Microsoft Ponders Windows Successor 320
InfoWorldMike writes "Before Vista is even out of the gates, a Microsoft exec was talking Wednesday about Windows' replacement at a VC conference. Speaking at The Venture Forum conference, Microsoft's Bryan Barnett, a program manager for external research programs in the Microsoft Research group, said multicore architectures are of particular interest when weighing what to put in future operating systems at the company. "Taking full advantage of the processing power that those multicore architectures potentially make available requires operating systems and development tools that don't exist largely today," Barnett said. Well, with Vista in the pipeline as long as it has been, you must admit it is not surprising Microsoft is taking the long-term view. And it won't be built overnight: There is no timetable for a Windows successor right now. But early work on this effort has not yet been organized, with five or six small projects afoot in various places throughout the company, Barnett said."
Child of my Child? (Score:5, Funny)
What they need is a new File System. (Score:3, Funny)
Personally, I think it would really r0x0r if the new OS shipped with an object-relational file system that had metadata, and a SQL-esque query syntax, and automated fall-over network distribution and...
Re:What they need is a new File System. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:What they need is a new File System. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Child of my Child? (Score:4, Insightful)
I just couldn't stop asking myself: they spent 5 years building THIS?
Given the availability of user-friendly Linux distros (SuSe, RedHat, Ubuntu), and given that Apple's OS X.5 runs flawlessly on x86, I am drawn to conclusion that MS is fatally late.
X2 4400+ getting 1.2 'performance' rating, I didn't know whether to cry or to laugh. Maybe I just got sucked in by all that talk about 3D interface, aux.display support during sleep, new printing subsystem, and revolutionary user security framework?
Re:Child of my Child? (Score:5, Interesting)
There's the real possiblity that Vista might turn out to be a unusable crap heap, but its way to early to make that call. I'm kinda suprised that they had a public beta with 6 months (plus 3 more once it gets pushed again) to go.
Re:Child of my Child? (Score:3, Funny)
Oooo, high praise indeed. No need to get all gushy.
Re:Child of my Child? (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a AMD64 3500, 960MB of RAM (integrated 64MB graphics) and can just about scrape a 'performance rating' of 3. I upgraded from 512MB to 1GB of RAM YESTERDAY and the difference it made to Vista is like comparing apples to goats.
Out of the box Vista surps up 300-400MB of RAM on a fresh boot (I haven't taken an exact measurement).
My Gnome/Linux desktop uses about 115-140MB and XP x64 is about 165MB (Gnome starts lower than XP x64 but generally increases with a little use of the UI, I think it loads more stuff into RAM on demand than Windows Explorer). I would hope this huge memory requirement is reduced when Redmond cannabalise Vista Ultimate into it's various flavours but I doubt it. There seems to be alot of processes and services running out of the box in Beta 2, but I haven't had time to see what they are all about.
I noticed my boot time in Vista is very slow, but the performance control panel applet reports this is due to a bad driver.
Interestingly the full Aero interface is more responsive than Windows Classic! It's a shame it's so damn ugly...
My experience with Vista is therefore best summarised as: It's just as responsive as XP but guzzles more RAM, it's ugly and has alot of bugs and driver issues to work out before it goes RTM, personally haven't seen enough yet to turn me back from Linux but I think Vista will be a success.
Re:Child of my Child? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ha ha! I thought it was just me!
Now imagine, OSX didn't get primetime ready until 10.3 (released 2004 I think, or was it 2003?), so there's realistically a chance that Vista won't come into its own for another 3-4 years. As you say, they are too late, and I agree, it's possibly fatal.
DNF (Score:5, Funny)
Vapour? (Score:4, Insightful)
The three states of matter are solid, liquid, and this announcement ;-)
But seriously, does anybody think this announcement was intended to dissuade businesses and government agencies from trying the alternatives to Microsoft Windows that exist now? And will it work?
Re:Vapour? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
And no.
Barnett's quote of "Taking full advantage of the processing power that those multicore architectures potentially make available requires operating systems and development tools that don't exist largely today," is meant to obfuscate the fact that there are OS's that handle multiple processors very well (Linux and OS X, not to mention other unix variants).
Microsoft has a vested interest in not doing PR work for the 'nix community. And they certainly don't want to imply that Vista won't get the most out of the current crop of processors when other OS's will.
Mark my words folks, we're currently watching the Fall of the Roman Empire. Nero (Ballmer) is fiddling (throwing chairs during temper fits, screaming "Developers!" repeatedly, etc.) while the city of Rome (Redmond) is burning to the ground.
I guess the capitalists were right, leave the marketplace alone and eventually it will find a center and select a survivor. In the OS wars, my money is on unix (in any flavor, take your pick) as the eventual winner. I'm sure Bill Gates knows this, that's why he's bailing while he can, just as he bequeathed the empire to Ballmer years ago when the DOJ was breathing down MS's neck. Gates is a lot of things: Stupid isn't one of them.
Re:Vapour? (Score:5, Interesting)
To get the most out of it though, the applications need to be multi-threaded and multi-threaded programming in (standard) C/C++ is not straight forward, in fact it can be almost downright impossible to debug.
Other programming languages are much more suited to multi threaded programming, particularly those that use the CSP [usingcsp.com] model.
Construction of Concurrent Systems Software
http://www.herpolhode.com/rob/lec1.pdf [herpolhode.com]
http://www.herpolhode.com/rob/lec3.pdf [herpolhode.com]
http://www.herpolhode.com/rob/lec5.pdf [herpolhode.com]
My favourite, of course, is Limbo [vitanuova.com] but I only know of one environment where that is implemented : Inferno [vitanuova.com]
here's another discussion on a similar theme
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=164547&cid
Know what would be funny? (Score:4, Interesting)
No, seriously..... OS X runs on Intel now, and Apple is working hard on compatibility layers for multiple OSs and it is the slickest, most stable, most beautiful mainstream OS out there right now. It would be especially funny as back some years under Gil Amelio, Apple actually looked at licensing Win NT for the new OS when Copeland was in horrible shape. Thank gawd that never happened or Apple would be where SGI is now (or worse).
Hey, you know that Microsoft has used Apple as their R&D arm for years now, right? Why not just formalize it?
In all fairness, I am not saying that Microsoft can't do it themselves, I'd just like to see a return to the good 'ol days when Microsoft made good, solid applications and were not trying to be all things to all people. They used to you know...... I am thinking of the early versions of Excel (Multiplan) and Word on the first Macintoshes along with Microsoft MacEnhancer, Chart and Basic.
Although one has to wonder what is going on when Microsoft's programmer team for Windows is in the several-thousands and Apple's development team for OS X is around 300.
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:3, Funny)
And was Unix not inspired by MULTICS ?
Yet there is no trace of MULTICS in Mac OS X...
Coincidence ? I think not...
It's a conspiracy I tell you !
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:3, Informative)
Who the heck cares about the kernel?! OS X has a BSD userland, therefore it is based on BSD!
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:5, Interesting)
So even if Microsoft were already licensing OS X today, you can bet it would be looking for ways to homebrew a solution of its own. Not to mention the fundamental differences in taste and approach to workplace environment between the target demographic of Windows vs. Mac OS X, but we'll not go there yet...
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:2, Interesting)
Whoa, you just blew my mind.
Microsoft. Longhorn.
Micro soft
Long horn
Wonder how subtle that was...(there was a penis joke earlier)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:5, Interesting)
MS has just been through the biggest development project failure ever in the private sector
MS has two choices: cut a deal with SJ, or try to turn Solaris into a viable desktop system.
Copland was a technology failure -- the old MacOS just couldn't be "modernized" without breaking applications / using too much memory / etc. There was just no way to add SMP and memory protection to the thing.
Vista is a management failure. Rather than shorter release cycles with incremental improvments, MS put it on themselves to do it all in one big release. Nobody was asking them to do this -- it was just arrogance on their part. People want better security and search functionality in Windows, they don't want it rewritten in C# and they don't want shoot-the-moon features like WinFS. They don't even necessarily want transparent windows.
If there was an XP2004 and an XP2006 released, you wouldn't see the bitching. XP's biggest problem at this point is just that it's old and clunky.
So, different problems, different solutions. Apple had critical technical problems and had to buy a new OS to fix it. Microsoft has a project management problem
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple was using virtualization with A/UX
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Ozzie the wizard (Score:2, Funny)
Well, then Ozzie should stay out of Texas. The use of such technological 'devices' is illegal there even for consenting, married adults:
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2005/03/03/Op inion/Lawmakers.Should.Pull.Out.Of.Sex.Lives-88395 7.shtml [dailytexanonline.com]
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:3, Insightful)
Got a cite for that?
All the reports I've seen are that Vista relies almost entirely on native code. What little managed code there was has actually been REMOVED. Vista -supports-
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:4, Informative)
what day was it when they bought zenix and tried to market their own unix based os?
was day one the day they sold that to sco and agreed to a contract that said they would never create a unixlike operating system that would compete with sco unix?
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:4, Funny)
Ya, I still reminisce about wire-frame FlightSim as well. Ya, playing that game on the AppleII, MicroSoft was the bomb.
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:3, Informative)
More like subLOGIC or Bruce Artwick was the bomb. As I recall, Flight Simulator was originally created by Bruce Artwick nee subLOGIC. The version of Flight Sim I played on my Apple ][ was a subLOGIC product and I believe Microsoft purchased it from subLOGIC for the same reason they bought Bungie. They wanted Flight Sim to show off the new graphics capabilities of the new IBM PCs much lik
Windows successor? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:5, Funny)
Because it's the only way to insure that the vampire stays dead?
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:3, Interesting)
Although one has to wonder what is going on when Microsoft's programmer team for Windows is in the several-thousands and Apple's development team for OS X
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is sad, really, since the rest of the world let VMS die long ago.
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:2, Insightful)
It's really no mystery, you're comparing the needs of a tiny market versus a vast one.
After the initial 4 year MacOS X development span, it's been incrementally revved to address the needs of a niche user market. Most of these users aren't businesses with extensive numbers of Macs. If they have Macs, they're integrated into other sy
Re:Know what would be funny? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you nailed a big part of Microsoft's problem there. It's software written by a creative bureaucracy. IBM is like that, except their aim is functionality and reliability not the nebulous "user experience". The former is a collection of software "artists" and the latter is a more scientific and testable approach. When a few artists collaborate, the result can be something dramatic (OS X), but if you have too many you generate little visionary fiefdoms where their goal is a smaller portion of the whole. Thus, feature FOO may be quite clever in it's methods and interface, but breaks completely when feature BAR (built by another fiefdom) is enabled. You also get wars between the fiefdoms that change the direction of the end product (interface versus security). Worse still, MS has grown to behemoth proportions in such a way that even the fiefdoms themselves are bloated and approaching the same state as the whole.
MS can't revitalize itself (or windows for that matter) without downsizing, IMHO. They won't do it though. They are probably afraid that it will be perceived as weakness by the public and the stock market.NT architecture not even utilized (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:NT architecture not even utilized (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the key point to keep in mind here is not that Microsoft is looking for a successor to Windows, but that these statements came from "a program manager for external research programs in the Microsoft Research group". This is what Mirosoft Research does. They come up with blue-sky ideas like replacing Windows entirely, and then the product groups integrate those ideas into real, shippable products. As an example, the "Drivatar" [microsoft.com] AI used by Forza Motorsport [forzamotorsport.net] came directly out of MSR. The researchers had grand plans for the technology (get real motorsport "legends" to generate drivatars based on their driving style, learn from the player as he's playing, etc), while the implementation in Forza was more practical (the main AI was based on pre-release training and didn't learn from watching the player, there were no "professional" drivatars, the player had to actively train his drivatar in specific sessions rather than having it learn while he plays, etc). That's not a bad thing, and it's still a damn sight better than most other racing game AI out there (Gran Turismo, I'm looking at you. Damn retarded bumper car AI ...). Researchers are good at coming up with crazy ideas and sample implementations that don't take into account the rest of the system (back to Forza, there's only so much processing available in an Xbox to handle all of the physics and AI, which means that real-time drivatar training wouldn't be feasible). If you know what to look for, you can see many Microsoft Research contributions in shipping products (speech, grammar checking, natural language processing, etc in Office; anti-phishing in the MSN/Windows Live Toolbar and IE7; pretty much the entire backend for MSN/Windows Live Search; and so on), but it's only bits and pieces. Go poke around [microsoft.com], look at the many areas of research going on at MSR. Take a look at their sample code. And then remember that when you see a similar but less-grandiose feature 5-10 years from now in a real, shipping product.
Note: I'm neither a Microsoft researcher nor a Forza developer, so all of the information above is what anyone can deduce from the sources I cited.
Microsoft has already done this to a fair extent with Terminal Server. The main thing to keep in mind is that the main bits in kernel space really are drivers, not the UI framework (and even that's changing with Vista). Terminal Server is very much Microsoft's X. Do you remember the "Fast User Switching" feature in Windows XP? Yeah, that's Terminal Server, and what it really means is that every time you use the Windows UI (in XP and 2K3) you're actually interfacing through a local Terminal Server session (just like X!). Of course, TS will have its little differences when running over a network, like not supporting video overlays or 3D acceleration, but in most case
Re:NT architecture not even utilized (Score:2)
Re:NT architecture not even utilized (Score:3, Informative)
I have been unfortunate enough to have to work with VMS (system programming) myself, and I can tell you that it was a nightmare. Yes it was stable (Unix also) and still has a good reputation for that. But VMS, and Windows N
More of the same... (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe MS should pay attention to the fact that they have never taken full advantage of any processor's power. Most products they have put out these days just hog system resources, forcing systems to have more powerful processors, more RAM, etc. without ever really harnessing their power. The increase in power is just to make it seem like the bloat-ware is running better than it actually is.
Re:More of the same... (Score:3, Insightful)
People haven't made full use of a computer's abilities since the 8 bits.
(in those days, the programmers would often use every trick in the book to squeeze every last ounce of capability from a machine)
And when will microsoft realise that "Taking full advantage of a processor's power" is *NOT* something you want an operating system to DO?
An OS is supposed to sit unobtrusively in the background handling context switches, I/O and memory management. It's not supposed to use massive chunks of processor po
Processing Power? (Score:4, Insightful)
Operating systems are suppose to use all our processing power?
Re:Processing Power? (Score:2)
That being said, if there was some kind of quantum move in the human interface -- if they implemented Vernor Vinge's headbands or Minority Report 3D windows, hell yeah I'
Oh, well that's easy (Score:5, Funny)
Just wait for Google to show us what a Google OS would look like... then do that.
A successor to Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft has been trying to dig themselves out of the hole that they dug themselves into for several years now, and they can't do it (i.e. fix Windows) without breaking backwards compatibility with old applications, and as long as they keep releasing new versions of Windows, they have to maintain that backwards compatibility, or word will spread quickly and people won't buy it. Besides, if you have to buy new applications when you buy your new PC with the new OS, why not buy the Mac version of those apps instead, and switch?
But then Microsoft bought VirtualPC, and a solution began to unfold. If they release a new OS, and don't call it Windows, then they don't have to maintain backwards compatibility with existing Win32 applications in the OS. They'll port the
And hey, if they move what they can to
Flame on!
Re:A successor to Windows (Score:2)
Re:A successor to Windows (Score:3, Funny)
Re:A successor to Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
Speaking of Windows, different multi-core processor architectures, Virtual PC, and .NET, have you looked at Xbox 360 lately?
As much as I love my Xbox 360, I have no illusions of it taking over all (any!) of my general-purpose computing (nor do I expect or want the PS3 to do so, Kutaragi!). However, when you look at the bullet points it's pretty easy to come to the conclusion that Xbox 360 may just be an incubation project for future hardware architectures and operating systems.
Re:A successor to Windows (Score:2, Insightful)
People have a love-hate relationship with Windows. Just like feuding couples won't easily split-up if they have kids, the market will stick with Windows.
Re:A successor to Windows (Score:2)
This is the current situation. However, Microsoft hasn't spent $billions marketing a new OS from the makers of Windows, that's better than Windows, runs old Windows apps, runs cool new apps that don't run on Windows, and is ready for the future.
Don't exist? (Score:3, Informative)
ahem... a*hem* [bell-labs.com]
Re: Windows Ponders Successor (Score:2, Insightful)
good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:good grief (Score:5, Insightful)
But that does present a serious problem for MS: It costs arbitrarily close to nothing to build all that when you spread the cost over a few hundred million people. From an economic standpoint, there is no reason to have commercial operating systems any more. The only thing that has them on life support is artificial barriers to entry, and the market hates those, so they're not going to last.
The same is true of any common software. It has already happened to web browsers, email clients, IM, and many others. It is happening to office software now. The money is in small-market, big value applications like AutoCAD, custom enterprise software, and software that enables particular business models (eBay, PayPal, Facebook). Proprietary commodity software is the walking dead.
If they want to do some long term research (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:If they want to do some long term research (Score:3, Insightful)
MSFT has been doing just that for several years, and it's a pretty impressive project. It's called Singularity [microsoft.com].
Singularity (Score:5, Funny)
Then maybe a clever student, frustrated because the license won't allow him or her to modify it, will re-impliment a new OS out of Singularity. If they allow a lot of other people to contribute, it could get big really fast...
Re:Singularity (Score:2)
Is it possible? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is it possible? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is it possible? (Score:5, Interesting)
1. There are files everywhere in a root drive called C:\.
2. When my computer boots I see all these grey characters, bios, IDE info, etc. etc.
3. Some applications, when installed, seem to be "everywhere"... they aren't just single little entities.
4. There are thousands upon thousands of files, where you don't know what they do.
Of course, Windows has a lot of plusses -- I can't remember any time Windows XP told me I didn't have enough conventional memory. And these problems are not unique to Windows, either.
But I think my original point is that we would have to start seeing durastic changes in the way the computer works for the "next gen" operating system. Vista, IMHO, does not cut it.... in fact, it is (at least from what I have seen in the beta) the worst OS to be released since Windows 98.
Re:Is it possible? (Score:3, Insightful)
1. There are files everywhere in a root drive called C:\.
Windows has tried forever to make the drive structure opaque (or at least translucent) to the user... Witness the obnoxious "are you sure" dialogs when you go into C:, C:\Windows\ or C:\Windows\System32... pathetic at best, obnoxious at worst. But short of revamping the entire drive structure to make "the bad bits invisible" it'll be awhile before Windows makes it look as seamless a
5 or 6 projects... (Score:3, Funny)
Sucessor to windows? (Score:5, Funny)
2. Gates.
3. Sunscreens.
4. Smokescreens.
5. Chairs.... or rather, Chairs! Chairs! Chairs!!!
Re:Sucessor to windows? (Score:3, Funny)
Windows Successor? (Score:2, Insightful)
Article Summary - Rewritten... (Score:5, Funny)
Gates looked at Vista, and left, holding his nose! Before we let this beast loose on gullible folks, we want to pacify them, saying we're working on a better alternative...
Speaking at The Venture Forum conference, Microsoft's Bryan Barnett, a program manager for external research programs in the Microsoft Research group, said multicore architectures are of particular interest when weighing what to put in future operating systems at the company. "Taking full advantage of the processing power that those multicore architectures potentially make available requires operating systems and development tools that don't exist largely today,"
Our policy has always been "Whatever Intel giveth (in speed), Microsoft taketh away!"
Barnett said. Well, with Vista in the pipeline as long as it has been, you must admit it is not surprising Microsoft is taking the long-term view.
Well... we've taken a long while to build some junk, we've thrown out all useful stuff we promised.. don't worry, we'll keep working harder and longer in similar fashion.
And it won't be built overnight: There is no timetable for a Windows successor right now.
WE WON'T MAKE THE MISTAKE OF ANNOUNCING TIME TABLES AGAIN... NEVER, EVER!!! The successor to Windows could come in the next centruy... we won't be there, we won't care, but there's nothing wrong living in hope... We'll announce this non-event, non-timetabled non-initiative in Slashdot though!
But early work on this effort has not yet been organized
We are proud to declare that we have NOT YET started this NON-INITIATIVE
With five or six small projects afoot in various places throughout the company, Barnett said.
Some five or six groups of disgruntled employees have given up on Vista.... and now, they're talking about joining Google to Build The Successor To Windows...
Actually, we should've posted this in Ask Slashdot... but we aren't part of the OSDL, and we have our pride.. so we announce it as News for Nerds... Thanks for your suggestions!
Re:Article Summary - Rewritten... (Score:2, Funny)
Hey, if you had tested Vista, you would know that they've already figured this one out...
A successor (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re:A successor (Score:2, Insightful)
Games
When games I buy at the store can be popped into my Linux system and installed with no fuss... Linux will have arrived. I want to install a linux os in a few minutes, run an OS updater, install several random top shelf games, and have them all run flawlessly (no matter what type of hardware I have). Until that happens linux will ALWAYS be a novelty OS.
Video games drive what OS is used for a majority of users. That is the way it has always been, and the way it will always be.
I run Wi
MS... the news of yesterday (Score:3, Funny)
Marketing is one thing, lying is another. Oh, wait, this is MS.
I so hate them when they speak about SW and OSes like there would exist nothing nowhere besides Windows. So, no wonder I don't ever like what they say.
A successor to Microsoft (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft is, or will be soon, in the same boat. There are fewer and fewer reasons that one needs Microsoft. FOSS is becoming more and more viable. At some point ATI and NVIDIA will have to start playing nice with the open source community. Microsoft will be faced with the choice of evolving or fading away into obscurity. Usually companies fade away when thwacked upside
MS needs to compete against itself (Score:5, Insightful)
In 1983, Apple's latest and greatest was the Apple IIe. Although Lisa/Lisa II tanked, Apple did OK with a new machine it rolled out in 1984.
As numerous books and articles have detailed, the Macintosh development unit was given preferential treatment, many resources, and an impossible mandate. The result was a computer that radically altered the personal computer industry. The hardware was new, the OS was new, the applications were new - everything about it was new. Nothing like the Mac had been seen in the computer market.
Microsoft already has competitors, in the form of Apple, Linux, Google, and web app vendors who want to kill the desktop altogether. One more competitor, loaded with cash, unencumbered by a requirement to maintain backward compatibility with Windows, and given a well-articulated mission might be able to come up with something radically new and better than anything currently available.
If MS doesn't recognize that their golden goose is fast becoming a lead albatross, they're going to continue to lose their ability to shape the market. Getting by on marketing and control of PC OEMs isn't going to cut it any more. They need to put some of that massive stockpile of money into something truly bold. The question is, are they organizationally equipped to do so? Is it in their DNA, or have they become too atrophied?
Re:MS needs to compete against itself (Score:4, Funny)
There is no timetable for a Windows successor... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is the best joke I've heard in a long while
They kept pushing and postponing Vista's dates and continuously dropping features for how long now ? Right. Now what can you read above: no timetable for the one following Vista. Ok.
I can of course understand that for a company it is very important to show that they have long term plans. And they need to tell that convincingly. Right now, I'm not convinced about neither.
Obsolesence of native code (Score:5, Insightful)
It works great for DRM, because sandboxed code cannot manipulate other code. If implemented correctly, something that Microsoft has shown to be possible with the 360 (though with native code), it would be unbreakable other than at the hardware level. Microsoft would make it so that only Microsoft-signed programs are allowed to run natively, whereas
This is terrible and I hope Microsoft meets a lot of resistance.
Melissa
Re:Obsolesence of native code (Score:2)
Microsoft Singularity might come to the fore (Score:2, Interesting)
It also has the goal of being a fully managed operating system, so it should be possible to host it on a variety of devices.
When it comes
Vista (Score:2, Insightful)
Vista 2, aka XP3 ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Look what we ended up with.
History repeats itself, repeats itself, itself...
Re:In other Words... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In other Words... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In other Words... (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with everything you said except for that last one. Trying to adapt to run Windows programs is what killed OS/2, which at the time was a much better OS than Win3.1 (what wasn't?). A true object oriented, multi-tasking, 32-bit operating system that ran circles around Windows, except of course in running Windows apps. Why should anyone even bother to develop for another OS if any new one will just try to run Windows apps as well as Windows? If that's what you want well, then just get Windows!
Re:In other Words... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:In other Words... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:In other Words... (Score:4, Insightful)
Vista may not end up being the best thing since sliced bread, but let's act as introduced geeks on the subject and not compare Vista to xgl.
xgl is a layer for the window manager, Vista is an operating system. Graphics subsystem. Operating system. Apples. Oranges.
I mean, does xgl come with the BitLocker technology? Does it let Linux make use of USB memory sticks as virtual RAM? See also its new features [wikipedia.org]. I know, many features are already shared by Linux distros, but that still doesn't make an xgl <-> Vista comparison any less idiotic. Compare with Aero as you like, but not Vista. You don't compare KDE with e.g a full distro often, now do you?
I don't understand how such major flaws in an argument can give a +5 Insightful.
No wait, it was defending Linux.
Nevermind.
Re:In other Words... (Score:4, Insightful)
is what you yourself wrote a few sentences before: Breaking MS stranglehold on the OEMs. If windos were something that you had to buy extra, people would start looking for alternatives.