Architectural mood swings

The next version of Windows is dubbed "Windows 7". These are some facts and rumors I came across. Please feel free to add or correct. I'm only human.

What is MinWin?
Windows 7 will include a new kernel, but MinWin is not that kernel. MinWin is a strip down of Windows to a complete minimum to create a "clear architectural layer". It is 25megs big and runs on 40megs of memory. It actually is the core of Windows 7. The MinWin layer is part of the Windows 7 code base. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNsS_0wSfoU. Currently MinWin is referred to as "Windows 7 Core". The result. No more useless HD-activity. No more strange slowdowns in copying data. Etc...

So what is the kernel?
Well, that remains uncertain. Vista's version is "Version 6.0". The screenshots of Windows 7 builds show "Version 6.1" as the version. Not much of a 7 there. According to Eric Traut it should be Version 7.0. But maybe the early versions didn't include the new kernel, or maybe even the new core yet. We'll find out soon.

Is it Vista?
Yes it is. Windows blackcomb/longhorn (for those who still remember) was supposed to be a complete new Windows. The .NET runtime would be the core of a lot of applications. Avalon, Indigo. It al became part of the .NET Framework and was purged from the Windows project. Windows 7 is no different. Steve Ballmer said: "It's Vista, but a whole lot better".

Major differences with vista?
• No legacy User Interfaces anymore. Wordpad, Notepad and Paint get the ribbon interface instead of the file-edit-view bar. Even the UI of calculator is rewritten.
• The UAC interface will be optimized.
• Windows 7 will include multitouch. Asus is even going to release a multitouch EeePC by the end of 2009. (Woohoo!)
• Speed ups. A major feature (go figure) of Windows 7 will be that it will offer just as much (and more) as Vista, but with betters speeds and less clutter. This is still a bit "rumory", but the use of a new kernel, a Windows 7 Core and the Vista fail, we can safely say Microsoft wants to clean up a mess.

When?
Next week at the PDC, previews of Windows 7 will be released. According to softpedia, the release will be at July 2009. Sound pretty darn fast to me, but then again: maybe it's good to forget about vista and start incrementally update a system that is build with a vision and build to last. Who knows?



Final words
Be cautious with optimism. We must learn from the past. Microsoft did promise us a new world of personal computing before and Vista was the result. Gladly, Microsoft is being far more realistic about the future nowadays. http://blogs.msdn.com/e7/ is a nice blog by the Windows 7 team to keep up with their plans.

Just a quick note: In a previous blog post I mentioned that Apple iPhone developers cannot talk about their work, because of an NDA. Well, the great news is: Apple listened to the complaining (well, at least after the top iPhone developers were threatening with leaving to Android ) and drops the NDA. The announcement is done on their iPhone developers program website:

We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.

We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.

Whether Google is "the chosen company" to bring happiness in software land or is Big Brother itself, we can discuss. But we can all agree on one thing: Google's business is in the web browser. Nearly all advertisements and other Google activities are build in web technology such as HTML. While they were supporting Firefox as an alternative to Internet Explorer, Google had a little secret, which came out just yesterday: Google Chrome. A web browser by Google. Read all about in their announcement: http://googleblog.blogspo...resh-take-on-browser.html.

A few highlights:

• WebKit rendering engine. Used in different products such as Apples' Safari. Originally part of the KDE project. Becoming increasingly popular.
• Tab-sandbox. Each tab runs in a sandbox, which means that if one tab crashes, the others remain operational. Also, if you log in on one tab, you're not logged in on other tabs. Sessions are tab-scoped.
• Tabs are more than just a web site instance. They're a browser instance. Each tab has its own forward & back buttons, its own addressbar and so forth. We saw this design in early beta's of Internet Explorer 7.
• V8 JavaScript virtual machine. A JavaScript engine built from scratch. Supposedly to "power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers". Sounds promising.

It is open source (just as much open source as Android??) and the first bits of it will be downloadable today. For now, read this comic released by Google to learn more about the browser.

Typical conversations with a relative about his or her computer which, because of you, runs Ubuntu:

"Can I have MSN on my Laptop?"
"You have"
"No, this is not MSN. On Kates' laptop it looks different."

"I can't get The Sims to install"
"That's because it won't run on Ubuntu."
"Here. Try TuxRacer"

"I want to view this DVD, but the player says it cannot open the disk"
"You have to install the xine_d4d_plugin."
"How? I can't find it in the software database"
"Just dowload the source, then ./configure, make and make install"
"......"

"I bought a webcam, to work with skype, but I cannot get the sound to work during a session"
"That's because the sound device is in use by gstreamer. You have to disable gstreamer and turn on OSS emulation for Alsa by installing snd-pcm-oss to get it to work."
"Wait.... what?"

Here you go. The reason why Linux's desktop market-share is 1%.

With the launch of the iPhone 3G, along came the launch of the SDK and the App Store. Since then, the iPhone developers community is growing rapidly and so is their frustration about the position they are in. This is because they had to agree with an NDA, which states it's prohibited to talk about code, whatsoever. No tutorials, no forums, no code samples. Nothing.

Now, one of the cool thing about developing applications in general these days, is that we have access to the internet as a resource for help. We can find code samples and forums to help us with our problems and challenges. We can talk about it on IRC channels or write blog posts with tips and tricks. With practically all other platforms, this is not a problem. With the iPhone SDK, it is.

Why would Apple do such a thing? With the SDK being in beta, it made perfect sense. But now the SDK is available to everyone, as long as you agree to the SDK, which is just one click. I understand Apple is a company which has a patent on secrecy, but this is just plain stupid. For a healthy developers ecosystem, you need an online comminity these days.

It's another example of the dualism of Apple. The iPhone is a great device. The Operating System is outstanding. The platform and SDK is way ahead of it's time. But still, there is a software lock-in (iTunes), a too controlled doployment channel (App Store), limitations in the software you may distribute and now the NDA.

Developers around the globe are uniting on a website initiated by a developer and twitter-user on this website: http://fuckingnda.com

They're about to just ignore the NDA and set up an iPhone internet portal. Because this is what Apple once used in their commercials:

Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.