On Mon, 2006-06-05 at 04:31 +0000, lerninlinux@comcast.net wrote:
Ever read I, Cringley? While I do realize the site of www.Microsoftlinux.org is a joke, Cringley, made a valid point (between 2001-2003) that Microsofts strong point with their OS is the desktop interface. He suggested (blasphemy according to Microsoft) that they put their gui, on top of Linux, and build their own version, while incorporating, it's security features, and their proprietary codecs, and the like. In a way, it seems to me, they started down that path, once before, with NT/OS2, as it was trying to gain some posix compliance, and multiplatform capabilities. They would just have a better toolset with Linux (IMHO).
Unfortunately, Cringley was extremely ignorant of the fact that security and stability problems were _never_ the OS, but the applications themselves. So _all_ Windows applications would be just as _poor_ in security and stability on top of Linux as they were under NT. If Microsoft would build its toolchains to the actual Win32 and, now, .NET APIs -- let alone their application developers give a care about basic data alignment, multiuser and other portability and security concepts, they wouldn't have any issues. And that's before we talk about porting. Porting to Linux would be just as much of a "nightmare" as they are to MacOS/X. Just ask Microsoft's own MacOS/X developers -- they curse much of Microsoft's application division. Win64 ports are virtually impossible using existing Win32 code because Microsoft's own toolchain and application developers have _never_ bothered addressing data alignment and other issues, which x86 doesn't require you to. Now, it's probably time to move this to OT. ;-> -- Bryan J. Smith Professional, technical annoyance mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org http://thebs413.blogspot.com ------------------------------------------------------- Illegal Immigration = "Representation Without Taxation" -- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com