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Microsoft Rep To Keynote Unix Conference 233

An anonymous reader writes "According to ZDNET Microsoft is going to be keynoting the Australian Unix and Open Systems Users Group conference. From the article: '"Don't be put off by Chris' Microsoft badge -- he is actually a long time Unix hacker," the user group said today in a statement updating users on presentations at the conference ... Green, Microsoft's local Unix Interoperability and High Performance Computing specialist, will update the conference on his company's "Unix and open source-related activities, including their efforts to provide a POSIX environment in Windows, and to integrate Windows and Unix systems."'"
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Microsoft Rep To Keynote Unix Conference

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  • Stigma (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Namronorman ( 901664 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @07:34PM (#13786996)
    Maybe this will help relieve the stigma people have about a lot of MS employees that are well known. Not every person there is a microsoft recording.
    • Yeah, you have to have some gullible front men, so that the microsoft recordings can sneak in the door behind them ;-). Of course implying that any IT aware person could be that gullible and not know exactly what they are being used for would be akin to saying that arn't aware of what their monthly pay check is ;-).
    • Re:Stigma (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by Foofoobar ( 318279 )
      Yeah well, when they are the keynote at a conference for their company, you can guarantee that his speech was written for him by the Microsoft marketing department.
      • Yes of course. That's the whole point, isn't it ?

        I'd be more interested in listening to the Microsoft perspective on OSS, UNIX/MS integration and Windows/Posix, than just a guy telling me his ideas.

        Why would it be a bad thing?
        • Bacause it never differs. They don't talk about open source, they talk about 'Microsoft's shared source'. And they don't talk about UNIX, they talk about 'Microsofts UNIX services'. They have yet to even embrace open source and are still in denial.

          So why would I want to hear about Microsoft's perspective on open source when they have yet to embrace it?
    • Maybe this will help relieve the stigma people have about a lot of MS employees that are well known.

      Of course - it doesn't matter. This guy isn't setting policy. He's not directing business strategy. And it's Microsoft's business history that makes it very odd to have them as a keynote speaker.
    • There's a pretty good chance he will discuss using Services for Unix to get name service from to Active Directory.

      Great. But what about authentication? He has two options:

      * Use LDAP authentication. This is not what Windows does, as it loses all the single sign on benefits of Kerberos (with LDAP, your initial login will not give you a credential you can use to check your mail, authenticate and map to an NFS export, pull stuff out of SVN, etc, with Kerberos it will). If Matt uses LDAP he's showing you how to
  • I call bull hockey! (Score:5, Informative)

    by yagu ( 721525 ) * <yayaguNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday October 13, 2005 @07:36PM (#13787008) Journal

    From the slashdot article:

    will update the conference on his company's 'Unix and open source-related activities, including their efforts to provide a POSIX environment in Windows, and to integrate Windows and Unix systems.'

    I call bullhockey on this. A lot of slashdotters probably aren't even old enough to remember when Microsoft first came out with NT. Their PR releases were all abuzz with their new advanced technology OS with special emphasis on their intent to have a POSIX compliant OS. At the same time they talked me into working for them (took three offers, a signing bonus, and a pretty nice stock option offer), under the ostensible work they'd have for me to provide support for their POSIX subsystem.

    Once I was in the door, and within the first week I attended what was described as a "presentation on NT's POSIX subsystem", presented by the POSIX team. That team turned out to be a guy named Matt (don't know his last name).

    The project manager Margaret (don't remember HER last name) got up before the presentation and said (and I can only paraphrase, I don't remember verbatim, but guarantee the accuracy of the spirit of her comments): "Before we proceed with this presentation, there's one thing I (Microsoft) want to make clear. The POSIX subsystem is a check box. We're only doing it to fulfill the requirement to have POSIX so we can get government contracts."

    I was almost physically ill, what was to be MY role (my background was Unix) if their POSIX was to be a sham? (BTW, not only did they not intend to support it, they only implemented the API portion of POSIX, not the user environment and utilities.)

    I called Larry Kroger who was in charge of things and desparately asked him what I was supposed to tell people who were asking POSIX support questions. He told me, "tell them we don't support it.". What if they ask about future plans for POSIX? He replied, "tell them we have no plans.".

    Forgive me if have doubts about Microsoft's purity in "plans" today to do POSIX.

    Oh, and for the record, anyone who doubts my accounts... the entire presentation was videotaped (1992), as were all of their internal presentations. I only assume it would still be available today but if it is, it will reflect my accounting of events.

    • by SuperDuG ( 134989 ) <<kt.celce> <ta> <eb>> on Thursday October 13, 2005 @07:57PM (#13787140) Homepage Journal
      Bullhockey indeed. I too was brought in to start the design specifications and class role functions. I remember that meeting, HER name was Ororo Munroe and man did she have one hell of a stormy attitude. I didn't get three seperate offers, but I did manage to get a stock offer along with what at the time was a pretty decent salary.

      They did video tape the presentation and it has been added to the microsoft underground archives at 1407 Graymalkin Lane. So much has been put away there, ideas that were deemed to "risky" but never allowed their creators to have because of non-compete and non-disclosure agreements. I remember my lawyer spent almost 8 hours going over my NDA and NCA before he even new what all I was agreeing to.

      The POSIX design was needed for the certain government contracts, but don't forget the way that we managed to get the CMMI Level 5 before we even had a released product. The one thing that bothered me more than anything was the conversation they had 3 after the one you mentioned..

      After getting the entire crew on board with the design specs and milestone timeline the NT CTO Erik Lehnsherr called a meeting of the respective heads. The delimna was the actual networking protocol, at the time there was NetBios, AppleTalk, and TCP/IP and they all pretty much sucked. We had some code from meeting the IEEE standards for IPv4, but the implementation was beyond ugly.

      We ended up actually "borrowing" a lot of the code from FreeBSD. So I guess while the filesystem, operating structure, standard binary compliance, and pretty much everything else, NT did have POSIX compliance.

      Did you ever work with Henry McCoy while he was there?

    • [He] "will update the conference on his company's 'Unix and open source-related activities"

      EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE [wikipedia.org]
    • by hkb ( 777908 )
      Welcome to 1995. I guess you didn't hear that Microsoft bought OpenNT (later known as Interix) back in the mid-1990s and created a product called "Services For UNIX" out of it, and that this component is free, mature and gives you virtually a full UNIX-like environment. So, it's not "in the works", it's already out there. However, it will soon be included in Windows by default, which is what these marketdroids are essentially saying.

      That Microsoft created the original POSIX subsystem for government complian
      • by Halfbaked Plan ( 769830 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @08:50PM (#13787405)
        Actually, as a registered owner of two copies of Softway System's Interix, and one copy of the crippled subset of it that Microsoft released after purchasing it, and further an observer of the further crippled version they now call Services for Unix, I call bullshit on you.

        Microsoft bought Softway Systems to keep it a limited phenomenon, and to make sure it shrunk in power, didn't grow. They probably had Softway Systems by the balls in the first place, of course, because in order to get access to the trade secrets to integrate a powerful POSIX api with the NT kernel, they probably signed mega-NDA contracts.

        I do remember that there was a period before Microsoft purchased Softway Systems when Softway was sending out appeals to the Open Source Community asking if Interix should be 'open sourced.' Not sure if that was a sham appeal or not.

        But 'Services For Unix' is not _For_ Unix. It's for defending against Unix.
        • by Anonymous Coward

          You are ABSOLUTELY DEAD ON with your observations. We discovered Interix, and had very high hopes for using it, and even were in contact with its engineers about their product, how we liked it, how we wanted it to grow, etc. But they were living in constant fear of their lives. You are right, they had to do heavy duty NDA, and then when it came time to renew licensing Microsoft turned the screws essentially squeezing them out, then buying them. Forget growing THAT market... the last thing Microsoft want

        • If that were true, why, after they bought it, did they immediately give Interix out for free to MSDN developers and post MSDN development articles about it?

          I'll answer this question for you. To enable developers to port and UNIX apps on their Windows servers. It's been a long-time strategy with mixed success (I could go on and on on why I think it was mixed).

          But 'Services For Unix' is not _For_ Unix. It's for defending against Unix.

          It's for integrating into UNIX-based (and NIS) infrastructures and providing
          • I posted my observations about direct before- and after-Microsoft experience with Interix. Yes, I bought 'Microsoft Interix' after the Microsoft purchase thinking it MIGHT be the same thing as Softway's Product.

            It wasn't. With Softway Interix it was easy to install various services that made it trivial to install services to telnet into NT and run a command prompt, with programs like vi and other common Unix shell-based tools. The vi editor mysteriously disappeared in Microsoft Interix, becoming an awkwa
      • Troll here often? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by roystgnr ( 4015 ) <`gro.srengots' `ta' `yor'> on Thursday October 13, 2005 @09:50PM (#13787671) Homepage
        It was basically a stupid little feature thrown in to meet a stupid little government requirement thrown in by some UNIX zealots to try and keep UNIX around.

        No, it was a necessary feature thrown in to allow the government to avoid having to throw away all their software once the operating systems they originally developed on were no longer optimal. Games of "catch the moving API" can be fun and profitable for operating system vendors, but they're not so great for third party developers and users. The idea behind having a portable interface was to allow customers to choose different operating systems based on price, features, and performance. Obviously that's not the kind of market that a vendor can siphon tens of billions of dollars of profit from, however - I'm sure Microsoft much prefers the current situation where customers can choose different operating systems based on price, features, performance, and having to rewrite or replace all their unique applications.
        • Re:Troll here often? (Score:4, Interesting)

          by hkb ( 777908 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @12:14AM (#13788300)
          No, it was a necessary feature thrown in to allow the government to avoid having to throw away all their software once the operating systems they originally developed on were no longer optimal. Games of "catch the moving API" can be fun and profitable for operating system vendors, but they're not so great for third party developers and users

          1.) That's funny -- when Microsoft does this, it's called "vendor lock-in".
          2.) Microsoft is notorious for backwards compatibility in their APIs. Probably a bit too much, actually.
          3.) Microsoft's XENIX was still going strong back then.
          4.) Microsoft wasn't a 300lbs gorilla back then, they were the IBM underdogs just over their honeymoon period.

          The idea behind having a portable interface was to allow customers to choose different operating systems based on price, features, and performance.

          s/different operating systems/UNIX/

          The POSIX spec is based off of, and therefore highly prejudice towards UNIX. And since there weren't but a few major versions of UNIX, there wasn't really much choice involved. You picked your OS, and then got locked in via server hardware and maintenance contracts.

          Obviously that's not the kind of market that a vendor can siphon tens of billions of dollars of profit from, however - I'm sure Microsoft much prefers the current situation where customers can choose different operating systems based on price, features, performance, and having to rewrite or replace all their unique applications.

          Microsoft's monopoly appears to be dwindling, either due to the rise of opponents like Linux, or per the natural cycle of life and death.

          What API CAN'T you write for on Windows? We have the shitty POSIX subsystem, SFU, cygwin, win32, .net, qt, gtk, xlib, perl, python, php, java, etc etc etc. So where exactly am I locked in, again?

          • by justins ( 80659 )

            What API CAN'T you write for on Windows? We have the shitty POSIX subsystem, SFU, cygwin, win32, .net, qt, gtk, xlib, perl, python, php, java, etc etc etc. So where exactly am I locked in, again?

            Don't forget, unless you've moved up to a 64-bit architecture, you've still got compatibility with win16 and MS-DOS (for the love of God). Early OS/2.

            Anyone who claims that Microsoft doesn't do broad, highly backward-compatible API support is just arguing out of ignorance.

          • That's funny -- when Microsoft does this, it's called "vendor lock-in".

            What's funny about it? Are you suggesting that the customer shouldn't be able to set their own specifications?

            When the customer does it, it would be called "customer lock-in" - oh, well *that's* funny.
      • If memory serves, OpenNT was a bunch of ex-MKS'ers who split off (pretty much violating their non-competes, I would say), and did a very MKS-like-thing on their own, and sold it to MS. Very sleazy. (At the time, MKS was big into producing POSIX-compliant API's and Tools for a variety of operating systems.)
        • I believe you're right, but I don't believe they spun off just to be bought by MS. They existed years before that and apparently had some level of success.
    • "The POSIX subsystem is a check box. We're only doing it to fulfill the requirement to have POSIX so we can get government contracts."

      I was almost physically ill, what was to be MY role (my background was Unix) if their POSIX was to be a sham?


      How is implementing something that passes POSIX compliance levels a sham? Did you think you were coming aboard to turn their whole OS into something more like Unix? Sounds to me like they were honest to you developers upfront regarding their goals... and those goals, s
  • MS resurrects XENIX
  • or just some folks are sooo left out!
  • by Anonymous Coward
    Personally I think memory allocation and time-sharing of CPUs is getting a bit mature; and it's the development philosophies of GNU/* software thats fundementally different. I'm not at all surprised that Unix & Microsoft are aligned.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    which is a bit like including 3 black people and a handicapped guy in your 20,000 workforce
    "see we are not racist, we employ minorities"

  • by pmike_bauer ( 763028 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @07:45PM (#13787073)
    Isn't that sort of like asking Ms. Hilton to address MENSA?
  • Obviously (Score:5, Funny)

    by ryanw ( 131814 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @07:47PM (#13787083)
    Can't beat em, join em, then beat em.
  • Support reiserFS and ext2 / ext3 file systems in windows!

    Thank you.
  • by Hershmire ( 41460 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @08:02PM (#13787164) Homepage
    we were never at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eurasia.
  • by Sponge Bath ( 413667 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @08:03PM (#13787182)
    Don't be put off by Darths' black helmet -- he is actually a long time Jedi night
  • Strange Days (Score:3, Informative)

    by FishandChips ( 695645 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @08:05PM (#13787190) Journal
    Looking forward to the next Washington State Unix and Open Systems Users Group which will be keynoted by Dame Edna Everidge (mistakenly hired by Microsoft as an f/oss advocate after Eric S. Raymond turned down the job offer).

    Hey, maybe they do things differently down under. Take folks as you find them. Whoever this guy is, he could well have some very interesting and useful things to say. Claiming that the guy couldn't have anything worthwhile to say because he works for Microsoft is pretty dumb as well as rude to the local Australian group.
    • Re:Strange Days (Score:5, Insightful)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @08:19PM (#13787260)
      Some of us have been listening to Microsoft say dumb and rude things about Unix and Linux for over 7 years; after a bellyfull of their slander and FUD and lies and "unbiased studies" conducted by paid stool pigeons, all the while causing businesses to lose billions due to poor security and blue screens of death, we're supposed to treat their new mouthpiece with dignity and respect?
      • we're supposed to treat their new mouthpiece with dignity and respect?
        Rumour has it that as a condition of him speaking, all the chairs in the hall have to bolted to the floor.
  • by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @08:13PM (#13787228)
    All I need to do is secure the rotten tomato concession outside that conference, and I'll be rich beyond my wildest dreams! Oh wait... it's in Australia... never mind.
    • Are you suggesting that Australia is a land where the streets are red with rotten tomatoes? Well I assure you that you are MISINFORMED! I've been to Australia, and the number of rotten tomatoes I found was RELATIVELY SMALL. I will not allow you to promote this VICIOUS SLANDER when in actuality a MAJORITY of tomatoes I saw in Australia were NOT VERY ROTTEN AT ALL!
  • POSIX? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by shareme ( 897587 )
    Would that be the same POSIX that they thought TSCO Group had IP lciense to when in fact Novel was the actual IP owener? I think MS should get their IP story straight before showing up at Unix conferences..
  • Pfft (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vcv ( 526771 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @08:29PM (#13787310)
    Yeah, Like Microsoft would ever offer anything POSIX compliant (coughSFUcough), like Linux does across the whole system (coughpthreadscough).
  • Hell (Score:3, Funny)

    by CDPatten ( 907182 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @08:39PM (#13787359) Homepage
    has frozen over.

    In other news; next week Steve Jobs will be announcing an XPod video player for the Xbox 360.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 13, 2005 @08:47PM (#13787391)
    It's funny they say that because I went to Microsoft career talks at my university (York University in Toronto) and every time a (different guy) came in and the first thing they said was:

      "... I was unix hacker for a long time before I decided Microsoft's the way to go ..."
    • On the one hand, I can see the appeal of Microsoft's development ideology: Make it big, cheap, slow, and usable by idiots. Sadly, though, it tends to be used by idiots. And why would you pay an idiot 80 dollars an hour to setup your mail server and another 200 dollars every two weeks to reboot it, when you can pay someone competent to set it up once and have it run consistently indefinitely?

      It's possible that everyone there was a unix geek. If they've been around long enough, that's really the only opti
    • by NickFortune ( 613926 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:16AM (#13789264) Homepage Journal
      It's a persuasion technique called "pacing".

      It works on the principle that if he introduces himself as a MS guy, the Linux faithful will think "This man works for The Enemy" and disregard everything he says.

      On the other hand, if he stands there and says "I was a UNIX hacker..." then folk start thinking "one of us! Let's hear what he has to say..." instead of keeping keeping firmly in mind that A) he's still employed by the Enemy B) would not have been sent except to evangelise and C) probably had his speech written by marketdroids at Redmond.

      You can see the same approach at work in a couple of dozen Slashdot posts every time there is a Linux thread: "I used Linux for years until I finally realised..." "Much as I love Linux, I have to say..." "I use Linux on all my home machines, but in the real world..."

      It's just another scummy marketing trick. That's all.

  • by argoff ( 142580 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @08:54PM (#13787422)
    The first way to tell that this is BS is to see if Microsoft is willing to guarantee Linux won't be sued for software patent infringement like IBM did. The fact is they won't and they don't want to. The deal here is that Microsoft has figured out that they can't beat Linux head on in the marketplace, so now they are trying to co-opt it. Watch out for the bullshit monster chasing after you and trying to give you a big fat kiss! I'm sure this is just the beginning.

    Do not fall for it at all. Free software is inherently better than proprietary software because it is first of all free, and then and only then is it often better for technical or usage reasons. In free markets, freedom maters. None of the fundamentals have changed, you are what you hold yourself accountable to.
    • Get off your high horse, man. This is a techie, talking about the technical aspects of "Unix and open source-related activities, including their efforts to provide a POSIX environment in Windows".

      If I would attend, I would be glad if everyone kept their goddamn politics out of this and just let me hear his talk about this bit and that packet.

    • Free software is inherently better than proprietary software because...

      it is transparent. You forgot to say transparency.

      When you look at free software you can see all the way through it and not just some shiny surface. That way you're better able to judge whether the software will serve your needs both now and in the future. Closed-source, proprietary software is buying a pig in a poke.

      BTW, transparency is also a really great idea in scientific publishing, accounting (especially in publicly traded compa

  • That's okay, sounds like the borg decided to do a soft reset and now it's back in the Embrace stage. Scary thing I suppose is.. it seems to be learning.

  • by Anonymous Coward
    The best thing microsoft could do for itself is to support unix, keeping in mind the market for their other products.

    Windows isn't everything, if they're able to get in with the open source crowd they could design components, get everyone hooked and essentially take over the platform. This would take more than a fiscal quarter, which is probably the only reason they haven't already.

    Well, thats what I would do if I were the CEO.
  • Bullshit... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Eric_Cartman_South_P ( 594330 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @09:40PM (#13787629)
    I unserstand in the real world we are supposed to act all civilized and polite, but I say FUCK THEM, it's too late for MS to play nice. Welcome to the future, enjoy Linux and OSS, and FUCK YOU.

    Now excuse me as I go back to finish working, I was using OpenOffice.org (latest beta of v2) and it's wonderfull and I'm carefull to make sure I submit any bugs I find. That's my part.
    • I unserstand in the real world we are supposed to act all civilized and polite, but I say FUCK THEM, it's too late for MS to play nice. Welcome to the future, enjoy Linux and OSS, and FUCK YOU.

      It's not too late for them to play nice, but they won't.

      Here's what will happen; MS will *never* genuinely "play nice" unless it benefits them (although they may briefly try to give that appearance to screw over some naive customers etc.)

      MS's mentality is such that even if it were to their benefit to "play nice
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by pixel fairy ( 898 ) on Thursday October 13, 2005 @10:50PM (#13787977)
    remote apps still exist, they are still usefull. including a well done ssh and X11 implementations (preferably based on xfree86 and openssh) would make life soo much easier....

    im not talking about full sessions (remote terminal/vnc/nx etc) but apps that blend in with your desktop and those running from other machines. X11 is the already used standard for this.

    its like windows is hostile to X11 or something. on a mac (yes, 10.4 on a g4) i can watch a movie in firefox over X11 over ssh and forget its even remote, hell, i can even run blender like that.

    but on windows ssh + X11 are hacked on 3rd party kludges...how long will MS pretend ssh doesnt exist? single sign on with ssh and X11 and SMB is like from a windows PDC/KDC only (for you konfused KDE freaks, thats key distribution server, as in kerberos) and still looks like a hack easily ruined by the next upgrade (new to smb, so maybe its my ignorance)

    those two would make windows play so much better in a unix network. of course, it would also mean that windows is just playing along, and NOT the needed master so MS would probably not see "value" in it...
  • David Korn (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gswallow ( 115437 ) <gswallow@netgawds.com> on Thursday October 13, 2005 @11:59PM (#13788246) Homepage
    I recall a story I heard from someone years back, when MS spoke at a conference of UNIX geeks. A man stood up and criticized MS's POSIX subsystem for Windows NT 4.0, stating that a feature in Korn shell wasn't compatible with true Korn shell. The conversation went something like this:

    UNIX geek: Feature X in your korn shell implementation isn't true to the korn shell spec. Wnen do you plan to fix that?

    MS guy: We're certain it's copmatible with the standard. Are you sure you don't have it wrong?

    UNIX geek: Yes, I'm sure. It's broken.

    MS guy: And who are you?

    UNIX geek: I'm David Korn.

    May or may not be true, but it was an amusing story, nonetheless.
    • Re:David Korn (Score:3, Informative)

      It didn't go quite like that, but the basic story is true. Here it is, from the man himself:

      http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/02/06/203020 5 [slashdot.org]
    • Re:David Korn (Score:3, Informative)

      by 10Ghz ( 453478 )
      "Due to Korn shell being one of the more popular shells written for the UNIX Operating System, Microsoft decided to include a version of it produced by Mortice Kern Systems in a UNIX integration package for Windows NT. This version was not compatible with ksh88 (a Korn shell specification), and David Korn mentioned this during a question and answer period of a Microsoft presentation during a USENIX NT conference in Seattle in 1997. Greg Sullivan, a Microsoft product manager who was participating in the pres
  • say what you like about MS, but they ARE a key player in the IT world and if they have any plans to try infect, sorry i mean intergrate with POSIX systems it'd be intresting to hear. naturally everything will be taken as a grain of salt. lets be realistic here this guy is only in the position because he has some street cred. but he will still be spouting a marketing deparment written speech.
  • by Maljin Jolt ( 746064 ) on Friday October 14, 2005 @06:33AM (#13789329) Journal
    'Don't be put off by Chris' Microsoft badge -- he is actually a long time Unix hacker,'

    May we consider he became a traitor, please?

  • What its all about (Score:2, Interesting)

    by MagicMerlin ( 576324 )
    Microsoft is finally going to be POSIX compliant. This means it will be eaiser to port unix apps to the MS platform. This is a good thing guys, and heres why:

    When you are considering deploying Linux in your business, you first need to make sure your entire toolchain is platform independent. You move all your stuff to open source apps which historically have spotty support on windows, and then just swap out the o/s. Better POSIX support means this proces is eaiser (it also means more options for win32

/earth: file system full.

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