Linux in a World Where Windows 3.0 Never Happened 574
covertbadger writes "Larry Osterman said farewell yesterday to David Weise, the developer he credits with getting applications to run in protected mode on Windows 3.0, which led directly to Microsoft choosing to push Windows instead of OS/2. Today he speculates on what the IT world would be like if Weise had never completed this work. Windows 95 would never have existed, OS/2 would be the de facto standard, and IBM would never have put weight behind Linux because it had its own operating system to push."
Who is to say someone else wouldn't have (Score:5, Insightful)
What if? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who says Microsoft wouldn't have embraced and extended OS/2 and shut IBM out, leading to the same conclusion?
What a waste of space stories like these are.
Re:Who is to say someone else wouldn't have (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever notice that the home directory icon on OS X resembles the NEXT home icon.
Engineer? (Score:0, Insightful)
FTA: The title of Distinguished Engineer is the title to which all Microsoft developers aspire
I thought "Engineer" was a term applied to people with degrees in actual engineering not something to be passed around like a gold watch or a fancy pen.
Fallacy of the Never Happened (Score:5, Insightful)
If Ungh Blungh didn't invent the wheel, some other proto-Sapiens halfwit would have invented it in the following year. It's not like there was a shortage of halfwits in the golden crescent.
If Henry Ford didn't invent the assembly-line production model, someone else would have invented it in the following decade. It's not like there was a shortage of development in the industrial arena.
If this developer at Microsoft didn't fix "enhanced mode" Windows, then some other developer at Microsoft would have. It's not like Microsoft was aching for cash to hire smart developers to tinker with 80386 instruction sets.
The size and complexity of an invention AND its environment are also key: If Linus never wrote a whole and usable kernel and published it, chances are that no other homebrew kernel would have grown with the same fervor. The complexity of the task, and the complexity of the eco-political forces at work, helped to spur the adoption in a unique way.
Re:Doom only ran on DOS (Score:5, Insightful)
Games go where the users are. Not the other way around. Gamers are too small a percentage of computer users to dictate platforms to everyone else.
The tyranny of a great idea (Score:2, Insightful)
If it wasn't for IBM, Linux would be dead... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes it's FUD to play the "what if" game.
IBM would never have put weight behind Linux because it had its own operating system to push.
That's like saying Linux is only where it is today because of IBM. Yes, IBM has put a lot into Linux, but I don't think that IBM alone has made Linux a major player.
And what about Sun (a lover of IP like Microsoft)? Sun has its own version of Linux, and has its own OS. Sun has given to the Open Source community too.
Re:Fallacy of the Never Happened (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Engineer? (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, not all engineers design bridges.
Re:Fallacy of the Never Happened (Score:5, Insightful)
Wheel and rest of your examples are valid. However, I think that there *are* certain things that wouldn't have been invented by someone else.
Consider Einstein. In 1905, he published his special relativity theory. Now, for this, all the pieces were pretty much there - somebody else would have come up with that sooner or later.
However, general relativity, in 1915, is something that probably would have not been realized even by today if it were not for Albert. Even if we had gravity probe B [stanford.edu] I think scientists would be pretty dumbfounded by results - there is not really any "reasonable" explanation. You need to think outside the box - and I think that even though Newton's "standing on the shoulder of giants" applies to lots of things, there were no shoulders to stand upon regarding general relativity.
Of course, this point is rather irrelevant because we are talking about developing an OS..
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
I would expect this from a microsiftite (Score:2, Insightful)
FUD FUD FUD. IBM does have it's own operating system to push. It's called AIX, which IBM is swiftly moving away from and pushing Linux so much in favor over. I don't recall IBM making any suggestions that anyone should (or even could) run Linux as a desktop alternative. Even after proclaiming Linux "ready for the desktop" not a single IBM PC was ever sold with Linux as an option, let alone the default or only OS.
No, IBM is only interested in Linux as a replacemnt for AIX. If Windows 3.0 never existed IBM still would have found Linux and they still would have put it on their servers. The only difference is that OS/2 or NeXT would be the dominant desktop OS, and the world wouldn't be overrun with spyware, virii and other malware.
Re:Engineer? (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux never would have existed (Score:2, Insightful)
In reality, it has been the demands of Microsoft operating systems that have pushed the x86 architecture so hard that it is now possible to actually do some decent work with them. Solaris on Sparc, AIX on RISC, etc., all of them would still be the faster machines, and if you needed to run x86 BSD would have been fine.
Not to say that there wouldn't have been processor improvement, of course. But the whole industry was driven by the MS/Intel machine.
Impossible to say, impact of NT (Score:1, Insightful)
Even if David Weise did not complete his work then, someone would have within a year or two, unless OS/2 and/or NT took off so fast as to make it a moot point.
What would have happened if a protected-mode MS-sponsored GUI environment from DOS didn't ship until say, 1992?
Apple would've had 2 more years of dominance in certain markets.
Applications developers would've used their own GUIS and developed their own protected-mode interfaces, or used a third-party protected mode solution.
Microsoft might've shipped a non-protected-mode Windows anyways. Don't forget, MS-Windows 286 and 386 preceeded 3.0. The folks behind QEMM386 and similar products would've made a lot more money.
OS/2 and NT might've stayed together for awhile longer, but not much longer.
People would be using DOS on desktops for a couple more years.
The ill-fated OS/2 for PowerPC may never have happened.
15 years later though, the ripple effects of such a scenario would be far less visible than they would've been in the mid-1990s.
Re:Engineer? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I would expect this from a microsiftite (Score:5, Insightful)
There is not FUD. Fear? Uncertainty? Doubt? He didn't say a damn thing against Linux, and even argues that the business model which pushed IBM to invest in Linux (and which was partially caused by Linux) would still exist. They'd just open up OS/2 instead of porting OS/2 code (and AIX code, since those code bases have intermingled) to Linux.
It's not unreasonable. OS/2 already has a strong presense in enterprise workstations, and that's a strong consulting market. A stronger OS/2 very possibly might have kept IBM (and only IBM mind you) out of the Linux game.
Stop yelling just because someone said something you didn't understand.
Easy to answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember, a long time ago IBM was considered "evil". The only reason they're considered "good" now is because they support Linux - but in reality they're only doing it because they see a way to make money out of it.
If that way ever disappears, then IBM will drop their support faster than you can possibly imagine.
Re:Doom only ran on DOS (Score:1, Insightful)
And yet they created the entire 3D accellerator market, and have been a major driving force behind making already excessivly fast processors even faster.
VxD Hell.....2 Doors down form DLL Hell... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Engineer? (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Doom only ran on DOS (Score:4, Insightful)
You do realize that we all have CD ROMs and sound cards because of games, right?
Windows gamers are numbered in the 10s of millions. If you don't believe me, then I'd like you to explain why EB is stuffed with Windows games on the shelves with little to no support for any other OS.
Re:Would this have been so bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
Presentation Manager, of course, did it correctly, with the coordinate origin at the bottom-left of the screen, so you were always in quadrant I, and all your coordinate numbers were positive.
Chip H.
Re:Per? Were! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Who is to say someone else wouldn't have (Score:3, Insightful)
If Windows 3.0 had never happened, we'd all be bitching about IBM right now, though I think Apple would have had a much healthier 1990s.
Re:Engineer? (Score:1, Insightful)
There are plenty of the MCSEs who really know their stuff. So while I agree with you that just having the certification doesn't make you an engineer but getiing the knowledge that you get while preparing for the MCSE will put you on that path.
You just have to use you own judgement and see what in your certification is propaganda and mindless remembering of random stuff and what and how it is useful in the real world.
People with poor judgement ends up as the paper MCSEs while others become engineers. The same holds true for any occupation.
Re:In every way? Methinks not... (Score:3, Insightful)
I had 486 systems running with 10MB of memory running X apps on Sparc stations via PMX over TCP/IP while running a Windows application and linking a few Netware shares into the system.
As you said, OS/2 ran circles around NT. And typically, you had to throw 2x the hardware at NT to even get close to OS/2. OS/2 and Netware owned the PC network server market until Microsoft finally shipped Windows 95. Then, they took $100's of millions they'd spend on marketing Win95 and started marketing WinNT. Even though OS/2 was a strong 2nd to Netware, only ONE review ever compared OS/2 with NT and Netware. As mentioned, OS/2 blew them away and we never saw another review which included OS/2.
And another thing, NT shipped( v3.1 ) with the OS/2 subsystem because without it, it would have had no networking. Microsoft Lan Manager for OS/2 bundled with/into NT to give NT the networking( albeit 16bit ) subsystem to compete with OS/2 and Netware. It wasn't until v3.51( 1996 ) when they finally got around to porting all that stuff to native NT and even then, there was hardly any multi-threading used.
People need to remember that Microsoft owned the press back then and when lies were printed, it took 3+ months to get a correction printed. And even then, the correction was buried on page 72 and not in the headlines like the original store. They were found guilty of anti-competitive practices in computer OPERATING SYSTEMS. It's not so easy for them to lie these days with the internet/WWW and all.
OS/2 rocked for the most part but the press were paid to push Microsoft.... IMHO.
LoB
Re:Fallacy of the Never Happened (Score:3, Insightful)
Before i tried linux, the reason i wanted to get rid of windows is because its crap.
Once i got used to linux i realised its not just about stability and security and now i wouldn't use windows on my desktop if it had 100% uptime and no security holes (i know 100% uptime and no security holes is imposible, before anybody points that out).
What im trying to say is, if Windows hadn't have existed the mainstream operating system(s) would have probably been better than windows is, and people like me (i assume people like me make up a lot of numbers) would never have known linux is what they wanted.
Also, i think its safe to assume that people like me* also develop software for linux which otherwise would have been time spent developing for a different platform.
*not me, i cant code hardly anything, but people who switched for the same reasons as me
Re:Fallacy of the Never Happened (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, Hilbert published his paper on general relativity at the same time as Einstein. (Einsteins paper was submitted 5 days later than Hilbert's).
The concept of 'curvature of space' (in the sense of differential geometry) had been worked on since Riemann in the 19th century and with Einstein's general relativity it had become clear that the universe doesn't have a Euclidian metric.
From that realization it was only a matter of time before somebody presented a metric which includes gravitational and electromagnetic effects, which is general relativity.
Re:Lucky streaks and closed minds (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, GWB has not engaged in the activities you've described.
However, I do think that the rise of the Japanese militarist regime is a far more productive metaphor. Replace state Shinto with Christianity, and the parallels really start to fit. The slow erosion of civil liberties, the pressure to put media in the service of state goals, the increasing authority given to law enforcement, the hostility to dissent, the use of rhetorics of victimization to justify intervention (Japan used the fact of European colonialism to legitimize its own empire).
The "slow boil" effect is the key parallel, I think. In 1933, the Nazis took over a fairly democratic society, and the flags went up. Nazi ideology was explicitly racist, with an agenda for racial domination. There was no such moment in Japan. Yamato suprematism was never part of official doctrine, and was often repudiated by members of the military who wanted to encourage the cooperation of the co-prosperity sphere members (while the same sort of "boys will be boys" apologetics you would hear for Abu Ghraib and other abuses would be used to minimize or deny responsibility for events like the Rape of Nanking.)
As in Fascist Italy, there was room for some (limited, monitored) dissent - Communists were able to operate throughout conflict, though many leaders were imprisoned.
The parallels aren't perfect, but I don't think the last chapter in the US' rightward drift has been written yet, either. The attitudes [msn.com] that are looming are worrisome. [usatoday.com]
Re:Lucky streaks and closed minds (Score:3, Insightful)
True, there was no way Nazi Germany could've pushed through an invasion of Britain in the style of Operation Sealion.
However, they might've been able to win the Battle of Britian and achieve air superiority over England (particularly if their bombing runs had focused on actual airfields and industry, instead of civilian terror-targets). That would've been all they needed to prevent an American landing in Europe in something like D-Day.
D-Day was difficult enough when they only had to cross the English Channel. If the Luftwaffe was free to bomb English ports at will, any amphibious assault would be destroyed by aircraft before getting close to the French coast. (Yes, the Americans could counterattack with carrier-launched planes, but that would divert carriers from the Pacific, leaving the Japanese victorious at Midway and free to move on Australia and Hawaii, etc...)
His fighters had barely enough fuel to sustain 15 minutes of combat over the nearest parts of Britain,
True, but if the Nazis had been smarter, that wouldn't have mattered. Better choice of bombing targets could've destroyed the RAF on the ground (or prevented them from taking off), and then 2 years later the Luftwaffe would gain the Me-262, which could fly anywhere and defeat any plane of the era.
I'm not saying that correcting the blatant stragetic mistakes would've been enough to turn the tide- but it would've given the Luftwaffe a fighting chance of victory, instead of wasting their best pilots in a fool's errand.
They did NOT have the shipping (Score:3, Insightful)
If Japan had tried to invade Hawaii, they would have lost the war sooner, not just from all the men, supplies, and ships lost in the debacle, but also in the lost opportunities elsewhere. They were stretched to the limit right from the outset.
As for winning at Midway or Coral Sea, they had the very problem I described, of losing touch with reality. Dissent was stifled; during the war games for Midway, their American side sank several Japanese carriers. The referee said that was unfair and refloated them. They had lost touch with reality, and if they had gotten lucky once or twice more, it would simply have magnified their victory disease, and the subsequent bad luck would have been more disastrous and ended the war sooner.
It's like damming a river. The bigger the dam, the more spectacular the failure. You can block reality for a while, but the more effort you put into it, the bigger the bite when it wins, and reality always wins.
It makes no difference that they would willingly have starved the civilians. They did not have the shipping to invade unless they had dropped every other military campaign, and even that would have been barely enough to just get troops to Hawaii, let alone protect the invasion force and supply the them from such a distance.
Re:Who is to say someone else wouldn't have (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who is to say someone else wouldn't have (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Would this have been so bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
True, and since you're too young to have experienced that history, we're explaining it to you.
(0,0) is in the upper-left technically because that's where most languages start writing from, and computer graphics systems are descended from line printer/tty output.
Because English is written from the upper-left, printers started from the upper left of a page, and then text output displays started from the upper-left too. Then when the buffer of characters was replaced with a buffer of pixels, they started from the same position- upper left. Then when people wrote programs addressing that video, it was simpler (and faster executing) to use the same coordinate system as the hardware- in the olden days, a useless subtraction opcode before writing each pixel was a measurable waste of time.
Whether positive Y is up or down is just a matter of conventions. There was no natural breaking point where it was appropriate to say "Yeah, today we'll flip to the reverse meaning of everything we've been using before"; it'd be a little like asking electricians today to swap the meaning of + and - terminals.