MS offers "Services For Unix" free of charge

Joaquin winminion@realmspace.com
Fri Jan 16 15:45:00 GMT 2004


Well, I was amazed that MS would EOL Win 9X/Me users, which I'm guessing
is like 40 million.  I know that in Europe, Latin-America, and Asia,
many people use older machines and do not see the business need to
upgrade to newer hardware.  If they are forced to, then I am pretty sure
Linux becomes more of a reality for them.

Aside from this, I always believe in Open Source.  Even if SFU becomes
like standard, then still perhaps we could tag along and offer freeware
compilers for it, and offer cygwin for orphaned machines.  It's always
good to have free databases, web servers, development tools, etc. for
those that cannot support MS's coffers for such tools, whether or not
they are on Linux or Windows.

- Joaquin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cygwin-owner@cygwin.com
> [mailto:cygwin-owner@cygwin.com] On Behalf Of Larry Hall
> Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 4:15 PM
> To: Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID); cygwin@cygwin.com
> Subject: RE: MS offers "Services For Unix" free of charge
>
>
> Who knows for sure what the *real* driving force that is behind this
> change.  However, it is timed very closely (concurrently?) with MS's
> extension of 98, 98SE, and Me support through Fall 2006.  The
> current buzz on this change was that MS was afraid too many
> "orphaned" 98 users (currently 25% of Windows users) might
> "defect" to Linux rather than
> upgrade if they were left high and dry.  So Linux was perceived as a
> real threat in this situation.  SFU becoming free may have
> just "come along for the ride" in the hysteria.  It certainly
> helps with the story that "Windows is the best" (so why would
> you want to leave it) too.  But
> too much discussion about MS's motives here will get us very
> off-topic. Suffice it to say it's an option for some other
> folks now but also easier
> for us to evaluate presumably.
>
> Larry
>
> At 06:52 PM 1/14/2004, Buchbinder, Barry (NIH/NIAID) you wrote:
> >Before one gets too excited, one might wait until one sees the
> >licensing terms.  I seems to remember that MS was all hot
> and bothered
> >about what they were calling viral software.  (Misnomer, Outlook is
> >viral software, in as far as it is designed to help viruses
> propagate.
> >GPL might be better termed a viral license.)  Will the
> license let one
> >do what one wants to do?
> >
> >Does this mean that that MS finds that Cygwin (and U/Win,
> MKS, et al.)
> >is a threat?  Or that they were not making much from SFU but cannot
> >drop it for various reasons, so are going for brownie points?
> >
> >I also liked the part about
> >   "The real driver behind this [pricing]
> >   change is this interoperability issue,"
> >   Oldroyd says. "We want Windows to be the
> >   best platform for interoperability."
> >Since MS has long desired that "Windows be the best platform for"
> >productivity suites, will Office soon be available for free?
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Robb, Sam [mailto:sam.robb@timesys.com]
> >Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 2:43 PM
> >To: cygwin@cygwin.com
> >Subject: MS offers "Services For Unix" free of charge
> >
> >Thought this might interest some of the folks who frequent
> this list...
> >particularly those who have to support Cygwin installations,
> and might
> >now have to deal with a parallel
> >(conflicting?) install of SFU :-/
> >
> >-Samrobb
> >
> ><http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?artic
leID=17300
>643>
>
>Microsoft Offers Linux-Interoperability Software For Free
>Jan. 13, 2004
>
>Microsoft has decided to drop the $99 licensing fee previously required

>for its Services For Unix software and plans to make a new version of
>the interoperability product available this week at no cost on its Web
>site.
>
>...
>
>The three main components of SFU--Unix's Network File System and
>Network Identity Service and Microsoft's Interix layer of Posix
>APIs--have all been tuned for better performance, with some commands
>running 50% faster, Oldroyd says. SFU 3.5 also features first-time
>support for P-Threads (for Posix-compliant multithreaded applications),

>a broader set of Posix APIs, and updated utilities and libraries.
>
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