More Looks At Far-Off 'Longhorn'

b17bmbr writes "According to eWeek, the first builds are out, with an SDK. The Register notes: 'Microsoft builds leak regularly, Microsoft knows this, and Microsoft knows that the wider the distribution of the software, the faster it's going to spread all over the internet...The timing is impressive for an alpha build of a product that is not scheduled to hit the streets for another two years, and which could quite easily stretch to three.' Methinks this is just vaporware." And Cleverone writes "Several days before PDC 03' attendees will obtain their copy, screenshots of the new build have already made their way to the net. For those inquisitive few, the build stamp is 6.0.4051.0."

Comments

Quick Version Info

[Infernon]

Windows 2000 - Version 5.0
Windows XP - Version 5.1
Longhorn - Version 6.0

So it looks like Longhorn is actually a full version up. Not that I truly understand what any of that means. Anyone have a changelog? :)

Re:Quick Version Info

[Jugalator]

There might be a lot of "under the surface" changes in Longhorn, making Microsoft think it's worth increasing the major version number. I think parts of the OS will be rewritten to use .NET API's using managed code (i.e. more secure code with better bounds checking, etc). They'll introduce the new file system WinFS that's implemented as a layer on top of NTFS and will make working with the files on a system more like working with a database. Whatever that will mean in practice might be unknown at this point. :-) They might also introduce DRM as part of the OS, which could have all sorts of implications to the user.

So there's a lot of known and unknown features planned, and since I haven't tried a Longhorn Alpha, I don't even know exactly what's in it so far. There are of course all sorts of visual changes, and the PDC build have already revealed dozens of surprise changes like an improved Internet Explorer with for example anti-popup support, a new plugin architecture, and a new download manager, etc.

Since Windows has a lot of software integrated, it's hard to keep track of all changes, especially if you're going to do it in detail, this early. Longhorn isn't even in Beta yet.

Re:Quick Version Info

[Jugalator]

I have no idea what is supposed to merit a major version bump in longhorn, though; I guess the new GUI rendering engine?

No :-)

Actually, all Windows releases so far with a bump in the major version number *has* been very major indeed. Compare Windows 3.x to Windows 95 with its total change of desktop metaphors, going from icons representing file "links" only to real files, or Windows NT4 to Windows 2000 with enormous changes in the OS core.

Microsoft may bump a lot of version numbers for their software unnecessary, but I wouldn't say they're doing it with their operating systems. Windows XP only got a 0.1 bump since it is only a revised version of Windows 2000 after all.

Windows Longhorn will feature radical changes in the GUI, maybe making todays' Windows XP look like Windows 3.11 in comparison. It will also offer code restructures to use the .NET API and attempt to be even more secure than Windows 2003 Server by doing this. All .NET API procedures should for example automatically do basic things like bounds checks, which C++ code seldom does.

Windows Longhorn will also feature DRM built-in, which might have large implications for the user as well.

I personally think MS is putting a lot of eggs in one basket with Longhorn. If it's a failure, MS will be hit hard by it, but with the market dominance they have, they're probably sleeping well at night anyway.

Re:Quick Version Info

[bmajik]

1) i'm not touching that at all :)

1a) irregardless isn't a word :)
ok, i'll bite a little. I have a hard time beleiving that everything in linux is a 100% clean room implementation, when the point of linux and the GNU toolchain was to make a freeware clone of UNIX. So, im predisposed to thinking there's some lifted code or designs in linux. On the issue of who that was lifted from (was it sco ?) or if that actually matters (there are only so many ways to write a VFS layer, or grep) i don't really have an opinion, and im not really qualified to have one. in general i think our society is too litigous and there are lots of frivilous lawsuits. On the other hand, the open source phenomenon presents a big challenge for commmercial software vendors in the following sense: according to the Fredrick Brooks classic "the mythical man month", dev time is 1/6th of the wall-clock time in a software engineering effort. The rest comes from design and testing.

Alot of what's happening in the linux space is wholesale cloning of existing software/features, with careful picking and choosing of whats great and what sucks about the peice being cloned. The design is apparent in the functionality of the system to be cloned - so thats time and expense that some proprietary company went through that the linux project is avoiding (potentially). The "testing effort" is simply "does it work as good as the original?" so significant time is saved there as well. In effect, the linux clone/improve effort can clone functionality faster than it can be created originally in many cases, and of course free software has the "side effect" of pulling the market out of commercial software if it truly is an acceptible feature parity clone of the commercial offerings.

So i think part of what SCO is doing is reactionary - they're saying "this can't keep happening - these people are cloning our designs, cloning our interfaces, and we think they're just flat out stealing code in some cases. then they give it away for free and we of course suffer as a result"

i think this is a hard problem that really comes down to wether or not you think intellectual property is a real thing or not. the classic problem with IP is the following:

company X spends 10b over 20 years to develop a drug that effectively treats a human ailment. Once discovered, manufacture of this drug is essentially zero cost per part. The 10b research cost has to be amortized over a certain volume of pills for a reasonable time period to allow return on investment, otherwise the company goes under and brilliant people dont figure out new ways to cure ailments.

at the same time, the drug is just a molecule and may even be easy to produce in your kitchen. why can company X stop you from mixing water, baking soda, and maybe 3 other things in your own home ? what about if you sell your concoction more cheaply than they do ? should they be allowed to stop you ?

Now to throw in a twist - what if company X's molecule is too expensive to buy in 3rd world countries, but those people need this medicine as well?

precisely the same problem exists in software. Someone does all the hard work, then its cloned cheaply by others, and given away for free, typically because people want to
1) do it themselves
or
2) are in developing countries and cant afford US prices for things

(we see lots of linux adoption in developing countries, actually)

anyway, back to the specific SCO issue:
the biggest thing that irritates me is that most slashdot posters beleive 110% that the whole case is completely BS and that SCO is making a frivolous lawsuit. i think there may be something to their case (see above - i have a hard time beleive linux is 100% clean room), but i also don't know what SCO is hoping to get out of all of this.. the cat is out of the bag, so to speak.. linux and other free unixes are "good enough" for many problems.. at least as good as SCO probably ever was.

2) i

IE changes

[Jayde Stargunner]

Noticed in some of the screens that the Longhorn IE has both a pop-up blocker/manager as well as a download manager (ala GetRight).. Kinda interesting developments--although I suppose we'll have to buy Longhorn to get that version of IE. Heh.

-Jayde

Re:How do you assume this? Thats 2007.

[ealar dlanvuli]

I'm at a hospital that intends to move 3000 machines to "some alternative" (basically the options at the moment are linux and linux) inside the next 5 years.

We intend to replace a great deal of our server room as well.

The people who communicate with us will need to support our formats, people with larger contracts will be told to ditch Excel.

This particular hospital used to have a MS site license for Windows + Office on every machine here. It's only a matter of time before even more places do this.

Also, I've seen three companies switch to be mostly Mac based in the past year.