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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.
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
#
# 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?
Surely, you meant to ask "Does it run NetBSD?"
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.
"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.
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."
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
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
> 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.
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.
"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?
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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...
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.
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....
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???
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.
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
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
... "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.
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.
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.
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.
So, finally, we'll be able to have a beowulf clus...
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).
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
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"?
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+
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.
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?
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.
"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.
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...
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!)
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nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
...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.
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 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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
"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.
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....
"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.
"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?