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Windows Services For Unix Now Free Of Charge

Posted by timothy on from the making-it-up-in-volume dept.

pole writes "Version 3.5 of Services for Unix will be free. Previously, it was $99. This article at Information Week has the details. It contains an NFS client and server in addition to POSIX libraries and utilities including pthreads. Aside from the NFS utilities, how does the environment compare to Cygwin?" An anonymous reader adds links to coverage at News.com and at geek.com, writing "The reviews for these tools have been highly favorable. It looks like the next volley has been fired in the struggle between Windows and Linux."

22 of 687 comments (clear)

  1. bass ackwards by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's really "unix services" for "Windows". They can't even get the name right - what else did they screw up at the forge of Mordor?

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    make install -not war

  2. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  3. Good business decision by Dark+Paladin · · Score: 4, Funny
    This is probably a good thing for Microsoft: make it easier to run Unix (aka Posix) apps on their systems. Odds are, they walked into too many meetings like this:

    Salesman: So, that's how much switching to Microsoft Server will cost.

    IT Guy: Yeah, but then there's the development costs of porting over our Unix and Linux stuff over.

    Salesman: Who needs it! We've got IIS!

    IT Guy: Yeah, but we developed our own apps or used some open source stuff -

    Salesman: Agggghhh! We speak not its name!

    IT Guy: Um, right. Anyway, now we'd have to redevelop those for Windows. How much does that Unix thing cost on Microsoft?


    So now the answer is "free". I'm not saying I like Windows servers over Unix-style boxen - but this was a good business choice for MS.

    Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
    --
    52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
  4. Great Acronym! SFU! by slacy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wow, what a great acronym, and I'm quite surprised that they seem to be actually using it externall!

    Anyone who disagrees with microsoft can just SFU! I mean, install SFU from microsoft.com.

    (Just in case somebody missed it, SFU = Shut the F**k Up.)

  5. Windows needs more apps by mattkime · · Score: 4, Funny

    This great news for those windows users out there. It will be surely provide much needed apps for this upstart operating system. Now, whenever someone says, "Windows? But what can I do with it?" you can point out that they can run their favorite unix apps.

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    Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
  6. "Salesman" and "IT Guy" in same conversation? by jlusk4 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Impossible.

    1. Re:"Salesman" and "IT Guy" in same conversation? by debaere · · Score: 3, Funny

      Salesman and IT guy in the same conversation isn't shocking. On the other hand, salesman and IT guy actually communicating with each other is shocking.

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      DOS is dead, and no one cares...
      If there's a Bourne Shell, I'll see you there
  7. Yeah, MS marketing director is clever indeed... by plj · · Score: 4, Funny

    ..as he mentions that "very few of our customers are going to have a pure Unix or pure Windows environment".

    Previously, I used to think that at least half of the MS customers or so would have a pure Unix environment. Thanks for enlightening me, Dennis!

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    “Wait for Hurd if you want something real” –Linus
  8. Hmm... by cperciva · · Score: 4, Funny

    POSIX environment... C compiler... you know, it should be possible to get my depenguinator to work here.

    I'm not sure about being able to write the filesystem image to disk, Windows might not allow that.

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    Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
  9. Re:I have had unix tools for windows for a long ti by Bingo+Foo · · Score: 5, Funny
    one word, cwywin

    Ah, yes. The Welsh-centric fork of Cygwin.

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    taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
  10. Samba won't be popular until... by Jahat · · Score: 5, Funny

    it is ported to Windows. (BTW... Got this from some other post on Slashdot a long time ago)

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    Sola Scriptura Sola Fide Sola Gratia Sola Christus
    1. Re:Samba won't be popular until... by sik0fewl · · Score: 3, Funny

      . . . come to think of it, Notepad SHOULD be replaced

      It already has been. It's called regedit. You can find it in the root of your Windows directory.

      --
      I remember when legal used to mean lawful, now it means some kind of loophole. - Leo Kessler
  11. Re:Great Acronym! SFU! by Dave2+Wickham · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've already heard it as STFU...

    Anyway, it's still better than the Critical Update Notification Tool.

  12. Re:Microsoft motives? by FuzzyBad-Mofo · · Score: 5, Funny

    What do you want them to do?

    Die, dissipate, dissolve, terminate, and ceace function.

  13. Re:Microsoft motives? by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 4, Funny

    What do you want them to do?

    I've got a suggestion, but this is a family forum.

    Chris Mattern

  14. vi? by The+Ape+With+No+Name · · Score: 3, Funny

    Does it have vi? Screw you, Emacs users. Light, powerful, efficient and easy to use, vi is clearly the editor that intelligent programmers use. Written in a much more powerful programming language than the obviously dying Emacs, vi is the editor of editors. I mean, c'mon, imagine Emacs running under CYGWIN on a Win box! That's like running three kludges at one time!

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    Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
  15. MS Conversation by glenstar · · Score: 4, Funny
    SFU PM: Wow! We had 50,000 downloads of SFU the first day.

    BillG: Great! It looks like we have another winner on our hands. People sure do want that Unix stuff. Oh, wait...

    SFU PM: erm...

    BillG: You're fired.

  16. Re:Samba is there but always playing catch up by Patik · · Score: 3, Funny
    Say a windows shop decides to introduce a *n(i|u)x fileserver.
    I bet it would've taken a lot less time for you to write (and for us to read) "Unix/Linux".
  17. Re:Microsoft motives? by wljones · · Score: 3, Funny

    First, for home users of MS-Windows anything, if you are happy with it, enjoy. Now for the nerds, this latest Microsoft offer sounds like combining the reliability of Microsoft software with the user friendly attributes of Unix software. Such a deal!

  18. Re:so lets make this simple by Syberghost · · Score: 5, Funny

    My experience of SFU was that it was much more reliable than Hummingbird's implementation of NFS client.

    Almost anything is more reliable than Hummingbird's NFS.

    Viewing the file in hex and yelling it out across the room to somebody else who types it back in is more reliable than Hummingbird's NFS.

  19. Re:Microsoft motives? by Hiro+Antagonist · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oh, come on, "crisco", "speculum", and "pissed-off iguana" are hardly words that could offend even the most sensible of ears.

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    I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy .sig.
  20. Re:so lets make this simple by styrotech · · Score: 3, Funny

    Viewing the file in hex and yelling it out across the room to somebody else who types it back in is more reliable than Hummingbird's NFS.

    Great! We've been looking for a replacement, does the speed compare favourably too?