izanbardprince
September 15th, 2007, 07:16 AM
http://www.epinions.com/content_5099987076
--------------------
Where I see "Windows 7" going...
Sep 14 '07
The Bottom Line: Why Windows should make you a sad panda!
Coming to a PC near you in 2012....unless we have to push it back...
OK, first of all, seriously, this is Microsoft, we're talking about six years between Windows XP, and Windows Vista, which amounts to a service pack and "We re-arranged the user interface, for no good reason, again!".
Expect delays, expect big ones....
Why?
Well, if it took them six years and numerous deleted features to get Windows Vista out the door, having thousands of software engineers on the payroll, and thousands more temps where that came from.
What they're talking about with Windows 7 is, ditching the entire Windows API, as we know it, and replacing it with a completely rewritten kernel.
Now, backwards support for current Windows API programs will come in the form of an emulator, that operates as a subsystem.
In an ideal world, this could be a good thing, because it gives Microsoft a good excuse to throw everything regarding Windows' current design out in the dumpster, start over, and get it right.
But of course, it won't go down like that, I predict that the project will be so delayed, that Windows users better cozy up with Vista until at least 2015, and that is being cautiously optimistic about the situation.
And if this had been announced ten years ago, before Damnable Restrictions Malware had been unleashed upon the world, and Windows started playing software police, and spying on the user, I would have called the announcement good news, now I probably wouldn't.
Why is that?
Well, most of the technical problems in the Windows kernel tend to come from the fact that:
1. It reeks of poor design.
and
2. It reeked of poor design, when it was being designed to run on systems of nearly two decades ago, even the Windows NT kernel, which is what Microsoft gave us all when the 9x kernel (God awful) was scrapped as of Windows XP, was designed with a lot of throwbacks made to bad design on their other operating systems, like Windows 3.1 and DOS, in order to achieve better compatibility.
Enter Windows Vista
Well, if Windows XP had a lot of technical issues, Windows Vista came along and exposed to the world just how untenable the current Windows code base really is, even loading Windows Vista on a decent system, with lots of RAM, and a good processor and GPU, you can almost feel it trying to collapse under it's own weight, it has to deal with systems that the NT kernel was never intended for, tons of devices that hadn't even been invented in 1989 (When the NT project began), and the aforementioned design throwbacks, like the horrible drive letter handling, a file system that fragments itself, and the city dump known as the Registry.
And then as if the situation wasn't bad enough already, they start tacking in Damnable Restrictions Malware into the kernel, and right on up to where it can no longer be considered transparent, because every time you turn around, you're dealing with it again, while it's complaining about license file this and that, and crashing your video card intentionally while you're just trying to watch a movie, that it assumes you're pirating.
Windows 7 might be better on a technical level, but don't look now...
Honestly, in this age we're living in, of copyrights, and the RIAA, and the MPAA, if you think Windows Vista is bad, wait til you get a taste of what I guarantee will be coming in Windows 7, new technology in the Treacherous Computing department will enable your machine to hide what it is doing, encrypt anything it doesn't want the user to see, and disable anything that Microsoft doesn't want you to run, this includes legitimate programs, enabling the user to do things that Microsoft does not want them to do, here's an example:
I was playing through Halo 2, for the PC, Microsoft says it needs Vista, they are lying, with some unofficial "mods", Halo 2 runs perfectly on Windows XP, and you can even hook in to XBOX Live and play online.
If you zip forward to Windows 7, you will no longer be able to do things like this, that are entirely legal, using software you paid for, because the operating system will be in cahoots with things like the Treacherous Platform Module and the EFI (say good bye to LinuxBIOS!), and will be able to stop you on a hardware level, no work arounds, no way to download a utility and "bypass" the system, do not pass go, do not collect $200 (in fact, pay Microsoft a minimum of $200 to "upgrade" to this abuse!).
And should we really expect more from a company that needs eight people dedicated to the shut down applet in Windows Vista, and who's internal politics leave forty-three people in total, associated with this one thing, most of them having no final say?
http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-crapfest.html
That article, if you're curious, will show you just how incompetent Microsoft's development methods are, and you will be gawking at the utter stupidity!
I mean, the way the Windows development cycle apparently works, is you have to wait three months before the code tree gets compiled, and you can actually see what your code, from three months ago, will actually do!
Well a lot can happen in three months, and you may decide to write code under the assumption that a feature that another team is working on will be there, then that project gets axed by a guy in a suit, in the office down the hall from the cubicle farm, and three months later, you're back to square one.
Even if that doesn't happen, what if the code you compiled, compiles just fine, but doesn't work for some reason?
So in the full year, while those people were trying to write the shut down applet for Windows Vista, and trying to figure out if it works, Canonical's Ubuntu Linux has had two entire operating system upgrades, adding thousands of bug fixes and new features, and better performance and usability , and over at Redmond, "Oh cool, the shut down applet works! Who wants pizza!?".
After all, we're paying to reward Microsoft's incompetence, yes, pizza for the forty-three Windows Shut Down Engineers indeed!
It's no wonder they have to hire people to orchestrate smear campaigns against superior software competition, because there's just no way they could position their products fairly in the market, to compete on merit.
And I'm sure the dinosaurs never saw it coming either!
Now I'm not one to run around screaming the sky is falling, and to be quite honest, I've always kind of thought of Richard Stallman as kind of a kook, until things really did go the way in Windows, that he had been telling everybody for years...
This sort of daylight theft, of the basic ability to access information, and use one's computer hardware, that was bought and paid for, and legally owned by them, is completely unacceptable, and underscores the Free Software Foundation's case for why proprietary software is unethical, and practically slaps you in handcuffs for daring to push the "on" button!
Now I'm not a total Richard Stallman fan, his views tend to be extreme in some cases, but in regards to software, he is 100% dead on; I've abandoned 99% of my proprietary system software, the only things I have left for my OS are a couple binary drivers that I'm not too thrilled about.
I suggest a reading of Richard Stallman's essays, if you have a few minutes to be enlightened about the state of computing, and why the only way to fix it is to avoid patented or proprietary operating system software and file formats:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/
--------------------
Where I see "Windows 7" going...
Sep 14 '07
The Bottom Line: Why Windows should make you a sad panda!
Coming to a PC near you in 2012....unless we have to push it back...
OK, first of all, seriously, this is Microsoft, we're talking about six years between Windows XP, and Windows Vista, which amounts to a service pack and "We re-arranged the user interface, for no good reason, again!".
Expect delays, expect big ones....
Why?
Well, if it took them six years and numerous deleted features to get Windows Vista out the door, having thousands of software engineers on the payroll, and thousands more temps where that came from.
What they're talking about with Windows 7 is, ditching the entire Windows API, as we know it, and replacing it with a completely rewritten kernel.
Now, backwards support for current Windows API programs will come in the form of an emulator, that operates as a subsystem.
In an ideal world, this could be a good thing, because it gives Microsoft a good excuse to throw everything regarding Windows' current design out in the dumpster, start over, and get it right.
But of course, it won't go down like that, I predict that the project will be so delayed, that Windows users better cozy up with Vista until at least 2015, and that is being cautiously optimistic about the situation.
And if this had been announced ten years ago, before Damnable Restrictions Malware had been unleashed upon the world, and Windows started playing software police, and spying on the user, I would have called the announcement good news, now I probably wouldn't.
Why is that?
Well, most of the technical problems in the Windows kernel tend to come from the fact that:
1. It reeks of poor design.
and
2. It reeked of poor design, when it was being designed to run on systems of nearly two decades ago, even the Windows NT kernel, which is what Microsoft gave us all when the 9x kernel (God awful) was scrapped as of Windows XP, was designed with a lot of throwbacks made to bad design on their other operating systems, like Windows 3.1 and DOS, in order to achieve better compatibility.
Enter Windows Vista
Well, if Windows XP had a lot of technical issues, Windows Vista came along and exposed to the world just how untenable the current Windows code base really is, even loading Windows Vista on a decent system, with lots of RAM, and a good processor and GPU, you can almost feel it trying to collapse under it's own weight, it has to deal with systems that the NT kernel was never intended for, tons of devices that hadn't even been invented in 1989 (When the NT project began), and the aforementioned design throwbacks, like the horrible drive letter handling, a file system that fragments itself, and the city dump known as the Registry.
And then as if the situation wasn't bad enough already, they start tacking in Damnable Restrictions Malware into the kernel, and right on up to where it can no longer be considered transparent, because every time you turn around, you're dealing with it again, while it's complaining about license file this and that, and crashing your video card intentionally while you're just trying to watch a movie, that it assumes you're pirating.
Windows 7 might be better on a technical level, but don't look now...
Honestly, in this age we're living in, of copyrights, and the RIAA, and the MPAA, if you think Windows Vista is bad, wait til you get a taste of what I guarantee will be coming in Windows 7, new technology in the Treacherous Computing department will enable your machine to hide what it is doing, encrypt anything it doesn't want the user to see, and disable anything that Microsoft doesn't want you to run, this includes legitimate programs, enabling the user to do things that Microsoft does not want them to do, here's an example:
I was playing through Halo 2, for the PC, Microsoft says it needs Vista, they are lying, with some unofficial "mods", Halo 2 runs perfectly on Windows XP, and you can even hook in to XBOX Live and play online.
If you zip forward to Windows 7, you will no longer be able to do things like this, that are entirely legal, using software you paid for, because the operating system will be in cahoots with things like the Treacherous Platform Module and the EFI (say good bye to LinuxBIOS!), and will be able to stop you on a hardware level, no work arounds, no way to download a utility and "bypass" the system, do not pass go, do not collect $200 (in fact, pay Microsoft a minimum of $200 to "upgrade" to this abuse!).
And should we really expect more from a company that needs eight people dedicated to the shut down applet in Windows Vista, and who's internal politics leave forty-three people in total, associated with this one thing, most of them having no final say?
http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-crapfest.html
That article, if you're curious, will show you just how incompetent Microsoft's development methods are, and you will be gawking at the utter stupidity!
I mean, the way the Windows development cycle apparently works, is you have to wait three months before the code tree gets compiled, and you can actually see what your code, from three months ago, will actually do!
Well a lot can happen in three months, and you may decide to write code under the assumption that a feature that another team is working on will be there, then that project gets axed by a guy in a suit, in the office down the hall from the cubicle farm, and three months later, you're back to square one.
Even if that doesn't happen, what if the code you compiled, compiles just fine, but doesn't work for some reason?
So in the full year, while those people were trying to write the shut down applet for Windows Vista, and trying to figure out if it works, Canonical's Ubuntu Linux has had two entire operating system upgrades, adding thousands of bug fixes and new features, and better performance and usability , and over at Redmond, "Oh cool, the shut down applet works! Who wants pizza!?".
After all, we're paying to reward Microsoft's incompetence, yes, pizza for the forty-three Windows Shut Down Engineers indeed!
It's no wonder they have to hire people to orchestrate smear campaigns against superior software competition, because there's just no way they could position their products fairly in the market, to compete on merit.
And I'm sure the dinosaurs never saw it coming either!
Now I'm not one to run around screaming the sky is falling, and to be quite honest, I've always kind of thought of Richard Stallman as kind of a kook, until things really did go the way in Windows, that he had been telling everybody for years...
This sort of daylight theft, of the basic ability to access information, and use one's computer hardware, that was bought and paid for, and legally owned by them, is completely unacceptable, and underscores the Free Software Foundation's case for why proprietary software is unethical, and practically slaps you in handcuffs for daring to push the "on" button!
Now I'm not a total Richard Stallman fan, his views tend to be extreme in some cases, but in regards to software, he is 100% dead on; I've abandoned 99% of my proprietary system software, the only things I have left for my OS are a couple binary drivers that I'm not too thrilled about.
I suggest a reading of Richard Stallman's essays, if you have a few minutes to be enlightened about the state of computing, and why the only way to fix it is to avoid patented or proprietary operating system software and file formats:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/