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Microsoft Lifts Curtain on Indigo Software
daria42 writes "Microsoft has released an early version of Indigo on the Microsoft Developer Network. Indigo is a new communications system intended to let Windows programs more easily connect to other software. Indigo was one of the three original "pillars" of Longhorn, however under the new plan it will be re-tooled to work with Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, in addition to Longhorn."
After Microsoft back ports everything from Longhorn to XP, will the $499 upgrade from XP to Longhorn be like 95 to 98? Just some bug fixes and a free browser?
it is only after a long journey that you know the strength of the horse.
I've got a great idea. Now that all the DCOM holes have been plugged (either at the OS, or at the firewall, or both), let's pick a new port number that'll be open and listening to the world by default, and on which all the OS components will have to rely.
For bonus points, I'll justify this by saying that it makes something that sounds really cool on paper if you're a CTO, but is actually the first line from the functional spec for "A platform for writing remote exploits" to anybody with even a millineuron of cynicism left in their brain.
Why didn't they just call it Purple People Eater and get the whole "scary" thing over with?
Will Prince's 1999 be the theme song for this technology or will they choose Purple Rain?
Will they get the Indigo Girls to do a version of Galileo that goes "how long til they get the software right?"
My name is Indigo Montoya -- you killed my father, prepare to die!
Not proprietary, but well patented.
EG:
"RSA WS-Security: SOAP Message Security Patent License Agreement Instructions
RSA Security has identified four patents ("the RSA Patents") we believe could be relevant to implementing certain operational modes of the OASIS WS-Security: SOAP Message Security specifications. To obtain a reciprocal royalty free license to the RSA Patents to make, use and sell products conforming to the OASIS WS-Security: SOAP Message Security specifications, a customer or partner must sign the attached Patent License Agreement."
I imagine there are more of these out there..
Bye!
This, Avalon, and WinFS are all jokeworthy now, but at least one of these if not all of them will see decent implementation in GNU/Linux three to five years after they're being used in Longhorn, at which point Microsoft will have the replacement ready for release.
It might even have a better interface than Apple, spawning a whole new series of Longhorn themes for X-Windows.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Nah, just kidding. That will never happen.
For ONCE, I want a newer version of Windows to be faster and smaller than the previous version and more stable as well.
Windows 2003 actually satisfies that requirement, by a solid margin.
However, Microsoft never decided to release it in a non-server version... And if you've never tried running a server version as a home version, well, you have no idea how many otherwise "free" (as in beer but not speech) programs will refuse to run.
As an aside, you can trick 2003 into identifying itself as XP with only two tweaks to the install CD. I will not disclose them for fear of invoking the Legal Wrath of the Gates, but with a Google search for similar hacks to Win2k, you can probably figure out what to change. And no, the well-known product version switchers out there that worked on 2k will not work, and will actually render your system unbootable if they manage to do anything at all. Really, trust me on this, I tried both of them.
That's probably your problem. It's a standard used with SOAP message exchanges. It provides authentication, integrity and confidentiality (nee encryption and a few other things).
As long as you trust the .NET framework (as far as its ability to protect you from, say, buffer overflows) then the WSS implementation for Indigo should be safe enough to use. It would be no different from anything written with JNI, for example.
I'm really glad to hear this. DDE, I mean, COM, I mean, I mean, OLE, I mean, DCOM, oh no wait, ActiveX, er, COM+, uh, LOL, um, Indigo! will be really great.
Everything in Longhorn will be based on the .NET framework and sandboxed, with the Win32 API scrapped. Longhorn's ability to run the Win32 API will be through a compatibility layer, similar to the DOS compatibility layer in XP. However, WinXP's ability to run Indigo and Avalon, the two pillars of Longhorn, will be done through a forward compatibility layer.
Fortunately, they're doing everything clean this time with XML and SOAP, with an open API, as opposed to binary-only files, arcane RPC calls, and endless piles of undocumented, insanely messy code dating back until the early 90s. There actually might be some interoperability this time around -- Longhorn SAMBA certainly won't be nearly as hard to code and reverse engineer, especially with Mono in hand.
More details: http://msdn.microsoft.com/Longhorn/understanding/p illars/default.aspx
- - - - - Fear not the reaper, but my shiny white teeth.
With the way they're promoting Longhorn, you could swear it was a religion. Next, they'll declare a jihad on Linux.
I'm going to have to agree with the parent poster. I work at MS, and just recently saw a pretty thorough ppt on Longhorn features, a lot of which didn't depend on the pillars. It took an hour just to talk about all the security revamps in the kernel. Unfortunately, its all 'MS confidential' for now... The first Beta should be out during the summer, lets reserve our judgements of Longhorn until then.
For centuries, Indigo used to be a very valuable dye; the exclusive looking deep blue color was a sign of wealth. Of course that "exclusivity" went down the toilet when they developed synthetic indigo in 1905 and everyone with a new pair of blue jeans could have some of that exclusivity.
It sounds like a good name for a Microsoft product.
but I was always under the impression that Server 2003 and XP were akin to Windows 2000 and 2000 Advanced Server?
Yes and no...
From a high-level view, 2003 roughly corresponds to the "server" version of XP, which itself equates to 2000 Pro.
For Win2k, however, every version used the same underlying OS, with only the list of installed products (and a few config details) changing with the server-ness of the product you installed.
Windows 2003, however, Microsoft actually released as NT 5.2 (compared to XP as NT 5.1, and Win2k as NT 5.0). Now, version numbers don't mean a whole lot, but with Win2k3, Microsoft actually did optimize it both in terms of memory footprint and CPU efficiency. As an example, you can just barely fit a hand-trimmed XP installation into a 96MB RAM footprint. Win2k3 you can do in half that, under 48MB (without running server-specific services and applications, of course), comparable to the footprint of a baseline NT4 Workstation installation.
And don't think you give up speed for that - Not even close. 2003 not only "feels" quite a lot more responsive, it actually does run arbitrary code faster... I don't know how (perhaps XP has that much bloat?), and I had to write a dozen or so small test apps to prove it to myself, but you'll easily see a 10% gain even on mostly CPU-bound tasks, and I frequently notice that multiple I/O bound tasks that on XP would take time 2X, take around 1.1X on win2k3.
And for stability... Wow. I thought Win2k took a huge leap forward, and XP a big-but-not-so-big leap back, until I started playing with 2k3... You just can't crash those things! On one of my servers at work, I have an uptime over a year, and it hasn't even started getting flakey! Almost as good as a BSD box!
And no, I don't work for Microsoft... I even prefer Linux, myself. But, finding myself more-or-less forced to use Windows, I REALLY wish MS would release a pro or WS version of Win2k3 (my particular hack works for now, but I kinda wonder how Win2k3 SP1 will react to my trying to install it on a nonexistant product line... With luck it'll work just fine, but I expect I'll need to slipstream it in and do a clean install, sigh).
He's a witch! Burn him!
However, on a somewhat more serious note...
"It took an hour just to talk about all the security revamps in the kernel. Unfortunately, its all 'MS confidential' for now... "
... I think you have a real future working on a rumormill blog. You're supposed to post this stuff as an AC, though. :)
I can only assume that the people that understand how XML, Web Services, Service Oriented Architecture, Enterprise Application Integration effect large corporations have remained silent.
The people that have replied have stated clearly that they don't know what Web Services are, have never worked with XML, and don't understand how EAI has changed the way businesses do things.
Indigo is an extraordinary technology that will very likely be copied by IBM for Java (IBM and Microsoft both partnered on all of the WS-* standards) and will usher in a whole new era of interoperability for the business world.
If you're even the slightest bit curious about what this is all about I suggest the following reading material:
http://www.ws-standards.com/
http://community.java.net/java-ws-xml/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/Longhorn/understanding/p illars/Indigo/default.aspx
WinFX Indigo Docs
http://pluralsight.com/blogs/tewald/default.aspx I'm sure there is a lot more.
http://chicagodave.wordpress.com
This started out as practically a greenfield project within MS with a brand new team at least five years ago. It's being done by incredibly competent people, and they have done a huge amount of work on interoperability issues- that whole raft of WS standards represents solutions to a whole range of issues that no else is really confronting. And I'm not saying they've solved them in an ideal way but as long as no one else puts anything out there that is less proprietary, they will jump out in front here. Remember how they eventually "got" the Internet?
Those of us who love F/OSS and Linux need to be less dismissive and more frightened.
MS is fragmented and balkanized internally but there are pockets of real capability. Web Services have not achieved anywhere near the level of adoption they could/should have by now (to all you trolls: the few dozen desultory SOAP projects at your company prove my point, not disprove it). And that's because of lack of "security," which boils down to lack of widely supported standards. We gotta be more proactive about this, and not make the same mistakes we are making in regard to Avalon.