Fresh Air For Windows? 645
jmcbain writes "The NY Times has an opinion piece on how the next Windows could be designed (even through Microsoft has already laid plans for Windows 7). The author suggests 'A monolithic operating system like Windows perpetuates an obsolete design. We don't need to load up our machines with bloated layers we won't use.' He also brings up the example of Apple breaking ties with its legacy OS when OS X was built. Can Windows move forward with a completely new, fast, and secure OS and still keep legacy application support?"
Of Course They Should... (Score:3, Insightful)
but I still wouldn't buy it.
Time to Get Rid of The Gates Borg Icon (Score:5, Insightful)
Now that Bill Gates is retired from Microsoft, the editors should get with the times and lose that dated, painfully unfunny logo they use for Microsoft.
Most people probably wouldn't get the Borg reference to begin with, and now Bill Gates era at MS is officially in the past.
Only MS gets this ridiculous logo..now its finally the time they get rid of it.
oh come on (Score:3, Insightful)
Why Not for Linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why bother pretending that Microsoft will do anything with Windows that's interesting at all, when it's clearly spending its time and money making "more of the same", and its design constraints are clearly defined by its corporate interests.
How about just making a version of Linux like that? If more work also makes Wine work a lot more reliably for most Windows apps, the whole thing could do a lot better than Microsoft at making "Windows" users happier.
No (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who started developing applications for Windows in 1991 and stopped around 1999, I doubt it. Better let legacy applications (and the whole x86 mess too, BTW) fade away, they have gone far beyond their useful life.
Hold on a second (Score:2, Insightful)
Not gonna work / we already have it (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple could do that because they were much smaller than Microsoft, and had a small but relatively loyal customer base, and their rewrite did pay off, as people are generally very happy with OS X and don't care about the incompatibility with OS 9 and older anymore.
Microsoft has a huge userbase with much less loyalty, and generally a huge existing investment in software.
We don't need a MS Windows rewrite, we've already got Ubuntu, because that's essentially what the article author wants: an operating system that Just Works[tm], even at the expense of compatibility. That's a pretty good description of any popular Linux distribution.
Why is this news? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, yeah, this is slashdot. /.ers everywhere. I mean, imagine if MS actually delivered a wonderful, light OS! That would certainly be the end of /. as we know it!
Microsoft already said they will build on Vista instead of going the microkernel way, and we have discussed that fact to death.
Windows 7 will not be "Fresh Air", to the delight of
Legacy application support (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, considering the fact that Vista's all but killed the chance of running any software made before the year 2000, I'd have to say "no".
It's pretty bad when old Windows software is much more likely to run under Wine than with the latest version of Windows.
duh... its called Virtualization.... (Score:2, Insightful)
full backward compatibility is trivial... the windows kernel and platform team will use transparent Virtualization of all the older windows kernels (XP and Vista) to support all old apps and drivers.
They should make a concerted effort to drop legacy (Score:5, Insightful)
To me it's always been an excuse to keep windows bloated, and not actually any effort to keep old software functional.
Fluff piece (Score:5, Insightful)
He really doesn't know anything about the internals of the Windows kernel or the Mach kernel, he's just assuming that since the NT kernel is "monolithic" and the Mach kernel is a "microkernel" then the latter must be better, and the reason it's better is it is "smaller."
If you want to know where the real problems with Windows lie, they're in the API and the shell, not the kernel. The NT kernel is perfectly fine. See this Ars write-up by someone knowlegeable:
http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/what-microsoft-could-learn-from-apple.ars [arstechnica.com]
I'd like to point out that Microsoft employs one of the original authors of the Mach kernel, Rick Rashid. He runs Microsoft Research. Look it up.
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fluff piece (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd like to point out that Microsoft employs one of the original authors of the Mach kernel, Rick Rashid. He runs Microsoft Research. Look it up.
Being put in MS 'Research' is the kiss of death if you want to make something that MS will ship. They seem to hire those brilliant people and give them massive funding only to keep them happy and prevent them from working for a competitor who might want to actually SHIP something brilliant they would come up with. Rather like IBM, only substitute incompetence in place of amorality as motivation.
Re:Why Not for Linux? (Score:2, Insightful)
A.) You need to make Linux or WINE 100% Windows API-compliant, including Direct X support for gamers who would otherwise make the switch (good luck with that short of Microsoft actually granting unrestricted access to full documentation of the APIs and/or source code; neither of which I would ever expect to happen). On top of this, you would have to devise a fool-proof way of installing legacy Windows apps either natively or under WINE. By "fool-proof" I mean "as easy as installing it on Windows" not "hack this
B.) Proprietary software vendors writing their applications for Linux and wrestling with both the implications of working with Open Source code and licensing and trying to DRM their products at the same level they do for Windows, the latter of which would meet with *major* resistance from the Open Source community.
Scenario B shouldn't be a show-stopper over the long-term, but I think it will prevent any major migration to open source platforms from Windows until people stop seeing Windows as The Only Choice (TM).
Re:Time to Get Rid of The Gates Borg Icon (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Die Monkey Boy (Score:5, Insightful)
Precisely. Other OSes are designed to be used, while Windows is designed to be sold.
don't bother (Score:3, Insightful)
quasi-informed op-ed piece. don't bother.
better to spend your time reading the classic piece about why software projects fail and why "version 2" is the most dangerous. a central point of that is "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater", ie it is a fallacy to believe that your 2nd version will be less buggy than the first. it will probably be just as buggy, only less well tested.
I hope a learned CS major can provide the link, as I'm drawing a blank on the author.
Re:heh, normal version (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, this is what it normally says....
Register for NYTimes.com.
Breaking news and award winning multimedia
New York Times newspaper articles
Arts & Dining reviews
Online Classifieds
It's free and it only takes a minute!
Log In Now
In order to access our Web site, your Web browser must accept cookies from NYTimes.com. More information.
Member ID or
E-Mail Address:
Password:
Forgot Your Password?
(WTF? Why even bother posting these things? You work for the NYT?)
Re:Fluff piece (Score:5, Insightful)
The Ars Technica piece is interesting, but I'm pretty skeptical about this whole idea of making radical changes in Windows and breaking backward-compatibility.
One thing you have to keep in mind is that there's a huge downside for the user when you break backward-compatibility. Apple actually did an amazing job of maintaining backward-compatibility when they made the switch from 68000 to powerpc, but when they brought out MacOS X, the backward compatibility was lousy. You could still run classic apps on X, but they typically worked very poorly -- some features wouldn't work, apps would crash, and it took a really long time to start up the classic environment. Essentially Apple expected you to buy all new applications. Then Apple kept on bringing out frequent point-upgrades to MacOS X, and every single one cost a significant amount of money. My wife bought one of the early lamp-shaped iMacs, and we stayed on the upgrade treadmill for a while, but it really got old spending money every six months or so for a new version of the OS, so at this point we're still running an old version of MacOS on that (expensive) machine. Now we basically can't run any new software, because it only works on newer versions of MacOS X.
It's also worth looking at it from MS's point of view. They're a monopoly, and their interest is in keeping users sucking at the tit. Maintaining backward compatibility has worked very well for them. One of the main things keeping Windows users from jumping ship for another OS is that they know their apps will continue to work. It's actually kind of amazing. I tech at a community college, and some of my colleagues are still using an old DOS shareware planetarium app. It still runs on Windows XP.
Meh. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the author of the article doesn't realize the difference between the legacy code and kernel architecture. Kernel architecture of windows is fine - its a hybrid kernel, which in general similar to Linux, you're not able to run in HPC on it, but hey, it is better than DOS! It's the legacy code that creates so much bloat, and swapping out the kernel won't change anything if the same mountain of code still runs.
Of course Microsoft could create virtualization layer, but then Linux has Qemu, Xen and Wine, and OS X has Parallels and Wine, and of course there is VMware, so if Microsoft would ever support legacy code through virtualization, alternative implementation of it would be release pretty quickly, and everybody here knows how Microsoft likes competition.
My guess there will be dying for the next 10-15 agonizing years, dragging any progress in the industry with them.
Re:Fluff piece (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's policy is to provide approximately 100% transparent support ONE version back. They did an incredible job with classic (supporting OS 9 in OS X) and an even better job in the transition with rosetta. (supporting ppc on intel)
While it was fairly obvious you were running an OS 9 app in classic, almost no one notices a rosetta app running on an intel. Now notice, intels do NOT support classic. That's their "one hop" rule at work. And you can bet their next big one will drop support for powerpc.
So this can be done, but it's hard to get right. But when you get it right, nobody notices. And that's a good thing.
This is a bit like Windows. The problem they've had is that there's a lot more transition from dos to 95 to 98 to 2000 to xp to vista. None of those was entirely pleasant, and none of them were very transparent. Only half of them provided major new features, but all of them clung to numerous existing problems. So in the same timeframe, Apple has made just two massive leaps, with less "transition shock" in their two bumps that windows has seen in their five. The interim transitions (os 8 to os 9, 10.1 all the way to 10.5 really) were almost completely transparent.
They've got a lesson to learn here. XP probably would have been a good time to do a "major bump" such as mac did with 9 to X, but they dropped the ball. They chose to break less, but to fix less as a consequence. Eventually they have to bite the bullet and fix as many of the underlying design problems as they possibly can in one fell swoop. It's going to break stuff. Maybe a lot of stuff. But if they could provide something like Apple did with classic support for OS 9, it wouldn't be so bad. Apple proved that it's not necessary to just totally break all your old software if you can provide decent emulated support for your previous OS inside the new one, invisibly.
Sadly I don't see this happening with Windows anytime soon. Microsoft has never had a knack for making those internal transparent emulators like classic and rosetta. Unless they can get something like this together, it's either going to continue to be a wreck, or it's going to be a disastrous pill to swallow. Continuing to try to make these "baby step" fixes is going to drive the world crazy.
Re:Fluff piece (Score:1, Insightful)
Exactly -- Microsoft is stuck supporting tons of obsolete APIs in future versions of Windows because they chose to introduce new and exciting object models and libraries. That's where all the OS complexity has come from (that and hardware drivers, of course).
Microsoft is faced with two unpleasant choices at this point: 1) support all these older APIs to avoid breaking existing applications, or 2) streamline the libraries and break applications, giving big incentive to users to jump ship to OS X. Remember, they're paranoid?
Re:oh come on (Score:4, Insightful)
-A file manager
-A web browser
-Multiple filesystem support
-Most extensive driver library in existence
-Office tools like Mail, WordPad, Calendar, Calculator, Contacts, Paint?
-Full command line environment (DOS)
-Complete media architecture in DirectX.. that's DirectSound DirectInput DirectDraw.. a LOT of big packages if it was Linux. Also Windows Media Player/Photo Gallery
-Graphics APIs and rendering engines
-Remote desktop
-Labyrinthe configuration utilities and applets
-Monster domain features.. detailed ACLs on every resource, complex user permissions, domain controls enforced on clients (integrated securely right into the interface)..
Especially on the last one you have to admit that Windows has done some things right, and anyway it's certainly not just a kernel image and a window server. People expect a complete environment for Getting Work Done.
Is it too late... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
Memory requirements might matter; but since we're looking at release two years from now, then 2GB is a reasonable requirement. If they base the "compatibility" code on XP rather than Vista, then it might be viable.
The biggest problem I see is what to tell people right now. Saying, "oh yeah, the next version of Windows will be completely different" is not likely to go down well, and is unlikely to encourage anyone to "upgrade" to Vista prior to Windows 7. But saying "Windows 7 will be based on Vista" isn't particularly inspiring either!
The marketing solution will likely be to not really give any concrete answers for as long as possible whilst telling people Windows 7 will build on their existing investment. If they don't do this, people might start looking elsewhere!!
Re:The "7" refers to nothing in particular (Score:3, Insightful)
They apparently started NT at version 3 as to keep in line with Windows 3.
Re:Fluff piece (Score:1, Insightful)
Even worse than the cruft in the current APIs is the proliferation of short-lived, poorly-designed and poorly-supported new ones. Take GDI+ -- much better and more powerful API than GDI, supported texturing, clipping, and antialiasing... except for the little catch that it never got hardware accelerated. That was supposed to arrive with the GDI 2.0 DDI, which never happened. Now it looks like GDI+ is on life support with no real team behind it and no one wants to fix the bugs in it. Oh, but now we can switch to WPF... except that it's .NET only, very graphics hardware hungry for what it does, and has a set of drawing primitives that look like it came from the 1970s. Oh, and it seems that Microsoft is now shifting its focus to Silverlight again.
As another example, see Managed DirectX vs. XNA, where MS cut the legs out from a number of tool vendors who were suddenly stuck with a games-oriented API that didn't support multiple windows. See also WinForms, which amazingly seems to be getting less active development than MFC now.
ISVs don't have any real guarantee that anything new that Microsoft comes up with is a suitable replacement for the previous API or that they won't become bored and drop the API on the floor for the next pet project of the month. Even when new APIs do come out and have weight thrown behind them, they're often crap out the door... just look at the Desktop Window Manager (DWM), which was designed years after Mac OS X Quartz and Aqua debuted and for which we lost 2D acceleration in GDI/DirectDraw apps, and yet the new DWM doesn't even let you alpha blend a child window!
Adding to the whole mess is .NET, not so much because of problems in .NET itself, but because Microsoft keeps trying to mix managed code into API transitions. Instead of designing a new, clean native API and then layering a managed API on top of it, MS is fond of just trying to push a new managed API. This raises the bar much higher for ISVs considering migrating existing code, because now they have to consider migrating to .NET on top of switching APIs... which is even more of a mess because .NET itself is also a moving target.
Re:Time to Get Rid of The Gates Borg Icon (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Short answer: no (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows NT was a re-write of OS/2 when Microsoft divorced IBM (or vice versa, depending on whom you believe). It started a new code branch, one that ran in 32-bit only (advanced at the time) and inter-version compatibility was often iffy at best-- NOT mostly compatible.
These two code branches merged at Windows 2000.
I smell a rat behind the entire thing. Windows 7 might be a hypervisor with plug-ins for whatever. I think Microsoft is floating trial ballons to see what might be marketable after the enormous and embarrassing mistakes found in Vista. It's an actual, along with a PR nightmare for them and justifiably so. Were I a stockholder, I'd have their heads.
Don't mistake for a moment that Microsoft is still seeking solutions to the enormous problems they have in stagnation. Vista was supposed to be a monumental endeavor, and it's a monumental disaster for them. Now that BIll's gone, who knows what's going to happen.
Re:oh come on (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: can windows move forward? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be dangerous to reason by historical analogy, because the hardware situation is qualitatively different now. CPUs are no longer showing the kind of Moore's-law growth in power that they used to. Meanwhile ram and hard disks are ridiculously cheap. For the typical user who just uses a computer for websurfing, email, and word-processing, it's kind of silly to spend any significant amount of money on a new system. They already have more ram and disk space than they need, and the CPU isn't going to be that much faster. We're seeing perfectly reasonable desktop hardware now for $200, and it won't be long until you can get that same hardware for $50.
If I was one of the people at the helm of Microsoft, I'd be really worried about this, because when the hardware is $50, there's not going to be much room left for profit on the OS. Most retailers have been reluctant to sell cheap hardware, because their own margins on it are thin, but it's just a matter of time until that changes. Fry's sold $200 Great-Quality-brand machines for years, and WalMart is now selling the gPC online for $200. Once people realize that they can get a computer for $100, or $50, the dam is going to have to break, and retailers are no longer going to be able to sell machines at prices of $500 or $1000. It's going to be like the transition from the radio as a big wooden box to the transistor radio that you could carry with you to the beach, and throw in a dumpster if it got sand and water in it.
In this new landscape, there's very little reason for MS to exist. One of the few reasons left for them to exist is that people have money invested in software, and they don't want to have to buy new software. The insane success of the eeePC -- and even at much higher prices than they originally thought they could get --- shows how vulnerable MS is. There are a lot of users out there who just use their computers for word-processing, email, and websurfing. Maybe first they buy a $50 Linux box for their kid to use to write her high school papers. That works out okay, and pretty soon the kid is like, "Mom, are you crazy? You're talking about spending $400 for a new computer? Just buy one like mine."
Re:Why Not for Linux? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, most people just want apps that do what they need to do. They don't care whether it's "Linux" or "Windows" or "both" or "neither". They don't even want an app, just to do what they need to do. Something that just runs Windows apps, because those do what people think they need to do, and does it without the crap that is Windows, but rather a simpler new paradigm, would be welcomed. Some of the extra Linux apps would probably be welcomed too, especially if they could be used side by side their familiar Windows apps. And they won't care whether it's running on top of "Linux", or "Winedows" or whatever, so long as it runs. Since Linux is a good basis to roll out a new PC OS on top of, especially with its existing developer and other community, which keeps any Linux-based OS compatible with most HW, it's a good means to that end. At an adequate degree of complexity, Wine doesn't "change", it just remains stable and the apps "just work". Which is a long way away still, but we're talking about a way to give people the "next generation" of PC environments. Without waiting for "Windows 8", or probably "Windows 9", or probably "Windows Never".
That's the point of new PC paradigms. Not to "do Windows" better, or to "do Linux" at all, but to make people's computers "do my job" better.
Re:oh come on (Score:5, Insightful)
-A file manager - There is Thunar in Xubuntu, Nautilus in Ubuntu and Konqueror in Kubuntu
-A web browser - Firefox
-Multiple filesystem support - Ubuntu can read/write more filesystems then Windows can
-Most extensive driver library in existence - Except for the fact that on 90% of hardware I can get Ubuntu to get everything to work out-of-the box except for proprietary drivers for ATI/nVidia cards and Ubuntu makes that easy, Windows is a pain to install without like 10 driver CDs or an OEM restore disk
-Office tools like Mail, WordPad, Calendar, Calculator, Contacts, Paint? - Thunderbird, OOo, a calendar program, a calculator program, various contacts programs and The GIMP
-Full command line environment (DOS) - Full UNIX shell (BASH) -Complete media architecture in DirectX.. that's DirectSound DirectInput -has Linux equivalents though I can't think of them off the top of my head -DirectDraw.. a LOT of big packages if it was Linux. Also Windows Media Player/Photo Gallery - Totem/Amarok for WMP
-Graphics APIs and rendering engines -Again, found on Linux
-Remote desktop - VNC/SSH
-Labyrinthe configuration utilities and applets -Don't really know what that is, a Wiki search returned nothing -Monster domain features.. detailed ACLs on every resource, complex user permissions, domain controls enforced on clients (integrated securely right into the interface). - UNIX-style permissions, secure by default
Just about everything you said is included on Linux on a *Buntu default install, or can be added without going over what Vista has installed. Sorry to say, but really Vista is just pure bloat. Lets see what is in a default * Buntu install that Windows doesn't have...
Full Office Suite - OOo
Photoshop Replacement - The GIMP
Various network services - Telnet, SSH, etc
(*real*)3-D Desktop - Compiz-Fusion
Multiple Desktops
PDF Reader
Various support for files that Windows doesn't have by default (Ogg, FLAC, etc)
As you can see, Windows just can't compete with Linux when it comes to programs per storage space. In 5 gigs of a Vista install you get just about only the default install, in 5 gigs of a Ubuntu install, you get the default install, plus some of your files, some development tools, some more games, a few more applications, etc.
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
It is already beginning. I submit the EEpc, OLPC, and the sudden burst of real computers with real OS''s being shipped for under $400 right now Windows is holding back more development than anything else, especially with the intel atom processor. sorry you can't get a $100 OS onto a $400 device.
why do you think msft is still selling XP for only low powered devices that Vista couldn't run on if it went on a diet. Why do you think MSFT is intentionally trying to limit the specs of such devices when they are already as powerful as any computer of 6 years ago?
Re:Short answer: no (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft is many, many times more developer friendly than Apple. For example,
http://trolltech.com/company/newsroom/announcements/press.2007-06-19.6756913411/?searchterm=codebase [trolltech.com]
At least the windows API has been stable for a LONG time. You can get code that was running on Windows NT to continue to run, mostly. Or at least have a reasonable way of porting it. Stuff doesn't suddenly disappear in Windows.
This is good news for developers. For some reason, users think that Apple was is better. I guess people only care about the latest-greatest app instead of having an inhouse or custom made application working for a decade or so, then Apple may look better.
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
Erm, when did CPUs stop showing exponential growth in performance? Was that a memo that nobody sent to Intel [intel.com]?
Although clockspeeds are stuck because it is no longer economical to raise them, performance and transistor density are still scaling at the same rate. If anything we are in a period of performance increases that is slightly above trend, because now that the horrific NetBurst ISA has been killed off the Core2 replacement is rather lovely. Clock-for-clock it runs twice as fast as the old ISA because of shorter pipeline stages that have reduced instruction latency, and so far Intel have doubled the number of cores every 18 months. Given that they are ready to scale up to new fabs that can handle 2B transistors I would assume that they can continue to do so for the near future.
It would be a seismic shift for the industry if processor performance flatlined but I don't see that happening for a long time. What we are seeing with the introduction of the Eee Pc et al is actually a trend that has been going on for decades. Roughly every ten years a new form factor is introduced at the bottom of the market, with the same performance, but with the price halving each time.
So although your analysis of what changes are happening is way off, your final paragraph is quite accurate about what it means. The amount of performance that people actually require for most day-to-day tasks was exceeded when processors passed the Ghz mark. Now we are seeing cheaper and cheaper devices that deliver that (roughly) constant power. The effect on Microsoft is likely to be as you predict.
Re:Short answer: no (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's see what's wrong with Vista:
1) lack of hardware drivers, rendering many machines obsolete
2) lack of support for legacy apps (although arguably, some of those apps were badly written)
3) intensive hassling of the user because of inept prior version code that make user root/admin
4) truly piggish DRM
And so you might consider that point #1 prevented adoption in a big way-- this over-bloated mistake needs lots of hardware, and most of it fresh and new from OEMs willing to make lots of money supplying it to you. Many machines simply didn't work at all despite hardware compatibility meeting the match because the HCList was buggered, too.
You haven't listened and I find it incredulous that you would mark someone as troll for your rationale. The information is out there about why Vista has been such a huge disappointment, but you aren't facing the facts that millions of users have rejected it for precisely the reasons I state above.
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
Move to a nix-y kernel, release a full
I suspect they'd introduce/keep their own API, though. I wouldn't expect X Windows to be bundled with (let's say) "Windows X"; they likely would use the transition to more strongly push Windows Forms over the older system, though.
And of course, don't expect their addons to be Open Source, even if they do adopt the Linux kernel.
In short, see OS/X.
Re:Why is this news? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there really anything wrong with the Windows kernel? I mean, if Microsoft improved the shell, cleared out some of the cruft, and implemented standard file formats, protocols, etc. Wouldn't it at least be relatively decent?
Lots of what people complain about are GUI problems, bundled applications, copy protection, and a failure to support standards. Not to downplay those complaints, but those aren't really an issue of the technical capabilities of the kernel itself.
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
Eclipse? Fast?
Re:Sorry, but (Score:3, Insightful)
the instruction sets were a superset, but the memory model was different. Remember the diff between 8088/8086/80286?
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
MY Posts may be correct, or may not be correct, but they are definitely not basically correct.
Re:Short answer: no (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's see what's wrong with Vista:
1) lack of hardware drivers, rendering many machines obsolete
...which is a problem with the hardware and/or the hardware manufacturer who decided not to support their hardware in Vista. It is NOT a problem of Vista any more than some hardware without a working Linux driver is a problem of Linux.
2) lack of support for legacy apps (although arguably, some of those apps were badly written)
every single one of which was badly written. MS had been spending years and uncounted dollars telling people how to write their apps so that they will remain compatible with future versions of Windows. If people insist on circumventing the Windows API and writing their own little gizmos to implement some functionality then they shouldn't be surprised when this functionality ceases to function when the underlying OS structure changes.
This, too, is not a problem with Vista, but with retarded children who imagine they're "programmers" because they get one kind of function working in one version of one OS and fantasize that from there on all OS progress must be halted so as to not break their crummy little hack.
3) intensive hassling of the user because of inept prior version code that make user root/admin
And you're pointing out yourself that this is ALSO not a problem with Vista. It's a problem with lazy and inept 3rd-party programmers who insisted on making everybody root. Which is decidedly a BAD idea. Which MS correctly identified and put a halt on. MS did every single thing right here and you call it "buggy".
That's why you're a Troll.
4) truly piggish DRM
Yeah - let's round it out with a statement that's not measurable or quantifiable. "piggish". Hum.
You have failed to name one single of the "enormous and embarrassing mistakes found in Vista" you claimed before. Not one. Because there are no particular mistakes in Vista. The usual slew of a little bug here and a minor annoyance there; but as I said, certainly no more of them than XP ever had.
That's why I call you a troll. Because you make an assertion of "enormous and embarrassing mistakes found in Vista" and yet you are completely incapable when it comes to naming some of them.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Short answer: no (Score:1, Insightful)
1) Your defense of Microsoft is admirable, but hardware makers had a long chance and decided what to do. The drivers are issued officially by Microsoft, and Microsoft didn't do the work necessary to attract hardware makers to submit their code to Microsoft so that they could be 'certified'.
2) your defense of coders is admirable. Have a nice day.
3) Sure. Let users be flooded with messages that they don't understand, patching years of problems where user==root. Fie.
4) the DRM is truly miserable; Microsoft took the worst parts of Apple's stance and made them worse. Intellectual property at its worse.
Pre-releasing it was well worse. If wanting a baked operating system with real drivers is being a troll, then that's what I am.
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the few reasons left for them to exist is that people have money invested in software, and they don't want to have to buy new software
I'd restate it as "One of the few reasons left for them to exist is that people have money invested in data locked up in proprietary Microsoft filetypes". I don't care that I have lots of .xls files on my hard disk - I care that I have tax returns and invoices on my hard disk. If Excel ever goes away, so does easy access to my data.
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see what's wrong with Vista: 1) lack of hardware drivers, rendering many machines obsolete
...which is a problem with the hardware and/or the hardware manufacturer who decided not to support their hardware in Vista. It is NOT a problem of Vista any more than some hardware without a working Linux driver is a problem of Linux.
Why is this a problem with the hardware manufacturers? Microsoft made major changes to the driver model, partly to implement their DRM, so writing new drivers is time consuming and expensive. So Microsoft gets to make a fortune selling Vista; but the hardware manufacturers are supposed to spend a fortune writing new drivers for old equipment they sold years ago, so everyone upgrades to Vista and Microsoft can make even more money. Microsoft should pay the hardware manufacturers to write new drivers.
Apple is very developer friendly (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure what you're trying to point out with your link. Existing Qt 32-bit applications continue to work, and either Apple will provide 64-bit Carbon in an update or they'll fix the HIView dependent Qt libraries when they transition away from Carbon. This issue has a negligible impact, and has nothing to do with "stuff suddenly disappearing" as you imply.
I've been developing, publishing, supporting, and updating my Mac shareware program for 12 years - since Mac OS 7.5. Originally written to the Mac OS classic toolbox, I adapted it to CarbonLib in 1999 with some effort, to get ready for Mac OS 9, and I ported it to Carbon OS X in 2001, making it much better in the process. And I'll be porting it to Cocoa later this year, and taking it an entirely new level through the use of the latest Mac OS X APIs for compositing and animation.
All along the way Apple has been great, and always getting better, especially since they released XCode. The tools are free, very usable, and every bit of API documentation is right there in XCode. And now they've released Cocoa 2, which is just a clear and wonderful programming API.
Apple may have made a lot of changes over the last 12 years, but the changes have been constant improvements, and have had minimal impact on legacy applications. I am grateful for the quality of the work they do to save me time and make the work easier. And as a guy who started programming as a young hobbyist, I'm especially happy to see Apple giving away their development tools for free. It means kids can stumble into programming just like I did way back in 1977.
Re:Short answer: no (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
Though you are generally correct, it is important to note that doubling the number of cores doesn't improve performance as much as doubling the clock speed (or improving the number of cycles the average instructions take) because of troubles running serialized software software in parallel. Doubling is great, quadrupling is pretty good, but eventually you just don't get much bang. (Or, at least you won't without serious software improvement.) It's a serious problem the industry will soon face.
But as you say, it is questionable if most people actually need more performance.
Re:Short answer: no (Score:3, Insightful)
oh come on, if vista had not done anything to address the problem of windows apps running as admin, you would be here typing the same anti-vista whine, this time bitching that they did nothing about security.
I'm with the GP here, heck, I'm a flipping bedroom coder, and even *I* knew back in the days when XP was new, that you do not save data outside of the MyDocuments branch, and coded appropriately. anyone who carried on ignoring that guideline is just fucking lazy.
And to top it all, vista even accommodates them! by virtualizing the locations and keeping the true file write destination hidden from those legacy apps.
I wish vista was much smaller and more modular, and had better performance, but the reasons you give for criticising it are just lame.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Short answer: no (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you serious? I've seen Vista running like a dog on hardware that's still got bits of polystyrene packaging hanging off it. Swapping the same machine to Ubuntu produced a shocking increase in performance, even with as many visual effects as I could find turned on.
And no, I didn't 'stick with windows 98SE' because I was on Windows 2K when XP came out, like most professional users. Now I am on OS X and Debian and couldn't be happier as a non-windows user.
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
remember that MS has just embraced .NET and with it the mantra "memory is cheap". So even though the world is moving towards lower-resource systems (especially power), Vista is stuck in last years attitude of "use more for more features (that no-one really wants)".
I am a MS developer for years, since NT came along and blew the hideously expensive Unix workstations away. I've been in love with their dev tools and documentation, but not any more. I feel the lock-in of C# now (yes, and I remember MS's "interoperability" programmes for years back, none of which were designed to do anything but act as marketing for non-crippled "do it on windows instead").
I think the passing of Gates will be seen as a turning point for MS. Media analysts are asking "where now for MS", the world is asking for the opposite of Vista, the DoJ is making sure all the dots are slashed at MS now, Linux is making inroads (slowly) everywhere you look.
MS only hope is developer lock-in with .NET, to ensure that Windows has a future because of all the 3rd party software that is written for it means businesses cannot live without it, or cannot get the same software on Linux.
That's the way things go - the world moves on no matter how big you used to be.
Re:Short answer: no (Score:5, Insightful)
Modern OS's do sandboxing already, ie running everything in its own memory space with copy-on-write shared libs, and no write access to the kernel space or other apps. It helps stability a lot compared to the older OS's with a flat memory space, but it hinders performance too. AmigaOS ran in a flat memory space, and was very fast, but one program could easily crash the whole system. On the other hand, the inherent instability forced app developers to write decent code instead of relying on the OS to bail them out.
As for wine, it's not so much further abstracted, as abstracted in a different way. Your not running windows game on top of windows on top of linux (ala vmware) as the quote suggests, your running windows game on top of wine on top of linux... Which is really no different than running the game on top of win32 on top of NTKRNL. If the code implementing wine is more efficient than the code implementing win32 on top of NT, or if the linux kernel does things more efficiently than NT, or if your drivers do their work more efficiently, then the linux/wine combination can be faster.
If you look just at the kernel level, windows has far more complexity relative to linux, all that added complexity comes at a performance price.
Re:Short answer: no (Score:4, Insightful)
And the risk of that happening is a very good reason for you to move anything of importance away from proprietary formats as quickly as possible.
Obligatory Pratchett Quote (Score:5, Insightful)
Today's Apple isn't the same Apple. When you replace all of your computers internal components and reinstall a completely different OS, isn't it a completely different computer, even though it has the same case?
"Fakes?" said Vimes. "They were all fakes?"
Suddenly the King was holding his mining axe again. "This, milord, is my family's axe. We have owned it for almost nine hundred years, see. Of course, sometimes it needed a new blade. And sometimes it has required a new handle, new designs on the metalwork, a little refreshing of the ornamentation... but is this not the nine-hundred-year-old axe of my family? And because it has changed gently over time, it is still a pretty good axe, y'know. Pretty good. Will you tell me this is a fake too?"
Re:Short answer: no (Score:3, Insightful)
WinFS fixes real world problems. ZFS just makes volume/filesystem management more convenient? That is useless to most users.
I'm not sure how much I'm like "most users", but I have a few thousand music files and photos on my hard drive. I like being able to tag them and search them quickly, and I think I might find something like WinFS useful.
What does ZFS offer that would be useful and usable for "most users"?
Re:Short answer: no (Score:3, Insightful)
I can't see Microsoft doing this, a BSD core maybe, but the only way they'd go GPL with the core is if they'd found a way to de-claw the GPL.
Even if they did 'start over' they'd likely use it as an excuse to lock everything down to an even greater degree. Windows users might end up with something like the iPhone.
OS X is bloated too (Score:3, Insightful)
I own a MacBook, and I'm happy with it. But there's little doubt that OS X, while still better than Windows, is a hugely complex OS with many layers of bloat. Even the OS X Internals book, which attempts to sort out the architecture for advanced developers, is a thousand pages of convoluted diagrams and intertwined components, and it barely touches the surface of what's going on.
Microsoft is chain to their own "lock-in" model (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft can't do this. Their entire business model is called "lock-in". No one buys Windows because they like it, they buy it because they need it to run the software they are invested in. If the new "Windows 7" did not run all the old software and looka dna ct just like Windows always had then people would see no reasn to buy it. Microsoft is stuck and is chained to it's own past.
The popular term "bloated" is meaning less. Who cares about software you don't use. All modern OSes (even Windows) simply leave the parts you don't actually use on the disk and they don't slow anything down. (Look up how demand paged virtual memory systems work.)
Apple did not have to create a new OS whne they switched to OS X. They bought it from Next and Next had adopted BSD Unix. So Apple was able to get a mature system that had been under continuous development from 1969. I doubt Microsoft would simply adopt Unix and thereby save a decade of work. Technically it would work but it would destroy their "lock-in" business model
Re:OS X is bloated too (Score:3, Insightful)
"Bloat" is a non-technical word. What would you have Apple remove if you could ask? Do yo want them to remove Core Image. Maybe they could loose that SQLlite thing or they could drop support for X11. I's easy to say "bloat" because it's meaning less.
It's like "government waste" yes let's get rid of that too. but then when it gets down to specifics you have to point to some guy named "John" and hand him the pink slip. When you cut waste who exactly do you fire? Same with "bloat" exactly which lines of code do you want to remove?
Re:Short answer: no (Score:3, Insightful)
If they were using the linux kernel instead of the NT kernel, I think their OS would have just as many problems.