Vista to Take Hard Stand Against Piracy

Excite News ^ | 4 October 2006 | ALLISON LINN

[rzeznikj at stout]

"The long term effect will be that people, (college kids), who have switched to Linux at home because that's what they could afford, will begin to demand what they've used at home, at work."

That's a big reason why I switched over to Linux. The cost of buying Windows is a hugh turnoff given the ever-rising cost of tuition...

[rzeznikj at stout]

IIRC, Windows NT was based in large part on Microsoft OS/2 1.3 (OS/2 2 and up were produced solely by IBM).

In fact, WinNT 3.1 was originally designed to be released as OS/2 3.0.

[Amerigomag]

Linux will be the big winner.

Don't overlook the Rise of the Machine, the virtual machine.

Yes, painless Linux distros like Ubuntu will become popular as hosts for virtual servers. One copy of M$, legal or otherwise, can be duplicated endlessly.

Consumers will have a choice. Patch M$ on the first Tuesday of every month or open a new copy of the virtual, M$ appliance at your leisure, when necessary.

[theBuckwheat]

Dave Cutler was the architect of Digital's VMS, which I think is still the best OS ever written. He was recruited away from DEC by Microsoft to head up the NT project. The first NT architecture book that I was able to purchase states it was a clean sheet design. In looking at the internals, a lot of the excellent features of VMS show through. Indeed, the null task was a signature Cutler feature.

As to the timeline where NT fits with OS/2, I cannot recall. I saw OS/2 and immediately concluded that IBM was not going to take the long view with respect to competing with Microsoft, as much as some people liked it.

As an aside, in the shop I used to work at we kept a running joke going for years: can anyone name any OS feature that Microsoft really invented. The mouse and GUI came from someone else (Xerox PARC), the spreadsheet from Dan Briklin's Visicalc. The only thing that several dozen well-connected techies could ever come up with was BOB, the "feature" that Microsoft included for only a short while in its OS.

[Space Wrangler]

I like it too. I have my laptop setup to where I can boot to either XP Pro, Knoppix, or Ubuntu. I'm a big Knoppix fan, but find myself liking Ubuntu more and more every day.

[HAL9000]

It's also a given that the EULA will indemnify Microsoft against any damage their software may do you their customers.

I wouldn't be surprised if the EULA gives Microsoft the right to enter customer homes and inspect their computers whenever their software flags them as a pirate.

[antiRepublicrat]

) A high-end video card. Well, not high end - but higher than any integrated graphics chipset ... The real bitch is going to be on Notebooks

That's pretty sick. The advanced bells and whistles on OS X work fine with the Intel 950 integrated graphics chipset in the Macbook and Mac mini. As usual, Microsoft tries to copy Apple, but blows it.

[antiRepublicrat]

Windows 3.1 -> 3.11. (based on 16 bit DOS)

Windows 1.x, 2.x and 3.x were just graphical shells on top of 16-bit DOS. Windows 3.x did give protected mode on capable processors, making an actual improvement over real-mode DOS.

Windows 95 -> 98 -> 98 SE/ME (based on 16 bit DOS)

Windows 9x was a hybrid 16/32 bit OS. It could run 32-bit apps in their own address spaces, but 16-bit apps got lumped together and thunked.

Windows NT was a 32 bit design written from scratch based on a blank-sheet architecture by David Cutler (architect of DEC VMS, which rocks).

While NT was written from scratch with a lot of influence from VMS, it had OS/2 influences too. It took a turn south when Windows 3.x was successful, because Gates decided to scrap the OS/2 API and replace it with a 32-bit version of the Windows 3.1 API. Since Microsoft loves backwards compatibility, there have been some major kludges since then to overcome this basic fact.

Windows 2000, written from a clean sheet but based on Windows NT.

Windows 2000 was just NT 5.0, some work under the hood plus putting a Windows 98 face on NT.

Windows XP, based on Win2000.

Some more work under the hood, plus some GUI pretties inspired by Crayola. Windows NT 5.1.

Vista, clean sheet based on XP?

More based on Windows 2003 Server (NT 5.2). Call it NT 6.0.

[rzeznikj at stout]

NT 3.1 was supposed to be OS/2 3.0--IBM was to develop version 2.0.

But the collaboration between MS and IBM fell apart, with MS continuing to develop Windows. IBM continued to work on OS/2, but it never took off aside from a small and loyal niche market.

So, MS took out the OS/2 API and much of the IBM code--replacing it with the Windows API and their own code. Technically it was clean-sheetede because MS wrote a ton of new code and put it around the new NT kernel, which MS implemented.

[theBuckwheat]

It is interesting how this history is discovered and recalled piece by piece, as if M/S doesn't care too much about it.

[Golden Eagle]

It's made by communists, I s'pose, but it's free and great.

Classic Linux user thought process...

[rzeznikj at stout]

That it is.

And then to realize that there's only a handful of things that MS has made completely of their own innovation.

Interesting to think that Windows XP can trace its roots back to OS/2....

[rzeznikj at stout]

Thread Jester Ping

A low-volume pinglist dedicated for all the thread jesters out there--you know who you are...8^)

FReepmail rzeznikj at stout or MikefromOhio to be added or struck from the list...

[Irish_Thatcherite]

hehehe!!

[rzeznikj at stout]

It gets better...

[Centurion2000]

SEATTLE (AP) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)'s forthcoming Windows Vista will take much harsher steps to curtail piracy than previous versions of its operating system, including crippling the usefulness of computers found to be running unlicensed copies of the new software.

And the first time this hits a business computer and they have a certificate of authenticity, M$ is toast.

[Irish_Thatcherite]

So I see!

[Protagoras]

Leaving aside the technical aspects of all this, is it legitimate to build software that cannot be run if it is pirated?

[Clara Lou]

Oh, don't take everything so seriously.... =p

[steve-b]

I think it's acceptable in principle, provided that it's fully disclosed in advance and the vendor takes full responsibility for damage caused by false triggers.