True dat but I sure do miss CmdrTaco. There were just more articles worth reading on /. back then. Could have been because there were so many new technologies and fights(Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Sun, Corel, Netware, Caldera, etc, etc) and now it's hard to find the stories. Don't know but I don't like /. stories about sites shutting down.

LoB

Ford Sync was WindowsCE based so Ford took it in the shorts for a number of years. Seems Bill Gates got tight with the Ford CEO and wed them to Windows CE and the rest is history. Just like BMW, they got suckered into using a really bad OS and worst, suckered into a long contract. With that kind of history, letting others own some user facing software seems easier. You all should already know of BMW's problems with letting Microsoft software control automobile hardware. It was not pretty but again, they were stuck for years with Microsoft and then they put Linux under the hood. And it probably happened far more times but all under the public radar.

I found this on the interweb by a guy who said he worked on the team which created the Ford Sync system:

The short answer is no. Ford partnered with B-Squared because someone knew someone is the way I understood things. Around the time SYNC was getting to be announced, Bill Gates & Bill Ford were seen in local media (TV news, papers, etc...) riding around in a model-T at Henry Ford Village with the reports being that Microsoft wanted to get into automobiles. Out of this, somehow, B-Squared was chosen (pushed on guys like me) with the comments always being they have a lot of domain expertise in bringing up WindowsCE on embedded platforms.

LoB

Ford made the mistake many others have in thinking Microsoft was a technology company and could make something as reliable as what's required in the automobile. Yes, they partnered with Microsoft, put Windows-CE(also known as WINCE) under their Ford Sync system and it failed terribly. Like others, they signed a multi year contract so it took 5 or more years to get off of that and they eventually put the QNX OS under Ford Sync. They looked at Linux but didn't like that there were no Linux lawyers who'd sign off on taking the blame for any lawsuits. Microsoft wanted to write a bunch of the software on Ford Sync but when Ford's lawyers put the papers infront of them to claim responsibility if their software deployed airbags falsely, etc they said no, no, no, no and no.

From what I heard Ford Sync on QNX and with other design fixes has been far more reliable but they had outsourced most everything and ended up with junk.
Makes sense after those lashings that management would opt for allowing CarPlay and Android Auto to take over.

LoB

hahaha, you thought that this announcement was about making Windows better. And yes, they did say lots of things in the press release about that being the goal but Microsoft really is more of a marketing company than anything else. As you point out, they are really just changing bugs and more likely implementing more bugs. But, this is all in the name of making Windows better so the sales pitch is that Microsoft is working to improve Windows so it's worth lots of money and on top of that they will be able to move funds around departments and hide losses and creating perceptions of progress and general success.

Can you imagine what a CS course on OS design would look like if Windows was used as the template? Ever seen a root ball in a sewer line? Rust won't fix the design but marketing that it will is all that matters.

LoB

But now, you corporate bean counters get to add lots of annual Microsoft software license fees to the ledger.

Where previously client software licenses were associated with the hardware and could be used by 3 different employees if you ran 3 shifts. With this new invention from Microsoft, licensing is per employee and there's no software to install on the Windows based client computer, it's on a server which also has licensing feees associated with it.

Look for the Ads coming soon, "Rent Everything" by Microsoft.

LoB

or Elon just really hates Microsoft's talking paper clip so much he's going to come out with a talking paper clamp for Twitter.

LoB

Those type of people do not see it that way. They can blame it on something or someone else and in this case they would blame the action on the alcohol.
I'd not surprised to read about someone suing a sneaker maker because the shoe didn't move from the throttle to the brake pedal quick enough to prevent a crash.

LoB

For sure but do you really think he was referring to running Raspbian on a Raspberry Pi? It caught me off guard when I read "Raspbian" too but then I figured he was complaining about the Apple UI and instead of saying something like one of the lightweight desktop environments(LXDE, XFCE, etc) or something which doesn't roll off the tongue like Lubuntu, Xubuntu, etc he went with Raspbian OS.

That's my guess since as you mentioned, you just wouldn't want to be using that lowend rPi hardware for day to day compiling.

LoB

Find a copy of Watcom VX-REXX and you'll be amazed. I knew VX-REXX before seeing VB and could only guess VB was popular because Microsoft was marketing the heck out of it. The BASIC programming language is Bill Gates favorite after all.

LoB

Yes, they need to be booted. But haha, they are actually being hired to fix the broken parts and probably will be paid tens of thousands to add a few switches will will probably fail when some other part stops working. Then they'll be paid again. So NOT getting booted at all.

LoB

>So UNIX software became obsolete because it was stuck on the UNIX platform? It could not be ported to Linux?

When Microsoft was pushing Windows NT at UNIX the usability in the corporate landscape was quite immature and there was maybe only RedHat providing corporate service contracts. Almost nobody had ever heard of RedHat at that time. So not, porting to Linux wasn't much of an option back then.

And I've run AT&T UNIX on Pentiums, Yddrasil Linux, Corel Linux and others on multi-CPU PCs(PB6) in my own corporate offices by getting management to open their eyes was not something I could sell them on. I'd had some of them tell me years later that they should have listened more to what I was saying and showing them.

What decade are YOU talking about? I was talking about when Windows NT went after the UNIX market, not 20 years later.

LoB

Seems quite out of place for a Microsoft executive to know and understand a business tactic which limits the competitions market position.
Microsoft has been such a small player and has never used those type of tactics every.
LOL and that headline almost caused me to experience an ASNR while drinking my coffee this morning.

LoB

And the BSOD became famous as engineers in their cubicles could be heard yelling 'shit, again?' then rebooting their Windows "workless-station" and going to get a coffee for 30 minutes while it restarted and they could recreate the work they lost. Ya, good times.

We had a room full of Solaris and HP workstations for CAD but what most didn't was that XWindow was a server and could run on a PC at a remote location.
My boss once found me in my office running an IBM OS on a PC when I was supposed to be in the Workstation Room working. Blew him away that I had the CAD software running on my PC in my office but the display size was a bit of a pain.

UNIX workstations were workhorses and reliable. From what I hear, Windows today might give them a run for the money in reliability but it's been what, 20 years for Microsoft to get there.

LoB

Microsoft was attacking UNIX from all sides trying to get companies to purchase Windows NT since it failed as a desktop OS to replace DOS/Windows. Besides the fake licensing of Win32 to UNIX software vendors( Bristol Win32/U for example ) they purchased a powerhouse in the movie and film industry, SoftImage.

Microsoft bought the company and forced them to make a version for Windows and tried to kill the UNIX version. The developers wouldn't have it and neither did their customers. Internally they kept the UNIX version updated and customers kept purchasing the UNIX versions. For one reason was that server farms were running 7/24 and for days at a time rendering images for the film industry. Crashing Windows NT on the server farms cost millions of dollars in lost time.

Microsoft eventually relented once they'd killed off most all other UNIX workstation software via the Win32 licensing bait and switch trick. They spun SoftImage off as it's own company again or they sold it but either way it was independent and without ties to Microsoft.

LoB