Dynaverse.net

Off Topic => Engineering => Topic started by: Nemesis on July 02, 2006, 03:49:01 pm

Title: Windows after Vista
Post by: Nemesis on July 02, 2006, 03:49:01 pm

Link to story (http://www.uncoveror.com/windowsbsd.htm)

Title: Re: Windows after Vista
Post by: Sirgod on July 02, 2006, 03:59:55 pm

If that's not a joke, It just makes It that much funnier.

Stephen

Title: Re: Windows after Vista
Post by: Nemesis on July 02, 2006, 04:56:51 pm

I always felt that Microsoft fouled up back with Windows NT and Windows 95.  If they had just ported the Windows 3.1 Operating Environment to run on top of OS/2 they would have had a strong base quickly rather than building a new OS with NT.  They would have avoided the anti-trust as a (divergent) version of OS/2 would have been available from IBM and anyone else would have had to start the cloning from the beginning.  The whole Win9x vs WinNT split could have been avoided.

I would expect that the API to interface the command line MS OS/2 to Windows would be different from the IBM OS/2.  The same for the command shell.  Programs would have needed to be ported to the new OS/OE combo but considering it really would have been a superiour underlying OS and they could have fixed a lot of defects in the Win 3.1 design at the same time.  They would have been competing with IBM OS/2 but with the underlying Windows programming APIs and DOS command line (enhanced of course) would give MS OS/2 the advantage of people being able to use what they know.

Right now they are running into problems with Vista being years over due.  My interpretation of the reason is the marketing and legal department driven integration.  The OS and OE were integrated to destroy the competing DR DOS that was gaining some ground.  IE was later integrated to dance around the restrictions on bundling (while destroying Netscape).  Media player and messenger have recently been integrated to avoid the same bundling restrictions.  Integrate too closely and you end up with unrelated components being dependent on each other, modifications to one component have cascade effects through the system causing hard to trace bugs.

I think that if Microsoft were to do as Apple has and use BSD as a base and put the OE for Windows on top while  removing the packages that are integrated for marketing/legal avoidance reasons they would create a more stable, more flexible system.  If they gave fixes back to the BSD community they would also go a long way towards making improvements to their image.  But I don't believe they can due to ingrained arrogance and fear of losing stock value. 

Yes it is a joke site.  But this posting is not

Title: Re: Windows after Vista
Post by: Bonk on July 02, 2006, 05:23:44 pm

ROFL... kind of like MacOS X... ;) Mac OS 7 and 8 were so very painful to use.

I'm not so sure that evolving from OS/2 as opposed to the WinNT branch would have been such a good idea. Just my opnion though. I certainly preferred OS/2 to Win3.1 and 9x but once I got into NT I much preferred it. However, even today there are plenty of jobs that the old versions of OS/2 still do just fine and very reliably.

FreeBSD is still one of my favorite OS's. I'd say it and QNX top my list. Unparalelled performance and stabilty. Little to no compromise for cheap and bogus commercial/consumer hardware.

I kinda like this WinBSD idea. They just might have something there, as long as they didn't butcher it too much like MacOS X.

Funny joke, though perhaps not really a bad idea.