The locking system in the NT kernel is very conservative. However even hanging kernelprocesses in NT don't bring down the entire machine, it's just that the kernel can't re-grab locked resources that easily. The introduction of spin-locks in XP removed this problem completely, after the enhanced kernelmode locking mechanism in Win2k's kernel. Locking can bring down any pre-emptive kernelscheduler. So in this light, you might say: ok, the idea is good, but the locking mechanism should have been better. The analysis they've done on the win2k kernel which resulted in the implementation of spinlocks in XP's kernel (and which makes it really fly on SMP systems) could have been done earlier, f.e. on the NT kernel, true.
Win9x doesn't run entirely in kernelmode. It runs 32bit processes in usermode and it's own modules in kernelmode.
The NT kernel is partly pre-emptive because it's build up by a very small core that only does scheduling and very low level stuff. All other kernelprocesses are tasks on top of that small core. So you can implement the scheduling between these parts as a pre-emptive scheduler. BECAUSE it's pre-emptive it's so fast. The NT kernel isn't eating more performance than needed, it's more faster than comparable kernels. This has been tuned in win2k and in XP. In XP f.e. the locking mechanism which is holding back NT's kernel has been greatly enhanced. Locks are the nail on the pre-emptive-kernel-coffin.
Linux has a big kernel, it's not implemented as a small core that simply does very very low level stuff and scheduling, it does a lot more.
Pre-emptive multitasking is ment for tasks that run ON TOP of the kernel, since the kernel does the scheduling:) That works for ages in all kinds of OS-es, also Linux.
Now, what about tasks that are part of the kernel? Are these run in a pre-emptive multitasking environment? Some OS-es don't and some do. Most OS-es have a different kind of scheduling of tasks within a kernel, so a kernel can predict when a kerneltasks is finished and can prevent kerneltasks from stalling the overall systemperformance. What is done here, is that by this patch, Linux got a pre-emptive scheduler for kerneltasks, so these are scheduled on a different way than before, resulting in better overall performance.
Your gzip-X problem has nothing to do with it: if 1 program hogs the cpu, another can't fully use it.
(NOTE: below, 'java' is the name for a platform, not a language.)
Webservices? Are you running these on the desktop? I don't think so..NET is a platform where you can build winforms based apps (client/desktop stuff), or serverbased apps (webforms apps, also clients!) or server based distributed (!) apps (webservices).
The idea of java from 1995, where you could have all kinds of applets, running on servers on the internet, and working together as one big app (the 'The network is the computer' idea) is never delivered by Sun, but will now be delivered by MS.
.NET is for the server mostly and for the desktop, but it will take off on the server in the first couple of years, since the runtime is big. Yapping it is targeted at the desktop only shows that you don't understand where the power of.NET really is located: in the ease to create distributed applications with flexible clients.
Java is now 'a' platform of choice for writing server side businesslogic components. Together with JSP's, its like the VB/C++ - ASP combination on win32. Someone said 'On the server, Java truely rules', well, I hope he means 'it's awesome', instead of 'it 0wnz', because it doesn't have the majority of the servermarket, and with.NET on the market, it will not get that majority in the future also, mark my words.
The major problem with C# isn't technical, the major problem is that there aren't any good implementations available yet (no, Microsoft's implementation isn't all that great yet) and that C# comes from Microsoft.
Big words, and I don't see any proof of it. In what way is the C# implementation of MS bad? (and others thus good?) Seems like you're recylcing a lot of hot air without adding anything useful to the conversation.
I dunno, but Royal Dutch (Shell), one of the biggest oil companies in the world, uses Win2k worldwide in their wan (more than 70.000 machines), server, desktops, you name it.
Nasdaq also uses win2k based solutions.
Anyway, my NT server has now an uptime of 127 days and counting. Where are the reboots? I dunno, perhaps you don't know what you're doing, and considering your humourous remark about access I'm pretty sure you really don't have a clue.
Please, tell me: adding the numbers of vulnerabilities of win9x to win2k is fair to you? Or is it more fair to just compare the win2k vulnerabilities with the linux vulnerabilities? I don't know, but I know who will 'win' according to those numbers.
at least their application ware, or am I wrong? Wasn't it Oracle's plan to create an application system that runs native on the hardware without any OS? I thought they finished that with 9i, but again, correct me if I'm wrong. If I'm not, yapping that the company will totally run on Linux is a bit odd then.
Blender is a win32 package too, the gui is horrible, but ok, that seems common with 3D packages. What seems to be so odd is the Unix only releases of plugins for the web.
How many users do they think there are with Unix browsers? So how many people will produce 3D content for their format? If there isn't a market, there are not suppliers. It's a simple as that.
From that, he goes on to point out that people tend to have a small group of people they work well with and trust; perhaps 5 - 10 people. So, in essence, if Linus appoints 5 - 10 maintainers of major subsystems (which he has), and each of them has 5 - 10 people the trust to maintain specific aspects of their subsystem, then there is no problem.
There is theoretically no problem, when there are small 'patches' (or better: fixes for glitches) which fall totally in 1 subsystem's area. However, what if a patch spans more than one subsystem? Or better: what if a patch needs changes on another subsystem? In an OS, it's placing foundation on foundation, layer on layer, they all depend on the layers/functionality blocks below that layer. You can't just say: "Hey, John, you do VFS and you, Dave, you do the VM", because the VM needs services of the VFS and vice versa.
If you have a designmanifest which has to be implemented, you can point to people which control certain parts of the project, WHICH don't have to be subsystems necessarily (vertical segmentation), but can be seen as horizontal segmentation: one group does the core layers, other groups do the layers ontop of those core layers.
And why did mankind invent computers?
on
Linus Does Not Scale
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· Score: 3, Interesting
That's right! To help humans and the activities of these humans. Now, here we have a complex organisation-related problem (software versioning), which takes a lot of effort and energy from the human(s) involved. Instead of using computers and specialized software to HELP the humans involved and thus make the process a lot simpler, the human(s) involved disagree and try to keep the process non-automated and without computers.
Hello? What if a big company says: "To hell with computers, we do all our business-directing by hand, without decision support systems etc..", is that a clever move? No! Humans are not capable of processing a lot of complex data CORRECTLY. Computers do. Use them, whenever they can help. To avoid using computers in software versioning is IMHO one of the most stupid things you can do. What do you think, that Microsoft used Bill Gates' brain to organise the 35 million lines of sourcecode of Windows 2000?
no-one complains, as a matter of fact, hundreds of thousands of developers have downloaded the.NET SDK and/or the VS.NET RTM release.
Perhaps people should focus more on what you can DO with.NET and Mono instead of political crap as to which license is 'true Open Source' and 'because it's now XFree I won't touch it'.
You can all crawl towards DotGNU, but it is in the early stages of development and will come too late. If you want a.NET platform equivalent on Linux, support Mono, otherwise BECAUSE Linux won't have a.NET equivalent, the platform will die.
The pre-runtime optimizing, done by a compiler/linker combo can be hard, true, but that's now. Within 10 years, it will be devastatingly good. To start THEN with a VLIW machine, like the EPIC architecture, would be too late.
Furthermore, using a JIT in hardware to optimize the code at runtime (which is what you want, since you can decide what to optimize better and also in what way) is the way to go, Transmeta already uses such a setup in the crusoe.
So: an EPIC based proc, combined with a JIT chip would be ok. When the compiler techniques are better (it's a new area, give them a couple of years, optimizing techniques were focussed on optimizing for a pipeline processor), the EPIC instructionset and the VLIW technique will turn out the technique of the future. Give it some time.
Personally, I find 'vaporware' a term only usable in sentences with words like 'Duke Nukem' and 'Forever', but I find it ironic that a preview of this OS makes it NOT vaporware anymore while Microsoft has to release a full version of.NET to make it non-vaporware (still people believe it's vaporware). Odd.
Looking at the screenshot, it screams 'Programmer Art', it hurts: the icons are not consistent. Some have blank borders, some are smooth, XP like. Was it too much to ask for a decent designer?
It's not about the enormous amount of money that's charged, it's about the costs that are made that should be earned back from the customer. I write software for a living, and I can't pay my bread if my software isn't sold. Stop whining about the 'support' model, because that's not working in every area, it probably will fail in most area's: people pay first and want FREE support later.
Giving the software away which was build in 1 year by 10 people is throwing away a lot of money, unless you didn't pay these developers. How are YOU planning to pay 10 developers who work 8-10 hours a day for a whole year? With promises that supportcontracts will pay them in 2 years? Aren't there a lot of bad examples about companies who thought that way and went chapter 11?
What Linux needs is a kick ass developer environment like Visual Studio.NET, not another C++ compiler: the way software is written, the time it takes to cook up great reusable code, THAT's important. The compiler is just the end station of what's produced.
If you are fortunate to be able to take a look at the Visual Studio.NET releases, you know what I mean. I hope for Linux Borland will come with a toolset that gives the Linux developer the same productivity tools as Visual Studio.NET gives you. But I fear it will be only the v5.5 C++ compiler.
I to use NT4 on some servers, just because they host websites and do that for a long time now and if it aint broke, don't fix it. However, Win2k brings new stuff to the plate, which you haven't touched according to your story. F.e. fully automated software installation/controll via AD using easy scripts. Windows.NET server will make this even easier. What you say about it wouldn't be workable is so far off the truth it hurts. Why? Because it has f.e. the checkpoint tech that's also in XP: you can roll back to any state you want: with the registry, with the drivers etc.
At ABN-AMRO, one of the worlds largest banks, they totally run on win2k and use an inhouse developed softwarecontrol/distribution system, based on AD and VBScript. Everything can be and is controlled from a central point in the WAN. Not workable? ha!. Perhaps you should kick your IT-guys in the butt so they finally get their head out of their asses and read the course material they received at the courses they attended to.
A VM is basicly a small thing: a list of pages, every page has a set of properties and an interface on top of that to get things done with the pages (claim/free/mark dirty etc). I wrote one on an MSX2 in 1986 for having 256KB roms in 128K ram + 128K vidram (and 32K disk:)). Of course, modern OS-es need a VM that can take decisions, is scalable on different hardware, and can handle the requests fast.
A lot of research has been done on virtual memory and the managercode for this type of memory. Also a lot of different types of VM's are implemented in different OS-es, all with pro's and con's in different situations. It's therefor not hard to dig in and get the knowledge you need.
F.e.: the rmap stuff is a nobrainer. If you let the VM handle every request to share/allocate a mempage, that VM can keep a set of pid's per page. IIRC NT's VM (VMM32) does this. That the current VM in Linux doesn't already have this feature is beyond me.
People can whine all they want or misread what I ment to say, but it's up to the judge to decide if Lindows is sounding similar to Windows and can THUS cause confusion, it's NOT up to Michael and gang, nor me nor MS.
The comment of Michael about supporting MS monopoly is utterly stupid. You know why? because in a lot of cases MS' products are the right tools for the job. Who carez about a monopoly, a job is there to be done. Bashing that remark of Michael is probably 'flamebait' in the eyes of the college kids with linux boxes, dunno:). In the field where heads role when something/someone f*cks up, you get the right tools for the job, so f.e. when a router should be installed, most people call cisco and get one of their boxes. Monopoly or not.
As to the actual trademark issue, Microsoft calls their products "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" and we call ours "LindowsOS". There is no confusion.
There _is_ confusion, between 'Windows' and 'Lindows', as the majority of the crowd will call both products. Ask an average joe in the street if he knows the OS 'Windows' and he probably will say 'yes'. It's also not up to YOU to decide that there is NO confusion. the 'dows' in your name IS refering to Windows, not to Dow Jones or anything else.
And please, stop the yadda yadda about 'if you want to help extend their monopoly'... you try to make a living out of the hard work of others as you also did with MP3.com. If there is ONE person that should be ashamed, it should be you.
Interestingly, the article asserts that Microsoft have already given up on IIS, the proof being its absence in XP Home and its non-standard presence in XP Pro.
Well, when I look at the Windows.NET Standard Server beta3 install I have here, IIS 6 is there, alive and kicking as ever. Besides a total new kernelmode driver (ala TUX), the installment of IIS is new (no more standard install of all buggy extensions) and Windows.NET server is relying more on the webserver than any windows server OS before: remote administration is totally webbased, the teamware software (sharepoint) is totally webbased etc. So saying that Microsoft has given up on IIS is totally bull.
Besides: XP pro has IIS in it, so another FUD article. Nevertheless, Apache 2.0 on Windows could be cool.
It's windows media format, yadda yadda, but it contains a 30 minute interview with 2 topdevelopers / designers of the CLR and a 30 minute demo about how the CLR actually works. Great stuff for people who want to know more about the background of the CLR, the people behind it and the inner workings of the CLR.
Slashdot Mirror
The locking system in the NT kernel is very conservative. However even hanging kernelprocesses in NT don't bring down the entire machine, it's just that the kernel can't re-grab locked resources that easily. The introduction of spin-locks in XP removed this problem completely, after the enhanced kernelmode locking mechanism in Win2k's kernel. Locking can bring down any pre-emptive kernelscheduler. So in this light, you might say: ok, the idea is good, but the locking mechanism should have been better. The analysis they've done on the win2k kernel which resulted in the implementation of spinlocks in XP's kernel (and which makes it really fly on SMP systems) could have been done earlier, f.e. on the NT kernel, true.
Win9x doesn't run entirely in kernelmode. It runs 32bit processes in usermode and it's own modules in kernelmode.
The NT kernel is partly pre-emptive because it's build up by a very small core that only does scheduling and very low level stuff. All other kernelprocesses are tasks on top of that small core. So you can implement the scheduling between these parts as a pre-emptive scheduler. BECAUSE it's pre-emptive it's so fast. The NT kernel isn't eating more performance than needed, it's more faster than comparable kernels. This has been tuned in win2k and in XP. In XP f.e. the locking mechanism which is holding back NT's kernel has been greatly enhanced. Locks are the nail on the pre-emptive-kernel-coffin.
Linux has a big kernel, it's not implemented as a small core that simply does very very low level stuff and scheduling, it does a lot more.
Pre-emptive multitasking is ment for tasks that run ON TOP of the kernel, since the kernel does the scheduling :) That works for ages in all kinds of OS-es, also Linux.
Now, what about tasks that are part of the kernel? Are these run in a pre-emptive multitasking environment? Some OS-es don't and some do. Most OS-es have a different kind of scheduling of tasks within a kernel, so a kernel can predict when a kerneltasks is finished and can prevent kerneltasks from stalling the overall systemperformance. What is done here, is that by this patch, Linux got a pre-emptive scheduler for kerneltasks, so these are scheduled on a different way than before, resulting in better overall performance.
Your gzip-X problem has nothing to do with it: if 1 program hogs the cpu, another can't fully use it.
(NOTE: below, 'java' is the name for a platform, not a language.)
.NET is a platform where you can build winforms based apps (client/desktop stuff), or serverbased apps (webforms apps, also clients!) or server based distributed (!) apps (webservices).
.NET really is located: in the ease to create distributed applications with flexible clients.
.NET on the market, it will not get that majority in the future also, mark my words.
Webservices? Are you running these on the desktop? I don't think so.
The idea of java from 1995, where you could have all kinds of applets, running on servers on the internet, and working together as one big app (the 'The network is the computer' idea) is never delivered by Sun, but will now be delivered by MS.
.NET is for the server mostly and for the desktop, but it will take off on the server in the first couple of years, since the runtime is big. Yapping it is targeted at the desktop only shows that you don't understand where the power of
Java is now 'a' platform of choice for writing server side businesslogic components. Together with JSP's, its like the VB/C++ - ASP combination on win32. Someone said 'On the server, Java truely rules', well, I hope he means 'it's awesome', instead of 'it 0wnz', because it doesn't have the majority of the servermarket, and with
The major problem with C# isn't technical, the major problem is that there aren't any good implementations available yet (no, Microsoft's implementation isn't all that great yet) and that C# comes from Microsoft.
Big words, and I don't see any proof of it. In what way is the C# implementation of MS bad? (and others thus good?) Seems like you're recylcing a lot of hot air without adding anything useful to the conversation.
I dunno, but Royal Dutch (Shell), one of the biggest oil companies in the world, uses Win2k worldwide in their wan (more than 70.000 machines), server, desktops, you name it.
Nasdaq also uses win2k based solutions.
Anyway, my NT server has now an uptime of 127 days and counting. Where are the reboots? I dunno, perhaps you don't know what you're doing, and considering your humourous remark about access I'm pretty sure you really don't have a clue.
http://bitkeeper.com/Products.Comparisons.Perforce .html
Allthough this is marketing poop so it should be taken with a fine grain of salt, it might answer your question.
Please, tell me: adding the numbers of vulnerabilities of win9x to win2k is fair to you? Or is it more fair to just compare the win2k vulnerabilities with the linux vulnerabilities? I don't know, but I know who will 'win' according to those numbers.
at least their application ware, or am I wrong? Wasn't it Oracle's plan to create an application system that runs native on the hardware without any OS? I thought they finished that with 9i, but again, correct me if I'm wrong. If I'm not, yapping that the company will totally run on Linux is a bit odd then.
no text
Blender is a win32 package too, the gui is horrible, but ok, that seems common with 3D packages. What seems to be so odd is the Unix only releases of plugins for the web.
How many users do they think there are with Unix browsers? So how many people will produce 3D content for their format? If there isn't a market, there are not suppliers. It's a simple as that.
From that, he goes on to point out that people tend to have a small group of people they work well with and trust; perhaps 5 - 10 people. So, in essence, if Linus appoints 5 - 10 maintainers of major subsystems (which he has), and each of them has 5 - 10 people the trust to maintain specific aspects of their subsystem, then there is no problem.
There is theoretically no problem, when there are small 'patches' (or better: fixes for glitches) which fall totally in 1 subsystem's area. However, what if a patch spans more than one subsystem? Or better: what if a patch needs changes on another subsystem? In an OS, it's placing foundation on foundation, layer on layer, they all depend on the layers/functionality blocks below that layer. You can't just say: "Hey, John, you do VFS and you, Dave, you do the VM", because the VM needs services of the VFS and vice versa.
If you have a designmanifest which has to be implemented, you can point to people which control certain parts of the project, WHICH don't have to be subsystems necessarily (vertical segmentation), but can be seen as horizontal segmentation: one group does the core layers, other groups do the layers ontop of those core layers.
That's right! To help humans and the activities of these humans. Now, here we have a complex organisation-related problem (software versioning), which takes a lot of effort and energy from the human(s) involved. Instead of using computers and specialized software to HELP the humans involved and thus make the process a lot simpler, the human(s) involved disagree and try to keep the process non-automated and without computers.
Hello? What if a big company says: "To hell with computers, we do all our business-directing by hand, without decision support systems etc..", is that a clever move? No! Humans are not capable of processing a lot of complex data CORRECTLY. Computers do. Use them, whenever they can help. To avoid using computers in software versioning is IMHO one of the most stupid things you can do. What do you think, that Microsoft used Bill Gates' brain to organise the 35 million lines of sourcecode of Windows 2000?
no-one complains, as a matter of fact, hundreds of thousands of developers have downloaded the .NET SDK and/or the VS.NET RTM release.
.NET and Mono instead of political crap as to which license is 'true Open Source' and 'because it's now XFree I won't touch it'.
.NET platform equivalent on Linux, support Mono, otherwise BECAUSE Linux won't have a .NET equivalent, the platform will die.
Perhaps people should focus more on what you can DO with
You can all crawl towards DotGNU, but it is in the early stages of development and will come too late. If you want a
The pre-runtime optimizing, done by a compiler/linker combo can be hard, true, but that's now. Within 10 years, it will be devastatingly good. To start THEN with a VLIW machine, like the EPIC architecture, would be too late.
Furthermore, using a JIT in hardware to optimize the code at runtime (which is what you want, since you can decide what to optimize better and also in what way) is the way to go, Transmeta already uses such a setup in the crusoe.
So: an EPIC based proc, combined with a JIT chip would be ok. When the compiler techniques are better (it's a new area, give them a couple of years, optimizing techniques were focussed on optimizing for a pipeline processor), the EPIC instructionset and the VLIW technique will turn out the technique of the future. Give it some time.
Personally, I find 'vaporware' a term only usable in sentences with words like 'Duke Nukem' and 'Forever', but I find it ironic that a preview of this OS makes it NOT vaporware anymore while Microsoft has to release a full version of .NET to make it non-vaporware (still people believe it's vaporware). Odd.
Looking at the screenshot, it screams 'Programmer Art', it hurts: the icons are not consistent. Some have blank borders, some are smooth, XP like. Was it too much to ask for a decent designer?
It's not about the enormous amount of money that's charged, it's about the costs that are made that should be earned back from the customer. I write software for a living, and I can't pay my bread if my software isn't sold. Stop whining about the 'support' model, because that's not working in every area, it probably will fail in most area's: people pay first and want FREE support later.
Giving the software away which was build in 1 year by 10 people is throwing away a lot of money, unless you didn't pay these developers. How are YOU planning to pay 10 developers who work 8-10 hours a day for a whole year? With promises that supportcontracts will pay them in 2 years? Aren't there a lot of bad examples about companies who thought that way and went chapter 11?
Dream on. It's about money, deal with it.
What Linux needs is a kick ass developer environment like Visual Studio.NET, not another C++ compiler: the way software is written, the time it takes to cook up great reusable code, THAT's important. The compiler is just the end station of what's produced.
If you are fortunate to be able to take a look at the Visual Studio.NET releases, you know what I mean. I hope for Linux Borland will come with a toolset that gives the Linux developer the same productivity tools as Visual Studio.NET gives you. But I fear it will be only the v5.5 C++ compiler.
I to use NT4 on some servers, just because they host websites and do that for a long time now and if it aint broke, don't fix it. However, Win2k brings new stuff to the plate, which you haven't touched according to your story. F.e. fully automated software installation/controll via AD using easy scripts. Windows.NET server will make this even easier. What you say about it wouldn't be workable is so far off the truth it hurts. Why? Because it has f.e. the checkpoint tech that's also in XP: you can roll back to any state you want: with the registry, with the drivers etc.
At ABN-AMRO, one of the worlds largest banks, they totally run on win2k and use an inhouse developed softwarecontrol/distribution system, based on AD and VBScript. Everything can be and is controlled from a central point in the WAN. Not workable? ha!. Perhaps you should kick your IT-guys in the butt so they finally get their head out of their asses and read the course material they received at the courses they attended to.
But no, the remark by Michael is stupid, not 'right on the mark'.
A VM is basicly a small thing: a list of pages, every page has a set of properties and an interface on top of that to get things done with the pages (claim/free/mark dirty etc). I wrote one on an MSX2 in 1986 for having 256KB roms in 128K ram + 128K vidram (and 32K disk :)). Of course, modern OS-es need a VM that can take decisions, is scalable on different hardware, and can handle the requests fast.
A lot of research has been done on virtual memory and the managercode for this type of memory. Also a lot of different types of VM's are implemented in different OS-es, all with pro's and con's in different situations. It's therefor not hard to dig in and get the knowledge you need.
F.e.: the rmap stuff is a nobrainer. If you let the VM handle every request to share/allocate a mempage, that VM can keep a set of pid's per page. IIRC NT's VM (VMM32) does this. That the current VM in Linux doesn't already have this feature is beyond me.
People can whine all they want or misread what I ment to say, but it's up to the judge to decide if Lindows is sounding similar to Windows and can THUS cause confusion, it's NOT up to Michael and gang, nor me nor MS.
:). In the field where heads role when something/someone f*cks up, you get the right tools for the job, so f.e. when a router should be installed, most people call cisco and get one of their boxes. Monopoly or not.
The comment of Michael about supporting MS monopoly is utterly stupid. You know why? because in a lot of cases MS' products are the right tools for the job. Who carez about a monopoly, a job is there to be done. Bashing that remark of Michael is probably 'flamebait' in the eyes of the college kids with linux boxes, dunno
As to the actual trademark issue, Microsoft calls their products "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" and we call ours "LindowsOS". There is no confusion.
There _is_ confusion, between 'Windows' and 'Lindows', as the majority of the crowd will call both products. Ask an average joe in the street if he knows the OS 'Windows' and he probably will say 'yes'. It's also not up to YOU to decide that there is NO confusion. the 'dows' in your name IS refering to Windows, not to Dow Jones or anything else.
And please, stop the yadda yadda about 'if you want to help extend their monopoly'... you try to make a living out of the hard work of others as you also did with MP3.com. If there is ONE person that should be ashamed, it should be you.
Interestingly, the article asserts that Microsoft have already given up on IIS, the proof being its absence in XP Home and its non-standard presence in XP Pro.
Well, when I look at the Windows.NET Standard Server beta3 install I have here, IIS 6 is there, alive and kicking as ever. Besides a total new kernelmode driver (ala TUX), the installment of IIS is new (no more standard install of all buggy extensions) and Windows.NET server is relying more on the webserver than any windows server OS before: remote administration is totally webbased, the teamware software (sharepoint) is totally webbased etc. So saying that Microsoft has given up on IIS is totally bull.
Besides: XP pro has IIS in it, so another FUD article. Nevertheless, Apache 2.0 on Windows could be cool.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/theshow/
It's windows media format, yadda yadda, but it contains a 30 minute interview with 2 topdevelopers / designers of the CLR and a 30 minute demo about how the CLR actually works. Great stuff for people who want to know more about the background of the CLR, the people behind it and the inner workings of the CLR.