Want a peek at a non-Windows operating system from Microsoft?

Microsoft has hired a lot of very smart people over the years. Have they got a few of them doing something that might turn out interesting?

Certainly interesting. Microkernel research and experimental tools, running either in, as, or itself running a, virtual machine.

...under .NET.

Of course, that's just taking advantage of all the labor already put into .NET based virtual machines, and who can blame them?

Too bad those inventive, smart software engineers aren't working on something that is going to used. But then, no one is going to pay them Microsoft-level money to write Linux kernel drivers.

> But then, no one is going to pay them Microsoft-level money to write Linux kernel drivers.

Are you acknowledging that "microsoft-level" salaries are rather on the modest side? I tend to agree, and I've noted that the ads for linux kernel developers I've seen e.g. on dice.com advertise salaries far in excess of what the typical microsoft drone pulls down.

But, at ms, they get free coffee from what I understand, and lots of ms stock - but then again, that is, frankly, not such a great benefit these days.

They've been working on this thing since 2003, so it's only news because they have a new version that anybody can download. Looking at the relevant Web sites, I can't even figure out just what they even have at this point.

I guess this could represent a future Windows OS that doesn't have all the problems of the current platform. At any rate, they're not threatening to sue anybody yet, so it's a bit different than the usual as far as MS is concerned.

Quoting:Are you acknowledging that "microsoft-level" salaries are rather on the modest side?

I guess for those smart people the salary is more of the anchor-style. "Pay them enough to keep them from going elsewhere (where they could hurt us... *really* hurt us)". Actually I *hope* it's that... Otherwise those smart people don't look so smart :)

They can't lure 'em with stock options ... and that goes for MS and Google.

What I hear from my chums who work there, MS salaries are a bit on the low side, though benefits are generous. They call their stock options "golden handcuffs" because they are granted a certain amount every year, and a certain percentage vest every year, so no matter how long you stay there you're always going to have some non-vested stock.

Oh how tight those handcuffs are even in a small, private startup. It's even worse. You can't just sell your vested shares like you can with a public company. "I own 5% of BlahBlah, Inc.", can and usually does mean that you own several rolls of virtual toilet paper.

Back to Singularity: Seems to me there's not much in it that isn't tested (at the moment or in history) elsewhere yet; but I could be wrong.