devices, secure video paths, government backdoors, mandatary micropayments and all other fun things that the Microsoft/MPAA/RIAA cartel would love to have.
Check this out:
http://ndi.sourceforge.net/
http://ndi.sourceforge.net/principles.html
However, current technology is not up to such initiatives yet - still needs a few years.
But of course there is one solution. Boycott the evil sons of female dogs. There is a lesson to be learned here. Do we really need the computers we have? No. You see, everyone has been caught up in there own little "Speed Wars" that no one has really stopped to think. Its all about the guy on top. We're the bottom b!tches and so far, its not looking that great for us. So. How do you bring down the wealthiest man in the world and crush an evil empire? Use Linux and boycott the Microsoft Empire. Afterall, Windows ME isn't Millenium Edition. Its actually a typo too. Its supposed to be "Windows' Microsoft Empire". Get the hint?
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
Are you calling Slashdot a respectable technical publication?
Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture?
Putting aside the interesting philosophical question of whether a corporation can be evil for a moment
Look at Phillip Morris and the other tobacco companies. If they do not qualify as evil, I don't know what does.
Mind you, it could just be that the tobacco companies just happens to be by evil people. Then there is the degree of evil involved. Clearly the CEOs of big tobacco are way more evil than the guy who delivers mail at Kraft (which is AFAIK a Phillip Morris subsidiary).
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Well, However I don't think it will be that easy. MS will probably continualy add interfaces to Win32 (as always!) and I can assure they have a plan to keep JIT-compiled code to be platform-dependent. Otherwise they are history soon.
//AdminForward
Neat... I still run a Linux/OpenBSD shop instead of still consulting on Citrix/NT systems.