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Windows Operating Systems Software

Longhorn Developers @ MSDN 454

Posted by CmdrTaco from the future-of-the-rest dept.
ePIsOdEOnline writes "The official Microsoft Longhorn Developers website went live. Content is filled with information fresh from the PDC, and the host of secrecy swarming Microsoft and its next generation Operating System, Longhorn"
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Longhorn Developers @ MSDN More

Longhorn Developers @ MSDN

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  • Not eating their own dogfood? (Score:5, Funny)

    by ChaoticChaos ( 603248 ) * <l3sr-v4cf&spamex,com> on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @09:50AM (#7327987)
    "The official Microsoft Longhorn Developers website went live."

    Must not be running Longhorn.

    • Have some Alpo! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Avihson ( 689950 )
      Kind of, The site www.msdn.microsoft.com is running Microsoft-IIS/6.0 on Windows Server 2003.

      Their up time average is an astounding 18 days! Max was 112 days. Looks like they are finally learning something!

      Now if you could just install service packs and sucurity patches without rebooting. When they get to that point, Server 2003 will be Enterprise Ready!

      Netcraft uptime [netcraft.com]

      • Their up time average is an astounding 18 days!

        Well what do you expect? this is a Beta-quality OS - of course they're going to a: have crashes and b: update the system image rather frequently. No point in running a build with known fixed defects. better to load the version with fixed defects and find new ones.

    • Re:Not eating their own dogfood? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Actually when it's finally done, Longhorn will be stable. From here [microsoft.com]: It is the first operating system built with managed code, which means that it's a lot harder to crash.

      In other words, all the code is written in .NET compatible languages (probably C#, because it sucks less, MS' developers (who are C++ old hands) prefer it, etc.), which is *MANAGED*. If explorer crashes, the virtual machine will pick up the pieces.

      This is kind of like Sun's JAVA OS, where everything is managed by the JVM, except .NET i

      • I did hear from a reliable source that they already have rewritten the ol' mshtml in managed code and it works/looks great, according to the source.

      • This is kind of like Sun's JAVA OS, where everything is managed by the JVM, except .NET is fast, 95% as fast as native, and supports far more languages.

        That tells us very little, since "native" performance can vary by 10X or more depending on how it's written. An implementation in C++ that uses lots of automatic object construction and destruction with generic containers and algorithms can be rather slow, maybe even slower than a good Java implementation. An implementation in C that makes extensive use of

      • Yes and NO.... (Score:3, Interesting)

        by SerpentMage ( 13390 )
        Yes you are right .NET is much faster than Java OS. However, there is still a price to pay.

        Remember the original version of NT? The version where the GDI was a subsystem onto itself? Back then NT was essentially a micro-kernel approach. However, starting in NT 3.51 the GDI was pulled into the kernel and the result is that NT is less stable in theory.

        Of course with enough testing it can be made stable. However, now contrast Windows XP with Windows 2000. Windows 2000 is rock solid, whereas XP can be s

      • If they're C++ old hands, then they are probably writing it in C++. Yes... C++ is offered as a managed language in .NET. However, I highly doubt that they are writing the core components in managed code.

        What they might be doing, though, is re-writing their regular C++ compiler so that it checks for boundry errors and such. They're keeping COM around, since MS's version of .NET needs it. Windows Server 2003 is mostly COM, with .NET sitting on top, which is why it suffers many of the same vulnerabilitie

    • I can't seem to find the CVS repository.

      Anyone else had luck?

    • they're running IIS 6.0 (Score:3, Informative)

      by kaan ( 88626 )
      I can't tell what the OS is, but sniffing the http response header (after sending a request for http://msdn.microsoft.com/longhorn) produced the following server info:

      HTTP/1.1 200 OK
      Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 16:23:43 GMT
      Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
      P3P: CP='ALL IND DSP COR ADM CONo CUR CUSo IVAo IVDo PSA PSD TAI TELo OUR SAMo CNT COM INT NAV ONL PHY PRE PUR UNI'
      X-AspNet-Version: 1.1.4322
      Cache-Control: private
      Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
      Content-Length: 24182

      btw, if anyone's interested, http://msdn.m [microsoft.com]

  • Make or Break? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tetsugaku-San ( 717792 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @09:52AM (#7328003) Homepage
    Make or Break for M$ eh? Ooooo please let it be break! pleaseOpleaseOpleaseOpleaseOpleaseO :)

  • Wise choice (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Max Romantschuk ( 132276 ) <max@romantschuk.fi> on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @09:57AM (#7328063) Homepage
    If you ask me it's a very Good Thing that Microsoft is making it possible to get developer insigt into Longhorn at this point. After all, the OS is not scheduled to be released for several years.

    And before we start with the M$ bashing, let's remember that Microsoft can also do some things right, just as the Gnu/Linux community can do some things wrong...

    My 2 cents, anyhow.

    • Re:Wise choice (Score:4, Insightful)

      by interiot ( 50685 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @10:13AM (#7328211) Homepage
      Or... it could be interpretted as "we won't have an advance in the OS or browser market for three years, so we're going to keep consumers as disctracted as possible during that time so better products like Mozilla and Linux don't errode our marketshare."

    • Re:Wise choice (Score:5, Funny)

      by mahdi13 ( 660205 ) <icarus.lnx@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @10:14AM (#7328218) Journal
      But 3 years to polish off what is now in beta?
      Who does MS think they are...Debian?!

      • Re:Wise choice (Score:5, Interesting)

        by rabtech ( 223758 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @11:19AM (#7328920) Homepage
        Well when you rewrite your entire suite of apps & the shell in managed code, write a completely new window manager that uses the DirectX pipeline as its compositing engine, uses vector graphics to scale to various resolutions and DPI, and so on it can take some time.

        There is other new tech going in as well.

        This really is a big step, and Microsoft is making it public right now so developers can get on board early in the game and make suggestions or comments on it. Microsoft wants to make developers happy, so they are showing them the way windows development will work in the future to see how the developers react - what parts they like and don't like. It also means we won't have to wait a year after launch for Longhorn apps to appear.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • "just as the Gnu/Linux community can do some things wrong..."

      What are you trying to say? Why point out the obvious? This makes me think you're implying that the Linux community is full of zealots who can't take criticism, and therebefore giving the Linux community a bad name.
      (That, of course, is completely false. Why do you think you're modded +5 Insightful, like many other similar posts?)
      • What are you trying to say? Why point out the obvious? This makes me think you're implying that the Linux community is full of zealots who can't take criticism, and therebefore giving the Linux community a bad name.

        (That, of course, is completely false. Why do you think you're modded +5 Insightful, like many other similar posts?)

        Don't jump the gun and generalize... I was mearly trying to point out something that the zealots wouldn't.

        I may well have said something obvious, but it's better said than havin

  • Longhorn apt-get easy! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Debian Troll's Best ( 678194 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @09:58AM (#7328067) Journal
    I've already upgraded my Debian box to Longhorn using a simple apt-get dist upgrade command. I don't know why Microsoft has secrecy warnings all over the place...you should be able to get it from any Debian mirror. Has anyone else upgraded their Debian install this way? I can't seem to find GNOME any more.
    • Err, somebody should start a discussion on one of their mailing lists. They do realize that it violates there contract and it belongs in non-free, right?

  • Microsoft eliminate blue screen of death... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MountainMan101 ( 714389 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @09:58AM (#7328071)
    The fix was simple. They simply swapped:
    $error.backcolour=#0000ff;

    for

    $error.backcolour=#000000;

    Now, no Blue screen of death!
    • No way.

      Look, man, you need to know that the video modes used to display blue screens of deaths don't support the use of 16 million pretty pretty colors, or even 256. Nope, those modes use a grand total of any of sixteen colors.

      Figured I'd point that out.

  • Nice.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by cK-Gunslinger ( 443452 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @09:58AM (#7328075) Journal

    That's a nice source of information there. I was especially interested in their description of WinFS [microsoft.com].

    Everything that is stored in the WinFS store is an item and each item has metadata properties that are described by a schema. Items that follow the schema are stored in the WinFS store as serialized .NET objects and are accessed through T-SQL views that give access to the items' properties.

  • Windows Longhorn business plan (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Aero is the new Windows user experience. Aero consists of guidelines, recommendations, and user experience values that help your applications get the most out of the Microsoft Windows Code Name "Longhorn"

    Step 1: Have all your windows waste even more screen space with extra wide title bars and flashy BIG 3d rendered icons
    Step 2: Users must now all buy brand new, larger monitors and video cards
    Step 3: ???
    Step 4: Muwahahah all the money in the world is ours
    • Does MS assume everyone is running their displays at 1600x1200? I thought OS X wasted screen space, but this with the taskbar, sidebar, and superdeluxebig++ window frames is even worse.

      "It's funny because it's true".

    • Sidebar (Score:5, Informative)

      by bonch ( 38532 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @12:11PM (#7329515)
      For all you trolls bitching pointlessly about the sidebar (which is optional anyway), this is from the UI guidelines page [microsoft.com]. which nicely describes what the sidebar is for:

      "The sidebar will be most useful to users with large monitors who will have the space available to keep the sidebar open all the time. Users with small monitors will usually keep the sidebar minimized. When the sidebar is minimized, all sidebar tiles will have an icon in the taskbar; clicking an icon lets the user access the related tile."

      In other words, it's not a big deal, and it won't take up your space. I think it's silly to react this way about an optional sidebar, when probably at least 80% of you run gkrellm and whatever other sidebar apps exist for the Linux desktop environment. This is just Microsoft's XML-based version of that concept (now comes the "they're stealing ideas again" replies).

      Kind of reminds me of when Red Hat dared change their desktop theme, and all the knee-jerk Slashdotters flamed them to hell for absolutely no reason. Then it turned out not to be a big deal after all.
  • From their web site:
    Announced at the 2003 Professional Developers Conference, Microsoft Windows Code-Named "Longhorn" is
    the the next version of the Windows operating system.

    (emphasis mine)
    • If only we had a word processor that would flag those kinds of things automatically. Acutally, why not correct them automatically, too? And maybe have some sort of animated character to interact with the user...yeah, right, THAT'S the ticket!

  • How are they gonna manage this? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Jameth ( 664111 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @10:01AM (#7328108)
    No, seriously. How are they gonna maintain an active interest during the next two years of development?

    I say things up there about 'migration' and 'preparing' and 'interoperability' but I didn't see a way for them to maintain support. Linux can maintain an active beta because people can actually work on it, so they can more easily test it and benefit immediately from that testing.

    Microsoft, I've seen many claim, is drumming up support and mostly trying a publicity stunt. The question is, how do you run a 2-3 year publicity stunt?

    Maybe they should ask SCO. /jibe

    • > No, seriously. How are they gonna maintain an active interest during the next two years of development?

      Two years? In general you should double the estimated time-to-release for IT products.

      And I thought they were saying 2006, so the problem is how to maintain interest for 5-6 years.

      > Microsoft, I've seen many claim, is drumming up support and mostly trying a publicity stunt. The question is, how do you run a 2-3 year publicity stunt?

      When you have several billion dollars to throw at it, and th

    • The question is, how do you run a 2-3 year publicity stunt?

      Microsoft has a proven track record of using "innovation" to separate people from their money. If Microsoft is in the process of a 2-3 year publicity stunt, they probably figured out how to do it.

      Look for 2-3 years of Linux bashing.

  • Interesting comment from Bill (Score:5, Interesting)

    by swordgeek ( 112599 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @10:15AM (#7328226) Journal
    Over on C|Net [com.com], there's an article about Longhorn. Bill Gates has called this their biggest effort since Win95. Now if we assume that he's telling the truth (hey, why not?), it brings up some interesting parallels.

    Windows95 originally was just going to be Windows 4.0--an updated version of Win3.1 Turning it into more than a GUI for DOS, adding multitasking, recreating the GUI, and so forth, was a HUGE undertaking which lead to endless delays. (Win4.0 was supposed to be out in '93; Win95 barely made it into it's named year.) But what threat caused the massive effort? OS/2. OS/2 2.1, the PPC chip, and the Pentium FP math bug got MS good and scared, and they came up with a (relative) miracle.

    Now they're saying that they're putting that effort in again. What, pray tell, is the threat to MS this time, hmmmm?
    • And both times, IBM has an active role in leading the charge.
    • Oh, [apple.com] I [apple.com] don't [apple.com] know, [apple.com] do [apple.com] you? [apple.com]

  • Any word on how the much ballyhooed Trustworthy Computing fits into the picture?

    Or is there going to be the convenient clause in the EULA which states, "the consumer will be obligated to periodically, by an automated process download and install patches or warranty is void" This could be the OS that finally gets everyone onto broadband/DSL/etc. due to the shear volume that each will have to download. Yay!

    Then again, many will try to use this operating system on stand-alone systems, which will probably b

  • Observations (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Max Romantschuk ( 132276 ) <max@romantschuk.fi> on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @10:15AM (#7328234) Homepage
    It seems the signal to noise ratio of this discussion is terrible. People are bashing the site like there's no tomorrow, without taking into account what it's for.

    This is a developer resource. Take this UI guide on the Sidebar [microsoft.com]. Excellent writing, and finally something which approaches what has made Apple keep the UI edge for all these years.

    If an article was posted about the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines [gnome.org] I suspect the crowd would be singing to quite a different tune.

    Where is even the slightest bit of objectivity these days?
    • Yes. If Slashdot posts an article about the GNOME HIG, it won't end up at the front page (only in the Developers section) and 95% of Slashdot won't read it. Next time another GNOME article is posted, Slashdotters will happily continue complaining about that open source needs a unified HIG and that Linux will never succeed on the desktop and how great Windows XP is.
    • Not really. Perhaps it was just for the example in the paper, but the sidebar still seems to suffer the typical Windows and Windows developer GUI problem: Clutter. It's almost as if they try to throw as much crap on the screen as possible to show everyone how powerful the software is.
    • Where is even the slightest bit of objectivity these days?

      What do you want, this is Slashdot. Besides which, it's way too early to know anything about how MS is dealing with the security and stability problems in Windows. There are a lot of promises about this and that, but until a late beta gets released, what can you say about it? Nothing. Therefore, commence the MS bashing!

    • Re:Observations (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bonch ( 38532 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @12:03PM (#7329456)
      Where is even the slightest bit of objectivity these days?

      To be fair, the only reason Slashdot keeps posting these Microsoft articles (count 'em...at least three in the past two DAYS!) is because all the Linux people have a field day bashing and bashing and bashing.

      It's a really poor reflection on this community and makes it seem like they're just a bunch of trolls. Nobody can appreciate the technology anymore because it's "M$."

      Could you imagine how nice this site would be if it was nothing but mature veteran UNIX hackers who calmly and rationally discussed the next version of Windows and how it fits into their computing paradigm? If it was just something they talked about (maybe even praised) and then moved on. Instead, we get "M$ IS CHANGING THEIR BSOD INTO 3D!!!1 HAHA" (+5 Funny)."

      If anybody knows of a "News for Nerds" type site that doesn't have a corporate-owned agenda (*cough* Slashdot), could someone direct me to it?

      Is Slashdot pro-Linux or anti-Microsoft? I'd rather see more Linux articles than Microsoft articles on the front page, so what happened that changed Slashdot into a Microsoft news site?

      • Re:Observations (Score:4, Informative)

        by WNight ( 23683 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @01:08PM (#7330099) Homepage
        Considering that Microsoft has stated publicly (and personally from the Ballmer and Gates) that Linux and free-software and communist in nature, anti-american, unstable, and should not be used in any way by government or business, I think it's reasonable that supporters of open source are a bit anti-Microsoft.

        In a technical sense, Linus is exactly right. Microsoft is technically uninteresting and Linus wouldn't get anywhere (that he wanted to be) by copying them, nor I would guess, anywhere financially either (MS does dominate markets well). The only reason to consider MS, except as a security hole for servers and yet another unstable desktop OS, is that MS seems hell-bent on destroying our right to use free software (and establish open standards, so that software will always be free in a useful way).

        Also, Microsoft has on numerous (and documented) occasions, lied, stolen, perjured, faked evidence, conspired illegally to destroy a competitor, slandered and libelled, and threatened unjust lawsuits to silence critics. But other than that, they're fine neighbors...

        Why shouldn't we wish for the collapse of MS, it's them or us, by their choice.
  • I am not a developer, so please help me out. I am interested in this from an interoperability angle: XML was to bring open standards support to M$ documents. But, I read on /., XML is only a framework that allows proprietary schema to be used, so there is really no progress there. Now we are talking about XAML. Is this just a name for one of those proprietary schema in XML, or is it a new proprientary markup type trying to score off XML's name, or...?

    Any technology distinguishable from magic is not s
    • "XAML" is what they want to use to describe GUI elements. Something like

      <dialog title="Longhorn General Application Fault">
      <button id="idok">Crash System</button>
      <button id="idcl">Trash System</button>
      </dialog>

      Like I pointed out before, describing GUI elements
      like dialogs etc. using some sort of markup language is nothing new. Mozilla has already been doing this for years. They call their markup language (it's based on XML) XUL.
    • I am not a developer, so please help me out. I am interested in this from an interoperability angle: XML was to bring open standards support to M$ documents. But, I read on /., XML is only a framework that allows proprietary schema to be used, so there is really no progress there.

      Well, XML was really mostly a buzzword that PHB's and marketing types threw around a couple years ago. Remember how XML was going to allow business to automatically place orders, any device to get any piece of information, your

  • WVG? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by HickNinja ( 551261 )
    "Avalon" offers several layers of access to graphics and rendering services. At the top layer, Microsoft(R) Windows(R) Vector Graphics (WVG) provides a number of advantages common to XML-based graphics markup. WVG is straightforward to use with the rest of the "Avalon" object model, it is readily reusable, and it is familiar to users of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG).
    Sounds like classic embrace and extend.
  • For the first time i aint even the slightest bit interested in what they may come up with. It feels like the release party of the next generation can opener or something. They upgrade their systems in such small steps that its like watching grass grow. There will be many realeses between now and longhorn so its just not worth it to speculate. Lets wait for W2003,2003SE,2003ME first.

    The mere hype is making every release an anticlimax and by now we know that what seems new and shiny is most surely the old cl
  • Surely I can't be the only one who keeps seeing "Foghorn Leghorn" instead of "Longhorn?"
    • You're not the only one. The first time I heard "longhorn" I immediately thought about that cartoon chicken.
    • That'd be really funny if they could get the voice down for error messages

      "I say, I say, you've got a fatal exception at 0E33, son."

      Clippy:"Well, barbeque my hamhocks, looks like you're writin' a letter. I'm gonna give you a bit of advice, boy. So far, this letter's about as sharp as a bowling ball..."

  • Microsoft's Obvious Strategy (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TheRealFoxFire ( 523782 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @10:26AM (#7328331)
    Microsoft knows that the delay to 2006 is unfavorable for them. First its a problem for all of the companies that bought into the subscription licensing, who are now seeing their money wasted essentially, paying MS for nothing for three more years. Second, it gives their competition nearly three years to advance before MS has an answer to any of it. Mac OS and to a lesser extent the Linux desktop will be quite different in 2006.

    Knowing that, Microsoft is deliberately drumming up the hype now with an outrageously early beta, leaked screenshots, and surreptitious press releases and leaks about their upcoming features. Why? To get the current installed base excited about the next release, and to quiet any concerns they have that might make them switch in the interim. If they saw no compelling reason to stick around until 2006 they may migrate to other platforms. The leaks and beta try to give them that reason.
  • Describing user interfaces using markup language like "XAML" is nothing new. Mozilla [mozilla.org]'s user interface is completely based on XUL [mozilla.org] and scripted with javascript therefore making it "prior art"
  • I take it all back, please bring back the daily SCO coverage.
  • Is it some sort of inate desire in computer types to play soldiers or spys or something? Why do these products always get these silly codenames?
    We all know it'll be called "Windows " so why don't they just call it that from the start?
    They can always rename it if they get bored or are these names just to make a very uninteresting product seem somehow mysterious and fascinating?
  • I find some of this Longhorn stuff really fascinating. As I was looking through I found this page [microsoft.com] which describes XAML (eXtensible Application Markup Language). If you haven't looked yet, XAML looks to me an awful lot like a knockoff of XUL. The basic idea is the same, you build the user interface in XML. From the looks of the screenshots the majority of Longhorn's GUI is built in XAML.

    Aparently they've taken notice of Mozilla, they notice that it rocks, and they noticed it so much they're redesigning Wind
    • You know what they say, imitation is the sinserest form of flattery.


      And spelling properly is the sincerest form of flattery to your 5th grade teacher!

      ;-)

  • Longhorn's target PC specs... (Score:3, Funny)

    by freejamesbrown ( 566022 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @10:57AM (#7328700)
    "4-6GHz processor
    2GB+ memory
    1TB hard drive
    Graphics processor 3X today's performance
    1GB Ethernet, 54Mbps wireless networking"

    4-6Ghz? "Trend: Developers rent meat lockers."

    2GB+ memory... "our API has completely done away with garbage collection. we just periodically reboot."

    1TB? are we going to support versioning of the entire hard drive? (might be an interesting way to roll back virus damage.) ...
    m.
    • I don't think Microsoft will push the demands for Longhorn that high.

      It's more realistic that Longhorn will probably need at least an Intel Pentium 4/Celeron CPU running at 2.4 GHz or AMD Athlon XP CPU running at 2500+ speeds, about 1 GB of RAM, 512 GB hard drive, graphics card with performance about that of the ATI Radeon 9600 card, and 100Base-T Ethernet (NOT 10Base-T Ethernet).

  • How to get Longhorn (Score:3, Informative)

    by Nick of NSTime ( 597712 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @11:06AM (#7328791)
    From the MSDN Subscriber downloads page:

    Active MSDN Operating Systems, Professional, Enterprise, and Universal subscribers may request a set of software distributed at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2003 (PDC), including the preview versions of the "Longhorn" operating system and SDK, and Visual Studio "Whidbey".

    I just called MSDN customer service [microsoft.com] and ordered my set. It was really easy, and it will take 7-10 days for the discs to arrive. Note that it's DVD-ROM format only.

    Hope that helps.

  • Enough with the MS press releases (Score:4, Funny)

    by re-geeked ( 113937 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @11:14AM (#7328875)
    How many Longhorn articles is this now?

    Is Slashdot still interested in Free Software?

    Or did someone forget to tell me that Longhorn is GPL'd?

    Also, isn't there someplace better than the front page to discuss minor updates to legacy systems?

    I mean, really, Windows?? Who uses this crap any more?

  • It doesn't matter, we'll all end up using it (Score:3, Insightful)

    by green pizza ( 159161 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @11:19AM (#7328923) Homepage
    Prepare to lose all karma...

    Yeah, we're all bashing Longhorn and Microsoft's ways right now... but come 2006, Microsoft will win once again as millions of businesses and tens of millions of homes upgrade to Longhorn. Even the most hardcore geek will have Longhorn on a partition within a year of its release.

    We bashed Win98, but ended up using it anyway. Ditto for Win2K and XP.

    Sure, our servers will still run un*x, but as long as we keep using Windows at work for "compatibility" and "familiarity"... and a single innocent Windows box at home "just for games", Microsoft will keep winning.

    This is not a flame or a troll, but just a prediction based upon the past. I would like to be proven wrong, though...

    • Re:It doesn't matter, we'll all end up using it (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jamesmrankinjr ( 536093 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @06:07PM (#7333491) Homepage

      Linux and Apple now have three years to change that. MS has now told everyone they won't have anything new to show until 2006. Since OS X is pretty much now what Longhorn promises then, Apple can make huge strides during this period. Likewise, all the governments and companies considering Linux have 3 years to decide whether to get off the MS forced march or not.

      And what are the compelling business features? 1. We get to rewrite all our custom apps that work just fine to use new APIs! 2. We get to buy all new computers for our employees with 4GHz processors and 1TB disks so the file open dialog box can be 3D and texture mapped with moving video! Or something. (ps The Longhorn graphics features run on current Apple hardware in OS X now.)

      Meanwhile, MS is already starting to see revenue losses due to companies hesitant to upgrade because of security concerns.

      I'm starting to feel almost bad for MS. Nah, not really.

      Peace be with you,
      -jimbo

  • What the?! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Delphix ( 571159 ) * on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @11:22AM (#7328961)
    from the developer page:

    Stop by this section of the LHDC for the latest code samples and tools from Microsoft and the community at large. Even better, if you've built something, put it up for all of us to share!

    Share? The largest monopolistic company on the planet encouraging people to share? Does anyone else note a sense of irony?

  • The browser end-game (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dimator ( 71399 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @03:01PM (#7331447) Homepage Journal
    From this [microsoft.com]:

    Finally, it is worth noting that Windows executables can be hosted in a window (by default) as well as in the browser.
    For Longhorn, desktop executables are the next version of today's Windows Forms client-side apps. On the other hand, XAML and browser-hosted applications represent an evolution of today's client-side programming model to work over the Web. Right now, existing client-side applications can rarely be deployed over the Web. If you want to embed a Windows Forms form into a browser page, you'll get a reduced feature set and have to tweak bits and pieces of your code. With Longhorn, the common application model will let you write one application and deploy it over the Web. However, the final application is Longhorn-specific--very different from a traditional Web application like ASP.NET.

    Sigh. I remember when the web was based on open standards...

  • Indigo (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Stu Charlton ( 1311 ) on Tuesday October 28, 2003 @11:35PM (#7335452) Homepage
    The real thing to pay attention to with Longhorn, is Indigo - the new transactions and communications framework. They're investing a lot of effort into keeping it simple and to keep all aspects orthogonal to one another.

    Indigo is really the replacement for COM+, built on top of the web services stack (the WS-* specs). The WS-* specs aim to supplant CORBA as the dominant distributed computing paradigm by enabling any platform to integrate through the various XML protocols. This seems to be the only viable way forward to get true interop between the Windows and ABM (anyone but Microsoft) world.

    Some rather interesting things Indigo is trying to do:
    - make transactions pervasive in coding, even with volatile objects. Using a "lightweight transaction manager", an in-memory transaction on an ArrayList would take only a microsecond to begin and commit.

    - embed the transaction manager in the kernel for durable transactions.

    - Provide a set of declarative attributes for setting a service's reliability , transactions, and security, much more flexible and simple than

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