A Quick Peek at Longhorn

Kaypro writes: "The Register has an interesting article with some minor details regarding Microsoft's next OS. P2P, filesystem plugins and some thoughts from Hans Reiser, of ReiserFS fame make for an interesting read."

Comments

P2P eh?

[Second_Derivative]

So what kind of DRM-shackled kernel-integrated, msn.com centric peer to peer might that be? ;)

This could be good...

[Aexia]

A shared namespace would allow distributed corporate queries such as 'Find emails from Bob to Carole about ProjectX in FacilityY'.

Just think if this were extended to the whole Internet!

"Find pr0n featuring Traci Lord with two men wearing spandex."
"Find l33t games with midgets in Iowa."
"Find ripped versions of Longhorn Windows."

Re:Quick Question...

[GigsVT]

Linus sees it as a competitor, respects them,

I guess you'd like to think that, and it sounds good and fits into you message well, but Linus has repeatedly said he doesn't care one bit what Redmond is doing, and isn't even familiar with a lot of the newer features in their OS. His singular goal is to make Linux better than Linux, not better than anything MS makes.

relational databases as fs

[jd142]

I've heard talk of this over a year ago, and while at first it sounded like a really overblown idea, the more database work I do, the more interesting it becomes.

There are a few problems though:

Boot media. Right now, in the windows world, most boot floppies are fat12. NTFS won't fit on a single boot floppy. And it is a pain in the butt to make a bootable cd when compared to making a bootable floppy.

So what happens when you need to boot from something other than your hard drive? How easy will it be to make a boot cd?

What about the way MS keeps things hidden from you? Try this in XP: make a directory. Put 1 file in it called "testme" with no file extension. Open the file and type in the word "apple". Now do a search for all files containing the word apple in that directory. Windows won't find it.

What happens when you do something with a file that the relational database can't handle?

Done well, this has the potential to be really cool. I doubt it will be done well.

Go read the Hans Reiser paper

[avdi]

I have no opinion about this news; but I hope it prompts a few more people to make the effort to read through Hans Resiser's brilliant whitepaper. The first time I read that article I was blown away by the amount of thought the guy has put into the design of file systems. The first OS to thoroughly exploits his ideas will revolutionize computing.

Re:Go read the Hans Reiser paper

[Waffle Iron]

An excellent paper. I noticed one section that should be read and understood by anyone contemplating the trend towards "digital rights management" schemes:

A common mistake by authors of information is to not realize that most of the total utility of their piece of information will be felt by those to whom its utility is either rather small, or for which its value is speculative to the person considering accessing it. The other common mistake is to not realize or care how much harm will be caused by others expending the time cost of accessing their information only to find it irrelevant. Since we all have limited lifespans in which to do our research, time spent accessing rather than reading information detracts from our ability to wander speculatively after information that might be useful.

He is making the point in terms of namespace balkanization, but I think that is argument is also valid in a more general sense.

I submitted this story on Blackcomb in AUGUST:

[Artifice_Eternity]

For some reason, /. didn't consider a story on future MS operating systems important.

Read it yourself:

http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/stories/story/0,10 738,2802585,00.html

Interesting what wasn't discussed

[motherhead]

like all the work and money MS has been throwing into SDMI like digital copywrite detection and prevention.

From what I understand MS sees an opportunity to vector the DMCA-like drum beating of the music and film industry with it's own "application as services" subscriber model.

don't know when that shoe is going to drop, but when it does well... here is a quote for you: "Piracy is not a technological issue. It's a behavior issue," Apple CEO Steve Jobs

All hail alternative operating systems

Re:BCOD

[daeley]

What a grate idea! It would be a gouda whey to let a user know when something curdled.

Re:This is an insult!

[CmdrSanity]

Incidentally, the code names are taken from a Canadian ski resort about 4-5 hours drive north of the MS campus. So if you ever go to Whistler mountain, look out for the blackcomb resort and longhorn saloon.

Re:Thanks MS

[SerpicoWasTaken]

I don't know. Don't people like Intel and Motorola have product strategy maps for their next two or three processor revisions. It doesn't seem like a "marketing" thing. Not to defend MS or anything, just saying I don't think this is something that is not done elsewhere in the business world. I guess I think it is kind of a cheap shot.

Version numbers...

[mech9t8]

Every version of Windows has a version number, and a build number (ie. Windows 2000 is NT Version 5.0 build 2195). Microsoft has just decided they're easier to market with all these other names. "Windows XP" is something new, "Windows 5.1" is just another minor upgrade.

Names like Longhorn are just internal codenames, just like, say, Debian Potato.

Windows 3.0
Windows 3.1
Windows 4.0 = Windows 95
Windows 4.1 = Windows 98
Windows 4.9 = Windows Me

Windows 98 SE was version 4.1 with a higher build number than Windows 98

Windows NT 3.1
Windows NT 3.5
Windows NT 4.0
Windows NT 5.0 = Windows 2000
Windows NT 5.1 = Windows XP

- There will probably be an XP Second Edition, which'll be version 5.1 with a higher build number
- Longhorn will probably be version 5.2. Who knows what'll actually be called - XP wasn't decided on till last spring.
- Blackcomb will probably be version 6.0

Re:P2P?

[Pfhreakaz0id]

Yeah, SQL Server really sucks (NOTE: SARCASM INTENDED).