We enjoyed reading it a lot and we really appreciate the work done by Cutler.

Rishi9/25/2006 5:54:59 AM

Linux sucks big time....comparing to NT...





Anonymous User 7/22/2005 8:09:56 PM

Everything comes from somewhere. Linux was not written from scratch. The kernel was coded from scratch, but the ideas and philosophy behind Linux can be traced back to the original AT&T UNIX system. Likewise, much of the software for Linux (C compiler, X Windows, filesystem utilities, etc.) was available on the various UNIX systems long before Linux was even a thought.

The difference, of course, is that Linux *legally* used the ideas and designs already available. Microsoft cannot claim the same thing; by using VMS code in NT, they actually committed copyright infringement. If DEC patented any parts of their system, then MS would also have committed patent infringement.

All in all, this was an interesting and humorous article. I never knew the history of NT either, but at least MS took the design from a stable and robust OS. The instability is not NT's fault; the stability problems come from third-party drivers and poorly written applications, which Microsoft has no control over. I can write a device driver for Linux that will crash the system (guess how I know :) ) too.

Anonymous User 7/15/2005 11:08:44 AM

You missed perhaps the most interersting part - the Digtal lawsuit that followed. MS was going to lose so they settled out of court. But the joke was on DEC because although they settled for $50M, it was all in forms that ultimately benefited MS. One part of the deal included MS subsiding the creation of Digital's MS Services practice and the training of DEC's personnel. But this was a move MS was going to make anyway in order to create a global enterprise-class support org such that MS could claim as many MCSE's were certified on NT and there were Unix support professionals in the market. Thus MS could be positioned as enterprise-ready and as supportable as Unix. Secondly, MS guaranteed they'd outsource a large % of their helpdesk calls to Digital call centers. Again, this was MS's model anyway. In that time period when you made a call to the MS helpdesk, and the person on the other end answerered "Hello. This is Microsoft, can I help you?" you were actaully talking to a Digital, NCR, HP, or Vanstar employee in their respective call centers. And even this arrangement was a joke because MS paid so little to DEC and other support partners on a per-incident basis (I recall the math was $25 per call which meant over 10-15 min's in length and you lost money on that particular call), and MS required so much reporting infrastructure and annual training hours, that the support vendors were left with no margin. In the end most of the big vendors finally got out of the MS desktop support business because it was a money loser.

All of this came out of the theft of VMS! Even when they get caught they win.

Anonymous User 6/29/2005 2:18:52 PM

Fantastic article. I have used both VMS and Win/NT intimately for the last 20 years, and Mark's article is right on the money.

Anonymous User 4/13/2005 5:08:37 PM

Dear Anonymous User -March 06, 2005,

It already has been, look up "Windows 2000 Source" in Emule. Some Russian hackers stole the sourcecode and released it - stealing Microsoft's source is like stealing candy from a baby. It's filled with profanities and complaints about how terrible code is, quite amusing really.

Anonymous User 3/8/2005 1:01:28 PM

The windows source code must be released to the public. Everyone than can laugh at the shoddy programming and stolen stuff in Winows NoTail.
Linux is better, bugs are fix faster, but still
new hardware support is sometimes a bit weird.
Still more stable than winows.

Anonymous User 3/6/2005 9:23:54 AM

http://www.euronet.nl/users/frankvw/index.html

Anonymous User 2/22/2005 11:47:54 AM

This is very amusing and new to me. Linux was written from scratch yet Microsoft claims it might face crippling patent lawsuits. We now know this is laughable as the only company with a distant chance in hell of winning a lawsuit for damages against Linux was SCO, and we all know the laughing stalk they've become.

Windows NT on the other hand is a wholesale re-write of VMS, steals parts of OS2, and was written by the former employees of the people who wrote VMS in the first place! If anyone is ripe for a lawsuit then it is Microsoft.

I'm sure they've got their backs covered though, and if they don't then they could buy any threatening company out with their 50 Billion in cash. Except for IBM perhaps, that would be a clash of titans.

And to Pete Nikolic, yeah I guess you're right, Linux isn't a threat. That's probably why it continues marginalizing IIS into a niche and dominating the server market ;-)


Anonymous User 2/8/2005 8:02:01 PM

Fascinating. I've just started out learning about the WinNT setup, using the "Inside Windows NT" book. (I have to - I'm hoping to start developing stuff for the MS WinNT platform as well as the Linux/*BSD, and every little bit helps. (Mono and PNet) ;)

Now it looks as if it mightn't be such a bad idea to hunt down the VAX/VMS Internals and Data Structures book as well. Thanks for the info.

Wesley Parish 7/4/2004 9:04:20 PM