Slashdot Mirror
Unix To Beef Up Longhorn
An anonymous reader writes "VNUnet has a story about Longhorn having the ability to run unix or linux code via SFU." Microsoft's site has a lot more information about SFU itself. Regardless of ideological bent, it's an interesting piece o' technology.
Interesting. No, wait...that other thing. Tedious.
Ohwait...
yeh but who cares if its not running linux!
unless it can run the kernel too
Anybody else first read that as STFU? Seems oddly appropriate somehow.
Apple went to BSD.
Novell is going to Linux.
Windows...? It's the next generation. They just won't admit it.
---
IMHO, of course.
May the SOURCE be with you.
Woohoo! Now I can write UNIX code to run on Windows! Then in twenty years or whenever Longhorn is released, they can change the standard, and I'll get to choose between compatibility with my UNIX code and UNIX, or Windows! This is great!
From the article Microsoft is set to include its Services for Unix (SFU) add-on for Windows as an integral part of the next major release of the Windows server operating system, codenamed Longhorn and expected in 2008.
Oh really? That's fantastic, especially since it's something - by the article's own timeline - that won't be here for another four years.
Some analysts said the move could eventually sideline conventional Linux and Unix operating systems.
Someone must have a pretty fancy crystal ball to tell us what is and isn't going to "sidelined" four years in the future.
By including SFU in Windows, Microsoft could rapidly become the biggest supplier of Unix software if Longhorn proves a success, undermining traditional Unix vendors such as Sun, HP and IBM, as well as Linux vendors' enterprise offerings.
Um, someone is forgetting about the single largest shipper of UNIX* systems in the world: Apple, which eclipses all other vendors.
In fact, Microsoft's move is aimed at two things primarily: Linux and Mac OS X, both in the server environment and on the desktop. Both OSes are making serious and impressive inroads in areas where they've never had large showings: Linux on the desktop, and Mac OS X in the datacenter. Microsoft, of course, sees this - given Gates' recent diatribes about the "dangers" of anything open source, or anything non-Microsoft - and we can leave it up to brilliant journalists to spread FUD to help hawk a product that won't ship for almost half-a-decade.
Microsoft may also release a 64bit version of SFU this year.
Oh really? That's wonderful news, considering we've already got that support with various commercial and non-commercial *NIXes and Linux for quite a while. Again, Microsoft, with the aid of journalists, pulling the normal "hey, you might be able to do X now, but in a few years, you'll be able to do it with Windows Amazing Edition even better! So don't invest in anything else, just stay with the perennial safe refuge of Microsoft!"
* Yes, yes, "UNIX-like".
longhorn:~# cd / er, no, I mean, cd \ ... I mean ... ohsodit
"The dew has clearly fallen with a particularly sickening thud this morning"
I believe that the addition of Windows being able to run Linux/Unix code will not be directed at the home user market but only be available to the professional/server base giving Microsoft a comeptitive edge in the server market its losing out on by allowing them to run more popular and inherently software applications that may only be available for the Unix/Linux platform...I doubt MS had including Xbill in their next release in mind. ~JM
http://www.cygwin.com
-m
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# Modus Ponens
#
Finally, I can run my linux apps in a secure enviorment.
This Shut the Fuck Up technology sounds interesting. Can I use it on an airplane or bus when people around me too loud?
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
first microsoft gives us bullcrap statistics about how "windows outpeforms linux" and now this? does anyone else find it comical?
that microsoft will have Linux code in it? (like SCO supposedly did to enable Linux compatibility).
Anyways there is no way to know without access to the source code.
That was fast. Like, really fast. I can't RTFA. Anyone have any cache links? Google and web.archive.org don't...
"SFU is not shipped with Windows because SFU currently contains open-source software, such as the GNU C compiler, which cannot be distributed with commercial software."
cue sound of one hand slapping forehead...
Slashdot looked deep within my soul and assigned
me a number based on the order in which I joined
Any chance that Service Pack 1 for Longhorn (due to be released in early 2009) combines Microsoft's powerful FUD(tm) with this SFU into SFUD(tm)?
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
stuff f**king up?
oh, service for unix...
Hate to break it to yall, but there have been some VERY nice UNIX(tm) layers for Windows since NT 4.0 The same people that made Exceed X11 for Windows also made a kernel add-in with full POSIX support. All the UNIX goddies where there and it even seemed to increase stability. Microsoft purchased the company after they failed to get their software to run well on Windows 2k (they ran out of money and couldn't afford to redevlope). If they get this stuff working again in Longhorn, I'll be first in line to buy it when its released.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Seriously, why dont they just dump the windows kernel and run longhorn on top of unix? It would be good for them and good for Linux cause we would have full driver support at last.
Jackpot!
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
... they must have violated SCO's IP rights.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
"Zions confirmed that Microsoft is working to replace all open-source code in SFU with commercially licensed alternatives. Last year it licensed Unix software from SCO."
Your point would be better made leaving out the sitcoms and free speech comments. Speech is more free here than a lot of other places, and generally humor tends to vary from place to place. The same could be said that britain has "dry humor" that is unappealing to Americans. It just depends on taste. The fact that Americans choose that is exactly that. Their choice. Not that anyone is going to read this, because you'll be modded down as a troll, and I'm just feeding...
SFU? Is that short for snafu?
-m
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# Modus Ponens
#
All the simplicity of Unix.
All the stability of Windows.
Didn't somebody at Microsoft think to reverse things? They'd be furthur ahead to try to fix what they have before adding what everybody else has.
This is interesting.
For a while now I have used some OSS-community applications on my Windows 2000 Office desktop by running binaries compiled under the Cygwin Linux environment on Windows.
the concept of having a Linux application which could be compiled under Windows from the same codebase (subject to dependencies and X-server requirements being met) may be very appealing to the Opensource groups who have been issuing software tor Mac OSX by this method for some time.
I also wonder if this is intended to give Windows more access to certain Scientific/Media computing markets which are dominated by *nix systems (industrial renderfarms, for instance). Either way, I can only see this as a good thing.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Y'mean, he's two-timing on DOS with 'nix? Shut uuup!
Longhorn will have a bash shell ? Like one of those just better than DOS things *smirk*
its even better, the stability of Windows with the ease of Unix! finally i won't have to worry about my uptime anymore! no more hesitation about installing new hardware but killing my uptime.
Unix to beef up Longhorn
Microsoft's Services for Unix facility is poised to take a more prominent role in the next edition of Windows
Roger Howorth, IT Week 12 Jul 2004
Microsoft is set to include its Services for Unix (SFU) add-on for Windows as an integral part of the next major release of the Windows server operating system, codenamed Longhorn and expected in 2008. Some analysts said the move could eventually sideline conventional Linux and Unix operating systems.
A growing number of firms are using SFU, currently a free add-on for Windows 2000, 2003 and XP Professional, because it enables a single system to run Windows, Linux and Unix software.
Systems running SFU provide an excellent environment for integrating applications - for example, to add Active Directory support to a Unix application.
Jason Zions, a solutions architect at Microsoft, said there are development versions of SFU that enable a single process to run code both from Windows and Unix libraries. Currently this feature, which would dramatically ease integration tasks, is not available in SFU. Zions said, "We've been working on research versions that would solve that particular problem. It wouldn't surprise me to see that capability appear in a future release of Windows."
Dan Kusnetzky of analyst firm IDC said SFU was one of Microsoft's hidden jewels. "It's a very powerful capability that Microsoft very seldom speaks about," he said. "Rather than hide this product behind Windows they should lead with it. Many firms might be much more interested in Windows if it worked in the way they are used to doing things."
By including SFU in Windows, Microsoft could rapidly become the biggest supplier of Unix software if Longhorn proves a success, undermining traditional Unix vendors such as Sun, HP and IBM, as well as Linux vendors' enterprise offerings.
Microsoft has already confirmed that Longhorn will include a technology called "server roles" to make it easier for IT staff to build Windows servers suited to a particular task, such as file serving. Experts said SFU could surface as a new server role in Longhorn.
SFU is not shipped with Windows because SFU currently contains open-source software, such as the GNU C compiler, which cannot be distributed with commercial software. Zions confirmed that Microsoft is working to replace all open-source code in SFU with commercially licensed alternatives. Last year it licensed Unix software from SCO.
Microsoft may also release a 64bit version of SFU this year. Zions suggested that Microsoft would soon support 64bit x86 processors such as the AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon EM64T chips, saying, "SFU 3.5 today does not run on Windows 64bit platforms, but when I get home I am putting in an order for a 64bit AMD laptop because I have to demo this stuff."
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
In 4 years (or whenever, it is impossible to guess with them), Microsoft will have re-implemented Cygwin.
Keep on innovatin' guys.
Finkployd
Unix To Beef Up Longhorn
If names mean anything, I'd expect Longhorn to be the OS with all the "beef".
*ow!*
pi = 3.141592653589793helpimtrappedinauniversefactory7
We can stop dual-booting and rebooting?
I'll believe it when I see it.
Mod me troll, if you must, I can't help it.
With the recent stories of Winex's cedega, and that other little startup who claimed to magically have 100% windows interoperability, it sounds like we're trading software titles like baseball cards.
Linux Community: "I'll give ya grep and less, for Photoshop."
Microsoft: "Uhh...how about you throw in sendmail, and we give you notepad?"
Linux Community: "WHAT?! No way, you give me Outlook, if you want sendmail!"
Microsoft (chuckling, because they know Outlook is a shit deal): "Yeah, man! You got a deal!"
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori
NT Services for Unix have been available for at least 5 or 6 years now. What makes this news? That it will run on the next version of NT? Must be a slow news day at /.
> SFU is not shipped with Windows because SFU
> currently contains open-source software, such as
> the GNU C compiler, which cannot be distributed
> with commercial software.
Where's that clue-stick of mine? I feel the need to beat someone over the head with it.
But what if microsoft sells a version of software based on linux? Or something of that nature? Windows for Linux.
Clippy: It seems you are trying to enable port fowarding, would you like to enable the /root exploit wizard?
Windows Installer: New Windows(tm) for Linux, now with more Blue Screens than ever!
Carmax annouced that from now on 1000 watt Bose stereo/DVD systems and hand-sewn italian leather seats will be available in all used Ford Pintos.
Maybe someone, such as GNU, who add such functionality on top of Linux?
"So, how did you compile KDE on Windows?"
"SFU, noob!"
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
A hack is just an idiom waiting for wider use.
Does this mean Windows Longhorn will now be able to execute ELF binaries? How is this different from Cygwin?
Unix to beef up Longhorn Microsoft's Services for Unix facility is poised to take a more prominent role in the next edition of Windows Roger Howorth, IT Week 12 Jul 2004 ADVERTISEMENT Microsoft is set to include its Services for Unix (SFU) add-on for Windows as an integral part of the next major release of the Windows server operating system, codenamed Longhorn and expected in 2008. Some analysts said the move could eventually sideline conventional Linux and Unix operating systems. A growing number of firms are using SFU, currently a free add-on for Windows 2000, 2003 and XP Professional, because it enables a single system to run Windows, Linux and Unix software. Systems running SFU provide an excellent environment for integrating applications - for example, to add Active Directory support to a Unix application. Jason Zions, a solutions architect at Microsoft, said there are development versions of SFU that enable a single process to run code both from Windows and Unix libraries. Currently this feature, which would dramatically ease integration tasks, is not available in SFU. Zions said, "We've been working on research versions that would solve that particular problem. It wouldn't surprise me to see that capability appear in a future release of Windows." Dan Kusnetzky of analyst firm IDC said SFU was one of Microsoft's hidden jewels. "It's a very powerful capability that Microsoft very seldom speaks about," he said. "Rather than hide this product behind Windows they should lead with it. Many firms might be much more interested in Windows if it worked in the way they are used to doing things." By including SFU in Windows, Microsoft could rapidly become the biggest supplier of Unix software if Longhorn proves a success, undermining traditional Unix vendors such as Sun, HP and IBM, as well as Linux vendors' enterprise offerings. Microsoft has already confirmed that Longhorn will include a technology called "server roles" to make it easier for IT staff to build Windows servers suited to a particular task, such as file serving. Experts said SFU could surface as a new server role in Longhorn. SFU is not shipped with Windows because SFU currently contains open-source software, such as the GNU C compiler, which cannot be distributed with commercial software. Zions confirmed that Microsoft is working to replace all open-source code in SFU with commercially licensed alternatives. Last year it licensed Unix software from SCO. Microsoft may also release a 64bit version of SFU this year. Zions suggested that Microsoft would soon support 64bit x86 processors such as the AMD Opteron and Intel Xeon EM64T chips, saying, "SFU 3.5 today does not run on Windows 64bit platforms, but when I get home I am putting in an order for a 64bit AMD laptop because I have to demo this stuff."
Microsoft already announced that they were releasing Services for Unix (SFU) (Actually a misnomer, if you notice) for free a while back. All this means is that they'll be distributing it with Windows. Additionally, we've been able to use cygwin to do the same sort of thing for a long time, though SFU is supposed to be better because it uses Windows' built in POSIX layer (no, that's not a joke, they actually have one).
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish...
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
SFU is not shipped with Windows because SFU currently contains open-source software, such as the GNU C compiler, which cannot be distributed with commercial software.
How does one become VUNet writer? Is there a rigorous screening process involved? Is any knowledge of them computer thingies required?
Finkployd
Now we can enjoy all the goodness of unix in the stability and security of windows.. longhorn nonetheless.
[ I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance ] -- Isaac Asimov
Imagine a Beowulf clus... Ahh, nevermind!
Well, it is. Windows, the thing that is reviled here in perpetua, is attempting to absorb parts of *nix. I smell a serious kuldge effort... I mean, think about it. Windows' inherent hideousness plus the clean elegance of unix... why 'tis unnatural I say!
Some "analysists" say that something Microsoft might do sometime in the future might (or might not) hurt Linux deployments.
Some people think SFU is really cool.
Microsoft might upgrade SFU to 64bit sometime in the future.
SFU lets you run *nix apps on Windows.
There, now you don't have to wait for that page to load.
How is this different than SFU on 2k, XP, or 2k3?
Can someone post that article? Slow as hell.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
... maybe a rewrite, called "winTux", where you have to save Windows computers from evil viruses like Linux, MacOS and OS/2 :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Your post is off topic and ignorant. Anyone who mods it anything besides "off topic" doesn't deserve any mod points.
Worst crime levels in the world? Where are you getting your numbers from?
"Democracy" as a rich white male? Was there an alternative in the last election? Besides, that alone says you are judging on race, making yourself racist.
We can violate international laws because we got the force to back it up. In the end, might is what counts. Sorry, welcome to reality.
Freedom of speech might mean the KKK, but it also means women's rights. Interesting double sided coin, eh?
Massive poverty gap. Yeah, I can see that as a problem. I think we need to stop paying 70% of the UN's salaries and put that money toward homeless vet shelters and that of the sort.
Barely 300 years of history? Gotta start somewhere. How about the countries that were created after World War I?
I hate our sitcoms too. Don't generalize. Ask individuals what they think. Thanks.
Obesity is a growing problem. People need to start to control themselves.
Corporations aren't necessarily running backhanded deals such as Enron. Government services aren't the most clean cut, efficient things around either, you know.
Wasting billions to attack foreign countries. That's an interesting one too. I don't remember voting to go into Iraq. Going back up a few lines, how about you ask the individual what they think about it, rather than generalize?
Stop making yourself look like an idiot, anonymous coward. Get core facts to back up statements like that.
I think he is speaking german.
God Bless America, where "freedom of speech" means race-hate groups like KKK
As you know, groups such as the nazis are outlawed in germany.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Did anyone noticed how Traff-O-Data modified the Unix environment with SFU?
ls becomes l$
sed becomes $ed
man becomes clippy
and plus they are touting the next generation of PO$IX compliance!
-m
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# Modus Ponens
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I installed SFU on a machine running Windows 2000 and tried it out. It was so pathetically slow that it didn't stay on there very long. Has anyone else actually tried it out? Maybe I missed something.
Apple, in unit shipments, is the largest vendor of UNIX systems in the world. They may not be used in the same fashion, but Apple completely eclipses "unix/solaris/linux/bsd" in shipped units, in fact ridiculously so.
"With the release of Mac OS X, Apple became the largest vendor of Unix in the world"
"There are over 5 million Mac OS X users, including scientists, animators, developers, and system administrators, making Apple the largest vendor of UNIX-based systems."
A lot more...
This has been common knowledge for a couple of years now.
Is it's own code that runs reliably on it's own operating system, then it can start looking to running other OS's code.
All of MS's own software is written & tuned for the NT kernel, so switching to a different kernel would mean a rewrite of MS-SQL and so on.
Furthermore, there's nothing technically wrong with the NT kernel that would justify such a huge change. It's much easier to put Unix on Windows than visa-versa.
Unix To Beef Up Longhorn
I can't believe I didn't see it at first!
BR Get it? Beef? Longhorn? Eh? Oh, forget it.
good, no more cygwin that goes bezerk on dll's
If so, how do they make sure windows doesn't get contanimated by OSS code. Since they are claiming GPL is viral, which we know is half truth at best and BS in reality. Who is going to audit windows to make sure they aren't including OSS GPL code?
I run SFU on Windows 2000 and XP Pro already.
I doubt Longhorn will add anything significantly new to this.
For what it's worth, it's a pretty good POSIX layer with a rather good ksh implementation.
It also appears to be more stable than Cygwin, and more palatable to corporate IT departments who have a tendencey to shy away from "those crazy open source guys".
Right now Interix is based on an enhanced POSIX subsystem. It's outside of Win32 and Interix applications are only indirectly subject to the "features" of the Win32 subsystem.
Jason Zions, a solutions architect at Microsoft, said there are development versions of SFU that enable a single process to run code both from Windows and Unix libraries. Currently this feature, which would dramatically ease integration tasks, is not available in SFU.
This would almost certainly require much more closer integration of the Interix and Win32 subsystems. Oh my ears and whiskers, this can't be good.
Does this mean that it will be possible to compile a distribution that runs linux, X etc, but has access to Windows libraries. The system would essentially be a Linux distro, but have a true windows compatability (Subject of course to suitable Windows licences being there).
Could Microsoft be nailing their own coffin?
This is good, real good. This means if you write your code to work on a unix system, you have complete cross platform compatability. Whether it's Windows, MacOSX, or Linux.
We're going to be seeing Photoshop for Linux any day now.
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
"We can violate international laws because we got the force to back it up."
Wow. You must be a right laugh at parties, you laughable cretin!
This includes servers. There are now over 12 million Mac OS X systems in use (source: 23:40 of WWDC keynote). This by far eclipses shipments by all other UNIX/UNIX-like system vendors. Apple is the single largest vendor of UNIX-based systems in the world, bar none.
if this is just windows services for unix then it's nothing new. it's been out for a while and works about as good as cygwin but will brake your cygwin install (at least it did for me a while back).
God Bless America, for feeding on flamebait.
I have seen sfu in operation, including the (latest) 3.5 release, and it is still an incomplete and ugly to use kludge. While cygwin itself is a bit clumsy, sfu is even worse.
/, and I have found no way to change this since it does not use /etc/passwd. Yet, it sets my HOME environment variable to something else based on the Windows USERPROFILE. Since ssh uses the one from getpwent, it of course uses /.ssh rather than what is in $HOME. By contrast, cygwin gets this right by creating a /home file layout and using the userid to form home directories for each user which match up both in what the getpw.. calls return and what $HOME is set to.
/dev/fs/C. Also, cygwin handles directory paths that include spaces in their filenames gracefully, sfu does not.
Of course it does not bundle many common and nessisary things like gcc, most gnu tools, cvs, ssh, or bash. You can get these from a seperate site (interopsys), but most of the standard things still require patches before they can be successfully compiled and used on sfu. In this sense, even at 3.5, sfu offers a lower level of compatibility with existing unix sources than cygwin does. As such, there is still no version of libtool that will build shared libraries on sfu, although this can now be done successfully with cygwin.
In addition to being incomplete, sfu offers no x server. cygwin includes xfree86 now. To get X under sfu, the only options are commercial, and expensive.
Finally, sfu integrates poorly in many ways with the win32 environment and with unix. For example, sfu insists internally my home directory is
Next, there is still some basically broken stuff related to file permissions between sfu and mswin. For example, I downloaded a tarball into the sfu file system from both exporer and firefox, but the permissions sfu saw for the saved files were ---, no r/w anything for anyone! At least cygwin and mswin do interoprate on files at this level!
Both cygwin and sfu mangle file names and file system layouts in complex ways. However, cygwin does a better job of this. I can use c:/ in cygwin, for example, but my only choice in sfu is
Finally, I had sfu 3.5 lock up on me, and it took down the entire machine. I have had older versions of cygwin lock up on me a few times, but they never killed the machine.
All in all, I have found even the latest and greatest SFU a very ugly and just barely usable kludge. Cygwin, while certainly not perfect, is far more usable and useful even before considering that cygwin is also far more complete in what it does offer out of the box. Cygwin is a very underrated tool in this respect.
"VNUnet has a story about Longhorn having the ability to run unix or linux code via SFU."
as:
"VNUnet has a story about Longhorn having the ability to run unix or linux code via STFU."
?
Too much Battlefield this weekend w/ all the smacktards running around spouting STFU!!
"How am I supposed to remember you, when you won't let me forget?" --Bare Naked Ladies
SFU is not shipped with Windows because SFU currently contains open-source software, such as the GNU C compiler, which cannot be distributed with commercial software. Zions confirmed that Microsoft is working to replace all open-source code in SFU with commercially licensed alternatives.
Sheesh...
http://www.interopsystems.com/tools/warehouse.htm
Is SFU GPL'd?
How does this work, you are able to download SFU from Microsoft, but can you also get the source?
When i Moderate something -1 Flamebait, why do i not get another modpoint?
5--1 = 6
...and have the browser running in a lightweight linux virtual machine from within longhorn. In the beginning they will dump all the malware crap that targets IE running on win32. Shortly after all the scumware merchants have rewritten for the new linux target, MS may be able to make Linux look every bit as insecure as they have made win32 platforms look.
Consider this:
Conclusion? Microsoft is aping Apple. Again. And, again, they will probably make a very inferior imitation of the original thing.
And, again, they will probably market it to death and succeed, making piles and piles of cash in the meantime. Nothing new under the sun. *sigh*
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
How long do you think that it will take to replace all the open-source code with commercially licensed alternatives? This isn't a trivial excercise by any means.
It would get a lot easier if a friendly business could 'acquire' commercial rights to open source software through legal means. Suppose for a second that the impossible happened and linux was shown to be a derivative work of SCO's. Would gcc be the next target?
There is valid historical reasons for this. The first versions of SFU contained an NFS and NIS server so that UNIX clients could connect to an NT Server. Only later were "Unix Services" added to the product.
Isn't that basically as smart as building a brick house on a whipped cream and cake foundation?
By including SFU in Windows, Microsoft could rapidly become the biggest supplier of Unix software if Longhorn proves a success
HA! It's finally happened. MS have come up with a solution to the Linux Question. Simply supply your own version of Unix called Longhorn and simply make it incompatable with any other Unix distrobution, especially linux. Question is will it work?
Zions confirmed that Microsoft is working to replace all open-source code in SFU with commercially licensed alternatives. Last year it licensed Unix software from SCO.
You may rest assured that this is the stage where the 'new technologies' i.e lock-ins, will be introduced into the unix source code. They will be lovely features of course, ADT, WinFS etc, etc. But all will be tied inexorably to windows and sealed with the DMCA.
This may be the lynchpin of the whole Longhorn stratgey? Or I could just be on drugs.
May the Maths Be with you!
with the price of windows....
All this is just about patents that Microsoft will use to harass open source community in the future.
hooks, loops and nasty tricks that's all
What's the point of running Linux apps on Windows anyway ?
and which apps would that be ? I can't think of one right now, maybe someone could suggest.
It consistently astounds me how Microsoft talks about what they're going to release four years from now. Apple doesn't even talk in advance about what they're going to release next week or month (the recent iMac fumble notwithstanding), let alone the fact that four years in this industry is decades on a conventional timeline.
Do you think Bill is trying to pull a Steve on us here by talking far in the future, cementing our notions of Microsoft as a gargantuan buffoon, while secretly planning to abruptly and with much fanfare unveil Longhorn on store shelves by, say, Christmas?
-b
myselfmusic
an application...
running on user mode linux...
running on a host linux...
running on VMWare...
running on Windows.
So, what's the "platform"? (Extra Credit: If the application is a web-services solution, what's the "platform" then?)
Generally, bash is superior to python in those environments where python is not installed.
Zions confirmed that Microsoft is working to replace all open-source code in SFU with commercially licensed alternatives.
That would be entertaining, considering that just about every userland component of Interix has OpenBSD copyright notices in it. Take out all the Open Source from Interix and you'd have little more than the "kernel" left.
If they're really talking about doing that, and perhaps replacing it with the code from Unixware... I don't think commercial UNIX or Linux have anything to fear from the result. I've used Unixware, and it was less than impressive.
They'll be able to deflect attention from OSX and Linux by saying they provide a unix...
SFU wont be as good as unix, so people will still think of unix as difficult.
PHB's will believe it as usual...
M$ have a funny logic - whatever makes them think people will pay $$$ for a Windows box/licence/BSOD's to run GPL 'free' OSS like GNU/Linux on it???
Neighbor of mine has been working with SFU a lot: Interix perf blows.
Why would I want to run a Unix variant over Windows? That makes about as much sense as putting a Ferrrai engine in an unmodified VM bug.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
from wikipedia : "Texas longhorns are a breed of cattle descended from Spanish breeds that escaped settlements in Texas. After living feral for a time they were redomesticated."
Could this be likened to microsoft escaping settlements (well a real settlement anyway, giving away free software to further your monopoly is hardly punitive) could the redomestication be the inclusion of the ability to run UNIX code?
and no i didnt RTFA!
steal this sig
Jason has not posted lately on his blog . But here was an earlier post that referenced the January Slashdot article on SFU.
Have you Meta Moderated t
I can't wait for the first set of benchmarks from "UT2k4 for Linux for Windows"
You know how all the Slashbots complain about WINE, saying that it's going to marginalize native Linux applications like OS/2's Windows compatibility layer did?
Well, it cuts both ways, folks.
If an ISV can write POSIX code that builds on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS, where's the motivation to write Win32 (or even WinFX) native code?
Thank you Microsoft, for providing standard API's for a change. Between that and Mono, things are looking good for cross-platform software. Good to see Microsoft doing the right thing. (Now, we know they'll deliberately make this difficult, because it's just not Bill's nature to play nicely, but we'll work around that.)
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Seeing as the only difference between Windows and Linux that MS cannot erase (assuming they want to make money) is the fact that Linux is free and Windows is not, every other difference they erase brings it one step closer to that being the *only* difference, at which point predictable things happen (this is also why I think Mono isn't a bad idea). In this case, it'll likely cause more people to develop for *nix, knowing that it will still be compatible with Windows (as long as they release the source or provide a binary), which means more applications available for Linux, which means more Linux users, which means less people caring about Windows compatibility, and so on. Vicious cycle, it is.
Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively.
so will Mono and WINE.
I believe this is short for SnaFU, "Situation normal all F@#ked Up", or "Situation F@#cked Up" for short.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
"S(t)FU ! :P (Score:0, Troll) "
Guess the mods don't always RTFA.
Someone must have a pretty fancy crystal ball to tell us what is and isn't going to "sidelined" four years in the future.
No kidding. I know what Microsoft is thinking on this one, and I think that four years is probably too late. It simply comes down to offering a low cost migration path from UNIX. Note that this only affects the server though.
I don't think that it will sideline different Linux vendors, though it most certainly will continue to sideline Sun, if they are still around. Of course Sun is effectively sidelined at the moment, so....
Microsoft's hope here is that they can be the vendor that runs successful UNIX server software and also supports Windows desktops exclusively. It is also aimed at preventing customers from switching to Linux just because they want to run an Apache server.
Of course in 4 years, the computing landscape could be very different than it is now. I suspect that we will be in the middle of a huge conflict the likes of which the industry has never seen. I don't think that most analysts or most managers at MS count on it being as intense as it will.
When I left MS, the prevailing view was that OSS was a pipe dream which could not work in the real world (completely ignoring the success of Apache, BIND, Sendmail, GCC, etc). I don't think that they are conscious of how their pricing model effectively eliminates them from certain markets, such as the ISP market either.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
it's about cygwin and windows. MS is scared that more people will start producing Free Software on Windows. They need to talk people into a proprietary route of doing the same thing.
"God Bless America, where "freedom of speech" means race-hate groups like KKK"
Trying a little too hard, arentcha? What's funny is I'm willing to bet whatever country you're from has a list just like this that applies, probably with some of the same bullet points. Sure you wanna throw stones?
"Derp de derp."
1 - Use SFU
2 - Use wine over SFU
3 - Windows + stability
4 - ???
5 - PROFIT!
... "studies" showing that Unix/Linux is slower than Windows.
Anyone else read "run unix or linux code via STFU."
Now THAT would be interesting. Like your own Denis Leary in your computer.
Win-Vi, Win-Macs or Gnotepad?
In Soviet Russia, Unix Services you!
If you read the sfu35new.doc it says these features have been available for download since 1999. I remember using an early version. I think I used it to nfs mount stuff.
http://threetechguys.info Come, discuss Technology. Got a technology question? Come ask!
What makes me laugh, though, is I can't help but think they're trying to build a *nix emulation layer for win32/winFX vis-a-vis Wine.
How many people that bought those motherboards just threw away the CD that came with it?
Now how many people who bought Apple computers probably use OS X?
Common sense tells you the number of people who keep using OS X vs. the number of people who use a freebee included with an MB are probably drastically different.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
and MacOS X ...
...
(sure, with recompilation and stuff, but a lot less work than developing a cross-platform application is these days)
Whether you'll be able to directly run an x86-64 ELF binary (linux or bsd type) on Longhorn will be the interesting part - if you can, then for a lot of things, why bother with a dedicated Windows port. Linux will have more market share in 2008 than it does now, and might be worth supporting for even more companies
The ability to run Windows applications natively was one of the reasons that OS/2 never really took off - native application development was eschewed in favour of cross-platform development for Windows. It would be ironic indeed if this was to turn around and bite Microsoft one day.
Helpful Surfing Hint: websites download faster when you are not downloading porn at the same time.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
I'm wondering if they actually meant to say that SFU will run on Blackcomb, which is the codename for the next Windows *server* operating system (yes, "server OS" is specified in the article). This has often been targeted with a 2008 release and would make much more sense than it being included on Longhorn, which is supposedly on track for a 2006 release. Besides, how many Windows desktop OS users would actually use SFU even if it were included in the OS?
Why don't they just name it Functional Unix Distribution and get the whole acronym thing out in the open.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
If there are performance issues, and it represents a possible loss of face for Microsoft, wouldn't a better acronym be "Services Now Available For Unix"?
That way, it could be Microsoft's SNAFU.
GREAT Now I can have the ease-of-use of Linux apps combined with the operational stability of Windows!!
(Go ahead and mark me as a troll, but I was actually trying to be funny...)
Do people really use SFU?? First of all, the name is deceptive. When I hear "Windows Services for Unix" I think "SaMBa." It's a Windows service and it's for Unix. This stuff runs under Windows! Shouldn't it be Unix services for Windows?
Anyway, I'd be really interested to hear cases where people actually use this thing. To me it's easier and better to just load up another box with Linux to run Linux apps.
...Microsoft could rapidly become the biggest supplier of Unix software if Longhorn proves a success...
Nothing can beat the open source movement, honestly. (world wide developers, versus company wide - even though MS expands to other countries, it is still one company) Making a remark that MS could become the biggest supplier is almost an insult.
while true ; do echo this is my sig; done
When you get to the core of windows you are still talking about MS DOS. And for all of you that will say that the MS DOS has been phased out I would argue that MS DOS is still the primary CLI for windows.
:)
If I were bill gates I would pull and old trick out of the bag and copy a successful move that apple has made. That trick would be to copy what apple has done with BSD.
MS could make BSD the main operating system and make windows the GUI. Some people will say Linux but the reason Linux was not Apple's choice is because of it's license. The BSD license is so much more commercial friendly.
They could take Apache and make include a ton of proprietary code that makes it work just like IIS but more secure for just one example. This could produce one of the most powerful Unix O/S in the world.
Nick Powers
p.s. Gates if you are reading this I would love to lead a super secret project for you to do just this
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
All Windows software was written for Win32 subsystem not for NT kernel. NT kernel is what hosts various subsystems including Win32, which is most important.
"...enable a single process to run code both from Windows and Unix libraries."
The article seems to imply that SFU can run binary "code" compiled for Unix or Linux. I see nothing in the M$ literature that supports this. It appears that what we are talking about is merely a set of libraries that provide source-level compatibility with Unix. [Surely someone will be quick to correct me if I'm wrong.] As several others have pointed out, similar solutions have been available from third parties for quite some time.
...how about the forthcoming Tiger preview stuff (Redmond start your copiers etc.) to do with the new iChat video interface, the dashboard (a konfabulator ripoff) etc.?
;o)
However, that's being released next year, not in 4 years so your point does have some merit
I am NaN
So, finally, we'll be able to have a beowulf clus...
"All of MS's own software is written & tuned for the NT kernel, so switching to a different kernel would mean a rewrite of MS-SQL and so on."
Methinks you don't quite understand. This is a subsystem that runs under the Windows kernel, side-by-side with your windows apps. It's not a separate kernel. It's kind of a layer between the Posix API and the Windows kernel, so to speak. So you could, for example, get rid of IIS (if Windows will even let you remove it) and run Apache, for example. Or you could run both side by side (using different ports, of course).
So, you could have SQL Server running but also have Apache running. No rewriting of anything.
I actually had this software when it was written by the company MS bought, and used it under NT 4.0. It was lacking in a lot of areas at the time and it sounds like they've done a lot more with it. Still, I imagine it won't be quite as good as running the software under Linux, in terms of performance. Not to mention, one of the biggest advantages of running apps under Linux is for stability and security. Why would you want to run Linux apps on a less stable, less secure OS?
The assumption here is that once Windows can run Unix apps, the conventional Unix and Linux distributions will become redundant, because ... the reason people use them is that there are apps they can run only on Unix and not Windows? Ha ha ha... Seriously, by 2008 every vendor with any sense will sell both Linux and Windows ports of their software, and both SFU and Wine will be an occasionally useful convenience utility. Linux will win because the kernel is better than Windows, if that's the only differentiator.
Or maybe MS will switch to the Linux or BSD kernel after Longhorn is out. If OS's are a commodity why waste vast amounts of money competing with something that's already better and free. They're already doing that with IE (telling people they should switch to Mozilla).
Not to get too technical, but it seems very interesting that now that there is a serious competitor to Windows, MS comes out and says, "You dont need to switch, you can run *nix executables on windows in the *next* version. Just stick around, and great things will happen"
amen brother.
the stability of Windows
Windows is very stable, just pull out all those extraneouse round things from the back of the box.
ease of Unix
Are you saying that eunichs are 'easy'?
http://eth0.is-a-geek.org/
hmmmm you know I think that's a very childish and vice-presidential sort of attitude - these days there's not much difference
According to the SFU website, you can download a windows installer for SFU today.
From the "white paper":Way, way back, when most people that ran MS OSes actually ran the ugly 16-bit shell called Windows For Workgroups 3.11, Windows NT already had smth called "the POSIX subsystem". It was there more or less since day one of Windows NT designs, engineered to work similarly to the "win32" subsystem, and there was even a brief period of time when MS marketed its OS as "the first fully POSIX-compatible OS", due to this POSIX subsystem. Their hope, apparently, was the same as today - that UNIX-oriented programmers from the scientific and industrial backgrounds will switch to NT. However, they failed to support and upgrade the POSIX subsystem, and, given the failed expectations of attracting customers to buying NT for that subsystem (the majority were migrating from win16), they decided to dump it altogether for a while. Back then it served just another feature on the feature list to push Windows NT to as many OEMs on one hand and programmers on the other hand as possible. Those who did come because ofthe POSIX compatibility, were frustrated but already locked in.
VKh
http://www.colinux.org/
Be Free: Free Software Tuition
Yeah but will it finaly have POSIX style processes? Not being able to properly fork stuff pisses me off to no end.
That the developers at MS had originally called this "STFU"?
check out the pics on the SFU site. I'm sure it's just an accident :)
Don't forget that MS once had a Unix OS called Xenix. Then David Cutler talked them into a VMS like architecture...
As Henry Spencer put it "Those who do not understand Unix are condemed to reinvent it, poorly".
We may be seeing the wheel coming around full circle..
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Right, but Win32 is designed around NT capabilities and not Unix capabilities, especially the stuff designed for performance. Ask the Wine guys and they'll admit that Win32 on Unix is not optimal (they've even played around with linux kernel modules for performance).
I've been developing some analysis software for the last few months. I'm nearly code-complete but have been vexed by several issues. In particular, I've been wondering how I can bring my software to systems that are routinely rootkitted by script kiddies. Thanks to SFU, I can finally deliver software with the Quality that Windows users Expect.
First make sure there are proper drivers for your hardware before partitioning your harddrive for Windows.
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
..they want their TCP/IP stack back.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power. -- Mussolini
This is getting sligtly offtopic and I have to write this in a hurry, but wtf.
When you use autoconf/automake correctly, your package should be able to build on any platform with autoconf/automake/make and package dependencies. The trick is to tell autoconf/make only this:
- what your dependencies are
- where your sources are
and let the system handle everything else. A local administrator has setup autoconf/automake so that the macros invoked work with the system in question.I built a (now defunct) Gnome applet on RedHat 6 or so. A user notified me that it built and worked perfectly on Gnome under *Solaris*. I've never even had access to a Sun box
Must go... kitty/vet thing.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
"SFU is not shipped with Windows because SFU currently contains open-source software, such as the GNU C compiler, which cannot be distributed with commercial software."
Since when is this true??
Wu-Tang Name: Half-Cut Skeleton Get your own Wu-Na
Please re-read the thread.
Wouldn't it be grand if the developers behind SFU got together with the developers behind WINE and they shared knowledge of their respective OS, further enhancing the quality of both products?
Oh wait, it'll never happen, because while Microsoft has access to linux/UNIX sourcecode, the WINE team doesn't have access to Windows sourcecode...
Why would you want to run Linux apps on a less stable, less secure OS?
Well haven't you heard? Open source software kills jobs. At least this way you can run OSS on an OS that keeps people employed, and Bill rich.
Where do I sign up?
Check with the google
3% of google hits are from macintoshes, 1% from Linux boxes. Other unixes aren't significant enough to register.
You dont need to wait for Longhorn or even pay anything for it. Its 220mb in size. Whether it remains free is another issue entirely.
"I imagine it won't be quite as good as running the software under Linux, in terms of performance"
Couldn't that be the point that MS is trying to show?
"Oh look at the obvious performance difference between native Windows apps and these *nix apps."
"giving Microsoft a competitive edge in the server market...by allowing them to run...software applications that may only be available for the Unix/Linux platform"
Yes, because I would like to add the overhead of running MS Windows Server to my LAMP solution. It runs too fast now; I need to slow it down.
This could backfire badly as well. What is the incentive for companies to port to MS Windows with this? There isn't one. Instead, it makes sense for a company which expects a 50/50 MS Windows Server/*nix market to develop for *nix so that their code runs on both platforms. In other words, it makes it easier to be a *nix developer.
Will open source projects like Apache, MySQL, and PHP drop their MS Windows ports if this occurs? At the very least, I would expect interest to diminish.
So this is where SCOs LKP went to......
Hmmmm; now we will need to GPL Long horn or remove this code!
Yes I am an ANTI Microsoft zealot. I admit it, openly even. I am glad to say the least, that they have opted to include this feature in their latest OS release. I think it will serve to make both the Microsoft OS a better experience, while bridging the gap somewhat between proprietary code, and open source.
Kudos Microsoft, you are finally growing up.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
And I thought Windows was behaving badly now, when I look at all those vira out there... Now they can harness the most ultimate power in the world, and bring 95% of the planets computer down for good... /root...
Who's assimilating whom now?
Surely by now everybody would have dumped Unix for NT. That's what billy boy promised years ago.
Why wait four years for a castrated unix wannabe when you can get the real thing right now?
How does this silly troll get modded as insightful?
Thank you, anonymous coward, for your troll, but a troll is no subsititute for reason and fact. If it's "much easier to put unix on windows" than vice versa as you claim, how do you explain away the rather disturbing fact thousands are now running windows applications on linux, while microsoft is still talking about pie in the sky vaporware that would allow linux apps to run on windows?
oops...
I just recently found and installed SFU. It is very nice.
.exe: "SFU35SEL_EN.exe". I found the MS mirror of it would stop part way through the 218MB download. It is an exefied .zip file, so I initally wondered what was causing the "invalid exe file" error. Then I did a google search for "SFU35SEL_EN.exe" and found lots of copies. 5-6 tries later I found a site that actually worked: "http://debian.goldweb.com.au/microsoft/unixservic es/SFU35SEL_EN.exe"
As for getting hold of it, I went through the registering process(heh, MS eat my made up details) and found the name of the
My biggest gripe is that it comes with everything EXCEPT a damn X-Server!! You either have to buy one, or use the cygwin+Xfree86. Doh! Though I have looked into the comerical versions, and X-Win32 from http://www.starnet.com/ looks promising. I have downloaded the demo version, but I am waiting for a crack/keygen/serial for this version before I install it.
In the mean time, I found Microsoft Virtual PC(I don't think it is a free download - though it was for me -- my friend has access to the developer network). This is potentially even sweeter than SFU. Run an entire OS inside a virtual PC! I installed FreeBSD with great ease(I only had 1 small problem). Heh, and unlike SFU it actually comes with an X-Server. I have been a long time windows user, so both tools will help me to migrate to *nix, or at least keep me out of trouble if I ever need to use a *nix system.
The main users will be people who want to turn off ancient Sun boxes and the like. They don't care about performance.
Googled around and found it:
roger_howorth@vnu.co.uk
Write to the author of the article and politely point out that the GPL provides everyone the right to bundle or include GNU software, but not source code, with closed source software.
You never know; he might actually print a retraction. Bwhahahah!... sorry.
Canadian uranium? lmao! Look! It's an inanimate carbon rod! He saved the day!
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
I think that historical precendent argues against your Grendel cluster's success - in fact, it seems that the Beowulf cluster will probably tear it apart...
Functional Unix Corporate Kit
MS SQL Server is based on Sybase, which runs on a variety of Unixes. The GUI portions of SQL Server are Windows-specific, of course, but the basic database is (or at least forked from Sybase as) platform agnostic. And as others have pointed out, that part is Win32-based. Win32 is an API which runs on NT and Windows95/MS-DOS. They probably haven't done a lot of low-level performance tuning on it.
Measuring browser hits won't work. Think of all the linux servers chugging away with no browser usage. You're comparing desktops, and forgetting about servers.
Where else can someone start with nothing and become wealthier than most african countries?
Ehm...almost anywhere in the world? I dont see that this is limited to the US.
If you want to look for differences between Europe and the US it is far more interesting to ask what happens to those who for some reason are unable to aquire or have lost their wealth.
Sorry folks, hit submit instead of the preview on one of my revisions. Here's the other part, about OS/2.
Even before the events I have described in the parent post, when MS pulled out abruptly out of the OS/2 deals, the OS/2 developers realized the tremendous potential of the Windows marketing and upcoming installed base, as well as the multitude of applications gearing up for Windows (it was Windows 2 then! I believe Windows 3.0 was the 1st revision MS put out after they dumped the OS/2 partnership).
So the OS/2 team tried their own version of "embrace and extend". They put up a slogan that (sorry for not remembering the exact wording) said that OS/2 runs Windows applications better than Windows (and this was true in a lot of ways, but we won't digress). Their hope was that a lot of developers would thus switch to OS/2, and for those who had some legacy Windows products to use, or Windows-based product lines to continue shipping, the Windows API support from OS/2 would suffice. Eventually, developers would prefer the richer OS/2 API and Windows would become a gone thing.
Reality, as we know, was a bit different. OS/2 lost, and Windows won. The prevalent attitude among the developers and the management back then was "if OS/2 supports alias emulates Windows (architectural issues of the real thing aside), and Windows is just that - native Windows, why don't we develop only for Windows - instead of doing cross-platform design, or supporting two product lines, we'll reduce the costs this way. We'll also reduce the costs by never buying OS/2 at all - whoever wants to run it, can buy it and it will run our apps anyhow."
So with the Longhorn/UNIX compatibility it can swing both ways towards Windows. One way (the way MS prefers it to go) would be mass switching into Windows from Unix. Just like the OS/2 folks dreamt of the future swinging towards them. The other way would be for Windows to be on the receiving end of the killing machine that killed OS/2 back then.
Windows, of course, has *much* better chances now than OS/2 then. Larger codebase written over Windows - centuries and millenia of man-hours. Orders of magnitude more users. Yet this alone won't help IMHO unless Windows rides the open source wave the way Mac OS X does. But in that case, they will have to contribute back to the open source. The ugly future would be MS succeeding into convincing people that open source is bad, by FUD or litigation or whatever else, and/or luring people into seemingly open source development on Longhorn with hidden strings attached.
Time will tell.
VKh
About the only 'modern' component of SFU as it stands today is gcc 3.3 (in sfu 3.0 it was gcc 2.x).
In an era when source development is highly linux-centric and Unix[TM]es now having to adapt to 'linux standards' to ease source code migration this seems like a serious case of 'too little too late'.
Sure, some interesting and useful stuff has been ported to SFU, but many things mormally taken for granted (e.g. emacs, ssh) are marked 'alpha' and even the packages hosted by the SFU team don't 'just build' from their own patched sources. *all of these sources* have already been ported to the native win32 API anyway.
Anyhow if it's not going to be a 'part' of ms's os until the '08 release of Longhorn, I can't see how it's going to be relevant.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
Once again, a misleading and sensationalist article on slashdot. Microsoft have no plans to make windows "compatible" with linux in the general sense of the word. Nope, they are just planning to include SFU (Services for unix) which has been available free for some time. SFU is literally just that; adds support for linus/unix services enabling *nix style printer queues and general network interoperability tools. It does not for example allow you to run KDE or GIMP or anything fancy like that. It is preposterous to even suggest like these so called "Industry Analysts" are that this is a move my microsoft to enable Linux software to run on windows, and that it is planning on becoming the worlds biggest unix software provider. For the very word "Linux" to be associated with "Windows" is enough to make Bill Gates turn in his grave (if he was dead that is!)
...
nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
They're just trying to look like they're actually doing something.
This will be very interesting. Now we'll be able to compare execution time, resources, executiable size and time, yada, yada, yada.
The opportunity to compare platforms may be unavoidable. Real comparisons could be made about O/S stability and security.
My guess is that M$FT may not want those comparisons. Developers would no longer have to pay the prince for the keys to the winders kingdom.
This is an example of real, serious competition forcing changes to the technological ecosystem.
...because NOTHING prevents GNU-licensed software from being sold/distributed with commercial software AS LONG AS YOU INCLUDE ACCESS TO THE SOURCE CODE of the app in question. I cannot see why it couldn't even be on the same physical CD as closed software. The REAL reason SFU is not shipped with Windows is probalby for other reasons:
* Political reasons: MS cannot rail against the GNU license if they bundle GNU software with its OS. It would be too damaging to the argument that GNU is "dangerous and infectious" to commercial software projects if they successfully demonstrated GNU legally co-mingling with closed software. Bundling SFU and giving it a high profile at this point--when it is still laden with GNU software and MS's own platform is a creaking, worm-infested hulk with a screen-door security policy--would be tantamount to admitting defeat.
* Marketing reasons: They would have to fight the perception that their own software is so inferior to alternatives that they themselves will not use it. An important sales and marketing rule is to "eat your own dogfood"--doing otherwise makes the job tough for the sales force. If using the alternative cannot be avoided then MS wants to add as LITTLE value as possible by making it a separate but free package with only a little, narrowly targeted marketing. This strategy has given SFU the image of an obscure, "skunkworks" project--just as MS intends.
* Legal reasons: The problem isn't with distribution itself. The likely problem is that to bundle/integrate SFU with the OS the way MS WANTS to "embrace" it would require "extending" some of that GNU software. Microsoft is never content with merely putting the software on the CD--it wants to fuse it with the OS a la IE. THAT is where the GPL would get in the way, because MS depends heavily on keeping its extensions to open standards and systems proprietary--something the GPL forbids.
Thus we have to wait until Longhorn for "integrated SFU". MS needs the time to re-engineer the GPL components in such a way that it is "SCO approved" and extendable without concern for openness. Furthermore, Longhorn is supposed to be a quantum leap from the status quo--a major re-work. It represents a shift akin to moving from DOS to Win 3.x or Win 3.x to Win95. In this scenario, integrated SFU becomes just one of a large number of significant advancements, rather than sticking out like a sore thumb by being introduced at a time when MS is fighting with current Win32 shortcomings.
The result us that SFU can be credibly marketed as intended--a way to introduce Windows into a "legacy" UNIX environment with the prospect of eventual takeover.
there was even a brief period of time when MS marketed its OS as "the first fully POSIX-compatible OS",
This seems dubious. Microsoft never marketed POSIX except in the "look at our cool subsystems" sense.
They pretty much always admitted it was only included for government purchasing requirements.
They probably haven't done a lot of low-level performance tuning on [MSSQL]
Dumbest thing I've read all day.
If I can develop UNIX apps which will run on Windows, why would I bother developing Windows Apps?
I fear that the reality of the situation will be that Microsoft's SFU will work well enough to sell Longhorn, but not well enough that existing UNIX apps can be seamlessly moved to a Windows box.
Besides, this is a dumb move by Microsoft. Remember what happened to OS/2 when IBM announced that it would run Windows apps? That's right - developers flocked to Windows (3.1) because they new that regardless of OS/2's success, they'd still be able to sell their applications. As a consequence, OS/2 bombed, where Windows took off. Seems to me like Microsoft is shooting themselves in the foot with this one.
And incidentally, I believe the same thing about WINE - I think it hindered the adoption of Linux by developers.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
SFU is not shipped with Windows because SFU currently contains open-source software, such as the GNU C compiler, which cannot be distributed with commercial software. Zions confirmed that Microsoft is working to replace all open-source code in SFU with commercially licensed alternatives. Last year it licensed Unix software from SCO.
:) 699+!
I wonder how expensive these SFU gona be
Canadian Uranium look here So fuck right off thank you very much.
Post war - grandparent didn't mention speaking Russian. I suppose the US could have let the Russians control all of Eurasia. That would be good policy wouldn't it?
SFU 3.5 is available _today_, as a free download, no less. I've been using SFU since the pre-3.0 betas. It is wonderful. The announcement here seems to be that SFU will actually get rolled into some longhorn skus, so you wont even have to download the free installer. That means people can expect an SFU environment as part of a given windows install in a few years.
;)
SFU is cool technology - you get real NFS client and server, a real UNIX cmdline environment (much better than cygwin, IMO), full gcc, libraries, tcsh, even x11 libs (but no local xserver). I find that having a tcsh SFU window hanging around on my desktop significantly helps my development process (foreach/grep/find/sed does wonders for search-n-replace on a large code base)
I'm not sure really what the point of your post was, but it mostly revolves around bitching at MS and journalists about a announcing a product plan. You seem to focus on how longhorn wont be here for a while. The specific technology in question, SFU, is here today, and you can use it now if you want to.
Not that that should stop you from randomly complaining about MS though. This is slashdot afer all
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
I love you how you Open Sores Fruits will pee your pants and cry Troll over the slightest and most imaginary injustice. You can't be reasonable when your audience is a bunch of kooks.
POSIX is a much smaller and better documented API than Win32. Furthermore, most POSIX app are already designed to handle subtle implementation differences. That why it's easier to emulate Unix than Windows.
(PS: Let us when Wine runs MSSQL with any sort of reasonable performance. Oh, sorry, that won't happen.)
symlinks will be available in Windows Enhanced NT Server 2010
Wait...I seem to remember another PC operating system that was supposedly vastly superior than the market dominating environment, but one of it's great features was that it could run that environment's apps, right alongside the superior OS's apps. Though obviously, once you had experienced this wonderful new way of working, you'd eventually convert to all new native apps. What was that OS? (think...think...think...)
Oh right. It was OS/2!
Seriously, rarely have OSes succeeded when one of their main benefits was running another OS's software. SCOX and Sun have made various stabs at convincing customers UnixWare and Solaris run Linux apps, and they are still hemoraging marketshare. Though Microsoft's marketing machine is second to none, I still can't believe customers will buy Longhorn as an integration/migration platform. That marketing never worked in the past, why would it work now?
Oh wait, that's right: Microsoft is expecting it to work 4 years from now. OK, then perhaps they believe in 4 years Linux will have made so many inroads they'll have to run Linux apps. Maybe we really are winning after all!
--Mythos
We can violate international laws because we got the force to back it up.
That's very short term thinking. In the long run this kind of attitude is going to bite the US in the ass. You musn't forget that the US population represents only a small fraction of the world population. I wouldn't be suprised if trade negotiations etc will be a lot harder for the US now they have damaged quite a lot of friendships.
Finally, when Longhorn ships companies can stop writing apps to two API's (Win32 and Linux/Unix) and just concentrate on one (Linux/Unix). No more need to keep a cadre of overpaid Windows developers around. Hoorah!
almost all of the original sybase code is gone from MS SQL server, and the sybase ASE codebase is whole lot different then it was when SQL server forked from it.
PHP is the solution of choice for relaying mysql errors to web users.
Oh, how I would love it if SCO is shown in court to not hold the copyrights on UNIX. Just think - Novell could Open Source (GPL preferred) some of the pieces of UNIX that MS needs to interoperate, and then any bridge software that MS writes would either need to be cleanroom-built, or GPL'd itself.
Then, MS must choose - a method to get UNIX users running on Windows, but that exposes their interfaces in GPL format; or not....
Hmmm.....
We are the Music Makers, and We are the Dreamers of Dreams...
What you don't mention is that Microsoft caused this. Unlike with NT 4, Microsoft refused to grant a reasonable license to the Win2k source. The little company was thus doomed, making them cheap for the big predatory company to aquire.
A few highly modded posts have mentioned this, but let me make it a bit more clear. Mac OS X is already an operating system which lets you run complicated command line utilities side by side with extremely easy to use GUI applications. In fact, with OS X you can run not only OS X programs, but OS 9 programs, unix programs, X windows programs, and windows programs (via Virtual PC). If you use fink, you can install some 3880 program packages, including KDX, Gnome, Gimp, etc.
In other words, pretty much any environment you like, with any apps you like, all running at the same time, natively (except maybe windows programs.) All of which you can do NOW, TODAY, with OS X.
And microsoft wants people to wait until 2006? Why bother?
So, let me get this straight: in four years, we'll be able to jump on the Windows upgrade treadmill and run Linux code on servers costing thousands of dollars in Microsoft licensing fees, requiring at least 1Gbyte of RAM, and still be forced to deal with Microsoft's system admin tools. And why would I want to do that?
The problem with Windows isn't the lack of features, it is that it already has far too many. Adding Linux into the mix makes the problem with Windows worse, not better.
Microsoft is not new to Unix. They had Xenix way back...1987 licensed from SCO. SCO built Xenix in 1983 I think. Xenix was a port of AT&T Unix System III. Ah, the old days.
I remember getting paid minimum wage (like $3-4/hour or so in 1982) to do Unix programmiung. All the IBM mainframe system programmers would actually laugh at me.
Suprisingly, this compatability was a huge win for Microsoft. 3rd party developers wishing to support both platforms would write for the MSWindows ABI instead of OS/2. I hope this OS/2 syndrome his Microsft when Longhorn can run RedHat binaries.
...in this previous thread?
VKh
Well, it was slow for me, and trust me, that Cameron vid wasn't worth the time.
:)
I'm surprised you could poll every other slashdot user so quickly! What methodology did you use?
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
Now we can reboot our Unix apps twice a day. And they'll run slower, finally justifying the purchase of that 4-way Xeon! For only a few hundred extra dollars, with untraceable system calls at no extra charge.
--
make install -not war
This predates Cygwin, and is different anyhow. Cygwin uses a DLL that runs through the Win32 API. So it's an API on top of an API. There are some problems with this. SFU is different, it actually installs POSIX as an API alongside Win32. Windows isn't limited to a single API, and actually ships with simple POSIX and OS/2 APIs. Win32 is required, since all the main software is written in it, but you are perfectly able to develop your own APIs for it.
.NET (which will probably be it's primary API), Win32 and POSIX. The other change will be interoperability. Right now you can't really have POSIX and Win32 programs directly interact. They can communicate, but not directly call functions from one another or the like. This aims to change that.
Back in the day I believe it was Citrix that did this, and their product added a hell of a POSIX layer to NT4. They ran out of money and Microsoft picked them up, making SFU. Right now SFU is available from MS for no charge, and actually adds quite a good POSIX layer to Windows.
The difference would be right now it's pretty server-ish. It wants to setup a NFS server and such. It's also not included.
Sound like the idea here is to make Windows a multi-API system with Longhorn. Rather than just shipping with Win32, as XP does, it'll ship with
No idea if this is something that'l really work or just pie in the sky, but it's not the same thing as Cygwin, and isn't based on it.
Now MS is "beefing" up "Longhorn"
Now your PC can get Mad Cow disease!
Udiots. I am applying for trademark and copyright and patent as you read.
Infuriate left and right
Why the Slashdot-standard it's true for me and therefore universally true test, of course.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
I know this is off-topic (so sue me) but other operating systems are doing similar things to allow Unix applications to run on them.
Obviously, there's FINK for Mac OS X (but that's not a stretch because of OSX's underpinnings)
But probably the more interesting one is GNV. gnv.sourceforge.net
It stands for GNU's NOT VMS. It's a Bash shell and environment for porting Unix/Linux apps to VMS. It's doing quite well for those folks that have a pre-existing VMS environment and who need an open-sourced utility to do something that's hard to find for VMS.
What's my Karma Mr. Burns? "Excellent"
in trying to be everyones' operating system by integrating UNIX/Linux. Couldn't that lead to more insecurity? the only reason i think is that while the architecture might be modular, M$ love to bury everything into a nicely integrated system (no one every thought the browser would make sense as part of the OS until M$ said so).
i am not an expert, but won't Windows be a bit more secure if IE wasn't so tightly integrated? now i don't thing Linux or Macs would have the same security concerns simply because very few things which are not critical to the Kernel will get in there. Wine has been around for a bit and even if it was more stable, i didn't see it ever getting into the kernel. that would just be another thing to worry about.
an OS is a complex piece of software as it is, but to try to do everything and be everything, that is asking for trouble. it is like Java (no flam war intended), Java for a bit wanted to be everyone's programming language (after it got out of the lab). that makes it so bloated and complex that i am sure there are a ton of duplicate classes or classes that are slightly similar which can lead to confusion and a maintenance nightmare.
We speak English instead. Seemed a good idea at first, but less and less so lately.
Actually, it's a reference to the people who will buy it...Stupid Fucking Users.
Buy it? You must be talking about Longhorn, as MS Services for Unix is available free for download from Microsoft. As I recall, the software was one of the best in show at LinuxWorld 2002.
Carthago delenda est!
Do you realize SFU existed BEFORE OSX?
It has been avail. for years, and is now free:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/
It requires NTFS, though.
Software FUBAR (SFU-BAR)...how appropriate.
Linux at home
And what does it do that Cygwin doesn't? Cygwin seems a lot more complete in some respects.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
"Microsoft is working to replace all open-source code in SFU with commercially licensed alternatives. Last year it licensed Unix software from SCO."
Maybe MS thinks that by "licensing" unix from SCO, they aren't bound by the GPL?
That would be an interesting twist eh?
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Don't forget that Windows has a hybrid microkernel design, with the OS interfaces provided by user-mode subsystem processes. Windows is one such subsystem (csrss.exe), while POSIX is another (psxss.exe). Note that there is also a DOS subsystem (NTVDM.exe), and an OS/2 1.1 subsystem (os2ss.exe) which no longer ships.
Thus, there may not be any Windows pipe API, but the POSIX subsystem includes all 110 APIs required for strict POSIX.1 compliance. This means it properly supports pipe(), signal(), ttys, getuid(), getppid(). If you have a library that provides these calls under the Windows subsystem, they will probably be useless, but if you compile against the POSIX subsystem they will work.
Keep in mind that any one process can only run under one subsystem. That is, you cannot have a Windows program that calls into the POSIX subsystem to do a fork(), for example. The only way to combine Windows and POSIX functionality is with a pipe (e.g. WinCmd.exe | POSIXcmd.exe | DOSCMD.EXE).
aQazaQa
From the readme.htm
/tmp.
KNOWN ISSUES and LIMITATIONS
Back to Top
The following is a list of known issues with the current release version of Windows Services for UNIX.
* The dlopen() function fails to load shared libraries from an earlier version of Services for UNIX.
* The gcc(1) utility does not link with libraries in the path set in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. You must specify the library path using the -L option.
* The ld.so linker does not load libraries if the executable does not have an extension. You can work around this problem by writing a script that performs the following actions:
1. Copy the executable to a temporary file name with an extension in
2. Launch ld.so with the new temporary file name with the extension.
3. Delete the temporary file.
* In this release, after a program calls fork(), thread synchronization objects of a parent process are reinitialized for reuse in the child process.
* Moving a symbolic link across directories from a UNIX client on a Windows Services for UNIX NFS mount will make the link invalid.
* When the Interix exec*() family of functions is called to run a Win32 program, command-line arguments can be truncated if the arguments exceed 32 KB in size and the environment exceeds 30 KB.
* The following features are not available in this release:
o Complete support of Distributed File System (DFS) and reparse points is unavailable. Some operations might work, but anything that relies on proper inodes will fail.
o Sending SIGSTOP and SIGCONT signals to Win32 processes is not supported on Windows 2000. This is supported on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Sending SIGTSTP to Win32 processes is not supported on any Windows platform.
* Additional notes for the Windows Services for UNIX Help section entitled "Creating a user for inetd": For Interix daemons (like rlogind and telnetd) that are started by the Interix inetd program to run properly, the inetd process must be executed by the local or domain Administrator.
* If a user's home directory is not set in Active Directory or in the user's local account, Windows and the Interix subsystem default to different home directories for the user. Usually, Windows defaults to C:\Documents and Settings\user_name while Interix defaults to the root (/) directory, which maps to %SFUDIR%. Furthermore, when a user starts an Interix command shell, the user's home directory is the Windows home directory, but if the same user then explicitly logs in (using the login command), the user's home directory is set to the user's Interix home directory.
The following applies to Windows Services for UNIX 3.5 JPN only:
* The default editor for the Windows-based crontab utility (Crontab.exe) is vi. However, vi cannot be used to edit crontab entries on most systems running Windows Services for UNIX 3.5 JPN because the path name of the temporary file used for this purpose is likely to contain multibyte characters, and the version of vi provided with Windows Services for UNIX 3.5 cannot work with path names containing multibyte characters. To avoid this problem, you can do one of two things:
o Set the EDITOR environment variable to the path name of another text editor, such as Windows Notepad.
o Obtain a version of vi that can work with path names containing multibyte characters.
In other news, MS admits they're lagging behind and aren't the innovators. And I quote:
Microsoft, which has acknowledged it lags in search, hopes to play catch-up with a broad-based search tool that allows users to also scour through e-mails, documents and even big databases.
I'm not saying that all open source software in Linux are the cutting-edge either...but considering that you have to shell out cold-hard cash for the alternative, why?
Linux at home
Doesn't all the software you need already run on windows? Maybe not.
Another FUD goes down.
Derek
As long as we're on the same basis for our statements, I'm comfortable with that.
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
SFU is not shipped with Windows because SFU currently contains open-source software, such as the GNU C compiler, which cannot be distributed with commercial software. Zions confirmed that Microsoft is working to replace all open-source code in SFU with commercially licensed alternatives. Last year it licensed Unix software from SCO.
Well, I'm bewildered by this approach. Does MS's legal team completely have their heads up their ass in terms of legal reality, or are they just willing to pay to commercially license software just for the potential value as a FUD tool? Can't distribute the GNU C compiler with commercial software? Apple must be dead in the water!
May we never see th
Four years from now, if they can keep their own time line, you might be the only person in line. By then, I expect Windows to be about as legacy as OS/2. You see it and marvel, "that thing still works? Wowwwwwwwwwwwww."
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Forget about libgcrypt. It's documentation is poor anyway. Instead you should use LibTomCrypt, which is free as in true freedom (public domain), and has compiled on every system I've tried it on (including Cygwin).
(No I'm not the author... just a satisfied user)
if they were selling with commerical software you'd be beside yourself with rage as M$ steals the work of valiant OSS coders. Slashdot is becoming so partisan as to be barely worth reading these days. Its enough to make me want to uninstall Linux and reinstall XP it really is...
Hello everybody. I know this sounds too wierd to be true, but this post is Score:5, Interesting.
I think the real issue is paring down legacy servers that run some old flavor of Unix. Obviously if you're going to big a new badass app you aren't going to spec and deploy it on an emulation layer (even if SFU can make Windows system calls, it doesn't equal a full Unix OS) but for the 15 year-old paycheck-printing system you can't get rid of, decent Unix deployability on Windows might make you think twice about buying another Unix box just for that system.
M$FT vaporware, FUD and hollow promises. Nothing to see here folks, lets move along.
basically we all know they're just copying apple once again. apple already saw it coming few weeks ago. check out the banners quite funny.
my blog
Roozbeh/
Funniest .sig ever.
can already do that.
Why? Well, First of all, IBM's move meant that customers were taking Windows more seriously. But, why run OS/2 if you can run Windows? I think the same this is about to happen here. This move my Microsoft is going to cause customers to really take Linux seriously, I mean, why else would you want a Linux emulation layer if Linux isn't a serious OS?
Once that happens, the customers are going to wonder why they even bother running Windows in the first place. Hell, with Linux I can run the application native, AND it's cheaper!
This is just one of the indications we're getting that Microsoft is getting desperate. This will get interesting.
It's estimated that over 20 MILLION Soviets died during WWII. Irregardless of politics, they bore the brunt of Hitler's forces. (No other nation's death toll is HALF that) If not for those "peasants," history would be drastically different. Your glib attitude to the part the USSR played in WWII makes me think you're just another victim of the American propaganda machine. Sure-- "John Wayne, American" always saved the world single-handedly. GaFC!
I know it's a bad idea to feed the trolls, but...
POSIX is a much smaller and better documented API than Win32.
Sorry to break this to you, anonymous coward, but simply implementing "a posix api" doesn't get you anywhere near a functional unix system, but merely some bones for a skeleton under construction...
PS: Let us when Wine runs MSSQL with any sort of reasonable performance. Oh, sorry, that won't happen.
Eh? what a bizzarre idea... why would anyone be interested? I mean, we can run Oracle, DB2, and other commercial, native linux databases, so what would be the point? Open source databases such as MySQL, PostgreSQL are much more suitable for serious work than futzing around with a virtual peecee environment to run a windows database.
Generally speaking, if a linux admin wants stable, high-performance apps, native linux executables are the only sane option, and there are plenty to choose from in the database arena.
Oh hm, you must have forgotten about Cygwin ... or about U/WIN (created by David "ksh" Korn) ... or NT's own POSIX subsystem (as pathetic as it is)... Cygwin and U/WIN are both so complete you can run X Window on them, need I say more? Of course you can run *x apps on Windows, and it's been possible for some time now.
Moll.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
IHBT IHL, and I should FOAD. Nevertheless, I'll bite.
with no scripting capabilities
uh, ash? bash? csh? ksh? zsh? do these somehow not exist?
Moll.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Remember that this is a post in defense of America.
I notice you're all anonymous cowards too. Don't want your name by your ignorant, useless comments?
The only one of these three posts that has any value is the last one about it biting the US in the ass in the long run. Thanks for the meaningful post, I respect it. Maybe you're right. Time will tell.
Linux won a point here. M$ is not going to
provide the Windows compatibility layer to run
Linux applications without performance penalty
just because they consider it would help the
migration from Linux to Windows. They are
already accepting the fact that Linux will gain
customers in the next few years and if they
provide that compatibility is just to prevent
their customers from migrating. It could only
help if they also provide a set of
Linux-compatible (i.e. GNU-like) development
tools for free.
What is the advantage of Microsoft letting Unix softwares play in Windows? Currently, they have the status quo. Any software written for *NIX (yes, that includes linux and Darwin) is very likely easily ported to Windows. Most softwares are available for Windows already even when sometimes we point out that out of tens of thousand Windows apps, there are hundreds of text editors or some silly, badly written apps we don't need.
Is it because Microsoft is afraid of linux and FOSS? I think they are afraid, but it's not the reason, IMHO. Having able to run *NIX apps out of the box can only hurt Microsoft since now if you want to shoot for the largest audience, you write for *NIX! It's compilable for Windows, OS X, linux, BSD, etc. That is, Microsoft loses the exclusivity it thrives on. It gives people more choices. This is great for Microsoft's competitors, but not Microsoft.
<hat type="tinfoil" status="on">
What I am afraid of is, this is the beginning of Microsoft co-opting *NIX using its tried and proven method. First, it embraces a standard, then it extends the standard in the name of usability and power. You may argue that it's not easy to hijack an open standard or OSS, but look at HTML. Developers are adapting to Microsoft's bugs instead of writing clean, W3C-standard HTML.
Microsoft doesn't want to kill *NIX, they want to hijack it. It is easier to fight when you know you are being attacked, but not when you are being assimilated from the inside. Beware!
</hat>
"Services For Unix" = SFU (San Francisco University?)
"Service Technology For Unix" = STFU
STFU, n00b!
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
"Microsoft is working to replace all open-source code in SFU with commercially licensed alternatives. Last year it licensed Unix software from SCO."
If I remember correctly, Novell disputed SCO's right to sell Microsoft that license, especially since the Novell-SCO contract says Novell gets 95%, and Novell hasn't seen a penny of that particular sale.
I'm curious to see how this will all turn out. Microsoft might argue that they paid millions for a license so they should get a license and Novell should just beat it out of SCO. And I'd expect Novell to argue that they would never have been willing to grant such a broad license for as little as Microsoft was charged. Maybe Novell will get a medium sized payoff to settle things like Sun did.
The limit of my own experience with SFU has been downloading it and finding that it would refuse to install because I was using FAT32, and rather than repartition my disk or convert to NTFS and accept slower disk performance than if I started fresh, I decided to just accept that I wouldn't be trying it on my current Windows PC. Cygwin works good enough for all my GNU/Windows needs, and has much better Windows compatibility than SFU.
So if you write code for Windows, it runs only on Windows. But if you write code for Unix, it runs on both Unix and Windows. Sounds like all the smart programers are going to write for Unix.
the only reason any admin with a clue would welcome this is to make migration to OSS smoother and faster, allowing you to keep those old NT systems available while you move. why on earth you'd want to have NT as your OS but run everything under a unix emulation shell is beyond me.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I really had no idea that MS was in the unix business at this point. And after RTFA, I still don't quite understand what exactly is going on here. You run windows, and with this one app, you run unix apps on top of it? Is this like WINE or something like that? I thought MS either had coded the basic stuff and offers it themselves, or relied on/courts third party developers to make them. So what's this with unix jazz, I thought they deprecated other operating systems?
I admit I R confuseth this time
Of course you can run *x apps on Windows, and it's been possible for some time now.
er... If you have the source, and If you can get it to compile under cygwin, then maybe it will run -
but a native linux binary on windows? Sorry if you misunderstood, but sorry, no...
First you tout Wine, then you slam it. Make up your mind, kook.
Again, I beg to differ
Moll.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
"SFU is not shipped with Windows because SFU currently contains open-source software, such as the GNU C compiler, which cannot be distributed with commercial software. Zions confirmed that Microsoft is working to replace all open-source code in SFU with commercially licensed alternatives. Last year it licensed Unix software from SCO."
Since when can't open source software be shipped side by side with commercial software?
What Microsoft really means is that they don't want the fact that they use gpl'd software becoming very public.
that we don't have to develope Windows based programs any more? Asta la vista VB, wait, now I'm back to being a wannabe programmer. ^#$&$ it!!
An interesting point (albeit a little of topic)... Firefox and Mozilla (under Windows 2000 try it when I get home under linux) failed to load the SFU page but IE loads it up straight away hmmmmmm.
On the topic of GPL'd code. A "friend" of mine worked for a software company that has no problems with taking OSS and changing a few things in the source and calling it their own and shipping it as apart of the end product license NOT intact (or insight for that matter) AND for a handsome PROFIT mind you!
A classic line my "friend" told me was that it was changed enough so it "sort-of" looked different but not changed so much that the updates couldn't be easily intergrated.
What is to stop micro$oft from ripping the source and changing a few things (such as cross-platform compilability) and rebadging it in the old red, green, blue and yellow?
"SFU is not shipped with Windows because SFU currently contains open-source software, such as the GNU C compiler, which cannot be distributed with commercial software."
This doesn't sound right to me...
Sun distributes, bash and other GNU software with their OS, why can't MS?
Regardless of ideological bent, it's an interesting piece of technology
Whatever.
Regardless of ideological bent, blowing a seal's brains into the snow with a shotgun makes an interesting pattern.
"Ask the Wine guys and they'll admit that Win32 on Unix is not optimal"
Ask the wine guys and they'll admit that win32 on nt or dos isn't optimal either. It's win32 that isn't optimal not the underlying system.
Your right to a degree, I've seen the windows code (good thing I don't work on wine eh?) and it's not properly modular, there are pieces which spill over where they should be totally abstract.
Basically it's spaghetti code. It's worth noting though, that about half the win32 api runs FASTER on wine than on the MS implementation. Probably due to better implementation as much as anything, but worth thinking about.
As for kernel modules, win32 just isn't fast, it depends on scheduler behavior like that in windows, robbing everything else of performance to speed up gui performance (which is one of the reasons everything but the gui is faster in *nix).
The win32 code still isn't as stable, this is evidenced with something we've all seen. Start an app that does alot of processing, move the window around rapidly.
In windows the window won't keep up with your cursor, in fact the app will usually freeze, sometimes even taking the gui with it (usually explorer reloads to try to prevent you from ever knowing it crashed but your system tray reveals the lie with missing icons).
In linux the window will keep up with your cursor but may leave a trail, even if the window doesn't keep up where you let go of the cursor is where it will be eventually. The display will catch up with it as soon as it can but neither the app or the gui will crash.
Hopefully with the new scheduler tools we've seen recently we'll no longer have to make the trade (overall anyway). You'll pick a scheduler at install time.
But here is something some don't know that will result in the linux gui blowing windows away. x.org is going OpenGL for xwindows. The gui and rendering work will be offloaded to the video card which is fully optimized for opengl (they all are thanks to the beloved quake benchmarks).
Although the method is different, the overall effect will be the same as the mac, the gui will be faster because the videocard is faster at graphics calculations. The cpu won't be bogged down by a pretty gui (unless you use a video card without hardware 3d acceleration but who does?).
Anyway, I've strayed a bit from wine performance (although this will help some aspects of it).
"PS: Let us when Wine runs MSSQL with any sort of reasonable performance. Oh, sorry, that won't happen."
Why would anyone want to do that? I mean seriously, I can't think of an SQL database that doesn't womp MSSQL in almost every respect... I also can't think of any significant sql offerings that don't run natively on linux?
I've been baited by a troll haven't I?
about half the win32 api runs FASTER on wine than on the MS implementation
:) I don't doubt that Wine might be faster, but as long as it's incomplete and not 100% compatible, it's hard to make a direct comparison of the implementation.
That's the half that only has stub functions, right?
Plus, I was referring more to the threading and I/O stuff, which is just different in Windows, and Wine has to jump through a lot of hoops to emulate. When server performance counts (MSSQL), you can bet that MS kept the Win32 interface close to how NT sees things.
(Which is an entirely different problem than dragging a window around, which sucks in Windows because they wanted to make it easy to port old apps.)
he he... is it just me, or has the quality of the trolls been decreasing lately?
First you tout Wine, then you slam it. Make up your mind, kook.
LOL, when did I ever 'tout' wine? and when did I ever 'slam' it? I simply advocate using a tool fit for the task. While I think wine is a terribly clever hack, and I admire the wine developers for their skill and tenacity, I haven't had occasion to use wine for years. Others, however, are using it, and quite successfully, as a temporary kludge which allows them to run legacy windows applications on linux. Thus it can be a useful tool for those who have switched from windows to linux, but haven't yet settled on a replacement for some windows program or other.
But a database? please, be serious - there are a wealth of excellent, native linux databases, and simply no reason to bother with a virtual pc environment to run a windows database. If there were a demand, any demand at all for this, the wine developers would already be tuning the stack for this sort of thing.
But let's face it, legacy windows desktop apps (and unported windows games) are really the only meaningful application space for wine at present.
Ah, yes - Line.
Project status: alpha, since 2001...
Just out of curiosity, have you run any interesting linux programs, say, oracle 10g, ut2004, or the KDE desktop environment, on your windows pc via line?
Where was america in 1939 when the nazi war machine was marching across Europe on the backs of jewish slaves? eating fcuking hambugers and going bowling.
The invasion of Iraq was the first time america has managed to get to a war on time.
We can violate international laws because we got the force to back it up. In the end, might is what counts.
Osama bin laden also violates international laws and certainly has the force to back it up.
What was your point again?
Dont you wish you could delete your comment? Post in haste -repent at leisure.
man i hate americans.
Fellow slashdoters,
you all have to admit something, Gates will always be gates, a true business tycoon.
I don;t know if you noticed it, but Gates did it again, strategic business possitioning of its money.
1) it created FUD by funding SCO
2) it utilized the momentum where SCO needed money so badly that for its warchesst to purchase a perpetual unix license. (thus not paying the Boris tax to buy SCO as SCO would have loved to)
3) it will effectively destroy the key UNIX vendor since SCO invested all the money to fight Linux instead of R&D for UNIX
4) the Inovation in UNIX combined with the userbase, will compensate the stability issue of MS, creating demand.
There you go! Gates did it again! he eat up a whole market without the incumban realizing it. This is like AppleBasic vs Microsoft Basic, or Sybase vs SQL Server, friends once when you need him, foes when he grows stong!
This is the way of the tycoons.
Why? You can run them native (and KDE runs through Cygwin). ;) Besides, my computer only has 64 MB RAM.
Moll.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Hey, thanks for pointing that out about the drive labels (c: etc) .. I had been using /cygdrive/c/ this whole time ..
[ UNSIGNED NOT NULL ]
can anyone comment on sfu vs. cygwin?
the description of sfu on the ms webpage are pretty vauge.
later
Some analysts said the move could eventually sideline conventional Linux and Unix operating systems.
Umm. More like the other way around - Linux (and MacOS) can finally sideline Windows.
Windows is only suitable for playing games, and there are many good tools in Linux that let me manipulate the data files for my favorite games. (#1 on that list of games would currently be Neverwinter Nights, et seq.)
RHCE; are you certified? Karma: ambiguous.
You think Microsoft finally discovered this? http://www.mslinux.org/
Well, after 3 years of running Linux only (no dual boot) I was given a copy of XP Home SP1a and installed it in a VMWare image. Despite much protest, I'm supposed to be working on a project using some windows software (Protel, for which I have a hatred that burns with the power of thousand suns).
:-(
:-)
First thing I tried was SFU - and it doesn't like XP Home
So it was back to cygwin after all!
Is there any technical reason why XP Home shouldn't be able to run SFU, or does the install just check ($OS ne "XP Home")?
On the bright side, I can finally play Flight Unlimited II again
Does this mean that *NIX will become the standard platform for applications since something written on it can now run on Windows as well as Apple and Linux?
Is UNIX the new (although pre-existing) Java?
SFU is not shipped with Windows because SFU currently contains open-source software, such as the GNU C compiler, which cannot be distributed with commercial software.
You insensitive clod! It is a JOKE!
See here and here.
Even if users are not using unix apps directly, opening Terminal and so forth - there are a number of background UNIX services that are doing things for the user. I'm pretty sure cron is used to schedule the update checks, and of course if I access windows shares samba is being used. Not to mention that printing (don't you imagine that 99.9% of mac users print things?) are using CUPS!!
Just because few Mac users are using the Gimp, does not mean they are not using aspects of UNIX. That's why I think it's perfectly valid for Apple to claim themselves as shipping UNIX systems - if you took the UNIX bits out they would no longer work.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
With all those neato wizards and that ever helpful Clippy to get you through, everything will be *just fine*....
Seriously, though, a couple candified demos showing some slick gui for the services, designed to look like a three-year-old could configure NFS, SSH, or whatever else, I can imagine a couple of the dimmer bulbs in the onion patch deciding MS was the new Flavor of the Month.
If you build it, they will be dumb.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."