Thom,
I was waiting for the "MinWin" topic to come up. Never in my 20+ years as
an author, analyst and software developer have I seen so many make so much
out of so little. A single sentence, taken out of context and without regard
for anything I had written before. Yet the Windows fan boys pounced thinking
"Aha! We've got him!"
Well, time to burst your bubble on this one. Please take a moment to
review the following Windows Sentinel blog entry - posted by yours, truly -
way back in June of this year:
http://weblog.infoworld.com/sentinel/archives/2008/06/the_myth_of_min.html
Note the title: "The Myth of 'MinWin' and a Thinner Windows 7"
As you can see, I was the *first* major media pundit to report on the
fallacies surrounding the "MinWin" hype. In the above linked post, I
explained why replacing the Windows NT kernel with something newer and
lighter was impractical, and how those who believed such a creature were
speaking out of ignorance and/or were misinterpreting the Eric Traut demo.
In point of fact, I believe you actually linked to this piece from OS News.
Regardless, at the time that I published the above blog post, people were
already calling me a quack. NOT for *believing in* a "clean break" with
Windows 7, mind you, but rather for *denying* such a break would occur when
so many were reporting the opposite. The simple truth is that I was publicly
chastised 5 months ago for *not* drinking the media-hype-fueled "MinWin"
cool-aid. So, for these same zealots to now accuse me of being somehow
"confused" on the issue is both disingenuous and, in the case of my regular
readers, downright slanderous.
But hey, an opportunity is an opportunity, and if your goal is to
discredit someone at any cost (the true mantra of the zealot), then any gaff
- even a fabricated one - is simply too good to pass up. That you and your
compatriots seized on this one sentence and sought to turn a molehill into a
mountain speaks volumes about your agenda.
Note: If you were trying to be objective - and I think we've established
that objectivity was never your goal - you would have looked into my larger
body of work on the subject before rushing to judgment. At least that's what
a *real* journalist would have done. But then again, you're not really a
journalist, are you Thom? You're more of a fan boy who somehow managed to
secure himself a bully pulpit from which to spout his unsubstantiated
blather.
Bottom Line: It was to these users - the original "MinWin" true believers
and anyone they may have inadvertently influenced - that my comments in the
latter article were directed. I was speaking to the confused masses and
reality-deniers to whom "MinWin" still meant "new kernel." My goal was to
prove to them, once and for all, that Windows 7 was indeed based on the
Vista kernel architecture - not some new "clean break" kernel that they may
have heard about during the months of rampant hype and speculation leading
up to the PDC.
In conclusion, I'll leave you with the following quotes from one of those
confused media types who inadvertently misled so many. Speaking about
Windows 7 and the Eric Traut demo, this person opened their analysis by
saying:
"First up is a streamlined microkernel codenamed MinWin, around which a
re-engineered Windows line will be built."
And later, in the same - or a related - article, they repeated the
fallacy:
"Additionally, the presentation also showed us that Microsoft is in fact
working with a stripped-down, bare-metal version of the NT kernel, to be
used as a base for future Windows releases."
Sound familiar? It should. It's you, Thom, in one of your own articles
posted to OS News.
So, tell me all about this "streamlined microkernel" you reported on. I'm
dying to hear details...
RCK
- Randall, opening
- Thom
- Randall
- Thom
- Randall
- Thom
- Randall
- Thom
- Randall
- Thom, final
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