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Microsoft to 'Support and Usurp' Unix

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the highly-unlikely-in-the-near-future dept.

qedramania writes "Computerworld has a report on the latest Windows server release and their Unix strategy." From the article: "R2 is built on the Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 and is geared towards specific workloads such as storage management, branch office server management, as well as identity and access management. It also provides a subsystem which supports Posix applications."

11 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. The Borg Queen ... er ... King? by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Interesting
    To manage the applications, R2 will provide shells - a command language interpreter - to run Unix scripts and Telnet clients. On the tools front, Visual Studio will provide a debugger for Posix applications. These developments will make it easier for users to migrate Unix applications to Windows, said Lowe.
    That, in conjunction with enabled NFS & Unix Network Information System support, looks to me more like assimilation than usurpation. I think it's obvious that we're going to see Microsoft try to migrate Unix server applications to their server platform while at the same time trying to pluck the best parts of Unix (hopefully security!) for their own OS. Let's not kid ourselves, both sides could learn a lesson from the other in a wide variety of areas.

    I guess Slashdot's picture of Gates as a Borg is applicable more now than ever ... but, in my personal opinion, I kind of see this as a good thing.
    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:The Borg Queen ... er ... King? by babbling · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It really depends on what they're up to. Their past efforts have shown that they're not too interested in being compatible with Linux/Unix, so this is suspicious.

      One reason they might be doing this is to counter free software. Currently, projects like Samba have been making good progress toward connecting Unix and Windows computers. Samba is free software. By Microsoft closing the connectivity gap themselves, they can close it with closed-source, proprietary software. This means that they can control connectivity. If they so choose, they would then be able to break it off completely at any time.

      So, this might just be a grab for power.

    2. Re:The Borg Queen ... er ... King? by IntlHarvester · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If anything, I'm suprised it took them this long to take "UNIX" seriously.

      One of the biggest thing that's been going on in enterprise computing is the widescale dumping of UNIX/RISC in favor of Linux on cheap x86 boxes. Microsoft has almost entirely missed out on this movement. If they can make Windows into a half-decent *nix, there's certain a big growth opportunity for them.

      And while the usual crowd is suspicous of MS's motives, I'm sure there's some developers out there excited about Microsoft embracing* a non-proprietary "industry standard" API. It's a big step for them. No longer would you need special Windows ports of software like Apache and Postgres --- in theory, you could just "make install".

      * word used with caution

      --
      Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
    3. Re:The Borg Queen ... er ... King? by gutnor · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They don't like being compatible with Linux/Unix when we are talking about Windows to Unix.
      However they are not stupid, they must make sure people can migrate to windows nicely with the less trouble as possible and AFTER lock them in proprietary technologies.

      They want to kill Open source ? Sure but I don't think this release in their new killing machine, just a part of their global strategy. In fact, the posix subsystem has been around for a while and is beter know as Interix or Windows Service for Unix. This is already quite powerful, but having it more tighly integrated is really a big plus. There are still lots of border problems occuring. Running 100% unix app. is easy, but when starting to have windows starting to call/pipe themself between subsystems you start to get into troubles. This new release will polish windows/unix cohabitation for example using Visual Studio for debugging or calling Windows API from the unix subsystem.

      Now, is that evil Microsoft trying to lock the world ? I think that when a company goes the way of using the Unix Subsystem, they already made the choice of migrating to Windows with everything implied. The new release ease a little bit the pain of the developer and give more flexibility to project manager ( like more option to stage the work ), so for me it is a good thing: those 2 are the workers in the migration, not the decision maker or the one getting the free 1st class trip at Redmond, so a little help is always welcome.

      BTW, in our case, thanks to Interix/Cygwin we can sell our Unix application to Windows only customer. That sometimes works the other way around.

    4. Re:The Borg Queen ... er ... King? by Alioth · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If they are supporting telnet, they are obviously not very interested in the security angle. They'd be doing ssh if they were.

      --
      Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
  2. Oh, great... by mrchaotica · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If it were anyone other than Microsoft I'd be happy about POSIX support, but you just know they're going to make it "MS-POSIX" or "POSIX++" or something stupid instead, and cause more incompatibility than they fix.

    --

    "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

  3. How much was for UNIX and now runs on MS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How many programs were developed for UNIX (or Linux, or ...)? For example, Apache? Now runs on Windows. Postgresql? Now runs on Windows. There is a LARGE amount of formerly UNIX-only software, much of which is open source, that can now run on Windows. Microsoft is no dummy. They too, just like SCO, can leverage this software.

    Open Source is a double edged sword -- it gives you a fantastic advantage, but at the same time, your competitors are free to use your software, your IP, your efforts. One hopes that the benefits outweigh the advantages to your competition.

    The real strengths of Open Source are leveraging development and testing all over the world (lower product costs, time to market, code reuse, etc.), much lower marketing and sales costs (Internet distribution), and better quality (many eyes make all bugs shallow).

  4. NT has always had POSIX support by gonar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    and it has always sUxx0rd. incomplete, poorly implemented, not really POSIX.

    are they saying that they are doing it right now, or just pretending what is old is new?

    --
    The difference between Theory and Practice is greater in Practice than in Theory.
  5. Windows Server 2003 and the GNU Project by NZheretic · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Windows Server 2003 R2's Unix interop feature is derived from Microsoft's Services For Unix (SFU) which pulled a lot of source code from OpenBSD compiled by and packaged with GNU GCC.

    For a full history of NT, Interix and SFU, see Should that not be GNU/Microsoft SFU?

    Many Microsoft users will be running a modified version of the GNU system every day, without realizing it.
  6. Re:Anyone else see the contradiction? by lkcl · · Score: 5, Interesting

    the POSIX subsystem, like all microsoft "announced products", reappeared coincidentally at around the same time that opennt.com, which provided a full third party POSIX subsystem, disappeared.

    anyone may, if you have sufficient information on how the NT kernel works or are prepared to reverse-engineer it (like the ReactOS guys are doing), write their own subsystem. there are THREE types THAT I KNOW OF: OS/2, Win32 and POSIX. okay, maybe there are four now - win64.

    having a POSIX subsystem sit on top of the NT kernel, which is a microkernel based on the Mach microkernel, is NOT the same as having fast and direct access to the NT kernel functions.

    and the reason why the samba guys have such difficulty getting information is because there either ISN'T any (it's all in the code) or there's too much!

    the only reason why the CIFS documentation effort was initiated by microsoft is because the original people who worked on it (having embraced-and-sensibly-extended the IBM Lanman SMB spec and also the X-Open SMB spec), having retired with their stock options up to millions, left no clues as to how this HORRIBLY complex code worked.

    it was therefore ESSENTIAL that they get it documented.

    the first time they released cifsbrow.txt, in 1997, because i'd just spent five months network-reverse-engineering the network neighbourhood and WINS server code, i spent a WEEK throwing email messages at them, explaining various inconsistencies, helping them improve the documentation they'd created. it takes TWO YEARS to correctly implement the network neighbourhood. it's a FULL peer-to-peer registration and management system, very robust, very complex, _extremely_ good, and people have xxxx-all idea of quite how useful it is ("oh, it's netbios - switch that xxxx off")

    after the first CIFS conference, andrew, jeremy and i hung around for an extra day: i got to meet the guy responsible for the network neighbourhood, and spent a good couple of hours drumming into him the things that had been forgotten since the email flurry - there's nothing like meeting someone face-to-face to explain stuff, as you well know.

    so.

    i'd say that the reason proper documentation doesn't "exist" is partially deliberate, and partially it's your average development/management incompetence.

    l.

  7. the hassle is a big issue by r00t · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's not the dollar value itself that is the problem. It's getting approval. Somebody has to sign off on the purchase and make it happen.

    Then there is the matter of storing and keeping track of those silly hologram cards that supposedly prove that you have valid licenses. It costs staff time to deal with that. If you screw up, and maybe even if you don't, the BSA shows up with a bunch of US Marshals (or non-US equivalent).