Then what does developing the cygwin libraries make you? A serf? A blockbuster?
Also, an inaccuracy in the article:
"Are You a Sharecropper? If you're developing software for the Windows platform, yes. Or for the Apple platform, or the Oracle platform, or the SAP platform, or, well, any platform that is owned and operated by a company. They own the ground you're building on, and if they decide they don't like you, or they can do something better with the ground, you're toast."
This doesn't even make sense to me. The analogy doesn't work. If I code a game made to work in windows 98, Microsoft can not (at this point) block your game from being run at the OS level (aka "taking away land") but really only through suing you to stop the game from being distributed.
Do I have this wrong? This doesn't sound like being a sharecropper, but living next door to a cranky neighbour who might sue you for keeping your lawn unkempt and lowering neighbouring property values.
This doesn't even make sense to me. The analogy doesn't work. If I code a game made to work in windows 98, Microsoft can not (at this point) block your game from being run at the OS level (aka "taking away land") but really only through suing you to stop the game from being distributed
You can only say that after March of next year. As long as patches get released (for 98 or IE on 98, or DX), you can't say they aren't going to block you technically.
If I code a game made to work in windows 98, Microsoft can not (at this point) block your game from being run at the OS level (aka "taking away land") but really only through suing you to stop the game from being distributed.
What they can do is put out a service pack (or in the probable case of Longhorn, an entire OS release) that breaks your game. Ideally, you release a patch; the problem is the worst case, where you (the developer) have to go out and get an entire new toolchain (new copy of Visual Studio, etc). Even though update prices are usually modest, you may not want to keep lots of VMWare images on your hard drive, multiple toolchains, etc.
So far, the effect has been minimal: people knew from the start that NT4 wasn't W9x, and things acted differently. However their latest moves are much more bold - Longhorn may be radically different from what we see today.
Unix is as much a collection of behaviors as it is lines of code. Moving from a.out to ELF meant patching and recompiling, sure, but the only investment is time, and in many cases you could do it at your leisure. Commercial software can get EOL'd and you have no choice but to plan your migration (witness the many companies happy with NT4, who are now forced to migrate to W2k or XP).
Sorry, but the same thing happens in Linux, or BSD, or anything else. If you want to run NT4, by all means, go ahead.. yes, it's EOL... then again, so is Linux kernel 1.0.
Okay, there might be a software availability issue.. but that was something that companies could sort out license wise long before the EOL date.
If you want to run NT4, by all means, go ahead.. yes, it's EOL... then again, so is Linux kernel 1.0.
As long as your app targeted at linux with the 1.0 kernel stuck with POSIX, it'll still run just fine (probably better in fact) with the 2.4.x kernel.
Now, how many WfWG apps run well in Win2000?
Additional advantages include a complete lack of hidden APIs in Linux (how would they be hidden?), and the fact that no change in Linux or the system utilities has ever been done in order to favor one user ap
What they can do is put out a service pack (or in the probable case of Longhorn, an entire OS release) that breaks your game. Ideally, you release a patch; the problem is the worst case, where you (the developer) have to go out and get an entire new toolchain (new copy of Visual Studio, etc). Even though update prices are usually modest, you may not want to keep lots of VMWare images on your hard drive, multiple toolchains, etc.
FUD, FUD, FUD. If you develop your software correctly for Windows, there's li
How can a 3rd party fix kernel problems? If they, the owners of the source, no longer support it, and no one else can support kernel-level bugs, and I have to buy the new OS, then I hardly see how it's simple for me.
They can make a press release like this:
Windows Version 1000000 will no longer support DirectX in favor of something better, our new super gamer's library. Directx will no longer install on the windows platform. Then...You have to rewrite the game if it is made for their DirectX library (I only use it as an example because many write games in Directx).
But what's that you say, you wrote it for SDL? Microsoft in a daring move announced a brand new hardware interface to the graphic card totally invalidat
> But you wrote the game in Java you say? > In the most daring move ever Microsoft has totally rewritten the Windows APIs and refused to release the documentation leaving sun unable to write a JVM for Windows XP 6 Alpha (MS's release quality is Alpha software).
Follwed immediately by a mass migration off the platform by most/all developers, followed the next week by a HUGE devaluation in the stock, followed the week after that by a mass exodus of Microsoft engineers.
Does not seem reasonable...true. But impossible? No. The point is that Microsoft OWNS the platform, they can do whatever they want to it. Then windows would vanish and where would his game that was written for windows be? It would be obsolete. They don't need to rewrite the total API, just key parts to render the program inoperable.
I don't think he's talking about the gaming as much as the business-related programs. He's saying that they can take whatever you put out, edit the OS a bit, and then just give it away for free until you go out of business. Theoretically they could do this with games as well, but I think I'll have a stroke the day an OS comes bundled with something more than solitaire.
MS may not prevent your game from running on their OS, but what they may do is develop their own game that directly competes with yours and use their marketing prowess and monopoly skills to take over enough of your market share to run you out of business. Hence you are forced off their land.
If you develop a game of W9x you would probably have to use Direct X. How many games coded to Direct X 7.0 still work in WXP? W2K?
The the company can change the APIs and then you're screwed. Or, they can enter the market you have.
With Unix, they can't change they API since they're standardize (more or less) through POSIX. If a Unix vendor tries to change it, *all* applications break. Plus if one Unix vendors tries something, you can always switch your product to another.
If I code a game made to work in windows 98, Microsoft can not (at this point) block your game from being run at the OS level (aka "taking away land") but really only through suing you to stop the game from being distributed.
But nobody cares, because the gamers upgrade to the latest and greatest. Hence, your game may work on Win98, but if you expect it to be sold, it HAS to work on newer systems (ie. 2k, XP, etc.). And Microsoft just has to break the APIs your game uses in the future versions of the OS,
Actually, that's exactly what they're doing with the-features-previously-known-as-palladium (now just a part of longhorn?).
You know that little message you get when you download the latest drivers for deviceX but manufacturerX doesn't want to spend $X to get another digital signature from M$? The one that strongly discourages installing unsigned drivers?
Well, that's gonna happen with ALL software on longhorn. Except, it may be worse. You may have to go into the control panel into some dark corner while l
Then what does developing the cygwin libraries make you?
He's talking about platforms. If you're developing on cygwin, you're developing for a UNIX platform that just happens to be running on top of Windows. It can be moved to a genuine UNIX platform with ease, so you're not actually tied to Windows. This is just like developing on Linux and then moving your app to BSD. So you're not a serf or a sharecropper, you're genuinely in control of what you're building.
There are a number of ways they can (and do) 'take back the land'. One fun way is to break the os with a service patch or a whole os release. Netscape clamed Microsoft broke network support on purpous by creating a whole diffrent networking API for Win 95. This gave IE an edge as Netscape had to be modified for 95 and IE was updated as part of the 95 dev cycle. Microsoft can sneak FUD into the disk, os, website and news letters about your product. IBM learned Microsoft was feeding it's users FUD matereal by mean
"Be there. Aloha."
-- Steve McGarret, _Hawaii Five-Oh_
If developing for windows makes you a sharecropper (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, an inaccuracy in the article:
"Are You a Sharecropper? If you're developing software for the Windows platform, yes. Or for the Apple platform, or the Oracle platform, or the SAP platform, or, well, any platform that is owned and operated by a company. They own the ground you're building on, and if they decide they don't like you, or they can do something better with the ground, you're toast."
This doesn't even make sense to me. The analogy doesn't work. If I code a game made to work in windows 98, Microsoft can not (at this point) block your game from being run at the OS level (aka "taking away land") but really only through suing you to stop the game from being distributed.
Do I have this wrong? This doesn't sound like being a sharecropper, but living next door to a cranky neighbour who might sue you for keeping your lawn unkempt and lowering neighbouring property values.
Re:If developing for windows makes you a sharecrop (Score:2)
You can only say that after March of next year. As long as patches get released (for 98 or IE on 98, or DX), you can't say they aren't going to block you technically.
Re:If developing for windows makes you a sharecrop (Score:4, Insightful)
What they can do is put out a service pack (or in the probable case of Longhorn, an entire OS release) that breaks your game. Ideally, you release a patch; the problem is the worst case, where you (the developer) have to go out and get an entire new toolchain (new copy of Visual Studio, etc). Even though update prices are usually modest, you may not want to keep lots of VMWare images on your hard drive, multiple toolchains, etc.
So far, the effect has been minimal: people knew from the start that NT4 wasn't W9x, and things acted differently. However their latest moves are much more bold - Longhorn may be radically different from what we see today.
Unix is as much a collection of behaviors as it is lines of code. Moving from a.out to ELF meant patching and recompiling, sure, but the only investment is time, and in many cases you could do it at your leisure. Commercial software can get EOL'd and you have no choice but to plan your migration (witness the many companies happy with NT4, who are now forced to migrate to W2k or XP).
BS (Score:1, Insightful)
If you want to run NT4, by all means, go ahead.. yes, it's EOL... then again, so is Linux kernel 1.0.
Okay, there might be a software availability issue.. but that was something that companies could sort out license wise long before the EOL date.
Re:BS (Score:2)
If you want to run NT4, by all means, go ahead.. yes, it's EOL... then again, so is Linux kernel 1.0.
As long as your app targeted at linux with the 1.0 kernel stuck with POSIX, it'll still run just fine (probably better in fact) with the 2.4.x kernel.
Now, how many WfWG apps run well in Win2000?
Additional advantages include a complete lack of hidden APIs in Linux (how would they be hidden?), and the fact that no change in Linux or the system utilities has ever been done in order to favor one user ap
Re:BS (Score:0)
On the reverse side of things, Linux is a great environment for running apps on, but unfortunately there are none worth running.
Okay, maybe one or two.
Re:If developing for windows makes you a sharecrop (Score:2)
FUD, FUD, FUD. If you develop your software correctly for Windows, there's li
Re:If developing for windows makes you a sharecrop (Score:2)
Re:If developing for windows makes you a sharecrop (Score:2, Interesting)
But what's that you say, you wrote it for SDL? Microsoft in a daring move announced a brand new hardware interface to the graphic card totally invalidat
Re:If developing for windows makes you a sharecrop (Score:0)
> In the most daring move ever Microsoft has totally rewritten the Windows APIs and refused to release the documentation leaving sun unable to write a JVM for Windows XP 6 Alpha (MS's release quality is Alpha software).
Follwed immediately by a mass migration off the platform by most/all developers, followed the next week by a HUGE devaluation in the stock, followed the week after that by a mass exodus of Microsoft engineers.
Yep, your scenario of a total API
Re:If developing for windows makes you a sharecrop (Score:1)
Re:If developing for windows makes you a sharecrop (Score:1)
Re:If developing for windows makes you a sharecrop (Score:1)
You have it wrong (Score:1)
burnin
Direct X (Score:0)
The the company can change the APIs and then you're screwed. Or, they can enter the market you have.
With Unix, they can't change they API since they're standardize (more or less) through POSIX. If a Unix vendor tries to change it, *all* applications break. Plus if one Unix vendors tries something, you can always switch your product to another.
Well developed Unix software is ve
Re:Direct X (Score:0)
It's just a bad example. DirectX is backwards compatible by its very nature.
Re:If developing for windows makes you a sharecrop (Score:1)
But nobody cares, because the gamers upgrade to the latest and greatest. Hence, your game may work on Win98, but if you expect it to be sold, it HAS to work on newer systems (ie. 2k, XP, etc.). And Microsoft just has to break the APIs your game uses in the future versions of the OS,
Re:If developing for windows makes you a sharecrop (Score:1)
You know that little message you get when you download the latest drivers for deviceX but manufacturerX doesn't want to spend $X to get another digital signature from M$? The one that strongly discourages installing unsigned drivers?
Well, that's gonna happen with ALL software on longhorn. Except, it may be worse. You may have to go into the control panel into some dark corner while l
Re:If developing for windows makes you a sharecrop (Score:0)
Re: cygwin (Score:2)
Re:If developing for windows makes you a sharecrop (Score:1)
One fun way is to break the os with a service patch or a whole os release.
Netscape clamed Microsoft broke network support on purpous by creating a whole diffrent networking API for Win 95.
This gave IE an edge as Netscape had to be modified for 95 and IE was updated as part of the 95 dev cycle.
Microsoft can sneak FUD into the disk, os, website and news letters about your product.
IBM learned Microsoft was feeding it's users FUD matereal by mean