Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
...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!
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
One day you'll be buying rouge x86 machines off of ebay so you can run Linux and the like.
I guess they figured they had all the software in it's corner but that wasn't enough.
I don't think Intel will be out of the game. Intel will be the ones making the Microsoft hardware, it will just say M$ on it.
Get your Unix fortune now!
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.
I am sure this feature could be added to the JVM but Sun seems obsessed with the proliferation of the Java language itself.
But if we combine this with the other slashdot post about exploding chips, can we get BIOSs that explode when Linux is run?
Perhaps only once in awhile, so it can be advertised as MS Windows XE (Sexy) doesn't explode your PC (like Linux can...)
Fellowship 9/11