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)
Re:Who is to say someone else wouldn't have (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Who is to say someone else wouldn't have (Score:3, Informative)
There is GPLed code in Darwin; Samba is part of Darwin [apple.com], for example.
There's no GNU-licensed code in the Darwin kernel, so, no, there's no Linux code in the Darwin kernel.
Re:Who is to say someone else wouldn't have (Score:3, Informative)
Samba is distributed along with Darwin. It's not part of Darwin. Similarly, iTunes is distributed along with Mac OS X. It's not part of Mac OS X.
Re:Who is to say someone else wouldn't have (Score:3, Funny)
Well-played, sir, well-played. I admire the constructor of a good troll, and it's so rare to actually see one these days.
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.
Re:Who is to say someone else wouldn't have (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who is to say someone else wouldn't have (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, if you go spelunking in the AppKit classes, particularly NSWorkspace, you find lots of NeXT-y looking things. But at that point you're not really programming; you're doing archaeology
Re:Who is to say someone else wouldn't have (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who is to say someone else wouldn't have (Score:4, Interesting)
With IBM having OS/2 and DB2 they would be able to push them together like MS does with SQL Server for Windows.
To fight this Oracle could commit to Linux (which they have done) and had a platfor that they had control of on both sides.
Re:Who is to say someone else wouldn't have (Score:5, Informative)
Back in the mid-90s, Apple developed their own port of Linux running on Power Mac hardware. It was called MkLinux. Apple shipped a number of developer releases.
The problem was that, compared to the work Apple was doing on what would eventually become XNU, the Linux work was just not very encouraging, particularly in the area of device drivers. The Linux modular kernel model was also inferior to XNU's. So when it came time to choose a kernel for their new operating system, Apple dropped Linux like a hot potato and chose XNU with I/O Kit instead.
This Web page [kernelthread.com] gives a decent very high-level overview of how XNU was designed, explaining why it was a better fit than Linux for a robust, general-purpose, reliable operating system. Of course, Apple's Darwin documentation is the best source for up-to-date information.
warning (Score:5, Funny)
"What if?" can be fun (Score:5, Interesting)
This one is a little bit too "If" for my liking; it goes back a little too far and tries to extrapolate too much. None the less, it's an interesting read.
So heres some more:
Re:"What if?" can be fun (Score:2)
Re:"What if?" can be fun (Score:2)
Hitler? What are you trying to kill the conversation [faqs.org]?
Re:"What if?" can be fun (Score:2)
Aw crap, now look what you've gone and done!
Re:"What if?" can be fun (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"What if?" can be fun (Score:2)
OT: Re:"What if?" can be fun (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, if Hitler had the sense to "finish off" Europe by taking Britain before going east, it's overall not fun. Extremely creepy is more like it. He probably could, had he not sent all his troops east to fight the Soviets and wasted his missiles on civilian targets. What would happen is anyone's guess, but there'd
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-
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, Interesting)
They did NOT have the shipping (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's a web site to read (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"What if?" can be fun (Score:5, Informative)
In other words, if Hitler hadn't invaded Russia, Linux today would be greatly changed because Linus would have been a Soviet citizen in a communist state?
"What if" scenarios are fun...
Re:"What if?" can be fun (Score:5, Funny)
Re:"What if?" can be fun (Score:5, Funny)
Doom only ran on DOS (Score:4, Funny)
Microsoft would have ruled the roost.
Nothing is different than it is now.
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.
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:Doom only ran on DOS (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Doom only ran on DOS (Score:2)
History repeats.
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.
Per? Were! (Score:2)
Re:Per? Were! (Score:5, Funny)
If 'buts' and 'ors' were filthy whores...I'm still working on this one.
Re:Per? Were! (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Fallacy of the Never Happened (Score:2)
Re:Fallacy of the Never Happened (Score:5, Insightful)
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..
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:Fallacy of the Never Happened (Score:2)
History hinges on the fact that IBM chose not to buy out Microsoft and/or Windows when they had a chance. The proper applicaiton of $$$$ would have made Windows disappear, and eventualy users would have come around to dumping DOS for OS/2.
As for how this would affect Linux -- probably no
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 b
Ford didn't develop it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Fallacy of the Never Happened (Score:2)
Yeah, that's why I quit watching "Sliders". After they end up in a universe where all else is exactly the same as ours, except medecine has not been discovered/invented! I think more people need to read "Connections" by James Burke (or at least watch the TV show!) before they start imagining "a world without [X]". Nothing e
Re:Fallacy of the Never Happened (Score:2)
There's a fallacy in imagining a world where a particular person never completed a particular invention. In short, it skips the notion that someone else would have invented it instead.
Sure, but could someone else could have made the same discovery in a time frame that mattered? That is the part you are ignoring in your fallacy statement.
Wow (Score:4, Funny)
- Tony
Obvious (Score:2, Funny)
over time OpenVMS would become the defacto standard
on all macs, and BSD would still be dead, of course.
The tyranny of a great idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Would this have been so bad? (Score:5, Interesting)
If anyone wants to flame the 2MB cache cache limitation of the file system, do realize that the HPFS386 file system used in the server did not have that restraint. Also recall the time period that this OS came out in. 2MB was a significant portion of 16 or 32 MB of RAM. (Yeah, that's right, OS/2 would run just fine in 32 MB of RAM. Heck, it'd run on 4MB machines if you wanted it to, with the smallest system I recall hearing about was a 2MB system minus the PM.)
I still recall being able to run C&C in a window with sound while running Word 6, and several OS/2 apps with nary a problem. (Pentium Pro in 97).
A trip down Nostalgia Lane once more. Would I run it again? Sure, if it had the applications needed today.
Re:Would this have been so bad? (Score:2, Informative)
Pity 2.0 didn't ship with a TCP/IP stack, nor multi-user capability (or even logins/passwords for that matter)!
But I still miss the WPS... know it exists on Linux tho.
Re:Would this have been so bad? (Score:5, Interesting)
The fact is that OS/2 was "gimped" in certain ways -- no integrated networking, no file permissions, no multiple users, various 16-bit legacy limitations in the kernel. This was done on purpose because IBM had no intention of letting Intel-based OSes intrude on it's midrange AS/400 and RS/6000 server business.
When NT hit the market, it immediately started taking over server applicaitons. Something that OS/2 never would or could do. At least for servers, NT has always been the hardware driver, pushing the x86 platform upwards, and Linux has benefited hugely from that.
If Windows never existed, the entire proprietary server market (DEC, SGI, HP, Sun, and IBM) would be very much richer and happier today.
In every way? Methinks not... (Score:5, Interesting)
Since you mention the graphical shell, I'll assume you're talking about OS/2 2.0 or later with the WPS and not earlier 1.x incarnations.
What about the fact that OS/2 came bundled with Rexx while NT had nothing at all similar?
That OS/2's MVDM was significantly better than NT's VDM at running DOS programs?
That OS/2's GUI could be decoupled and replaced with a smaller shell (TSHELL or similar) for use on older hardware for small servers?
That OS/2 consistently beat NT in various performance tests over the years, and even did a cleanup when a single-CPU Warp Server box was put up against a 4-CPU NT Server box on file and print sharing benchmarks sponsored by PC Week?
While NT and its successors certainly have definite advantages, mainly due to market position, I think you vastly overstate its relative position in terms of technology.
Later versions of OS/2 from Warp 3 Connect on had a decent networking stack based on BSD, and most of the 16-bit portions of the kernel are gone at this point in time, so those limitations are no longer current.
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 netwo
I Smell a Teamer! (Score:3, Informative)
In the '95 Atlanta Comdex one of the displays we set up was a huge dual processor (I forget if it was high speed 486 or pentium. Top of the line) Compaq with a whopping 32MB of RAM! Our intention was to run 3 or 4 AVIs side by side next to the NT machine that was happily spewing polys with their poly screensaver.
This was too slow from disk, so we made a 6 or 7 MB ramdisk and stuck our AVIs there. It was pretty smooth from
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: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 outpu
Remember Back To The Future 2? (Score:5, Funny)
I think something like that happened, where old Bill goes back in time and gives young Bill some tips on how to get lucky in the IT world, plus some source code for Windows 3.0. And we're living in the nightmarish timeline that was created.
Only Doc and Marty can save us now. Or Linux. Whichever does it first
Re:Remember Back To The Future 2? (Score:2)
But there is absolutely no freaking way I'd be getting in a Microsoft time machine. (Or a Linux one, for that matter.)
Re:Remember Back To The Future 2? (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, if you don't trust the Linux Time Machine project, why don't you download the source and fix it rather than complaining about it! :)
Umm, no (Score:2, Interesting)
When Microsoft put their full push into Windows they were able to
I have to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course my memories from around that same time of running early slackware linux are even better. It was on a 386 linux box with 5MB memory that I first saw the (then new) WWW in Mosaic on X. Windows couldn't grant me that pleasure at that time. (Trumpet winsock my ass)
Re:I have to say... (Score:5, Interesting)
Had IBM capitulated to MS Office's underhanded call for memory @ 2GB when starting, even though it'd never use it, we might still be running OS/2.
That manuever made Office95 incompatible with OS/2, and along with the then incompatible default file formats, the beginning of the end was near for OS/2.
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.
or maybe (Score:3, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft & Skin Cancer (Score:4, Funny)
Therefore, due to the increased number of blue radiation [dink.org]given off by windows machines, there has been an exponential increase in short wavelength, high energy electromagnetic radiation - which of course has been linked to skin cancer.
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
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.
Start as you mean to go on (Score:2, Funny)
If This Were Marvel Comics' "What If" (Score:3, Funny)
In the end, only Captain America, Wolverine, Spider-Man and Dr. Strange would survive, only to discover their true enemy: a parallel universe Bill Gates, bringing with him Ultra Dimensional Windows Mega Super XP Hyperforce Go 5.4 with him.
Mwahahahahaha!
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, o
Been thanking the wrong guy! (Score:3, Funny)
And I've been thanking Linus Torvalds for all of these years???
Dave Weise... You 'da man!!!
An evein bigger "what-if" (Score:2)
/and BSD would probably still be dying
Butterflies flapping their wings... (Score:2)
And everyone would think Macs were lame.
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.
WOSWESU? (Score:3, Funny)
MOS/2 - Moustache OS/2, of course.
What if... (Score:4, Interesting)
Linus admits that he basically re-invented the wheel with linux, BSD had what he wanted, but he didn't know about it or that it was freely available.
Answer by Stuart Ballard (Score:4, Informative)
re: Tipping Points 2/3/2005 1:00 PM Stuart Ballard
I guess I put it the other way around: the corporate interest in Linux was fueled *by* its undeniable technical and grassroots-level adoption success.
Remember that in the real world IBM picked up Linux despite having its own Unix brand. Linux beat out IBM's best efforts (AIX and the stillborn Project Monterey) on *merit*, so convincingly that IBM themselves decided to scrap their own work in favor of it. I have a hard time thinking of any corporate involvement (on the scale you're contemplating) before that point that could be said to explain IBM's decision to adopt it. So I'm forced to conclude that if not IBM, one of the other hardware/Unix vendors would have done what they did. The other hardware/Unix vendors, in the no-Windows scenario, would be in the same place that IBM was in today's world, with the same options available.
I'd definitely add one to your list of things that fueled Linux's success, although it doesn't affect the "what if" because neither of our future-histories modify it: the widespread availability of the Internet. Linux is an (IMHO inevitable) product of the fact that suddenly anyone with programming talent can easily get the latest version, submit a code patch, and see it integrated into new versions within days, if not *hours*. Linux couldn't have happened if the developers had to mail around 3.5" floppies
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(end of comments)
Frankly I think this is much more plausible. Thank God for the "reply" button in the blogs!
Re:Answer by Stuart Ballard (Score:3, Informative)
When I saw that this had made
Re:Answer by Stuart Ballard (Score:3, Interesting)
> if not IBM, one of the other hardware/Unix vendors would have done what they did. The other hardware/Unix
> vendors, in the no-Windows scenario, would be in the same place that IBM was in today's world, with the same
> options available.
How soon we forget. There were other Unix vendors who decided to throw their lot in with Linux, before IBM made their announcement. DEC loaned an Alpha workstation to Linus to encourage him to develop for their RISC processor over
Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft, bloody Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
There's more Microsoft stories here than anything else, about 20 in the past week. Isn't anything better to post about??
If Windows 3.0 never happened.... (Score:5, Funny)
http://tinyurl.com/44te2 [tinyurl.com]
Re:If Windows had never existed on the home deskto (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:If Windows had never existed on the home deskto (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:If Windows had never existed on the home deskto (Score:5, Interesting)
There is really a world of difference between what Microsoft wants for its system and what IBM wants. IBM( and most C++ developers in the tech sector ) wanted and used a full hierachical object model( z inherits from y which inherits from x ) while Microsoft had tried to stay away from that kind of thing because it "hides" the underlying structure( the Windows APIs ). Back in the early 90's, there were alot of application frameworks out there for devopers to use and most would allow the applications to be compiled on OS/2 or Windows and many times UNIX too. That was bad for Microsoft and they did a great job at making sure OO frameworks went away.
Even computer language history would have changed without Microsoft or Windows 3.0. Without Microsoft hold of the desktop, JAVA would not exist and SmallTalk would have probably be much more popular. In the late 80's and early 90's, IBM was trying to find a language/system to use across all of it's operating systems. SOM and Smalltalk were popular until JAVA came along. But this is speculation and will always be so opinions will vary.
I will say that the stuff from IBM typically looked more like it was designed to solve customers and developers problems, instead of being designed to protect a monopoly( ala Microsoft ). IMO.
LoB
Re:If Windows had never existed on the home deskto (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they'd call it Gnome, or something like that.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
In 1996 BeOS stood as the most promising environment around.
There was also RiscOS [riscos.com], BTW. which could have gone very far (it's actually present in loads of set top boxen).
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Informative)
bs (Score:2, Interesting)
Instead of using Slackware Linux I'd be using FreeBSD or even OpenSolaris or something, big deeeeeeeeeeeeeel....
Move along now, get back to reality...
Re:Engineer? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Engineer? (Score:3, Insightful)
MCSE DeVry grad reviews Mac mini (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Engineer? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Engineer? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Engineer? (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, not all engineers design bridges.
Re:Engineer? (Score:2)
But just because you gradudated the AM class of some MCSE money-gouging center doesn't mean you're any more qualified than a hampster to design and implement software.
Tom
Re:Engineer? (Score:3, Interesting)
But thats beside the point. What I find interesting is how the quote could be used either way. You see, it is quite possible that some may view the bestowal as being similar to sticking feathers up your butt.
IMO it is more likely that the actions of the individual which led to the bestowal is what made the person an engineer not the generosity of some accredited group. And that being the case it is possible that not every person who has become an engineer wil