[prev] [thread] [next] [lurker] [Date index for 2006/12/28]
> Why isn't any system with a language (such as x86-compatible hardware, or any > operating system exposing system calls, or any editor with it's set of > commands and menus) "a part of a lock-in strategy"? When it's an open system. That is, when the interfaces and protocols are publicly defined, are not under the control of a vendor of said system, and the definition is complete enough to make a production quality independant implementation feasible in a realistic time-frame. The last part can often only be determined by attempting an independant implementation. :) > So MS Office is surely a part of a lock-in strategy, since the formats are > not documented, and it's hard to make a compatible program. But C# and .NET > are documented, so why are they a part of a lock-in strategy more than C > and Unix, or any program for that matter? Let's see. Publicly Publicly Easily System Defined? Controlled? Implemented? C# and .NET Yes No No C and UNIX Yes Yes Yes Now let me back up these points. While the UNIX Programmer's Manual was Copyright AT&T, the majority of the API was published in Software Tools, including a Fortran implementation of a C-like language and all the system calls that were practical to implement in portable Fortran. Not only was AT&T not restricting the use of the API, they promoted independant implementations of both UNIX and C and only maintained trade secret protection of the source code itself. The UNIX API contained one patented concept, which was explicitly released to the public domain. The UNIX API was not really stable until the 5th or 6th edition of the UPM, and it really didn't get widespread attention until the 6th edition was published, along with several important papers on the philosophy and design of the operating system in the Bell Systems' Technical Journal, and of course "Software Tools". The idea of a portable OS and a portable systems programming language weren't new... C borrowed from BCPL and CPL, UNIX borrowed from Multics... but the fact that someone had actually done it and ported an OS to a completely different platform was amazing. Within a few years there were several independant implementations of UNIX of various kinds: complete systems like Idris and Uniflex and Regulus, ports on top of other operating systems like Cromix and Eunice and Phoenix, shells like the Software Tools VOS, and so on. Really, those books and papers from 1976 to 1978 pretty much created the whole open systems movement. How are UNIX and C open? They *epitomise* open! How can you get "locked in" to UNIX when you can get UNIX from Cromemco or Whitesmiths or AT&T or Wollongong or Onyx or Microsoft? Microsoft? Microsoft was once a big noise in the movement, with Microsoft C and later Microsoft Xenix... but some time in the '80s they came up with a strategy that was more directly profitable for them, dumped Xenix since they couldn't control UNIX, and started deliberately changing the systems they *did* control faster than they could be copied. This is not fantasy. It's documented in material from the trials and independently by people like Marlin Eller (ex-Microsoft exec). People are concerned about Microsoft's control of C# and .NET not because of what Microsoft could *theoretically* do, but because lock-in has been Microsoft's business model for over 20 years.There's stuff above here
Generated at 03:02 on 01 Jan 2007 by mariachi 0.52