Home from LA
Last week I headed down to LA to spend a long weekend with my sister and my friend Sara, both of whom live there. I tried to remain disconnected during that time but failed pretty miserably, at least the last couple days. I even kept up with my work e-mail most of yesterday. I really need to get better at “unplugging.”
The so-called “Free Software Foundation,” having vanquished their enemy from Redmond and having nothing better to do, is now launching a Denial of Service campaign against users of Apple’s products. Basically they want their minions to descend upon Apple stores everywhere and harass the store employees so that they can’t help real customers.
Here is my response to this effort:
You guys are showing the FSF’s true colors with this action. It is bad enough that you wage this campaign of lies and deceit against the iPhone (half of the reasons on your “5 reasons” list are blatant lies), but now you’re taking action directed specifically at hurting users who have chosen to support a product other than yours.
And as much as you may deny it, that is exactly what you are doing – advocating products and services that fit your particular (and greatly skewed) view of how the world should be. You aren’t revolutionaries out to overthrow the draconian monarchy. You’re more like Jehovah’s Witnesses coming to my door to peddle your own obscure brand of morality and a book that’s kind-of sort-of like a more popular one but supposedly better because it’s “free,” but not actually free just free in some pedantic sense using your own book’s definition of free. That is, you still want me to pay you for it.
Well guess what, protesting against consumers for choosing another product is about as productive as a 5 year old crying at the grocery store because they want a candy bar. You’re just going to piss off everybody else in the store, and embarrass the only people who have a vested interest in seeing you succeed.
A couple months ago I posted about an article by some guy at Business Week, that made all sorts of rubbish claims about Windows and OS X.
Not to be outdone, Randall Stross at the NY times decided he could use some TechMeme love and wrote basically the same piece.
He says of Windows:
Painfully visible are the inherent design deficiencies of a foundation that was never intended to support such weight.
Yet he fails to mention what any of these deficiencies might be.
He then says the the best solution to any problems with Windows is to “start over.” You know, because that worked so well for Intel when they tried it.
Stross has a point when he says that the time between XP and Vista was too long. He probably even has a point when he says that Vista doesn’t look like a product that was in development for 6 years.
Guess what? It wasn’t. You see, back in 2001 the Windows division at Microsoft came up with the hair-brained idea to change pretty much everything, as Stross is suggesting now. Only he’s too late, and Microsoft has already learned that throwing out everything you know about Windows and rocketing into a brave new managed-code-centric world just doesn’t work all that well.
Stross also uses some funny math and says that Vista is the equivalent of Windows “version 12.” It’s as if he’s trying to say that somewhere under the pretty UI, the core of Windows hasn’t really changed since Windows 1.0.
Of course that couldn’t be further from the truth. Windows NT was a completely new OS. Windows 2000 was nearly a complete rewrite of that. Server 2003 and XP SP2 saw more major changes under the hood, as did Vista itself.
That is to say, this isn’t your older brother’s Windows (“grandfather” didn’t quite seem appropriate given the time scale).
Even then, I’m still not sure why anyone thinks this “start over” idea has any basis in reality. Do you really think it would only take a couple of years to write an entirely new OS with all the capabilities of Windows Vista?
Stross also repeats the dubious claim that Windows is too “monolithic.” With its NT microkernel, layered and massively componentized architecture, and hardware portability – he can’t be talking about the same Windows that is sold today.
Nobody’s OS is perfect and I’ll gladly accept that Windows has its flaws. But if you want to get on someone’s back about being monolithic and having a hairy, crufty architecture – perhaps you should direct your attention elsewhere. But at least Linux doesn’t have bugs or security holes, right?
Lastly, Stross and others seem to be under the mistaken impression that Microsoft is somehow unable to change the existing Windows codebase. These guys present two options:
1) Build stuff on top of the last version of Windows.
2) Start over.
Why pretend that these are the only two options? Especially when historically Microsoft has always chosen door number 3:
Take what you have and make it better.
Replace the parts that need replacing.
Don’t break something without a good reason.
- Update: Today a few people started talking about Snow Leopard’s supposed new features, including a report on dramatically reduced file sizes. I think it’s pretty obvious how they accomplished that – no more fat binaries with PowerPC and PowerPC/64-bit support.
As I read the initial details about Apple’s “Snow Leopard” release (ostensibly called OS X 10.6), I got to thinking… What do they mean that they’ve taken the focus away from new features?
From Apple.com:
Taking a break from adding new features, Snow Leopard – scheduled to ship in about a year – builds on Leopard’s enormous innovations by delivering a new generation of core software technologies that will streamline Mac OS X, enhance its performance, and set new standards for quality.
One word was striking to me, not for its presence, but for its absence. That word is “security.” A few years ago Microsoft was more or less caught with its pants down when it came to the wild world of the web. But a couple years after Windows XP was released, Microsoft “got religion” on security and made some deep changes. Those culminated in the release of XP SP2 – which consisted of a top-to-bottom review of the XP code and a major security-focused overhaul of its code. It’s been said many times that certain high-level Windows execs thought XP SP2 should have been an entire OS release instead of a service pack. That’s how big the changes were. But who would ship a new OS with basically zero new features? Well, now we know.
That has me wondering… why is Apple taking the focus off of new features for 10.6. Especially when Leopard wasn’t exactly brimming with new hotness. I think there are three reasons:
1) iPhone. Jobs has shown a great ability to focus the entirety of Apple on a “north star” and drive toward it full-steam-ahead. That’s what the iPhone is doing now, and to great effect. However, this is not without cost. Apple’s focus on the iPhone has left it with fewer resources to devote to other projects, particularly when it comes to software development. Thus I have a feeling the crew working on OS X these days is a good deal smaller than the group that worked on Panther and Tiger.
2) Embedded devices. Apple says they’re going to slim-down OS X in 10.6. That makes sense, especially when you consider their affinity for flash-based devices. If we’re going to see a Mac sub-tablet / super-sized iPhone device, this will be the OS for it. It’s also likely a way to leverage some of those iPhone-focused resources in order to ship a version of OS X timed to counter Windows 7.
3) Security. Apple’s PC marketshare is growing. This is great for them, but only if they can hold onto it. An onslaught of security nightmares, like those suffered by Windows XP a few years ago, would be disasterous. They can’t afford to risk it. Apple knows that they won’t be spared by attackers for much longer, not when their market is growing. The untested nature of its software (untested by the “hacker” community) and its increasing prevalence on machines will make it a very tempting target soon enough.
So why is number 3 so important? Because Apple can’t keep claiming that gaping holes in their software aren’t important. They have an opportunity to have their XP SP2 without having their MS.Blaster / Code Red / Slasher / etc. They can do something now to prevent malware from becoming as rampant on Macs as it was on Windows XP systems. If they aren’t doing this, they’re being foolish, and they’ll get little sympathy from those who keep telling them to get their act together.
So how much time does Apple have left to figure this out? I think not long. Heck, the first shots may already have been fired.
Good time to join Yahoo?
If they keep losing people at this rate, you’re bound to be running the place pretty soon.
John McCain debates himself
Found this slightly amusing.
My greatest concern with McCain is how different he is today from the man he was a year or two ago. I feel that he’s compromised far too many of his principles, and turned the wrong direction on many issues – apparently believing that is how he will get elected. What do you think? Did John McCain sell is his soul to win the primary? If he wins, which John McCain will walk into the white house? The one from two years ago? Or the one campaigning today?
Pretty decent summary, in case you’ve been living under a rock for the last year or two.
When I first posted about the WS4 release on Neowin a few members had a response that I had never expected. Some examples:
Windam – I wonder why this would be released for Vista since search is already a well integrated feature to begin with.
Is it just because(optional)?
Maudit – Pardon my ignorance, but what the difference between Windows Search 4.0 and the one in Vista ultimate sp1, does it streamline into windows ?
A similar question was asked on Channel 9.
The answer is quite simple:
- Windows Vista includes “Windows Search 3.0”
- Windows Search 4 is an upgraded version of the indexer built-in to Vista.
- This release does not change the User Interface, it looks exactly the same. The improvements are around responsiveness, resource usage, reliability, API support, etc.
A good analogy here might be DirectX. Windows XP shipped with DirectX 8.1. When DirectX 9 was released for XP, it didn’t change the way anything looked or behaved, but it made your system better. You may apply a similar understanding to WS4.
Windows Search 4.0 released!
Windows Search 4.0 was released this afternoon. This release focuses on performance and reliability improvements. Here are some highlights:
- Faster queries, often several times faster
- Faster indexing / reduced resource usage
- Support for EFS (encrypted folders)
- Support for indexing delegate mailboxes
- Fixes for all the top reported Watson crashes / errors
- New group policy options
This release also adds the following Vista / Server 2008 features to Windows XP / Server 2003 systems:
- Remote query support (using the server’s indexed when querying a network share)
- Support for Vista-style preview handlers (Office 2007 documents, etc)
Read the KB article here for more details and complete feature list.
Download Links
Vista users – don’t forget to grab the indexer status gadget!
Two wrongs make a… start-up?
I just read this post on the Revision3 blog from their CEO, describing a massive Denial of Service attack perpetrated against them over the Memorial Day weekend. The attack came from a company called MediaDefender
Now why would MediaDefender be trying to put Revision3 out of business? Heck, we’re one of the biggest defenders of media around. So I stopped by their website and found that MediaDefender provides “anti-piracy solutions in the emerging Internet-Piracy-Prevention industry.” The company aims to “stop the spread of illegally traded copyrighted material over the internet and peer-to-peer networks.” Hmm. We use the internet and peer-to-peer networks to accelerate the spread of legally traded materials that we own. That’s sort of directly opposite to what Media Defender is supposed to be doing.
Apparently attacking other people’s computer networks is a legitimate business foundation these days, they even call it an “industry.”
As far as I can tell, their entire “industry” is the internet version of going around and blowing up record shops that have been rumored to give away pirated albums. How, again, is this legal?
Hmm… I wonder if any of those fancy new anti-terrorism laws could be applied to MediaDefender.