[Pc_Support] Windows Vista for free? Three pronged attack on open source

[Phil Barnett]

On Monday 19 September 2005 05:03 pm, Bryan J. Smith wrote:

> > All joking aside, Microsoft's products are pretty weak at
> > this point.
>
> Yep.  When Lucovski left MS, you know he left because every
> single innovation he introduced was being dropped.  I
> honestly think he would have left a half-decade ago had
> Google been moving into the OS/application space back then.

Other than the obvious fact that they are kicking everyone in sights ass 
around the block, both for market penetration, number of commercially viable 
applications, programmer penetration, etc. Yes, it's starting to shift, but 
they are the big bully and everyone else is the 98 pound weakling at this 
time.

Not that I like them, but do not underestimate them. They have been kicking 
everyones ass around for years. Doesn't matter if they have been doing it 
ethically or not. Or if they bought the talent or built it internally. 
Marketing wise, they make the second best buyer and remarketer of talent, CA, 
look like idiots.

> Make _no_ mistake, there is _no_ .NET adoption in NT 6.0,
> other than for Indigo -- i.e., Internet services-only.  No
> LAN network or anything else -- total reuse of the ultimate
> power.

The .net framework is installed by default on Vista. That's a higher level of 
penetration than they enjoy today. And, you won't be able to remove it.

Part of the slow uptake of .NET usage is due to it being optional on every MS 
operating system to date. I expect to see more penetration when it is no 
longer optional. Regardless of whether MS uses it themselves.

The biggest advantage of .NET is that it defines the name spaces for distinct 
usage of functionality without anywhere near the mess that win32 and a 
thousand other dll's caused.

I have seen the difference already and I live with both systems on a daily 
basis. It's like night and day. It's not perfect, but it's way better than 
VB6 and a questionable pack of .dll's to play against on every machine you 
deploy to. The .net framework means that you play to a single set of 
functions that are nailed down to work a certain way. As long as you have a 
single version of the framework installed, .net will use it and it doesn't 
matter what other .dll's get installed or what their version is.

It's a good idea and I expect it to be emulated within other environments. The 
IDEA behind .net is a good one. If there is slow adoption, it's because of:

1. Lots of good code is running on older compilers and there is not any good 
reason to do a rewrite, ie: new functionality is not needed or desired. 
(witness the fact that there are still millions and millions of lines of 
COBOL still running daily)
2. Middle of the road programmers are hard to retrain without a lot of messy 
losses. And the majority of programmers _are_ average.
3. Redevelopment is expensive.

What I'm seeing at work is that all new development is being done in java or 
c#, depending on the programmers at hand's skill set. Ex VB or C++ 
programmers are pushed into .net as the easy path. Anyone who is already 
fluent in java stays there. There's not a lot of jumping around.

-- 
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the 
world. it's the only thing that ever has.