“I’m not sure what to think about Longhorn yet. On the one hand, it looks like it will potentially be a truly revolutionary new version of Windows that has all kinds of new potential built into it. On the other hand, it looks like it could be made into the most proprietary operating system ever. One in which only Microsoft can extend or do anything meaningful to it.” Read the editorial by Stardock’s Brad Wardell.Elsewhere, Microsoft’s annual Tech Ed 2004 conference opens Monday in San Diego, Calif. The sold-out event includes almost a dozen tracks with hundreds of sessions. while NeoWin is silently expecting an announcement from Microsoft at Tech-Ed 2004 and that SP2 is to be released on Wednesday.
Longhorn: Will Microsoft Keep the Door Open?
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
>> Will Microsoft Keep the Door Open?
Yes they will, but I do expect they’ll close the windows.
On the one hand, it looks like it will potentially be a truly revolutionary new version of Windows that has all kinds of new potential built into it. On the other hand, it looks like it could be made into the most proprietary operating system ever.
It will be both at the same time.
Obviously Stardock isn’t going to be thrilled at the prospect of being shut out of their current gig.
No news or surprises in the notion MS is going to cut some of the third party guys out when they finally release Longhorn; that has happened everytime they released a new OS.
Perhaps Stardock should stop worrying about what MS is going to do and start work on a killer desktop for Linux.
I would bet the only thing stopping them is that burning desire to make money. Amazing how powerful that money thing can be.
It’s only amazing if you’re a Linux or GPL fanatic, and out of touch with reality. A company, trying to make money. What a shocker (no, not your pinky).
I’m sure Stardock would love to have to support ten different distributions of Linux comprising 1% of the market instead of two binary-compatable versions of Windows that make up ~67% of the market. Right!
“I’m sure Stardock would love to have to support ten different distributions of Linux comprising 1% of the market instead of two binary-compatable versions of Windows that make up ~67% of the market. Right!”
It was just my lame attempt to add a bit of humor…..
Should have been disarmed by the government. Their marketshare should have been capped at 75% . That would have stimulated real jobs in O.S. software. Can you believe Microsoft is outsourcing jobs to other countries ? Amazing.
> Can you believe Microsoft is outsourcing jobs to other countries ? Amazing.
Um, so is everyone else, do you live under a rock?
“On the one hand, it looks like it will potentially be a truly revolutionary new version of Windows that has all kinds of new potential built into it. On the other hand, it looks like it could be made into the most proprietary operating system ever.
It will be both at the same time.”
No, they will TRY both at the same time.
“No, they will TRY both at the same time.”
For the sake of a whole lot of folks, you better start praying they don’t get it right just ONCE. Getting it right could be the end of a lot of the third party guys, a ton of shareware, and a LOT of developers.
People have long talked about having a “hood welded shut”, well they are now attempting to add “armor plating” to the vehicle. Not to say they WILL get it right, but God help many if they actually do it.
A lot of folks talk about “vaporware”, endless delays, and MS hyping everything along the way. I see it slightly differently. Everyday they spend developing Longhorn is likely another day spent attempting to “get it right”. Same applies to XP SP2.
“I’m sure Stardock would love to have to support ten different distributions of Linux”
Or simply write the code and what you included.
Wait, am I saying that distributions support the distributions of software in Linux? Why that’s amazing, who does it in Windows?
I don’t see how putting up a torrent to the source, or actually serving the source, along with a quick page that says:
Depends on:
………
From the article:
maybe Longhorn will be Microsoft’s way of closing the door on everyone. Longhorn could be simply an application launcher with a “take it or leave it” philosophy behind it.
This is an intriguing possibility, and Wardell wouldn’t be the first person to suggest it. However, it seems to me that what Microsoft would really be interested in are applications that some of the big ISVs produce– Adobe Photo Shop comes to mind here– and shutting out some of these companies would be in MS’ interest, if they could develop competing products. Office and Windows itself are the big money-makers, but Visual Studio and documented APIs exist for a reason: to get and keep developers coding on Windows. This in turn assures that Windows maintains its market share, so Microsoft maintains their revenue stream. My prediction is that hooks will be created for users to be able to customize their GUI, or they’ll find a way.
Longhorn is far from a vaporware beast, thing of urban legend, or a promise of nothing to come. MS might hype it a bit too much, however that doesn’t make it the overdue piece of vaporware as many would like to believe.
Hell if I were going to be selling Longhorn in (select timeframe here) I would be hyping it too….. They DO have a VERY good product coming to market, and they sure as hell want everyone to know about it…. Can’t blame them for that.
When are people going to realize there is nothing wrong with selling a product for a profit, and making money? The only ones really pissed about it are those that are not making any. Linux guru’s mounting tires at Wal-Mart come to mind here.
End of the story….
I don’t think a lot of linux people object to others making money out of linux. There is nothing in the GPL, or other open licenses that prohibits making money from the software. Please don’t confuse freedom and openness with no cost.
Please also don’t forget that many of the arguments about software cost are distorted by the fact that MS is a monopoly. One of the few ways to dislodge a monopoly, is to offer a product at low, or no cost. It is playing a monopoly at its own game. One tactic of a monopoly is to gouge competitors in submarkets, while using monopoly rents from other markets to subsidise the other submarkets where they are gaining no revenue. Once the competition is killed, the prices in the submarket go back up to a monopoly rent. One of the only ways for some balance to be put back in the operating system/office market is to sustainably put free products in there, so that MS can’t gouge the competition. Furthermore, if it’s GPL, they can’t purchase, or use it either, leaving them with little option, but to compete on value (ie price and quality). Once there is a true market situation in the OS/ desktop software markets, there will be plenty of money to be made off linux, including services, middleware, and userland applications.
All MS supporters should be thanking the free software community for forcing MS to compete on value. The winners are the consumers, and especially Windows consumers. I never understand why Windows users resent linux. GET THIS: LINUX PROGRESS IS HELPING THE WINDOWS CONSUMER. There may be a few casualties along the way, but that is the price of change for the better.
Matt
“I’m not sure what to think about Longhorn yet. On the one hand, it looks like it will potentially be a truly revolutionary new version of Windows that has all kinds of new potential built into it…”
…on the other hand it looks like it could be the biggest, most bloated, buggiest, obfuscated, in-your-face annoying pile of dung Microsoft has ever released.
Revolutionary? Really? What new apps will become possible? All I am hearing about is eye candy!
What they better do is deal with security and that is what I am pretty sure they are not doing. Any time you make a system bigger you increase the dificulty of making it secure.
This author wants them to leave lots of ways to get down to the internals so he can add window dressing easily. I hope they do. I will just hasten their demise.
And lord help them if they try to change all of the protocols.
I never understand why Windows users resent linux. GET THIS: LINUX PROGRESS IS HELPING THE WINDOWS CONSUMER.
We don’t resent Linux. As a matter of fact, many of us like Linux. What we resent are the rabit, hardcore ‘Linux or death’ zealots who are constantly trying to convert us to their religion .. always talking about how badass and superior Linux and its apps are. Hell, if Linux is really all that, then I don’t understand why they’re so concerned about what operating system I’m using or not using.
There may be a few casualties along the way, but that is the price of change for the better.
Geez, you sound like a damn terrorist .. do you know that?
What “Linux or death” zealots? I don’t see many of them at OSnews. I don’t see many of them at Slashdot. *When* I see them, they usually get flamed down by tons of people or get modded down to oblivion.
What pisses me off a lot more is the tons of people who:
– Act as if everybody is a Linux zealot.
– Pretend like they’re everywhere.
– Accuse anybody who doesn’t agree them with them to be a zealot.
Heck, I’ve seen more “MS or death” zealots than Linux zealots!
“always talking about how badass and superior Linux and its apps are”
What the hell are you talking about? Every time there’s an article about Gimp almost everybody flames Gimp down for being inferior to Photoshop. Lots of Linux users honestly admit that although Gimp is good, it’s not as good as Photoshop. Lots of Linux users admit that Linux do have problems. Lots of Linux users are being HONEST.
Yet in reality, being open and honest doesn’t help. Trolls and flamers will flame down Linux for not being perfect. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t?
Something tells me this version of windows is going to be a very bad thing.
It looks a lot like KDE.
Verbatim,
That’s actually a really good idea: Stardock working on a desktop for Linux. In fact, it’s effing brilliant. I hope that some Stardock fellows read that and consider it.
“That’s actually a really good idea: Stardock working on a desktop for Linux. In fact, it’s effing brilliant. I hope that some Stardock fellows read that and consider it.”
Just as soon as Stardock can find a way to get Linux users to PAY 50.00 for a “desktop”, I’m certain they will hop right on it. The only catch is; there needs to be a few million users willing to do so…..
The following is a semi-rhetorical question (namely because I have no idea how much of the info is publicly accessible), but insight is appreciated.
I’m a computer science major at a top 10 university, and I have come to firmly believe that the quality of software is based primarily on simplicity and the methods used by the people developing the software. Although it is rarely implemented and impractical, designing software with a formal logic background can do amazing things and would probably help us avoid many of the problems that we have today (instability and security problems both). Windows, while greatly improved in its’ XP version, is still based on what many would call somewhat inferior code. This was made obvious just by the comments from the windows source code (all that I have seen, no code itself).
So what I’m wondering is, how much of longhorn is being rewritten versus new features. I know it will still be based on “NT technologies”, but why exactly is it taking so long? How has the makeup of programmers shifted since the last MAJOR overhaul of windows (probably 2000)? Is the coding department larger? Was it restructured, possibly replacing less skilled programmers with more formal coders? Are we going to get something (not me, I’m a mac/linux d00d) that is actually better, more graceful code deep inside the core, or just more proprietary wrapper APIs and prettier graphics?
I haven’t kept up too much with Longhorn so far, but it seems that everyone is more excited about the graphics engine and the dock than rewriting shitty code (as it was referred to in M$’s own developer comments) that lies like cancer within the heart of the system?
Go formal logic and weakest precondition. It’s a pain, but as long as you control the “universe” in which you operate, you can prove things concrete that testing until the end of time could never verify. I was honored to meet Dijkstra (sorry if I misspell) in person recently.
Ok, I’m done…..
This is the same whiner from around a year or so ago. I’ll say it again, if you market disappears, look for a new one! amazing, a software company “DIVERSIFYING THEIR PRODUCT LINE!”, what a revolution. Geeze, what a new innovation.
Instead of Brad Wardell whinging and whining about Longhorn, why not write a new product? Brad Wardell’s little soldiers have two years to write a “killer application”, whats stopping them? when Windows 2000 started including a defragmenter (NT 4 didn’t), Symantec and Excutive Software looked for other ways of adding value, and they’re still profitable to this day.
Microsoft has a movie maker in Windows, and funny enough, we still have the likes of Pinnacle making a nice bit of cash on their video editing software.
There are many examples of where Microsoft has added extra software and the competitors have stood back and said, “how can we make out products even BETTER so that people are compelled to buy it?”, the find a way, and make even more money than before.
Love it or loth it, the only people who end up killing the competition are the competitors themselves and their ignorance of the reality that sits in front of them. Just look at the result of the market not jumping onto win32; we now have an Office suite commanding up to 90% of the market place.
You can beat around the bush for ever and a day but it doesn’t change the fact that the competition were asleep at the wheel, and I’ll bet my bottom dollar that we’ll have another round of companies who will fail to head the Longhorn message and go under, but of course, they’ll blame Microsoft for their lazyness and inability to read the market indicators correctly.
Conversation with 17 year old son:
“I really want to be a Linux programmer”.
Thats okay son, We can’t afford to support ya until your 45, but it was a nice thought. Ever heard of .NET?
You might want to read the article. He very much wants the freedom to be able to do as you suggested. However we have a Monopoly who can unduely influence anyone who develops a product for their software. All the example’s you gave could do what they did, because MS left ways that they could, even if one at the time couldn’t envision what exactly that was. That’s why there are “hooks” in software. However with things like DRM and other means, at worst all that freedom could go away. At best it will be a question of “is your software blessed” to run on our OS?
“Love it or loth it, the only people who end up killing the competition are the competitors themselves and their ignorance of the reality that sits in front of them. ”
What “reality” was GO ignorant of? Don’t trust Microsoft?
“You can beat around the bush for ever and a day but it doesn’t change the fact that the competition were asleep at the wheel”
Blaming the victum while ignoring Microsoft’s actions through all this, seems to be quite a popular sport in online forums. Wonder why?
Symantec and Excutive Software looked for other ways of adding value, and they’re still profitable to this day.
But for how long? This is just a guess, but I suspect that they make most of their money from their virus software and software firewall. What happends if MS keeps replacing their software? They can’t keep making new products all the time, because then they won’t get anywhere with them.
Microsoft has a movie maker in Windows, and funny enough, we still have the likes of Pinnacle making a nice bit of cash on their video editing software.
Again, I’m just guessing that most of their revenue comes from hardware companies wanting to prodide the consumers with complete solutions.
WinXP hasn’t been out very long so it’s not really considered standard yet, that’s why hardware companies need to ensure that their users are able to use their product. Once XP becomes the standard they won’t need their third party software suppliers anymore, they allready know that the costumors have the needed software to use their product.
If I was a windows developer I would leave right away. Besides there’s less competition in other markets.
” Conversation with 17 year old son:
“I really want to be a Linux programmer”.
Thats okay son, We can’t afford to support ya until your 45, but it was a nice thought. Ever heard of .NET?”
More of your “humour” I take it? This “issue” has already been done years ago. The majority of Linux programmers have jobs, and degrees. They do what they do for various alturistic reasons. Not everything in this world revolves around greed, and the pursuit of wealth, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact I’d say that the world is a better place exactly because not everyone is a money-grubbing selfish bastard.
“I really want to be a Linux programmer”.
Come on, “Linux” is not a programming language…
You’ll have to do with about the same languages that are available to other OS:s.
“Can you believe Microsoft is outsourcing jobs to other countries ? Amazing.”
Seen from the point of view of the UK, Microsoft jobs are already in another country. By monopolosing the desktop computer industry, they have removed many thousands of jobs from Europe to the US.
It doesn’t make any difference to us whether those jobs are in India or Seattle.
I saw the UI screenshots looks like another playschool UI.
Making money is not a crime, the crime comes from how you make it. Being a capitalist does not make you a criminal, only how you go about it. MS is very aggressive, while they make a lot of money, they have ‘killed’ a good deal on the way to where they are now and looks like they are on their way to ‘killing’ a bit more.
Longhorn will arrive, whether a betterment of their code or window dressing, it will arrive. The time it is taking them it could be due to improvements in the code or it could even be that they are waiting out the settlement of SCO vs. IBM, in which case Longhorn will be tooting new features in addition the same old code that caused so many problems before. But I doubt it is mostly the latter.
Longhorn looks horrible so far… I don’t see the graphical hype myself =X