Microsoft Porting SQL Server To New Platforms

FuzzyGuru writes "Hot on the heels of the 'Most Important Ever' MySQL reaching Beta status, Microsoft is finally taking the Linux plunge. Microsoft has decided to release a version of MSSQL2005 for Linux, Unix and XBox." From the article: "We thought it was important to address the Linux/Unix marketplace, providing a key database for their use on that platform as applications are developed and deployed...In addition, with the Xbox development opportunities, it's clear that SQL Server is the database platform that can now be used in the full customer lifecycle - from business-related applications support to consumer and gaming applications, the full line of SQL Server offerings will be available to support those needs."

Comments

Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[AKAImBatman]

It's too bad this is a (rather stupid) April Fools joke. There's actually a lot of sense in porting SQL Server to other platforms. For one, SQL Server could take advantage of larger machines with more memory, I/O, and multiprocessing capability. At the same time, the portable engine could be linked into far more products, including XBOx games which need an embedded database for storage. (Hell, does anyone remember when BTrieve, now PervasiveSQL, used to be part of Netware's networking and routing stack?) As it is, they're giving Sybase a small amount of reason to live. If you check Sybase's marketing, you'll find that 90% of it is geared toward "convert your SQL Server database to Unix/Linux!"

The truth of the matter is that Microsoft could be doing a lot more business if they'd stop insisting that their OS be used at all times, period. Look at their Office X product line, for example. As I understand it, Microsoft is generating excellent revenue from its existence. While Office might not make as much sense on other OSes, Microsoft could probably sell SQL Server for Unix, IIS for Unix, and Active Directory for Unix. At the very least it would keep people from sticking SAMBA servers all over the place.

BTW, did anyone notice that Microsoft's "cross-platform" versions of IE disappeared shortly after the Feds found them to be a monopoly? Almost seems like the products existed only for the purpose of making it *look* like Microsoft was playing nice. Once it was proven that they weren't, they stopped trying to keep the image up. Not that I know of anyone who actually *used* IE for Solaris...

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[Lysol]

God I HATE /. on Apr. 1. Argh!

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[Anonymous Coward]

I used the HP-UX version, once.

What a dog...

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[lpangelrob2]

BTW, did anyone notice that Microsoft's "cross-platform" versions of IE disappeared shortly after the Feds found them to be a monopoly?

Thank God IE 5.5 for Mac died a swift death. Now if only we could tell the rest of the Mac users that they really, really shouldn't be using that thing...

Regarding SQL Server... no idea about how good or bad it is vs. other databases (though if you want a legit 4/1 laugh, read this for an explanation of how SQL Server and Oracle might be equal in the "you get what you pay for" area) but it "does the job" here... in a relatively mission-critical financial business situation.

By "does the job", I mean that it hasn't crashed or failed in the 4 months I've been here. But I'm a developer, so what do I know? I'm sure PostgreSQL would be cheaper, more effective, more efficient, and faster... but we don't have anyone to administrate such a server.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[smittyoneeach]

What a dog...

It wasn't a sleepy cat?

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[Ececheira]

There have long been rumors that the SQL Server codebase was made to be cross-platform internally so that if market conditions dictated, they could have a Linux/Unix/Apple version of SQL Server compiled in a few days.

Of course anyone who really knows anything can't say so lest they violate their NDA's.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[AKAImBatman]

though if you want a legit 4/1 laugh, read this for an explanation of how SQL Server and Oracle might be equal in the "you get what you pay for" area

Looking at your link, I suddenly realize why Oracle always seems so much faster and flexible. It seems that it is. (Especially when you've got a good DBA. Booyah!) :-)

Now if only Oracle didn't cost so damn much...

Thank God IE 5.5 for Mac died a swift death.

Sorry sport, there was nothing swift about IE4Mac's death. Even after IE 5 for Solaris and HP-UX was long dead, Microsoft continued to "support" IE 5.5 for Mac. Unfortunately, that "support" meant that they were actually letting it rot and didn't give a damn. So Mac users continued to blithly use it thinking it was the best thing since sliced bread. All I can say is, thank God for Safari.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[untouchable]

I did. I liked it a lot better than Netscape that was on the box. Of course, as soon as KDE was installed, I switched to Konqueror.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[NatteringNabob]

If Microsoft really only did what was best for their customers as they claim, SQLServer would have been on Unix a long time ago. It couldn't possibly have taken all that much development effort since Sybase was already on Unix to begin with. But of course, the idea is always to do what is best for Microsoft. There is nothing really wrong with that as that is what all companies do, but it makes you want to puke when MS goes on and on about how much they care only about the customer. As for IE on Unix, isn't it strange that somethig that couldn't possibly be seperated from the Operating System could run with MainWin and a recompile on completely different OSes? And after installing IE on Solaris, if you de-installed it, Solaris continued to run just fine (well, better, actually)?

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[DrXym]

The cross-platform version of IE was basically compiled over a Win32 layer for Unix (a la WINE). Except the Win32 layer was called Wind/U and written by a company called Bristol Technology who licenced the code from Microsoft. Then Microsoft fucked them over, Bristol sued, lost, and that was the end of that.

IE for Unix was horrid anyway, but it demonstrate that there was absolutely no technical barrier to porting code to that platform. In fact I reckon it would take considerably less work to port Office to Linux (using WINE) that it woulde to port it to OS X.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[AKAImBatman]

IE for Unix was horrid anyway, but it demonstrate that there was absolutely no technical barrier to porting code to that platform. In fact I reckon it would take considerably less work to port Office to Linux (using WINE) that it woulde to port it to OS X.

It certainly wouldn't surprise me. Remember when Win95 first came out? Win32 was offerred as an upgrade to Win3.1. Once you had the Win32 library installed, you could run many of the programs supposedly designed only for Win95. Interesting how a completely incompatible OS could be updated with a single DLL, isn't it? It sort of proved to the world that the Win32 API and the underlying kernel were actually two separate entities. (As they should be.)

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[FriedTurkey]

I hope Sybase makes a comeback. Microsoft bought the NT Sybase code base for early versions of SQL Server. I worked on a Sybase project for 2 years and it is a great reliable database. Sybase really has an edge in the replication technology over Oracle and Microsoft. I rather write Sybase/Microsoft Transact-SQL than Oracle PL/SQL stored procedures anytime. Sybase was distributing limited "free" versions of the Sybase database for Linux. Not sure if they still are.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[Anonymous Coward]

No that is like the X86 versions of the Apple's operating systems. They never existed just like the SQL server codebase for UNIX. Urban Myths.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[homebrewmike]

Damn it. And I have moderator points today, of all days.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[Cosine Jeremiah]

And IE for Mac is still better than IE for Windows!

At least until IE 7 comes out.

Maybe.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[Namlak]

There's actually a lot of sense in porting SQL Server to other platforms. For one, SQL Server could take advantage of larger machines with more memory, I/O, and multiprocessing capability. At the same time, the portable engine could be linked into far more products, including XBOx games which need an embedded database for storage. (Hell, does anyone remember when BTrieve, now PervasiveSQL, used to be part of Netware's networking and routing stack?) As it is, they're giving Sybase a small amount of reason to live. If you check Sybase's marketing, you'll find that 90% of it is geared toward "convert your SQL Server database to Unix/Linux!"

Actually what would be smart about MS porting SQL to other platforms is gaining developer mindshare. Once an "other platform" developer had become accostomed to (or expert on) SQL, getting a job at an MS shop would be so bad, and then learing MS dev tools would just be one more little step.........

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[rainman_bc]

Sybase is a POS. I work with it every day and can't stand it. The SQL Syntax is so crippled compared to SQL Server's. You can do SO much more with SQL Server.

Trust me, Sybase sux. I want to move back to sql server.

Our office still codes using ANSI-88 joins. It's sad.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[Anonymous Coward]

Even if that was true, there's no way it would cbe able to compile within a few days. Linux and OS X are moving targets. To get such a codebase to compile would require active development and testing. Besides which, MS has gotten quite comfy with their "unified" codebase. I'm sure there'd be way too much Windows specific stuff slipping through even if they did intend to make it cross platform.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[oni]

As for IE on Unix, isn't it strange that somethig that couldn't possibly be seperated from the Operating System could run with MainWin and a recompile on completely different OSes?

I really, *really* hate to support the eeeevil corporation, but we're all geeks, right? And geeks value truth and accuracy. Right?

Microsoft never said that IE couldn't be seperated from windows. They said that windows couldn't be separated from IE. They said that *windows* was dependent on IE, not that IE was dependant on windows.

In other words, you can use this tire on another car, but you can't use another tire on this car.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[FriedTurkey]

Yeah you are right about it lacking some of the more useful MS SQL Server functions. Especially the string and date functions.

Sybase supported the "*=" and "=*" on the version I worked on. What version are you on?

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[MerlinTheWizard]

Right. But the thing is, we don't actually *need* an SQL server from Microsoft. They can mind their own business for all I know... ;-)

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[DrXym]

Win32S was the Win32 API but it was basically brain dead under the surface and had lots of caveats. Mostly it just mapped the calls onto their 16 bit counterparts and suffered from the same limitations with regards to heap space etc.

But WINE is much more powerful - calls might be mapped onto their Linux equivalents but mostly this is possible without caveats since the two operating systems share similar functionality - 32bits (or more), threads, IPC, TCP/IP, virtual memory, long file names etc. The issue for WINE is that Win32 is a nebulous term for an ever changing set of APIs, some of which are barely documented.

They've already implemented enough that WINE can run MS Office, and if you had the MS Office source you could therefore almost certainly link it to winelib.

I reckon that your biggest headache if you were to port Office would be the build system and the compiler tools. Second place might go to getting OLE working. Third place would go to supporting the Linux way of specifying paths, config settings, permissions, look & feel. Other than that, I really believe it would pretty straightforward - a slog to be sure through the various compiler errors, but very little technical problems. In fact I believe that Wordpefect for Linux was basically the Win32 version built and linked to winelib.

Both KDE and GNOME are close enough to Win32 that aside from the widget appearance the position of menus and so forth is actually very similar between Linux apps and Win32. The UI wouldn't need much work except perhaps around the clipboard and printing.

It's not like the Mac where *everything* needs to be rewritten to match the Mac UI. Mac zealots went ballistic on a previous version of MS Office that dared to stray too far from the Mac L&F.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[rainman_bc]

*= and =* are ANSI-88

ANSI-92 is LEFT OUTER JOIN and RIGHT OUTER JOIN

ASE 12.5 does a piss-poor job of it though. It doesn't support two constructs that I use from time to time in some complex queries: FULL OUTER JOIN and CROSS JOIN

FULL OUTER JOIN in ANSI-88 syntax is *=* which ASE 12.5 supports, however it doesn't support the ANSI-92 version, and CROSS JOINS must be implemented using ANSI-88 code. ANSI-92 CROSS JOIN constructs aren't supported.

And before you get into a debate ANSI-88 vs ANSI-92 SQL standards, there's papers upon papers on the benefit. I find ANSI-92 just cleaner and easier to read. It follows a more logical flow, and allows you to keep your join conditions seperate from your filter conditions, which is really the purpose of a WHERE clause.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[Matt_R]

You think you hate it? Its not even April 1st for me..

Microsoft Porting SQL Server To New Platforms
Posted by Zonk on Saturday April 02, @05:18AM
from the mssql-on-the-road dept.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[WoTG]

Considering MS initially licensed SQL Server from Sybase (I think) I wouldn't at all be surprised if SQL Server was crossplatform ready.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[rudolfel]

It certainly wouldn't surprise me. Remember when Win95 first came out? Win32 was offerred as an upgrade to Win3.1. Once you had the Win32 library installed, you could run many of the programs supposedly designed only for Win95. Interesting how a completely incompatible OS could be updated with a single DLL, isn't it?

They weren't incompatible OS's. They were different version of the same OS. The OS in question was MS-DOS. Win3.1 is a 16b its GUI for MS-DOS. WIn95 is a 32 bits GUI for MS-DOS.

It sort of proved to the world that the Win32 API and the underlying kernel were actually two separate entities. (As they should be.)

Yes this was the case for MS-DOS+win (more or less - see above.) But this is not the case for WinNt. And taking into account that the crash of the GUI always crashes the OS your statement seems to be false.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[AKAImBatman]

They weren't incompatible OS's.

Yes, they were incompatible OSes. For example, the memory model used by Win32 was completely different from the Win3.1 memory model. Win32s was an attempt to remap the Win16 based OS into the Win32 design. And it actually worked.

WIn95 is a 32 bits GUI for MS-DOS

That's actually not true. Once Win95 started, DOS was kicked off into oblivion. The reason was that DOS couldn't actually handle protected mode, so once the CPU mode was changed DOS was effectively dead memory. Win95 actually emulated DOS inside of itself for old applications. The only reason why DOS was kept around is that it provided a convenient boot loader for Win95.

Yes [a separate Win32 API] was the case for MS-DOS+win (more or less - see above.) But this is not the case for WinNt.

Bullocks. The NT kernel and the Win32 API are separate, though closely related, entities. The kernel provides basic driver and I/O services which the Win32 API then remaps into a useful usermode API.

And taking into account that the crash of the GUI always crashes the OS your statement seems to be false.

More nonsense. This merely shows a lack of understanding of kernel design. There are two ways of producing graphics in an OS with memory protection and a clear separation between kernel and usermode. The slow way is to make most of the graphics processing happen in usermode, then jump to kernel space to perform the I/O to the video card. This is the safest route, but requires a lot of jumping in and out of kernel space. The alternative is to suck the entire graphics subsystem into a kernel mode driver. Since all processing happens inside kernel space, the graphics subsystem runs much faster. Unfortunately, any error generated in this space (e.g. GPF, buffer overflow, etc.) would be impossible to recover from without risking damage to the kernel's memory image.

FYI, NT 3.51 used the former method. This caused it to generally be more stable than 4.0 which switched to using the later method for performance. This tended to make 4.0 somewhat unstable for graphics intensive apps. (I used to kill it with GIMP all the time.) Win2K added additional checks that made many of these issues go away.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[Hissssa]

A lot of interesting things with SQL Server 2005 is the interaction of the database engine with the .NET platform. It would take quite some time to port SQL Server 2005 to Linux, for instance, for this very reason. As for IE, one of the main benefits of this browser is its interoperability with host applications. SQL Server 2005 is not really SQL Server 2005 without .NET. IE is not really IE without COM.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[AKAImBatman]

IE is not really IE without COM.

Funny you should mention that. It just so happens that COM was a technology originally developed for Unix, but Microsoft purchased the company that developed it and made it into their basis for Windows components.

Re:Damn April Fools jokes. Not Funny.

[Hissssa]

Interesting, but this is kind of usual for MS.
What was this company, do you have more information about it?

Slashdot's upcoming stories

[Anonymous Coward]

So you don't waste your time:

Linux: GeNToo - Gentoo on the NT Kernel
Operating Systems
Posted by CmdrTaco in The Mysterious Future!
from the obvious-migration-paths dept.
Enjoi writes "GeNToo is a version of the Gentoo meta distribution based on the NT kernel, (virtually) completely free of any Win32 code. It provides a complete text-mode Gentoo environment, with all GNU tools, Perl, Python and the other usual suspects. In addition, it comes with with full NT hardware driver support." Aptly named GeNToo, is it a step towards bringing Windows closer to open source? "

Mega Mags, Life Sized Magnetic Toys
Toys
Posted by CmdrTaco in The Mysterious Future!
from the to-large-for-dwarves dept.
A random user noted MegaMags , a life size version of the popular MiniMag toys available at ThinkGeek (TG is owned by OSTG, the parent company of Slashdot, so activate all conspiracy theories now). You can also look into the new iPod accessory iCopulate which allows intimacy between mp3 players never before fantasized. And for the suit that has everything, Executve Pong.

Well...

[nebaz]

At least this one seems remotely plausible.

Re:Well...

[Locke2005]

Microsoft porting to a non-microsoft platform "plausible"?!? You're new around these parts, aren't you?

Re:Well...

[Tassach]

At least this one seems remotely plausible.

It's not even remotely plausible. MS-SQL is descended from Sybase SQL Server (Now Adaptive Server Enterprise). Since reneging on their contract with Sybase, MS has seriously re-engineered the codebase to optimize it for Windows. IMHO, MS-SQL is so tightly wired in to the Windows internals that it would be impossible to port it to any another OS.

The latest version of Sybase ASE (12.5.3) has back-ported a lot of the Transact-SQL extensions that Microsoft introduced, which makes it a good choice for anyone who doesn't want their data beholden to the beast of Redmond. Migrating a db from MS-SQL to Sybase isn't point-and-click, but it's pretty painless in most cases.

Re:Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news...Microsoft has just announced that they will be porting Exchange to Unix and offering the complete Office suite for the Linux Desktop.

Re:Well...

[Antonymous Flower]

April Fool's day is the proof of concept for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.

well due

[GweeDo]

"Nothing to see here. Please move along.."

Isn't that true of most articles this day?

Re:well due

[c0ldfusi0n]

You know it's April Fools when /. comments make more sense than stories.

Re:well due

[Anonymous Coward]

Myzptlx...no, that's not it...

Mzyptlyx...not quite...

Mazltov!...dead wrong!...

Mxyzptlx...just can't say it, sorry!

Totally a joke

[adamiis111]

This is a joke - I'm sure of it

Re:Totally a joke

[Anonymous Coward]

No shit, really?

April Fools all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't help but think that if it was April Fools everyday how we would have incredible breakthroughs all of the time!

Ms. no way!

[ReeprFlame]

Funny that there was no link directly to the microsoft.com homepage. I was looking forward to that too [not doubting that it is possbile from MS on 4/1].

Re:Ms. no way!

[homerj79]

I agree. Some April's Fools jokes are funny. But if they are conjured up by some blogger somewhere, they don't have that certain "oomph" you get when, say, Google does their own. It's much more funny coming from the company (or organization) in question (also refer to the Wikipedia annoucement).

Re:Ms. no way!

[MyIS]

If this was a truly inventive April Fools joke, they would use some sort of a phishing exploit to make it LOOK like it came from microsoft.com. E.g. Javascript status bar spoofing, at least (that would have to be added in by a Slashdot editor though).

Please!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh Please god....you know I really don't believe in you, but if you do exist....PLEASE MAKE THIS STOP!!!!!!!!

Retarded

[esdjco]

Boo to you! This one...booooooooooooooooring. Yawn.

Happy

[Anonymous Coward]

April Fools everyone.

not funny

[sfcat]

The funniest April fools jokes are almost believeable. That's why this isn't funny.

I for one.....

[mr_z_beeblebrox]

Welcome our new Unix-interoperable SQL slammer based overlords

Good News

[dfn5]

Now everyone can experience MS Fecal Server. Ya know, MySQL's greatest flaw is the lack of a right click properties. I mean, how are you supposed to admin the thing?

STOP THE INSANITY!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you please stop and post REAL news?

It was funny the first 10 times. Now it is just annoying! :-P

Re:STOP THE INSANITY!!!

[eclectro]

It was funny the first 10 times. Now it is just annoying! :-P

You're new here, aren't you???

Re:STOP THE INSANITY!!!

[Spy der Mann]

Can you please stop and post REAL news?

I just posted one, but asked the eds to delay it till tomorrow ;-)

Re:STOP THE INSANITY!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm about to take SD off my RSS feed today. I'm sick of this.

Do the editors really think this is funny?

[haluness]

OK, we've all understood its April 1st. We got the joke. Sheesh.

Re:Do the editors really think this is funny?

[DaHat]

Your UID is awful low to be talking like that. You should know that they do this every year, often repeating the same story over and over again (remember the evil bit?). /. is worthless for 'real news' (if such a thing even exists here) every year on this date.

Re:Do the editors really think this is funny?

[Kierthos]

It's almost to the point where I'm betting they (the /. editors) have a story they're sitting on that is incredibly implausible but actually true, and they will post it later in the day, with "No, really!" at the end of the post.

Or it just same shit, different April Fools' Day.

Kierthos

Re:Do the editors really think this is funny?

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, we've all understood its April 1st. We got the joke. Sheesh. /blockquote>

Do you know what's more fun than continuing a joke long past the time it would normally stop being funny, solely for the purpose of tweaking incessant whiners with no sense of humor? Nothing.

Besides, it's not like the editors are coming up with these stories, they're just letting us know what various tech-related sites are doing in today's honor.

Re:Do the editors really think this is funny?

[haluness]

I know :(

But as I get older, it just bugs me more. You'd think that the editors would have aged a bit as well

Re:Do the editors really think this is funny?

[ifwm]

I simply can't attribute that much creativity to the editors. It's a great idea, but if the editors were that creative, they wouldn't have DUPE THE SAME GODDAMNED STORY 5 TIMES.

Very original, but...

[RileyLewis]

Next we're going to get a story about how Microsoft has actually found a use for .NET

Re:Very original, but...

[sharkey]

You use .NET when you go phishing, don't you?

*duck & cover*

Re:Very original, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

apperently someone eles has since there's been at least 2 security updates for it.

People aren't liking this guys!

[Eric(b0mb)Dennis]

Check out the steady decline of posts for each article....

You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

[Weaselmancer]

If something really newsworthy did happen today. Something excellent and a little bit improbable. Maybe SCO calls it quits, or MS finally publishes their court-ordered complete API documentation.

It would be lost in all this fluff. The joke would be on us.

Re:You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

[MisanthropicProgram]

I can't believe people are wasting their mod points on today's posts.

Re:You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

[Eradicator2k3]

Unfortunately, given the business models of both SCO and MS; either one of them doing that would be so uncharacteristic for them that it would have to be a joke.

Re:You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

[southpolesammy]

There has been one newsworthy thing that has (or more correctly, has not) happened today.

There hasn't been a dupe yet.

Re:You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

[ari_j]

The Gmail story wasn't entirely a joke. You really are getting 2GB and rich text formatting.

But, as others have pointed out, a real prank is one that people don't see coming until it's too late - or even later. Blatant and obvious lies have hopefully never fooled anyone here. It's the difference between sarcasm and just being an ass - one has a component of irony, while the other does not. And irony is the whole point of the holiday. Romeo and Juliet is an example of a good April Fool's joke (although it had a tragic ending for the lovers themselves), because a simple and subtle misunderstanding led to them both killing themselves. Julius Caesar (the play, at any rate) is an example of a bad April Fool's joke - there was no real irony or self-involvement in actually killing Caesar (maybe in who did it there was some, but not much).

Re:You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

[EMH_Mark3]

Kinda like the release of gmail last year?

Re:You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pope died today.

But you mean "newsworthy" as in "only of interest to my circle jerk of wannabe programmers and D&D DMs".

Re:You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

[selectspec]

You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

Repost of the first six other stupid April 1st stories.

Re:You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pope died today.

"I'm not dead yet!"

Well, you'll be stone dead in a moment

"I think I'll go for a walk..."

You're not fooling anyone, you know.

(For the record: The Pope did not die today, but he might before the day is over. He had heart complications during surgery.)

Re:You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

[stinerman]

Am I the only one who thinks its funny that someone modded that up?

Re:You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

[madprof]

Good point, well made!
They must get loads of email telling them it is really funny that every story on April 1st is fake because the vast majority of comments on /. seem to think it's a daft idea.
I am sure most would far rather (eventually) enjoy getting fooled by one clever spoof.

Re:You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see he's moved from "dead" to "not dead" in the news articles on Google news now. Must be all that grace and stuff.

Re:You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

[hostyle]

OK then Mr Know-It-All how would you suggest I waste my mod points?

Re:You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

[drew]

Apparently not....

Re:You know what the best April 1st joke would be?

[Anonymous Coward]

I got 5 today, but I'll sit on them until tomorrow.

This morning I saw the streak of 4/1 jokes and began avoiding much of the site. I normally browse at 0, but I'm only looking at +5 comments. Relatively little to see today, which is a shame. :(

Best Alternatives to /. on April 1???

[Rupreckt]

What are some good alternatives while all this April 1 crap goes on? Please help, I'm at work... trying to avoid working...

Re:Best Alternatives to /. on April 1???

[alexandreracine]

Here goes the classic... surf some p0rn.

Or msn / gaim / chat all your close friends.

Re:Best Alternatives to /. on April 1???

[Anonymous Coward]

kiro5hin i think its called?

Re:Best Alternatives to /. on April 1???

[Rupreckt]

It's 5:30 in the morning, no one's awake... the joys of shift work. As for the pr0n... might wait until I get home...

Re:Best Alternatives to /. on April 1???

[Mr.Ned]

http://technocrat.net/

Re:Best Alternatives to /. on April 1???

[sesshomaru]

I like to read the episode capsules at the The Springfield Nuclear Power Plant (Simpson's) or The Mantis Eye Experiment (Venture Brother's)

They both have April Fool's stuff on the main page, but you can still get to the capsules.

I just don't know what to believe anymore

[10000000000000000000]

:(

I so confused! my head asplode on 4/1

I look forward to x box SQL !

[AtariAmarok]

"Select Master_Chef from db.Halo Order By Weapons ALL"

Re:I look forward to x box SQL !

[nachoqtpie]

This made me giggle with glee I love April Fools Day

Re:I look forward to x box SQL !

[dk4]

What kind of weapons does a Master Chef need?

Butcher Knife?
Rotisserie?
Mandoline?

April Fools Day List o' Pranks

[ticklemeozmo]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_1%2C_2005

No need for slashdot to post an item from list once per hour..

Re:April Fools Day List o' Pranks

[Bl4ckM4gic]

The foolers - become the foolees.

This would be funny

[Anonymous Coward]

if it wasn't the 1st of April today..

XBox for enterprise

[mollog]

Microsoft finally realizes the potential for the XBox in the enterprise. Buried in this article, it mentions puts is SQL server on the XBox. Think of the possibilities!! Imagine a portable database. Incredible.

It was almost plausible...

[TWX]

...if two things were different. If there were some kind of decent internal struggle at Microsoft where someone with enough power was dissenting against the people at the top to actually pull off a stunt, and if they hadn't mentioned the X-box...

The Horse

[White Roses]

It's dead, Jim. You can stop beating it now.

Re:The Horse

[WillAffleckUW]

It's dead, Jim. You can stop beating it now.

It's only a flesh wound.

It's feeling better now.

Do you have any spare coconuts, sire?

April Fools Joke. Notice To All Slashdotters

[TheFlyingGoat]

It's quite simple really... if you don't like the April 1st stuff, come back tomorrow. Granted, most of the stories this year weren't funny at all, but the 1 or 2 clever ones were still filled with posts of "enough already".

If you don't like the stories, ignore them and return tomorrow when it's back to normal. Or will you go into withdrawal if you can't read Slashdot for a day?

My $0.02... I have karma to burn.

UGG!!

[CyBlue]

When will the retarded April Fools jokes ever end? Enough already! Its not even worth trying to read anything today.

Re:UGG!!

[WoTG]

Yet you take the effort to make a post? =)
One day a year w/o Slashdot... I've gotten used to it. At least the TCP/IP evil bit hasn't shown up today...

disturbance...

[Stalyn]

as if millions of geeks sighed in frustration and were suddenly silenced.

estate sale?

[Anonymous Coward]

So seriously, what happens to the Popes stuff when he dies? I'd really like to get my hands on one of those hats.

Re:estate sale?

[Anonymous Coward]

So seriously, what happens to the Popes stuff when he dies? I'd really like to get my hands on one of those hats.

He doesn't own anything. Bishops take a vow of poverty, including the Pope. Everything he seems to have actually belongs to the church.

If you want one of those hats, you will just have to wait until the Catholic church dies.... Or they decide that it would be more fun to outfit the Pope in a snappy beret or maybe a bike helmet, and sell off all the old hats.

Re:estate sale?

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically the pope is the richest poor person ever. Does the Vatican have a gift shop? Street vendors? I GOTTA HAVE ONE OF THOSE HATS!

Not funny any more!

[Pec]

This is really boring.... you known for starters that all the stories will be April Fool's Day Stories...

It could be funny or interesting al least, to find a story that is a Real Story... this could be the new way to celebrate April Fool's Day

Re:Not funny any more!

[LiquidCoooled]

The gMail one had me in a bit of a tiz, but then I checked and remembered last year.

The Apple news is quite good as well, I think I'll be getting myself a mac mini shortly :)

The rest have all been light hearted and fun.

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME

[freak4u]

People on the sql site were curious if this was a prank. WTF do you think?!?!?! OF COURSE IT'S A PRANK BTW, gullible isn't in the dictionary.

Much more of this crap...

[Anonymous Coward]

...and I don't know if I'll be coming back here. This shit is just stupid as hell now.

Plausible??..

[Uptown Joe]

SQL on the XBox.. that's pretty funny. "The database is down, I'll bet that the retards on IS are playing Halo.." "Hey, put the SQL CD back in you damn geeks."

Re:Plausible??..

[XMyth]

It's not that unbelievable actually.....

Databases are useful in many situations people don't think about. Saved games, and other things you'd store on your XBox included. Now sure, the version to run on the XBox (if it were true..honestly there probably is one for XBox...there's one for WindowsCE)... wouldn't have use for DTS, Replication, etc....

Re:Plausible??..

[Anonymous Coward]

Saved games ???? Using a Relational Database???

Thats like commissioning an F16 to do a fly over your house and exterminate a pesty groundhog. Too much, too big, too wastefull, too (every other adjective you want to insert )

OMFG LOL

[Anonymous Coward]

YHBT HAND OMFG ROFL LOL

Now you know exactly...

[soulhuntre]

How dumb the /. editors thing you are.

Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Editors, please look to Google at http://www.google.com for unique April Fool's jokes. Notice how they aren't boring or stupid, and interlaced with things that aren't jokes. Notice how they have the ability to hold your interest, rather than the grumble that todays Slashdot articles have caused.

What's Sad About This?

[bloodstar]

That in a way, this is what I would expect from Microsoft. To have their dominance challenged, then to react by putting out a product that's almost as good as the challenger. Then to stomp the challenger into the ground with their massive market dominance.

What makes it even sadder?

That this is the only way to get microsoft to put something "new" out (new, of course, being new to Microsoft, and not to the start up company they end up squashing).

Re:What's Sad About This?

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost as good?

MSSQL beats the crap out of MySQL in virtually every conceiable way!

Having a port of MSSQL to Linux (if this weren't a joke that is) would be a wet dream for many.

Your post on the other hand is exactly what I expect from a typical know-nothing Linux zealot. You know NOTHING about MSSQL and proceed to lay down a blanket of inspecific FUD.

That's what's REALLY sad.

Re:What's Sad About This?

[bloodstar]

... and before anyone thinks otherwise, yes I know it's an april fools joke article.

Re:What's Sad About This?

[Anonymous Coward]

wow two products that are not in the same market should not be compared.

compare it to firebird or pgsql for instance. then see how much MMSQL licks balls.

Re:What's Sad About This?

[XMyth]

Are you saying that MS SQL server is "almost as good" as MySQL?

SQL Server isn't competing with MySQL. They have no need to. Completely different targets...

All your database are belong to MSFT

[WillAffleckUW]

Resistance is futile, your code will not compile until you pay us cash.

Lots of it.

This ain't news....

[otis wildflower]

... I mean there's already a version of MSSQL for Unix systems that's superior. It's called Sybase ASE.

-1 Not Funny

[elBart0]

April fools jokes are only funny if they come from something that looks like an original source. Now, if the same article was posted on MSDN, now that would be funny.

(Yes, I know sswug is, but it just doesn't carry the same punch.)

I used IE for solaris

[Anonymous Coward]

I used IE for solaris. It was better then most of the other offerings at the time (in terms of rendering pages at least)

Re:I used IE for solaris

[AKAImBatman]

Interesting. When I tried to install IE on my Ultra 5, the installer corrupted my CDE desktop. It was at that point that I realized that I didn'r actually *need* IE all that much, and I started doing nightly builds of Mozilla. Mozilla 1.0 turned out to be only a few months down the road at that point.

Re:I used IE for solaris

[Anonymous Coward]

I installed it for X86 perhaphs that was the difference.

What you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

Jessica fucking christ, slashdot editors. This is around the 7th April Fool's submission "joke" yet, and NONE of them thusfar have been even remotely funny to anyone with a bloody alcohol level below 0.025.

Its bad enough with Google's offices churning out all its shitty private office japes, but with EVERY GODDAMN story on slashdot story being fake too, it makes me want to frigging timewarp to April 2nd 2005.

Next year, actually put some thought into creating ONE (maximum two) jokes which will amuse the majority of /.'s readers, rather than thick and fast flowings torrents of droll bullshit.

I have a cunning plan...

[argent]

My plan is this: collect the afternoon's April Fool stories in a single thread (late fools, perhaps) and go back to posting about "stuff that matters" like the new USB flash drive that also acts as a USB hub (for passthrough) and master (so you can clone from it to another flash device without needing a computer)...

Please STOP

[madscience]

If you're going to post April Fool's day stories... try and make some of them believable. You could try *not* making every story today a joke, just to keep us guessing.

APRIL FOOLS!!!!

[mattmentecky]

I think the meta April Fool's joke is the slashdot editors posting as many fake news stories as they can and watching slashdotters getting *so* pissed and complaining on every post.

Product name

[Captoo]

So, is this the "sequel" to SQL Server? :-)

Re:April Fools Joke. Notice To All Slashdotters

[Shadow Wrought]

Amen Brother. Something doesn't have to be believable to be funny. Some of the humor value is just how improbable these things are. Its April 1st. Enjoy!! Luagh. Its funny;-)

Implausible != Funny

[CosmeticLobotamy]

Unlike a bunch of people here, I enjoy the April 1st stuff, but to the Slashdot editors: April Fools Day jokes are only funny if they're funny.

Re:Implausible != Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

jokes are only funny if they're funny.

well duh..

from the dept.

[trainedCodeMonkey]

from the I-don't-even-want-to-quantify-this-with-a-silly-de partment-name- department

Good April Fools Joke

[Anonymous Coward]

How about this for an April Fool's Joke... IBM stock down three tenths of one percent, when it's actually up eight tenths... boo-yah.

XBox reference

[raider_red]

If you'd left out the XBox reference, this might be almost believable--which would make it a better April fools' joke.

Maybe a port to OS X instead.

Re:XBox reference

[Pfhreakaz0id]

Xbox could probably run MSDE (the desktop version of sqlserver -- also the db engine behind access in new versions) with no problemo.

Re:XBox reference

[tim256]

I've seen SQL Server and MSDE use way more than 32 MB of RAM on even rather small databases. Although you can limit the memory SQL server uses, the X-box does not have enough memory for SQL Server and the game that it's running. Besides, what kind of game would want to use a relational database anyways? Except for multiplayer stats, there's not a lot you can even use a RDBMS for in an action game.

Re:XBox reference

[SuiteSisterMary]

Shit, you can run SqlServer on a PocketPC, so why not on an Xbox?

Re:XBox reference

[Pfhreakaz0id]

all good points. maybe you could farm 'em.... imagine a beowulf cluster of..

never mind.

The april fools thing is out of hand

[herting]

The world did not stop because of a new month, but if you look at /. you would think that nothing had happened today, minus the mass wanking of a thousand nerds. One or two April Fools day gags are funny, but when all there are is april fools day jokes, it gives /. the feel of an unfunny onion ripoff. Besides if all the content is in jest, no one can be taken in by anything.

Re:The april fools thing is out of hand

[mattyrobinson69]

i was taken in by this article until i read 'xbox'.

Maybe Windows, Solaris, Linux, AIX, FreeBSD and SCO Unix would have been more plausable.

Re:April Fools Joke. Notice To All Slashdotters

[null etc.]

It's quite simple really... if you don't like the April 1st stuff, come back tomorrow.

Yes, but tomorrow I won't be at work, and the hours won't seem to creep by so sloooooooowly...

Slashdot is nice because just like a fresh little breeze once an hour, an interesting story can spark the day up and make work seem more enjoyable.

But on Friday for gosh sakes! We really need it! No one wants to work on Friday! And now we can't even fall back upon slashdot.

shudder

Yea, Ha ha

[Anonymous Coward]

It is now 14:36 Pittsburgh time. We all know it is April Fool's Day.

Enough.

Or are you guys shilling for Hallmark?

XBox? XBOX?!?!? Are we supposed to be fooled?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want people to fall for an April Fool, you need to make it plausible. Otherwise, it's just fucking stupid and damnably annoying.

AC

SQL Server on Linux is codenamed Pope Mobile

[WillAffleckUW]

It's a dark horse candidate. Most of the Database group that interviewed me for the SQLServer add-ins subgroup are actually being used on the other project, codenamed White Fish, which is to port SQLServer to the Cray, for use in designing Paul Allen's fleet of spaceships that is underway in Seattle, construction to be in Plano, Texas at his commercial starport.

I figure it has about a 25 percent chance of successful implementation, once they finish the contract with Linus Torvalds, who is insisting on 10 percent of the net proceeds in MSFT stock options.

But don't count out ORACLE - Larry Ellison still has his own project underway to port ORACLE to the Cray, and it's said that Paul Allen might still be convinced, provided Larry's version is ADA-compliant and he gets to crew in the next America's Cup challenge.

4 years running?

[Leroy_Brown242]

Hasn't this joke been run 4 years in a row now?

It'd be funnier if ...

[AlanS2002]

The story was that MS was porting Office or IE to Linux.

Lamer than this

[Anonymous Coward]

Top 10 New Windows Security Functions Zack Urlocker 7/24/2002 Microsoft recently announced a new integrated security effort known as Palladium, named after the statue of Pallas Athena, believed to protect the ancient city of Troy through digital rights management and a hundred year monopoly. The idea of Palladium is to embed security directly into the PC by having hardware vendors sell security chips below cost and have Microsoft provide the high-margin software. Although Palladium won't be formally announced until 2004 and likely won't ship until some time after that, we managed to get early access to some of the new APIs. From the home office here at angryCoder.com, the category for today is: Top 10 New Windows Security Functions 10. convertPasswordToPigLatin 09. sendToMicrosoft 08. checkForPorn 07. sendToBill 06. crashUponDetection 05. crashAnyways 04. scrambleHardDrive 03. checkWithMelinda 02. sellStock 01. crashNasdaq The following APIs have been removed as no longer being necessary 6. crashNetscape (obsolete) 5. crashLotus (obsolete) 4. deletePhilippe (obsolete) 3. crashAOL (automatic) 2. enableVirus (now included in Windows Kernel) 1. disableVirus (not working)

Re:April Fools Joke. Notice To All Slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

you know, there are other sites around... just go watch porn

Re:April Fools Joke. Notice To All Slashdotters

[rrhal]

What an Odd day to have mod points. Not sure what to use them on today.

Re:April Fools Joke. Notice To All Slashdotters

[Anonymous Coward]

To save my Karma.

STORIES LIKE THIS ARE NOT WHY I PAY FOR A /. ACCOUNT. I WANT MY FUCKIGN MONEY BACK!

avoid the noidavoid the noidavoid the noid
avoid the noidavoid the noidavoid the noidavoid the noid
avoid the noidavoid the noidavoid the noidavoid the noidavoid the noidavoid the noid
avoid the noidavoid the noidavoid the noidavoid the noid
avoid the noidavoid the noidavoid the noidavoid the noid

stupid april fools jokes are not funny

[Anonymous Coward]

One is funny - maybe. But a page full of stupid jokes is just stupid.

This just in...

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot contributors annoy the living hell out of rss subscribers for entire day!

Games?

[ThePolkapunk]

Why is this coming up on the main games.slashdot page?

Xbox?

[b1t r0t]

They're out of their minds to release this for the Xbox! With the Xbox-2 right around the corner, nobody will want to buy it because you're supposed to throw away your existing console and wait in line until midnight to buy the new one the moment it appears!

Then you'll lose all your data and have to start all over with the level 1 SQL commands!

Today is just one day, but...

[OwlWhacker]

Every day is April 1st for SCO.

: )

Let's check with this guy

[AtariAmarok]

What kind of weapons does a Master Chef need, you ask? Let us check with this fellow:

"Vhet keend ooff veepuns dues a Mester Cheff need? Bootcher Kneeffe-a? Ruteesserie-a? Etum bumb? Munduleene-a? Cheeensev Bork Bork Bork"

Who's kidding?

[scanrate]

I hacked a M$ gateway, a VMS box, and got inside. They've actually written a PL/1 interpreter in C# and rewrote the entire database in it. It's worth noting that the C# virtual machine that is running the PL/1 virtual machine runs under a CMS session within a VM emulator on top of a software S390 processor under Linux inside of M$ virtual PC. Locutus is still waiting for the arrival of a PC that supports the terabyte of RAM required to run the new product though.

I dub thee..APRIL STUPID

[TiggertheMad]

This isn't an April fool's joke, It's an April Stupid Joke(tm). April Fools jokes are at least capable of fooling someone into believing it, thus the name 'April fool'. Try to make a decent attempt, ok?

This is the evil that will come upon us.

[rice_burners_suck]

This is most likely an April Fools joke, but if it's true:

I bet you Bill Gates' fortune that Microsoft will deliberately insert all kinds of intermittent bugs into the Linux version of the software so that it will crash ever so often, lose records, and do all kinds of other fun things that will make business managers quite happy. Then, when those happy business managers call Microsoft to find out why the data is getting lost, Microsoft will tell them that the Linux platform contains bugs that cause the database server to malfunction.

Then, they will sell that company a bunch of Windows licenses.

And then, you'll see an ad in the magazine that says, "How did one company lower its TCO? It switched from Linux to Windows." And then describe how this company used to have problems with the database records getting screwed up and losing millions over it, and as soon as they switched to Windows and started rebooting their servers every four seconds, the problems went totally away, and using Microsoft Reboot Accelerator Server 2005, the reboots only take eight seconds each time, so their uptime is also 900% better (and the fine print will read that it's 900% better as compared to the same package without Microsoft Reboot Accelerator Server 2005).

And companies will switch from Linux to Windows in droves, and open source will be outlawed at pain of death.

So it shall be written. So it shall be done.

Right click

[Craig Ringer]

Right click properties, relational integrity constraints and stored procedures, they're all the same to me! :-P

except that...

[asr_man]

With SCO every day is April Fool's. No matter what they do.

almost funny....

[drew]

this one could actually be funny if it came from someone remotely associated with microsoft- an employee blog or something. or maybe 'leaked' by one of microsoft's partners. but not when it comes from some random editorial journalist.

and now the truth comes out.... i knew it was too good to be true that the mysql developers were backtracking on ten years of defending their design decisions- now we know that all of this talk about triggers, stored procedures, etc. was just the leadup to an elaborate april fools prank. clever...

Somebody's pulling my leg....

[Anonymous Coward]

Wierd, mention his name and he just pops up!!!

Re:BTW, gullible isn't in the dictionary.

[BadMrMojo]

Yes, it is!

I thought it was funny, at least...

Re:April Fools Joke. Notice To All Slashdotters

[Tim C]

Something doesn't have to be believable to be funny.

But the whole idea of April Fool's jokes is to fool people into believing them...

I can verify!

[CoolCat]

Bill Gates told me this at the gym!

Hey, wait a minute

[Pluvius]

Zonk didn't tell us that this was an April Fools' hoax. Does that mean that it's true!?!?!?

Rob