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Bash on Ubuntu on Windows

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Re: Bash on Ubuntu on Windows

#371

Post by atgreen »

hsitz wrote: post #353
atgreen wrote: post #225

As I understand it, Microsoft has copied the Linux kernel system call interfaces and provided their own underlying implementation. Given that Microsoft supported Oracle's view that the structure, sequence, and organization of the Java programming interfaces were covered by copyright law, then surely they would also agree that the same holds true for the Linux kernel system call interfaces. I don't like the APIs-are-c…

"As I understand it, Microsoft has copied the Linux kernel system call interfaces and provided their own underlying implementation." Not sure your understanding is correct, but in any case is that not precisely what Wine does on Linux when running Windows apps? Are you worried about Windows copyright violations with Wine? From Wine webpage, "Wine translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on-the-fly. . ." [1] [1]…

All I know for sure is that the whole situation was a mess. See http://fortune.com/2015/06/29/supreme-court-oracle-api/

What's interesting to me right now is whether or not Microsoft is saying it's OK in one context (linux interfaces on windows), and not the other (java interfaces on android), and why are they different?

Re: Bash on Ubuntu on Windows

#372

Post by osweiller »

dubcanada wrote: post #325
osweiller wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This same "multi billion dollar" company had an AI bot tweeting Nazi propaganda a week ago. They spectacularly failed in their xbox one release, having to completely retool and regroup. Their Windows Phone efforts remain a complete disaster and are now doomed to failure. The whole "they're a big company...don't you think they've thought of this!" argument (and its many "do you really think they'll lose?" variations)…

Well if we really believe the bot was AI, then it wasn't Microsoft's bot. It was was it's own "artificial intelligence". But the rest of those have nothing to do with their legal team. They wouldn't implement a copy of another OS into this OS without making sure it was legal to do so.

Aside from the obvious outcome that it would be manipulated (which anyone could predict, and if well thought out it would have had "learning guards"), it didn't require some deep artificial learning -- you could tell the thing to repeat various offensive statements. It was just a giant miscalculation.

However the legal department of every company on the planet makes a risk:benefit analysis, especially in fuzzy areas like copyright law (which we've seen with the Java case....an API isn't copyrightable, then it is, then it isn't, then it is). The assumption that if Microsoft did it therefore it must be without risk is folly.

Re: Bash on Ubuntu on Windows

#373

Post by simonh »

dboreham wrote: post #345
dlandis wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They mention "Linux" all the time. The feature is called Windows Subsystem for Linux (Beta).

It is perfectly legal to mention someone else's trademark. Else we would have text in books like "He walked over to the bar and ordered a popular sugared caffeinated beverage made by a company headquartered in Atlanta". You just can't say something that might confuse the reader into thinking that you own the trademark.

But doesn't calling it "Windows Subsystem for Linux" imply that actual Linux is involved, or even included? Suppose I marketed a range of flavoured additives to put in you Coke and called it "Simon's Flavours for Coca Cola"?

Re: Bash on Ubuntu on Windows

#375

Post by simonh »

dubcanada wrote: post #325
osweiller wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This same "multi billion dollar" company had an AI bot tweeting Nazi propaganda a week ago. They spectacularly failed in their xbox one release, having to completely retool and regroup. Their Windows Phone efforts remain a complete disaster and are now doomed to failure. The whole "they're a big company...don't you think they've thought of this!" argument (and its many "do you really think they'll lose?" variations)…

Well if we really believe the bot was AI, then it wasn't Microsoft's bot. It was was it's own "artificial intelligence". But the rest of those have nothing to do with their legal team. They wouldn't implement a copy of another OS into this OS without making sure it was legal to do so.

You would think that Google wouldn't implement a copy of the Java APIs in their operating system without making sure it was legal to do so, but apparently not.

Ozweiller is quite right. Big companies copy other people's stuff, breach trademarks (Metro?) and generally mess up all the time.

I doubt the ABI emulation is actually a problem, but calling it "Windows Subsystem for Linux" might well be a trademark violation as it doesn't involve Linux itself. Imaging if Wine called itself "Linux Subsystem for Windows". I think Microsoft would be deploying their legal team right quick.

Re: Bash on Ubuntu on Windows

#376

Post by atgreen »

bluejekyll wrote: post #344
1_player wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL but the kernel _code_ is GPL. Nothing forbids you to implement from scratch some functionality with a different license. As long as you don't copy and paste GPL code. A system call is a function entry point. The code executed when those functions are called is GPL licensed, and Microsoft wrote that from scratch.

So what defines a derived work? If you implement from scratch, but in order to implement must look at the existing implementation in order to get it correct, then it's possible (probable?) that the new implementation is directly derived from the original implementation. It's not like Linux has a published license free spec. Unless they reverse engineered the system calls (possible but omg I think that would have been…

Well, that haven't been getting it correct, so they've got that going for them :)

https://github.com/kernelslacker/trinity/pull/9

Re: Bash on Ubuntu on Windows

#377

Post by ultramancool »

koenigdavidmj wrote: post #368
hsitz wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As I understand it, Microsoft has copied the Linux kernel system call interfaces and provided their own underlying implementation." Not sure your understanding is correct, but in any case is that not precisely what Wine does on Linux when running Windows apps? Are you worried about Windows copyright violations with Wine? From Wine webpage, "Wine translates Windows API calls into POSIX calls on-the-fly. . ." [1] [1]…

Windows doesn't provide consistency between versions at the interrupt level, and Wine doesn't provide any interface at that level. It's basically a COFF loader, and a bunch of regular userspace functions in DLLs that do everything. Linux, on the other hand, provides exactly that, and this wrapper makes it so that you can actually run "movl $1, %eax; movl $0, %ebx; int $0x80" and it will actually call the equivalent o…

Yes Windows does provide such a thing: http://j00ru.vexillium.org/ntapi/

Would be very interesting to see a Wine based on this concept instead...

Re: Bash on Ubuntu on Windows

#379

Post by merpnderp »

morsch wrote: post #211
eulji wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the problem with that is what ? You are afraid that you might like it. You migrate and they will kill the project ? If yes then...well...same can happen to any kind of software / project

No, that's not what embrace-extend-extinguish is about. The worry about EEE is that they establish dominance through vertical integration, introduce incompatibilities through both incompetence (bugs) and malicious behaviour (features), which will weaken and destroy the free standard implementations. I'm not worried though. This is a neat hack, and may be useful for some people who for whatever personal reason won't s…

*nix servers now handle 99% of the web. Microsoft isn't going to push through breaking standards.
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