Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Trying To Appeal to the Unix Crowd?
DigDuality writes "With the news that Windows 2008 (recently discussed on Slashdot) will have GUI-less installs and be fully scriptable, that they've opened up their communication protocols for non-commercial usage and are providing a patent covenant (Redhat Responds), and now finally an interesting rumor floating around that Microsoft will be taking on GNU directly. Has Microsoft totally switched gears in how it is approaching the Unix and FOSS sector for direct competition? According to an anonymous email leaked from a Microsoft employee, it seems Microsoft will be developing a framework that will be completely GNU compatible. Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, said on Friday (23 February) that they are aiming to restore a Unix-like environment to its former proprietary glory, at the same time proving that Microsoft is committed to interoperability. Ballmer emphasized that Microsoft's new strategy is to provide users with a complete package, and this includes users who like Unix environments. According to the supposedly leaked email, UNG, which stands for UNG's not GNU, is set to be released late 2009."
A rumour that sounds about as trustworthy as an e-mail from Nigeria.
A business tries to appeal to its market. The market changed. MS will change too. Its just long to shift gears of such a behemoth.
> UNG, which stands for UNG's not GNU
Wait is it april's fool's already?
microsoft is way to, what's the word, oh yeah, proud to let their os be subject to community modification.
In Soviet Halo, the game kills you (socially anyway)
Microsoft: Bringing new meaning to "Gnu's not unix"
Didya hear that there's this operating system that gives you the best of windows and linux? It's called linux!
There is already a book out on UNG. How do publishers knock this stuff out so quickly?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
That's taking recursive acronyms to a whole new level.
Fake. 'Nuff said.
The water will seek its own level. I've written a high-level overview of what could happen if tech workers leveraged Free Software to "Embrace and Extend" the tech industry down to the employment level. Unless Microsoft (and many, many others) go the Free Software route, then this plan does not include them.
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And what is the difference between this and Windows Services for Unix? Sounds like rebranding to me.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
And I think this is fair enough to be applied to any company, not just Microsoft.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Next thing you're gonna say is that a black man and a white woman are both viable contenders for the U.S. presidency in 2008....oh, wait...
My blog
What's that line?
:)
Something like "Those who forget Unix are doomed to recode it". So the last big OS vendor is finally coming around. Good.
As for involving GNU as part of their plans, of course it's a trap
Free the Quark 3 from asymptotic confinement! Bring your charm! Don't get down! All colours and flavours welcome!
In future they will be able to say "they must have copied our code" SCO wise.
they are aiming to restore a Unix-like environment to its former propriety glory
The most glorious thing that I can remember about proprietary unix was the awesome pizza box cases. I seriously have no idea why the PC "tower" caught on instead of that.
"If you think you have things under control, you're not going fast enough." --Mario Andretti
I am with Bjarne on this one.
Bjarne Stroustrup, creator of the C++ programming language, claims that C++ is experiencing a revival and
that there is a backlash against newer programming languages such as Java and C#. "C++ is bigger than ever.
There are more than three million C++ programmers. Everywhere I look there has been an uprising
- more and more projects are using C++. A lot of teaching was going to Java, but more are teaching C++ again.
There has been a backlash.", said Stroustrup.
Windows 2008 (recently discussed on Slashdot) will have GUI-less installs and be fully scriptable, that they've opened up their communication protocols for non-commercial usage
Sounds like DOS 3.1 to me! Will it run KDE or Gnome?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
This would move developers away from Microsoft's proprietary APIs and functionalities, aka their lock-in. The end result would be developers writing 'GNU' type code and expecting it to run on either Vista or any 'Unix' environment. Suddenly Vista has to compete on its own merits and can't depend on "killer applications" to pull people in.
Although I think this a good thing, and Apple thinks this a good thing, and Linux thinks this is a good thing I'll be a bit surprised if somebody at Microsoft has convinced enough leads that they now think it is a good thing.
If ever there were an appropriate story for the itsatrap tag, this is it.
then why wouldn't Microsoft give it a whirl? If it makes money, great. If it doesn't, then sue the pants off of anyone who extended or modified their stuff. It doesn't seem too irrational to try to make money the free software way, and worst comes to worst, they can make money spreading FUD and litigation!
I've begged for YEARS to the non-existent God for Microsoft to get a clue and make their operating system Unix-like (if not completely replace their kernel with a Unix kernel). It would literally be the perfect operating system: Unix compatibility and mainstream Application compatibility. It would ROCK SO HARD.
Unfortunately, I just can't see it happening. It would be far too smart for Microsoft. --weeps--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I had heard about this several years ago (2005?). My understanding was that Blackcomb was supposed to be built on a different paradigm that previous MS Windows, with a more Unix-like architecture. I heard that they were developing their own shell, and separating the GUI as a separate piece. As I understood it, they were going to try to make windows more modular, and give admins some better shell tools. ... not that I'll ever use it.
I don't have a link handy, but I remember reading this on the Microsoft website, probably in their development section or something.
First, build a language or system that runs existing programs.
Then change the compilers so they use MS-only, intel-only features by default
Then add attractive features at the source level.
Pretty soon, you can port *to* the new platform, but can't port away from it.
--dave
[PS: If you're already in that situation and want to port, send me private email]
davecb@spamcop.net
In the late 1970s and early 1980s MicroSoft sold a version of PC-UNIX called Xenix (they didnt write it). Until the mid-1990s PCs were too-weak to effectively run UNIX, so it was not a popular product. In the early 1980s MicroSoft decided to concentrate on MS-DOS and other products, so it sold Xenix to a company which eventually became SCO.
they are referring to? I don't see anything in there about GNU or UGN or UNIX. All it is, is a tele-press-conference about interoperability.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
Of course, this sounds too good to be true. What will be used to compile said programs? When they say "little" modification, what is being implied? Will the GPL linking be forbidden in some way when you compile it on Vista?
and has for a very long time.
Who sold Ballmer the good BC buds?
I'm still tagging it fake and vaporware. This has been promised before and dropped out. Add it to the list with WinFS and other crap. Besides, even if it does ship, it's still on Windows. You can't do anything serious with that, at least not if you're planning on connecting it to the net.
With the easy to maintain first rate tools out there, (Solaris, NetBSD, OpenBSD, OS X, FreeBSD, Linux), why go with a hard to use, hard to maintain, insecure second rater? The productivity hit you take by bringing MS into the subnet will stress and drive away your skilled staff. Then the real problems kick in when all you have left are the trained monkeys you hire by the dozen from want-ads. Then just when you think the services can perform any worse or any less reliably, then the swarm of trained monkeys start replacing good systems with MS cruft, eventually pushing the whole house into crisis mode, stressing and driving away your skilled non-technical staff.
No thanks. Stick to stuff you are good at Steve, like that monkey dance of yours.
" Microsoft Trying to Appeal to the Unix Crowd?"
I thought Microsoft was trying to 'IMPALE' the unix crowd....
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I have blind faith in gravity - I'm pretty sure that's safe.
Unless of course you're one of those people who stays tethered down "just in case"...
Also I have blind faith in "The Boss". He's never led me wrong... er... wait a minute...
A rooted filesystem would help, too, along with a reasonable "fork", but at some point you just have a crappy, Microsoft version of Unix. Why bother?
Do you have ESP?
A long time ago in a sector far far away, the Imperial Microsoft Death Star
set its sights on UNIX application vendors. The Death Star weapon was a
big success. See the Bristol vs Microsoft history. So, is there really
enough ignorance in the market to let them do it again?
http://www.google.com/search?q=bristol+vs+Microsoft
"The Truth Is Out There," just look for all the evidence.
"Trust No One," at Microsoft.
"I Want to Believe" but they are still out to destroy Linux.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Isn't that the noise you make if you get kicked in the nuts?
Jesus was an invention of the Romans - watch "The Pharmacractic Inquisition" for something more credible...
> "A business tries to appeal to its market"
Therefore Microsoft is not a business?
So, we can legally rebrand every BSD codebase as MS products? No kidding...!
Now they are going to assimilate the GNU!
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
If 3's a crowd.
I called it a mighty Sperm Whale, she called it Finding Nemo.
"Those who do not understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it, poorly." - Henry Spencer
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
Is, I worry, an attempt to divide OSS from it's commercial funding. The RedHat's and Sun's, etc that put dollars into OSS which the users in turn benefit from.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
They'll do with Windows Server Core what they did with that home server garbage. You can't upgrade, migrate or otherwise get out of it. A quick and dirty search for an eula for Windows Server Core came up empty. Please, post one!
As is always the case with Microsoft, the first few features are free. It's the rest they'll screw you on.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
The article about microsoft taking on GNU sounds like microsoft is going to duplicate cygwin. Is this the great breakthrough? The only surprise is that they plan on doing this internally.
How would MS be trying to appeal to the "Unix crowd" if all the things that it has supposedly done towards these ends (making available communication protocols) were things they were forced to do?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
In this day of racks of headless servers, blades, virtual machines, the desktop metaphor that Microsoft has owned for so long is not as relevant as it once was. An increasing amount of their revenue is now coming from the backend that doesn't give a hoot about 3d transparency on a display.
1. Prank day is APRIL 1, not MARCH 1. Glad to see someone trying to learn the culture, though.
2. UNG -- nice touch. No matter how many times I've seen the acronym GNU explained in print, it has never been either clever or funny. Putting the same lack of cleverness and humor in your parody is an achievement.
Let's see, the target audience could be :
* people who hate M$'s guts all ready
* Windows users who want to see what the fuss is all about
* Manager who read this and think "my tech people like Unix, I can buy this and they will be happy".
Would anyone reading this want to touch it with a 10' pole? Anyone curious enough to find out what 'faster and easier' features they've added?
This is gonna be a dog, a distorted bizarro unix.
Well, Microsoft knows what it's doing. I'm sure this will go over as well as Vista has.
That reminds me of Michael Jackson. Born a black man, will die a white woman.
Coz eternity my friend, is a long *ing time.
Considering how routinely Microsoft drops support for something they offer, telling their users to switch over to their newest latest, greatest and best, who would actually rely on this thing for the long haul? This isn't even a "Microsoft is evil" post; I'm just not sure who would believe they could depend on Microsoft to continue support this over a long period of time.
MS will implement this GNUish wrapper in the same way they implemnented POSIX and STL under windows.... very badly.
Then their marketing dept. will use it to demonstrate how crap GNU is compared to native windows functionality to the executive managers of large traditionally MS-only IT depts looking to migrate to Linux.
The sad reality is that most managers will believe the MS droids that they're looking at a truly representative GNU environment so will agree GNU is bad, without ever having seen a real GNU environment.
Now that Microsoft has released all the documentation, won't it be easier for them to sue commercial open-source projects? Is there a legal difference between reverse-engineering protocols to make a clean-room implementation and using the documentation provided by Microsoft, but that comes with a license?
I dunno, seems plausible enough to me. I was always of fan of the idea of extracting the NT kernel and doing a GNU distribution on top of it. (Something which is theoretically possible even without Microsoft's help, though rather difficult.) Microsoft would never have been happy about it because it would further erode their lock-in.
I imagine this could be achieved using ReactOS, which is a project to create a GNU GPL licensed NT-like/binary call compatible kernel. I am not suggesting whether doing so is good or bad, but rather simply pointing out the possibility may already exist to do this without requiring the involvement of or help from Microsoft.
Let's hope that SCOX are still around when this gets released so they can sue Microsoft for stealing their IP.
Microsoft already knows it.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
I believe that Andy Tenenbaum was also there, hugging and shaking hands with Torvalds, Stallman, and Ballmer. Then Torvalds and Tenenbaum announced that they are developing a hybrid kernel monolithic kernel on top of a microkernel, based on both Linux and Minix, to run UNG.
.)
When they were done, Ballmer actually *sat down* in a chair instead of throwing it, while each of them (Torvalds, Tenembaum, and Stallman) describe this bright new future for the IT world. (It's rumored that Ballmer was not actually listening to them, however, but instead doing transcendental meditation during the speeches. . . developers, developers, developers, developers, developers. .
Has Microsoft totally switched gears in how it is approaching the Unix and FOSS sector for direct competition?
In the absence of a massive turn over in management, this is MS changing gears and competing with FOSS the same way they competed with Netscape. The same way they competed in the SCO fiasco, file formats, DRM, and all the other ways MS "competes" in the IT world. The kind of competition that just earned them a $1.3 billion dollar fine from the EU.
A leopard can't change its spots and MSFT can't change their character with the same people calling the shots. If they really want to change direction a re-establish trust then that change has start and spring from the top.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
They're opening up to "non-commercial use".
This isn't "Microsoft's answer to Open Source", it's "Microsoft's answer to shareware".
Releasing these documents is meaningless to the open source community so long as they require money for "commercial use". It's not meaningless, but it's not the open source community that will benefit.
Funny. We always fight the last war. The VMWare and other products make this approach irrelevant. Why would anybody want to run x86 Unix/Linux code under a fake OS "framework," when they can just boot it in a VM? If what they're saying is that I can download & run x86 Linux-compiled binaries that will interoperate with Windows at the X11 and OS Kernel level, then yee-hah, more power to them, but they're expending an awful lot of effort for virtually zero payback. Mabye it's a stop-loss strategy: prevent further erosion of the Windows desktop. If anything, this goes to show (me) that MS still doesn't "get" "open." The idea that's driving Linux to the desktop isn't the superiority of its "tools." Tools in both environments are competitive. It's the idea that you don't have to pay a licensing tax to use the software. Putting an "honest" UNIX personality under-the-covers of Vista makes it look an AWFUL LOT MORE like OS/X, rather than a Linux "killer." Yee-hah. A war on two fronts!
So, UNG stands for "UNG's not GNU" and GNU stands for "GNU's not unix".
Unwinding the definitions, one gets "UNG is not GNU is not Unix".
I just thank god that GNU is not UNG.
Exactly what I heard from people in the know like the Samba project. This is a big FU to the OSS community and anyone who wants better interoperability with Microsoft's products. For pete's sake, split the freaking company into pieces already. The individuals companies would be thrilled to not have MS's entertainment divisions dragging them all over the place.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
gnu is going to have to release GNW: gnu's not windows, that way MS can follow by releasing MSNW: MicroSoft's not Windows
:-)
/dev.... and yes ive googled around for this i speculate id have better luck on a desktop.
keeping the holy war joke from another poster, they will obv include emacs and vii... but they are clearly going to have to introduce their own entry into that holy war too so that it can be a complete trio.
On a more serious note does this mean that the previously scrapped "longhorn power console update" dealie that got the axe is going to finally get put back in?
as a linux user and fan who's ditched windows; i hate to say it but I think that is a very wise move on their part. there are many times in the workplace where as much as I prefer linux, windows on the whole would provide me w/ an easier solution if not for the lack of a decent command line interface. Yes i could install cygwin, but there is ugliness to it and i have yet to see a good ultra easy way to launch the term. that and when i installed cygwin's X component (and registered it into my env so that it would work) it broke my windows emacs install. and vm's just arent the same thing for this purpose. What are the problems that it can resolve that I'm having in linux?
work machine is a laptop
1. display switching (take with a grain of salt because I'm running under compizfusion w/xgl which presents a problem for this issue)
i have a widescreen panel attatched to the laptop that i use for display expansion. problem is that if x/xgl is started when im not connected to the display, even when i plug it in i cant change my resolution live (using xrandr/resapplet) to the 'right' resolution. i could go from 1400x1050 to 2800x1050 instead of 3360x1050 (which sadly is not 3050 as it should be for a 1400x1050 + a 1680x1050). when i have started docked and was at the higher resolution i seem to have to switch from compiz to metacity to do the res change and then restart compiz (not restart x) to go back up to full res if i have to undock ( i seem to be able to safely reduce the res down from 3360->1400). if i dont its a lop sided coin toss and more times than not it crashes X and i end up having to reboot. also i have yet to get the vga out to work to connect to a projector if i dont boot connected to it... again these issues are probably because of xgl more than anything else.. (this is on a thinkpad t60p with firegl mv5250... if you have a fix i'd love the hear it
2. mice
so i bought a wireless usb mouse to plugin to the laptop; problem is its moving "way too fast" on the screen.. if i lower the speed it doesnt affect that mouse only, it seems to slow down both the touchpad/stick as well; which becomes a problem when i undock. lately the speed change doesnt seem to do anything.. the other problem ive run into is getting all of the buttons recognized; i've got everything working except for the horizontal tilt on the tilt wheel. dunno why, but it isn't even getting reported down to xev. dunno why, i think it has to do with the the synaptics touchpad/stick and the wireless mouse (logitech vxrevo) all getting dumped onto the same 'device' from
"Jazz isn't dead, it just smells funny" ~Frank Zappa
EdelFactor
If it makes sense for Microsoft commercially then bully for them, but for anyone wanting to develop for Windows (or Linux+Windows) using free software there's already plently of choices:
...)
MinGW -- minimal GNU toolchain for Windows (incl g++/gcc)
Qt (not just GUI, but also threads, networking,
Cygwin -- Linux API DLL for porting Linux apps to Windows (I prefer to just use cross-platform libraries)
Cygwin/X -- X windows libs, server, utilities for Windows (presumably can be used with GTK, although I havn't tried it)
pthreads_win32
Boost.Theads - portable threads library (if pthreads, or QThread doesn't fit your needs)
Using MinGW and Qt it's easy to develop apps that can just be recompiled across Linus/Solaris/Windows/Mac.
What's currently missing is a strong cross-platform multimedia toolkit, but that will be changing with KDE's Phonon framework which will be supported by Qt 4.4. Phonon will support Linux, Windows and Mac via (respectively) GStreamer, DirectShow and Quicktime backends.
I'm not sure if GNOME has any equivalent in the works, or to what degree Phonon is tied to Qt. Having alternate desktops and even GUI libraries is not a bad thing, but it'd be helpful if Linux could standardize on core stuff like multimedia support rather than having competing camps there too.
My whole point of investing my time into Linux is because FOSS is a cultural phenomon that is completely new. Nobody, at least, not a single entity, owns Linux, and for that reason, it belongs to everyone. If you make some sort of a contribution to it, free of charge, it is almost like making a contribution directly to humanity.
I can't possibly see how Microsoft could pull off a similar thing.
No amount of being nice or slick marketing posters could make me think that writing for free on platform with a track record of sickening self interest could even remotely equate to the grand social experiment that is Linux.
But that's really not the worst of it. If anything, the slick marketing posters that come with Windows are a part of the problem. To a large extent, I view the drive for Linux as a push for a newer set of ethics for consulting firms.
We need to at some examine the relationship consulting firms have with large concerns like Microsoft. I always though that in the ideal case, a consultant was somewhat akin to a doctor, supposedly free of any sort of taint from any particular vendor's solution. But that's not what we have today. We have consulting firms that are "Junior, Gold", and more with Microsoft. It's an unholy alliance, where, consultants invest in MCSD's and other certifications, pay through the nose to get a product logo'd as compatible. In exchange, Microsoft gives those companies preferred listings and free development tools and operating systems. So basically, Microsoft is using artificial prices for copying to induce consultants to support their platform for free, and those consultants, in turn, are going to always be biased towards push their clients to Microsoft products. Indeed, higher levels of Microsoft partnership require sales of Microsoft products to achieve Gold or some other channel status.
If doctors did that, they would be barred from practice, and I think this comingling of a vendor with a solution provider is flat out wrong. In other lines of business, if you were paid by a vendor to advocate a particular product, selling everything from nuts and bolts to window frames, you would wind up in jail. But this practice of "partnering" is mysteriously ok in IT.
Adopting Linux removes this disgust. Because the software is free, there's no incentive to copy it, and ultimately, the customer is going to wind up with a solution that is genuinely more right sized for their needs. With Microsoft, you'll always have consultants pushing Biztalk and Enterprise this or Enterprise that, because, well, they are getting paid to do it.
The bottom line is this. If Microsoft genuinely wants to promote an open source environment, then yes, it has to make open source software, but it also has to work to promote the idea of a consultant as an independent advocate for his or her clients. We are not some salesman on the cheap motivated by free licensing for products similar to what Linux gives you for free.
This is my sig.
I don't understand why MSFT has treated the "command line crowd" with such a crappy product for the last 20 years.
They clearly did not want people to use the dos window: thus it's pretty much the same as in 1985 and lacks bash' niceties.
Only recently have they added auto-complete.
They clearly should have added an easier-to-use command line and made windows less of pain to administer from the command line.
Are there any screenshots of this GUI-less version?
First, Microsoft would never call it "UNG". Second, Ballmer would not talk about a "UNIX-like environment". Microsoft doesn't need a UNIX-like offering. Ballmer might order Microsoft to develop an easy migration path from Linux servers to Windows servers, but the Linux desktop share is too small to matter.
I love programming in unix, shell scripting, pipes, the entire unix philosophy about building tools for a specific purpose and putting them together, but I HATE THE FSF because of their idiot dogmatic refusal to support ordinary programs. Look RMS has money thrown at him for basically doing nothing at all, he is a complete antisocial bum, and he doesn't understand what it means to hold an ordinary job and pay bills. You FSF freaks take note, theres no such thing as GPL'd food or shelter.
It would be an extraordinarily good day for programmers if Microsoft could simply sideline the GNU project completely and then we could all tell RMS to just go fuck off. All of the unixy goodness, none of the stupid dogma.
Why the hell would you want to do that? The kernel is not interesting, and doesn't give you the vast majority of compatibility features, you need the various libraries, GUI, everything else. If you think magically excel will work without MS libraries and will run under X, you are deluded.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
A GUI-less Windows.. Isn't that called DOS?? Or have I missed something..
A landfill on a toxic waste dumpsite.
Really, if they did it, they'd get the disadvantages of both, and the advantages of neither.
And, as a Unix programmer myself, I'll say it right out: No way in *%$&# would I find that an desirable programming environment.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
I keep being led around to buy a copy of Office even though don't WANT a fuckin' copy of fuckin' Office.
All I fuckin' well want is a fuckin' copy of fuckin' Excel.
And they keep asking all these fuckin' questions.
ALL I WANT IS A FUCKIN' COPY OF EXCELL.
I DON'T WANT A FUCKIN' INQUISITION!
THE CLIENT CAN GO AND FUCK HIMSELF.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Microsoft would have to do a complete make-over on BSD the way Apple did with OSX. It's not that they couldn't do it, it's that they wouldn't. It would upset all of their development users to no end. There are so many developers making their products and living based on the Windows API that to move to something GNU "compatible" would simply be catastrophic in so many ways that I'd prefer not to put brain power into imagining the details. It would be ugly though... very ugly.
And in the end, it's not only that the Windows platform isn't and will never be efficient and reliable, it's that people who aren't using Microsoft as their basis for development or operations aren't doing so because they haven't heard or or tried Microsoft's stuff, it's because they have! Microsoft's reputation remains fresh in the minds of those who have rejected them.
To pull this off would require a lot. The first thing they would need to do is assure their developers that all the work, the time and resources devoted to Microsoft's platforms will not be wasted. To keep those developers would be no easy task. A large portion of them are 'worshipers' but many more are simply very invested in the current API and only take changes in small increments.
So such a move would take a long time -- even more than 5 years, possibly more than 10 -- to accomplish and even then, people are already burned on Microsoft's name, brand, style and attitude that it would take a long time to 'heal.' But 10 years is a long time to heal those memories, but why should the industry wait 10 years for what it has available to it now just so it could get something from a company that has a general strangle-hold on the IT market? People will figure it out eventually.
And since so much of today's business mentality is short-term anyway what with having to give in to short-term investors' demands or fear being sued, any planning more than 2 or 3 years out is just unimaginable.
Can they do it? Should they do it? Yes and yes! I have been saying it all along that if Microsoft wants to restore its former glory, it will have to dump the Windows API and either create a new, more stable and secure basis or adopt BSD and tweak it the way Apple did and hen create a WindowsAPI compatibility layer that actually works. Apple did it with their "Classic" mode (it's not perfect, but it worked well enough for many, and from what I hear Vista is a 'resounding success' even with its declining level of backward compatibility). Microsoft can do it too.
But will they? Not while present management is currently in control of things. If Microsoft wants another shot at being fresh, new and what's hip the way they were quite a few years ago, they'll have to dump their 80's-mentality leadership and fast! Only then will spurned anti-Microsoft people give a second look at Microsoft now or in the future.
Tell ya what Microsoft, I've got a deal for you. You unbundle your products; sell your OS, windowing system, window manager, and applications separately (or give them away, without restrictions on their use, if one or more components are considered not commercially viable alone). And don't use any non-published features, rapidly changing software interfaces under your control, or other anti-competitive advantages to glue them together. The price of the bundle (if you do sell a complete kit) should be within maybe 20% of the sum of the unbundled prices (a reasonable package discount is OK, but anything more than 10% starts to sound like bundling to me). You do that, then we'll talk.
A big part of *nix's advantage is that it is componentized. You can use the best tool for your particular needs. I don't want to be tied to a particular window manager when I choose a kernel. And if I don't like or need your windowing system, I don't want to pay for it. The nice thing about that approach is that each product has to stand on its own merit. It leads to this cornerstone of free market economics thing called "competition."
Oh - and stop calling your entire software stack an "OS". You're confusing the end users.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Its MSX you fools. Bill finally woke up and is after Apple/UNIX. Bill is going to take advantage of the BSD licensing terms and roll out a MS Windows WM. Can't you see??? The rumors are just a way to fake out the market. Bill Gates will copy Apple ther take over the world.
"MS ZENIX The Return"
-The End is Near!!!
I live in Seattle and the last three months I have been receiving a lot of calls from head hunters staffing for MS looking for people with a strong Unix background. When I first received the job descriptions, my guess was that they were working on something that would allow you to manage Linux/Unix systems from a Windows machine. Reflecting back on the job description, it could have been something like this.
...)
/usr directory tree, etc.
I didn't accept the offers, but here is some free advice:
- Get rid of single letter drive names (you know, the eighties called,
- The directory separator is '/', As Seen On Unix and URLs.
- Reorganize the file system more like Unix/Linux, and maybe rename 'Program Files' to 'Applications', have a
- Ship every copy of the OS with an X server.
- And I still need a compliant shell and C compiler to support the holy invocation './configure && make && sudo make install'.
You should've held onto this one for another month or so - it wasn't due to be published until 4/1.
#DeleteChrome
unless the GUI-less scriptable version of Server 2008 is offered as a free download with the source code released. I believe that when I get hit in the face with a snowball thrown by Bill Gates on July 4th in Miami.
They just spell it Windows Services for UNIX. It includes GCC and many other GNU utilities, no reason to reverse engineer them when you can already redistribute them for free.
/..
The UNG name is way to cure at too many levels for Microsoft, but congratulation to the author of the fake leak for making it
All they need to do is throw in some hookers! And blackjack! In fact, forget obout the OS.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Let's suppose for a moment that everything pointed out by the article is correct. Now recall that MS has (supposedly) a license to Unix V (for what it's worth) from SCO themselves (thatselves? :-). Now where the fun begins is that this license has a high chance to be declared invalid by the judge next April which could leave MS in a odd position...
But not that it matters since they now have Novell in their pock^H^H^H^H address book...
AC
And Steve Jobs just loves his new Zune!
It would seem a smart move for MS to go the way apple did w/ OSX. Tailor a unix kernel the way they want it and then dress it up to have the olde familiar windows look. Desktop users wouldn't know the difference and admins and power users would rejoice. There would be a bit of grumbling initially since so many admins would have to go out and learn something new, plus get new certs, &c., but ms can make changes of that size and people just put up with it. The only reason I can think of them not doing it, is out of fear that admins who normally only learn useless windows crap would now have 'some' inherent understanding of competing operating systems and 'some' actually useful cross-platform skills instead of just being exclusively invested in ms stuff. Do they still talk about posix in school?
They're officially closing the doors? I guess global warming won't be an issue anymore. Hell just froze over.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
Ghandi's formula for success, step 5: "They have you assassinated."
Do you really want to give Microsoft that option?
And the gaming packages will be Direct UNG's Not GNU?
...they step on an age old land mine in a very bad way.
...
ANNOUNCING NEW MICROSOFT VeMACS! Thats right! We combined VI and Emacs!
And I heard a sound as if millions of geeks world wide cried out in unison.
"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
One thing that's never been fixed in Linux is that it can't run exe files. I need my exe files and so does everyone else. Hopefully Microsoft Linux will address that.
I, for one, welcome our new Microsoft overlords.
What's the value of information that you don't know?
Note that Satan is not part of pagan believe, budism, hindusm or the old roman or greek belive - to name a few. He only appeals to monothesis religions as only monothesis religions need an anti-god.
Martin
You don't really gain anything with the NT kernel. The problem is developers. They want to learn technologies that don't lock them down to one vendor or a "licensed" solution. Because of that chosen career paths follow toolkits that are portable. Java, python,ruby, mysql, apache, etc.. . Automation and installation of these type of tools are best handled through the GNU or GNU like products.
Even though the developer doesn't have the purchasing power, they do influence. If someone says, I need you to implement XYZ for my business. If the developer says, I need 3 linux boxes, it's done (because it's cheaper too). The purchaser has no power. MS needs to get rid of this factor. Non-techy people who do the buying would feel much more comfortable with windows machines. They need to empower the purchaser to say, look, I'll buy what I want, since you can develop on either.
Personally, I think it's still a failed strategy. If they see the writing on the wall, they should just port windows GUI part to linux or BSD and move on.
-Nuke the moon
Apparently someone informed Ballmer that Stallman has ninja training (or is at the very least, able to defeat them... maybe he's a pirate?), so Ballmer decided to learn jujitsu...
That's why we have to focus on freedom as RMS teaches. If the only reason we use GNU is for the technology or nerdiness, at some point someone working against the community will release a product which will encompass the various technical advantages of it, and at that point many of those who use GNU merely for the technology will find themselves enslaved to proprietary software again. We should use GNU because we want to be free, not only for its superior technology. By focusing on freedom, we make sure that no one will ever be able to attack our community.
MS has had services for unix for years. It is evil & rude, but one way to get the Unix tools on win32:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/interopmigration/bb380242.aspx
Folk here tend to forget that MS' greatest asset is the millions of third-party developers producing software for Windows. GNU compatibility can only expand that community; more than a few are likely to be attracted by the prospect of tapping into the vast Windows market. MS has nothing to lose.
Of course, if anyone does anything really good that's useful to more than a handful of people, MS is likely to try to buy them out. But not to worry; FOSS developers abhor the idea of being independently wealthy.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
theres bsd of course, and then theres any number of unixy stuff that already runs on windows. Open source to the rescue. GNU hates for open source to be available for windows, even when that in itself helps the GNU's cause, thats just how stupid the GNU people are. It took Eric Raymond to finally cut to the heart of the matter and sit RMS on the sidelines once and for all, and when RMS finally got his smelly ass booted from the GCC toolchain project, the world could finally get some work done using open source.
Even Emacs had to fork to get something useful. Everyone eventually forks away from RMS. Even Linus avoids the GPL 3 and rightfully so.
This entire post is just part of the current Microsoft PR drive which is going full throttle during Feb and March until the final vote on the adoption of OOXML as an ISO standard is complete.
The orginal AT ran at 6Mhz and then was upgraded to 8Mhz soon after it was found that you could just put in a new crystal and get 8Mhz. Your way faster PC was only two to four Mhz faster. Gee that isn't even enough difference to spit at...
Just something like 25 to 50 percent.
The good old day.
I remember swaping out my 8088 for a Nec V20.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
As part of the contract to sell Xenix to SCO Micorsoft had to agree NOT to sell a cometing Unix like operating system as logn as Xenix/SCOUnix was around. So until SCO 's unix (Xenix/SCOUnix) is dead MS cannot compete in the Unix market or SCO could sue Microsoft for Breach of Contract - And you know SCO - they love to sue!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
Or does he just the necessary things to comply with european law, to no get sued again with 800 million Dollars and to cover it up as new,progressive ways of microsoft?
I did not find this entirely surprising. Microsoft's new e-mail platform, Exchange 2007, has made all its management operations available in its "Power Shell". It has it's own scripting language and some useful variations on pipes and the ability to incorporate CSV file columns into a script without a whole lot of extra work. It is more like UNIX, but really, I see it as something that they should have done a long time ago, when it would have saved me a lot of C++ programming.
1)turn your mac into a PC
2)turn your PC into unix
3)???
4)profit!!
here, wikiquote.
you had me at #!
...that GNU stands for Generally No User interface? Come on, own up, who was it?
refuses to value information and work. Thats essentially their biggest unsolved problem, reconciling their philosophy with the mechanics of a market economy. Copyright as a legal framework allowing careers in the intellectual realm is dismissed by Richard Stallman as according to him, the mere existance of copyright causes "homosexual rape." At some point, more reasonable minds have to prevail. After all, unlike Richard Stallman, some of us have to purchase soap, water, laundry detergent and even the occasional haircut and a shave.
n/t
you had me at #!
To put things in perspective, Neil Nelson (of the commercial benchmark fame) did some benchmarks from back then on the original ATT UNIX published by Microport. It put the 286 and 386 as faster than a PDP 11/70, and a little slower than a VAX, on non disk IO related benchmarks.
That was pretty sweet, considering the price difference, and that an individual could afford the PC. So, yes, the OP's statement that PC's were too weak to run UNIX is completely bogus. Heck, that's one of the reasons why RMS was so eager to first develop gcc on the 386 UNIX systems.
This means when developers ask themselves what platform to target, POSIX will be the only option that is well supported on Windows, Mac & *nix.
Which means many more people will target it.
Which means it will be easier for users to swap out the POSIX implementation.
Which means many users will choose the cheapest, stablest one with the best hardware support.
Which is Linux.
Have gnu, will travel.
Why, does Stallman also have an anti-chair shield?
When I can install VMware, and then run a full Linux system to get real work done.
Deleted
...asking what you're going to give him in return for ripping off his plan that brought Apple back into technical leadership. :)
you had me at #!
Instead of buying Yahoo!, perhaps MS could buy Sun.
Man I didn't realize it was spring already. Time to grab the climbing gear.
I know this fancy new API has only been out for 3 or 4 decades, but I guess I'm a bit of a bleeding-edge early-adopter, so I've already written some code that uses fork(). Usually with a pipe.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
that I can compile and run GNU ontop of UNG?
I think Ubuntu must now respond in similar manner: Gnome/KDE should be mandatory in base installation and getty should be thrown out from debian repository!!!
Not hardly. Not to me anyway.
While it's nice that they've made it possible to do a GUI-less installation and there's some sort of scripting available, merely stripping the GUI off of Windows will not necessarily make a Windows box look and feel like a UNIX system. Unless Microsoft includes a fully-featured shell with an OS that can actually support multiple simultaneous users, I'll be taking a pass. Somehow, I suspect that any Windows without a GUI is going to feel much, much more like MS-DOS than UNIX. What's that old phrase? Oh yeah: Been there, done that.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
MS knows that there is no point in trying to appeal to the Unix crowd. Nobody is running Unix/Linux today because they are waiting for MS to release a sufficiently Unixy system.
What this could do however, is keep some Windows shops from bringing in Unix boxes. The scenario could go like this: A Windows shop hires a Unix/Linux person to build some sort of system they need. This person makes a case for bringing in a couple of Linux boxes. Rather than giving in to this, the Windows shop can set up some Windows servers with this crap and get away with it because it's close enough to Linux
...asking what you're going to give him in return for ripping off his plan that brought Apple back into technical leadership.There are posts from people who are clearly technical saying "What the hell? Ship MacOS 10 already. This junk doesn't work at all!"
Apple is a company which can actually warn its _own_ core system parts to keep up with times. Like:
27.02.2008 13:33:07 com.apple.launchctl.System[2] Notice launchctl: Please convert the following to launchd:
It is a polite warning for now, in a year or so, it will say very harsh things and later, it will say "I am not loading it".
Can MS do such things? As long as they can't do, they will have these issues. Dark tactics like pushing NBC to show Olympics site to SilverLight having people etc. will keep them in business though.
MS should buy Xenix back from SCO.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
This is the best option, port the GUI (vista gui sounds pretty portable actually) to SCO unix (ms can buy it), run old apps in a virtual machine. Done and done.
Sig removed because it was obnoxious
I can think of a few people who worked on Formula 1 teams who would be happy to have an odd but iconic little auto to play around with in the shop. :-D
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
But I don't think .NET is working out the way they thought it would. It's basically a portable windows implementation that supposedly should run anywhere. In practice, they forgot the "anywhere" part of the equation. In some ways, it's a pity as .NET is quite nifty in later versions.
No matter how much GNU you sprinkle on a turd it's still a turd.
Win32 does not have a way to fork a process, but NT does. Passing a NULL image handle to NtCreateProcess() is similar to calling fork(), cloning the memory space as a new process. The NT kernel supports a lot of system calls that are not exposed through Win32, and it's a shame. The NT API is much more elegant and self-consistent than the Win32 wrapper, yet it's the officially undocumented one.
NT is almost a superset of the features of Linux. There are only a few concepts that don't exist in NT, like signals.
"Screw Sun, cross-platform will never work. Let's move on and steal the Java language." - Visual J++ Product Manager
Improved *lemonix*security!
After all, it was the same strategy which the commercial Unix vendors started to try out on their customers beginning back in the 1980s, and which continues to this day. The idea was that each variant is recognizably Unix, but with lots of cool proprietary features that your applications should really use to advantage.
In some sense, this arrangement creates a healthy competitive ecosystem. Bear with me here. You have a common framework which benefits everyone, and then you're free to add value on top of that in a modular way. That much is cool. For example, Sun develops NFS on top of the Unix filesystem model, and other platform vendors turn around and develop their own, more or less interoperable, implementations. More interoperable is better, since anything that encourages the entire space to grow will give every participating vendor a small piece of a growing pie. Modularity and interoperability are preserved, which frees users to choose the best solution for their needs. Technology progresses, and everyone wins.
So what's wrong with this picture? Well, it invites a tragedy of the commons. It's fine to develop technologies which genuinely compete for market share based on merit. In the physical world, we see that all the time, for example innovations in motor sports eventually finding their way into production vehicles. The trouble comes when some greedy vendor gets the bright idea to use a proprietary extension as a means to sabotage the competition instead of competing on merit.
Extensions which deliberately break interoperability cause damage to the growing digital commons. The exact tipping point arises when there is little or no real value in innovation, while there is a correspondingly significant loss of compatibility. To the relatively minor degree that the commercial Unix vendors engaged in this practice, they visibly slowed the growth of the entire market segment. By not collaborating more openly, each fought to preserve its own piece of a pie that was no longer growing.
Despite the ensuing damage to the commons, why is it that Microsoft gets away with its much more radical embrace-and-extend strategy? I'd argue that this is the result only in cases where by doing so it can overwhelm the competition. While it's true that there is not much real innovation, and the pie is therefore not growing nearly as fast as it would under conditions of healthy competition, Microsoft gets essentially all of it. At that point, growth due to adoption gives way to growth of the base population.
But this situation does not so clearly obtain where free software is concerned. The GPL sees to that. Even if an open source application is ported to Windows, there is nothing to stop it being ported back to some other platform. Yes, in principle it could become so heavily integrated with Windows that portability becomes an issue, but this is exactly what hurt commercial Unix vendors in the long run. Given a choice between two similar applications, one which is locked into a proprietary platform, and one which ports easily between multiple platforms, which of the two is most strategically versatile? Which is more capable of being adapted to a broad variety of new capabilities as they become available on diverse platforms?
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
Microsoft thinks they can build a fully-compatible clone of the GNU tool chain in just a year with small side developer team? This is obviously a fake rumor, especially considering there is SFU, Cygwin, OpenLina, and CoLinux stuff that tries brings most GNU stuff over to Windows already.
Regards, Vincent
I know SFU stands for "Services for Unix", a Microsoft product.
But everytime I see SFU I can't help but think it's a misspelling of
STFU -- Shut The F* Up! We're Microsoft and we know best!
When I see an annoucement from Microsoft saying they LOST a customer to a competitor because they gpled code, and they admit they have no choice but to grin and bear it, and hope the customer will change their mind... Then I will believe they are serious about NOT hassling GNU.
Anything less just leaves them too many options, including legal and anticompetitive pressures.
yup, i'd buy one, :)
to funny to pass up
It's not run, run as fast as you can?
If they actually use "UNG's Not GNU" as a slogan, Stallman could sue them for trademark infringement ...
Read the best of all of Slash: seenonslash.com
Hrmmm probably the dead giveaway is that when a
proprietary vendor speaks of things that would
be compatible with GNU, they will always talk
aboot POSIX compatibility.
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