What Would The World Be Like Without Microsoft?

CanadianMikey asks: "The debate with the business side of computing rages on about the validity of Open Source. Is it good or bad? What is the future of computing? Could it have been different, and where will the 21st century take us? Is Microsoft just the big nail that always gets hammered first and will someone step in to take their place when they are finally taken down? If Microsoft were to close up shop, who do the readers of Slashdot think would be tomorrow's Microsoft? What about the forgotten windows?"

Re:If Windows were to diappear

[Anonymous Coward]

You have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

That myriad of x86 software out there wouldn't run because they require the Win32 API

Apple is NEVER switching to x86. There is NO POINT.

And how the hell is Apple going to dominate a market that Dell already owns (x86 hardware)?

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[larry bagina]

OS/2 was a joint venture between MS and IBM.

forgotten windows?

[VValdo]

What about the forgotten windows? [aol.com]

Or the other one [geocities.com]. (Apple II Version [aci.com.pl])

W

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[Anonymous Coward]

In the beginning, but IBM took it over mostly after 2.0.

Re:We'd all be using IBM OS/2

[geekoid]

yes, and when MS sucked all they could out of IBM, they abadonded it and crated on OS/2 bastard called NT.

OS/2 was damn good. It's marketing sucked.

An Interesting Idea

[MBCook]

Without MS, where would we be? That's a very good question.

First off we have to consider the fact that MS has really pushed the PC market very far. Without MS, IBM may have made their own OS for the PC or had a company make it that wouldn't have sold it to clone makers. This would give IBM a monopoly on (what became) Wintels, so we would have had more kinds of computers (at least for a longer time). Would this have forced more innovation, or would everyone be re-implementing everyone else's ideas so things would have slowed down?

The standardization of MS has also pushed us a long way. I know that I can take a disk from my computer (Win XP right now) and read it on nearly every other computer I'll find (Windows PCs, Macs, BSD, Linux, BeOS, etc). When Microsoft has backed a standard, often it's the one that survives so who knows how many more VHS/Betamax type fights computer users would have had to go through without them. At the same time, who's to say Apple wouldn't have become dominant and caused the same kind of standards.

In software innovation, MS has done many things too. While they are stagnating now, back when Apple was a major contender they really pushed things. Some things have really improved because of them (most computers run the same API for games, DirectX), but then again they have tried to strange/take over other things (Java).

So I guess it all depends on who would have existed if MS didn't become who they did. There are a couple of options.

• A bunch of companies competing - Great for consumers, quite possibly where we would have ended up
• A different monopoly, but with stiff competition - Like when Apple still kept MS on their toes all the time (unlike what we saw when the Mac wasn't much of a challenge, like the OS 9 days). I think we're approaching this thanks to OS X and Linux
• A different monopoly who would have done the same - From a business point of view, a (near) total monopoly with a strangle hold on the market is a great place to be in

While computers have stagnated (relativly) in the last few years due to lack of competition, I think the increased incompatabilites that would have stayed around if there were many computer standards for a while might have kept the computer from becomming any more advanced from what it is now. So I guess I don't things would be too different (ability wise), although interfaces and such would probably look quite different.

MOD PARENT DOWN Re:Computers wouldn't be as easy

[IGnatius T Foobar]

I can't believe what I'm reading here. Computers weren't easy to use until Windows 95? Hello? HELLO???!! Evidently we've all forgotten that Windows '95 == Macintosh '84 == Xerox '81 ?? Easy-to-use desktops are just one more thing that were invented elsewhere and didn't go mainstream until later because IBM and later Microsoft were keeping the drooling masses locked into inferior technology. Sheesh. There are already too many people who think that Microsoft invented the PC and even the Internet. You'd think even the lamest Slashbots would know otherwise about the GUI.

Re:missed the GUI?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple had the GUI before MS. In fact, Apple shipped Macs to MS back in 1983 YEARS before MS had anything resembling a GUI. (Remember Windows 1.0? It was next to useless.)

Re:Without Microsoft?

[k_head]

I think you are playing revisionist history here.

You are forgetting the revolution in business brought about by dbase and visicalc.

By the time MS came on to the scene business had already embraced computers.

link mirror

[rat_axe]

The link in this article got slashdotted. The Google cache of the page is here [216.239.41.104].

Re:Standards

[ortholattice]

If think Microsoft really promotes good standards, ask Andrew Tridgell (Samba team leader) who's practically dedicated his life to reverse-engineering Microsoft's SMB protocol. In this interview [linux-mag.com] he says:

"The protocol is so incredibly convoluted and bloated and badly designed -- there are ten ways of doing everything. You end up with these massive exchanges going on the wire between Windows 95 and NT, just because they are trying to work out exactly which sets of bugs the other guy has so they can figure out how to actually stat a file or find its size or date or something. And we've found from talking to people who work at Microsoft how much of a headache it is to maintain the damned thing and keep it secure."

This, my friend, is a Microsoft "standard".

Re:MS Bashing

[MoneyT]

Mac OS 6.0

And yes it was better.

Re:There would be no Open Source...

[Brandybuck]

Do you read Slashdot often? Doesn't this give you a bit of a clue as to the OSS mindset?

The vast majority of Slashdot posters couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag. They have nothing to do with the development of Open Source software.

Re:I am writing in Ada! & MS Ruminations

[Endive4Ever]

I wonder why Minix didn't experience the same explosive growth. (Anyone even remember it?)

Minix still exists, and there is a Minix usenet group that gets traffic. It was never intended to be anything like what Linux became. It's a pedagogical OS whose main method of distribution is a CD in the back cover of a textbook. It 'inspired' Linus to go off and do something of his own. It's wrong to act like it 'died' or in any way is a failure because it's still primarily a pedagogical OS.

Re:Standards

[nickos]

Yeah, and you can certainly tell. I love the GCC, but I wish they would follow the standards. Taken from here [hates-software.com]:

It [GCC] will compile and link almost anything. It would probably compile Perl without too much modification and wouldn't even emit that many warnings. Look! Look at this!

*&(int)f = 1;

Is that C? I don't fucking think so. And look at this:

FILE *
concat_fopen (char *s1, char *s2, char *mode)
{
char str[strlen (s1) + strlen (s2) + 1];
...
}

Yes, that's supposed to be C, not C++, because the things they've done to C++ are almost bloody unspeakable. The words "embrace" and "extend" come to mind. How about this, for instance:

It is very convenient to have operators which return the "minimum" or the
"maximum" of two arguments. In GNU C++ (but not in GNU C),

a <? b
is the minimum, returning the smaller of the numeric values a and b;
a >? b
is the maximum, returning the larger of the numeric values a and b.

What? What the hell is that about? And you know the worst thing? People actually use these abortions in real code, because obviously, if it compiles on Linux with gcc, it'll compile anywhere. That's why you're having problems linking on AIX - because nobody's even thought about AIX before. We use autoconf, right, so it must be portable? Yeah, fucking right. Portable between GNU OSes, I think you'll find.

Part of the reason Parrot 0.0.1 was so slow getting out of the door was because of all these stupid idiots writing GCC "C" and not realising how completely fucking broken it was.

And while we're on the subject of standards, does anyone know if Linux has a standard way of treating the keys that Microsoft added to the keyboard. Is the left Windows key Super_L or F13, and is it a modifier or not? Enquiring coders want to know.

Re:Standards

[stephanruby]

"The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire."

The fire-part was because of the ensuing riot. The mayor of San Francisco was so afraid that San Francisco would lose its reputation that he had the riot covered up.

"Without building codes, 10 X more fatalities in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in California. "

Please note that the overwhelming majority of people who died during that earthquake were located on *government* built/maintained structures (i.e. the Oakland freeway and the bay bridge).

Sorry, but that's utter high-end bullshit.

[Qbertino]

Without Microsoft, we wouldn't have had motivation for more than half of the stuff we have here today. Also, our gaming would be nowhere near as good as it is -- Take at Direct X for example.

OpenGL was way ahead of DX. Everybody and his brother in the gaming industry protested when MS said they did'nt give a damn and started to roll their own. Which came on par with OpenGL something around DX 4 or 5.
In fact DX is a prime example for MS'es embrace and extend - even if it is at the _cost_ of inovation. OpenGL is heading for V.2 and it's behind DX only since the DX 7 days. V2 will catch up almost entirely again. Even though the OpenGL consortium has nearly zilch power in the gaming field nowadays. If MS had used and joined OpenGL, computer GFX optimization would be way further today.
But I guess marketing-buzz weighs heavier than true innovation. You're statement actually proves the shareholders of MS right, in a way.

Not a mirror but a copy

[Lproven]

There's a Google cache of the text of the page here:

http://66.102.11.104/search?q=cache:Pq0ZnZAS5qAJ :m embers.aol.com/nickjc67/gem.htm+&hl=en&ie=UTF- 8

For more info on GEM, try...

FreeGEM home:
http://www.deltasoft.com/

For other sites, see its Links page:
http://www.deltasoft.com/links.htm

FreeGEM development mailing list:
http://www.simpits.org/mailman/listinfo/gem-dev
( Anyone interested in GEM should certainly join this.)

Shane Coughlan's OpenGEM distro
http://gem.shaneland.co.uk/

Jon Elliot, AES developer:
http://www.seasip.demon.co.uk/index.html

Ben Jemmett, desktop developer:
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ben.jemmett/

My own GEM revision history:
http://members.aol.com/liamproven/reference/tos_hi st.htm
(Contains links to active GEM developments on the Atari)

Aranym ("Atari Running on ANY Machine"):
http://aranym.sourceforge.net/
(The most sophisticated free ST emulator around. Comes with free GEM-
compatible OS Afros (Aranym FRee OS) and instructions on how to install
the free multitasking GEM extension MINT).

Re:Windows keys

[Spirilis]

I think Super_L and Super_R (left and right windows keys) are modifiers.

The "menu" key throws a "Menu" keypress:

KeyPress event, serial 25, synthetic NO, window 0x2000001,
root 0x48, subw 0x2000002, time 43446434, (48,44), root:(55,108),
state 0x0, keycode 117 (keysym 0xff67, Menu), same_screen YES,
XLookupString gives 0 bytes: ""

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[anothy]

When Microsoft came out with Windows, Apple sued Microsoft in the famous 'look-n-feel' lawsuits.

If Microsoft hadn't prevailed in those lawsuits, Apple would own the GUI market and be it's sole vendor.

um, no.

Apple sued Microsoft not because they had produced a GUI, but because they had produced a GUI that was largely a clear derivative of Apple's. i really wish Apple had won that suit. not because i wanted to see MicroSoft get it (hey, i thought Macs were dumb back then, and was a DOS user!), but because it would've forced them to do something else. there are other ways to do GUIs. look at the dozens of X11 window managers that use totally different designs (okay most are trying to be just like MS or Apple, but some aren't). Look at Plan 9, with rio and especially Acme - or Oberon, for that matter. there's tons of sucky examples, too (Bob!). hell, some were even concurrent with Apple's work! read up on the blit/jerq from Bell Labs and all the PARC stuff Apple got their ideas from.

Apple has certainly used litigation to achieve some goals in the past, but i've seen no evidence of them holding the same "we'll sue you if we can't come up with a better way to own everything " model MicroSoft seems to have. i can see no support for the statement that Apple was trying to "own" the GUI market or the GUI - although you could argue that they were trying to "own" the metaphor and design. but i think that's justifiable, and would likely have been a good thing, forcing people to come up with other ideas.

Re:Standards

[wtrmute]

Just put "-ansi -std=c89 -pedantic-errors" into your CFLAGS variable and then chew the developer team whose code doesn't compile. Send them a list of the errors; most teams will be glad to fix them if they're aware of what they are.

Re:Standards

[42forty-two42]

FILE *

concat_fopen (char *s1, char *s2, char *mode)
{
char str[strlen (s1) + strlen (s2) + 1]; ...
}

This is actually legal in C99, though the others aren't.

Re:Without Microsoft.....

[ArhcAngel]

It seems every few years the Apple vs. Microsoft lawsuit debate gets refueled. It also seems that the reason the debate rages is that the facts have nothing to do with the debate. These are the facts IIRC:

Apple was working on porting this new cutting edge operating environment, GUI, for the Apple hardware Steve Jobs had seen while visiting Xerox Park.

To speed up development Steve Jobs contracted a little software company called Microsoft to help in development of what became the Macintosh OS.

In said contract was a clause prohibiting MS from creating a GUI for any other platform.

Now this next part I gleaned from the made for TV movie about the subject so it's validity is suspect but as the story goes MS created MS Windows and began selling it in Asia. Since Asia is outside the US market MS didn't feel they were bound by the contract.

Apple found out about the new GUI and the lawsuit ensued. The case was pending for over ten years until a couple of years back they finally settled (read no court ruling) and MS invested a few million into Apple and agreed to keep making Office for the Mac for a few more years.

disclaimer: I didn't say anything you think you just read.

Re:Standards

[mkoenecke]

Re: "It was a part, but a very small part. The bigger issue was the fact that the Federal government was trying to impose its standards on the southern States, leading to the seccession of South Carolina. Train track guages was a small factor - the big problem was that Lincoln's government was trying to dictate what the States could and could not do, imposing one set of standards for radically different geographies and economies."

You do know that South Carolina seceded in response to Lincoln's election, before he was even sworn in, right?

Lincoln made a big point in his speeches of not wanting to (or claiming to be able to) interfere with the South, BUT was firmly opposed to expansion of slave states at all. The South saw that, as the United States continued to expand, its influence would continue to wane since no new slave states would be added under a Republican administration.

Lincoln and secession

[ChrisMaple]

South Carolina seceded: Dec. 20, 1860.

Abraham Lincoln inaugurated: March 4, 1861.

Lincoln's administration was trying to do what WHEN South Caroline seceded?

Re:GCC non-standard? puh-leeeez...

[man_of_mr_e]

MS's Visual C++ is far more permissive than gcc when it comes to "standards". For example, vc uses the ancient c++ scoping rules (circa 1995-ish)

Uh, no. MS's compiler for the last two versions has had a switch to turn off that behavior. Yes, it's on by default because there's a lot of legacy code, but you can turn it off.

What's worse is that you *have* to follow their archaic scoping rules

Again, no. Just use the switch: /Zc:forScope

The problem is that the c++ standard states that enums place their contents in the scope level immediately above their own, *not* in a separate scope

This one is controlled by the /Za switch that turns off MS extensions. There is a difference between supporting an extension (which many compilers, including GCC do) and non-compliant behavior.

Re:Standards

[Coffeesloth]

Or on a more worldwide scale you forgot the London Bridge. I've seen pictures of the buildings on the old London Bridge, if there had been building codes then perhaps the fire there never would have occured.

Oh, and a lot of those homes built on beaches, cliffs, floodplains, etc...were built to standards, so the existence or lack of standards doesn't guarantee a thing. People will be people and will make bad decisions.

Purely in the interest of standards, I for one am glad there are building codes so I can be sure of the wiring and plumbing of my house being built...

Re:Standards

[mjmalone]

Your analysis of the situation in this case is incorrect... I'm not quite sure where you got your information, but I can assure you that building standards are very important when it comes to failure investigations the outcome of most civil cases is based on whether the builder took a rational approach to interpreting the standards set forth and the building met all per se requirements for the structure.

In fact, the investigation of structural failures and the subsequent litigation is big business in the US, and in most cases equity is restored. My dad is a forensic engineer and has worked for the two major firms in the industry Exponent [exponent.com] and forensic technologies, incorporated [fticonsulting.com]. He recently incorporated his own company, doing the same thing, and I can assure you that there is no shortage of clientelle.

I have heard stories of insurance companies or corporations found guilty of not meeting standards writing settlement checks of hundreds of thousands of dollars each to members of class action lawsuits involving hundreds of people (tens of millions of dollars in total). Not to mention the typical forensic engineer charges in the somwhere between $250 and $700/hour for his time and several experts are generally required on each side of a case, all of this is separate from the insane legal fees.

In any case, standards are typically met because construction companies realize the potential losses that can occur if they are not.