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Windows XP To Get Longhorn Technologies
SilentChris writes "According to CNet, Microsoft is revising their plan for Longhorn. In addition to scaling back WinFS, they will also have separate releases of Avalon (the new graphical system) and Indigo (a new network architecture) for Windows XP and 2003. If most of the updates will be available for current versions of Windows, what is the incentive to upgrade?"
Wwell it seems longhon keeps falling behind schedule, and Microsoft keeps cutting back features to keep the same release date. Maybe Longhorn will be another Windows Me, just something to hold everyone over until they get another release out.
If most of the updates will be available for current versions of Windows, what is the incentive to upgrade?"
That it will WORK!
I didn't know about Avalon, but Microsoft has said for quite a while they were going to be releasing Indigo for platforms other than Longhorn. Indigo is a technology that will be replacing .NET remoting and it allows for secure, reliable and transactional communication between .NET applications. It only made sense to have a version available for other versions of Windows to make sure that applications could communicate.
Forget the whales - save the babies.
What the the reason to upgrade to ME from 98? What was the reason to upgrade to XP from 2000? People like upgrades. Upgrades, no matter how small, bring features. Upgrades have the appearance of better quality and more "on-the-edge."
Plus, even if two technologies get ported, Longhorn is supposed to be a "unified" desktop with Internet, mail, etc. This is one major reason to upgrade for the tech-newbies and possibly the tech-geeks.
Microsoft is adding these features to Windows XP and Windows 2003 server in order to give developers a reason to use these technologies. So they can use Avalon and Indigo in their applications and still have people on older OS's be able to use their applications. Much like how .NET was backported to Windows 98. Developers wouldn't develop applications in .NET if they knew that only a small percentage of Windows users would be able to use it.
It's a win-win IMHO, Windows developers get to use new features and develop application using more intuitive and powerful tools and Microsoft gets a larger application base for Longhorn.
-- D3X
I suppose they do this so that developers can deploy their new apps (based on Avalon and Indigo) on the XP platform as well. It makes sense - and will give a more rapid transistion. (Instead of waiting for Longhorn to get the marketshare needed to have custom Avalon/Indigo-apps written for it).
;)
But what do I know?
(The color theme for it.slashdot.org needs a revision btw)
This is a smart move. First they schedule the release way ahead in the future, so the competition thinks they have plenty of time. Then, they release the new futures early, so that they are first to market. By the time Longwait is released, there will be plenty of application support already. In the meantime, the hype their technologies sky high so people will forget about looking for alternatives, let alone implement them. Wow, respect.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
... but the joy of hacking the latest Microsoft license registration procedure.
My best sig is this one.
Longhorn will automatically render the Slashdot IT page in a better colour. It might even get people to switch from Linux to Windows.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
While I realize that the majority of the /. crowd is from the UNIX world, I also realize that it would be more professional to replace the broken window graphic with something more appropriate.
The technologies coming out of Microsoft might not be as innovative as they claim it to be, but it's certainly groundbreaking for a company with such magnitude as Microsoft to consent to the superiority of researched technologies.
Longhorn is going to include some exciting new technologies such as Avalon, WinFS, Indigo, and most importantly their new Monad (you really must research this, as it could do for Longhorn what BASIC did for Microsoft's first operating systems). While these are just codenames for abstract ideas (and possibly just buzzwords) it will certainly be exciting to see some of these things deployed.
This is the longest Microsoft has ever waited to release an OS. Windows 95 to Windows 98 took only 3 years, as the names describe. Windows Longhorn looks as if it will take up to 7 years. What can be done in seven years' time with hundreds of emplyees? Amazing stuff.
Linux has some serious issues. I'm not going to argue how many compared to Windows, because that argument would be futile. Instead I will offer my "credibility" as an unbiased commentator:
I'm 17 and have been using Linux since 2001 after getting my first computer sometime in '98. It didn't take long for me to fall in love with it. Since then, I've been using Debian GNU/Linux for the past few years, and enjoy it's breadth of developer friendly software. I've used FreeBSD, and plan to play around with BSD's like OpenBSD, DragonFlyBSD, and even get a Mac G5. I also plan to make my own Linux from Scratch, an embedded uClinux distro with BusyBox, and other fun things like that; eventually working my way up to hacking on the Linux kernel. I would also enjoy testing out Hurd, as well.
However, if what's coming out of Microsoft is as developer friendly as advertised to be (what really IS these days anyways, but that's not for me to predict) then Linux might have a problem. If people are really going to be able to hack up some XML applicaton like what's hyped, there might be some serious problems, no matter how many Mono's or GNU DotNETs there are.
Until the community stops getting cocky and starts getting worried, nothing will ever go anywhere. Being afraid is a good thing(tm), because it gets people working harder.
So, again, I emplore somebody to please change the graphic to more accurately represent what we have to fear this new century.
-Devin Torres
Real programmers can write assembly code in any language. -- Larry Wall
Indeed, this is the facet not often considered when anyone upgrades -- beyond the announced features, what other things are creeping into my system. "Oh, I've got XML for Office! Neat!" as opposed to "Oh, I'm stuck with their bastardized and copyrighted version of XML! Shit!"
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
They're not scaling back WinFS. There's no where in the article it even states this. All it says is that it will be available in beta form upon the client release.
For some reason, Slashdot has trouble reporting anything accurately on WinfS. Anyone remember the previous case where Microsoft decided not to include some of the more esoteric features (like some networking functions). Slashdot, of course, picked it up and reported it as "WinFS cancelled," and other tech news sites picked it up. For months, people on Slashdot continued to refer to WinFS as cancelled, when they were blissfully ignorant to the fact it wasn't. Sigh. All it takes is a little basic research first.
Okay, so I know that is the kind of thing that the FLOSS zealots say all the time. But it is so obviously true in this case.
MS is betting the company on Longhorn. No really. Their two major revenue streams, and the foundation of the modern MS is Windows and Office. Windows is a twisty maze of backwards compatibility all alike to keep both users and developers favorable to the platform. Office is packed full of enterprise features that Joe User never needs because Joe CEO does.
MS down to it's ancient roots with custom programming languages and tools, is firmly in the realm of the rich client. Linux and BSD and OS X (and SkyOS and BeOS, and Syllable and . . . ) are becoming more prevalent because suddenly fully half of a users apps are portable! No not Office or Photoshop, but Yahoo and Google. Thin clients!
The gigahertz war between AMD and Intel last left MS with a glut of processing power and no software capable of using it. Once MS caught up with the processor, they drove home the power of the rich client, and reestablished their platform as the primary environment for building them.
It's happened again. Processor power is far beyond what 90% of the increasingly computer literate public needs, just like when x86 procs hit 1Ghz. But this time there is a growing base of truly alternative development and user platforms (not just OS/2 and MacOS 8, but the various POSIX and embedded platforms) while on the other side, the thin client has a solid hold in several key applications (email, dictionaries, encyclopedias, hell, even video games).
MS wants to emulate the success of Windows 95. They want to bring an enterprise technology to the masses (NT, XP was really just a dry run for that), show users that there is a reason for all this new hardware, and reestablish themselves as THE application development environment for rich clients. It's not just getting users to upgrade (though that would make them super happy) its getting developers to use the technology.
And they've realized that they can't bet on a huge upgrade kick to make Avalon and Indigo dominant, XP taught and continues to teach them that. So bringing these heavy investment technologies to a wider audience is the only way that MS can continue to be the largest software company in the world, and see any kind of rapid return on Longorn. If they loose this battle, they become the desktop version of Sun Microsystems. A giant, who still does good work, and whose technologies still have some milage, but ultimately in it's final days
The name of Longhorn is pretty easy to track if you look at the previous version of Windows (Whistler) and the blue-sky version of Windows (Blackcomb), and know a bit about the Pacific Northwest (specifically, the Whistler ski resort up in Canada). At the Whistler resort, there are two mountains, Whistler and Blackcomb. Between the lifts for the two mountains, there is a tavern called Longhorn. The initial plan for Windows was supposed to have Longhorn be a small release between XP (Whistler) and Blackcomb, with Blackcomb coming around 2006 or 2007. Thus, Longhorn, because it's a stop on your way from Whistler to Blackcomb. Somewhere along the line, Longhorn became a much more prominant release, so the codename is no longer as appropriate, but that's the root of the name.
Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows has an entry in the XP FAQ (near the top, scroll down about 1/5th of the page) and in the Longhorn FAQ (near the bottom) that mention this in lesser detail, though he gets the location of Longhorn wrong. The Garibaldi Lift Co. is the tavern at the base of Whistler. Quite a nice little tavern, too, if you've got friends who are into skiing or mountain biking and you're not.