LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Matthew Moyle-Croft <mmc@mmc.com.au>
  To  : Michael Firkins <michael@home.lyppard.com.au>
  Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 12:44:22 +1030 (CST)

Re: An interesting article :-)

I think Cringley missed or misunderstood:

The important part about Windows is NOT that it's a windowing layer on top 
of an OS, it's that it's a set of APIs.

Why?  Most of the issue is that a lot of the APIs are undocumented or hidden 
giving Microsoft the advantage with applications on top of that layer.  
Giving them the ability to make their apps and their OS seem seemless 
compared to other 3rd parties.

This has been a key part of the anti-trust case.

Is WINE cloning the OS part?  Nup, they're providing an API layer to run on 
whateveryoufeelgoodabout.  

MMC 

On Fri, 17 Jan 2003, Michael Firkins wrote:

> * Matthew Geddes <mgeddes@tellurian.com.au> [2003-01-17 12:26]:
> > On Fri, 2003-01-17 at 11:46, Richard Sharpe wrote:
> > > http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20030116.html
> > 
> > Yes, but I didn't see any mention of the plan that Microsoft's had for a
> > while of replacing the underlying DOS operating system with the NT one.
> > This hasn't happened in the home so far, but it'd take less time for
> 
> Hmm. Am I missing something here? What is XP based on?
> 
> Michael
> 
> > that to work than for them to port the Top Half(tm) of their product to
> > Linux.
> > 
> > NT does still have a few DOS-isms around the place too, but it's not
> > sitting on top of the thing.
> > 
> > Matt
> 
> 

-- 
Matthew
--
Matthew@Moyle-Croft.com    | mmc@mmc.com.au        |    mmc@206gti.net
http://www.Moyle-Croft.com | http://www.mmc.com.au | http://206gti.net

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