Microsoft Rep To Keynote Unix Conference

An anonymous reader writes "According to ZDNET Microsoft is going to be keynoting the Australian Unix and Open Systems Users Group conference. From the article: '"Don't be put off by Chris' Microsoft badge -- he is actually a long time Unix hacker," the user group said today in a statement updating users on presentations at the conference ... Green, Microsoft's local Unix Interoperability and High Performance Computing specialist, will update the conference on his company's "Unix and open source-related activities, including their efforts to provide a POSIX environment in Windows, and to integrate Windows and Unix systems."'"

Comments

I call bull hockey!

[yagu]

From the slashdot article:

will update the conference on his company's 'Unix and open source-related activities, including their efforts to provide a POSIX environment in Windows, and to integrate Windows and Unix systems.'

I call bullhockey on this. A lot of slashdotters probably aren't even old enough to remember when Microsoft first came out with NT. Their PR releases were all abuzz with their new advanced technology OS with special emphasis on their intent to have a POSIX compliant OS. At the same time they talked me into working for them (took three offers, a signing bonus, and a pretty nice stock option offer), under the ostensible work they'd have for me to provide support for their POSIX subsystem.

Once I was in the door, and within the first week I attended what was described as a "presentation on NT's POSIX subsystem", presented by the POSIX team. That team turned out to be a guy named Matt (don't know his last name).

The project manager Margaret (don't remember HER last name) got up before the presentation and said (and I can only paraphrase, I don't remember verbatim, but guarantee the accuracy of the spirit of her comments): "Before we proceed with this presentation, there's one thing I (Microsoft) want to make clear. The POSIX subsystem is a check box. We're only doing it to fulfill the requirement to have POSIX so we can get government contracts."

I was almost physically ill, what was to be MY role (my background was Unix) if their POSIX was to be a sham? (BTW, not only did they not intend to support it, they only implemented the API portion of POSIX, not the user environment and utilities.)

I called Larry Kroger who was in charge of things and desparately asked him what I was supposed to tell people who were asking POSIX support questions. He told me, "tell them we don't support it.". What if they ask about future plans for POSIX? He replied, "tell them we have no plans.".

Forgive me if have doubts about Microsoft's purity in "plans" today to do POSIX.

Oh, and for the record, anyone who doubts my accounts... the entire presentation was videotaped (1992), as were all of their internal presentations. I only assume it would still be available today but if it is, it will reflect my accounting of events.

Re:I call bull hockey!

[Halfbaked Plan]

Actually, as a registered owner of two copies of Softway System's Interix, and one copy of the crippled subset of it that Microsoft released after purchasing it, and further an observer of the further crippled version they now call Services for Unix, I call bullshit on you.

Microsoft bought Softway Systems to keep it a limited phenomenon, and to make sure it shrunk in power, didn't grow. They probably had Softway Systems by the balls in the first place, of course, because in order to get access to the trade secrets to integrate a powerful POSIX api with the NT kernel, they probably signed mega-NDA contracts.

I do remember that there was a period before Microsoft purchased Softway Systems when Softway was sending out appeals to the Open Source Community asking if Interix should be 'open sourced.' Not sure if that was a sham appeal or not.

But 'Services For Unix' is not _For_ Unix. It's for defending against Unix.

Strange Days

[FishandChips]

Looking forward to the next Washington State Unix and Open Systems Users Group which will be keynoted by Dame Edna Everidge (mistakenly hired by Microsoft as an f/oss advocate after Eric S. Raymond turned down the job offer).

Hey, maybe they do things differently down under. Take folks as you find them. Whoever this guy is, he could well have some very interesting and useful things to say. Claiming that the guy couldn't have anything worthwhile to say because he works for Microsoft is pretty dumb as well as rude to the local Australian group.

READ THIS BEFORE MODERATING PARENT!!!

[GameMaster]

Every name listed in the parent is the name of a person from the X-Men comics.

Ororo Munroe = Storm
Erik Lehnsherr = Magneto
Henry McCoy = Beast

1407 Graymalkin Lane is the fictional address of Professor Xavier's mansion.

The parent post is a troll.

-GameMaster

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[cortana]

You can use ext2fsd to read from and write to ext2 partitions. It can handle ext3 in read-only mode.

Re:Mini-Question about VMWare and Windows

[csirac]

Because VMWare is way too slow.

Have you even used VMWare? Servers are headless. As long as you're not doing anything graphically intensive, VMWare performance is quite acceptable. The GUI is still quite responsive. In fact, browsing, word, etc. activities fool the user into thinking it's running native when in full-screen mode. You honestly can't tell until you go to play a movie or a game (movies still work, mostly).

In fact, using VMWare to manage servers is where VMWare excels.

He said he wanted to use it as a server under a Linux host.

And this, along with running servers under Windows hosts, is a _EXACTLY_ what a large portion of VMWare's core business is, apart from being useful for helpdesk operators. Check out their two most expensive products: "server infrastructure". And not that everyone uses GSX/ESX for "server" work either; I'm not the only one who has found VMWare Workstation edition useful in consolidating windows (and *NIX) servers onto one machine.

Even if Microsoft supported VMWare it would not get any faster due to the way it works.

MS _DOES_ support VMWare. WHQL certified drivers and everything.

If he wanted to use a virtual Windows server, something like Xen is the only choice.

Perhaps you should add a little disclaimer to your comments, something along the lines of "that's what I think, but I don't know because I've never used it, never researched it, and in fact I don't know anything about it all".

See my other post in this thread.