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Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

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Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#101

Post by cptskippy »

orf wrote: post #7
drinchev wrote: post #6

I was a Windows user for a long time. 5 years ago I switched to OS X, because I think it's closer to the deployment environment I use as a dev. However what OS X did ( when they killed the old one - MacOS 9 and rewrote the whole thing on UNIX based kernel ) was the single greatest move, which I think pays off even these days. This is what I hope should happen with Windows. They should decide on POSIX kernel and compl…

Suggesting a rewrite of something as important as the NT kernel is ignorant at best. I think Bash on Windows is a great compromise.

There's nothing about the NT kernel that needs to be rewritten to implement a POSIX or SUS compliant user-mode subsystem. They once had a Windows Services for UNIX (SFU) subsystem that was POSIX compliant. The new "Bash on Windows", officially called "Windows Subsystem for Linux", appears to be targeting the Linux Standard Base (LSB) and not striving for POSIX or SUS compliance.

LSB is mostly a superset of POSIX. POSIX is a subset of SUS. OSX is SUS compliant, though not POSIX certified. Windows is POSIX certified though not SUS compliant. And no one is LSB certified except a few Linux Distros.

This leaves me wondering exactly what target Microsoft should be aiming for since everyone seems to be playing by their own rules. It's like playing Monopoly with your friend's family who has their own house rules that aren't really like your family's house rules both of which are incompatible with the official rules.

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#103

Post by cptskippy »

douche wrote: post #64
cptskippy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problems Microsoft has that others don't is brand confusion. They like to ride on their own coat tails so distinct and unique products that are completely unrelated are often called the same thing. What do you call Microsoft's personal email client? Outlook. What do you call Microsoft's web based personal email service? Outlook. What do you call Microsoft's enterprise email client? Outlook. What do you cal…

Good lord, the brand confusion. I work with Microsoft's enterprise instant messaging/unified communications platform. It used to be called Lync, which, whatever, meh, it's a name. When Microsoft acquired Skype, they decided to rename the next iteration of Lync, Skype for Business. Skype and Skype for Business are two completely different products, running on top of different protocols that just barely inter-operate.…

Have you used One Drive yet? There's 2. :)

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#104

Post by overgryphon »

norea-armozel wrote: post #31
kidmenot wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is what I hope should happen with Windows. They should decide on POSIX kernel and completely rewrite most of it. They simply can't afford it, not because they lack the resources but from a strategic point of view. See the other comments talking about compatibility. Windows works for many, many, many people and businesses. It would be a suicide move. People, and even more importantly businesses, don't jump on a…

I agree that they're not likely to do a full abandonment of the Windows stack, it still makes money for them so why mess with a good thing? I think more likely is that as Azure expands they'll try to make more money off of that platform and use Windows (desktop/server) as their supplementary income which in itself is a big gamble IMO.

Azure runs on Windows.

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#105

Post by cptskippy »

lego6245 wrote: post #70
cptskippy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problems Microsoft has that others don't is brand confusion. They like to ride on their own coat tails so distinct and unique products that are completely unrelated are often called the same thing. What do you call Microsoft's personal email client? Outlook. What do you call Microsoft's web based personal email service? Outlook. What do you call Microsoft's enterprise email client? Outlook. What do you cal…

Well, technically speaking the web based ones are called Outlook Web Access. And I don't feel there is confusion. How is it different with Microsoft that Outlook is Outlook, from how with Google Apps Gmail is Gmail? Just like with Outlook there are enterprise versions of Gmail too. Is it feature parity?

Nope! And thanks because I forgot about OWA! OWA is the self hosted web client for Exchange. That's another completely distinct product unrelated to Outlook 365 or Outlook.com.

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#106

Post by cptskippy »

rudolf0 wrote: post #81
cptskippy wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the problems Microsoft has that others don't is brand confusion. They like to ride on their own coat tails so distinct and unique products that are completely unrelated are often called the same thing. What do you call Microsoft's personal email client? Outlook. What do you call Microsoft's web based personal email service? Outlook. What do you call Microsoft's enterprise email client? Outlook. What do you cal…

Things get confusing when you deal with Skype for Business, too...

Have you used One Drive? What about One Drive for Business? The should bring back A Drive and B Drive.

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#107

Post by overgryphon »

pdkl95 wrote: post #90
gnoway wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you're OK with breaking compatibility with all existing Windows apps - most of which you have no control over - rewriting the kernel as a POSIX thing is going to look a lot like 'bash on windows' in reverse. You'd have to have some kind of shim layer to translate all the old system calls, so most everyone's existing software is going to be slower and there will be bugs, etc. Including your own, since Windows i…

> 'bash on windows' in reverse That would be "wine", which has worked surprisingly well several years.

Wine is fine for getting around an expected limitation, but would you run your workloads on wine in a production datacenter? It would be a disaster.

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#108

Post by overgryphon »

B1FF_PSUVM wrote: post #4

Maybe, but I'm worried they've given up on consumer devices, and decided to stick to the enterprise cash cow, in the Oracle-lesser-evil model. Entirely egotistical of me, I came from an iPhone to a Lumia and I'm not too enthusiastic about going back (although I also use iPads, and like them). I find Android a bit of a swamp, and having only iOS as an alternative is sad.

Surface Pro and Surface Book are definitely consumer devices. As are Band, and Xbox.

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#109

Post by swalsh »

Gravityloss wrote: post #9
orf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suggesting a rewrite of something as important as the NT kernel is ignorant at best. I think Bash on Windows is a great compromise.

Why is the NT kernel so important? It hasn't touched my life much in about eight years, private or professional. Nokia thought Symbian was very important too.

There are thousands, probably millions of small business critical pieces of code running on systems all over the world running more than just .NET code. You'll have to emulate or recreate nearly the entire operating system, at which point... what did you accomplish? Businesses are going to compare the cost/benefits of upgrading their OS vs upgrading some old code, and decide it's not worth it.

Perhaps you've been lucky enough to move to more modern systems, but you're in the tech circle. For everyone else, it's not an easy option. Have you ever worked for a fortune 500 company? There are systems that are nearly 20 years old with billions of dollars running through them. Moving that is not a light decision.

Re: Satya Nadella just fixed Microsoft’s biggest problem

#110

Post by dbgllm »

cptskippy wrote: post #101
orf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suggesting a rewrite of something as important as the NT kernel is ignorant at best. I think Bash on Windows is a great compromise.

There's nothing about the NT kernel that needs to be rewritten to implement a POSIX or SUS compliant user-mode subsystem. They once had a Windows Services for UNIX (SFU) subsystem that was POSIX compliant. The new "Bash on Windows", officially called "Windows Subsystem for Linux", appears to be targeting the Linux Standard Base (LSB) and not striving for POSIX or SUS compliance. LSB is mostly a superset of POSIX. POS…

You mention a target as compliance or certification, but I don't think this is a direct concern for the WSL. They want to support specific use-cases, at least at first.

---

"Moving forward we will be investigating new areas of interest while continuing to support the following scenarios:

+ GNU command line tools such as grep, sed, and awk

+ File system and symlink support within the WSL environment

+ Ability to run apt / apt-get for installs, updates, and package testing

+ Basic functionality for languages such as NodeJS/npm, Python, Perl

+ Command line tools such as Vim, Emacs, Git, and SSH"

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/wsl/2016/07/08/bash-on-ubun...

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