And if Red Hat and Progeny is giving back to the community why not back them in the competition?

that would be the best thing to do if Ubuntu continues keeping launchpad partialy closed.

Why should we side with someone who does

not respect us? It is not that we are gonna fight against ubuntu, when we get to chose, which one to go for. People might have different priorities, and I respect it. I just shared what my thoughts are on it. Just in case it helps you in making a decision.

...

Not really. Please check it for your self.

http://www.ubuntu.com/news/LaunchpadRelease

Good.

in which case we must not say that Ubuntu does not acknowledge GNU.

It is about prioritizing. I would give Freedom a higher priority that ease of use, you are Free to give other aspects which you feel are more important a higher priority. I wanted to share my concerns what happens when Freedom isn't a higher priority. Again just in case if it helps you when you make a decision - knowing what might happen when you chose technical merit over Freedom. Remember we reached where we are today because many people cared Freedom more than easy to use. There were people using Free Software when most of the hardware would not work, when Open Office was not there, when beryl was not there ... It might help to look back so that we won't have to repeat the same mistakes.

True. Only how many people you know came onto GNU/Linux ONLY because of the Freedom aspect? i.e they believed in the Freedom and then said - hey why don't i apply this to the software i use as well. Then started using GNU/Linux, i haven't met anyone with that story so far.

Nearly every GNU/Linux i personally know came to the system first because of tech reasons and later discovered the GNU philosophy and then were enlightened to the fact that Freedom IS of paramount importance.

Therefore let the people come forth onto Ubuntu and get used to things. As they learn and evolve in their thinking on the aspects of Freedom, they will automatically reject anything that is tainted by restrictions. Again - the law of nature prevails. In fact physically trying to make people use a distro or switch to another just gives them the feeling that they are being bossed around albeit for good reasons. i'd like to call it Natural Selection in software.

When there is debian, gnewsense ... why would I choose windows. Life is always about compromises, you try to achieve high priority things and sometimes don't mind losing lower priority things.

Hmm...

I already told I will support them if and when they come out with a completely Free distribution.

opinion respected.

...

are you saying that the M$ Novell will not affect Debian users and developers?

How will MS-Novell deal will affect Debian users and developers?

if it is proven in a court of law that a particular software patent owned my M$ is being violated by a Debian user/developer that/those person(s) are liable to be sued.

The

threat from MS id the same as that before the deal.

Eben Moglen has stated that the recent threat of lawsuits to developers by M$ is ``no comfort at all".

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-6132156-7.html

Now that Novell is

in a tough situation as the deal would violate GPLv3. The MS threat is an annual "The Be very afraid tour" spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) and there is no substance in it.

agreed. Only caution is needed.

"So threatening is better than suing, okay? Imagine a party who engages in recurrent threats every summertime, for years on end, on a sort of annual "Be very afraid" tour, okay?

:-)

I know, it sounds absurd, I know." http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_%E2%80%9CBe_very_afraid%E2%80%9D_tour

:-)

The party needs protection from the deal is Novell. "Don't Worry About Novell; Worry for Them" http://linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/interviews/6388/3/

True, only Novell doesn't seem to be afraid at all.

"..and whose main distribution sites distribute only free software." http://www.gnu.org/links/links.html#FreeGNULinuxDistributions

agreed.

...

and when they don't ?

Only then you have to worry about it, right? Why would Ubuntu give me non-free drivers when everything I wanted work well with Free drivers?

agreed. Only that means one round of a compatability check for a new user before installation. O.K, that seems fair.

and I respect that.

and i respect your opinions as well.

:-)

Regards,

- vihan

Enough said in this thread already. Now let this thread sleep in peace.

:-)

ABSOLUTE AGREEMENT :-)

Regards,

- vihan

2007/5/31, Vihan Pandey vihanpandey@gmail.com:

Eben Moglen has stated that the recent threat of lawsuits to developers by M$ is ``no comfort at all".

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-6132156-7.html

"Whether the partnership precludes Novell from distributing Linux depends on precise terms of the agreement that Moglen hasn't seen, he cautioned."

If only you had checked the date, you would have realised it was a statement before he saw the agreement. And the comments which I posted are recent ones.

Cheers Praveen

gnewsense? who uses gnewsense?

flamebait!! ahoy! captain full steam reverse?

SG

2007/6/1, Kenneth Gonsalves lawgon@au-kbc.org:

this is pure BS. No one migrates to foss/linux because of freedom. They migrate because it works. The guys who are mouthing off about freedom have been struggling for 20 years to build a kernel

They are still struggling because Freedom is not the primary motivation. When Linux, the kernel filled the last main component for a complete Free Operating System, the biggest motivation -- Freedom -- is gone, and now the driving force for Hurd is a technically superior kernel replacement that the current operating system research recommends -- micro kernel design. Again that supports my argument -- there are people who develop (may not be end users but I look at the entire community of users and developers) because Freedom is important.

We didn't give up until java was completely Free. What do you think was the drive behind gcj, classpath, kaffe, cacao, jamvm ... when java was available free or cost and it worked?

When flashplayer is available for free of cost and it works and it even comes by default in many GNU/Linux distribution why gnash and swfdec?

Why people develop Free Software replacement for PDF viewers when Adobe gives acrobat reader Free of cost? Doesn't it work?

Same for 3D drivers for ATI, NVIDIA....

GNOME was started because QT wasn't free, you look back and you can see there are people who value Freedom and don't use GNU/Linux because it just works.

I didn't just mean just the end users, I meant the entire Free and Open Source community when I said there are people who care about Freedom and we reached this far because of their efforts.

VP dropped bits saying:

...

They are still struggling because Freedom is not the primary motivation. When Linux, the kernel filled the last main component for a complete Free Operating System, the biggest motivation -- Freedom -- is gone, and now the driving force for Hurd is a technically superior kernel replacement that the current operating system research recommends -- micro kernel design.

i'm with you there 100% micro kernels are the future.

Microkernels are theoretically superior. In practice however, you almost always need a compromise between theoretically superior technology and efficiently implementable technology. Linux's pluggable modules are just such a compromise, and works well.

On Fri, 2007-06-01 at 08:32 +0530, Kenneth Gonsalves wrote:

this is pure BS. No one migrates to foss/linux because of freedom. They migrate because it works. The guys who are mouthing off about freedom have been struggling for 20 years to build a kernel

Exactly, thats the difference between Andrew Tanenbaum and his "theories" and Linus who built a practical kernel - which works! People, especially businesses give a damn about freedoms and such. They use whatever works and is _cheaper_ :)

On Fri, 2007-06-01 at 19:36 +0530, Vihan Pandey wrote:

EXCUSE ME but before you go on touting stuff like that don't forget that before the Linux kernel there was Minix and there IS something called Amoeba and there are books on OS and networks whose eloquence is UNPARALLED.

I dunno about Amoeba but I dont see Minix being used by businesses? I dont see it being put into PDAs, Missile Guidance systems or the Mars rover. Neither do I see it being used on Desktops, servers or <plugin whatever yuo like here> :) So what is practically more valuable? The Linux kernel or Minix?

Minix may be an amazing "learning tool" but its usefulness ends there. Thats all I was implying. Linux has proved that all theories _cant_ be put into practice. Theres always a trade off between practicality, economic, technical, economic viability and theoretical superiority.

Even Andrew Tanenbaum basically imples the same. He is an OS researcher and will advance theories in OSs. Maybe one day they'll be put into practice and a true microkernel will be born.

Till then Linux will rule :)

So before you start FUD about AST who IS one of the golden greats of computer science PLEASE get your facts right.

Ok...i guess you're a bit sensitive about Tanenbaum. I apologize for sounding a bit harsh.

again if its cheap in the short run but kills the business in the long. It will never last.

Yes, and Linux isn't certainly killing any business, except M$ :P

( That was a joke! ) :P

...

EXCUSE ME but before you go on touting stuff like that don't forget that before the Linux kernel there was Minix and there IS something called Amoeba and there are books on OS and networks whose eloquence is UNPARALLED.

I dunno about Amoeba but I dont see Minix being used by businesses?

/me notes that you that you didn't say a word about his books.

Even Andrew Tanenbaum basically implies the same. He is an OS researcher and will advance theories in OSs.

i find it really sad that you haven't seen the level at which things are done practically in research universities all over world. Nor have you bothered to even try a simple google search to find out.

Maybe one day they'll be put into practice and a true microkernel will be born.

They are ALREADY being put into practice look at XNU it is a Mach implementation supported and being used by Apple, even Sun is using a Mach variant(even though you may not awareness of the same, nor bothered to make your self aware). And irrespective of FUD said by other people, i DO have hope for HURD and Coyotos.

Till then Linux will rule :)

yeah when the greed of corporates pumps more and more ``essential" modules, we'll see how long it rules.

Ok...i guess you're a bit sensitive about Tanenbaum. I apologize for sounding a bit harsh.

if you have EVER studied even an iota of Computer Science you would not make such a ridiculous statement.

Yes, and Linux isn't certainly killing any business, except M$ :P

A design that only solves short term problems eventually dies and takes all dependent on it to the grave.

( That was a joke! ) :P

ha ha ha /me pukes

Regards,

- vihan

--- Siddhesh Poyarekar wrote:

On 6/3/07, Vihan Pandey wrote:

...

They are ALREADY being put into practice look at

XNU it is a Mach

...

implementation supported and being used by Apple,

even Sun is using a

...

Mach variant(even though you may not awareness of

the same, nor

...

bothered to make your self aware). And

irrespective of FUD said by

...

other people, i DO have hope for HURD and Coyotos.

AFAIK pure microkernels have not found favour with commercially popular OSes (including FOSS alternatives). Apple's XNU is hybrid, not a pure microkernel

Also, the Solaris kernel is monolithic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_%28operating_system%29

There were issues about maintenance with Monolithic kernel, such as Linux. But is it really difficult to maintain, when there are nearly thousands of contributors to it?

-- FSF of India Associate Fellow - http://www.gnu.org.in S K Somaiya College of ASC- http://www.somaiya.edu/sksasc ubunturos @ freenode

Download prohibited? No problem! To chat from any browser without download, Click Here: http://in.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php

Sometime Today, Siddhesh Poyarekar assembled some asciibets to say:

I have a doubt though, probably kernel hackers on list can help. Does the core+servers design of pure microkernels make it any more robust? Meaning, is it possible for memory management to fail without affecting the core and FS manager or something like that?

Ideally implemented, it would, but you'll often notice that most software (even opensource software) is written by humans who have little time or motivation to be thorough and complete in their work. They sometimes cut corners to get a feature out in time, but most often it's just that they didn't know better.

When you start to do things with software that the original author never expected (but fall into the realm of possible albeit improbable uses of the system), that's when you notice the programmer's limitation.

I am not a kernel hacker either, nor am I an expert in operating systems. The only thing I have is a reasonable knowledge of how most people program computers, and in my experience, it's far from perfect. It is also my experience that perfection is rarely practical if attempted all at once. If developed for a very long time, an application will evolve towards perfection, but how long do most apps continue in development?

...

They are ALREADY being put into practice look at XNU it is a Mach implementation supported and being used by Apple, even Sun is using a Mach variant(even though you may not awareness of the same, nor bothered to make your self aware). And irrespective of FUD said by other people, i DO have hope for HURD and Coyotos.

AFAIK pure microkernels have not found favour with commercially popular OSes (including FOSS alternatives). Apple's XNU is hybrid, not a pure microkernel

You miss the point of reply.

A certain person was blabbing FUD about AST and callously dismissing his work as ``theories" and conveniently also dismissing the very ideas and research put forth by researchers all over the world as having no practical merit as a working practical implementation is there. Well if we all had that attitude we'd still be in the stone age. If there's one thing i have learned over a priod of time - NEVER dismiss an idea.

By the DAJ, since you did not reply to my point about AST's books let me give you a little something from one of them :

``In bilogy, extinction is forever, but in computer science, it is sometimes only for a few years.....

...Early operating systems allocated files on the disk by placing them in contiguous sectors, one after another. Although this scheme was easy to implement, it was not too flexible because when a file grew, there was not enough room to store it any more. Thus the concept of contiguously allocated files was discarded as obsolete. Until CD-ROM's came around. There was a problem of growing files did not exist. All of a sudden, the simplicity of contiguous file allocation was seen as a great idea and CD-ROM file systems are now based on it...."

Also, the Solaris kernel is monolithic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaris_%28operating_system%29

My dear Sir, NO WHERE in my reply have i said that that Solaris is a mirco kernel. What i did say was : ``even Sun is using a Mach variant" :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenStep

...

A design that only solves short term problems eventually dies and takes all dependent on it to the grave.

AFAIK, the main reason Linux (and other commercially used OS kernels) stay away from pure microkernels is speed. The microkernel design doesn't optimize for speed, it does so for clarity in design. Monolithic (and hybrid) kernels optimize for speed while at the same time, having sufficiently clear design.

and is that a reason to dismiss the very idea of Mircro kernels itself ? Again to quote AST ````In bilogy, extinction is forever, but in computer science, it is sometimes only for a few years".

Regards,

- vihan

I did that on purpose, since I too respect AST for his work. He's the first person who comes to mind when one mentions Operating Systems. That is the reason why I responded only to portions that I felt would give me a bit more information, not defend credentials of a proven Guru.

:-) DAJ apparently disagrees as he has still not bothered to recant his statement.

...

By the DAJ, since you did not reply to my point about AST's books let me give you a little something from one of them :

I didn't because I (and probably all of the computing world) knows what AST means to OS research and development on the whole, not because I wanted to nitpick.

that query was for DAJ not you. Anyway thanks for stating it never the less :-)

...

and is that a reason to dismiss the very idea of Mircro kernels itself

Not at all. The microkernel architecture is superior in most respects -- it's just not as fast as the monoliths yet.

agreed.

Regards,

- vihan

On Sun, 2007-06-03 at 02:14 +0530, Vihan Pandey wrote:

/me notes that you that you didn't say a word about his books.

His books have nothing to do with the topic we're discussing.

...

Maybe one day they'll be put into practice and a true microkernel will be born.

They are ALREADY being put into practice look at XNU it is a Mach implementation supported and being used by Apple, even Sun is using a Mach variant(even though you may not awareness of the same, nor bothered to make your self aware). And irrespective of FUD said by other people, i DO have hope for HURD and Coyotos.

Yes? AFAIK, they're not true microkernels. Besides, IIRC, microkernels are plagued by the classic problem of "message passing" - too much message passing - which makes it, well, SLOW. Hello? We dont want to follow the M$ ideology:

Hardware speed * Software bloat = constant

if you have EVER studied even an iota of Computer Science you would not make such a ridiculous statement.

Yes, I have studied quite a bit of Computer Science. And yes, I am graduating from college with flying colours. Thank you very much.

A design that only solves short term problems eventually dies and takes all dependent on it to the grave.

Something is better than nothing. Do you mean to imply that we should've waited until the oh-so-1337 microkernel to be written to finish the GNU operating system? Hahaha... dont trivialize Linux's contributing to GNU's success. If it werent for Linux, the GNU shell would've probably be stuck with some proprietary kernel.

ha ha ha /me pukes

Grow up!

...

/me notes that you that you didn't say a word about his books.

His books have nothing to do with the topic we're discussing.

Really? Was it not you that said ``the difference between Andrew Tanenbaum and his "theories" and Linus who built a practical kernel - which works!". Try getting Operating System Design and Implementation(which comes with a Minix CD) then start hacking around with the exercises.

...

They are ALREADY being put into practice look at XNU it is a Mach implementation supported and being used by Apple, even Sun is using a Mach variant(even though you may not awareness of the same, nor bothered to make your self aware). And irrespective of FUD said by other people, i DO have hope for HURD and Coyotos.

Yes? AFAIK, they're not true microkernels.

Really? So according to you the world has rejected all possible things regarding microkernels and, HURD and Coyotos are not true microkernels.

Besides, IIRC, microkernels

are plagued by the classic problem of "message passing" - too much message passing - which makes it, well, SLOW. Hello? indeed, and do you know the minuscule kernel zkernel achieved by it

the very idea is to have a minuscule kernel and rest of the crap in user space which is communicated with by message passing. The result is if any of the crap crashes, the kernel still survives.

We dont want to

follow the M$ ideology:

Hardware speed * Software bloat = constant

In fact the very idea of microkernels opposes all of M$'s design concepts(if they ever had any).

Yes, I have studied quite a bit of Computer Science. And yes, I am graduating from college with flying colours. Thank you very much.

Good for you, now when you enter the real world you will see how much meaning the flying colours have against logic and reason.

...

A design that only solves short term problems eventually dies and takes all dependent on it to the grave.

Something is better than nothing. Do you mean to imply that we should've waited until the oh-so-1337 microkernel to be written to finish the GNU operating system?

Linux is a solution but by no means for the long term.

Hahaha... dont trivialize Linux's contributing to

GNU's success. If it werent for Linux, the GNU shell would've probably be stuck with some proprietary kernel.

The only trivialize that has been done here is by you of AST which IMHO was totally uncalled for. Moreover, dismissing things just because they don't work is a very nearsighted approach good only for companies with a short life span and not the community at large.

...

ha ha ha /me pukes

Grow up!

i think you are the one needs the maturity bit dear :-)

Regards,

- vihan

I'd rather learn with Linux than with Minix.

AST has categorically stated that for a student to be able do a course in a semester at Virje you needed a kernel that would cover all concepts required to be learned by a student. Hence he wrote Minix, and its still one of the easiest things to start learning system concepts and interactio with.

to put it in one line - would you rather start teaching computer programming with BASIC or PL/1 ?

*yawn* try telling me something new :)

until i understand your rationale i don't have much of a choice :-)

...

In fact the very idea of microkernels opposes all of M$'s design concepts(if they ever had any).

IIRC, M$'s own kernel ( Win2k or Win2k3 ) resembles a microkernel. yes, they too are apparent aware of the positive aspects of the microkernel.

Oh, and where did you get info from, please do post a link.

I know. I've been in the "real world" for more than 4 years now :) I've seen both sides of the spectrum for quite some time..! ;)

then why the ranting against AST?

...

...

...

A design that only solves short term problems eventually dies and takes all dependent on it to the grave.

Give me one microkernel replacement for the Linux kernel which you can substitute at this moment and build an entire "Free" operating system like GNU/Linux. Obviously, its performance should atleast match upto GNU/Linux.

given time and effort there WILL be more contenders. To assume there would be none is VERY dogmatic.

...

Linux is a solution but by no means for the long term.

I never said Linux was a silver bullet. I never said it was a long term solution. You're putting words in my mouth.

but you discounted the probability of a microkernel based future entirely.

...

The only trivialization that has been done here is by you of AST which IMHO was totally uncalled for. Moreover, dismissing things just because they don't work is a very nearsighted approach good only for companies with a short life span and not the community at large.

I've _not_ trivialized Andrew Tanenbaum at all. His work and his theories are respected around the world.

By giving stupid comparisons you HAVE tried to trivialize AST which is unforgivable.

Would anyone be dumb enough to say : ``Don Knuth is a genius at algorithms and created TeX but since its not being practically used as much Micro$oft Office that makes him mearly a theory guy".

Linus' creation has been around for some time now and is also

respected in a similar way.

The way people talk about microkernels being the salvation of the

modern operating

systems drives me up the wall.

i'm still not understanding why you feel like that?

Its a great concept but one that is plagued by implementation problems given todays technology.

and today's technology will be plagued by tomorrow's problems

IIRC, even RMS acknowledges that microkernels are tough to build and the GNU project's efforts in building one was taking waaay too long

agreed.

and around that time Linus came up with his kernel which the community accepted with open arms. ( Refer Revolution OS :P )

agreed, because there was no choice but to do so.

Regards,

- vihan

You do. You can shut up and leave the matter to rest. Let AST and LBT argue the issue amongst themselves if they want to go through that again.

Would you shut up and leave the matter to rest if Larry Wall was the topic ?

Regards,

- vihan

Yeah I would. It's not worth my time or energy to dwell on these topics. Write more, talk less.

agreed.

Regards,

- vihan

On Mon, 2007-06-04 at 16:53 +0530, Vihan Pandey wrote:

to put it in one line - would you rather start teaching computer programming with BASIC or PL/1 ?

I would rather learn with C than BASIC or PL/1

...

IIRC, M$'s own kernel ( Win2k or Win2k3 ) resembles a microkernel. yes, they too are apparent aware of the positive aspects of the microkernel.

Oh, and where did you get info from, please do post a link.

Find it yourself! Its on MSDN or Technet or google or somewhere!! :P

then why the ranting against AST?

Because I'm a Linus fan boiii, get it? :)

given time and effort there WILL be more contenders. To assume there would be none is VERY dogmatic.

Given enough time and effort pigs will fly and we'll have perpetual motion machines.

Go back and read my posts, I never said that Linux is _the_ kernel for GNU. Yes, eventually, there _will_ be a better replacement for the Linux kernel or maybe Linux may evolve into a true microkernel. Who knows? I never discounted the possibility, did I?

but you discounted the probability of a microkernel based future entirely.

No I didnt.

By giving stupid comparisons you HAVE tried to trivialize AST which is unforgivable.

Oh so sue me! :/ I've my opinions, just like you have and I have full right to express them. Just cuz you worship AST doesnt mean that the rest of the universe does too...

Would anyone be dumb enough to say : ``Don Knuth is a genius at algorithms and created TeX but since its not being practically used as much Micro$oft Office that makes him mearly a theory guy".

This is a really flawed analogy. Both TeX and M$ Office are _working_ and _matured_ products. TeX is far far older, agreed. While a true, working microkernel is still a long way from reality.

Its in the making but as I said _repeatedly_, todays technology makes it exponentially difficult for us to write a microkernel. Why do think theres no "commercial" microkernel? I'm very well aware of its benefits but despite that we dont see one around, do we? :/

i'm still not understanding why you feel like that?

Stop trying to understand my "feelings" :P

On Tue, 2007-06-05 at 18:58 +0530, Philip Tellis wrote:

...

I would rather learn with C than BASIC or PL/1

I don't know. I learnt programming with BASIC, and I turned out ok. C isn't going to teach you logic as well as a higher level language. You get lost in the details of the language instead of learning how to program.

C is a legend. Respect it.

Python and Basic are good languages to learn with because they abstract out the internals of the machine and data types from the programmer. Once the student has developed strong foundations in logic, he can learn anything.

It is ironic that most people feel that people who learn BASIC are very used to writing _bad_ code - spaghetti code they call it.

Fear teh GOTO!!

On 05-Jun-07, at 6:58 PM, Philip Tellis wrote:

...

On Mon, 2007-06-04 at 16:53 +0530, Vihan Pandey wrote:

...

to put it in one line - would you rather start teaching computer programming with BASIC or PL/1 ?

I would rather learn with C than BASIC or PL/1

I don't know. I learnt programming with BASIC, and I turned out ok.

werent you the guy once flamed on this list for quoting something like 'it is practically impossible to teach programming to someone who started on basic'? Incidently there is a huge difference between being able to write working code in a language and programming. In languages like perl, python or php you can write working code within a few minutes of starting to learn the language - but it takes many years to learn programming. Most people never reach that stage, or even need to.

On Mon, 2007-06-04 at 16:53 +0530, Vihan Pandey wrote:

...

IIRC, M$'s own kernel ( Win2k or Win2k3 ) resembles a microkernel. yes, they too are apparent aware of the positive aspects of the microkernel.

Oh, and where did you get info from, please do post a link.

Did you even read the link that you gave me?

Quoting the link that you gave me ( http://www.cs.vu.nl/~ast/reliable-os/ ) : ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Windows NT 3.1 was a half-hearted attempt at a microkernel system, but it wasn't done right and the performance wasn't good enough on the hardware of the early 1990s, so it gave up on the idea for a while. But recently, it tried again on modern hardware, resulting in Singularity. Now I know that a lot of people assume that if Microsoft did it, it must be stupid, but the people who drove the Singularity project, Galen Hunt and Jim Larus, are very smart cookies, and they well understand that -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Its RIGHT THERE! In the article itself, Windows NT! It may not be tons of info but it would've definitely stopped you from making that remark you made!

------------------------------------------------------------------------- Windows is a mess and a new approach is needed. Even the people working on Vista see they have a problem and are moving drivers into user space, precisely what I am advocating. -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Geez...does he even know what a MESS Vista really is?? It was a big FAT /ENGINEERING/ failure! They have about 10% of the features that they had originally planned...

Next time, please do read up well before entering into such debates. Such 'goof ups' really discredit you..!

On Tue, 2007-06-05 at 19:30 +0530, Vihan Pandey wrote:

the link was sent to the list well after my request to you for the M$ thing on Microkernels to which you gave an arrogant ``check for yourself" advice which i decided to follow.

Arrogant is hardly the word. Insolent maybe. Say whatever. But when I'm flaming someone I'm not going get off my big fat arse and post links to prove my point. If the "flamee" wishes to confirm what I'm saying, he may do it at his own expense ( b/w, time, money etc... etc... ) ;)

And I _wasnt_ referring to singularity. I clearly mentioned in my post that Win2k / 2k3 was using a semi-microkernel architecture. Obviously you lost that bit. Fine.

Mohan posted this. Did you miss it? or overlooked it?

From Galvin's book's appendix (7/e):

http://codex.cs.yale.edu/avi/os-book/os7/online-dir/Win2K.pdf See page 4.

The article is dated 12 May 2006 if you cared to look.

By May of 2006, it was quite clear that Vista was _ahem_ doomed :P

On Tue, 2007-06-05 at 22:16 +0530, Vihan Pandey wrote:

...

By May of 2006, it was quite clear that Vista was _ahem_ doomed :P

really? It seems that development was frozen on November 8th, 2007 and only after that it was it released for testing and eventually made its way to sections of the general public.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Vista

Ok...lemme scratch my head :P

Vista, code named Longhorn, was supposed to be released in late 2003. It was supposed to be the stepping stone to Windows Vienna. Their schedule slipped. Lots of crap happened. WinFS and several key features were dropped. Scheduled slipped yet again and again and again and ... well ... again. Then they gutted the entire codebase. Hehehe... and switched to Win2k3 code base hoping they'll get back on track. This was in 2004. Finally its release date was set to be in 2005. It slipped twice or thrice after which they were supposed to release it for Christmas 2006. That didn't happen. There was a big out cry as Dell and other vendors lost a lot of $$$$ due to this stupid move. Then Jan 2007 was set as the final date for its release ;)

So my dear friend it was 101% clear that Vista was doomed. By May 2006, several key features were dropped, code based was jettisoned and a new code base was adopted, schedules slipped, heads rolled at M$.

However if you are speaking rhetorically implying that everything M$ makes is doomed from the start that's another matter :P

No. I dont flame M$ just cuz its M$! :P

On Wed, 2007-06-06 at 01:47 +0530, Vihan Pandey wrote:

:-) The funny thing is that's not very uncommon in software :D

In fact it happens most of the time due to bad project management or budgetary constraints or fluctuating requirements or unrealistic release dates.

Yes, and it has happened in the past with M$. But a 4 year delay _and_ a major reduction in feature set was new for everyone including M$ itself.

So DAJ, why don't we end this thread now and think of more constructive things for the next GLUG meet instead? Agreement?

Yes. Agreed.