10 Sep
1998
10 Sep
'98
2:26 a.m.
At 09:37 PM 9/9/98 -0500, Doug Yowza wrote:
Note the smiley. I liked it, though. It's almost believable. You can
construct an entire alternate reality on this kind of stuff.
I recently saw a web site with dozens of fake press releases like this
one about TeX. Some were funny, many were not. I forget where it was,
and my bookmarks aren't telling.
What do you think it would take for Linus to sell out?
Sell out? To me, the more interesting prospect is that there's no
reason to buy him out, or anyone else out. For that matter, he may
have already sold out; see below.
I've been cultivating a pet theory lately regarding the assimilation
of Linux by Microsoft.
I believe it would be possible to refine a layer of compatibility
into WinNT that would allow more and more Linux software to be
recompiled to run under WinNT as-is (or someday, even running the
executables directly.)
I like tossing this idea on the table at programmer lunches just
to see the reactions it provokes. Because of the freeware nature
of Linux, as long as Microsoft abides by the rules of releasing
the *relevant* source code, they'd be free to assimilate as many
freeware tools as they like. Today they'll ship you a service pack CD
for $9.95; tomorrow they might ship a $9.95 Linux compatibility CD,
or even give it away as a promotion.
The average Linux-head has a hypocritical hatred of Microsoft
when considered in the light of their devotion to portable,
run-everywhere source code. Why shouldn't Linux freeware run
under NT, too?
Of course, Linux is many different components. The bulk of it,
as Richard Stallman tries hard to remind us, is based on GNU tools.
Linus made the kernel, and hordes of programmers have refined
the drivers and many other parts.
For a while, there's been a project to make a Unix compatibility
layer for GNU tools, at <http://www.cygnus.com/misc/gnu-win32/>.
Steve Chamberlain <sac(a)transmeta.com> was the original author of
this CygWin32 software. Note the e-mail address - Transmeta,
Silicon Valley's mystery company of the moment. Oh, that's
where Linus works now, too. Speculation about Transmeta includes
the development of graphics chips and emulator chips that mimic
various CPUs and OSes.
When I present this possibility to Linux-heads, their first reaction is
a fearful "But why would Microsoft want to do that?" I respond,
"To run all that great Linux application software," a double-whammy
that underscores the lack of anything truly comparable to
Microsoft Office in the Linux market. To ask why Microsoft would
assimilate Linux forces one to consider which Linux apps are most
useful to anyone but the most nerdy.
Do we really need to reproduce the kernel? WinNT already has a
microkernel architecture that, in theory, allows different OSes
to be placed on top - that's how Win32, OS/2, POSIX and DOS/Win16
live there. See <http://www.sysinternals.com/ntdll.htm>
and other pages there for a nice discussion of this.
Implement a layer of HAL that talks to Unix-style device drivers, add
an X Window server to the top layers, expand the present POSIX support,
enhance the GNU Win32 effort, make a more Unix-like shell, and presto,
Microsoft assimilates a great deal of Linux. All the Linux programmers
are working for Microsoft, unless they explicitly do something to
prevent it.
Think I can sell the idea to Uncle Bill, or do you think he's already
Microserfs working on it? And perhaps even Ballmer is thinking about it:
<http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/zdnn_smgraph_display/0,3441,2134010,00.ht
ml>
Freedows is an interesting effort to run Windows apps under Linux:
<http://www.freedows.org/english/high/index.html>.
As for the ten-year-rule, I think the assimilation of Linux into
WinNT will be good for emulators in general, making it possible
to download old Apple II executables and double-click on them
and automagically start the right emulator.
- John