what would happen if M$ rewrote winduhs from the ground up..
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tuxchick2 May 08, 2006 12:09 PM EDT |
Or, even more sensibly, did like Apple and put a pretty interface on top of a BSD or some such? Hey, quit laughing, it's a legitimate question. Geez, tough crowd. I know, it would throw their entire product line into chaos. All those microsoft foundation classes wouldn't have any reason to exist anymore, visual studio would have to be retired, dot nut would be poop-canned, and I'm not sure how they would handle porting application like ms office and other important must-haves that enrich the lives of computer users everywhere. And all those poor secuarity companies like mcafee and symantec - whatever will they do without having the 1,000th mutation of popular viruses to play with? I can't think of a downside. |
| grouch May 08, 2006 12:21 PM EDT |
tuxchick2: >"I can't think of a downside." If MS pasted their GUI on top of one of the BSDs, they would lose all of their investment, over the years, in their main marketing point: this version spontaneously blows up less often than the previous version. (Of course I'm making an awfully bold assumption that even MS can't turn a BSD into wincrap). |
| tuxchick2 May 08, 2006 1:20 PM EDT |
I can't shake the mental image of MS devs poking at BSD with a stick and looking mightily puzzled. You know, you really nailed the core message of their marketing. I must go belly-laugh some more. |
| dcparris May 08, 2006 3:08 PM EDT |
> Or, even more sensibly, did like Apple and put a pretty interface on top of a BSD or some such? I have long thought this is exactly what they should do. So far, though, they haven't called me up to ask my opinion. Ah, that's it. I forgot to setup my consulting firm and have my people call Bill & Steve's people. That's the ticket! I can bill myself as the only consulting firm offering Microsoft strategies for liberating thier software. |
| hkwint May 08, 2006 3:17 PM EDT |
As far as I know, MS already uses a lot of BSD. Look in WinXP's ftp .exe and you'll see a 'univ. california' copyright message. Almost all NT was derived from OpenVMS. On the other hand; writing something from scratch means more than a year of testing, and loosing the rediculous 'Windows fights back against viruses and Trojans' ads. BSD secure levels would mean people can't mount CD's and so, and that would be terrible for most Windows users. (Hell, the Win-users could then switch kernels without rebooting, use OpenBSD's packet filtering and IPSec, have nice manuals which are even better than the GNU ones'... Sounds terrifying compared to XP, doesn't it? Especially since Theo will blame them for not giving anything in return) About your question with the words 'MS' and 'rewriting' mentioned in the same sentence: That means MS has to actually _produce_ something, and that's something they don't have experience with. More important: If they can't fix things which are broke, what makes you think they can produce things which can't brake? Reminds me of somethin I once read on xmms.org: ---In a world without walls and fences, who'd need Windows and Gates anyway?--- |
| cjcox May 08, 2006 4:20 PM EDT |
Rewrite Windows from the ground up?? http://research.microsoft.com/os/singularity/ |
| jdixon May 08, 2006 4:29 PM EDT |
Tuxchick: > what would happen if M$ rewrote winduhs from the ground up... Well, given current management, probably pretty much what has happened with Vista, which was supposed to be a complete rewrite, at least according to a number of sources. > Or, even more sensibly, did like Apple and put a pretty interface on top of a BSD or some such? Well, they'ed take over the market. Seriously. The one thing Gates and company know how to do well is design systems usable by the non-computer literate. With a solid foundation to work on, they could easily devise an extremely user friendly BSD that would blow OS-X away (though it wouldn't look anywhere near as nice). Everyone knows they got Linux ports of Office, et.al. ready to go when needed. I suspect the same is true for BSD, The only problem I can see is that in order to get the same "functionality" they have now, they'ed have to run as root all the time. But we know at least one other company has tried that, and the sky didn't fall; so I suspect they could get away with it, and still be more secure than Windows is now. |
| tuxchick2 May 08, 2006 6:33 PM EDT |
"The one thing Gates and company know how to do well is design systems usable by the non-computer literate." Actually, I disagree with this. Users are force-fed windows, but IMO the learning curve is just the same as for Linux. And most windoze users never learn any sort of system administration or how to install or maintain the OS- they get handed a prefab box and all they have to learn are applications. Which is also fraught with peril and woe. Anything would be more secure than windows is now, though I suspect they would quickly match their former security record. :) |
| grouch May 08, 2006 7:07 PM EDT |
tuxchick2: Thankyekindly for giving me an opening to post a quote. "As I always say, people who know Windows *don't* know about computers and operating systems - what they've learned is an arbitrary set of Microsoft abstractions that are subject to change by fiat and have little to do with what the computer is really doing." -- Les Bell (http://www.lesbell.com.au/) And that "subject to change by fiat" means the learning curve you point out has to be endured over and over again with MS stuff. |
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