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Should The Next Windows Be Built On Linux?
scrm writes "The next version of Windows should be built on top of Linux, according to this article by Robert Cringely of PBS." If Microsoft wanted to, they could be the world's largest vendor of Free software .. couldn't they?
No, but it should be built on a BSDish *nix ala OS X. Heck, MS could even use Darwin - wouldn't that be an interesting turn of events!
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
GPL licensing is anathema to them, but they seem to enjoy using BSD licensing....
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
Well if i was calling the shots i'd set MS developers to write an alternative to X, perhaps in opengl or directx, that had all the same interfaces as QT and GTK and Motif so existing apps could be recompiled. A really fast graphical subsystem (instead of X) running on a Linux base, would make for an excellent and powerful platform, suitable for games aswell as general work.
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The reason that "new" Windows releases still have a MS-DOS command line is backwards compatiblity. (And force of habit, by now.) Linux doesn't automatically offer that advantage (though the DOS emulators that run under Linux were useful to me in the mid-90's, and I'm sure they still exist now.)
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Cringly seems to misunderstand something...
Apple released Darwin under the APSL out of the goodness of their hearts (and their PR department, I'm sure). They don't have any restriction against using Darwin source inside their closed source components, like Aqua. I think this means that there are certain kinds of linking that you're allowed to do with BSD code that you aren't allowed to do with GPL code, if you're going to keep your IP proprietary. So Apple may not have been able to do what they did had they used the Linux kernel. For example, wasn't there a recent flap over Linus changing the name of some kind of trap to GPL_ONLY?
I guess Microsoft could make this ok by GPLing anything that linked in that manner to the kernel, but it's definitely something that would have to be a consideration were this ever to occur.
Ooooh. This would be an excellent way for them to embrace and extend, wouldn't it? Couldn't they release a Linux variant that was practically useless without their proprietary components? They wouldn't have to do that at first, but they might be able to work up to it...
Iduno. Just talking.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Okay, this would be nice if Microsoft was purely interested in developing a great consumer OS. Unfortunately, they're not. They are only interested in their bottom line (hey, this is capitalism!). To this end, they want to remain a monopoly and have their software on everyone's computer. Which is fair enough.
.NET server (which will Win2004 or something, now), all of their .NET software, LongHorn and the next SQL Server under heavy development. I'm sure they'd rather continue working on software they know will rake in billions of dollars than start from scratch writing a UI for Linux.
... hardly a good idea, giving competitors a few years to catch up in the software stakes. Or they could drastically improve WINE and run their unported Windows software. But what would be the point of moving to Linux and using it to run Windows programs through an emulator? I doubt Microsoft would even consider this option, especially as WINE is GPL, so they'd have to start from scratch.
There are several problems stopping MS from using Linux:
1) They have
2) Remember all the FUD about the GPL and Linux? Well, Microsoft probably doesn't feel like doing a three-point-turn and adopting Linux and proclaiming it as the underlying foundation to Windows. And I doubt they'll use Linux and just remain silent about the presence of Linux.
3) If they use Linux, they will probably want to extend some of the kernel, or alter parts of it. But it's GPL!! Now, they can dynamically link to GPLed software and that's okay, but if they want to make any alterations, they hve to distribute them. Now, that might actually make a valid busines plan, but it isn't an option as far as Microsoft is concerned. They don't want anyone seeing any source, if they can help it. The past is evidenc.
4) This would mean a re-write of either ALL of their software - Office, IE, VisualStudio, BackOffice
Basically, what it boils down to is: compatability with existing and under-development software, and a desire to keep the Windows platform closed to everyone outside of Microsoft.
Also, MS wants to integrate DRM into the OS. And they definitely don't want anyone getting their hands on the code. So they'd be rather worried about how to distribute the DRM without any legal issues concerning the GPL. They'd have to keep the DRM right away from the core of the OS, which is where they appear to want it to be. (Okay, this is a rather flaky reason, but it may be a small factor).
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Who's got the whiteout?
Even by pirating Windows you are supporting it. Linux can't begin to gain support as a platform until it is widely used. We need to gain market share, please support Linux by throwing away your illegal copy(s) of Windows!
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Aborted IBM/MS OS >> Windows NT >> Windows 2000 >> Windows XP.
DOS >> Windows 1.0 >> Windows 2.0 >> Windows 3.1 >> Windows 95 >> Windows 98 >> Windows Millenium
Does Cringely even know what he's talking about if can't even get this timeline straight?
XP actually ships with both cmd.exe and command.com. (command.com works via emulation of the DOS calls, of course, so yes, he's an idiot.)
The cake is a pie
"Yeah, Cringely is either incompetent or trolling for readers."
Yes he is, but he's just one person. What really saddens me is how pervasive this kind of thinking is. People who genuinely believe XP is based on DOS are a real threat to getting intelligent users to migrate.
When I was younger, I was originally turned off by the Mac platform because of all the ignorant users. It wasn't uncommon to hear them condescendingly say that Windows is based on DOS and Macs do true multitasking etc. And there I was, sitting in front of a box running a *preemptively* multitasking kernel (NT 4.0 at the time), thinking "there's no way I want to associate myself with these retards".
When I grew up, I realized how stupid I'd been and acknowledged that I didn't really hate Macs, but their users. Today I might even consider buying one because of OSX, but my earlier feelings show just how much a platform can be hurt by bigoted users.
My Sig: SEGV
MS could only survive in such a mythical model if they concentrated on being a service oriented organization and/or relying on applications such as Office. Why would they want to do this when their business model works perfectly well now? Sure their stuff crashes, is a crackers dream and is always about 5 years behind the *nix world with functionality (but they always have more "features"). However their marketing and legal methods have produced what their lack of engineering and innovation have not, so why change?
You're wrong. VMS and UNIX appeared at about the same time, but are very different beasts. Arguably, VMS was better than UNIX, but UNIX became dominant as a result of BSD.
Why would microsoft LIMIT themselves by using a kernal that has licensing LIMITATIONS, which BSD doesnt. Much less the fact that BSD has a far superiour kernal than linux.
In some respects he's right, but accidentally (a stopped clock is right twice a day), in that Windows is built on top of another operating system, in this case, NT. But to transition to another base there are three questions that would have to be answered:
Is it possible? Not without a lot of modification to Linux. NT is not UNIX and has a number of fundamentally different idioms; while Win32 abstracts a lot of this, it still pokes through in a few places. Even if Microsoft implemented features in the Linux kernel necessary, they'd still be forced to deprecate half the API and force developers to rewrite their applications to take full advantage of the new architecture. And if they rewrote Linux enough to make this unnecessary, it wouldn't be Linux anymore - it'd be an NT rewrite.
Would it be better? Cringley simply assumes that Linux is faster, more stable, etc... than NT. Windows is notorious for being unstable, although most of that reputation is due to the Win9x line. Win2K/XP have been known to crash on occasion, but unless you're using some seriously broken hardware, or have fucked its internals up a lot, it doesn't crash that often, and even then the vast majority of crashes are due to the Win32 layer, not NT itself. NT has a stronger security model, is realtime and fully reentrant. In short, the problems with Windows 2000/XP are not the fault of NT, but Win32 itself. Exactly how would porting Win32 to Linux solve these problem?
Would it be economic? The marginal benefit of porting to Linux would be minimal, and at great expense. I can't see how Microsoft would justify it.
Cringley suggested something that is fundamentally highly technical without understanding the real issues involved, which was stupid. This is particularly ironic when you consider the section of his site saying that people should listen to him since he knows what he's talking about. Once again this simply proves that he's nothing more than a digital snake-oil salesman - under the guise of holding an expert opinion, he tells people what they want to hear in exchange for ratings.
A bunch of folks have already started working on xpde. It aims to be a "transitional" window manager to give people an easier time moving to Linux from from Windows. It's basically a Windows look-alike, but instead of being the end-all like the Microsoft idea, it's meant to give people something that simply looks like windows, so they can get past desktop-shock.
"It's clear that Linux users need a MUCH better windowing environment, but we've been geared to X for so long..."
The problem isn't X. Enlightenment could be arguably more beautiful than Apple's latest offerings, if you had the right talent doing the skinning. (Which E had in droves.)
Quake 3 runs fine in X. KDE runs fine in X. Gnome runs fine in X. Blackbox runs fine in X.
I see no reason to replace X. The real problem of X lies not with X itself, but the windowmanagers and desktop environments availible for it.
Blackbox is sleek and ultra fast, but minimalistic. There aren't really any 'Blackbox' apps, so everything looks ugly when merged together.
Gnome, to me, just looks ugly. I can't stand the Gtk widgets. That's just me, however.
KDE is more pleasing to the eye as far as I'm concerned, but I dislike having to install a group of programs just to get the one program out of a 'package' that I want.
Add in the real problems now - the fact that you need to have a variety of extranneous libraries installed if you want compatability between Gnome and KDE. The fact that most windowmanagers these days are static in the sense that they're not configurable to any great extent.
I want a bloody windowmanager that can look like something totally different then the 'default' setting. I want something a newbie can use, yet is still suitable for an advanced user.
I want install options, damnit! I want to tell it if I want my desktop littered with useless icons, or that I'd rather set up my damnable menus myself!
By the Gods, I want programs I run to look like they belong on the freakin' desktop. (Microsoft can somehow do this, and we can't?)
The above will never happen. Why? Freedom of choice. Any person can just walk up and say, "Screw this, I'm gonna use Foo toolkit instead." and the game's over.
Variety, choice, and the like is good for some things. It's great for food. It's great for culture. It's great for plots in movies and books, and it's great for music.
It really sucks ass for making a consolidated desktop standard, because choice is at odds with that kind of unity.
Hitting "MS-DOS Prompt" and getting bash would be sweet though. :-)
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
If for some mysterious, magical reason Windows would be built on Linux, I think it'd be a Bad Thing, not for any technological reason though, but for economical reason.
A healthy capitalist system requires a diverse eco-system, in this case, various technologies to compete, something like this would just tip the balance too much on one side. The ideal situation is that you have multiple operating systems with roughly equal market share, so they compete against each other to gain more market shares, but ideally, they only temporarily gain a lead.
I'm pretty certain the open-source movement generally agrees that different approaches to one problem, is a good thing, like KDE, Gnome, Window Maker, BlackBox, etc. No window manager should ever completely dominate the others, because then it stifles improvement.
*puts on an absestos suit* I wonder how much I'll be flamed this time for posting...
More and more junk has been going into the kernel ever since. The multimedia codecs have moved into the Win2000/XP kernel, for example. Start coding your viruses now.
I always had a suspision that underneath it all, Windows (NT especially) was running atop of some bastardized form of Unix. Think about it.
H ivelist
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What was there 30+ years ago but Unix? Isn't it the grandfather of all anyways? Try this:
-Open the management console in Windows 2000 (the one called "Manage" when you right-click My Computer).
-Select "System Information", expand the "Software Environment" folder and select "Loaded Modules".
In pre-SP1 builds of Win2K the dates on some of the DLLs in this folder were in the 1970's. How can that be? Windows wasn't even around in the 70's! Isn't it possible the kernel is already based on Unix and 'Windows' is just another abstraction layer? It sure would account for the mediocre performance (added overhead).
And some of the hardware names in the registry are Unix-like. Check:
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\
You can see the OS locates volumes the same way Unix does. For example, the location of Registry file \REGISTRY\MACHINE\SAM is:
\Device\HarddiskVolume1\WINNT\System32\Config\S
So what if the '/' is a '\'? It's the same thing right?
After all...
"...The greatest trick the devil ever made was convincing the world he didn't exist..."
I know, corny one...;)
"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."...Tyler Durden
he's referring to the crappy applications that run on top of Linux, obviously. I've experienced the same thing and it pisses me off. Every three months I try the latest Red Hat, Mandrake, and Lycoris.
Yes, I'm a geek with waaaay too much time on my hands, but I shouldn't be beta testing applications that are marked stable for crying out loud. KDE should be labelled "alpha 0.3.1" by commercial standards.
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This is ridiculous. MS persists to achieve its goals, achieve them amidst years of laughter and jokes from Mr Big Iron. Its a bit late Linux. I'm sure you'll mature, but you need the apps. Then again perhaps this article just proves what I've said before. Linux just turns more into windows with every so called improvement. Why build what already exists.
Now before the Linux purists get started up and start modding me as flamebait - I use both Linux and FreeBSD (Linux since 96, BSD since 2000) and although I'm partial to FreeBSD myself, I have nothing serious against either one...
Parts of Windows have used BSD derived code in the past, such as the TCP/IP stack (which may have since been rewritten), and MS is a lot friendlier to FreeBSD than linux (C# anyone?).
Barring legalities, the whole FreeBSD vs Linux argument is a matter of personal preference at the moment for most people. So Linux does better SMP at the moment? How many desktop users have SMP desktop machines out there? Amongst the *geeks* maybe 10%. I've run both extensively and as far as performance goes, there's not enough in it to bicker about.
Again, the BSD license is a lot more compatible with MS - they can base Windows 2008 on xBSD and not have to open the source up at all if they like!
smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
This article has almost no validity. When you use windows, you get a feeling of reliability and an *speed*. I'm writing an audio application that has very tight time-performance constraints, and I'm finding MFC's threads and gui widgets to be by far the quickest over qt. Why? its native. Don't flame me about qt not being linux. if you do you've missed the point.
The point IS that MFC is native. N-A-T-I-V-E. In the windows sense that means its going to deal with the K-E-R-N-E-L better, and anything else that has to do with the windows platform.
Windows XP is not just a windowing system. It is more complete than linux. I don't like XP for various reasons, but that doesn't change how a business makes decisions. point is, if this all this was true windows WOULD be, how was that? "kissing the ring of linux?"
-P
NT, as a project, started out as "OS/2 version 3". Microsoft and IBM worked together on OS/2 version 1, and planned to split their resources so that IBM would create a version two, that was fully thirty two bit (wouldn't run on the much maligned 80286 and so wouldn't need the kinds of grafts and fixes running on that chip required), and Microsoft would concentrate on producing version three, a complete rewrite that would make use of the latest ideas in operating system design, be secure, genuinely multiuser, run on non-Intel architectures, etc.
When IBM and Microsoft had their spat, the projects continued, but without Microsoft seeing any need to make the "next generation" OS have anything to do with OS/2 at all. Compatability requirements were dropped to just the command line environment, the operating system was renamed (choose your own favourate urban legend, and about the only real sign that the operating systems were related was that the very first version, 3.1 (yeah, 3.1 - I could be cynical and suggest it's because Microsoft figured they never got anything decent out the door until "version 3" so they might as well jump the line... but I believe the real reason was that they wanted the version numbers to match those of the DOS/Windows line, NT had a Windows 3.1 compatable subsystem after all) could optionally be installed on an HPFS partition - HPFS being the OS/2 file system. This feature was dropped from later versions (I'm trying to remember that far back, but I think one issue was that NTFS wasn't implemented until 3.5 or 3.51 or something. Can anyone help me here?)
Unfortunately, this story has been misunderstood by a lot of people to mean "NT is just a version of OS/2". It isn't. It owes its history to OS/2, and maybe if OS/2 hadn't happened, Microsoft would be migrating its customers to "Xenix Windows". But that doesn't make it the same code and it isn't.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
How about on the GNU/Hurd? They could make some Win32, OS/2 modules and work it in over an architecture that's going to try and be compatible with a horde of *nixes.
But then the question is: if a company makes a proprietary component on the Hurd, would they have to release the source as per the GPL?
What is music when you despise all sound?
WTF? Slashdot was never this lame... I've been forced to browse at +5 and I've seen a bazillion posts explaining how smart the poster is that he knows that cmd.exe is not DOS, and how Cringely is by comparison.
If an explanation of why cmd.exe is not DOS +5 interesting gets modded +5, then there's too many mod points floating around. That's what you get when you mod karma whores +5.
This is NOT meant to be a troll. Slashdot used to be better than this.
Blearf. Blearf, I say.