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Microsoft has developed its own Linux: in-house software-defined networking OS

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft has developed its own Linux: in-house software-defined networking OS

#101

Post by amyjess »

osullivj wrote: post #3

People forget that MS used to have it's own Unix in the 80s: Xenix. I ported a large DEC PDP Fortran codebase to run on Xenix back then - it was far too big to fit in the 640K DOS limit. Writing the Xenix device driver for the 68000 powered graphics card in the PC was fun.

It's also very likely that if things went just a little differently, Microsoft's main OS today would probably be Xenix-based.

Microsoft created Xenix because they knew DOS would have a limited future, and in particular they knew there was a lot of value in running enterprise software on microcomputers. They also knew costs would go down and performance would go up over time and that running minicomputer-grade stuff on micros would become more and more feasible as time goes on.

They made Xenix for a number of microcomputer platforms, typically partnering with the hardware manufacturers (as is the case with Tandy). For the PC, they chose to partner with SCO instead for some reason.

Xenix was Microsoft's next-generation operating system, intended to be a platform for the few high-end customers who wanted to run enterprise software on PC, with plans to push it across the mid-range and even the low end as PCs get faster and fast hardware gets cheaper.

And then, it all changed when AT&T got broken up. Suddenly, AT&T was allowed to commercialize their software, including Unix. And AT&T was very, very much interested in doing this. The whole thing culminated in System V Release 4, but that took a few years for AT&T to put it together. In the meantime, Microsoft thought they'd never be able to compete in the Unix market against the creators of Unix, so they panicked, sold Xenix to SCO, and began looking for a partner for their _new_ next-generation operating system.

So Microsoft hooked up with IBM and created OS/2 as their successor to Xenix. Eventually, however, Microsoft fell out with IBM...

After falling out with IBM, Microsoft decided to do it entirely by themselves, so they poached a bunch of ex-VMS guys from DEC and created Windows NT. After a few years serving as an enterprise OS, Microsoft began trickling NT down to the consumer market, eventually replacing DOS-based Windows entirely with the launch of Windows XP in 2001.

Just imagine the alternate world where Microsoft didn't get spooked by AT&T commercializing Unix and instead focused on Xenix, trickled it down to the consumer market, and ultimately replaced DOS-based Windows with a Windows-style GUI built on top of Xenix.

Re: Microsoft has developed its own Linux: in-house software-defined networking OS

#102

Post by valarauca1 »

hga wrote: post #75
noir_lord wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 35, started using Linux in '97 so I've been around for most of the history. It's quite amazing how Microsoft has changed in that time tbh from "Embrace, Extinguish, Extend" and all the shenanigans they pulled with comparing Win2k vs Linux/Samba and the halloween memo through to submitting code to the kernel, using Linux as a guest in their VM stuff and now using it internally not to mention making .Net a first cl…

Don't forget Halloween Memo X, along with as I remember stuff from GrokLaw, which revealed that Microsoft funneled 86 million to SCO when it was litigating SCO v. The Open Source World . (Especially bogus because SCO knew in advance they didn't have the rights to UNIX(TM), but I doubt Microsoft knew that.) I'll bet that by itself had consequences.

When Microsoft sold the Xenix license to SCO it took its payment in stock. Mircosoft owned ~25% of SCO during these legal battles.

Re: Microsoft has developed its own Linux: in-house software-defined networking OS

#103

Post by scholia »

cbd1984 wrote: post #88
ck2 wrote: post #21

And they are partnering with CyanogenMod to get it on their phones/tablets. Is Microsoft doing an IBM-like refocusing?

> Is Microsoft doing an IBM-like refocusing? They have no choice. Desktop systems aren't a growth market anymore and, so far, they don't own anywhere else which is .

They're certainly refocusing but Azure and Office 365 are both growing rapidly. Of course, they're cannibalizing their own stuff. The interesting question is the effect on revenues a few years down the line....

Microsoft has also overtaken IBM in annual turnover, having given it a $50 billion/year start. That means it's refocusing from a healthier financial position, at the moment. It remains to be seen whether Nadella can do as well as Ballmer, who tripled turnover and doubled profits. That's quite a challenge.

Re: Microsoft has developed its own Linux: in-house software-defined networking OS

#104

Post by yarrel »

debacle wrote: post #60
DanBC wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MS used to really trash open source, with Ballmer calling GPL "cancer". (Although the company pulled back from that extreme). When MS took over Hotmail they got rid of FreeBSD that was running it. But MS have used Unix for years. They released MS IE for Unix. (The only person I know who ever used it was on HN.) Perhaps more bizarre was the Windows Media Player for Unix. Their TCP/IP stack was from BSD for ages (and p…

The GPL is a cancerous license, and Ballmer had to trash open source. That was their business model and they were using the OSS association against Novell. Edit: For those of you downmodding me for saying that the GPL is a cancerous license, please understand that this isn't a negative connotation - it's simply an aspect of the requirements of the license. It's very likely a good thing, and part of the reason that Li…

The GPL isn't "cancerous. If you must use a negative biological term to do the work of smearing it, try "congenital".

Re: Microsoft has developed its own Linux: in-house software-defined networking OS

#105

Post by nickpsecurity »

Lesson: Microsoft is willing to improve their proprietary offerings using leveraging free software others built. This is the main reason for FOSS uptake everywhere and makes great business sense for them. They also make a killing in patent royalties on the Android ecosystem. If anything, Nadella is focusing Microsoft more on the dollar than prior politics.

It's the same Microsoft, though, far as I can tell with many of the same tricks. All the spyware and schemes in their recent products confirms that. They shouldn't be trusted. People need to move away from their tech wherever possible. Except maybe the stuff like this that's built on tech someone can inspect, fork and/or clone.

Re: Microsoft has developed its own Linux: in-house software-defined networking OS

#106

Post by skc »

cbd1984 wrote: post #88
ck2 wrote: post #21

And they are partnering with CyanogenMod to get it on their phones/tablets. Is Microsoft doing an IBM-like refocusing?

> Is Microsoft doing an IBM-like refocusing? They have no choice. Desktop systems aren't a growth market anymore and, so far, they don't own anywhere else which is .

It isn't necessary to "own" a growth market to be successful but having said that, don't discount Office 365 which has already usurped Google's similar offering by all accounts.

Re: Microsoft has developed its own Linux: in-house software-defined networking OS

#107

Post by nickpsecurity »

pjmlp wrote: post #25
gillianseed wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As an hybrid kernel I must ask, what exactly makes the current NT kernel a 'hybrid' kernel ?

It still makes use of the original micro-kernel design,with kernel level RPC to separate modules. Thus still offering a micro-kernel cleanness in a monolithic space. Also since Windows Vista many drivers are now implemented in user space, with minimal kernel primitives.

Exactly. It gets the modularity and some fault isolation without the vastly-reduced attack surface of kernel mode. ;)

Re: Microsoft has developed its own Linux: in-house software-defined networking OS

#108

Post by hga »

valarauca1 wrote: post #102
hga wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget Halloween Memo X, along with as I remember stuff from GrokLaw, which revealed that Microsoft funneled 86 million to SCO when it was litigating SCO v. The Open Source World . (Especially bogus because SCO knew in advance they didn't have the rights to UNIX(TM), but I doubt Microsoft knew that.) I'll bet that by itself had consequences.

When Microsoft sold the Xenix license to SCO it took its payment in stock. Mircosoft owned ~25% of SCO during these legal battles.

Huh, I don't remember that, especially if those were the two different SCOs. The first, the Santa Cruz Operation, was OK ignoring some quality issues, and they are the organization that Microsoft got 25% of through that transaction in 1987. Much later, in 2001, this happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz_Operation#Asset_sal...

And Caldera, which renamed itself in the next year to The SCO Group, got all of the original SCO's assets but Tarantella. Not sure what happened with Microsoft's ownership of the original SCO, but I don't remember through the years of SCO v. The World that Microsoft had a large ownership stake ... which would have been major.

Instead, per http://www.catb.org/esr/halloween/halloween10.html and my memory of Groklaw ..., well, here's ESR's first summation paragraph:

There you have it. At least a third of SCO's entire market capitalization, and their entire current cash reserves, is payoffs funnelled from Microsoft. Their 10Qs reveal that every other line of cash inflow is statistical noise by comparison. The brave new SCOsource business model is now clear: sue your customers, shill for Microsoft, kite your stock, and pray you stay out of jail.

I also seem to remember some Microsoft related deal involving the purchase of Novell SUSE? licenses, although now I can't remember if The SCO Group directly benefited from it.

Microsoft earned this part of its bad reputation, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who's purchases from the company in part ended with Windows XP prior to that (of course, it helped that Vista was long delayed and awful). Supporting Microsoft back then was unconscionable.

Re: Microsoft has developed its own Linux: in-house software-defined networking OS

#109

Post by frik »

buffoon wrote: post #68
Kurtz79 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How long until they decide that Windows Server is no longer worth investing in ?" Without hard data to support it, my impression (or better, my anecdotal experience) is that Windows Server has quite a strong hold in medium/large sized companies (not necessarily IT companies) as part of the local network infrastructure, and it's quite profitable for Microsoft.

I think it's treated as a necessary evil. People are starting to realise that it's less necessary these days. Anecdotally, back a decade ago it was common to see a Windows 2000/2003/SBS box in even an SME environment being a fileserver/exchange/intranet/AD box. Now, I rarely see one. In fact they're declining even in large corps.

What do you use as replacement for Active Directory?

Which OS do you deploy on thin clients (ChromeOS, Android, Ubuntu/RedHat Linux)?

Re: Microsoft has developed its own Linux: in-house software-defined networking OS

#110

Post by rjsw »

cbd1984 wrote: post #79
david-given wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and I perpetrated a horrible hack which let me run unmodified Linux binaries on it. http://lbw.sourceforge.net (Seriously, it's a vile, vile hack, involving dynamically patching running binaries to work round Windows ABI differences and work around seg faults. But it works well enough to run a Debian userland.)

Speaking of vile hacks... has anyone here used Eunice, which allowed people to have a Unix (BSD-flavor) userland on VMS? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_%28software%29 Larry mentions it in the perl configuration file: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Larry_Wall#Configure

I have used Franz Lisp on VMS that had been built using Eunice. I guess the Eunice userland may have been installed somewhere on the VAX but I don't remember finding it.
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