Skip to main content

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: "Microsoft is evil" (Read 3014 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

"Microsoft is evil"

Mayby in ten years time most computers will ship with linux  (if it ever becomes user friendly). 

Then WMA files will be more difficult to play

"Microsoft is evil"

Reply #1
Quote
Mayby in ten years time most computers will ship with linux   (if it ever becomes user friendly). 

Then WMA files will be more difficult to play

If Linux ever becomes really popular, MS will port their apps and formats to this platform. They aren't stupid.

"Microsoft is evil"

Reply #2
Quote from: rjamorim,Jun 30 2004, 11:53 PM
Then WMA files will be more difficult to play 

If Linux ever becomes really popular, MS will port their apps and formats to this platform. They aren't stupid. [/quote]
No they aren't stupid but even intelligent people do not always follow logic. Without a change at the very higest levels of management within Microsoft they will not change their world view. As for "porting their apps and formats"  it is not going to happen. Almost all Microsoft code is:

a) Written using Microsoft extensions to the programming language it is written in meaning they would first have to port their compilers before porting anything else.

b) Highly specific to the Windows API which has massive design differences from the Unix syscall interface.

Infact the effort required to port is probably greater than the effort required to maintain the opertating system.

Linux is already extremely popular just not on the desktop.

WMA is a closed undocumented format it is therefore not suitable for long term archival purposes full stop(1).

1) "Period" if you are American so sue me for being British

"Microsoft is evil"

Reply #3
Quote
As for "porting their apps and formats"  it is not going to happen. Almost all Microsoft code is:

a) Written using Microsoft extensions to the programming language it is written in meaning they would first have to port their compilers before porting anything else.

b) Highly specific to the Windows API which has massive design differences from the Unix syscall interface.

Both arguments make no sense if Microsoft ever wants to port their formats to embedded platforms and MacOS (both things already happened)

"Microsoft is evil"

Reply #4
Quote
Both arguments make no sense if Microsoft ever wants to port their formats to embedded platforms and MacOS (both things already happened)

No. The only embedded platform that Microsoft supports is Windows.CE they and in order to do that they have to use their own compilers as the third party compilers will not support their code.

I happen to work for a major embedded processor company and have been involved in meetings with Microsoft and have first hand experience of how locked in they are to their own ABI and compilers.

As for the Macintosh versions of Office I know for a fact that the Mac and Windows office teams are entirely separate and that the Mac Office team spends half its life porting "Microsoft C++" so it will compile with G++ for MacOS X.

"Microsoft is evil"

Reply #5
Quote
a) Written using Microsoft extensions to the programming language it is written in meaning they would first have to port their compilers before porting anything else.

b) Highly specific to the Windows API which has massive design differences from the Unix syscall interface.


Hi, This won't be true in the near future, once the Windows applications get compiled using .NET Framework. The .NET Environment is already getting cross platform compatible. Free .NET Development Environments are already appearing: http://www.monodevelop.com is a free .NET IDE for linux. I also suppose Microsoft .NET Framework for Mac will also appear in the near future.

"Microsoft is evil"

Reply #6
Quote
No. The only embedded platform that Microsoft supports is Windows.CE they and in order to do that they have to use their own compilers as the third party compilers will not support their code.

Absurd. They support several hardware players with different DSPs. You can't expect these players to have each one a complete Windows API so to easily support Windows Media. I also doubt they developed own compilers for every DSP platform out there (TI, Motorola, Micronas...).

"Microsoft is evil"

Reply #7
I agree with rjamorim on hardware support of WMA. There are several car CD/MP3/WMA players available.

"Microsoft is evil"

Reply #8
Quote from: ~*McoreD*~,Jul 4 2004, 02:02 AM
Quote from: chelgrian,Jul 1 2004, 07:10 AM

Hi, This won't be true in the near future, once the Windows applications get compiled using .NET Framework.

I wouldn't be so sure.

It is true that the base Common Language Runtime and libraries (.NET is a marketing name) has several implementations one of which is Mono. However it is also true that it requires concious effort to write things which will run on both the Microsoft implementation and on Mono.

Almost anything written with the Microsoft tools will make use of P/Invoke to access bits of the Win32 API which cannot be accessed with the Windows.Forms interface etc.

Microsoft have no interest in doing a vast amount of work to port all their software to the CLR just so you can run MS Office on Mono. In practice the P/Invoke hack will cause almost anything developed for the CLR to only work on Microsoft implementations which are layered ontop of a Windows operating system.

"Microsoft is evil"

Reply #9
Quote
Absurd. They support several hardware players with different DSPs. You can't expect these players to have each one a complete Windows API so to easily support Windows Media. I also doubt they developed own compilers for every DSP platform out there (TI, Motorola, Micronas...).

All of the processors and DSPs I know of use codecs handcafted in assembler for speed. Certainly the ARM implementation and probably the MIPS implementation of the WMA codec were hand crafted by the core vendor.

Almost all the DSP platforms I am aware of ship with libraries from the DSP vendor for WMA which were developed by the DSP vendor under license from Microsoft these are probably also hand crafted.

Of course many of these devices don't run CE. The thirdparty codecs are developed by the processor core and DSP vendors under license are usually completely standalone.

However many of the set top devices do run WinCE. WinCE is componentiseable exactly how much of the Win32 API you get depends entirely on how you build the thing. The only embedded platform actually sold by Microsoft for WMA is WinCE which includes the codecs developed for the embedded processor you license WinCE for provided they exist.

"Microsoft is evil"

Reply #10
So be it. The fact is, I don't agree with your arguments about "As for "porting their apps and formats" it is not going to happen." based solely on technical reasons.

They might not port it for political reasons, but given WMA and WMA pro are already implemented in hardware (which adds complexities like memory usage and energy consumption) and in another computer playform, PowerPC, which also adds complexities (x86 assembly won't work, endianess), I believe porting to x86 Linux would be a breeze.