Gates Explains Longhorn Delay, Diet 619
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has set late 2006 as the deadline for shipping Longhorn, but to make that date, it had to delay the full implementation of WinFS, an ambitious file system geared at letting users search through all of their files at once. In this interview with Bill Gates, he provides a summary of why Microsoft decided to drop WinFS, saying: "WinFS, I'd be the first to say, is very ambitious. Nobody has ever brought together the world of documents, media and structured information in giving you one simple set of verbs that lets you richly find, move around and replicate those things." Meanwhile, MS Watch has published Longhorn head-honcho Jim Allchin's memo on why some Longhorn features had to be axed."
Free Ads / Free Betas (Score:5, Insightful)
We will not cut corners on product excellence. Our powerful vision is intact; our shipment plan changes will let customers get access to parts of the vision faster.
Why don't they just admit that the market is forcing them to release parts of Longhorn (like Monad) [tech-recipes.com] earilier than expected! Leaks of betas and press releases like these are easy ways to keep the Microsoft buzz elevated.
If they didn't release a product until 2008, the market (mostly linux) would have time to catch-up.
Re:Free Ads / Free Betas (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Free Ads / Free Betas (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you really think the content of the interview will be exclusively available on zdnet and /.? There are a few more sites on the net (who will link to the article (though I don't doubt that most of them are run on Linux machines))
Remember: Every news is good news.
Re:Free Ads / Free Betas (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of sysadmins reading slashdot, and probably quite a number of them maintain Windows networks, or are caught up in between. The idea is to make them think "Oh, if the next version of Windows is out in 2 years, it's not really worth attempting to convert to Linux." It doesn't actually matter whether Longhorn is released in 2006 or not, as long as it's "real soon now".
~phil
Re:Free Ads / Free Betas (Score:5, Interesting)
Not necessarily. Microsoft wants enourmous numbers of people to buy Longhorn (or new computers with Longhorn). Most of those people already run Windows. Microsoft needs to convince the people who are already in their camp to upgrade, much more than they need to recruit new users from Mac, Linux, or non-computer-ownership.
This is a tricky game they're playing. Microsoft was telling Win2k users that they should upgrade to an operating system with a database file system, and is now announcing that they aren't going to provide one soon. This might encourage those people to upgrade to an operating system that already has one [sourceforge.net] (sort of).
I'm sure that if more people help out, we can get that driver fully featured by 2006. Then we just need IBM to pay for a series of TV adds: "Linux: the features Longhorn was supposed to have."
BeFS (Score:5, Informative)
I have not used ReiserFS 4, but it sounds a lot more ambitious than BeFS. At any rate, the Linux BeFS driver is really a compatibility option that does not provide the same features as using BeFS natively under BeOS. fwiw, I would really love to see someone implement BeOS-like queries for Linux using one of the new metadata-enabled FSes.
Re:Free Ads / Free Betas (Score:4, Informative)
~phil
Re:Free Ads / Free Betas (Score:5, Interesting)
So advertising on a Linux site where you have less customer loyalty is not a bad place to advertise on.
As for the original reply - just because Bill Gates makes a press release does not mean he is trying to get free press. He is the richest man alive, he can buy the press (he actually did). The press wants to hear from Bill Gates, they TRY and hear from him. If this was any other company (almost any) making a press release, you would have been praising them for being forthcoming and letting the public know whats up...so lets not down the man because he is keeping the public informed.
Re:Free Ads / Free Betas (Score:5, Interesting)
If MS did nothing innovative before 2006, it (Microsoft) will have to do the catch-up.
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You should have read the fine print.. (Score:5, Insightful)
He said "the market", you're talking of "the product". Those two are unfortunately nowhere as closely related as one might wish...
Kjella
Re:Free Ads / Free Betas (Score:5, Interesting)
I get the impression that for every new version of Windows, they are just having to keep on doing (or perhaps redoing) too much work creating these huge delays and whatnot. They have alot of work to do to fix security AND make Windows usable for MAH and PAH at the same time. I just can't help but get the feeling that the way they are going about creating Windows is part of the problem they have in maintaining it and releasing newer versions of it.
Perhpas I am just interested in seeing Windows evolve rather than just re-inventing itself again and again. Perhaps I'm now thinking of different operating systems.
P.S. I am a Windows user that just happened to install Linux on his old spare PC recently and might have a Apple sitting in the corner ;)
Re:Free Ads / Free Betas (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux, of course, is very modular. With some notably lame exceptions (I can't recall them exactly now, but they had to do with some graphics library), I'm able to run most anything I want to on my Linux server without installing X, but Windows 2003 will not run properly without Explorer. I could probably get those libraries to work if I did some investigation and re-compiling, but there's pretty much no way I could get Windows 2003 to run right without Explorer. I could change the shell, but I would be missing some critical core functionality.
Re:Free Ads / Free Betas (Score:4, Informative)
Go ahead, remove all the libraries that make up Internet Explorer, change the shell to cmd.exe and nothing outside of the shell will break. Delete shell32.dll, msi.dll, netshell.dll, shdocvw.dll, browseui.dll, explorer.exe, userenv.dll, urlmon.dll, shlwapi.dll, webcheck.dll, mshtml.dll and anything else you find that implements IE; nothing server-side will break.
Re:Free Ads / Free Betas (Score:3, Interesting)
If they didn't release a product until 2008, the market (mostly linux) would have time to catch-up.
Catch up? Because Linux doesn't [gnu.org] have [tcsh.org] any [zsh.org] command shells...
Seriously, it seems to me that Windows is less and less about operating systems. WinFS was the major new OS feature, and it's been shelved. Looks like we're waiting all these years for adequate security, a new window manager and a bunch of wizards. That's right, and a new command shell. Forgive for not getting too excited.
Re:Free Ads / Free Betas (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly I have grown disappointed with the level of reporting on software from Slashdot. A main reason for me to prefer open source software over commercial software was that what you got to read about it came from real developers and real users of real, readily available software. Since it focused on open source software, Slashdot's reporting used to reflect this, announcing release reports from actual developers on actual releases of software that people actually used.
Today many of the "news" items on software releases that feature on Slashdot are no longer on actual releases, but announcements on future releases, delays on future releases, plans on future releases, etcetera. The announcers are not developers but CEOs, marketeers, magazine columnists, tcetera. Consequently the "news" items themselves and the ensuing discussions are shrouded in marketese and speculation, and generally demonstrate a very superficial, PC-ish outlook on software, treating applications or even whole OSes like participants in a sports competition. "Will Microsoft's (KDE's, Mandrake's, Enlightenment's, ...) New Team Top The League Again In 2005?" Having to wade through this hogwash is what turned me off commercial software; now that sites like Slashdot and their users give free software the same treatment, both the sites and the software itself lose a major competitive advantage. Slashdot is a major culprit.
Interestingly enough, Microsoft has made a very successful move in the opposite direction by letting its developers blog on their daily work, which provides us users/programmers with the kind of communication channel that sites like Slashdot used to provide for open source software.
It would help if Slashdot introduced a system to separate advertisements, in whatever form, from real reports on real product releases.
What is this, stealth blogging? (Score:5, Insightful)
I really wonder if there is not some stealth blogging going on...
Now to address your issues...
1) I read MSDN blogs and it is essentially the same material posted by ten different people. It is quite amazing how "monolithic" independent blogs can be. Scoblizer seems to be the only "oddball"
2) Slashdot has always been about both gossip and tech news.
3) More people use Open Source, hence more news will be about CEO's who give press releases about Open Source.
Re:Free Ads / Free Betas (Score:4, Interesting)
We will not cut corners on product excellence.
Right. That's why SP2 came out on time and with so few problems. Not only was it late, it came with new security problems.
I think Bill is just desperate to keep the press from noticing articles like this [newsforge.com] little tidbit at Newsforge.
As interesting some of the planned features are, they are still dancing around the most important issue: security and timely fixes.
Surely you can't be so naive as to let some FUD like a script utility distract you from the fact the security problems and perpetual scheduling delays!
Re:catch-up? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:catch-up? (Score:5, Insightful)
However, Monad is obviously a way that Microsoft is trying to catch-up with the powerful scripting ability of *nix shells.
Of couse, some linux installs with have sidebars and other copies of new longhorn features. Longhorn will likely gain some new linux-like features between now and then as well... It's just the features race.
In competitive software markets one product will always try to match the bells and whistles of similiar products. For example, IE gained pop-up blocking.
Talent borrows, genius steals.
AC
Re:catch-up? (Score:3, Insightful)
it's hardly a new innovation(expect they of course make it too big so that people notice it..)
Free version of Monad (Score:5, Funny)
I think MS just thought it would be funny to release something that would "have to be" called "Gonad" if it was copied and release in open source! (Hmmm, or maybe Gnunad?!)
new concept (Score:5, Funny)
Way to go, Bill
What about Meta-tags? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wasn't this the whole idea behind meta-tags for files? I thought thats why we had such tags in windows media too?
Or is this the same tags that winFS will use to search with?
Re:What about Meta-tags? (Score:5, Interesting)
However, the problem they're probably facing is making such potentially complicated queries easy for "grandma." Most programmers I've worked with have trouble creating SQL queries that do exactly what they want it to for complex results, how on earth will grandma find anything?
It'll be really interesting to see how they solve that problem.
Re:What about Meta-tags? (Score:5, Insightful)
Grandma: What do you mean type?
Grandson: With the keyboard. Just type in your query.
Grandma: Why can't I use a mouse?
Grandson: Because queries are easier. Now just type "taxes 2004 lastmod yesterday"
Grandma: Why can't I just click for it? I know I put it in the "taxes" folder.
Grandson: No, no, no! Using folders is too difficult. Just type in what I said using the keyboard.
Grandma: Okay. Oh wait... There's that nasty error message again. It says it can't find it. Oh this is so difficult!
Grandson: No it's not, just type it in again, all you did was mistype "204" instead of "2004".
Grandma: Aaargh!!!
Re:What about Meta-tags? (Score:5, Insightful)
You are, of course, assuming that what he's talking about is actually what they're planning on doing.
MS has a long-standing tradition of talking about things that don't really happen (Win95 is a 32-bit OS, anyone?)
As they say, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Personally, I'll believe it when I see it.
Problem with meta-tags (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with meta-tags is that they have to get populated somehow. Only the anal fill in meta-data, everyone else either blows it off or takes the defaults.
The real breakthrough happens when the system can decode and parse the file accurately to provide "automagic" meta-data. Otherwise meta-tags are a nice academic exercise that is either ignored or misused in practice.
Re:What about Meta-tags? (Score:4, Insightful)
File metadata should be in filesystem side.
First benefit: (semi-)standard interface. Want to parse MP3 tags? Write code for it. Want to parse Vorbis tags? Write code for it. Want to parse WMA? More code, man, more code! If it all were in the file system side, you could edit and find it easily.
Second benefit, especially for l33t m00zik d00dz in P2P networks: Editing file metadata would not touch file contents and thus not the file checksum. You could manipulate the tags to your heart's content and the MD5 for that file would stay the same. These days, there are only hacks that specifically open the file, parse the actual data content, and get checksum for that. Very wasteful. Very non-generic.
Third benefit: Extensibility. Ease of searching. Blah blah. Read the marketing material.
Humm, would be cool to use vorbis-like tags in POSIX extended file attributes, but the software as of yet doesn't even think of supporting them... =(
Nobody? (Score:5, Informative)
Maybe Bill considered them nobodies... [wikipedia.org]
Tiger Anyone (Score:5, Informative)
Come on Bill....Steve can pull this off and he doesn't have 50 billion in the bank.
Re:Tiger Anyone (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, it's a lot like this. Apple hired Dominic Giampalo, one of the BeFS's creators, to work on their new file system. While it certainly won't be exactly the same, I'm sure a resemblance will be apparent, due to their common progenitor.
El Reg Interview link (Score:5, Informative)
The Register interviewed Dominic and Benoit Schillings a couple of years ago [theregister.co.uk] and is a very good read.
Via babelfish (Score:4, Funny)
Translation:
We thought it was a good idea but no-one else has done an implementation that we can copy off, so we can't really figure out how to do it.
Can anyone explain exactly what will be in Longhorn, now that the new filesystem and graphics system is not going to be in it ?
Re:Via babelfish (Score:4, Insightful)
Well it's sure as hell not going to be an increase in stability or performance. From the interview:
What is really causing sort of the rewrite on Longhorn?
There's no rewrite going on here.
Things I can think of: the tacky sidebar, the 'My Games' et al. menus which will only work with a handful of Microsoft games, and the new GUI look and feel which is probably tied to Avalon. So nothing worth upgrading for, then ;)
Re:Via babelfish (Score:5, Funny)
All the great features of Windows 2003 plus the addition of a NEW logo and desktop theme!!!!
Re:Via babelfish (Score:5, Funny)
Bugs.
Re:Via babelfish (Score:5, Informative)
* The highest quality OS we have ever shipped
* New information management tools to improve productivity, including fast desktop search and new, intuitive ways to organize files
* Major security advances that build on Windows XP SP2, such as new technologies to make clients more resilient to attack, viruses and malware
* Flexible and powerful tools to reduce deployment costs for enterprise customers, including technologies for image creation, editing and installation; and much simpler upgrades for consumers
* Significant improvements in reliability, including a robust diagnostic infrastructure to detect, analyze and fix problems quickly, and new backup tools to keep data safe
* A platform that creates Developer excitement with the availability of rich APIs [application programming interfaces]
Feel the developer excitement yet? Developers! Developers! Developers! Developers!
Wow. Sorry. I didn't realize that Allchin's memo was so hypnotic. I started channeling some fat, sweaty monkey man there for a moment.
Re:Via babelfish (Score:4, Funny)
A proven 32-bit cutting-edge state-of-the-art industrial-strength Y2K-compliant zero-administration plug-and-play industry-standard Java-enabled internet-ready multimedia professional personal-computer Operating System that is even newer and faster yet compatible, with a user-friendly object-oriented 3D graphical user interface, amazing inter-application communication and plug-in capability, an enhanced filesystem, full integration into Enterprise networks, an exclusive way to deploy distributed components, seamless network sharing of printers and files.
more translation required (Score:4, Funny)
Are they going to ship a Linux distro?
Re:Via babelfish (Score:4, Interesting)
Why yes, we can. The two key words are "XML patents". Microsoft talking paperclip for their new OS is XML, which is fairly insane to use for a filesystem, but will allow them to solve some of the serious bugs in Word, like the silliness in the "Undo" command.
Avalon's gone too (Score:5, Funny)
So that's bye bye new file system
bye bye new GUI
bye bye new API
wtf is left ?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/08/27/microsoft
Re:Avalon's gone too (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Avalon's gone too (Score:4, Interesting)
slapped on eyecandy(ala xp).
but really, who didn't see this coming? that's just how they work at ms, if a product is "somewhere on the future" they'll announce all kinda funky crap their r&d crew finds on the net as the next big thing in their future product X.
then the features get axed because they actually have to start to think about getting it out the door!
Re:Avalon's gone too (Score:5, Funny)
bye bye new GUI
bye bye new API
Ah, the Longhorn version of American Pie. Come on, what's the next verse?
Re:Avalon's gone too (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Avalon's gone too (Score:5, Funny)
A long, long time ago,
I can still remember
How a release wouldn't take a while
And I knew that if I had my chance
That I'd do the upgrade dance
And maybe I'd be happy for a while
But XP made me shiver
With every email it'd deliver
A new worm for my inbox
I couldn't take one more Win32.CTX
I can't remember if I cried
When I read about the delayed Longhorn
But something touched me deep inside
The day the upgrade cycle died
*Chorus*
So bye, bye my new GUI
Pointed IE to WindowsUpdate but it was empty
And them good old hackers were using Linux anyway
Singing this will be the day Windows dies
This will be the day Windows dies
Re:Avalon's gone too (Score:5, Funny)
Do you have faith in the schedule
If Mr Gates tells you so?
Now, do you believe in release dates
Will Longhorn raise your running costs
And can it make your PC run real slow?
Well, I know you're in love with it
'Cause I saw you running the beta
You sure had to spend a few bucks
Man, I don't see any new features!
I was a lowly Pentium user
With a little hard drive and a tiny screen
But I knew I was out of luck
The day the upgrade cycle died
I started singing
*Chorus*
So bye, bye my new GUI
Pointed IE to WindowsUpdate but it was empty
And them good old hackers were using Linux anyway
Singing this will be the day Windows dies
This will be the day Windows dies
Now for ten years we've been running XP
And losses get bigger on their balance sheet
But that's not how it used to be
When the Monkey Boy sang for developers
In a suit he borrowed from a gorilla
In a voice that went from high to low
And while Bill Gates was looking on
The USB driver crashed his poor PC
The conference was adjourned
No reviews were written
And while Linus wrote a kernel and more
The core team tried really hard
And were given stock options up the wazoo
The day the upgrade cycle died
We were singing
*Chorus*
So bye, bye my new GUI
Pointed IE to WindowsUpdate but it was empty
And them good old hackers were using Linux anyway
Singing this will be the day Windows dies
This will be the day Windows dies
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Date-driven releases (Score:5, Insightful)
Previously Microsoft were skirting around the 2006-7 point without being clear about when Longhorn would ship; it looked like they were going to try to finish features X and Y before release. So now they've moved on to a date-driven release, we can pretty much guarantee 2006 for Longhorn (client edition) and they're going to drop anything they have to, to make that date.
Bill said that the OEMs are okay with the delay, so why the pressure? Looks like Linux is hurrying Microsoft up!
WTF have they been doing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now Longhorn isn't going to be shipped until late 2006. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say they'll hit that date (just in time for Xmas!). OK, so that means that they will have been working on this thing for a MINIMUM of 5 years. If there was any release overlap, and I am sure there would have to be, it is probably more like 6 years. WTF have they been doing in Redmond!? You can't tell me that everyone there has been working on XP service packs.
Now I am not discounting the complexity of software and what it takes to release something of this magnitude. But we are talking about the largest and richest software company on the planet! Surely if anyone could do this, it would be..... Hmm. Perhaps what seems to be an advantage is actually a disadvantage in this case. If you look at their OS timeline (I used this one [computerhope.com]), it seems that it was usually around 3 years between major instances of their OS lines. Now, that has doubled for some reason? Maybe they had to start over from scratch and are putting some security into this one. (the good kind, not the DRM kind)
I guess we'll just have to wait and see. It's good for me that they are delaying, at least they won't be changing the "corporate standard" again where I work. I really don't care for XP and wish I had 2000 back...
Re:Date-driven releases (Score:5, Insightful)
Two words: Software Assurance.
Right now, the managers that took that bait are looking silly so they would like to show something for the expense. Unfortunately, Microsoft is still a few years away from making a difference for this group, and in the meantime there's quite a bit of room for them to look foolish.
Spice for the pot.
Microsoft's Copland? (Score:5, Interesting)
There are many similarities with Windows and Longhorn - Microsoft also tried for a very long time to hack and upgrade their old OS, also designed for single user with no networking. And yet they were strangled by their own limitations they needed to keep for sake of backwards compatibility. Can they solve it on their own or will they just, say, buy Sun for their OS experience?
Re:Microsoft's Copland? (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, have you heard of Windows NT? It definitely has it's problems, architectural and otherwise but to say it was designed as a single user system with no networking is just false.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
you need a clue (Score:5, Insightful)
"implement the things that FOSS world can't do" eh? Then you go and talk about filesystems and vector graphics, both of which, at present time, FOSS absolutely trumps MS at. Linux has ext2/3, ReiserFS, Reiser4(which was just released, and has the potential to do everything WinFS will do), Storage(another datastore similar to WinFS). KDE and GNOME are both moving to SVG, and are moving along quite nicely. The X.org X server is implementing loads of new graphics features, and since forking from XFree, they're actually getting done. Also, most of E17's base libraries are mostly done, and implement a lot of features MS is in the process of "inventing."
Actually, I think you misunderstood... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not so much that FOSS can't implement these ideas. It's that they can't, or at least won't, do so in a way that's pervasive for the whole OS. FOSS can, for example, design a new filesystem or display model, but it can't make all of the apps written for Linux support those things. It especially can't make the apps support it in a consistent and comprehensible way.
Microsoft is capable of saying: This is the way we are going to do things now, and if you are going to make software to run on our OS, that's the way it's going to be. If the Office suite, for example, deals with the new filesystem in a certain way, that becomes the Right Way. Instant industry standard. Any software vendor who deviates from that method is going to be looked at as doing it the wrong way.
FOSS can't compell that kind of compliance. Developers are free to support or not support the work of other developers depending on how much time they want to put in or if they think it's a good idea. If there's a difference in vision, a fork can occur.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying the FOSS way of doing things is bad, and I don't think the grandparent poster was either. It's just different. It absolutely has its strengths, but it also has its weaknesses too. Microsoft is, perhaps wisely, choosing to try to push the strengths their model has.
Re:Ummm ... AppleTalk? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, still NTFS??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Just as they're making some progress with mounting NTFS filesystems under linux, MS changes the FS. Something which surely would cause problems in Linux.
Looks liks we'll be able to keep dual boots with Longhorn after all.
Re:So, still NTFS??? (Score:5, Informative)
Mandatory post (Score:4, Funny)
Preorder now and recieve a copy of Duke Nukem Forever!
Pointless (Score:3, Interesting)
Looks like maybe MS should have spent a little more time getting WinFS working instead of tweaking the UI to make it "oh so pretty." Unfortunately, I think MS realizes that a slick (albeit graphics intensive) UI will likely sell more copies to the ignorant masses than an innovation like WinFS.
No-one ever did it eh? Ever hear of IFS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone please call Oracle and tell Larry that Bill says that IFS (The Oracle Internet File System) [internetweek.com] doesn't exist.
What is iFS?
iFS can manage all content -- which is scattered across PC desktops, document management systems, and websites -- in a single repository, he said. It supports the storage and management of more than 150 different file types, including documents created using XML.
Re:No-one ever did it eh? Ever hear of IFS? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can't find the pictures from your cousin's wedding by searching for "wedding pictures," it's not the same thing as WinFS.
Re:No-one ever did it eh? Ever hear of IFS? (Score:3, Insightful)
iFS can manage all content -- which is scattered across PC desktops, document management systems, and websites -- in a single repository, he said. It supports the storage and management of more than 150 different file types, including documents created using XML.
Gee, whaddayaknow... that doesn't say SFA about being able to search for content using meta-tags, etc.... all it does is act as a network drive in a SAMBA environ
BeOS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Didn't BeOS have something similar?
Also, won't OSX actually have something like this even before Longhorn ships (without WinFS).
Aren't there a lot of pretty advanced projects to do the same for Linux, for example beagle for gnome and the new kde search feature planned for the next release? (Granted, these won't be implemented at the fs level, but who cares as long as they work)
Isn't reiserfs4 actually providing some of this functionality (and much more) and has allready been released?
Doesn't MS have about 60 billion Dollars in the bank and still can't get its act together?
Didn't MS talk about something similar already years ago and wanted to ship it with what is now known as Win2000?
Reiserfs 4 (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, it has.
I was just thinking that it would be cheaper, easier, and faster for Microsoft to just license Reiserfs v4. Just the atomic file writes/updates would be worth the effort! And the filesystem supports plugins.
Some people in the Linux community don't think Reiserfs v4 is stable... but I'm willing to bet by 2006 the issue will be settled.
iTunes-like? (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe he should have a look at iTunes and GMail.
For me, a kind of "iTunes for files", including smart queries, would be fairly enough. And it doesn't require a brand new file system and its instability risks...
search pc (Score:5, Funny)
how inovative...
Reiser4 (Score:4, Interesting)
Tiger's Spotlight, anyone? (Score:3, Interesting)
*cough* [apple.com]
Microsoft still can't come up with shit until Apple has done it better, first. Sad.
Re:Tiger's Spotlight, anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
I love consistency in the tech industry. It gives me warm fuzzies.
Correction of the press release (Score:5, Insightful)
The slow painful death of Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
Unix-like systems are going to win out in the end. That is why Mac's OS X looks like a smarter move every day.
Microsoft has so much cash and so much clout that it will take a long time to die, but it is doomed to do so unless at some point it ditches backwards compatibility and the current codebase and does something new.
Re:The slow painful death of Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
And you want them to ditch compatability?
That's the way you get users to.. use.. your product!
If I can't run my copy of *work program from 1998* (read: game) on the latest version of windows, I'd end up not using the latest windows, costing microsoft another sale. They had already sold me the current version of windows that I run. Their next job is to sell me the new version. And the features that 99.999% of the customers NEED is the backwards compatibility.
WinFS bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
Does this mean? (Score:3, Funny)
I have this book over here... (Score:5, Insightful)
- unrealistic expectations
- wishful thinking
- placing politics over substance
- overly optimistic schedules
- inadequate design
- feature creep
Maybe this company should take some time to read their own publications.
Hmm, I wonder if the guys at MS now about this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hmm, I wonder if the guys at MS now about this? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's one thing to be able to search for a text string, or even to use metadata to search for audio, images, etc. It's another to be able to detect that a user has pasted a paragraph from a letter she wrote three weeks ago into an email, and link the email semantically to the letter, or track how that text moves and is modified through her correspondence and others in the organization. (Not sure WinFS will be able to do this, just trying to distinguish the scope of WinFS from just searching).
To me, the question is not whether MS can come up with a filesystem can do this, the question is whether anyone wants it. That is, does the market want to do this deep, sophisticated searching, or is it really in just a simple search interface to a good index of existing text, ala Google or this sunrizen business? That's what makes WinFS a big bet, not really the quality of the technology, which will be refined as necessary if people really implement it.
The other thing that makes me a little dubious of the necessity of WinFS is the fact that institutions have yet to really embrace weblogs, which have a similar ability to promote sharing memes but are built on simple technology. This is a "future of collaboration" technology, but so far in the institutional setting it's basically floundering. So either I'm missing some big space where WinFS is really crucial, or it's a bit of a boondoggle. Of course you've gotta bet all that money on something.
Like I didn't see this coming! (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Apple hires the BeFS developers and within a year integrates the BeFS metatag system into HFS+. It's extremely fast and it works great. Apple calls it Spotlight and it's available to developers right now in Beta form within the Tiger OS 10.4 beta release. Tiger's been updated a few times already. Expect in first or second quarter of 2005 for gold release. The system works across all file types and can handle indexing the contents of files. There is an API for more advanced metatag insertion and application specific search features and interface. I've seen this system in action and it is truly remarkable. Less then a second to retrieve all sorts of data. Email, AddressBook, keyword search in documents, URL's, Bookmarks, etc., etc., etc. It's so good, why even bother organizing one's data anymore?
- Microsoft forgot a primary engineering philosophy. "Keep It Simple Stupid" - KISS! They simply failed in their initial design of WinFS with MS-SQL Server. They need to scrap it and start over. The primary problems being it's too big and bloated and the potential for bugs is enormous. It's too difficult to build queries. They started with the work done on Office 2003 instead of being more innovative and starting over with a better design.
When XP changed it's search abilities I had endless calls from developers who could no longer search the contents of source code files or SQL files like they could with NT's Find command. Apparently, one had to write a plugin to the MS Search engine to add support for various file types. There were work arounds but they required re-indexing all of the files and it took hours and hours to finally start working. Also it was unpredictable in the way it began a re-index. A new file was not immediately available via search. If Longhorn really does not ship with WinFS then it is deeply disappointing. Well back to giving my developers a grep GUI...
The Apple Spotlight system instantly and on the fly indexes the metadata. It does so very quickly. The results are instantly available. You can save the query and add it to your sidebar so it's available from the main file manager (Finder). Click the smart folder (saved query) and it's always up-to-date with the latest data results. The Smart Folders idea was from iTunes, it's a way to represent a query.
Here's to looking forward to OS X Tiger and future Linux systems using similar metatags! And watching Microsoft fumble the ball and have a thirty yard penalty! Gee, by 2010 MS may actually have a viable search system. Perhaps Google will beat them to it by releasing a Windows file search feature. The Google toolbar and SearchBar are awesome all Google needs to do is add filesytem metatag layer and do the same thing as Apple Spotlight. Heck, I would pay for that solution!
We need WinFS now... (Score:5, Insightful)
I admit to thinking this was kind of a cool idea...a big information store instead of a bazillion files. The actual implementation, I would think, wouldn't actually be that hard...again, you're not dealing with files per se, but with data.
The *nightmare* is probably in how you're supposed to interact with it. When your whole world is made up of the file/folder/cabinet metaphor, trying to define what an "information store" is, and how a user is going to interact with it in some seamless fashion, must be mind boggling complex because the only way it will work is if you have the relationships correctly set up. Photography cataloging programs do it by giving the user dozens of fields for him or her to fill in, and only on those fields that there is data is it useful to search on.
Back to Linux...I think that implementing this, presumably using a Reiser4 plugin + some RDMS, and then have the correct way to interact with it, would show Microsoft up to no end. "Information at your fingertips" is more likely to get the attention of a PHB than "10,000 node cluster" and anything to show how the Linux community delivered when MS couldn't, is obviously a Good Thing.
Typical Gates (Score:4, Interesting)
So in early 2005 consumers will have a meta data file system, and since Mac OS 10.2 they've had 3d accelerated GUIs... Now if WinFS did get released in longhorn (which it won't be, according to MS.) We'd still be waiting until late 2006, for these features.
I wouldn't place too much emphasis on MS's ability to timeline a product to market. After all windows 95 was meant to have the 3D accelerated GUI, and NT 4 was supposed to have WinFS.
At this rate it'll be 2010 before WinFS sees sunlight.
Comparing Longhorn to OS 360? (Score:4, Insightful)
Bill seems to be forgetting that OS/360 was one of the first attempts at anything like a modern OS and whole books have been written about the mistakes that were made in its development. Fred Brooks "the Mythical Man-Month" is largely a result of the lessons learned in its development. What's he saying here? Is he implying Microsoft hasn't learned anything about developing complex software since 1960? As cynical as I sometimes am about the company, I don't believe that... they have put together systems successfully that are far more complex than OS/360.
Remember, OS/360 had to run on hardware that was less powerful than anything any Microsoft operating system all the way back to MS-DOS 1.0 has had to deal with. Features like being able to run a variable number of jobs were restricted to the top-of-the-line models, and most early installations ran it purely in a static batch mode with a fixed number of concurrent jobs.
This is a great soundbite, but it doesn't begin to address the question. The best answer to a question like "Has software just gotten more complicated to write?" is "Yes." I don't know if Microsoft accepts this or not, I have no idea, but if Bill Gates answers a question like that with a red herring like "We're doing better than IBM did on OS/360" I fear they're still in denial. So perhaps the best answer to the next part, "What, if anything, does Microsoft need to do as a company to reflect that reality?", is "therapy".
Re:Is there a word... (Score:4, Informative)
you mean like 'spotlight'? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Is there a word... (Score:5, Informative)
Other useful examples might be "films starring Tom Hanks" or "music by The Red Hot Chilli Peppers"...
Re:Is there a word... (Score:5, Insightful)
Practical example: I have a couple of VCDs. My daughter wanted to watch one, on the PC (as my gf was watching TV). It didn't auto-play, and no application was associated with VCDs, so I had to try to work out how to play it. In the end, I realised that the ~700MB
I can't associate all
Re:Is there a word... (Score:5, Informative)
Don't be silly. What they're looking at is something like GNOME Storage [gnome.org] where you can type in some search terms and semantically find the files.
Something like 1960s music or e-mails to Bruce, I'd guess. WinFS ties up all your documents, media, mails etc. into one database for indexing and searching, and beats the hell out of DIR C: /s/a.
Re:Is there a word... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, actually. That you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Come on, do you really believe that the windows development team would give that much weight and media time to a system that implemented find / -name $string -print?! And even then, that they couldn't hammer it out in a day? Please.
What they are looking to do is to integrate the filesystem into a database system, where files are organized not by directory, but by use/type/relationship. Even I have a hard time wrapping my head around what this will look like once it's carried out. What will it gain us in user experience? My gut says 'a lot' given the sheer amount of development time these people have put into the project.
I certainly feel anger, fury and loathing when simpletons critique what they don't understand.
Re:Is there a word... (Score:3, Interesting)
I just hope to god it doesn't end up like the Nautilus "Spacial browser" - maybe the worst idea of all time
Re:Is there a word... (Score:3, Interesting)
been done (Score:5, Interesting)
Why don't you check those out to see how much it will do for the interface. What will MS "invent" next?
Re:Is there a word... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to mention the time it will take the user to enter and maintain the metadata.
Re:Is there a word... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is there a word... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Is there a word... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be ridiculous. Windows (since 2000 at least) has had an equivalent to Linux's (s)locate tool. Clearly that's not what this is about, as it already exists!
I can't think of a word to describe this feeling of anger, fury and loathing combined.
Why are you so angry? Are you losing money (or anything at all!) because of the delay? Seriously, if Longwait being delayed and scaled back in scope makes you that angry, you need to sort your priorities out.
Re:You mean like.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Does it matter!? (Score:5, Insightful)
I really don't see what difference it makes as long as longhorn is released in the next 4yrs. No matter how many computer-savvy people decide not to use it, it will still be THE os.
It matters because the market is now aware of Linux, which it never previously was. It has major corporations backing and investing in it (IBM, Novell, HP Compaq, Sun) and it has not only mostly caught up with the "features" of Windows but has surpassed them and approaching the kind of features slated for Longhorn.
Just look at the 6.8 release of the X.org X11 server. With the composite extension and cairo you'll be able to do pretty much anything offered by the Longhorn GDI. Of course, it needs to mature, to be further tested, to be further accelerated, and to have enough applications developed for it to become useful... but I think between now and mid-to-late 2006 is more than enough time for that to happen. Add to that the network transparency of X and all of a sudden Microsoft will be playing catch-up in that respect.
Also, look at Storage and the various other FOSS projects working towards that goal. It looks like WinFS may even be late in that regard to, again playing catch up.
Put all this together with the market momentum Linux is gaining (don't be surprised if it hits double figures in terms of market share by 2006) and Microsoft's position as the dominant OS player will be under massive threat.
Also, they can't afford to fuck up again on this one. The world is getting very impatient with the whole security mess. It's simply costing businesses too much to keep on top of it. FOSS operating systems have a far better security record making them even more attractive.
I could go on and on, but Microsoft is betting their monopoly future on Longhorn. And the free desktop could literally beat it to the punch.
Re:Does it matter!? (Score:5, Insightful)
You will take your hundreds (maybe thousands) of current files and insert meta-data into each and every one so they fit the new "paradigm"? I won't, and my guess is that a whole butt-load of soccer moms won't either.
I personally don't understand the need for the concept. I do my development, writing, gaming, and keep my photography on one computer. I find the current file-system completely satisfactory and sufficient for the job.
The way I work in the physical world is the way I work on my system. I keep everything in organized stacks, in specific locations. "Emails to Bob" are kept, for instance, in MyName/Emails/Bob. Not hard at all.
I see all this meta-tagging as making everyone into data entry clerks, and, personally, I don't need that.
I would entertain someone coming up with really functional reasoning explaining the need for all this.
Re:Old bugs will bug you a long time... (Score:5, Funny)
"One problem with Konghorn..."
Oh dear Lord. Don't tell me the KDE team are reimplementing Longhorn.
Re:Arg, I'm blind! (Score:3, Informative)
I was going to post a draggable link, but it seems that slashdot filter does not allow javascript hrefs, so it will have to be done manually.
Create a bookmark with this location.
Next time you are offended by the it color scheme, just click.
Pretty much untested, and has no failsafes (as in it will ruin other sites), for that open source look and