Windows 7 Likely Going Modular, Subscription-based

Microsoft CRM writes "When Windows 7 launches sometime after the start of 2010, the desktop OS will be Microsoft's most 'modular' operating system to date. That's not necessarily a good thing, of course; Windows Vista is a sprawling, complex OS. From Microsoft's perspective, though, there are many possible benefits. The OS's developers can add/remove functionality module by module. New modules could be sold post-launch, keeping revenue streams strong. A modular approach could also allow the company to make functionality available on a time-limited basis, potentially allowing users to 'rent' a feature if it's needed on a one-off basis. Microsoft is already testing 'pay as you go' consumer subscriptions in developing countries."

The primary idea

Their primary concern is probably far more to be able to ditch or unbundle a feature as soon as they feel a threat from Anti-Thrust agencies or something of the kind: they learned the hard way that saying "but its so integrated, we can't separate it!!" doesn't work, so there's no point to program their OS like crap on purpose anymore, and they can deal with the real problems instead.

Re:The primary idea

I'm excited for this new ability to unbundle! Pretty soon, Windows Server 2010 will offer me Good News Office Modular Extensions(TM), which will work something like this:

1. open command prompt
2. yum install msoffice2010.msi
3. cat "http://www.officeupdate.com" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
4. apt-get update
5. emerge -pDNu windows

Re:The primary idea

I was thinking more along the lines of:

apt-get remove msie7
cat "http://3rdparty.windowsupdate.com" >> /etc/apt/sources.list
apt-get install firefox
apt-get install openoffice

If they're going to go to the bother of making it modular, they'd make life a lot easier for many geeks if they let users choose their "modules".

Re:The transparent idea

It's the business model that's different. Technically, they're doing little more than selling/renting out DLLs. (Well, .Net assemblies, most likely)

Re:Mach

I wouldn't call the bizarre mess of the MacOS kernel "modular". It's certainly not a micro-kernel, if that's what you mean.

All the mainstream operating systems today are somewhat modular, in that you can swap components in and out if they implement the same interface. This is especially true for Windows, in which long-term heavy usage of COM (which was explicitly designed to promote modularity) has meant that you can do things like swap out the IE rendering engine for Firefox, and it'll work. Well, assuming that Firefox supports the features the embedding app in question needs, of course. If you doubt this, feel free to download the Gecko ActiveX plugin and try it ... most apps use IE just as a convenient rendering engine and can run when Gecko replaces it.

That might not sound impressive, but try swapping out Gecko for WebKit or Opera on Linux and see what a mess you get into. Hell, just try upgrading Firefox on Ubuntu. You will almost certainly fail. I know, because I've tried it. About the only sane way forward is to leave the old version in place and install a new, parallel copy - but that has its own problems due to general brokenness in the way ELF was designed (it doesn't seal off shared libraries from each other properly, so they can interfere and cause crashes). Although to be fair, Linux (really, unix) does let you swap out your display subsystem for another one thanks to X. So they all have strengths and weaknesses in this area.

I'm not really sure why you think Apple has "specced out its software at a maximum consistent level". Dealing with missing features is just a part of the software development game, and Apple supports that with what they call weak symbols. It's important because not everybody upgrades their OS at once, so even if you only have one edition of your operating system, developers still need to adapt at runtime to things that are missing. The piss-poor support for this in Linux is another reason upgrades are so flaky (it's only done at compile time for most programs).

I'll be interested to see what Windows 7 actually ends up being. I suspect that this whole modularity drive is coming from upper management somewhere, and by the time it reaches the engineers they will say "well .... but windows is already modular!". They'll make some token gestures, clean up some cruft that users won't really notice except in worse app compatibility, marketing will trumpet the changes as meaning that things will Really Be Different This Time! and nothing will really change.

Artificial Bundling?

Considering Microsoft has, in the past, been accused of artificially bundling components together (IE+Windows, DirectX10+Vista, etc), I'm going to remain skeptical on this plan. It seems like Microsoft can get much higher revenue from a several-hundred-dollars major upgrade than a pick-n-choose bundle of features. The only way I see them breaking it apart is if their monopoly really does begin to be challenged and they have to start selling in a truly competitive market.

Re:Artificial Bundling?

The problem will be in the dependancies. Want MSN Messenger, that relies on IE, because it can display HTML content. So to install messenger, you have to install IE. Same goes for Linux. You want GIMP, well you have to install GTK, because you can't have one without the other.

Re:Artificial Bundling?

It seems like Microsoft can get much higher revenue from a several-hundred-dollars major upgrade than a pick-n-choose bundle of features. The only way I see them breaking it apart is if their monopoly really does begin to be challenged and they have to start selling in a truly competitive market.

I dont think its about selling the add-ons for hundreds of dollars. I honestly think the basic Windows will eventually be free but by then it'll just be stripped down to the basic OS & browser. They wont sell the add-ons, they'll license them to people for a monthly fee. As the mess they made with Vista shows... if the OS doesn't sell they make less money and the hardware vendors make less money.

By giving away Core Windows with every new PC they get around the MS Tax on buying computers by charging you more later. Then you can upgrade as much as you wish...

Multimedia upgrade for $10 per month
DirectX upgrade for $15 per month
Office upgrade for $30 per month (or $7 per app per month)

Microsoft wants a continuous revenue stream from its users. They want you to keep giving them money whether you upgrade or not. They wont care if you insist on running your 4 years out of date OS as you'll still be paying your MS Rent. All the software will be auto-installed, auto-patched, auto-scanned and made nice and safe. They'll get people to upgrade to newer versions by charging more for older OSes which encourages them to upgrade their hardware (so the system feels less sluggish).

Its all leading to TPM/NGSCB machines riddled with DRM-locked hardware. Only 'approved' software will run (cue the protection from malware excuse) and any attempts to bypass security or normal operating functions will be reported. Future Windows versions will check all the files on your PC to make sure its safe, deleting anything they decide is bad for you.

A bit risky?

Once that becomes possible, less microsoft-friendly jurisdictions (like say the EU) might demand they open up the interfaces so competitors can use them. People buying chunks of OS from non-microsoft vendors probably isn't in microsoft's best interest...

Re:A bit risky?

Another 'danger' (from Microsoft's perspective) would be "the WINE effect", a.k.a. reverse engineering. If they separate their OS into well-defined modules, then others can create replacements for those modules. Even if the interfaces are secret and there is no public documentation (which is likely to be the case), the partitioning into modules will mean that at some level there is a well-defined API (even if it isn't publicly disclosed). So people can reverse-engineer that API and write their own drop-in replacement modules.

This would be great for lots of people: other companies could write competing modules to replace Windows functionality (why pay for Microsoft's system-wide search module when Google's is so much better?). Also, free and open-source modules will probably be created for many of those features.

Of course, it may be that Microsoft intends to create a complicated system of internal certificates and code signing so that only MS-approved modules can use these hidden APIs. It seems like that would add a considerable performance penalty, but then again I guess that's not too different from the decisions they made in designing Vista.

Stupid Is as Stupid Does

Microsoft seems to be hell bent on making their product harder to use, and at its own peril.

What Microsoft doesn't get is that operating systems and computers, in general, are just appliances. Yes, people like to tinker, but, when one opens up the box, they want everything. This fascination with dynamically installed and dynamically loaded modularity has been the ruin of Microsoft ever since Windows 3.1 began prompting me for Disk 5 when I tried to do something, and it continues to this day. All the Windows versions continually ask for the CD/DVD, whatever, Visual Studio defaults to online help - which sucks when you are on the train, and now they want to make Windows even more modular?

By contrast, I put in a Linux DVD, and I install everything. If I want to install something more, I can do the insanely difficult exercise of typing "sudo apt get install [programname]".

competitive?

I wonder if this will backfire. A modular OS means that each component is easier to replace, as it's not intrinsically linked with the rest of the OS.

If you can replace a component, and choose which pieces to run piece by piece, people might make choices that aren't in Microsoft's interest.

It makes me laugh...

...how that more & more Windows looks like *nix sometimes.

Since NT 3.5 we've had:
True multi-user (Terminal services, fast-user switching), sudo (UAC), headless servers (server core), decent scripting (PowerShell), and now more modularity?

Yeah I know, some of these aren't exactly the same, but you see my point.

Let me get this straight...

Microsoft intends to reverse the mistake of Vista by making an operating system that continues in the direction of Vista even further, and force users to pay continuously for the privilege. All this and they don't plan to release it until 2010 giving Mac OS X and Ubuntu a chance to chip away at their market dominance for two years whilst their current top of the range OS flops.

In other words...

... if you haven't started your plans for moving away from Windows, now would be a good time.

I think Microsoft is starting to realize the gig is up. In Vista, the whole "we'll just produce a mound of crap, and people will have to buy it" model is starting to dwindle. Unfortunately, it looks like the new model is "we'll only force half the amount of crap we used to, and you can pay for the rest when it's released."

I honestly like using Windows 2000 and Windows XP. I don't like it as much as my Ubuntu installation, but it isn't terrible... at least, not after SP2. I simply just can't tolerate Vista, though. I was somewhat hopeful for Windows 7, but news like this (albeit far from 100% sure to happen) puts a big dimmer on it.

Rentier economy

Michael Hart (of Project Gutenberg) has it right. He's been saying for about a decade now that publishers, music companies, software companies, etc. are trying to move us into a world where ownership as we know it will no longer exist; nothing will be owned (at least not by consumers), everything will be rented. E.g. http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/bparchive?year=2003&post=2003-01-22,3 [upenn.edu]>here

This is an issue that both liberals and conservatives should be united on. The desire to own stuff goes deep in the human psyche. The person who rents everything is utterly dependent on a high, steady stream of income can't survive even a short interruption or reduction in that stream. It's a very insecure and anxiety-provoking way to live.

I have one of those

I've got one of those modular operating systems, can just have a bare-bones core for appliance or add things until it turns into a desktop or server or supercomputer node.

but what I'm scared of is I've been hitting the shopping cart too often, apt-get this and apt-get that.

I'm dreading the day the bill for all these nifty modules comes in the mail.

So?

After Vista, you have to wonder what Microsoft thinks it can do to revive its fortunes. A modular OS? Hello, meet *nix.

I've been an exclusive linux user for ~10 years. I know more than some, less than many. But friends, relatives, and co-workers are suddenly coming up to me and asking about "Ubuntu." And three days ago I read an article in CIO magazine posing the question, "Is is time to dump Vista?" to which many replied, "switch to Ubuntu."

That's significant. I've been happy to be ahead of the curve in terms of usability, stability, and security. And I can't lie--it gives me pleasure still to hear about people having problems with Windows issues while knowing I'm immune. But when people who've previously given me blank stares when I extolled the virtues of FOSS come to me and ask about a distro whose name is based on an African language, I can't help but wonder at the exigency that drove them to such extremes.

I look forward to the era of the 2nd coming of Apple, and the underlying gospel of *nix. For a time, Apple will collect those who have money and favor dead-easy implementation. But eventually they too will succumb to the ineluctable realities of *nix.

It was already "modular"

What they REALLY mean is that they are going to be taking out huge chunks of functionality, and then charging you separately for each of those chunks.

I *fully* expect that the first version of Office that runs on "Windows 7" will have formerly free features that no require you to pay for add-ons to Windows before they will work.

I actually like Microsoft for the most part, but their push towards software-as-a-service is really turning me off. If anything is going to bring them down, it will be this. I don't think they understand just how much of a backlash their is going to be. No one wants to be nickeled-and-dimed to death. Business won't do it, and consumers won't care.

Re:To be expected

Losen up, will ya? Their not that bad. You just can't let it effect you.

Re:Well...

Were Windows ME and MS BOB worse than Vista? Why yes they were!

Have some faith! Microsoft can always do worse!

Re:Well...

No matter how horrible a business model they use, it still can't be worse than Vista.

Sure it can. Just imagine the possibilities:

a) What? You want to use ALL of your installed 8 GB or RAM, not only 2 GB? Sure! The "improved memory accessibility module" subscription goes for just $1.50/GB/month!

b) So, you say you want to use all 4 of your cores instead of just 2? Plus have access to the 2nd processor in your 3D graphics board? Why, no problem! We're selling a PERMANENT, I say PERMANENT license to the "multi-core compatibility mode" for just $35! Offers end by July 13th, 2011.

c) Ah, you need to have 5 USB devices connected simultaneously, and need them all to work in fast USB 3.0 mode instead of USB 2.0? We had a promotion for that last month, but unfortunately now we're back to the standard price, sorry. It'll be $0.50/USB device/month for every device above the 4th, plus $14.99 for the permanent 3.0 functionality, or $0.90/month for the subscription version. The module name is "FastUSB expansion/speed-up bundle package", and you can find the different option in the Connectivity tab at the Module Shop window.

And so on and an so forth.

Not a pretty picture.

Re:Well...

What? You want to use ALL of your installed 8 GB or RAM, not only 2 GB? Sure! The "improved memory accessibility module" subscription goes for just $1.50/GB/month!

It was a bit before my time, but the story goes [findarticles.com] that IBM used to operate in pretty much exactly this way back in the mainframe days. They would sell the customer a mainframe at a certain performance level, but actually ship them a much more powerful machine with some of its resources disabled/limited/throttled via software, so that it performed at the (lower) level the customer had been sold. Then when the customer needed an upgrade, they would bill them a ginormous amount, then send out a service tech to "install the upgrade" -- but all he really did was remove the limiters. This was called a "golden screwdriver" upgrade because the tech could earn IBM hundreds of thousands of dollars just with the proverbial turn of a screw.

Re:Hmmm

Renting an OS is only sensible if you aren't dependant on it for your applications and files.
If you're no longer dependant on the OS, then why rent one if you can get an identical one (from a productivity perspective) for free?

Re:Promises, promises ... nothing. Microsoft is ov

Anybody remember Vista Ultimate edition? The one that promised Ultimate Extras - regular extras that you could download through Windows Update? They released 3 things through that: an small card game, DreamScene (sucks up CPU to animate your desktop background), and Bitlocker full drive encryption. That was all just a little after RTM - nothing since then.

When they came up with the idea I thought it might be interesting, but they've shown they can't follow through. If this is at all similar I'm sure it will fail. Microsoft won't be overthrown just from this, certainly not by 2010, but I'm sure it will pave more of the Disappointment Road that Vista started.

When they say "subscription" I get kind of worried. Valve carefully calls their Steam games "subscriptions" to remove your right of resale.