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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?
That's about as likely as Jack Valenti saying, "We actually don't need copyrights to last this long," or Duke Nukem Forever being released.
This
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.
If anyone could ruin the stability of Linux.....it would be Microsoft.
peace be with you.
Will Linus accept the BSOD patch for the kernel?
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
Since this article was already highlighted on OSnews and Newsforge, I am once again forced to repeat myself: :)
Cringely has no idea wtf he is talking about.
Windows XP is NOT a simple windows manager sitting atop MS-DOS.
But it has a DOS prompt!! Yeah, so does Linux if you install an emulator, does that mean Linux runs on MS-DOS?? The DOS prompt in XP is just another program that happens to look like what you used in the 80's before there was Linux
I could go on and on about how XP is based off the NT core which came from VMS and how different the X server is from how MS does its graphical shell, but I'm sure many other posters will put up the same info.
OK: Even ignoring why Cringely was completely wrong from a technical standpoint, here's why he's still wrong even if he were right (does that make sense?)
MS: Has spent a boatload of money copying and building there own versions of what everyone else already had. They are finally starting to get it right, and are making money hand over fist doing it (at least in the OS sphere which is what we are talking about). Moving to a Linux base would be a HUGE investment, and MS software would go back to the stability of Win98 for 3 generations as they worked out all the bugs. As much as the Linux gurus on Slashdot would love to see MS sabotage themselves like that, they aren't that stupid.
Linux: Linux would NOT be helped by having MS grab the Linux kernel and use it as a base for their OS. I also don't give a fsck what you'll say about "but the GPL!!" If MS were to do this they would withouth question weasal around the GPL or hire an army of lawyers to get it thrown out or watered down to the point it wouldn't matter. Meanwhile, they would either not give any code back to the kernel, or more likely would inject code specifically designed to slowly build up an IP claim over the entire kernel.
MS doesn't like Linux but believe me, they are doing it a major favor by not trying to subvert it, and despite how much everyone here loves to bash MS, a whole bunch of the software running on
Linux owes some credit to MS for providing a model to follow, like it or not.
Once again, Cringely is proved to be a whole bag of hot air.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
It doesn't save much even when he concludes that it wouldn't likely happen. This is mainly because the idea of Microsoft moving their windowing system over to Linux has been thought of long ago. And If not also by other people, certainly by myself.
Frankly, I think it would sell all over the place though clearly people would insist on running X with "Microsoft Lindows" anyway... look at people running X with MacOSX.
It's clear that Linux users need a MUCH better windowing environment, but we've been geared to X for so long that another windowing environment is unimaginable... okay maybe not unimaginable, but so far, not projected to be in wide acceptance.
I also fear for what would happen if Microsoft got control of the Linux desktop. Instability is a "feature" I firmly believe is part of their marketting strategy. (Provide patches for a while and then stop offering them while pushing the 'next version.') We would always have problems and would never get fixed.
However, I also see people hackign Windows for Linux by writing compatible libraries and making it free. It is happening with a great deal of stuff in the WINE project... it would just be more complete and more compatible wouldn't it?
Anyway... it's not going to happen. MS would sooner take FreeBSD and put Windows atop of that.
Yeah, Cringely is either incompetent or trolling for readers. A couple of glaring errors are worth pointing out:
Wrong. cmd.exe != DOS Wrong again. explorer.exe != Windows Strike three! There are lots of things to like like about Linux, but these claims are ridiculous.[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
Even today, you can still get to a C: prompt under Windows XP, which means a disk operating system is hiding there no matter what Microsoft wants us to believe.
The command processor has nothing to do with the operating system. This statement displays Mr Cringely's deep ignorance of operating sytems.
Having worked on development of MSDOS,Window 95 and Windows NT, I can state authoratatively that DOS is not the foundation of windows XP (which is really NT with lipstick). Anybody who knows anything about OS's knows this anyway.
Although some of Cringely's comments about the DOS basis of Windows are off-base with regards to modern NT-kernel based versions of windows (the C:\ prompt is there because it has a compatibility layer) the idea that most of what we think of as "Windows" could be ported to a Linux or Unix base is basically correct. Just imagine an officially-sanctioned WINE with its own GUI system and configuration tools...it is not that far from reality.
.NET framework. This strategy makes far more sense, both considering the existing strengths of Windows, and Microsoft's emnity toward open-source software.
But the kernel is neither Windows' biggest problem, nor Linux's greatest asset. By all accounts, the Windows NT kernel is (or at least started out as) a very clean, modular microkernel system. It was built with a POSIX compatibility layer, and actually can host a traditional Unix userspace (and does, if you install the MS "Unix Services" package). On the other hand, Linux is a very straightforward, unexceptional reimplementation of a standard, monolithic Unix kernel, which has become very popular more or less because it works, it is free, and it was there when people needed it. Its novelty is that it allowed for the first complete Free Unix-like system (while *BSD was still in legal limbo). Microsoft could take that kernel, and modify it to run Windows, and neither they, nor we (Linux users), would gain anything...Microsoft would get an operating system more or less like what they have now, except with a pesky kernel under a free-software license, and we would get another version of Windows, which might, with the installation of an X11 server and a raft of libraries, be able to run Linux software, not that anyone would want to.
If Microsoft tries to "embrace and extend" Unix, they probably won't use Linux, or BSD for that matter. Unlike Apple several years ago, they already have a modern kernel. According to another recent Slashdot story, they are already trying to build a new shell environment based on the existing "Unix services" package, and probably running under the
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
specifically, what a premise.
Let me start thinking that way.
You can get to a root prompt in Linux. You can do so in BSD as well. Solaris, also.
Apparently, these are all actually the same thing - they're all running Linux, underneath it all. And because it's that simple, it's just marketing - since the product is free - Solaris is just hyping it up so that people will use CDE.
Lets go further. Also, you can find a brain inside every animal. Cats have brains.
So, deep down, we're all cats, right*?
*Really old, bad movie quote
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Are we really supposed to take someone who says something like this seriously:
"Even today, you can still get to a C: prompt under Windows XP, which means a disk operating system is hiding there no matter what Microsoft wants us to believe."
Clearly the NT kernel is just a big lie, just like NASA never went to the moon. Thank you, Cringely, you have shown me the light!
And what the hell does he mean by "a disk operating system is hiding there"?? Please, someone, give him a non-disk operating system and see how far he gets after all his drives disappear.
Besides, it's not the NT kernel that's the problem, it's all the crap MS has put around it.
My Sig: SEGV
Cringly is not very well informed in his article. He assumes Windows XP/2k ect are still built on top of DOS. Actually, if he'd read Showstoppers he'd know that the NT kernal was written from scratch, by a group of developers from Digital Equipment Co who set up essentially an independent shop within microsoft to make it. This is why NT is far more stable than earlier versions. The NT kernal is very similar to Unix in how it operates, and essentially is just as good. Also, if he'd read the book he'd know that the DOS command prompt is done via emulation, as well as legacy program support. The core of the system remains NT even when the emulator is running. Anyone who's actually used XP or 2k would find that the vast majority of problems are related to the underlying hardware drivers (this is the ONLY reason why Unix is more stable on some systems, because people building Unix servers use very solid hardware) or to the overlying windowing interface.
The C:\ prompt within a window has always been an illusionairy thing. Think about this for a second...
In Windows 3.1 you could run DOS-atop-Windows-atop-DOS... but if you ever tried to run "Win" in that environment, you would get a message that indicated that Windows-atop-DOS-atop-Windows-atop-DOS just wan't going to happen, you're not at a "real" DOS prompt. You didn't have a full-featured version of DOS there, just the interface level.
If you carry that forward to XP, the "DOS" in XP doesn't directly control the low-level stuff anymore. Some nameless, faceless part of Windows does.
DOS-within-Windows is now just an alturnate wacky skin for Windows Explorer. It's just a familiar text-based way to do things, not a low level OS anymore.
"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
Cringley isn't an idiot. You may not agree with what he's saying, you may think that he doesn't understand what an OS is, you may even think that Microsoft would never follow that course, but he isn't an idiot.
He is talking about Microsoft doing _exactly_ the same thing that Apple has done with OSX (use someone else's OS), except with Linux instead of BSD. Five years ago, would anyone have thought that Apple would use someone else's OS to run their UI? Heresy!
Is it going to be as easy as simply porting a windowing system? No Way! Does he understand that? Most certainly.
What he is saying is that Microsoft has demonstrated that it doesn't _need_ to control the underlying OS in order to get everyone to think that they're running the show on the desktop.
He points out the benefits of moving to Linux or even BSD. Would replacing XP/NT/9X as the OS remove MFC .NET, C#, DirectX or any other API? Nope, it would just use the underlying OS differently. In fact, Wine has done a lot of this already...
Would Microsoft ever do it? Doubtful, but then I would have sworn that Apple would never use BSD...
Jason Pollock
"Should The Next Windows Be Built On Linux?"
No because I hate Microsoft and I refuse to see any good that could come from it.
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.
This will NOT happen.
It's a shame to see MS take things it definately knows about and reinvent them poorly. They knew about UNIX crypt passwords, but went ahead and made the LM hash for passwords but neglected the salt value used in UNIX crypt to prevent parallel cracking of the entire password file. They later saw some of thier problems and came up with the NT hash based on UNIX md5 passwords (but using the md4 hash), again neglecting the UNIX salt. I'm a security systems guy, so maybe it just happens that MS only reinvented poorly the stuff I'm knowledgable about. Using off-the-shelf MIT-liscenced (similar to X11 liscence) Kerberos instead of making up their own networking authentication protocols and having to revise them when they realize they designed them poorly.
It was a good idea for them to try and make NT a microkernel OS, but it didn't end up working out. It's a shame they didn't reinvent the filesystem as a unified virtual filesystem with C:, D:, etc. being symbolic links for legacy purposes. Oh well.
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
Because Apple was willing to almost completely drop backwards compatibility. Microsoft's entire monopoly is based on backwards compatibility. If they were to say that the next version of Windows wouldn't be able to run most current programs, you would see their share of the desktop market instantly drop like a rock.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
but explorer.exe is not the windowing layer/api, just like Gnome is not X-Window
Quick and dirty architectural comparisons:
Linux Kernal -> Windows Kernel
sh -> cmd.exe
X server -> GDI.exe
Window Manager -> Explorer.exe
CORBA -> (D)COM
Note these are just quick approximations. My point is that both OS's are reasonably mature and stable (baring spyware, etc.) and there are a lot of areas where both could improve, but porting Windows onto Linux doesn;t make sense for Microsoft today and is a lot more work than Cringly seems to think.
But then this guy has never seemed to know what he is talking about
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
In Windows 3.1 you could run DOS-atop-Windows-atop-DOS... but if you ever tried to run "Win" in that environment, you would get a message that indicated that Windows-atop-DOS-atop-Windows-atop-DOS just wan't going to happen, you're not at a "real" DOS prompt. You didn't have a full-featured version of DOS there, just the interface level.
Actually, it was the "full-featured version of DOS" running in that DOS prompt under Win3.1 and Win9X.
The X86 architecture has 2 main modes of operation: real mode (compatibility with 8086/186 processors -- all PCs to this day boot in this mode) and protected mode.
Under protected mode, it was possible to create something called a Virtual 8086-mode task. This allowed for real mode simulation within a protected mode environment, thus allowing real mode programs to work.
Each V86 session can, for most practical purposes, be made to think it is the only thing running (with no knowledge that it is being virtualized and having various instructions, operations, and interrupts intercepted by the protected mode operating system.)
Getting into protected mode from V86 mode is not possible, hence why Windows wouldn't run in a DOS box. It is also possible for real mode programs running in V86 mode to detect V86 mode by checking the appropriate processor status flag (I'm not sure if the OS can intercept this.)
DPMI (DOS Protected Mode Interface) is what eventually allowed 32-bit DOS programs to run in true real mode or in DOS boxes. In DOS boxes, Windows would be the DPMI server; but in real mode, you'd need an external program to get you into protected mode first -- CWSDPMI, for example.
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.
Also, IIRC, Cringely is not one person but a pseudo-name used by a panel of writers.
;-)
Not exactly. Robert X. Cringely is kind of like the Dread Pirate Roberts: a serial pseudonym. The name was first used in InfoWorld magazine when Dvorak left-- and started losing his mind, if his last couple years' worth of columns are any evidence-- to replace the famous byline. The Robert X. Cringely we're all most familiar with is really Mark C. Stephens; he's the guy who wrote the books and hosted "Triumph of the Nerds" on PBS and who writes "I, Cringely." He was the third Robert X. Cringely to write for InfoWorld, and he wrote for them for 8 years. Since that Cringely's departure-- okay, firing-- from InfoWorld in '95, many others have written columns under that name for the magazine.
The real Robert X. Cringely has been retired for 15 years, and living like a king in Patagonia.
I write in my journal
It's been a long time that I read such completely bogus. I don't want to flame but I have to. Here it goes:
Even today, you can still get to a C: prompt under Windows XP, which means a disk operating system is hiding there no matter what Microsoft wants us to believe.
What a bunch of crap! So there is still a "disk operating system" under Linux because I can open a shell window, too? Man, what are you talking about?
DOS 7.1 brought the FAT32 file system to Win95, not the other way around
So what, FAT32 is a file system, and now - ? What does that say about the operating system? Nothing? Right.
Windows XP is not an operating system. It is a windowing system that sits atop an operating system much as KDE or Gnome sit atop Linux.
What's this guy's definition of an operating system? First, Windows has its OWN KERNEL (microkernel, btw). Second, it has its OWN DEVICE DRIVER and SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE. While I can agree that KDE/Gnome do a fairly large and important part of the work that non-Linux OSes provide as a whole package, Windows is doing ALL THE STUFF an OS does with *no* underlying foreign kernel or architecture.
The history of DR-DOS is especially interesting because it went through so many hands. [....]
Blah, blah, blah... where's all that DOS talk supposed to get us? Does it really make sense to talk about legacy crap like that? And if so, should we really begin to talk about text-mode-only Linux, from back in the days, also? What about legacy mainframe interfaces? Why? To prove the point that DOS is underlying of Windows just as Linux is the underlying architecture to KDE? WTF???
Now back to Microsoft putting Windows on top of Linux. Linux is better, faster, stronger than whatever is living underneath XP now, right? Performance would improve.
Give me a break here! Driver support for Windows often leads to much better performance (because PC manufacturers really cater to the Windows monopoly).
Apple has made a virtue of doing exactly this with MacOS-X, heralding its Mach kernel and BSD roots. Couldn't Microsoft do the same?
MacOS-X is a completely new system, it has a legacy-app compatibility layer (like Wine is for Linux) but otherwise it's a complete new system. And, they HAD to do it, because OS 9 and below where such utter crap (from a purely technical point of view, mind you). If MS where to switch (for whatever stupid reasons) to a *nix kernel like BSD or Linux they would have to provide a complete legacy Windows version inside the new system just to provide backwards-compatibility. And boy would *that* be slow! And, again, why??? It would mean to develop *LOADS* of new device drivers and APIs - for what?
I could go on like this forever. Articles like that make me want to puke. It would be suicide for MS if they did something like that, especially now, the first time they have a workable OS with Win2000/XP. Why oh why?
OK, I asked for it. Bomb me, I don't really care. Cringely articles I actually liked them in the past, but what the fuck is this load of crap supposed to be?