Microsoft Linux - it's official.

Sorta. Well okay, not really.  But Microsoft *is* making deals with Novell to allow integration* between Linux and Windows.

This is a good thing. Right?

* It's actually not really very clear. But something like that.

If Windows had the kernell of Linux, Windows would become more stable. I want an OS with Linux stability, but the UI of Windows Simplexity in design.

So is this some sort of virtual machine type setup? Windows as the platform...Linux software running on top?

Just wait until 2pm PST and all will be revealed...

(Reuters):

Microsoft plans to make a major announcement later on Thursday, but declined to comment on the article.

(Presspass):

Media Alert: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to Deliver Industry Announcement Today Details of the announcement will be provided during a press conference.

SAN FRANCISCO — Nov. 2, 2006

What:

Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer will deliver an announcement during a press conference today in San Francisco.

When:

2 p.m. PST, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2006

Webcast:

A live webcast will be available. After the conference has ended, the video will be available for streaming at the same link for at least six months.

What I'd love to see, but I know won't happen is Microsoft to consider letting the Vista Kernel guys talk openly (with code) with the Linux guys.  Here's why...

I don't think the Linux guys come across as arrogant enough to think that there isn't anything they could learn from access to the Vista kernel, and I think the reverse *might* also be true.  I'd *love* to see a Microsoft working together on the kernel with the OSS community and being able to expend more effort on the desktop environment and less on the kernel level stuff - although paying people to work on an OSS kernel would be good. 

At some point I believe (and have no proof) that Microsoft will have to give up any pretension of full back compat - supporting Windows 3.1 code in the version after Vista makes little sense (at least to me).  Do you see the OSX community complaining that they can no longer run classic apps? Sure the market share is smaller but there was a path through the pain and people accepted having to run some apps in the classic environment - and now they just don't seem to care.

Microsoft collaborating, or paying MS employees to work on the Linux kernel benefits the Linux guys, it benefits Microsoft and it benefits the end user (where the differentiator is the desktop environment - an area where Microsoft is likely to win).

Of course I am dreaming, it'll never happen.

But the things is, what would be the benefit of using the Linux kernel instead of the NT one?

Let's not even think about backwards compatibility, where is the Linux kernel better than NT?

SecretSoftware wrote:

If Windows had the kernell of Linux, Windows would become more stable. I want an OS with Linux stability, but the UI of Windows Simplexity in design.

I disagree. Strongly.

Linux is cruft upon cruft upon cruft.

I wish we could, in the entire tech world (Apple, MS, OSS, etc.), throw everything away each year and start over with what we've learned.

BeOS was a cool example of a very modern OS (in some ways). I wish we all had the convenience of getting to start fresh.

Using some old crusty kernel - like Linux - isn't my idea of a good move. And I don't mean to bash Linux, but when I used to hang out with my kernel hacker buddies, the one thing they told me was that they loved OSS, they loved the ideas, but that the software was a mess.

Nothing wrong in my mind with Unix, but Linux? No thanks.

Again, though, if we could just swap kernels, I'd rather see a kernel created from scratch based upon modern ideas, modern code, and not the leftovers of ideas and structures created last century.

The problem is that it turns out that it kind of angers customers when you tell them they're going to have to throw away their old software.

So this is just a dream...

"If Windows had the kernell of Linux, Windows would become more stable. I want an OS with Linux stability, but the UI of Windows Simplexity in design."

Wrong argument.  The NT kernel has never been the issue.  In fact, the kernel is sweet and has a much better design then the monolithic linux kernel (i.e. spegetti).  The perceived issues with Windows have always been driver or application (i.e. user mode stuff) related and all the UI goo that runs ontop of the kernel.   If you ran NT headless or with just a console as the shell it would never crash.  I had NT, 2000, and 2003 servers that never crashed when I managed them because I treated them as production machines and not as a shareware test bed.

Sounds like Novell may need another cash injection...

Rossj wrote:

What I'd love to see, but I know won't happen is Microsoft to consider letting the Vista Kernel guys talk openly (with code) with the Linux guys.  Here's why...

I don't think the Linux guys come across as arrogant enough to think that there isn't anything they could learn from access to the Vista kernel, and I think the reverse *might* also be true. I'd *love* to see a Microsoft working together on the kernel with the OSS community and being able to expend more effort on the desktop environment and less on the kernel level stuff - although paying people to work on an OSS kernel would be good.

At some point I believe (and have no proof) that Microsoft will have to give up any pretension of full back compat - supporting Windows 3.1 code in the version after Vista makes little sense (at least to me). Do you see the OSX community complaining that they can no longer run classic apps? Sure the market share is smaller but there was a path through the pain and people accepted having to run some apps in the classic environment - and now they just don't seem to care.

Microsoft collaborating, or paying MS employees to work on the Linux kernel benefits the Linux guys, it benefits Microsoft and it benefits the end user (where the differentiator is the desktop environment - an area where Microsoft is likely to win).

Of course I am dreaming, it'll never happen.

I'm all for more industry collaboration, but I don't see why Microsoft would make an effort to port Windows onto the Linux kernel. Even if we assume there's no technical reason it couldn't work, I'd suspect the potential payoff would be so marginal that it really wouldn't be worth the engineering effort. While NT is more complex, that complexity isn't necessarily all backwards compat cruft; Windows's driver model is much more flexible, for instance. Also, as important as Windows is to Microsoft, I think they still benefit considerably from having full control of the evolution of the kernel. It's a competitive advantage that enables them to do things that, in the short term, lead to features such as kernel-level transactions, and, in the long term, perhaps more towards Singularity.

(BTW, I believe 16-bit compat actually has been removed from 64-bit versions of Windows. My understanding is that the Virtual 86 mode needed to run those older apps isn't available to x64 processors in 64-bit mode.)

PaoloM wrote:

where is the Linux kernel better than NT?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetric_multiprocessing

Afaik, Linux doesn't have the technical limitation of Windows that limits it to 32 logical CPUs for the 32 bit version and 64 for the 64 bit versions (x64, ia64). Maybe that's what he meant?

Novell sponsor the Mono project. I would love to see Microsoft helping out the Mono team to get .Net 3.0 fully supported under Mono.
I've only just started experimenting with Mono and so far I am very impressed.
I reckon a little nudge from MS would make writing true rich UI, cross platform applications a reality.

PaoloM wrote:

But the things is, what would be the benefit of using the Linux kernel instead of the NT one?

You wouldn't have to pour thousands and thousands of man hours into maintaining it.

You can streamline and focus on the areas that desperately need addressing.

You can leverage resource that you don't own and don't pay.

You can make use of technology in the kernel that *may* be better implemented than in NT.

How about we turn this around - you tell me what the disadvantages are of using the Linux/BSD kernel?

PaoloM wrote:

Let's not even think about backwards compatibility, where is the Linux kernel better than NT?

I don't know, I've never seen any of the NT source.

Avoiding stupidly expensive and crufty back-compat is what I am trying to suggest.  I also didn't say the Linux kernel was better than the NT one, but it could be with input from the NT guys, and it would allow Microsoft to concentrate on the desktop (you'll probably disagree but I still think Windows can be kludgy and unintuitive and intrusive*) where it is needed.  Bear in mind that I think Microsoft continuing to develop IE7 is pointless (my opinion and I am entitled to it), so why shouldn't I hold the opinion that Microsoft could streamline in other ways by cutting out those things they don't need to develop. 

My guess is that Microsoft are going to announce some sort of strategic partnership that'll no doubt cause ruptions in the non-commercial parts of the OSS community.  The Novell shareprice jumped a little....

* And no I am not suggesting that none of these are true about OSX, apart from the intrusive thing - which it isn't.  It only ever tells me when stuff goes wrong, never when stuff goes right.

Sven Groot wrote:

Afaik, Linux doesn't have the technical limitation of Windows that limits it to 32 logical CPUs for the 32 bit version and 64 for the 64 bit versions (x64, ia64). Maybe that's what he meant?

That could be, but I first heard that so long ago I don't know if it's still true off the top of my head and besides I think we've got a few more years before that becomes a major issue. I can't see how it would take less effort to move everything over to Linux than to fix that flaw in NT. Either way, you're going to have to deal with driver breakage, and with Windows, one of the design goals of WDF was to abstract away internal data structures so they could be modified in the future, so if it isn't fixed already, then Microsoft may be opening a window (no pun intended) to do so in the future.

Rossj wrote:

You can leverage resource that you don't own and don't pay.

Ack! WARNING WARNING

The absolute first thing that they taught me at Consulting 101 is:

YOU

DO

NOT

OUTSOURCE

YOUR

CORE

BUSINESS



Ever wondered why Apple and Microsoft have all this Not Invented Here syndrome? Precisely for this reason.

As an example, see the difference in IP licensing between the Xbox and the Xbox 360. With the first one, Microsoft had to rush it to get to the market and took dependencies on Intel, nVidia, etc. The second one was more deliberatly thought and they basically own most of the IP rights on it.

Again, if your core business is in selling software (not as a reseller), you build it on your own. Always.