The vast majority of improvements under the hood to Vista are things that most consumers wont even see, other than better stability and reliability. It'll 'just work' better, and fade more into the background, as an OS probably should.
Consumers dont care about the video drivers moving to userspace, for example, but its a massive stability improvement. Consumers dont care about the new imaging and deployment facilities, though once a business moves to Vista, this is huge.
About the only consumer-focused thing I can think of right now is DirectX 10, and that only because it'll enable them to run DX10 games.
What does Vista bring to the table? Vastly changed driver model, stability and security issues, "digital consumer enablement" crap and a huge bloated install. These are mostly actually benefits to Vista.
The vastly changed driver model will be a huge boon once all the vendors adapt. So much of your drivers are now moved to userspace, that the overall stability of the system is hugely improved. Once the vendors figure out how to write drivers.
Stability and Security Issues. Look at the insane amount of under-the-hood improvements to vista compared to previous versions.
These are not trivial things. They're huge, massive improvements. Stuff that should have been put into windows 5-10 years ago, and dealt with the back-compat issues then.
The DRM stuff you can ignore if you dont buy DRM media. You shouldnt anyway, so as not to support that crap.
The bloated install... *shrugs* yeah, you're right, but a low end laptop comes with an 80GB hard drive nowadays, so the 5-10GB for vista is not really relevant.
Try starting and running a software business sometime.
One of your biggest expenses will be support. Each additional version thats out in the wild being used that you support costs you huge amounts more money. This cost comes in hiring more support folks, doing more training on them (to train them on how to deal with multiple different versions).
Thats the primary reason, and its significant.
Its not all about cost, either. Sometimes its about grey hair. The last thing you want is for a customer running and older ver of your product calling and complaining that such and such doesnt work right, when its fixed in the new version. But they refused to upgrade. Even if its free.
This kind of thing is also why software subscription is soooo very desireable for a software company. Better to charge $100 per year with auto-updates and have your customers on a subscription plan than to charge $500 up front for a perpetual license. Your life as a business owner is so much simpler, your customers tend to be happier (from the software effectiveness point of view, if not the subscription part), and you can more easily run a stable company.
It also benefits the users in that you have the cash flow to always have staff improving the system, making it better every year.
Anyway, I digressed a bit, but there are very real, very profound reasons why businesses want to minimize the number of active versions in the wild.
It has nothing (or very little) to do with APIs. It has everything to do with how your software operates in the environment, deals with limited users, stores preferences, temp files, etc etc.
There has been a set of these docs for as far back as I can remember, though the program name has changed a few times.
Mind you this is for user-space apps, business apps, and the like. There are different programs and best-practice-guides for different markets, like hardware/drivers, games, etc.
It's Micrsooft's fault for not making it clear how to do it properly from the get go. Microsoft HAS made it clear for almost a decade how to do it right. It's been called various things, the Windows Logo program, etc. But its been there forever.
A comprehensive manual of how to write user-software such that it works on windows, on the different version, and respects all the ways in which 'things are done' on windows.
Any ISV who isnt intimately familiar with these standards and best-practices is a hack.
Unfortunately, the reality is that a very large percentage of ISVs in the windows world dont have a flipping clue what they're doing.
My business has good, tested, proven software. Even if I felt absolutely compelled to upgrade to Vista, it breaks some of my software. I would argue that if it breaks on Vista but works on XP, then its not 'good, tested, proven software'. Typical business software, if it was written correctly in the first place, wouldnt require change to run on Vista.
Now this does not include certain classes of software, like a/v production, drivers, low-level system software, etc.
Bram Cohen did not invent swarm distribution technology.
There were a number of previous p2p software that laid the path to what is now bittorrent. And academic research before that.
This is basically the same thing as saying that Apple invented portable solid-state music players just because they're the most successful. Or saying that MS invented Operating Systems just because they're the most successful.
This is not a general purpose P2P tool. It is also not a new 'protocol' that microsoft came up with (though this may be based on avalanche, this is really irrelevant).
It's purely a software tool to let MS more efficiently download software & updates to people efficiently, while guaranteeing that only genuine MS software builds (ie, no trojanized windows versions) make it into the swarm.
This is not a protocol, not a new style of p2p, not a general purpose download/distribution client. It's a download assist tool for MS software, made by MS.
Maybe because a 'protocol' has zero to do with the article, or the software they released.
In addition, they could not use BT because there's no mechanism to stop random people from seeding the world with trojanized windows versions. MS needs a way to ensure that the only software downloaded from this system comes from MS and is legitimate.
BT is a solution without a problem in this case. Or at best, with only a small part of the problem.
With Microsoft's lousy security track record, can you imagine the gold mine this will be for anyone that wants to mass distribute malwear? Nothing like lots of machines in the wild hosting "official" Microsoft software, patches, etc. As far as I'm aware, MS has a perfect security track record in distributing updates to their system.
The system uses a certificate based chain of trust to sign the downloaded files, so only legit files will come through. Basically exactly the way that windows update works now.
It's a legitimate question to ask why a multi-billion dollar international corporation can't afford to sign up with a Akamai or some other edge provider. They do. They have since the very beginning of these sorts of content distribution networks.
Do an nslookup on www.microsoft.com. The answer will leap out at you.
This sort of thing is a supplement to that. And these sorts of things are usually used to deal with brief peak demand, not day to day regular demand.
Microsoft is acting as if it is being totally innovative by implementing a scatter/gather download mechanism, while they are just reimplementing an old idea. In what universe does using a good technology mean you are 'acting as if it is being totally innovative'?
Can you point me to anywhere in the universe of *.microsoft.com that they claim this is innovative or their own invention?
Sounds to me like they're just being intelligent and using a good idea. A good idea that isnt patented, and is licensed under an MIT style license (at least early versions).
It's always been proprietary. It always will be proprietary.
What vendor lockins, what DRM, what are you talking about? It's a tool to let MS distribute MS software to more people, using less server/client bandwidth, and also to handle peak load issues.
This is not a general purpose bittorrent client. It uses a certificate based chain of trust to ensure to end-users that the file(s) they've downloaded are precisely the same as those sent out by the publisher.
This is also almost certainly going to stary forever a closed system. The only people who can add content to it are MS, or those they allow.
I think you should go read the article. Right now it has exactly one purpose, and only one piece of software can be downloaded, VS.NET 2008 beta.
This won't necessarily provide faster downloads for you and me, but it will cut their bandwidth costs significantly, and I'm sure that's what it's all about - not better service but instead a slimmer bottom line. Actually, it probably will provide faster download times, at least during peak download times.
Thats the primary purpose of systems like this, not to deal with regular day to day downloads, but to deal with massive spikes during peak downloads. When for the first couple days after a release, your network traffic can be 2-3 orders of magnitude higher than at any other time.
When that happens, very very few companies can afford enough bandwidth to keep up. MS probably could, but this will likely provide a better user experience.
I bet that this is also just future proofing Microsoft's ability to distribute more over the net in the future (less retail) without raising costs too much or providing a terrible user experience. For example, I dont care how much MS pays for bandwidth, no one is going to have a good time if you have 50 million people downloading 10GB OS flats over a couple days.
This is really much less interesting than everyone is making it out to be. It'll just be one of those things that makes life easier for everybody in the long run.
Oh, and I'm not sure if you can discern the difference between defending Microsoft and pointing out someone is just lying. Or ignorant.
I swear, the vast majority of the time I post is when people are spouting off about stuff they dont have a clue about. They make an assumption (wrongly) about how they think windows works, and then go off on a tirade about how evil that is.
But then it turns out that they just flat didnt understand the underlying technology, and their whole post was just a waste of entropy.
I can only read this stuff for so long before I feel compelled to insert some reality into the discussion. Not that it does any good. *sigh*
And as for Twitter.... either a genuinely mentally unstable person, or someone with a very hidden agenda. Very few non-professionals are so good at making what they say sound so good to the ignorant, while being based on utter garbage, and having no substance or backing whatsoever. Smells like a pro to me, but thats just speculation. Could just be someone I would consider whacky, who thinks they're doing the right thing for the world. *shrugs*
Even though they're not doing it right now, and the documentation on the system says differently, there exists the possibility that Microsoft might attempt to use this in an unethical way in the future.
So even though its not happening now, its theoretically possible it could happen.
So you're going to assume it IS happening, and base your actions on this (faulty) assumption, with no regard to the reality of the situation.
Regarding the current issue: of course MS wants their own version of bittorent-like technology: they want control, and they can't have control over bt, It's not quite that simple. What they cant control has nothing to do with BT, but with the legitimacy of what is getting transferred. It's the classic problem that a software company has with swarm downloading. Using the standard media-sharing tools, there's no way they can guarantee that the downloaded copy of Vista is an actual copy of Vista and not something massively trojanized.
I realize you can include hashes of the files, but thats a complicated extra step for end-users using techniques and technology they dont understand. Using a swarming technology, with a little bit of cryptographic signing and a chain of trust, they can ship a standard app, that downloads files, and guarantees to the user that they're getting what they are bargaining for.
... thus they do as they always do, create their own, proclaim it as being revolutionary, gather users, and take over the competition by sheer numbers. Where do you get any of this?
Where did they proclaim it as being revolutionary? Can you link me?
And what competition are you talking about? They're giving the software away as a tool to make distribution of their other software easier. MSCD and BT can live right alongside each other with no problem whatsoever. They use similar technology to serve different purposes.
Well, I have a hard time seeing them copying bittorrent as "respecting IP". Why? Is bittorrent patented? Did they copy the source code and violate the license its distributed under?
I believe its under the MIT license, so its BSD style. Thats even assuming they looked at the code, and just didnt implement a well-understood idea.
In general, in this industry, there are very few genuinely new things. Everyone stands on the shoulders of those who've gone before. If you really believe what you're saying, then you'd never support development of an concept that has ever been thought of before.
In fact, I believe the basic concept used by Bram Cohen had made the rounds in academia before. Does that make Bittorrent bad?
The login screen should be customiseable, so the system admin can define exactly how it looks. This is possible in Windows, and has been as far back as I can remember, best part of 10 years at least, IIRC.
You basically write a new GINA that looks like whatever you want, and then delegate to the windows gina for the actual authentication.
You can see this on corporate systems that are using custom 2-factor authentication, like smart cards or fingerprint scanners. They'll have a different logon screen, usually with advertising for the company who wrote it.
It's not trivial, as it requires competent C++ developers, but its completely doable.
What would be the point? No need to embed DRM into the system, just use it ship DRM files if you want DRM, and you get exactly what you're talking about with no extra development costs.
One nice thing they do seem to be including with the system, is the ability for publishers to cryptographically sign the download, as part of a trust chain. This lets any client confirm that the file being downloaded is precisely the original file (minus of course hash/signing collisions, which is a well-understood problem in this field).
This problem is the primary reason why MS has never been willing to ship their products via bittorrent or similar. There's no way for the non-technical end-user to ever know that they're getting a legit product. They're just as likely to end up with a windows install that has been completely trojanized from the get-go.
This appears to embed the hashing/signing of the product right into the whole experience, which is very nice for non-technical end-users.
I'm not sure if you consider this functionality DRM, but I certainly wouldnt. There's already plenty of DRM to go around, they can just use it to ship.wmv files, and no no tech needed.
Unfortunately MS is claiming this is their own home grown technology that they invented. Where exactly do they make this claim? I cant find it anywhere.
In fact, by my read of the tool, the language seems to suggest that everyone will know what 'peer-assisted' means in this context, that this is a well-known technology.
If you're using it as a portable drive, the entire thing should probably be set to Everyone/Full or at least Everyone/Read. That is a completely portable (no SID collision issues) setting across all windows systems.
Furthermore, even if you do have specific ACLs, they are set by SID, and the SID has the domain name (computer name if not a domain) as part of it. So unless you're moving it between different computer/domains that have the same name, and you have the unlikely event to have the same user-portion of the SID, it wont be a problem.
In addition, if you're using the BUILTIN accounts, they have consistent SIDs across all installations, so those are portable as well.
This site is pure PR to sell yet another SDK for non free crap [slashdot.org]. The SDK is free. Sharepoint is free. The only dependency here is on windows server, which everyone is presumed to have.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd say the other way around.
The vast majority of improvements under the hood to Vista are things that most consumers wont even see, other than better stability and reliability. It'll 'just work' better, and fade more into the background, as an OS probably should.
Consumers dont care about the video drivers moving to userspace, for example, but its a massive stability improvement. Consumers dont care about the new imaging and deployment facilities, though once a business moves to Vista, this is huge.
About the only consumer-focused thing I can think of right now is DirectX 10, and that only because it'll enable them to run DX10 games.
The vastly changed driver model will be a huge boon once all the vendors adapt. So much of your drivers are now moved to userspace, that the overall stability of the system is hugely improved. Once the vendors figure out how to write drivers.
Stability and Security Issues. Look at the insane amount of under-the-hood improvements to vista compared to previous versions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_features_n
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_and_safety_
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_features_
These are not trivial things. They're huge, massive improvements. Stuff that should have been put into windows 5-10 years ago, and dealt with the back-compat issues then.
The DRM stuff you can ignore if you dont buy DRM media. You shouldnt anyway, so as not to support that crap.
The bloated install
Try starting and running a software business sometime.
One of your biggest expenses will be support. Each additional version thats out in the wild being used that you support costs you huge amounts more money. This cost comes in hiring more support folks, doing more training on them (to train them on how to deal with multiple different versions).
Thats the primary reason, and its significant.
Its not all about cost, either. Sometimes its about grey hair. The last thing you want is for a customer running and older ver of your product calling and complaining that such and such doesnt work right, when its fixed in the new version. But they refused to upgrade. Even if its free.
This kind of thing is also why software subscription is soooo very desireable for a software company. Better to charge $100 per year with auto-updates and have your customers on a subscription plan than to charge $500 up front for a perpetual license. Your life as a business owner is so much simpler, your customers tend to be happier (from the software effectiveness point of view, if not the subscription part), and you can more easily run a stable company.
It also benefits the users in that you have the cash flow to always have staff improving the system, making it better every year.
Anyway, I digressed a bit, but there are very real, very profound reasons why businesses want to minimize the number of active versions in the wild.
It has nothing (or very little) to do with APIs. It has everything to do with how your software operates in the environment, deals with limited users, stores preferences, temp files, etc etc.
Here are the links, you'll see what I mean:
Certified for Windows Vista Requirements
Certified for Windows Vista Test Cases
There has been a set of these docs for as far back as I can remember, though the program name has changed a few times.
Mind you this is for user-space apps, business apps, and the like. There are different programs and best-practice-guides for different markets, like hardware/drivers, games, etc.
A comprehensive manual of how to write user-software such that it works on windows, on the different version, and respects all the ways in which 'things are done' on windows.
Any ISV who isnt intimately familiar with these standards and best-practices is a hack.
Unfortunately, the reality is that a very large percentage of ISVs in the windows world dont have a flipping clue what they're doing.
Now this does not include certain classes of software, like a/v production, drivers, low-level system software, etc.
Bram Cohen did not invent swarm distribution technology.
There were a number of previous p2p software that laid the path to what is now bittorrent. And academic research before that.
This is basically the same thing as saying that Apple invented portable solid-state music players just because they're the most successful. Or saying that MS invented Operating Systems just because they're the most successful.
Did anyone read the article at all?
This is not a general purpose P2P tool. It is also not a new 'protocol' that microsoft came up with (though this may be based on avalanche, this is really irrelevant).
It's purely a software tool to let MS more efficiently download software & updates to people efficiently, while guaranteeing that only genuine MS software builds (ie, no trojanized windows versions) make it into the swarm.
This is not a protocol, not a new style of p2p, not a general purpose download/distribution client. It's a download assist tool for MS software, made by MS.
Maybe because a 'protocol' has zero to do with the article, or the software they released.
In addition, they could not use BT because there's no mechanism to stop random people from seeding the world with trojanized windows versions. MS needs a way to ensure that the only software downloaded from this system comes from MS and is legitimate.
BT is a solution without a problem in this case. Or at best, with only a small part of the problem.
The system uses a certificate based chain of trust to sign the downloaded files, so only legit files will come through. Basically exactly the way that windows update works now.
Do an nslookup on www.microsoft.com. The answer will leap out at you.
This sort of thing is a supplement to that. And these sorts of things are usually used to deal with brief peak demand, not day to day regular demand.
Can you point me to anywhere in the universe of *.microsoft.com that they claim this is innovative or their own invention?
Sounds to me like they're just being intelligent and using a good idea. A good idea that isnt patented, and is licensed under an MIT style license (at least early versions).
Did you even bother to read the article?
It's always been proprietary. It always will be proprietary.
What vendor lockins, what DRM, what are you talking about? It's a tool to let MS distribute MS software to more people, using less server/client bandwidth, and also to handle peak load issues.
This is not a general purpose bittorrent client. It uses a certificate based chain of trust to ensure to end-users that the file(s) they've downloaded are precisely the same as those sent out by the publisher.
This is also almost certainly going to stary forever a closed system. The only people who can add content to it are MS, or those they allow.
I think you should go read the article. Right now it has exactly one purpose, and only one piece of software can be downloaded, VS.NET 2008 beta.
Did you invent and patent swarm distribution technology?
Are you aware of anyone on the planet who has?
If not, then no one is ripping off anyone, much less your ideas.
This is the equivalent of saying the Firefox ripped off IE by making a web-browser. (yes, I know its absurd, so is the OP).
Thats the primary purpose of systems like this, not to deal with regular day to day downloads, but to deal with massive spikes during peak downloads. When for the first couple days after a release, your network traffic can be 2-3 orders of magnitude higher than at any other time.
When that happens, very very few companies can afford enough bandwidth to keep up. MS probably could, but this will likely provide a better user experience.
I bet that this is also just future proofing Microsoft's ability to distribute more over the net in the future (less retail) without raising costs too much or providing a terrible user experience. For example, I dont care how much MS pays for bandwidth, no one is going to have a good time if you have 50 million people downloading 10GB OS flats over a couple days.
This is really much less interesting than everyone is making it out to be. It'll just be one of those things that makes life easier for everybody in the long run.
I swear, the vast majority of the time I post is when people are spouting off about stuff they dont have a clue about. They make an assumption (wrongly) about how they think windows works, and then go off on a tirade about how evil that is.
But then it turns out that they just flat didnt understand the underlying technology, and their whole post was just a waste of entropy.
I can only read this stuff for so long before I feel compelled to insert some reality into the discussion. Not that it does any good. *sigh*
And as for Twitter
So allow me to summarize your post:
Even though they're not doing it right now, and the documentation on the system says differently, there exists the possibility that Microsoft might attempt to use this in an unethical way in the future.
So even though its not happening now, its theoretically possible it could happen.
So you're going to assume it IS happening, and base your actions on this (faulty) assumption, with no regard to the reality of the situation.
Is that about right?
I realize you can include hashes of the files, but thats a complicated extra step for end-users using techniques and technology they dont understand. Using a swarming technology, with a little bit of cryptographic signing and a chain of trust, they can ship a standard app, that downloads files, and guarantees to the user that they're getting what they are bargaining for.
... thus they do as they always do, create their own, proclaim it as being revolutionary, gather users, and take over the competition by sheer numbers. Where do you get any of this?Where did they proclaim it as being revolutionary? Can you link me?
And what competition are you talking about? They're giving the software away as a tool to make distribution of their other software easier. MSCD and BT can live right alongside each other with no problem whatsoever. They use similar technology to serve different purposes.
Your arguments make no sense.
I believe its under the MIT license, so its BSD style. Thats even assuming they looked at the code, and just didnt implement a well-understood idea.
In general, in this industry, there are very few genuinely new things. Everyone stands on the shoulders of those who've gone before. If you really believe what you're saying, then you'd never support development of an concept that has ever been thought of before.
In fact, I believe the basic concept used by Bram Cohen had made the rounds in academia before. Does that make Bittorrent bad?
You basically write a new GINA that looks like whatever you want, and then delegate to the windows gina for the actual authentication.
You can see this on corporate systems that are using custom 2-factor authentication, like smart cards or fingerprint scanners. They'll have a different logon screen, usually with advertising for the company who wrote it.
It's not trivial, as it requires competent C++ developers, but its completely doable.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/05/05/Se
What would be the point? No need to embed DRM into the system, just use it ship DRM files if you want DRM, and you get exactly what you're talking about with no extra development costs.
.wmv files, and no no tech needed.
One nice thing they do seem to be including with the system, is the ability for publishers to cryptographically sign the download, as part of a trust chain. This lets any client confirm that the file being downloaded is precisely the original file (minus of course hash/signing collisions, which is a well-understood problem in this field).
This problem is the primary reason why MS has never been willing to ship their products via bittorrent or similar. There's no way for the non-technical end-user to ever know that they're getting a legit product. They're just as likely to end up with a windows install that has been completely trojanized from the get-go.
This appears to embed the hashing/signing of the product right into the whole experience, which is very nice for non-technical end-users.
I'm not sure if you consider this functionality DRM, but I certainly wouldnt. There's already plenty of DRM to go around, they can just use it to ship
In fact, by my read of the tool, the language seems to suggest that everyone will know what 'peer-assisted' means in this context, that this is a well-known technology.
Not really.
If you're using it as a portable drive, the entire thing should probably be set to Everyone/Full or at least Everyone/Read. That is a completely portable (no SID collision issues) setting across all windows systems.
Furthermore, even if you do have specific ACLs, they are set by SID, and the SID has the domain name (computer name if not a domain) as part of it. So unless you're moving it between different computer/domains that have the same name, and you have the unlikely event to have the same user-portion of the SID, it wont be a problem.
In addition, if you're using the BUILTIN accounts, they have consistent SIDs across all installations, so those are portable as well.
In what way would a non-journaled filesystem be a viable alternative for anything?
You'd be better off using FAT32. It's also not journaled, and is much more widely supported.