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Gates Admits Stripped Down Windows Possible
ChristTrekker writes "The Financial Times reports that Bill Gates admitted a stripped-down Windows is possible after all." This kinda contradicts a lot of other
stuff he's been saying. There's a few bits in the article worth a read.
They talked about this on NPR on my way to work this morning. Windows XP Embedded ("used for medical devices," amongst other things) is completely modular and can be customized for specific purposes. Gates admitted that he did not know how this might be adapted to x86 machines.
I think it's clear that XP embedded would not be what "the consumers" want for their desktops; but on the other hand, Microsoft clearly CAN engineer an OS on x86 that is modular and customizable for OEMs, as the sanctions seem to be calling for.
I think the issue is that Microsoft doesn't WANT to expend the time, effort, and MONEY to develop such an OS; not that it isn't possible. They apparently think integration is their only key to stability.
Explain to me, then, all the various Linux distros for desktops that allow you pick and choose? And much of those components are developed by what Microsoft would consider "amateurs?"
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"What Windows is loses any meaning," claimed Mr Gates. He said the proposals were "fantasies" that gave his business rivals "everything they ever dreamed of".
Sure, Microsoft needs to lose some power here, but I hope they don't swing the pendulum too far the other way. Are we really any better off if Sun or Oracle are given the power to choose the direction of Windows? I hope the decision makers stick to the principle of "What's good for the consumers," and not just "What's bad for Microsoft."
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
He is a billionaire they have a seperate constitution, justice system, and security force. I mean come on, 99% of all celebrities are doing probation on a lesser charge than what the state could of prosecuted them with. If you aren't somehow connected to the media or money kiss your ass good bye when you pull shit like this though.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
I wonder if a stripped down version of the Windows OS would yeild better performance with the decreased overhead of the needless features...
In some ways it will, in others it won't. It all depends on how much RAM you have. If you have lots of RAM, you would probably not notice that much of the slowdown the preloading of Internet explorer and such things causes. If you have a less powerful machine, you probably will. The real benefit would be that you won't have to waste disk space having these things installed. Your windows partition could maybe for the first time in some years be less than 1 GB?
Not that HDs are that expensive these days anyway.
The real value on the other hand is that IE, WMP, etc. might not be as much "standard components" as they are today, when not integrated into windows any longer. But still, they would probably be bundled on the installation CD and most people would probably install them anyway.
I wonder if a stripped down version of the Windows OS would yeild better performance with the decreased overhead of the needless features...
That is a trollish statement. Like Windows or not, my Win2K box has not ever gotten a BSOD and only locked up completely (forcing reboot) once in over a year.
--
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In the twilight, unknown"
Wait a second, is there a single slashdot reader who wouldn't agree that writing modular software is a good thing? Is there a single person who passed Computer Science 101 who wouldn't agree that modular software, with clearly defined interfaces isn't easier to debug and maintain?
If Microsoft's software is not modular, it is not for technical reasons. Its monolithic nature is not an attempt to "serve the consumer". The monolithic nature of microsoft software has proven extremely costly to consumers. Gates cites "reasonable business behaviour"? Translation: "Screw the consumer. Hook 'em. Gut 'em. Hang 'em up to dry. And tell them to like it."
Let's examine some of Microsoft's design decisions.
MS-DOS, MS-Windows 3.x, orginal Windows 95, did not initiate a fsck, or its DOS equivalent. How come? I am sure slashdot readers who are old enough have had the same experience that I had back then. Naive computer users who ask for our help, because "they have been hit by a virus". What makes them think they have been hit by a virus? Some of their files have become corrupted, or disappeared. Initiate a scandisk, and what did you find? Dozens or hundreds of file fragments, leftover and never repaired from when Windows crashed on them. How much has all this disk corruption cost consumers? My estimate? At least ten billion dollars.
Or consider macro viruses? People used to ask, "can I get a virus through e-mail?" And we used to be able to tell them "no", unless they chose to open an executable attachment. E-mail macro viruses, Word macro viruses, are only possible due to really stupid design decisions on the part of Microsoft. How costly has that been?
"That is a trollish statement. Like Windows or not, my Win2K box has not ever gotten a BSOD and only locked up completely (forcing reboot) once in over a year."
:)
Except his statement had nothing to do with what you were refuting, he was talking about windows performing better because less gunk was taking up memory/cpu time, you were talking about stability.
totally different issues
Just like it's *possible* to sell a 'modular car' it would be insane
Cars are to some extent modular.
If I buy a Volvo car, I can put on tyres from another manufacturer, or the windscreen, oil filter, spark plugs, paint, in fact you could change the engine if you wanted. I am not forced to use Volvo tyres, or Volvo spark plugs, paint etc.
I have read that in the early days of the industrial revolution, manufacturers used to do things like vary the treading and size of bolts so that it forced you to buy components from them - you couldn't bolt on parts from other manufacturers because their bolts wouldn't match the threads. Eventually, people realised that this was crazy and these days we have standards for virtually everything in engineering.
Software is still at a more primitive stage. Bill Gates just doesn't want all this bolts to be standardized.
So as long as people are willing to accept whatever their OEM have installed for the lifetime of their machine, this is a perfectly acceptable solution.
However, it does seem that they could develop an installer for XP Embedded--the fact that it currently isn't up to the task is hardly an excuse.
~=Keelor
Also companies have (in the past and present) designed screws, nuts, and bolts to use odd shaped heads or slots (philips head screws, torx, etc) so that you had to buy the tools from them. Now is this much different from Microsoft either?
Bill not only wants you to buy the nuts and bolts (word and excel) from him, but the tools also (VB.net, C#.net, etc). If he can get everything sufficently tied together, then you will have no option to install those non-Microsoft wipers on you Microsoft Modular Car (get it MMC). It will be modular, as long as it is a Microsoft module that you are installing. You can't possibly replace the speedometer with the OSX version that looks nicer, nor the fuel injectors with the Linux version that gets better fuel economy, nor can you replace the tires with Java tires so that you can run on roads built by Sun Microsystems, IBM, and many others.
Do you trust your entire life to the folks that want to know what you watch on TV (remember Web-TV)?
I have no sig, does anyone have one to spare?
But the car itself IS sold to you with all the bits. It comes with engine, tires, radio, A/C, transmission, seats, gauges, and so on. You're welcome to strip them out yourself, but the car company certainly won't support that, unless you decide to upgrade with other company parts.
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> Only a monopoly could claim their software is
...oh, I kid...must not troll during hopefully great troll blackout...). But the point is, modularity is something that is great for users once it's completed, but really hinders rapid software deployment. Real-world software engineering is riddled with these comprimises.
> poorly designed without fearing loss of
> customers.
The Linux kernel has made similar comprimises, and Torvalds has admitted as much in debates about monolithic vs. micro kernels. Linux's monolithic design is not as flexible as it could be (when compiled), but the design increases execution speed and ease-of-coding. The HURD was designed to be aggressively modular, with very cool, very fine-grained things you can do with services that would be the exclusive domain of the superuser on other kernels. It was designed this way because the FSF is lead by a visionary, uncomprimising, probably somewhat mad Coder. Linux was designed initially to be a quick fix for GNU (see Torvalds' 1991 post to comp.os.minix announcing Linux -- "just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu"). So the Linux kernel design comprimised modularity for expediency. This was a good thing, just as the continuing work on the HURD is a good thing. They have different goals, and will succeed in different ways.
G-tes, although he probably doesn't realize it, is pointing out the same phenomenon in the codebase of his Spawn. The ol' NT codebase wasn't designed to be modular (to the extent it was, it didn't stay that way long). The non-modularity was for expediency (like Linux) and to promote an inescapable software monoculture (ALSO LIKE LINUX!
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
Who are the dealers in the PC world? Dell, Gateway, HP. In each case, MS mandates that they cannnot make such deals with their customers. There was a time when Dell offered Netscape instead of IE. IBM offers Norton Antivirus, not McAffee scan. But if you don't like it, nothing prevents you from doing so. But to replace IE is to reduce the functionality of explorer.exe!
However, there is so much competition in the auto industry that the quality of new cars has improved greatly over the years. People shopping for cars, now, have a pretty level field to choose from, and they bicker over prices and features. In today's auto market, the consumer has the edge over the salespeople ("You won't come down in price?? Well, I just go across the street.").
... hmmm, that is about it.
How many models of the standard 4-door family mover are there in the U.S.A.: GM has a few, Ford has a few, Chrysler has a few, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Daewoo, VW, BMW, Volvo, Saab, Mercedes, and more I can't remember.
How many models of consumer-grade operating systems are there: Microsoft has a few (>85% share), Apple has a couple (<15% share) ,
Consumer to Microsoft salesperson, "You won't come down in price?? Well, okay, who do I make the check out to?"
Also, no one is forced to buy a new car. A technically-inclined person can go scavenge a junk yard and rebuild a classic. The laws work so that he can get by with older technology, too, with just a few restrictions.
The car-road interface has been standardized well enough, that we don't have to worry about suddenly having to drive on rails or fly on tethers. In software, however, Microsoft wants to own the roads and dictate that only Microsoft tires can achieve traction on those roads. They want us to be under their control.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
As for the law, there was once a time when car dealers could only represent one company. A Buick dealer might also sell Chevys and Cadillacs, but could not sell Fords or Volkswagens or else GM would yank out all it's cars. But back in the 60's (IIRC) GM, Ford, and Chrysler together made more than 90% of all cars sold in the USA, and a court decided that was close enough to a monopoly. They ordered that car dealers be allowed to pick and choose the lines they sold from more than one manufacturer, and now we've got dealers that sell Saturn (GM) and Toyota sedans together with Chevy (GM) and Jeep (Chrysler) trucks. Never mind that the "big three" haven't been so dominant ever since 1973.
As for Microsoft, about six years ago they were in the middle of a case about bundling Explorer with the OS. This must have been about when they CHOSE to change the OS design to make it much harder to separate Explorer from Win 98. It's a problem of their own creation, and they did it when they knew that legally they probably shouldn't.
Let's say someone is caught littering, and the judge sentences him to pick up trash. So he shoots off his toe and asks to be let off of the sentence since it's hard to walk. Would you go for that?
Yes, you can choose what kind of cars you want, where to buy cars, what color you want it and low and behold when you get it home it is still a car no matter who built it.
But *I* for one don't want the computer industry regulated like the car industry. I don't want to be 16 to drive, i don't want my computer prices to jump up because the government body assuming responsibility/liability is having to do crash testing.
The computer industry has excelled beyond anyones imagination. With or without microsoft THINGS HAPPEN.
I don't want DellXP, CompaqXP, MSXP, GatewayXP. I don't want a stripped down car either. I don't want to go to the VW dealer and tell them i want a small block ford engine instead of a vw motor. What is the point?
It isn't about stealing a product and emulating it either. Windows *IS* microsoft's product.
It Isn't a matter of "what choice of windows do you want today" but "What choice of operating system do you want today"
Don't let this choice BS get to your head. The government can't dictate our choice just like microsoft can't, so i don't know what the big deal about stripping down windows is. Windows is CHEAP, Affordable and RUNS JUST FINE. I don't know about you but i HATED The days when i had to buy Stacker for 99 bucks, QEMM for 69.00 bucks and DESQview for 199 bucks just to run my Wildcat BBS program that cost 399 bucks. I'm pretty happy that a 199.00 product does all of that and more, and i'm SORRY, but that *IS* innovation.
Just like my 500.00 coffee table that lifts up with ease and turns into a desk. Its just an ordinary coffee table that costs alot to everyone else but me who knows the innovation behind it, and yes, adding fatures, functionality, dependablility and useability IS INNOVATION.
This isn't about Microsoft Owning the roads, they *DO* own them. You can CHOOSE YOUR OWN GODDAMN ROAD THOUGH. If you don't like taking the toll road then take the free country road.
Just remember you do get what you pay for, and you don't get something for nothing.
Despite all of that cash on hand, Microsoft has never paid one cent to investors in dividends.
Investors determine stock prices based on the return that they receive on the stock. This return is in the form of dividends, that is, money paid to the owners of a stock as a reward for assuming the risk of owning the stock. The reason that Microsoft's stock value is high is that there is an expectation that dividends will be paid in the future. Using the past as a model for the future, it is my conclusion that Microsoft will continue to not pay dividends. Because of that, the value of Microsoft stock should be zero.
"You can't remove IE without crippling Windows!!"
That is complete bullshit and is not comparable to anything Linux/hurd/solaris/... have ever done.
t.