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Windows Services For Unix Now Free Of Charge
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."
Can you say, "embrace and extend?"
What a fantastic set of tools for people who are migrating thier windows boxes to a Linux/Unix envirornment. Glad they finally saw the light of day and are working to join us.
The idea is obviously to encourage migration from Unix to Windows, but it can just as easily be used to encourage migration in the other direction.
It is to be hoped that such opportunities are taken up by people wishing to get the out of MS lock in in a gradual manner.
An infinite number of monkeys will eventually come up with the complete works of
We are really starting to see the results of constant economic pressure in Microsoft. Once a monopoly has real competition - it is forced to either *gasp* innovate or lower prices! I think in the coming years, All computer users will benefit from Linux - even if they never use it. Windows users will see lower prices and a somewhat friendlier Beast, and Mac users are already getting a ton of great open source product integreted into OS X.
Overall, services for unix is good. It provides many of the common unix utilities, and it integrates them into the shell [even just cmd] very well. Much better, and 'cleaner' than cygwin. Cygwin has *many* more tools though, and they work 'well enough'.
In my experience, using the two together [having SFU's directory in the path before cygwin's] gives you the best of both releases.
Why does Microsoft want to support Unix/Linux applications on Windows? It does not seem to make sense. Every deployment of a portable application on Windows creates an opportunity for moving to Linux at a later stage (vis. OpenOffice).
Presumably the "Unix" services will include extensions that make the migration a one-way affair. Presumably also Microsoft have some killer Unix/Linux applications in mind that they want/need to be able run on Windows. Apache? Hmmm...
Presumably also the goal is to turn Windows into something closer to what corporate IT centers actually want.
It reminds me a lot of IBM's drive to include Unix-like features in OS/370. An obvious thing, to make one's OS POSIX-compliant. But all POSIX compliancy drives seem to lead to Linux.
So... the very first thing I thought when I first heard about this, and the thing I still think today is that this is the first step in the direction of a Microsoft-branded Linux distribution.
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how does the environment compare to Cygwin?
One is licensed under GPL, and the other isn't....
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ah but i use linux because it is simple. hard to learn, simple to use. i quite find windows simple to learn, hard to use, and i fancy the elegance of plain text everything that i get with my linux server.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
They need to start offering "Windows Services for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000", because this is where a lot of their customers hopped off the upgrade bus.
C'mon, raise your hands, how many of you are still administering a pair of Windows NT 4.0 domain controllers because Active Directory was overkill for your single-site 100 employee company? I know I am.
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First it was OpenNT from a comapny called Softway Systems which provided a fully POSIX-compliant subsystem replacement for NT.
Later, Softway renamed it to Interix, and shortly after that Softway was bought out by Microsoft. At that time, the guts of Interix were used to make the 'Services for Unix'.
"The real driver behind this [pricing] change is this interoperability issue," Oldroyd says. "We want Windows to be the best platform for interoperability."
Since when? Does this mean Windows Whatever'sNext will be able to read Mac and ext2 floppy disks? Does this mean their APIs and protocals will be more open to allow for better communication and cooperation with other platforms?
Or does this mean "We don't want Windows apps kicked out of Unix dominated businesses, and thus begin a general migration away from Microsoft software?"
Or is this a very clever move to get Unix houses to set up one Windows box with this on it in order to be able to interface with the outside world better, and thus give them some targets for the marketing department?
Monopolies aren't interested in interoperability - they're usually out to destroy it. Look this gift horse in the mouth very carefully - Microsoft is not trustworthy and anything they say or do is suspect. This could wind up being just a nice candy piece tossed to the Unix world, but I am forced to wonder what Microsoft is getting from it, and in what situations a $99 fee would stop someone where free is a go-ahead price. Not any big shops, that's for sure. Remember, with any Microsoft move the first rule is to ask what they are expecting to get out of it.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
Say a windows shop decides to introduce a *n(i|u)x fileserver. With samba they gotta make sure that any new windows version can talk to samba. Sure new windows versions don't appear every year but still often enough for it to be a concern. Especially with License 6.0 where you pay for the upgrade of windows anyway.
Now if the new windows can just talk for free to the nfs on the unix machine. Hmm, no longer an obstacle to upgrading. Then again no obstacle to using a unix machine either.
Mmmm, I think this may be a case were MS may neither lose nor win.
As for making it free. Did some NFS for windows maker piss of Bill Gates? If this is a good nfs and not one of ms'es standard embrace and break jobs then they are all out of business.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
They are a shady company that isn't above immoral behavior to get ahead.
That is why this seemly good gesture is being scrutinized.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I have 3 windoze boxes on my network atm. My daughter has one, my wife the other - both their primary work/play stations, and I have a juiced up P4 as my game box (that is all it does - the only thing running on it is 'systray', and whatever game I happen to be playing, most likely WWIIonline)
I have 3 other machines that are all Linux machines (Redhat - soon to be Debian file server, Debian workstation, and a Slackware network analysis machine).
I've played with Cygwin, Hummingbird etc. over the years - and found the emulation of the unix environment Kludgey, and not transparent enough for my tastes.
Basically I wanted a bash compliant shell that was transparent enough to run the standard set of unix CLI tools (ls, ps, grep, df etc...) - but also allow me to kick off native windows and dos applications without switching modes of operation (i.e. type in the path and have it run the application). I did not need to be able to compile binaries - my main purpose for this tool would be to write utility scripts for system administration on the boxes. I wouldn't need remote access (although I might implement that as a seperate capability with freely available tools if needed - outside the scope of my project).
Then a thought hit me - why not implement this in python? I already have python loaded on most of my windows machines - why not make it universal? Python would serve as the abstraction layer I needed - and provide a built-in scripting capability to boot. All of the unix tools will be implemented in python either as built-ins or as seperate '.py' scripts.
Additional functionality - such as 'crontabs' would need to be implemented, as well (haven't worked out the details of that yet).
Ideally, you would drop python and this package on the windows box -- and presto! Instant CLI... And the nice thing about it is that it would be using native windows APIs - so would be faster than some of the emulators that attempt to be a complete source compliant emulation environment.
I haven't seen any drawbacks, yet. The cron functionality might be a bit of an issue - but it doesn't look insurmountable.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Not exactly. It is to migrate Unix users to Windows. (i.e. proprietary hardware to x86) It is to prevent them from migrating from Unix to Linux. They have finally resigned themselves to the fact that *nix is valuable: "This is really about the interoperability," said Dennis Oldroyd, the marketing director for Microsoft's Windows Server Group. "Very few of our customers are going to have a pure Unix or pure Windows environment...
Did you ever think 5 years ago that Microsoft would ever admit that their users would have anything but a pure Windows environment? And you missed my veiled reference when I said they will embrace it. They will embrace it - then extend it. That is their M.O.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Microsoft is reminding me of a heroin dealer more and more.
.Nyet. I can guarantee that it will not be that 3 years from now. (Or it will not be compatible.) They have to have something to keep you buying the latest version. Developers get led by the nose just like anyone else in the Windows world.
"The first one is free."
I suggest that anyone who is planning on moving apps to Microsoft check on how much all those additional licenses will cost you. Microsoft is the master of the hidden cost. "Client Access Licenses" for every service you want to use eventually adds up to a big chunk of change.
And then there is the shifting nature of development in the Windows world. Every year or two it is a different set of prefered developer technologies that you are expected to use. This year it is
Anyone who ports applications over to Windows either has a fool for a client or is a fool himself.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."