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Miguel de Icaza on Longhorn
An anonymous reader writes "In Miguel de Icaza's latest blog entry the Mono project leader discusses the threat Longhorn's new technologies and frameworks pose to Linux and open source. He also directs users to this recent USENET post about the goals of Mozilla, which is a very interesting read.
Originally seen on OSnews." Mmmm...Miguel smart. Seriously, good commentary - and ripe for discussion/flame wars.
Having something similar to the Microsoft platform would encourage developers to develop cross-platform. If a usable subset is developed on mono, the restriction to that subset is the price for a cross-platform application - better than a reimplementation.
What do you mean 'wasting time'?
His post is all about getting something working out of the door first. The point is defining what you need to do and how to go about doing it. Someone has to mull all of this over, privately and publicly, and Miguel's one of the ones doing this.
Good for him.
(Did I troll feed? Sorry)
I'm all for Mono, software should be cross platform, and and it would be nice to see this succeed where Java unfortunately didn't.
The success or failure of Linux has nothing to do with
Yes developers like
It's not mainstream like Java. I think Mono is good for Linux as a technology but I think this discussing Longhorn as if its some big threat is silly. Longhorn will have nothing over Linux, it will almost obviously be less secure than Linux, it will almost for sure have more game and driver support. The last thing I'm sure of is it will cost more.
There's no reason for me or anyone else to buy Longhorn EVER. So even if somehow Longhorn is great software, no one really cares at this point because most of the PC sales are in markets where price is everything and where Microsoft has little to no influence. In fact most people who are buying new PCs will pirate Longhorn or whatever Microsoft has out.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Microsoft's threat to the Linux community will not be raised by Longhorn. I doubt that Microsoft's newest OS will have anything drastically new that the Linux community does not already have, or that can easily be added.
It's not a clone, it's an evironment that allows portable code. That is one of the points of .NET; with a written VM, the code can run on anything. Like Java, except Microsoft isn't writing the VM's for other platforms, it's down to the users, hence Miguel.
> There's no reason for me or anyone else to buy Longhorn EVER
Just as there was no reason to buy Windows XP. But still, many people did it. And new computers come with Windows XP, so there is no easy way to avoid it.
Especially when the first applications are written that only run on that version of Windows. (Either XP or Longhorn.)
If the OS blocked the user from installing other software that would be one thing, but they don't and you can install whatever you want to.
And just how many people do that? If you want a clue, look at the adoption of Opera, and especially Mozilla (which doesn't have the cost barrier Opera hase) against IE. Despite the fact that IE is a security-hole-ridden pile of outdated junk and Opera and Mozilla beat it hands-down on features and standards compliance, huge numbers of people still use IE. Why? Because it came with the computer and they either don't know there are alternatives, don't want to know or aren't allowed to use them because they "aren't supported".
That was quite an interesting read. While I don't totally agree with every point, the gist of the blog is right on target. I think one of the keys to Linux fighting off such threats is to get better cohesion between GNU projects, outside the Linux distro. This weekend I went to install some GNU software on my WinXP Pro laptop. I get to the download page, and ooops! I also need to install 3 other GNU projects just to get the software I want to work. Then I get to one of the other projects, and ooops! I have to install another program to get it to work. To install one app, I had to install 4 others, which meant a lot of navigation and downloading. No sweat. I am a coder; I can do this. But it did take extra time. I started wondering why these were not all packaged together, or why the installer could not simply detect they were not there and install the needed apps. This is one advantage MS has over many GNU projects and the Linux community. They are one company, and can enforce product compliance, etc. The point I am leading to is this: if the GNU community wants to beat MS in the long run they need to make sure more of their apps can easily install on MS boxes without having any knowledge of programming, IT, etc. Once you get people using this software, the switch to using this software on Linux will be much easier. Open Office is a great example of this. I know most GNU projects compile on Windows (or will with some modifications) but it has to be easier for the Windows user to get said applications.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
If Miguel thinks that Longhorn is such a threat because it will incorporate the .NET framework, will he come out an admit the truth: that spending all that time and effort on Mono was a mistake and a waste? Trying to reinvent .NET for Unix/Linux never made any sense to me, since the components in .NET that people really want aren't available on anything but Windows. Perhaps this is a shift in his POV as a result of Ximian now being part of Novell, and they are now aiming their sights at trying to dent MS's lock on desktop and market share in the server arena. But no, he sees Mono as part of the potential answer to Schlonghorn-- don't you get it Miguel? .NET was an "embrace, extend, extinguish the competition" move to do Java one better. What makes you think that sticking with Mono will work when MS might well modify the .NET framework by the time Longhorn comes out so as to make it unusable by anything but Windows? Better to start making your own framework now instead of waiting around to see what MS will do.
Always look on the briight side of life! (whistle, whistle)
Mono will fail along with .Net, the technology is good but depending on Microsoft is bad.
.Net or it dies.
.Net .Net is a good technology, that is all it is. XUL is good too, so is QT.
Unless Mono seperates itself from Microsoft completely as a stand alone replacement technology, I don't see a use for it to even exist. Mono must be better than Microsofts
Also I wouldnt give up on Java just yet, with the embedded market picking up steam Java has a bright future, brighter than
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Despite the fact that IE is a security-hole-ridden pile of outdated junk and Opera and Mozilla beat it hands-down on features and standards compliance, huge numbers of people still use IE. Why? Because it came with the computer and they either don't know there are alternatives, don't want to know or aren't allowed to use them because they "aren't supported".
And because webmasters, especially those using Windows Media, are too stupid to embed multimedia in a way that mozilla can handle (i.e. no ActiveX, dummies). Especially big commercial sites with loadsacash budgets tend to fuck this up, whereas joe schmoe geocities sites tend to actually work (before their bandwidth limit is reached).
Most "IE-only" sites (that don't use javascript to kick you out) work perfectly in mozilla, mostly the windows(multi)media/plugin infested sites suck ass.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
For example, why is everyone trying to get 2D vector icons when it's obvious 3D or even 4D (fourth dimension is time) icons are the way to go? Why on earth would 3D or 4D icons be the way to go? It's a simple picture that reperesents an application or idea. The simpler the better. Nobody cares if their word processor icon has phong hilights and the like.
From Miguel's blog The sandboxed execution in .NET [1] means that you can visit any web site and run local rich applications as oppposed to web applications without fearing about your data security: spyware, trojans and what have you.
That's true...if Microsoft can get it right. But as in any complex software system, there will be bugs, and considering the scope of Microsoft's deployment base, it could be disastrous. I do not think Microsoft makes worse code than anybody else, it's simply that updating their massive install base is very difficult once bugs are found. Also, the majority of Windows desktop users make poor systems administrators, there will always be bugs and crackers that exploit them. Sad, but true.
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
I'm all for Mono, software should be cross platform, and and it would be nice to see this succeed where Java unfortunately didn't.
.Net/Mono, C et al will be for the overseeable future. (Dont give me the "C is portable too" crap, just today I found differences in the behaviour of strtok between platforms, not to speak of "compile everywhere").
.Net", hopefully they will interoperate more or less seamlessly, something that there is already work in progress on in more than one place.
Its always interesting to see people dismiss java as a failure out of hand with no real arguments for it. Did it fail? Depends on your point of view. Is java cross-platform? Most certainly is! And will continue to be so to a bigger extent than
Is java a failure on the client? Well, as far as circulation goes, probably, but that has three main reasons:
1. Higher learning curve, VB will always be easier to learn.
2. Old myths die hard: yes, Java was slow and java interfaces where ugly and clunky. 5 years ago! Newsflash, Java has moved forward in great leaps since the days of Java 1.1
3. Applets are mostly useless. But: Java != Applets!
Java is a great success just about everywhere else BUT on the desktop computer though, there are millions of java-enabled handsets, there are tens of thousands of java server deployments etc etc.
But.. Hopefully in the future I wont have to choose "java or
You're deceiving yourself if you think XUL can do it. Microsoft's new technologies WILL be out there, and they WILL succeed. If you accept that, you can be smarter about things. Let's get interoperable so we can compete - THEN we can extend into a new arena.
Miguel "gets it." The future of the web is seamless, safe perfectly integrated rapid application delivery. Imagine delivering an app via website that used native widgets and looked and felt like part of your OS, all while safely sandboxed. It's gonna happen come the Longhorn./NET heydey.
Many fanboys bitch and moan that Miguel laps up the Microsoft swill and ensures their success, but I'd argue it's the converse: Miguel knows we need to reach interoperability to have a meaningful competition in the first place. The better technology doesn't always win. Sometimes you gotta play the game via the home team's rules before the league lets you vote to change them.
From what I've seen, most linux users are always comparing linux to windows 95 and 98...most of them having bailed out of using windows around then...and they basically are fighting against the ghost of windows past. Whereas I don't see many of these people ever saying "yes, I use winddows xp / server2003 almost constantly in an attempt to understand what I'm up against here."
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
Around 10% or so run Netscape/Mozilla, still a small amount. This amount could easily rise if AOL wanted it to, but until AOL decides to do so, Mozilla won't gain much support at least not in the USA.
In other countries however this is a different story.
If AOL were to market Netscape like they do Winamp and AIM, everyone would be using it instead of IE. We use AIM and ICQ over MSN already even though MSN comes with the damn OS.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Really? Someone had better tell Dell, HP and IBM because I think they're still flogging them as fast as they can make them, and we wouldn't want to see them go out of business would we?
Oh we would? My bad.
You can't win Darth. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
Also to assume Microsoft will win, is to have sold out. If you think Microsoft is going to win at everything they do, why don't you go work for them and help them.
That's the difference between being a realist and an idealist. It would be ideal if Microsoft wasn't a guarantee, but it is for now. Accept it and maybe we can do something about it.
Developing (say, mono ) to prevent platform lock-in is a hell of a lot better than trolling Slashdot and whining about how everyone else's actions are wrong.
As more people get more and more spyware on their computer they tend to think it's "getting old" and is "too slow" for today. Hence they want a new computer because all the sudden their old one seems slow. I've seen it several times and I'm sure it's happening elsewhere.
People will always buy new desktop computers and upgrade their OS (you'd be suprised how many typical home users actually do this...).
Longhorn will have a pretty decent installed base once all is said and done I bet.
And still well over 90% of all users use IE.
Deployment, deployment, deployment is what matters.
.NET compability will help Linux get that deployment, and only then can it start making the rules.
Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
Insightful, yet content-free? Very Zen.
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
-- Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
Maybe I'm on a fruitbreak or something, but why not pick up GNUstep and enhance that? That way you get some semblance of source compatibility with Mac OSX Cocoa apps. Why follow Microsoft's example? It has always ended in tears in the past.
Stick Men
Wow, this is great and a real blow to all those who've spent their whole lives developing Linux and Linux-based apps. Can it be true that Microsoft have persuaded the likes of Oracle, CA, Adobe, Corel, Borland, IBM etc. to go 'Open source' on all their apps. It'll certainly be a blow to SCO!! Way to go!
There was a good reason to buy Windows XP - it is great. It's by far the best version of Windows since 95, and for people that were stuck with 98, or God forbid ME, there was a clear reason to upgrade.
Free iPods - now in the UK!
Ctrl+N to open a new window. IE starts to re-load the contents of the previous window. I start typing a new URL. IE finishes loading the page and inserts the old URL in the middle of my typing.
Exactly my pet peeves with MSIE. Why, oh why, must you reload the *exact same page* when I open a new window? Wouldn't the logical path be that I wanted *to look at a different web page*?!? The only explanation I can see is if you want to fork out in your browsing, say follow a link to the slashdot comments and read the article in a different window, but isn't that what right-click -> open-in-new-window is for?
Also, the thing about focusing the cursor, if I access my webmail, I often start typing before the page is fully loaded. I type my username, hit tab, and start typing my password. In the middle of my password, IE decides to focus the cursor at the start of the login field, and I type half my password in clear view. Argh!
Off topic, but ... Are there any examples of actual projects using mono that I could try out right now? (On Linux.)
.. Anything?
Web apps, desktop apps, utilities
I am slightly tired to this Longhorn debate.
Why try to re-invent everything that Longhorn already have?
If Longhorn is so good, then use it instead of wasting time re-inventing the technologies. And if a detail don't fit, then fix it on Longhorn.
Miguel makes good points but is wrong to attribute MS's dominant position to Linux apps being 'late to market', for example.
At the time of Windows 95, nobody could seriously say that MAC OS was not far better - stable, superior UI etc. So, even when MS had an obviously inferior product, they still won. And now, from XP onwards, they don't have have such a bad product, so what hope is there ?
They won because of their ruthless, illegal business practices. It's time to stop with the argument "we'll win because we're better".
Bought, not stole. And yes, the Apple that invented things like Expose and the iPod, and pushed technologies like Firewire, Wifi, and USB years before their PC counterparts.
"If we choose to go in our own direction, there are certain strengths in open source that we should employ to get to market quickly: requirements, design guidelines, key people who could contribute, compatibility requirements and deployment platforms."
Pity that he's obviously not been watching how most programmers actually do programming. Hint: most of them wouldn't know how to create a real requirements document if their lives depending on it. And read the requirements, and then develop real test cases that verify both functionality and coverage? Don't make me laugh.
Once upon a time there used to be two groups of people creating software: the analysts/engineers and the programmers/coders. The first group did the analysis, requirements, modeling and design; the second group converted it into code and punched it in. There was a reason for that, and those people produced some serious applications. Some of those apps are still in use today.
But, sadly, with the advent of the IDE it's now possible for anyone to be a bonafide Code Monkey, and just starting PAK'ing (programming at the keyboard) like crazy.
We're doomed, people. Submit to Bill now and just get it over with and save your passion for something more productive. Like sex.
Java failed because Sun assumed it was good to use on the web and it simply wasnt.
.NET (and Java too) come up with good, interoperable, solid ways to make this happen, web apps will be springing up in areas that you have never imagined.
No, Java "failed" [as a web app framework] because Sun never could put together an applets platform that was fast and produced professional-looking apps.
If you really believe there has never been any demand for fully functional applications running in a browser, your vision of the demand for apps has been far too narrow over the last 10 years. There was absolutely high demand for this type of application in 1995, and even more so now. Some isolated examples are coming closer and closer to this vision already, just making use of DHTML and proprietary browser enhancements. Good examples are the newer versions of Exchange Web Access and Hotmail, which are both coming closer to fully functional web apps with every new release. Once
More importantly, there is high demand for easily deployable applications in many business environments, and it's obvious that the easiest deployment is no deployment - something which is only accomplished via a universal tool that everyone already has - i.e. The Browser. Just because you personally don't see the need for a web app, does not mean that many thousands of companies with billions of dollars to spend don't have business needs for them.
Way I see it.
The advantages to Open Source technology are.
A: Security (you know Microsoft code will be riddled with holes here).
B: Realiability
C: Peer review, I, John Q random engineer can verify it.
D: Speed, basically Windows is bloated and slow.
E: Continuity, a user of the original Unix would be able to navigate and use Linux desktop in hours, you cannot say the same thing about Microsoft software.
This leads me to the point that, great software is long lived and thus ubiquitous becuase of that.
I am firmly of the opinion that some sort of Axis, like IBM, Walmart, Red Hat, Novell and friends will take a big chunk out of Microsoft's market share.
Now is the time to do that. Longhorn is behind schedule and having core functionailty like WINFS removed apace to get it up to release date.
It is ludicrous in the extreme to think that Windows boxes obselete processors that were bleeding edge in under two years, but, it happens.
Eventually people will get tired of continuously shelling out for the same regurgiatated Windows 95 core functionality.
People want word processors, they want eye candy, they want all that stuff Microsoft does well. They don't want, security holes, having to shell out once every two years for software that's slower and doesn't really do anything different to the old software.
I think funnily even though Microsoft's principal Business opposition is US based, that Americans will be some of the last to recognise how mistreated they are under Microsoft.
It will be the likes of the Chinese, Japanese, Germans and developing nations, which will, break away from Windows with force, it's already happening and I don't think M$ understands this.
Thank god.
The market for Linux on the desktop is cost, cost, cost, because money talks.
Provide 'analagous' and seamless cloned functionality for less and Microsoft has *no* market.
People were sleeping at the wheel. In 1993-1994, Linux had the promise of becoming the best desktop system.
Miguel is fabricating some silly, alarmist, revisionist history with statements like these.
Linux was a lot of things in 1994, but one thing that is was not was a viable desktop. It was so lacking in the mindshare, number of developers, driver support and basic desktop technologies in 1994 as compared to today, that statements like this just make Miguel look like a silly idealogue.
How the hell can you discuss vector interfaces and rich clients without mentioning Flash? Macromedia have been providing a safe platform in which to embed your rich client-side applications for years.
Why not partner with the people who have the tiger by the tail? Seems like developers in the linux community are standing by while one of the best M$ competitors is gasping for air. Who's side are you on?
.NET. At least Mono has some corporate backing (Novell) unlike open Java implementations and it can be legally shipped with Linux distros. I wouldn't want to see the requirement of having to download all of Java just to use a Linux desktop. .NET is supposedly also technically better than Java.
I don't think Java as a specification is any more open than
And I don't really think Sun is a serious competitor for MSFT anymore, now that they seem to be "buddies" (i.e. MSFT quietly waits while Sun leaves them alone, and dies of asphyxiation).
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Here's a question. How do we copy Microsoft and get our "working something" out the door first? Do we go back in time?
Here's another question which nobody on the "We must clone Microsoft's products at all costs" lobby has ever satisfactorily answered: how are we contributing anything to the world if our product is just a (poor, it has to be poor, because Microsoft's technologies are not lumbered with having to run on a platform that was never designed to run them) clone of something that already exists? Do we improve music by producing "free" versions of Brittney Spears and the Spice Girls? Do we contribute something new and wonderful by making a movie with the exact same plot as Terminator 3, but with even poorer acting? Do we ensure that everyone has something that caters for them by spending a lot of effort cloning the writing style of Jeffrey Archer and writing predictable thrillers, then redistributing them for free?
As long as Microsoft defines the product, Microsoft will be ahead. Icaza ignores this because Icaza likes Microsoft's technologies, they suit him, he lacks the imagination, will, and talent to produce anything better than what Microsoft produces, so he's content to spend the rest of his life in perpetual catch-up, pretending that he will in some way be able to produce something better than his mentor and rival without ever knowing ahead of time what it is that mentor and rival will be producing and so being unable to produce his clone before Microsoft's original.
The truth to the statement "The central point was that paying too much attention to Microsoft simply allows Microsoft to define the game. And when Microsoft gets to define the game, they ALWAYS win." is self-evident. You cannot both follow and lead.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
MS will win because it looks for problems it can solve for customers with its technology. MS employees are not looking at Linux and going oh look at that feature we need to counter it. Or no problem we already have done that.
Instead they look at the market and say, how can we solve someone's problem. A great example is thin media clients. Linux could have dominated this market. Linux is a robust OS that just runs. It has a low to no cost for deploying to millions of homes. The HD1000 from ROKU (http://www.rokulabs.com) is a great example of what is possible for Linux in this $100+ billion industry.
However, Linux is squandering away the opportunity. MS came in to the marketplace and said to the hardware manufacturers here is a complete solution just install. To a company that cares more about selling hardware than software the choice is clear. Pay MS and design the hardware to run MS technology (especially when you have multiple hardware vendors saying here is the base platform already designed for you). The consumer electronic companies make money by selling hardware not software. Anyone who says to them here is a complete and working system just build the hardware will get there attention.
That is why MS wins. They solve problems; they don't just invent technology for technologies sake.
Rabi Satter
The main reason Java failed on the desktop was that there didn't used to be a Java Web Start program. But now we have one and it works great.
Also, it used to be difficult to install the Java VM, and the Microsoft version that came with Windows was a buggy piece of crap. However, that's been solved too. Visit www.java.com in IE and click download. It's as easy as installing FlashPlayer.
Other issues: AWT was too sluggish. Well, the new Swing UI is pretty slick. There was no good Java IDE. Now, Eclipse kicks ass and is the best IDE evar IMHO.
And as for Applets being mostly useless, that's not true. If you sign your code you can do anything with an Applet that you can do with a Web Start application.
We have great success with Java on the desktop. The only snag is that we have to tell our customers to download the Java VM, but once they've done it, everything's good.
Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so. --Ford Prefect
The truth to the statement "The central point was that paying too much attention to Microsoft simply allows Microsoft to define the game. And when Microsoft gets to define the game, they ALWAYS win." is self-evident. You cannot both follow and lead.
That is specious reasoning; Microsoft gets to define the game regardless. No matter how much we innovate, the pain of migrating to another platform keeps companies on Windows. If we created the next killer app, Microsoft would have plenty of time to copy it before people started to migrate en masse.
The only way to ease the pain of migration is to make things work. Most companies' infrastructure is far too thick to be able to migrate to a whole new platform in one giant leap. So addressing Windows compatibility is critical before many people can even consider Linux.
That said, I agree largely that a single project can't lead and follow, but GNU/Linux is not one project. If you are arguing that resources spent copying Microsoft are wasted, then I think it is only your own time that is being wasted, since open source developers work on what they want and will never all agree to one ideology.
When originally I heard about Mono I was skeptical. Then I met up with Miguel had a talk to him and was optimistic. There were some posts of his that made me upbeat about Mono. Now ever since Novell bought Ximian I am really skeptical again.
.NET clone. Mono will never succeed and it will fail miserably. Nobody can compete or be compatible with Microsoft, just ask Mainsoft, Bristol, and other companies that licensed Microsoft technologies.
Mono SHOULD NOT be a Microsoft
I am amazed that people think it is in Microsoft's interest to build cross-platform application. Microsoft has said, time and time again that it is not in their interest. Microsoft has their own operating system and that is their interest. So what I wonder is why people keep thinking it would be good to run Windows Apps on Linux.
Wine, and CrossOffice are hacks until more applications are ported. When I use my OSX box, or my Linux box or even my Windows box I look for native applications, not emulation. Native apps run faster, better and are more stable.
Mono should go back and focus on doing their own thing again. Just like the Jakarta team focused on building good Open Source applications.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
One of Miguel's points is that we have lots of "bits"... and we sit around going "pfff... we've been able to do that for ages" to each little announcement from Microsoft.
Microsoft *will* ship Longhorn. It *will* contains all the "bits" needed to easily build distributed apps (well... easily build any apps actually). All of the "bits" will come pre-assmbled and delivered onto millions of desktops ready for eager developers to take advatage of.
And we, the open source world, will be left howling about how Microsoft doesn't innovate, and trying to convince a bored public that Linux/Mozilla etc etc did it first -- when, in fact, all we did was provide all the parts in kit-form, and then only to a handful (comparitively) of users.
Miguel's crusade to badly copy where Microsoft has gone before isn't really that productive and it has produced rather a lot of sloppy, unfinished, unpolished software that has more promise than usefulness.
I desperately want this not to be so, but it is.
Microsoft have an important ally in Miguel. It is not necessary to announce vaporware for Linux to frighten off the competition since everyone is already waiting for applications like Evolution to stop sucking so badly.
Am not fabricating anything.
In 1994, the desktop was not a GUI desktop, the
desktop was mostly a command-line universe both
on DOS-based systems and Linux systems.
Linux did have an advantage: multiple virtual
consoles, real multi-tasking, tcp/ip stack
bundled, nfs, file serving capabilities, and
DOSemu with compatibility with the past.
I have to say, way better than DOS + pile of
device drivers and Windows was only starting to
be used with very few applications. Windows 3.11
was out, with really few applications.
Miguel.
"I'd use Mozilla if I could shift+click and get a new browser window. But every time that I install it, I end up removing it because of little annoyances ..."
Are you serious?
Your comment makes me envision all kinds of bizarre situations...
Supervisor: Your engineering report is already behind schedule, why are you using that slide rule?
Engineer: I'd use that elctronic calculator gadget to do my math if they could just make it so I can operate it like mike slide rule.
Supervisor: Why didn't you use the CAD software on the computer? Its taking you too long to complete the change orders!
Draftsman: I'll use the CAD software as soon as they give me an ANSI D sized computer display that I can draw on with my pencil.
Service Manager: Sir, We will consider repairing your dashboard in your car under warranty, but can you first explain how it was damaged?
New Car Owner: Well, I always used this whip when I was driving my horse drawn buggy, so I figure the only way I'll drive a car is if I can continue to use the whip.
I've used many browsers on many platforms over the years and there was a time that IE was the best and most advanced browser available. That day is long gone. IE belongs in the trash heap along with its inefficient and outdated interface. I click on a link with my middle button in Mozilla and the page pops up in a new tab, light years ahead of the multiple key strokes and windows all over the place you end up with in IE.
Welcome to the 21st century.
burnin
I agree with Miguel here,in '94/early '95, at least in the UK, there was talk that if Windows95 slipped much more, OS/2 Warp might take over! That's how weak windows was (then known as Windows for workgroups 3.11 I think).
Follow Miguel, follow Microsoft... there's not any difference except in the end, one may have more of a surprised look on their face than the other. I can hear, "Oh... well.. I never saw that one coming." But in reality, I think Miguel is smart enough to FULLY comprehend what will happen... and that's what is really scary.
Miguel would say that we're all asleep... are we?? I wonder who really has their eyes closed on this one.
I think your memory is a little different from mine. Certainly, DOS was the PC king. Almost all games came out for DOS. Lots of various bits and pieces and utilities came out for DOS. DOS was where a PC hacker got work done. DOS was where we computer-type boys and teens mucked around on.
But for the other 90% of computer users it was a different story. Windows 3.1x may not have had alot of software from the hacker's perspective, but it was a smash hit in the home-user market despite its limitations. It is Windows 3.1 that sent Amiga to its grave, battered the Mac platform, and for the first time had masses of ordinary people seriously considering buying a computer. It was cute, and although it was not very intuitive, it was simple enough to learn for the more intelligent 1/4th of the population who considered buying a PC back then. Microsoft's marketing at the time was the best it has ever been. They perfectly understood the paradyme; their "Microsoft Home" subbrand (that finally got mothers wanting computers for their children) might've sold over 10 million PCs by itself. Which is about how many people use Linux today incidently.
In 1994 the desktop was a GUI desktop -- for everyone except hackers. The GUI desktop had easily arrived circa 1992 for oridinary users. Hackers, on the other hand, didn't seriously get into the GUI thing until KDE arrived. Before then, the Unix GUI was just a glorified text and widget terminal.
Linux did do well for what it did. It was a geeks' perfect toy. Its technical features were excellent. It did expand to its full potential for what it was capable as -- as a hacker's _text-based_ Unix system.
As much as Linux had an advantage over DOS and Windows from a pure technical point of view back then, it sucked as GUI desktop system. By and large, it still does, as much as Linux users protesth. That's why hardly anyone uses it. This is the cold hard reality.
The only way Linux could have succeded on the ordinary user desktop would have been if it didn't use X-Windows, didn't have a heap of semi-broken widget sets, etc etc etc. I don't need to explain this. We all know what the problems are. If Linus had in 1994 decided to personally oversee and start from scratch a new, unified, coherent, legacy-free 'official' GUI project for Linux, then Linux would be used by over 100 million people now.
Actually, most of the time when *I* open a new window, it's because I want to branch my browsing in two different directions without losing my history path. Like responding to a slashdot post without losing my place on the main page.
One of my pet peeves with Firefox (and there aren't many) is that opening a new window, tab, etc, means starting with a clean history. Maybe nice for some, but I'd like a trail of what I did up to opening that window.
In the middle of my password, IE decides to focus the cursor at the start of the login field, and I type half my password in clear view
Many times, this is the fault of JavaScript. Often an OnLoad directive commands the browser to set focus to the username field. OnLoad will not fire -- or should not fire -- until a page has been completely loaded and rendered, else it may reference elements or functions that haven't been downloaded yet. IE is doing what it should do according to this assertion: interrupt the user to do what the page told it to do (if it didn't do this, there'd be no way to run validation scripts, which are an annoying but sometimes necessary evil). Your browser is essentially choosing to ignore the assertion, by either not running the OnLoad event, or by running it too early.
Not that there's anything wrong with that. If a browser can ignore certain assertions to provide a better user experience and still get its job done, more power to it. I do all my navigation with the mouse and get pretty tired of well meaning but confused websites telling me I can't right click because I would steal their images. I wish I could just not do business with these kinds of sites, but unfortunately most classic VW resalers have this kind of restriction...
Hey freaks: now you're ju
What kind of computer are you using? Saying something is slow without specifying the hardware you are running it on, is like saying I have 500 units of cash in my pocket: what lire? euros? cents? dollars? Yes. JEdit is slower than vi. But I am using at least 5 java apps continuously. I really like the fact that I KNOW I can switch computer and still use them. So the slowdown is not a big problem given that functionality. And since we are speaking of mono, are you suggesting that will be faster?
Well, C coding *IS* dead, or should be. Whether OSS is the future or not is debatable, but non-object oriented, non-exception handling, non-bounds checking languages with hand-rolled memory management are on the way out. They're inefficient to program in and nowadays have little to offer in terms of performance. And thanks to the unsafe block, there are ways to bypass even the smallest performance hit by removing all these safeties.
.NET initiative in a cross platform manner. There's a subtle difference, but it's an important one: de Icaza's methodology takes the newest strategy from the for-better-or-worse market leader and makes it ubiquitous, instead of trying to make a name for himself with a brand new strayegy. From a risk assessment point of view, there's a much better chance that .NET will succeed than any of the dozens of competing intiatives in the OSS community. And there's less work involved. We the power users may not want to get both feet in bed with Microsoft, but for a lot of companies out there it has proven to be a very valuable strategy. Miguel's trying to give them a means of keeping one foot on the floor, to tap the ubiquity of windows while maintaining (or in many cases, gaining) cross platform compatibility.
.NET. MS couldn't say that openly, of course.
As for XUL...i can't see why anybody who touted the life of C could also praise XUL. XML is a nice idea for encapsulating data in a hierarchical, human readable format, but it's a bad bad BAD idea for user interfaces and anything else where you want INSTANT access to data. Parsing -- or should I say compiling -- all those words into language a machine can understand wastes time. Sure, it makes sense for a handful of widgets (like a web page), but what if you have an application that loads 300-500 per form like most of the apps I deal in? Not only do you have the rendering overhead, you also have the XML parsing overhead for each of them. I'll stick with JVM and the Windows Forms frameworks.
As for "catching up" with Microsoft...de Icaza's point is that while Linux is treading water with its own kind of uniformity and platform cross compatibility, trying to make inroads into Windows apps, de Icaza's aiming to replicate the
Which I'm sure was the whole thrust behind standardizing
Hey freaks: now you're ju
But many of you have ignored the reason why .NET is going to be so popular - it is going to be so damn easy to develop applications. Literally, everything will be taken care of for you. Want to link to a database? No problem, in 20 minutes you will have a database application. Most people here will probably not want to use it, but we aren't the ones making most of the decisions. If a company sees an opportunity to hit 90% of the market (which it wants) and develop the program in half the time, then it will. There is no arguing the economics of this. .NET is a formidible beast and yes while most people here say it sucks and they hate it you don't seem to realize most people don't care. Or if they do care, they are willing to set aside their caring long enough to write a program in .NET, which will take all of a few days for a lot of apps.
http://www.rustyrazorblade.com
Sure enough, Microsoft has DEDICATED people reading this stuff. Access to it is just a click away. Market strategy is all about surprise. So I'm proposing a new movement. Open Source, Closed Strategy (OSCS). Seriously.
"In order to increase developer productivity, Avalon will rationalize and reduce the number of APIs in the Win32 stack from over 70,000 down to 8,000."
No it won't. All the existing APIs will still be there, because existing applications use them, and if Microsoft was interested in breaking existing apps for a good reason they'd have done it already.
Avalon will add a new 8,000-element API to the 70,000 already there.
[more blurbs]
Sounds like Cocoa.
.NET uses published standards. Heck, using the Common Language Specification, any compiler can create the intermediate code used by the .NET Runtime. Want Python.NET? Someone's already working on it.
Mono isn't a waste of time--it's a waste of time to do anything else, because nothing else has gone anywhere. Programming for QT and GTK and wxWidgets and whatever else is a waste of time. Programming for two entire desktop environments is a waste of time. For crying out loud, Linux is still at 1% of usage on Google Zeitgeist. At one point do you say, "Hmm, well these other things haven't worked...let's try this."
Sure it would be great to get many applications developed on .Net to run directly on Linux and BSD but I find the contrary to be true. Getting Linux apps to run on .Net means they will have a shot at running on Windows.
Its theoretically a two way street. Evolution on Windows? Pan on Windows? Sure leveraging all of those Windows applications on a platform of your choice is an interesting thing but everyone seems to neglect leveraging Linux and BSD applications onto Windows!
This will be interesting. I'm not going to be against Miguel or Mono but I'm not going to be against Cringley either. Cringley's point is that you can't lead if you are always following. Miguel's point is that its stupid to ignore such a good piece of technology. Why do people assume one is wrong?
Haha...some Slashdotter always replies with "use this along with this sandwiched between this using the already existing this."
Microsoft is integrating all this into a seamless development platform. The hodgepodge you mentioned won't be adopted by the masses.
...and found it to be less than enlightening. The first part reads as a self-serving defense against Cringely's (rather obvious, I thought) observation that *you can't play catch-up against Microsoft, because you will lose*. This painfully evident observation applies to everyone; if MS makes the rules, MS will always be at the forefront of whatever it is that it gets to define, and no one playing tag-along will ever be able to catch up with them. Miguel and his efforts are no exception to this, despite what he seems to think. He makes the mistake of assuming that he's different - just like all the other companies which thought the same thing, and were driven out of their markets (or nearly so) by Microsoft.
Cringely was right. Miguel is wrong.
The second part is based on a faulty assumption, i.e., that most Linux users care if about taking the battle to Microsoft and 'getting Linux on the desktop'. Fact is, most Linux users could give a shit one way or another, and aren't interested in seeing their OS used as a vehicle to launch a crusade against the evil empire. Never have been, never will be; this 'crusade' mentality belongs to a tiny, but very obnoxious and very loud, minority. One which I heartily wish would shut the hell up, move on to the next Big Thing(TM), and leave those of us who actually code for and use the OS for our own satisfaction the hell alone.
It's just as Cringely said. The best thing to do for Linux is to simply ignore MS altogether and continue coding what we want to code, when we want to code at, in the way we want to code it. If more than that tiny minority of us actually begin to take this crusade bullshit seriously, all we'll end up with is a second-rate Windows clone that whores itself out to whatever blithering idiots scream the loudest and whine the longest.
And in any event, what do these crusaders think they're going to accomplish, anyway? Even if they manage to drive MS out of business (not in this lifetime, pal) Bill Gates will still be one of the richest men in the world - richer than any of the crusaders, and laughing all the way to the bank. So will his cronies, and so will the smart investors. The only people who'll 'lose' the war are a bunch of average-Joe schmucks who work for Microsoft, or who invested in Microsoft and didn't manage to pull out until it was too late.
The folks who created the 'evil empire' have already made their money, and nothing the crusaders do to the company will change that fact. Those folks will always be richer than the crusaders, and will always be laughing at their trite vitriolic dialogue - no doubt while sitting on a beach in Tahiti surrounded by beautiful (if purchased) women. To them the crusaders are nothing more than sad little fools worthy of little more than contempt.
And they're right.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
The comment I responded to implied that we shouldn't lead, basically by wording the idea negatively (if we create something original, MS will copy it - well, duh! That's what leading the industry is. You should worry if nobody's copying what you're doing, not if people are.)
This is just semantics. I agree that Microsoft products are better because of the many innovators that fly under the mainstream radar. My negative wording was because Microsoft will implement a feature only as well as it needs to maintain it's monopoly, which generally means only to a marketable level, not a technically robust level.
Longhorn always been targetted for late 2005/early 2006. People who still refer to Longhorn as "vaporware"--even with the PDC build and endless technology demos--are buying into a mindless hatred for all things Microsoft and ignoring the real existence of the technology that will be coming out and permeating everywhere.
.NET will change things. It's why they're completely replacing Win32 with it. I have a feeling you haven't really examined the Longhorn tech all that much and have only read some marketing hype that you subsequently dismissed. Surprise, surprise, companies market their products as the greatest things ever. But Longhorn is actually a real overhaul of Windows, from the display technology to the filesystem technology to the runtime libraries and more.
Sorry, Longhorn is not vaporware, and there has never been a release date delay because there never was a release date. And, yes,
Miguel is smart in recognizing the inevitability of Longhorn...Slashdotters want to dismiss Longhorn because deep down they know it will arrive and take over.
The problem here is that if you market your project, it will be exposed to other requirements and maybe you will loose a little freedom, let me explain.
If you market to make milliones of people use you, then you will need to satisfy the most part of this market, then you will need more requeriments, easy ways to do things (wizards?) or less advanced functions, then you want to get more advanced features, but that' doesn't work because now your market share are less geeks, now what? you only have time for do one or another, and you need a product, because people already know you, see? you are a product now! They even expect you to change UI, even if there are no internal changes, just to see "something is new".
Just my two cents
Microsoft followed a development path with DOS/Windows which followed Moore's law. That is, they released software which had hardware requirements meeting the machines of the day. Thus Win3.1 could run reasonably in 4-8 megs, Win95 in 8-16 megs, WinNT in 16-32 megs... etc.
But in the early days, Linux had hardware requirements which far exceeded the capabilities of the common desktop. This was part of the great debate, and as an experimental platform it made sense to go this route. But it wouldn't have helped it to succeed as a mainstream desktop.
It wasn't until really probably the era of the Pentium II/III when desktops started coming routinely with 64 Megs of RAM that things had caught up with Linux resource needs. So I don't agree that Linux had a chance on the desktop in 1994, no moreso than OS/2 had, probably even less the case as OS/2 had numerous large scale deployments in Fortune 500 companies. Even then, factors contributed to prevent it from taking off.
Linux did have a chance right around the 1999 time frame to make signifigant strides, this mainly due to a weak spot in the market left by the delayed delivery of Windows 2000 to upgrade the slagging NT4. But since the release of Win2k, there has been no compelling technical reason to deploy Linux in either the desktop or server realm. I think Miguel is correct in that this situation is going to become even starker with the release of Longhorn. There will be a substantial gap between the capabilities of Linux and Windows.
I do have to applaud Miguel for his technical understanding of the issues, and his work on Mono and other technologies. It would be great if some day it was as enjoyable to develop on Linux as it is on Windows.
The central debate here is about how to best use F/OSS development resources (people and code). The assumption seems to be that everyone who cares about F/OSS should come together on a single strategy for dealing with Microsoft. But a monoculture within the F/OSS community is exactly what we're fighting against in Microsoft! Must we become the enemy to defeat the enemy?
Most F/OSS developers want to see GNU/Linux succeed in the sense of becoming a widespread desktop alternative. Those who bother thinking about why they want this are most likely to come up with a fundamental reason: choice.
Survival for GNU/Linux is a question of the niches it is able to successfully occupy. For the moment these niches include the desktops of F/OSS developers and Internet server farms. The problem with the general user desktop niche is first that it's not really a niche per se, but more importantly, it's completely dominated by Microsoft. GNU/Linux is like a small mammal running around near the end of the age of dinosaurs. What it has going for it is adaptibility. Rather than give up adaptibility and become just another dinosaur, GNU/Linux needs to find another way to occupy the general desktop niche.
What I'd like to suggest is that the desktop niche really needs to be bifurcated in such a way that GNU/Linux can survive there as a small mammal, without needing to become a dinosaur. That is, it needs a place on the desktop where it can run without necessarily displacing Windows. One way this could be done is though a Windows port of User Mode Linux, but that's not really going far enough in my opinion.
What is really needed is an OSS virtual machine monitor (VMM) for PCs, under control of which both Windows and GNU/Linux (and any other OS!) could run separately and equally. Vmware shows what this might look like, but with Vmware the host operating system runs along side the VMM rather than on top of it. It sort of achieves "separate" but not "equal".
The problem with current approaches to PC VMMs is that they suffer from certain architectural limitations in virtualizing the CPU. These limitations probably could have been eliminated several hardware generations ago, were it not for the unholy alliance of Microsoft and Intel. But there is some hope that that alliance could be broken, if AMD would implement virtualizability in its CPUs and/or IBM would apply carrots and sticks to Intel on behalf of GNU/Linux.
The ultimate goal is freedom to innovate from the lowest levels of software on up. This can only be truely achieved by a complete OSS platform, as access to the source is what enables the kind of innovation that does not require reinventing the wheel when something at a lower level doesn't work the way you want it to. On the other hand, some F/OSS developers may be perfectly happy developing on top of Windows or some OS-independent application platform. Indeed, there's no reason to believe that .NET isn't "good enough" for some of them.